Hey, we agree there: they're gone. We just disagree on why they disappeared.
Wrong they disappeared with a reason.
Again, you really must be confusing the Persians with another nation, beacuse both statements are wrong (maybe you mean the Indians? Then you're partly right). And again, maybe you mean scythed chariots? But these cannot be compared to chariots used in chariot armies. (we still don't even know how the scytched chariots looked like: our name for it - 'chariot' - is just our effort at a translation).
You keep saying Alex's Persians used chariots ... you cannot mean the scythed ones or the emperor's 'throne', so which ones?
No they still had chariots, like chariots where archers shoot from. Even when chariots were already in decline in the Persian empire, there is still legacy inertia that keeps a few there, like everything else. This happens all the time in military history, just like the way countries still have MiG-21s and China has T-55 tanks.
And where did I ever say that? Nowhere. Please don't misquote me. What I said is that using chariots became economically inviable: with all the constant warfare it was too expensive and a too big a burden on the treasury. Exactly the same happened for example in 16th century Europe with the disappearance of body armor: too expensive (not being bullet proof as a reason is a myth: they were specifically tested to be so before being accepted by an army's purchaser). And there are other examples.
Chariots also sucked the moment the saddled rider with the big horse and recurved bow appeared.
Since you didn't understand some basic engineering, recurved bows allow a bow to get stronger draw strength for a shorter length. The problem of single curved bows like what the Egyptians and Middle Easterns were using, is that they had to be particularly long to have the range and hitting power. So you can't use them on horses and you have to use chariots.
But the recurved bow changed all that. Furthermore, the recurved bow underwent evolution as it went from Scythian to Hun. The Hunnish bow, the basic concept also adopted by the Japanese Yami, had an assymetric shape in order to further increase the draw strength without being too long for the rider. In order to do that, they increased the upper length while keeping the lower length the same. The assymetry however cost accuracy.
In addition, the Huns extended the ear length at the ends to further increase the draw strength over the Scythian bow.
As for the Han, their evolution is to take the same bow and even adapt it for the foot soldier. Without need to be small, a large recurve bow now has evern greater draw strength than a rider's bow. These complemented the crossbow troops.
And once again you just make that up ... what 'engineering perspective' would that be? Not the experiments done with replica's, because they say the opposite. Or maybe you are only comparing heavy (shock) chariots to light (fast) horse? If you look at unit functions then there is no relevant difference in speed between chariot or horse units.
You can keep engineering-theorizing, the historical and experimental evidence just don't agree with you.
You never actually showed me the experiments you talked about. Every one who is familar with cars and vehicles---and you don't have to be an engineer---understand that unsuspended solid axles are not going to handle well in rougher ground, compared to a four legged animal, whose legs had the biological construction to be both a motivator and suspension at the same time.
Maybe you are talking about something different than I: I mean battle chariots used in battles, i.e. operating in organised units. Maybe you mean an individual chariot vs an individual horseman ... of course the individual horseman has many advantages then, but a disciplined army is not about individuals.
Not even chariot formations are going to win against mounted knight armies.
With that last one you're referring to the Sumerian's? That's not a chariot but a cart. Great in battle as well, as a mobile bunker so to speak (used by the Hussites very effecively), but having a completely different function than a battle chariot.
The concept is the same. A chariot is still a wheeled cart. They use it for various reasons, like including mobile platform for archery, which is most important.
Getting personal again? Now that you bring that up, I suppose with two bachelors and a masters in that field I think I know a thing or two about it, yes. And from that experience I can say that your generalization is wrong (again). I do not understand why you automatically assume that somenone that disagrees with you must be a dimwit ... I certainly do not take such an approach or I would have stopped replying to you many posts ago. Let's keep it friendly and academic, to exchange ideas and opinions on warfare, not posters.
You are the one getting personal there.
After another, you keep trying to prove the general trend of history being wrong, trying to disprove proven and recorded history.
No historian in his right mind would argue that chariots would have any advantage over a mounted rider army.
Indeed I doubt they had the ones the Huns were using ... as the Huns lived millenia later
, but they DID have recurved bows, whether you believe it or not. Actually I went to Egypt and studied battlefield scenes (drawn up at the time of those - chariot - battles). The bows are there, so are the normal horses. Just visiting the national museum in Cairo will show you.
I showed you the website, and I showed you the pics. They used single curved bows for much of their Old and New Dynasties. If they had recurved laminar bows, it was imported.
As a matter of fact, the Egyptians won't draw a horse big, because they would sometimes exaggerate the size of the pharoah or noble to such proportions in order to emphasize their grandeur. Often slaves are depicted as small---as you can see, size reflexts status.
I have to outright say, that your attempt to use Egyptian art as proof of geneological size, is downright preposterous. You just failed to consider the most basic fact that ancient art often do not reflect proportion.
Furthermore, you tried to use art to dispute the archeological and bone evidence of horse sizes, which is scientifically proven. The Bactrian/Scythian/Parthian horse, because of microevolution with its environment, grew larger, faster and had longer necks than its southern counterparts.
Define dominance please: if you mean that in the end armies were using cavalry without chariotry, I never challenged that: it's true. If you mean battlefield dominance, than there is no 'established' opinion on that.
Btw, you still haven't mentioned any of those battles in which you say that chariots got their asses kicked by cavalry ... I would really love to know that.
And you have tacitly ignored how the Persians got their asses kicked by the Scythians in the first place, who introduced saddles, bigger horses and horse mounted recurved bows. Which is why the Persians were in the phase of outmoding their chariots when Alexander came. Alexander further cemented that issue. In addition, Alexander also saw what the Scythians and Bactrians did with their horses, and this was the inspiration for his cavalry.
I had also mention, which you continually ignored, the experience of chariot driven Chinese kingdoms in the Warring States period facing the Huns/Xiong Nu for the first time. You can bet they got their asses kicked, because soon, the Chinese kingdoms were also deploying cavalry for the first time, and charioteering was in decline.
Its no coincidence all this happening in different parts of the world with no relation to each other. Different peoples and cultures arriving to the same conclusion. Though the technological acceleration is faster on the Eastern side because of the recurved bow, trouser and saddle use was quicker to be accepted en masse and became more predominant.
Maybe we should just agree to disagree?
Not when I'm winning.
