"Nature of Chariot Warfare" Topic

Writing in Slingshot magazine, Ian Russell Lowell expresses:

Particularly in chariot versus chariot encounters we should see the model not as a massed cavalry charge but rather the paired wings of squadrons of aircraft engaging in dog fights.

Do you agree?

Ian is correct. I expect he is talking about armies wherein both sides have chariots as their elite arm. Probably biblical. It does not include "funnies" such as scythed chariots??

Yes. But I've had the benefit of attending a number of Ian's sessions at the Conference of Wargamers.

I think this could be somehow correct in aristocratic bronze age Europe, from Micenean to Hallstatt cultures. Chieftains or heroes could fight each others in almost autonomous fights preceding or focusing the main battle.

In case of La Tenθ celtic culture, or the Middle East in Later Bronze (Mitanni, Egypt, Hittites…) or Early Iron (Assyria…) I don't believe these dog fights where the norm.

Anyway, I have not read the article.

Well they don't just crash into each other do they?

Dogfights? Again, where is the evidence for that?

If chariots were armed with archers, which would be the majority, then obviously they would have to be involved in running fights but 'dog fights', not sure about that.

Again, we still don't know how chariots were used by the majority of cultures that had them, at least in Biblical times. The Celts and other 'heroic' cultures might have used chariots as 'battle taxis' or as status symbols for leaders but the 'jousting' chariots theory seems to be only that, theory. Again, Homer was writing in the Iron Age and I doubt very seriously that the time and expense it took to maintain a chariot force would be wasted on smashing them into infantry or 'jousting' at other chariots.

My guess would be that chariots were armed with archers because of their expense. Furthermore, they would be organized into 'squadrons' – the Pylos archives mentions something akin to this idea. So, what would be the point in having chariots smack into each other or fight running 'dog fights' against opposing chariots when the idea of a chariot was to mass firepower and mobility?

The idea of a 'dog fight' between opposing chariot forces seems a bit far fetched to me, though if he has something like the Battle of Kadesh in mind, then I might be more in agreement with him.

'Massing archery' using chariots seems a contradiction. If you want to mass your archers, keep them on foot. Don't put them on a platform which has a driver, two horses and needs space to avoid collisions.

I would be loathe to disagree with Ian. He has spent decades researching and writing about Bronze Age warfare. I quite like the "dog fight" analogy.

I think all of the above. They were a precurspr of cavalry and probably conducted themselves in a somewhat similar fashion. Those armed with bows were probably like horse archers and those more heavily armed/equipped more like a medium cavalry. They probably did have swirling "dogfights" between each other. I imagine that they provided mobile firepower at weak points and also caused infantry with poor morale or who were battle fatigued to break in which case they mopped up stragglers.

Alcibiades,

Not to be too much of a contrarian but researching from what perspective? Does he read Akkadian? Greek? Hittite? Ancient Egyptian? I repeat, we know very little about how 'real' chariot warfare was conducted – there are no battle accounts other than the Battle of Kadesh (and that is from only one side – the Egyptian). So – where is his evidence? Even for the early Iron Age (the battles between the Cannanites and the Israelites, for example) we only have the Bible and a few scraps and bits from other sources. How can one be so positive about something for which we have very little evidence?

advocate:
There can be no doubt that all of the Biblical Bronze Age cultures had chariots and that they were armed with bowmen. Mitanni, Hittite, Egyptian, Assyrian, probably Wilusia and Mycenaean Greek were as well. Massed bow chariots were the masters of the battlefield for at least two centuries, as armies were very small and the 'chariot runner' was probably the only form of 'professional' infantry – at least according to Drews. To me, it makes no sense to have a chariot force consisted entirely of 'elite' warriors armed with jousting spears; javelins – maybe, but to use them as 'tanks' to smash into a formation of infantry seems far fetched. If you've ridden a horse, you know that they are loathe to smash into anything and shy away from the strangest of objects. I don't care how much training a horse receives, it is against its nature to smash into anything unless it panics and that defeats the purpose of training, doesn't it?

