"Battle Effectiveness of Elephants" Topic

Sooo how effective were the in the ancient world, from the few history books I've read they didn't seem that decisive, they must of been due to high cost them?

They seemed to cause problems for horses due to the sight and smell rather than direct fighting, Alexander's troops weren't keen about them but they still beat them. And Caesar brought some circus elephants in so his troops and Cv got used to them. I also read about them stampeding and causing problems.

I've also seen reports where the skirmishes, namely slingers, caused the elephants to panic due to the whizzing noise of the shot.

So any thoughts from anyone and or a direction to go in to read about them?

You should check out the YouTube vids about Hannibal. They discuss the problem with elephants. I learned how the handlers got the elephants drunk on wine before battle to make them more aggressive and how Rome used horse blood to cause elephants to shy away. Your post about slingers reminds me how I read about slinger using hot coals to cause the elephants to stamped into their own lines. As you already read, the handler was the primary target so that the elephant lost control. Most gamers use them as tanks I found on the game table and get upset when you repeat Skipio.s tactic of opening ranks and let the stomp through your formations.

I think that elephants are potentially very useful – for example, against horse – but are pretty fragile – and also fairly easily dealt with

I read once that ancient armies had relatively few elephants: a dozen or two per side at most. One medieval monarch from India or Pakistan built an army with one or two hundred elephants and was able to use them like a battering ram.

Grelber

It has been very fashionable of late to scoff at war elephants in the ancient world. If they were so ineffective as people claim, than why did The Successors scramble to acquire every single one that they could? The Successors being so ignorant of warfare, lol. Why did Hannibal go to all the trouble to take them across the Alps and why did he even scrounge up circus and zoo elephants at Zama? Again, Hannibal being such an ignoramus, lol. Kinda reminds me of all the articles and books of late about how worthless a tank the Tiger was…ask the guys who went up against it how lousy it was. If you study the battles where large groups of elephants took part you will find that they were very effective in their role when employed correctly…and so was the Tiger on the Eastern front. Just like all the books and articles saying that Alexander wasn't great and Napoleon was a buffoon, Rommel sucked, etc, etc. Revisionist history at its worst.

I agree with Jason. if they hadn't been effective they'd have been gone fairly quickly. Just look at the scythed chariot, disappeared fairly quickly while the elephant was used for centuries.

From my reading they seem to be more of a morale breaker rather than a killer. Then you have Antiocus I who used elephants to defeat a Galatian army that outnumbered him. So yes, I'd say they were effective weapons, but like every weapon a counter could be figured out.

For those who actually want to find out how effective elephants were read Polybius" histories. Available free online at
link
and/ or look up the battle known as the elephant victory 273 B.C. where 16 elephants were responsible for destroying a Galatian army of 20,000+ men all on their own as refered to above by Dr. Jackson.

Didn't a Greek mercenary general named Xanthippus use them to defeat a Roman army in the first Punic War? I think the cavalry were a bigger factor in the victory at Bagradas, but I remember ancient texts recounting some heavy duty infantry stomping by the elephants.

Hannibal seems to always have used his in the center, against the infantry. Yet wargames rules always say they were most effective against cavalry.
If this is true, why didn't Hannibal use them against the cavalry wings?

Hannibal had the best cavalry in the ancient world at that time. ( IMHO )It would make sense to use them on the Roman infantry who may have been better then his own at the time. Mike Adams

Theoretically, if well controlled, they could be almost unstoppable.

Practically, in the real world, it seems like they can be as dangerous to your own army as to those of your opponent, since if they panic, there's no stopping them, and they can wreak havoc on anything and anyone in their way.

Learned that from playing ancients boardgames with a friend, decades ago.

The effectiveness of elephants vs cavalry in most rules causes problems when refighting Zama. Why waste your elephant line in a futile charge against the Roman infantry when you can have them nullify the Roman cavalry superiority instead?

There may be two contributing factors at Zama. First, Hannibal's elephant corps was relatively untrained, so the central battering ram seemed the way to go. Secondly, due to various deceptions practised by that dastardly Scipio, Hannibal probably thought he had cavalry parity or even superiority – he may not have known that Masinissa was going to be there…

As someone mentioned why use them if they were so ineffective considering the cost involved.
I am trying to get a better handle on them hence the thread, they had to be useful considering they were the mainstay of some armies.

