[1]There are four basic styles of warfare for combat; guerrilla, mass and maneuver, attrition, and siege. This paper contains details of development strategies of maneuver warfare upto the times of Mongols.
[2]In the late Neolithic period, peoples in Europe and Asia began domesticating animals capable of being ridden or used to pull vehicles. Men were riding horses in the North Pontic region by 4000 BC. At about the same time, donkeys were being domesticated in Egypt and southwestern Asia, with Bactrian camels in the Iranian plateau and Arabian camels in the southern Arabian Peninsula becoming domesticated in the millennium that followed. The Indian elephant was tamed by the Indus Valley civilization (between 2500 and 1750 BC), while northern Africa tamed its African elephants only in the closing centuries of the first millennium BC. Of these animals, the donkey's military service - after an early moment of glory - was almost wholly as a beast of burden, and camels saw only limited use in battle. Elephants had a notable combat role, however, horses furnished the basis for chariotry and cavalry, two of the most important branches of, respectively, Bronze Age and Iron Age military forces.
[3]While horses may have been ridden into battle from the earliest period, the first mounted military force that we know existed was chariotry. The first attested use of chariotry occurred in Mesopotamia, where Sumerian depictions from about 2500 BC show warriors riding in 'battle-cars' (as scholars call them), which were heavy vehicles with narrow bodies and tall fronts. The driver of the cart sat ahead of the warrior, who threw javelins from quivers attached to its sides.
[4]The battle-cars were drawn by four equids; either donkeys or horses Tests show that the four-wheeled vehicle could attain speeds of 15-20km/h. Two-wheeled chariots featuring driver and warrior, the latter
armed with bow and quiver, are clearly in use, although at first they numbered only in the dozens. The chariot now became a weapon of war that dominated Late Bronze Age warfare in the Near East. During the course of the second millennium BC, chariots came into use throughout Europe, Asia and North Africa, as well as Central Asia, India and China.
[5]Armed with bows able to outrange most infantry weapons, chariot archers could shoot up tight-packed infantry formations at will. Their swift steeds pulled their chariots faster than men could run, allowing them to escape foot soldiers' counter-attacks or to ride down fleeing enemies. Chariot forces could pass around infantry formations to attack them in the flank or rear. They also patrolled lines of investment during sieges, scouted, carried out raids and skirmished in advance of the main forces. Given these capabilities, it would have been difficult for any people dwelling in regions accessible to chariots to maintain their independence without having chariots of their own. In effect, this meant every civilized state in the Near East required them. Once everyone possessed them, of course, the only way to gain superiority was to build and maintain as many as possible.
[6]With the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations of the Near East in about 1200 BC, the expensive, palace-supported chariot forces began to give way to a new form of horsed unit, the cavalry. However, the process took centuries. Reliefs from the Neo-Assyrian Empire (934-609 BC) show the transition clearly. The earliest depictions of Assyrian cavalrymen come from the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC). They were essentially a chariot team on horseback, the archer firing his bow while his companion grasped the reins of both horses and raised a shield.
[7]The horse is a swift runner, walking at a pace of 3-4km/h, trotting at 19km/h, cantering at 25km/h and galloping at speeds of up to 70km/h. Once humans and horses learned to engage in combat, they had a range of strategic and tactical capabilities that no infantry army could dream of possessing, and were able to maneuver and operate in difficult terrain far better than a chariot team.
[8]At the beginning of the first millennium BC, as we have seen, cavalry began to replace chariotry in the Near East, and eventually everywhere else. By the middle of the first millennium BC, the three most noteworthy horse-riding peoples were the Scythians, the Persians and the Greeks.
[9]The Scythians were a warlike people. Their battles probably opened with exchanges of arrow-fire at long range, feigned attacks and retreats being used to draw the foe into a vulnerable position. Once the arrows were expended, the survivors would close, exchange showers of darts and javelins, then fight hand-to-hand. The armored nobles on the larger horses would have dominated that phase of combat. Against strong opponents the Scythians would retreat into the steppe, harass the invaders and pick their moment to counterattack. They employed these tactics against the Achaemenid Persian monarch Darius - I, when he invaded Scythia in 512 BC.
[10]In the Near East and Iran, the Achaemenid Persians (560-330 BC) followed the Assyrians' example, using foot archers and spearmen in combination with bow- and spear-armed cavalry. This worked well locally and could defend against steppe nomads, but it failed in offensives against the Greeks Hoplites. The Persian cavalry played no known role and were perhaps dismounted to fight as infantry.
[11]As for the Greeks, one might at first glance not expect a folk living in a mountainous, sea-girt series of peninsulas and islands to have had much to do with cavalry, and indeed the vast majority of their city-states never fielded any cavalry at all. Even major states such as Athens and Sparta did not do so until the last half of the fifth century BC. In combat, Greek cavalry was typically deployed on the flanks of their predominantly hoplite armies.
[12]Philip II (359-336 BC), king of Macedon reorganized his people's army, creating a heavy infantry force and adding light cavalry from Thrace and Thessaly to his Macedonian aristocratic cavalry. Philip adopted a variety of cavalry formations from various sources, including the square and oblong cavalry formations of the Greeks and Persians, the rhomboid formations used by Thessalian light cavalry, and the wedge formations used by the Scythians. With the help of this army, Philip overcame every power in the region. He was starting to invade Persian territory when he was assassinated. His son Alexander the Great, took his army east and overcame the Persians in mighty battles, which are notable for the coordinated use of his forces to overcome numerically stronger, but less adept, opposition. He introduced the combined arms team tactics and anvil dragon maneuver.
