Is the Carthaginian Elephant with howdah suitable for Selucid?

[Orcs]

How easy is it to replace the crew on the Elephant with Howdah in the Carthaginian range ACR9?

Are they cast in or just free standing figures?

How close are the crew to Alexandrian / Selucid figures - ie would a paint conversion suffice?

Secondly is the old elephant with howdah stil a viable cast?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

From memory the Carthaginian elephants were a different breed to Indian ones, slightly larger I think. And I thought they didn't use Howdahs. Indian elephany=ts with Howdah would be correct. But it be your army so go as you feel is right.

[Big Insect]

Other way around Ian
Carthaginians, Numidians, Romans and later Ptolemaic armies (plus Nubians/Ethiopians) used the, now extinct, North African Forest Elephant.
It was smaller than the Indian Elephant (as used by the Seleucids and Macedonians) and a lot less aggressive.
It had larger ears, a more hollow back and a flatter forehead than the Indian/SE Asian Elephant. In essence it was a more docile and much smaller version of the African Savannah elephant - which is untamable and has never been used in warfare.

Not sure whether any of that matters (or is really that visible) in a 10mm model - the big difference is probably the crew in the howdah & what they are armed with.
Seleucid/Hellenistic elephants generally carried 3 combat crew in the tower/turret and a driver - whilst Carthaginians appear to have carried 1 or 2. Early on the carthaginians only had a driver (mahout) and no tower or fighting crew.

The Carthaginian crew were probably javelin or long spear armed - whilst the Seleucid crew could be armed with pike (sarrissa), or javelins or bows.
Selecuid elephants (specifically) were often armoured and sometimes had an Elephant Guard accompanying them - helmeted light infantry - in red tunics with a round bronze pelta and a brace of javelins - their job was to stop the elephants being ham-strung.

Later Sassanid elephants had armour and towers and 3 fighting crew and a mahout - so that seems to make it clear that the indian elephants were capable of carrying that sort of load.

Cheers
Mark

[FierceKitty]

One of Magister Militum's best models is their armoured Seleucid elephant.

[Leon]

If it helps at all, the crew are a separate casting so you could put whatever you wanted in the howdah.

[Orcs]

If it helps at all, the crew are a separate casting so you could put whatever you wanted in the howdah.

Brilliant, that gives me some food for thought.

[flamingpig0]

It partly depends on how obvious ear size is in 10mm castings.