Modern War and Centaurs: An Obsolete Race?

[hymer]

And physical dimensions stop mattering once everyone is fielding drones, anyway.

This. It's maybe a 150 year window, it seems, between the horse becoming obsolete on a human-centric battlefield and the human becoming likewise obsolete. That's not so long in the history of warfare.

Edit: Of course, the horse still had (has?) roles as support and the occasional front line niche for quite a while.

[Flickerdart]

This. It's maybe a 150 year window, it seems, between the horse becoming obsolete on a human-centric battlefield and the human becoming likewise obsolete. That's not so long in the history of warfare.

I was curious about how long the history of warfare actually was, and went to look it up. Though there are dig sites that suggest warfare due to the number of bodies that met violent ends, the earliest recorded battle we know of is apparently from 3500BC. So that's 5500 years of battlefields, of which the 150yr window is 2.7%.

[Segev]

Thinking of the heavier weapons, building a weapon whose mass and shock-absorption was designed to channel it back and down through the hindquarters would look bulky, but wouldn't actually be that much more awkward for a centaur. Less so, perhaps, than a backpack for a human. So yes, MUCH larger weapons with much higher recoil would be centaur-fieldable.


If we assume a world of humans and centaurs (and no other fantasy races), the tribalism would be a thing, but I think a certain amount of intermingling would still occur. Let's hypothetically give central Asia to the centaurs, and say that Gengis Khan and the mongols were of that species. (Given the closer relation between mongols and east oriental asians than to Europeans and Africans, let's assume that the Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Korean peoples are also predomineantly centaurs.) Genghis Khan ran his military on the power of his cavalry, so this works for that historical period.

I imagine that the chinese immigrants, therefore, to the US during the gold rush and the railroad boom would have, instead, been centaurs, and that they would occupy similar roles in American history. Again, it makes a certain amount of sense: centaurs would be massively powerful laberors for railroad construction, amongst other things.

This would mean they were in a slightly more menial role, culturally, in the US, until fairly recently. Discrimination would have spiked around WWII, assuming the Japanese centaurs had the same sort of aerial bombing capability and perpetrated the attack on Pearl Harbor similarly. The design of a centaur-made airplane cockpit is an interesting engineering question, at least to me.

(Tangentially, this would also mean that anime featured centaurs almost exclusively, and would reverse the stereotype about the relative size of visiting Americans and Europeans: they'd be human and thus SMALLER than the locals. Japanese culture applied to centaurs would also be kind of interesting.)

So, in modern warfare, under those assumptions, centaurs would be the rarer sight in US and other Western armies. They likely would be in more specialist roles. That said, we still would have ample technology designed to accommodate them; it wouldn't be even so rare as handicapped-accessible technology. Especially in the military, where we're not sending somebody wheelchair-bound into combat, but centaurs absolutely could be on the front lines.

In the middle east, the same strengths which made them awesome forces under the Khan would make them powerful anti-guerrilla forces.



Of course, this shifts if you decide centaurs have a different historical distribution. If they were, instead, as common as humans and as diverse as humans, rather than semi-replacing one particualr human ethnicity, then it's more likely that you'd have highly intermixed cultures. You would have some where the humans dominated, and some where the centaurs did, and some where they were generally equal. I imagine, at least for more tribal societies, centaurs would more commonly dominate due to physical superiority. Humans would be handmaids and butlers, equals in crafting but assistants in hunting. Whether this would invert in more civilized cultures is another question. Whether it would invert in some savage tribes just by virtue of humans being able to win fights despite the centaur's size advantages (thus subjugating them) is also a question.

There's a huge amount of room for speculative fiction, here.

[Flickerdart]

Of course, this shifts if you decide centaurs have a different historical distribution. If they were, instead, as common as humans and as diverse as humans, rather than semi-replacing one particualr human ethnicity, then it's more likely that you'd have highly intermixed cultures. You would have some where the humans dominated, and some where the centaurs did, and some where they were generally equal. I imagine, at least for more tribal societies, centaurs would more commonly dominate due to physical superiority. Humans would be handmaids and butlers, equals in crafting but assistants in hunting. Whether this would invert in more civilized cultures is another question. Whether it would invert in some savage tribes just by virtue of humans being able to win fights despite the centaur's size advantages (thus subjugating them) is also a question.

I would imagine that centaurs would dominate along the steppes of south-eastern Europe and north-western Asia; a possible dromedary variant could reign supreme in Africa and the Middle East. In fact, a successful enough centaur could drive homo sapiens sapiens to extinction before the final exodus from Africa, causing the descendants of Denisovans and Neanderthals to inherit Asia and Europe respectively.

Humans would occupy the forests of Europe and coastlines, where their smaller stature would allow for an earlier development of boats and thus better fishing and travel. This is interesting because the centaurs would control overland trade and humans would excel in naval trade. This means that Scandinavia, England, and the various Mediterranean states would all be human-dominant, as well as Oceania. The East to West migrations of the Völkerwanderung would be predominantly centaur based, leading to an even higher geographic division between centaur and human. Attila and the Magyars would have both been centaurs.

