War elephants

[demanvanwezel]

In the documentary I saw this they made an small animated video of the roman soldier cutting the abdomen and the belly of the elephant. I am pretty sure that is way to deadly to allow enraging the elephant because the elephant died an very very very horrible death.

Which makes me wonder in an fight against war elephants why was this not an tactic as its very fast? Is it because it only killed the elephant and not make it turn against its owners?

because it requires a soldier to get underneath an elephant while dodging it's legs, tusks and it's trunk, also requiring the elephant to be relatively stationary which didn't happen in battles (elephants were more used like chariots were they smashed through men and didn't stand still to fight individual battles)

this scenario is more like an archer killing an armored knight by shooting inside a kink in his armor and therefore concluding that knights are worthless since you only need one archer to take them out

 

[sleeperul]

because it requires a soldier to get underneath an elephant while dodging it's legs, tusks and it's trunk, also requiring the elephant to be relatively stationary which didn't happen in battles (elephants were more used like chariots were they smashed through men and didn't stand still to fight individual battles)

this scenario is more like an archer killing an armored knight by shooting inside a kink in his armor and therefore concluding that knights are worthless since you only need one archer to take them out[

What kink? At the shoulders big deal they have mail and if it goes trough it it still hits the shoulder its not gonna kill you. There is no way to kill an armored soldier with an bow and arrow.

You can kill an elephant on the other hand with an bow an arrow. Do you think their skin can block arrows no it will go trough their skin an easy as it goes trough human skin.

There not african badgers now those can take an hit.

 

[Kovax]

because it requires a soldier to get underneath an elephant while dodging it's legs, tusks and it's trunk, also requiring the elephant to be relatively stationary which didn't happen in battles (elephants were more used like chariots were they smashed through men and didn't stand still to fight individual battles)

this scenario is more like an archer killing an armored knight by shooting inside a kink in his armor and therefore concluding that knights are worthless since you only need one archer to take them out

More like an archer killing a knight before a battle while his helmet was off. An angry elephant isn't going to just stand there while you stab it, it's going to try to actively kill you....or you kill it quickly and it either falls on you or thrashes around in its death throes, tossing you 20 feet in the air like a broken doll in the process. That move in a combat situation MIGHT work, but it's far more likely to be a suicide move for the soldier. Far safer for the soldiers to do a formation change and just let the elephant run through an open corridor, especially since whatever enraged or panicked it will very likely lead to its death sooner or later.

 

[gagenater]

Left sort of stated, but maybe not clearly is that there never was (and still isn't) any way to breed any significant number of elephants in captivity. They were more or less ALL captured from wild elephant herds. The best type of elephant for battle usage was the north african bush elephant. They seemed to be an intermediate species between the currently existing African elephant and the Indian elephant with respect to size and aggression. African elephants are too wild/wary to be successfully trained by humans, and Indian elephants are too small and docile to be ideal. Basically as long as there were any North African Bush Elephants around, they were worth using in war. Once they were all dead, sometime around 0 AD, a process which was entirely caused by humans looking for ivory and war elephants, the idea didn't work very well because there weren't any good elephants to use it on.

Indian war elephants continued in use, but more often were used like giant tractors and trail breakers than as mass offensive weapons.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

Where do you get the idea that the (probable) North african population or subspecies was larger and/or more agressive Kovax and gagenater?

AFAIK, the account from Polybius on Raphia has generally been held valid. In fact before Europeans penetrated into interior of Africa in 19th century it was even thought that all African elephants were smaller than Asian ones. When it became clear they weren't this caused the ancient accounts to become discredited for awhile until it was pointed out in late '40s that the elephants used could have been an extinct population of the smaller forest elephants. After that the accepted idea seems to have been either extinct population or subspecies.

Another tidbit that may support the idea that the African elephants used were smaller than Indian is the possibility that Hannibal's personal elephant in Italy was named "Syrian" i.e. Indian elephant acquired via Seleucids in some manner (the actual Syrian elephant population seems to have died out before 500 BC).

 

[Kovax]

I read that decades ago (early 1990s?) in a book on the Alexandrian Successors, but that's too far back for me to recall the source. The notion of an extinct African species was again brought up a few years back in some TV special about elephants in SE Asia.

 

[gagenater]

Where do you get the idea that the (probable) North african population or subspecies was larger and/or more agressive Kovax and gagenater?

