Tactics

Those don't look anything like Roman soldiers...

...

you need to stop

That is because they weren't. They were orietanlized greeks larping as the latins of italy

Goddamn Byzantine armor is so fucking aesthetic.

>That is because they weren't.

those actually were, the Roman empire had Cataphractarii far before the split.

So everyone in the empire, including the population of Italy, spontaeneosly became a greek LARPer after 330?

god youre dumb. Cataphracts arent even a greek thing

those are fucking western romans. You can tell by the shield symbol

also furthermore the picture is labeled as taking place in the city of Rome itself, its even dated.

People dont realize that everyone had cataphracts.

Slingers to drive off the lighter cavalry supporting them.

Cataphracts alone were in deep shit if they actually engage the legionaries.

depends. A cataphract charge wont work on a fresh cohort in formation and ready for the charge.

However, if its 6 hours into the battle, your shield is falling apart, youre dehydrated, tired, and on the verge of passing out, but pure adrenaline is still keeping you on your feet while your friends start collapsing from exhaustion around you. The horse archers keep firing for hours, giving you no time to rest. Meanwhile, the cataphracts have been chilling in their tents, and then they come out fresh and charge directly at your poor legionary ass. Some guys realize theyre fucked and break, fuckig up the formation. What remains of it consists of a bunch of dehydrated zombies on the verge of death in 3 different ways (exhaustion, dehydration, or stabby stabby).

Thousands of pounds of horse and metal and man smash through you like your shoe over some grass, nobody has the strength to actually hold the formation, arrows are still hitting and weighing down your shield, and life is hell.

This was what the legions under crassus experienced. All it takes is the right circumstances and heavy cavalry can beat virtually anything.

Cataphracts wouldn't want to charge directly into mass infantry blocks
they needed skirmishers to whittle down the forces
so if their skirmishers is in any way threatened than the cataphract would lose their charging potential

Parthian and Persian cataphracts were literally used as shock troops to break Roman infantrymen frontlines, you mook.

I've read oftentimes the arrows stuck shields to arms and feet to earth. For instance, when the son of Crassus was cut off and realized he was going to be captured, he wanted to kill himself but could not since his arms were immobilized. So he had one of his men do it.

not at the start of the battle you mook, actually read history and you'll realize that they charge after the formation is softened up, usually with arrow fire. Its a waste of cavalry to charge them into fresh infantry that is ready and in formation. Cavalry has to be used with some finesse, you dont want to waste your most expensive assets in a less-than-ideal situation. In the example I described, the cataphracts didnt come into play until hours into the battle, after the romans had been beaten into a pulp by horse archers.

They adopted much more cavalry units in the East, as well as Archers. They also had auxiliary pike units. Caracalla and Severus Alexander actually equipped and trained the Legions stationed on the border with Parthia with pikes like the Macedonians did.

When it comes to holding down a heavy shock Calvary direct frontal charge, pikes are your best and safest option. Having 8+ deep of ranks closed together, with the first 3 rows literally armed at the horses feet and under-belly, and the 4 row aiming for the rider, will guarantee to rekt them.

>They were orietanlized greeks larping as the latins of italy
The point is that the Romans had adopted cataphracts before even Constantine, and the Romans in that pic are actually Romans, not Greeks.

Read better, faggot

>Constantine also employed ultra heavy infantry equipped with extra armor and large maces to deal with cataphracts
He also used lighter cavalry with war picks to run circles around them and smash them in the face.

this
cataphracts were ridiculously expensive
and the armor were really taxing on the horse
they would've charged at the 11th hour and try to break the backs

Im not the guy you were responding to, you quoted my first post ITT

fuck off retard I read fine, I find fault with both sides of this argument for different reasons. Cataphracts arent greek, those romans arent LARPing as greeks because theyre just using the common tech of the day, if anything theyre LARPing as Iranians.

>Cataphracts arent even a greek thing
We know, but the Romans in that image aren't Byzantines, but actual Romans, hence making fun of you for that dumb Greek larping comment.

This is how normie brain works.

>and the Romans in that pic are actually Romans, not Greeks.

>lol those are Byzantines, which are greeks, just playing at being eastern
>not really they're Romans in Rome during parade
>lol ur dumb

once again I didnt make that comment, and in fact I was one of the people that pointed out it was a picture of western romans in rome

>not at the start of the battle
Never said that, you retard.

Why the fuck don't Greekniggers have their own culture or history to talk about. Literally all they do is steal from and lie about the Romans/Italians.

