Enemy horses as targets

[Proximus]

Wasn't there something in Ammianus about some of Julian Gallic troops getting under the horses of the Sasanid cataphracts and stabbing them in the bellies during a desperate fight?
Obviously, this couldn't have been during the heat of a charge...I would assume that a charge had been stopped and the horseman hadn't gotten away yet, or the Gauls had broken and some of the braver ones were doing what they could to stop a rout. I can certainly see having to get under a horse clad in a scale trapper to attack it effectively with a sword.
I'm wondering if I might be thinking of a mid-3rd century battle under Gordian III or Valerian...but Ammianus/Julian seems the most likely to me.

I read that but for the battle of Carrhae.

So it is Crassus vs Suren, around 53BC and it is rome VS Parthia.

I read it was gallic cavalry against parthian cataphracts, and some of the gauls step down of their horses and started to kill parthian horses.
Good work but not enough, it seems.

[philsidnell]

Actually similar tactics were recorded in both cases, by the Gallic cavalry under Publius Crassus at Carrhae and Julian's Germanic enemies at Strasbourg.

The Ammianus quote for the latter is Histories, xvi, 12.

'They knew that for all his skill a mounted warrior meeting one of our cuirassiers [sic - I'm using the Penguin Classics translation here - read cataphracts], and using one hand to hold his reins and shield and the other to brandish his spear, could inflict no harm on an opponent dressed in mail, whereas in the heat of the fight, when a man is occupied solely with the danger that stares him in the face, someone on foot, creeping along unnoticed close to the ground, can stab a horse in the flank, bringing his rider headlong to the ground, and finish him off without difficulty.'

The relevant passage for Carrhae is Plutarch, Crassus, 25

'Publius therefore urged on his cavalry, charged forward with them boldly and came to grips with the enemy. But both in defence and attack the odds were against him. The small light spears of his Gauls came up against tough breastplates of raw hide or of steel, whereas they, with their unprotected and lightly armoured bodies, had to face the thrusts of long pikes. It was on his Gallic cavalry that Publius chiefly relied and indeed he did wonders with them. They grasped the long spears of the Parthians in their hands, grappled with the riders and pulled them down, clumsy with all their weight of armour, from their horses. Many of them too abandoned their own horses and, crawling under those of the enemy, stabbed them in the belly. The horses would then rear up in agony and die tramping indiscriminately under their feet the bodies of their riders and their attackers alike.'

In the initial clash the Persians may have deliberately targetted the unprotected Gallic horses too, since Plutarch goes on to say just a few lines later that the Gauls ' had lost most of their horses through driving them onto the long spears'.

Phil Sidnell

[Proximus]

Thank you for the texts !

[hoplite14gr]

There's a passage somewhere in the source texts where archers on a hill to the side of battle were told to target the flanks of the enemy horses.

Or was it medieval...? It's been mentioned here on RAT, I'm fairly sure.

Cronicle of Morea - Battle o f Pelagonia.
Ioannis Paleologos orders the Cumans to shoot at the Achean Frank horses in support of his hard pressed German "Latinikoi" regiment.

Herodotus said said that an rcher shot Masistios horse in Platea and whe he fell the hoplites whacked him.

Two case where horsed were specifically targeted.
Just my two cents worth.

Kind regards

[zakhx150]

Polybius 2. 28-31

in his account of the battle of Telamon, western italy 225BC between The Romans and Cisalpine Gauls he notes that the roman cavalry charged the flank of the gauls, coming downhill and straight into the infantry and otherwise engaged celtic cavalry.

diodorus siculus also goes on about gallic chariots that target horses with their javelins first and then get into the thick of the action on foot.

hows that for a well researched first post?

[M. Demetrius]

That's a good first post, all right. Welcome to RAT. It would generally be better to face down dismounted cavalry (very light infantry, more or less) than charging cavalry, so disabling the horse would be a good first task, seems to me.



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