Chariot armour in Swifter than Eagles

[Decoucy2]

...another question on the representation of high bronze age chariots in Swifter than Eagles (STE).

Classical Greek cavalry, c350-400BC involves an unshielded man with a bronze or linen cuirass on an unarmoured horse.

This is classified as "armoured".

Maryannu chariotry c1200BC involves two men with full length bronze scale hauberks, riding in a chariot that provides an additional layer of protection up to the waste, pulled by two horses that are themselves often armoured either with textile or even bronze scale coverings.

This is classified as "protected".

While I realise that Field of Glory is designed "top down" for overall effect rather than "bottom up" from equipment, this looks the wrong way round.

Also, if one allowed two horse maryannu-style bow equipped chariots to vary in armour this would provide a potentially (IMHO) better way of providing variation within and between the various high bronze age armies than leaning on historically dubious spear armed "shock" chariots that probably did not exist. One could imagine something like the following for Mitanni:

Royal Guard Chariots. Highly Superior Light Chariot, Armour, Bow 0-4
Maryannu Chariots. Superior Light Chariot, Some Armour, Bow 4-6
Vassal or provincial chariots. Above average light chariot, Protected, Bow. 0-8

Teasing out bronze age chariot representation further, it might be worth considering how three person two horse chariots such as those used by Hatti and Ugarit are represented. In the representations we have these look much more similar to 2 horse light chariots with an extra person than the later iron age three and four horse heavy chariots used by the later Assyrians, Babylon, and Urartu. Perhaps, rather than representing these as heavy chariots, it would be better to represent them as light chariots with the additional swordsman capability. In this case swordsman doesn't represent a difference in equipment, but acts to give three person chariots better performance relative to two horse chariots in extended melee where an additional warm body would add an advantage. Imperial Hittite three person chariots would then be something like:

Hittite chariots. Superior Light Chariot. Armour. Bow, Swordsman.

Thoughts?
De Coucy

[rbodleyscott]

Chariots are not rated as Protected, they in fact have no armour rating specified at all. Although no armour rating is specified, they are actually treated the same as Armoured cavalry for shooting mitigation.

Also bear in mind that considering their numbers, chariots already have an inflated effect relative to cavalry. Also their relative vulnerability to horse casualties is hard to determine - despite horse protection, losing a single horse might or might not disable a chariot - thus rendering 2 or 3 crew hors de combat - we don't know for certain. In short, trying to go "bottom up" in calculating their effect is a "road to nowhere".

Whether Hittite chariots in fact operated with three crew is debatable. The alternative interpretation is that the third man seen in contemporary depictions is a chariot runner being given a lift. If so, he would jump out before actual combat. But, if so, what extra weight would he give to the chariots if he was able to closely cooperate on foot? But then again, the Egyptians also used chariot runners.

With such uncertainty, representation more or less has to be "top down", and we chose to represent them as we have done.

[Joch1955]

I have to admit I have also been thinking about this issue, but more the issue of the “effectiveness” of Chariots in battle. Now there have been a lot of discussions/doctrine/debates on the effectiveness of cavalry from the introduction of stirrups in the 8th century to Napoleon’s wars without any consensus, even though there is lot of documentary evidence.

Trying to determine the effectiveness/composition of Chariot units 3000+ years ago when the documentary/archeological evidence is so fragmentary is even harder. Even though some contemporary authors seem to imbue Chariots with almost mythical qualities, I have trouble believing they would be anywhere near as effective as stirrup equipped heavy cavalry in the Middle Ages (i.e FOG2M).

The big issue for me is the off road capability. Unlike Horses, which are the original off road vehicle, Chariots would have trouble navigating any off road terrain that was not flat and hard…which basically covers pretty much all off road terrain in that era.

The way chariots are currently modeled in game, fragile, only really useful against other chariots or against fragmented/disrupted/routed infantry feels correct to me.