Fucking gyros should be banned from this board.

I literally wrote two sentences, the first being about the Romans removing the lighter supporting cavalry, and the second being about the ineffectiveness of catahpracts alone.

Nothing you said actually disputes, contradicts, or disagrees with anything I said.

You clearly have serious issues with reading comprehension.

That was essentially nothing more than larping. The overwhelming majority of legions, including those in the east, were not armed with pikes.

stop being stupid and trying to nitpick, you responded to my post as if I mischaracterized the role of a cataphract when I clearly didnt. Maybe dont make smug replies that dont even contradict my statement and then expect me to just let it sit. You were clearly trying to prove I was wrong or something without even realizing that you werent even contradicting me. Cataphracts are meant for breaking formations, this doesnt mean they did it on their own, or against fresh troops, which I specified in my post, so whwt exactly did you find fault with? Seems to me you were being an ignorant twat and are now just lingering trying to get thr last reply. Pretty pathetic.

um, yes you did. You claimed cataphracts would be in "deep shit" if they attacked a cohort, and I explained to you that this isnt necessarily true

The legions were fresh and ready at the start, tired and worn down by the end, which is when the Cataphracts made their charge.

Keep in mind Carrae was pre-stirrups. No stirrups, heavy barding, and the tightly packed diamond of the Cataphracts meant that they charged at a trot rather than full gallop. While still delivering a tremendous amount of force, cataphracts of the time could not shatter ordered heavy infantry from the front, and were themselves very vulnerable to counterattack if they failed to break the infantry and became bogged down.

Byzantine cataphracts in the 9th and 10th century fared very poorly against Frankish Knights, who charged at full gallop and employed much thinner lines. The Komnenian would later reform Cataphracts to fight more like Knights.

Alone. After a sentence about how the Romans took steps to drive off their support. You then went on about supported cataphracts, missing the entire point. You are incapable of understanding two sentences strung together.

Is this what autism is like?

The trot seems to be a function of the weight of the armor and weapons more than stirrups or a lack thereof.

Cataphracts moving relatively slowly to avoid exhausting the horses is a fairly common trend in byzantine writing.

also not neccessarily true that they would even need support, if they catch a cohort off guard you dont need any support for the cavalry, they can win it alone right then and there. Also if theyre green they might break before contact, the fear factor is arguably more important than the actual physics of the charge.

Go fanboy somewhere else.

Strong tight formations that don't break like with any heavy cavalry.
Doesn't matter how heavy your cavalry is. Horses wont charge organized blocks of infantry like they wont charge brick walls.

thats why its all about psychology. Its not about breaking the formation at its best, its about swooping in at its most vulnerable, which can mean physically less men and literal gaps from that but also from people running away before the charge even makes impact. If you can spook a formation, it will break apart.

>MUH CATAPHRACTS

its not just cataphracts its any heavy cavalry, it barks more than it bites, which doesnt mean the bite is trivial but it means that the fear factor is also very important.

I dont know what youre even trying to imply this shit happened all the time, people run away in battles and cavalry is the #1 thing people are scared of in a battle because they inflict the most casualties, but only after theyve scared everyone out of formation.

I think the choice of weapon also has a good bit to do with it. The Roman cataphracts used the Kontos, which they borrowed from the Persians, and continued to used it up to the 11th century. The kontos is a two handed lance, and without a hand on the reins, it is much harder to control the horse at a full gallop. Even staying on the horse might be difficult without stirrups.

In the situation you described light cav would do the job just fine, mainly because that was part of their job, attack the enemy when the formation starts breaking and pursue the routers. Light cavalry would also be used for skirmishes and hit and run tactics especially since you can equip them with javelins, slings and bows to keep them safe.

Heavy cavalry wasn't made to be light cavalry with more protection, they're actually worse at the job since the armor slows them down. They were made to charge into enemy formations and break them, and lots of times they could charge from the front against a troop of fresh veterans and still manage to crush the formation(see battle of Nikopolis). If they didn't, they could just regroup, retreat and charge again, loosing
much less men then the enemy unless they were charging at proficient pikemen(which are a rarity). Things got even worse when their lances even longer and the riders could kill men from 5 meters away and then turn around with no fear of death.

Cavalry was perfected throughout the centuries and more often then not the army that had more cavalry and better cavalry won. What I described above could be applied to the Polish army which consisted of fewer infantrymen and more riders, an army that still dominated the battlefield when people were using longbows and rifles.

