In part 2 of this blog, we followed the march of the Hittites and the Egyptians as they converged upon the city of Kadesh. We left off with Pharaoh Ramesses and his Amun Army encamped northwest of the city, triumphant that they had reached it before their rivals... only to be struck dumb by the news that the Hittites were in fact here already, concealed behind the eastern side of the Kadesh mound. 

Now we plunge into the depths of the oldest battle on record...

Pharaoh Ramesses, alarmed and enraged that he had been tricked, sent one of his viziers off to the south to warn and hasten his other three armies. There was still time to gather his forces, he must have thought. 

At this point in time - the last stages of dawn - the closest of his three trailing armies was the Ra. They were led by one of Ramesses’ sons, and had just crossed the Ribleh Ford (see map, below). As they marched north, they would have passed the Forest of Robawi on their right flank, still completely unaware that the Hittites were anywhere near this land...
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... and then the veils of deception dropped.

Or was it? It is still a matter of debate: when the Egyptians arrived at Kadesh, were they suddenly ambushed by the hidden Hittite forces as I have described above? Or was it more of a strategic surprise, i.e. did Ramesses reach Kadesh and see from a safe distance that the Hittites were already there, having arrived unexpectedly early? 

As a writer of historical fiction, it would take a strong and compelling case for me to go with the latter theory, and in truth, the stronger and more compelling cases I have read support the former anyway. Some argue that if it was truly an ambush, it would have been a notable, almost anachronistic twist in the art of war; for it is thought that such trickery was not the norm for major conflicts of that era. On the other hand we are without detail of any other battles of the time, so one must challenge that assumption. We do know that the Hittites celebrated and studied deceptive tactics, such as the myth of Sargon’s surprise attack and capture of the city of Purushanda, so there are plausible grounds for the Kadesh ruse being a true and well-laid ‘ambush’.

If it indeed was a surprise attack, then the Hittites executed it brilliantly, and the Battle of Kadesh was well and truly underway.

​After routing the Army of Ra, Prince Hattu then turned his chariot host northwards, swinging across the shallow Orauntis tributary and speeding towards Pharaoh's Amun camp.

Within the vast and as-yet incomplete camp, Ramesses would no doubt have heard a strange rumble in the south, then noticed the heat-warped horizon there shaking and sparkling… before the Hittite chariots exploded into view, coming straight for them. By all accounts, the Hittites ripped the Amun camp to shreds, surging over the half-finished earth & shield rampart and harrowing through the sea of tents and men within.

Pinned by this chariot assault from the southwest, and unable to retreat across the Orauntis thanks to King Muwa and his forty thousand strong Hittite infantry force guarding the far riverbanks, Pharaoh was trapped. The historian J.H. Breasted suggests the Hittite infantry ‘plugged’ the fording points of the Orauntis and denied Pharaoh any route of escape that way. Indeed, accounts tell of heavy fighting in the river shallows.

So, trapped between this infantry anvil and chariot hammer, Ramesses found himself on the cusp of a complete rout. Egyptian accounts claim the Hittites were stopped from claiming this full victory only because of their greed – with some of their chariot crews stopping so they could load up with Egyptian treasures. Looting was a common part of ancient warfare so it is not unlikely, but one would think that if the Hittite chariotry were on the cusp of a complete victory then they might – having marched across the world to get here – complete that rout first before stopping to pick up jewels and trinkets.

Whatever the Hittite chariots were doing, the Amun Army apparently rallied. The Egyptian chronicler Pentaur describes Pharaoh in the midst of it all, riding his chariot alone, reins lashed around his waist, bow in hand:

But spirited fightback or not, the Amun were looking doomed. Until the sound of horns rose in the west...​

From the western mountains, a huge Egyptian reinforcement army known as ‘The Ne’arin’ appeared and sped into the battle. The origins of the Ne’arin are foggy to say the least. Some speculate that they were the soldiers of the close-by land of Amurru. Others suggest they might have been Pharaoh’s rearmost army – the Sutekh – having secretly stolen up the coastal road ahead of the Ra and the Ptah to be nearer to Kadesh than the Hittites expected.

In Thunder at Kadesh, I have opted for a combination of these two theories – that the Ne’arin were a vassal horde of Amurrites, Gublans and Canaanites and that they arrived with the expedited Sutekh alongside them for good measure. These forces relieved the Amun soldiers and began to overwhelm and pulverise Prince Hattu's Hittite chariotry. More, from the south the Egyptian Ptah Army was now across the Ribleh Ford and speeding towards the fray. The balance of battle had well and truly swung in favour of Egypt.

