Krytan and other cavalry

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Posted by: Teo.1625

Teo.1625

Hello, everyone!

After finishing “Edge Of Destiny” and especially after reading the part where Logan, Caithe and Rytlock see horses grazing on a meadow, while travelling through the portal, I started wondering why there are no any horses in-game.

I am very interested in the lore of “Guild Wars”, but aside from the already mentioned part of “EoD”, I could not find anything about the existence of horses in continental Tyria. Looking at all the wars that especially the race of humans went through, I started wondering how it is even possible, not only for one race, but for every advanced civilization not to use any mounts, in general, when it comes to war.

I mean, a strong cavalry could have been of use when the Charr marched upon Ascalon, right? It just seems odd to me that in thousands of years of war, none of the races came up with a cavalry. I know for example that the war-machines, like tanks, of the Charr are quite a “young” invention, compared to the fact that they did not possess any of them during the events of “GW1” and the Fall Of Ascalon, so these do not count.
I am talking anout real cavalry, where animals are mounted by soldiers and ridden into battle.
Furthermore, in “GW2” we only see different breeds of Dolyaks, which are mainly used as pack animals, so my question is: Have there ever been any horses in Tyria and has any civilization used animals (no matter if horses, dolyaks, etc.) as actual mounts for a cavalry unit?

I thank you all in advance for your time and interest.

At your service, T.

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

First, on cavalry: With the possible exception of horses, the problem is that Tyria doesn’t seem to have any real candidates for riding animals, at least not in war. The charr, for instance: while there is at least one instance where they’ve been known to ride maroxes (marmoxi? X’s are hard), plodding sort-of rhinos are hardly the sort of animal to provide the speed that’s half the advantage of a cavalry in the first place (as I understand it; I’m no military historian). Same with dolyaks, and cattle, and all the other pack animals we see that could bear a rider. Which brings us to the second problem- the other advantage of cavalry is the ability to bring much more force to bear, especially in a massed charge. But magic-users, especially elementalists, would negate that advantage, by punishing bunching up, disrupting the charge, and generally providing all the reasons that firearms eventually made cavalry obsolete in our world. Between those two problems, there just isn’t much room for cavalry to be effective in Tyria, and thus no reason it should be in use.

Now, horses are a mess and a half, and the lore’s pretty vague about them. We know they did at one point exist in Tyria the continent, we know they were ridden at least occasionally both in Orr and in Cantha, and we know that they still exist somewhere in Tyria the world. That’s… really it. I’ve heard solid arguments for positions ranging from them being extinct in continental Tyria to their being integrated into everyday travel and use in Kryta, that we just don’t see because everyday life gets skimmed over (the same reason we don’t see chamberpots emptied in the streets or near enough farms to feed the population of DR). I tend to lean towards the middle of the spectrum, somewhere in the belief that they’re around but not nearly as common as they were in medieval Earth. One thing to keep in mind, though: even if you lean towards the horses are everywhere theory, they still wouldn’t get around the magic problem, so there still wouldn’t likely be as much cavalry. They’d be used for scouting, likely, or getting to and from the battlefield, but actual use on the battlefield would likely be limited to situations where massive casualties are acceptable in exchange for closing quickly with the enemy. Kryta’s Seraph is stretched too thin for those kinds of zerg rush tactics.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

Charr have calvary, it’s mechanized. Horses wouldn’t stand a chance.

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Posted by: Rym.1469

Rym.1469

I think in GW1 some of the dwarves were riding dolyaks, but yeah. Riding animals against firearms and tanks wouldn’t be the brightest idea ever.

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Posted by: Teo.1625

Teo.1625

Thank you all for your replies.

I was mostly referring to a time, where the race of Charr was not as advanced in technology as today, thus having no machines, yet. Like back in the day, where the legions were united under the Khan-Ur, which was approximately a thousand years ago (?).
Nevertheless, I agree with the statement that magic users AND machines would make it from very hard to impossible for cavalry to even reach their target on the battlefield in today’s Tyria.
I still believe that a cavalry could have been of use, even if that meant using other animals than horses or dolyaks.

Thank you, guys!

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

I forgot, the Mordrem have calvary.

