The mongol hordes!

[DisruptorX]

Greetings, I figured this would be the proper forum to post in. I would like to ask about the composition of mongol armies. I have been surfing around the internet, and figured there would be some people here who are knowledgable about the subject.

A current project of mine is a mongol army for Warhammer. From what I've gathered so far, the mongols would have had large numbers of light archer cavalry with bows and sabres, light cavalry with lances and bows, as well as infantry.

What sort of equipment would mongol heavy infantry be armed with? Would they have bows and hand weapons, like in MTW 2, or would hand weapons and a shield be more accurate. I read that some would be armed with long spears, but that site mentioned that they used chinese mercenary spearmen, so I'm not sure if the mongols themselves used spear infantry.

I also read that foot archers were very, very rare in mongol armies.

Any information on mongol infantry and heavy infantry would be much appreciated!

[seireikhaan]

Well, from everything I've gathered, the Mongols didn't really have a 'heavy' infantry like might be seen in China or western europe. As a matter of fact, they had relatively little infantry at all, at least themselves. Now, this isn't taking into account mercenaries, which would have become more prevelant in use after the Empire became too large for just the Mongol and steppe cavalries to control. The mongols also used heavy cavalry, who wore cuirasses of either ox hide/leather or metal. They were generally armed with lances and scimitar. I'm sure if you got Orda in here, he could name a bunch of stuff I've missed and go into great detail to boot.

[DisruptorX]

Indeed, they had heavy cavalry. Those will be a nightmare to model and convert though, since I"m working with all metals.

Mainly, I've just been reading that the mongols did employ infantry in various conflicts. I'm curious as to how they would have looked, for the most part.

[Conradus]

Couldn't part of that infantry just be dismounted cavalry? Especially in sieges etc that seems an option to me.

[Peasant Phill]

Contact Orda Khan like greaterkhaan says. He's the Mongol expert here at the Org.

Orda member page

[The Wizard]

The Mongols had great numbers of horse archer cavalry. I'd say that the Mongol horse archer made up at least 90% of your average tumen, the Mongol division. That number was steeled by a small number of well-armed and armored nobles in full panoply (mail, lamellar, horse bard), though it should be noted that so-called "Mongol heavy cavalry" only rarely involved itself in melee combat and was most often to be found alongside the horse archers engaging the enemy at range.

Mongol light cavalry -- the horse archers -- could of course dismount, but AFAIK only sieges saw large numbers of Mongol soldiers fighting on foot.

Mongol armies, besides these two types of soldiers, were also supplemented by auxiliaries. These could range from the troops provided by vassal states on the Eurasian steppe belt -- the Cumans/Kipchaks, Kara-Khitai, etc. -- which were hardly distinguishable from their Mongol counterparts, to Chinese (and Iranian) engineers and physicians, Korean infantry levies, and, later on, Chinese infantry levies. A large number of the 100 000 or so men that Batu Khan and Subedei took with them when invading Europe was made up of such sedentary auxiliaries (which is logical -- Mongol regulars made up a number of approximately 100 000, 10% of the total population of Mongolia of one million at the time, and involving them all in a single campaign would be a gamble even by Mongol standards).

[KrooK]

As Baba told, you have to divide mongol army and auxillary units.
Whole mongol army was mounted. They sometimes fought on foot but it wasn't normal infantry but dismounted cavarly. Most of soldiers used bow and sabre. Heavy cavarly (nobles) used sabres and sometimes maces.
Auxilary units counted mostly from infantry -they were being used to sieges and assaults.

[The Wizard]

Mongol heavy cavalry also used lances, though I'm not sure if they couched theirs like European knights. I'm inclined to say they didn't, seeing as they avoided making direct contact with Polish and Hungarian ones at both Legnica as well as Mohi.

[KrooK]

According to polish relations of Legnica mongol heavy cavarly was worse than polish/teutonic knights. After first contact with polish/teutonic knights they withdrawed and regroupped .... then something happened. What was that is unclear but at the end Poles/Teutons lost.

