Were mounted camel archers actually a thing?

[Orcs]

I seem to remember the main reason for using camels was to make your opponents horse mounted cavalry very skittish.

Not that horses need much to make them skittish.

[steve_holmes_11]

I seem to remember the main reason for using camels was to make your opponents horse mounted cavalry very skittish.

Not that horses need much to make them skittish.

Carry more than horses, faster over long distances than horses, and go longer between fuel stops.
All of which are great "Top trumps" for your baggage train or mounted infantry.

I have enough trouble imaging combat on horseback.
Trying to figure out whether it's possible on camels is way beyond me.

[John Cook]

It seems to me that as far as mounted troops among the Islamic armies of the Middle Ages are concerned, the horse predominates, by a very long way indeed.  My little knowledge is confined, more or less, to the Battle of Hattin and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and I have yet to find examples of camel mounted-troops in the Ayyubid armies of that time although I am confident they were used for baggage, as draught animals and also for meat and milk.
On the other hand I'm aware of the existence of camel-mounted archers in other Muslim medieval armies.   But I'm unsure about their tactical employment and as bows were certainly fired from horse back, I see no practical reason to prevent them being fired from the back of a camel.  I suspect though, that camel-mounted troops were more of the nature of mounted infantry, rather like mounted crossbowmen who dismounted to fight.

[flamingpig0]

I remember that quite ludicrously that the double mounted Midianite camel commandos were  devastatingly effective in WRG 7th.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

I remember that quite ludicrously that the double mounted Midianite camel commandos were  devastatingly effective in WRG 7th.

Probably cause Sue barker had some...

[DecemDave]

Since my previous non answer, I have been skimming me books and all I have so far is another non answer although this time it does support the idea of mounting on camels  for mobility on campaign but not everyone fighting that way:

Aram's book on Khalid Bin Al-Waleed ("The Sword of Allah")  p271 ISBN 978-0-954866-52-5
The main instruments that Khalid used to make his ambitious manoeuvres so successful were the fighting quality of the Muslims and the mobility of the army.....Though only part of the army was actual cavalry, the entire army was camel mounted for movement........

This is the army that overcame the non believer Arabs and went on to overrun most of the Middle East.
 
The book focuses on how generalship, strategy,  manoeuvre, morale, terrain and deployment win battles. there is very little on specific weaponry.  Sorry WRG

So you could certainly field tabletop camel mounted archers in this army much as you might field mounted dragoons in an ECW or Napoleonic one.

[mmcv]

Since my previous non answer, I have been skimming me books and all I have so far is another non answer although this time it does support the idea of mounting on camels  for mobility on campaign but not everyone fighting that way:

Aram's book on Khalid Bin Al-Waleed ("The Sword of Allah")  p271 ISBN 978-0-954866-52-5
The main instruments that Khalid used to make his ambitious manoeuvres so successful were the fighting quality of the Muslims and the mobility of the army.....Though only part of the army was actual cavalry, the entire army was camel mounted for movement........

This is the army that overcame the non believer Arabs and went on to overrun most of the Middle East.
 
The book focuses on how generalship, strategy,  manoeuvre, morale, terrain and deployment win battles. there is very little on specific weaponry.  Sorry WRG

So you could certainly field tabletop camel mounted archers in this army much as you might field mounted dragoons in an ECW or Napoleonic one.

Thanks, that's good to know. Arab Conquest is another on my long long todo list, especially since many of the later Arab forces can proxy for earlier and vice versa and it would be fun to get some Byzantines and Sassanids on the go.

I think treating as mounted infantry is probably the way to go. I'll probably class them as some form of Mob/Rabble (i.e. low combat ability) but otherwise as foot archers (possibly small) with a larger movement range. Then assume they're just hopping on and off to shoot without worrying too much about it.

[FierceKitty]

I'm not sure I'd care to hop on and off. Camels are big.

[steve_holmes_11]

I'm not sure I'd care to hop on and off. Camels are big.

They're fairly good at kneeling and staning up again while fully loaded, if properly trained.

Here's one that required the jockey to hop off.

[steve_holmes_11]

I suppose the key consideration for a game design is whether dismounting makes a difference.

The mounted archers might remain mounted and plink away form their swaying saddles.
Or they might stop, hop off and shoot from terra firma.

If camel mounted archers were some kind of highly mobile LRDG/SAS type strike force, then hopping off causes some problems.
But if (as we appear to suspect), they weren't particularly quick, then a bit of a rush to the shooting point, followed by some rapid volleys on foot might be perfectly adequate.

The shooters will have their camels with them, whether sat on, or stood beside.
If you go in for horse worrying, then the effect is still there.
Which reminds me of something about Cyrus sticking his men behind a line of baggage camels to upset Croesus' scary impetuous cavalry.

Here's Wikipedia with mostly extracts from ancient historians - two suspect sources for the price of one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry

[mmcv]

Yeah, the idea would be light horse archers are zipping about the battlefield evading and harassing but have a generally shorter range than foot archers. I'm going for big battle abstraction over modelling every detail of the combat so in the scope of a turn it's probably fine to assume the camel mounted archers are moving to a good position then dismounting to fire.

[Big Insect]

Mark "Big Insect" Fry is your man for stuff like this and cataphract camels as well.

