Carthaginian War Elephant

"To make them fiercer and more terrifying the elephants where given prisoners to trample to death..."

- John M. Kistler, "War Elephants", page 101

When it came to War Elephants, both Carthage and Rome had a rude awakening. Pyrrhus of Greece used them effectively against both before the first Punic War, winning the battles of Heraclea and Asculum in Italy and devistating Carthaginian infantry in Sicily. The Carthaginians beat the Romans in aquiring the new weapon, ordering the capture of North African Elephants (which are smaller than African Bush and Asian Elephants. African Forest Elephants are likwise smaller than both and will be used t stand in for the extinct North African elephants (in size. Will also use DW stats, which are close to African Forest Elephants). However, some Indian elephants where aquired by Carthage, and one of them, a huge male Christened "Surus", was Hannibal's elephant mount.

At First the Carthaginians failed miserably in their use of the beasts, but the Greek Mercenary Xanthippus changed this, and at the battle of Bagradas River (255 BC) the War elephants were used decisively to encircle and crush the Roman army. Later Hannibal of Carthage invaded Italy with 37 war elephants, and pachyderm reinforcements arrived as the struggle went on.

War elephants could panic if wounded enough, but one had to wound them severely in order to do this to a trained war elephant. These animals were poked repeatedly by arrows to train them not to panic after being wounded, and they would charge into infantry and cavalry, suffering damage yet still fighting. Eventually, War Elephants replaced war chariots in ancient Carthage, as they had done in other ancient nations.