[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Wrana

Well, you probably remember that Seljuks were not Arab people... I've said that they used Turk mercenaries and/or warrior slaves specifically for this. Pretending to run away certainly took place often. Firing at close range - surely (by the way, Arab farisi often did that with javelins). Generally, hit-and-run tactics was common for Arab warriors. But they didn't use archery so much nor so exclusevely as is often thought. While they often attacked in hand-to-hand.
As for mounted archers... Islamic - probably, Arab - no. And even for the first point you shouldn't say so when you surely remember that the Mongols emerged on the historical scene right at this time! For them this was not a sport for angels - but a means to feed their childern... Really, I don't know of a case where individual Turkish and Mongolian bows were tested at the same conditions - but as for using them in mass, Bayazed the Lightning was sent into Tamerlan's capital in an iron cell...

So, I need to dig up sources for some of the rest of your comments, but I am quite certain on this point. The mongols were just coming into mesopotamia during the time of the crusades, and were even initially friendly towards the crusaders (and hostile to the Islamic empire). Thus they certainly weren't 'mongol' or other steppes tribe archers - those would certainly come later, but not during the (at least early) crusades. It wouldn't be until the mongols switched to preferring Islam to Christianity (due to the death of a leader - the Ilkhan maybe? - who was pro-Christian) that steppes tribe archers would become avaialable.

Now, what I read didn't make it clear if the archers are specifically arab - i'd guess they were drawn from across the islamic world, which may have included various middle eastern peoples such as persians, egyptians, etc...

What you mean by lances then? THey surely didn't use "hand battering rams" of later knights - but then, neither did European knights of the time... They used what is called in the game "light lance" - a long spear used specifically by cavalrymen. Considering other weapons - yes, certainly. I can even add that an Arabian mythology of a sword predates Mohammed (while poetry begins to speak in bow metaphors only after conquest and absorbtion of Persia, by the way). Considering charges I'd say that they probably didn't often perform charges which should carry them through the enemy. Anything more definite would be an overstatement. As for reasons for success of "Franks" in first Crusade - I think there was a number of them, but I didn't study this one in particular detail. There is an opinion that Western knights just used taller and more heavy horses than those in use in Levant and so had a definite advantage in head-on collision. Something may be attributed to difference in armor (even though it was not so big as is often depicted). There were also political reasons... Though the tactics crusaders used had played their role also (but these tactics also included things other than massed mounted charge!).
And of course, considering superior numbers - we should not take crusaders' reports literally. For example, it's certain that the numbers of Constantinopolis' defenders against the 4th Crusade were much less than Villehardouin states. The same is proved in many other instances.

First of all, the 'lance' as we think of it requires the invention of the stirrup, so pre-stirrup (before ~900AD) cavalry clearly aren't using a 'lance' as we mean it.

A 'light lance' still has some technological innovations which separate it from a spear, such as a crossbar behind the head to stop penetration from going too deeply (so it can be withdrawn and used again relatively quickly). We have artistic evidence for such a device in Byzantium at around the time of the crusades, I know.

Lance, especially the mechanical benefits the game employs, requires that it be couched and the momentum of the horse used as the primary force behind the weapon. This is what constitutes the effectiveness of the european heavy cavalry charge.

This is more confusing because the term lance is older than the object that matches our modern conception of a lance, and was basically any spear-like object generally when used from horseback. Thus period sources may use the term, but they don't necessarily mean what we mean by the term.

European horses were actually smaller than their islamic adversaries' horses - which was why muslim forces used barding in the hot climate while the europeans didn't - less risk of exhausting a larger horse. European horse stock got larger as a result of the first crusade because they could interbreed arabian horses with european horses.

Armor was indeed mostly equivalent, at least in type. Not sure about quality.

And political reasons explain the 1st crusades strategic advantage, but not its apparent tactical advantage. AFAICT the tactical advantage is due to the heavy cavalry charge and the crossbow, both of which we have contemporary muslim comments about.