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Dinosaur cavalry

BiopunkOtrera

BiopunkOtrera

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Let's imagine for a moment that humans and dinosaurs coexist.

Let's further assume that dinosaurs and dinosaurs coexist, so you can get around the fact that actually many dinosaur species are separated by millions of years.

Let us, finally, speculate that dinosaurs have a cognition that humans can train for war, and are common enough to act as riding beasts.

How would Dinosaur cavalry be best employed? What dinosaurs would be most useful, and how?
 
To some extent, you can choose your traits. There's an awful lot we don't know about dinosaurs, and they'd be altered by people breeding them for certain traits, so unless your story is about people going back in time and training specific wild dinosaurs, you've got a lot of wiggle room. (There's no way you phrased the OP that way if you weren't thinking of putting this in fiction)

How big could Troodons grow? How much bigger could you breed them? Were they omnivorous? Just how smart were they, really? We don't actually know, so you as a writer get to pick the answer.

I'm thinking of how Ironclaw did it. That's a setting with anthropomorphic animal-people, so to avoid the Goofy - Pluto dilemma of horse knights riding horses, they add dinosaurs to fill large animal niches.

But they use in-genre terms anyway, so the rich knights ride around on huge, ferocious raptors called "destriers."


(In b4 posts about how carnivores are useless as work animals which is why dogs don't exist)
 
You'd probably have ceratopsians for line breakers, playing the normal knights.

Some of the mid sized dinos, probably something like the larger pachy's as skirmishers, possibly mixed in with some of the mimus' if they can be ridden as Ostriches can be now. Hell, with it's claws, imagine a therazinisaurus in close quarters taking swipes.

But the real changes would be in the other uses that wouldn't quite fit cavalry profiles.

Things like sauropods functioning as walking fortresses, possibly some of the ankylosaurs as platforms for some of the ranged siege machines.

While not being used as mounts, various raptors could be trained as war animals and let loose in battles as more dangerous versions of war dogs.

Large predators wouldn't really be used, but might be herded out ahead of an army and into the enemy in the hopes of scattering them. They're to hard to keep fed and humans are bite sized.

Though not dinosaurs, some of the smaller flying reptiles would be in service as well as harriers and messengers
 
Unless dinosaurs were considerably smarter than the current paleontological consensus indicates, you'd have a hard time training them.

Assuming they can be trained though, the ceratopsians are probably the way to go when it comes to battle mounts. Large (but not too large to be manageable), heavily armored, probably very fast and durable, and a body structure that looks like it could riders and equipment with ease. They'd be like elephants, but better.

The fact that they're grazing herbivores and therefore easy to feed is also a plus.
 
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FBH said:
So if I did want Allosaur cavalry, what kind of rationale would they need?
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Riding a biped would be tricky, and I'm not sure what an allosaur mount brings to the table that a triceratops doesn't.

If you want to justify it, you could say that allosaurs are faster, or more trainable, or have better senses or something. Based on what we actually think we know about dinosaurs though, I don't think they'd be worth it except perhaps for the intimidation value.


EDIT: apparently, allosaurs actually ARE thought to have been considerably faster than ceratopsians, so there's your answer. They're your scouts and skirmishers. Scratch that, the estimated speeds I found were in different units.
 
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FBH said:
So if I did want Allosaur cavalry, what kind of rationale would they need?
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"They've got teeth four inches long."

Leila Hann said:
Riding a biped would be tricky, and I'm not sure what an allosaur mount brings to the table that a triceratops doesn't.
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They've got teeth four inches long.


(Also, Allosaurs and Triceratops are separated by more time than Triceratops and Humans, so the two being contemporary is technically less plausible than either being contemporary with humans :V )
 
Ralson said:
"They've got teeth four inches long."


They've got teeth four inches long.


(Also, Allosaurs and Triceratops are separated by more time than Triceratops and Humans, so it might not be an option)
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I was assuming a "Dinotopia" type setting where we have the entire Mesozoic bestiary at our fingertips.

And yeah, allosaurs and their relatives have big teeth. Do those necessarily do more damage than big horns, though?

FBH said:
Oh yeah, also, what weapons should Dinosaur knights be armed with, as dinosaurs are pretty tall.
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Ranged weapons. And maybe longspears to prevent enemies from climbing up your mount's flanks.
 
