War elephants

[diegosimeone]

This was a relatively important military option used in antiquity by Indian tribes, Persia, the Greeks (Diadochi etc) after Alexander reached India, (sub-Saharan) African tribes, Carthage, Rome and even in China sometime during the 1st millenium.

I'm trying to find general information online but all I can find is tips for Assassin's Creed and Age of Empires

My main questions are:
1) How did they breed them? And how many people were riding them, if any?
2) How resistant were these elephants to the common weapons of the time?
3) How do you defeat them? And what's the consensus ratio of x : elephant in order to defeat them? For example, in modern military tactics it is suggested that in some (rural or open) areas you need a 3:1 ratio to defeat a defensive force and 10:1 ratio to defeat an urban defensive force and so on.
4) When did they become obsolete in warfare?

 

[Attalus]

Read a small book on it a while ago on its use in the West so I can't say much upon India.

The essential thing is that while it could be a really powerful force on the battlefield, there were so many problems with it that people rarely used them directly. It became more a prestige weapon than anything else.

Following Alexander the Great campaign in India and the war between Seleucos and the Maurya, the Hellenestic kingdoms became interested in obtaining some.; one of the clauses of peace between Seleucos and the Maurya was the delivery of hundreds of these beasts to Seleucos which used them against Antigonos at Issus. I don't think the Hellenistic kingdoms breeded them since they required shipments from India, along with specialists to ride them.

Ptolemy who was denied access to the Indian Elephants by his rival began to hunt African Elephants in the Horn, founding several ports along the Red Sea to acquire a steady source of Elephants.
Meanwhile Cartago had its Northern African Elephants available but I think that they needed Indian cormacs to learn how to ride them.

So by the 3rd century BC, the Mediterranean World saw the use of African Elephants by the Ptolemies, Indian by Hellenistic kingdoms notably Selucids but Pyrrhus got some for his campaigns and Northern African by Cartago.

The advantages are quite obvious : it scares the soldiers on foot, and also the horses. When used efficiently these were the tanks of the ancient age, crushing dozens of people in a charge and resisting being shot by dozens of arrows and spears because of their thick skin.
But an elephant being more intelligent than a lot of animals is not so easily brought into battle (they were often drugged before battle to make them submissive) : it requires training, large stables and lots of food, basically it's quite expensive. Training is hard, you basically torture them into submission like nowadays in South East Asia and there are a lot of chances they can panic and just decide to ram into your own troops.
So in the West at least, it was a prestige weapon one that said : I'm rich and I can throw them into battle if I decide.

For countering them : well first, climate, Hannibal lost most of his elephant force to the cold of the Alps ; numerous things were used against them like pigs put on fire and in military strategy you can look at the battle of Zama where Scipio utterly defeared the Cartaginians and their elephants by creating corridors in his own force where the Elephants would charge and then be surrounded.

The Romans which adopted anything of military value from their enemies never adopted war elephants because of all that and following the end of Hellenistic kingdoms, no Elephants would be used for war anymore in the West. But Indians would continue to use them for hundreds of years but I don't really know anything about it.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

War elephants have been used in Europe and the Midddle east occasionaly in the middle ages. Surprisingly they are tough and not even easy to kill with an early musket.Unlike a horse they can also charge bayonet equipped troops.

I would say they became obsolete in the 18th century with high powered accurate muskets and light artillery with canister shots available.

Like Attalus said they are impractical for the effort needed. In India they been also used for work and sure, you can press them into service if needed but thats not practical in Europe for example. At least not beyond the odd one for prestige like Charles the Great had.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

Behold, this is an excellent book which will answer your questions: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elephants-Kings-Environmental-Thomas-Trautmann/dp/022626436X

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Behold, this is an excellent book which will answer your questions: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elephants-Kings-Environmental-Thomas-Trautmann/dp/022626436X

Aaaah that sounds very interesting, thank you. Of course Dinosaurs would have been better but you can say that for almost anything.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

Aaaah that sounds very interesting, thank you. Of course Dinosaurs would have been better but you can say that for almost anything.

This is true. But elephants are almost as good as dinosaurs.

I think that @Lord Strange also knows of a good article on elephants in the post-Alexander successor states.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

4) When did they become obsolete in warfare?

In the "West" I imagine the extinction of the local species (in Syria and North Africa) by around year 100 or so played a role, together with imposition of the Parthian Empire between the Greco-Roman world and India.

The Romans which adopted anything of military value from their enemies never adopted war elephants

Romans used elephants during the Macedonian (2nd and 3rd) and Seleucid wars.

 

[Kovax]

There's a lot more to the issue than has been stated. Indian elephants make decent archery platforms, but are generally too docile to charge into enemy lines. African Plains Elephants are too aggressive and untrainable, and are more threat to the handler than to the enemy, although some young specimens (possibly drugged) were apparently used in dire circumstances when no other types were available. The most highly prized types were the African Forest Elephants, but the heavy use of them in the various wars in the Middle East, and the Alexandrian Succession Wars in particular, led to their extinction. Basically, they were captured and thrown into battle until there were no more to be found.

Elephants are intelligent, as has been pointed out. Normally, any elephant is going to be leery about charging into a mass of humans waving pointy sticks, but once the elephant had taken a few jabs or arrows, it got panicky and often went berserk. The idea was to have it pointed at the enemy if/when that happened, and after a few bitter lessons, the handlers were often provided with a sharp stake or wedge and a mallet to sever the animal's spine if it got turned around and charged its own lines.

