The first depictions of four-wheeled wagon

Wagon

A wagon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals; it was formerly often called a wain, and if low and sideless may be called a dray, trolley or float....

s pulled by semi-domesticated onager

Onager

The Onager is a large member of the genus Equus of the family Equidae native to the deserts of Syria, Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel and Tibet...

s and other available animals come from the Sumer

Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

ians.
Against infantry the fast chariots used tactics of wearing down the enemy by missile fire, deploying heavy troops and running down enemies.

The next step was towards faster chariot

Chariot

The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled...

s with spoke

Spoke

A spoke is one of some number of rods radiating from the center of a wheel , connecting the hub with the round traction surface....

-wheels. Lighter wheels made altogether lighter constructions possible. This made it feasible to outrun light infantry and other chariots. Plus the development of short composite Bows

Bow (weapon)

The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.-Description:A bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles by means of elastic energy. Essentially, the bow is a form of spring powered by a string or cord...

 that made it such a devastating weapon.

Sling

Sling (weapon)

A sling is a projectile weapon typically used to throw a blunt projectile such as a stone or lead "sling-bullet". It is also known as the shepherd's sling....

ers and javelin

Spear

A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head.The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as flint, obsidian, iron, steel or...

ers, who could counterattack and protect the other troops, had no armor protection. They were skirmishers, keeping out of enemy range. But the moving chariots were difficult to hit, while showering them with arrows. So they were rendered helpless against these. The role and tactics of war chariots are often compared to tank

Tank

A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

s in modern warfare

Modern warfare

Modern warfare, although present in every historical period of military history, is generally used to refer to the concepts, methods and technologies that have come into use during and after the Second World War and the Korean War...

; though possibly a better comparison would be with modern attack helicopters.

Chariots, carts and wagons still had the disadvantage of using more than one horse per transported soldier. Riders achieved supremacy through greater manoeuvreability than chariots in the 1st millennium BCE, as soon as the domesticated horse had been bred large enough to carry an armed man.

Chariot and elephant warfare

The chariot was restricted to terrains with level ground and plenty of space. It was the core of most cavalries, and developed into shock-troops and commanding centers. Then it was replaced by the war elephant with its supreme abilities in melée. Agile infantry and early troops on horseback provided them protection and additional fighting power.

Light and medium chariots

There were two different ways for light chariots to operate on the battlefield.

One was to have on each chariot one warrior/archer and one driver/shieldbearer. Apart from the shield, both crewmen were fully armored and their horses were barded. The archer used a composite bow, of superior power and range, shooting heavy bronze-pointed arrows which were capable of piercing armor and transfixing a man. Disciplined companies of chariots used shoot-and-scoot tactics to wear down enemy forces, pulling into range, stopping to shoot a volley or three, then wheeling away before the enemy could retaliate.

The other method was using melee weapons. Chariots could terrorize and scatter an enemy force by charging, threatening to run over enemy foot and attacking them with a variety of short range weapons, such as javelin, spear and axe.

A confrontation between these two concepts was the battle of Kadesh

Battle of Kadesh

The Battle of Kadesh took place between the forces of the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II at the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River, in what is now the Syrian Arab Republic....

. When the movement of the Egypt

History of Ancient Egypt

The History of Ancient Egypt spans the period from the early predynastic settlements of the northern Nile Valley to the Roman conquest in 30 BC...

ian chariots could be blocked the medium Hittite

Hittites

The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...

 chariots were in favor. They fought with a protected archer while deploying close combat troops. When the Egyptian chariots where able to surround them, their supreme firepower was an advantage, but they could not keep the enemy contained. Hittite chariots forced a retreat, because of their supremacy in close combat.

Light chariots could be carried across unfavorable terrain, heavier types could not be. This limited their efficiency for warfare.

The Celt

Celt

The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic chariot (essedum) was the longest lasting to be used in battles. It had a light and agile structure. A heavily armoured warrior stood on a small platform with two independent-running spoked wheels. His charioteer sat on a thick rope net connecting the platform to the horses. It could quickly carry the nobleman into battle and evacuate him in case of trouble. His preferred way of fighting was close combat. It was used on the Continent from the 700 BCE to 100 BCE and in Britain and Ireland until the year 200 CE. This tactic is similar to the dismounted men-at-arms or modern mechanized infantry

Mechanized infantry

Mechanized infantry are infantry equipped with armored personnel carriers , or infantry fighting vehicles for transport and combat ....

 today.

Heavy chariots for shock-troops

These were, until the advent of the war elephant, the only cavalry shock-troop

Shock troops

Shock troops or assault troops are formations created to lead an attack. "Shock troop" is a loose translation of the German word Stoßtrupp...

s available. Usually they were employed beside troops on horseback. Up to four men stood on a chariot, wielding polearms and close combat weapons. Javelins and bows were employed for range fighting. This chariot was a heavy construction and moved relatively slowly. Light infantry could keep up with them. The momentum of this heavy chariot was sufficient to break through enemy formations, causing an effect similar to heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry is a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces . Although their equipment differed greatly depending on the region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses, and were often equipped with some form of scale,...

 with lances. Some generals, such as Cyrus II and Darius III of Persia and Mithridates of Pontus attached scythes to their chariot forces' wheels, in the further hope of breaking up enemy formations. Historically, however, this tactic had at best mixed success, either because the horses would not charge directly into closely packed formations or because the opposing force would simply stand far enough apart from each other to avoid the scythes and then pull out the drivers as they rode through the gaps created.

Indian chariots and war elephants

Indian chariots combined the security of a chariot with the impact of a war elephant

War elephant

A war elephant was an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. Their main use was to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks. A division of war elephants is known as elephantry....

. By this time, infantry had learned to avoid chariots by forming passages and then attacking them in the back. The elephant introduced a new danger to an enemy formation, being equally dangerous for the infantry from the front or behind. The chariots could relatively securely follow the elephants and assist with arrowfire into the gaps. After the Greeks had their first contact in the battle of Gaugamela

Battle of Gaugamela

The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the ancient Macedonians and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.-Location:Darius chose a flat, open plain...

, this new tactic soon totally substituted chariots among shock-troops around the Mediterranean. Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

 tells that the Asian elephant

Asian Elephant

The Asian or Asiatic elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas and distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized — Elephas maximus maximus from Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant or E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m....

 "Suru" was the last one surviving after Hannibal`s passage over the Alps.

The Indian chariots were supplanted by skirmisher

Skirmisher

Skirmishers are infantry or cavalry soldiers stationed ahead or alongside a larger body of friendly troops. They are usually placed in a skirmish line to harass the enemy.-Pre-modern:...

s with range weapons. The higher density of shots and better aiming of infantry upgraded this weapon system. Elephants were used for frontal assault

Frontal assault

The military tactic of frontal assault is a direct, hostile movement of forces toward the front of an enemy force . By targeting the enemy's front, the attackers are subjecting themselves to the maximum defensive power of the enemy...

s against heavy infantry and for massive flanking maneuvers

Flanking maneuver

In military tactics, a flanking maneuver, also called a flank attack, is an attack on the sides of an opposing force. If a flanking maneuver succeeds, the opposing force would be surrounded from two or more directions, which significantly reduces the maneuverability of the outflanked force and its...

. They could reach a top speed of 30 km/h. Depending on the grade of their equipment it was now possible for cheaper light infantry to stand their ground against their heavy counterpart. The moving of an elephant through most battle formations seemed at first unstoppable.

Sources

Polybius on the Celtic Chariot and warfare

Bronze Age War Chariots (New Vanguard) by Nic Fields (Author), Brian Delf (Illustrator)