[seireikhaan]

Uh, sorry Krook, but I don't think that's any indicator of skill in combat. That there is a little thing called 'feigned withdrawal'. The Mongols were incredibly good at doing it. As for that 'something happened', well, I can take a gander at that. The Teutons and Poles chased after the 'fleeing' Mongols, only to come under intense arrow fire from an ambush, and well, the rest is history, as they say.

[The Wizard]

According to polish relations of Legnica mongol heavy cavarly was worse than polish/teutonic knights. After first contact with polish/teutonic knights they withdrawed and regroupped .... then something happened. What was that is unclear but at the end Poles/Teutons lost.

The Mongols well appreciated the destructive power of the charge of European knights, and wisely refused to make contact when the Silesian and Teutonic knights charged after them. Feigning retreat, they egged them on until they led them into a smoke screen, an idea copied from the Chinese as far as I remember. There, they were shot to pieces and the survivors cut up while they were disconnected from the Poles' main infantry body. A classical example of unsupported cavalry, ruthlessly exploited by the enemy.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Mamluks and the Samurai were the Only Ones to actually give them Ploblems I presume. Reading 3 Books about the Mongols, so yea :-).

[ElectricEel]

From what I've read, in the case of Japan, the mongols were stopped due harsh weather destroying their fleets, and in the case of the Mamluks, the bulk of the mongol forces had left to settle succession disputes, leaving the Mamluks to fight a relatively small force.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

From what I've read, in the case of Japan, the mongols were stopped due harsh weather destroying their fleets, and in the case of the Mamluks, the bulk of the mongol forces had left to settle succession disputes, leaving the Mamluks to fight a relatively small force.

Mamaluks fought the Mongols serveal times, only losing a small amount of battles to them.


Samurai, Yes, Their Ships were destroyed both times, But they did fight the Samurai on some of the Islands outside of Japan I think.

[The Wizard]

No; the Mamluks only fought a true Mongol army once, and on that occasion -- the overblown victory at A'in Jalut -- only half of the army was actually Mongol, the rest being composed of the same Christian allies who sacked Baghdad while the Mongols watched. The bulk of Hulegu's army was already withdrawing towards Iran.

On all other occasions, they fought the Ilkhans and their forces, which were Turkic and Iranian, like every force from Iran since the Seljuks. Ethnic Mongols were outnumbered by at least 1000 to 1 in Iran, anthropologists estimate.

[Furious Mental]

Get a Mongol cavalrymen, and take away his horse, and that's a Mongol infantryman.



That is from Rashid Al-Din's Universal History, an Ilkhan text. As has been pointed, not much of the Ilkhanate was Mongol. But you get the idea.

[DisruptorX]

The Mongols well appreciated the destructive power of the charge of European knights, and wisely refused to make contact when the Silesian and Teutonic knights charged after them. Feigning retreat, they egged them on until they led them into a smoke screen, an idea copied from the Chinese as far as I remember. There, they were shot to pieces and the survivors cut up while they were disconnected from the Poles' main infantry body. A classical example of unsupported cavalry, ruthlessly exploited by the enemy.

Indeed. While knight's charge would crush the mongols in melee, the mongols were smart enough to avoid this in most cases, and apparantly would retreat and shoot out the knights' horses from under them.

[The Stranger]

mongols fought predominantly on horseback, as did the tribes who lived next to them, merkit and kereit. most warriors had around 3 horses, definitly after genghis khan (temudjin). most were protected by leather or yakhide curiasses, rich had metal plates attached to that. the horses of the rich and important were also armed similarly. they were armed with bows, lances, scimitars and sometimes shields. they fought in groups of 10, 100, 1000 and the biggest being the tumen, which were 10000 soldiers. the leader of the tumen was usually a skilled noble or general, often the khans brother or cousin.

they used feint retreats very often, showering the enemy with arrows to lure them out of position to later attack them from 2 sides or wear them out while they fired volley after volley from a safe distance. the bodyguards were the best soldiers in the army.

if you want to read a fun, educating and good book about the mongols read The Mongol Wolf, written by Homeric (his writername)