At Zama the elephants were more effective against Hannibal's own infantry for most stamped back into his lines of untrained infantry. Elephants were more of a sign of power to the Army of Carathage. That is way Hannibal took them across the Alps. Let us not forget that all but one of his elephants died either in route or just after crossing the Alps. As a show of Roman Power and to impress the Brits, Cauldis took one elephant with him to Britain.

Elephants often achieved dramatic results during the first battle of a campaign, when the opposition was terrified of them and had no idea how to counter them, as with the Galatians mentioned above, the Romans at Heraclea and the Macedonians at Pydna and Cynoscephalae.

By the second or third battle of the campaign, the boot could be very much on the other foot! :-)

My theory is that War Elephants gave a Hellenistic army an appearance of majesty that during war and peace imposed a perception of power on the people and the state.

This is exactly why the Seleucids adopted the symbol of elephants on their coins. Antiochus I admitted that he was ashamed that he owed the salvation of his dynasty to 16 footsore beasts that had marched from India. Elephant quadrigga chariots showed the power of the empire to everybody- friend and foe in functions and parades.

Power is often a premise rather than reality… like a Pocket Battleship.

As Simon and other stated, elephants become less a nuisance for firm troops that have training or experience. Still they are a terror weapon, and similar to scythed chariots can be devastating to troops that were untrained or deployed in formations that cannot react.

Much of the Roman problem with Xanthippus was they were unusually packed together and not ready for a deliberate elephant attack when the beasts were used in a compact formation themselves. This seems to be when elephants and scythed chariots have their heydays, when the enemy is bunched or already disordered.

Pyrrhus' elephant successes mostly came when his elephants could intervene and drive off the often superior numbers of Roman and Allied cavalry, causing a flank collapse.

Often folks say the Romans did not use elephants because they disdained them--- not true at all-- during the wars against the Successor states the Romans used war elephants- or had them in their army in each decisive battle--- often with their roles deliberately hidden in the histories to expand on the glory, and continue the propaganda, that the legions were invincible. The Romans did not use elephants, mostly because they did not want to add them to their logistic envelope, and why should they when they could just call them in from their allies for use in Maceodonia, Asia and Spain.

Sadly a lot of misconception comes from popular literature where elephants are equated to as tanks-- when their roles and limitations were much more complex. However when one understands that at Cambrai most of the tanks broke down… one could have equated them to ancient war elephants..

War games make elephants even more muddled because gamers dont want the volatility built into their units, but when it is, then they figure out ways to maximize potential by always using combined arms methods. In almost every case when elephants were supported by combined arms they were effective-- and almost every case they were not-- they were disasters. Games allow players to maximize potentials-- which is the difficult part of balance… so some games just make elephants crap, and some make them too strong… the problem is when you are dealing with such a complex and intelligent creature, it is like a ship with it's own stearing system, making decisions based on elephant rules and herd/clan behaviors--- not necessarily based on what the riders want.

Thank you all. I play DBM where elephants are strong ish but not decisively so but the one draw back is they are 'quick killed' ie. beaten by a score of one by Ps , so you spend 16 points on an elephant and it gets killed by a 2 point element.
And as one is painting up some 25mm classical Indians one was rather hoping to put elephants on the table 'cause they look cool and looking for arguments to have a house rule about the Ps effect on elephants.
Again thanks to everyone.
Aynsley

For the OP, there are books devoted to your topic, the use of elephants in war.

I'm sure I have one, not that I can remember the author.

As others have mentioned, ancient generals and nations went to a lot of effort to get them, what did the Seleucids trade for 500 elephants? Didn't the Romans impose terms on vanquished enemy that they were not allowed to own elephants?

Clearly they had a significant military potential, and of course they were an integral arm of Indian / SE Asian forces.

David F Brown

It's a bit post-Ancient, but the Sultanate of Delhi reckoned one elephant to be worth 500 cavalry. Digby points out that very few were killed on the battlefield. Most seem to have run off or been wounded. I wonder whether the appeal of elephants was their survivability.