Got a Real-World Weapon, Armour or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIX

[Martin Greywolf]

We have a new and very interesting video from Tod of Tod's Stuff, fellow pointy things enthusiasts.

It's interesting to see that medium infantry could be fairly well protected as long as it steered a bit clear of the elite archers even without any plate. They won't be that useful in storming of the front line, but the tactical value of being able to somewhat effectively threaten flanks or deny ground at relatively low cost is not to be underestimated - especially since arrows are a limited resource and the archers may well decide not to shoot at targets that far.

[Max_Killjoy]

We have a new and very interesting video from Tod of Tod's Stuff, fellow pointy things enthusiasts.

It's interesting to see that medium infantry could be fairly well protected as long as it steered a bit clear of the elite archers even without any plate. They won't be that useful in storming of the front line, but the tactical value of being able to somewhat effectively threaten flanks or deny ground at relatively low cost is not to be underestimated - especially since arrows are a limited resource and the archers may well decide not to shoot at targets that far.

That's very interesting. Another example of how the "all or nothing" / "pass-fail" view of armor elides a lot of utility in armor that's situational -- if mail over gambeson works at 75 or 100 meters to save the wearer's life, it's still useful in a battle context that features archers, even if it wouldn't hold up to direct hits at 25 meters or less.

Also, I have one of the knives like the one he wacks the gambeson sample with in the conclusion, so that was a moment.

[Martin Greywolf]

Another video of note, stealth in armor!

Nothing too surprising to me, and looking at DnD5 disadvantage at stealth:

• Padded - how the hell does this one have disadvantage?
• Leather - fine
• Studded leather - this should not exist in the first place
• Hide - fine, and this is what Padded should be, whether you use plants or animal skin for padding
• Chain shirt - fine
• Scale mail - has disadvantage, is borderline and depends on type of scale fastening
• Breastplate - fine
• Half-plate - fine
• Ring mail - this should not exist
• Chain mail - has disadvantage, and is borderline, depending on what kind of mail, something that has short sleeves or sleeves tied to the arms is pretty silent
• Splint - lamellar armor is almost entirely silent, but I guess you could say it's the chain mail sleeves that get you disadvantage
• Plate - fine
• Shield - it should give you disadvantage unless you are dedicating a hand to using it or making sure it doesn't bounce as you wear it

[Catullus64]

Anybody know much of anything about chariotry?

I'm writing something in a setting where horse-breeding has not advanced to the point where horses can be ridden, at least not in war. That's a product of other setting details and elements that don't need getting into. Chariotry is therefore the primary military occupation of the aristocracy in this setting.

I thought about asking a specific question about chariots, but why narrow the field of contributions? I'll ask a bunch of 'em. The period for chariot use is a bit narrower than cavalry (I think?), so hopefully these questions aren't too broad to be useful.

• How well can chariots operate in any terrain more difficult than a perfectly flat plain?
• How do you fight from a chariot (this is a big one)?
• How would chariots be organized for usage in war? Were they grouped into units? How many chariots can effectively operate in concert?
• What are some key features which set chariots apart (for good or ill) from cavalry on the battlefield?
• One horse, two horse, red horse, blue horse I mean, how many horses were typical for war chariots? Similar question about the number of occupants.
• How might the values of a chariot-based warrior aristocracy differ from those of a cavalry-based system?
• Is there historical record for what I'll call the "Homeric" style of chariot fighting, where chariots seem to essentially serve as a delivery system for warriors fighting on foot?
• In societies where chariot fighters were high-status individuals (which I understand to have been mostly the case) what would the status of drivers be? Slightly-lower status? Slaves or commoners? Older, younger?

As usual, links to good primary sources are the greatest gift you can give, but I'm greedy for inspiration. Secondary sources, or even works of fiction that represent it really well are nice.

[Martin Greywolf]

As usual, links to good primary sources are the greatest gift you can give, but I'm greedy for inspiration. Secondary sources, or even works of fiction that represent it really well are nice.

Unless you can read ancient Egyptian, Greek or some such, you'll definitely want secondary sources.

Osprey:

• The World of Celtic Warrior
• New Kingdom of Egypt
• Bronze Age War Chariots
• Hittite Warrior
• Ancient Chinese Armies (specifically the chapter on Chou)

For translated primary sources, there is Illiad, but that one has combat by champion almost exclusively, even if they do use chariots.

