Cataphracts

[Mick Hession]

Byzantine half armour did exist. From memory, it's described in the Strategikon as based on Avar practice so in use from the end of the 6th century.

I did check the DBMM list notes on Roman catphracts BTW: summarising, the current view is that the original Roman cataphracts were armoured lancers on unarmoured horses. More heavily armoured men on armoured horses were called clibanarii. The original cataphract units were wiped out at the Milvian Bridge; when re-raised later they were equipped as clibanarii.   

I'm simply stating what the notes say and don't know where that view originates. Perhaps the Slingshot archive might help?

Regards
Mick

[Mark G]

it would be nice to compile that strategikon source here, if anyone has the faintest idea where it is within the text.

[aligern]

its in the section on cavalry equipment Mark. I can give chapter and verse in a day or two whaen I am back home.
At present I am in an hotel in Berwick , having just come back from a guided battlefield walk of Flodden which has its 500th anniversary today.
Roy

[Erpingham]

At present I am in an hotel in Berwick , having just come back from a guided battlefield walk of Flodden which has its 500th anniversary today.
Roy

Hope you had good weather for it.

[Andreas Johansson]

it would be nice to compile that strategikon source here, if anyone has the faintest idea where it is within the text.

Individual equipment is discussed in Book I, §2. Acc'd to Dennis's translation:

The horses, especially those of officers and the other special troops, especially those in the front ranks of the battle line, should have protective pieces of iron armor about their heads and breast plates of iron or felt, or else breast and neck coverings such as the Avars use.

Of the Avars themselves (Book XI, §2) we learn:

Not only do they wear armor themselves, but in addition the horses of their illustrious men are covered in front with iron or felt.

So frontal (only) armour seems secure enough, but details are distinctly sparse. No idea if there's archaeological evidence to tell us more. Note that there appears to be two styles of frontal horse armour - that used by the Avars and some Roman/Byzantine troops, and another one used by other Roman/Byzantine troops.

[aligern]

Yes, the weather was sunny with some cloud. The tour and talkwas given  by Clive Hallam-Baker.
All very good. one cannot beat seeing a battle on the ground , thogh we should be aware that lan use changes. Clearly James was outwitted and payed a poor tactical hand. mind you, when you have 50% more men than our opponent and your chaps are well motivated that hardly counsels caution.
Roy

[Erpingham]

Clearly James was outwitted and payed a poor tactical hand. mind you, when you have 50% more men than our opponent and your chaps are well motivated that hardly counsels caution.

To read some Scottish historians, you'd think that it was a foregone conclusion that the Scots should win and somehow James threw this away.  Both underestimates the problems the Scots had and the English ability to adapt to the circumstances as the battle developed, I feel.  However, that's another topic 

Meanwhile, back in Byzantium .....

[Mark G]

On Flodden, you would not believe some of the sub-Nigel Trantor gibberish which made the papers here about it.

'it was the foreign French pikes which got in the way' - really?  will you be arguing that whirling a kilt above your head could deflect a longbow shaft too?

But the most noticeable thing about Flodden this year is that because it is not a 'great victory', there is a huge part of Scottish society which wants to pretend the battle never happened - I don't need to point out the glaring omission of attendance at the ceremony to anyone who cares to look, and the minimal coverage it got.  Even though it was at least as important - if no more so - to Scots history than Bruce (who used that victory to invade Ireland ! )

but we digress

[Mark G]

on Cats

the two rules which I have best access to offer differing interpretations of cataphracts and clibinarii.

Armati treats clibanarii differently from cats

Clibs, where identified are full movement cavalry (HC) , fighting value (FV) 5 and +2 protection,

whilst cats are more varied ranging from the reduced movement (CAT), fighting value (FV) 6 and +3 protection, to the full movement cavalry (HC) (FV) 5 and +2 (or even +1 for some sassanids) protection

that is, cataphracts can be a name applied to a range of armoured cavalry, but is usually applied to a specific troop type (CAT) , whilst Clibs applies to two specific things which do not match that specific CAT troop type at all

e.g.

Sarmatian Cataphracts - CAT (FV) 5 +2
Parthian / Palmyran / Armenian Cataphracts - CAT (FV) 6 +3

Late Roman (West or East) cataphracts - CAT (FV) 6 +3
Late Roman (East) Clinanarii - HC (FV) 5 +2

Bellisuaurian Kataphractoi - HC (FV) 5 +2

Sassanid Cataphracts - CAT (FV) 6 +3
Sasanid Clibanarii - HC (FV) 5 +2

Nikephorian Kataphractoi - CAT (FV) 6 +3
11th century Byzantine Kataphractoi - CAT (FV) 6 +3


Avar Nobles are identical to both the earlier Bellisaurian Kataphractoi and the Sassanid Clibanarii

where both cats and clibs are in the same list, the clibs are faster but weaker and less armoured.


