Why were nomads so strong?

Why were nomads so strong?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hodów
mediafire.com/file/4gooa8lgldy4n7i/Mongol_Imperialism.pdf)
jstor.org/stable/25221891?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
theses.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/11023/232/2/ucalgary_2012_pow_lindsey.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

lots of weightlifting competitions?

Harsh lifestyle.

High mobility
Low cost of living
Low downtime
Effective warfare utility

They weren't. All their biggest victories were against states that were either suffering from internal problems or exhausted from fighting other states.

>the eternal gog and Magog
>strong
Wew

Nomadic lifestyle meant that nearly the entire population had skills applicable for warfare (archery, horse riding, etc.)

Nomadic animal herder societies are built around raiding others for wealth/cattle, hence martial skills are important and widespread

Better nutrition due to a meat/dairy heavy diet, much bigger and stronger than agrarian peoples

Nomads are hard to fight against offensively for urban/agrarian societies, no territory to take and hold and the nomads have a massive advantage in strategic and tactical mobility as well as being able to choose their battles.

They weren't.

Because of this.

>approach army
>gets shpt
>retreats
>get shot
>does anything
>gets shot

The Parthian shot essentially never got balanced.

Bump

>The Parthian shot essentially never got balanced
There was never need to balance it. Meme horse archers had very little influence on Mongolian(or similar) success.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hodów

>5 centuries after the mongols' hayday
don't think it really counts m8

The Parthian Shot is literally the reason why the Parthian cavalry was unstoppable during it's time, it's the reason why mongol horse archers were so incredibly effective.

The Parthian Shot, or a "parting Shot" is really the only reason why they were able to do what they did, I mean, learning how to utilise the Parthian shot and having an army full of capable horse riders using this tactic is a feat in of itself, riding backwards using only your legs to control the horse is an extremely talented equestrian skill, using it in combat is simply something else.

> This tactic was used by most Eurasian nomads, including the Scythians, Huns, Turks, Magyars, and Mongols, and it eventually spread to armies away from the Eurasian steppe, such as the Sassanid clibanarii and cataphracts.

>A notable battle in which this tactic was employed (by the Parthians) was the Battle of Carrhae. In this battle the Parthian shot was a principal factor in the Parthian victory over the Roman general Crassus.

Keep in mind, during this time stirrups did not exist.

he was probably just using the opportunity to spread a poland stronk link, don't think he actually cares about the parthian shot or anything

First of all, many nations spent most of their time fighting off border nomads. If you're wondering why a few select nomadic groups were highly successful at specific times it would have to do with Nomads didn't have to protect a homeland or a state or its facilities, they likely had more of an incentive to fight (nomads in migration like scenarios are usually war/famine refugees). An enemy can't take your capital and and harass your nobles if you don't have a capital and landed aristocracy.

Parthian cavalry wasn't even close to unstoppable, hence them getting their capital sacked.

Nor was fucking mongol cavalry, who got their asses beat the second time they invaded hungary.


>clibanarii and cataphracts.
Are the same thing, and NEITHER would use the parthian shot. It's questionable if they even galloped at all, as later byzantine cataphracts on bigger horses would mount charges at the trot to avoid exhausting the horses.

Byzantne cavalry very often had bows at their disposal

Sisu

That's nice. There's a difference between riding and shooting a bow, and acting as skirmish cavalry. Guess what cataphracts didn't do? Act at skirmish cavalry.

>They were horse archers but lost, so it doesn't count
Not really, it was best example of "why horse archers aren't really that amazing"
Using bows with weak penetrating power is not effective against better armours, that's it. So sooner or later you would have situation, where armoured crossbowmen/archers(or guys with firearms) would effectively counter:
>does anything
>gets shot

And you are totally ignoring that medieval Europe had shitload of mounted crossbowmen, in some areas even horse archers, later guys with firearms using caracole. And they weren't magically shitting at anything.

Marvelous mobility on strategic level allowed Mongols to choose or make situations, where they had upper hand and they did excel at using it.

>And you are totally ignoring that medieval Europe had shitload of mounted crossbowmen, in some areas even horse archers
Not that guy Nomad horse archers were much more skilled than ones from sedentary societies due to spending most of their life on horseback. All mounted archers are not created equal. I agree that horse archers weren't some type of unbeatable force though.

"more skill" doesn't mean much. Nomadic and settled horse archers don't fight the same way at all, and the settled ones tend to be far better equipped.

>"more skill" doesn't mean much
It means an awful lot when it comes to maneuvering large numbers of them.

Settled horse archers tend to move in ranks, which actually gives them a distinct advantage against nomads, as it leaves them able to fire coordinated volleys as well as enabling them to mount charges at the almost invariable lighter nomads.

Nomads aren't the end all be all of horse archery. Far from it, the Byzantines beat the avars at their own game.

>Nomads aren't the end all be all of horse archery.
I never said they were. I did say their horsemanship was unmatched and was a critical part of their early success as the only other than they had going for them was their organizational skills being numerical and technological inferior to their foes.

The problem with talking about the Mongols is some do not realize how different early Mongols were from the late ones. The early ones were mostly horse archers. As they grew in power they brought in a lot more sedentary troops because horse archers are too limited. By the time they hit Hungary they were a lot more than just horse archers.

