[11] British historian Jeremy Black viewed that the Mughal army's struggles until their decline in the wake of Nader Shah's invasion of India reflected the Asiatic military development in the 17th century.

[38]: 107  Humayun, faced with the rising threat of the Afghans in the east led by Mahmud Lodi,[40] defeated a force of them at Dadrah in 1532, and besieged Chunar following this in September 1532, which was under the control of Sher Shah.

[40] Humayun remained at Gaur for months, stuck there due to the weather as he restored order into the city, while at the same time Sher Shah drove deep into his territory, seizing Bihar and Varanasi, while also recovering control over Chunar, and laying siege to Jaunpur, with other detachments of the Afghan army extending as far as Kannauj.

[66] Despite initial success, Akbar was ultimately displeased with the aftermath of the campaign; his foster brother retained all of the spoils and followed through with the Central Asian practice of slaughtering the surrendered garrison, their wives and children, and many Muslim theologians and Sayyids, who were descendants of Muhammad.

[72] His successors continued his struggle against the Mughals, and even captured Ghazni city at one point, prompting emperor Jahangir to deal with the rebellion more seriously, which after constant battles against the sect, the movement eventually weakened and ended.

[80] and pursued the defeated Pathan forces under Masum Kabuli up to Bikrampur in Dhaka, the cunning Isa then deluded negotiation of surrender and delayed the attack of Mughal general for several months.

[90][91] Akbar learned about the disaster 2 days after the battle, and dispatched an army under Rajah Todar Mal on 19 February to exact retribution against the Yusufzais, killing a large number of them and selling many the survivors as slave to Turan and Persia.

[100] In 1594, Jahangir was dispatched by his father, the Emperor Akbar, alongside Asaf Khan, also known as Mirza Jafar Beg and Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, to defeat the renegade Raja Vir Singh Deo Bundela and to capture the city of Orchha, which was considered the centre of the revolt.

[38][133] In 1630, under the leadership of Pir Roshan's great-grandson, Abdul Qadir, thousands of Pashtun tribal alliance consisted of the Yusufzai, Mandanrs, Kheshgi, Mohmand, Afridi, Bangash, and other tribes launched an attack on the Mughal Army in Peshawar.

[136] In 1662, the Mughal empire manage to subdue the Ahom kingdom under the leadership of Mir Jumla II, who conquered its capital, Garhgaon, and capture 100 elephants, 300000 coins, 8000 shields, 1000 ships, and 173 massive rice stores.

In 1690, the Mughal general Zulfiqar Khan Nusrat Jung cooperating with Madurai Nayak dynasty undergoing the Siege of Jinji in conflict against Maratha, where after 8 years, they finally conquered the fort.

[3]: 119  Adapted to fighting pitched battles in the northern Indian plains,[176] The Mughal as empire has their army as cavalry based society which sustain itself with huge volume of nutritious grasses supply to feed their mounts, which produced from its vast territories under their rule.

[201] however, another estimation has the camp rarely traveled more than 6 km per day and was preceded by agents, scouts and workers who prepared roads and bridges, campsites, arranged the purchase of foodstuffs and fuel and assured the cooperation of local rulers.

It is escorted by 500 troopers, mansabdars, Ahadis besides, there are employed a thousand Farrashes, native of Iran, Turan and Hindustan, 500 pioneers, 100 water-carriers, 50 carpenters, tent makers and torch bearers, 50 workers in leather and 150 sweepers.".

However, Kaushik Roy also quoted the accumulation in the imperial revenue of 12,071,876,840 dams has been calculated by Streissand who translated that the Mughal empire military could support about 342,696 cavalry and 4,039,097 infantry in total,[2] while F. Valentijn estimated numbers higher than 4,000,000 in 1707.

[28] de Montserrat also provided information that the Mughal army under Akbar consisted of multiple ethnicities, such as Persians, Turkmen, Chagatais, Uzbeks, Pashtuns, Gujaratis, Pathans, Rajputs, and Balochis.

[218] The Rajput Shamserbaz infantry enlisted in Mughal service were armed with halberd, mace, while some of othem also equipped with Sword-and-buckler set and also two-handed sword similar with western Zweihänder, where they act like central European Doppelsöldner on the offensive.

[237] Furthermore, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri testified about the magnificent gallop of the Mughal cavalier's charge, as they adorned their horse;s saddles and head covers with gems or jewel stones.

The cavalry troopers in particular was riding the strong breeds of Tartary (central Asian)[238] or Persian steeds which generally have larger body than most horses commonly found in India during that time.

The cavalry troops of the Mughals also required to possess extra mounts as spare[239] Well-bred horses were either imported from Arabia, Iran or Central Asia, or bred in Sindh, Rajasthan and parts of Punjab.

Emperors at times also issued firman or imperial mandates on regular intervals addressing officials like mansabdars, kotwals, zamindars and mutasaddis for the remission of taxes for promoting the horse trade.

However, the elephants which were rode by high ranking figures such as rulers who could afford this usually were fully protected with chainmail, steel plates, sewn-scale or brigandines armor sets, although was not casual regularity even among high-ranking commanders of the army.

[255] From the earliest time of warfare in India, war elephants which assigned to the frontline usually used as shock troops which charge was unstoppable by most kind of enemies, except heavily disciplined infantry columns.

[235] Locally recruited and equipped with matchlocks, bows and spears, the infantry was held in low status and was virtually equated with palanquin bearers, woodworkers, cotton carders in the army payrolls.

[307] It is known from the standard survey of maritime technology in 1958, that the Bengalis expertize on shipbuilding were duplicated by The British East India Company in the 1760s, which leading to significant improvements in seaworthiness and navigation for European ships during the Industrial Revolution.

[312]: 499–500  This Siddi navy has armed with rare huge vessels of certain craft which weighted between 300 and 400 tonnage with heavy ordnance on row boats, where few matchlock gunner and spear men cramped.

[306] Heavy artillery pieces brought on board rafts to supplement the existing ones, while wagons lashed to decks and stacks of crates and bales of straw or cotton formed makeshift fortification.

[337]: 196 During the era Aurangzeb, the chronicle of Ahkam 'Alamgiri reveals how the Mughal empire had struggled to establish strong navy, boldened by the failure to prevent losses of Muslim vessels off the coast of the Maldives islands.

[313] Andrew de la Garza stated other reason of the Mughal navy did not evolve into a high seas fleet during the 17th century was technological inferiority of Indian blast furnaces in comparation with the European counterparts, who capable of generating the temperatures required to manufacture cast iron cannon in quantity.

[322] Nevertheless, Syed maintained that Mughal was largely not independent to control the rampart piracy and European naval incursions, and instead resorted to depend on the strength of friendly Arab forces from Muscat to keep the Portuguese in check.