What if Mongols adopted horse artillery?

The Mongols never made the gunpowder leap, but what if they had? Muskets were probably not suitable for their horse archery way of war, but what about horse artillery?

Would being able to rapidly maneuver horse towed guns around the battlefield, unlimber them and fire grapeshot at infantry or roundball at field fortifications would allow the Mongols to continue their battlefield domination for centuries longer?
 
Last edited:
Had light field artillery even been invented by that period though? I thought cannons were still very heavy siege types at that time. To have the mongols suddenly become that proficient in iron/bronze casting would probably require them to well, not be a nomadic horde anymore.
 
The first major use of horse artillery was by the Swedes in the Thirty Years War, and one of the guns they developed was the 'leather cannon', a thin copper tube bound with leather and cord to make the cannon as light as possible. There's no reason this couldn't be invented in the 15th century when the Mongol successor khanates were still holding their own.
 
Besides the leather cannons of Gustavus Adolphus there's also mortars made from tree truncks, Grant spoke of using them in the American Civil War.
 
The first major use of horse artillery was by the Swedes in the Thirty Years War, and one of the guns they developed was the 'leather cannon', a thin copper tube bound with leather and cord to make the cannon as light as possible. There's no reason this couldn't be invented in the 15th century when the Mongol successor khanates were still holding their own.

However the leather cannon was largely unsuccessful. It was prone to bursting and deformation that ruined accuracy. The Swedish armies of Gustavus Adolphus primarily used smaller cast cannon, in particular a 3 pounder bronze cannon that could be towed by a single horse and had a firing rate 50% faster than the muskets of that era.
 
Certainly it was an ersatz solution, but the leather cannon was widely copied in Europe and independently developed in Korea, it must have been useful enough.

Also bronze cannons existed at this time, the fact that gun carriages didn't exist and the guns were not used in a mobile fashion does not mean it would take centuries to invent once the concept is validated.
 
Certainly it was an ersatz solution, but the leather cannon was widely copied in Europe and independently developed in Korea, it must have been useful enough.

Also bronze cannons existed at this time, the fact that gun carriages didn't exist and the guns were not used in a mobile fashion does not mean it would take centuries to invent once the concept is validated.

I don't think it was a conceptual issue that prevented early easily mobile cannon. There are metallurgy issues that were a factor in the size and power of cannon in the early centuries of development. There was hand artillery, hardly more powerful than the later arquebus, which the Yuan Dynasty armies used. There were larger, relatively immobile cannon that were powerful but heavy and thick-walled to contain the pressures necessary to lob larger projectiles that could kill more than one person at a time. However during the Ming Dynasty, lightweight bamboo cannon were improvised. They didn't last long -- perhaps a few shots -- but a possible basis for something to address the OP.

This is a source to learn about early East Asian cannon:
http://www.grandhistorian.com/chinesesiegewarfare/siegeweapons-earlycannons.html
 
Last edited:
There were lots of small cannons in the 15th century, it was building them big that was the challenge. Cannons were being used for the seize engines they replaced and they were not put to use in the field because before the widespread use of crossbows and pikes, it was just easier to overrun infantry formations with cavalry.

But with the Mongol way of war, using horse drawn guns to shower the infantry with projectiles from afar seems right up their alley.
 
There were lots of small cannons in the 15th century, it was building them big that was the challenge. Cannons were being used for the seize engines they replaced and they were not put to use in the field because before the widespread use of crossbows and pikes, it was just easier to overrun infantry formations with cavalry.

But with the Mongol way of war, using horse drawn guns to shower the infantry with projectiles from afar seems right up their alley.

Getting the technology you want for a POD considerably earlier than OTL can be an intractable bitch. The tech of the 15th C. is 2 centuries later than what you need for the Mongols to use.
They did have access to rockets OTL to shower the infantry from afar. Highly portable, too.
 
There were lots of small cannons in the 15th century, it was building them big that was the challenge.
These were unreliable, and still quite heavy and large.
They could be used by footmen, and were used by mounted infantry.

It would have required a radical change of tactics from Mongols, without speaking of mettalurgic developments in advance by centuries.
 
