This has probably been brought up before but I couldn't find a thread searching the forum. I was listening to the Bronze Age MeG Players' podcast recently and it said that it was now widely accepted that Hittite chariots were used much as Egyptian chariots - as a mobile shooting platform. There was a reference to a podcast by Mike Loades discussing his experience with chariots and archery, which was very interesting. I'm not sure what other references there are to this and would be grateful if anyone could point me in the right direction. The evidence of three crew chariots on the Battle of Kadesh reliefs at Ramses II tombs at Abu Simbel, Abydos, Karnak, Luxor and the Ramesseum was said to be probably an extra infantry figure. I found this free download Chasing Chariots which may be of interest to fans of Bronze Age chariots:
https://www.sidestone.com/books/chasing-chariots (https://www.sidestone.com/books/chasing-chariots)
You might want to check out Ian Russel Lowell's article in Slingshot #309, where he argues for the third man = infantryman hitching a ride interpretation.
Here's (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=3522.0) a discussion we had on chariots as battering rams with a secondary role as shooting platforms.
Thanks Andreas and Justin, I've dug that issue out and will give it a read, likewise the thread on the forum.
To be clear, in the podcast we were referring to the eastern chariots of the Hittite empire, not the Western Anatolian "box" style chariots - where the verdict is much less certain.
We don''t really know how chariots operated. There is a degree of 'form follows function' in the arguments. If a chariot is vey light and the crewman has a bow then its pretty obvious it is a missile platform and its tactics should be to deliver arrows and avoid contact and protect against incoming shots ( so the driver carries a shield and eventuall crew and horses are armoured. But the chariot can also be used to either crack infantry by charging towards them, even if veering off if they hold, or smacking into them and using the combination if armoured horses and rapid bow and javelin fire to make contact effective. One can be dogmatic and say that horses will not charge firmed bodies of men, but they will. Certainly armoured horses will and will survive. Similarly it has been held that a man in a chariot cab cannot stick an opponent with a long spear as he will be projected out of the cab, but then it used to be suggested that a stirrupless, saddle less cavalryman who contacted an opponent with a spear held rigid, would be projected over the rump of his horse. Those orthodoxies have been defeated, so the spearman might well be fighting from the cab!
Roy
Quote from: aligern on August 23, 2021, 01:00:43 PMIf a chariot is vey light and the crewman has a bow then its pretty obvious it is a missile platform and its tactics should be to deliver arrows and avoid contact and protect against incoming shots ( so the driver carries a shield and eventuall crew and horses are armoured.
On the other hand if a chariot is very light then the horses are able to get up an optimal charging speed, increasing their impact against enemy infantry, whilst the chariot's lightness enables it to bounce easily over prone bodies. The charioteer's bow is effective in keeping fleeing enemy troops on the run, killing a few in the process, besides enabling him to target enemy charioteers and cavalry.
Quote from: Justin Swanton on August 23, 2021, 02:58:13 PM
On the other hand if a chariot is very light then the horses are able to get up an optimal charging speed, increasing their impact against enemy infantry,
Are you suggesting that chariot horses were intended to physically crash into enemy infantry? Or indeed anything? Seems a strange way to employ a delicate and very expensive asset.
regards
Mick
Impact and light weight are contradictory.
You are better looking at the design.
If the chariot has wide axels it is designed to remain stable on a speedy turn, and those wider axels are inherently more fragile than narrow ones. It becomes highly improbable that such a design is to support an impact contact, when it is clearly superior for fast turning.
Also, if the axel is positioned at the rear, then the intent is to distribute weight differently from a mid cab axel. It becomes possible with a mud cab axel to have men stand either side to use the axel to take weight off the horse, so more weight can be carried. I understand that the rear axel would however absorb more vibration than a mid axel- which if true would again support missile over impact.
And always keep in mind, these are ponies not horses. They just aren't that big.
Quote from: Mick Hession on August 23, 2021, 03:20:56 PM
Quote from: Justin Swanton on August 23, 2021, 02:58:13 PM
On the other hand if a chariot is very light then the horses are able to get up an optimal charging speed, increasing their impact against enemy infantry,
Are you suggesting that chariot horses were intended to physically crash into enemy infantry?
I am. Horses were used to physically charge infantry from the dawn of warfare. Plenty of threads on that topic!