AFAIK, the account from Polybius on Raphia has generally been held valid. In fact before Europeans penetrated into interior of Africa in 19th century it was even thought that all African elephants were smaller than Asian ones. When it became clear they weren't this caused the ancient accounts to become discredited for awhile until it was pointed out in late '40s that the elephants used could have been an extinct population of the smaller forest elephants. After that the accepted idea seems to have been either extinct population or subspecies.

Another tidbit that may support the idea that the African elephants used were smaller than Indian is the possibility that Hannibal's personal elephant in Italy was named "Syrian" i.e. Indian elephant acquired via Seleucids in some manner (the actual Syrian elephant population seems to have died out before 500 BC).

It may or may not have been larger, or smaller but it's clear that it was trainable, and reasonably aggressive when used for war.

 

[Fishman786]

The size and behaviour of north African elephants is not really something that can be described with certainty since their classification is debatable and perhaps didn't exist as a distinct species. In general which empire was using which species of elephant is rather confusing. The Ptolemies were using Eitrean elephants (https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/after-2000-years-ptolemy’s-war-elephants-are-revealed) in the battle of Raphia, which are from the gigantic, supposedly un-tamable East African population, but Polypius describes them as being smaller and afraid of Asian elephants. Maybe these individuals all happened to be smaller ones, or maybe the author's assumptions about elephant size are showing.

Clearly though we can't say that Indian elephants were too docile or small to be used for warfare given that literally thousands of the things were used in battle in India up into the modern era. I'm not sure why @gagenater you think they were just tractors, even the late Mughal armies used war elephants in field battles. It's more likely that elephants had such mixed success in the west because of a lack of knowledge of how to properly train and equip the animals. Whilst the Mediterranean world largely used African elephants, the idea of using war elephants was an imported one from India, something that only spread after Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia, and such a distant part of the world would hardly have had access to the vast wealth of elephant husbandry knowledge that had been handed down for century after century in India. In addition, working with an entirely different species of elephant might have meant that what knowledge they did acquire from India wasn't entirely applicable.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

The Ptolemies were using Eitrean elephants (https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/after-2000-years-ptolemy’s-war-elephants-are-revealed) in the battle of Raphia, which are from the gigantic, supposedly un-tamable East African population, but Polypius describes them as being smaller and afraid of Asian elephants. Maybe these individuals all happened to be smaller ones, or maybe the author's assumptions about elephant size are showing.

Interesting. Particularly when you take this more comprehensive article that mulls more on the implications of the study, i.e. no inbreeding with forest elephants: https://m.phys.org/news/2014-01-war-elephant-myths-debunked-dna.html

Polybius' account might not be unsalvagable though.

An inscription from Adulis states that "Great King Ptolemy (III)... led a campaign into Asia with infantry and cavalry and fleet and Troglodytic and Ethiopian elephants, which he and his father were the first to hunt from these lands and, bringing them back into Egypt, to fit out for military service." (http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-ptolemy_iii/bchp_ptolemy_iii_02.html) suggesting that two different kinds of elephants might have been procured south of Egypt. Nor did Ptolemies necessarily restrict themselves to Eritrea, the port of Ptolemais Theron (of the Hunt) supposedly established for elephant trade is held to have been located in Sudan.

Furthermore it has been suggested on basis of Polybius' account that some of the animals at Raphia, the ones with turrets that did engage were larger animals than the typical stock (possibly Indians): https://eprints.qut.edu.au/9144/

Perhaps the Ptolemies used both a more numerous stock of forest elephants or equivalent captured further north (Troglodytic) and fewer savannah elephants from Eritrea (Ethiopian)?

 

[demanvanwezel]

north-african elephants were definitly smaller then their indian counterparts as that's the reason given why the romans held theirs in reserve at the battle of magnesia

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

because it requires a soldier to get underneath an elephant while dodging it's legs, tusks and it's trunk, also requiring the elephant to be relatively stationary which didn't happen in battles (elephants were more used like chariots were they smashed through men and didn't stand still to fight individual battles)

this scenario is more like an archer killing an armored knight by shooting inside a kink in his armor and therefore concluding that knights are worthless since you only need one archer to take them out

This reminds me of a WWII anecdote I read a long time ago. About an infantry man sneaking up to a tank and dropping a grenade down the barrel of its main gun disabling and or destroying the tank. Certainly a badass feat, but not the sort of tactic you would expect to rely on.

