Does anyone know of any good books on the subject of historical camel cavalry? (I am not interested in the US camel corps)

I have heard about camels beings armored/ and or spooking horses and I was wondering if those stories were true?

I saw a show on Discovery channel or maybe NatGeo that pitted a camel against an Arabian in a few tests. Are you interested in camelry from a certain period or just in general? I know that camel-mounted soldiers are shown in Assyrian reliefs of the 1st millenium BC. I will see what I can find out for you, I find this topic quite interesting as well. One thing for sure, camels are a lot meaner and scarier than horses, and horses can be pretty scary when you are alone out in the bush and one decides it doesn't like you!
PS spellcheck liked "camelry," so I guess that must be an accepted term.

I could not find anything about the show I saw, but a quick google search told me that camels have indeed been known to scare the crap out of both men and horses and that they did wear armor during certain periods. I have always thought that the only thing cooler to ride than an armored camel would be an armored 800lb Hogzilla.

This is a little off topic, but I always thought armored giraffes would be cool. Imagine two archers on a giraffe with superior visuals of the battlefield. Giraffes have some serious speed, and can be very aggressive.

I have often wondered about camels in battle. Thank you for starting this thread, and I will be anticipating the information gathered here.

Ya, I heard of armored camels but I can think of any camel barding, or how you would armor a camel as opposed to horse. Also I was wondering how you could use them in battle? Could you charge with them? Would the charge be effective? Were they effective anti-cavalry?

The Assyrian relief aluded to above shows archers mounted on camels. While slower, they would have considerable hight advantage. The Persians mostly used camels in the same way as elephants, mostly to scare both horses and men who are not used to them.

Zebras rock. They have illnesses that spread like wildfire and kill off horses and there are subspecies of them that you can ride or use on a carriage. One problem with animals is directing them and keeping them responsive on a battlefield that smells awfully likme death and has some species screaming in agony.

Hippos are huge and aggressive and would give you an amphibious force. ;) :p

There is the small problem of getting them to not bite the rider in half or follow orders. :p :lol:

O.K. couldn't resist, but back on Topic camels do seem to disrupt horse cavalry as horse tend to be unmanageable when in the company of camels.

Interesting questions would be:

A) Speed compared to horses.
B) Long distance endurance.
C) Strength i.e. load they can carry ? Both for extra weight of armour and for pack camels to give you a very mobile force with logistical advantages of being able to carry extra gear, general supplies and generous supplies of expendable like arrows javelins etc ....
D) Can you armour them and would they stand for it ?

If they can't outrun horses in a sprint they would be tactically useful if they could out endure horses and run them into the ground. ?

The problem with camels is managing them in battle. It seems that you have to hit them with a rod all the time. Otherwise they are fast and enduring. There are some claims that the early Muslims used camels as part of their cavalry and switched to horses on short notice. The issue with camels and horses is possibly similar to cat and dog.

Another good animal would be a rhino. They run at fires at high speed and try to extinguish them. So send some burning things to your enemy and then let the rhino-knights loose. ;)

Chronology spin-off: the IDF has been using camels for long range desert patrols, on & off eversince. Check the rather unusual photo taken during the mid 1950's: the soldier on the left is armed with a Thompson SMG + a rifle (probably SMLE) in a saddle holster, while the one on the right is mounting some kind of machinegun.

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There was also the Gatling Model 1874 Camel Gun, but the name may well be more marketing than anything else. Google images might reveal some mounted on camels.

Some relatively modern war camel photos at http://www.camelphotos.com/war_camels.html (modern enough to be photographed).

Jean, the show I saw a while back that pitted a Camel against an Arabian showed that the Horse was considerably faster. On the other hand, the Camel can easily carry several times the weight, have several times the long distance endurance, and have no problem with armor. As to fantasy mounts, have you ever read the "Clan of the Cave Bear" series by Jean Auel? The heroin of the novels is an expert slinger who hunts (and occasionally fights) mounted on a Cave Lion!

Luke, I agree with you, nothing would be cooler than Giraffe-mounted soldiers. I do sometimes wonder why Elephants were domesticated but Giraffes, Rhinos and other large Animals were not. I still want to someday train a giant Hog to be a mount. They are certainly intelligent and trainable enough for it.

Giraffes and rhinos are not herd or pack animals. With notable exceptions like the cat and raptors, most every animal humans have domesticated falls into the herd or pack type. We humans exploit the inborn control mechanisms to make the animals do what we want. For a fantasy army figure, barbarian rhino cavalry is hard to beat. I think Grenadier or Heartbreaker made a whole series of barbarians with rhinos, mamamoths and bears (oh my!)

Well, Rhinos will charge literally anything, their vision is so bad that they have been known to charge butterflies.

I have a copy of a British Army manual somewhere that has a chapter on camels. I *think* the book is titled something like " Animal Management 1909." It covers just about any animal that could be used in a military capacity by the British Army.priot to WW1. Primarily horse oriented, naturaly, but chapters on handling other animals. I'll dig through my library and see if I can find it again.

Great idea, I'd also like to know how I can get hold of this book :)

But none of the above answeres their usage as cavalry?