DBMM

they are all knights class, not cavalry,
but the clibanarii are bracketed with sarmatians (or companions) as KN (F) (or if mounted archer rear supports such as Byzantine Klibanophoroi - KN (I))

Full cats are close formation on fully armoured horses as Kn (X) - such as Parthians, Sassanids or Byzantine Klibanophoroi

de coding all the notes, I read that as identifying a difference between the close formed fully armoured cats (KN (X) and the hard charging fast Knights which are similar to the companions (KN (F)).

some list examples.

Sarmatian nobles - KN (F)
Parthian / Palmyran / Armenians - KN (X)

Late Imperial Roman  Catafractarii KN (F) (upgradable after 337 AD to (X))
Late Imperial and Patrician Roman Clibanarii KN (X)

Maurikian Byzantine Optimates Kn (F) - no Kataphractoi are identified by name but the troop type matches the Bellisaurian list

Sassanid Cataphracts KN (X)

Thematic Byzantine Kataphractoi - KN (I)
Nikephorian Byzantine Klibinaroi - KN (X)

Avars are regular cavalry (superior)

So DBMM, where it identifies Cats and Clib, seems to start out matching Armati (CAT = KN (X), and then swap the definitions around for the Romans and the later Byzantines.)

But still, they do differentiate them in the same list for the eastern romans.

I may get time to trawl through the slingshot archives for relevant bits from the old Cats CLibs debate there in the next week or two.

[Patrick Waterson]

'it was the foreign French pikes which got in the way' - really?  will you be arguing that whirling a kilt above your head could deflect a longbow shaft too?

Then there is what we might call the 'Braveheart approach'  - where is Mel Gibson when you really need him?

[Patrick Waterson]

It may be safe to say that Byzantine half-armour was adopted from the Avars - at least we seem to have a general consensus on that point, which may even include Byzantine authors.  My question is this: before adopting Avar-influenced styles, can we find any difference between cataphracts and clibanarii in original sources?  Ammianus does not appear to distinguish between them.

Later (10th century AD) Byzantine armies keep their 'kataphraktoi' but start to add 'klibanophoroi', which wargame rule-writers evaluate as a tactically diferent and more heavily-armoured troop category.  Do we know the source information on which this is based?

[Mick Hession]

I'm not sure where this thread is going, to be honest. We've a definition of cataphracts/clibinarii that tries to encompass armoured cavalry (with complete, partial or no horse armour) from Parthian armies of the 1st century BC to 11th century AD Byzantines and making generalisations on equipment and tactics based solely on a selective nomenclature, so Persians are included because the Romans called them clibs/cats, but we seem to be excluding Turks, Tibetans, Koreans and Chinese who are just as heavily armoured as the heaviest western/near eastern types.

I don't feel any more enlightened, I must confess.

Cheers
Mick

[Andreas Johansson]

Re DBMM, note that the Kn (X) classification also covers some far eastern lance-bow-and-horse-armour cavalry, incl Tibetans, some Chinese and Korean heavies, and some nomad types. (Frankly, which of these become Kn (X), Kn (F), or Cv (S) seems at times pretty random to me. On my more heretical days I sometimes suspect they should all be Sipahi (S), but then again I'm dubiously qualified to be the judge of that.)

Otherwise I sort of agree with Mick. "Cataphract" basically just means "armoured (cavalry)", and I doubt we're entitled to take as a given that the troops so designated by classical and medieval authors were all more similar to one another than to other sorts of armoured cavalry.

Incidentally, do we have any clear examples of classical authors using "cataphract" to designate armoured riders on non-armoured horses?

[Mark G]

we don't have enough information to say where we will end up, its still in the gathering phase.

but it looks to me like we have an end point, where a clib is a half armoured horse, and a cat is a full armoured one.

and a start point where a true cat is a fully armoured man and fully encompassed (hard) armoured horse.

and some variation in the middle
and some ancestry on the steppes involving the protection of the horse, rather than a true different troop type which I intend on not getting into.

I am suspecting that the term clib started as a nickname for cats, but became a recognised military term much later and was thus the basis for the later usage of the term clib - that there is a clear difference between these later fully armoured horses and half armoured horses in both equipment and useage, but that this was not the case in the middle periods, and that the two terms make sense to use to identify that differentiation - in the later period.

and so far, i've not see anything to make me abandon my early and middle cats theory.
nor to doubt that as horsemen, they were not noticeably slower - but equally, in the earlier period, were forced into a slower pace by the need to maintain formation.

as for the east, well someone who knows something about it needs to start saying something, since I have little interest in it and do not plan on bothering looking it up.

but none of it is clear enough to make any strong statements or conclusions yet.

as far as the term debate goes, its pretty minor, what really matters is identifying usage differences - hence my early middle period.  I think we do have agreement on the later period that half armoured and fully armoured are different and work differently - to which end the notes in dbmm were interesting to me.

[Mick Hession]

When is your end point? By the 10th century, Klibanophoroi referred to men on fully armoured horses (probably textile, IIRC) whilst most Kataphraktoi rode unarmoured horses. 

I don't think there's any evidence that clibanarii ever referred to men on half-armoured horses. That was a hypothesis put forward by Phil Barker in the 1970s and he's changed his mind since then.

Rgds
Mick