Re: (TFT) Targeting Horses and their Riders

[Sgt Hulka <hulkasgt@yahoo.com>]

I've read some of those same statements, PvK. This is why I personally discount them:

Old school history generally treats historic individuals as idiots. When faced with something that doesn't make sense, old school historians used the excuse that people back then just didn't know any better. 

In my opinion, and it's only my opinion, this "social reason not to attack horses" has always smelled strongly to me of "those stupid middle ages people didn't realize they could just kill the horses and disrupt the cavalry charge ha ha ha how quaint they were back then."

Logically, knights, in particular, should be well-motivated to kill their opponents' horses because then it would be easier for them to capture and ransom said opponents. 

Peasants and militias would have no motivation whatsoever NOT to attack horses since they wouldn't get any of the proceeds of looted knightly horses, anyway.

And when a really big dude in armor with a really big weapon is bearing down on you trying to kill you you're pretty much motivated to stop that individual in any way possible, regardless of where or when you're from.

I'm not sure why super heavy cavalry was so dominant in the early middle ages before Crecy and the Mongols and Agincourt, but I strongly suspect it wasn't because horses were "off limits".

Now: something I actually KNOW something about. During the Conquest of Mexico the horse and metal armor was a much bigger deal than the gun. The gun was still not very reliable. But hundreds of Spaniards were none the less able to defeat thousands of Indians in the early part of the conquest (before they started using Indian recruits to bolster the Spanish numbers). The horse was a gigantic shock to the Indians, who didn't have domestic animals larger than a dog. Obsidian swords broke against Spanish metal armor. 

Clearly, the Indians didn't have any reason not to kill Spanish horses. So why didn't they? I'm sure they tried. For whatever reason, it just didn't turn out to be a very successful strategy. But when they fought Spaniards without horses, like during La Noche Triste or in the mountain passes of Peru, they kicked Spanish ass.

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On Fri, 8/23/13, PvK <pvk@oz.net> wrote:

 Subject: Re: (TFT) Targeting Horses and their Riders
 To: tft@brainiac.com
 Date: Friday, August 23, 2013, 12:38 PM
 
 In some games I have played, and some
 historical accounts I have read, there have been social
 reasons no to attack horses, e.g.:
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