Real life picture of RTW Cataphracts!!!

[Intranetusa]

Real life picture of RTW Cataphracts!!!

Real


vs RTW

[bovi]

Nevermind.

[Reverend Joe]

All righty. Can we see a real-life picture of an EB kataphract now?

[Thaatu]

Looks like a parade cataphract to me. Depends on what you call "real"...

[Pharnakes]

I have to admit that I can't actualy see what is so bad it.

[bovi]

The "real" picture does not have horse armour. I must confess I first thought he meant EB cataphracts, but I see now it's RTW. So the camel cataphracts could actually be such in the game, it's been so long since I played vanilla I can't even remember if they were there.

[russia almighty]

Speaking of vanilla katatank stories I have steam rolled even phalanx pikemen with a head on charge .

[Lowenklee]

Well, ignoring the issue of it's accuracy, it's a beautiful picture. What city is that in the backround, is this from a film?

[The Persian Cataphract]

Well, ignoring the issue of it's accuracy, it's a beautiful picture. What city is that in the backround, is this from a film?

This is a promotional picture of Roger Koupelian's "The Fugitive prince", of a Sassanid cavalry with a reconstructed Ctesiphon in the background. The documentary was supposed to be filmed in New Zealand. The project, at least publically, hasn't been updated for years.

have a look here:
http://www.invaderdigital.com

http://www.fugitivestudios.com/fugitive_trailer.html

[Reverend Joe]

Why the hell would you even bother putting someone that heavily armored on a completely unarmored horse?

"Well, I could aim for the freakin' tank, or I could aim for the soft pile of unarmored flesh he's riding on... Hmm, decisions, decisions..."

[Wolfman]

I haven't heard it put any better Reverend Gonzo ( chuckles )

[Watchman]

Why the hell would you even bother putting someone that heavily armored on a completely unarmored horse?

Why did most armoured cavalry throughout history ride completely unarmoured horses, and do quite well ?

[bovi]

Seems to me you would either want to have light armour for mobility or heavy armour all over for extreme protection and punch.

My guess would be that with limited funds, you rather wanted yourself to survive than your horse. You can also still fight on foot if your horse dies unless you get caught under. Watchman, would you like to answer your own question, please?

[Watchman]

Far as I know, it's largely because horses are big animals and can be surprisingly difficult to take down - certainly rather more so than humans. The beasts have been recorded making spirited attempts at running even after having one leg taken off by a cannonball. Also one gets the impression that for one reason or another the focus of enemy attacks was normally the rider - dunno why really. Never been in a cavalry fight myself so I don't know the specific tactical dynamics involved. Aiming specifically at the horse was for one reason or another apparently somewhat unusual (not counting of course infantry spearmen "setting" to receive a charge - they normally put their spear-points on the level of the animals' chest). My guess would be partly the sheer difficulty of actually inflicting serious injury on a big well-muscles animal with its rider interfering at every opportunity; certainly one would expect armour for at least the rather exposed head and neck of the horse to have very soon appeared in some form, even very light, in near-universal use among shock cavalry if the beasts were vulnerable that way.

This manifestly failed to happen though, and while horse barding was certainly quite useful in many ways (albeit problematic in others) it obviously was in no way necessary for stellarly effective cavalry action.

[Pharnakes]

On the other hand, incidents like the morning of the battle of balaclava, when Cambell and was it 200 highlanders held off 2000 heavy russian horse by firing at the horses, and creating a "wall of death" which the horses behind would trip over...