William of Rubruck's Account of the Mongols /silkroad/texts Websites and Resources: Mongols and Horsemen of the Steppe: See Separate Article STEPPE HORSEMAN WEAPONS, WARFARE AND BATTLE TACTICS An entire army might consist of 100,000 fighting men, which traveled in a massive city-size caravan with family members and support animals. The Mongol army was divided into units of 10-man squads (“arvan), 100-man companies (“zuun), 1,000-man battalions and 10,000 men divisions (“tumens), with an imperial guard of 10,000 soldiers protecting the khan and important generals. Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great had similar-sized armies. The core of Genghis Khan's army consisted of only 23,000 horsemen who fought with composite bows and hand axes and protected themselves with waterproof leather armor.Chinese and Middle Eastern engineers, experienced with catapults and other siege devises, were hired to attack fortified cities. Never very large, it relied on superior tactics and speed, and was like one massive well-disciplined cavalry which moved rapidly, adapted quickly to changing situations and followed complex battle strategies. The Mongol army was the dominant military force of the 13th century. Mongol forces, made up of skilled warriors well trained in marksmanship and horsemanship, were characterized by absolute discipline, a well-understood chain of command, an excellent communications system, superior mobility, and a unified and extremely effective tactical doctrine and organization. In an age when opposing armies were little more than feudal levies around a nucleus of well-armed and well-trained, but relatively immobile and inflexible, knights, the Mongol armies were the dominant force on the battlefields of Asia and Europe.
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