Need for greater historical accuracy for Indian Army Lists

[Hari72]

Or perhaps it's an artistic convention to sometimes depict barded horses.It isn't a real barded horses?

[newbiesoldat]

Question - on the Hoysala friezes and elsewhere, you often see what appear to be unarmored riders on barded horses. I assume it's an artistic convention to sometimes depict warriors without armor that they would normally wear in battle, as the Greeks sometimes did?

To be honest, it is difficult to say, different scholars have different opinions.

Indian texts do talk about a wide variety of armors, but the sculptures are mostly shown unarmored, and in fact mostly bare chested though with jewels and martial accoutrements. Though I think the current consensus is that it was more of an artistic choice.

The Ghazvanid and later Ghurid and Sultanate accounts don't describe much of the Indian armors or weaponry. There are mentions of Indians wearing armor in passing, that's it. However, the accounts do mention the exceptions, what they found peculiar compared to their own sensibilities (Central Asian and Iranian sensibilities). So they recorded that a contingent of Khokhar tribesmen fought barefeet and bare headed, with no armor. So not wearing armor was probably the exception, since the Ghazvanid sources mention it as something noteworthy in Khokahrs. Apart from this the only reference to armor is made in the case of Assam in the far North East, which the Sultanate sources mistake as Tibet. Here they state that the armor and weapons were crude and made of bamboo mostly.

Based on all of the above things, the depiction of bare chested soldiers in Medieval Mainland India in sculptures was most probably artistic interpretation, otherwise we would have been told so in the Persian or other sources of the time, for example Marco Polo records that Tamil and Keralite Indians in the Far South only wore loin cloth and some other small vestments, and their extensive textile industry was mostly for export. Such an observation would have been made and recorded if the majority soldiers would have dressed like their majority sculptural counterparts.

There are a small number of sculptures that do show armored figures, some I have posted here, and the Indian texts mention some armors such as the Surtraka (Quilted Armor), Lohajalika (Iron-Net, mail armor basically), Kavacha (Cuirass), Varavana (Some sort of Anti Arrow Armor) and Kancuka (Long Coat coming to the knees). I think that for the Persianized Turks, this sort of armor would've seemed normal, comparable to their own, and so did not consider it worth reporting for any peculiarities.

[Nijis]

That interpretation of the texts makes sense. Thanks for the extensive answer!

[newbiesoldat]

Just adding a few representations of the Gupta period cavalry. Both are from around the early 5th century CE. One is a coin that depicts Emperor Kumaragupta slaying a rhinoceros, the other is plaque of a horseman who seems to be a mounted archer considering the quiver he is carrying. This should give some idea about the Gupta and Early Medieval North Indian Cavalry. One thing to note here is that these are quite different than the contemporaneous depictions of soldiers in Ajanta caves in the Deccan. Showing the difference in the army set up between the North and the South, with North Indian armies having more armored cavalry and horse archers.

vh9qm4vrxild1.jpeg (204.85 KiB) Viewed 3813 times

Plaque_with_Galloping_Horse_and_Rider_Gupta_period_4-5th_century_Uttar_Pradesh_India.jpg (218.59 KiB) Viewed 3813 times

[rbodleyscott]

Thanks!

I've also checked some ancient Indian armies through the Time Warp feature.

I would again recommend replacing Indian Close Fighter skin with the Indian Javelinmen skin, since quilted armor was wide spread from at least the 3rd century CE onwards.

I am just revisiting this, with a view to the next update.

Note that quilted armour would still count as "Protected" under the rules, rather than "Armoured". To qualify as Armoured it has to be metal armour.

So would there be significant numbers of infantry with metal armour?

[newbiesoldat]

No, almost all of the infantry in Classical India would be wearing Quilted Tunic. Only exception would be the elite Maula Troops, the hereditary warriors maintained as fulltime professionals, these would wear mail or scale armour.

Protected status is good enough, I just want Indian Close Figters to have Indian Javelin skin as melee soldiers would wear armour. The bear chested would be the Javelin men who would represent the Atavika troops (Tribals from forests and frontiers).

This is a good example of how non elite but professional soldiers would be armoured in both Classical and Early Medieval India.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160322060 ... x-DAM.html

[newbiesoldat]

Example of Gupta period (4th to 6th century CE) Quilted Cotton Armour

zl3i27cwqgpf1.jpeg (334.27 KiB) Viewed 1544 times

[rbodleyscott]

Protected status is good enough, I just want Indian Close Figters to have Indian Javelin skin as melee soldiers would wear armour. The bear chested would be the Javelin men who would represent the Atavika troops (Tribals from forests and frontiers).

Fair enough, but would bare chested close-fighters be more correct for the pre-4th century AD period? If so, I can swap the models over starting with the 320-545 AD list. (There are no light javelinmen in the earlier list).

[newbiesoldat]

From Mauryan period onwards at least, North Indian Melee soldiers wore armour, in the South you had a more complicated case, there existed both very heavily armoured, lightly armoured and bare chested soldiers, sometimes simultaneously in the army.

Here you can see the Mauryan and Shunga period footsoldiers wearing sort of banded armour.