King Muwa, seeing the death-trap in which his brother Hattu and the Hittite chariotry were ensnared, led a reserve of chariots and elite soldiers into the fray, probably across a ford north of Kadesh (the 'Silver Ford' in my diagrams). These forces collided with the ongoing fray on the site of the already ruined Amun camp and the battle raged on throughout the day.

Egyptian records describe their Sherden mercenaries hacking the hands from Hittite casualties as some kind of ‘kill-tally’. Pharaoh’s war-lion, Foe-slayer, was there on campaign with him and no doubt played a part in the fray too. 

The action ceased only when the light began to fade and both armies began to peel apart. After a full day of battle, nothing had been decided. The Hittites still held Kadesh and the eastern banks of the Orauntis, while the Egyptians dominated the western banks.

​So, in the blackness of night as both sides gathered up their dead and kept an anxious watch on their rivals across the Orauntis, another day of battle must have seemed certain. But then, most unexpectedly, some kind of talks took place either that night or early the next day... and it was all over. Never again in history did Egyptian and Hittite swords clash.

"Hold on," I hear you shout. ''You can't leave it there! What happened in the talks? Who 'won'?"

Egyptian reliefs – carved into the walls of the temples at Karnak, Luxor and Abydos – describe the Hittite King falling to his knees and begging Pharaoh for mercy, presumably at these mysterious talks. Apparently, Pharaoh mercifully agreed to this, and the two armies went their separate ways. Following this account, it sounds like we have an Egyptian victory, doesn’t it? 

Well, until fairly recently, historians thought so (while also acknowledging the partisan nature of Egyptian accounts). That seems only fair, given there were no other source materials to contend with this view.

However, in modern times, more than thirty thousand tablets have been discovered under the ruins of the Hittite capital, Hattusa, and some of these shed a rather different light on things. It seems that the Hittites clearly considered themselves to be the victors of Kadesh and of the talks. And an objective analysis does support this, for we now know that immediately after the battle, Pharaoh withdrew his armies from Kadesh, leaving it in Hittite hands, and also – tellingly – pulled his garrison out of nearby Amurru, ceding that vital neighbouring region to the Hittites after twenty years of occupation. The Hittites then claimed further lands ot the south in Pharaoh's wake. Ramesses and his armies headed back south to Egypt having won not a patch of land and having lost a great deal of it. 

In any case, if the Hittites did truly ‘win’ the Battle of Kadesh it was in many ways a Kadmean victory, with great losses incurred: some seven allied kings and huge swathes of allied and Hittite men died over the course of that full day of combat.

​The consequences of the victory were enormous, for the Hitittes and Egyptians remained at peace throughout the remainder of their time as contemporary powers, and even signed a formal defensive alliance some years later. But the history shows that this was a bad time for the Hittites to have weakened themselves so grievously. Indeed, dark ramifications lay ahead...

I hope you enjoyed this blog series. Any questions? Leave a comment below or get in touch - I'd be delighted to hear from you. Also check out my other blog post which looks at the Hittites' 3-man chariots, the 'secret weapon' that helped give them the edge at Kadesh.

And remember, the whole journey can be lived out in visceral detail in the Empires of Bronze series! Book 3 Thunder at Kadesh follows the build up to and execution of the battle you have just been reading about!

In part 1 of this blog, we followed the deterioration of relations between the Hittite and Egyptian Empires: a severe and irreparable collapse of diplomacy that led to their mutual declarations of war. In this second part, we will join the two great powers on their march across the ancient world towards the greatest showdown of the Bronze Age... 

But first, it is important to understand why King Muwatalli (Muwa) and Pharaoh Ramesses chose Kadesh as the place where they would fight out their differences.

​The River Orontes (Orauntis) rises in modern Lebanon and tumbles northwards through Syria, before finally crossing into southern Turkey and turning westwards to spill out into the Mediterranean Sea. Just north of the Lebanon-Syria border, the Orauntis is fed by a small tributary snaking in from the west. Nestled in the conflux of these waterways stands a mound known these days as as Tell Nebi Mend. The mound is large, high and dominant, giving an excellent and commanding view over the rivers and of the large expanse of flatland all around. This would have been an easy choice of site for a king or general looking to establish a stronghold, and scholars largely agree that the Bronze Age city of Kadesh once stood here.

