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Interesting. Although this point of view might be a bit simplified, there's another example of a weapon, which was both relatively cheap to make - and really ha

Interesting. Although this point of view might be a bit simplified, there's another example of a weapon, which was both relatively cheap to make - and really hard to use unless the whole society was built around the skills required to use it. Mongols! Light cavalry using composite bows was both unbelievably effective and hard to copy for everybody but steppe nomads. All Mongols were hunters, they practically lived with their bows on their horses. So the whole population could do warfare. While back in the days, in both Eastern and Western Europe, contemporary warfare was rotating around heavy cavalry, and one can't have too many knights. Even if somebody managed to gather an army more or less comparable to Mongol hordes - heavier cavalry would just be meat for lighter riders making circles around them. Besides, feudal lands never managed to be centralized enough to counter mongols. In medieval Rus' the need to centralize led to the rise of Moscow - and it took quite a while anyway.

ucaetano 11y ago
It's hard to compare Mongols to Europeans. The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates. Also, light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe, specially when you don't have huge, flat battlefields that allow light cavalry to circle any target. In other words, Mongol warfare was perfect for the environment they were created for: vast empty dry lands with few geographical features and settlements which are far from each other.
- wwwong 11y ago
  Re: "light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe" Not true, as the Chinese cities at the time were much more fortified than Europe. The Mongols were able to plunder the surrounding lands. Also, despite Europe's fortifications, a scouting party led by Subutai of 20,000 horse archers, widely wiped out a much more significant force of Central Europe soldiers, greatly outnumbering the Mongols. Fortified cities may cause trouble, but by this time, Mongol dominance had incorporated Chinese siege technology that fortified central european cities had not seen.
  - ucaetano 11y ago
    Fortified european cities caused a lot of troubled. Most Mongol siege victories in Europe where Pyrrhic, with massive losses that couldn't be replaced that far from their homeland. They ended up controlling most of the Hungarian countryside, but almost none of the key fortified cities, the same in Croatia and other areas, rendering their gains useless, since forces could march out at any time from the multiple forces and strike them.
    - vkazanov 11y ago
      I don't know much about Mongols in Central Europe, so probably true: they were far away from the steppes, probably lacked siege machines, etc. Also, in the lands of Rus' stone fortifications were a very rare thing - there's almost no suitable stone for contstruction, so most castles and fortresses were wooden, so they did burn. None of the stone fortresses in the north, where there are suitable materials, were plundered, AFAIK, so you must be right.
    - caoilte 11y ago
      or Europe got lucky and Ogodei died just as Subutai was about to roll over the entire continent (we may never know for sure). The Hardcore History podcast did a nice series on it. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-of-the-khans-i/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-o...
  - jernfrost 11y ago
    I read a long discussion about this on Quora. What I could gather from that was there were far more castles in Europe than China. Also Europe has too little plains to be able to support a mongol army very long. They each had something like 5 horses. There isn't enough grass for a large mongol army like that. One the debaters claimed e.g. that European castles were very well supplied for long sieges and would run out of food much later than an occupying mongol force which would be vulnerable to counter attacks. European heavy cavalry was not useless against mongols. It is just that they were seldom effective when mongols could just run away from the battle field. Easy to do when they were much lighter armoured. But if Mongols maintained a siege they had to stay in position which would have made them vulnerable to European nights which were probably superior to mongol soldiers if they could not perform hit and run tactics. Apparently the mongols beat the Hungarians initially but when they came back and the Hungarians had built lots of castles, they were soundly beaten. The sieges dragged on and they would get harassed by Hungarian forces which could always retreat back to castles while mongols starved. My understanding is that the Mongols managed to conquer the more hilly southern China by using conscripted Chinese soldiers. So they were not really using standard Mongolian tactics there. Duplicating this in Europe would have been difficult because unlike China Europe did not have the same kind of central government which would have allow the conquest of a few cities to gain huge tracts of land and extra manpower. They would have had to conquer huge numbers of castles which would have dragged out in time. In fact Machiavelli talks about this in the Prince. The Ottomans, Roman Empire, China etc were far more centrally controlled which made them one strong unit but once you conquered the central city of government you would control the whole country. The Feudalistic European countries however might not as easily marshal huge combined forces but they were extremely difficult to conquer because you had to conquer every little vassal state one by one. Considering that every one had a castle this was no easy task. One should not completely discount the effectiveness of European military. During the crusades, the muslim forces would usually use Mongol like tactics to wear them out. But whenever the crusaders managed to corner a muslim army they crushed it with their heavily armoured knights.
