Horses in War

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/17/00 6:48:58 PM, sarima at friesen.net wrote:

<<But that is probably irrelevant anyway, as the true war chariot seems to be
post-PIE unity in date.>>

Well, that was my original point - that PIE was apparently not being spoken
by charioteers in the 2d millenium BC Near East.

The whole thing went AOWL with my statement about the horse not being "a
major factor in either seige or decisive warfare" - which should have read
"being decisive in seige or major warfare" I see.  Oops, I think.  This I
think came from the West Point Military History series called something like
"Ancient and Medieval Warfare."

Two interesting commentary on this matter - as nothing more than an FYI - one
from I'm not sure where and the other from Tom Clancy's non-fiction "Armored
Cav".  Neither mentions what I think was a major role for the chariot -
jeeping around the top brass - the guys who the court poets gave the credit
for the victory that was probably actually won by the slingers, archers and
your basic grunts.

(from Tom Clancy - who also mentions cavalry's superiority to chariotry:)
"Cavalry has rarely been a decisive arm by itself.

For one thing, the size of the horse gave cavalry troopers lower combat
density than the infantry. The breadth of a horse's chest and the space
needed to avoid crushing a rider's legs against his neighbor's mount meant
that two or three infantrymen occupied the same frontage as a single horse
and rider. Two or three spears, swords, or bows in the hands of foot soldiers
confronted each warrior on horseback. Less appreciated is a horse's
unwillingness to plunge headlong into a barrier it cannot see through. Though
a horse might not be the smartest living thing on earth, only men will
knowingly hurl away their lives. Third, a horse is not a machine. To operate
and perform properly, it needs food, water, and rest. Denied those things, it
dies; and all the spare parts in an Army inventory can't fix that. And so it
was a rule of the AmeriCan West that on any long-distance trip of more than
five days, an infantry company could outmarch a cavalry troop. A horse
afforded a trooper a relatively high dash-speed, but only over fairly short
distances. A man sitting on a horse also made an easy target, especially
after the development of firearms.

And yet, despite these drawbacks, the horse remained important in war for
three millennia. More precisely, the horseman performed several crucial
missions: find the enemy before your main force collides with his; harass his
flanks and communications; pursue him in defeat; screen your own forces when
you are forced to withdraw."

Also:
"The two wheeled type was used for command and communications. It had an axle
well centered under the body to support the weight of the vehicle. Wheels so
far forward meant poor maneuverability and serious danger of turning over.
The Sumerians tried to remedy this last problem by extending the axle to
twice the width of the chariot but the change was only a stopgap.  A better
design was needed. The warrior in the Sumerian chariot had a javelin and
spear but no bow. The main use of the Sumerian chariot was shock action, like
the modern tank.

The spoked wheel was developed in the last half of the Third Millenium BC. At
the same time the axle was moved toward the rear for greater mobility. When
horses came to replace onagers true mobility could be achieved with the
chariot. There is no record of the development that went on after Sumeria
fell but it obviously occurred.

The real impetus to chariot warfare came from the introduction of the two
wheeled, light horse-drawn chariot. This was introduced from India by the
Mitanni around 1600 BC, soon adopted by Hatti and Babylon and then became
common throughout the Near East.
There are records indicating that the Egyptians were familiar with the
chariot prior to the Hyksos conquest but the chariot did not come into use in
Egypt until then...

The Egyptians used the chariot differently from the rest of the Near East in
that while they too carried a javelin, they abandoned the spear and adopted
the bow. Their javelins were carried in a quiver on the side of the chariot.
By contrast, the other peoples in the area carried a spear mounted in a
socket in the rear of the chariot, for use by the driver....

Other peoples used a three man crew but had a driver, warrior and shield
bearer, the latter due to the effect enemy archers tended to have on such
promising targets as chariot crews.

The biggest Egyptian development in chariot warfare was giving the warrior a
bow as his principal weapon. This gave him a major advantage over the
spear-wielding armies, if only in terms of fire power.

The peak of chariot warfare was reached at the end of the Second Millenium
BC. The chariot was a highly refined vehicle and the true cavalry was not yet
developed. The war chariots were found throughout the civilized world. They
were used by the Mycenaean Greeks, as Homer recounts... They had a sword and
two spears in their chariots. The bow was considered a cowardly weapon,
probably because you didn't have to get nose-to-nose to use it....

At the same time,...the Assyrians molded their cavalry into a strong combat
arm,... essentially making the chariot obsolete. Cavalry is inherently better
than chariots since it is more mobile. >>

Regards,
Steve Long