Why did every civilization that had access to elephants insist on using war elephants when they pretty much always sucked?
Psychological warfare
I don't think West-Africans ever used them.
>>18586802OP specified "civilizations"
They weren't worth it, especially outside their natural habitats (ate too much, too easily panicked) but they were still big, impressive animals with thick hides that towered over everything else on the battlefieldAlso a suitable mount for kings.
>>18586812"Civilization" is vaguely defined, and the West-Africans definitely had the organization needed to make use of them.
>>18586766Because they are fucking huge and could be domesticated so they thought it would be a good weapon
>>18586766They were like the dive bombers of their time. Like the Stuka, great at instilling fear into mentally weaker foes, great at bombing the shit out of unprepared and disorganised foes but absolutely can not stand a chance against any fighterThat is to say it is great most of the time and useless some of the time
>>18586778>Psychological warfareimagine armies of mimes, flash mobbing, in the middle of a war zone
Rule of cool
>Dude wouldn't it be cool if we rode one of those things into battle?>Yeah it would probably freak the enemy out let's try it.There you go OP.
They didn’t suck, they were highly effective when used correctly. When Claudius brought war elephants on his invasion of Britain the local tribes had no idea what the fuck they were and they all ran away in terror. That being said like any other weapon system there were ways to counter them.
>>18586766Because it was cool. And the cool factor trumps all.
>>18586766They used thema) because they are fucking radb) because a all-terrain mobile command post/flag hill that towers over the rest of your army is very practical for command&controlc) they could haul big ticket items, such as the sufficiently huge tents a king requires and work as bulldozers to prepare the site for said tent.
>>18588195If only the britons knew all you had to do was shout BOOGABOOGABOOGA and the elephants would get scared and start trampling their own troops.
>>18586802African bush/forest elephants are impossible to tame, you don't see them in circuses either. North Africa had access to North African elephants, which are extinct today, but they also kind of sucked, even the Carthaginians preferred importing Asian elephants from India.
because its cool/thread
>>18586826The sub-saharian variety of elephants are not tameable. All the war elephants were either indian elephants or the now-extinct north african subspecies
>>18589091>>18589220What makes them impossible to tame?
>>18586766Where Hannibal and Pyrrhus won battles, the elephants were placed between the infantry and the cavalry on the flanks to help protect the infantry from enemy cavalry. They do seem to have been useful in this role.The mistake was in using them as living battering rams to break enemy formations, which no doubt appeals to the imagination of a 12 year old boy, but in practice these fantasies never panned out.
