Where would the real disadvantage be...

[Africanvs]

At Carrhae the horse archers were resupplied with arrows by camel trains. The Romans were just in a hollow square formation completely surrounded. I believe the biggest problem for the Romans at Carrhae was Crassus. He was no general, just a guy with tons of illgotten money trying to make a name for himself against a strong enemy. Too strong it proved. The happiest day of Caesar's life was probably when Crassus went to Parthia to meet his death. That and knocking boots with Cleopatra. The key to horse archers, as discussed in the horse archer thread is stand off distance. If you have it such as at Carrhae and can just rain arrows on the infantry, they're doomed.
Check this out, great source going into detail about horse archer and swarming tactics used by steppe armies.

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

According to this source the legionary was slowly replaced over time by the heavily armored cataphract.

[Aper]

Ok, horse archers are real badasses, but remember that after Charrae the Roman Empire got the initiative on the Parthians in all the war they fought... and the legions never lost a field battle against cavalry-based armies again until the collapse of the political system in the III century... that means strategies and tactics against the HA+Kats combination actually existed, and that the Romans adopted them (even if some cavalry-fans think different...).
Arrian vs. the Alans, Belisarius in the battle of Sura-Callinico and others Imperial commanders resisted or won using a defensive tactic and a "fortress-like" formation: armored infantry make a shield/spear wall to protect lots of good missile troops.
The problem for a western army is exactly to find lots of good missile troops..

[artaxerxes]

and the legions never lost a battle against cavalry-based armies again...

I seem to recall a certain Mark Anthony's unsuccesfull invasion of Parthia - which was so disastrouous that it actually sorta decided the coming war between Octavian and Mark Anthony as well, since his casulties were irreparable. And it did include battles, such as two Roman legions left with the siege weapons while Anthony moved ahead, whereafter Parthians crushed the legions and siege weapons. Except for that battle however, I'll prolly have to admit that the remainder of the Roman losses mostly came from being unable to take cities (having no siege weapons) and then having to retreat.

What of the Sassanid-Roman wars - the Shapurs defeated tons of Roman emperors, they must have won a battle now and then ;)

[beatoangelico]

at Adrianople too the gothic heavy cavalry did contribute quite a lot to valens' defeat...

[craziii]

don't get why you guys are talking about how fast the arrows are spend. if 120 arrows can kill just 5 of the enemy soldiers, the HA has done it's job. that is 5 deaths for the enemy vs non for the HA army.

did romans ever get any foreign archers in their army that matched or out ranged the parthian HA composite bows?

[artaxerxes]

[QUOTE=craziii]don't get why you guys are talking about how fast the arrows are spend. if 120 arrows can kill just 5 of the enemy soldiers, the HA has done it's job. that is 5 deaths for the enemy vs non for the HA army.
QUOTE]

well, if you don't have anything BESIDES HA's, it might be a problem if you're unable to kill more than 5 out of an enemy army of 8,000... ;) Of course, in a desert where you can retreat for weeks in all directions, guerilla warfare killing 5 out of 8,000 each day might work. But if the 8,000 are beseiging Ctesiphon and all you can do is kill 5 of them, you might wish you'd bothered to bring a few more arrows? :P ;)
Since nobody's questioned my Cambridge Ancient History-based assumption that Surena revolutionized HA warfare by making it possible for them to bring extra arrows along, I think the HA's will have been far less impressibe before that - fx Alexander thought none too highly of them, as the ones he encountered always ran out of arrows before making any serious impact (again I'm more or less quoting Cambridge Ancient History). I myself haven't been able to use HA's in EB properly - I seem to find they run out of arrows VERY early, whereas my Persian Archer/Spearmen shoot for thrice as long and seem to fight better in melee as well (this may however be due to my mishandling and lack of experience with light cavalry). Besides I'm Seleucid, so I'm not even MEANT to be able to use HA's properly

[beatoangelico]

actually HAs in EB are extremely strong...40 arrows while a standard persian archer has 25

[craziii]

arta: that is 1 single HA, what in the world makes you think 1 entire HA army will only have 120 arrows? geez. that is 1 single HA killing 5. read AQD's post, it's #14.

[Aper]

@ artaxerxes

50000 HA in their own territory vs : 2 legions with the impediment of massive siege weapons (300 wagons) and the supplies of the entire army, without their commander.. this was a brilliant move of the parthian general, who lead the attack personally, but tactically this battle means nothing, IMHO.

Against the Sassanids.. well, I don't know every battle, but in most of the wars of the ERE age the romans had to fight at the same time germans, persians and usurpers: no surprise they lost sometime, more surprising they won all this enemies in the end..

Again, most of the defeats of the Romans was caused by the stubborness of Belisarius and other "cavalry-general" who refused to use infantry in battle, even if , when employed properly, often perfomed well. Persians were masters in cavalry-based war, it's quite natural roman mounted (when not supported) suffered defeats against them..

cheers

And please, PLEASE, stop quoting the battle of Adrianople as a proof of the superiority of the cavalry: it's simply a legend. Period.
The roman defeat was caused by: idiocy of the general. troops exhausted. hasty attack of some stupids who started the battle before the army was in a proper formation. numerical inferiority of the romans, because the emperor didn't wait for the reinforcements: he didn't want to divide the glory with his fellow of the west. gothic cavalry simply arrived on the battlefield later, and saw a tempting flank to charge: romans didn't have reserves (read before why), and they lose. Add some dumb historians searching for a simbolic battle to start middle-ages and... Voilà! The Legend of Adrianople!

[Cartaphilus]

That's it.

Read about the "disastrous" parthic campaign of the Divus Julianus, aka the Apostate. Until he arrived to the enemy capital, the romans performed quite good.

But in the end some bad decisions and the death of Julianus made that the campaign failed. But the new agreement between the new emperor and the parthic king was no calimitous to the romans, as it would have been.

[The Persian Cataphract]

*laughs at many of the ludicrous entries in this thread*

Some of you have a very simplistic, rock-paper-scissor approach to assessing military weaknesses, and others have a loose grasp of understanding the capacity of a proper quiver and a gorytos (Between Scythian and Parthian types). The rivalry between foot-archery and mounted archery is complex enough to bring completeness to at least a handful of reports, and none of them were inherently better than another. There is a likewise rivalry between heavy cavalry and light cavalry, where a number of times the light cavalry emerged victorious (Enough to profoundly influence playing rules in DBA and DBM).

Out of common courtesy, I won't mention any names, but I warmly advise you to read up on your scholastics. Real-life warfare is anything but a Vanilla RTW fare.

[AqD]

*laughs at many of the ludicrous entries in this thread*

Some of you have a very simplistic, rock-paper-scissor approach to assessing military weaknesses, and others have a loose grasp of understanding the capacity of a proper quiver and a gorytos (Between Scythian and Parthian types). The rivalry between foot-archery and mounted archery is complex enough to bring completeness to at least a handful of reports, and none of them were inherently better than another. There is a likewise rivalry between heavy cavalry and light cavalry, where a number of times the light cavalry emerged victorious (Enough to profoundly influence playing rules in DBA and DBM).

Out of common courtesy, I won't mention any names, but I warmly advise you to read up on your scholastics. Real-life warfare is anything but a Vanilla RTW fare.

Hmm. If you know something we don't, why not just tell us here??