- vkazanov 11y ago
  "Huge, flat battlefieds" were a norm everywhere. Medieval battles were ONLY possible on flat surfaces, as the main force of the time - heavy cavalry - requires that. Besides, Mongols completely plundered Rus' and the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, and most of those lands were and are forests/lakes/swamps. For example, they used rivers in winters to travel through the countryside. Also, after conquering China they also had military engineers, and could build assault machines.
  - ucaetano 11y ago
    Agincourt wasn't fought in a huge, flat battlefield. Neither was Tours, Hastings, Crecy, Poitiers, Patay, etc. European wars were fought in a very diverse range of battlefields, and most commanders, specially the outnumbered ones, would try as much as possible to use the battlefield in their advantage.
    - mcv 11y ago
      And that was at least as much the key to the English victories as the longbow was: good defensive terrain that was unsuitable for the French cavalry charge. When the French did have room to charge, England lost. The longbow was only a single factor in a much bigger system.
      - ucaetano 11y ago
        Indeed, in Agincourt, the mud was probably a much more decisive factor than the longbow.
  - jernfrost 11y ago
    From what I've read European wars didn't feature much large scale battles of the type done of plains in central asia. Siege warfare, skirmishes, harassment etc dominated. Anyway the mongols used huge number of horses which would need a lot of grass. It is my understanding that that was simply not available to them in most of Europe.
    - 11y ago
- justin66 11y ago
  The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates What kind of glue bound the layers of wood together on a longbow?
  - kqr 11y ago
    Don't know if you're sarcastic, but a longbow doesn't have layers of wood to glue together. That's the difference between a simple bow and a composite bow.
    - justin66 11y ago
      No sarcasm, I wasn't aware that they avoided lamination entirely.
    - Someone 11y ago
      Not quite. As the article explains, the longbow is composite, but made from a single piece of wood: "Figure 1 illustrates a yew trunk cross section and how a longbow stave was carved out of the tree to incorporate both its sapwood and heartwood components. The former was used on the bow’s back, which faced away from the archer, taking advantage of the fact that flexible sapwood performs well under tension. The latter was used on the bow’s belly, which faced the archer, taking advantage of the fact that hard heartwood performs well under compression. Together the two types of wood created a natural composite bow that, when made from a long and thick stave, was remarkably powerful." So, nature glued the parts together.
  - Moto7451 11y ago
    The English longbow was constructed from a single piece of wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow#Design_and_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow#Design_and_constructio...
- jorgecurio 11y ago
  > In other words, Mongol warfare was perfect for the environment they were created for: vast empty dry lands with few geographical features and settlements which are far from each other. hardly an accurate terrain description of Mongol Empire at it's peak.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  Their light cavalry was also fairly effective in forested places like Hungary or Manchuria. Genghis was far from the best Mongol general but he personally achieved some impressive victories by attacking from the rear of his opponent after going over mountains or by luring his opponents up onto mountains after him. But really both light and heavy cavalry were important parts of the regular Mongol forces as well as the hordes of arrow-fodder they would levy from captured cities. And while the Mongols didn't start out with much in the way of a siege train they had the world's best siege engineers by the time they finally finished off the Jin dynasty. The hot, wet environment of India was a big barrier to their expansion as was their navel weakness. But Europe benefited mostly by being so far away and from the fact that the Mongols hadn't finished off the Song by the time the empire started to fragment. Sources: A number of things over the years but I recently finished Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy.
  - sirtrollalot 11y ago
    History has also shown that France gave up their bow technology to the Germans, hampering their bow tech progression (and ultimately harming fellow neighbors to boot).
- mcv 11y ago
  Castles and cities weren't the problem: the Mongols were also good at siege warfare. Their main obstacle blocking westward expansion was the simple fact that steppe nomads are primarily good at the steppe, and not so good in the forests and mountains of central Europe.
benbenolson 11y ago
The commenters in this thread are experts at Age of Empires II.
- leojg 11y ago
  Yeah! I was remembering that campaing mission with the mongols where you had to conquest three chinese civs. And on multiplayer the mongols are quite hardcore too
  - jorgecurio 11y ago
    Total War player here. Those damn Golden Hordes ruined my plans to conquer eastern Europe.

