Age cultures were using composite bows on a large scale. By the 4th century BCE, chariotry had ceased to have military importance, replaced by cavalry everywhere (except in Britannia, where charioteers are not recorded as using bows). By mounted archers The mounted archer became the archetypal warrior of the steppes and the composite bow was his primary weapon, used to protect the herds, in steppe warfare, and for incursions into settled lands. Classic tactics for horse-mounted archers included skirmishing: they would approach, shoot, and retreat before any effective response could be made. The term Parthian shot refers to the widespread horse-archer tactic of shooting backwards over the rear of their horses as they retreated. Parthians inflicted heavy defeats on Romans, the first being the Battle of Carrhae. However, horse archers did not make an army invincible; Han General Ban Chao led successful military expeditions in the late 1st century CE that conquered as far as Central Asia, and both Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great defeated horse archer armies. Well-led Roman armies defeated Parthian armies on several occasions and twice took the Parthian capital. By infantry Composite bows can be used without difficulty by infantry. The infantry archers of classical Greece and the Roman Empire used composite bows. The military of the Han Dynasty (220 BCE–206 CE) utilized composite crossbows, often in infantry square formations, in their many engagements against the Xiongnu. Until 1571, archers with composite bows were a main component of the forces of the Ottoman Empire, but in the Battle of Lepanto in that year, they lost most of these troops and never replaced them. Technical changes in classical times The details of bow construction changed somewhat with time. It is not clear that the various developments of the composite bow led to measurable improvements: "the development of archery equipment may not be a process involving progressive improvements in performance. Rather, each design type represents one solution to the problem of creating a mobile weapon system capable of hurling lightweight projectiles." Scythian bows, bending tips Variants of the Scythian bow were the dominant form in Asia until approximately the first century BCE. These were short weapons—one was long when strung, with arrows perhaps long—with flexible, "working" tips; the wooden core was continuous from the centre to the tip. Siyahs, stiff tips From about the 4th century BCE, the use of stiffened ends on composite