New Unit - What is it?

**keravnos** · 01-20-2007, 09:35

Well let us take a deep breath...

1. Baktrians had a lot of money
2. Their not so friendly neighbours used scale armor
3. The Baktrian Greeks Indian subjects had and still do a big tradition in iron casting, use and manipulation of iron.
4. Elephant corps, (Panzer corps of the time) would have the very best in terms of the people fighting from the "Thorakion" of the elephant. Be it weapons, and thorax (at least where needed)
5. Linothorax could still be used, but since they had the money to spend, why not go for the best quality armor available?

=

Good enough for us.

So far as the unarmored mahut thing, well, it was something common for the people of the time, and place. The mathuras, which were conquered after heavy fighting in 180 BC but rebelled in 100 BC used their elephants in the way shown below...

and a reconstrucion of the Mathuran elephant coprs...

**Sarcasm** · 01-20-2007, 16:31

Kos, can't seem to able to see those photos there mate. Anything special I gotta do to see them?

**MiniMe** · 01-20-2007, 17:30

Originally Posted by keravnos

Now that's a very strange way to seat on the elephant's back.
I know, what I'm talking about, because I did ride on indian elephant's back in Thailand and in Sri Lanka.
You just can't sit there as on horseback like the javeliner shown above, there has to be a flat platform (IMO)

**Zaknafien** · 01-20-2007, 17:32

no there doesnt, ive sat on an elephant's back myself, "bareback" as it were.

**spirit_of_rob** · 01-20-2007, 17:40

unless you want to sing soprano however i wouldnt recommend going to fast hehe

**Zaknafien** · 01-20-2007, 17:48

heh. very true..and granted i was like 11 at the time.. hey maybe those chaps are eunuchs.

**MiniMe** · 01-20-2007, 19:11

eunuchs

Slightly offtopic (sorry):
I didn't found any picture of armoured elephant, however the fact they did exist was mentioned somewhere and that they had copper rings protecting their feet.
Could somebody, please, post their picture of non-Wikipedia source here (don't trust it too much)

**MeinPanzer** · 01-20-2007, 20:36

Originally Posted by MiniMe

eunuchs

Slightly offtopic (sorry):
I didn't found any picture of armoured elephant, however the fact they did exist was mentioned somewhere and that they had copper rings protecting their feet.
Could somebody, please, post their picture of non-Wikipedia source here (don't trust it too much)

1 Maccabees 43:

And Eleazar, called Avaran, saw that one of the beasts was equipped with royal armor. It was taller than all the others, and he supposed that the king was upon it.

His assumption "that the king was upon it" was, of course, entirely unfounded, because Seleukid kings never rode elephants.

There is also a fragment of a metal figurine, the provenance and date of which I have never been able to find, though it is definitely Hellenistic, which shows an armoured elephant. This is what all reconstructions of armoured elephants are invariably based on. The metal hoops are based on some terracotta figurines showing a Seleukid elephant with a Galatian warrior in its trunk and which were made to commemorate the victory of Antiochus I in the "Elephant Battle." In fact, what are interpreted as metal leg defences may simply be the artist's interpretation of the folds in an elephant's skin, since similar hoops are modelled around the neck as well.