Another thing that video games sometimes fail to show is that horse archers will eventually run out of arrows. And they can't just keep kiting forever - eventually the horses will tire and refuse to keep going or just collapse. Actually, that's also something you rarely see in games - horses aren't motorbikes, they have minds of their own and can decide to do their own thing regardless of the wishes of the rider.
+lancer D In the Total War series you get both those things, the cavalry gets tired and runs out of arrows... On top of that they are also affected by bad weather.
And they do get tired, but it just slows them down. They don't eventually just collapse or stop taking orders because their mounts lie down and refuse to move.
+lancer D Mount and Blade actually isn't too bad for this, most horse archers will have 20, maybe 40 arrows. A lot in certain situations but conceivable to have on a saddle. (one or two nutters might take 60 arrows, 3 equipment slots with the bow being their 4th, but that leaves them with no melee weapon at all and needing to scavange if they run out or their horse dies)
His mentioning of the Testudo is somewhat hilarious, given that the Romans notoriously had quite a bit of trouble against horse archers in Parthia. They famously lost an Eagle as a result of their incapacity to deal with this the deployment of them in their desert warfare.
To BE fair parthian Had a unique Thing there because usually horse archers ran Out of arrows quickly and Had to Charge in or Retreat , However These parthian cheaters Basically Had a Camel Army füll of arrows aka they Had Unlimited ammo
In Mamluk manuals a mounted archer is not just equipped with a bow and a bunch of arrows, He maintained and lance, sword, mace and dagger was well armored and was trained to use each when most advantageous.
+Daan Wilmer Every one knows pommel throwing cavalry is the most effective, unless you are, you guessed it, the mongols. *pillage montage* Now it's ruined.
+Daan Wilmer Well said other channel has said so much wrong bullshit about the mongols being the exception when they weren't....(while also displaying a nice lack of any real historical knowledge of the middle age.)
Honestly I think mount and blade reflects this. If you have infantry with shields (nords being a prime example) mounted arches are pretty much useless and will run out of ammo if you just stand your ground. They only kill you if you let your soldiers try to chase down the horse archers.
+MaMastoast In real life horse archers, would have avoided an army consisting of infantry, plundered your country, took women and children into slavery, burned the the towns and returned safely to their homes, without having to fight.
+MaMastoast true..... also a good infantry archer formation of your own with both stronger and longer range bows, will effectively cause significant casualties on the enemy horse archers (especially their light horses). Not to mention, once they need to siege the towns and castles they are pretty much useless. So... annoyance? Yes. Over powered? Not really. I usually keep a small force of 10-20 in reserve to use a "flying wing" with me as their leader, but i've found well balanced armies to be much more effective :)
+Kamil Szadkowski no they would not have, if you actually took the time to read history instead of spouting bull shit you would know how much cavalry sucked at sieges. Horse archers served a very specific role and were not much good for anything else. And what dumb fuck leaves a town or city undefended? nonsense and semantics.
Hey scholagladiatoria, this reminds me of an episode of Deadliest Warrior where they pitted Atila the Hun against Alexander the Great. Alexander lost largely because "Atila had mounted archers" however they failed to realize that Alexander the Great did face mounted archers and he still won. Then again, Deadliest Warrior was a show that went more for ratings than historical accuracy (the Spartans were portrayed as being indestructible human tanks when irl, while they were fierce warriors, their weapons and tactics were obsolete compared to other Greek armies).
+556deltawolf That was a terrible, terrible show aside from having some interesting weapon tests which of course were still done in an amateur way with a bunch of stigma and connotation added even then.
I would argue that the main weakness of mounted archers was unmounted archers. They could aim easier, reload quicker and potentially draw stronger bows/crossbows and fire *further* than mounted ones. It's true that, unlike mounted archers, they are more vulnerable; but if you combine them with pikemen or others that could defend them... As a side note, I've never really had a problem with horse archers in M&B, and I used to play with a full Nordic melee army. And if you get crossbowmen you can rek them.
+Fabulous Knight Aye, Rhodok-elites in good formation with some Nords/Sarannids as skirmishers added here and there = A lot of dead cavalry. A lot of dead anything, actually...
+Fabulous Knight The biggest weakness is probably keeping the horses alive and healthy on campaign. They do so like to go lame, dehydrate, break their legs in rabbit holes, get infected cuts from sticks and rocks, bloat, kick and bite each other etc. There's a reason the army had a veterinary corps - it was to keep the horses alive long enough to send them at the enemy.
+Fabulous Knight That's usually my counter in Total War games: line up some archers behind my infantry and watch mounted archers get shredded as they approach.
+Fabulous Knight Also mounted archers are bigger targets for the foot archers. Even if they keep moving to avoid aimed shots, they won't avoid massive barrage arrow fire.
Great video Matt . I have recently been getting into Mongol history and was hoping you'd talk more about the encounter between them and Eastern European armies. Wanted your take on why they were so effective in that first invasion , and why the Europeans' victories in the later invasions are often overlooked.
Also. Here is another important point. Mongol Empire was fractured in the late invasions. The first invasion was blessed by all of Genghis Khan's sons and their kingdoms. This meant the invasion force was an elite multi-cultural force backed by all the best available technologies, most of the financial capacities of Asia, and composed of the best soldiers with conquering in mind; especially, the first invasion was financially and militarily backed by Mongol ruled China which was quite wealthy and resourceful. The later European expeditions were made by Russian and Middle Eastern minor mongol kingdoms without approval or participation from their East Asian brothers or proper coordination from each other. Essentially, these later invasions were Mongol version of glorified Hunnic or Viking raids led by over confident leaders with an army that were inferior in all aspects when compared to the force under the sons of Genghis. The Marco Polo show on Netflix somewhat touched on the internal disunity of Mongol Empire and the various Mongol royal houses infightings among each other.
In M&B single player you can see this. If you build an army of mounted archers and try to siege a castle, you are going to lose. Same if you put mounted archers to defend your castle. Their skills, armor and weapons are so specialized to running around on horseback and shooting arrows that if someone with specialized skills and equipment storms the castle they are defending, they will fall like leaves in autumn.
+MrKeinanen Lancers are okay at taking castles with support from the archers. Certainly they are not as strong as dedicated elite infantry from other factions but when used by the player against the AI they can work fine. The player has the option to have a force entirely of top tier troops which also helps.
+scholagladiatoria In the expansion Viking Conquest, which is significantly better, there is stamina. As well as blood loss, wounds, etc. Far more realistic.
Usammity it seems to happen more when not wearing chainmail. I've fallen victim to it far more than I'd like to admit. It just appears as a little blood squirt and you loos maybe 1 HP every 5 seconds.
Lindybeig make a video about this making the same points, there are a so many horse archers fanboys, specialy people who play RTS, that i'm surprised this video dosen't have any dislike yet.
its not just the arrows that make horse archers so dangerous, its their speed, mobility and staying power (in terms of being able to easily retreat to avoid casualties) that makes them effective. They can serve so many different purposes such as skirmishing, harassment, screening advances and retreats, raiding weak points and luring enemies into traps or away from strong positions. Any general worth anything would love to have horse archers but their actual weak point is that to train horse archers is very difficult. Firing an arrow is hard, being a good horseman is also hard and being good at both makes you exceptional. It takes a life time in the saddle to make good horse archers and you usually need 3 or 4 horses for each rider in a major battle to keep them effective. Now you also need to feed 3 or 4 horses including the rider. This and terrain is the main limitation of horse archers.
The mongols actually loved fighting against armoured elephants. They were very easy to send charging back into enemy lines. In fact the mongols did this so often while facing the Persians that the Persians did away with elephants for the rest of the time that they fought the mongols.
I give CA points for how they handle this in the Total War games. Mounted archers are absolutely destroyed by foot skirmishers - slingers, archers, peltasts, even scorpions. You can't catch them with heavy cavalry or infantry, but you can out-gun them with far cheaper missile units.
+Crimmo877 Mounted archers in TW were bearable.. especially with light cavalry to screen them. But Polish Nobles and Boyar sons with their javelins, were almost impossible to deal with. Faster than heavy cavalry, but almost as tough and often in greater numbers. They can outrun anything that would even come close to giving the trouble. All while being able to tear anything that could catch them to shreds in seconds, with javelins or in melee. And they have good morale so when you finally break them, they rally just in time to throw more javelins at you. So you cant rout them. Only time Ive had some success in dealing with them is when I can fight them from a castle.. but even there the damn javelins take a heavy toll.
+Crimmo877 When I played Teutonic campaign as the Mongols on Very Hard difficulty, late game battles against the Teutonic Order were a little challenging since their armies were almost completely made of super heavy cavalry and super heavy infantry, while the Mongols have only one unit (Khan's Guard) that could match them in melee. So I built armies made of only light horse archers which I used as a vanguard. When I encountered Teutonic super-heavy stacks, first I attacked them with my skirmishing vanguard, ran around until they lost all their arrows to soften them a little, and then retreated to attack with my main army.
+Crimmo877 They tend to be best off drawing swords and charging those types of units. You'll typically lose between a third and one half of the cavalry, but you'll destroy the skirmisher unit assuming it's unsupported. People forget light cavalry is still cavalry and can still carry out a melee charge in a pinch, at least against light troops who aren't in close formation (or heavy troops who are fleeing)
+Crimmo877 My main complaint is that they have zero upkeep in medieval 2. Letting them flood the world as their economy just keeps growing and growing. But yeah, the horse archers are very useful and potentially terrifying. But they are killed off by a few hundred peasants with bows or cavalry with javelins.
Shh, don't kill my dreams and implementation of 100% Mongolian mounted archer armies in AOE2. Shoot enough arrows at a building or a field or a castle and they will eventually catch on fire and I'm gonna keep on believing that was how it was.
Mongol mounted archers were mostly so successful because in the Asian steppes distances are vast and horse archers are excellent at disrupting supply lines aswell as quick strikes on locations the enemy isnt suspecting an attack coming. The horse archer tactics suit perfectly the areas.
Alexander the Great adopted horse archers from the area now known as Iran. He used them to bunch the opposing force together using the archers to hit the flanks. As was done to Alexander fighting against them. The horse archers didn't have armor because of speed and they were not used for frontal attacks. More like a hit and run. He's on record doing so when he crossed into India.
Another consideration that is not usually simulated in games is the stamina of the horses. Riding back and forth constantly will cause the horses to tire.
Matt's point is illustrated by the battle of Carrhae, for example, when the Parthians destroyed an entire Roman army. In the accounts we have, it is told that what was difficult to deal with were the skirmishes, the harassment, but most of all the heavy cavalry which penetrated the ranks and sent many men running amok, only to be picked off by horse archers. The two key points were mobility, with disastrous skirmishes occurring near the back of the army (like the destruction of all siege engines), and heavy cavalry able to pierce though untrained and unprepared disorganized footmen.
+x3lander what happened though was the legionaries were caught in a very lose lose situation, the horse archers had wagons for restocking arrows on the periphery of the battle so they could keep up fire if the romans enterd a dense shield formation, like a testudo, the cataphracts would just bowl them down and smash them open if not, theyd just be slowly picked apart by the horse archers shooting from all sides
+x3lander Untrained = fresh troops that have little battle experience, unprepared = taken by suprise by sudden attacks, disorganized = taken by surprised and unable to form a correct formation coordinated with the rest of the army.
+Kuckooracha Even freshly levied legion of that time would have spent significant time drilling; whether these particular legions had some veterans in them I can't say, though it's a safe bet that Crassus' wealth and promise of plunder would lure away some, perhaps even in the presence of other more renown generals like Pompey and Caesar. Crassus was led into a trap, yet he had more than enough time to form up. Perhaps the only surprising thing was the reveal of the cataphracts, who had masked their armor up until that point. The infantry could easily switch between testudo and more open formation against the cataphracts, yet doing so would protect them from one witness and expose them to another, as +elgostine points out. The army became separated from its main body of horse and some infantry because of the mind-boggling handling of Crassus, who sent them into a feigned retreat trap. Perhaps the most damning evidence against your assertion is the fact that Surena spent a whole day trying to break them and couldn't. Only the beginning of a new day with seemingly no shortage of the Parthian supply of arrows spurred the legionaries toward a threat of mutiny unless Crassus negotiates with Surena.
Lindybeige agrees with you. They were good but not invincible. There were jobs historically that mounted archers did very well and I think of cavalry in the US Civil War. Skirmishing, scouting and light infantry were jobs mounted archers excelled at.
Battle of Carrhae This was the downfall of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, who marched his Roman Army to Conquer the Middle East and allowed himself to be lured into the desert chasing after the Parthian army. On the Roman Side was nearly 100,000 infantry including 7 legions, with only 4000 cavalry. The Parthian army was 10,000 strong, exclusively horse, with 90% of the army being horse archers, they also had camels resupplying the horse archers with an almost unlimited amount of ammunition. The battle went much as you might expect, the infantry being unable to engage the horse cavalry in melee, whilst having to spend all day in the baking heat of the desert in a giant testudo square trying not to get hit by a never ending rain of horse arrows. The Parthians only lost 38 men, and the Roman's routed after being saved by nightfall and the stragglers where chased down in the morning. th-cam.com/video/bR7VDPUj5AE/w-d-xo.html
well said Matt, many ppl forget that the Mongols pressed into service many Chinese (jin , xi xia, etc...) siege engineers with accompanying siege warfare knowledge during their campaigns into the Middle East and Europe. They were quite good at using and taking advantage of strengths of their enemies once they have conquered them or entice some of them over with riches or command posts (this happened quite often in their campaign against the Jin, and also in their original unification campaign against other Steppe tribes earlier). Their tactics/strategy are often misunderstood or misrepresented in some of the modern history text/studies.
Hi, the mongols had severe problems with enemy crossbow men at the beginning of the Battle of Kalka. In the end the mongols won, OK, but this makes clear one thing, if the infantry uses weapons with longer effective reach then mounted archer could wield, the mounted archers have a problem. Another thing, if the mounted archers shoot arrows like no tomorrow but do not have very efficient logistics they will run out of arrows in the long run. The parthians managed this well and devastated Crassus' army at Carrhae. Methinks military logistics is an underdeveloped area of research and some info on this topic would be great Either way thanks for all the work you invest in the videos. Take care!
Btw, Mongol Horse Archers could easily take and hold ground. They had heavy lamellar armor, the Mongol shield and the Mongol Saber. Once they cleared away enemy, they could not only form up in a circle, then they could form groups of spearmen, ground based archers, and men at arms using the Heavy Mongol Lamellar Armor - Chainmail - The Mongol Shield - The Mongol Saber to charge in. Their mounted army could move 100 miles every day. Here is more information. genghiskhan.fieldmuseum.org/explore/photo-gallery/weapons
But Matt, everyone knows that superior Near or Far Eastern warriors could just shoot ten arrows at once into a knights visor from 10km away, while performing handstands on their horses moving at full speed, or just simply making use of their secret, traditional xyz cult technique and make the arrows go around the armor and hitting them in their bare and unarmored back. Who would seriously think that our clumsy, uncivilized and hamfisted knights with their useless macho armor would seriously stand a chance against their glorious mounted archers or honorubru Samurai with mighty Katana. At least that's what every documentation and book about the dark medieval ages told me.
heavily-armed infantry lack mobility, which is a huge disadvantage in open field battles. The Mongols can comfortably hit and run without suffering major casualties. Waves of attacks are sent in cycles to tire the enemy before launching a full-scale attack.
gesalzene Zirbelnuss Knights vs Mongols? That NEVER really happened . Unless u consider 89 knights (among thousands of poorly trained and armed troops) fighting against a vast army of Mongols then yes, Mongols>Knights. Samurais vs Knights? Is it a joke?
