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40 Awe-Inspiring Facts About Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire

Khalid Elhassan February 3, 2019 24 min

36. The Mongols’ Main Weapon Gave Them an Edge

Another advantage enjoyed by Mongols and other Steppe nomads was their preferred weapon, the recurved composite bow. The Steppe bow was an ingenious marvel that combined animal horn on one side for compression, and elastic sinew on the other for tension, allowing it to store a to store a significant amount of energy in a relatively compact weapon that could be used from horseback. It could pack a greater punch and shoot further than simpler wooden stave bows. That created tactical mismatches that often gave Steppe warriors a standoff distance from which to kill in relative safety. Steppe nomads could thus attrit less mobile armies with arrows until they were weakened and demoralized, before swooping in to finish them off.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.