Why did chariots stop being used during the medieval era? What

>>2643788
Calavery became alot more effective to it was a waste of horses to use chariots.

>>2643808
Can you elaborate on this? Why was cavalry more effective in medieval Europe?

>>2643788
Chariots weren't widely used during Roman times. That shit is early to mid Bronze Age.

Romans rarely used chariots outside of racing and gladiator games. That was more of a Gaul thing.

>>2643815
Chariots were used extensively by barbarians inhabiting the British Isles. Caesar's writings describe in great detail how they were utilized in battle. You are right though, as aside from the Celts I don't believe there was much use elsewhere in the world contemporaneous to Rome.

>>2643812
Think about it

The Romans never used chariots in warfare. Xenophon, in the 4th century BC, already implies that chariots became obsolete some time ago.

1. Horses were starting to be bred with warfare in mind. Bigger, faster, stronger horses means you don't need a chariot.

2. A chariot only functions well on specific terrain. For example before the Battle of Guagamela it's said that Darius had the ground levelled so he could more effectively deploy his chariots. Cavalry doesn't have that problem.

3. A large amount of chariots is a logistical nightmare. You have to maintain and repair them, you might have to build more, and most of the time you need two horses to pull one.

4. Chariots were primarily used for skirmishing. Cavalry can skirmish, charge, scout, flank, cover a retreat, etc. They can do everything chariots can do and more besides.

5. With heavy infantry becoming more popular chariots were less effective generally.

>>2643788
Chariots were used at a time that horses were to weak to bear the weight of a man of their back and move at speed. In the wild horses are not made to carry things on their backs. However they could easily pull a great deal of weight. After centuries of unintentional selective breeding for the strongest horses they were able to carry a man on their backs. At that point a chariot is just a needless addition, especially once saddles became more sophisticated.

>>2643788
Horses weren't very big back then so you couldn't have heavily armored troops ride on them for very long or at any great speed. Also horse riding hadn't really developed very much at that point.

>>2643812
Horses had been bred to be big enough to carry armored knights, and technologies such as the stirrup made mounted warfare more effective. In the heydays of the chariot, horses were smaller and the technology to mount them hadn't been invented. As this changed, chariots were displaced by more maneuverable cavalry.

>>2643812
Geography. Most European terrain is forest and getting a chariot around would be a pain in the ass. And bad to no roads didn't make it any better.

>>2644054
> Most European terrain is forest
This meme needs to end.

Most of Europe was deforested by the bronze age.

>>2643788
Chariots are only used due to the fact that earlier horses couldn't carry too much weight and horse-ridding techniques weren't as polished.

whole point of Calvary is its maneuverability and speed not easy to have with a bulky and busy cart holding down your horses.

>>2643788
They were slow and hard to control.

Also, horse archers could do what cavalry did, but more efficiently.

File: 10-roman-military-innovations-facts_2.jpg (87KB, 770x578px) Image search: [Google]

87KB, 770x578px

>>2644387
>Also, horse archers could do what cavalry did, but more efficiently.

they couldn't carry mobile artillery