It took a massive amount of injury to kill an elephant QUICKLY, and they tended to get belligerent once they were wounded, which made attacking them extremely risky. Whether the elephants survived their injuries afterward was a secondary concern, and not documented. Horses were initially deathly afraid of them, and would run away, until the various contenders started raising their horses in close proximity to elephants, which allowed them to get used to them and not panic. The Romans and several other armies learned to open gaps in their lines, which the elephants would most happily flee THROUGH in order to escape. There was no point in trying to attack the elephants running through the gaps, as that would just antagonize them and lead to disorder and high human casualties, exactly what the enemy wanted. Once the African Forest Elephants got scarce, the search for replacements (other elephant species, camels, etc.) intensified. Julius Caesar managed to round up a mere handful of surviving elephants and some camels to terrify the British tribes and their horses, who had never seen them before, but they had become almost pointless against any opponent who knew about them, and too rare to be used as anything more than a curiosity.

 

[bz249]

Aaaah that sounds very interesting, thank you. Of course Dinosaurs would have been better but you can say that for almost anything.

Especially after the invention of the gunpowder. A T-Rex has a reasonably chance to hit a battallion sized target with a hand gun from 80 paces, however none has successfully trained an elephant to do this fear.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

Indian elephants make decent archery platforms, but are generally too docile to charge into enemy lines. African Plains Elephants are too aggressive and untrainable, and are more threat to the handler than to the enemy, although some young specimens (possibly drugged) were apparently used in dire circumstances when no other types were available. The most highly prized types were the African Forest Elephants, but the heavy use of them in the various wars in the Middle East, and the Alexandrian Succession Wars in particular, led to their extinction. Basically, they were captured and thrown into battle until there were no more to be found.

At least as far as elephant duels went, the smaller African elephants seem to have been impotent against the Indian ones. Per Polybius most refused to even engage at Raphia and the Ptolemaic elephantry was quickly routed.

 

[demanvanwezel]

as for anti-elephant weapons: the ptolemaions apparantly deployed metal spikes against them in the first battle of gaza (probably to counter to previously mentionned disparity between indian and north-african elephants), also light infantry with javelins to kill the drivers

 

[sleeperul]

For countering them : well first, climate, Hannibal lost most of his elephant force to the cold of the Alps ; numerous things were used against them like pigs put on fire and in military strategy you can look at the battle of Zama where Scipio utterly defeared the Cartaginians and their elephants by creating corridors in his own force where the Elephants would charge and then be surrounded.

The best way to counter it was with an soldier with an sword. Not kidding one of his horses was killed by an captured roman soldier who was put against an war elephant and killed the elephant.
Tanks of the ancient world my ass.

 

[Attalus]

Romans used elephants during the Macedonian (2nd and 3rd) and Seleucid wars.

My bad, I was quoting it from memory

The best way to counter it was with an soldier with an sword. Not kidding one of his horses was killed by an captured roman soldier who was put against an war elephant and killed the elephant.
Tanks of the ancient world my ass.

Yes one lucky anecdote, compared to a few tactics documented that show that facing elephants was a problem for any general facing them without a bit of preparation.

 

[sleeperul]

My bad, I was quoting it from memory

Yes one lucky anecdote, compared to a few tactics documented that show that facing elephants was a problem for any general facing them without a bit of preparation.

Wow that was actually true I thought that the documentary dude talked out of his ass. Is there anything an trained human with an sword can not kill?

 

[Eusebio]

Poor elephants

 

[Attalus]

Poor elephants

This

Also with all their senses using their feet to hear vibrations in the ground, I pity them in a battle environment, they surely were as confused as whales with RADARs

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

(probably to counter to previously mentionned disparity between indian and north-african elephants), also light infantry with javelins to kill the drivers

I don't think the Ptolemies had any African elephants at this date yet, in fact it's possible the captured Antigonid elephants from this battle mark the creation of Ptolemaic elephant corps. The Ptolemaic elephant trade along Red Sea is associated with 3rd century BC, in 2nd century it apparently petered out amidst the internal troubles and shrinking borders of Ptolemaic Egypt.

 

[Henry IX]

One of the general, simple and effective tactics against elephants was to use light skirmishers, who could avoid the elephants, to pepper them with javelins and arrows to try to make them rampage back towards the enemies line. This worked sufficiently often that elephants were considered to be almost as much of a liability as an asset.

This did require confident soldiers and commanders who knew how to deal with elephants, and in the battles where this was not the case elephants could throw armies into serious disarray.

 

[Kovax]

The best way to counter it was with an soldier with an sword. Not kidding one of his horses was killed by an captured roman soldier who was put against an war elephant and killed the elephant.
Tanks of the ancient world my ass.

A sword can put a deep wound into any unarmored creature it hits, so inflicting a mortal wound on an elephant with a Roman sword is no surprise. The amount of time it took for the elephant to bleed out and die isn't mentioned, and it could have died an hour or more after the attack. Meanwhile, an enraged and dying elephant can do a lot of damage.

As pointed out, a real pity for the elephants, who almost certainly wanted no part of that wave of collective madness which we call war.

 

[sleeperul]

A sword can put a deep wound into any unarmored creature it hits, so inflicting a mortal wound on an elephant with a Roman sword is no surprise. The amount of time it took for the elephant to bleed out and die isn't mentioned, and it could have died an hour or more after the attack. Meanwhile, an enraged and dying elephant can do a lot of damage.

As pointed out, a real pity for the elephants, who almost certainly wanted no part of that wave of collective madness which we call war.

In the documentary I saw this they made an small animated video of the roman soldier cutting the abdomen and the belly of the elephant. I am pretty sure that is way to deadly to allow enraging the elephant because the elephant died an very very very horrible death.

Which makes me wonder in an fight against war elephants why was this not an tactic as its very fast? Is it because it only killed the elephant and not make it turn against its owners?