Ponies are not horses, especially ones attached to a contraption designed to perform the opposite task
I doubt that a vehicle like the Hyksos chariot is to be used for contact moves unless the enemy is in a very open order. The light framed chariot is useful against armies of spearmen it can carry 100 arrows abd can move rapidly to the point where the chariots can pick on the shieldless side and rear of the infantry and take them down from close range as even close up the infantry cannot catch their tormentors. Presumably the infantry respond with more of their own bowmen and with their own chariots. This causes a response by the charioteers who armour man and horse. At the point at which the horses become armoured it becomes far more feasible to advance into the infantry formation, shooting and throwing javelins and jabbing with spears. At close ranges the light chariot crews coukd use javelins.
Looking at those big Assyrian chariots , they can either shoot or close with the enemy. If the foe is Elamite bowmen in an open order then contact with the infantry is very feasible. How often were mid Eastern foot the type that would form up densely and see off chariots or cavalry ? Interestingly, the advent of the scythed chariot occurs simultaneously with the arrival on the scene of mainland Greek hoplites. Maybe the arrival of solid infantry causes the Persians to upgrade chariot armour and weaponry whereas against tge less drilled locals simply a big chariot was enough?
Roy
One can argue that a light or heavy chariot is suitable for charging infantry, just in different ways. Given that it is the horses that actually contact the infantry and knock them flat, a light chariot will easily bounce over their prone bodies - we see chariots running over prone foot in Egyptian art and Egyptian chariots are lightweight. A heavy chariot will help to crush the prone infantry and further incapacitate them. And the horses weren't ponies, just somewhat smaller than modern horses. They were quite capable of knocking down several ranks of foot.
On the other hand, chariots would have been very useful as mobile missile platforms, especially against infantry, as the infantry could do nothing about them whereas they could charge enemy infantry archers. The chariots could go around a body of foot for hours, shooting at them and demoralising them, until the time was ripe for a charge. A chariot charge wasn't guaranteed to work in every circumstance and needed the right conditions before attempting it.
Even if a light chariot can collide into formed bodies of infantry and escape unharmed (which I am incredibly sceptical about) - why bother. You can come in, shoot, turn away (still shooting) and then repeat up to 8 times. If (a big if) the infantry survive all of that without routing - then go away, take a breather, get more arrows and repeat the process later.
Quote from: lionheartrjc on August 25, 2021, 07:46:44 AM
Even if a light chariot can collide into formed bodies of infantry and escape unharmed (which I am incredibly sceptical about) - why bother. You can come in, shoot, turn away (still shooting) and then repeat up to 8 times. If (a big if) the infantry survive all of that without routing - then go away, take a breather, get more arrows and repeat the process later.
And repeat again and again until night falls and the infantry are able to get away. ???
Quote from: Justin Swanton on August 25, 2021, 07:36:30 AM
One can argue that a light or heavy chariot is suitable for charging infantry, just in different ways. Given that it is the horses that actually contact the infantry and knock them flat, a light chariot will easily bounce over their prone bodies - we see chariots running over prone foot in Egyptian art and Egyptian chariots are lightweight.
Not again ::)
If a light chariot impacts a solid body of men, it will have an effect on the horses. If they don't stumble, they will certainly slow down and if the formation is deep enough, grind to a halt. Turning a chariot in a crowd would be very difficult, leaving crew and horses vulnerable in the middle of the enemy. So, not one to try until your pretty sure the enemy are going to run away.
Now Justin, if the spearmen can out last the archers and get away by night then how come at Hattin they did not just wait for the evening and just stroll to the lake? How come at Carrhae the Romans morale cracked when the Parthians brought on the camels loaded with spare arrows? The chariots have an enormous advantage, they can pick on the unshielded flank and rear of the infantry and gradually grind it down. Think of Arsuf, eventually the Crusaders could take it no longer and had to do something, but if your own chariots are driven off then negotiating looks a better bet.
Roy
True. Good point about Hattin and Carrhae.
Is Carrhae not an example where the infantry did indeed last until nightfall, despite the extra arrows. They left behind 4000 wounded and however many dead, but it was the death of Crassus and the continual pressure the next day which finally caused the Romans to break. Even then, Gaius Cassius Longinus and others led about 10000 off the field.
Taking a couple of days to destroy the enemy is likely a luxury which couldn't always be afforded.
In many cases, an army reaching a town - as the Romans did - would have been able to hole up without much fear of being successfully besieged.
