What's your favorite ancient troop? By ancient I mean before the use of gunpowder. Personally I like the varangian guard from the Byzantine empire. Those guys were badass. Pic related
I really like the middle eastern janasari. Taken as children to serve, and total badasses
>>539345
Have you guys heard of the Sikh Nihangs? They fought against mass-converting Muslims in India. Their most famous battle is Chamkaur wherein 60 Nihangs faced more than 100,000+ Muslims, effectively killing themselves whilst taking out 100s of Muslims.
>>539359
The same ones that were castrated?
If it were my choice I would want to be a longbowman. I wanted to do that so much that when I was a little kid I joined an archery club and was there for two years.
Landsknecht is a strong second, I want to look fabulous when I fight.
>>539372
Jannisaries weren't castrated. Where does this meme come from, Game of Thrones?
>>539345
Mamluks.
>crossed swords with crusaders
>rekt the mognols
>Took over and ruled for centuries
>>539457
I thought the janissaries were eunuchs.
>>539528
> I mean I don't think those guys go to fight with those long ass hats
oh ,but they did
>>539474
nope. Eunuchs were a separate class that served a different purpose in imperial courts- a tradition from the Eastern Romans IIRC
Never understood why everyone always loved the Janissaries.
For me its the Swiss pike/ halberd men. Fought to the last man, always charged first and asked questions later, and hardly ever wavered even in the face of gunfire.
move aside best solider coming through
Hello where are the infantry formations that I can break?
Samurai :^)
>>539727
don't forget the Camel edition.
>>539727
This, always liked cataphracts whether they be Parthian, Seleucid, Sassanid, or Roman. Though I prefer the latter due to being a byzaboo.
>>539462
Are Mamluks warhammer 40k orks?
>>539707
>got rekt by a bunch of peasant slingers at Sphacteria
>Spartan State immediately got knocked on their ass and confused what to do when a bunch of the survivors surrendered, who belonged to the top families
>literally too retarded to figure out that Hoplites alone can't win every battle and circumstance
>>539753
But they were the special forces of Greece, right?
>>539727
>break
>implying
>>539745
>always liked cataphracts whether they be Parthian, Seleucid, Sassanid, or Roman
Same. Personally, I am partial to early proto-cataphracts from the Sarmatians of the upper Yenisei, also Kushans and other Saka/Sarmat derived nations.
>>539746
no. If anything they'd relate to Age of Empires and Mount and Blade
>>539753
b-b-but muh honor in close combat! missile weapons are effeminate, bro!
>>539763
I was referring to the amount of weaponry in your mamluk picture.
>>539761
>Shock Troops
>Not breaking enemy formations
>>539784
Not all shock troops are created equal. In any case, heavy cav is at a severe disadvantage when facing trained infantry in a proper formation. Like their light cav cousins, they usually make brief contact before wheeling away, rather than plowing right into melee like some kind of Hollywood BS. It's not much different from the tactics of a much older kind of heavy cav, the chariots of Ramesses &c. In all three cases nobody gets into prolonged contact with enemy infantry until they have already broken.
>>539829
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot break infantry, just that they need proper support to do so.
>>539829
The key here is
>When facing trained infantry
The fact is that during the time period that heavy cavalry were in wide use, trained infantry weren't really a thing. When militaries decided that mobs of rabble weren't good enough anymore, heavy cav began to fall out of favor.
>>539871
>The fact is that during the time period that heavy cavalry were in wide use, trained infantry weren't really a thing.
I like and mostly agree with your point here. But I'd relate it as much to geography as to time. Heavy cav were in wide use for a very long time in the steppes, but for a lesser time on the North European plain, and they were laughably overrated in France. Opinions on this?
>>539891
Also the availability of quality infantrymen varied by region. Rural East Iran is different from Eastern Europe, and both are different from West Europe in that regard.
>>539891
The wide usage of cavalry on the steppes and plains had to do alot with the environment. Nomadic tribes like those who are best known for their cavalry (Huns, Alans, Magyars) more or less relied on horses for everything. Therefore, utilizing cavalry instead of infantry is second nature and a "no-brainer".
France is a bit different though. When talking about cavalry in France, you have to remember that feudalism basically started in France. At its roots, feudalism is essentially a military system focused on supplying specific individuals (nobles) with the means to become heavy cavalry. Because feudalism was created and most heavily indoctrinated in France, cavalry stuck around for a while. After a while, the nobles began considering it their right to ride a horse into battle, which served to cement heavy cavalry even further. Finally, there are loads of battles where the French saw overwhelming success using heavy cavalry, and were therefore quick to dismiss its other failures and continue using the system.
>>539745
There are some things wrong with that pic
Stirrups. Not known at the time
Mantle. The direction and placement of the scales is upside down
>>540250
It's probably a 9th/10th century Byzantine cataphract, so I don't think the stirrups are out of place.
>>539462
>memeluks
Doesn't get any better than this. Cataphract camels are a close second, and I wish war giraffes had become a thing
>>539345
>beat the romans
Badass as fuck
>>539345
Dacians. Specifically warriors who used the falx(i.e the little beauty eating through that poor legionary's shield like it was cardboard). Something you got to admire about a warrior culture that gave the Romans so much shit that it's the only recorded instance in which the legions where forced to make drastic alterations to their armor while on campaign.
Gallowglass were ballers
>still no Mongols or Huns
>>539753
>>539758
>>539765
Alright, Fags. The Spartans were the best forces in the Greek sphere until the sacred band, bar none. They fought where they were told and one where they fought and their reputation is justly deserved.
