that being said, its satisfying to see a charge of cavalry steamroll a formation of infantry.

in M2TW broken crescent, cataphract charge can flatten an entire battalion of sword and shield wielding, maile armored infantry i.e dismounted knights, by the charge impetus alone (by this i mean the entire unit went from full to less than 10 men and sometimes wen from full to 0 men almost instantly. and note, this was a charge to the front, not a charge to the flanks or rear of these men.

you need oxen anyway to carry goods and carts fo logistical purposes so may as well have the men sit on the oxen in the meantime.

No, I've never heard of infantry riding cattle or oxen in any numbers on the march. It would exhaust the animals and slow them down. You'd have to train the cattle to carry the men, and train the men to ride the cattle. Great if you're creating a "cavalry" or mounted infantry force without access to horses, lousy for an infantry force that simply has pack animals or beef cattle in the baggage train.

Armies marched at the speed of an ox because they used oxcarts to carry stuff. That's true well into the 19th century.

Matthew

Anti- archer tactics on flat terrain could be using large pavises on wheels each Sheltering small groups.

Another form of these mobile shelters could be mobile roofs on high struts also on wheels used in combination with the mobile pavises and individual shields: These would cover againts long range plunging arrow storms.

Maybe even have archers/crossbowmen on light mobile towers.

The whole thing in supplement to regular heavy, light and missile troop tactics and formations.

This might even have been effective as a counter to horse archers by a mostly infantry army ..... wouldn't be able to chase around a mobile force of cavalry or foot skirmishers/archers who refused to close, but such a force could advance on strategic positions with relative impunity from arrows and other light missiles.

The only way to force a mobile force to fight is to threaten some fixed strategic position that the mobile force has little choice but defend.

Sort of Hussite tactics of using war carts, but without the horses: The structures would have to be fairly light but just sturdy enough to stop arrows and easy enough for a small group of soldiers to push as they advance.

NOTE: Mentioned some of these ideas in an earlier post but added in the overhead protection sort of like anti-arrow umbrellas/shields ..... I can imagine smaller lighter hand carried versions very much like arrow proof beach umbrellas with four carry poles near the rim and up to huge mobile forts on wheels sheltering men at ground level with an open structure and with a second story for missile troops. The hand carried ones could be supported by 4 and be wide enough to shelter 8 to a dozen and be much more usable on less flat terrain.

If the people holding these went to their knees the roof of the shelter plus the hand shields carried by the soldiers under the roof would form something akin to the Roman " turtle " formation. Oh, and the weight of the overhead shield would be supported by the four corner poles when in the down position and it would also be a rest position.

Protection from the hot sun can also be valuable if an army has to hold a position for a long time as a bonus. ;) :D

The use of pavises and foot archers against mobile horse-archers has been tried before in Japan--in fact, the pavise-protected archery line was arguably the most common and most important tactical infantry formation in Japan between the 10th and the 15th centuries or so. As always, the opponents were not slow to develop countermeasures. There's some evidence that the horses of the samurai were trained to jump and topple the pavises in order to open a gap that could then be exploited. Also, samurai cavalry formations may not have been "cavalry" as we understand it; it apparently depended heavily upon close support by an accompanying body of mixed infantry, which could have come in handy in breaking through the enemy's pavise-line to let the horsemen through.

Javelinmen with large shields could also be an effective counter to archers and crossbowmen in a cavalry-poor campaign. One of the tribes in southern China (or just south of China) used this method to stymie a Chinese expeditionary force; their shields protected them against Chinese arrows and crossbowmen while their javelins allowed them to repel Chinese close-combat troops at a shorter range without coming into hand-to-hand contact. The Chinese eventually solved the problem with a flank march.

Since this is sort of an Alternate Universe " what if " discussion about what would happen if horses where never domesticated and used for cavalry and that the Topic sort of broadened into tactical formations and combined weapons etc .... maybe I can add an idea that could take the place of cavalry assuming that technology would have advanced in ways to compensate.

Avoiding getting " too modern " and jumping to the invention of motor vehicles, steam engines etc .... and staying with muscle power only I would suggest that the invention of the bicycle would open up interesting possibilities.

A) Bicycle troops would have mobility and speed and this would have strategic and tactical uses of getting troops to distant locations faster, and useful for the cavalry functions of scouting and reconnaissance.

B) Fighting troops on bicycles could also be the equivalent of mounted infantry dragoons, getting off their bikes to fight.

C) The one person bicycle would be difficult if not impossible to fight from although maybe a crossbow could be fixed to the handle bars and aimed with the bike ? Reloading might be awkward but if the crossbow had an integral cocking lever it might be practical. The crossbow could have a quick detach system to use it when on foot.

D) Tandem bikes could have two sets of pedal and the rear rider could handle a " horse bow " in this case a " bike bow ". ;) :lol:

E) Larger pedaled contraptions could function in a way similar to a chariot with a number of bikes serving the function of horses pulling a fighting platform.

Anyway, I think you get the point and with imagination and some good engineering a variety of pedaled vehicles of various scales could be conceived and built by a culture with enough industrial capacity to make precision gears and other complex parts: What if the Romans or the Chinese had invented the bicycle 2000 years ago, these bikes might even have been useful in addition to having horses ? ;) :D

what about maybe human pulled chariots? or even things like leonardo da vincis tank which was supposed to be powered byy human muscle alone.. just replace the cannons with ballistae crossbows bows and javelins.

also imagine that the mesoamericans had learned to make more modern rubber and other materials, thus opening the way for the moden style of slingshot. which has he advantage of being able to shoot from confined spaces,

but i think that realistically mesoamerican and incan wafare styles is the best way of looking at it.

also its worth remembering the chariots of the sumerians and sea peoples were pulled by oxen if the wall art is to be believed.

is the domestication of oxen pigs dogs alpacas etc as animals to pull loads also out of the question?

because then we have another scenario entirely if they arnt ruled out

Dogs are combat useable animals for pulling. Sheep and goat are of similar size and can be used for transports on the march(Do the Nordic Gods have the copyright for this idea?). Horses can be used as maneuverable combat animals with good endurance, cattle (dominant cavalry form in Sub-Saharan Africa), camels and dromedary have been breed for riding in many countries, but didn't achive the same maneuverability, although being much cheaper to maintain. Donkeys are ill suited for strange dangerous environments, but good transports. Elephants are a tad expensive and can get dangerous, I have no idea why anyone tried to combine them with infantry. The Inca could possibly use the Lama for pulling chariots.
As for humans, they need fodder and are quite dangerous, the number of humans who need to be fed and are less dangerous because they just pull some vehicle reduces combat efficiency for no speed gain over light infantry and is no recipe for victory.
This leaves us with versatile light infantry and the Chinese wheelbarrow with sails as best applications to cope with speed in a horseless world. Combining two wheelbarrows into a bike on occassion can speed up overland transport and could even create a faster than running transport for a large group of kickboarding humans. This group of kickborders will be similar to war waggons used in East-Central and Eastern Europe.