| Unit Information | Game Strategies | History |
Since this unit is a fictional unit, with no genuine history, we are going to discuss instead the development of modern armies in Iran.
The first steps towards the use of gunpowder weapons may have happened under the Mongols, who then ruled Persia as the Ilkhanids. While the Mongols themselves did not use guns until much, much later, they had managed to learn how to use incendiaries and explosive shells from the Chinese, but these were delivered usually by way of traction siege engine, not a modern firearm.
By the 14th century, guns eventually became more commonplace, with more and more guns used by all Old World empires, first as anti-ship weapons, then later as anti-personnel weapons. Yet the movement towards firearms was not uniform — while the Ottomans embraced gunpowder (to level the fortifications of Constantinople and cement their position as the most powerful Islamic empire inn the world), the takeup was far slower east beyond the Zagros. Gunpowder weapons were certainly known to the first Shah of the modern era, Ismail I Safavi.
Upon consolidating power over the old lands of Iran, Ismail I Safavi next focused on Asia Minor, where there was a substantial Shia population in the eastern lands of Ottoman Rûm. Although his defeat at Chaldiran brought an end to Ismail's territorial expansion program, the shah nonetheless took immediate steps to protect against the real threat from the Ottoman sultanate by arming his troops with gunpowder weapons. Within two years of Chaldiran, Ismail had a corps of musketeers (tofangchi) numbering 8,000, and by 1521, possibly 20,000.[32] After Abbas the Great reformed the army (around 1598), the Safavid forces had an artillery corps of 500 cannons as well as 12,000 musketeers.
The Safavids first put their gunpowder arms to good use against the Uzbeks, who had invaded eastern Persia during the civil war that followed the death of Ismail I. The young shah Tahmasp I headed an army to relieve Herat and encountered the Uzbeks on 24 September 1528 at Jam, where the Safavids decisively beat the Uzbeks. The shah's army deployed cannons (swivel guns on wagons) in the centre protected by wagons with cavalry on both flanks. Mughal emperor Babur described the formation at Jam as "in the Anatolian fashion."[34] The several thousand gun-bearing infantry also massed in the centre as did the Janissaries of the Ottoman army. Although the Uzbek cavalry engaged and turned the Safavid army on both flanks, the Safavid centre held (because not directly engaged by the Uzbeks). Rallying under Tahmasp's personal leadership, the infantry of the centre engaged and scattered the Uzbek centre and secured the field.
References[]
- Ágoston, G; Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire; (2005) Cambridge University Press