War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019)

Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019) by ekanes on Friday October 23, 2020 @01:12PM (#24871658)

Definitely interesting, but the post isn't about elephants vs wolves (no wolves are mentioned!) but about why the Romans didn't adopt the use of elephants in war.

TLDR; Despite being theoretically SUPERBADASS (my words), elephants are only somewhat effective against prepared armies, but are expensive and hard to maintain, especially compared to horses.

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Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019) by z3phyr on Friday October 23, 2020 @01:27PM (#24871799)

The Wolves are representative of the Romans!

Legend has it that the founders of Rome were raised by a she wolf! A lot of roman cultural items have an imagery of the she wolf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus

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Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019) by ekanes on Friday October 23, 2020 @06:25PM (#24874957)

Oh, of course. Sigh. Thanks.

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Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019) by smogcutter on Friday October 23, 2020 @01:30PM (#24871818)

The wolves in this case are the Romans themselves (The wolf being a symbol of Rome thanks to the Romulus and Remus myth). republican light infantry wore wolf pelts, and legionary standard bearers wore animal pelt headdresses, including wolves.

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Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019) by ekanes on Friday October 23, 2020 @06:25PM (#24874963)

Thanks!

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Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019) by wavefunction on Friday October 23, 2020 @02:30PM (#24872393)

And the elephants were explicitly linked to three war-elephant using states absorbed by the Roman Empire, Carthage, Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Empire.

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