atgxtg said:
Uh, outwaling a horse in a day makes sense. Humans can actually outwalk practically any other creature on the face of the Earth. THat is a advatage of being a biped. We loose in the short run, but win over the long haul.
Actually, that's the advantage of being a carnivorous omnivore. Most herbivores must spend the majority of their day simply eating and digesting. A carnivore gains far more energy from a much, much smaller amount of food.
On average a human carrying its own provisions should be able to outwalk any other creature over the period of a few days, as the beast gets weaker and start starving. American plains Indians used to capture wild horses with this method, and many hunter gatherer cultures use the same technique to run down food.
Even the much vaunted legendary movement abilities of the Mongols often overlooks the simple fact that after one or two days of riding 100+ miles, their horses aren't going anywhere for several weeks till they've rested and fattened up again. Otherwise you'll have a lot of lame and dead animals... Relay riders however, like the Pony Express could cover astounding distances, but relied on changing horses for fresh ones every fifteen miles or so.
Horses can be thought of as creatures with a large stamina battery. You can burn through its energy in a day or two of heavy labour, or you can stretch out its endurance over a week of gentle work. Either way, eventually you'll drain its stamina to nothing, and then you have to wait weeks whilst it recharges itself.
It might sound strange, but historically horse troops actually slow down the
strategic movement rate of an army, even though they are tactically faster.
