Chariots

[Razgovory]

This may have some good stuff in it.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bhollenb/EDCI5314/portfoliobkh/html/History_of_Chariot_Warfare.html

Anyone who uses the term "Scale Mail" has been reading to much D&D.

[11B4V]

This may have some good stuff in it.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bhollenb/EDCI5314/portfoliobkh/html/History_of_Chariot_Warfare.html

Anyone who uses the term "Scale Mail" has been reading to much D&D.

Glad you pointed that out.

[Razgovory]

It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.

[Viking]

Chariot use changed over time

The earliest uses had chariots being used as battle chariots. Where "heros" in full armor were carried to the battle, they jumped out killed two or three unarmored peasants, jumped back on their chariot and escaped to their own lines before the enemy chariots could converge on them.

The Hittite and Babylonia chariots were likely developments of this where an archer and shield carrier might have been added to the hero and driver. Now the "hero" had protection from archers and javelin men.

The Egyptians seem to have dispensed with the "hero" and shield carrier allowing the chariot to become much smaller and faster.

The Assyrians then make the whole thing obsolete when they get riding horses from central asia and invent the horse archer. In fact early assyrian horse archers had riders in tandem with a reinsman and an archer, just like in the setup with the chariot. Eventually these roles were combined.

[Queequeg]

A lot of it was mobility.  Most warfare throughout Bronze Age and Copper Age Europe would have been raids for women or cattle, something that a chariot would make extremely useful.  The Celtic and Hindu myths reflect a lot of this-most of the most ancient or conservative (the 1st Century Tain Bo Cuailnge is actually a lot closer to Copper Age myths than it is to anything else in the world from the time) Indo-European stories involve kidnapping and flock-stealing, usually with a chariot as a weapon or at least an escape vehicle.   

There was also a shock factor; in a small-scale encounter, something as complex and elegant as a chariot, being pulled by something as strange as two horses-even copper age ponies-would have been terrifying.  These men would also be something close to a professional warriors, born with a copper or bronze mace in their hand and buried with it.  The primitive farmers and pastorialists of Old Europe, or even the relatively complex agricultural states of the Levant, would not have had the mobility or the professional skill to deal with this.  The culturally, if not linguistically, Indo-Europeanized ("Kurganized") Kassites were just as able to completely subdue Babylon, for instance. 

The Chariot basically made the linguistic world we know today.  Seems strange, but it was the primary vector by which the Indo-European languages spread, at least in it's initial phase, which went from Assam to Ireland, and even in to Mongolia.  Everything from Vishnu to the lady of the Lake.  We can actually mark at what point an Indo-European language broke off from the initial Steppe population (the proto-Indo Iranians are basal in a lot of ways) by how complete their vocabulary is of a wagon or chariot. 

[Tamas]

Well someone will probably show up and prove me wrong, so who knows.  I'm predicting Grumbler will.

Then hopefully he shows up soon. Otherwise if this topic comes up at work tomorrow I might share an incorrect point of view.

[Richard Hakluyt]

In addition to the chariots described so far there were also what one might call "shock chariots" used by the Achaemenids, Mithridates of Pontus and a few others. These were one-shot weapons driven at speed into enemy formations, the aim was to disorder an infantry formation with the chariots and then follow up with a cavalry charge, routing the vulnerable troops.

They were usually ineffective, I can only recall one success, a minor skirmish in Asia Minor between a Persian satrap and some Greeks.

[11B4V]

It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.

tank   /tæŋk/ Show Spelled[tangk] Show IPA
noun
1. a large receptacle, container, or structure for holding a liquid or gas: tanks for storing oil.
2. a natural or artificial pool, pond, or lake.
3. Military . an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.
4. Slang . a prison cell or enclosure for more than one occupant, as for prisoners awaiting a hearing

M2 Bradley
The M242 Bushmaster is a 25 mm (25×137mm) chain-fed autocannon.......check
Self propelled....check
7.62 Coax MG.....check
Tracked......check

[Viking]

The problem with scythed chariots is that they appear more often in sword and sandal movies than they do in history. All their appearances are well after Assyrian Horse Archers and western sources (at least) usually respond with "WTF they have scythed chariots!!!!1111oneoeon, and then we slaughtered them"

The one great appearance they have in history is Gaugamela. Scythes up to a meter long, the problem with that is that the Sarissas were 5 meters long.

[Eddie Teach]

It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.

Or an arms warrior.

[11B4V]

It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.

Or an arms warrior.

or an IFV

[Viking]

It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.

tank   /tæŋk/ Show Spelled[tangk] Show IPA
noun
1. a large receptacle, container, or structure for holding a liquid or gas: tanks for storing oil.
2. a natural or artificial pool, pond, or lake.
3. Military . an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.
4. Slang . a prison cell or enclosure for more than one occupant, as for prisoners awaiting a hearing

M2 Bradley
The M242 Bushmaster is a 25 mm (25×137mm) chain-fed autocannon.......check
Self propelled....check
7.62 Coax MG.....check
Tracked......check

The randomness of history gives me pause to chuckle.

Winston Churchill's biography states, "To disguise the device, drawings were marked "water carriers for Russia." When it was pointed out this might be shortened to "WCs for Russia," the drawings were relabeled "water tanks for Russia." Eventually the weapon was just called a tank.[61] (In fact, the prototype was referred to as a water-carrier for Mesopotamia [see below]. The Russian connection is that some of the first production Tanks were labelled in Russian "With Care to Petrograd," as a further security measure.)

[Faeelin]

wait, so if early horses couldn't carry people, how were they domesticated?

[Eddie Teach]

Dogs can't carry people either.

[The Brain]

We ain't heavy.