How did chariot warfare actually look like? Were they really fighting from chariots...

How did chariot warfare actually look like? Were they really fighting from chariots? This things look unwieldy as fuck - low maneuverability, easy to kill or wound horses.

Or maybe they were simply using chariots for fast transport?

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Well, if you are referring to the way things are depicted in the Iliad (Which is probably more than a little stylized even before we get into one man armies that dominate the field), it does seem a kind of battle taxi, used for getting to hot-spots or quick escapes, and fighting being done on foot.

However, that wasn't the sole means of chariot warfare. The Egyptians and a lot of other near-east chariot users did a kind of precursor to the horse archer game that the steppe peoples used, often the chariots would form small circles and you'd reload while you were wheeling away from the enemy, and when you were at the point in the circle closest to them, you'd shoot your arrow.

Well. Varied.

Fighting from a chariot involved having a cunt with a missile weapon firing shit at enemies.
Then when all is spent and done and the enemy is still on the field. You hop off your chariot.
Need infantry in one location fast? Get your chariots and grab an infantryman.

Basically the first IFV. Though you never usually charged enemies from a chariot, Chariots did engage people in melee when said people are fleeing.

The last ("civilized") people to use the Chariot was the Indians and the Chinese. While they were cavalryfags like the rest of the world in terms of mounted warfare by the early ADs, they kept the chariot around for the very purpose of being fast troop transport. Especially since later chariot models the kind the Chinese built could seat 4 men.

Thanks guys. So basically chariots were both troops transport and a precursor to horse archers.

Must be hell on those things, with zero suspension.

Interdasting thing.

The Celts - who also used Chariots- may have figured out suspension. In the reconstructions of the Wetwang Chariot found in the UK, archaeologists hyphothesized that the celts solved suspension in two ways
1) Wicker platforms
2) Said platform suspended from hoops.

They tested it in a replica (see pic). While the suspended platform did nothing for up/down motion like hitting ruts on the path, it did ease up horizontal movement.

Well the Persians at Gaugamela used chariots with light cavalry to literally charge into the Macedonian phalanx.

I swear that must have been the most picturesque sight in the history of warfare.

I don't know of any other instance where chariots would charge head on, but then again I haven't really researched the subject.

That's because the Persians invented the Scythed Chariot and assigned madmen for drivers.

But this is fucking retarded. Persians were very familiar with the Phalanx formation. How did they hope to break it with chariots?

Pikes break and men scatter. Reorganizing a phalanx takes an eternity. They were hoping to disrupt the phalanx long enough for their infantry to finish the job.

Unfortunately for them the Macedonians discovered the chariot paths and devised a strategy to counter chariots in addition to positioning themselves away from the tracks.

If not for that the Persian plan might've worked.

>chariot paths

Do you mean some sort of ways prepared on the battlefield by the Persians for the chariots to use?

Really? I thought Indians invented it...

Chariots were platforms for archers, they may have carried a lance as well but ideally they would never close with the enemy, but instead would make rush-and-withdraw runs to whittle them down, then ride the survivors down when they broke. There is no evidence of charioteers fighting in close combat if they could avoid it, certainly not as a preference.

>Iliad

Written hundreds of years after chariots fell out of use. During the Greek Dark Ages, chariots served as battle taxis, but that was not how they were used during the Bronze Age.

youtube.com/watch?v=XX-Y7ETWUA8

Scythed chariots are a meme, they might be an effective terror weapon but they have no practical use (beyond the usual uses of a chariot).

Yes. Persians prepped the battlefield for weeks before Guagamela.

Probably this.

I'm having real difficulty imagining a chariot charge.

Bump

Carroballistae are the best, op

Indians used chariots as archery platforms.

Senate shills detected, R:TW taught me that chariots just charged into enemy formations and made them run away.

did it also show you that they need tons of space and often end up running off in random directions?

Everyone used them for this, it was always their primary purpose. Even in Britain and Ireland, which got the chariot very late and kept it much longer than anywhere else and so developed the technology to it's most advanced form, chariots were primarily used by tossing javelins out of them, and never used as a melee weapon. It was not uncommon for a chariot to "par" and for the warrior onboard to leap off and fight in hand-to-hand, relying on teh chariot as a means of escape if hard-pressed, but actually fighting from a chariot is impratical for numerous reasons that I hope are pobvious.

Yes. It also taught me that the scythes on those chariots are mostly dull and that merely being close to a phalanx spear gets people killed.