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

On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Jaime Tiampo wrote:

> Actually fast mobile cavalry with missile weapons is *very* effective,
> They're hard to hit and when skilled like the mongols more effective
> then a slow foot army. That's why china fell. The skill of hte mongol
> bowmen/calvary decimated the chinese armies.

While nomad cavalry were very effective, they generally couldn't attack
Chinese cities.  The reasons that the Mongols were able to win was that
they had effective siege equipment.

> They did. Full metal covered, lance wielding knights. Well not
"knights"
> but heavy calvary. They didn't last very long though. Most a footnote
in
> chinese history then a a big part of it. crossbow did away with them.

The heavily armored cavalry was used for a few hundred years, like I've
noted before, and has always excited the imagination like it did
elsewhere.  Many Ming dynasty novels speak of them like magical weapons,
although they always get the details wrong.  The main reason for their
demise though, was that they couldn't match the light horse archers for
their speed and maneuverability.  Whereas in the years they were
popular,
they fought inside China against infantry, and they could ride roughshod
over them.  But under the Tang's expansionist policies, wars had to be
fought in the steppes and in Central Asia, with and against Turkish
horse
archers.  So the Tang adopted lighter equipment. Heavily armored cavalry
was used later though, and with success during the Song dynasty.  The
crossbow never really did much against cavalry, except during sieges,
since like John said, they could be ridden over easily.

> Mostly I'm putting in the east view on this being a bitter opponent of
> the eurocentric model for everything. :)