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

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

#21

Post by autocorr »

sandworm101 wrote: post #13
smogcutter wrote: post #10

It’s interesting that his analysis of war elephants has a lot of parallels to his thoughts about chemical weapons. In the hands of a sufficiently advanced military, both are an expensive, complicated solution in search of a problem, and both are easily neutralized by a peer competitor. https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

>>in order to produce mass casualties in battlefield conditions, a chemical attacker has to deploy tons – and I mean that word literally – of this stuff. While I do agree with much of what this guy has to say about elephants, he is totally wrong about chemical weapons. We don't use mustard gas because it would indeed require tons of gas and be ineffective, but chemical weapons have evolved in the last 100 years . Mod…

That's not the main point in the series on chemical weapons though. The main point is that modern armies are mobile and well equipped ("the modern system") and that chemical weapons are only well suited to stationary, fixed opponents that are poorly equipped. However, if you are fighting fixed position, poorly equipped opponents there are better and cheaper alternatives that pose less of a risk of self-harm (and war crimes).

In both the posts about elephants and chemical weapons, the theme is the same: they are not useful nor practical given the circumstances so the states make the rational decision not to use them.

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

#22

Post by jcranmer »

sandworm101 wrote: post #19
smogcutter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wikipedia article for sarin gas is also extremely frightening, but the example Bret gives of the Tokyo subway attack shows that it’s probably less effective than advertised in a modern military context. The bar isn’t “is this stuff deadly”, it’s is it deadly enough to overcome the expense, complication, and incompatibility with highly mobile modern doctrine to make it worth using on a militarily relevant scale ov…

The tokyo attack was unprofessional. A military attack would be exponentially more effective. Sarin is also tame compared to some of the more nasty stuff out there.

How would militaries be exponentially more effective? As far as I'm aware, the military can't magically change the laws of gaseous diffusion.

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

#23

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

During early wars between Islamic army vs Persian army in 634 AD, war elephants were crucial strategic weapons employed on the Persian side to rattle the horses of their opponents as the horses of Islamic army had never seen an elephant before.

Though the strategy worked, Persian side still lost as the Islamic army regrouped and specifically targeted the carriage harness to topple the rider, blinded the elephants and made them run amok causing disarray within Persian faction or straight away killed the elephants with skilled warriors[1].

[1]https://youtu.be/r2cEIDZwG5M?t=3863

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

#24

Post by cortesoft »

sandworm101 wrote: post #19
smogcutter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wikipedia article for sarin gas is also extremely frightening, but the example Bret gives of the Tokyo subway attack shows that it’s probably less effective than advertised in a modern military context. The bar isn’t “is this stuff deadly”, it’s is it deadly enough to overcome the expense, complication, and incompatibility with highly mobile modern doctrine to make it worth using on a militarily relevant scale ov…

The tokyo attack was unprofessional. A military attack would be exponentially more effective. Sarin is also tame compared to some of the more nasty stuff out there.

Is it nastier than a conventional explosive weapon, though, at least for military purposes?

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

#25

Post by mcguire »

"Livy – who appears to be quoting Polybius, a contemporary of the battle – is quite clear what he thinks of the elephants, “For as new inventions often have great force in the words of men, but when tried, when they need to work, and not just have their working described, they evaporate without any effect – just so the war elephants were just a name without any real use.” (Liv 44.41.4, my rough translation)."

Livy's comments apply to so many things....

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

#26

Post by dddddaviddddd »

padobson wrote: post #12
smogcutter wrote: post #10

It’s interesting that his analysis of war elephants has a lot of parallels to his thoughts about chemical weapons. In the hands of a sufficiently advanced military, both are an expensive, complicated solution in search of a problem, and both are easily neutralized by a peer competitor. https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

both are easily neutralized by a peer competitor. 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 we…

> 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...

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

#27

Post by fakedang »

faitswulff wrote: post #11

I’m really appreciating the video game references - literally the article mentions the cost of elephants relative to horses in the Total War and Imperator series: > Let’s take Total War: Rome II as an example: a unit of Roman (auxiliary) African elephants (12 animals), costs 180 upkeep, compared to 90 to 110 upkeep for 80 horses of auxiliary cavalry (there are quite a few types) – so one elephant (with a mahout) cost…

Can confirm.

Back in India, my grandparents had a driver who later won the lottery. He used the winnings to buy two elephants, what he thought were a good investment (elephants are regularly rented out for expensive sums to temples for functions and celebrations).

Now he's a driver once more. But he has two elephants tho.

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

#28

Post by fakedang »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #23

During early wars between Islamic army vs Persian army in 634 AD, war elephants were crucial strategic weapons employed on the Persian side to rattle the horses of their opponents as the horses of Islamic army had never seen an elephant before. Though the strategy worked, Persian side still lost as the Islamic army regrouped and specifically targeted the carriage harness to topple the rider, blinded the elephants and…

To be fair to the Persian elephants, a large part of the Islamic victory against Persia was not because of any superior skill but because of severe infighting among the Persians. When the Arabs invaded, Persia was literally in the middle of a civil war. Soldiers and generals would betray their commanders midway during battles, and there was often zero coordination.

The Romans on the other hand... lots of hubris and underestimating. There were some brilliant strategies employed by the Arab generals that are even thought in military schools to this day. For example, the time when Khalid bin Walid conquered the walled city of Antioch - without siege weaponry, but by drawing the Romans out by cunning.

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

#29

Post by DavidAdams »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #17
z3phyr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were two kinds of African Elephants; one from North Africa were domesticated and became extinct due to overexploitation. North African elephants were very small and lightly built compared to Asian varieties. The White African Elephants of the Savanah, to which we all are familiar were never domesticated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_elephant

> were domesticated and became extinct due to overexploitation That would be a highly unusual trajectory. Were they really domesticated? Indian elephants were never domesticated either, because it's more cost-effective to capture them from the wild than to invest the decades it takes to rear a calf in captivity. And this sort of arrangement is vastly more conducive to extinction through overexploitation than domestic…

My guess is that these elephants weren't actually domesticated, but rather tamed. That is, as with Asian elephants, they were captured in the wild rather than raised in captivity.

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

#30

Post by Retric »

jcranmer wrote: post #22
sandworm101 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tokyo attack was unprofessional. A military attack would be exponentially more effective. Sarin is also tame compared to some of the more nasty stuff out there.

How would militaries be exponentially more effective? As far as I'm aware, the military can't magically change the laws of gaseous diffusion.

A major avenue of research in chemical weapons was efficient delivery. https://fas.org/programs/bio/chemweapons/delivery.html

But to simplify, you don’t just release a gas on it’s own you need a dispersal system like an explosive.

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