How well can chariots operate in any terrain more difficult than a perfectly flat plain?

Very, very poorly. The chariots as taxis, where you dismount before the battle, is somewhat more viable, but in an attacking formation... The issue is that rough terrain forces you to pick your path in a chariot, so it funnels all your formation into predictable, narrow paths they can't turn away from - and if one of them gets mobility-killed in them, you have a crash and a traffic jam on your hands. What's worse, if you are in a climate that looks like most of Europe, you will also have relatively soft soil do deal with - one chariot may make it, but a dozen in the same track will have a problem.

Also remember that you cannot stop in range of the enemy, or their archers will shoot you to pieces.

How would chariots be organized for usage in war? Were they grouped into units? How many chariots can effectively operate in concert?

The advantage of chariots is speed, so anything that can't keep up is right out. That limits you to chariot only units, or chariot and cavalry mix (Persians come to mind, with using their scythed chariots to break up enemy formation, with cavalry for follow-up). Well, provided there are enough chariots, otherwise you use them as mobile command platform.

As for how many, well, how many do yo have? Ancient Egypt reports armies with about a thousand chariots per side being fairly common, and battle of Kadesh saw as many as 2 000-10 000, depending on who's counting.

One horse, two horse, red horse, blue horse I mean, how many horses were typical for war chariots? Similar question about the number of occupants.

Horses can number from one to ten, with one or two being the norm - and they were armored as often as not.

Occupants number from one to three, with one handling the reins. If there are two, as is the most typical, then the other person has a bow, a spear or both, if there are three, the third guy usually has a large shield.

Is there historical record for what I'll call the "Homeric" style of chariot fighting, where chariots seem to essentially serve as a delivery system for warriors fighting on foot?

You kind of answered your own question there: Illiad. Aside from that, there are Celtic war chiefs who fought this way, and frankly, any chariot will do this in bad enough terrain.

In societies where chariot fighters were high-status individuals (which I understand to have been mostly the case) what would the status of drivers be? Slightly-lower status? Slaves or commoners? Older, younger?

This is pretty much all societies - chariots are even more expensive to use and maintain per unit (and sometimes per man) than cavalry.

As for the actual question, I can't really answer it without doing several hours of crawling through sources. Egyptian charioteers seemed to have been fairly equal in status between driver and fighter, but this will vary depending on time and place - Celtic war chiefs were, well, war chiefs, so all other crew of their chariot were less in statu

How might the values of a chariot-based warrior aristocracy differ from those of a cavalry-based system?

The only major thing I can think of is more emphasis on cooperation - you have two people per chariot, they need to work together even more than two cavalrymen. Going into fantasy land, wife and husband teams are possible, as well as some sort of shared families, stemming from this only.

What are some key features which set chariots apart (for good or ill) from cavalry on the battlefield?

It's mostly bad, not gonna lie. Less agile, about as fast, unable to cope with rough terrain, chariot isn't a great vehicle. It's also unbelievably expensive, just about the only cavalry type that can cost more is the superheavy cavalry (thing all-plate armor on horse and rider, or Cataphracts), and even that is probably slightly cheaper than heavy chariots.

The sole advantage of chariots is that the riders are harder to hit - they are in cover, provided by their horses, and even if you shoot the horse, it will not usually fall straight down and crash the thing, it will start to slow down and die.

How do you fight from a chariot (this is a big one)?

Depends on the chariot. The number one method is archery and throwing spears into the enemy flanks and rear while they engage your infantry. The enemy infantry know this is a death sentence, so they will often simply run from you should you beat their chariots. Failing that, you ride alongside whatever you don't like and poke at it with spear (be prepared to let go of it, lest you be clotheslined if it gets stuck) or use your scythes to damage it.

Running straight into formations is not exaclty recommended. You will trample down most infantry, but are liable to take losses - and something like a phalanx will just chew you up. Running straight into another chariot will kill all of you, running into a cavalryman will maybe not kill all of you, but will definitely damage you enough to take you out of a fight.

