Lonewarrior, the saddle was seen on a roman frieze showing a dead celtic warrior sometime during the republican era.
I think the saddle itself was invented on the steppe, but i'm not sure.
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Lonewarrior, the saddle was seen on a roman frieze showing a dead celtic warrior sometime during the republican era.
I think the saddle itself was invented on the steppe, but i'm not sure.
Well, I think swords were the primary use against pikes. Because they could get BETWEEN the pikes and shafts and do enormous damage in close combat (A 20 foot pike isnt all that useful if the guy is 3 feet away and you are in tight formation...) and they could exploit little gaps in pike formations much more easily than cavalry and-or other pike infantry.
The spanish Tercios used pikes and swords. I can give you links to pictures if you want, to stop the attacking swordsmen and occasional cavalrymen that could break thru the pikes. The arquebusiers all wore swords, and fought as swordsmen after firing the 2-3 shots they could before the enemy closed in.
The primary weapon to fight pikes was other pikes. Lots of them. What you used to support the pikes during the push varied - the Spanish had their sword-and-buckler men, a legacy from the fast-paced skirmishing warfare and extensive siege operations they'd done against the Moors in the mountainous southern Iberia during the later phases of the Reconquista, and undoubtly used the same mix of halberds and greatswords for "heavy close support" as their Swiss and German colleagues.
It's not like the Renaissance and Early Modern pikemen didn't carry swords of their own, but the reason the Spanish swordsmen were such a murder for the Swiss was really pretty simple - superior armor and training. The Swiss usually went with only light armor, in order to keep the formation fairly fast-moving, and pikemen naturally didn't carry shields. In comparision the Spanish swordsmen might well wear up to three-quarter plate armor, had shields (steel bucklers, usually), and were on the whole rather better trained for face-to-face close combat.
Heh, I can be honest here and say I know almost nothing about horses. After the saddle, the only other invention I can think of that might have had an effect on mounted warfare was simply a slow adaption process over time. BTW, I think you're confusing me with the real Lonewarrior, I'm lonewolf.Quote:
Originally Posted by DemonArchangel
While areas around Rome might have used swords and javelins the difference in HOW they were used is the key aspect. Even if the tribes around Rome used the one-two javelin-sword tactic they did not use it in the fashion and level organization demonstrated in the Roman Legions, which is why none of those tribes became a dominant military power. I'm pretty sure at least some barbarian tribes used phalanxes, in fact I believe Caesar faced one in his first major battle in Gaul while fighting the Helvetii.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
The Romans copied their signature short sword from the Iberian Celts, God only knows where they learned the sword-and-javelins combo from. But as far as I know it wasn't their Latin neighbors, who at the time were fighting with shields, spears and swords just like themselves.
I've read they copied the manipular deployement system from the Samnites, on the perfectly sensible grounds of using their foes' own techniques to beat them. The flexible maniples worked far better than the hoplite shieldwall in the Samnites' highland haunts.
Just to point out, but if Caesar or any other semi-contemporary Roman author saw a classic shield-wall of the sort that stayed in use right until the end of Middle Ages and had to call it by some term, odds are he'd call it a phalanx. That was quite possibly the closest descriptor for the tactic they were familiar with, and certainly it'd communicate to idea to their audience.
None of which means what they saw and described had much anything to do with the proper pike phalanx... The hoplite shieldwall maybe, but then the hoplite tactic wasn't fundamentally too different from what you'd see for example at Hastings, 1066 AD.
Red Harvest and I have discussed the whole Triplex Acies in his thread about the early roman troops. And indeed it involved the Samnites.
Remember that the Romans didn't just come out of the phalanx with the perfect manipular legion, it changed and adapted and conformed until it was best at what the Romans it to be best at. But it doesn't change the fact that the Romans had copied it.
I suspect the saddle was invented on the steppe anyway, probably by samartians, as it really helps keep your ass in the saddle upon impact by cataphract.
In that case I wouldn't be very concerned about keeping my ass in the saddle, rather I would be concerned about surviving, those cataphracts hits pretty hard. ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by DemonArchangel
No, if you fall off your horse, you'll be killed by footsoldiers on the ground.
You didn't see my little poke at you.
The way you wrote your post made it look like the daddle made sure you could sit in it after having been hit by a cataphract, not the other way around (you being the catapract),
oh
damn.
Dunno about the "four-horned" saddle, but I've gotten the impression the Romans learned it from somewhere East. Whether from the steppe folks or the Persians I don't know, but most horse-related inventions seem to have sprung from the high plains.
On the other hand, AFAIK the Macedonians of Alexander's time did not know of nor use the thing, yet their heavy spear-toting shock cavalry seems to have worked right fine... I guess you just need to grip the horse pretty tightly with your legs.
Actually it seems the Romans and Macedonians learned about the horned saddle from celts. The Greeks even have a few stelas where it shows mounted (or falling) celts with the saddle.
Now that doesn't mean the Celts had invented the saddle, they could just as easily have learned from others.
a little history on SaddlesQuote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
But in all probability, I'd say that their knowledge came from further East towards China.Quote:
Historically horses were ridden bareback, or with only a blanket over their back. Riders throughout the centuries hunted, fought in wars and traveled great distances all while riding bareback. Some claim a tribe called the Sarmatians who lived by the Black Sea first invented the saddle in 365 AD, as well as the metal stirrup and spurs.
That saddle can only be the high saddle, you know the one where the back and front is high to recieve the push from connecting a lance during a charge.
I know for sure that the Romans had the horned saddle way earlier than that, and since there weren't any free celts by then, how could the Greeks encounter any?
Samartians? Spurs?
Crock of Manure anyone?