Do you think their skin can block arrows no it will go trough their skin an easy as it goes trough human skin.

Block? No, but their hide is muuuch tougher than human skin is, and they have waaay more muscle and fat under that skin to tank damage vs a human being. Nobody here is literally saying that elephants are impervious to injury or can’t be slain, but they could potentially disrupt an infantry formation pretty severely, and cause a lot of mayhem.

 

[Fishman786]

north-african elephants were definitly smaller then their indian counterparts as that's the reason given why the romans held theirs in reserve at the battle of magnesia

It's the reason given by the later historians who described the events. Doesn't mean that Indian elephants were definitely bigger, this idea could be an assumption either by the Roman commanders themselves before the battle or by the historians.

 

[Draker5]

In the documentary I saw this they made an small animated video of the roman soldier cutting the abdomen and the belly of the elephant. I am pretty sure that is way to deadly to allow enraging the elephant because the elephant died an very very very horrible death.

Which makes me wonder in an fight against war elephants why was this not an tactic as its very fast? Is it because it only killed the elephant and not make it turn against its owners?

I saw the same documentary. Also, a soldier rode under an elephant on horseback and cut the elephants tendons.

In all seriousness, that sounds extremely improbable. Like others have commented, a one off happening at best.

 

[gagenater]

What kink? At the shoulders big deal they have mail and if it goes trough it it still hits the shoulder its not gonna kill you. There is no way to kill an armored soldier with an bow and arrow.

You can kill an elephant on the other hand with an bow an arrow. Do you think their skin can block arrows no it will go trough their skin an easy as it goes trough human skin.

There not african badgers now those can take an hit.

I'll allow that you COULD kill an elephant with bows and arrows, but I would also note that it's likely to be incredibly difficult to actually successfully do. An elephant's vital organs are buried deeply behind/within it's skeleton, skin, and musculature. On a human, in a random shot at the chest, you might have to penetrate 3 to 10 cm (1 - 3 inches) of skin, muscle and bone to get to vital organs. On an elephant, at the side of the belly, the same distance might be - what 20-30 cm (8-12 inches)? And thats leaving aside the odds that you strike a rib bone, which in elephants are very thick and definately strong enough to stop an arrow. The ribs are very heavy and closely spaced together unlike those of flimsy critters like humans - the odds that you hit a rib are in fact very high - 50% or more, even with a shot from exactly the correct angle.

As you can see, anything other than a shot directly from the side at 90 degrees is almost certain to strike a rib and stop or be deflected (assuming you penetrate enough meat to get that far with your shot)

Most arrow shots aren't going to pack sufficient power to penetrate that much flesh. That's best case scenario of a shot from the flank, at the side of the abdomen. For a shot from the front or rear, to get past muscle might take a penetration of say 1 meter (3 ft) or more, and that's assuming you don't hit any bones, as elephant bones can reliably be expected to stop an arrow cold. Nearly any shot from the front is going to be useless at actually stopping the elephant - unless you happen to strike it's eye, the massive skull and incredibly thick

leg and shoulder blades are going to stop any arrow before it hits something vital. A shot to it's trunk (muscles for it protude through the hole just under it's skull) is going to be incredibly painful, but that doesn't do you any good whatsoever in actually stopping the animal's forward progress - indeed it's likely to accelerate it, as the elephant decides that you need to die really fast.

Eventually, all those arrow shots are likely to hurt the elephant severely, and some combination of blood loss, and damage will slow it down sufficiently that it's not battle effective, but how long will that take? 2 hours? 4 hours? 6 hours? the battle is going to be over by then, and the victors will either care for the hurt elephants, or dispatch them if hurt to badly. Either way you haven't helped matters during the fighting much.

 

[sleeperul]

First what animal do you think can survive hours with heavy bleeding.Second if you hurt the animal he will not attack you the archer at hundreds of meters away he will attack anyone close to him including his owners who will probably kill the beast so it will not kill him. While you are hundreds of meters away. Basically is far better to use archers against elephants then anything else. You are safe while nobody else is.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

First what animal do you think can survive hours with heavy bleeding.Second if you hurt the animal he will not attack you the archer at hundreds of meters away he will attack anyone close to him including his owners who will probably kill the beast so it will not kill him. While you are hundreds of meters away. Basically is far better to use archers against elephants then anything else. You are safe while nobody else is.

