Middle Eastern Anti-Cavalry Tactics

Hmmm. Well as one may or may not know in the Middle East the armies from the time of the Byzantines and Sassanids up to the 19th and 20th a century was dominated largely by making use of irregular cavalry 'lured' from various Arab, Turkic, and Mongolian tribes that passed into the area ontop of each other. The Buyid Dynasty in Iran was in origin Deylamite/Delimite from the mountainous southern coast of the Caspian Sea and were primarily foot soldiers and they were quite successful at first in capturing most of Iran and were on their way to establishing an Iranian Dynasty. What they had against them though was their lack of training as cavalry so like many others they were forced to recruit Turkish cavalry which predictably eventually created internal strife which resulted in their defeat by the Abbasaids. Thus a patter was constantly continued where Nomadic Tribes focused on cavalry were able to put a stranglehold on the sedentary populations of the whole Middle East.

Barring Gunpowder, what can be developed that would allow for Infantry oriented armies to be able to out do horse archer and cavalry oriented armies of this region and time period?
 

PhilippeO

Banned
defensively or offensively ?

If it Defensive, like defending city wall, it is easy. Infantry bow can be bigger and having longer range than cavalrymen bow. Adoption of crossbow could also helped, crossbow reduce training time and muscle needed, so city militia could fight cavalry better.

If offensive, i don't know the answer, cavalry ability to pick and choose battle they fought is giving them advantage. Even thousand years old China never managed to solve this nomad problem.

What about purely defensive Empire that based only on Alborz and Zagros mountains ? with a lot of cities and fort, a day walk from each other. They will take casualties continuously from raids, but might be strong enough to survive without cavalry.
 
Borrowing from both Romans and Hellenistic tactics and strategies, some sort of well disciplined formations with pike-like weapons in coordination with foot archers could be the basis of an infantry army that can fend off cavalry and mounted archers. It would help if they had recourse to some cavalry, even auxiliary mounted formations which could take the fight to the enemy in at least some key parts of the battlefield as well as to provide effective reconnaissance to protect against surprise and ambush. The combined arms armies of the Byzantines were very effective against both nomads and disciplined cavalry armies so long as effective C & C was maintained.

Any number of sophisicated and sedentary cultures in the region could have developed such structures and tactics.

A long-term strategy against cavalry-centric armies and nomads are again what Alexander and his successors and later the Romans implemented-- slowly building up networks of forts and fortified cities that deprive their opponents of free access to their normal routes and resources.
 
Hmmm all of which is unlikely to be adopted by the Buyids and Iran is much to large outside of Taberistan.

Still, the only way for the Hellenic influence to survive would largely depend on PODs before the Medevial Islamic Era.
 
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Hmmm all of which is unlikely to be adopted by the Buyids and Iran is much to large outside of Taberistan.

Still, the only way for the Hellenic influence to survive would largely depend on PODs before the Medevial Islamic Era.

It would be very hard for the Buyid in particular to implement. They were a mountain people of a region that in itself was a protection against mounted armies. If they could have consilidated control over the more populated and urbanized areas of Persia long enough, perhaps the more sophisticated armies of which I speak could have evolved.
 
The Crusaders used crossbows, strong armour and heavy cavalry and a lot of discipline. When this worked and the numbers were right the Turks couldn't defeat Crusader armies without a change of tactics to include a charge in the midst of battle.
 
The consensus here for the best way to deal with cavalry is to shoot them in the face, and i agree.
 
So what is needed is a ranged weapon that can shoot farther then a horse archer and enough to punch through the heavy armor of the heavy cavalry.
 
So what is needed is a ranged weapon that can shoot farther then a horse archer and enough to punch through the heavy armor of the heavy cavalry.

Not necessarily something to punch through the heavy armor, just something to keep the heavy cavalry at bay. Though for the best of both worlds crossbows would be the most effective weapon.
 
Not necessarily something to punch through the heavy armor, just something to keep the heavy cavalry at bay. Though for the best of both worlds crossbows would be the most effective weapon.

The compound bows endemic of the era would do either. I believe that non-mounted Mongol archers used a more powerful bow than their mounted archers which would both outrange mounted archers and punch through any armor that was used at the time/place.
 
The Byzantines used pikemen as well as both their own horse archers (well, often steppe mercenaries, but in their service) and heavy cavalry.
 
The compound bows endemic of the era would do either. I believe that non-mounted Mongol archers used a more powerful bow than their mounted archers which would both outrange mounted archers and punch through any armor that was used at the time/place.

I'm sure armour was effective enough but firing dismounted was also a practiced Mongol tactic for the reasons you mentioned. Dismounted and dispersed they are also smaller targets.
 
the infantry has to come to terms with dealing with cavalry's mobility (especially in the case of lightly armored horse archers). Probably the best way is to park themselves on something important and make the enemy come to them and fight them on their own terms...
 
But bringing it back to Malta Shah's original question, would any of this be useful or achievable by the Buyids? M.S. didn't think my original proposal was.
The Buyids seem to be a bit of an anomaly as other native Persian dynasties did have access to domestic cavalry in addition to locally recruited infantry. Of course, they all used irregular tribal horse, as Malta Shah has mentioned, as well as recruiting far afield for their regular cavalry units.
 
The Native Persian Dynasties such as the Sassanids looked to a feudal class of Diqhans partially funded by the state to equip themselves and train to provide the main hitting power of Sassanid armies which were Heavy Cavalry.

The Sassanids though did not make use of a Native LIGHT Cavalry and neither did any Native Persian Dynasty up unto the Pahlavis. They recruited Light Cavalry from the Eastern Iranians, Turkics, and Arabs-which eventually would doom them as the Arab Light cavalry out maneuvered the exhausted Sassanid Cataphracts (especially as funding and the population of Diqhans declined as a result of the Byzantine-Sassanid War and following Sassanid Civil wars). The only possible way a Anti-Cavalry doctrine could be developed in Pre Islamic Iranian times would have to be during. The Byzantine-Sassanid war and the Sassanid Civil wars.

Likewise the succession of Arab and Turkic dynasties relied on an influx of irregular Cavalry that they lured with promises of booty and loot from a very unreliable series of tribes and clans that inhabited or did not inhabit their territory. This was also the same for the Buyids, being mountain footmen they were very good at this and did not have the pace to recruit their own native Horsemen especially with all Arab and Turkic powers surrounding them that did have Cavalry thus forcing the Buyids to follow the examples of the time and recruit similarly from beyond their Deylamite ethnic and social group.

So for both light and heavy cavalry the Buyids would just not be able to match their neighbors without recruiting from their neighbors.
 
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The Native Persian Dynasties such as the Sassanids looked to a feudal class of Diqhans partially funded by the state to equip themselves and train to provide the main hitting power of Sassanid armies which were Heavy Cavalry.

So, much in the same way the Byzantines used the Armenians, then?
But it seemed a stable source for organized (as opposed to irregular) cavalry for many centuries. Did the Buyids not have access to such recruits from the Iranian plateau and the inclination to form a reliable cavalry arm?

Also, there was a Persian knightly caste under the Sassinids, no? It wasn't all feudal levies?
 
The Buyids came to power around 934, the Pre-Islamic Iranian classes had particularly been destroyed. Much like the Hellenistic armies the later Arab and Turkic dynasties largely drew their fighting forces from their own ethnic groups which dotted their territories in semi-secluded settlements. Much like a European Noble and Knight lived on their own estate in the countryside. Until the Pre-Modern Era the Islamic states largely only used Levied Infantry.

Further the Cavalry in these armies often outnumbered the Infantry, at least those used in battle as opposed to Garissoning.
 
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