AHC: Western European Horse Archers

For some reason, there seem to be a few Mongol threads coming up again, which raised this question in my mind. What would it take for Western Europe to adopt Horse Archers using Mongol style tactics in the Ancient/Medieval period?

I'm presuming that men at arms, Roman Legionaries etc all decided to use heavy infantry/cavalry based tactics for a reason (more hedgerows in fields, lack of stirrups, not living on a steppe etc)-but their armies don't seem to have a good record when they face horse archers, from Atilla the Hun to Genghis Khan and beyond. So-how to give them the horse archers?
 
Well, there were some mounted javeliners armies during the dark ages - Bretons come to mind. They had similar tactics as the steppe horse archers (feigned rout, hit and run...) but relied on javelins.

Make some steppe people go futher wes during the migration period (the Alans are great for that but the Taifales can do it too) and mix with Betons and / or Basques so that thoses adopt the composite bow..
 
Some Alans actually settled in Brittany during the 400's.

I think that one reason the composite bows of the Steppe cultures weren't so common, was due to the difficulty in maintaining them in western and norther Europe. Which has a far wetter climate than central Asia and the Mongolian Steppe. Plus individual bows took years to properly manufacture, whic would be why the descendents of Alans whom settled in Aquitaine, Brittany and Spain would often make do with javelins.
 
Jinetes were somewhat more armored than traditional HAs.

Problem is becoming a horse archer is very difficult. The Turks and Mongols lived in the saddle doing this as soon as they were old enough to ride and shoot. There were local horse archers prior to the use of Turkish slaves in the Muslim lands, but they were not numerous enough and not good enough to become the weapon they later became.

Look at notable battles. Arsuf, Lechfeld. European mail is largely proof against those arrows. Their main strength is in killing opposing cavalry horses or hitting a disorganized enemy. Also Western Europe is not going to have the debilitating environmental conditions of the middle east or the steppe making it more difficult for HAs to break and army.

So there are a number of issues to overcome if you want it to happen.
 
Some Alans actually settled in Brittany during the 400's.

I think that one reason the composite bows of the Steppe cultures weren't so common, was due to the difficulty in maintaining them in western and norther Europe. Which has a far wetter climate than central Asia and the Mongolian Steppe. Plus individual bows took years to properly manufacture, whic would be why the descendents of Alans whom settled in Aquitaine, Brittany and Spain would often make do with javelins.

In fact, they settled in Armorica, which extended farther than Brittany, especially in the late 400, where Brittany included neither Nantes nor Rennes. Now wetter climate is sure to be a problem, as is the lack of pasture - forests are not really horse - friendly
 
Western Europe is far too wet for the compound bow to be in widespread use, and it is too forested and hilled for a horse-based culture to develop.
 
Western Europe is far too wet for the compound bow to be in widespread use, and it is too forested and hilled for a horse-based culture to develop.
Kelly DeVries, in Medieval Military Technology, refers to a document from the reign of Edward II that describes the prominent bow types in England as the longbow, the elm bow, and the Turkish bow. Unfortunately, I am unsure about whether that document describes the Turkish bow as a composite bow or that Devries assumes that it is.
 
Western Europe is far too wet for the compound bow to be in widespread use, and it is too forested and hilled for a horse-based culture to develop.

China is wetter than Europe, Korea more hilly, and Japan more forrested. All adopted horse archers.

You don't even need the composite recurve bow for effective horse archery. The Japanese used an asymetric bamboo bow. One could easily make one out of yew.
 
The longbow has the power of the composite recurve bow, but it's less efficient and therefore many think too big for horse archery. But I'm saying they could just make it asymetric, Japanese style. Problem solved.
 
I think one of the problems is the warrior ethos - you have to make it so that archery has some social standing that horsemen practice it. Instead of those rich enough to have horses being trained with spear and sword.

That plus the immense amount of training are a serious barrier to the nonsteppe cultures adopting it.

I'm sure there's more to it, but I'm not sure what.
 

perfectgeneral

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The video clip shows a painting of Anglo-Welsh horse archers, at the Battle of Blanchetaque in 1346. There was a strong archer culture in western England and Wales at that time. Even so it is unlikely that over a few hundred noblemen could equip themselves with a horse and also could draw a longbow on horseback.
 
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Also, from the looks of it, one could fire a longbow on horseback, but probably not a full draw, which would limit range and power. Though I do seem to recall at least a few European cultures picking up horse archers at one time or another. If nothing else, there's Byzantium and Hungary, both of which had horse archer units.
 
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