[13]During all these centuries, neither the Greeks nor the Macedonians seem to have made much, if any, use of shields on horseback, and the same may have been true of the Persians and, indeed, most other cavalrymen. By the fourth century BC, Celtic riders are depicted with shields, and other European peoples soon followed suit, including, within two centuries, the Greeks themselves. One of the most notable battles in the west during this era, in which the shield-bearing cavalries of North Africa, Spain, Gaul and Italy all clashed, was that of Cannae in 216 BC, during Rome's Second Carthaginian War (218-202 BC) under Hannibal , the great Carthaginian commander. One of the most famous early maneuver tactics was the double envelopment, used by Hannibal against the Romans at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC.
[14]Another line of development occurred in the Eurasian steppe and
the Near East. The Parthians developed an all-cavalry army, the nobles being cataphracts, their retainers horse archers. Having large grazing lands, the Parthians were able to adopt the steppe nomad practice of bringing along herds of horses as re-mounts, giving their armies excellent strategic mobility and the ancient steppe nomad tactic of the feigned retreat and slaughter e.g. The Battle of Carrhae between Parthians & Romans in Ist century B.C.
[15] The Huns, in around AD 370, they gained sudden prominence in the North Pontic region, destroying the kingdom of the Ostrogoths and The Roman army at Adrianople, a Gothic cavalry charge turning a defeat into a disaster. In battle they deployed in wedge-shaped masses, maneuvered as though to charge, then divided suddenly into scattered bands and attacked, rushing about in seeming disorder, but moving so quickly that their opponents had no time to respond.
[16] What is known is that the stirrup, invention of the nailed horseshoe in C.890 together with other technological innovations, changed the means of cavalry warfare, allowing for the 'mounted shock combat'. Battles could be fought at any time of year and over any type of terrain.
[17]Muslim cavalry in seventh century A.D,was a light cavalry force. They could charge at an incredible speed and would usually employ tactics of "engage-disengage". They would charge on enemy flanks and rear, their maneuverability making them very effective against heavily armored Byzantine and Sassanid cataphracts. Khalid was its main architect and he would launch his cavalry at enemies flanks employing Hammer and Anvil tactics . He apparently put more emphasis on annihilating enemy troops, rather than achieving victory by simply defeating them. For instance his employment of the double envelopment maneuver against the numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Walaja, and his brilliant maneuver at the Battle of Yarmouk where he virtually trapped the Byzantine army between three steep ravines by stealthily capturing their only escape route, a bridge, at their rear. His most commonly-used maneuver was surprise attack and his night attacks.
[18]In the early13th century,The Mongols under Genghis Khan built the largest empire. Mongols forces were totally comprised of cavalry (60% light & 40% heavy) and had no infantry at all. The light cavalry was used for intelligence collection, provision of screening & fire support to heavy cavalry, undertake pursuit , mopping up and tactical withdrawl operations. Where as the heavy cavalry was used for shock action. The light cavalry used to engage the enemy first with missile salvo before the charge of heavy cavalry and the flanking units would attack the enemy flanks. They avoided direct combats and were masters of feigned flights and laying ambushes.
[19] The use of the elephant in warfare was largely confined to India until the fourth century BC, when Alexander the Great invaded India and fought King Porus in the Battle of the Hydaspes (328 BC). In battle, elephants were sometimes kept in reserve or placed in the main line of battle, but the usual tactic was to deploy them line abreast in front of the battle line, where they could disrupt enemy formations, then either trample down the enemy directly or render them vulnerable to follow-up attacks.
[20]The two-humped camel was employed primarily as a transport animal by Iranian and Central Asian peoples .As a combat animal, the camel has some potentially strong advantages like less skittish than a horse, better endurance, can forage on practically any type of grass, leaf or twig. The camel's ability to go for a week without drinking is well-known. Combined with other adaptations to desert conditions, camels, especially dromedaries, offered their riders remarkable strategic mobility; raids made by North African nomads over 1000km (622 miles) of desert are attested.
[21] In maneuver warfare the force circumvents problems and attack from a position of advantage rather than meeting the opposition head on. The essential elements of maneuver warfare is the understanding of opposition weaknesses, mobility, speed, surprise, flanking movement/envelopment attrition, shock action and firepower evolved over millennia.
End Notes
1. A Brief History of War page- 1 (PDF Adobe Reader modified on
3-30-2010)
2. Volume 1,"Fighting Techniques of The Ancient World 3000.B.C- AD500" by Simon Anglin, Phyllis G.Jestice, Bob S.Rice,Scot M Rush & John Serrati, page-78
3. Ibid, page- 80
4. Ibid, page- 80
5. Ibid, page- 83
6. Ibid, page- 84
7. Ibid, page- 94
8. Ibid, page- 95
9. Ibid, page- 96
10. Ibid, page- 97
11. Ibid, page- 98
12. Ibid, page- 99
13. Ibid, page- 100
14. Ibid, page- 109-114
15. Ibid, page- 118
16. Volume 2,"Fighting Techniques of The Medieval World
500- AD to 1500" by Simon Anglin, Phyllis G.Jestice, Bob S.Rice, Scot M Rush & John Serrati, page- 74
17. Sword of Allah By General A.I.Akram,
18. A Brief History of War page- 5 (PDF Adobe Reader modified on
3-30-2010)
19. Volume 1,"Fighting Techniques of The Ancient World 3000.B.C-
AD500" by Simon Anglin, Phyllis G.Jestice, Bob S.Rice,
Scot M Rush & John Serrati, page
20. Ibid, page- 83
21. Assistant Professor Aqab Malik's lecture on Maneuver Warfare on
31 March 2010 in NDU Islamabad
