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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 Afri
by 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 agoFrom 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.