horse archer shooting at full gallop, undated relief at the
Palazzo Madama, Turin. Horse archery first developed during the
Iron Age, gradually replacing the Bronze Age
chariot. The earliest depictions are found in the artwork of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire of about the 9th century BC and reflect the incursions of the early
Iranian peoples. Early horse archery, depicted on the Assyrian carvings, involved two riders, one controlling both horses while the second shot. Heavy horse archers first appeared in the Assyrian army in the 7th century BC after abandoning
chariot warfare and formed a link between light skirmishing cavalrymen and heavy
cataphract cavalry. The heavy horse archers usually had
mail or
lamellar armor and helmets, and sometimes even their horses were armored. Mounted archery was prevalent in the cavalry tactics of
Meroitic and post-Meroitic
Nubia. Skirmishing requires vast areas of free space to run, maneuver, and flee, and if the terrain is close, light horse archers can be charged and defeated easily. Light horse archers are also very vulnerable to foot archers and crossbowmen, who are smaller targets and can outshoot horsemen. Large armies very seldom relied solely on skirmishing horse archers, but there are many examples of victories in which horse archers played a leading part. The Roman general
Crassus led a large army, with inadequate cavalry and missile troops, to catastrophe against
Parthian horse archers and
cataphracts at the
Battle of Carrhae. The Persian king Darius the Great led a
campaign against the mounted Scythians, who refused to engage in pitched battle; Darius conquered and occupied land but lost enough troops and supplies that he was compelled to withdraw. Darius, however, kept the lands he had conquered. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Persian general Mardonius used horse archers to attack and harass his opponents during the Battle of Plataea, which was won by the Greeks.
Philip of Macedon scored an epic victory against the Scythians residing north of the Danube, killing their king,
Ateas, and causing their kingdom to fall apart thereafter.
Alexander the Great defeated
Scythians/
Sakas in 329 BC at the
Battle of Jaxartes, at the
Syr Darya river. Later on, Alexander himself used mounted archers recruited among the Scythians and
Dahae, during the
Greek invasion of India. The Roman Empire and its military also had extensive use of horse archers after their conflict with eastern armies that relied heavily on mounted archery in the 1st century BC. They had regiments such as the
Equites Sagittarii, who acted as Rome's horse archers in combat. The
Crusaders used conscripted cavalry and horse archers known as the
Turcopole, made up of mostly Greek and Turks. Heavy horse archers, instead of skirmishing and hit-and-run tactics, formed in disciplined formations and units, sometimes intermixed with lancers as in Byzantine and Turkish armies, and shot as volleys instead of shooting as individuals. The usual tactic was to first shoot five or six volleys at the enemy to weaken him and to disorganize them, and then charge. Heavy horse archers often carried spears or lances for close combat or formed mixed units with lancers. The Mongol armies and others included both heavy and light horse archers. Heavy horse archers could usually outshoot their light counterparts, and because of the armor they wore, could better withstand return fire. The Russian
druzhina cavalry developed as a countermeasure to the Tatar light troops. Likewise, the Turkish timariot and qapikulu were often as heavily armored as Western knights and could match the Hungarian, Albanian, and Mongol horse archers. Vietnam's mounted archers were first recorded in the 11th century. In 1017, Emperor
Lý Công Uẩn of
Đại Việt opened the
Xa Dinh (archery school) in southern Hanoi and ordered all children of noblemen and mandarins to be trained in mounted archery. During the reign of
Lý Thánh Tông, the royal guards had 20 horse archer teams, combined into 5 companies named
Kỵ Xạ,
Du Nỗ,
Tráng Nỗ,
Kính Nỗ, and
Thần Tý, comprising about 2,000 skillful horse archers. They later effectively participated in the
Invasion of Song China (1075 – 1076) and caused heavy casualties to the Song army. The Ly Dynasty's horse archers also fought against
Champa (1069) and the
Khmer Empire (1125–1130) which both were victories for Đại Việt. Later, following the decline of the Lý dynasty, most horse archer teams were disbanded. German and Scandinavian medieval armies made extensive use of
mounted crossbowmen. They would act not only as scouts and skirmishers but also protect the flanks of the knights and infantry, chasing away enemy light cavalry. When the battle was fully engaged, they would charge at the enemy flank, shoot a single devastating volley at point-blank range and then attack the enemy with swords, without reloading. In some instances, mounted crossbowmen could also reload and fire continuously on horseback if they used specific "weaker" crossbows that could be reloaded easily, as mentioned in the 13th-century Norwegian educational text
Konungs skuggsjá. The invention of
spanning mechanisms such as the goat's foot lever and the cranequin allowed mounted crossbowmen to reload and fire heavy crossbows on horseback.
Decline Horse archery was usually ineffective against massed foot archery. The foot archers or crossbowmen could outshoot horse archers and a man alone is a smaller target than a man and a horse. The Crusaders countered the Turkoman horse archery with their crossbowmen, and Genoese crossbowmen were favoured mercenaries in both Mamluk and Mongol armies. Likewise the Chinese armies consisted of massed crossbowmen to counter the nomad armies. A nomad army that wanted to engage in an archery exchange with foot archers would itself normally dismount. The typical Mongol archer shot from a sitting position when dismounted. Horse archers were eventually rendered obsolete by the maturity of
firearm technology. In the 16th and subsequent centuries, various cavalry forces armed with firearms gradually started appearing. Because the conventional
arquebus and
musket were too awkward for a cavalryman to use, lighter weapons such as the
carbine had to be developed, which could be effectively used from horseback, much in the same manner as the
composite recurve bow presumably developed from earlier bows. 16th-century
dragoons and
carabiniers were heavier cavalry equipped only with firearms, but pistols coexisted with the composite bow, often used by the same rider, well into the 17th century in Eastern Europe, especially with the Russians, Kalmyks, Turks, and Cossacks. For many armies, mounted archery remained an effective tactical system in open country until the introduction of repeating firearms. By the 18th century, firearms had largely displaced traditional
composite bows in Mongolia, whereas in
Manchuria horse archery was still highly esteemed. In the 1758
Battle of Khorgos, mounted Mongolian
Dzungars troops armed with muskets faced off against
Qing Dynasty mounted Manchurian, Mongolian, and Chinese archers armed with
Manchu bows. The battle was won by the Qing forces. Traditional Manchurian archery continued to be practiced in China up to the overthrow of the
Qing Dynasty in 1911. During the
Napoleonic Wars, the
Russian Imperial Army deployed Cossack, Bashkir, and Kalmyk horse archers against Napoleon's forces.
Baron de Marbot writes that on the eve of the
Battle of Leipzig, his forces encountered mounted archers: Although general de Marbot describes the horse archers in disdainful terms, the general was himself wounded in the leg by an enemy arrow, and Baskir troops were amongst the occupying troops in Paris in 1814. It has been proposed that firearms began to replace bows in Europe and Russia not because firearms were superior but because they were easier to use and required less practice. However, discussing
buffalo hunting in 1846,
Francis Parkman noted that "the bows and arrows which the Indians use in running buffalo have many advantages over firearms, and even white men occasionally employ them." The
Comanches of North America found their bows more effective than muzzle loading guns. "After... about 1800, most Comanches began to discard muskets and pistols and to rely on their older weapons." Bows were still used by Native Americans in the late
American Indian Wars, but almost all warriors who had immediate access to modern repeating firearms used these guns instead. ==Technology==