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Leila Hann said:
And yeah, allosaurs and their relatives have big teeth. Do those necessarily do more damage than big horns, though?
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I'm not really sure, but AFAIK, the leading theory is that triceratops horns were made for dominance vs other triceratops, not for fighting predators.

FWIW, I think "a huge dinosaur is literally eating our guys" is going to have some significant shock value.
 
FBH said:
Oh yeah, also, what weapons should Dinosaur knights be armed with, as dinosaurs are pretty tall.
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I'd think weapons would mostly be about defense? So a spear of some sort to strike at someone attacking your dinosaur's legs and possibly at other dinosaur knights?
Dinosaur mounted archers also seem viable to me; I think the right species would be better suited than horses; maybe a triceratops? The idea would be something resilient to a light dinosaur cavalry charge that can pick off dinosaur knights with volleys.
 
Do we waive the different atmospheric conditions which would make the larger dinosaurs very ineffectual due to oxygen deprivation?
 
Cadis said:
Do we waive the different atmospheric conditions which would make the larger dinosaurs very ineffectual due to oxygen deprivation?
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Article:
The results of this comprehensive study suggest that atmospheric oxygen during most of the past 220 million years was considerably lower than today's 21 per cent.

"We suggest numbers between 10 and 15 per cent," said Tappert.

These oxygen concentrations are not only lower than today but also considerably lower than the majority of previous investigations propose for the same time period. For the Cretaceous period (65 to 145 million years ago), for example, up to 30 per cent atmospheric oxygen has been suggested previously.


e: Dinosaurs got big by developing a complex respiratory system that passes air through gill-like lungs to wring the maximum amount of oxygen from each breath. Birds use this to survive at high altitudes today.
 
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While this...



...is more of what people would salivate about, it's unlikely that you'd really hit that kind of thing.

A massive part about a large number of theropods and dromeosaurs were likely not built for warfare due to being built relatively lightly. They're not going to be taking much damage even with a pile of armor, and broken bones will be far worse a result than with mammals or even the heavier dinosaurs...
 
Ralson said:


Article:
The results of this comprehensive study suggest that atmospheric oxygen during most of the past 220 million years was considerably lower than today's 21 per cent.

"We suggest numbers between 10 and 15 per cent," said Tappert.

These oxygen concentrations are not only lower than today but also considerably lower than the majority of previous investigations propose for the same time period. For the Cretaceous period (65 to 145 million years ago), for example, up to 30 per cent atmospheric oxygen has been suggested previously.


e: Dinosaurs got big by developing a complex respiratory system that passes air through gill-like lungs to wring the maximum amount of oxygen from each breath. Birds use this to survive at high altitudes today.
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interesting.
 
FBH said:
Let's imagine for a moment that humans and dinosaurs coexist.

Let's further assume that dinosaurs and dinosaurs coexist, so you can get around the fact that actually many dinosaur species are separated by millions of years.

Let us, finally, speculate that dinosaurs have a cognition that humans can train for war, and are common enough to act as riding beasts.

How would Dinosaur cavalry be best employed? What dinosaurs would be most useful, and how?
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Given my experience in Ark, I feel safe in saying that Gigantosaurus solos all, Rex is second best, but the most effective 'combat' tactic is to use an Argy to drop Titanoboas in enemy bases while they're sleeping.
 
I feel like dinosaur cavalry would be like elephant cavalry was in real life. Expensive, unreliable, and more for ceremony than winning battles, but also terrifying and capable of winning a battle on its own if everything went perfectly. For riding purposes you'd almost certainly want to go with herbivores like the ceratopsians, something that can be trained to charge and gore with its horns, but can still forage for food without requiring huge amounts of meat.

Also, imagine sauropods being used in a siege. Build a platform on the back and dangle a few ladders off and you've got a living siege tower.
 
FBH said:
What dinosaurs would be most useful, and how?
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The smallest herbivore that could be bred to carry an armored man. Grass grows back faster than herds of cattle. There would be a definite niche for the huge, man-devouring tier beasts though, because if anyone tried to order me to standfast with a spear leveled against a T-rex, I'd cordially invite him to fuck the devil in hell.
 
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Apocal said:
The smallest herbivore that could be bred to carry an armored man. Grass grows back faster than herds of cattle. There would be a definite niche for the huge, man-devouring tier beasts though, because if anyone tried to order me to standfast with a spear leveled against a T-rex, I'd cordially invite him to fuck the devil in hell.
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That doesn't sound very cordial. You may want to work on that.
 
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