>By the time they hit Hungary they were a lot more than just horse archers.
Horse archer and heavy lancers, the same as they always were. the ONLY addition were Chinese siege engineers.

>he doesn't realize the mongols/huns had infantry levies from places they conquered

lol, you think they climbed walls on their horses and galloped to the keep?

>the ONLY addition
No it was much more than that. See Mongol Imperialism 189-216 (mediafire.com/file/4gooa8lgldy4n7i/Mongol_Imperialism.pdf) and The Mongol Army jstor.org/stable/25221891?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents which you should be able to read for free if you add it to your shelf.

Hard living makes hard men.

Please, find a single source of the mongols actually bringing their infantry levies to Europe. You won't, because they didn't. They discussed the idea of bringing Chinese levies and dismissed it immediately for being logistically impossible.

No sources of the mongol invasions of Europe make a single mention of mongol infantry. Quite the opposite.

This.

Successful nomads were the ones who were in the right place at the right time and able to capitalize on a civilized area in its moment of crisis.The rest of the time they were backwards goat fuckers who spend the vast majority of the time getting cucked by civilized folks.

They had a brief final moment in the sun under the Mongols and were horrible pricks about it until their empire collapsed into dust almost as quickly as it was built (without contributing so much as a mudbrick shit house to humanity) and from that point on nomads no longer played any effective role in human history, as states were rapidly becoming far to powerful and advanced to need to tolerate their bullshit. By the time firearms arrived nomads were a distant and fading memory.

Their society helped produce some highly effective if short lived military organization, which is why they are usually the first examples of organized states outside of the traditional centers of civilization. And against organized states they could very quickly maneuver through their borders and inner territory faster than they could react.

>They discussed the idea of bringing Chinese levies and dismissed it immediately for being logistically impossible.
Do you have a source for this? They had no problem bringing infantry to Baghdad but to doing the same thing in Europe impossible?

You have claimed that they brought infantry to Europe. Prove your fucking claim. There are NO sources mentioning infantry in the European invasions. None. Zero.

>They had no problem bringing infantry to Baghdad
It's a lot fucking closer, and doesn't involve marching across the steppes.


>source
theses.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/11023/232/2/ucalgary_2012_pow_lindsey.pdf

Her cited source:
>12 Jean Pierre Abel-Rémusat,Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques, v.2 (Paris: Schubart et Heideloff, 1829), 76

>doesn't involve marching across the steppes.
I don't think they marched their infantry across the steppes at least in that instance being that most of them were Armenian.

>Prove your fucking claim.
You're right, there are no sources that I can find that claim that. I suppose I thought so because attacking a bunch of castles with mostly horse archers seemed like a bad idea when they had other tools available.

High mobility was supremely dangerous to the Nomads actually.

Unsettled = low population = eternal btfo.

Just look at what the Qing dynasty did to the Dzungars. It was a complete genocide.

>their empire collapsed into dust almost as quickly as it was built (without contributing so much as a mudbrick shit house to humanity)
just plain wrong, the Mongols opened up the silk road which brought the bubonic plague to Europe

you're welcome

I believe they are pastoralists. They tend to be very belligerent and protective over cattle. This is why the arabs conquered so much in the early middle ages, same for huns, and mongols.

Their harsh lifestyle contributed to their skill as horsemen, and at that they excelled, not for long though as by 1600 western european cavalry had surpassed them in warfare by far with the use of the Caracole.
I guess they lost in Hungary because of the fortification effort that was going on during the time they invaded. And of course by the time they invaded Persia they already used Chinese engineers and powder and shit, probably some chink infantry too, so they were not entirely cavalry-oriented by then, because fuck, you need to take over them fucking castles and forts if you want to truly conquer territory. But whatever is the case, Temujin was a fucking genius of warfare, that can't be disputed.

Holy shit, this thread is a clusterfuck. Nomads are strong because they have strong asabiyyah, or social cohesion. As society becomes more complex, these bonds fade and are replaced by a more and more impersonal bureaucracy, as well as increased specialization and less awareness.

>Their greatest accomplishment was butchering and/or subjugating all other nomads long enough to make trading over land routes semi-practical.

>all this brought in the end was more death and mayhem

yup

> filename

geg!

the fortification effort was done once they already ravaged half the country
they lost the 2nd time though

They played the entire game with a different ruleset.

High mobility != low population

US has ~320 million people, yet it can mobilize its armed forces within weeks and deploy them over thousands of miles and sustain them.

The problem isn't high mobility, its low population. ~40-50% of Dzungar died to small pox. This combined with the fact that there was succession issues lead to their downfall.

>not that long
Only like 400 years. Not that long though.

You would have to be an uneducated retard to believe the Mongols contributed nothing but death and mayhem to the world. They may have acted like arrogant prick's but so did every conquering army.

Campaigning = Nomadic

Sedentary people literally have to become nomadic to fight wars, whereas Nomads or Pastoral peoples are natural to their environment, which is warlike.

That is just one reason, but it is the top reason which all the other reasons descend from in the hierarchical tree of reasons.

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Agrarian civilizations couldn't expand into the steppes.

So when agrarian civilizations were stronger nothing happened but when nomads were stronger they would enter the history books.