Did the likes of Mongols have non-combat task forces & death squads?

Fenestella

Banned
The combat units of Nazi and Soviet forces found atrocities against civilians and POWs demoralizing, therefore non-combat units full of psychos and convicts were formed to commit mass murder and mass rape.

Did the earlier atrocious troops like the Mongols have non-combat task forces and death squads to carry out war crimes which might demoralize their combat units?
 
The combat units of Nazi and Soviet forces found atrocities against civilians and POWs demoralizing, therefore non-combat units full of psychos and convicts were formed to commit mass murder and mass rape.

Did the earlier atrocious troops like the Mongols have non-combat task forces and death squads to carry out war crimes which might demoralize their combat units?

No all they did was sack cities as warnings but only by their military, and only if a city resisted.
 
The combat units of Nazi and Soviet forces found atrocities against civilians and POWs demoralizing, therefore non-combat units full of psychos and convicts were formed to commit mass murder and mass rape.

Did the earlier atrocious troops like the Mongols have non-combat task forces and death squads to carry out war crimes which might demoralize their combat units?
The Mongols themselves were the death squads, they ravaged everything, what got in their way.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Looting served two purposes:

1. A warning. If you looted, pillaged and burned it would be a warning to others that might just give up instead of resisting

2. Soldiers at the time expected loot as a part of their payment (sometimes this was the ONLY payment). So armies usually tried to find places to pillage, burn and loot as a way to keep the men happy.
 
The combat units of Nazi and Soviet forces found atrocities against civilians and POWs demoralizing, therefore non-combat units full of psychos and convicts were formed to commit mass murder and mass rape.

Did the earlier atrocious troops like the Mongols have non-combat task forces and death squads to carry out war crimes which might demoralize their combat units?

Killing in cold blood any human beings in any quantities (if ordered) was part of a job of any soldier on the planet of the period.
Of course you might have some problems about killing one/some of "us" (persons, belonging to your ethnic/religious group, etc), there might have shown some psychological barriers in such cases.
Killing any of "them" was never a problem at that time, no matter how many.
 
Did the earlier atrocious troops like the Mongols have non-combat task forces and death squads to carry out war crimes which might demoralize their combat units?

I don't know about the Mongols per se, but lots of premodern armies had lower-quality "combat troops" who mainly were used to despoil the countryside. Two prominent examples are various Ottoman irregulars (bashi-bazouks and such) and in the Hundred Years War, the various light troops ("knifemen") employed by the English (Welsh or Gascon or whatever).

Later in the war, unpaid English and French auxiliaries immediately turned into bandit armies and started ravaging France.

Of course attacking civilians was generally the primary task of light troops in most armies and eras. Gentlemen's wars that left civilians alone were the exception not the rule.
 
Never underestimate ability of "civilized folks" to butcher a neighbor and his family:
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre
Claude Monet - 1901.jpg

Once I heard from the sources, that Tamerlane (pursuing his hobby of assembling hills of human sculls/heads), ordered each his soldier bring 5 human heads or a gold coin instead of any missing head.
And some of the soldiers preferred giving in coins instead of heads.
But I am not sure whether it was because of humanity or lack of heads available.
2309717430.jpg
 
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