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

Technically, the Zintl hylek do too. Those mounts have been inaccessible to the rest of Tyria until recently, though.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

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Posted by: Kalavier.1097

Kalavier.1097

In GW1, Krytans explicitly “Rode” Saul out of Krytan and beyond the borders before dumping him and leaving him (which lead to him finding the Mursaat).

In GW2, we see fancy carriages and wagons that would be horse-drawn. In Party Politics I believe, a group of nobles are talking about a party, and one mentions equestrian being out of the question because possibility of confusion for centaurs. In DR you can get into a stable with stored jousting carnival toys.

A guard mentions ponies for riding.

The same things that would negate Cavalry would affect Centaurs as well, if you think about it :P.

Fireballs are great, but they are not instant win buttons. I wouldn’t see them being any more effective against Cavalry then an infantry group, and we hardly hear about singular elementalists wiping out entire groups casually (bar hero/very powerful ones like Cynn or such).

It’s a clear case of “Anet did not want to deal with the complaints about mounts that would appear if they had horses ingame.”

edit: Another thing is, IIRC, it’s mentioned some of the centaur tribes don’t really like magic, and it’s far less common with them then humans?

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

In GW1, Krytans explicitly “Rode” Saul out of Krytan and beyond the borders before dumping him and leaving him (which lead to him finding the Mursaat).

In GW2, we see fancy carriages and wagons that would be horse-drawn.

Nothing saying they’re horse-drawn. Actually, in the Return to Lion’s Arch trailer we see that the wagons are pulled by bulls, and that being the case I suspect the ‘fancier’ wagons (they’re not carriages, just covered wagons with a teamster’s bench- typically pulled by oxen in the real world) are too.

A guard mentions ponies for riding.

I haven’t seen that one, but I’d be curious to. Do you happen to remember where it was?

In Party Politics I believe, a group of nobles are talking about a party, and one mentions equestrian being out of the question because possibility of confusion for centaurs. In DR you can get into a stable with stored jousting carnival toys.

I know about those, but that leaves horses as carnival mock-ups right next to the cardboard dragons and as a decorative theme at a Krytan noble’s party. Both can support either the extinct or everyday hypothesis, or anything in between.

The same things that would negate Cavalry would affect Centaurs as well, if you think about it :P.

Absolutely agreed.

Fireballs are great, but they are not instant win buttons. I wouldn’t see them being any more effective against Cavalry then an infantry group, and we hardly hear about singular elementalists wiping out entire groups casually (bar hero/very powerful ones like Cynn or such).

It’s more than just fireballs, although I was thinking of those too. Imagine what Unsteady Ground would do to a massed cavalry charge, or Flamewall, or a mesmer conjuring up an image of something fearsome enough to spook the horses. Countering cavalry would certainly be easier than an infantry group. It’s just a matter of changing the situation so their relative strengths are instead weaknesses.

It’s a clear case of “Anet did not want to deal with the complaints about mounts that would appear if they had horses ingame.”

That’s long been thought to be the reason, but it’s not a clear case. Just fan speculation on the developer’s unspoken policies, which in my experience we’re more often wrong than right about.

edit: Another thing is, IIRC, it’s mentioned some of the centaur tribes don’t really like magic, and it’s far less common with them then humans?

Yep!
Mind, that only applies to the Harathi. The Modniir, of course, produce some of the most powerful earth elementalists we see in the game. Coincidentally, they also managed to subjugate the Harathi and keep them afraid, despite being much fewer in number.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)

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Posted by: Rhaegar.1203

Rhaegar.1203

I remember that Palawa Joko mocked Zhed Shadowhoof, an Elonian centaur, calling him “plough horse”. So there’s that.

I think it all comes down to mechanics: if they depict horses, they public outcry for mounts exponentially grows.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

I have no doubt it is really just a-net not wanting to deal with mount problems but Aarson Ansari does raise a good lore theory point. While horses would be fine for travel, magic makes cavalry less viable.