The Total War games Rome 2 and Attila introduced Missile Block Chance. What this basically means is that each shield (depending on size) have a % chance to block the arrow hitting it. There is also the testudo formation in Attilla which gives a bonus to Missile Block Chance to the point where you can be 100% impenetrable to missile fire.
I think this rant slightly underestimates the effectiveness of horse archers. I mean they are not good for every scenario like a siege but in an open battlefield they can be pretty devastating. I mean in the Mongol invasions of Europe armies that were almost entirely mounted consisting mainly of horse archers and lancers destroyed larger heavily armored European forces e.g. the Battle of Legnica. I'm sure shields can be effective against mounted archers but if you force the infantry into a testudo or shield wall type formation you dramatically restrict their mobility. For example in the Battle of Carrhae the Pathians forced the Romans into a testudo making it pretty easy for the cataphracts to charge them repeatedly. Also in that battle historians report that arrows would penetrate the shields and staple them to the Romans limbs, I'm not sure how true that is but it goes to show you cant always rely on a big shield to save you. Plus there would be a big psychological element to being constantly under fire from troops that you couldn't attack even if you were slowly gaining ground so it's pretty easy to believe that solders may rout especially as the odd stray arrow managed to get past a shield and hit someone near where you were fighting. Still i absolutely hate fighting horse archers in Total War so i get the frustration at least in Rome Total war regular archers tend to have better range than horse archers so if you put archers behind the infantry you can usually shoot back at the horse archers as they attack.
I think you underrate the mounted archer because you assess them by infantry criteria - holding ground. The mounted archers should pillage the supplies of heavy infantry and let attrition reduce them to ineffectiveness - a few weeks without food and under constant harrassment will break almost any force. There were numerous instances of horse archers defeating knights by antagonising them until the heavy horses were blown and then finishing them with lassoos. Ghenghis understood this, Batu not so much.
Battles of Dorylaeum 1097. and previously Augsburg 955. show how stamina of armored infantry and dismounted knights prevailed.But it is tactical circumstances that playing decisive role i every special occasion.
In Shogun 2 total war, the mounted archers are pretty reasonable. All ranged units only can bring a limited amount of ammunition (arrows, bullets, bombs, etc.) to any battlefield, so the mounted archers can't just shoot at you ALL day. Also, the stamina system means your mounted archers become progressively easier to catch. Heavily armored units (such as the Naginata samurai) basically took no damage from arrow fire at all, so they could stand in mounted archer fire till there are no more arrows to fire, and now the archers have to face the much heavier armed and armored units in melee combat.
Good rant. Marcus Licinius Crassus was devastated by the Parthian cavalry archers at the Battle of Carrhae; but they did not do it alone. They needed the Cataphracts to smash into the testudo square causing openings, then they would retreat while the cavalry archers assault the weakened points.
Fun Fact. Mongols never formed Infantry. They were cavalry with each Mongol having 2 or 3 additional horses. They also carried something similar to a scimitar for when they were forced to fight on foot. Your "Mongol Infantry" are actually affiliated Chinese "Yuan" soldiers with spears and heavy armor. They were subjects, not Mongols. Similar to Roman affiliate horse cavalry and horse archers during the late Roman period or Alexander the Great using Persians as affiliate troops or Scythian horse archers or Dahae horse archers during his Indian Campaign.
Mounted archery and the nomadic step way of life go hand-in-hand. This is documented clearly when Darius tried to conquer the scythian. He fails because they don't have towns to take and they're always on the move. They could just burn everything down and run away
This makes me want to go back and listen to Dan Savage's hardcore history on the Mongols. The fascinating thing was often each horse archer had 4 changes of horses or something. Whole nomadic horde culture is fascinating.
Yes, Horse archers are very effective against lightly armored and/or disorganized infantry or cavalry, harassing them before sending in melee cavalry or foot soldiers to finish them off. But against well drilled columns of infantry or dismounted cavalry with effective form of defense such as scale/mail/plate armor and shield who do not break ranks chasing after u, horse archers can't really do much. The perfect example is during the second Crusade, Richard I's army dismounted all the cavalry, close packed them and their horses with infantry with shield, marching slowly for hours while enemy horse archers harassing them. And by the day's end, when the enemy horse archers became exhausted and/or too confident in their attacks, He let loose of the charging cavalry hitting them head on and won the day.
"Not very good at this" "Easily countered by this" "If you can prepare, you're okay" Then explain the Hunnic/Parthian/Mongolian/Scythian/Aryan conquests. The pastoralist nomadic peoples used lancers and horse archers. Occasionally used other troops, but lancers and horse archers were pretty much it. The nomadic peoples didn't need to "hold ground" to win a battle. The rules of war changed every time the steppe folk came onto the scene.
Thorulf Scottson steppe people collapsed faster than anyone... except when they stopped using only horse archers? They have their use but they didn’t win just because of horse archers. There was the savage element of steppe people that worked to their favour too and psychological warfare that one them fights. Fast archers was only a small part of it. Mongols failed spectacularly once they weren’t feared to hell and the ground wasn’t even... how’d those European and Indian invasions go?
@@rockstar450 Steppe people had different cultures, they had way different worlds, the did not believe in states, empires or anything, all they followed was the will of a royal line. If a warlord conquered too much territory, he was supposed to divide it between his sons, they never developed a system that makes sure the longevity of their confederations. They started to adapt settled peoples, when they met the islamic world, Turks were actually the first steppe peoples who really managed to form some dynasties. They were assimilated most of the time, but Ottomans really lasted for 6 centuries once they figured out how to form sustainable systems and dynasties. Even then they had a lot of problems. And European invasions of Mongols went spectacularly, what saved Europe was Ögedai's death, Batu abandoned the campaign to go make a claim for Chingis' throne in the Kurultai and civil wars and inner squabbles followed after.
M Bayrak the theory of Europe being saved by succession has largely been debunked. The Mongols started losing and when they weren’t feared they were nowhere near as unstoppable. The castles of Europe weren’t worth the effort to them and their track record on anything but open arenas wasn’t pretty. The Mongols didn’t “implement” Turk culture into their practice. They were ABSORBED by Turk culture because their tyrannical overlordship wasn’t sustainable. The Turks have always been the Mongols done right. Subjugating fixed nations isn’t impressive compared to holding them with diplomacy/politics/religion like the Romans did for 2 millennium unlike the flimsy 2 centuries of “mongol domination”.
I see your point but tbh the steppe armies didn’t prioritize holding ground overall. While you’re holding ground in a testudo on top of a hill they would swing around and burn and pillage six of your undefeated villages and cut off your supply line. After a few days of thirst and hunger most of your troops will rout. That’s what the mongols did to the entire Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. Also Tatars =/= Mongol
Late at the party here, but I still play Warband and you don't want to add even more realism in it without making horse archers even more OP, because historically they are OP as ff: 1. Stamina system on horses, getting stuck on the invi wall, and arrows running out can be negated by making the horse archers retreat, swap horses, resupply arrows, and get sent on the next reinforcement. Making them even more annoying. 2. Heavy cavalry, historically speaking, can never chase down light cavalry (considering similar horse breeds or has little difference). So your knights' horses will tire out sooner than the horse archers', and that make you a sitting duck. So no, stop chasing horse archers with cavalry and invest in a strong archer support. Do what the veterans on fighting nomads do, mass volleys of counter fire (crossbows because archers are difficult to train for a weak, rice eating, sedentary people) supported by pike formations, han style. Testudos and heavy cavalry is only effective if you manage to pin them down in a river crossing or a mountain side.
Another pointer thats often overlooked about the Mongols and other armies that used mounted archeries and defeated infantry based armies and armies relying primarily on heavy shock cavalry with a consistent or consecutive records: Their mounted horse archers were not merely equipped with bow and arrows; they were frequently equipped with swords,maces, and lances and they would clash just as frequently in a melee with their enemy infantry and heavy cavalry and these guys were incredibly hardened from life on the steppes and had lots of experience in close hand to hand combat because of the raiding and hunting their lifestyle and home regions forced them to do to survive (as you will immediately come across in any biography of Genghis Kahn where in his youth and adult years is frequently described as raiding other tribes and going into a melee) In other words they are just as hardened in their lifestyle to have the skills and physical strength to fight toe to toe with fnfantry and heavy cavalry in a melee. Some of the better organized and more miltiaristic cavalry based armies obviously including the Mongols and even other overlooked civilization such as the Seljuks even equipped their horse archers just as good as what'd you'd find in a professional army's run of the mill infantry with great quality armor and swords, etc. Last but not least (and most important of alll) even horse archers didn't primarily used their arrows throughout a battle. WHat'd they'd often do is spray such arrows that they'd disrupt enemy formations or weaken enemy casualties and then pull out their lances and swords and finish up the already crippled enemy in a melee. Even in cases where they fought Testudo like formations and won, they didn't constantly sprayed arrows but di dmanuavers to attempt to disrupt formations. So basically horse archers are not inherently superior to the point of victory but how you used them matter and just as equally important is what type of environemnt and life style said horse archers came from. While they were certainly relatively hardy compared to your average settled guy, th ehorse arhcers of Russia were quite easy to beat by simply using testudo foramtions and English archery tactics, etc In fact they'd be massacred in a melee witha professional army. While cultures that are militaristic in areas filled with somewhat settled feudal like structure at war with each other all the time (ANatolia and Feudal Japan and Northern China) at the core and came from (even by steppe standards) hellish environments (the Mongols in specific) had soldiers who were experienced from war with the physical hardiness and skill with weapons needed to suceed well with meelee. Without the proper organization and tactics that successful horse cavalry civilizations lik the Turks, Japanese, and Mongols use and without coming from regions cosntantly with internal strifes and wars between tribes that inspire a miltiarist mentality and has enviironmental features that make living in said regions HELLISH (Gobi Desert) Horse archers are not necessarily superior to other units and not even agaisnt regulat archers. We seen how horse archer cultures lacking in these necessary elements get defeated easily with the Parthians, Huns, Tartars, Muslims of Russia, and most Manchu armies. How does my theory sound Scholagladiatoria? In dthe end how superior one unit is depends on how its been raised from local conditions (freezing hell or scorchingly hot desert and nonstop conflicts between clever war lords) and how well-organized and militaristic its culture is. The Mongols had all these traits hence why they were often able to defeat the Chinese with only horse archers during the initial phrase of their conquest of China and how even without their specialized units like shock cavalry and infantry, they could steal beat other armies just using only horse archers. Because your average Mongol horse archer came fromt he same required traits needed for modern special ops. You see this to a lesser extent with Turkish warlords and kingdoms utilizing mostly cavalry based armies (and even winning agaisnt Crusaders using nothing but Cavalry) and the various wars in Northern China that Manchus won despite lacking the organization needed for infantrya nd only using horse archers.
Hey, Matt! You've been mentioning playing Napoleonic Wars several times now. Are you perhaps in any regiment? With regiments you can attend organized linebattle and siege events with actual formations, commands, tactics. The size of these battles ranges from 100 to 200 people. Depending on the regiment, you can have multiple line, cavalry, skirmisher, or artillery companies. For instance, the regiment I am in has a guard company, a fusiliers/regulars company, artillery company and also cavalry. We have these kind of events at least 4 times a week. The battle we had yesterday comes to mind: I am in our guard company and we emerged victorious against a cavalry attack after they had flanked us. Our regulars were engaged with two enemy lines and could not help so we formed an anti-cavalry formation and stopped the cavalry attack, ultimately saving our regulars line and bringing us victory. Only three of us guards made it out of that melee, luckily one of them was an NCO and led the remnants back to our regulars line, by which time the battle was almost over. It was a valiant sacrifice and a really epic gaming moment. Shoot me a message if you're interested in joining. We're always looking for more people. We have a super fun and friendly community with a strong esprit de corps.
I wonder if the reason why mounted archers were so well documented in terms of effectiveness is because the western historians were so unfamiliar with them that they over-estimated their effectiveness when the western armies lost. It's possible that the Huns and Mongols and whoever else were just good at combined arms tactics that the introduction of horse archers seemed like a winning move in and of itself, rather than a new, key component of a good army.
+Steve P. There were several factors that they probably did not think of. The huns didn't exterminate tribes they encountered, they absorbed them and thus grew in size. Their army came to consists of loads of heavy and light infantry as well as the cavalry and they had the advantage of morale. Attila was ruthless and built a reputation for himself, and he showed everyone that Rome had weakened. The mongols on the other hand had two major things going for them. The khan being a military genius and him uniting all the steppe tribes he could find. He was a shrew general with a gigantic horde of grizzled veterans, when he flooded China they couldn't muster enough troops in time to deal with all of the raiders and mounted archers. And when he travelled west he got armoured lancers and advanced seige weapons with him, and he still brought absurd numbers vs locals who relied on peasant levies. When the khan died and the horde fractured and splintered they got beaten and thrown out practically everywhere, either that or absorbed into the local culture like in Iran.
I think medieval 2 total war had a good approach to horse archery. 1. Horse archers are effective on the field and useless in a seige. 2. Loose formation undermines the accuracy of all missile units including missile cavalry 3. Bad weather like rain or fog cuts the accuracy of all missile units thus undermining missile cavalry. 4. Horse archers can be run down by light cavalry 5. You can even run them down with heavy cavalry provided that the heavys are in loose formation ( see # 2). 6. Cross bows and archer units are effective against them especially if they are out ranged by said archer units . 7. Horse archers run out of missiles eventually. 8. Horse archers are vulnerable to being caught by melee cavalry if the melee unit is attacking from uphill. 9. Horse archers typically have poor morale in melee combat.