Choosing to fight a great battle in the countryside of Kadesh made sense for a number of reasons:

• Geographically: Kadesh was positioned right on the border between the Hittite and Egyptian realms (see the chain of maps, above). It was the quintessential middle-ground between the two empires.
• Politically: Ownership of the mound-city (and neighbouring Amurru) was the cause of the dispute in the first place (as described in part 1).
• Strategically: The eastern desert and western mountains made the country of Kadesh something of a narrow chokepoint controlling movement from north to south. Equally, Kadesh's dominant position near one end of the Eleutheros Valley meant it was also something of a gatekeeper over the valley and thus controlled access to and from the coastal route in Amurru. Triumph in battle would grant the victor firm control of Kadesh and with it equally firm control of trade and military movements in the area.
• Tactically: As described earlier, the land around Kadesh was pan-flat and thus perfect for chariot warfare. This made for an ideal arena within which the two great kings could unleash their huge fleets of war-cars.

Both sides knew that once the fair marching weather of spring 1274 BC arrived, it would be a contest of speed and shrewd planning to reach Kadesh first - for the Hittites to bolster the city and for Egypt to seize it before the Hittites arrived.

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March of the Egyptians
Of the Egyptian march, we know most. Ramesses mustered his four great divisions - The Amun, the Ra, the Ptah and the Sutekh. Each of these forces numbered anything up to 10,000 men. Each was effectively a self-contained army, with their own archer companies, an infantry and chariot core, pack mules and supply wagons, medical staff, priests and scouts.

These four divisions set off from Pi-Ramesses, Pharaoh's capital on the Iteru (Nile) Delta. Ramesses himself led his elite Amun Army, and was followed by the Ra, the Ptah and the Sutekh as they marched along the ‘Way of Horus’ – the Egyptian military road of conquest. They came to the great fortress of Tjaru, stopping to take supplies from the armoury there, before continuing on into southern Retenu. Delays would have been hard to avoid: hold-ups with supply trains, bandits, sandstorms. There are even attestations of Egyptian soldiers falling ill with fever after drinking directly from the cold streams there, or perishing of shock after wading in - and any such delays on this campaign would have been worrying for Ramesses given the challenge of reaching Kadesh before the Hittites. But on they went, past Migdol fortress and up the Gublan (Lebanese) coast, before bending inland at the Dog River (the modern Nahr al-Kalb, where 3,000 year-old inscriptions in the rock made by Ramesses’ soldiers still exist!).

This took them into a highland region, and along the high Valley of Cedars. The River Orauntis cuts across the northern end of this valley in a deep gorge, and the Egyptians halted here to make camp for the night. From the gorge-side, Ramesses would have been able to look across the river and see the low, pan-flat countryside of Kadesh on the far side.

His goal was in sight... but had he made it here first?

March of the Hittites
​We know very little about the Hittite journey to Kadesh, but we understand that they were led by King Muwa and his brother, Prince Hattusili (Hattu) - who also served as a high general and Gal Mesedi (Hittite chief of state security).

We can surmise that they would have first mustered their four core divisions (four because they seem to have had a system of four generals), each maybe five thousand strong. We know they also called upon the many vassal kings to support them. The Trojans, the Arzawans, the Dardanians, the Masans, the Seha Riverlanders, The Karkisa, the Lukka... the list goes on.

​Estimates vary, but it is generally accepted as plausible that they marched to Kadesh with 40,000 infantry and 2,500 chariots (specialist vehicles, each crewed by three men) in tow, giving a possible grand total of 47,500 soldiers. To the onlookers of the time it must have seemed like the entire world was marching to war.

​The Hittite Army would have set off along the upper of their two heartland highways. This would have led them eastwards across the centre of modern Turkey, then southwards past one speculative location of the city of Zantiya (historically known as Lawazantiya) of whom Ishtar was the patron deity, then on through the White Mountains (the modern Anti-Taurus range in southeastern Turkey), gathering up more vassal armies along the way. They would have emerged from the mountains to meet yet more allies at the northern edges of Retenu, including the small but stout Hittite armies of their two Viceroyalties of Halpa (modern Aleppo) and Gargamis. Finally, they would have speared southwards towards Kadeshi lands.

