I was just thinking...

[Dayve]

Something popped into my head and i have no idea why... But it's been making me think all damn night... And the thing that popped into my head was this...

What if horses never existed? What if, during evolution or whatever, man evolved into... Well, man, but horses never came into being... Can you imagine how so very different history would be without horses? Warfare i'm talking about... No cavalry... No horses to pull baggage carts and supplies up to the front line... No mobile units of ancient armies... How would the armed forces have evolved without the use of horses? What do you think personally would have changed?

I think the phalanx would never have become obsolete... I know it didn't in fact become obsolete, just the tactics that were employed with it became obsolete... But i think the phalanx would have continued to dominate the battlefield right up until the gunpowder era... Because a phalanx' worst enemy is the cavalry... Once you pin it down the cavalry hits the back and that's goodnight... Unless they started training men to be super fast runners and armed them with spears... Or maybe the west would have been archer dependant like the east... I don't know...

Why am i asking this? I don't know... It just came into my head out of nowhere and i thought it would be fun to discuss.

[Wardo]

And camels, and cows, and lhamas, and elephants, and buffallos and bisons, and girraffes, and zebras, and goats, and sheep, etc..

Human creativity is the most powerfull war tool, just as you were creative enough to imagine a world without horses, and/or the things mentioned above, someone would've thought of a substitute, or adapt better than other people.

Anyway, if nothing changed, the Eastern Horse kingdoms would be ridiculously easy to conquer by heavy infantry armies, first come, first serve.

[Dayve]

But all of those that you mentioned aren't practical... Elephants were way too expensive to keep, and one can't really ride a buffalo, a cow, a llama, a bison, a giraffe, a zebra, a goat or a sheep... At least not effectively enough to fight in a battle...

[Mithradates]

If the eastern knigdoms didnt have horses then the likelihood would be that they too would evolve heavy infantry otherwise as you say hey would have just been steamrollered. Interestingly didnt the aztecs, americans not have horses until europeans came?

[Justiciar]

a llama

I take it you've never been to the Tibet AR?

[Avicenna]

camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels camels

[/Mithrandir mode]

[Dayve]

Camels aren't as effective as horse though are they? And can they survive in the west indefinately like horses can?

[sithlord85]

I take it you've never been to the Tibet AR?

wtf....huh

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

_____________________________________
"I don't fear the dark side as you do obi wan"
(Anakin Skywalker)
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[Volume II]

Beware the wrath of my armored sheep!

[Slasher]

Well horses were trained by humans to be ridden so I suppose if they didn't exist some of the animals which are wild atm would have been trained and bred to be ridden....

I suppose the Eastern ancient armies simply would have relied upon fast archers or guerilla tactics against heavy infantry....the parrellel with the Americas is good to see what it would be like....

[Trithemius]

I think the phalanx would never have become obsolete... I know it didn't in fact become obsolete, just the tactics that were employed with it became obsolete... But i think the phalanx would have continued to dominate the battlefield right up until the gunpowder era... Because a phalanx' worst enemy is the cavalry... Once you pin it down the cavalry hits the back and that's goodnight... Unless they started training men to be super fast runners and armed them with spears... Or maybe the west would have been archer dependant like the east... I don't know...

Why am i asking this? I don't know... It just came into my head out of nowhere and i thought it would be fun to discuss.

You are aware, of course, of the resurgence of pike-block based tactics in the 16th century, and the so-called "pike and shot" era?

Have a read if you aren't, early-modern warfare is quite interesting in a lot of ways.

[Dayve]

I am aware of the rebirth of the phalanx in the gunpowder era yes... Squares of pikes with musketeers in the middle... What more do ye need!?

[cunctator]

You can look onto american warfare before the europeans arrive. They had quite well developed armies without horses, but also wothout metall weapons and armour.

[Dayve]

One can't have a well developed ancient army without horses, metal weapons and armour...

One can however have well developed tactics and ideas...

[Angadil]

One can't have a well developed ancient army without horses, metal weapons and armour...

That would depend on the definiton of "well developed ancient army" you use. After reading just a bit about, for example, Inca campaigns mine really doesn't. Horses and metal don't seem necessary for very sophisticated warfare. Of course, I am not saying that an army without metal will not lose most of the time against one with it or anything like that.

[Dayve]

Yeah i agree but if they don't have metal then they are all likely armed with wooden shields and wooden tipped spears... And this is how they probably were always armed since what preceeds a wooden spear?

They might have had well developed tactics and strategies, but without metal and horses they can never be well developed... Maybe if you just look at the American continent ONLY, and not the rest of the world... Then perhaps some can be considered more developed than others perhaps in the designs of their weapons and shields, but once you factor in the rest of the world like the most ancient of eastern civilisations like the babylonians and see that even then they had primitive metal tipped shiat... They're not well developed at all.

[Warlord 11]

Didn't they use stone tipped spears? I would think that it would be better than wood. And I am pretty sure they had stone.

[Angadil]

Of course they had stone tipped spears (and arrows and javelins). They also had corselets and helmets of quilted and hardened cotton (leather also), shields of different designs and materials, slings (entire units of slingers), etc... Inca armies (and those of their adversaries) numbered in the tens of thousands (and they could have several in the field simultaneously) and were well-organized into units of different sizes, used standards... They carried out long campaigns that required complex logistics (part of which were large llama trains) and fought pitched battles putting into practice all standard tactical possibilities (outflanking, envelopment, etc...)

So, note I used the term "sophisticated warfare" Warfare doesn't end in weaponry and armor and I just wanted to remark that you can have large armies, advanced army organization, good discipline, good, effective command and control systems and efficient, complex logistics in armies using stone tipped spears.

[Dayve]

Guess so... Once again i have been pwned.

