5 ms·

War Elephants

62 points by ubac 7y ago

cstross 7y ago
I'd just like to note that the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds has a probably-unique surviving suit of elephant armour, which is displayed on a stuffed elephant in pride of place: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/43/bb/15/43bb154f887b493c76c300535bbf47c8.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/43/bb/15/43bb154f887b493c76c3... Not on display due to conservation issues (but noted on the display text) are the tusk swords, because once you've got an angry Indian elephant wearing armor pointed at the enemy why wouldn't you strap a pair of giant swords to its tusks? If you're ever in Leeds — in the UK — I'd highly recommend a day trip to the Royal Armouries, especially if you have any kind of interest in the history of armour, guns, and murder cutlery. (Posted to add a reality-based perspective to the 100% fictional imagery of war elephants in the OP.)
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Nice! It's a shame they don't have replica tusk swords mounted, but it's a fantastic piece either way.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Were the tusk swords just strapped on? If so, I find it odd that displaying them would be controversial.
  - rhcom2 7y ago
    FYI he said "conservation issues", not controversial. They're probably brittle and can't support their own weight safely.
    - will_pseudonym 7y ago
      Ah, thanks. It was confusing to me. Another word that I think might fit better would be, "preservation."
      - ithkuil 7y ago
        Perhaps that's yet another case where British English diverges a bit from American English. I didn't find an explicit quote, but for example look: there is this institute in UK called "institute of conservation" https://icon.org.uk/groups/archaeology/about-archaeological-conservation https://icon.org.uk/groups/archaeology/about-archaeological-...
    - pixelbash 7y ago
      In the natural history museum London fake ivory is used due to theft concerns (says as much on the signs), might be the same here?
benologist 7y ago
Those Total War games are worth checking out. They've basically been iterating for 20 years on the same engine and have made a whole bunch of titles, mostly with a view to historical accuracy. They made a fantasy title from the tabletop Warhammer game, it's arguably more fun because of the sheer variety in units, the scale of it is also ludicrous like maybe you have a battle with 10,000 units fighting each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(series)
- thrower123 7y ago
  Rome Total War (the original) is one of the most fun and replayable games out there. It's also still got a massive modding community, that have expanded the base game in enormous ways - the Rome Total Realism[1] and Europa Barbarorum[2] mods are very well done, if you want to go for a bigger and more historically accurate experience. The successor Medieval 2 is arguably the high point of the entire series. Rome 2 Total War was sadly not nearly as good; it may be playable at this point, but I was very disappointed with it. [1] http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?26-Rome-Total-Realism-(RTR) http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?26-Rome-Tota... [2] https://www.europabarbarorum.com/EB1/ https://www.europabarbarorum.com/EB1/
  - AcerbicZero 7y ago
    Bingo. Even though CA actually did put some effort into getting Rome:II TW patched/updated it still is no where near the level of the original. Medieval:II is the high water mark for the series (with Rome being an extremely close second) and that is unlikely to change anytime soon, based on CA's current lineup.
- ben_jones 7y ago
  “Iterating for 20 years” is the most polite interpretation. They’ve been shoveling out re-skinned games with massive performance and AI regressions every few years. The original tech was awesome. The people at the studio are awesome. The Sega > Creative assembly executive teams, not so much.
- 7y ago
etxm 7y ago
I rode a War Elephant^1 for years. They are pretty bitching. Great for stomping kobolds and goblins without rusting up your blade on their vile blood. [1] in D&D
- 0xcafecafe 7y ago
  I actually did ride an angry bull elephant in real life in the jungles of Chitwan national park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitwan_National_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitwan_National_Park) in Nepal when I was in 7th grade. I was on the elephant along with its mahout (controller) and my parents and let me tell you it is not fun. I saw it topple a boat full of passengers over (thankfully they stepped out into the river before he could do any damage and the river was 2-3 feet deep). Apparently, it was mating season and he didn't like being separated from his female when we started the ride. The mahout eventually brought him under control but it was an experience worth remembering none-the-less.
  - z3phyr 7y ago
    Why would the mahout let you ride a mast elephant?
    - 0xcafecafe 7y ago
      No idea. We didn't even know he was a bull. It was part of the safari experience where one group will go on elephant back into the forest to spot tigers/leopards/rhinos,etc and the other group would go in small boats in the river to spot gharials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharial). The boat that was toppled was full of tourists going for that. After the mahout got him under control though there were no other incidents. We were on him for the full 4 hours.
gnufied 7y ago
Guess no discussion of War elephants can be complete without their use by Porus in war against Alexander's Indian campaign - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes
- TheGallopedHigh 7y ago
  This is discussed at some length in the article and how the 2004 movie got certain aspects of the war elephants wrong.
danso 7y ago
What a fantastic blog. Its follow up to this post, focusing on the logistics of raising and feeding an elephant army, is even better: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part-ii-elephants-against-wolves/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part...
Apofis 7y ago
Unmitigated Pedantry
pregseahorses 7y ago
According to the Islamic tradition, before the Hijri calendar was established, the Arabs used the "aam-ul-feel" - the "year of the elephant" - marked by the event of Mecca being under attack by an army with war elephants. There's a small chapter in the Quran called "The Elephant" about this.
doc_gunthrop 7y ago
They mentioned the war elephants used by Hannibal in the Battle of Zama (during the Second Punic War), but only briefly. The opposing Roman general, Scipio Africanus, was already prepared to deal with the elephants, effectively using them against Hannibal. While elephants can take on the role of an almost tank-like unit on the battlefield, they still have an inherent sense of self-preservation; when given the choice of running into a wall of soldiers wielding spears vs going through an open path in between, they will opt for the path of least resistance. With this in mind, Scipio was able to effectively set up his army's formation.
- z3phyr 7y ago
  From what my extended family in India told me, it is relatively easy to get elephants trained for work, but training war elephants was extremely hard and required a lot of time. Having said that, well trained war elephants, although harder to come by, held to their nerves during the battle and were very devastating; Given they encounter the army they were trained to fight. During the first battle of Panipat, the invading Mughals had canons, which the opposing War Elephants were not trained for, and their alien sound broke their charge. If, for example, those elephants were trained with Canons in mind, they would probably have been successful in their charge. I am talking about Indian elephants though.

