Can we have a thread about Cataphracts? What made these guys so amazing on the battlefield for thousands of years?

Can we have a thread about Cataphracts? What made these guys so amazing on the battlefield for thousands of years?

I thought they were shortly used cavalry, in a very marginal part of the empire, til better methods were discovered.

>I thought they were short used cavalry
What?
>in a very marginal part of the empire
What?
>til better methods were discovered
What?

stirrup and stronger breeds of horses

the sight of a two-metre tall armoured behemoth charging at you is pretty intimidating, user

Along side a 3 to 4 meter long iron or steel tipped lance.

Is it historically accurate that their horses were clad in scale? Wouldn't that be a very inefficient type of armor for a horse due to how easy it is to stab upwards, hitting the less protective part of the armor?

Whose they? Persian cataphracts? From what has been found, the Persians placed cloths under the armor to prevent it from chaffing or scratching their horses.

Well for one they were heavily armoured (as in from top to toe) in a time where that was exceedingly rare, giving them a significant protection against their enemies, blades and spears. Due to the tremendous cost of the necessary equipment I'm fairly certain that the cataphracts came from the noble families which in the indo-iranian culture, if I'm not mistaken, meant that they had an extensive military training, similar to the later knights of europe. The heavy weight of a fully armored horseman and mount would drastically increase the charge capacity of them, which probably would be quite devastating for an opponent who is fatigued from deflecting the rains of arrows that precede the charge of any indo-iranian army.

Well there's a shit ton of different types of Cataphracts the Iranians used. Only nobles could use them but nobles ranked from low level type "free knights" i.e. the Aztan, who formed the backbone of the regular cavalary as well as the mainstay of the elite "royal" archers. The higher ranking nobles were usually the King's bodyguards and the heavy shock cavalry while the lower ranking ones ranged from medium cavalry to horse archers.

Persians LITERALLY invented knighthood

Iranians more likely then just Persians specifically. Though its weird how much pre-Islamic Iranian cultures mirror feudal Europe.

t. Iranian

What?

I think I figured it out :
>I thought they were a briefly and little used type of cavalry
>limited to a very small part of the empire
>until better methods were developed to field them in larger numbers and with more consistent quality

I think he's talking about the first Cataphract formations. In which case, yes, the first of everything ends up sucking because they are experimenting with new ideas, haven't fully worked out the kinks of said new ideas and haven't proven themselves effective enough to justify a massive investment of resources.

Can't be the case. Middle of the Achaemenid dynasty's reign was when early Cataphracts were being experimented with by the Persians. The concept of the unit itself already dates back to almost a millenia even before Cyrus' time with the Assyrians using a form of proto Cataphract.

Only major transition is at various points in the Arsacid and Sassanid dynasties, they switched around be medium, heavy, and shock type cataphract units.

....The fact that they're coevered in armor.

What the fuck do you think we're going to tell you?

Yes. Scale was fucking rare. people used lamellar just about everywhere.

What an intuitive and well thought out response.

...

Did you really bump the thread from page 9 just to bring more /pol/ shitposts?

It's rather simple, massive hunk of metal going faster than a man can run, going towards usually levied soldiers.

Their pretty damn effective against even professional heavy armored infantry though dude.

How would they be used in battle? Presumably not a head-on charge as commonly depicted?
Would it be one big routing charge after the infantry has softened up the enemy or maybe repeated charge and retreat to try break the line?

This ''cavalry didn't actually charbe becuz modern horses are pussies xD'' meme needs to end. Yes they did charge the faggots.

What? They practiced, drilled, and repeated exercises to desensitized their horses to charging enemies head on. Usually though at least with Arsacid and Sassanid tactics were to use foot and horse archers to pin enemy formations down and when they do the whole tetsudo/shield wall thing, the shock cavalry and cataphracts would then charge in.

Also, its very hard defending against a 2.5-3.0 meter tall entity charging against you in heavy armor at a gallop with a 3 to 4 meter long iron or steel tipped spear or lance.