What if Genghis Khan fought Alexander

What if ... the Mongols fought the Huns?

I wonder how the Huns and the Mongols are different.  Even though the two army were largely the same.  Especially both were excellent in all the same areas.  However there must be tech advances and tatics that made them different.

I think for one thing, the Mongols are a lot better at siege warfare.  But that would be useless against the Huns... haha.

hmm.... this is actually a topic worth discussing.

There were huge technological advances in terms of military equipment between the days of Alexander and that of Ghengis Khan.  Here are some of these advancements.

Calvary Technology: 

Superior Horses:  Macedonians used an early breed of European horses, basically these horses had just been through enough generations of selective breeding to allow a human to ride on top of it for sustained periods of time.  The mongols used a hybrid horse breed of the Parthian and central asian stocks, which would've been slightly smaller, significantly faster, and more maneuverable than the early European stock.  Assuming a chase scenario, a Macedonian calvery unit would not be able to gallop faster than a Mongol calvery unit simply due to superior breeding of the mongol horse.

Iron Horse Shoes:  The Macedonians didn't posses the technology to create Iron horse shoes.  They instead made leather shoes for the their horses.  The leather shoes seriously reduced the amount of distance that a horse could cover before it's hooves were worn away.  Thus, a mongol horse's effective life span would've been 2 to 3 times that of a Macedonian horse.

Stirr-up:  The Macedonian calvery didn't have stirr-ups, thus their calvary units weren't capable of sustained charges with lances.  The calvary would have to charge up to an enemy, slowdown, and then engage the enemy.  The Mongol heavy calvary, otoh, could charge into their enemies at full gallop by leaning into the stirr-up.  Another benefit of the stirr-up would've been the far superior control of a horse's speed. 

Armor Technology:

composite body armor:  The Macedonians were limited to cast bronze plate body armor, and leather armor overlaid with bronze for their shields.  The Mongols used composite body armor: an outer layer of leather armor to deflect blunt attacks(stones, mace...etc), an intermediate layer of steel chain mail armor to stop arrows and slashing attacks, and finally an interior layer of silk to wrap around any projectile that pierces the other two layers in order to prevent infection.

Skirmish weapons Technology:

Composite Recurve Bows:  These bows have a maximum range of 400-500 yards.  Alexander's army had slings(range: 100 yds) and early composite bows whose maximum range would not have exceeded 200 yards.

Steel(armor piercing) Arrows:  Arrows with elongated steel warheads can punch through thin steel plate and chain mail armor.  The bronze and leather armor of Alexander's time would've been no match for these projectiles.  Thus the Phalanx formation would not be an effective deterrent to mongol arrows.

Artillery Technology:

Rockets:  Gun powder propelled arrows and explosive packages have a maximum range exceeding 1000 yards.  Alexander's most effective range artillery weapons was the ballista, which had a maximum range of 300 yards. 

Primitive Cannon:  Used by the Mongols to fire stone projectiles against stone fortifications.  In Alexander's time, most fortifications were made of wood or mud-brick.  So if this was a siege battle, a single volly of mongol artillery fire would have broken through any fortification that Alexander's engineers could've built.

Melee Weapons technology: 

Steel Scimitars:  Will cut through bronze pikes, swords and plate body armor.

Steel Tipped Lances:  When used in combination with a calvary charge, the lances will punch through bronze/leather shields and bronze body armor.    

Command and Control Technology:

Signals network:  Can deliver early warning of an advancing army through a series of fire signal posts. 

Encrypted messages:  pass military information/orders through ordinary looking letters, musical tones, signals.

Courier network:  Every mongol army has a network of calvery units that ride around this army in layered concentric circles, the couriers communicate the messages of the army commander's via specific trumpet calls that gets relayed from unit to unit across a span of distance to the network of another mongol army.  This way a mongol general could coordinate a multi-pronged attack over a wide front of hundreds of miles in near real time.  Alexander controlled his army via flags, which would've limited his real-time battle-field awareness to a several square miles.   

A war between the armies of Alexander and Ghengis Khan would be a huge blood bath for the Macedonians.  This is simply due to the overwhelming technological advantages held by the Mongols. 

"1.Mongols used no horse shoes at all. that'S why they had such problems when fighting in rocky areas like the middle east."

Depends on which period and which horde.  The horde of Ghenghis Khan, after they destroyed the Jin of China, had adoped Chinese iron horse shoes.  One thing of note is that the Mongol army wasn't issued standardized equipment like other armies of the time. 

"2. it has recently been found out that stirrups have little effect for shock cavalry, in fact it does only significantly improve horse archery. the saddle is the most important part for shock cavalry."

I would like to see this study.  As far as I know, when two calvary units slammed into each other, they would knock eachother off the horses.  But with the stirrup, a calvery unit would be able to lean into the stirrups during the charge and leverage the mass of the entire horse and thus making it harder to unseat him.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the Mongols win several battles against heavy infantry in hilly or other terrain that was not suited to cavalry?  In which case the Mongols would win, hands down.

I've always wondered what would have happened if the Mongols had tried to conquer Europe and India.

Babur is related to Timur lenk.

he was the founder of the Moghul Empire.

BTW there was an Islamic state in India before Babur and he fought them to make his own empire

i wonder why the mongols didnt go south to india