Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
Interesting facts about the war elephants
In the 6th century BC, the ancient Indians began to use elephants for war. From India, the war elephants spread to Persia and from there to Greece, Carthage, and Roman Empire. The war elephants were extremely efficient against units fighting in tight formations and armies which had never seen war elephants before.
Only males could be used for battle since the females ran away when they encountered males. The best war elephants were around sixty years old. Since nobody had time to wait for elephants to reach such age, the ancient armies didn’t raise war elephants, they hunted them in the wild and then tamed them.
Most armies used Indian elephants, yet there were instances of usage of other species such as African savanna elephants, which are bigger than Indian elephants, but much more difficult to train.
The elephant’s driver and keeper was called mahout. He was armed with a chisel and a hammer. If the elephant panicked and began attacked his own troops, mahout killed him by thrusting a chisel into the head.
The elephants carried turrets on their backs with enough space for four archers. The elevated position gave the archers a better overview of a battlefield and supported a longer range. Often commanders rode on elephants to have a better sight of a battle.
Elephants were trained to trample the enemy and stab soldiers with their tusks. The elephants themselves carried armor to protect their bodies. Their tusks were armed with special blades, called elephant swords. Sometimes these elephant swords were coated with poison to make them even deadlier. During a charge, elephants would slash to pieces whomever they came in contact with.
In some cases, the war elephants had an iron chain with an iron ball at the end attached to their trunk and used to kill enemy soldiers.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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