"Sassanid Foot Archery" Topic

I'm currently reading Harrel's The Nisibis War about the conflict between Rome and Persia. So far I'm enjoying it and I hope it can help inform my suggested army list for At the ends of Empire.

In it the author emphasises how effective Persian foot archery was. I'm familiar enough with Persian cavalry mass fire for the period but massed Sassanid infantry archers is new to me.

As it happens I have a couple of units of suitable archers that can easily be repainted as Persians. Perhaps someone better informed about the period could say more about Persian foot archers?

I would presume foot archers would always rain down more arrowheads per square metre than any horse archer force could. The stability of being on foot, rather than worrying about being thrown from a stirrup-less horse, would prove decisive in terms of rate of fire and accuracy.

That said, I would consider the shock effect of surges of horsemen charging up and loosing arrows from close range, only to retire quickly out of reach would have an effect on the average footman that is possibly more psychologically deadly. Few heavy infantry formations had that much to worry about from sustained archery alone, unless unusually heavy and/or accurate. But under attack by mounted archers, you could never be sure that old Jim over there wouldn't suddenly panic at the sight and sound of that thundering horse, that could easily outpace him and run him down if formation was broken…

So to sum up – I'd say foot archery for death from above by missiles, horse archery for death from above by a pursuing horseman who has now switched to using the spear or an axe?

I've just started reading that book, too! I've always been under the impression that Sassanid infantry were levies – little better than slaves, really – and didn't play a particularly important role compared to cavalry.

Archers, though, I also hope knowledgeable TMPers can chime in. As stated above, foot bows always have an advantage over mounted. I'm wondering if perhaps they were armed with composite bows, with better power and range than was available to Romans?

I knew the Sassanids had some good native infantry and of course they had Hill men too but the archers were new to me. There was a bit of a clue in their method of calculating losses-each man handed over an arrow. Post battle they collected it back or not!

They did have composite bows but so did the Romans so no advantage there. However they shot faster and I suspect this was 'unaimed' shooting but lots of it. Once the Romans adopted the Hunnic bow they had a greater range but still a lesser rate of fire.

As the Sassanid foot carried large cane shields I wonder if they are rather like Achaemenid Sparabara with a front rank or two of spears and cane shields and back ranks armed with the bow. Poor quality Persian infantry is a bit of a topos, likely inherited from the Greeks whereby orientals are always crafty, killing from a distance whereas Westerners are eager for close combat. The slaves eputhet is reminiscent of the way that Romans thought of Persians as 'slaves of one man' i.e. the Great King.. This was because Romans saw themselves as not being subjects of a king, but citizens of a republic, with rights. As both Sassanian kings and Roman emperors had a fine record of abrogating peopke's rights it is not much of a distinction in practice, but the Romans tnought it distinguished them. Persian infantry had to fit this mould and be described as useless, particularly at standing up to Legions, face to face, which rather ignores the tactical function that Sasanian infantry performed, which was support to cavalry. The Persians must have recognised this weakness and tried to use elephants to solidify their infantry.

Early WRG army lists give a small number of foot bows (LI I think) Royal Archer status. Perhaps this is they. I haven't got the Nisibis book but intend to. I'm still awaiting the long promised Farrokh book on Sassanid Persians (2 years on pre-order with Amazon, keeps getting pushed back a year, now due 31 July 2017)

The revision to Sparabara practice would make sense and I'm minded of the Iranian influenced Goths practice in Roy's excellent Montvert book.

Interestingly Harrel thinks the elephants supported the cavalry too, or maybe solely- I've much more of it to read.

I'd like to see Farrokh's book too.

Have a look at the Charles work on the Sasanian elephant corps for further information. It seems to have become increasingly sophisticated and in common use. The foot archers were well attested in earlier periods, but many of the texts available for the Sasanian period unfortunately don't distinguish between foot and mounted archery, and it has been assumed by many to be mounted archers.

The novel link talks about archers protected by large shields, and was written in period, but it is argued that he was just repeating archaisms. Given he was from Emesa, which was fought over by Sasanians at the time – I would think he would be reasonably well informed.

As always, wargamer's tropes are hard to counter. I blame WRG and their imitators, who were basing their lists on information that was barely updated from Rawlinson in the 19th Century.