Your worst enemy is, aside from other chariots, archers - if they have enough time, they will shoot your horses down and mobility-kill you, if nothing else. On the other hand, you know this and go fast, so you will do your best to eliminate them first thing after dealing with enemy chariots - and archers are unlikely to hold ground against you, so this is one place where you can actually just trample them.

Edit: I really screwed up the formatting on this one.

[Catullus64]

Thanks for the detailed responses, MartinGreywolf.

Will definitely give some of those books a look. If it matters, I can read Attic Greek (albeit slowly and needing to look up every tenth word), so if there are untranslated primary sources in that language I'd love to hear it. I hadn't thought about Celtic peoples as a source of inspiration, my eye was mainly turned eastward, but perhaps that's a very good line to pursue if I want to see chariots dealing with more rugged country.

I think you're right that a chariot-culture might place more emphasis on teams. I can see great houses fostering out their sons and junior relatives to be chariot-drivers, and chariot teams forming a social and political bond that extends beyond the battlefield; it could even be an acceptable context for male-to-male romantic relationships in a society that would otherwise discourage them. There could be political and religious institutions that clearly borrow their structure from the three-man chariot team (Driver, Archer, Shield-bearer).

As to a lot of the limitations mentioned, that's really good for the purposes of the military action of the story. Since chariots can't go over rough ground, and cavalry is out, it emphasizes light infantry as the premier scouting force, and I always like telling stories that involve a lot of traversal on foot. If chariots tend to be funneled by geography into a small number of viable pathways, it makes it easier for me, an amateur, to figure out the tactics of the battles as I write them.

I'll also probably create differentiation between smaller, lighter chariots with two occupants, and heavier ones with three. I can imagine a lot of interesting sequences that could play out from that.

As for the expense, that's something that's going to have to be added to my ongoing series of tweaks to make the demographics feel historically plausible. Right now I have it such that the focal aristocratic house, who owns a rich but modestly-sized estate and collects tolls from a major river crossing, can maintain and field six two-horse, three-man chariots, with spare horses, and two of the men in full armor ("full" in this context meaning helmet, mail, and greaves). Maybe the sources will give me an idea of whether that's a high or low figure.

[Brother Oni]

As to a lot of the limitations mentioned, that's really good for the purposes of the military action of the story. Since chariots can't go over rough ground, and cavalry is out, it emphasizes light infantry as the premier scouting force, and I always like telling stories that involve a lot of traversal on foot. If chariots tend to be funneled by geography into a small number of viable pathways, it makes it easier for me, an amateur, to figure out the tactics of the battles as I write them.

More often than not, mounted infantry were the primary scouting force (ie they use horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight).

For a movie depiction of how chariots were used in battle, the first coliseum battle in Gladiator is a good show case of both the advantages and the disadvantages, particularly the 'drive by' nature of their combat against enemy infantry and how loose formation soldiers really didn't want to be in the middle of a chariot charge (even if you kill the horse, that's still several tons of horses, chariot and riders coming at you).

[Pauly]

For the chariot as a battle taxi delivering elite warriors to weak spots in the enemy lines (roughly akin to helicoptering in special forces in modern warfare) a good source is the Cû Chulainn saga from Irish epics. There is a lot of that tome devoted to chariot operations.

One minor point is that in Celtic sources there is a lot of emphasis on the named warrior doing acrobatics on the chariot pole and yoke. I assume this has a lot to do with lighter arms and armor compared to say Homeric Greeks.

One disadvantage of chariots compared to cavalry is the numbers game. A chariot generally has 2 horses, 1 driver and 1 fighter, and if you out any one out of action the chariot can no longer fight. Cavalry can put in the field 2 horses with 2 fighters for similar resources, and even if you put one element out of action you still have 1 cavalryman still fighting.

Once true cavalry developed (Lindy Beige has a good video explaining why this took such a long time to occur) chariots were almost instantly relegated to either psychological weapons (Persian/Hellenistic scythed chariots) or mobile command post (Chinese General”s chariots with huge parasols).

[Martin Greywolf]

Since chariots can't go over rough ground, and cavalry is out, it emphasizes light infantry as the premier scouting force, and I always like telling stories that involve a lot of traversal on foot.

