Why didn't everyone in the ancient world use mass archery armies?

[BCLG100]

Just moving the historical context on slightly to the hundred years war, looking at the English and their initial devastating use of the longbow, they were using massed archers with a combination of men at arms/knights. Up against the French crossbows, in this case the crossbows just werent that good because the Longbows could reach the crossbows wuite a bit before they could reach them but to train a longbowmen took years and years of practice. To shoot a smaller bow could be achieved quicker but not much quicker.

Simply it took time for a peasant (as that's what the bow was, a peasant weapon) to learn to use the bow and they had better things to do such as avoid being raped/pillaged, sowing and gathering the crops.

Also your stating that the main reason was not for the archers/skirms etc to get the hoplite or whatever to discard their shield. For this to happen they would have to masse a lot of men, the army with the predominantly archers would need to be huge in comparison with the enemy for the arrows to have that massive effect. Armies, on the whole, just werent as big as that for quite some time.

edit- your was implying the OP btw.

 

[Dachs]

Just moving the historical context on slightly to the hundred years war, looking at the English and their initial devastating use of the longbow, they were using massed archers with a combination of men at arms/knights.

Key words here being "combination of men at arms/knights". Look at the Battle of Navarrete for a more balanced English longbow battle than Crecy or Agincourt (i.e. the opponents weren't as stupid). Longbows are all well and good, but against a reasonably skilled opponent who doesn't, say, attack a bunch of longbowmen across a lot of open ground, you need units to protect the longbowmen and to exploit the weaknesses in the enemy formation created by said missile fire.

In basically every era of warfare, the real decisive successes have been scored by armies who rely on combined arms armies as opposed to just spamming one kind of unit. There's the English (in many different forms, too: for another, look at how the Brits basically sucked at life unless their army was reasonably up to par along with the navy, and how their greatest successes - the conquest of India, the War of the Spanish Succession, the First World War - were scored when they had a reasonably powerful land arm in addition to their perennially powerful navy), the USSR (combined arms steamrollers FTW), Alexander the Great (it wasn't all phalanx; in addition to the famed pezhetairoi, Alex coordinated set-piece combined arms battles using the hypaspistai (a form of extremely high quality light infantry), psiloi and peltasts (missile troops) and of course his amazing hetairoi and sarissophoroi cavalry), Napoleon (Murat, artillery, and the Imperial Guard...when he started really spamming the "artillery" bit, after 1806, things started going less and less well), hell, even Fred the Great (the truly magnificent Prussian infantry combined with Hans von Ziethen's cavalry, plus good cannoneering). The Romans didn't do badly at all when they concentrated on the legionary infantry, but possibly the greatest victory Rome ever secured, that of Zama, was done with excellent Numidian cavalry aiding the top-quality legionary and velites maniples; and Roman commanders made the intelligent choice to incorporate alae and auxiliaries from the earliest stages, so that Gallic cavalry aided Julius Caesar effectively during the Civil War and Roman units incorporated not only the elephants, which are fun to use, but also hoplite infantry at Cynoscephalae. The Mongols, it's true, built a gigantic empire off of horse archers and achieved tactical supremacy for either a half century or a full century (depending on if you think Ain Jalut was important or just a fluke), but they were smart about picking their battles. Note the lack of Mongol success in places like Vietnam, where their horse archers didn't do so great against Champa. And they never even tried to go into Western Europe or India, other places where the mounted horseman isn't so tactically superior.

As to the 25% hills bonus for archers, I think that they were thinking having the archers stand on a hill as compared to the archers be in the spaces between hills. Agincourt compared to Thermopylae. And props for mentioning Archer Jones - I have Art of War in the Western World too, and it's a really good primer. Highly recommended for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

I'd be tempted to say that horse archers were an extremely powerful force, one that could pretty much destroy any army in the ancient world if used effectively. However, the cost of training and maintaining a horse-archer force on the scale of the sarmatians, mongols or huns was unimaginably high. Only nomadic peoples could field these soldiers in quantity and the same nomadic way of life that made that possible also doomed them to destruction once they attempted to control their conquests. Nomadic life requires huge territorial expanses and can only support sparse populations.

 

[Disenfrancised]

The Mongols, it's true, built a gigantic empire off of horse archers

No so much, the Mongols had 4 heavier lancers for every 6 horse archers, and they all generally had axes and swords if a role shift was required. So...I guess your even righter!