+andre robinson All of it may make for a great game, but it's not realistic. 1. Horse archers should be equally useful as foot archers in sieges. 2. Loose formation is a firearm era tactics, because no shield will help against firearms. Bows shoot at close range, so it's both not as useful and more risky to use it. 3. Perfect visibility is not that important for area-of-effect arrow barrage at fairly close ranges. 4. Horse archers can stuff their bows into their bags and they become light cavalry. Which can shoot if they choose to do so. 5. You can't run down someone who is running away faster than you can catch him. Not gonna happen (often).
bakters I don't completely agree with you: 1. Cavalry is best suited to wide open plains (missile cavalry in particular). In the narrow city streets it would be easy for spears to cut them down. 2. No loose formation existed before fire arms but made more sense as fire arms developed. 3. True 4. true 5. You could run at a deliberately slower pace in order to tire them out probably.
andre robinson In closed spaces and in sieges cavalry dismounted. The only problem was fodder for horses if the siege took a long time. But at the same time, some horsemen were obviously an advantage, because they could be sent out to "organize" provisions for everybody. Yes, you could try to chase horse archers, but it wouldn't be easy or safe. They could shoot you while running away, they were faster, they had way more endurance, and they could turn around at any moment. And they did.
its nice to have a fellow warfare enthusiast, cavalry force like horse archer only good in open field battle, defending mediocre and in siege is worst/bad. Horse archer main role is to harass the advancing or defending army. #3 agreed, #agreed #5 is true, however its not a good idea bcoz the word HEAVY, u get the point while horse archer are light armored and fast, the factor also for race of horses for instance Europen Horses is different to Eurasian / Asian Horses. #6 disagree, heard of parthian shot, in full gallop they shoot arrow which increases the acceleration of arrow given him extended range then ride back in circle formation #7true but can be addressed the Parthian provide at least 10 camel strictly for carrying arrow only. #9 Morale is subjective if you ride with Genghis Khan that is battle to the death and if i ride with Trump, ranaway already talking only military commanders in medieval time. As for the game, dont follow strictly and apply it to real life. Its very different lots of factors involved
if you can't beat them, join them. I married one of their nobelmans daughter, and got the rest to like me. I helped capture quite a few castles, and got to keep two or three. I waited till two kingdoms where at war with them, and a good nr of their castles where taken, then joined a different nation, taking my castles with me. I think I managed to get a few noblemen to defect as well. Can't remember if that's actually possible. Anyway, the two other kingdoms destroyed those assholes. Problem solved. Awesome game
Also I'd add this: mounted archers have bows that are weaker than bows used by the infantry, for handling reasons mainly. Now, english longbows could not pierce armor that easily (thanks to all videos you made with Tobias about this btw), and those have 150-180 pounds of force, I'm not an expert but I'd say mounted archers' bow are more 70-90 maybe less. In conclusion, even considering the difference in armor quality between armies at different times (not that roman armor was bad at all though) I'd say it was impossible for mounted archers to be as deadly and effective as portrayed in games and some literature.
Steppe armies generally relied on swarms of mounted archers and a core of armoured lancers. Infantry was a huge liability in that environment. It was, however, needed to take and hold fortifications, which is why they usually passed through burning and pillaging, but rarely conquered much.
One thing that Loyd and a few other people have mentioned is a another good counter for horse archers is foot archers. If you think about it, horse archers in a unit or unit-like band are almost always less accurate than foot archers in a unit, and they also tend to have much more range. The unit composition of horse archers does not allow as good accuracy without accidentally hitting one of your comrades, and furthermore the horses of the horse archers are very large targets and, with some exceptions, tend to be much less protected than those of high and late medieval knights, cataphracts, and lancers.
This annoys me so much, the Mongols were not the Tatars. The Tatars were a confederation of Turkic tribes that were the Mongols enemies and later were subjugated by 1202. I would have thought that Matt Easton being historically inclined as he is would have known that.
Mount&Blade's horse archers always really annoyed me so I just started exploiting the terrible AI pathing by sitting in one corner of the map, they try to circle you, get stuck on an invisible wall (which usually happens to me in other games) and sit there while you play the spear hokey pokey. Revenge is a dish best served just below freezing.
Tyrannosaurus Rex Dude, it's so very annoying to run them down! Also, the courser, while very fast, has few hit points and no armor, and it can be shot down relatively easy.
+TheFilthyCasual If you're up for it, you can go full-chevalier and get a big shield, the heaviest armor you can wear, the best (armored) horse you can find, and a lance. Couched lance damage FTW.
One of Rome's greatest military defeats was because of horse archers. In the battle of Carrhae a large force of heavy Roman infantry was worn down over time by a smaller number of Partian horse archers guarded by heavy cavalry. They were caught out in the open without fortification but in the end heavy armour didn't defeat horse archers with wagon trains full of arrows. The problem with computer games is that you don't want what could be a fast paced battle that you can play in a spare hour turn into something that lasts two days.
In history the horse was more often rapid transportation rather than a weapons platform. Knights would dismount and fight in melee. At the same time there were mounted archers or men at arms who owned horses (and paid more) who would dismount and setup a defensive line or act as designated marksmen. In later times they were called Dragoons or mechanized infantry.
The horse archers archers in Mount & Balde: Warband are quite effective, because armors in the game don't work like real life armors - instead of making soldiers mostly invulnerable, they just give them more hit points. Nonetheless in that game, while they are overly effective in open battlefield, they are very much weakest in sieges, because in the game, there are no useage of horses in sieges.
Mount and Blade had the best mounted archer implementation ever! - Arrows run out - Accuracy drops to zero with faster riding speed - Then can be caught - Shields nullify arrow damage - horses take separate damage from the soldier riding - armor reduces arrow damage a lot
The real danger of mounted archers is not only in combat but their ability to utterly destroy your supply lines. You could have the thickest heaviest armour, go into testudo and be able to take arrows for days without loss, but your men still need to eat and drink but the only realistic way to get supplies onto the battlefield is via supply wagons which are slow and prone to attack. I would advise everyone too look up the campaign of Julian the Apostate and his successor Jovian into Persia. Those horse archers were a nightmare from start to finish. They fell upon the Roman supply lines and the armies were started to crumble under its own weight. If the Romans decided to go to Point A to resupply, the fast-moving Horse-Archers would rush ahead of their column, poisoning all the wells burning all the fields so by the time the Roman army reached Point A they would be lucky to get a blade of grass to eat. While all of this is happening, they are getting shot at day and night and were not given the opportunity to rest. Little by little this broke the formidable Roman Army and Jovian had to make a humiliating peace with the Persians and give up important Fortresses on the Euphrates like Nisibis leaving Syria wide open to attack For centuries the Persians had been trying to capture Nisibis always getting hammered by the Roman garrisons because they sucked at sieges. After this campaign, they got it for free. The common saying saying that *_"Amateurs think of tactics first but professionals think of logistics first"_* holds true here. If I was an ancient commander tasked with fighting the Scythians/Persians/Mongols etc my first priority would be to have an ironclad supply line and to perform scorched earth myself. Turns out it takes a lot of food and fodder to maintain a Cavalry heavy army. The Poles figured this out and the next time the Mongols invaded their lands, the Poles stripped the land bare and hid behind the town and castle walls they took the precaution to build. The Mongols starved and froze to death in the Polish Winter. Turns out Scorched Earth cuts both ways
Others have already pointed out how effective horse-archers were in history, so I won't tenderize that horse carcass any further (no pun intended). Matt's points that they weren't invulnerable or superhuman are still true. All I'll add is one more limiting factor: Fodder requirements. With infantry, you're only feeding men. With cavalry of any kind, you must feed men *and* horses. That's one thing that limited how much territory horse peoples could take. They were nomads, not farmers, so they could only spread as far as there was suitable grass for their steeds to eat. The only exception is when they found farming villages that grew enough hay; they could just plunder the farms. But plundering can only get you so much & is no substitute for a supply line. Basically, if horse people encounter land where they can't feed their mounts, there is no way they can truly conquer it.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think an answer to "armour > cavalry archer" is that cavalry archers are a lot more mobile than heavy infantry or cavalry and thus can often decide the place/field of battle. They can also ruin a war effort's logistics by harassing supply caravans and the various support camps of an army which will not be armoured. Many times an army's bottleneck is not its actual fighting strength but rather how well you can feed it.
A really good point, Matt. When you first brought up horse archers in video games and them being annoying little bastards, I immediately thought back to my days playing Medieval 2: Total War and just throwing my hands up in the air whenever the Golden Horde emerged as a faction. I think what adds to the problem is games like Total War also really, really understate the usefulness of cavalry. While they can be very effective, it got real annoying to manage getting cavalry on a flank of an enemy and doing a charge and the charge stopping dead in its tracks after only a line or two of the infantry, and the cavalry and infantry just standing there hitting each other until one side won out. And even if you have cavalry units that the same speed (or even faster) than the horse archers, the AI or any decent player is just going to take off as soon as you come into view and loose arrows at you for days while you attempt in vain to run them down.
Historically, I would suppose that the greatest advantages of mounted archers are for lightning raids on rural areas, as the Mongols and Huns were known for. Ride in, shoot a bunch of farmers in the face, then light everything on fire. I would assume that they would be the fastest and most efficient units for such raids. Not going to be very helpful taking a fort. In a field battle, you can shoot down routing units, especially those with light armor. Just a few among many examples to try and elaborate on where this is going. Important, but specialized.
The Plains Tribes in America were essentially mounted archers and white officers said the same thing u could drive them off a hill but they would always pop up on another hill ascending from the other side.
At the time they were effective, I'd pray they did not ride my way. Especially, when I was a peasant and not had armor. If I was a villager, I'd hate mounted archers. Point being: They'd destroy my immediate social circle in a whistle.
If I my bum was protected by any type of layers (a burg person???), I wouldnt worry about them. I'd like to see the rich face projectiles that come from another galaxy; I like them for doing that.
EVer heard of pursuit predation or ambush predation? Terror weapons? Shock and awe? We were way ahead of the curve in that way. You are looking at it in an anachronistic and anaterritorial (geo-irrelevant) way I think. I'd really pay a tribe to see centaurs to ride their way and to survive the whole endevour.
The best example of mounted archers limits probably is Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097. Crusaders vanguard under command of Bohemund was attacked by combined forces of Kilij Arslan and Danishmend, consisting primary of mounted archers. Attackers employed typical charge-shoot-retreat-repeat tactic and inflicted some damages on light infantry, Tafurs, camp followers and such. Bohemund commanded his knight to dismount and form defensive perimeter together with heavy infantry. And that was quite it- Bohemund held the ground until Crusaders main force arrived and attacked Turks in the rear. According Amin Maalouf, Turks were shocked to see what little effect they tactics had.
The battle is won by logistics. 1 Archer on horseback might cost as much as 2 crossbowman with paveses. If you want to win with light cavallerie, then harras the peasants and destroy the enemies infrastructure. He may hide behind walls, but thats ok just keep him there.
In stronghold crusaders I kept using such tactics and attacked my enemies before they build up armies to give me the time to devellop the strongest economy and then come back with a F-load of catapults, crossbowmen and heavy armored troops.
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the Tatars from the Crimea did not needed other formations as horse archers. And it was because of the main purpose of their military expeditions. At that time "czupuls" (squads participating in the expedition) had the goal of kidnapping as many people as possible and sell them in Turkey markets as slaves. They hunted these people in Russia, Romania and Ukraine (at this time being a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) Their main advantage were - the speed and mobility. And this was ensured only light cavalry. Even when they had to be forced to have other war purposes (when Turkish sultan who was khalif as well) declared "Jihad", Tatars were used as scouts and special forces to make disorder at the rear of the enemy armies.
I read in one of the cronicles from the first Crusade that Turkish horse archers generally broke formation and run when facing crossbowmen. Later battle formations of the Templars and Hospitalliers seem to reinforce the point. Basically their tactic was to charge with knights on short distance, retreat regardless of the outcome and turn the pursuing Turks and Arabs into pin cusions with crossbow bolts. Muslim commanders, on the other hand, considered separating Frankish cavalry and infantry to be the key to winning...
Well looking at the Byzantine manuals of war from the 8th century they suggested if infantry units are attacked by light cavalry archers deploying dismounted archers which can use longer and more powerful bows, to the front of infantry formations to outrange the mounted archers, and then should the enemy atempt to close the infantry(spearmen with big shields and decent either maile or laminated armour) willl move to the front with their spears to punish the steppe denizens. Also the deployment of Kataphractoii for counter charges or to engage at range with their own bows whilst being so armoured as to be unphased by the foe's incoming arrows.(yeah Kataphractoii were very versitile in this period each Kataphractos is cited as being equipted with a sword, a mace or axe for anti armour, a lance and a composite bow(so unfortunately more weapons than they let you have on M&B) Another thing they mention to do is attack during the end of winter so that the enemy horses are in the worst condition possible and fodder is thin on the ground and of poor quality whilst your excellent Roman logistics keep your cavalry mounts are in fine condition and is probably supplied with a good daily ration of grain(probably oats). In this way any of the light cavalry in your army should be able to run down and keep the pressure on the foe and make the best of most engagments or retire in good order from fights they cannot win.
Warband mounted archers aren't especially powerful. They're annoying, like you said, but they're actually somewhat mid tier. While player mounted archers tend to be over specialized and well made (which works by exploiting the system, not by playing as intended), the AI mostly just circles around for ten minutes shooting off arrows. Dangerous if you're alone and without a couple shields, sure, but not a threat to a half decent army. Particularly one which has its own ranged capabilities, since foot archers and crossbowmen tend to have stronger weaponry with a higher range. Horse archers are only excessively powerful in mods which tend to give overpowered weaponry to everyone. The best cavalry in the base game is generally heavy cavalry, with lancers being a close second (though, admittedly, their position as second might have something to do with the game AI being useless), but even then without some sort of a diversified force you'll take way more casualties than you need to.
+Unus Domus Mounted archers in Gekokujo are extremely powerful even without overpowered weapons. The reason for this is that there are no shields in that mod so using terrain or moving fast are the best ways to avoid getting shot. In With Fire and Sword DLC the mounted troops are strong for the same reason - including mounted Crimean mercenary archers.
Unus Domus Mounted ranged weapon units can use mobility to their advantage though. Dragoons in WFAS for example can use that mobility to get into a good position such as a flank and fire then move on and avoid a lot of counter fire once the enemy repositions. They can be effective when used with decent tactics even with firearms inferior to those used by foot soldiers
+Stu Bur Almost anything is capable of beating superior opponents when going against the AI if decent tactics are used. When going against players, if they're good enough to exist as more than a formless mob, they'll be good enough to look and fire before you can run away, and good enough to hit you while you're moving regardless.
+Decay I love how you talk about my 'gay ass nerdy video game' shit while you clearly have a pretty decent experience with Warband yourself, judging by your other comments. Regardless, I wasn't really talking about what was best. I was explicitly pointing out how mounted archers aren't nearly as effective in Warband as people say; I was giving the example of heavy and lancer cavalry to drive that point down. Yes, if you go into the files and fiddle around with things to break the game, certain things will be more effective than they should be. Games work on numbers designed to imitate reality; they do not simulate it. Native warband bows, even on a horse, are ineffective in situations when they should be ineffective. When you take that way, when you fiddle with the files, they become more effective than they should be unless the armor is boosted incredibly to compensate. But you can do that for everything. You can make light infantry using knives and wearing nothing but underwear incredibly effective if you mod it that way. I've done it for shits and giggles once because it was funny watching the AI run around at ~50 mph stabbing each other to death. The power of horse archers in WB is almost exclusively the result of incompetent AI. The fact that a player with a shield and a tree can win out against a party of Horse archers alone is proof of that.
The mongol horse archer armed with a 90-150 pound draw weight horse bow with their leadership and military system was the answer to everything for about 300 years.
+Vernon Cooney Not really. The Mongols had lots of other types of soldier besides horse archers. You can't hold ground, take ground, break heavily armoured infantry or lay siege with horse archers.
