hai, i read an interesting fact recently from "Vandargal Vendralgal" by Madan tht it was only Indians who used elephants 4r war. Many kings ran aways 4m the war field after seeing gaint elephants. he aslo says it was only in India people where able to control elepahants on an aggressive field. SriDevi
indians were the first but not the only ones to use elephants Hannibal 247- 182 bc of carthage took elephants across the alps when he was fighting the romans. Hannibal probably used a now-extinct third African species, the North African elephant, smaller than its two southern cousins, and presumably easier to domesticate.
because A large elephant in full charge could cause tremendous damage to infantry, and cavalry would be afraid of them.war elephants were used by armies in the Indian sub-continent, and later by the persian empire. This use was adopted by hellenestic ptolemaic and seleucid dynaties
among other uses elephants were used by pulikesi to bridge a river
As far as my knowledge, thamizh kings esp the pandyas were well known for an elephant unit. From sivagaminyin sabhadham u can get to know that, the capture of salukiyan capital where majorly aided by Elephant force. kerala was a part of pandiyan kingdom, so pandyas had a full supply of elephants, which was indeed very big in size and very wild, they could pull down even strong fort gates and walls. Even it is shown in one of MGR films :D
In war elephents are often liabilities.They often end up destroying their own armies.Genghis khan used cavalry which was lightning in its speed and conquered most of the then known world.Satrapathi shivaji too used the same technique.Maratha cavalry was very nimble and quick and fought easily in hills of maharashtra capturing many forts.