Chariots as equid battering rams

[aligern]

Isn't the oroper adversary of missile armed chariots other missile armed chariots. The infabnptry of Egyptian,nHittite , Mitanni and earlbAssyria is a refuge and suppirt for the chariot force, ut is not socially or tactically the queen if the battlefield.
Likeliest the chariots manoeuvred against each other, well spaced and exploiting the natural advantage of carrying large amounts of ammunition. When one supudes chariots aredefeatedit retires to the peotection if its footmen, but if it does not reorganise, reemerge and win then that army is doomed. The opposing army tgat loses the chariot battle is trapped.
Patrick's normally fertile imagination has failed him on why chariots are superior to infantry. Obce the infantry have lost their chariot arm they are in the situation if Crassus' men at Carrhae. Chariots  are armed with better bows than footmen abd they are emerging from and retiring into a cloud of dust. The infantry are surrounded, arrows are coming in from their shieldless side. After a while fatigue and thirst do their work and the infantry arrempt to retire, as cohesion fails the chariots race in shooting , oeros forming a Cantabrian style formation to deliver fire shock. Eventually tge infantry run and the chariots hunt them down.
We have to look at the cgariot as a weapon system, in conjunction with its infantry cover abd ask ourselves why so much time and money would be spent on large chariot forces if they could be outfaced by cheap infantry spearmen. The charioteer has a really expensive suit of armour and a shieldbearer, his horses are armoured. Training as Ian R-L showed us is long and intensive. The charioteers are an elite , Pharaoh is not shown on one because its a suitable cartiage, he is shown fighting from his chariot with his bow.
I submit that the rather passive infantry of the Middle Eastern states was not the primary concern of the charioteer, it was other chariots that he fought and then dispising of the infantry would be a routine matter...ask the Mongols.

[evilgong]

Hi there

You've go to love a long debate about chariots.

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Like ancient authors and modern editors the militaries of the ancient middle east seem to have been obsessed by this militarily useless weapon . We should project back its lack of results to the chariots that preceded it. If chariots were ever intended to smash into infantry formations abd scythed chariots were better than their predecessors then we can only imagine how useless those preceding chariots must have been at shock action........abd how much better as missile platforms.

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I take the view that scythed chariots were probably successful in every battle except those few where they came back against their own side.

The only real metric for success or fail would be if they did not do the job their owner intended, and that evidence is not really with us.

I reckon their intended job was simply to be scary and halt the enemy's line (or a decent part of it) - so that the other guy is now responding to your other threats.  If they cause casualties, open localised gaps for your other troops to exploit, then this is a bonus.  Keep in mind they expend only a few hundred horses and some brave / stupid / lovelorn drivers and a bit of kit - which if you win the battle is probably salvageable.

For those evaluating Xenophon, remember that he served in an army that both included them and opposed them.  You'd think that his Persian confederates would have some idea of their strengths, weaknesses and capacity.


David F Brown

(For those interested in 'expendable' animal weapons more generally, I read the other week about an Indian minor potentate that opposed the Brits in 1800-10.  When the redcoats had stormed the city and were street-fighting the Rajah's menagerie of lions and tigers was unloosed at them. Without much success.)

[Patrick Waterson]

Are you familiar with "chariot runners"?  That they exist seems to indicate that chariots did not usually go much faster that a man could follow. They would have functioned much like the Greek runners who accompanied horse. I don't remember if it is Drews, but someone suggested the sword and shield men we see at the time of the sea peoples originated as a troop type as chariot runners.  I am not a fan of that theory.

'Chariot runners' do rather seem to load the scale against chariots skirmishing, particularly against other chariots (avoiding running over your own runners is added to all the other problems of manoeuvring large numbers of vehicles in limited spaces).   As supports for shock chariots they make more sense, following up, clearing up and guarding the rear of the chariots against impromptu attackers.

And I agree about the sword-and-shield men, who are depicted as close combat infantry or in close combat against infantry with never a chariot in sight.

[Jim Webster]

Are you familiar with "chariot runners"?  That they exist seems to indicate that chariots did not usually go much faster that a man could follow. They would have functioned much like the Greek runners who accompanied horse. I don't remember if it is Drews, but someone suggested the sword and shield men we see at the time of the sea peoples originated as a troop type as chariot runners.  I am not a fan of that theory.

'Chariot runners' do rather seem to load the scale against chariots skirmishing, particularly against other chariots (avoiding running over your own runners is added to all the other problems of manoeuvring large numbers of vehicles in limited spaces).   As supports for shock chariots they make more sense, following up, clearing up and guarding the rear of the chariots against impromptu attackers.

And I agree about the sword-and-shield men, who are depicted as close combat infantry or in close combat against infantry with never a chariot in sight.