+scholagladiatoria yet they did take ground and destroyed heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. we are not entirely sure of their tactics because they left few survivors and the stories seem to be exaggerated
I think the issue with horse archers isn't that they were unstoppable. No, I think (and for the record, I am not a "Horse Archer Fanboy") the main problem associated with horse archers is they're very hard to put out. For example, take some Magyar and Avar horse archers over in Central Europe during the 700s. You, a local Western Slavic leader, want to secure the land around your villages and this brings you into head on conflict with the local Khagana. Your force cannot be outright defeated by the archers, you hold all the villages and can force assaults on any village they may still hold... but how do you get rid of the archers? After a month, our force is tired. Supplying yourselves in those fortified villages is difficult because your foragers keep getting hit. The enemy never engages your strength (the Slavic shield-and-spear wall), instead raiding and picking at the spots you currently aren't. The relative imperviousness of your men (clad in mail or scale and carrying shields) to arrowfire is thus a non-factor as the archers aren't interested in assaulting your primary force. After a longer period of time, you take stock. you've lost a portion of your army. You need to go home for harvesting, which is going to be painful because you don't have enough men to gather the harvest. You've actually lost territory because you no longer have the men to police all the villages, which gain more autonomy as a result. And those bloody horse archers are still there, because you have no way of forcing them to fight.I suppose the thing I'm getting at is that mounted archers, as you pointed out, have shortcomings. They can't hold ground, they can't outright defeat an opponent, they're utterly useless at a siege... But at the same time, they present a logistical nightmare. They rove across territory at a bloody great turn of speed, raiding and cutting across supply lines. This slows of ties down portions of an army in trying to protect the said supply line. It strips you of your foodstuffs. It strips your people of their security and reduces the prosperity of your territories by killing villagers and burning fields. They cannot win a battle, but they can win the larger strategic campaign as long as they continue to avoid larger engagements.I will, however, note that my example is also limited in terms of size and the typical armies of the 700s do not really stack up against what the Mongols, Tatars, or Golden Horde would have faced.
+VelmiVelkiZrut You do what Otto the Great did to the Magyars at Lechfeld in 955 CE: trap them against an obstacle so that they can't retreat, then ride them down with heavy cavalry.
As I can see you base your argument largely in the context of Europe, where people need to hold position to perform agricultural activities. As for the nomads in East Asia, really there is no point in holding a position. You would have to move around even without being chased on the plain, even if you lose the place you can always swoop back.
The whole point of light cavalry in general is to do the things Heavy cav, and infantry can't do, which is to effectively work at the enemy's flanks, or famously for the Mongols, bait the enemy into chase for the main force to ambush.
I think the battle of Kulikovo sorted that one, and that was it. Once you get heavy infantry on a superior position, backed up by some good cavalry - you're set.
Thank you for the video, since it seems all the discussions that I've had with people seems to think that Mongolians were this unbeatable steamrolling machine. My question to you Matt is in your opinion could the Mongolians have dominated Europe in much the same way they did everywhere else (I understand they had some very good successes on the outskirts of Europe)? Further, why did most armies not seem to make good use of massed foot archers to fuck the Mongolian's day up? Also incidentally I would recommend the 1257 AD mod. Horse archers are even worse to deal with in that M&B mod, but it does a lot of other things correctly.
I love that mod. Are mounted archers that powerful though? I never really noticed because I mostly play in Western Europe but in general longbowmen and crossbowmen seem much stronger than in the base game so I'd have thought horse archers would be easier to counter. P.S. Actually yes I did face horse archers in my crusader run. I found that infantry with shields were generally able to stand their ground and heavy cavalry were very good at running them down.
But mount and blade is not about big army fights or ground covering. Mount and blade is about skirmish. Which is the best thing a horse archer can do.That doesn't surprise me if they are really good.
Infantry archers actually have a lot of advantages over horse archers.They have longer range (a longbow is too big to shoot from horseback), they are more accurate (they aren't firing from on top of a moving animal), they are a smaller target and they are way easier to train and equip. I think infantry archers would be a great defense against them.
In most of the world, pre gunpowder warfare evolved increasingly towards mounted archers until they were the dominant troop type right before the mass introduction of hand guns. Romans, Persians, Arabs, Turks, Goths, Mongols, all relied on horse archery. Oddly enough, in Europe, even as armor was improving, mounted archery increased in popularity. The English armies of the hundred year war were largely mounted archers. The majority of the German, Italian and French lancer bands that dominated European warfare in the 15th and 16th centuries were mounted archers. The cavalry of Poland, Russia and the balkans in the 16th century all used bows. The only major European power that I know of that didn't rely on horse archers in the late middle ages is Spain. As far as I know, their light "Jinete" cavalry didn't use bows.
The "mounted archers" of Western Europe by and large did not shoot from horseback; except for a few isolated incidents, they operated as mounted infantry rather than light cavalry. The Eastern European horse archers definitely shot on horseback though, and made for a nasty combination with their knights.
+John Huang You're correct that western archers didn't shoot from horseback as much as eastern archers, but my point is that mounted archers were incredibly effective and did dominate warfare. Recently, both Lindybeige and now Scholagladiatoria have put out these videos essentially saying "if horse archers were so great, why didn't everyone use them?" and the simple answer is, "well, everyone DID use them". The fact is, that mounted archers made up the bulk of armies across the world prior to the mass adoption of hand guns.
Peter Lynch Hmmm, now that is actually a rather excellent point! Bravo! I wouldn't say 'the bulk', the bulk of the army of any sedentary civilization has always remained infantry, if we were going by numbers. Although the mounted portion of the English, French and Burgundian armies in the late Medieval period was indeed made up largely of mounted longbowmen operating as dragoons, largely due to the influence of the remarkably successful English tactics during the HYW. The Italians and Germans not so much, although they did have quite a few mounted crossbowmen, they were generally still outnumbered by the men-at-arms and other melee cavalry. In the east though the mounted archer, be they the Asiatic style with composite bow shooting on the gallop or European-stye mounted crossbowmen shooting often in formation, predominated.
+John Huang Thanks for sharing that information, very interesting. Say, do you know any sources about French use of the longbow during HYW? I've always wondered, did French archers also use the longbow or did they actually adopt the longbow from the English? I know that French archers (not just crossbowmen) appear in battle records in the early battles of HYW and even before the HYW and I've wondered if they used longbows, or another kind of bow.
Peter Lynch I am not sure about the exact organization of the French Compagnies d'Ordonnance, but here is a website with detailed information on the Burgundian version, which should be almost identical. www.wolfeargent.com/ordonnances.htm Yes the franc-archers until their conversion into heavy cavalry in the late 15th century would be armed with English-style longbow, and their creation was almost certainly modeled after their highly succesful English nemesis. Though they never scored quite the same level of success as the Britons, so perhaps their skill was somewhat lacking.
@scholagladiatoria do you still feel this way about horse archers? I would disagree on the point that having infantry is essential in an army composition to hold position. I think the battle of Kalka river clearly demonstrates why infantry isn’t that important in open field battle. The Chinese and western europeans had to train horse archers of their own in order to counter the horse archers of the nomadic raiders, why would they bother if they could just get some shield walls and wagons to hold ground?
Matt, Lindy did a video on this some time back, so my memory is still somewhat fresh. Genghis K. was famous for doubling the amount of EHC In his army / battle formations. At the Battle of Ankara the Serbian SHC (knights) essentially rode through the Tatar ranks at will. You are. from an historical standpoint, very correct. Thank-you, Dante.
Mounted archery, and archery in general, was the birth of the samurai class; which is an interesting thing considering they are commonly associated with the sword. Just an FYI for some who didn't know.
"Think about a Roman testudo. Think about Roman soldiers." Yeah... I thought about that before you even said it... only thing is, I immediately thought of the Battle of Carrhae. I guess you might be able to excuse it because Crassus was inept and the Parthians had supply camels with arrows and water, but still... From what I've read, legionaries had arrows through the shields and into their hands, through their feet and drilled into the ground... yeah... and then there's the casualty count...
+Michael Rex That's true, the Testudo was not invulnerable. But the reason that mounted archers were so effective at Carrhae was because they forced the Romans to adopt formations like the testudo, which is vulnerable to the Parthian's other main force: cataphracts. So they were caught in an unwinnable position. Either they defended themselves against the archers and got run down by the charge of the Cataphracts, or they formed deep formations to defend against the Cataphracts and opened themselves up to the archers.
+Michael Rex ah finally I was waiting for someoneto mention Carrhae. but what defeated the roman's tetsudo wasn't the horse archers but the cataphract charges. basically when the romans were in normal formation they were picked off by horse archers, when they went into tetsudo they were charged by cataphracts, because they can't fight back efficiently in melee in this formation. then when they broke the tetsudo formation to fight off the cataphracts, the latters would just retreat and the horse archers would fire again
TOME Julien ...therefore, it was the combination of the two. The cataphracts wouldn't have won without the horse archers, and the horse archers wouldn't have won without the cataphracts.
Michael Rex yeah, and all that confirms Matt's point. I should also add that even though this battle was a humiliation for the romans, the subsequent campains against the Parthian empire were rather successful, they didn't manage to bring it down, but the Parthian capital got sacked several times
+Michael Rex Something tells me the accounts of the arrows through the shields are false, arrows are not getting through a shield boss or the wood and rawhide. I wouldn't be surprised however if some Parthians were just really good shots and shot at their legs and feet.
1:23 The Hungarians didn't use horse archers anymore by 1200 and mounted archery was practically gone from Hungarian culture. However, they did tend to hire lots Cumans and Petchenegs as the Mongols approached.
honestly i dont bother with horse archers in my army but having a bow or crossbow mounted just opens up big windows of oppertunity if the battle suits it, and ii usually ALWAYS take a bow to a seige attack to pick archers off the battlements i just could never imagine how to play a character who isnt a horseman... having a horse just gives you so many options of mobility
When the mongols saw elephants charging, they just shot them in their unarmored legs (btw armoring elephants legs reduces mobility very heavily). This made them go amok. (crazy from pain but not critically wounded) And the enemy troops had to kill their own berserking elephants.
Mounted archers are not the answer, but when put on the attack grouped with about 85% mounted archers, 12% Heavy infantry/ heavy cavalry and 3% heavy artillery (for both holding and taking ground)
I would think that once those Testudo's go up, the Horse Archers maneuver around them and attack their other more vulnerable elements, because Testudo limits your mobility. The same goes for the melee cav. You would probably have to rely on your own cav for protection in this event, and hope they are as effective as the enemy cav. That or you would be forced out of your Testudo and chase after them or attempt to intercept them. But yea, good point, I'm surprised anyone actually believes the Mongols or Huns were soley mounted archers.
+Ulfbert In the case of Richard the Lionheart's campaign during the Third Crusade, he was able to use his "testudo" to such an effective degree that the Saracen horse archers were unable to seriously damage it to provoke the response they wanted. He didn't have a lot of baggage trains that would be vulnerable to attack by the swarms of Turks (his provisions being carried mostly by ships, as his army was marching down the coast) and what little he had was protected inside the "testudo", plus his cavalry too. In the end he was able to wait until the Turks over-commit their attack and exhaust their horse, before launching his own counterattack with his cavalry. But the limitation of his strategy became apparent when he tried to advance inland to Jerusalem, far away from his water-based logistical support. Saladin's army had burned and removed all the provisions nearby, and Richard's starving army war forced to retreat back to the coastline.
John Huang I've always thought that horse armies would have developed ways to disrupt testudos and take advantage of an enemy's tight grouping. Something like a flaming pot or tossing a bunch of caltrops over an area in order to separate a group. In the case of the Mongols and Song Chinese, grenades?
Ulfbert The problem with that was most horse archer armies were not terribly engineering savvy. Some of them like the Mongols were, but in general, its the city dwellers who held monopoly on gunpowder and other cool stuff. Plus, try handling a grenade with a lighted fuse on the back of a horse.....I am not saying that it couldn't be done, its just not terribly easy or was considered a good idea by a lot of people.
That's what exactly happened to crassus in parthia, Mounted archers had them in a square defensive formation and he was unable to chase them with his heavy infantry because his calvary were all dead in his son's command because of his foolish decision, there only way out was to use Archers but since Romans hated archers and always hired them instead of training their own.That was a disastrous campaign.
I think this is a great point, and something that I didn't consider before, that a Testudo may protect that formation from the horse archers, but it may cause a weakness somewhere else as you can't maneuver as easily. I think that potentially one solution may be to have the infantry hunker down behind their shields, and then use your own foot archers to fight against the horse archers, and they should have better range and accuracy because they're not being jostled around on horses. I suppose elephants with archers or chariot archers could work for this, but I think the infantry archers would be most efficient.
Rome Total War had that same problem with Horse archers. So for Rome 2 the combat models were changed to not give HA's a MASSIVE advantage. All mounted skirmishers in Rome 2 need support from other cavalry or fast infantry. They are very effective at breaking up AI infantry lines though.
Also, they are not very good for naval warfare. Unless they have sea horses.
+Tananjoh Sea has poisoned water. If horses don't drink it, it's bad. Stay away from desert of poisoned water.
+Tananjoh see? Horses!
*****
Didn't they famous and spectacularly failed to invade japan because of a storm?
*****
Yup, and it didn't go so well...
***** Ah, I didn't see your second comment.
He's just angry he got kidnapped by Steppe Bandits again.
Haha
Another thing that video games sometimes fail to show is that horse archers will eventually run out of arrows. And they can't just keep kiting forever - eventually the horses will tire and refuse to keep going or just collapse. Actually, that's also something you rarely see in games - horses aren't motorbikes, they have minds of their own and can decide to do their own thing regardless of the wishes of the rider.
+lancer D In the Total War series you get both those things, the cavalry gets tired and runs out of arrows... On top of that they are also affected by bad weather.
That's true in the recent games. Some of the older ones they have infinite ammunition.
And they do get tired, but it just slows them down. They don't eventually just collapse or stop taking orders because their mounts lie down and refuse to move.
+lancer D
Mount and Blade actually isn't too bad for this, most horse archers will have 20, maybe 40 arrows. A lot in certain situations but conceivable to have on a saddle.
(one or two nutters might take 60 arrows, 3 equipment slots with the bow being their 4th, but that leaves them with no melee weapon at all and needing to scavange if they run out or their horse dies)
+Jacek N In Total War you also get the option of forcing a siege instead of trying to fight a pitched battle
His mentioning of the Testudo is somewhat hilarious, given that the Romans notoriously had quite a bit of trouble against horse archers in Parthia. They famously lost an Eagle as a result of their incapacity to deal with this the deployment of them in their desert warfare.
yeah i was gonna say the same thing
To BE fair parthian Had a unique Thing there because usually horse archers ran Out of arrows quickly and Had to Charge in or Retreat , However These parthian cheaters Basically Had a Camel Army füll of arrows aka they Had Unlimited ammo
In Mamluk manuals a mounted archer is not just equipped with a bow and a bunch of arrows, He maintained and lance, sword, mace and dagger was well armored and was trained to use each when most advantageous.
0:02 It's, wait for it.... *"THE* *MONGOLS!"*
*_Pillaging_* *_montage_* *_plays_*
+usaid alfatih Except, they're /not/ the exception.
(feels good to bring a meme over from another channel that is not about pommel throwing for once)
+Daan Wilmer Every one knows pommel throwing cavalry is the most effective, unless you are, you guessed it, the mongols. *pillage montage*
Now it's ruined.
+usaid alfatih Hahahaha... roll that montage!
+Daan Wilmer Well said other channel has said so much wrong bullshit about the mongols being the exception when they weren't....(while also displaying a nice lack of any real historical knowledge of the middle age.)
The Mongol bow was larger, but weaker than the much smaller Korean Bows.