To address Kalavier’s points, the bane of calvary is the ability to break up the formation. The same tends to apply to footsoldiers but in the case of footsoldiers, they have the ability (and need) to form tighter groups while working affectively. Mounted troops need room to maneuver without the animals doing more harm than good. Which is why calvary tended to only be employed after the battle was well on it’s way when the formations would be a little more caotic and disorganized. Then their strenfgth is to run through the grass of bodies. Or to skirt the edges of a formation and shave the vulnerable edges that didin’t have the advantage of the main body of a formation. Or, in an emergency, they could have been sacrificed on the outset to punch through an organized formation in order to get them disorganized. But it would have been a sacrifice and only if there was no other option.

Foot troops can reorganize themselves more quickly because they don’t need to take the added measure of relaying their personal actions to an animal. In the case of centaurs, the animal is the thinking foot troop. And centaurs have the added option of personalizing their armour for the whole length of their front body. Like a longer shield in front of them. Though, they’d still need more room to maneuver, they could form tighter formations because theirs no risk of a larger animal next to them getting spooked and wreaking havoc on smaller bodies. And we see that centaurs tend to be more barbaric in their methods, anyway. Less phalanx and more dependant on the strength of an individual warrior.

So, it does seem that fire balls could have kept calvary from being a bigger factor in war. Atleast until the charr came up with a way to protect their mounts with heavy plate armor that could withstand them. And the added bonus of taking out the option for animals to get spooked or thrash wildly in death throws.

(edited by Dustfinger.9510)

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

There has been a history of cavalry in game. There were undead riders in Kryta, the Stone Summit had armoured dolyaks and bipedal mounts that were never solidly identified but were possibly ettins, siege devourers used mount-like mechanics in GW1, and so on.

I don’t really buy the ‘cavalry needs to be in massed formations and that makes them vulnerable to magical area attacks’ logic. Historically, cavalry needed to be massed in order to break equally massed infantry blocks. What we see in Tyrian warfare, though, even for more organised militaries like humans and charr, is that the infantry is composed of looser skirmish groups more like modern warfare than medieval warfare. Lacking machine guns and trenches, cavalry would thrive in that environment – cavalry is at a disadvantage charging into massed infantry with pikes or similar weapons, but Tyria doesn’t have infantry blocks and dispersed infantry has historically been cavalry food. Try being a single person on foot trying to fight off a horseman with anything more primitive than a bolt-action rifle: you might be able to do it, but I daresay it’ll still be harder than fighting off the same guy on foot.

Considering that in Tyria cavalry could also be mounted mages, then to extend the modern warfare analogy, cavalry on Tyria would be more or less equivalent to tanks and armoured vehicles. Because they’re bulkier and less agile, they can’t fit into cover or navigate rough ground like infantry can, and they’re a bigger target for heavy weapons (which could mean magic attacks in the context of Tyria). On the other hand, they’re faster, tougher, and likely have more dangerous forms of attack than most infantry, and infantry caught by cavalry in the open would be about to have a very bad and possibly very short day.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

snip

I hadn’t considered that- and you should be right. By that logic cavalry would have to lean strongly towards either speed or heavy armor, since anything in between would just be a large target asking to be blasted. Interesting to note that, with the exception of the undead horsemen and the mordrem mounts, all ‘cavalry’ in Tyria has leaned more towards the later. Dolyaks, snow beasts, giant devourers, and giant beetles are all some mixture of heavy armor and self-propelling siege capability. It’s an interesting twist on the concept, a little like if war elephants had been the norm in our history and horse-riders the quirky novelty.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

ehh…., they’d really have to be the flash in order for a speed based calvary to dominate on a regular basis. because even before there was rifles there was still fire balls. And a rifleman (fire ball weilder) only needs to be in the prone position or to have some kind of cover. So a mounted mage would actually be at a disadvantage against another mage. Rather than be at an advantage. He is a bigger target and by the virtue of riding at his opponent, he isn’t a mobile tank, he is little more than a rifleman on a horse.

