If Mongols were light horsemen how did they defeat heavy infantry?

[Independent voter]

So Mongols were famous for horse archery, mostly lightly armored and using their famous Mongol recurve bows. Can light cavalry be that effective against heavy infantry?











History shows Mongols were very difficult to defeat on the battlefield.

Even if the Mongols had bows, heavy infantry with their shields and armor was able to withstand arrows to a great extent.

[Deleted]

Intelligence really.

Avoid frontal assaults as much as possible, pin down the enemies mobility and then have your main army flank. Always flank (have to think Mao learnt from it 'All you need to know about war is: circle around, circle around, circle around')

Go listen to Dan Carlins podcasts on the mongols, they are epic.

[WskyDK]

Speed, mobility, numbers

[Gracin]

Speed, mobility, numbers

And tactics.

[Occam-OC]

Speed, mobility, numbers

Especially if the monguls used bows.

[Nitros14]

The composite bows they used had an astonishing amount of penetrating power. If you're interested in how the Mongols (well mainly the Huns before them but the combat style is much the same) succeeded in defeating heavy infantry and in turn forced the Romans to copy them I'd suggest this book https://www.amazon.ca/Grand-Strategy.../dp/0674062078

Mounted Bowmen are extremely flexible. They can melt away from resistance, reform and attack where the enemy is vulnerable extremely quickly. When you combine it with lethal, armour penetrating bows it's devastating.

Most armies didn't replicate it because they couldn't. It takes decades of training to master fighting with a bow on horseback.

[Misuteri]

How did the Germans defeat the Maginot Line?

They used superior mobility and went around it.

[Rustedsaint]

Myth busters more or less proved that mongols mounted archers were able to to hit their targets harder, faster and able to maneuver their foes.
shields may stop arrows but chainmail is weak against them. Even plate mail can be pieced by a decent shot from a long bow, which is why knights used to cut the middle finger off captured archers

[Kellhound]

A shield only covers a part of the body, and chainmail is almost useless against an arrow. Add in mobility, shock action, and an overall better (man for man) force and it is easy to see why they won so often.

[Nazrark]

Chainmail is only there to prevent slashing and minor stabbing wounds.

[Escepticus]

'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'

[Aquinan]

Well if you have played any of the total war games, you know mounted archers can easily defeat any infantry on foot :P

[Deleted]

Mongols never engaged in close combat with better equipped opponents if they could avoid that. They shot arrows from a distance and retreated.

The great weakness of knights was their rigid ideal of honor; certain weapons, such as bows, were considered dishonorable. A death-defying charge and fierce melee was seen as the most glorious and honorable form of combat. As a result, mounted archers has never been a thing in Europe, and the knights could neither respond to the Mongol hit and run attacks, nor catch their lighter and faster horses.

On the other hand, Mongols also easily crushed Muslim armies that did employ their own mounted archers.

[Shelly]

Mongols never engaged in close combat with better equipped opponents if they could avoid that. They shot arrows from a distance and retreated.

The great weakness of knights was their rigid ideal of honor; certain weapons, such as bows, were considered dishonorable. A death-defying charge and fierce melee was seen as the most glorious and honorable form of combat. As a result, mounted archers has never been a thing in Europe, and the knights could neither respond to the Mongol hit and run attacks, nor catch their lighter and faster horses.

On the other hand, Mongols also easily crushed Muslim armies that did employ their own mounted archers.

Where in the hell are you coming up with a source for this horse shit?

The reason european knights didn't use mounted bowmen was purely technological.

They couldn't make a short laminate recurve bow from horn, the mongols could.

It's almost impossible to fire a 6' tall warbow from a horse, but you can easily do so with a 3' recurve.

Once armor became better to withstand the arrows, combined with the political instability of the golden horde falling apart and the black plague heading back east once it was started in Constantinople the threat of the horde went away. Also as a tactic it loses ground to arbelists and a heavy pike square.

[Kellhound]

Where in the hell are you coming up with a source for this horse shit?

The reason european knights didn't use mounted bowmen was purely technological.

They couldn't make a short laminate recurve bow from horn, the mongols could.

It's almost impossible to fire a 6' tall warbow from a horse, but you can easily do so with a 3' recurve.

Once armor became better to withstand the arrows, combined with the political instability of the golden horde falling apart and the black plague heading back east once it was started in Constantinople the threat of the horde went away. Also as a tactic it loses ground to arbelists and a heavy pike square.

Europeans did use horse archers and horse crossbowmen, they just did not form the bulk of the shock troops.

The pike square was a defense against heavy cavalry charges, not from archers. In fact, it made it easier for archers to hit the infantry....

[Deleted]

So Mongols were famous for horse archery, mostly lightly armored and using their famous Mongol recurve bows. Can light cavalry be that effective against heavy infantry?











History shows Mongols were very difficult to defeat on the battlefield.

Even if the Mongols had bows, heavy infantry with their shields and armor was able to withstand arrows to a great extent.

Good question, been wondering myself.

Basicly the mongols was the best horsemen AND archers ever.

[Astalnar]

So Mongols were famous for horse archery, mostly lightly armored and using their famous Mongol recurve bows. Can light cavalry be that effective against heavy infantry?

You just answered your own question. The chain armour of the time was most effective against sword cuts, that is what was designed for. They wore large shields to counter arrows. The Mongols on the other hand turned their opponents into pincushions, as it was not just one salvo of arrows, but a restless onslaught. They had mobility, speed, and range over their opponents. Not to mention numbers.

They did suffer loses when they first encountered frankish heavy cavalry, but they learnt from their mistakes and applied effective counters moving onward.

[Deleted]

Where in the hell are you coming up with a source for this horse shit?

The reason european knights didn't use mounted bowmen was purely technological.

I was talking mostly about knights themselves, who almost never used bows in battle, whether on horse or on foot. Bows weres not considered to be knightly weapons. Hunting and shooting for sport were another thing entirely, though.

[Shelly]

I was talking mostly about knights themselves, who almost never used bows in battle, whether on horse or on foot. Bows weres not considered to be knightly weapons. Hunting and shooting for sport were another thing entirely, though.

You do know that's like complaining that heavy artillery almost never uses handguns right?

There was no "oh well we won't be doing that, it's not Knightly enough!" It was all "well, we don't train or use those and our bows are gigantic and can't properly be drawn while on horseback."

[Macaquerie]

Horse archery was hardly a Mongol innovation, nomadic tribes had been using those tactics all the way back into antiquity. European armies would have had plenty of experience fighting against mounted archers during the Crusades since the Turks used them extensively. The real threat posed by the Mongols was that they were significantly more advanced and better organized than the steppe tribes that had come before them. They had access to gunpowder and siege engines that allowed them to capture fortified cities which their predecessors like the Huns and Turks couldn't, and also had a talent for logistics which meant that they didn't come as some disorganized mass but as a well-supplied, tightly organized, and cohesive force that could execute complex maneuvers in battle.

It is certainly an interesting time period in history though. Arguably the Mongols themselves were an anachronism, as while their neighbors Asia and the Middle East were rapidly developing in terms of science and technology, the Mongols were still living in the same traditional manner as steppe tribes had done for thousands of years. This turned out to work to their advantage, however, because it was precisely this harsh lifestyle that made them tough enough to take down their civilized neighbors and incorporate all that fancy new technology into their war machine, which combined with Mongol brutality to devastating effect.