Honestly I think mount and blade reflects this. If you have infantry with shields (nords being a prime example) mounted arches are pretty much useless and will run out of ammo if you just stand your ground. They only kill you if you let your soldiers try to chase down the horse archers.
+MaMastoast In real life horse archers, would have avoided an army consisting of infantry, plundered your country, took women and children into slavery, burned the the towns and returned safely to their homes, without having to fight.
Kamil Szadkowski Im sure they would, but that wasn't really the topic of discussion
+MaMastoast true..... also a good infantry archer formation of your own with both stronger and longer range bows, will effectively cause significant casualties on the enemy horse archers (especially their light horses). Not to mention, once they need to siege the towns and castles they are pretty much useless. So... annoyance? Yes. Over powered? Not really. I usually keep a small force of 10-20 in reserve to use a "flying wing" with me as their leader, but i've found well balanced armies to be much more effective :)
+Kamil Szadkowski True, but that's not war, that's a pillaging expedition.
+Kamil Szadkowski no they would not have, if you actually took the time to read history instead of spouting bull shit you would know how much cavalry sucked at sieges.
Horse archers served a very specific role and were not much good for anything else.
And what dumb fuck leaves a town or city undefended? nonsense and semantics.
Hey scholagladiatoria, this reminds me of an episode of Deadliest Warrior where they pitted Atila the Hun against Alexander the Great. Alexander lost largely because "Atila had mounted archers" however they failed to realize that Alexander the Great did face mounted archers and he still won. Then again, Deadliest Warrior was a show that went more for ratings than historical accuracy (the Spartans were portrayed as being indestructible human tanks when irl, while they were fierce warriors, their weapons and tactics were obsolete compared to other Greek armies).
+556deltawolf Battle of Jaxartes shows that Alexander was more than capable of trouncing mounted archers. Deadliest Warrior is silly...
+556deltawolf That show is a joke man, don't take it seriously
+556deltawolf Deadliest Warriors is the worst show ever. It was made by Frat boy idiots for frat boy idiots.
+556deltawolf That was a terrible, terrible show aside from having some interesting weapon tests which of course were still done in an amateur way with a bunch of stigma and connotation added even then.
+556deltawolf That programme was upsetting to watch.
I would argue that the main weakness of mounted archers was unmounted archers. They could aim easier, reload quicker and potentially draw stronger bows/crossbows and fire *further* than mounted ones. It's true that, unlike mounted archers, they are more vulnerable; but if you combine them with pikemen or others that could defend them...
As a side note, I've never really had a problem with horse archers in M&B, and I used to play with a full Nordic melee army. And if you get crossbowmen you can rek them.
+Fabulous Knight Aye, Rhodok-elites in good formation with some Nords/Sarannids as skirmishers added here and there = A lot of dead cavalry.
A lot of dead anything, actually...
+Fabulous Knight The biggest weakness is probably keeping the horses alive and healthy on campaign. They do so like to go lame, dehydrate, break their legs in rabbit holes, get infected cuts from sticks and rocks, bloat, kick and bite each other etc. There's a reason the army had a veterinary corps - it was to keep the horses alive long enough to send them at the enemy.
+lancer D Aww 'Veterinary corps' sounds so cute - until you think about it for about a second then it becomes really gross and sad.
+Fabulous Knight That's usually my counter in Total War games: line up some archers behind my infantry and watch mounted archers get shredded as they approach.
+Fabulous Knight Also mounted archers are bigger targets for the foot archers. Even if they keep moving to avoid aimed shots, they won't avoid massive barrage arrow fire.
Great video Matt . I have recently been getting into Mongol history and was hoping you'd talk more about the encounter between them and Eastern European armies. Wanted your take on why they were so effective in that first invasion , and why the Europeans' victories in the later invasions are often overlooked.
Also. Here is another important point. Mongol Empire was fractured in the late invasions. The first invasion was blessed by all of Genghis Khan's sons and their kingdoms. This meant the invasion force was an elite multi-cultural force backed by all the best available technologies, most of the financial capacities of Asia, and composed of the best soldiers with conquering in mind; especially, the first invasion was financially and militarily backed by Mongol ruled China which was quite wealthy and resourceful. The later European expeditions were made by Russian and Middle Eastern minor mongol kingdoms without approval or participation from their East Asian brothers or proper coordination from each other. Essentially, these later invasions were Mongol version of glorified Hunnic or Viking raids led by over confident leaders with an army that were inferior in all aspects when compared to the force under the sons of Genghis. The Marco Polo show on Netflix somewhat touched on the internal disunity of Mongol Empire and the various Mongol royal houses infightings among each other.
"We wuz born in the saddul! Buttt yuo will dai in one!" - mounted archer
In M&B single player you can see this. If you build an army of mounted archers and try to siege a castle, you are going to lose. Same if you put mounted archers to defend your castle. Their skills, armor and weapons are so specialized to running around on horseback and shooting arrows that if someone with specialized skills and equipment storms the castle they are defending, they will fall like leaves in autumn.
+MrKeinanen Lancers are okay at taking castles with support from the archers. Certainly they are not as strong as dedicated elite infantry from other factions but when used by the player against the AI they can work fine. The player has the option to have a force entirely of top tier troops which also helps.
+MrKeinanen It's why the Khergits are the weakest faction once you start conquering castles.
Implementation of a stamina system would solve a few of the M&B game issues.
+ilejovcevski79 YES! I agree so much with this.
+scholagladiatoria In the expansion Viking Conquest, which is significantly better, there is stamina. As well as blood loss, wounds, etc. Far more realistic.
+scholagladiatoria I also forgot about unit formations. Shield walls, so on.
+ilejovcevski79 The way viking conquest handles stamina is pretty shitty imo. Also, I never saw blood loss being a thing when I played the game.
Usammity it seems to happen more when not wearing chainmail. I've fallen victim to it far more than I'd like to admit. It just appears as a little blood squirt and you loos maybe 1 HP every 5 seconds.
Lindybeig make a video about this making the same points, there are a so many horse archers fanboys, specialy people who play RTS, that i'm surprised this video dosen't have any dislike yet.
+Otger Fabre give then some time.
its not just the arrows that make horse archers so dangerous, its their speed, mobility and staying power (in terms of being able to easily retreat to avoid casualties) that makes them effective. They can serve so many different purposes such as skirmishing, harassment, screening advances and retreats, raiding weak points and luring enemies into traps or away from strong positions. Any general worth anything would love to have horse archers but their actual weak point is that to train horse archers is very difficult. Firing an arrow is hard, being a good horseman is also hard and being good at both makes you exceptional. It takes a life time in the saddle to make good horse archers and you usually need 3 or 4 horses for each rider in a major battle to keep them effective. Now you also need to feed 3 or 4 horses including the rider. This and terrain is the main limitation of horse archers.
The mongols actually loved fighting against armoured elephants. They were very easy to send charging back into enemy lines. In fact the mongols did this so often while facing the Persians that the Persians did away with elephants for the rest of the time that they fought the mongols.
I give CA points for how they handle this in the Total War games. Mounted archers are absolutely destroyed by foot skirmishers - slingers, archers, peltasts, even scorpions. You can't catch them with heavy cavalry or infantry, but you can out-gun them with far cheaper missile units.
+Crimmo877 Mounted archers in TW were bearable.. especially with light cavalry to screen them. But Polish Nobles and Boyar sons with their javelins, were almost impossible to deal with. Faster than heavy cavalry, but almost as tough and often in greater numbers. They can outrun anything that would even come close to giving the trouble. All while being able to tear anything that could catch them to shreds in seconds, with javelins or in melee. And they have good morale so when you finally break them, they rally just in time to throw more javelins at you. So you cant rout them. Only time Ive had some success in dealing with them is when I can fight them from a castle.. but even there the damn javelins take a heavy toll.
+Crimmo877 When I played Teutonic campaign as the Mongols on Very Hard difficulty, late game battles against the Teutonic Order were a little challenging since their armies were almost completely made of super heavy cavalry and super heavy infantry, while the Mongols have only one unit (Khan's Guard) that could match them in melee. So I built armies made of only light horse archers which I used as a vanguard. When I encountered Teutonic super-heavy stacks, first I attacked them with my skirmishing vanguard, ran around until they lost all their arrows to soften them a little, and then retreated to attack with my main army.
+Crimmo877 They tend to be best off drawing swords and charging those types of units. You'll typically lose between a third and one half of the cavalry, but you'll destroy the skirmisher unit assuming it's unsupported. People forget light cavalry is still cavalry and can still carry out a melee charge in a pinch, at least against light troops who aren't in close formation (or heavy troops who are fleeing)
+Crimmo877 My main complaint is that they have zero upkeep in medieval 2. Letting them flood the world as their economy just keeps growing and growing. But yeah, the horse archers are very useful and potentially terrifying. But they are killed off by a few hundred peasants with bows or cavalry with javelins.
Shh, don't kill my dreams and implementation of 100% Mongolian mounted archer armies in AOE2. Shoot enough arrows at a building or a field or a castle and they will eventually catch on fire and I'm gonna keep on believing that was how it was.
Mangudai all theu way
u r weird.
Mongol mounted archers were mostly so successful because in the Asian steppes distances are vast and horse archers are excellent at disrupting supply lines aswell as quick strikes on locations the enemy isnt suspecting an attack coming. The horse archer tactics suit perfectly the areas.
Alexander the Great adopted horse archers from the area now known as Iran. He used them to bunch the opposing force together using the archers to hit the flanks. As was done to Alexander fighting against them.
The horse archers didn't have armor because of speed and they were not used for frontal attacks. More like a hit and run. He's on record doing so when he crossed into India.
Another consideration that is not usually simulated in games is the stamina of the horses. Riding back and forth constantly will cause the horses to tire.
Matt's point is illustrated by the battle of Carrhae, for example, when the Parthians destroyed an entire Roman army. In the accounts we have, it is told that what was difficult to deal with were the skirmishes, the harassment, but most of all the heavy cavalry which penetrated the ranks and sent many men running amok, only to be picked off by horse archers. The two key points were mobility, with disastrous skirmishes occurring near the back of the army (like the destruction of all siege engines), and heavy cavalry able to pierce though untrained and unprepared disorganized footmen.
+Kuckooracha Roman Legion of the Late Republic - "untrained and unprepared disorganized footmen"... Really?!
+x3lander what happened though was the legionaries were caught in a very lose lose situation, the horse archers had wagons for restocking arrows on the periphery of the battle so they could keep up fire
if the romans enterd a dense shield formation, like a testudo, the cataphracts would just bowl them down and smash them open if not, theyd just be slowly picked apart by the horse archers shooting from all sides
+x3lander Untrained = fresh troops that have little battle experience, unprepared = taken by suprise by sudden attacks, disorganized = taken by surprised and unable to form a correct formation coordinated with the rest of the army.
+Kuckooracha Even freshly levied legion of that time would have spent significant time drilling; whether these particular legions had some veterans in them I can't say, though it's a safe bet that Crassus' wealth and promise of plunder would lure away some, perhaps even in the presence of other more renown generals like Pompey and Caesar.
Crassus was led into a trap, yet he had more than enough time to form up. Perhaps the only surprising thing was the reveal of the cataphracts, who had masked their armor up until that point. The infantry could easily switch between testudo and more open formation against the cataphracts, yet doing so would protect them from one witness and expose them to another, as +elgostine points out.
The army became separated from its main body of horse and some infantry because of the mind-boggling handling of Crassus, who sent them into a feigned retreat trap.
Perhaps the most damning evidence against your assertion is the fact that Surena spent a whole day trying to break them and couldn't. Only the beginning of a new day with seemingly no shortage of the Parthian supply of arrows spurred the legionaries toward a threat of mutiny unless Crassus negotiates with Surena.
Lindybeige agrees with you. They were good but not invincible. There were jobs historically that mounted archers did very well and I think of cavalry in the US Civil War. Skirmishing, scouting and light infantry were jobs mounted archers excelled at.
Battle of Carrhae
This was the downfall of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, who marched his Roman Army to Conquer the Middle East and allowed himself to be lured into the desert chasing after the Parthian army.
On the Roman Side was nearly 100,000 infantry including 7 legions, with only 4000 cavalry. The Parthian army was 10,000 strong, exclusively horse, with 90% of the army being horse archers, they also had camels resupplying the horse archers with an almost unlimited amount of ammunition.
The battle went much as you might expect, the infantry being unable to engage the horse cavalry in melee, whilst having to spend all day in the baking heat of the desert in a giant testudo square trying not to get hit by a never ending rain of horse arrows. The Parthians only lost 38 men, and the Roman's routed after being saved by nightfall and the stragglers where chased down in the morning.
th-cam.com/video/bR7VDPUj5AE/w-d-xo.html
I'm guessing around the time this video was made, Matt Easton had just lost a battle against the Crimean Khanate.
well said Matt, many ppl forget that the Mongols pressed into service many Chinese (jin , xi xia, etc...) siege engineers with accompanying siege warfare knowledge during their campaigns into the Middle East and Europe. They were quite good at using and taking advantage of strengths of their enemies once they have conquered them or entice some of them over with riches or command posts (this happened quite often in their campaign against the Jin, and also in their original unification campaign against other Steppe tribes earlier). Their tactics/strategy are often misunderstood or misrepresented in some of the modern history text/studies.
Hi, the mongols had severe problems with enemy crossbow men at the beginning of the Battle of Kalka.
In the end the mongols won, OK, but this makes clear one thing, if the infantry uses weapons with longer effective reach then mounted archer could wield, the mounted archers have a problem.
Another thing, if the mounted archers shoot arrows like no tomorrow but do not have very efficient logistics they will run out of arrows in the long run.
The parthians managed this well and devastated Crassus' army at Carrhae. Methinks military logistics is an underdeveloped area of research and some info on this topic would be great
Either way thanks for all the work you invest in the videos. Take care!
Btw, Mongol Horse Archers could easily take and hold ground. They had heavy lamellar armor, the Mongol shield and the Mongol Saber. Once they cleared away enemy, they could not only form up in a circle, then they could form groups of spearmen, ground based archers, and men at arms using the Heavy Mongol Lamellar Armor - Chainmail - The Mongol Shield - The Mongol Saber to charge in. Their mounted army could move 100 miles every day. Here is more information. genghiskhan.fieldmuseum.org/explore/photo-gallery/weapons
Thank you for the rational and educated "rants." ;) This is one of the reasons I look forward to your videos. Keep up the great work!
But Matt, everyone knows that superior Near or Far Eastern warriors could just shoot ten arrows at once into a knights visor from 10km away, while performing handstands on their horses moving at full speed, or just simply making use of their secret, traditional xyz cult technique and make the arrows go around the armor and hitting them in their bare and unarmored back. Who would seriously think that our clumsy, uncivilized and hamfisted knights with their useless macho armor would seriously stand a chance against their glorious mounted archers or honorubru Samurai with mighty Katana. At least that's what every documentation and book about the dark medieval ages told me.
are you David Nicolle?
heavily-armed infantry lack mobility, which is a huge disadvantage in open field battles. The Mongols can comfortably hit and run without suffering major casualties. Waves of attacks are sent in cycles to tire the enemy before launching a full-scale attack.