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Posted by: Teo.1625

Teo.1625

First of all, I’d like to thank you all for your contributions concerning this topic.
After reading some of your messages, I actually do see that cavalry could be of use in Tyria, even if it would have to be specialized.
Nevertheless, I do not think that magic users are that common in armies/troops (see the Seraph or even the Charr armies/legions) in Tyria. I do understand that magic users are part of Tyria, but for example in “EoD”, none of Logan’s comrades of the scouting troop had any magical abilities (excluding him for having some guardian magic) and the soldiers of the city of Ebonhawk had no magical abilities as well.
So it is not that common to have mages and sorcerers in armies and troops.
Furthermore, if we’re already talking about cavalry, we are talking about a significant number of riders, what makes me think that even a spell could not stop such an amount of mounted soldiers, unless it a very powerful sorcerer, like the charr shaman Bonfaaz Burntfur, who caused the Searing.
And in a world of magic, where it is more or less common to face a magic user, the common folk and soldiers should have found ways of dealing with them. How can a warrior otherwise defeat an elementalist without getting burnt to ashes from a distance?
I think it is very hard to use any real life history and tactics in a world with circumstances like Tyria, but one thing is for sure: since magic users have always been part of battles of any scale, not only infantry, but cavalry as well, must have found ways of dealing with them, because following the logic “Oh, no! They have a mage! Our army is useless!” is just ridiculous.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

Magic users are common. Even in the charr legions. But I don’t think it’s a matter of an army being useless. It’s a matter of having to adjust tactics. So while there are ways of dealing with magic, there are also ways of dealing with those ways. It’s all measures and counter measures. Like any battle. e.g.: RL calvary was susceptible to gunfire in the civil war, but there was still a place for it. Just as there was a place for a bayonet charge. It just wasn’t as big a place as if there was no guns.

I don’t think anyone’s position here is that there is no place for calvary. It’s just that with powerful projectiles being an ever-present threat, that place is less than if there wasn’t powerful projectiles.

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

I don’t think anyone’s position here is that there is no place for calvary. It’s just that with powerful projectiles being an ever-present threat, that place is less than if there wasn’t powerful projectiles.

To be fair, that was pretty close to my position before drax said his piece.

On the prevalence of magic, though- I do think it’s a lot more common than we see, at least with the human armies. The bandits and separatists both have magic-users, and it’d be really weird if they could do things the armies couldn’t. In fact, a lot of the military or mercenary squads we have fleshed out- the player charr’s warband, Logan’s scouting party, Dougal’s Ebon Vanguard squad, Clagg’s krewe- have a spellcaster in the group. It might be standard procedure to spread the spellcasters thin, so as many units as possible have at least some magical support.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

As I’ve said before, ArenaNet tends to get lazy when it comes to friendly factions. Compare the Ascalonian Army in Prophecies with the foefire ghosts of GW2, which is basically the same army. Enemies, on the other hand, can sometimes have a tendency to be more diverse so you’re not just fighting the same thing most of the time.

My gut feeling is that the average is about one or two per squad/warband/whatever, with charr having a lower ratio than humans. Specialist and elite units will likely have more. The majority of soldiers, though, are still simple melee combatants, archers, or riflemen.

Continuing the modern army analogy, the magic users would probably be roughly the equivalent of the guy who’s carrying a rocket launcher, heavy machine gun, or the like while the rest are carrying assault rifles. A hidden magic-user could probably do a good job of dealing with a cavalryman (spellcaster or otherwise). However, there’s a bit of a rock-paper-scissors scenario here, since the prone magic-user* is vulnerable to a warrior on foot showing up and planting a foot on their back. The mounted magic-user, on the other hand, might be a bigger target, but can employ light cavalry tactics to stay out of the reach of an enemy warrior.

Imagine trying to deal with a greatsword mesmer – or a longbow ranger – whose base move speed is double the normal because they’re on horseback.

People have been predicting the downfall of the tank since World War 2 due to the invention of progressively more sophisticated antitank weapons, but it just hasn’t happened. Even though it’s a bigger target, the combination of speed, enough armour to resist most small arms, and heavy weapons is still a powerful asset on the battlefield. In a world with things like siege devourers, cavalry can perform the same role, while lighter, more conventional cavalry can occupy a role more similar to hummvees and the like (sometimes you’ll fight mounted to use the speed, sometimes you’ll dismount).

