Chariots as equid battering rams

[Mark G]

there are a couple of points which you do not seem to have considered yet.

the first is the development of infantry during the chariot period.
Assyrian, Persian and Hoplites all seem to be a different beast from earlier infantry.  better drilled, better trained and working much more as we would expect infantry to do . 
This goes hand in hand with the end of the chariot period - the Assyrians marking the cross over point where both are present at the same time.

I think you should look at the changes to chariotry in that light before drawing your conclusions - and be specific in your examples, rather than attempting to force your theory onto all circumstances.

You should also look at the change in design of chariots and their use - purpose. 
two horse Egyptian chariots are almost always shown as light weight two man cabs- with wide axels - which are ideal for turning at high speed, and therefore fit much more clearly into the traditional model of 'light chariots, skirmishing missile platforms' as their primary role and the pursuit of fleeing enemies.

later chariots become heavier, with first more men and then later more horses as well.  I would argue that this is as much a reaction to better infantry making them much more likely to stand in the charge, at which point the infantry gain the advantage over the chariot.

how would four hoses help that?  have you ever seen horses running at you?  all that earth trembling stuff is real.  just take a moment to look at the old Waterloo movie, where the Russian infantry extras - who were told, stand there, don't move, the horse will run past - still buckle into triangles to get away from something that isn't actually trying to hurt them or even come near them.

if you are positing that the three man chariot (Hittite) is a change in design to improve its ability to impact infantry, then that is fine, but you need to make a specific case for that change as some form of piltdown man stage between two horse and four horse chariots.

(and that would be a case which I would disagree with, it looks far more likely to me that the change in axel position is simply to allow it to carry a third man as a runner and/or dedicated shield bearer by balancing his weight behind the middle axel thereby enabling the same two horses to carry the extra man at minimal cost to the horses themselves).

Put the napoleonic example to one side, as usual, it is completely missing the specifics. 
if muskets were the factor, then why were squares not used on 18th century battlefields?
the important thing to understand there is that napoleonic infantry lines were comparatively isolated and therefore their flanks were exposed, which was why squares became a feature of the battlefield - its not about cavalry charging the front of the line, its about them getting on the open flank.
Ditto cavalry, charging not by regiment, but by squadron, lots of squadrons, each looking for an opening or flank, none looking to actually hit the 'wall' even when it is only two men deep.
if you want to read up on that, forget Waterloo.  look at Auerstadt.
the morning cavalry charges under Blucher (which most poorly written books will tell you was Blucher 'wasting' the best cavalry in the world against Davout's squares, were in fact a very coherent delaying tactic which halted the French advance until the main army could deploy to crush it (or might have done, if the general hadn't been shot and the army command fell apart)).

those charges were all squadron by squadron.  charge and not charge home, refrom behind the core of the regiment, repeat.
they kept doing this until either the infantry gave them an opening (which they didn't) or until they were told to re delopy elsewhere, (which they did)
that is the best massed example of the standard tactic of the time - squadrons, one directly behind the other, aiming for the corner (the threat comes to your side, slightly out of view), working on a feint and reform basis.

if you analyse the examples of squares which were penetrated, BTW, there are a couple of common factors.  rain is one, the cavalry having lances is arguably another, and there is the accidental chance of the dying horse crushing a hole as it falls, but almost always, ther real thing is either the infantry being caught by surprise, or the infantry being raw/untried/poorly trained.  which all comes back to them not sticking to formation, at which point the cavalry pounce. hence why alomst all examples of squares breaking are in 1813-14 when the armies were largely conscript, or spain where surprise was a feature of the battles and encounters.

if you look at the manuals of the time too - cavalry were told to charge at the corners, and to do so in waves of squadrons, looking for the break point, never to actually hit home on the formed unit.
infantry were told to form a square of any sort to protect the flank, and they were told to stand and take it, and never to fire (let the gunners run out and shoot back if they get a chance).
and cavalry were told to immediately charge at men reloading as the most likely to break.

and bascially, that era tells us the drill wins - which is what also seems to be the case for chariots too - infantry start to drill properly, so the chariots attempt to make themselves more frightneing by teaming up into fours, but that really doesn't work, and the chariot ends (after a brief failed swansong with some scyths attached)

Which raises the question - do we have any examples of Assyrian or similar chariots being used in combat?

we have plenty of Egyptians shooting and chasing routers
we have them against three man hittites too
we have gallic and galations
we have scythed chariots

but what have we on Assyrian (or any other) 4 horse chariots in the biblical era?

