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Low_Ad487 t1_j3yp4gc wrote

Reply to comment by DJacobAP in Were muslim armies harder to maintain in the field? by DJacobAP

Yeah, but the Muslims didn't have specialized units (i think) so it's only light cavalry and skirmishers + light sword/spear infantry. Unlike the fully tranined Swiss or French heavy knights for example. They kinda were all levies and every person had their own weapons and horses like back in the Roman Republic times.

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Stalins_Moustachio t1_j3yqwjp wrote

Sorry, but this is definitely not true. There was an elite class of cavaliers, commonly referred to as Fursan, who were supplemented with the highly trained and specialized Mamlukes. They were no less specialized than their European counterparts Alongside that correction, grouping together various kingdoms, empires and states under the monolith term "Muslims" does very little to reflect the diverse array of strategies, units, and tactics found across the medieval Muslim world.

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Low_Ad487 t1_j3ystm7 wrote

Mamluks were specialized indeed, my bad. Though they were also light cavalry units. Muslims did not have any kind of heavy units (as far as I know) until the ottomans came into the scene.

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DJacobAP OP t1_j3yplq7 wrote

That's a valid point. The Turks during this period would've definitely relied mostly on horse archers mounted on light horses while the European/Frankish forces would've had an elite core of knights (who were still in a very early stage of development)

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