Sort of - moving from realms of actual history to what would I do, combine chariots with light infantry for an even faster scouting force. Use chariots as helicopters to drop off light infantrymen along the roads, and have those go forth, scout and return.

You could create some Vietnam-like scenes of fighting retreat to the pickup as the enemy draws near.

Right now I have it such that the focal aristocratic house, who owns a rich but modestly-sized estate and collects tolls from a major river crossing

That major river crossing probably carries the income there, they were insanely profitable to a point where there were few almost-civil-wars over controlling them.

More often than not, mounted infantry were the primary scouting force (ie they use horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight).

Can't do that if your horses aren't big enough to go cavalry. Even then, you need a fair amount of horse breeding to make them good enough to do long-distance scouting, since they will be outpaced by humans when it comes to speed over several hours.

One disadvantage of chariots compared to cavalry is the numbers game. A chariot generally has 2 horses, 1 driver and 1 fighter, and if you out any one out of action the chariot can no longer fight. Cavalry can put in the field 2 horses with 2 fighters for similar resources, and even if you put one element out of action you still have 1 cavalryman still fighting.

Not really. If you kill a horse in a chariot, you still have a mobile chariot if the crew can remove the dead horse, albeit a slower one. A kill on a cavalryman's horse is more often than not a kill on the rider as well - the fall is nasty enough, the fall at speed even worse (I was pretty shook after falling off a galloping horse, able to walk away and cognizant, but I don't think I could fight for the next 5 minutes), and you're very likely to end up under other cavalryman's hoofs.

Light chariots are significantly more expensive than light cavalry, you have 2 people and 2 horses in both cases, plus the chariot for the charioteers. Heavy cavalry is only somewhat more expensive, simply because once you start to armor up men and horses, chariot represents a lesser fraction of overall cost.

Once true cavalry developed (Lindy Beige has a good video explaining why this took such a long time to occur) chariots were almost instantly relegated to either psychological weapons (Persian/Hellenistic scythed chariots) or mobile command post (Chinese General”s chariots with huge parasols).

This isn't because of their cost, it's because cavalry could do everything the chariots could, plus some more, and weren't as limited by the terrain. A good modern analogue is airplanes and helicopters against zeppelins.

[Catullus64]

Sort of - moving from realms of actual history to what would I do, combine chariots with light infantry for an even faster scouting force. Use chariots as helicopters to drop off light infantrymen along the roads, and have those go forth, scout and return.

You could create some Vietnam-like scenes of fighting retreat to the pickup as the enemy draws near.

Good idea, will consider; in terms of drama, it's a great way to emphasize both cooperation and tension between the aristocratic and non-aristocratic characters. I can see it as a desperate innovation by the protagonists, which catches the enemy off-guard because they assume the charioteers would never consent to being a ferry for lowborn skirmishers.

That major river crossing probably carries the income there, they were insanely profitable to a point where there were few almost-civil-wars over controlling them.

That's what I thought, which is why the main action of the story is at the tail-end of that almost.

This isn't because of their cost, it's because cavalry could do everything the chariots could, plus some more, and weren't as limited by the terrain. A good modern analogue is airplanes and helicopters against zeppelins.

When I finish this thing and think about writing a sequel, it could be a great threat escalation to suddenly drop an outside invader who has put together the first true cavalry. Sounds terrifying.

[Clistenes]

This isn't because of their cost, it's because cavalry could do everything the chariots could, plus some more, and weren't as limited by the terrain. A good modern analogue is airplanes and helicopters against zeppelins.

The advantage of chariots was that one guy could focus on driving it while other or two mere focused on fighting... learning how to shoot a bow while riding a horse with a primitive saddle and not stirrups took some time to achieve...

[Martin Greywolf]

The advantage of chariots was that one guy could focus on driving it while other or two mere focused on fighting... learning how to shoot a bow while riding a horse with a primitive saddle and not stirrups took some time to achieve...

This is something that got way, way overblown. I rode a horse bareback on my second horse riding lesson, and to quote the instructor: "We're doing this so that you know it's not that hard, the saddle is there more to protect the horse rather than make you able to ride it." The whole problem started when historians who were never near the saddle started to make stuff up wholesale, people believed then and it then took forever to quash the misinformation - stirrups being necessary for couched lance charge is a favourite example.