[JAL_1138]

It makes perfect sense that Tinker Gnomes would rule the world upon getting modern tech because they already have steampunk!

You forget that Tinker Gnomes a) are insane, b) have zero or less common sense, and c) tend to explode.

[MrZJunior]

Wouldn't you expect integrated societies to be more effective than unintegrated ones, giving them an advantage and making integration the rule rather than the exception?

[Flickerdart]

Wouldn't you expect integrated societies to be more effective than unintegrated ones, giving them an advantage and making integration the rule rather than the exception?

Things don't happen just because they would be more effective. Cultural barriers would make integration very difficult, and geographical separation would mean that it would rarely have the opportunity to happen.

[BRC]

Hrmm, lets think about this.

Frontline combat would be tricky. While they could wield bigger guns, they're less capable of using cover. Their torsos are kind of stuck in the "SHOOT ME!" position.

One place I could see Centaurs coming into play is as field medics (Where, hopefully, nobody should be shooting at them in the first place). With the right equipment, a wounded soldier could be stabilized, secured to the Centaur's back, and carried away back to a field hospital.
Alternatively, while they are vulnerable to sniper fire, they could make excellent support teams. A mortar team of two centaurs and a human would be pretty effective. One Centaur carries the Mortar itself, the other carries the human who (because Centaurs have trouble reaching the ground to set up the mortar) sets up and operates the Mortar, with centaurs acting as loaders/spotters and guards.

Also, as has been mentioned, Centaur snipers.

[Hawkstar]

Centaurs would probably not abandon plate armor with the development of guns - they'd just wear develop heavier plate - at least on the front, to the point that you need to use anti-armor/material rounds to get through the plating. It may cost them a fair bit of mobility, but being nigh-invulnerable to small-arms fire from the front would be pretty valuable.

[mephnick]

Man, I love this place. My wife asked me what I needed to finish reading before starting lunch and I told her "A discussion on whether centaurs would be obsolete in a modern warfare scenario." I cannot describe the face she made.

I'm not sure how long I'm going to be married.

[Maglubiyet]

Latrines. How do they use them?

[JAL_1138]

Latrines. How do they use them?

A wider opening, a longer stall, and they back themselves into the stall?

[Mr. Mask]

If a centaur's organs are doubled up and redundant, does this mean many centaur survivors of the war go around in wheelchairs, their horse halves amputated due to gangrene? Is it conceivable that some who suffered fatal gangrene had their human torso amputated, their human head graft to their horse body where the human waist once was?

[Hawkstar]

If a centaur's organs are doubled up and redundant, does this mean many centaur survivors of the war go around in wheelchairs, their horse halves amputated due to gangrene? Is it conceivable that some who suffered fatal gangrene had their human torso amputated, their human head graft to their horse body where the human waist once was?

The first... no. They don't have full redundancy (Though the redundancy MAY be useful to the soldiers) And considering the second requires decapitating them...

[Mr. Mask]

What do you mean? What are they missing from their redundancy? The only thing I can immediately think of that the upper body might be missing is intestines, and you can survive without those.

And head transplants have been performed successfully, even attaching a second head to a dog, with both capable of eating and behaving normally (the second head is connected to the body's systems via surgery). The dogs die after a while due to rejection, but supposedly the horse body doesn't reject the human body in centaurs.

[Cluedrew]

Ah, interesting territory here. Classical Centaur biology, while it looks cool, doesn't really make sense if you want to be realistic about it. Normally I would discourage that but here I think it is a valid point.

For instance where do the internal organs go? It is unlikely that a creature would develop two copies of them, so maybe the only vital organ in the "upper torso" would be the lungs. And maybe a second heart or something. This means the upper torso would probably be little more than half the size of a human torso, although it might make up some space to but another and more flexible join in there so they can reach their backs, or lean forward.

Another point is that their legs might be a lot more flexible than an actual horse's, allowing them to roll, kneel and crawl if not as well as human, probably better than horses. I for one have trouble believing any sentient races with opposable thumbs would have trouble reaching the ground.

I don't have time to run through all the repercussions right now but I think that is a start.

Also two races that would really excel in modern warfare: Pixies and anything with an affinity for lightning.

[Maglubiyet]

A wider opening, a longer stall, and they back themselves into the stall?

This need alone should push them into obsolescence. You can't fit as many centaur Port-A-Potties on the back of a truck.

[Leon]

This need alone should push them into obsolescence. You can't fit as many centaur Port-A-Potties on the back of a truck.

Backhoe and a few partition walls means no potties needed

[Flickerdart]

Would centaurs even have such a huge emphasis on privacy when excreting? The classical versions don't even wear clothes.