I'm not sure exactly what one means by 'dog fights' – does he mean that a chariot gets 'fixated' on another opponent and tries to take it out? Interesting idea but unproven so far, at least to me.

I think someone is confused what a dog fight means. Ranged bowfire from a platform….not charging at each other.

It's only later period I have heard of Chariots outside of scythed charging anything – The Carthaginians vs Syracuse with bad results….possibly Britons versus Caesar?

Well, a Minoan lance was certainly not a missile weapon.

Swampking, I know they had bows, just not very many per cubit of unit frontage.

Ian,

I may be a bit confused by the term 'dog fight'. Chariots would have to advance within bow range, correct? I don't think that chariots 'charged at each other'. Indeed, I'm a proponent of them operating in 'squadrons' – with each chariot supporting the others. Does the term 'dog fight' visualize a sort of contest or 'whirling chariots unloosing clouds of arrows that darken the sky like a thundercloud' against their opponents (to paraphrase the Mahabharata)?

Sobieski – the 'jousting' lance is based on two vase depictions, one wall painting, and Homer. Based on this form of evidence, there is more evidence for unicorns and dragons than for 'jousting' lances. This form of chariot warfare, if it was practiced, must have been very rare indeed for the archaeology doesn't support it. The finds for lance heads pale in comparison to the finds of arrow and javelin/dart heads, being on a par of 1 lance head per 100 arrow and javelin/dart heads. Furthermore, it's hard to say what the 'lance' heads were used for – in chariots or on foot. Were they 'lion' and 'wolf' hunting lances or actual 'combat' lances? Remember, grave goods contained a mishmash of a, normally, elite man's life. So, lances could be used for any number of things, not just 'jousting'.

advocate – I apologize for not being a bit more precise. It seems to me that the idea of a bowman in a chariot was not necessarily the 'amount' of arrows but the speed and added 'umph' that the chariot could provide against the 'barbarians'. I'm thinking more along the lines of the Egyptians, Mitanni, Hittites and others who used them. Massed foot archers don't seem to have been common, at least in the Bronze Age (my only area of interest in Ancients). Now, it is possible that massed archer fire did occur in sieges but on the battlefield. That's a good question. The Ancient Indian sources do mention massed bow fire but where that fire came from is a good question. Chariots were used, as were foot bowmen, so….it is possible.

Dexter Ward – Thanks for the info. So, for the Hittites – he may have a point.

Having said all the above, I'll say it again, I don't care about anyone's preferences regarding wargame armies (especially in the Bronze Age) – if you want jousting chariots and boars' tusked helmeted infantry (in 15mm – the Museum Miniatures figures are awesome!), go for it – you won't hear a peep out of me. However, when it comes to the historical record and the overall archaeological record, sorry, there just isn't enough information as yet to form a working hypothesis of how Bronze Age warfare was really conducted, though I do agree that Drews has some interesting hypotheses regarding it.

Ian Russel Lowell is an expert on Hittites – he has published many translations of Hittite sources, so he certainly reads Hittite.

This sounds very like Karl Friday's descriptions of Heian Samurai warfare in his 'Samurai, warfare and the state in early mediaeval Japan'. He used the same analogy of duelling fighter aircraft, and it's worth noting that, like the chariots, mounted samurai would be accompanied by footsoldiers.

One thing to think about is how close would chariots be when shooting? We tend to think of rather long ranges, but the likelihood is that ranges were quite short. Modern Kyudo practicioners shoot at 28m ranges on foot, but yabusame (the mounted archery) shoot at 5 to 10m ranges. I would imagine that chariot archery was also at similarly short ranges, in which case long spears and javelins might have more utility than we think.

As noted by Father Grigori and the OP "dogfight" is the term that was used for engagements between fighter aircraft where the opposing pilots attempted to gun down each other. A fighter dogfight could involve many aircraft. In the case of chariots this would be using their bows to shoot the opposing charioteer and/or their horses and maneuvering to engage their opponents.