While Ramesses was encamped at the gorge-side and within sight of the countryside of Kadesh, two Shoshu Bedouin tribesmen arrived from the wilderness and came to him. They explained that the Hititte army was still far away in the north, near Halpa (modern Aleppo).

It was better news than Pharaoh could have hoped for. The city of Kadesh was within a day's striking distance. He could seize the city well before the Hitittes even reached these parts. But his thoughts must have been tinged with caution, for in his haste to reach Kadesh first, he had arrived here at the gorge camp with just his principal army, the Amun. Meanwhile, the Ra, Ptah and Sutekh were strewn out many miles in his wake. Some scholars debate that this was not rashness but prudence - leaving such a gap between armies would mean recources such as springs and pasture lands would have a chance to partially recuperate after one army had passed through, in time for the next to come by. Regardless, Ramesses' dilemma was the same: surge forth with the Amun Army and seize Kadesh, or waste precious hours, days even, waiting on the other three armies?

Ramesses opted to set forth at dawn the next day, before his other armies had caught up. He crossed the Orauntis at the Ribleh ford and led the Amun Army past the flat tongue of land between the Orauntis and its tributary, coming round on the tributary's western side and skirting that waterway until the Kadesh mound rose into view in the northeast. Just northwest of Kadesh, he halted and ordered his Amun soldiers to make camp. The sun was still crawling over the horizon as his troops set about making a siege camp, demarcating a huge area with a low rampart of soldiers' shields dug into the earth. Meanwhile, Ramesses set about planning how he might take the city, and he must have done so with a growing sense of triumph - for he had met not a jot of resistance...

​It was here that Ramesses' day turned distinctly sour. His guards spotted two strange-looking soldiers hidden in nearby bushes, watching the Egyptian camp works. Captured and brought before Pharaoh, Ramesses realised they were Hittites. Forward scouts, he guessed, then ordered their interrogation. It must have been 'persuasive', because they soon revealed to him the news that surely turned his soul to ice...

The Great Hittite Army was not in Halpa... the enemy was already here, hiding behind the eastern side of Kadesh's huge mound!

Pentaur, Pharaoh's 'Poet Laureate' described the captured Hittites' confession as follows:

​So who won the race to Kadesh? The Hittites, without question. And they were here in full, while Ramesses had just one-quarter of his forces with him.

What happened next? Sharpen your swords and stay tuned for The Battle of Kadesh Part 3: Clash of Empires (coming soon) - where we delve right into the Fray!

Hope you enjoyed the read. Any questions? Leave a comment below or get in touch - I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Around 1274 BC, the Hittite and Egyptian Empires clashed near the city of Kadesh - a battle of unprecedented scale and repercussion, and the first such major and direct showdown ever recorded. 
This 3-part blog aims to explore the battle that took place at Kadesh over three thousand years ago, and we begin here with the first question: in an age of nobility, careful diplomacy and respect, why did it come to such a brutal conflict? 

By 1274 BC, the Hittites and the Egyptians had co-existed for some four centuries. The Hittites ruled most of modern-day Turkey and controlled a halo of vassal kingdoms on the Turkish coasts and in the northern Levant. Far to the south, the Egyptians held sway, their crop fields fed by the yearly inundations of the Nile and protected by the vast tracts of desert either side of that great waterway. The Egyptians too controlled many vassal lands near their home territory.

​Relations between Egypt and the Hittites were not always peaceful, it must be said. But prior to 1274 BC, aggression between the two states had only ever been in the shape of posturing and political dispute, as well as proxy war - with the Hittites compelling some of their vassal kingdoms to attack or obstruct an Egyptian army or trade route and vice versa. Not once in all that time had the huge and mighty armies of Egypt's Pharaoh or the Hittite Labarna (high king) been mobilised to face one another in full, all-out war. But a sequence of tit-for-tat exchanges soon changed that...

History teaches us that most empires grow until they meet some form of resistance that checks their expansion. Think of Xerxes' Achaemenid Persia, swelling and thriving inexorably until it met with the Greeks at the Hot Gates then Salamis. Or Attila's Hunnic juggernaut, invincible until his armies came up against the allied patchwork of the fading Western Roman Empire and its 'barbarian' allies. 