ucaetano 11y ago

It's hard to compare Mongols to Europeans. The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates. Also, light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe, specially when you don't have huge, flat battlefields that allow light cavalry to circle any target. In other words, Mongol warfare was perfect for the environment they were created for: vast empty dry lands with few geographical features and settlements which are far from each other.

wwwong 11y ago
Re: "light cavalry armies are useless against castles and fortified cities as the ones found in most of Europe" Not true, as the Chinese cities at the time were much more fortified than Europe. The Mongols were able to plunder the surrounding lands. Also, despite Europe's fortifications, a scouting party led by Subutai of 20,000 horse archers, widely wiped out a much more significant force of Central Europe soldiers, greatly outnumbering the Mongols. Fortified cities may cause trouble, but by this time, Mongol dominance had incorporated Chinese siege technology that fortified central european cities had not seen.
- ucaetano 11y ago
  Fortified european cities caused a lot of troubled. Most Mongol siege victories in Europe where Pyrrhic, with massive losses that couldn't be replaced that far from their homeland. They ended up controlling most of the Hungarian countryside, but almost none of the key fortified cities, the same in Croatia and other areas, rendering their gains useless, since forces could march out at any time from the multiple forces and strike them.
  - vkazanov 11y ago
    I don't know much about Mongols in Central Europe, so probably true: they were far away from the steppes, probably lacked siege machines, etc. Also, in the lands of Rus' stone fortifications were a very rare thing - there's almost no suitable stone for contstruction, so most castles and fortresses were wooden, so they did burn. None of the stone fortresses in the north, where there are suitable materials, were plundered, AFAIK, so you must be right.
  - caoilte 11y ago
    or Europe got lucky and Ogodei died just as Subutai was about to roll over the entire continent (we may never know for sure). The Hardcore History podcast did a nice series on it. http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-of-the-khans-i/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-o...
- jernfrost 11y ago
  I read a long discussion about this on Quora. What I could gather from that was there were far more castles in Europe than China. Also Europe has too little plains to be able to support a mongol army very long. They each had something like 5 horses. There isn't enough grass for a large mongol army like that. One the debaters claimed e.g. that European castles were very well supplied for long sieges and would run out of food much later than an occupying mongol force which would be vulnerable to counter attacks. European heavy cavalry was not useless against mongols. It is just that they were seldom effective when mongols could just run away from the battle field. Easy to do when they were much lighter armoured. But if Mongols maintained a siege they had to stay in position which would have made them vulnerable to European nights which were probably superior to mongol soldiers if they could not perform hit and run tactics. Apparently the mongols beat the Hungarians initially but when they came back and the Hungarians had built lots of castles, they were soundly beaten. The sieges dragged on and they would get harassed by Hungarian forces which could always retreat back to castles while mongols starved. My understanding is that the Mongols managed to conquer the more hilly southern China by using conscripted Chinese soldiers. So they were not really using standard Mongolian tactics there. Duplicating this in Europe would have been difficult because unlike China Europe did not have the same kind of central government which would have allow the conquest of a few cities to gain huge tracts of land and extra manpower. They would have had to conquer huge numbers of castles which would have dragged out in time. In fact Machiavelli talks about this in the Prince. The Ottomans, Roman Empire, China etc were far more centrally controlled which made them one strong unit but once you conquered the central city of government you would control the whole country. The Feudalistic European countries however might not as easily marshal huge combined forces but they were extremely difficult to conquer because you had to conquer every little vassal state one by one. Considering that every one had a castle this was no easy task. One should not completely discount the effectiveness of European military. During the crusades, the muslim forces would usually use Mongol like tactics to wear them out. But whenever the crusaders managed to corner a muslim army they crushed it with their heavily armoured knights.
vkazanov 11y ago