From memory Drews doesn't quite see it like that

Remember that  unless biblical era warfare was like an early version of cod-Arthurian medieval where knights rode down the other side's peasants and then went home, at some point the chariot superweapons on each side would have to face off, if only to protect their infantry from being butchered.
So any model of the use of chariots has to be able to cope with chariot v chariot combat

[Swampster]

Well (and this is also in answer to Mark), I've changed my mind about half a dozen times so far in this thread and am on a learning curve. Britons didn't, habitually at least, use their chariots in a shock role and neither obviously did the Cyrenaeans et al. during the time of Xenophon and Cyrus the Younger. The chariot's effectiveness as a shock weapon declined over time but it was still retained long past its sell-by date, as evinced by the Pontics fielding it against the Romans. Essentially, once it had become completely useless as a shock weapon, even if just a psychological one, it was abandoned.

It might be worth pointing out that scythed chariots seem to have been integral to the Pontic army during much of the 1st century BC and not just conjured up for a last hurrah at Zela; in 89 BC Mithridates' vanguard defeated the Bithynian army by following up a scythed chariot charge (albeit against cavalry); prior to Zela Mithridates had defeated Triarius on that selfsame battleground and more recently Pharnaces had defeated Domitius' composite Roman/Romanised Galatian army as one of his 'forty-two victories'.  One can draw a line between 89 BC and 47 BC and assume that the scythed chariot remained in service throughout (it also appears at Orchomenus in 86 BC, albeit unsuccessfully), providing Pharnaces with at least some of the numerous successes about which he boasted.  Such a track record would account for the extreme confidence with which he fielded the things at Zela.

Patrick has pretty much said what I was going to write.

Additionally, we have a case of a general who has fought against scythed chariots (Seleucus) deciding that it is worth the expense of using (and perhaps even building up) a substantial corps of them and using them in battle.

[Patrick Waterson]

So any model of the use of chariots has to be able to cope with chariot v chariot combat

I quite agree.  As Roy pointed out, dealing with the other side's chariots tended to be an essential prerequisite for winning the battle.

This thread, as far as I can determine, has primarily been interested in what happens next, after the opposing chariots have been seen off the field.  We can of course expand the scope to the question of how one side sees off the other side's chariots.

[Jim Webster]

So any model of the use of chariots has to be able to cope with chariot v chariot combat

I quite agree.  As Roy pointed out, dealing with the other side's chariots tended to be an essential prerequisite for winning the battle.

This thread, as far as I can determine, has primarily been interested in what happens next, after the opposing chariots have been seen off the field.  We can of course expand the scope to the question of how one side sees off the other side's chariots.

The problem lies in how chariots dealt with chariots. If they were solely a battering ram then they'd have to act like a battering ram against other chariots with appropriately horrendous casualties
If on the other hand they had other tactics which they used against chariots, they may have used them against other troop types as well

[evilgong]

Any Chinese experts here?  Their manuals had something to say about chariot use and could add to the discussion.

Regards

David F Brown

[Patrick Waterson]

The problem lies in how chariots dealt with chariots. If they were solely a battering ram then they'd have to act like a battering ram against other chariots with appropriately horrendous casualties
If on the other hand they had other tactics which they used against chariots, they may have used them against other troop types as well

The Kadesh reliefs show Egyptian chariots lining up close together and charging in unison against opposing chariots, which falter and give back, taking casualties from the Egyptian chariot archers.

Nestor's Trojan War advice is to form a cohesive line and advance together, then, as the opposing chariot comes within reach, give its warrior the business end of one's spear.  (This would accord with the long spears seen in depictions of Mycenaean chariots.)

Not shown or stated is whether gaps were left for opposing chariots to plunge through, or whether the advancing chariots drew their line sufficiently tight as to leave no gaps.  The latter would be in accordance with appearance of the Kadesh reliefs, and also far more intimidating morale-wise.

So would there be a huge messy chariot crunch?  On the Kadesh reliefs we do not see chariot lines colliding; rather, the less-disciplined Asiatics are falling back and disintegrating before the impeccable Egyptian chariot charge.  In this case at least, morale appears to have played an important part.

What if both sides' morale had held?  (This I think would be the exception rather than the rule, but might have happened often enough to influence chariot design.)  Then there would be a crunch, and one suspects four-horse chariots would come out of it better than their two-horse counterparts.  It is of course possible that both sides would slow down, or try to, once impact became inevitable, but this would hand the impact advantage to a faster opponent, so the question now becomes: what harm do opposing horse teams do to each other if they make solid head-to-head contact?  I think we may be a bit short of data on that point, but I imagine it would be somewhat similar to close-formation cavalry colliding.

Adding Achaemenid-style scythes to chariots would massively bump up the lethality rate inflicted on opposing horses.

