Historians, help me with cannon elephants

[Myrddraal]

So, I know for a fact that there are historical sources which say culverins were mounted on elephants. However, I thought they were a glitch in history, soon to be made obsolete by the vulnerability to opposing cannon fire.

Have CA got it right?

I'm by no means a historian, I base my knowledge entirely on wikipedia. Can a real historian help me?

The elephant mahouts, and riders in the elephant carriages carried bows and arrows to attack on coming cavalry and infantry and also carried long spears for close quarters combat. The archery evolved into more advanced weapons, and several Khmer and Indian kings have utilized giant crossbow platforms (similar to the Ballista) to fire long armor piercing shafts to kill other enemy War Elephants and chariots/cavalry. The late 1500s also saw the use of culverin on elephants, but the onset of gunpowder made the large and relatively slow war elephants obsolete.

[kambiz]

There were mounted cannons on Camels ,Especially during "Safavid" reign and after that which called "Zanborak".But I haven't heard anything about "cannon elephants" .Sounds interesting.

-Kambiz

[TB666]

So, I know for a fact that there are historical sources which say culverins were mounted on elephants. However, I thought they were a glitch in history, soon to be made obsolete by the vulnerability to opposing cannon fire.

Well your source seems to agree with you.
It was a attempt to make elephants useful in battle even tho their time was up.
It was like cavalry units in WWI and II.

So did this unit exist, yes it did so I guess CA did get it right.

[sharrukin]

They got Flaming Pigs right as well! They are mentioned once in use against Pyrrhus.

What about Blind Royal Knights?
It happened!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_I,_Count_of_Luxemburg

[Ringeck]

Let me spell out a word:

R.E.P.R.E.S.E.N.T.A.T.I.V.I.T.Y.

In 2052, with the release of Iraq:Total War, Creative Assemblys Bob Xziropoplof-Chiang-Smith proudly intones:
"We'll have all kinds of units! From U.S. Marine Mechanized Infantrymen to the more exotic and exciting ones - like U.S. Presidents intoning "Mission completed" to temporarily raise U.S. Morale, and Comical Alis, who can dispel american units for the Iraqis! Also, we've got some great buildings - the Americans can build Abu Graibs, a building that produces the well-documented National Guard Female Dominatrix Torturer!"

;-)

[Mikhal]

I have actually got a memory reading about culverin elephants in some war history books though i really don't remember much of it.

It wouldn't surprise me as there were a lot of wierd experimental weapons during the medieval period and it would sound pretty reasonable that those asian warlords that have been relieng on thier huge elephants forces for a long time would try to modernize them.

In 2052, with the release of Iraq:Total War, Creative Assemblys Bob Xziropoplof-Chiang-Smith proudly intones:
"We'll have all kinds of units! From U.S. Marine Mechanized Infantrymen to the more exotic and exciting ones - like U.S. Presidents intoning "Mission completed" to temporarily raise U.S. Morale, and Comical Alis, who can dispel american units for the Iraqis! Also, we've got some great buildings - the Americans can build Abu Graibs, a building that produces the well-documented National Guard Female Dominatrix Torturer!"

so how many presidents would there be in one president card? and do you mean Mr. Chemical Ali?

[Ringeck]

Again, R.E.P.R.E.S.E.N.T.A.T.I.V.I.T.Y.

so how many presidents would there be in one president card? and do you mean Mr. Chemical Ali?

I don't know? Like the Woodstock: Total War: Shaggy-Haired Hippy Invasion Priest Units, perhaps? 10-15 or so? The sources only speak of one President holding speeches, but it could easily have been more, right? Right? And I don't know much about chemical Ali, but Wikipedia 2050 (A property of the CocaPepsi Craft Foods Corporation) says the following about Comical Alis:
Due to the lack of good digital preservation techniques after it turned out silicon was less heat-resistant than expected, there is no consensus among historians what number of Comical Alis the Iraqi government had at its disposal. The number of surviving newspaper clippings seem to imply, though, that at least five seperate Comical Alis were deployed in the defense of Iraq, causing, by methods unknown, a number of U.S. armoured colummns to disappear during the final push on Baghdad. Source: The sources on the first Iraq war: source problems caused by the Digital Disk Crash of 2022, Dr. Hung Petravoplask Pettersen, Buryat National Knowiversity, PanArctic Coalition Press; ISBN 3, 2049

[TB666]

They got Flaming Pigs right as well! They are mentioned once in use against Pyrrhus.

