Medieval or Ancient Tank

[monkey]

The problem with ancient cavalry and chariots, is that the horses are very vunerable to enemy weopons so they are not very good at charging into dense formations of men. So I was thinking what if you turned a chariot the other way round and had the horses pushing the box with the wariors infront. The wariors will have there legs protected by the box. So this would seem ideal for charging strait into enemy formations an crushing them.

Pushing the chariot may be a bit unstable and hard to steer so you might need to have second box behind with the driver in it.

The next logical step might be to have the horses completly inclosed in a wheled box with the wariors fighting on a platform above like a mobile fort. As this is likely to be fairly heavy and slow Oxen or slaves may be another option for pushing these contraptions. With infantry helping to push from behind, and moping up the unfortunate victims squeesed between the wedged shaped noses of the monstrosities.

So how feasable do think these ideas are? And how useful on the battlefield could they be?

 

[NapoleonXIV]

Won't work, far too heavy. Horses, slaves, even oxen are only so strong and oxen are too slow beside.

Now you could armor the horse, like was done in the middle ages, but even there, the problem is that effective armor isn't light, and a horse takes a lot of armor. Still, if you have a big strong horse it can work, some.

Generally though, cavalry is a terror weapon, like a tank, it relies upon the terror it inspires in the overwhelming charge to make the enemy run away. Infantry trained to stand their ground, and having some sort of shield, projectile or pole weapon, can stop cavalry almost every time.

You might want to look at this site, and others about the Hussite wars and the tabor, which is generally seen as the first tanklike thing in warfare

 

[Tocomocho]

Giant? Invulnerable? Quite fast? Almost perfect against dense infantry lines?

Hmmmm... Somebody said Armoured War Elephant?

 

[arctic warrior]

The problem with ancient cavalry and chariots, is that the horses are very vunerable to enemy weopons so they are not very good at charging into dense formations of men. So I was thinking what if you turned a chariot the other way round and had the horses pushing the box with the wariors infront. The wariors will have there legs protected by the box. So this would seem ideal for charging strait into enemy formations an crushing them.

Pushing the chariot may be a bit unstable and hard to steer so you might need to have second box behind with the driver in it.

The next logical step might be to have the horses completly inclosed in a wheled box with the wariors fighting on a platform above like a mobile fort. As this is likely to be fairly heavy and slow Oxen or slaves may be another option for pushing these contraptions. With infantry helping to push from behind, and moping up the unfortunate victims squeesed between the wedged shaped noses of the monstrosities.

So how feasable do think these ideas are? And how useful on the battlefield could they be?

Seems a lot like Leonardo da Vinci's tank.

 

[carlton_bach]

It's an old idea, and it was tried again and again (and again, and again, and again....) and it never worked. Without a sufficiently compact and strong power source to move all that armour, you can't do anything with it. People tried elephants (too easily panicked and vulnerable to countermeasures, though probably the best choice) armoured chariot horses (too slow), horses pushing chariots (same thing, and very hard to train), soldiers turning cranks (too weak), clockwork (too weak and finicky), horses walking inside enclosed structures (too slow, and very hard to combine with firepower)... it just doesn't work.

You can have a heavily armed, armored, but basically stationary war wagon like the Hussites, or you can have a fast, mobile, vulnerable chariot.

 

[Oddball]

Not a Tank, but interesting links anyway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabor_(formation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagenburg

 

[Max Sinister]

One TL on the Old Board (called Light in the East, by Rafi, I think) had the (Eastern) Roman Empire develop steam-powered tanks.

 

[Michael B]

Giant? Invulnerable? Quite fast? Almost perfect against dense infantry lines?

Hmmmm... Somebody said Armoured War Elephant?

Giant Yes and they need to a lot hay too.
Invulnerable: only if you had large numbers of escort infantry to stop them being hamstrung. Caltrops are another wizard weeze to see them off.
Almost perfect against dense infantry lines. Not if you are a Roman legion that forms columns at the last minute so the jumbos have corridors to run down.

The military value of elephants is be determined by the fact that John Keegan does not mention them at all in his History of Warfare.

 

[rewster]

You know, elephants could have worked really well, in giant hamster balls. Or horses in slightly less giant hamster balls. I suppose giant wheels would be a lot simpler engineering wise, not to mention for loading.

All they really needed was glass that doesn't break easily, or some sort of wire mesh that has decent enough strength.

 

[monkey]

Why would it need to be taransperent, an animal trained to run in a giant wooden hampster wheel would have the advantage of not being able to see and get scared of the enemy. Just point the wheel in the direction of the enemy then chocks away and roll! If I remember corectly there have been a few batles where staw wraped cart wheels have been set alight and rolled down a hill onto an enemy army.

 

[rewster]

Why would it need to be taransperent, an animal trained to run in a giant wooden hampster wheel would have the advantage of not being able to see and get scared of the enemy. Just point the wheel in the direction of the enemy then chocks away and roll! If I remember corectly there have been a few batles where staw wraped cart wheels have been set alight and rolled down a hill onto an enemy army.

Good point. A big wheel would be pretty easy to construct out of wood. You could even sacrifice the horse and set the thing on fire I suppose.... now that would be a scary sight to amassed infantry! You'd need quite a few to make an impact, and as close together as possible to negate the possibility of the enemy simply dodging, but not so close that the contraptions just crash into each other.

 

[carlton_bach]

Good point. A big wheel would be pretty easy to construct out of wood. You could even sacrifice the horse and set the thing on fire I suppose.... now that would be a scary sight to amassed infantry! You'd need quite a few to make an impact, and as close together as possible to negate the possibility of the enemy simply dodging, but not so close that the contraptions just crash into each other.

THe problems with keeping those huge wheels will be monumental - siege weapons only, I think. But the Song did something slightly more practiucal in this vein.

- take one (1) ox (young and strong specimens preferred)

- attach spearpoints to horns, spears along sides

- strap explosives to belly

- wind around with tarred straw

- point towards enemy

- light tail and retire to safe distance