Part of the reason Rome fell was because they didn't understand the importance and potential of horsemen, mainly because they went against a lot of tribes that either didn't have many horses or were shit at using them.

>Part of the reason Rome fell was because they didn't understand the importance and potential of horsemen
What a load of fucking nonsense. The Late Roman Army had one unit of cavalry for every three units of infantry, compared to one unit of cavalry for every seventy five units of infantry in earlier periods.

Real life isnt like video game. Just because you min maxed the system to have more dinarri doesnt mean you can hire Cataphrachts indefintely. There is a set cap on the number of people who would be suitable to know how to fight as a cataphract, horses that could act as shock cavalry and the people who could assemble and maintain an expensive piece of armour.

You usually had a small group of them and if you lost them all, you would need another 5-10 years to rebuild their numbers.

True but they had shit tactics and shit equipment, that's why the huns fucked them

>shit equipment
It was a cornerstone of the Huns' strategy to zero in on badly defended Roman fabricae to steal Roman equipment. Fucking everyone used Roman equipment, it was the best stuff out there. What makes you think it was "shit"?

>shit tactics
What did you mean by this?

were these parthia catas first generation knights? were polish winged hussars the last generation?

>The role of cavalry in the late army does not appear to have been greatly enhanced as compared with the army of the Principate. The evidence is that cavalry was much the same proportion of overall army numbers as in the 2nd century and that its tactical role and prestige remained similar. However, the cavalry of the Late Roman army was endowed with greater numbers of specialised units, such as extra-heavy shock cavalry (cataphractii and clibanarii) and mounted archers.[3] During the later 4th century, the cavalry acquired a reputation for incompetence and cowardice for their role in three major battles. In contrast, the infantry retained its traditional reputation for excellence.
Let's just agree they were shit user

>Wikipedia
>the citation is Hugh fucking Elton
alright dude lmao

Romans had go-go gadget superpowers, just look at the corvus

Cataphracts were the proto-knights
Cuirassiers were probably the last example of knights

>Why the fuck don't Latiniggers have their own culture or history to talk about. Literally all they do is steal from and lie about the Greeks.

Stop being retarded after being called out for your nonsense you fucking moron. The Iranian cataphracts were not a reserve force in their wars or how they were used. You got called out for moving the goal post and try to redirect what you said, moron.

hi

that was merely a promotional/personal photo IIRC and definitely not something that would've been seen in battle. The only cavalry charge in the war was from the Russians.

bump

no, hussars charged too
the user shows an uhlan, a light cavarlyman with a long pike, lancer if you will

Bulgars are quite noted for their excellent equestrianship during the world war.
youtube.com/watch?v=uhGtMBVc0iY

>This is what "Byzantium is not Rome" fags actually believe.

They copied it and it was already low in numbers like how knights were low in numbers in a medieval European army.

Besides, Parthians and Sassanians did well against Rome.

Heavy cavalry were versatile life-long professional soldiers that could fight with a bow or lance or sword. For an armored horsemen, arrows were only a threat at close range. In some nomadic cultures, heavy cavalry was also the aristocracy, so fleeing was also a serious decision with serious political and not only tactical consequences.

All troops that are fresh and ready at the start would be less susceptible to anything regardless if they are infantry, calvarly, or missile/skirmisher types. The Iranian peoples; Scythians/Sarmatians, Persians, Medes, Parni/Parthians, etc...used their medium cavalry who were both horse archers and decently armored lancers and swordsmen to harass Roman/Byzantine troop formations while foot archers would use heavier and stronger bows to pin them down before said medium and heavier cavalry units would break them with frontal or flanking charges.

There is a massive psychological factor also seeing a more heavily armored man on a heavily armored horse holding a big ass mace or especially a very large lance/glaive/spear running at you. Which is part of the reason why horsemen tend to be more effective against infantry units then other ones are. But to the original tangent, you can make the same argument the Romans/Byzantines didn't simply throw or use their best heavy infantry units right at the start of a battle either, using missile troops and support of allies to wean things to a better standing during a battle.

damn thats an awesome aesthetic, too bad you dont see that very often in pop culture

>too bad you dont see that very often in pop culture

pop culture thinks the Roman empire fell after Commodus because of Gladiator, and for the previous generation raised on sword and sandal stuff, the empire is the anti-thesis of the christian world, making a Christian Roman empire that goes to war to -preserve- Christianity the most frighteningly alien thing in the world, and a complete reversal of the pacifist underground persecuted cult image they've embraced.

Why are there no films centering on the Crisis of the Third Century?