"Huge, flat battlefieds" were a norm everywhere. Medieval battles were ONLY possible on flat surfaces, as the main force of the time - heavy cavalry - requires that. Besides, Mongols completely plundered Rus' and the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, and most of those lands were and are forests/lakes/swamps. For example, they used rivers in winters to travel through the countryside. Also, after conquering China they also had military engineers, and could build assault machines.
- ucaetano 11y ago
  Agincourt wasn't fought in a huge, flat battlefield. Neither was Tours, Hastings, Crecy, Poitiers, Patay, etc. European wars were fought in a very diverse range of battlefields, and most commanders, specially the outnumbered ones, would try as much as possible to use the battlefield in their advantage.
  - mcv 11y ago
    And that was at least as much the key to the English victories as the longbow was: good defensive terrain that was unsuitable for the French cavalry charge. When the French did have room to charge, England lost. The longbow was only a single factor in a much bigger system.
    - ucaetano 11y ago
      Indeed, in Agincourt, the mud was probably a much more decisive factor than the longbow.
- jernfrost 11y ago
  From what I've read European wars didn't feature much large scale battles of the type done of plains in central asia. Siege warfare, skirmishes, harassment etc dominated. Anyway the mongols used huge number of horses which would need a lot of grass. It is my understanding that that was simply not available to them in most of Europe.
  - 11y ago
justin66 11y ago
The composite bows rely on animal-based adhesives, which are great in cold and dry climates, but fall apart in humid and warmer climates What kind of glue bound the layers of wood together on a longbow?
- kqr 11y ago
  Don't know if you're sarcastic, but a longbow doesn't have layers of wood to glue together. That's the difference between a simple bow and a composite bow.
  - justin66 11y ago
    No sarcasm, I wasn't aware that they avoided lamination entirely.
  - Someone 11y ago
    Not quite. As the article explains, the longbow is composite, but made from a single piece of wood: "Figure 1 illustrates a yew trunk cross section and how a longbow stave was carved out of the tree to incorporate both its sapwood and heartwood components. The former was used on the bow’s back, which faced away from the archer, taking advantage of the fact that flexible sapwood performs well under tension. The latter was used on the bow’s belly, which faced the archer, taking advantage of the fact that hard heartwood performs well under compression. Together the two types of wood created a natural composite bow that, when made from a long and thick stave, was remarkably powerful." So, nature glued the parts together.
- Moto7451 11y ago
  The English longbow was constructed from a single piece of wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow#Design_and_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow#Design_and_constructio...
jorgecurio 11y ago
> In other words, Mongol warfare was perfect for the environment they were created for: vast empty dry lands with few geographical features and settlements which are far from each other. hardly an accurate terrain description of Mongol Empire at it's peak.
Symmetry 11y ago
Their light cavalry was also fairly effective in forested places like Hungary or Manchuria. Genghis was far from the best Mongol general but he personally achieved some impressive victories by attacking from the rear of his opponent after going over mountains or by luring his opponents up onto mountains after him. But really both light and heavy cavalry were important parts of the regular Mongol forces as well as the hordes of arrow-fodder they would levy from captured cities. And while the Mongols didn't start out with much in the way of a siege train they had the world's best siege engineers by the time they finally finished off the Jin dynasty. The hot, wet environment of India was a big barrier to their expansion as was their navel weakness. But Europe benefited mostly by being so far away and from the fact that the Mongols hadn't finished off the Song by the time the empire started to fragment. Sources: A number of things over the years but I recently finished Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy.
- sirtrollalot 11y ago
  History has also shown that France gave up their bow technology to the Germans, hampering their bow tech progression (and ultimately harming fellow neighbors to boot).
mcv 11y ago
Castles and cities weren't the problem: the Mongols were also good at siege warfare. Their main obstacle blocking westward expansion was the simple fact that steppe nomads are primarily good at the steppe, and not so good in the forests and mountains of central Europe.

benbenolson 11y ago

The commenters in this thread are experts at Age of Empires II.

leojg 11y ago
Yeah! I was remembering that campaing mission with the mongols where you had to conquest three chinese civs. And on multiplayer the mongols are quite hardcore too
- jorgecurio 11y ago
  Total War player here. Those damn Golden Hordes ruined my plans to conquer eastern Europe.