Quote Originally Posted by [cF]Adherbal
naptha throwers as actual units obviously didn't exist, but neither did "sword" or "spear" units. Naptha was used mostly in sieges tho, but it's not an unrealistic unit. Certainly not up to the degree of RTW's "wardogs" or "arcanii"
They did, the naffatun specifically did exist, not sure about wether other armies used them, but the ommayads, and abassids utilised them as units. They were emphasised in history books here as seperate units as well since the caliphate armies had 4 types, Al Kashafa(scouts), Al Sariya(main army), Naffatun (naptha slingers), and al Manjaniq(Siege weapons, Manjaniq = Mangonel, sometimes they refer to the ballista as a manjaniq, probably to the similiarity in the mechanics, the arabic manjaniq is much like a roman onager as opposed to a trebuchet).