What are the best armies ever?

19th century : Replace Prussians with Napoleon's troops, it only took him 2 major battles with the Prussians and they surrendered.

Originally posted by warhead " "The samurai who "withstood the Mongol attack" in the 13th century dealt mainly with Chinese and Korean auxiliaries, who, with all due respect, weren't the most formidable troops of their day." On infantry warfare they certain were.

They had only recently been conquered by the Mongols, so their morale and overall effectiveness was not particularly high.

 

 

"They had only recently been conquered by the Mongols, so their morale and overall effectiveness was not particularly high."

 

Thats obviously not the case when they defeated Kaidu. In fact what evidence do you have that their morale is low? There wasn't any concept of nationality back then and these soldiers are paid and would serve any master that gives them benefit. And many served them to the end fighting against the Ming. 

Pre-conquest, the Inca army did some great work, conquering most of the western slope of South America in less than 100 years, mostly within about 50 years. They did this on foot, without the wheel or any animal better then the Llama, they were a cut above all of their adversaries.

Pardon me if I seem needlessly nationalistic, but I would like to mention Afonso de Albuquerque's troops.

Now I know Portugal would never be on the top ten list of nations with mighty armies, but Albuquerque managed to achieve a lot with so little. He conquered Hormuz, Goa, Malacca, and God knows what else, thus really establishing Portuguese dominance in the Indian ocean.

And what about the Persians during the antiquity? Yeah, they lost to the Greeks, but I'm sure that under Cyrus, things could have been different

The Mongol myth is pathetic, no different from the myth of the third reich; only perhaps more exaggerated. Most medieval East asian medieval armies are comparable in efficiency, all belong to whats categorized as the "Eastern School" of warfare. Utilizing similar tactics, the armies of the steppe and cavalries of Northern China are essentially the same in organization, formation and dicipline with only slight difference in emphasizes. For example, Jin emphasize more on the heavy cavalry and place them in the front as the major striking power. While the Khitan Liao and Mongols emphasize light cavalry. Both use the decimal system of organization with same formations placing ten regiments into a division, with ten division making up an army. Attacks were carried out through a succession of controlled charges, each regiment advancing in turn before being replaced and withdrawn to rest. The attack is made by the 1st of the 10 squadrons, if it was successful then the other 9 would charge forward, but if it fail it was called to the back of the line to rest while the next squadron take its place. If necessary, it would be repeated for days until the enemy is exhausted. Then all 10 squadrons would charge with the heavy cavalry to break the enemy formation. Its the command that makes the difference. While the Mongols were able to defeat the Jin in Hu Pu Da Gang and Huan Er Zui, the early Jin under Wang Yan Aguda also defeated a much larger Liao army at huang long hill which used the same tactics as the mongols. The Jin also defeated the Naiman and Mongol forces repeatedly in the mid 12th century that their was a saying before Genghis rose to power, that the cavalry of Jin would shatter the army of the Khans like the leaves before the autumn wind. Its the commander, morale in different circumstances and chance just like 18th century European warfare that sets the armies different from each other.

While the Southern armies of Song, Dali, and Tibetans all have their own style of warfare that is just as efficient in countering these northern cavalries. The Tang and Song armies used the Zhang ma Dao and produced them in great quantity, used to cut down heavy cavalry and their armours in just one stroke, and the Song used the Sheng Bi nu and Han composite bow which outranged the Mongolian bows on horseback and could pierce their heavy armour.