Jack Black precisely. Horse archers can be quite effective when used properly, but if used improperly are useless.
gesalzene Zirbelnuss Knights vs Mongols? That NEVER really happened . Unless u consider 89 knights (among thousands of poorly trained and armed troops) fighting against a vast army of Mongols then yes, Mongols>Knights. Samurais vs Knights? Is it a joke?
Nam Minh umm yes it is a joke
The Total War games Rome 2 and Attila introduced Missile Block Chance. What this basically means is that each shield (depending on size) have a % chance to block the arrow hitting it. There is also the testudo formation in Attilla which gives a bonus to Missile Block Chance to the point where you can be 100% impenetrable to missile fire.
I think this rant slightly underestimates the effectiveness of horse archers. I mean they are not good for every scenario like a siege but in an open battlefield they can be pretty devastating. I mean in the Mongol invasions of Europe armies that were almost entirely mounted consisting mainly of horse archers and lancers destroyed larger heavily armored European forces e.g. the Battle of Legnica.
I'm sure shields can be effective against mounted archers but if you force the infantry into a testudo or shield wall type formation you dramatically restrict their mobility. For example in the Battle of Carrhae the Pathians forced the Romans into a testudo making it pretty easy for the cataphracts to charge them repeatedly. Also in that battle historians report that arrows would penetrate the shields and staple them to the Romans limbs, I'm not sure how true that is but it goes to show you cant always rely on a big shield to save you.
Plus there would be a big psychological element to being constantly under fire from troops that you couldn't attack even if you were slowly gaining ground so it's pretty easy to believe that solders may rout especially as the odd stray arrow managed to get past a shield and hit someone near where you were fighting.
Still i absolutely hate fighting horse archers in Total War so i get the frustration at least in Rome Total war regular archers tend to have better range than horse archers so if you put archers behind the infantry you can usually shoot back at the horse archers as they attack.
Thank you. Helped me a lot. Really, thanks.
I think you underrate the mounted archer because you assess them by infantry criteria - holding ground. The mounted archers should pillage the supplies of heavy infantry and let attrition reduce them to ineffectiveness - a few weeks without food and under constant harrassment will break almost any force. There were numerous instances of horse archers defeating knights by antagonising them until the heavy horses were blown and then finishing them with lassoos. Ghenghis understood this, Batu not so much.
Battles of Dorylaeum 1097. and previously Augsburg 955. show how stamina of armored infantry and dismounted knights prevailed.But it is tactical circumstances that playing decisive role i every special occasion.
In Shogun 2 total war, the mounted archers are pretty reasonable. All ranged units only can bring a limited amount of ammunition (arrows, bullets, bombs, etc.) to any battlefield, so the mounted archers can't just shoot at you ALL day. Also, the stamina system means your mounted archers become progressively easier to catch. Heavily armored units (such as the Naginata samurai) basically took no damage from arrow fire at all, so they could stand in mounted archer fire till there are no more arrows to fire, and now the archers have to face the much heavier armed and armored units in melee combat.
+notbobby125 Now, carbine cavalry, on the other hand...
Good rant. Marcus Licinius Crassus was devastated by the Parthian cavalry archers at the Battle of Carrhae; but they did not do it alone. They needed the Cataphracts to smash into the testudo square causing openings, then they would retreat while the cavalry archers assault the weakened points.
"[...] any army that has mounted archers will also need infantry"
That's what Marcus Licinius Crassus thought...
Fun Fact. Mongols never formed Infantry. They were cavalry with each Mongol having 2 or 3 additional horses. They also carried something similar to a scimitar for when they were forced to fight on foot. Your "Mongol Infantry" are actually affiliated Chinese "Yuan" soldiers with spears and heavy armor. They were subjects, not Mongols. Similar to Roman affiliate horse cavalry and horse archers during the late Roman period or Alexander the Great using Persians as affiliate troops or Scythian horse archers or Dahae horse archers during his Indian Campaign.
Mounted archery and the nomadic step way of life go hand-in-hand. This is documented clearly when Darius tried to conquer the scythian. He fails because they don't have towns to take and they're always on the move. They could just burn everything down and run away
This makes me want to go back and listen to Dan Savage's hardcore history on the Mongols. The fascinating thing was often each horse archer had 4 changes of horses or something. Whole nomadic horde culture is fascinating.
Yes, Horse archers are very effective against lightly armored and/or disorganized infantry or cavalry, harassing them before sending in melee cavalry or foot soldiers to finish them off.
But against well drilled columns of infantry or dismounted cavalry with effective form of defense such as scale/mail/plate armor and shield who do not break ranks chasing after u, horse archers can't really do much.
The perfect example is during the second Crusade, Richard I's army dismounted all the cavalry, close packed them and their horses with infantry with shield, marching slowly for hours while enemy horse archers harassing them. And by the day's end, when the enemy horse archers became exhausted and/or too confident in their attacks, He let loose of the charging cavalry hitting them head on and won the day.
"Not very good at this"
"Easily countered by this"
"If you can prepare, you're okay"
Then explain the Hunnic/Parthian/Mongolian/Scythian/Aryan conquests. The pastoralist nomadic peoples used lancers and horse archers. Occasionally used other troops, but lancers and horse archers were pretty much it. The nomadic peoples didn't need to "hold ground" to win a battle. The rules of war changed every time the steppe folk came onto the scene.
Thorulf Scottson steppe people collapsed faster than anyone... except when they stopped using only horse archers? They have their use but they didn’t win just because of horse archers. There was the savage element of steppe people that worked to their favour too and psychological warfare that one them fights. Fast archers was only a small part of it. Mongols failed spectacularly once they weren’t feared to hell and the ground wasn’t even... how’d those European and Indian invasions go?
@@rockstar450 Steppe people had different cultures, they had way different worlds, the did not believe in states, empires or anything, all they followed was the will of a royal line. If a warlord conquered too much territory, he was supposed to divide it between his sons, they never developed a system that makes sure the longevity of their confederations.
They started to adapt settled peoples, when they met the islamic world, Turks were actually the first steppe peoples who really managed to form some dynasties. They were assimilated most of the time, but Ottomans really lasted for 6 centuries once they figured out how to form sustainable systems and dynasties. Even then they had a lot of problems.
And European invasions of Mongols went spectacularly, what saved Europe was Ögedai's death, Batu abandoned the campaign to go make a claim for Chingis' throne in the Kurultai and civil wars and inner squabbles followed after.
M Bayrak the theory of Europe being saved by succession has largely been debunked. The Mongols started losing and when they weren’t feared they were nowhere near as unstoppable. The castles of Europe weren’t worth the effort to them and their track record on anything but open arenas wasn’t pretty. The Mongols didn’t “implement” Turk culture into their practice. They were ABSORBED by Turk culture because their tyrannical overlordship wasn’t sustainable. The Turks have always been the Mongols done right. Subjugating fixed nations isn’t impressive compared to holding them with diplomacy/politics/religion like the Romans did for 2 millennium unlike the flimsy 2 centuries of “mongol domination”.
@@rockstar450 When exactly did thr Mongols start to lose? You're gonna mention thr Golden Horde no doubt
I love it when you let your inner nerd shine through :D
+P4riah1 Inner? Inner??
Excellent use of setting proper context
I see your point but tbh the steppe armies didn’t prioritize holding ground overall. While you’re holding ground in a testudo on top of a hill they would swing around and burn and pillage six of your undefeated villages and cut off your supply line. After a few days of thirst and hunger most of your troops will rout. That’s what the mongols did to the entire Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. Also Tatars =/= Mongol
Late at the party here, but I still play Warband and you don't want to add even more realism in it without making horse archers even more OP, because historically they are OP as ff:
1. Stamina system on horses, getting stuck on the invi wall, and arrows running out can be negated by making the horse archers retreat, swap horses, resupply arrows, and get sent on the next reinforcement. Making them even more annoying.
2. Heavy cavalry, historically speaking, can never chase down light cavalry (considering similar horse breeds or has little difference). So your knights' horses will tire out sooner than the horse archers', and that make you a sitting duck.
So no, stop chasing horse archers with cavalry and invest in a strong archer support. Do what the veterans on fighting nomads do, mass volleys of counter fire (crossbows because archers are difficult to train for a weak, rice eating, sedentary people) supported by pike formations, han style. Testudos and heavy cavalry is only effective if you manage to pin them down in a river crossing or a mountain side.
Another pointer thats often overlooked about the Mongols and other armies that used mounted archeries and defeated infantry based armies and armies relying primarily on heavy shock cavalry with a consistent or consecutive records:
Their mounted horse archers were not merely equipped with bow and arrows; they were frequently equipped with swords,maces, and lances and they would clash just as frequently in a melee with their enemy infantry and heavy cavalry and these guys were incredibly hardened from life on the steppes and had lots of experience in close hand to hand combat because of the raiding and hunting their lifestyle and home regions forced them to do to survive (as you will immediately come across in any biography of Genghis Kahn where in his youth and adult years is frequently described as raiding other tribes and going into a melee) In other words they are just as hardened in their lifestyle to have the skills and physical strength to fight toe to toe with fnfantry and heavy cavalry in a melee. Some of the better organized and more miltiaristic cavalry based armies obviously including the Mongols and even other overlooked civilization such as the Seljuks even equipped their horse archers just as good as what'd you'd find in a professional army's run of the mill infantry with great quality armor and swords, etc.
Last but not least (and most important of alll) even horse archers didn't primarily used their arrows throughout a battle. WHat'd they'd often do is spray such arrows that they'd disrupt enemy formations or weaken enemy casualties and then pull out their lances and swords and finish up the already crippled enemy in a melee. Even in cases where they fought Testudo like formations and won, they didn't constantly sprayed arrows but di dmanuavers to attempt to disrupt formations.
So basically horse archers are not inherently superior to the point of victory but how you used them matter and just as equally important is what type of environemnt and life style said horse archers came from. While they were certainly relatively hardy compared to your average settled guy, th ehorse arhcers of Russia were quite easy to beat by simply using testudo foramtions and English archery tactics, etc In fact they'd be massacred in a melee witha professional army.
While cultures that are militaristic in areas filled with somewhat settled feudal like structure at war with each other all the time (ANatolia and Feudal Japan and Northern China) at the core and came from (even by steppe standards) hellish environments (the Mongols in specific) had soldiers who were experienced from war with the physical hardiness and skill with weapons needed to suceed well with meelee.
Without the proper organization and tactics that successful horse cavalry civilizations lik the Turks, Japanese, and Mongols use and without coming from regions cosntantly with internal strifes and wars between tribes that inspire a miltiarist mentality and has enviironmental features that make living in said regions HELLISH (Gobi Desert) Horse archers are not necessarily superior to other units and not even agaisnt regulat archers. We seen how horse archer cultures lacking in these necessary elements get defeated easily with the Parthians, Huns, Tartars, Muslims of Russia, and most Manchu armies.
How does my theory sound Scholagladiatoria?
In dthe end how superior one unit is depends on how its been raised from local conditions (freezing hell or scorchingly hot desert and nonstop conflicts between clever war lords) and how well-organized and militaristic its culture is. The Mongols had all these traits hence why they were often able to defeat the Chinese with only horse archers during the initial phrase of their conquest of China and how even without their specialized units like shock cavalry and infantry, they could steal beat other armies just using only horse archers. Because your average Mongol horse archer came fromt he same required traits needed for modern special ops. You see this to a lesser extent with Turkish warlords and kingdoms utilizing mostly cavalry based armies (and even winning agaisnt Crusaders using nothing but Cavalry) and the various wars in Northern China that Manchus won despite lacking the organization needed for infantrya nd only using horse archers.
Hey, Matt!
You've been mentioning playing Napoleonic Wars several times now. Are you perhaps in any regiment? With regiments you can attend organized linebattle and siege events with actual formations, commands, tactics. The size of these battles ranges from 100 to 200 people. Depending on the regiment, you can have multiple line, cavalry, skirmisher, or artillery companies. For instance, the regiment I am in has a guard company, a fusiliers/regulars company, artillery company and also cavalry. We have these kind of events at least 4 times a week. The battle we had yesterday comes to mind: I am in our guard company and we emerged victorious against a cavalry attack after they had flanked us. Our regulars were engaged with two enemy lines and could not help so we formed an anti-cavalry formation and stopped the cavalry attack, ultimately saving our regulars line and bringing us victory. Only three of us guards made it out of that melee, luckily one of them was an NCO and led the remnants back to our regulars line, by which time the battle was almost over. It was a valiant sacrifice and a really epic gaming moment. Shoot me a message if you're interested in joining. We're always looking for more people. We have a super fun and friendly community with a strong esprit de corps.
I wonder if the reason why mounted archers were so well documented in terms of effectiveness is because the western historians were so unfamiliar with them that they over-estimated their effectiveness when the western armies lost. It's possible that the Huns and Mongols and whoever else were just good at combined arms tactics that the introduction of horse archers seemed like a winning move in and of itself, rather than a new, key component of a good army.
+Steve P. There were several factors that they probably did not think of. The huns didn't exterminate tribes they encountered, they absorbed them and thus grew in size. Their army came to consists of loads of heavy and light infantry as well as the cavalry and they had the advantage of morale. Attila was ruthless and built a reputation for himself, and he showed everyone that Rome had weakened.
The mongols on the other hand had two major things going for them. The khan being a military genius and him uniting all the steppe tribes he could find. He was a shrew general with a gigantic horde of grizzled veterans, when he flooded China they couldn't muster enough troops in time to deal with all of the raiders and mounted archers. And when he travelled west he got armoured lancers and advanced seige weapons with him, and he still brought absurd numbers vs locals who relied on peasant levies.
When the khan died and the horde fractured and splintered they got beaten and thrown out practically everywhere, either that or absorbed into the local culture like in Iran.
I think medieval 2 total war had a good approach to horse archery.
1. Horse archers are effective on the field and useless in a seige.
2. Loose formation undermines the accuracy of all missile units including missile cavalry
3. Bad weather like rain or fog cuts the accuracy of all missile units thus undermining missile cavalry.
4. Horse archers can be run down by light cavalry
5. You can even run them down with heavy cavalry provided that the heavys are in loose formation ( see # 2).
6. Cross bows and archer units are effective against them especially if they are out ranged by said archer units .
7. Horse archers run out of missiles eventually.
8. Horse archers are vulnerable to being caught by melee cavalry if the melee unit is attacking from uphill.
9. Horse archers typically have poor morale in melee combat.
+andre robinson I think they were pretty well balanced in Shogun:TW 1 as well.
+andre robinson All of it may make for a great game, but it's not realistic.
1. Horse archers should be equally useful as foot archers in sieges.
2. Loose formation is a firearm era tactics, because no shield will help against firearms. Bows shoot at close range, so it's both not as useful and more risky to use it.
3. Perfect visibility is not that important for area-of-effect arrow barrage at fairly close ranges.
4. Horse archers can stuff their bows into their bags and they become light cavalry. Which can shoot if they choose to do so.
5. You can't run down someone who is running away faster than you can catch him. Not gonna happen (often).
bakters
I don't completely agree with you:
1. Cavalry is best suited to wide open plains (missile cavalry in particular). In the narrow city streets it would be easy for spears to cut them down.