Shouldn't have opened my mouth... It's not like i actually know anything about Inca's and what have you...

[Reverend Joe]

Man could have still used the ass as a suitable substitute. If bred properly, asses could have been used as effective riding animals. However, it is doubtful they would have ever had as much charging power as a horse; more likely, they would be used for scouting and flank harrasment; they would also probably be fleeter and turn faster, much like the Arabian mares. Just a wild guess, though.

(And yes, I know you are questioning whether I have to use the word "ass"... well,an "ass" sounds like the true brother of a horse, an animal worthy of respect; whereas a "donkey" sounds like a retarded animal.)

[Angadil]

Guess so... Once again i have been pwned.

Shouldn't have opened my mouth... It's not like i actually know anything about Inca's and what have you...

Hey, don't look at it that way. You were right about the weapon systems: you could safely call them "inferior" to those of pretty much any army of the Classical period (or even the Bronze Age), even if they were better than wooden spears. All I wanted was to show that some elements of warfare can be almost totally independent (while others tend to be linked). That makes answering your original "what if" question harder, but also makes military history more interesting and fun, IMO.

[QwertyMIDX]

They did use obsidian weapons pretty regularly as well. The weapon was called Maquahuitl and was apparently incredibly sharp, if not very durable. This is not particularly suprising though, obsidian instruments are still used in cardiac surgery because a well made obsidian blade is something like 5 times sharper than even high-quality steel scalpels. In the case of the meso-americans' use of obsidian weapons there are a number of eye witness accounts claiming that they were capable of slicing off limbs and heads.

[Big_John]

a conquistador named bernal diaz del castillo wrote about the maquahuitl in his account of cortés' conquest of mexico, "The Conquest of New Spain":

"While we were at grips with this great army and their dreadful broadswords [maquahuitl], many of the most powerful among the enemy seem to have decided to capture a horse. They began with a furious attack, and laid hands on a good mare well trained both for sport and battle. Her rider, Pedro de Moron, was a fine horseman; and as he charged with three other horsemen into the enemy ranks--they had been instructed to charge together for mutual support--some of them seized his lance so he could not use it, and others slashed at him with their broadswords [maquahuitl], wounding him severely. Then they slashed at his mare, cutting her head at the neck so that it only hung by the skin. The mare fell dead, and if his mounted comrades had not come to Moron's rescue, he would probably have been killed also."

so apparently these weapons could decapitate a horse, much less a man. volcanic glass is some scary stuff. in a trip to hawaii for geology back in my college days, we had to wear special boots just to walk out on the old lava flows, and you had to go through several pairs of those boots in a field season.

i imagine most armor would have been extremely effective against the weapons, though.. glasses tend to break rather easily. but maybe they had ways of tempering it somehow?

[Trithemius]

I am aware of the rebirth of the phalanx in the gunpowder era yes...

Pike blocks predate effective gunpowder tactics - in fact early firearms groups were intended to protect the pikes, not vice versa.

Squares of pikes with musketeers in the middle... What more do ye need!?

Integrated artillery support, more rapid mechanisms, and -finally- bayonets?

Military technology and practice seems to move in cycles, if there was no cavalry then you'd probably see more use of light infantry in harrassing roles and perhaps earlier development of 18th century-style marching patterns.

[Mujalumbo]

I know I'm just speculating here, but wouldn't the steppe nomadic peoples have simply adopted some other beast of burden? At first, horses weren't developed enough to carry the burden of a grown man. It'd take many a generation before they could transition their forces from chariot-bourne to out-and-out cavalry...

[general_varro]

I would suggest you read the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Its a tough read, but also very interesting.
I personally think that without horses, warfare would be completely different...horses played a huge role in tech development, transportation, and even our immune responses (we developed our immune response to many diseases from our herd animals...which the American Indian did not).

Right off the top of my head, I would say that the most direct correlation to warfare would be no horses means no chariots. Chariots were the superweapon of the ancient world and the basis for the mounted horse archer and eventually the knight...

once again, I suggest reading the book.

[Angadil]

I would suggest you read the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Its a tough read, but also very interesting.

I'd second that recommendation.

Right off the top of my head, I would say that the most direct correlation to warfare would be no horses means no chariots. Chariots were the superweapon of the ancient world and the basis for the mounted horse archer and eventually the knight...

Agreed, but then again, what about other equids? I seem to recall that one of the first representations of equids used in warfare is a Sumerian war-cart pulled by onagers. I am not saying their performance would have been comparable to that of horses, but maybe good enough to make it worthy? Better an onager based chariotry and, maybe, eventually cavalry than none at all?

[eadingas]

As many have said, pre-colombian America is the right example of horse-less army. Don't underestimate the Incas - they have made quite a valiant stand against the conquistadors, not like their wussy cousins from the north.
Horses are simply most effective in what they do, but they are not the only things that can do it. Anything that is fast, thin and can carry a man on his back can be used. People ride ostriches, you know :)

[Trithemius]

I'd second that recommendation.

And then read "Collapse"; its very interesting even if I think he neglects some societies that might bear scrutiny. :)

[Trithemius]

Agreed, but then again, what about other equids? I seem to recall that one of the first representations of equids used in warfare is a Sumerian war-cart pulled by onagers. I am not saying their performance would have been comparable to that of horses, but maybe good enough to make it worthy? Better an onager based chariotry and, maybe, eventually cavalry than none at all?

I wonder if, without horses, people would have tried to seriously domesticate other animals for military purposes? I am reminded of "The General" (essentially the life of Belisarius in a different setting) where they ride extremely large dogs instead of horses. It took some breeding to get horses capable of carrying men in armour - perhaps, with sufficient time and breeding, other animals might have proved as useful (or even better?).