What about Blind Royal Knights?
It happened!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_I,_Count_of_Luxemburg

Except with the elephant cannon it sounds like it was used more then once and from the dicussions at the .com it got the same result, did exist and was once quite a few times.

R.E.P.R.E.S.E.N.T.A.T.I.V.I.T.Y.

CA disagrees.
In the "making of Total war" he(couldn't remember who it was) said that they love finding odd things in history and add it into the game.

[Ringeck]

CA disagrees..

Whatever CA might be (and I am not a CA-basher) they are not very proficient historians.

In the "making of Total war" he(couldn't remember who it was) said that they love finding odd things in history and add it into the game.

[/QUOTE]

Yes. That's pretty much an admission that they don't want to represent history, they want to represent ye goode olde Hollywood history. That's OK. That's also why I'll be buying my M2TW cheap from china (legit) after all that crap has been modded out of the game, as I did with RTW.

Except with the elephant cannon it sounds like it was used more then once and from the dicussions at the .com it got the same result, did exist and was once quite a few times.

They scrugded up the very few sources indicating its use (most of them well outside the M2:TW time period, but who cares) and used this to legitimize the decicion, along with a lot of whining about "it should be like that". It still means there's going to be scores of Warhammer Fantasy Battle - style units in M2TW. That's also OK, if that's the kind of game they want to make. See above.

[caravel]

Fantasy units. Just because someone at some stage stuck a cannon on an elephant for the hell of it, CA seems to think we need entire units full of them. Examples being wardogs, flaming pigs, screeching women, and those funny druid blokes.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Tamerlane did use early cannon mounted on elephants, probably for a higher trajectory with the elephant being stationary, certainly not moving anyway. Tamerlane also used launchers to release greek fire from elephants and that occured on several occasions. This would probably be alot better historical accurate wise

[Tamur]

I think the issue is that one can train hundreds of these things if one wishes, while a more historical view would limit this to perhaps fifty elephants total over this timeline.

Perhaps the recruitment pools and strict regional restraints will take care of this?

Saying of which, how does one implement an elephant recruitment pool?

[danfda]

the well-documented National Guard Female Dominatrix Torturer!"

Hmm, where can I get one of these...?

[professorspatula]

so how many presidents would there be in one president card? and do you mean Mr. Chemical Ali?

No, he means Comical Ali like he said, or Baghdad Bob as the Americans know him as. The information minister provided the comedy for the war with his fictious accounts of the unfolding events of the war, which always seemed to favour the Iraqis, despite the fact everything around him was crashing down and Saddam's fall was inevitable. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_ali

Recent reports from his spokespeople claiming he is being paid in gold bullion to appear in Panto in the United Kingdom this Christmas have so far been denied by British sources.

[drone]

Just because some bright spark in history tried some flaming pigs or cannons on elephants doesn't mean a faction should be able to spam them. If they absolutely need to have them in the game, they should make these units mercs, or only buildable with special ancillaries. Making them common to the battlefield reduces their special appeal.

[TB666]

Well with the new recruitment system you can prevent them getting spammed and make them rare.

[Silver Rusher]

Well your source seems to agree with you.
It was a attempt to make elephants useful in battle even tho their time was up.
It was like cavalry units in WWI and II.

So did this unit exist, yes it did so I guess CA did get it right.

Not really. The game ends a long time before they came into use. Not only that, but they were used in India, which isn't on the M2TW map. It would be like saying they got Chinese Firelancers right because they existed if they put them in BI.

[Orda Khan]

Drone has a point, if we must have them at all...ie mercenaries. Unfortunately without modding this rubbish out of the game, are we going to find the same as RTW? Every time I met a Germanic army its numbers were dominated by stupid screeching women. Needless to say that ended my first and only vanilla RTW campaign. Why on earth does CA think they have to dig out this sort of thing to appeal. Are ordinary units really that bad that?