I researched camels for my 1840 Algeria project and found no evidence that camels were used in combat.

There are a few pieces of artwork representing camels in skirmishes but nothing in large battles or close combat.

My understanding, from reading various c19th French & British books, was that the camel was used in a strategic role.

It got them to the battlefield and then the troops either fought on foot or on horseback.

Have a look at Small Wars by Major C.E Callwell . He basically says that they are fine for getting to a battle but rubbish in a battle

This is one of those ongoing wargames topics - that rears its ugly, spitting, bad breathed, head every so often.

Earliest depictions of camels in warfare appear to be the Assyrian reliefs of mounted Midianite camel raiders (2 per camel) being 'seen-off' by Assyrian horse archers.
The archers on the camels are shown as loosing their bow whilst mounted.

You then see depictions in Seleucid/Successor armies of allied Aramaean camel riders - they of the very long swords - that also have bows. But whether they used the bow mounted is guesswork. These same camel warriors appear in later post Successor Hatran and other Aramaean/Syrian city-state armies through to the Parthian and Sasanian era. Palmyran city state military camelry appears to be spear armed with no bows (as were Middle Imperial Roman camel units). However, I think it is highly likely that the Palmyran & Roman camelry were more likely mounted infantry equivalents. There is a great depiction of a mail armoured camel lancer from gandhara - showing the saddel on the back of the camel hump - as we see today in modern camel racing. This is clearly a mounted offensive warrior. Hatrans & Parthians both seemed to have experimented with cataphract armoured camels - with no great success as the Roman Legionaries they were attacking just scattered caltraps across their front and the soft-feet of the camels was especially vulnerable to them.

You can read of camels being used by Arab Conquest Muslim armies using camels - but mainly as transports to the battlefield - although there is a Sasanian reference to the use of iron spikes as field defences to protect Sasanian infantry from arab horses and camel attacks. Central Asian Silk Road city states and certain chinese & tibetan armies used camels - but again it appears to be mainly as a mode of transport to allow infantry to keep up with the horse mounted arm of the armies.

From a wargames perspective the most 'insidious' representation of camels has appeared relatively recently with a plethora of almost invincible Tuareg and Beja type camel mounted armies, which I view a bit like the D'reg from the Terry Pratchett Disc-world novels and I quote:
" The D'regg are a cheerfully anarchistic desert tribe in Klatch who will fight anyone on general principles"!
NB: I did once fight against a HoTT D'regg army with the camels as knights and the foot warriors as Warband and an assortment of wild domesticated animals - chicken, sheep, goats & donkeys as Beasts - it was very effective.

And finally to the question ... did medieval 'Saracen' type armies use mounted camel archers? Personally I doubt it - I can find no references to them doing so.

I hope that is helpful

Mark

[mmcv]

Very helpful, thank you!

I've also yet to find any references to it in period either, other than as transport and baggage.

[Raider4]

Having seen how bloody awkward it is to get on & off camels close-up, and seen how precarious people look when perched upon the saddle when mounted, I find it difficult to imagine camels being used in any sort of frontline action.

[Big Insect]

Very helpful, thank you!
I've also yet to find any references to it in period either, other than as transport and baggage.

The closest visual depiction I can find, of a military camel, to the timeframe you refer to, is a very nice c.11th/12th century Byzantine mosaic in the cathedral at Palermo (the Palatine Chapel in Palermo's Norman Palace) of an unarmoured Arab lancer/spearman, with a shield on a camel. However, we are none the wiser from this depiction as to whether he is willing and able to fight mounted or is just using the camel as a means of transport.

There are Kushan ceramic bowls showing hunting scenes of bows being used from camel-back - there are also metal (silver) Sassanid plates showing kings hunting with bows from camel-back - but again no military depictions.

C19th English written accounts of the Sudan Wars state that both the Dervish and Beja were prepared to engage in mounted combat from camel-back - but that was with swords, spears and match-lock muskets.

[mmcv]

Thanks Mark!

[Keraunos]

This quote is from Appian's Syrian War, an account of the Romans war against Antiochus III, describing the troops Antiochus fielded at the battle of Magnesia -

"There were also other mounted archers from the Dahae, Mysia, Elymais, and Arabia, riding on swift dromedaries, who shot arrows with dexterity from their high position, and used very long thin knives when they came to close combat."

[Big Insect]

That all sounds very plausible - especially the "long thin knives" as opposed to 6 feet long swords!

According to our old friend Wiki - "The first recorded use of the camel as a military animal was by the Arab king Gindibu, said to have employed as many as 1,000 camels at the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC." Which was fought against the Assyrians and the 'Arabs' referred to were Midianites, back then.

Cyrus the Great used camels, with platforms and archers on their backs, as also quoted by Herodotus at the Battle of Thymbra against the Lydians. But they appear to have been used primarily as a means of disrupting the Lydian cavalry.

Personally I've always been of the view that compared to a horse a camel comes a pretty poor second. So having all camels, no matter how armed or motivated, depicted as 'mediocre' or 'inferior' or 'Poor' (whatever terminology your rules use) is probably sensible.

 

[Keraunos]

I came across a rule set the other day that classified camels as "Bad Horse", which, given the character of camels, is a nice thought.

[Ithoriel]

A bad horse designed by a committee??