So I played a fun game recently of Byzantine 579 - 599 vs Sassanid Persian 591 - 628.
I went mostly as horse archers and lancers and my opponent outplayed me and I lost my small infantry force early.
The weird part was that their elephants were just pretty much immune to my cavalry. Ranged fire routinely gave results of 0 - 0 and elephants seemed pretty much free to wander through my cavalry like sharks through a school of fish with flank charges giving at best a draw and most likely a loss. I get elephants should defeat a cavalry army but it did end up seeming a bit extreme? Like it's hard to imagine an elephant just being able to wander through like that without any concern.
Don't get me wrong, I lost because my opponent had a better strategy and executed it well. The power differential of elephants made sense head on but being near invulnerable seemed a bit extreme? or did that actually happen in history.
Byzantine Vs Sassanid Persian Elephants
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benzidrine
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Re: Byzantine Vs Sassanid Persian Elephants
In such a situation, keep shooting. As Mongols learned during the battle of Battle of Ngasaunggyan, horses will always rout from elephants, but eventually some 'phants will rout from constant shower of missiles, and then the panic spreads amongst the phans. Just shoot concentrating on one, eventually you will cause a hit here and another there and at some point it will disrupt the phant. Next turn repeat until it is fragmented, and then charge in with your non-missile cavalry to break the fragmented 'phant. That should spread disorder to adjacent 'phants, and then just repeat the process (shoot until fragmented, charge to break the fragmented unit, panic spreads).
There are three kinds of people, those who can count and those who can't.
Re: Byzantine Vs Sassanid Persian Elephants
Indeed, keep shooting 
Horses are moderately disordered close to enemy elephants.
(while one unit of four horse archers or lancers represents 240 horsemen). So you fight against 20 elephants at once.
Horses are moderately disordered close to enemy elephants.
Speaking of imagination, I'm sure you know it: one unit made up of one 3D model of elephant represents 20 elephants IRLbenzidrine wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:13 am Like it's hard to imagine an elephant just being able to wander through like that without any concern.
(while one unit of four horse archers or lancers represents 240 horsemen). So you fight against 20 elephants at once.
Re: Byzantine Vs Sassanid Persian Elephants
Plus, elephants don't have automatic cohesion drop if flank-charged by horses, but they do if charged by foot. Besides, don't give up shooting even you just see 0 results. Multiple shooting with multiple 0s will give you cohesion test of elephants at last.
miles evocatus luce mundi
Re: Byzantine Vs Sassanid Persian Elephants
As mentioned, concentrated shooting will eventually yield results.
A couple of other points...
1. Your horse archers are more effective at range of 2 as you're not disordered.
2. Moving and shooting is less effective, so, whenever possible try to arrange your archers so the elephants you plan to shoot end in arc and range. This is usually hard to do as the elephant owner is usually not too cooperative.
3. Beware of overtargeting; if the elephants pass a CT check, they won't actually have a chance of failing another unless you inflict a lot more casualties - always difficult vs elephants. If I have a lot of ammo available and the number of elephants is low, I sometimes ignore this and shoot anyway as you can still kill off a few more which will make future checks easier to fail.
4. If you're potentially facing elephants, max out on the light foot you can bring as they are quite effective elephant hunters. JLS troops in particular are great if you can get them into range. The trick of course is getting them into range of the elephants as they're likely to be screened by other troops. Try to keep these guys fresh and uncommitted until you can unleash them on their target. Hiding them in woods or marshes and luring the elephants near these spots can work sometimes.
5. When possible, you might use light horse to block elephants path. This will force the owner to bring up other troops to drive off your horse or charge with the elephant, potentially exposing it to waiting hunters further out of range.
6. Never leave lancers anywhere near elephants or you will have much wailing and gnashing of teeth in short order.
7. Be wary of charging fragmented elephants with mounted. If the elephants don't break, you may come to grief from their friends before the elephants finally crack.
8. Whenever feasible, pursue routing elephants. light horse work well for this as they can't be outrun. Nothing is more depressing than having an enemy elephant rally in succeeding turns and return to the fray.
A couple of other points...
1. Your horse archers are more effective at range of 2 as you're not disordered.
2. Moving and shooting is less effective, so, whenever possible try to arrange your archers so the elephants you plan to shoot end in arc and range. This is usually hard to do as the elephant owner is usually not too cooperative.
3. Beware of overtargeting; if the elephants pass a CT check, they won't actually have a chance of failing another unless you inflict a lot more casualties - always difficult vs elephants. If I have a lot of ammo available and the number of elephants is low, I sometimes ignore this and shoot anyway as you can still kill off a few more which will make future checks easier to fail.
4. If you're potentially facing elephants, max out on the light foot you can bring as they are quite effective elephant hunters. JLS troops in particular are great if you can get them into range. The trick of course is getting them into range of the elephants as they're likely to be screened by other troops. Try to keep these guys fresh and uncommitted until you can unleash them on their target. Hiding them in woods or marshes and luring the elephants near these spots can work sometimes.
5. When possible, you might use light horse to block elephants path. This will force the owner to bring up other troops to drive off your horse or charge with the elephant, potentially exposing it to waiting hunters further out of range.
6. Never leave lancers anywhere near elephants or you will have much wailing and gnashing of teeth in short order.
7. Be wary of charging fragmented elephants with mounted. If the elephants don't break, you may come to grief from their friends before the elephants finally crack.
8. Whenever feasible, pursue routing elephants. light horse work well for this as they can't be outrun. Nothing is more depressing than having an enemy elephant rally in succeeding turns and return to the fray.