Touman

This was the basic Mongol military unit under Genghis Khan and consisted of 10,000 cavalry (since the Mongol army had no infantry) this was further divided down into the equivalent of regiments, companies and sections based on the decimal system and finally into squads of ten riders.Each man carried a spare pony and enough basic equipment to maintain himself in the field making the need for supply limited and making the Mongol Army very manoeuvrable. In peacetime every mongol unit was drilled and trained to allowed coordinated battlefield manoeuvres controlled through a system of flags, whistling arrows and fire arrows. this gave the Mongol army a flexibility on the battlefield unequalled until the age of Napoleon.
Turnbull, Mongol WarriorThe Mongol Warrior, Stephen Turnbull, Osprey, 2003, 64 pages. Written by the leading expert on this period of Asian warfare in the West Dr Stephen Turnbull. The Mongols were one of the best armies in History and often misunderstood by people in the west, this book goes a long way to shedding some light on them [see more]
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How to cite this article: Dugdale-Pointon, TDP. (23 December 2000), Touman, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_touman.html

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