[Erpingham]

Taking another look at the Stele of Vultures, it is clear the picture of the spearman can't be taken as a realistic portrayal. Notice that beside each shield (if it's meant to be only one shield) there are six pairs of hands each holding a spear that projects the same distance before the shield. That's anatomically impossible.

The best way to interpret this is as a stylistic representation of spearmen who formed 6 deep and held spears with two hands whilst a seventh front row of men held the shields. Which means that this was less than impressive as a chariot-stopper.

I think your interpretatation is quite plausible.  However, the intent clearly is to indicate massed spearmen in a formation of some kind.  It is unclear why a massed formation at least seven ranks deep would be less than impressive as a chariot stopper, other than preconceptions.

BTW doesn't this passage describe the fulcum? If so the interlocking shields were one above the other, not side-by-side.

This predates the adoption of the term fulcum but it is essentially the same as the defensive form of the fulcum.  In the latter formation, though, the flat shields of the late Romans/early Byzantines could be overlapped, where the semi-cylindrical scutum couldn't.  How significant that is, I don't know. 

[Erpingham]

At present I'm floating the hypothesis that all chariots were primarily or at least initially designed to ride down infantry, though they could be used in other secondary roles (sometimes no more significant than to indicate the status of a Gallic chieftain). This is based on the impressive hitting power of a galloping horse/onager, combined with the extreme instability of a standing human. Types of chariots are irrelevant, just as types of tanks are irrelevant.

It is fine to float a hypothesis.  But you backed it up with a quote from Xenophon, seemingly missing the fact that he said all the chariots you referred to in your opening statement were used differently.  Perhaps some further examples of chariots in action might help us to know if all chariots were essentially impact weapons? 

[Justin Swanton]

From what I can see, whenever Egyptian art shows charioteers using bows in a battle context, they are pursuing a routed enemy which they are simultaneously riding down:

[snip images]

Anyone know of any exceptions to this? If so how many?

The Egyptians triumphing over routing enemy is pretty much the default for Egyptian reliefs. Do you know of any showing them attacking non-broken enemy without shooting?

I get the point. If pictures almost exclusively show charioteers only shooting fleeing enemy then one could either argue that the chariot bow was primarily a pursuit weapon, or that Egyptian artists were only interested in showing their army at its moment of triumph. I would argue however that since the pictures show only the bow being used in pursuit of fleeing enemy the burden of proof lies in demonstrating that its principal use was before the enemy routed and hence that the chariot's principal use was as an archer transport.

[Andreas Johansson]

... I'm not sure any army used scythed and non-scythed chariots at the same time. Do you have an example?

Antiochus I's 'elephant victory', as narrated by Lucian, is a singular but noteworthy example

Thanks

If memory were less imperfect, I might have thought of the Galatians myself: the DBX lists allow them both scythed and ordinary chariots. The DBMM list notes suggest that the scythed ones were "probably" captured Seleucid ones, which if true could explain the apparent exception: it may not have been a matter of using the two kinds for different purposes, but simply of wringing some use out of captured equipment.

(Obviously, said list itself takes the opposite view: the scythed ones are sacrificial shock weapons while the ordinary ones are javelin-chucking skirmishers. But I imagine it's possible to skirmish from a scythed chariot despite that not being what it's designed for. Justin didn't list any Celtic charioteers in the original post: given that they're probably the best-attested ones in terms of detailed battle accounts, should I assume they're not included in his shock scenario?)

[Andreas Johansson]

I get the point. If reliefs almost exclusively show charioteers only shooting fleeing enemy then one could either argue that the chariot bow was primarily a pursuit weapon, or that Egyptian artists were only interested in showing their army at its moment of triumph.

Absent reliefs showing the chariots doing anything else before the enemy breaking, the latter seems the obvious conclusion.

[Erpingham]

should I assume they're not included in his shock scenario?

Justin has said

all chariots were primarily or at least initially designed to ride down infantry

and

Types of chariots are irrelevant

I had specifically included Celtic chariots in the question.

[Duncan Head]

should I assume they're not included in his shock scenario?

Justin has said

all chariots were primarily or at least initially designed to ride down infantry

and

Types of chariots are irrelevant

I had specifically included Celtic chariots in the question.

I seem to remember Nigel Tallis being a little sniffy about calling Celtic vehicles "chariots" at all.

[Justin Swanton]

should I assume they're not included in his shock scenario?

Justin has said

all chariots were primarily or at least initially designed to ride down infantry

and

Types of chariots are irrelevant

I had specifically included Celtic chariots in the question.

Are there any examples of Celtic chariots charging infantry?

[Andreas Johansson]

should I assume they're not included in his shock scenario?

