Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019)
by mcguire on Friday October 23, 2020 @06:50PM
(#24875182)
IIRC, horses.
Cavalry can't be used around elephants unless the horses are specifically trained to be around elephants. Rome itself of the Republican/early Imperial era didn't use cavalry, although some of their allies did. As a hypothesis, those using elephants may have been fighting entities that used cavalry.
Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019)
by setr on Friday October 23, 2020 @07:22PM
(#24875442)
Perhaps not coincidentally the same can be said of chemical warfare -- not so great in large scale war, but fairly effective against poor, untrained militia and enforcing order through fear on civilian populations
Re:War Elephants, Part II: Elephants Against Wolves (2019)
by dddddaviddddd on Friday October 23, 2020 @05:00PM
(#24874113)
> So why would competitors continue to use elephants?
Not specifically for Rome's competitors, but elephants were kept also for prestige reasons in other regions, as described in this follow-up article:
https://acoup.blog/2019/08/09/collections-war-elephants-part...
This is what I was thinking the whole time. Rome was surrounded by peer competitors, and OP says their most effective use of elephants was against non-peer competitors like Spain or Gaul.
So why would competitors continue to use elephants? Not because Roma was susceptible, but because THEIR boarder competitors were susceptible.
Elephants were not worth it to defeat well-trained troops, but were more than worth it to defeat smaller, less disciplined armies/militias.
My guess is that Rome's peers were often using elephants to keep smaller competitors in check, and only used them against Rome because they happen to have them anyway.