historical question

would a shield and spear not be sufficient?

>>35013071
The woods.

>>35013071
Mounted riflemen

>>35013071
I'm no expert, but
Pikes and Boards
Ballista
Sharpened sticks out of the ground

Depending on the when and where. Also I'm sure there were more and better solutions

>>35013096
This

>>35013071
Unmounted archers behind a wall of spears and shields?

>>35013119
>Sharpened sticks out of the ground
also surprisingly effective against the U.S. military

>>35013071
A shield wall and a strong shock cavalry reserve. Let the buggers tire themselves out, then bring up your (fresh) horses and fucking murder them.

-- Sincerely, Otto the First and Charles Martel

Walls, and hiring other steppe nomads to kill them.

This is why the Mongols were such rape, they captured Chinese siege engineers, and they were actually able to unify the tribes (this rarely if ever happens)

If you're up against Mongols, and gunpowder hasn't been invented yet, you need to get on a horse and ride it west as hard as you can until it dies, then get on another horse, and repeat the process for the rest of your life.

>>35013071
>Are there any effective counters to mounted archers?

volley fire

>>35013071
Hell that's easy, just long bow archers. Mounted archers are not armored, so an arrow into the horse is just as effect as shooting the archer himself.

>>35013071
Networks of castles. Everyone seems to forget this one, maybe in a rush for muh memetic badassery.

>>35013071
Landmines.
Serious answer? Breaking up the ground in which they move through, via stuff like concealed pit traps and large stakes.

>>35013146
The first to advance were the Mongols, whose force also included troops from the Kingdom of Georgia and about 500 troops from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, both of which had submitted to Mongol authority. The Mamluks had the advantage of knowledge of the terrain, and Qutuz capitalized on this by hiding the bulk of his force in the highlands, hoping to bait the Mongols with a smaller force under Baibars.

The two armies fought for many hours, with Baibars most of the time implementing hit-and-run tactics, in order to provoke the Mongol troops and at the same time preserve the bulk of his troops intact. When the Mongols carried out another heavy assault, Baibars – who it is said had laid out the overall strategy of the battle since he had spent much time in that region, earlier in his life, as a fugitive – and his men feigned a final retreat, drawing the Mongols into the highlands to be ambushed by the rest of the Mamluk forces concealed among the trees. The Mongol leader Kitbuqa, already provoked by the constant fleeing of Baibars and his troops, committed a grave mistake; instead of suspecting a trick, Kitbuqa decided to march forwards with all his troops on the trail of the fleeing Mamluks. When the Mongols reached the highlands, Mamluk forces emerged from hiding and began to fire arrows and attack with their cavalry. The Mongols then found themselves surrounded on all sides.

>>35013351
The Mongol army fought very fiercely and very aggressively to break out. Some distance away, Qutuz watched with his private legion. When Qutuz saw the left wing of the Mamluk army almost destroyed by the desperate Mongols seeking an escape route, Qutuz threw away his combat helmet, so that his warriors could recognize him. He was seen the next moment rushing fiercely towards the battlefield yelling "wa islamah!" ("Oh my Islam"), urging his army to keep firm, and advanced towards the weakened side, followed by his own unit. The Mongols were pushed back and fled to a vicinity of Bisan, followed by Qutuz's forces, but they managed to reorganize and return to the battlefield, making a successful counterattack. However, the battle shifted in favor of the Mamluks, who now had both the geographic and psychological advantage, and eventually some of the Mongols were forced to retreat. Kitbuqa and almost the whole Mongol army that had remained in the region perished.

File: ffwzAXw.jpg (2MB, 1818x1228px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1818x1228px

>>35013351
>The Mongols then found themselves surrounded on all sides.

Good. Screw the Mongols. I'd root for the ay-rabs any day even though I'm descended from them by name. They were brutal and relentless in their conquering and slaughter of people. I guess a lot of people did that, but the effects of that are felt to this day.

Am I wrong for this? Occaisonally I have read more nuanced history about Jingiz Khan and the Mongols posted from actual, educated /his/ types. Really skewed what I thought I "knew" about the Mongols. But they were still barbaric pagans that fcked up a lot of people.

>>35013071

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4b5IclFJ8Q

fortifications. heavy infantry. Archers with cover. Mounted archers can harass but they cannot hold ground.

>>35013281
Yep. Main reason Mongols stayed out of Europe was encastellation. That plus a relative lack of booty.

>>35013450
I always rooted for the Mongols because they killed enough Arabs and Chinks that European civilization could dominate the planet.

>>35013476
>Mounted archers can harass but they cannot hold ground.

Hrmmm good point.

And I appreciate the discussion this time /k/, when I last made this thread I just had a bunch of people answering "guns."

>>35013071
I've actually wondered something about this. Why didn't everyone just make more clever use of physical barriers to stop the arrows? Either equip every soldier with a relatively light, thin tower shield, or use communal, portable barriers of some sort, like a squad sized wooden turtle-shell thing that was rolled or carried along the battlefield?

I would think if you can use devices like that to force them to come in close, then you could turn it into a toe-to-toe slugfest with short swords. Just refuse to chase them, just kinda stand around until they come to you, and then cut them up every time they make contact. Of course you'd have basically no mobility at all, but you could kind of work with it, turn your whole army into basically a slow-moving juggernaut.

It would be useless on campaign--its sole purpose would be preventing horse archers from sacking cities. But I think it would be good at that.

Thoughts? And why did no one do this?

File: 0093b2fece0b8284d296438930d9e758cccc56a2_original.jpg (116KB, 749x589px) Image search: [Google]

116KB, 749x589px

>>35013071
Mountains were pretty effective against the Mongols, just take a look at the parts of Asia they skipped.

>>35013822
It looks like they took all of Afghanistan though...

>>35013840
Afghanistan isn't nearly as mountainous as those other parts.

>>35013071
open field combat
until firearms ... crossbows and longbows...

Field works or a castle.... even mongols could not take castles reliably till they swamped them with manpower

Fight on terrain that mounted troops do not like.. make terrain hostile thru obstacles or flooding

pin them with troops against impassable terrain if your troops can survive the arrows

see
>>35013351
>>35013361


>>35013822

Stopped by the Poles...

>>35013822
>Took Hindu-kush, persia, and most of anatolia
>got stopped by polish lowlanders and desert dwellers

Yeah, nah, The mongols couldn't hang with actual organized forces that differed drastically from them in organization and composition, outside of china that is. And the Song dynasty in china was on its last legs anyway. Kublai was just cleaning house, frankly.

>>35014115
They had a lot of difficulty in the Himalayas, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, etc.

It's basically one long chain of mountain ranges from Vietnam to the Hindu Kush, and they took the tail end, of a kingdom in decline.

>>35013071

Napalm.

Artillery.

Heavy machine guns.

Tanks.

Hydrogen bombs.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrttt.

File: image000000.gif (545KB, 261x231px) Image search: [Google]

545KB, 261x231px

Bolters

More archers than the enemy

>>35013315
Caltrops for days.

>>35013131
kek

>>35013071
standing still
mounted archers can't take a fortified position.

>>35013071
literally a gun.

>>35013071

Foot archers. Why you ask? they will be more accurate and be able to carry higher poundage bows ( so more range and power).