the khitan and mongol tactics would have depended on the enemy remaining passive and waiting to be attacked; it was actually difficult to apply in practice. Certainly there were cases where Chinese opponents successfully took the initiative against them, one of which is at Dingxian in 945, a Khitan invasion was opposed by the Later Jin army under Fu Yanqing, who pinned the enemy by advancing in the centre with his main body of infantry, while concentrating 10,000 Shatuo [Turk] cavalry against one flank. The Khitan army was routed, and their emperor escaped in a cart pulled by camels. This proved not to be fast enough, and he transferred ignominiously to a riding camel. Many horses and weapons were captured by the Jin. Another example was Tang general Su Ding Fang�s campaign in Altai against the Tujue, The Turkut chieftain Landulu led more than 10,000 men to surrender to the Tang army, and Dingfang treated them humanely. Shaboluo Kaghan, however, led more than 100,000 men of the Huluwu, Wunushibi and other tribes to resist the Tang. Dingfang attacked with more than 10,000 Uyghur and Han troops. Shaboluo Kaghan saw that the Tang forces were outnumbered 10 to 1, and eagerly surrounded them on all sides. Dingfang ordered his infantry to hold a gentle slope to the south of his position, formed up in a circle formation with long spears to defend against cavalry. He himself led the Han cavalry to form up on a slope to the north of the position. The Turkut first attacked the infantry, but could not break the formation after three charges, with both sides suffering quite a number of casualties. At this point Dingfang launched a sudden attack with his cavalry, while his infantry counterattacked in support. The Turkut army broke and fled, and was pursued for more than 30 li, with several tens of thousands killed.
More examples include The Tang general Li Si Qi�s deployment which numbered 60,000 plus 5,000 tujue auxiliars against the Xue Yang Tuo which numbered some 200,000. These tribes used the same tactic of arrow assault, while the Tang army suffered heavy casualty, they dismounted and charged at the center while the cavalry concentrated at the flanks with Tujue auxiliars returning the fire and crushed the Xue Yang Tuo. In the Tang, crossbowmen also carried the modao (a version of the zhanmadao) as a close-quarters weapon against cavalry, while in the Song dynasty large crossbows and pole-axes proved effective against heavy cavalry charges.
The more famous battle are those done by Song general Yue Fei. In his battle against Jin Wu Shu, he charged his infantry battalion with the Zhangmadao to cut down the Jin Guaizima, and also the powerful Shenbi Crossbow against the heavy cavalries to deadly affects which the jin emperor Wu Shu says he never suffered such defeats, and the saying goes "its easy to topple a mountain but hard to topple the Yue Jia army"

The Dali battle sword is similar and are all coated with poison to cut through the cavalries. Dali and Nan Zhao infantry are said to have inhumane discipline on all soldiers including conscripts, their metallurgy level is just as developed as the Song, and defeated the Mongols in the battle of nine dragon hills in their first invasion. Only fell to a much larger Mongol force of 100,000 under Kublai, and only because the most effective Dali forces were prevented from war by the dictator to take power, but too late to use.

Similarily the Tubo infantry have also defeated the Uighurs in the battle of Gao Cang by charging at them in formation and routing them with the strength of the Tubo armament in 792. Tibetan armour are well made and their metallurgy also reached a quite high level, while they are also experts in mountain warfare.

The American military

............who ya gonna call.........?

how come warhead has so many details from his head. that's amazing!

warhead, i think too that the mongols didn�t developed new tactics; but the solution to the special rise of mongols is most simple and more complicated: the character of the Song Empire, a antimilitarist state suspicious to all military stament (without precedent in chinese history), with an army very inneficient. The crucial element was not the horse or other elements, was, i think, that the chinese from main chinese state didn't want fight; the doors of Asia was opened for mongols.

warhead, you should look with a strategical perspective, not only tactic: the most greatest steppe empires, huns and turks (and then mongols at XV century), must fight with a chinese state that domain the north of China and a portion of the steppe. The Song empire first refused conquest the ancient frontier and the lands that gave horses to chinese armies, then the jurchens conquest north China with small opposition; and then they permited that the empire of all the oriental steppe take the north china, Song empire allied with mongols attacked to Jin empire!! So one nomad empire domain the lands of horse and the lands of infantry, by first time in history; others conquerors of north China like Topa Wei don't domain the entire oriental steppe and must fight with other nomads peoples or chinese states. Correct, now the nomads attack to Song with infantry, but this element shouldn't be crucial; the last and more important element, is that the Song empire killed to the very best generals of their armies!!

 

Thats is my arguments: we must not talk about the expansion of mongols, we must talk about the decline of chinese empire; mongols grew where the chinese didn't walk.

 

bye

Edited by Ikki