Justin has said

all chariots were primarily or at least initially designed to ride down infantry

and

Types of chariots are irrelevant

I had specifically included Celtic chariots in the question.

Well then, then it would probably be more productive to look at Caesar's descriptions of British chariots than to argue about what can or cannot be gleaned from Egyptian reliefs

On another tack, is anyone familiar with the Indian literature? Since their chariots too carried bows, they might be a better parallel to pre-Classical Near Eastern charioteering than Celtic javelin-chuckers or Achaemenid-Hellenistic scythed chariots.

[Andreas Johansson]

I seem to remember Nigel Tallis being a little sniffy about calling Celtic vehicles "chariots" at all.

Given that Justin's repeatedly said that the form of the vehicle doesn't matter much, and that his idea is supposed to cover Sumerian battle-carts as well as "proper" chariots, that seems like excessive sniffiness in context.

[Erpingham]

I seem to remember Nigel Tallis being a little sniffy about calling Celtic vehicles "chariots" at all.

This seems a little harsh, given that the word ultimately derives from a gallic loan word into Latin.  According to the OED, the consistent meaning is a wheeled vehicle, the number of wheels and the role varying.

[Justin Swanton]

I seem to remember Nigel Tallis being a little sniffy about calling Celtic vehicles "chariots" at all.

Given that Justin's repeatedly said that the form of the vehicle doesn't matter much, and that his idea is supposed to cover Sumerian battle-carts as well as "proper" chariots, that seems like excessive sniffiness in context.

My idea is that the chariot vehicle doesn't add its weight to the horses as it doesn't push them in the way infantry do infantry - the transfer of the chariot's mass via the central shaft to the cross-yoke just isn't going to do anything for the momentum the horses can bring to bear. If the chariot slams its weight forwards it's more likely to a) break the central shaft, b) upset the chariot and c) spill out the men in it.

[Mick Hession]

"In chariot fighting the Britons begin by driving all over the field hurling javelins, and generally the terror inspired by the horses and the noise of the wheels are sufficient to throw their opponents' ranks into disorder. Then, after making their way between the squadrons of their own cavalry, they jump down from the chariot and engage on foot. In the meantime their charioteers retire a short distance from the battle and place the chariots in such a position that their masters, if hard pressed by numbers, have an easy means of retreat to their own lines. Thus they combine the mobility of cavalry with the staying power of infantry; and by daily training and practice they attain such proficiency that even on a steep incline they are able to control the horses at full gallop, and to check and turn them in a moment. They can run along the chariot pole, stand on the yoke, and get back into the chariot as quick as lightning" (Gallic War, IV.33).

So according to Caesar, British chariots had no shock role. Other Roman writers tend to agree, as does the Irish literature (the scythed chariot episode in the Tain is a late interpolation).

Nigel's sniffiness is a bit unjustified as Celtic chariots clearly were a fighting platform at least for skirmishing purposes, but they don't fit the shock model proposed by Justin. 

Regards
Mick

[Justin Swanton]

Taking another look at the Stele of Vultures, it is clear the picture of the spearman can't be taken as a realistic portrayal. Notice that beside each shield (if it's meant to be only one shield) there are six pairs of hands each holding a spear that projects the same distance before the shield. That's anatomically impossible.

The best way to interpret this is as a stylistic representation of spearmen who formed 6 deep and held spears with two hands whilst a seventh front row of men held the shields. Which means that this was less than impressive as a chariot-stopper.

I think your interpretatation is quite plausible.  However, the intent clearly is to indicate massed spearmen in a formation of some kind.  It is unclear why a massed formation at least seven ranks deep would be less than impressive as a chariot stopper, other than preconceptions.

Fair enough. The image is way too stylised to determine what formation the infantry adopted. If they just lined up in regular intermediate-order files with, say, the second rank presenting spears whilst the front rank kept the shields upright, then I would say that a chariot could burst through them quite easily - an onager at full pelt isn't going to have a problem bowling over seven men one after another. If however they pack together like hoplites permitting several ranks to present spears then they have a much better chance of stopping a chariot.

Question: just how effective is a spear at physically stopping a galloping horse?

BTW doesn't this passage describe the fulcum? If so the interlocking shields were one above the other, not side-by-side.

This predates the adoption of the term fulcum but it is essentially the same as the defensive form of the fulcum.  In the latter formation, though, the flat shields of the late Romans/early Byzantines could be overlapped, where the semi-cylindrical scutum couldn't.  How significant that is, I don't know.

I would imagine that semi-cylindrical shields would present no problem since they overlap one above the other.