2. No loose formation existed before fire arms but made more sense as fire arms developed.
3. True
4. true
5. You could run at a deliberately slower pace in order to tire them out probably.
andre robinson In closed spaces and in sieges cavalry dismounted. The only problem was fodder for horses if the siege took a long time. But at the same time, some horsemen were obviously an advantage, because they could be sent out to "organize" provisions for everybody.
Yes, you could try to chase horse archers, but it wouldn't be easy or safe. They could shoot you while running away, they were faster, they had way more endurance, and they could turn around at any moment. And they did.
its nice to have a fellow warfare enthusiast, cavalry force like horse archer only good in open field battle, defending mediocre and in siege is worst/bad. Horse archer main role is to harass the advancing or defending army. #3 agreed, #agreed #5 is true, however its not a good idea bcoz the word HEAVY, u get the point while horse archer are light armored and fast, the factor also for race of horses for instance Europen Horses is different to Eurasian / Asian Horses. #6 disagree, heard of parthian shot, in full gallop they shoot arrow which increases the acceleration of arrow given him extended range then ride back in circle formation #7true but can be addressed the Parthian provide at least 10 camel strictly for carrying arrow only. #9 Morale is subjective if you ride with Genghis Khan that is battle to the death and if i ride with Trump, ranaway already talking only military commanders in medieval time. As for the game, dont follow strictly and apply it to real life. Its very different lots of factors involved
if you can't beat them, join them. I married one of their nobelmans daughter, and got the rest to like me. I helped capture quite a few castles, and got to keep two or three. I waited till two kingdoms where at war with them, and a good nr of their castles where taken, then joined a different nation, taking my castles with me. I think I managed to get a few noblemen to defect as well. Can't remember if that's actually possible. Anyway, the two other kingdoms destroyed those assholes. Problem solved. Awesome game
Also I'd add this: mounted archers have bows that are weaker than bows used by the infantry, for handling reasons mainly. Now, english longbows could not pierce armor that easily (thanks to all videos you made with Tobias about this btw), and those have 150-180 pounds of force, I'm not an expert but I'd say mounted archers' bow are more 70-90 maybe less. In conclusion, even considering the difference in armor quality between armies at different times (not that roman armor was bad at all though) I'd say it was impossible for mounted archers to be as deadly and effective as portrayed in games and some literature.
Steppe armies generally relied on swarms of mounted archers and a core of armoured lancers. Infantry was a huge liability in that environment. It was, however, needed to take and hold fortifications, which is why they usually passed through burning and pillaging, but rarely conquered much.
One thing that Loyd and a few other people have mentioned is a another good counter for horse archers is foot archers. If you think about it, horse archers in a unit or unit-like band are almost always less accurate than foot archers in a unit, and they also tend to have much more range. The unit composition of horse archers does not allow as good accuracy without accidentally hitting one of your comrades, and furthermore the horses of the horse archers are very large targets and, with some exceptions, tend to be much less protected than those of high and late medieval knights, cataphracts, and lancers.
This annoys me so much, the Mongols were not the Tatars. The Tatars were a confederation of Turkic tribes that were the Mongols enemies and later were subjugated by 1202. I would have thought that Matt Easton being historically inclined as he is would have known that.
+Munk The Mongol I beliebe he is simply comparing them both as cultures of horse archers.
Callum Bundy he said the Mongols aka the Tatars. I mean I suppose he could have been lambasting others that call mongols tatars.
+Munk The Mongol then be annoyed tatar!
its ok turko-mongrel boy, sorry if i bothered you
Ragimund VonWallat It's ok son
Mount&Blade's horse archers always really annoyed me so I just started exploiting the terrible AI pathing by sitting in one corner of the map, they try to circle you, get stuck on an invisible wall (which usually happens to me in other games) and sit there while you play the spear hokey pokey.
Revenge is a dish best served just below freezing.
+enoughofyourkoicarp Yep, fuck those bastards x)
+enoughofyourkoicarp
And then I dismounted, took out my heavy long axe or heavy bardiche, and started cleaving them! So satisfying...
+enoughofyourkoicarp
Get a Courser and a shield. Job done.
Tyrannosaurus Rex Dude, it's so very annoying to run them down!
Also, the courser, while very fast, has few hit points and no armor, and it can be shot down relatively easy.
+TheFilthyCasual If you're up for it, you can go full-chevalier and get a big shield, the heaviest armor you can wear, the best (armored) horse you can find, and a lance. Couched lance damage FTW.
One of Rome's greatest military defeats was because of horse archers. In the battle of Carrhae a large force of heavy Roman infantry was worn down over time by a smaller number of Partian horse archers guarded by heavy cavalry. They were caught out in the open without fortification but in the end heavy armour didn't defeat horse archers with wagon trains full of arrows. The problem with computer games is that you don't want what could be a fast paced battle that you can play in a spare hour turn into something that lasts two days.
Imagine if mounted archers also had katanas. They would be indestructible.
and with big shields
+leon guignon Let's never teach them to cast spells...
+Ted Striker they were shooting katanas from their curved composite armor piercing kevlar nuclear bows
+Ted Striker you mean like katanashooting mounted archers? how terrifying!
+Ted Striker With pommels as arrow heas.
In history the horse was more often rapid transportation rather than a weapons platform. Knights would dismount and fight in melee. At the same time there were mounted archers or men at arms who owned horses (and paid more) who would dismount and setup a defensive line or act as designated marksmen. In later times they were called Dragoons or mechanized infantry.
The horse archers archers in Mount & Balde: Warband are quite effective, because armors in the game don't work like real life armors - instead of making soldiers mostly invulnerable, they just give them more hit points.
Nonetheless in that game, while they are overly effective in open battlefield, they are very much weakest in sieges, because in the game, there are no useage of horses in sieges.
Mount and Blade had the best mounted archer implementation ever!
- Arrows run out
- Accuracy drops to zero with faster riding speed
- Then can be caught
- Shields nullify arrow damage
- horses take separate damage from the soldier riding
- armor reduces arrow damage a lot
The real danger of mounted archers is not only in combat but their ability to utterly destroy your supply lines.
You could have the thickest heaviest armour, go into testudo and be able to take arrows for days without loss, but your men still need to eat and drink but the only realistic way to get supplies onto the battlefield is via supply wagons which are slow and prone to attack.
I would advise everyone too look up the campaign of Julian the Apostate and his successor Jovian into Persia.
Those horse archers were a nightmare from start to finish. They fell upon the Roman supply lines and the armies were started to crumble under its own weight.
If the Romans decided to go to Point A to resupply, the fast-moving Horse-Archers would rush ahead of their column, poisoning all the wells burning all the fields so by the time the Roman army reached Point A they would be lucky to get a blade of grass to eat.
While all of this is happening, they are getting shot at day and night and were not given the opportunity to rest.
Little by little this broke the formidable Roman Army and Jovian had to make a humiliating peace with the Persians and give up important Fortresses on the Euphrates like Nisibis leaving Syria wide open to attack
For centuries the Persians had been trying to capture Nisibis always getting hammered by the Roman garrisons because they sucked at sieges.
After this campaign, they got it for free.
The common saying saying that *_"Amateurs think of tactics first but professionals think of logistics first"_* holds true here.
If I was an ancient commander tasked with fighting the Scythians/Persians/Mongols etc my first priority would be to have an ironclad supply line and to perform scorched earth myself.
Turns out it takes a lot of food and fodder to maintain a Cavalry heavy army. The Poles figured this out and the next time the Mongols invaded their lands, the Poles stripped the land bare and hid behind the town and castle walls they took the precaution to build.
The Mongols starved and froze to death in the Polish Winter.
Turns out Scorched Earth cuts both ways
Others have already pointed out how effective horse-archers were in history, so I won't tenderize that horse carcass any further (no pun intended). Matt's points that they weren't invulnerable or superhuman are still true. All I'll add is one more limiting factor: Fodder requirements. With infantry, you're only feeding men. With cavalry of any kind, you must feed men *and* horses.
That's one thing that limited how much territory horse peoples could take. They were nomads, not farmers, so they could only spread as far as there was suitable grass for their steeds to eat. The only exception is when they found farming villages that grew enough hay; they could just plunder the farms. But plundering can only get you so much & is no substitute for a supply line. Basically, if horse people encounter land where they can't feed their mounts, there is no way they can truly conquer it.
If The Elder Scrolls has taught us anything, its that the only answer to everything is Stealth Archery. Critical!
+fallchiron Hah you never played Oblivion.The answer is spamming Goblin warchiefs those could beat Dagon on higher levels.
I played as an horse archer in open grounds of Skyrim
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think an answer to "armour > cavalry archer" is that cavalry archers are a lot more mobile than heavy infantry or cavalry and thus can often decide the place/field of battle. They can also ruin a war effort's logistics by harassing supply caravans and the various support camps of an army which will not be armoured. Many times an army's bottleneck is not its actual fighting strength but rather how well you can feed it.
"Kamikaze horsemen" can separete a sheildwall.
A really good point, Matt. When you first brought up horse archers in video games and them being annoying little bastards, I immediately thought back to my days playing Medieval 2: Total War and just throwing my hands up in the air whenever the Golden Horde emerged as a faction.
I think what adds to the problem is games like Total War also really, really understate the usefulness of cavalry. While they can be very effective, it got real annoying to manage getting cavalry on a flank of an enemy and doing a charge and the charge stopping dead in its tracks after only a line or two of the infantry, and the cavalry and infantry just standing there hitting each other until one side won out.
And even if you have cavalry units that the same speed (or even faster) than the horse archers, the AI or any decent player is just going to take off as soon as you come into view and loose arrows at you for days while you attempt in vain to run them down.
That’s a good point but in history mounted archers did defeats Romans in testudo, in carahe
Historically, I would suppose that the greatest advantages of mounted archers are for lightning raids on rural areas, as the Mongols and Huns were known for. Ride in, shoot a bunch of farmers in the face, then light everything on fire. I would assume that they would be the fastest and most efficient units for such raids. Not going to be very helpful taking a fort. In a field battle, you can shoot down routing units, especially those with light armor. Just a few among many examples to try and elaborate on where this is going. Important, but specialized.
The Plains Tribes in America were essentially mounted archers and white officers said the same thing u could drive them off a hill but they would always pop up on another hill ascending from the other side.
At the time they were effective, I'd pray they did not ride my way. Especially, when I was a peasant and not had armor. If I was a villager, I'd hate mounted archers. Point being: They'd destroy my immediate social circle in a whistle.
If I my bum was protected by any type of layers (a burg person???), I wouldnt worry about them. I'd like to see the rich face projectiles that come from another galaxy; I like them for doing that.
EVer heard of pursuit predation or ambush predation? Terror weapons? Shock and awe? We were way ahead of the curve in that way. You are looking at it in an anachronistic and anaterritorial (geo-irrelevant) way I think. I'd really pay a tribe to see centaurs to ride their way and to survive the whole endevour.
The best example of mounted archers limits probably is Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097.
Crusaders vanguard under command of Bohemund was attacked by combined forces of Kilij Arslan and Danishmend, consisting primary of mounted archers. Attackers employed typical charge-shoot-retreat-repeat tactic and inflicted some damages on light infantry, Tafurs, camp followers and such. Bohemund commanded his knight to dismount and form defensive perimeter together with heavy infantry. And that was quite it- Bohemund held the ground until Crusaders main force arrived and attacked Turks in the rear. According Amin Maalouf, Turks were shocked to see what little effect they tactics had.
The battle is won by logistics. 1 Archer on horseback might cost as much as 2 crossbowman with paveses. If you want to win with light cavallerie, then harras the peasants and destroy the enemies infrastructure. He may hide behind walls, but thats ok just keep him there.
In stronghold crusaders I kept using such tactics and attacked my enemies before they build up armies to give me the time to devellop the strongest economy and then come back with a F-load of catapults, crossbowmen and heavy armored troops.
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the Tatars from the Crimea did not needed other formations as horse archers. And it was because of the main purpose of their military expeditions. At that time "czupuls" (squads participating in the expedition) had the goal of kidnapping as many people as possible and sell them in Turkey markets as slaves. They hunted these people in Russia, Romania and Ukraine (at this time being a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) Their main advantage were - the speed and mobility. And this was ensured only light cavalry. Even when they had to be forced to have other war purposes (when Turkish sultan who was khalif as well) declared "Jihad", Tatars were used as scouts and special forces to make disorder at the rear of the enemy armies.
you basically described every light cavalry ever.
I read in one of the cronicles from the first Crusade that Turkish horse archers generally broke formation and run when facing crossbowmen. Later battle formations of the Templars and Hospitalliers seem to reinforce the point. Basically their tactic was to charge with knights on short distance, retreat regardless of the outcome and turn the pursuing Turks and Arabs into pin cusions with crossbow bolts. Muslim commanders, on the other hand, considered separating Frankish cavalry and infantry to be the key to winning...
Well looking at the Byzantine manuals of war from the 8th century they suggested if infantry units are attacked by light cavalry archers deploying dismounted archers which can use longer and more powerful bows, to the front of infantry formations to outrange the mounted archers, and then should the enemy atempt to close the infantry(spearmen with big shields and decent either maile or laminated armour) willl move to the front with their spears to punish the steppe denizens. Also the deployment of Kataphractoii for counter charges or to engage at range with their own bows whilst being so armoured as to be unphased by the foe's incoming arrows.(yeah Kataphractoii were very versitile in this period each Kataphractos is cited as being equipted with a sword, a mace or axe for anti armour, a lance and a composite bow(so unfortunately more weapons than they let you have on M&B) Another thing they mention to do is attack during the end of winter so that the enemy horses are in the worst condition possible and fodder is thin on the ground and of poor quality whilst your excellent Roman logistics keep your cavalry mounts are in fine condition and is probably supplied with a good daily ration of grain(probably oats). In this way any of the light cavalry in your army should be able to run down and keep the pressure on the foe and make the best of most engagments or retire in good order from fights they cannot win.
Warband mounted archers aren't especially powerful. They're annoying, like you said, but they're actually somewhat mid tier. While player mounted archers tend to be over specialized and well made (which works by exploiting the system, not by playing as intended), the AI mostly just circles around for ten minutes shooting off arrows. Dangerous if you're alone and without a couple shields, sure, but not a threat to a half decent army. Particularly one which has its own ranged capabilities, since foot archers and crossbowmen tend to have stronger weaponry with a higher range.
Horse archers are only excessively powerful in mods which tend to give overpowered weaponry to everyone. The best cavalry in the base game is generally heavy cavalry, with lancers being a close second (though, admittedly, their position as second might have something to do with the game AI being useless), but even then without some sort of a diversified force you'll take way more casualties than you need to.
+Unus Domus Mounted archers in Gekokujo are extremely powerful even without overpowered weapons. The reason for this is that there are no shields in that mod so using terrain or moving fast are the best ways to avoid getting shot. In With Fire and Sword DLC the mounted troops are strong for the same reason - including mounted Crimean mercenary archers.
+Stu Bur Ranged weapons in any Pike&Shot warfare mod are extremely powerful, regardless of whether they're mounted or not.
Unus Domus Mounted ranged weapon units can use mobility to their advantage though. Dragoons in WFAS for example can use that mobility to get into a good position such as a flank and fire then move on and avoid a lot of counter fire once the enemy repositions. They can be effective when used with decent tactics even with firearms inferior to those used by foot soldiers
+Stu Bur Almost anything is capable of beating superior opponents when going against the AI if decent tactics are used. When going against players, if they're good enough to exist as more than a formless mob, they'll be good enough to look and fire before you can run away, and good enough to hit you while you're moving regardless.