Let's look at archery specifically. The mere act of shooting a bow is pretty much the same on foot, on chariot and on horseback, so no problems there.

The accuracy will suffer if chariot or horse move, because, well, they move. You need to learn to compensat for it no matter what vehicle you use, so the difficulty remains the same - except it doesn't. Because a horse is an animal, it tries to keep itself more or less level, a horse won't suddenly jump if it encounters a rock, it will go over it. That makes it easier to achieve a steady aim from a horse than from a chariot.

Staying on your platform of choice - well, there's nuance. On one hand, you just kind of stand in teh chariot, no skills necessary. On the other hand, you may well need to grab the chariot with one hand to stay in it if it maneuvers too much or if the terrain is rough, a problem which, on a horse, you solve with your thighs.

As for moving and shooting at the same time, yeah, horse archer is at a disadvantage and has to learn it, it takes some getting used to. It especially took a while to figure it out because you need to train your horse to respond to leg commands only, but once you do that, even a schmuck like me, on second horseriding lesson, can control the horse in such a way. That said, said training is enough of a hassle that it wasn't always done.

[Catullus64]

This is something that got way, way overblown. I rode a horse bareback on my second horse riding lesson, and to quote the instructor: "We're doing this so that you know it's not that hard, the saddle is there more to protect the horse rather than make you able to ride it." The whole problem started when historians who were never near the saddle started to make stuff up wholesale, people believed then and it then took forever to quash the misinformation - stirrups being necessary for couched lance charge is a favourite example.

Let's look at archery specifically. The mere act of shooting a bow is pretty much the same on foot, on chariot and on horseback, so no problems there.

The accuracy will suffer if chariot or horse move, because, well, they move. You need to learn to compensat for it no matter what vehicle you use, so the difficulty remains the same - except it doesn't. Because a horse is an animal, it tries to keep itself more or less level, a horse won't suddenly jump if it encounters a rock, it will go over it. That makes it easier to achieve a steady aim from a horse than from a chariot.

Staying on your platform of choice - well, there's nuance. On one hand, you just kind of stand in teh chariot, no skills necessary. On the other hand, you may well need to grab the chariot with one hand to stay in it if it maneuvers too much or if the terrain is rough, a problem which, on a horse, you solve with your thighs.

As for moving and shooting at the same time, yeah, horse archer is at a disadvantage and has to learn it, it takes some getting used to. It especially took a while to figure it out because you need to train your horse to respond to leg commands only, but once you do that, even a schmuck like me, on second horseriding lesson, can control the horse in such a way. That said, said training is enough of a hassle that it wasn't always done.

Now here's something where I can bring real experience to bear, as someone with many hours' experience missing targets with bows and failing to control horses. I never figured that shooting from horseback was, itself, a distinctly difficult skill. Archery is hard, especially archery with high-poundage war bows. Horsemanship is hard, especially if you're using very skittish early modern horses, and are trying to ride them in the stressful events of battle. Horse archery doesn't need to be any harder than Horsemanship + Archery to be an incredibly demanding amount of training that needs to be invested in one warrior.

[halfeye]

Now here's something where I can bring real experience to bear, as someone with many hours' experience missing targets with bows and failing to control horses. I never figured that shooting from horseback was, itself, a distinctly difficult skill. Archery is hard, especially archery with high-poundage war bows. Horsemanship is hard, especially if you're using very skittish early modern horses, and are trying to ride them in the stressful events of battle. Horse archery doesn't need to be any harder than Horsemanship + Archery to be an incredibly demanding amount of training that needs to be invested in one warrior.

I was once told that the basis for the idea of the centaur was mongolian mounted archers who were that good.

[Max_Killjoy]

I was once told that the basis for the idea of the centaur was mongolian mounted archers who were that good.

I think the myth of centaurs might be a bit older than the Mongolians...

[halfeye]

I think the myth of centaurs might be a bit older than the Mongolians...

If that's a quibble about the name of the people who were then living in the region we now call Mongolia, I don't much care. If you are saying there were no people living there at the times of the ancient greeks that's a different matter, and it would be relevant in my eyes/

[Pauly]

I was once told that the basis for the idea of the centaur was mongolian mounted archers who were that good.