War_of_the_Relics_of_the_Buddha_Sanchi_Stupa_1Southern_Gateway.jpg (834.76 KiB) Viewed 1494 times

By the 3rd Century CE, North Indian Armies wore more extensive armour, this is a coin of the Yaudheya Republic, they were Warrior caste republic, they were famed as 'Heroes among the Kshatriyas'

yaudheya coin.jpg (83.71 KiB) Viewed 1494 times

In the South, by the 5th century, most wore either scale/mail or some sort of tunic, as seen from this Ajanta Cave 17 painting.

Coming_Of_Sinhala_(Mural_At_Ajanta_In_Cave_No_17).jpg (3.22 MiB) Viewed 1494 times

However, the amount of armour used in South was not linear, for example during the Satavahana period (ending in the 3rd century CE), Deccan armies were more heavily armoured with head to toe armour for both men and animals, these were common enough for their multiple representations to have survived.


So I would recommend Pre-Mauryan North Indian infantry (till mid 4th century BCE) to be mostly bare chested, while from Mauryan empire onwards either banded or tunic armour was the standard issue among the infantry, and by the 7th century, by the time of Emperor Harsa, coats were also a feature. However, there always was an elite contingent with scale or mail armour, but that would require a new unit altogether.

For South India, I would recommend bare chested for armies earlier than 2nd century BCE, though they used bare chested soldiers alongside armoured ones all the way till the colonial period, so maybe 2 units might be required. Far South such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala had loincloth wearing soldiers, while Karnataka, just to the north of these states had mostly armoured soldiers since at least 2nd century BCE.

PS: Interestingly even a Dutch or Portuguese observer in the 16th century noted that while the Karnataka soldiers were well armoured and fought in disciplined ranks, they were matched by the near naked soldiers of Kerala, who fought without formation but were more fierce. So you can see how much the environment plays a role here.

[newbiesoldat]

The elites would be like this, this is from the Mauryan to Pre-Gupta period (330 BCE-250 CE)

Magadha, Eastern India, 200 BCE

Clay disc depicting chariot and archer from 200 BCE, Pataliputra, Bihar.jpeg (254.89 KiB) Viewed 1490 times

Satavahana Soldiers, Deccan, 2nd Century BCE to 217 CE

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Satavahana Armoured Elephant

satavahana elephant.png (250.88 KiB) Viewed 1490 times

[newbiesoldat]

You'll have to make new units to show Elite Armoured North Indian or South Indian infantry, so this is your call.

Ancient and Classical Indian Military manuals classified soldiers into:

1. Hereditary Warriors (Fulltime soldiers from Military families, usually armoured in scale or mail)

2. Paid Soldiers (Raised mostly during war and paid in money etc, using banded or tunic based armour)

3. Mercenaries (Mercenary Guilds, Martial communities for hire, or soldiers from commerical guilds enlisted for war,armour would depend upon the company, guild or community)

4. Forest tribes who mostly fought bare chested, and were used for foraging, scouting or feints such decoy attacks and feigned retreats.

This makes having a single armoured, protected or unarmoured unit to represent the Indian infantry difficult as there was an entire spectrum of classes from which men were supplied for the army.

[rbodleyscott]

You'll have to make new units to show Elite Armoured North Indian or South Indian infantry, so this is your call.

Not feasible, I am afraid.

The earliest Indian list in the game covers 500 BC - 319 AD, with the Mauryan period starting in 320 BC. I do not envisage splitting the list for a quibble over the first 180 years, nor into North and South Indian versions. Thus the simplest fix will be to simply swap the textures as previously suggested.(The models are the same anyway).

[newbiesoldat]

Came across this, this should clarify pre-Mauryan Ancient Indian soldiers and their armour. It seems Indians wore cotton made armour as a standard issue.

Gem in the Lotus by Abraham Eraly.jpeg (426.2 KiB) Viewed 1293 times

Source: Gems in the Lotus by Abraham Eraly

[newbiesoldat]

You'll have to make new units to show Elite Armoured North Indian or South Indian infantry, so this is your call.

Not feasible, I am afraid.

The earliest Indian list in the game covers 500 BC - 319 AD, with the Mauryan period starting in 320 BC. I do not envisage splitting the list for a quibble over the first 180 years, nor into North and South Indian versions. Thus the simplest fix will be to simply swap the textures as previously suggested.(The models are the same anyway).

No problem, the skin swap should do, and it seems cotton remained the standard issue for Indian soldiers right till the modern period, with only the select professional infantry and the elite mounted units using mail or scale and later plate and mail widely.

[rbodleyscott]

Came across this, this should clarify pre-Mauryan Ancient Indian soldiers and their armour. It seems Indians wore cotton made armour as a standard issue.

Gem in the Lotus by Abraham Eraly.jpeg


Source: Gems in the Lotus by Abraham Eraly

I have to play the devil's advocate and point out that it says that they wore cotton garments - which might or might not have been armour, and might even just be a "skirt". The point is more that their garments were made of cotton and not linen or wool.

However, that quibble does not alter the intention to swap the models.

[newbiesoldat]

Yes, you could be right about that, cotton must have been a novelty factor for the Greek perspective. Pre-Mauryan Indian armies are a bit more difficult to reconstruct since we don't have any visual or even proper textual data representing their equipments and tactics.We only know that elite like Porus wore impressive armours which apparently had a weak spot around one of the shoulders I think.

We have some idea that Indian Longbows were very effective, and that all carried a broadsword as a sidearm, and that Indian cavalry carried two javelins and a small shield.