The Most pointless type of warfare!

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

Chariot warfare is the most pointless type of warfare. Oneday while playing as the Casse I notice the rebel briton tribe moving their heavy chariot general out of their gates, and directly toward the flank of my army. "Hey", I think to my self " Finally a chance to use my usless, now terribly weakened, Briton general, mounted on big wooden frames probably weighing about 500 ibs or more, with his awsome defence of 3, in battle"
I charge both of my 2 generals chariot units into battle against the enemies one unit of heavy chariots, and watch as they massacre eachother and I end losing one of my generals and 90% of both chariot units, until i finally rout the other chariot general. Why were the Chraiots weakened downso bad. I know ure supposed to charge them through a unit but i stil end up losing half or more of my chariots doing this. Would not a big wodden vehicle be a bit harder to bring down????

These questions plague my mind.........................

[Elthore]

I would think a well placed spear could disable one. If you figure 12 chariots going into a unit of 80 spearmen, its not hard to imagine losing a buncha chariots....

....but, chariot vs chariot battles? i dunno.
Actually i was under the impression that they(them celts on that island) mainly used chariots as a way of transporting troops to the front.

[Cheexsta]

Because chariots were pretty much a one-trick-pony at this time. Most people had figured out how to beat them, and heck - even if it is a massive wooden vehicle, it still has two horses at the front. Take out one and you've made the vehicle useless. They're still handy - breaking up formations and such - but are generally inferior to heavy cavalry.

So yes, chariots are (were) basically the most pointless form of warfare.

[econ21]

I thought most chariots (not the scythed kind) were essentially missile platforms - get close to enemy formations, shoot at them with arrows and javelins. Get out if they come to close. I don't think it was pointless as I think it lasted a long time (the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians etc did it long before RTWs time frame, as did the ancient Britons in that time period). The Egyptian archer chariots in vanilla RTW seemed to capture this skirmish style of chariot combat reasonably well (even if they are rather unrealistically fast and long ranged).

I am not terribly convinced by the other style of chariot combat modelled in RTW - the crashing into massed infantry and milling around style. The poll in this forum for scythed chariots seemed to suggest that even for that variety of chariot, using chariots for shock was rare.

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

even if it is a massive wooden vehicle, it still has two horses at the front. Take out one and you've made the vehicle useless. ..

I see what your saying but the same applys to a horseman, think about it all you have to do is give one good slash to the horses leg and it will go down. I think Chariot armor should be raised, or EB switch the generals chariot units to spear throwers which would be more logical. If you look in EB's animation pack they have skirmisher charioteers!!

[oudysseos]

Bear in mind that historically chariots in Egypt, Assyria and even Britain were pulled by small horses not suitable for any kind of cavalry- some Egyptian chariots were even pulled by donkeys. The big horses used by modern cavalry up to WWI are pretty recent (as is the stirrup). Even the Huns and Mongols used lots of ponies. Also, a chariot was a mark of nobility and thus an element of battlefield command, and damned expensive to build and maintain, thus a status symbol.
The Casse in the 3rd century BCE could not have trained the heavy cavalry available to the Macedonians: they just didn't have the horses for it. The kind of armies people fought with were a result of the resources they had available to them.

[Trithemius]

Didn't Assyrian, some Indian and some Chinese chariots have both missile-armed crew and spear-armed crew? I know that, at some point in time, these people used chariots for their shock of impact value as well as their mobility - although I suspect this would pre-date the use of drilled pike-armed infantry formations who are less likely to scatter and are more likely to drive charging chariots off.

[Cheexsta]

I see what your saying but the same applys to a horseman, think about it all you have to do is give one good slash to the horses leg and it will go down.

Except:
1. Singular horsemen are much more manouverable than a chariot. Having to try and co-ordinate two animals would do that.
2. Since there's two horses, you just need to take one down to make the whole thing ineffective. You could therefore assume that a chariot would be roughly twice as vulnerable as an ordinary cavalrymen.

Taking both of these points into account makes chariots seem very fragile, to me. I can see chariots being capable of taking down most enemy cavalry (horses being less agile than a human, thus making it harder to avoid the blades) and being good at disrupting a formation, but beyond that, I wouldn't expect them to inflict massive casualties.

IMHO, the proper way to use a unit of chariots would require careful timing, using them in tandem with other units. Chariots can charge into an enemy formation, followed by cavalry or infantry moments later. This may even work to a small extent against phalanxes; you may lose a fair few chariots, but they will open up gaps through which your troops/cavalry can engage the men themselves, rather than the end of dozens of spears.

Just my 2c.

[Urnamma]

Haven't read the whole thread, so I may be rehashing things, but since I'm a bronze age historian primarily, I'll give it a go.

Chariots are pre-cavalry, for the most part. Their use is depracated, in the sense that they lasted longer than they were entirely useful. There is a substantial chariot culture, and in places like britain, they are used because no extremely good cavalry has displaced them.

In the beginning of chariot usage, the chariot came from the steppe. The newly domesticated horse could not yet be ridden from the forward control position, and as such was not a particularly reliable battle platform.

Using the available materials, attaching a sort of lightweight wagon to the horse was a good way to make a mobile missile platform, from which an archer or javelineer could ride circles round his opponents and also deliver melee troops (nobles, generally) to key points on the battlefield.

Also remember that pre-Greek and pre-Celtic warfare was largely not fought in a 'face-to-face' manner. They didn't charge at each other and hack away with reckless abandon, they generally formed up, exchanged insults and missiles, then one side ran away.

So, in that sense, you have to understand the environment into which the chariot was arriving. Also, once again, remember that it took thousands of years of breeding since the chariot arrived to make the horse suitable for use as a directly mountable vehicle.

More in a bit.

[Elthore]

good info, was always curious about the origins of the chariot

[jerby]

they generally formed up, exchanged insults and missiles, then one side ran away.

sounds exciting....

[the_handsome_viking]

The most pointless type of warfare is engaging the enemy in a formation that is specifically designed to resemble the shape of an errect penis.

Which I have never tried by the way.

[khelvan]

No, I think that would be pointed, not pointless.

[GodEmperorLeto]

Check this out. Its a book about the rise and fall of chariot warfare.