Though of course combined arms is less necessary when you have vastly superior intelligence, strategic mobility, tactical mobility, better average training, and generally superior weaponry to your opponents .

 

[warpus]

As long as they are protected by some melee troops to counter cavalry charges, what's the downside?

Wouldn't such an army be able to defeat a Greek Phalanx or a Roman legion, for instance?

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but in Medieval european culture, such a thing would have been viewed as "not honourable".

 

[BCLG100]

And its not strictly true about the mongols and horse archers, they annexed the majority of china using an army of Chinese infantry in the majority and horse archers. (and siege crews obviously).

 

[Shaihulud]

I understand the attractiveness for using pure archery units in games like rome: totalwar, "0' casualty is a real posibility. I guess realistically speaking, ancient armies are more flexible. historically there are some cultures whichare known to favour ranged combat, like the persians, but they also have different forces as well.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

As long as they are protected by some melee troops to counter cavalry charges, what's the downside?

Wouldn't such an army be able to defeat a Greek Phalanx or a Roman legion, for instance?

Ancient bows had short ranges and could easily be countered by shields and armor. There was a time when massed archers were widely used but that was before technology caught up that could manufacture effective shields and armor. That was sometime around 600 BC. After that, archers were only useful to scatter enemy forces. When the longbow was invented in the Middle Ages, massed archers became useful again, because the arrows could be fired a longer range. The crossbow had also appeared on the scene. Both devices could fire arrows fast enough to pierce shields and armor. Also, arrows of the day had their heads modified to pierce armor.

Even so, it was still possible to outmaneuver archers simply with a well placed cavalry charge.

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

I understand the attractiveness for using pure archery units in games like rome: totalwar, "0' casualty is a real posibility. I guess realistically speaking, ancient armies are more flexible. historically there are some cultures whichare known to favour ranged combat, like the persians, but they also have different forces as well.

Against a computer maybe, but against human players, there are simple too many protection systems that can mess up your archers:

-Hoplon shield, covers from the head, sholders, arms till the knees, from knee to feet, graves are used.
-Phalanx/Childron deep formation that deflect enemy missiles.
-Roman Testudo Formation.
-Cavalry charges.
-Long range missile devices.
-Heavy body armor.
-Terrain
-Buildings/Walls/Fortifications

 

[Traitorfish]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but in Medieval european culture, such a thing would have been viewed as "not honourable".

True, but the Medieval European was the only period in European history when something when majority archer armies were used, at least as used by the English. "Honour" and "success" where not necessarily the same thing, remember.

 

[shortguy]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but in Medieval european culture, such a thing would have been viewed as "not honourable".

I imagine many cultures at many times would have found it not honorable, the classical Greeks for one.

 

[Traitorfish]

I imagine many cultures at many times would have found it not honorable, the classical Greeks for one.

True- cultures which valued hand-to-hand combat tended to look down as archery as unfitting for a warrior, citizen-soldier or whatever. However, some cultures, such as those of Japan and central Asia, held archery, particularly in it's mounted form, to be the most noble form of combat.
Basically, it all comes down to the status quo. Whichever forms of combat that was practiced by those that become a culture's fighting class become "honourable", while others are disdained.

 

[Shaihulud]

Against a computer maybe, but against human players, there are simple too many protection systems that can mess up your archers:

-Hoplon shield, covers from the head, sholders, arms till the knees, from knee to feet, graves are used.
-Phalanx/Childron deep formation that deflect enemy missiles.
-Roman Testudo Formation.
-Cavalry charges.
-Long range missile devices.
-Heavy body armor.
-Terrain
-Buildings/Walls/Fortifications

But archers specifically calvary archers are soooo useful. I would field 1/4 of my army with them, against the computer. Using whole armies of calvary archers against them would be too unfair. I never used testudo formation when i play roman, too slow. The only thing that kills me is the scythian chariot! Anyway, we all know games is not a true representation of real life

 

[alcal]

Archers aren't so versatile as average swordsmen. In a forest-battle or during ambush archery aren't useful.

 

[lovett]

Ancient bows had short ranges and could easily be countered by shields and armor. There was a time when massed archers were widely used but that was before technology caught up that could manufacture effective shields and armor. That was sometime around 600 BC. After that, archers were only useful to scatter enemy forces. When the longbow was invented in the Middle Ages, massed archers became useful again, because the arrows could be fired a longer range. The crossbow had also appeared on the scene. Both devices could fire arrows fast enough to pierce shields and armor. Also, arrows of the day had their heads modified to pierce armor.