*And that’s assuming that the magic-user can use magic while prone anyway. It is a game mechanic that people are helpless while prone, after all, and while spellcasting gestures are generally less exaggerated in GW2 than GW1, it’s still possible that a lot of spells can’t be cast from prone.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

To be fair, that was pretty close to my position before drax said his piece.

Ah, yeah. Then I’d have disagreed with that. Simply due to the way calvary continued to be of use pretty heavily up until fairly recently (about WW II – ish). But due to technology allowing smaller and lighter units to hit harder, tactics had to change.

Which kind of leads us into Drax’s point on tanks. Tanks is a good example of how nothing in war really becomes obsolete all at once. (The Marine Corps still effectively uses equipment that other branches have deemed obsolete and unserviceable) But as in the case of tanks and calvary, tactics change so that tanks need more protection than just their armored sides. As you said Drax, “rock/paper/scissors”. There’s are mobile units that travel with tanks to protect them from anti-tank personell. So our tank units aren’t the near-impervious armored knights they used to be.

And tanks are getting reimagined so that they become more mobile artillery, able to shoot farther so they are less vulnerable rather than the initial battering ram they used to be.

edit:*I think it’s a safe assumption as we simply haven’t seen those types of limits in the GW universe. No sense in arbitrarily trying to hold GW to another universes rules. Not one based on a game mechanic where the person on the ground is unconscious. Might as well make the argument that people can’t fall asleep unless they are attacked.

Especially when the devs created a universe where almost everyone is born with an inherent ability for magic that can be excercised and refined like any other skill. Keep in mind, the difference between GW1 and GW2 is that unlike GW1, GW2 is full of ambient magic which is the reason nigh everyone has some type of magic.

(edited by Dustfinger.9510)

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

Going a little off-topic, but tanks have always required infantry support. Technology to defeat tanks has improved, but so has their protection: in WW1 and the early days of WW2, it was possible to disable most tanks with a heavy machinegun-caliber round if you hit it in the right place, while the infamous FlaK 88 would be laughed at by modern tanks. The ‘reimagining’ you speak of is less due to a change in the power of antitank weapons versus tank armour (that tends to swing up and down, and modern tanks are, if anything, harder to take out by contemporary man-portable weapons than during WW2), and more a reflection of the kind of wars that are being fought: those armies that have the tank strength to use them as a breakthrough arm haven’t needed to since the invasion of Iraq, and instead they’re being used in counter-insurgency work where a platoon in the right place providing fire support is usually more than enough. If the political situation deteriorates enough that we see fighting between major armies, without getting to the point of going nuclear, though, we’ll probably see tanks performing cavalry-style manoeuvres, though.

In-game, though, the charr ‘tanks’ do seem to be designed more as mobile artillery than a breakthrough instrument. Their function and behaviour seems to be closest to the howitzer-armed armoured cars and halftracks used by the Germans and Americans in WW2.

But to go back on topic… cavalry pretty much continued to be used until vehicles took over the role. WW2 cavalry pretty much got their horses handed to them by tanks, and cavalry wasn’t able to do much in a trench warfare environment, but it was still a quite effective arm in the Middle East front of WW1, including some decisive cavalry charges.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

While they have always had support, it wasn’t the same kind. Today, we have combined arms mobile infantry that is specifically designed to take tanks out. Meanwhile, in their inception, tanks were more battering rams. In fact, early tanks had machine gun murder holes and machine guns mounted in the sides as opposed to focusing fire on the front. The purpose was to use the tanks armor to protect it long enough to barrel into an enemies trenches and fire down the trench lines.

I make no difference between the relative increased vulnerabilities of tanks and the evolving of warfare. They go hand in hand. I doubt we’d see tanks go more calvary style in the future because todays tank combat is preferable from a distance for specific reasons. To the point that the US military aims to skip a round across the ground to get the hit. As it leaves the tank less vulnerable to more mobile anti-tank units. See the Marine Corps CAAT platoons. They are lightly armored Humvees designed to hunt tanks using speed and maneuverability. Which kind of brings us back on topic. A lightly armored caster that can hit hard from horseback is less armored power hitter like a tank and more light power hitter. Like a CAAT Plt. But a CAAT Plt doesn’t aim to assault foot infantry. As that is playing to the CAAT Plt’s weakness. Not it’s strength.

