Parthian Army composition

**Intranetusa** · 01-19-2010, 08:14

Originally Posted by satalexton

not all, most hitched rides on wagons and chariots..A horse for every infantry is an expensive matter...

On wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mobei

The battle of Mobei resulted in 20,000 dead soldiers but 110,000 dead horses... ='(

**satalexton** · 01-19-2010, 08:35

Wiki's crazy at times, I have no idea why they call it a 'battle' when it was infact a massive campaign spanning at least 3 main fronts and god knows how many skirmishes...I have a copy of Han Shu, and I can't be bothered to count.

What was true is that Han had a horse shortages for the next decade, which caused them to rely on allies for HAs while 'upgrading' their existing ones to (almost catank-like) heavy cavalry...

...ahh i think I went OT..lol sry.

**ziegenpeter** · 01-19-2010, 23:57

Sorry I handn'T the time to read the whole thread, but maybe you should also consider the year we're talking about. I think the might be a difference of the army's composition of the 3rd and of the 1st century bc...

**anubis88** · 01-20-2010, 00:00

Originally Posted by ziegenpeter

Sorry I handn'T the time to read the whole thread, but maybe you should also consider the year we're talking about. I think the might be a difference of the army's composition of the 3rd and of the 1st century bc...

Well the page states, that it was standard practice for the Parthians to have a lot of infantry. A sentence like this makes you think this goes way back

**Intranetusa** · 01-20-2010, 03:31

Originally Posted by satalexton

Wiki's crazy at times, I have no idea why they call it a 'battle' when it was infact a massive campaign spanning at least 3 main fronts and god knows how many skirmishes...I have a copy of Han Shu, and I can't be bothered to count.

What was true is that Han had a horse shortages for the next decade, which caused them to rely on allies for HAs while 'upgrading' their existing ones to (almost catank-like) heavy cavalry...

...ahh i think I went OT..lol sry.

Fulfill your duties as a citizen of wikipedia and edit/fix that article! :D

**Julianus** · 01-20-2010, 04:01

Originally Posted by Intranetusa

On wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mobei

The battle of Mobei resulted in 20,000 dead soldiers but 110,000 dead horses... ='(

This is right according to the records in classic Chinese histories, they brought more than 140,000 horses into desert while only 30,000 returned.

**satalexton** · 01-20-2010, 04:24

The XiongNu took even worse losses....that does reflect the brutal, mutually destroying nature of war =[

**ziegenpeter** · 01-20-2010, 23:30

No, maybe they had more cavalry in the earlier times, when they were "only" horse riders. do we know the composition of other Horse people?

**satalexton** · 01-21-2010, 01:24

I'm not saying they lost -more- horses, but more rather they lost almost all of their herds, and grazing grounds. They were literally pushed to the desert, and forced to live there.