How to beat horse archers in real life?

[Africanvs]

I know there was a type of bow used in the crusades, by the turks against the christians, that was fired with the feet and could rain arrows down upon a target from an incredible range. Something like this may be feasible. Aside from that, screening your main force with light cavalry, light missle cavalry ideally, is really your only option to keep mobile missle armed horse off of your army.

Combating a nomadic society with no major settlements that possess a mounted warfare culture is going to be difficult unless you adopt their tactics. Using heavy infantry against light, fast, mounted archers is going to be futile. If I were a general tasked with invading such lands I would ally myself with various tribes, buying them with whatever they found valuable and using them against my enemy. I would also hire local mercenaries to fight in their fashion. I would attempt to strike at their food supply as well, forcing them to migrate or seek out and attempt to destroy their villages and massacre their women and children until they relented. If you attack something they are forced to defend eventually they'll have to stand and fight and stop the hit and run tactics.

I would only do this if there was something really worth gaining from the lands, and I'd want to be sure I could hold the territory without dealing constantly with marauding nomadic horsemen. Something like a river barrier would work, otherwise I'd have to build some kind of fortification.

[Stone and Blood]

I know there was a type of bow used in the crusades, by the turks against the christians, that was fired with the feet and could rain arrows down upon a target from an incredible range. Something like this may be feasible. Aside from that, screening your main force with light cavalry, light missle cavalry ideally, is really your only option to keep mobile missle armed horse off of your army.

Combating a nomadic society with no major settlements that possess a mounted warfare culture is going to be difficult unless you adopt their tactics. Using heavy infantry against light, fast, mounted archers is going to be futile. If I were a general tasked with invading such lands I would ally myself with various tribes, buying them with whatever they found valuable and using them against my enemy. I would also hire local mercenaries to fight in their fashion. I would attempt to strike at their food supply as well, forcing them to migrate or seek out and attempt to destroy their villages and massacre their women and children until they relented. If you attack something they are forced to defend eventually they'll have to stand and fight and stop the hit and run tactics.

I would only do this if there was something really worth gaining from the lands, and I'd want to be sure I could hold the territory without dealing constantly with marauding nomadic horsemen. Something like a river barrier would work, otherwise I'd have to build some kind of fortification.

I agree with you. But still, about trying to get to their villages or food supply to make them choose a defensive tactic, I belive that these locations are far away from the borders, so that would exists a great space with nothing but grass betwen the villages and the borders, full of scouts in order to intercept the enemy's movement and atack any army that reach these areas.
So, still the nomadic people will have the agressive behavior, terrain advantage, and will choose once again when the fight will start.

[Disciple of Tacitus]

An interesting discussion. Clearly there is an effective counter to the HA and the vast stretches of the steppes, b/c otherwise we would be speaking in Hunnish, Mongolian, or _____ (fill in the blank).

RTW, and EB by default, offers a somewhat skewed vision of HAs sweeping out of the steppes to establish vast empires. A better vision of empire that included HA and other Steppe warriors might be the Byzantine and Perisan Empires. We should look at these as models of HAs used in a successful manner - in real life.

The silver bullet mytholgy that lingers in military circles is just that, a myth. HAs are not a silver bullet. We should instead look at units (ie., HAs) in more of a Rock, Paper, Scissors fashion.

I know there was a type of bow used in the crusades, by the turks against the christians, that was fired with the feet and could rain arrows down upon a target from an incredible range.

@ Africanus: I can't quote sources, but I believe you are speaking of a bow first used by the Greeks during seige warfare. Perhaps some of the Greek Historians know better? Does this sound familiar to you, TPC? It is possible the Greeks invented it, but I would not be suprised if it had more Eastern origins.

[Stone and Blood]

The counter must be that leaving the steppes the HA would lose theyr terrain advantage, could not atack fortified positions like a fortress very sucefuly, as heavy infantry is better for those situations, would not fight very well when they get under siege, etc...

[Africanvs]

I agree with you. But still, about trying to get to their villages or food supply to make them choose a defensive tactic, I belive that these locations are far away from the borders, so that would exists a great space with nothing but grass betwen the villages and the borders, full of scouts in order to intercept the enemy's movement and atack any army that reach these areas.
So, still the nomadic people will have the agressive behavior, terrain advantage, and will choose once again when the fight will start.

Indeed, that's why it's so difficult to have success against them in their own back yard. Like fighting the swiss in the mountiains. :)

Furthermore, attcking food supply and villages was only part of my strategy, you'd have to use allies and mercenaries who were skilled in the use of the enemy's tactics. The Romans did this often such as in the Jewish Rebellion in which Cestius Gallus participated in 66.

Rome

3rd Legion (4 cohorts, c. 2000)

7th Legion (8 cohorts, c. 2000)

22nd Legion (4 cohorts, c. 2000)

4 cavalry wings (2000)

6 auxiliary cohorts (4800)

Allies

Antiochus of Commagene: 2000 horse archers, 3000 bowmen

Agrippa of Judaea: 1500 horse archers, 3000 bowmen

Soaemus of Emesa: 1200 horse archers, 1500 bowmen, 1000 javelin men

Source: http://orbat.com/site/history/before...evolt66ad.html


Not sure about the credibility of the actual troop numbers but one must assume allied troops and Auxiliaries were used in many other situations by the Romans. For example their alliance with Massinissa and the use of Numidian horse was a key element in their success in the Punic Wars. You can observe the struggle they had when they attempted to fight Jugurtha later on, and suffered defeat due to their inability to adapt to the tactics of a missle cavalry force, against which they used a lot of heavy infantry, (with no success) until Marius came along with some reforms. With his reformed and well-trained force he was able to achieve success, yet the real victory must be credited to Sulla, who made the deal that ended the war, seeing Jugurtha handed over to the Romans. Anyway, that's not really the point. :)

Quick source for the Jugurthine War: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/r...7JugurthaW.htm

[craziii]

I read this a while back, the chinese vs the huns(not sure if this is the right name), systematically herd them away from their pastures and salt the ground as you move on. never fight an offensive battle, just invade their lands and ruin them for future grazing. guarantee you a peace of mind.

[Africanvs]

I was looking around for examples of the Romans fighting a predominately "horse-archer" based army, and I stumbled upon this wonderful source. It's a preview of a book relating directly to this subject. I highly recommend reading it if you're interested in this thread. It talks about battles involving horse archers from the battle of Carrhae onward and discusses how the Byzantines were able to adapt they're army to be so successful against them among other things.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RTq...hl=en#PPA20,M1

[Parallel Pain]

Well the US gave hunters free gun and ammo and paid them for bison pelts and skulls. At the same time they build the railway so more people can go west. Then they send in their cavalry to protect the hunters. Needless to day the plain indians got hell.

I remember Wudi building a fortified city right on the steppes and encourage (even force) people to move there. Well once the people start to settle down and farm the damn place, the plains are no more. Plus the troops are there to protect the settlers (like in the US-Indian war) so the XiongNu couldn't choose their battleground and could do little but watch as a large piece of their pasture got taken over by farmland.