The Greeks were adjacent to the Scyths, who were the first recorded horse archers in European history.
The CHinese were adjacent to the Hsuing-Nu (spelling?) who were the first recorded horse archers in Chinese history.

Both arose at around the same time

There is some debate as to whether they were the same cultural group or separate groups who developed similar systems due to similar pressures and resources.

[Brother Oni]

The CHinese were adjacent to the Hsuing-Nu (spelling?) who were the first recorded horse archers in Chinese history.

The Hsiung-nu are now better known as the Xiongnu; the former is the Wade-Giles transliteration and the latter is Pinyin.

[Max_Killjoy]

If that's a quibble about the name of the people who were then living in the region we now call Mongolia, I don't much care. If you are saying there were no people living there at the times of the ancient greeks that's a different matter, and it would be relevant in my eyes/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongols#Definition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians

The article on the Mongolians mentions them being linked to the Scythians, but this is a medieval notion that archaeological evidence blows to smithereens AFAIK.

What I'm not finding is how old the centaur myth actually is, at least not directly, but I know where to ask.

[Martin Greywolf]

Now here's something where I can bring real experience to bear, as someone with many hours' experience missing targets with bows and failing to control horses. I never figured that shooting from horseback was, itself, a distinctly difficult skill. Archery is hard, especially archery with high-poundage war bows. Horsemanship is hard, especially if you're using very skittish early modern horses, and are trying to ride them in the stressful events of battle. Horse archery doesn't need to be any harder than Horsemanship + Archery to be an incredibly demanding amount of training that needs to be invested in one warrior.

Compared to what? The guy with a spear that had 30 minutes of instructions, sure. Compared to a samurai, knight, Landsknecht, charioteer or any other soldierly caste? Not really, especially not if they use horse as well, since horse training can be the real bottleneck. Samurai are actually an interesting case, since they trained as heavy cavalry, heavy infantry and horse archers before the Sengoku Jidai.

This exact argument of "it requires a ton of training and then you are a supersoldier for the time period" has been used time and again for: knightly shock cavalry, English warbows, double-bladed viking swords, bolt-action rifles and many, many more. The only weapon where I've seen it hold moderately true is the sling, which requires stupidly huge amounts of training and then enables you to slightly outmach bows under 150 lbs draw weight.

[Pauly]

The only weapon where I've seen it hold moderately true is the sling, which requires stupidly huge amounts of training and then enables you to slightly outmach bows under 150 lbs draw weight.

The thing with slingers and the original steppe horse archers is that the stupid amounts of training time were developed in boyhood/young adulthood through hunting. They weren’t proficient in their weapons as a result of explicit military training, more the military application was an outgrowth of the proficiency needed for survival.

In the Inca Empire for example all boys aged between 8 and 14 were sent into the fields with slings to keep birds off the crops. As a result the Inca army was full of expert slingers. There are Spanish reports of Inca soldiers being able to hit raised swords with sling stones from long distance.

[Martin Greywolf]

The thing with slingers and the original steppe horse archers is that the stupid amounts of training time were developed in boyhood/young adulthood through hunting. They weren’t proficient in their weapons as a result of explicit military training, more the military application was an outgrowth of the proficiency needed for survival.

In the Inca Empire for example all boys aged between 8 and 14 were sent into the fields with slings to keep birds off the crops. As a result the Inca army was full of expert slingers. There are Spanish reports of Inca soldiers being able to hit raised swords with sling stones from long distance.

These are two different issues, though. How much training you need to be skilled at a thing, versus how much a given culture trained in a thing. We can probably see this the best in ancient Greece with Sparta and Athens. Athens put in enough times to have a good phalanx, Spartans went to the extreme of wrapping their entire society around having the best possible phalanx. No one will argue that Spartans weren't better at phalanx on a one on one basis, but no one will claim the Athenians weren't effective phalanxers either.

This nuance is important for comparing the effectiveness of troop types relative to one another. Is horse archer a superior soldier compared to a knight, given the same amount of training and comparable resources put into gearing up (remember, knightly training started just as young as the nomadic one)? And, well, the asnwer is no, they are about on par and the famous horse archer victories are rooted in tactics and logistics, rather than individual martial prowess, as are the famous knight victories.