You are seriously selling cannon technology of the time short. Falconets were in use by the second half of the 15th century, these were no different in weight to later horse drawn guns. Similar guns being used on the frontline with horses standing by to move them instead of being held back as stationary support is a doctrinal issue.

This here is a breech-loading cannon built in 1410:

Perier_a_boite_en_fer_forge_Western_Europe_1410.jpg
 
Last edited:
You are seriously selling cannon technology of the time short.

I don't actually see your point. They were unreliable, misfinring regularly, and not used by cavarly (less because of the weight or need of support than need of a stable grasp and slow load)
 
I don't actually see your point. They were unreliable, misfinring regularly, and not used by cavarly (less because of the weight or need of support than need of a stable grasp and slow load)

The point is artillery of the period weren't limited to hand cannons as you implied. There were in fact guns similar in size to the light horse drawn pieces used in the Thirty Years War, only they were not used that way for doctrinal reasons. The culverin, saker, minion, falcon and falconets would all fall into this category, and they were not necessarily less reliable than mass produced and ersatz guns built during that war or the antiques guns the armies of that time sometimes employed.

One of the reasons horse artillery was so handy was it didn't need to be as accurate when they can be deployed at much closer range.
 
Why not? Europeans and Native Americans adapted to gun warfare on horseback, so there's nothing to say the Mongols couldn't either.

Not in the fashion the Mongols used horse archery for mid to long range harassment of enemy formations. The only real option for gunpowder cavalry in this period were simple oneshot pistols and carbines as employed by Sweden in the 40 Years' War that work decently up close but that's the opposite of how the Mongols operated. Native American cavalry using guns were working with much more sophisticated stuff than the Mongols would have had access to.
 
I was really sleepy when I saw this thread, so I read 'horse artillery' and thought of gigantic horse-slinging catapults.

Anyway, I don't think the Mongols had the gun-casting experience necessary to discover it themselves, but there could be some potential in Yuan dynasty China.
 
One problem is that by the time metallurgy in gunpowder weaponry is advanced enough for more advanced artillery to be practical, it is advanced enough for nomads to be doomed. To be sure, once the Mongols rule over China, they have the resources to keep up with whatever the cutting edge in firearms is. However, their ability to maintain such parity is confined to the period in which they ruled over more sedentary populations.

Obviously, if anyone could make great tactical use of horse artillery, it would be the Mongols. Imagine flanking maneuvers that turn out to be the prelude to massive artillery barrages (was it Frederick the great that made such good use of horse artillery historically?).
 
The Mongols never made the gunpowder leap, but what if they had? Muskets were probably not suitable for their horse archery way of war, but what about horse artillery?

Would being able to rapidly maneuver horse towed guns around the battlefield, unlimber them and fire grapeshot at infantry or roundball at field fortifications would allow the Mongols to continue their battlefield domination for centuries longer?

Well I suppose if they had the tech, the Mongols could establish manufactories in China to produce the artillery needed for their armies. But that risks Chinese rebels getting their hands on it as well...

They'd probably use horse artillery for scaring the enemy and driving them away from strategic points, rather than bringing them in close and firing which would require constant drill and training to do right, which would require great leaps in organizational structure which the Mongols (nor anybody else) probably didn't see the need for. Mongol horse artillery would likely be noisy, smoky and used in tandem with rockets, following on from the way Chinese militaries used gunpowder.

But I doubt it would enhance the Mongol ability too much. What they historically conquered are pretty much the areas where horse armies reigned supreme - an invasion of Burma is still going to be troublesome for the Mongols because of the climate, horse artillery or no. Pushing further into Europe would require heavier cannon than horse artillery to deal with the various fortified settlements. I suppose they could have made gains in Egypt, but then again Ain Jalut was more the Mongols falling into a Mamluk trap rather than any technological deficiency in their part.

As for maintaining their dominance... well certainly horse artillery would have enhanced their capabilities, if they could continue to make/replace them. Course by the time of the 14th C Mongol rule was collapsing everywhere, and they simply didn't have the production capabilities to make enough cannons to resist more sedentary countries.
 
Top