Now, as for the fag blaming it on slingers, those were a reaction to the Spartan way of war and the Spartan way of war was to interoperate with other greeks. Seriously, they were in Laconia and their navy consisted of twenty triremes when they were connected to the Greek homeland by what's basically a sandbar. That's insane.
Traditionally, they were the shield of Hellenic civilization. They would take the field with a combined Greek army to fight barbarians or the persians or whoever and when they did, they would provide elite heavy infantry that couldn't be matched.
Then, riding on the heels of Persian wars, they went full retard and decided to be the next Delian league. Now the problem with this is that other other city-state's hoplites were no slouches either. Think back to the Athenian victory at Marathon. A battle that was won with brains, blood and bronze. Those Athenian and Theban infantry took weeks or monts to train.
Those Spartan Hoplites took twelve to twenty-four years to train. And they never relaxed their standards. Not once. Their solution was "Have more sons" but that only went so far.
So the Spartiate dwindled from thousands to a few hundred, attrited down to nothing over the course of decades of war. Because when one of them died, his replacement was years away. When a Theban died, his replacement was weeks away.
>>539829
Cataphracts were actually pretty fucking well known for breaking trained infantry. Being able to do so is the reason that hellenes and romans adopted them.
There's a myriad of reasons they're not relaly comparable to other havy cavalry.
Early groups would have stupidly lomg lances that mmeant the front rank was implaed long before the horse was going to contact them.
Byzantine cathprachts had archers on the flanks ot shoot them in-meaning they'd shower the targeted section of the enemy force with arrows-along with men IN the wedge with bows, and often hurled maces at the enemy before impact.
Yes, maces. They also liked to hunt deer that way. They were also noted for being absolute terrors with said maces in the melee.
It's also worth noting that the menaulion was SPECIFICALLY used by byzantine infantry to kill heavily armored turks on armored horses who'd smashed into the infantry formations, or to screen the force from their charge entirely.
Regular pikes and spears could break or be turned aside by the horses armor.
>>539891
Given that the gendarmes were able to charge THROUGH pike blocks more than once-I'd disagree.
>>539727
my favorite
>>540489
>the shield of Hellenic civilization.
Hey remeber when they helped the horribly outnumbered athenian army at marathan an won one of the battles that is oft stated among th emost important in western history?
Yes?
That's funny, because they didn't show up.
Remeber when persia came back, and the spartans nobly marched north to save all of greece?
No?
That's because they wanted to build a fucking wall to save their portion of greece, and leave much of their civilization hanging out in the wind, including athens.
>Those Athenian and Theban infantry took weeks or monts to train.
>thebans
>marahon
You mean plateans?
>Those Spartan Hoplites took twelve to twenty-four years to train
Except both groups would begin learning to fight wars in early boyhood, and continue until they were too advanced in age to fight.
Other greeks practiced their skills less, but "weeks or months" is a retarded, bullshit number you just made the fuck up. A dead hoplite meant you were waiting for a new male citizen of equivalent or better wealth to come of age. This is true for EVERY greek city.
On top of this... 12 to 24 years?
First, no, sparta never fielded 12 year olds.
Second, no, no 23 year old was sitting in Sparta during a war because his training wasn't done.
Third, no, because the agoge-and all other spartan training-included plenty of philosophy, rhetoric, and other intellectual pursuits, as spartans, like all other greeks, believed that men who could think AND fight were better men, and better men get better results, at everything, because arete is a BIG FUCKING DEAL. Especially to hoplites. How the FUCK do you think they came by laconic humor? Stupid men are not capable of expressing complete ideas laconically, much less being funny. ESPECIALLY in writing.
Fourth, The spartan population was doing just fucking fine when they got crushed by a smaller force, led by a smarter tactician using better tactics at leuctra.
tl;dr
Fuck you. Fucking idiot.
>>540527
Wow mate you are entirely too angry about his post.
He was responding to short meme tier posts. He countered to best of his ability, which to you then jumped on like a dragoon in ffxiv to tear apart to look the better.
Pro-tip: Nobody on 4chan knows who you are. Nobody cares how smart you are either.
>>539761
>Cataphracts
>>540565
>look better
Project harder.
I'm tearing it apart because it's fucking wrong. The premise of the post is wrong. The details are wrong.
And he's not responding to "meme" posts.
Sphacteria IS a direct result of spartan inflexibility, and this inflexibility cost them several other battles-far from a meme. There's not some special spartan way of war that the other anons were unaware of, and they sure as fuck didn't use other Greeks to effect a combined arms style of war like he's implying.
Almost everything he had to say is easily shown to be untrue with even a modicum of research.
>>540587
Change it to
You're holding a phalanx formation with your fellow phalagnites this motherfucker slaps your sarissas into dust.
What do you do?
>>540626
Leonidas may have had an opinion that was different from most other spartans. Or he may have simply understood that he needed to act to keep athens from simply bowing out of the war before their city was lost-which is vital, because only they could keep the Persians from sailing around any walls on the isthmus of corinth.
Additionally, it wasn't a sacrifice initially. Had the hidden path around the greeks not been revealed, they could have held off the persians far, far longer than they did, and htis would have forced a retreat in due time.
As is, the only certainty is that SOMEONE had to stay behind and die, because if the entire army left, they'd just get run down.
>>539345
european knights to be honest. A better version of the cataphract
>>540527
Reading comprehension, motherfucker. Since this is apparently baby's first troll, I'll enlighten you.