62 points by ubac 7y ago

I'd just like to note that the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds has a probably-unique surviving suit of elephant armour, which is displayed on a stuffed elephant in pride of place: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/43/bb/15/43bb154f887b493c76c300535bbf47c8.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/43/bb/15/43bb154f887b493c76c3... Not on display due to conservation issues (but noted on the display text) are the tusk swords, because once you've got an angry Indian elephant wearing armor pointed at the enemy why wouldn't you strap a pair of giant swords to its tusks? If you're ever in Leeds — in the UK — I'd highly recommend a day trip to the Royal Armouries, especially if you have any kind of interest in the history of armour, guns, and murder cutlery. (Posted to add a reality-based perspective to the 100% fictional imagery of war elephants in the OP.)

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Nice! It's a shame they don't have replica tusk swords mounted, but it's a fantastic piece either way.
stronglikedan 7y ago
Were the tusk swords just strapped on? If so, I find it odd that displaying them would be controversial.
- rhcom2 7y ago
  FYI he said "conservation issues", not controversial. They're probably brittle and can't support their own weight safely.
  - will_pseudonym 7y ago
    Ah, thanks. It was confusing to me. Another word that I think might fit better would be, "preservation."
    - ithkuil 7y ago
      Perhaps that's yet another case where British English diverges a bit from American English. I didn't find an explicit quote, but for example look: there is this institute in UK called "institute of conservation" https://icon.org.uk/groups/archaeology/about-archaeological-conservation https://icon.org.uk/groups/archaeology/about-archaeological-...
  - pixelbash 7y ago
    In the natural history museum London fake ivory is used due to theft concerns (says as much on the signs), might be the same here?