On cavalry: Agreed. Cavalry had always had it’s position until vehicle technology outmatched them. But the way they had been used had had to evolve as they were killed sooner due to tactics and tech. It’s a matter of relativity to compare a tanks current armor with small machine gun fire because the fact is, tanks began killing from farther and farther away, due to tactical necessity, not tactical arbitrarity.

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

I think that’s more a change in the nature of warfare in general than a change in role. Ranges of engagement have expanded – cavalry would literally go into melee, while even in WW2 tanks didn’t really like to be surrounded by enemy infantry. These days you need combined arms mobile infantry, in WW2 you just needed one guy to get a molotov roostertail on top of the engine block. (Fully sealed compartments weren’t something people figured out how to do until the early years of the Cold War.)

However, it’s still said that the best way to kill a tank is another tank: the other options provide ways to do so when it’s not viable to bring in your own tanks for whatever reason. Tanks certainly do fight from a much greater distance (whatever games like the Command & Conquer series might tell you) but that’s because all forms of fighting are occurring at greater ranges. Tanks are still designed with the breakthrough role in mind – it’s just that they punch kitten in the enemy lines by killing everything in sight with cannon and machinegun fire rather than literally crashing into the enemy troops like a force of knights.

We haven’t seen it in modern warfare because advanced nations are more likely to be engaged in asymmetric warfare, but they’re still designed for the heavy cavalry role. They just perform it with cannons and machineguns instead of lances, just like infantry fight with assault rifles and RPGs instead of swords and spears.

The general principles still seem to hold in Tyria. Most of the cavalry is essentially heavy cavalry (the tanks), but there are arguably some examples of lighter cavalry.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

(edited by draxynnic.3719)

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

I’m not sure who says the best way to kill a tank is another tank. It isn’t the Marine Corps though. I can tell you when I was loaned out to a CAAT Plt as a communicator, we rolled out with the tank divisions. That’s how I know that they skip the rounds across the ground.

That said, changes in roles go hand in hand with the changes of warfare. We seem to actually be saying the same thing here. When the changes of warfare make it easier to take out a tank that is being used as a battering ram, the role of tanks changes.

(edited by Dustfinger.9510)

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

Yeah, the tanks aren’t literally being used as a battering ram, the way knights used their lances or even arguably WW1 tanks were used to crush barbed wire. It is, however, still part of the role of tanks that tank units are a breakthrough instrument, used to break enemy lines. It’s just that nowadays they do so through overwhelming firepower – and enough armour to resist at least some enemy fire – rather than actually using their weight as a weapon.

Same strategic role, but the tactics used are different.

It sounds like you have direct personal experience with CAAT platoons that I don’t have. However, the principle of ‘the best thing to kill a tank is another tank’ is something that comes from the principle that a tank (ideally a better tank) can go anywhere that the tank it’s trying to kill can go, has the most chance of being able to survive return fire, has a weapon that’s designed to kill other tanks, and so on so forth.

However, from a tactical perspective, this does not mean that other tank-killing units aren’t useful. There will be circumstances where an anti-tank unit or vehicle that isn’t a tank will perform better than a tank. This includes combined-arms operations: tanks coupled with anti-tank units, and with units that can protect the tanks against anti-tank units, will obviously do better than tanks alone.

That said, though, the US has historically put more of a focus on fast anti-tank units than other countries. The Humvee-mounted CAAT platoon, for instance, sounds like a spiritual descendant of the M18 Hellcat… or, to go further back, horse archers that could often be a PITA for armoured knights that can’t pin them down.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

That’s something to think on.

And those horse archers are a good point. I’m not sure they would have been very effective against fully armored Euopean knights beyond not being able to get caught but from what I read, they destroyed the early Japanese which is what prompted the birth of the mounted samurai. and I think we’d both agree that their legacy is legendary.

edit: Was thinking maybe the archers could have taken the knights horse from them, effectively immobilizing them but it seems the horse had pretty full armor as well. Could be why I’ve never heard of mounted archers being used as “kight killers”. Or, it may have just been a social contraints that kept the best warriors as armored knights and archers as “less than knights”.