1526
First Battle of Panipat
The setting
Plain near Panipat, in modern Haryana, north India (about 90 km north of Delhi)
Flat, open north Indian plain suited to large cavalry armies and elephants; Babur anchored one flank on the town of Panipat and used ditches and felled-tree obstacles to protect the other.
Reveal the outcome
Recorded sideMughal (Timurid) forces of Babur
Recorded resultdecisive victory
Decisive Mughal victory; Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the field
How the atlas explains it
Babur offset a large numerical disadvantage with gunpowder and prepared ground. The wagon-fort (araba) gave his matchlockmen and field artillery a steady firing platform that broke up frontal assaults and panicked Ibrahim Lodi's massed elephants and cavalry; meanwhile his mobile tulughma cavalry swept around both flanks to envelop the crowded, immobilized Lodi host. Lodi's larger army, lacking firearms and jammed together, could not maneuver, and his death in the field ended organized resistance.
What followed
Destroyed the Delhi Sultanate's Lodi dynasty and founded the Mughal Empire in India, which would dominate the subcontinent for over two centuries. A landmark in the spread of gunpowder ('gunpowder empire') warfare to South Asia.