Any Chinese experts here?  Their manuals had something to say about chariot use and could add to the discussion.

From archaeology channel.org:

Ancient war manuals reveal much about the importance of the chariot in Chinese warfare, but no details are given as to how to use them or how effective they were.

If they are right about this we could be disappointed.

[Jim Webster]

The problem lies in how chariots dealt with chariots. If they were solely a battering ram then they'd have to act like a battering ram against other chariots with appropriately horrendous casualties
If on the other hand they had other tactics which they used against chariots, they may have used them against other troop types as well

The Kadesh reliefs show Egyptian chariots lining up close together and charging in unison against opposing chariots, which falter and give back, taking casualties from the Egyptian chariot archers.

Nestor's Trojan War advice is to form a cohesive line and advance together, then, as the opposing chariot comes within reach, give its warrior the business end of one's spear.  (This would accord with the long spears seen in depictions of Mycenaean chariots.)

Not shown or stated is whether gaps were left for opposing chariots to plunge through, or whether the advancing chariots drew their line sufficiently tight as to leave no gaps.  The latter would be in accordance with appearance of the Kadesh reliefs, and also far more intimidating morale-wise.

So would there be a huge messy chariot crunch?  On the Kadesh reliefs we do not see chariot lines colliding; rather, the less-disciplined Asiatics are falling back and disintegrating before the impeccable Egyptian chariot charge. 

If chariots could fall back there had to be gaps wide enough to allow them to turn, because whilst it is technically possible to back a horse and cart, it isn't something you do at speed

So whilst the 'lines' might have collided, the chariots didn't. The gaps between chariots, wide enough to turn a chariot in, were plenty wide enough to allow lines to pass through each other, but shoot each other with arrows or like Nestor prod somebody with a spear

[Erpingham]

Patrick mentioned the Kadesh reliefs of chariot v chariot combat



With the usual caveat that the conventionalisation of Egyptian art makes interpretation of depth difficult, here we see the disciplined Egyptians defeat the disorganised  foreigners.  The Egyptians advance in a well-spaced line, relying on shooting to kill the horses of the opposing side before contact.

It's guesswork what this actually shows, but suicidal wheel to wheel attack seems less likely than a bow-based manoeuver strategy, IMO.

[Andreas Johansson]

If chariots could fall back there had to be gaps wide enough to allow them to turn, because whilst it is technically possible to back a horse and cart, it isn't something you do at speed

So whilst the 'lines' might have collided, the chariots didn't. The gaps between chariots, wide enough to turn a chariot in, were plenty wide enough to allow lines to pass through each other, but shoot each other with arrows or like Nestor prod somebody with a spear

In another thread, Duncan was quoting the Arthashastra X.v to the effect that the gap between chariots should be four samas, or about 4'8". Not that there's any reason Egyptian tactics have to have been the same as Indian, but this is surely too tight to allow turning or threading.

[Andreas Johansson]

Trying to sum up the thread a little:

i) We all agree that Achaemeno-Hellenistic scythed chariots were suicidal shock weapons. If Lucian's account of the Elephant Victory is reliable, the Galatians' may have been a bit of an exception as they're not differentiated from the regular vehicles.

ii) We all (except Patrick?) agree that at least some Iron Age chariots - notably British and Cyrenaean - were skirmishers.

iii) There's, as ever, a major disagreement about LBA Near Eastern chariots.

iv) There's a similar disagreement about later Assyrian etc. vehicles, with the added complication that some historians don't believe the latest, heaviest, Assyrian vehicles had a proper tactical role at all, being for display and royal hunting. People who think these were shock weapons don't necessarily think the same of earlier, lighter versions.

v) Sumerian battle-carts are also subject to such disagreement. Nobody really cares about the "straddle-cars" that turn up in army lists but which I don't recall seeing any contemporary illustration of.

vi) Nobody feels they know enough to have strong opinions about how Indian or Chinese chariots were used, altho some would consider certain roles unlikely on general principles.

Is that about right?

[Erpingham]

In another thread, Duncan was quoting the Arthashastra X.v to the effect that the gap between chariots should be four samas, or about 4'8". Not that there's any reason Egyptian tactics have to have been the same as Indian, but this is surely too tight to allow turning or threading.

This article by Alexander Nefedkin may be useful.  Just glancing, I note a different translation of the passage above as a gap of 11.5m.  Nefedkin seems to have written a lot on chariots but I have no idea if he has any reputation.

[Erpingham]

v) Sumerian battle-carts are also subject to such disagreement. Nobody really cares about the "straddle-cars" that turn up in army lists but which I don't recall seeing any contemporary illustration of.

I think this is one, though it has four horses and wargames ones have two.