Hundreds of meter s away with a bow ? I do archery since I am a little girl. You could shoot all day with a bow at an elephant 200 meters away and he wont notice.

 

[sleeperul]

Hundreds of meter s away with a bow ? I do archery since I am a little girl. You could shoot all day with a bow at an elephant 200 meters away and he wont notice.

My mistake then so tens of meters. Either way the animal is not gonna mad at you but everyone around it.
Do not get me wrong I know there are arcehrs who could hit targets at hundreds of meters away but there special individuals. I google it and there are.
To make it clear 500 meters away. That good they where. Really all you life?

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

My mistake then so tens of meters. Either way the animal is not gonna mad at you but everyone around it.

I was just so nitpicky because it was a great opportunity to apply this quote which is originaly one about muskets and men

 

[gagenater]

First what animal do you think can survive hours with heavy bleeding.Second if you hurt the animal he will not attack you the archer at hundreds of meters away he will attack anyone close to him including his owners who will probably kill the beast so it will not kill him. While you are hundreds of meters away. Basically is far better to use archers against elephants then anything else. You are safe while nobody else is.

Who said anything about heavy bleeding? These are arrows as big around as your little finger causing minor flesh wounds in an animal whose blood volume is 100 liters or so (as opposed to a human with around 5 liters) a human hit by an arrow (or 3) can easily be moving around for several hours afterwards if it didn't hit a vital spot. Why couldn't an elephant? Nobody from 100's of meters away is going to be able to get a shot off with enough power to pierce the elephant's skin (much less hit as Graf Zeppelin pointed out) It can't attack the owners - they are on top of it. Of course any archers shooting at the elephants are getting shot back at - by the archers on top of the elephants. The archers on the elephants are shooting slightly downward giving them longer effective range (with more penetrating power) than the foot archers. And of course elephants are always deployed with infantry too. lastly, don't forget that elephants (depending on the era) are often armored, and they are easy to armor. Thanks to the square cube rule, and their relatively slower leg movement they can be fully armored in ways horses cannot be.

Here are some examples of how heavy elephant armor could easily be made:

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-holds-the-record-for-the-largest-of-its-kind

 

[sleeperul]

Who said anything about heavy bleeding? These are arrows as big around as your little finger causing minor flesh wounds in an animal whose blood volume is 100 liters or so (as opposed to a human with around 5 liters) a human hit by an arrow (or 3) can easily be moving around for several hours afterwards if it didn't hit a vital spot. Why couldn't an elephant? Nobody from 100's of meters away is going to be able to get a shot off with enough power to pierce the elephant's skin (much less hit as Graf Zeppelin pointed out) It can't attack the owners - they are on top of it. Of course any archers shooting at the elephants are getting shot back at - by the archers on top of the elephants. The archers on the elephants are shooting slightly downward giving them longer effective range (with more penetrating power) than the foot archers. And of course elephants are always deployed with infantry too. lastly, don't forget that elephants (depending on the era) are often armored, and they are easy to armor. Thanks to the square cube rule, and their relatively slower leg movement they can be fully armored in ways horses cannot be.

Here are some examples of how heavy elephant armor could easily be made:

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-holds-the-record-for-the-largest-of-its-kind

What are you talking abut there was records of tragets being hit from 500 meters away. We just suck compared to those people but an arrow can be shot at 100 meters. It can pierce the skin of an elephant its not iron or wood. That it has more fat an muscle it one thing but the skin will be pierced an it will hurt them and it will enrage them. Oh and since we have archer enthuziast on this thread ask the person who has an better accuracy an archer hitting from an 2.5 meters elephant that moves hitting down or an archer with less size or that arcehr hitting an elephant of 2.5 meters height and 2 meters in bulk?
The archer from the elephant will hit shit. If its riding the elephant does he not suffer from balance problems is the target not smaller then what the opposing archer has to hit? How can he hit the opposing archer when every step the elephant does shakes you when he is smaller target and when the elephant is enraged because it has arrows that pierced his skin and especially trunk and hurt him like crazy and it moving and attacking anyone he can?

I saw that the armor did not covered all of the trunk and the ears where it hurts the most your words. Also in an war there hundreds of archers with hundreds of arrows some will hit the elephant in the ear or trunk.

Also since the head of the elephant is so high does it not mess with visibility for the archer?