Art De La Guerre

[Jhykronos]

This seems to be one of the few lists that can take the Bedouin Camelry this way.

So who are these non-bow armed camelry supposed to represent, and where can one find figures for them?
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- Let the Die be Cast

[player]

obviously and error as all Bedouin camelry have bows in the biblical period

[Ramses II]

[Longtooth]

Essex have a spear-armed camel command pack in their biblical range. They also have some spear-armed camel riders in their arab conquest range, but these are obviously dressed for a later period.

Jesse

[player]

The reason there are no models for Biblical period camel riders with javelin is that there is no historical evidence for such warriors - only bows

[Hazelbark]

So as posted. Essex has made a figure on camels for many decades without a bow.

"As someone who was present at over 472 battles in the greater Mesopotamia region between 1300-500 BC i can assure you i saw many formations of camel mounted troops that did not have bows." --Methuselah


As general point which was made in V3 camels were both very good shooters, very good anti-mounted melee troops and could run over MI and were thus too powerful. The idea that was decided was to make camels have to choose to be more missile oriented or not.

[Jhykronos]

[Jhykronos]

[Hazelbark]

[KevinD]

I too am dubious they were so effective versus cavalry. But the evidence, such as it is, is mixed.

However, re. not being overly effective - I think they are very effective given their cost against enemies that rely principally on mounted but not so useful against armies relying most on foot. Whether they are overly effective for their cost really only matters for armies with a substantial number of camels - it doesn’t really matter for armies with just a handful of them it doesn’t really matter. Further armies with a substantial number of hose mounted cavalry in addition to their camels can find it tricky to coordinate both horse and camel mounted troops without causing headaches for their owner. Getting the point cost right is tricky.

[Ramses II]

Over the 1000+ years of Arab and other conquests in the Middle East and around the northern African shores it is notable that the horse was widely used in favour of the camel. 

I don’t know the reasons why that should be, but this may be another case where wargame mythology has triumphed over history. 

That said, ADLG is primarily a game, and the key question is whether the camel units are now balanced from the perspectives of both the user and his opponent. 

[Mark G Fry]

In the Balkans in the C15th the Ottomans use camels to disorganised their Christian opponents cavalry. Either by having tethered camels in their field Fortifications & Fortified camps or (as at Nicroplis) driving herds of camels at their opponents.
The Moors use tethered camels to disrupt Byzantine cavalry.
Neither appear to fight mounted from camels.

Personally, having had the misfortune to have ridden a camel at high speed!, t provides a really unstable platform to do just about anything. Admittedly, I was not an experienced camel 'jockey' but I'd personally have all camels as mediocre!

I also suspect that like Ottoman cavalry, once a horses gets used to the smell & sight of camels, they pretty much ignore them. So I'd suggest that in armies like the various levantine Biblical armies where Arab allies were common that most horses would be pretty much immune to any adverse effect of fighting or being deployed next to camels.

[Jhykronos]