Re: [FT] (LONG) The Balance of Power -- Fighters and a Defense

On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, John Atkinson wrote:

> The assorted steppe nomads north of China never had
> heavy cavalry.  All light cavalry with missle weapons.
>  And trying to match missle-armed infantry with
> missle-armed cavalry is a loosing game.

Actually, although most of the nomad tribes were not able to afford
adequate armor or weapons, some of the nomad confederations that became
major powers were able to.  For example, the Xianbei who founded the
Northern Wei dynasty in China started the whole armored cataphract
concept
in China.  The later Khitans and Jurched were noted for their armored
cavalry, with armor for both men and horses, often noted as practically
invulnerable to arrows.  Also remember that the steppe nomads were the
ones who invented the long lance that evolved into the kontos in the
West.  This was available too.	The Chinese called it fan qiang
(barbarian lance), and many illustrations show them to be wielded with
both hands in the familiar manner.

> I wasn't aware the Chinese ever had them, in the true
> sense of the word.  By the 9th century knights were
> just starting to come into their own in Europe.

Knights as feudal nobles, no, not since the Zhou dynasty, but then they
didn't use calvary.  Knights as in heavily armored cavalry, yes.  That's
why I tend to refer to them as cataphracts rather than knights.  The
heavily armored cavalrymen really took off in China around the 4th and
5th
centuries, dominated the battlefield, until around the beginning of the
Tang dynasty (7th Century), when a lot of light Turkish horse archers
began showing up as allies/mercenaries.  The use of the old two-piece
breast plate armor declined and the use of the lighter Central Asian
style
lamellar armor increased, and the cavalry became generally less and less
well armored.

> Once you get effective gunpowder weapons you've
> completely changed the rules for cavalry.

Yes, once you get *effective* gunpowder weapons.  The Song dynasty
Chinese
gunpowder weapons were not very effective.  They were more used as
terror
weapons to scare people with the loud noise, or during sieges when
larger
bombs could be used against unmoving targets.