+Decay I love how you talk about my 'gay ass nerdy video game' shit while you clearly have a pretty decent experience with Warband yourself, judging by your other comments.
Regardless, I wasn't really talking about what was best. I was explicitly pointing out how mounted archers aren't nearly as effective in Warband as people say; I was giving the example of heavy and lancer cavalry to drive that point down.
Yes, if you go into the files and fiddle around with things to break the game, certain things will be more effective than they should be. Games work on numbers designed to imitate reality; they do not simulate it. Native warband bows, even on a horse, are ineffective in situations when they should be ineffective. When you take that way, when you fiddle with the files, they become more effective than they should be unless the armor is boosted incredibly to compensate. But you can do that for everything. You can make light infantry using knives and wearing nothing but underwear incredibly effective if you mod it that way. I've done it for shits and giggles once because it was funny watching the AI run around at ~50 mph stabbing each other to death.
The power of horse archers in WB is almost exclusively the result of incompetent AI. The fact that a player with a shield and a tree can win out against a party of Horse archers alone is proof of that.
The mongol horse archer armed with a 90-150 pound draw weight horse bow with their leadership and military system was the answer to everything for about 300 years.
+Vernon Cooney Not really. The Mongols had lots of other types of soldier besides horse archers. You can't hold ground, take ground, break heavily armoured infantry or lay siege with horse archers.
+scholagladiatoria Granted but without the horse archers the Mongols would have been just another European like power
+scholagladiatoria yet they did take ground and destroyed heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. we are not entirely sure of their tactics because they left few survivors and the stories seem to be exaggerated
+Vernon Cooney you got wrongness right
Most historians believe at minimum the Mongol armies were made up of 50% infantry
I think the issue with horse archers isn't that they were unstoppable. No, I think (and for the record, I am not a "Horse Archer Fanboy") the main problem associated with horse archers is they're very hard to put out. For example, take some Magyar and Avar horse archers over in Central Europe during the 700s. You, a local Western Slavic leader, want to secure the land around your villages and this brings you into head on conflict with the local Khagana. Your force cannot be outright defeated by the archers, you hold all the villages and can force assaults on any village they may still hold... but how do you get rid of the archers? After a month, our force is tired. Supplying yourselves in those fortified villages is difficult because your foragers keep getting hit. The enemy never engages your strength (the Slavic shield-and-spear wall), instead raiding and picking at the spots you currently aren't. The relative imperviousness of your men (clad in mail or scale and carrying shields) to arrowfire is thus a non-factor as the archers aren't interested in assaulting your primary force. After a longer period of time, you take stock. you've lost a portion of your army. You need to go home for harvesting, which is going to be painful because you don't have enough men to gather the harvest. You've actually lost territory because you no longer have the men to police all the villages, which gain more autonomy as a result. And those bloody horse archers are still there, because you have no way of forcing them to fight.I suppose the thing I'm getting at is that mounted archers, as you pointed out, have shortcomings. They can't hold ground, they can't outright defeat an opponent, they're utterly useless at a siege... But at the same time, they present a logistical nightmare. They rove across territory at a bloody great turn of speed, raiding and cutting across supply lines. This slows of ties down portions of an army in trying to protect the said supply line. It strips you of your foodstuffs. It strips your people of their security and reduces the prosperity of your territories by killing villagers and burning fields. They cannot win a battle, but they can win the larger strategic campaign as long as they continue to avoid larger engagements.I will, however, note that my example is also limited in terms of size and the typical armies of the 700s do not really stack up against what the Mongols, Tatars, or Golden Horde would have faced.
+VelmiVelkiZrut You do what Otto the Great did to the Magyars at Lechfeld in 955 CE: trap them against an obstacle so that they can't retreat, then ride them down with heavy cavalry.
yes , that why mongolian so effect because of that . there really not very much way to deal with them even you had horse archer as well
Booby trap your territory.
The Mamelukes did something similar in Egypt
As I can see you base your argument largely in the context of Europe, where people need to hold position to perform agricultural activities. As for the nomads in East Asia, really there is no point in holding a position. You would have to move around even without being chased on the plain, even if you lose the place you can always swoop back.
The whole point of light cavalry in general is to do the things Heavy cav, and infantry can't do, which is to effectively work at the enemy's flanks, or famously for the Mongols, bait the enemy into chase for the main force to ambush.
I think the battle of Kulikovo sorted that one, and that was it. Once you get heavy infantry on a superior position, backed up by some good cavalry - you're set.
Thank you for the video, since it seems all the discussions that I've had with people seems to think that Mongolians were this unbeatable steamrolling machine. My question to you Matt is in your opinion could the Mongolians have dominated Europe in much the same way they did everywhere else (I understand they had some very good successes on the outskirts of Europe)? Further, why did most armies not seem to make good use of massed foot archers to fuck the Mongolian's day up?
Also incidentally I would recommend the 1257 AD mod. Horse archers are even worse to deal with in that M&B mod, but it does a lot of other things correctly.
I love that mod. Are mounted archers that powerful though? I never really noticed because I mostly play in Western Europe but in general longbowmen and crossbowmen seem much stronger than in the base game so I'd have thought horse archers would be easier to counter.
P.S. Actually yes I did face horse archers in my crusader run. I found that infantry with shields were generally able to stand their ground and heavy cavalry were very good at running them down.
But mount and blade is not about big army fights or ground covering. Mount and blade is about skirmish. Which is the best thing a horse archer can do.That doesn't surprise me if they are really good.
"You can't win a campaign with only horse archers"
Challenge accepted ;)
Huns did more than alright
Infantry archers actually have a lot of advantages over horse archers.They have longer range (a longbow is too big to shoot from horseback), they are more accurate (they aren't firing from on top of a moving animal), they are a smaller target and they are way easier to train and equip. I think infantry archers would be a great defense against them.
In most of the world, pre gunpowder warfare evolved increasingly towards mounted archers until they were the dominant troop type right before the mass introduction of hand guns.
Romans, Persians, Arabs, Turks, Goths, Mongols, all relied on horse archery.
Oddly enough, in Europe, even as armor was improving, mounted archery increased in popularity.
The English armies of the hundred year war were largely mounted archers.
The majority of the German, Italian and French lancer bands that dominated European warfare in the 15th and 16th centuries were mounted archers. The cavalry of Poland, Russia and the balkans in the 16th century all used bows.
The only major European power that I know of that didn't rely on horse archers in the late middle ages is Spain. As far as I know, their light "Jinete" cavalry didn't use bows.
The "mounted archers" of Western Europe by and large did not shoot from horseback; except for a few isolated incidents, they operated as mounted infantry rather than light cavalry. The Eastern European horse archers definitely shot on horseback though, and made for a nasty combination with their knights.
+John Huang You're correct that western archers didn't shoot from horseback as much as eastern archers, but my point is that mounted archers were incredibly effective and did dominate warfare.
Recently, both Lindybeige and now Scholagladiatoria have put out these videos essentially saying "if horse archers were so great, why didn't everyone use them?" and the simple answer is, "well, everyone DID use them". The fact is, that mounted archers made up the bulk of armies across the world prior to the mass adoption of hand guns.
Peter Lynch
Hmmm, now that is actually a rather excellent point! Bravo!
I wouldn't say 'the bulk', the bulk of the army of any sedentary civilization has always remained infantry, if we were going by numbers. Although the mounted portion of the English, French and Burgundian armies in the late Medieval period was indeed made up largely of mounted longbowmen operating as dragoons, largely due to the influence of the remarkably successful English tactics during the HYW. The Italians and Germans not so much, although they did have quite a few mounted crossbowmen, they were generally still outnumbered by the men-at-arms and other melee cavalry. In the east though the mounted archer, be they the Asiatic style with composite bow shooting on the gallop or European-stye mounted crossbowmen shooting often in formation, predominated.
+John Huang Thanks for sharing that information, very interesting. Say, do you know any sources about French use of the longbow during HYW? I've always wondered, did French archers also use the longbow or did they actually adopt the longbow from the English? I know that French archers (not just crossbowmen) appear in battle records in the early battles of HYW and even before the HYW and I've wondered if they used longbows, or another kind of bow.
Peter Lynch
I am not sure about the exact organization of the French Compagnies d'Ordonnance, but here is a website with detailed information on the Burgundian version, which should be almost identical.
www.wolfeargent.com/ordonnances.htm
Yes the franc-archers until their conversion into heavy cavalry in the late 15th century would be armed with English-style longbow, and their creation was almost certainly modeled after their highly succesful English nemesis. Though they never scored quite the same level of success as the Britons, so perhaps their skill was somewhat lacking.
@scholagladiatoria do you still feel this way about horse archers? I would disagree on the point that having infantry is essential in an army composition to hold position. I think the battle of Kalka river clearly demonstrates why infantry isn’t that important in open field battle. The Chinese and western europeans had to train horse archers of their own in order to counter the horse archers of the nomadic raiders, why would they bother if they could just get some shield walls and wagons to hold ground?
Matt, Lindy did a video on this some time back, so my memory is still somewhat fresh. Genghis K. was famous for doubling the amount of EHC In his army / battle formations. At the Battle of Ankara the Serbian SHC (knights) essentially rode through the Tatar ranks at will. You are. from an historical standpoint, very correct. Thank-you, Dante.
Mounted archery, and archery in general, was the birth of the samurai class; which is an interesting thing considering they are commonly associated with the sword.
Just an FYI for some who didn't know.
"Think about a Roman testudo. Think about Roman soldiers."
Yeah... I thought about that before you even said it... only thing is, I immediately thought of the Battle of Carrhae. I guess you might be able to excuse it because Crassus was inept and the Parthians had supply camels with arrows and water, but still... From what I've read, legionaries had arrows through the shields and into their hands, through their feet and drilled into the ground... yeah... and then there's the casualty count...
+Michael Rex That's true, the Testudo was not invulnerable. But the reason that mounted archers were so effective at Carrhae was because they forced the Romans to adopt formations like the testudo, which is vulnerable to the Parthian's other main force: cataphracts.
So they were caught in an unwinnable position. Either they defended themselves against the archers and got run down by the charge of the Cataphracts, or they formed deep formations to defend against the Cataphracts and opened themselves up to the archers.
+Michael Rex ah finally I was waiting for someoneto mention Carrhae. but what defeated the roman's tetsudo wasn't the horse archers but the cataphract charges. basically when the romans were in normal formation they were picked off by horse archers, when they went into tetsudo they were charged by cataphracts, because they can't fight back efficiently in melee in this formation. then when they broke the tetsudo formation to fight off the cataphracts, the latters would just retreat and the horse archers would fire again
TOME Julien
...therefore, it was the combination of the two. The cataphracts wouldn't have won without the horse archers, and the horse archers wouldn't have won without the cataphracts.
Michael Rex
yeah, and all that confirms Matt's point. I should also add that even though this battle was a humiliation for the romans, the subsequent campains against the Parthian empire were rather successful, they didn't manage to bring it down, but the Parthian capital got sacked several times
+Michael Rex Something tells me the accounts of the arrows through the shields are false, arrows are not getting through a shield boss or the wood and rawhide. I wouldn't be surprised however if some Parthians were just really good shots and shot at their legs and feet.
1:23 The Hungarians didn't use horse archers anymore by 1200 and mounted archery was practically gone from Hungarian culture. However, they did tend to hire lots Cumans and Petchenegs as the Mongols approached.
honestly i dont bother with horse archers in my army
but having a bow or crossbow mounted just opens up big windows of oppertunity if the battle suits it, and ii usually ALWAYS take a bow to a seige attack to pick archers off the battlements
i just could never imagine how to play a character who isnt a horseman... having a horse just gives you so many options of mobility
You can protect yourself from them with a testudo formation, but how will you catch the "bastards" with heavy armour or with castles that don't move?
When the mongols saw elephants charging, they just shot them in their unarmored legs (btw armoring elephants legs reduces mobility very heavily). This made them go amok. (crazy from pain but not critically wounded) And the enemy troops had to kill their own berserking elephants.
Mounted archers are not the answer, but when put on the attack grouped with about 85% mounted archers, 12% Heavy infantry/ heavy cavalry and 3% heavy artillery (for both holding and taking ground)
I would think that once those Testudo's go up, the Horse Archers maneuver around them and attack their other more vulnerable elements, because Testudo limits your mobility. The same goes for the melee cav. You would probably have to rely on your own cav for protection in this event, and hope they are as effective as the enemy cav. That or you would be forced out of your Testudo and chase after them or attempt to intercept them. But yea, good point, I'm surprised anyone actually believes the Mongols or Huns were soley mounted archers.
+Ulfbert
In the case of Richard the Lionheart's campaign during the Third Crusade, he was able to use his "testudo" to such an effective degree that the Saracen horse archers were unable to seriously damage it to provoke the response they wanted. He didn't have a lot of baggage trains that would be vulnerable to attack by the swarms of Turks (his provisions being carried mostly by ships, as his army was marching down the coast) and what little he had was protected inside the "testudo", plus his cavalry too. In the end he was able to wait until the Turks over-commit their attack and exhaust their horse, before launching his own counterattack with his cavalry.
But the limitation of his strategy became apparent when he tried to advance inland to Jerusalem, far away from his water-based logistical support. Saladin's army had burned and removed all the provisions nearby, and Richard's starving army war forced to retreat back to the coastline.
John Huang I've always thought that horse armies would have developed ways to disrupt testudos and take advantage of an enemy's tight grouping. Something like a flaming pot or tossing a bunch of caltrops over an area in order to separate a group. In the case of the Mongols and Song Chinese, grenades?
Ulfbert
The problem with that was most horse archer armies were not terribly engineering savvy. Some of them like the Mongols were, but in general, its the city dwellers who held monopoly on gunpowder and other cool stuff.
Plus, try handling a grenade with a lighted fuse on the back of a horse.....I am not saying that it couldn't be done, its just not terribly easy or was considered a good idea by a lot of people.
That's what exactly happened to crassus in parthia, Mounted archers had them in a square defensive formation and he was unable to chase them with his heavy infantry because his calvary were all dead in his son's command because of his foolish decision, there only way out was to use Archers but since Romans hated archers and always hired them instead of training their own.That was a disastrous campaign.
I think this is a great point, and something that I didn't consider before, that a Testudo may protect that formation from the horse archers, but it may cause a weakness somewhere else as you can't maneuver as easily. I think that potentially one solution may be to have the infantry hunker down behind their shields, and then use your own foot archers to fight against the horse archers, and they should have better range and accuracy because they're not being jostled around on horses. I suppose elephants with archers or chariot archers could work for this, but I think the infantry archers would be most efficient.
good points. people act like there was no anti horse weapons and tactics that were known by folks in the old days.
Rome Total War had that same problem with Horse archers. So for Rome 2 the combat models were changed to not give HA's a MASSIVE advantage. All mounted skirmishers in Rome 2 need support from other cavalry or fast infantry. They are very effective at breaking up AI infantry lines though.
Battle of Jaxartes river where Alexander the great defeated the horde of sycthian horse archers