The primary sources agree with me. Go back and read your Xenophon. In his description of the spartiate, if you do the math on the formations that he describes, the Spartiate during the Persian wars numbered just over 3,500. A few hundred Spartans. This is where I base my assessment of their faulty training pipeline. The Spartiate could prevail in a few high intensity battles, driving off raiding Thracians or whoever. They could not maintain their numbers over the course of the years of sustained combat that comprised the Peloponesian and Boeotian/Sacred wars.
>That's because they wanted to build a fucking wall to save their portion of greece, and leave much of their civilization hanging out in the wind, including athens
But they were at the battle of plataea. This is normal in Coalitional wars. No one wants to be the sacrificial lamb that hangs their ass out so that others can perform the final glorious push. The Spartans didn't do as much as they could, but they didn't sit the war out, either.
If you want a real clusterfuck, look at the French incursion into Northern England in concert with the Scots during the Hundred years war. It brings new meaning to the term "Passive Aggressive"
>You mean plateans?
No, I mean Athenians. Miltiades commanded an Athenian force against the Persians at Marathons. Go back and read my statement again: I said it was an Athenian victory.
>Except both groups would begin learning to fight wars in early boyhood, and continue until they were too advanced in age to fight.
Debatable. The Athenians seemed to be on the citizen levy model as per the rest of Greece. Athenian Hoplites might have trained hard but the Spartiate were soldiers and nothing else. The code of Lycurgus specifically forbids them from taking up a trade.
cont.
>>540699
>Can't into Horse archery
>Only knows CHARDGE :DDDDDD
>>539372
longbowman? i hope you know that being a longbowman probably was the most boring (but maybe also the safest) soldier to be. your work was basically to stand between hundreds of fellow longbowmans, draw and shoot until you got commanded to stop. those guys didn't even aim nor could count kills, it was quantity over quality.
>>539528
you probably belive highlanders didn't go to fight in skirts too
>>540328
i can't understood why we never saw any zebra rider tribe honestly
>>540728
One of the defining feature of long bowmen was their unusual willingness to get stuck in, and ability to handle it when they did.
They were well known for skill with both swords and pole arms, and the fact that they were dual-use is part of the reason that they ended up being valued mercenaries on the crossbow-happy continent.
>>540718
>Can't into Horse archery
what? They beat the turks, who employed horse archers extensively, in several battles during the first crusade, and they beat other horse archer users in other crusades as well. The idea that horse archers > knights is retarded
>Only knows CHARDGE
What else would you have them do? Charges were the most efficient use of melee cavalry at any point. Any medieval army would be helpless against a well timed charge. They could also dismount and fight on foot if needed.
>>540819
>The idea that horse archers > knights is retarded
>Implying I'm saying this.
Furthermore the Crusaders were desperate for light cavalry actually. Employing Turkic Mercenaries both Christian and Otherwise for this job.
>What else would you have them do? Charges were the most efficient use of melee cavalry at any point.
Precisely my point. As cavalry knights were one trick ponies. Meanwhile cataphracts can into charge and skirmishing.
You can't fight in Asia as cavalry just by having only "charge" as your entire repertoire.
>They can dismount and fight on foot
Any soldier worth their shit could do that.
>>540819
There is no skill involved or thinking involved in the teutonic knights.
Literally brute force and heavy armour
>>540819
You begin to appreciate horse archery when you are a heavily armoured melee knight and fighting Khergits in warband.
>>540837
Bro, that picture made me rock hard, you are both a gentleman and a scholar, if you have more please share
>>540819
keep sucking the crusader cock undeducated shitter
>>540742
Zebra were never domesticated because they're too skittish and aggressive as a result of living in the savannah
>>540857
Filename. You can download them willy nilly.
>>540892
>muh videogames
>get over here so i can hit you with my sword
t. European knight
>>540908
Thanks mane
>>540911
or
>i have a long ass sharpened piece of wood the size of a tree that im going to charge full speed on horseback with at you
>>540901
im a kebab remover
get fucked crusader shitter
>>540922
im not a 'crusader shitter'. Whats your beef with the crusades tho?
>>540389
>Wrong sword
>Wrong shield
>Wrong diagrams
>Stupid moustache
>The fuck is the author pretending they got any pigment from except blue
2/10, someone tried
>>540940
its not supposed to be realistic, autistfag
>>540849
>Video games are accurate
The bows in warband are far too accurate for the period. Also the fact that your opponents' attacks ignore collision detection with their allies is stupid.
If you're interested brytenwalda is a decent replication of late dark ages combat (spears, shields and throwing weapons all around), but everything else in that mod is reasonably full of wank.
>>540950
So what your saying is that you were only pretending to be retarded?
>>540962
I didnt post the image, but whoever drew it obviously wasnt going for realism, but some sort of mythical tribal aesthetic
>>540957
Im not saying its accurate, but it gives you a rough idea of how much at a disatvantage you are, as a heavy melee cavalryman, fighting lighter and faster ranged cavalry.
>>540527
Would I put Athenian hoplites up against any other force in the classical world? Yes I would.
As such, it took a short amount of time to get an Athenian into the field. Even a cherry Athenian had weeks of formal training under his belt before ever having to take the field.
>First, no, sparta never fielded 12 year olds.
>Second, no, no 23 year old was sitting in Sparta during a war because his training wasn't done.
READING. COMPREHENSION! A Spartan was in the Agoge for years. I didn't say that they were fielded at twelve, I said that they had a training pipeline that lasted years. Spartans that had completed the Agoge but had not joined a Sysitia were used as auxillary troops during normal operations but were not used as frontline troops during normal operations. It is most likely that those who hadn't been accepted into a communal mess were put on the lines from the Persian war onwards. This didn't change the fact that they had to survive that decade plus in the Agoge.
Between the wars, upon graduation from the Agoge, A Spartan had until the age of 31 to be accepted into a Sysitia upon a unanimous vote before he could be a full Spartiate or marry.
This is the true source of their staffing woes. There were plenty of ways to get kicked out of the Spartiate but only one way to get into it: Be born from Spartans, graduate the Agoge and marry into it. This was enshrined into their law (see: Code of Lycurgus)
As such, they were attrited to nothing by the time that they faced the sacred band.
(cont.)
>>541005
The original image was by John White in the 1500s which he painted as a depiction of "the barbarians of caledonia" and is titled "the true picture of one pict".
The artist was just uneducated.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/4-Smiles-JW%20and%20British%20Antiquity.pdf
>>540527
>Third, no, because the agoge-and all other spartan training-included plenty of philosophy, rhetoric, and other intellectual pursuits, as spartans, like all other greeks, believed that men who could think AND fight were better men, and better men get better results, at everything, because arete is a BIG FUCKING DEAL. Especially to hoplites. How the FUCK do you think they came by laconic humor? Stupid men are not capable of expressing complete ideas laconically, much less being funny. ESPECIALLY in writing.
I never disputed this, nor would I.
>Fourth, The spartan population was doing just fucking fine when they got crushed by a smaller force, led by a smarter tactician using better tactics at leuctra.
The population itself, the Spartiate not so much.Keep in mind that the majority of the population of Sparta was made of non-citizens and slaves. This combined with the freeing of the Helots made them unable to be what they had traditionally been.
>the shield of Hellenic civilization.
Now you're just taking me out of context. They were "Traditionally, the shield of Hellenic civilization"
The Spartans are credited with running the tyrants out of Greece but we only know this from secondary sources. Other than that, they did act to defend Greece and then they got greedy, started the Peloponesian wars and were shut down.
>interoperating with other greeks
I will again direct you to their anemic navy. For naval support, they depended upon their Thracian Allies. For military support they depended upon their client states in the hills outside Sparta.
Given the knowledge that you've already demonstrated, you should know this.
Oh, and fuck you for making me rewrite my seminar paper.
>>539345
Prussians big guys
If we actually go by ancient, then any northern Europeans.
Otherwise >>541686
If I ever can afford getting myself a suit of armour, it will be in the style the hakkapeliitta wore.
>>541676
Für du
>>539372
Actually it's a common misconception that janissaries were castrated, but they weren't. They just couldn't have legitimate heirs.
>>540848
I would like to see you hold a lance properly.
Mongolian horse archer
>>540389
weird picture but yes picts, very nice choice
Almogavars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almogavars
>infantry shock troops that fought on foot, with light arms and baggage, generally with a pair of short spears (azconas), a long knife (coltell) and sometimes a small round shield as the only defense. They had full beards and dressed poorly, only in a short gown (both in summer and winter); they wore a thick leather belt and leather sandals. In addition, they always used to carry a good piece of flint with them that they struck their weapons with before going into battle, which gave off enormous sparks, which, together with their terrible cries, terrorized their enemies. Endowed with great valor and ferocity, those from the Crown of Aragon entered into combat to the cry of "Rise Iron! Let's kill, let's kill", "for Saint George!" and "Aragon! Aragon!".
They fought as mercenaries far and wide, enough such that "Catalan" is a derogatory term in the Balkans.
Swiss Pikemen. They pretty much ended the age of heavy cavalry in Europe.
http://hubpages.com/education/The-Swiss-Pikeman
>>540389
No they didn't faggot . they were simply not worth conquering, since Britain itself was a useless acquisition in the eyes of Rome, they didn't feel like extending it even further
>>541838
>They pretty much ended the age of heavy cavalry in Europe.
haha
no
>>542257
Enlighten me
>>542308
the likes of gendarmes and cuirassers have been potent and key forces for several decades even after the advent of firearms, which cannot be said for the swiss pike formations
Gotta be legionnaire
>you will never fight for Rome and for the eagle
>>540389
>picts
Literally lost every battle they ever fought against the Romans
>>540389
>>541838
Even if that were true it wouldn't be the Swiss pikemen by themselves, but the coronelias (proto-tercios) introduced by the Great Captain during the Italian Wars, specifically at the Battle of Cerignola. Pikemen coupled with arquebusiers, artillery, and sword and bucklermen are what neutralised the gendarmes.
Memegian Guard
achieved fuck all
plenty of Saxons
muh vikings lmao
Chinese Dragon
vikings were prob the coolest thing that has ever walked on earth
People only like the Varangian Guard because they're muh Vikings and muh Byzantines.
Vikings, definitely.
>>539345
There is only one acceptable answer.
>>541016
Except bows don't do shit to armor without repeated hits. Which are only going to happen if the archer cav has enough numbers to suppress the enemy and maintains formation.
Remember bows were never a direct cause of casualties outside of light infantry. But even a gambeson can protect against arrows enough to reduce their strikes to flesh wounds.
>>543655
Yes, i completely agree, but, what if you can't catch the cavalry archer?
>>543808
Then you just leave, it's not like they can do anything to your army, you can't reach them, so both parties just leave the field.
Alternatively you form a sphere of shields and question the Mongol's parentage while playing a game of cards.
>>540837
>catahpracts
Skimrioshing
No.
No, no, and no again.
Byzantine manuals make it VERY fucking clear that the cataphracts tire out VERY easily, and they they absolutely cannot be running their horses about the field, at all.
Knights were fully able to act as light cavalry-fuck, their equipment actually matches that of many light cavalry, being maybe ~20lbs heavier at the outside.
They just didn't do so in pitched battles, because they were much, much better off waiting and launching decisive shock attacks-it's not for nothing that the Byzantines wrote of the charge of Frankish knights as unstoppable.
>Any soldier worth their shit could do that.
No, they really, really can't. Most cavalry perform spectacularly badly mounted, and VERY few would have performed as well as western knigths did at dorylaeum-their ability to withstand several HOURS of point blank shooting is the only reason the turks lost the battle.
>>541016
>still quoting a fucking game
Steppe archers lost to direct assault by heavier cavalry more than once.
The avars, in particular, got trounced by byantines running them down with spears.
>>541031
You're missing the bit where the agog was suspended numerous times for the express purposes of replenishing the spartan male population.
>>541149
It was late as fuck where I was when I posted.
Accept my humble and meaningless apology for being a cunt.
I still disagree with some of what you said, but spoke far too generally for it to come across right.
>>542308
The swiss were beaten so badly by the french that they entered into an eterneam neutriality with them.
The centerpiece of the french force was the gendarmes, and they had NO problem assaulting the swiss many, many times.
Heavy cavalry start going away when OTHER cavalry start using carbines.
>>543808
You use strategic manuvering to pin them against elements of the terrain and then kill them.
Germans doing exactly this is the reason the magyars stopped raiding europe.
Steppe archers followed a cycles of
>SURPRISE
>RAMPAGE
>everyone gets used to them
>they lose
>people forget
>new tribal group flees the steppes
>SURPRISE
Show the Mongol horse archer cav
>>540482
Huns weren't good, just foreign and east empire sucked, and they flanked rome
>>541225
Remember that time they got conquered like 12 of them
>>544871
>east empire sucked
Not really, no.
>>545176
Why?
Nothing about them is really noteworthy, aside from
>we stone age nao
and
>please take them alive
>>544844
Yeh, thats not true at all. The battle youre talking about (marignano) was a one sided victory in which France had a 2:1 manpower ratio and the advantage of cannon. The battle was won by those facts, not the 1700 cavalry the French brought.
The Swiss are great because they were incredibly prideful, disciplined and frankly awesome. Once again, the battle you cited started because the Swiss signed a peace treaty with the French, and but their troops decided fuck it, we can take them anyways.
There are far more examples of Swiss victories against forces of the time period than not, especially before the time of gunpowder (which is the period in question). Marignano was barely, if at all, within that time frame anyways.
>>545222
The swiss were hemmed in and unable to simply go AROUND the black legion and neutralize the cannon specifically because their flanks were getting hammered by the gendarmes.
Regardless, the fact that it's "barely in the time period" and yet features a large force of heavy cavalry just proves the point-the swiss did NOT "end the age of heavy cavalry in europe."
>that';s not true
Eternal neutrality came after that battle.
>>544811
>Byzantine manuals make it VERY fucking clear that the cataphracts tire out VERY easily, and they they absolutely cannot be running their horses about the field, at all.
>implying Byzantines were the only ones to use cataphracts.
>implying they're not the most RETARDED in using Cataphracts in the East
>Cataphracts soldiers can't fight on foot.
Its funny because the training of cataphracts heavily involved melee and fighting on foot, going by Persian/Chinese/Turkic examples.
>>545245
Eternal neutrality against the French, yes. And the Germans. And the Italians, and Poles, and Native Americans and Japanese, because the Swiss never fought another offensive war again. It wasnt because they were scared of French cavalry, it was due to political circumstances.
The fact that there was a force of heavy cavalry present doesnt mean much at all. Heavy cav are very worthwhile when used correctly, such as they were to some degree at Marignano. The fact remains though that when the tilt towards infantry came about, heavy cavalry ceased to be the focus of an army. It really wasnt the focus at Marignano either, as the French army included cannon and over 10x as many infantry men as cavalry men, as well as 17000 landsknechts, who were nearly the Swiss' equals.
Heavy cavalry goes away due to pikemen such as the Swiss and those found in the Tercio. In fact, the use of cavalry really dropped off for quite a while until pistols came around, at which point cavalry saw a resurgence (even though pistol cavalry are utter shit and laughable).
Im not trying to say that the Swiss themselves completely ended the age of heavy cav in Europe (not the origional poster to this discussion). The use of infantry, such as the Swiss pikemen, is to blame for that. Im saying that cavalry certainly did not "have NO problem assaulting the Swiss". There are far more instances of cavalry being beaten horribly by the Swiss than not, because heavy cavalry alone cannot beat them.
>>545248
>Cataphracts soldiers can't fight on foot.
Go ahead, point to where this is stated.
And please, feel free to contradict an empire that spent centuries using your pet warriors for actual war, and to ignore that a horse bearing a heavy man wiht multiple layers of armor, it' sown armor, a lance, sword, mace, and possibly more weapons might tire a little fucking fast if you try to make it dance like a steppe pony bearing an archer with his bow, arrows, clothes, and a dagger or sword.
>implying Byzantines were the only ones to use cataphracts.
Except that isn't implied anywhere but in your tiny little mind, anon. The Byzantines juts happen to be the ones who wrote a number of manuals involving the use of cataphracts for us to read.
And you're going to find few-if any-examples of catahpracts dismounting to fight outside of sieges, or ambushes in terrain where fighting mounted isn't practical.
This includes among Byzantines battles, and they WOULD dismount cavalry if they had no other infantry.
>>545176
oh tepoztopilli, it's like you want to be a stabbing weapon and a slashing weapon but can't decide which
>>545280
>Go ahead, point to where this is stated.
When you said "No, they really, really can't." to my comment that any soldier worth shit can do that (fight on foot).
>And please, feel free to contradict an empire that spent centuries using your pet warriors for actual war,
Again, that notion that they were the only one!
First and foremost I am biased.
It be best to mention Punjabi warriors, about as ancient as the Janissary. Notable for uniting a banner under one ethnicity containing Sikhs, Hindus' and Muslims - against theocratic armies with small incentive to maintain the native populations around where Pakistan is now.
They weren't say, ruthless, rather fiercely accommodating.
And ofcourse the British fuck shit up and take advantage of the whole situation, thus financing the biggest colonial operation in history next to Genghis Khan's nutsack.
Ancient means antiquity, i.e Rome/Greece/Egypt/Babylon/Assyria/Israel.
OP's pic is from the Medieval period, or early middle ages.
>>545303
>Again, that notion that they were the only one!
Only. In. your. head.
I never stated or implied this.
But please, feel free to find me the parthian and saka writings on the subject, so we can see what they had to say.
>>545303
The comment youre referring to I believe was him stating that "any solider worth shit can fight on foot" was false.
As for your second part, youre misreading again. He never said that the byzantines were the only cataphracti users. He said that those are the ones that we know the most about, so of course were going to use them as the basis. The Byzantines were the best at using them, and they documented their use the best, so therefore their notes on the uses of cataphracti are the best available to use.
>>539745
>This, always liked cataphracts whether they be Parthian, Seleucid, Sassanid, or Roman. Though I prefer the latter due to being a byzaboo.
Mein nigger.
>>545315
Don't bother. The guys either retarded, or english is not a language he's very fluent in.
>>545313
For one thing: Cataphracts have bows. All of them.
For another: Skirmishing doesnt just mean light cavalry doing hit and run shit. It usually involves all of them. The heavy cunts included. Who, by the way, leaves their lances and other weapons to their attendants back in camp. Along with the spare horse.
Finally, the only time *Asian* Cataphracts ever charge is during the final act of a typical Eastern battle. Which usually follows after shitloads of skirmishing.
Hence the invention of the cataphract by steppe people to begin with. The Persians and the Chinese responded to the early dominance of steppe nomads by having shitloads of infantry archers make life miserable for them. All that armor wasn't for melee initially but was a way for steppe nobility to keep safe while plinking away return fire.
You know, during skirmishing.
>>545334
>For one thing: Cataphracts have bows.
Yes
>All of them.
No. In fact, there's plenty of sources indicating otherwsie-Again, the byzantiens explciitng mention some men having them in the center of a wedge, while the exterior men lack them. They still don't "skirmish" with these bows.
The cataphracts at carrahe aren't mentioned as having bows at all, relying on their supporting cavalry to do the shooting.
Given how impossilbe it owuld be to transport a kontos and use a bow at the same time, this is not surprising.
>>545334
>MUH SKIRMISIIIIIING!!!!!!ELEVEN
Ah, I see now.
You're retarded, and don't actually know what skirmishing is.
Here's a secret:
Using a missile weapon doesn't make you a skirmisher, nor does it mean you are skirmishing.
Firing from an organized formation in a static or rarely changing position isn't skirmishing, either, which excludes byzantine cataphracts with bows-they either sat inside the wedge, or looped out in front of the heaviest men, shot, and withdrew
Furthermore, the image you posted isn't a fucking skirmishing tactic, it's a feigned attack. They're not the same thing, and they do NOT require the horses to do more than trot for a short time.
>>545334
Having a bow does not equate to being skilled in its use or even using it.
Regardless, the key problem being neglected here is weight. A horse carrying a fully armored man along with weapons and the like, no matter how much weight is shoved on an attendant, is going to be slower and far more encumbered than one carrying a horse archer. Heavy cavalry simply cannot keep up with light cavalry.
The way to beat light cavalry is, as said before, to use the heavy cavalry to corner the light using surrounding terrain. Heavy cavalry typically cannot defeat its light archer counterpart on flat terrain. This is a fact.
>>545357
>The Byzanti-
See, this is your problem: you base shit you know on Byzantines. Only one people. One
Of all the people who used Cataphracts. The Entire continent of Asia. One. The Byzantines.
Meanwhile I'm talking of *most* of the people who used Cataphracts: Asians like the Persians and Central Asian Nomads. Lets throw in the Altaics for a good measure.
So by all means, tell me I am wrong based on Byzantine tactics. Were done here.
Teutonic knights, any middle period christian warrior group really.
Knights hospitaller
Knights templar
>>540489
This post just proves how annoying spartanfags are. You fucks are just like the weebs who claim samuria were the best thing ever
>>545367
>carrahe
>Byzantines
Yes, parthians are Byzantines too.
And only horses with Byzantines on them suffer from weight related issues when covered in iron that prevent them from moving like unarmored horses.
Oh, and the definition of "skirmish" only applies to Byzantines.
And they clearly used their imported style of eastern cavalry totally different from everybody else.
And there are so many excellent sources you can post to back your claims.
I'd love to see your source for EVERY cataphract carrying bows.
Or for said men even semi-regularly being deliberately dismounted outside of a siege, ambush, or other situation where horses were rendered useless or near useless.
Also, those neo-assyrians? The ones with armor, on armored horses?
Ignore that they initially didn't use bows at all. They don't count.
Also, disregard the Hellenes, who considered horse archers and cataphracts distinctly different forces, and they they UNIVERSALLY used them as an assault fore, not to skirmish.
Fuck physics.
Fuck how horses work
In magic anon-land, the power of ASIANS invalidates these things, and those fuckers can use their magic powers to loose a bow and skirmish with all the fleetness of an unencumbered steppe pony despite bearing more than twice the load.
Oh, and ignore that the cataphracts at Tigranocerta got fucked specifically because they couldn't respond effectively to roman movements. Because they were too fucking heavy. The exact opposite of what you see out of skirmishers.
>>541782
>Train from 5 to ride horses
>Become proficient in shooting arrows from any possible angle
>Rape your way across the middle east and all the way to Europe with little resistance
Sounds comfy
This is so cliche but Ive never wanted to be anything but ive only ever wanted to be a ninja or a samurai since I was a kid
>>539763
Knights from the 10th to 15th century.
>>545492
>little resitances
The casualties they faced in sieges in northern china alone were horrifying.
They lost a khan in an assault on a fort in southern china.
>>540892
I think Africans were just too damned lazy or stupid to domesticate anything.
these nigga right here.
>>544811
>>545406
Last two posts that you quoted. I was actually just trying to give a reason as to why the Spartiate failed. Do I still hold that they were the best trained troops in the Greek sphere? Yes I do.
With that level of training and conditioning, a motherfucker is going to come marching out the other end. That being said, they were over trained and resource intensive. They were good but they weren't that much better and if anything, they're a case study in diminishing returns.
It's also particularly annoying that they suck all of the air out of the room for the other Greek martial cultures. The Thebans and Lesbians in particular need some love.
>>540482
Huns would had gotten their shit kicked in had they faced the early empire
>>548729
>Taming one or two specimens of a species is equal to domestication
Now I've heard it all. End yourself faggot
>>548729
WE DOMESTICATED AUROCHS AND SHIT!
I've always liked loosely organized raiders, so folks like
Mongols
Norse (don't hate, not memeing)
Goths
Huns
>>540391
underrated post
>>545292
>oh tepoztopilli, its like you want to be a stabbing weapon and a slashing weapon, but are CERTAIN you want to be destroyed in one use
>>549650
>no Celts
no one ever mentions poor Celts
>>539345
Easy
>Nyoongar warriors
>>553173
Now I want to know more.
>>539345
uhhh be careful these people really hate Vikings (yes the Varangian guard were Vikings)
>>553839
Fuck off Poland, no one have any strong feelings except you.
>>539345
ROYAL AGEMA
Macedonian Shock cavalry are
>B A S E D
>A
>S
>E
>D
>>553204
It's a meme you dip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npuuTBlEb1U
heavy cavalry of sarmatians, mongols etc
no you cant win battles solely based on the ebin horsearchers
>>541744
it's so bad I actually feel shame.
ffs learn some languages you illiterate faggots
The old deaf guy that comically mishears everything.
>>539345
Cataphracts and Saxon Varangians
They could fuck shit up pretty good
>>540940
they had reds from ochre, yellow from sulfur, blood and chalk along with greens from plant pigments. its a myth that they were only coloured blue from woad in fact ochre was more prevalent.
>Winged Hussars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
>>539345
>>554953
>its a myth that they were only coloured blue from woad
Archeologists testing it have actually concluded that it's basically impossible to use woad as body paint at all. It's a fabric dye, it doesn't work for skin.
The Goths were pretty awesome. I like the Ostrogoths a bit more since they seemed to develop better cavalry, but Visigoths are cool too.
>>544730
> question the Mongol's parentage while playing a game of cards.
You think the mongols used only horse archers and cavalry when their empire got big?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_%281258%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wadi_al-Khazandar
>>539673
They didn't. There is a museum here and their armors are in display. This one is an example.
>>555317
Because that's not a Janissary?
>>555320
I don't remember, even though that armor is something else the displayed janissary armor is very similar to it, I remember it having a chainmail and a similar helmet. You can go and see yourself, for museum info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Military_Museum
>>540742
Horses and Elephants are pack animals. Pack animals follow the alpha animal, which makes them easier to domesticate. Just convince them that you are the alpha animal.
Zebras and giraffes are herd animals. Herd animals tend to do their own thing. Even when trained, they'll do their own thing if they want to, like a cat.
Zebras, giraffes and even cows can be rode, but they're unpredictable due to their nature. They're not suited to domestication for transportation.
>>549293
>muh pol
Not one mention of anything /pol/ related yet here comes the redditor
>muh pol labeling
>i r cognizent ergo i will label potential refuters first before they refute my idiocy
Kill yourself
>schlomo
>>555317
They wore armor, including armored helmets during the 15th and early 16th centuries, but after gunpowder weapons became their primary armament they started wearing their goofy parade costume into combat instead of armor
>>555376
>elephants are easier to tame than zebras
Wew lad
>>555376
It's almost like you have to create an artificial environment using pens and continued pedigree breeding across generations to change an animal's nature......
Something native Africans never thought to try.....ever.....
>>555724
>donkey
>aurochs
But anon, they did.
