I've been playing too much Rome II lately and have been wondering about the Carthaginian's use of War elephants in their army. I know that the Carthaginian's did in fact use war elephants (I used to have a book on spies that described Hannibal Barca as a great spymaster and there was a painting of him riding on an elephant). I was wondering how these elephants were effective based on the fact that you could only get so many elephants, and that if you were to say surround an elephant with elite Roman spearman(Triarii) for example, it would severely impede the elephants movement and effectiveness on the battlefield. So my question is, were the elephants used more for their demoralizing effect than the damage they caused to troops on the battlefield, and were these elephants cost effective to the war effort?
One of the biggest issues with war elephants, and the major reason they didn't see widespread use in ancient warfare was the extreme difficulty, borderline impossibility to domesticate elephants. Due to their extremely long pregnancy's (22 months) and only producing one offspring per pregnancy. Mixed with their massively expensive upkeep, dashed any military/civilization hopes of being able to effectively breed, domesticate and train elephants properly for combat roles in the same that was done with war horses.
Now elephants can be tamed, but almost all elephants ever used for labor or war are captured in the wild, effectively "broken" and then trained to do specific tasks for rewards or out of fear of punishment. This on it's own is a expensive and long process, but the key issue is that at heart they are still wild elephants, temperamental, dangerous and prone rampages and psychotic breaks if pushed to far. Zoo's and Circuses are quite aware and have a long and sorted history with elephants suffering breakdowns and killing trainers/riders/anyone nearby.
If the economics and breeding speed was different for elephants, we most likely would of seen proper domesticated war elephants, bred for desirable traits over generations, trained from birth to handle a rider, and housed near military training grounds to get them accustomed to the sights, sounds and smells of armies and battle.
One doesn't have to be much of a tactician to see the advantages elephants can have on the battlefield. Strange, massive, nearly alien looking behemoths to ancient peoples who had never encountered anything like them before. Not to mention their immense strength, speed and difficulty to disable quickly with arrows and swords. A stampeding, enraged, scared elephant is an incredibly dangerous animal on the ancient battlefield, if maybe not a very effective one. Often to ally and enemy alike.
Followup question: how exactly did Hannibal get the elephants over the Alps, and what kind of casualties were there?