So it was with the realms of Egypt and the Hittites. Both gradually stretched out to claim more and more territory as their own. There was a particular desire on both sides to possess the lands of the modern Levant, known to the Egyptians as 'Retenu' (see the dash-lined box area in the map, above) - a land veined with ancient trade routes. No trade was more important than that of tin; tin was a scarce resource, and being essential in the production of bronze, a vital one for any state with martial ambitions. For the Hittite Labarna and Egypt's Pharaoh, controlling Retenu and denying it to their opponent was a must.

Here's a snapshot of the creeping territorial ambitions that brought the Hititte and Egyptian realms nose-to-nose in central Retenu:

• 15th c BC: 
  • Pharoah Tuthmosis III conquers southern Retenu (roughly modern Palestine) for Egypt then rides to the River Mala (Euphrates) and erects victory stele.
• 14th c BC: 
  • Hittite King Suppiluliuma I crushes the Mittani to take much of northern Retenu (roughly modern Syria), including Gargamis (Carchemish) and Kadesh. The latter of these spoils was most important, for Kadesh lay right at the heart of central Retenu, controlling much of the inland trade and military routes.
  • Attempts to defuse the growing tensions are made when the widowed Egyptian Queen Dakhamunzu suggests marriage to Suppiluliuma's son, Zannanza. But on his journey to Egypt to wed the enemy queen, Zannanza is killed in suspicious circumstances. Many suspect this was the Egyptian plan all along.
  • Enraged, Suppiluliuma orders his forces to raid Egyptian border settlements. His Hittite soldiers return with Egyptian prisoners of war in tow.... and a plague! This plague kills Suppiluliuma and ravages Hittite lands for 20 years.
  • Mursili II becomes the new Labarna of the Hittites. A tense lull in hostility is observed between the Hittites and Egyptians at first... until Tetti, a Hittite ambassador on a visit to Egypt, is imprisoned by Pharaoh Horemheb. Resentment broils once more. Threats fly back and forth.
• 13th c BC
  • 1294 BC:
    • Pharaoh Seti I is bent on hurting the Hittites and seizing their holdings in northern Retenu for himself. He marches north, conquers the Hittite vassal lands of Kadesh and Amurru and destroys a Hittite vassal army, leading thousands off in captivity.
    • Hittite King Muwatalli II (Muwa) and his brother Prince Hattusili (Hattu) are powerless to retaliate - for the mighty Hittite Army is beset by troubles on the western edge of Hittite lands where Ahhiyawan (Greek) raiders are pillaging.
  • 1279 BC:
    • Ramesses II takes the Egyptian throne and sets about building up Egypt's already-huge armies, determined to complete his father Seti's unfinished conquest of the Hittites.
  • 1275/1274 BC (estimated):
    • Kadesh defects back to the Hittite fold.
    • Pharaoh Ramesses is enraged.
    • Despite gaining Kadesh once again, King Muwa is still angered by the continuing Egyptian 'occupation' of the equally vital Amurru. More, his Hittite armies are now free of plague and western troubles and he has carefully nurtured strong oaths of military support from his vassals.
    • Ramesses declares he will retake Kadesh, Muwa swears he will defend it.
    • After all these centuries, there is no other path left.
    • The stage is set for war!

Stay tuned for The Battle of Kadesh Part 2: The Road to War !

Hope you enjoyed the read. Any questions? Leave a comment below or get in touch - I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Regarding the crew: the driver was known as a 'kedjen', and he bore a shield as well as the reins. The warrior was called a 'seneny', and he would have carried a composite bow, several quivers, spears, a khopesh (curved sword) and a mace or battle axe. He would also have been clad in a bronze or leather scale corselet and bronze helm. Sometimes, each chariot had a support 'runner', whose job was to sprint alongside or close behind the chariot in battle and finish off enemies wounded by the crew.

​In the Battle of Kadesh, Pharaoh Ramesses employed Sherden mercenaries to run along with his royal chariots, and tasked them with hacking off the hands of the Hittite dead and dying as some kind of 'kill total'.

At some point near the turn of the 14th c BC -> 13th c BC, the Hittites clearly recognised Egypt's chariot supremacy. This must have been a hard thing to accept as the two were the greatest powers of the time and drawing closer and closer to all-out war.