>>555650
I'll tell you a little story about two villages, one called Hiz and the other called Pol. Hiz was full of people who loved to talk and Pol was full of people who loved to shit in their bathtubs and roll around in it all day. Sometimes, people from Pol would go into Hiz and try to join in the conversations. But the people from Hiz would smell the shit clinging to the filthy Pol-ites' diseased bodies and would reject them. "Fuck off, /pol/tard!" they'd cry. No matter what the hapless Pol-ite did or said, the only response was "Fuck off, /pol/tard!"
And the people of Pol were sad. They brought their problem to the smartest man in all of Pol and asked his advice. He got his biggest bathtub, filled it with the foulest shit he could find and sat in it for a week, stewing. Everyone in Pol grew more and more tense the more he pondered. They knew he was very clever and wise - some folks said he could read without moving his lips, though most were skeptical about talk of such feats - but could he crack this nut?
>>555650
>>556002
Finally, the smartest man in all of Pol emerged from his bathtub of shit and announced that he had found a solution. Everyone gathered around to hear his wisdom.
"What we will do," he told them, "is this: Whenever they say 'Fuck off, /pol/tard!' we will-" he paused, furrowing his brows for a moment in intense concentration, as though he had lost grip of his momentous idea. Then he started. "Yes!" he cried. "We will... uh... yes! We'll tell them we aren't from Pol!"
Silence greeted this extrusion. A young man in the crowd put his hand up.
"But... we ARE from Pol," he said, bewildered.
"Yes," said the wise man, "but, and it's very complicated and tricky, I know, BUT, what we do is, we... TELL them that we're not. And then they'll have to talk to us!"
The young man put his hand up again.
"But... we ARE from Pol," he said again.
The wise man sighed and began to speak once more.
It took several months of classes and speeches and diagrams and tutorials, but after much effort, most of the people of Pol were fairly sure that they could manage to say that they weren't from Pol. And so a contingent was dispatched to Hiz, in high spirits at the prospect of their inevitable success.
As soon as they entered Hiz, the people there began to yell at them "Fuck off, /pol/tards!"
The Pol-ites nudged and winked and grinned at one another. "We're not from Pol!" they cried.
But the people of Hiz responded: "Of course you're from Pol, you fucking /pol/tards, we can smell the shit all over you! Fuck off, /pol/tards!"
They went home, as dejected as they were mystified.
>>555724
They did. Here's the thing about Zebras: Like everything else on that continent, they are mean as shit. Zebras kill more zoo keepers than any other animal and if you put two of them together in a breeding pen, they'll just kick each other to death if they don't want to be around each other. They can't be selectively bred and so cannot be domesticated.
>>556019
Meanwhile in Russia....drunken slavs trained bears to ride bicycles and in Canada they had success domesticating fucking Moose.
Africa has 0 excuses. Go back to Jared Diamond porn you NatGeotard
>>556107
>implying it isn't
>implying credit isn't necessary for an economy to grow
>implying usury bans aren't a primary reason that the Arab world stagnated while the west, with a bunch of Jews to handle the moneylending, succeeded
>implying the global economy hasn't increased by several factors of ten now that banking is a legal, commonplace service
>>540742
Zebras are nasty pieces of work. They kill more Zookeepers than any other animal. More than Lions, Tigers, Bears, Elephants and Hippos.
>>556148
tigers are nice desu.
>>555168
YES
>>554774
Not him, but would
Für dich
be right?
>>556148
>zebras
>one of hundreds of animals to domesticate
WE WUZ KINGS
N
S
H
I
T
>>539345
>byzantines
>ancient
Eugenics might be a good solution after all.
>>556102
>>556994
>Meanwhile in Russia....drunken slavs trained bears to ride bicycles and in Canada they had success domesticating fucking Moose.
That's not domestication. That's taming. A tame animal can break it's conditioning and turn on it's handler far more easily than one that's been domesticated across the generations.
As for domesticating the moose? A zebra is not a moose. Additionally, they don't need excuses. They domesticated donkeys which actually puts them one higher than Europeans.
So say it with me now...
>WE DOMESTICATED AUROCHS AND SHIT!
>>557062
You do realize that at this point Russian circus's have trained bears for so long that they are considered 'fully tamed' right?
>a zebra is not a Moose
A zebra can't flip a fucking compact car when it gets angry. Canadians domesticated them, and furthermore snow tribes domesticated fucking reindeer.
You WUZ NOT KINGS
N
S
H
I
T
>>557062
>The North African aurochs (Bos primigenius africanus) once lived in the woodland and shrubland of North Africa.[1] It descended from aurochs populations migrating from the Middle East. The North African aurochs was morphologically very similar to the Eurasian subspecies, so that this taxon may exist only in a biogeographic sense.[9] However, there is evidence that it was genetically distinct from the Eurasian subspecies.[15] Depictions indicate that North African aurochs may have had a light saddle marking on its back.[16] This subspecies may have been extinct prior to the Middle Ages
The oldest evidence of Aurochs declares India as their country of origin. Then there was one subspecies that migrated to Africa and died out. I guess that explains why we never see Kentucky Fried Beef.
>>540389
>ballchinians
>>557104
India and the middle east.
>>540328
War elephants will always be my fav but a shout-out to Poland is needed.
>>539528
>>539528
There were some specialized breakthrough melee Janissaries, who had more practical headgear, and the General multipurpose guys.
Even the breakthrough guys didnt leave their feathers tho.
>>555666
They always wore armor under their Parade shit
>>542426
mein neger.
>tfw will never know the satisfaction of throwing pila right before the charge
>tfw will never hear centurion switch me in and out of the front
>tfw will never die for the emperor
why live
