The Wargamers Fascination with Ethnicity

[cadbren]

Heh, the first time I heard the 'stirrup' argument was in a BBC documentary about Hastings where they, in complete seriousness, asserted that Norman knights fought from horseback because they had stirrups and Anglo-Saxons fought on foot because they didn't.

Anglo-Saxons fought on foot because their hearthguard used two handed axes and belonging to such groups was prestigious. It may be that cavalry wasn't such a big thing because the horses in Britain were mostly ponies. That was still the case centuries later when some king mandated English horses be made bigger to match the continental breeds. Hobilars may have had a place in rougher terrain but the kings wanted more punch for the battlefield.

The stirrup question makes me wonder how units like Macedonian cavalry used their lances given they don't seem to have had much in the way of saddles and certainly no stirrups.

[cadbren]

Cavalry soldiers need two things
-horses, which most Mediterranean nations did not have a lot as they lacked grasslands needed to raise them
-a lot of training, much more than for infantrymen. Ideally people who live amongst horses and ride them from their childhood
So Romans had difficulties to train their own cavalry, were happy to use any cavalrymen willing to fight for them, let them be Gaul or Numidian.

A horse of course is very important for a rider unless you have access to coconuts.  Campania was famous for its horses but the Romans after Marius did seem to give up on cavalry regiments in favour of using foreigners. Maybe too many equestrians were dying on the battlefield so they restricted themselves to officer positions and the smaller cavalry units in the legions.

[SteveBurt]

The whole business about stirrups making cavalry better in combat is not well supported by evidence. Stirrups are mainly helpful when riding long distances as they reduce fatigue. In close combat they can be a disadvantage; the Gallic/Roman 'horned' saddle is better as it lets you twist and turn without falling off. Macedonians (and Parthians and Sarmatians) used lances on horseback without stirrups just fine.

[Moriarty]

Pictures show Alexander and Parthians using their lance underarm - perhaps it was the length of the weapon that provided the advantage, rather than the weight and speed of the horse?

[jon_1066]

The whole business about stirrups making cavalry better in combat is not well supported by evidence. Stirrups are mainly helpful when riding long distances as they reduce fatigue. In close combat they can be a disadvantage; the Gallic/Roman 'horned' saddle is better as it lets you twist and turn without falling off. Macedonians (and Parthians and Sarmatians) used lances on horseback without stirrups just fine.

Stirrups allow a rising trot.  This would support your argument as you wouldn't imagine a rider would fight at a rising trot - but it is good for covering the ground at better than walking speed without tiring your horse.

I can't imagine trying to cover a large distance at a sitting trot - your brain would feel shaken to pulp by the end of it (let alone your butt) and a horse isn't going to sustain a canter all day.

The ancient horned saddle looks pretty good for both staying on your horse and being connected to it to control it without reins, hence the ability to use a lance double handed (like the Sarmatians) or to fire a bow from it.

Are there reenactors or horse people who still use a ancient style horned saddle I wonder? A bit of experimental archeology in this area sounds fascinating.

[Freddy]

Whoa, this thread really got carried away.

The whole business about stirrups making cavalry better in combat is not well supported by evidence. Stirrups are mainly helpful when riding long distances as they reduce fatigue. In close combat they can be a disadvantage; the Gallic/Roman 'horned' saddle is better as it lets you twist and turn without falling off. Macedonians (and Parthians and Sarmatians) used lances on horseback without stirrups just fine.

What kind of evidence do we need to prove that 3 points of support is more stable than 1 point of support, so better choose the former unless you are a circus acrobat? Yes, you can fight without stirrups, and maybe there were not a lot of battles between stirruped vs notstirruped armies (there is no evidence an AK-47 being a better weapon than a Macedonian sarissa either  ), but you can not defy common logic and the fact that in the last 1000 years no one deliberately choose to go without stirrups.

Speaking of flying in the face of archaeological and historical evidence, I suggest you might want to reconsider your assumption that Romans only really had mules in light of the extensive evidence of Roman horse breeding, variety of breeds they produced and the extensive horse breeding farms in ancient Italy. The Romans loved their horses and used them in a lot of areas, they weren't just for the rich.

Romans were masters of horse breeding, sure- but that was in the Imperial age after they conquered good horse breeding territories. Like most things, they soaked this up from their provinces and quickly became a master of it. But in around 200-100BC this was not the case yet, they had to go mostly with mules (there were ,,mules of Marius", not ,,horses of Marius" ).

Campania was famous for its horses but the Romans after Marius did seem to give up on cavalry regiments in favour of using foreigners. Maybe too many equestrians were dying on the battlefield so they restricted themselves to officer positions and the smaller cavalry units in the legions.

Do not forget that Campania back then was also mostly only allied territory, they even fought Rome in the Social War. Yes, they might had horses, but maybe they simply did not match the Numidians and the Gaul in quality and quantity.
Also Roman armies did not differ that much from other contemporary "great armies": people concentrate on the Legions, but those often were only the core, the general mustered every troop he could collect under his banner from a really diverse bunch of allies in his zone of influence. So it was not like "hm, which type to fill the cavalry slot with", more like "our Numidian answered our call by sending horsemen- good, the more soldiers the better". Also Marius had good personal connections with the Numidian elite who he put into power by defeating Jugurtha with their help.

Also, lets be clear on your dates - English knights started dismounting and fighting on foot in 1138 at Northallerton, Bannockburn was over 150 years later in 1314 and Azincourt was 100 years after that in 1415 - I kinda have to question your argument on the dates alone, I'm afraid!