Even so, it was still possible to outmaneuver archers simply with a well placed cavalry charge.

Emphasis mine. And it seems like somebody has never heard of the Recurve Bow

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

True- cultures which valued hand-to-hand combat tended to look down as archery as unfitting for a warrior, citizen-soldier or whatever. However, some cultures, such as those of Japan and central Asia, held archery, particularly in it's mounted form, to be the most noble form of combat.
Basically, it all comes down to the status quo. Whichever forms of combat that was practiced by those that become a culture's fighting class become "honourable", while others are disdained.

It's worth remembering here that some cultures disdained all forms of soldiery, most specifically, the Chinese. They were a necessary evil, not a status revered or respected.

 

[neutrino]

It's worth remembering here that some cultures disdained all forms of soldiery, most specifically, the Chinese. They were a necessary evil, not a status revered or respected.

I think China is a good example of mixed feelings towards soldiery for centuries. I would say a lot of this has to do with how domestic politics have played out back then. On one hand, you need strong army to take on nomadic tribes to the north and the west, as well as conquest and suppressing internal revolts. On the other hand, stronger army means more political influence generals gain. From the point of view of civilian ministers, generals should be on a short leash or they may become ambitious enough to threaten the imperial capital. From the throne's point of view, while it needs the army's loyalty to hold onto the empire, too much reliance on the army means the throne will have to make more concessions to the army. Short-term gain; long-term liability. They have not been terribly successful at coming up with retraining their generals but not stifling them at the same time. Still the same problem exists today in China, although not to the same extent so far (after all, unlike the past dynasties, today's China is a police state). Even then, the Communist Party has not had an easy time messing around with People's Liberation Army. (Remember Tienanmen 1989? The Communist Party had to 'shop' around for a while before they could find a division willing to crush the student protestors.)

 

[Traitorfish]

It's worth remembering here that some cultures disdained all forms of soldiery, most specifically, the Chinese. They were a necessary evil, not a status revered or respected.

Later Chinese society, yes, but earlier periods, particularly the Zhou Dynasty, followed a feudal model in which a chariot-riding warrior aristocracy dominated, and in periods of unrest, such as the Three Kingdoms, the aristocracy were essentially warlords. It was the development of Chinese society away from feudalism towards centralised bureaucracy that lead to the withdrawal of the aristocracy from warfare (as well as the development of the a gentry comprised of retired bureaucrats) rather than an inherent disdain for warfare.

However, it's a fair point. Warfare, whatever the variety, only tends to remain "honourable" as long as the ruling class has a personal interest in it. When that is lost, it becomes a political and economic tool, not a social role.

 

[Slobadog]

Note the lack of Mongol success in places like Vietnam, where their horse archers didn't do so great against Champa. And they never even tried to go into Western Europe or India

Actually the Mongols did go deep into India. And the mongol leader Timur even managed to conqure some of it.

 

[Dachs]

Actually the Mongols did go deep into India.

Lessee...Genghis Khan stopped at the Indus after smashing Jalal ad-Din, Hulagu couldn't keep anything going for very long and had to ask for peace, the Chagatai khanate was defeated several times in the 1290s, the Mongols failed to finish the siege of Delhi in the 1300s and were repulsed, and were again twice defeated later in the decade, and after that made few attacks, none of which lasted very long. Note that none of these attacks before 1350 went beyond Delhi and only a few of them reached it, and out of all those only one was a serious siege, which was abandoned. That's not very far. After 1350, there are no major incursions until Timur's.

You may be thinking of the Mughals, who actually did get fairly far into India and who claimed descent from Timur. Their warmaking style was vastly different from that of the Mongols, though, inasmuch as they incorporated gunpowder weapons from the first, and as such don't really have any effect on my original point.

And the mongol leader Timur even managed to conqure some of it.

He drove through the Punjab and into Delhi, smashing the two armies he encountered along the way, then torched Delhi and went back, retaining none of the land he had marched across. Of what is now India, his empire only ever controlled Kashmir (which is disputed ), and even much of Pakistan wasn't captured. Delhi, being on the northwestern side of India and relatively close to the frontier, doesn't really count as "deep" when virtually none of the Gangetic Plain or any of the Deccan even saw a Mongol army.