Armoured Elephants

[john_dbmm]

Why isn't armour significant regarding elephants when its important to other troop types?
Armoured elephants must have been much more resilient versus missile fire and thus much less likely to stampede/break. I understand that armour isnt a criteria to upgrade elephants to (S) in the rules but im curiuos why? I have read that the crew of an elephant could be seen as a defensive sub-system to the weapon system itself, the elephant. Just like a MG on a tank. Its a active countermeasure but armour is also a countermessure, although its passive.

Ive seen this in other rule sets as well but I just cant get my head around the fact that armouring an elephant came at a great expense - if it wasn't significant - why did elephants get armoured at all?

[Orcoteuthis]

Because it was significant, just not significant enough to be represented in a fairly coarse classification? (That's a rationalization - I don't know Phil's actual reasoning.)

Since, IIRC, most armoured nellies would be in Bk. IV, it might be worthwhile to present a case on the Yahoo list once Phil's back - he's been known to make exceptions from the printed grading criteria before. (I know you don't list the list but it's where Phil is, and he's the one you'll have to convince if you want change.)

[john_dbmm]

Well I have an old Seleucid army and the armoured ellies there get (S) due to their escorts but while playing another ruleset that really mistreats elephants the thing started to annoy me. I just started collecting an Ghaznavid army and while getting further into their history it annoyed me even more, this time from both rulesets perspective, that armour has no effect - after all its much more costly to armour an elephant than to add some crew. Why would have been done if it wasn't significant?

I think all raise the question in the list as you proposed to get it addressed.

[MikeCampbell]

Lots of things get done/worn that are not significant in the wider sense - for example helmets are pretty significant armour for individuals, but few rules differentiate between helmeted and unhelmeted troops.

(as an aside on protective there was a short lived russian infantry uniform in the 1790's that did away with the excessive formalisation of such dress common at he time - the headgear was a cap with a steel "crest" across it (ear to ear) that was designed to protect het infantryman's head from sabre slashes.  The unitorm was abandoned by Paul I (I think) who was a Prusso/Frederick-phile so reintroduced the old clay, powder, stiff collars, etc.)

[Chang Noi]

Well I have an old Seleucid army and the armoured ellies there get (S) due to their escorts but while playing another ruleset that really mistreats elephants the thing started to annoy me. I just started collecting an Ghaznavid army and while getting further into their history it annoyed me even more, this time from both rulesets perspective, that armour has no effect - after all its much more costly to armour an elephant than to add some crew. Why would have been done if it wasn't significant?

I think all raise the question in the list as you proposed to get it addressed.

Hi John
Did you get an answer that made sense to you??
I got involved in the discussion and it went very wide and was often well away from armoured elephants.

I've done a lot of work on elephant warfare of late, albeit mostly in the SE Asian area, and I've come to the conclusion that armour on elephants make no difference, possibily even had a detremental effect. 
You will notice that generally, in all areas where elephants were used and many of which didn't have contact with each other, that armoured elephants were very,very rare.  Even those states rich enough to pay the exhorbinate price to armour them, didn't.  Those that did seem to have done it for prestige and/or as a visible elite so it was for morale effect rather than battlefield results.  Ghaznavids (of which I have a half built example) are one of those where (dispite their quite high outright numbers) the relative numbers to other troops and there concentration ratio made them a support arm rather than the main offense arm.

The full details are on the M2 List but in a nutshell my reasoning for discounting elephant armour in combat is that, apart from a very lucky critical hit, the beasts were basically immune to the missile weapons of the time due to the depth of tissue peneratration required to be more than a pin prick.  And the same peneratration problem existed for hand held weapons except if you failed you most likely got crushed.

Even for unarmoured elephants the sole point of attack was to dispose of the crew, this was standard practise in all theatres around the world.  The beast then wandered/was channelled off out of harms way where as was now undirected it'd seek food and water.  Elephants aren't naturally agressive. 

Basically tactics for dealing with armoured elephants were the same as unarmoured so the armour added nothing.  If anything it may have made it slower and more vunerable.

In effect it was all for show.

Thats my opinion of course, treat as you will, but it is from a fair bit of grappling with the subject.
Cheers
Wayne

[john_dbmm]

Thanks for a clear, reasoned, answer Wayne.
Why I reacted in the first place is part sprung from several examples in rules texts and such (not limited to DBMM) noting that elephants got aggrivated by prolonged missile harassment, the constant "stinging" making them go mad. I am aware (i am a biologist) about the exceptional toughness of the elephant skin and tissue. My view would be that armour would be very effective to screen this "stinging" of, making the animals themselves less prone to balk and become unruly to their handlers. Now, it would not help the crew much, with the possible exemption of the handler - him being protected to his front by armour attached to the elephants head (Indian and seleucid elephant armour at least), so i rest my case. The M2 list is good but i just cant make my self argue a case when people tend to "mix apples with pears".

[Valentinian Victor]

I believe that some Sasanid and Indian elephants had a quilted type armour designed to  prevent missiles from affecting the elephants too much.
Are there not accounts where light foot were trained to engage the elephants and disable them by hacking at their legs with axes, hamstringing them? And similarly were they also trained to cut the straps keeping the howdah's in place, again making the elephants rather ineffective?

[tadamson]

I think that a large part of the problem is that most wargames rules have a fundamental disconnect.  They are mostly based around classical warfare (Geeks and Womans, with some exotic barbarians ), but most elephants were used in India and SE Asia.

Elephant armour was widely used in India but it was for those beasts involved in sieges. These were 'trained' elephants rather than 'war' elephants (widely used to move logs, build roads etc.  There is the occasional use of armoured elephants on the battlefield, either as a prestige mount or a gimmick, but mostly the elephants are used as part of a mixed force of elephants and infantry that trained and fought together.  It's possible that the armour caused heat problems if worn for a while.

Interestingly, missile power was seen as the way to defeat elephants (if you didn't have elephants of your own), but missile defence was normally non existent.

Once the Greeks had introduced elephants to Classical warfare, the small numbers available led to very different tactics,and eventually to widespread use of armour and towers (another occasional gimmick for Indian forces).  There are also the 'intermediate' powers that straddled India and Persia/Afghanistan (Ghaznavids and Gourids primarily) who used large numbers in India and very small groups elsewhere.