Chariot Warfare - Battles of the Bronze Age
During the Bronze Age, the time of the first civilizations, chariots were the dominant force on the battlefields. They were the earliest form of truly heavy units, able to crush infantry formations in a devastating charge while also providing fire support, either from javelinists or archers. The first report of chariots used in warfare came all the way back from Sumer, taking the form of a war cart. Despite being relatively inefficient on the battlefield, as the cart was too slow and was relegated to transport, the idea of a mobile platform stuck.
The first proper chariots came from one of the great hegemons of Bronze Age Anatolia, the Hittite people. Starting as Indo-European nomads, they were the first to pioneer the usage of chariots, from construction to tactics, before being adopted by their neighboring nations. Taking the Sumerian format, they removed a set of wheels to make the cart smaller while keeping two horses at the front. While this made the chariot unfit to carry large numbers of soldiers—being limited to three—it also made them much faster and more maneuverable. Meanwhile the Egyptians started using chariots during their wars with the invading Hyksos, who had pushed them all the way back to the remote regions of Upper Egypt. While the Hittite chariots, despite being smaller than their Sumerian forebears, remained relatively heavy and were used as shock troops, the Egyptians threw everything into mobility and ranged combat. As such, they designed an ultra-light model with virtually no protection but that allowed the use of large bows, while the Hittites were restricted to javelins. The Assyrians also employed these skirmishing chariots, allowing them to take advantage of the Bronze Age Collapse to take over the region.
Only Mycenae, last of the big three of the Bronze Age, didn’t implement the chariot in their warfare. This was because their home region, modern-day Greece, was mostly mountainous and thus didn’t allow their deployment, relegating them to symbols of importance. Outside of this, even the tribal peoples of Europe used chariots in their armies, though nowhere near the extent of the Bronze Age nations. However, war chariots weren’t exclusive to Europe, as the Chinese of the Far East also employed them in their armies. Despite claims that the Xia were the first to use chariots, the Shang are most likely to hold this title by virtue of actually existing.
Chariots made the backbone of every army in that era, supported by contingents of foot soldiers in case things went wrong. They were so important, in fact, that they became more than tools of war, becoming symbols of power and prestige, which would explain why many deities of the time are depicted travelling in chariots.
Unfortunately, the time of the chariot was not to last, as they would fall from grace alongside the Bronze Age world for two reasons. The first was that chariots were not cheap to make and required a complex production system to field large armies of these units. Not only was the cart itself quite advanced for the time, but it also needed a dedicated class of charioteers to use them effectively. Finally, being pulled by two horses was probably the most expensive aspect of the unit. Thus, when the cataclysm of the Collapse struck, taking down Mycenae and the Hittites and crippling both Egypt and Assyria, armies of charioteers became unsustainable and were mostly phased out. And while this was only a temporary blight, as new nations could always rise, it also eased the way for a new style of warfare that would make chariots forever obsolete: horse riders.
Riding horses wasn’t a new concept, as people had been practicing this since before Sumer was a thing. But it was only recently that this became viable in battle as the nomadic people of the Eurasian steppes bred horses far stronger and tougher, in sufficient numbers to be used as a military force. Early riders, despite lacking the sheer impact of Hittite heavy chariots, remained superior to them in every metric. Not only were they cheaper, requiring a single horse with no cart and a single rider (except for that weird time the Assyrians tried two horsemen at once, but that didn’t last), but they could also do things that chariots could only dream of. Even the Egyptian light chariot struggled to keep up with horsemen in a straight line, while having the mobility of a semi-truck in comparison. Plus, horsemen could easily cross terrains that would cripple a chariot.
Further development in horse riding, like learning how to shoot on the move and the development of armored riders—later becoming the Cataphracts—would truly put a definitive end to war chariots.
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