Looping back to chariots, the training of a single horse and a single man is about on par or slightly under that of a horse archer, resources are somewhat higher (because you need to pay for their share of chariot) and terrain capabilities are much worse for the charioteers. Which means that chariots are actually worse than the horse archers, because they can at best achieve rough parity while being slightly more costly, given the right terrain - and be much worse to unusable in other terrains.

[Clistenes]

People were fighting on chariots before they managed to breed horses big enough to be of use as battle mounts (even more if the rider wore armor) so they got how to fight on chariots figured long before they even thought about riding horses to battle.

So the warrior classes were trained in chariot fighting before horse archery even existed... Somebody had to create it from the scratch, and the warrior class probably were like "why should we learn to do that when we can already fight on chariots?"

[Max_Killjoy]

People were fighting on chariots before they managed to breed horses big enough to be of use as battle mounts (even more if the rider wore armor) so they got how to fight on chariots figured long before they even thought about riding horses to battle.

So the warrior classes were trained in chariot fighting before horse archery even existed... Somebody had to create it from the scratch, and the warrior class probably were like "why should we learn to do that when we can already fight on chariots?"

Plus the chariot, having a chariot, being a chariot warrior, was often a sign of prestige and status, so many of them were not going to just give that up.

[Max_Killjoy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongols#Definition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians

The article on the Mongolians mentions them being linked to the Scythians, but this is a medieval notion that archaeological evidence blows to smithereens AFAIK.

What I'm not finding is how old the centaur myth actually is, at least not directly, but I know where to ask.

I did some digging and some asking, and it turns out that the "horse nomad" theory is probably one of those "just so story" explanations, with no empirical basis. For starters, legends of centaurs and similar beings are probably older than widespread use of horses for riding.

[Clistenes]

I did some digging and some asking, and it turns out that the "horse nomad" theory is probably one of those "just so story" explanations, with no empirical basis. For starters, legends of centaurs and similar beings are probably older than widespread use of horses for riding.

Centaurs were originally portrayed as having horse ears, tail and two horse hindlegs. The later version with four horse legs may have been inspired by horse riders, but not necessarily by nomad raiders...

[Vinyadan]

Classical centaurs also didn't use arrows. The image of the bow-wielding centaur is due to its association with the Sagittarius constellation; but the image of the Sagittarius was really derived from a different beastman of Mesopotamian origin wielding bow and arrow, whose complex design (a winged horse-man-panther with multiple heads and tails) was streamlined into a centaur with a satyr tail in the West.

[Clistenes]

Centaurs as archers may have been inspired by Chiron, who trained several famous archers like Heracles, Acteon and Odysseus.

[Vinyadan]

Centaurs as archers may have been inspired by Chiron, who trained several famous archers like Heracles, Acteon and Odysseus.

I don't think it's likely. The iconography of an archer centaur independent from the Zodiac only comes up in the IX century AD and only explodes in the XII. Before that, it's always the Sagittarius, as far as I'm aware.

Some ancient authors did say that Chiron knew how to hunt, because he had been grown up by Apollon and Artemis. But there are no episodes in which he uses an arrow, except for when he picks up one of Herakles's to immediately drop it on his own foot, causing the famous wound. Plus, even where he is mentioned as a teacher of hunting, he works with dogs, javelins, and darts, and there is no mention of a bow. Finally, Hyginus quotes some unspecified authors saying explicitly that "no centaur ever used arrows" while discussing the oddities of the Sagittarius.

[Lapak]

The sole advantage of chariots is that the riders are harder to hit - they are in cover, provided by their horses, and even if you shoot the horse, it will not usually fall straight down and crash the thing, it will start to slow down and die.

You and others (including the one asking the question) have touched on the other advantage, which is worth calling out explicitly - you can do charioteering with animals that are not functional as cavalry mounts. Early horses which are too small to ride, fantasy animals that are anatomically inappropriate or dangerous to ride, etc. Attaching a vehicle broadens the animal-powered-mobility-in-warfare possibilities by quite a lot.

(Not to say that the advantage of cover is negligible either - while it's not a chariot, we can take the Hussite war wagons of the 1400s for an example at the other end of the pre-modern tech tree that focuses more on the cover angle you're mentioning. )