Also, the ability to be profligate with the lives of horses varies massively over the centuries and from country to country. New Kingdom Egyptians had to import pretty much everything needed for chariot warfare - not just most of the horses, given the relative infancy of domesticated breeding in such a hot climate, but also the different timbers needed for the chariots themselves. One suspects, therefore, that they placed a somewhat different value on how expendable such assets were, compared to, say, an 18th or 19th century European cavalry commander, or even a Norman or Frankish knight. (And they came close to losing in 1099 when they found that they had rather run out of horses by the time they reached Antioch and the critical phase of the crusade). Furthermore, look at the immense time, and effort invested in training chariot teams, as detailed in Kikkuli's manual. These are not assets you are going to drive into formed infantry, risking death or serious injury, unless it absolutely clinches victory. The horses are quite literally worth incalculably more than common infantrymen... they certainly get far better grain for a start!
Peter, we should bear in mind who the infantry are. Chariot societies are aristocratic organisations. The top guys are being driven around and are expensively trained and supported. The infantry of the period are of a much lower social standing and likely had a much underdeveloped command structure compared to that of Roman legions. They also have a lot less armour than the Romans. We should expect them to be a lot less resilient in the face of concentrated archery which goes on for hours.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on August 25, 2021, 11:32:55 PM
Peter, we should bear in mind who the infantry are. Chariot societies are aristocratic organisations. The top guys are being driven around and are expensively trained and supported. The infantry of the period are of a much lower social standing and likely had a much underdeveloped command structure compared to that of Roman legions. They also have a lot less armour than the Romans. We should expect them to be a lot less resilient in the face of concentrated archery which goes on for hours.
Roy
Remember, I didn't use Carrhae as an example :)
I don't think Hattin is a useful example of the ability to destroy an army with sustained archery either Thirst was the major issue. The prequel to Arsuf shows how a crusader army with suitable logistics could cope with sustained archery.
I don't think Hattin or Carrhae tell us much about the bronze age ability to withstand sustained archery - too many differences.
I wonder whether the fact that the _only evidence for the Hittite extra man comes from a series of state propaganda reliefs devise by their enemies and depicting a single and a-typical event (which according to the Egyptian version was a Hittite defeat) doesn't tell us all we need to know about this innovation.
Phil
Not all that long after Kadesh, three-man chariot crews became standard. The Peleset are showing three-man chariot crews in the Medinet Habu reliefs of Djahy, less than a century later. Yet no-one goes on about "special circumstances and royal propaganda" there. I have never quite understood why people have this issue with the evidence for Kadesh. It seems plain to me. It is just possible that Kadesh was the experiment that was ancestral to all those Peleset, Neo-Hittite and Assyrian three-man chariot crews, I suppose.
Peter, actually I think that Hattin is quite a useful example of what happens to an army when its infantry are abandoned by the mobile force and subjected to a long archery shoot by mounted opponents. The key comparison the nature of the armies, both are composed of a social elite ,knights or chariots, and once that has been beaten the opposing infantry are condemned to suffer casualties, pretty well without reply. If the infantry move they will become disordered and vulnerable to charges, if they stand still then they have to be very high quality to hold together. Isn't there a hellenistic example where a pike phalanx surrenders once its supports are stripped away and it is surrounded by skirmishers?
Roy
Did the knights abandon the foot or the foot desert from the knights? Raymond broke out with a couple of hundred knights but Guy was fighting with others until the end, by which time the foot had gone.
Take away the desperation caused by two days' thirst and would the shooting had been sufficient? The morale effects of being surrounded and kept awake at night are also significant. I would agree that the crusaders could not just muscle their way past the mounted to get to the water, but this doesn't tell us that the shooting is what prevents it. I think that if the crusaders knew that the muslims would rely on shooting and withdrawing then this would encourage them to keep marching as the saracens would end up either being pressed against the lake or withdrawing to the sides - the threat of being charged from whatever direction kept the crusaders from advancing.
As I said, the prelude to Arsuf showed the foot were effective at moving along despite the shooting. But as you said with Carrhae, these are not bronze age foot.
Abd as you said Peter, Richard has taken steps with his fleet an probably unit rotation, to ensure that the foot are fed and watered and supported by knights near them, both forbidding the foot from retreat and keeping the horse archers at a distance. Plus the sea provides a secure flank and marching South has the advantage of keeping the shield facing towards where the arrows are coming from.
Roy
This would suggest that it is far more complicated than a force with plentiful arrows and mobility will be able to mow down a less mobile force and prevent it from moving away.