benologist 7y ago

Those Total War games are worth checking out. They've basically been iterating for 20 years on the same engine and have made a whole bunch of titles, mostly with a view to historical accuracy. They made a fantasy title from the tabletop Warhammer game, it's arguably more fun because of the sheer variety in units, the scale of it is also ludicrous like maybe you have a battle with 10,000 units fighting each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(series)

thrower123 7y ago
Rome Total War (the original) is one of the most fun and replayable games out there. It's also still got a massive modding community, that have expanded the base game in enormous ways - the Rome Total Realism[1] and Europa Barbarorum[2] mods are very well done, if you want to go for a bigger and more historically accurate experience. The successor Medieval 2 is arguably the high point of the entire series. Rome 2 Total War was sadly not nearly as good; it may be playable at this point, but I was very disappointed with it. [1] http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?26-Rome-Total-Realism-(RTR) http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?26-Rome-Tota... [2] https://www.europabarbarorum.com/EB1/ https://www.europabarbarorum.com/EB1/
- AcerbicZero 7y ago
  Bingo. Even though CA actually did put some effort into getting Rome:II TW patched/updated it still is no where near the level of the original. Medieval:II is the high water mark for the series (with Rome being an extremely close second) and that is unlikely to change anytime soon, based on CA's current lineup.
ben_jones 7y ago
“Iterating for 20 years” is the most polite interpretation. They’ve been shoveling out re-skinned games with massive performance and AI regressions every few years. The original tech was awesome. The people at the studio are awesome. The Sega > Creative assembly executive teams, not so much.
7y ago

etxm 7y ago

I rode a War Elephant^1 for years. They are pretty bitching. Great for stomping kobolds and goblins without rusting up your blade on their vile blood. [1] in D&D

0xcafecafe 7y ago
I actually did ride an angry bull elephant in real life in the jungles of Chitwan national park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitwan_National_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitwan_National_Park) in Nepal when I was in 7th grade. I was on the elephant along with its mahout (controller) and my parents and let me tell you it is not fun. I saw it topple a boat full of passengers over (thankfully they stepped out into the river before he could do any damage and the river was 2-3 feet deep). Apparently, it was mating season and he didn't like being separated from his female when we started the ride. The mahout eventually brought him under control but it was an experience worth remembering none-the-less.
- z3phyr 7y ago
  Why would the mahout let you ride a mast elephant?
  - 0xcafecafe 7y ago
    No idea. We didn't even know he was a bull. It was part of the safari experience where one group will go on elephant back into the forest to spot tigers/leopards/rhinos,etc and the other group would go in small boats in the river to spot gharials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharial). The boat that was toppled was full of tourists going for that. After the mahout got him under control though there were no other incidents. We were on him for the full 4 hours.

gnufied 7y ago

Guess no discussion of War elephants can be complete without their use by Porus in war against Alexander's Indian campaign - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes

TheGallopedHigh 7y ago
This is discussed at some length in the article and how the 2004 movie got certain aspects of the war elephants wrong.

danso 7y ago

What a fantastic blog. Its follow up to this post, focusing on the logistics of raising and feeding an elephant army, is even better: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part-ii-elephants-against-wolves/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part...

Apofis 7y ago

Unmitigated Pedantry

pregseahorses 7y ago

According to the Islamic tradition, before the Hijri calendar was established, the Arabs used the "aam-ul-feel" - the "year of the elephant" - marked by the event of Mecca being under attack by an army with war elephants. There's a small chapter in the Quran called "The Elephant" about this.

doc_gunthrop 7y ago

They mentioned the war elephants used by Hannibal in the Battle of Zama (during the Second Punic War), but only briefly. The opposing Roman general, Scipio Africanus, was already prepared to deal with the elephants, effectively using them against Hannibal. While elephants can take on the role of an almost tank-like unit on the battlefield, they still have an inherent sense of self-preservation; when given the choice of running into a wall of soldiers wielding spears vs going through an open path in between, they will opt for the path of least resistance. With this in mind, Scipio was able to effectively set up his army's formation.

z3phyr 7y ago
From what my extended family in India told me, it is relatively easy to get elephants trained for work, but training war elephants was extremely hard and required a lot of time. Having said that, well trained war elephants, although harder to come by, held to their nerves during the battle and were very devastating; Given they encounter the army they were trained to fight. During the first battle of Panipat, the invading Mughals had canons, which the opposing War Elephants were not trained for, and their alien sound broke their charge. If, for example, those elephants were trained with Canons in mind, they would probably have been successful in their charge. I am talking about Indian elephants though.