[Murk]

Would centaurs even have such a huge emphasis on privacy when excreting? The classical versions don't even wear clothes.

I think military latrines have more to do with your soldiers dying due to bad hygiëne than privacy.

Kind of depends on centaur diet though. If they eat grass, their excretions are bound to be less toxics than human.

[Segev]

Would centaurs even have such a huge emphasis on privacy when excreting? The classical versions don't even wear clothes.

If we are assuming human minds by-and-large, then it is probable that they would develop social moores akin to those of humans. If nothing else, in colder climes, clothes keep one warmer, and one's "bits" may well benefit from such thermal protection, as well. In terms of privacy and such, the reason why they don't have issue in most fiction is that fiction is written by humans, and humans "forget" that animals have private parts that are exposed due to their nakedness. We tend to assume fur is "covering" in the same way hair is. Add that horses, the part of the centaur which would do excretion, do not care, and the human-centric assumption is that the behavior is the same.

I suspect that a human-headed centaur would appreciate hygene as much as a human-headed human does, however, and thus latrines and later indoor plumbing would be appreciated by centaurs.

Regarding clothing, for a moment imagine animal-headed humans with animal intelligence. If such existed, humans would still probably be equally uncomfortable with their nakedness as we are with human nakedness. If centaurs have a human sensibility regarding sex (which is not unreasonable to assume, particularly if the culture is shared), then they likely are not only uncomfortable having their private parts exposed, but may well prefer to see horses at least wearing some sort of concealing skirt or kilt.

Given how humans react to bared midriffs (that is, we mostly are okay with them, but they're still...alluring), centaurs may feel similarly about equine body exposure. Or they may not, considering it to be no worse than we do having our legs and arms exposed.

[endoperez]

Hmm what's going on in this threa...

Broadsides with horses is a pretty interesting idea.

BROADSIDES WITH HORSES?! Well that didn't go as I expected, I wonder if...

Another possibility is to turn the human body around 180 degrees, then use a gun braced on the centaur's own back like a turret.

Wait what?!!


Sorry, I couldn't resist. It's an interesting thread, but it went into places I absolutely did NOT expect!

[Flickerdart]

If centaurs have a human sensibility regarding sex (which is not unreasonable to assume, particularly if the culture is shared), then they likely are not only uncomfortable having their private parts exposed, but may well prefer to see horses at least wearing some sort of concealing skirt or kilt.

If that were a shorter sentence, it would definitely be going into my signature.

[Segev]

If that were a shorter sentence, it would definitely be going into my signature.

You could probably remove the parenthetical bit, if that helps. Or try "Centaurs are probably not just uncomfortable having their privates exposed, but would prefer to see at least skirts or kilts on horses."

[hymer]

@ Segev: Just have to point out that not all humans have stereotypical puritanical values with regards to nudity and the like. I'm sure people could learn not to be bothered by centaur 'nudity' if exposed to it often enough.

[Segev]

@ Segev: Just have to point out that not all humans have stereotypical puritanical values with regards to nudity and the like. I'm sure people could learn not to be bothered by centaur 'nudity' if exposed to it often enough.

You could be right. It would be largely a matter of culture. My point mainly being that the same things which give rise to human nudity taboos could do so for centaurs.

[hymer]

You could be right. It would be largely a matter of culture. My point mainly being that the same things which give rise to human nudity taboos could do so for centaurs.

I don't disagree with the point, merely with the use of 'humans' as apparently inherently averse to nudity.

[DigoDragon]

How modern are we talking? With robots and drones entering the battlefield, centaurs can join us humans behind the lines.


Heh, 'battle saddles'-- a harness with guns mounted on either side for a centaur.

[Murk]

How modern are we talking? With robots and drones entering the battlefield, centaurs can join us humans behind the lines.

Even then, the drones have to shoot at someone. It would be awesome if future wars could be fought by just letting drones shoot each other, and the winner is the one with the strongest drone, but, meh, I don't think so. Nowadays, in any case, there are no drone-on-drone battles yet: it's mostly drones shooting people.

So I assume that even if centaurs had drones, the drones would shoot other centaurs, or humans, or gnomes, or what have you. Size and mobility (dis)advantages would then still play a role (although a smaller one).

[Segev]

Drone-based warfare will eventually reach a point of drone-v-drone, but the ultimate victory will not be won until at least one side is shooting at the flesh-and-blood targets on the other. The whole reason war happens is because at least one side is willing to perpetrate violence to the point of imprisonment and death upon those who don't do what they want them to. If those so threatened are not willing to capitulate and provide what is wanted (which could be simply their deaths), they will have to engage in enough violence to prevent their destruction or imprisonment and to ultimately convince the aggressor to stop aggressing.

War will never be civilized, no matter how we dress it up. War's rules truly boil down to "what works?" To make the other side surrender, you'll almost always have to at least menace their people. Probably have to kill more than a few.