I do not know when the English knights actually started fighting dismounted, but they surely had a practical reason for it, supporting my base statement that nationality matters in troop types and fighting style.

[Belligerentparrot]

but you can not defy common logic and the fact that in the last 1000 years no one deliberately choose to go without stirrups.

Sorry Freddy, but the Sioux and the Absarokee (to name just two) want a word with you about this sweeping assumption. It just isn't true.

[Freddy]

Sorry Freddy, but the Sioux and the Absarokee (to name just two) want a word with you about this sweeping assumption. It just isn't true.

Ok, so I correct myself, in the history of cavalry warfare from the Avars to Grey's Scouts, only a handful of Indian tribes choose to go without stirrups. (It was not even common among the Indian tribes as Apaches, Lakotas and Blackfoots did use them).

[ithoriel]

<snippity snip>

Are there reenactors or horse people who still use a ancient style horned saddle I wonder? A bit of experimental archeology in this area sounds fascinating.

https://www.thetroop.org/restoration-and-jacobite-periods/roman-re-enactment/

[Belligerentparrot]

Thanks Freddy 
And everyone else, I hope it didn't seem like I was going off topic. One thing that is potentially interesting about the Sioux et al in the context of this conversation is that they had stirrups, but chose not to use them for mounted warfare. I thought it was a nice illustration of the point raised earlier, that "ethnicity" (or more accurately here, culture) might often have marked a different way of fighting that a rules-writer might think should make a difference on the tabletop.

[Freddy]

Thanks Freddy 
And everyone else, I hope it didn't seem like I was going off topic. One thing that is potentially interesting about the Sioux et al in the context of this conversation is that they had stirrups, but chose not to use them for mounted warfare. I thought it was a nice illustration of the point raised earlier, that "ethnicity" (or more accurately here, culture) might often have marked a different way of fighting that a rules-writer might think should make a difference on the tabletop.

Do we have an idea why they did go without stirrups? Unlike they are often portrayed in the popular culture, most Indians did not ride bareback or on a blanket, they used Spanish saddles and also produced their own versions of it. So their riding equipment was based on the European customs.

Btw, I am aware of that debate about the guy who tried a knight charge with and without stirrup and found out that stirrup is actually little of a help in it. But 1.) this still does not mean that it is better to go without it 2.) lance charge is only a small portion of even the knightly warfare (not to mention for example horse archery which practically impossible without a stirrup).

[Pattus Magnus]

Horse archery definitely isn’t nearly impossible without stirrups - mounted archery pre-dates the use of stirrups by at least 1000 years among central Asian nomads and related societies. Skythians, Persians in the Achaemenid period, and Parthians, to name only a few examples, didn’t have stirrups. Heck, the Parthian even give us a vernacular term from one of their mounted archery tactics, with the “Parthian shot”! They were more than a little effective, too, if the Roman experience at Carrhae is any indication.

While mounted archery clearly doesn’t require stirrups, I suspect that the technology does facilitate it. I wouldn’t be surprised if stirrups were initially adopted by mounted archers then their advantages for close combat were noticed later as a happy accident. The nomads were always going to favour archery over close combat anyway (shoot first, close in later…).

[Freddy]

Horse archery definitely isn’t nearly impossible without stirrups - mounted archery pre-dates the use of stirrups by at least 1000 years among central Asian nomads and related societies. Skythians, Persians in the Achaemenid period, and Parthians, to name only a few examples, didn’t have stirrups. Heck, the Parthian even give us a vernacular term from one of their mounted archery tactics, with the “Parthian shot”! They were more than a little effective, too, if the Roman experience at Carrhae is any indication.

While mounted archery clearly doesn’t require stirrups, I suspect that the technology does facilitate it. I wouldn’t be surprised if stirrups were initially adopted by mounted archers then their advantages for close combat were noticed later as a happy accident. The nomads were always going to favour archery over close combat anyway (shoot first, close in later…).

Parthian shot is basically volley fire; real target shooting the later horse archers also mastered is impossible without a stable position on the horse. Ok, maybe technically possible but it is like shooting a sniper rifle standing on one foot.

Stirrups have a drawback we shall also see: they need a matching saddle. Unstirruped saddle is a simple construction as it has only to care about the weight distribution of the human ass, but a stirruped one is designed with the stirrup connection points in mind, those are strong pushing points quickly damaging the horse if the weight distribution is not properly matched to them. So introducing stirrups also needs an improvement of the leathermaking industry.

[Rick]

Just a couple of points to throw in the mix here - yes, actually, the Battle of Northallerton (I believe it was also called the battle of the standard) is generally held as being the point where the descendants of Norman knights chose to fight dismounted, for whatever reason. Anglo-Saxon horses were not 'just ponies' - there was a very active trade between France and England and equally fine horses in both countries.

Oh and 'Marius' Mules' are Roman legionaries, not actual mules - it was an ironic play on the amount of gear the legionary was expected to carry on those wooden yokes.

[jon_1066]

Whoa, this thread really got carried away.
What kind of evidence do we need to prove that 3 points of support is more stable than 1 point of support, so better choose the former unless you are a circus acrobat? Yes, you can fight without stirrups, and maybe there were not a lot of battles between stirruped vs notstirruped armies (there is no evidence an AK-47 being a better weapon than a Macedonian sarissa either  ), but you can not defy common logic and the fact that in the last 1000 years no one deliberately choose to go without stirrups.
...

You can’t assume too much.  The reason for stirrups could be riding comfort and the advantage of a rising trot.  99% of riding is out of combat, the stirrup is superior out of combat so it gets adopted.  The ancient horned saddle does lock a rider in place well.  It effectively has three points of contact as well.