........Orda

[TB666]

Not really. The game ends a long time before they came into use. Not only that, but they were used in India, which isn't on the M2TW map. It would be like saying they got Chinese Firelancers right because they existed if they put them in BI.

Well Myrddral's source says late 1500's which is within the game and BKB pointed out that Tamerlane used a similar unit and he is in the game as well.

[Silver Rusher]

Well Myrddral's source says late 1500's which is within the game and BKB pointed out that Tamerlane used a similar unit and he is in the game as well.

Fair call about Tamerlane (the ones we saw were Ottomans mind you) but the game only goes up to 1533, and I wouldn't call that late 1500s.

[TB666]

Fair call about Tamerlane (the ones we saw were Ottomans mind you) but the game only goes up to 1533, and I wouldn't call that late 1500s.

Except isn't it according to international view actually the late 1400 century ??
(I'm swedish and our system is much better)

[Silver Rusher]

That would be 15th century, not 1500s.

[TB666]

That would be 15th century, not 1500s.

Ah, your system is confusing sometimes
Still if Tamerlane used a primitive sort then that would still put this unit within the timeframe.
Of course why the turks have them is beyond me but I guess CA thought they should have them.

[Silver Rusher]

Well it's as others have said. Generals often come up with ideas for defeating the enemy which work at the time, such as flaming pigs for example, but allowing players to train entire armies of them is just peculiar. Maybe if you have a war elephant unit and a culverin unit you could possibly combine them on the battlefield when deploying. That would be a reasonable compromise.

[Furious Mental]

There might be a silver lining to it in so far as to at least make the behaviour of these reasonable they would have to be facing the enemy in order to fire. The possibility to give a unit such an attribute would be good for modders who want to include gun toting horsemen in later periods.

[SpencerH]

It is a complete fantasy to believe that cannons were successfully fired from elephants or camels (someones got to be kidding here about camels especially). An asian elephant could carry a small culverin to battle (based on 10,000lb elephant weight and carrying capacity of 25%), a very large camel (load capacity amounts to 200 to 240 kg (http://www.fao.org/docrep/x1700t/x1700t05.htm could maybe carry two robinets (it has to be two to balance the load) (weights of english cannon in the 1600's http://www.portsdown.demon.co.uk/ord.htm), sure but stand still while it was fired? Pull the other one!

[SaberHRE]

This is nothing new.

CA has a tendency to paying special attention to "exotic" units. But i guess its not THAT bad. You can always mod it(a perhaps change the elephant into a moving Hussite wagon! )

[mfberg]

It is a complete fantasy to believe that cannons were successfully fired from elephants or camels (someones got to be kidding here about camels especially).

The size of the cannon is not the size you are thinking. A small cannon like swivel gun, one quarter to one pound shot size would be light enough to mount on the back of an elephant with no problems.

Check this photo out.

70 KB Camel Gun Mounted on Saddle. The earliest type was the 'hand gonne' developed in the fifteenth century, but was not a great influence in battle. It was a small cannon with a touch-hole for ignition and had an effective range of only about thirty to fourty yards.

Of course the important line is - not of great influence in battle - imagine the difficulty of loading a small gun on the back of a camel, then add the confusion of combat to that. Just because a unit was made does not mean it was effective.

mfberg

[SpencerH]

Great photo!

Well that's proof that people are stupid enough to try anything (although I wouldnt call it a cannon). I'd love to have seen what the camel did when it was fired. I'm having visions of Yosemite Sam trying to get his camel to whoa! in the Bugs Bunny cartoon.

At least with an elephant it's possible to envision a very small gun turned sideways or maybe backwards away from the face and ears before firing. I cant imagine what an elephant would do in response to the smoke, blast, and flames from the muzzle of even a small black powder cannon.

[Furious Mental]

This sort of light cannon carrying cavalry was a regular feature of Central and South Asian armies for centuries, and that would tend to suggest that in that particular locale they were not simply a useless novelty. So personally I actually wouldn't say this evidences that "people are stupid enough to try anything".