They may well have come to this realisation when, around 1293 BC, Pharaoh Seti routed a Hittite army (mainly composed of vassals) somewhere in Syria. in Dawn of War, I go with this theory, portraying Prince Hattu and his band of soldiers and chariots being torn to pieces by the far faster and nimbler Egyptian vehicles. Regardless of how and when the Hittites were drawn to the conclusion that their own chariotry was not up to the standard of Pharaoh's, we know that they did not sulk about it. Instead they used it as a catalyst to innovate. ​

To reinvent their chariot corps would have required the greatest minds of the Hittite realm. And in terms of the art of chariotry, there was none sharper that Kikkuli. 

Kikkuli was a Hurrian who served in the Hititte court during the period in question. His name might well be Indo-European for 'Colt', hence my use of the name 'Colta' in Empires of Bronze. Kikkuli ran a chariot academy outside the Hittite capital, Hattusa. This complex encompassed stables, corrals, barracks and an oval exercise field as well as homes for scribes, stable-boys, handlers, grooms and wranglers. Hurrians were famed for their chariot warfare and horse-breeding, and we know from the surviving 'Kikkuli Text' that this man left no stone unturned in his work. He specifies practices such as:

• Slitting a horse's nostrils so it could draw in more air with every breath.
• Specifying not only the diet of his horses, but of the crews too.
• A 7-month regimen for the breaking-in of a horse, including night manoeuvres and swimming.
• A horse grooming routine that involved braiding and finely cutting manes and tails so they would not become trussed up in tethers and bronze buckles.
• Interval training for horses to increase the strengths of their hearts - a technique still used today.
• 'Emergency stop' practice: the deliberate toppling of one chariot in front of another to test that the crew behind have the skill to quickly guide their own vehicle out of the way of this hazard.
• Encouraging the horses to bite and kick at opponents.
• A passing-out parade for newly-trained crews. Those who paraded well were given a cup of wine. Those who stumbled were made to drink a cup of urine - yum!

He also masterminded, or at least had a big hand in, the redesign of the Hittite chariot. This new model dispensed with the futile attempts to produce fast and nimble vehicles. What was the point? The Egyptians were miles ahead in these respects. Instead, the new-look Hittite chariot would fully embrace the aspect of shock warfare.

​Out with the old and artificial rule that a chariot had to be crewed by a pair: now a crew would consist of three - a driver, a warrior and a shield-bearer. This meant a wider base to accommodate the extra man and maintain stability. And they dispensed with light frames and thin ox-hide sheathes - now they built cabins of sturdy timber slats offering excellent protection for the three inside. They crafted wheels from multiple strips of steam-bent wood instead of one - meaning larger diameters and thus bigger wheels. These new chariot cabins must have looked like tanks compared to the old-style vehicles.

But surely the poor horse teams would suffer for this: three men to haul around instead of two, as well as a heavier cabin? Well Kikkuli and his team foresaw this and mitigated that risk in their design - moving the axle from its traditional position at the rear of the cabin (meaning the horses bear most of the weight), to the centre.

More, we know from the Kikkuli Text that the Hittite Chariot Master was engaged in a special program of horse breeding and diet. He pioneered the technique of feeding his herds not with grass, but with a mixture of barley, wheat, meal, groats and salt. This, along with his selective breeding, is likely to have resulted in gradually larger and stronger horses, capable of hauling these new vehicles and donning bronze aprons and masks for their own protection.

These vehicles must have been lumbering as they set off from a standstill, but capable of building up great speed and momentum. The penalty would have come in the shape of manoeuvrability, however - the great weight and momentum meaning that the turning circle would have been huge, unless the driver slowed the vehicle right down first. But every weapon has a weakness, and the key is to make the most of its strengths. For the Hittite King, unleashing this new wing of heavy battle-cars would have been like throwing a single volley of spears - absolutely deadly if aimed well... but if you missed on that one and only throw, anything could happen.

In Thunder at Kadesh, I describe these heavy chariots as 'Destroyers', with Prince Hattu leading one vehicle nicknamed 'The Harrower'. Quite apt, given what was to come in their first full-scale outing...

In 1274 BC, after years of threats and posturing, the mighty armies of the Hittites and the Egyptians met at last in the Battle of Kadesh. When Prince Hattu led a charge of this new and massive Destroyer wing - numbering anything up to three thousand vehicles - it was devastating, blowing apart Pharaoh's Army of Ra, then making ruin of his Amun camp. The ghosts of past defeats had well and truly been exorcised... but of course that was just the beginning of that long and brutal clash...

And remember, you can escape to the Bronze Age and ride a Hittite 'Destroyer' in Empires of Bronze: Thunder at Kadesh - out now!: