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Could the Dothraki take all of Westeros with 300000 men? v 2.0


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hodorisfaclessman

All 3 have their flaws and strengths.....post a counter one

and the contemporary accounts that i posted that fly in the face of that? at this stage you are honestly telling me if i was sitting 100-50 yards away with a 180lbs recurve bow and you in chainmail and padding you would be 100% confident to take a chest shot and live?

I'm not a medieval infantryman, but I wouldn't be too worried if you were 100 yds away with a 180lb bow sitting down. That said, I'd be more worried about you being 100 yards away with a recurve bow. I'd also be wondering how on GRRM's green planetos you got a 180 lb draw weight recurve bow, considering that's the upper limit of a English longbow. A horse bow is maybe half that, a bit more maximum.

Your accounts and studies have been debunked, and the other half of your sources are random forum posts with no citations.

hodorisfaclessman

You are the one that said a westerosi infantry force would have a large % archers ia simply disagreed and we have been going back and forth over it

if say theres a force of 50K assuming you are a rich lord and say 8-10k are cavalry what of what remains would you say would be archers and the rest non missle foot?

That was not me. That was a different poster. I said we have no idea since we never get any concrete numbers. In an army of 20K, I'd be a bit surprised if it exceeded 2K bowmen. That is going to change depending on the nationality of the army. A french or burgundian army isn't going to have tons of bowmen, but it will hire a ton of crossbowmen. Same with the Italian city-states. HRE might be a bit less. Really depends on where they were.

A force of 50K would be overly large for Westeros or Earth. Too many mouths to feed.

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Before we go too far with the steppe bow vs the merry England BFG maybe we should sidestep into what the fallout would be politically. The backbone of feudalism is the heavily armoured, highly trained knight. He is expensive, haughty, violent, and ofttimes a law unto himself. Now, you're introducing a large number of archers armed and equipped with anti-knight weaponry.

You're eroding the prevailing social structure in ways gunpowder did. If a peasant or a craftsman knows he can face and kill a knight, it cuts the landed nobility out of the power structure. Even if the massive Dothraki invasion failed, you've traing tens of thousands of soldiers with lethal weaponry. They will demand enough land to live on, rights against arbitrary justice, and consumption of goods. And, you've nationalized politics with literal class warfare. Assuming the Dothraki bows are effective, you have them floating around as well to use on horseback. The day of the knight would be done.

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Before we go too far with the steppe bow vs the merry England BFG maybe we should sidestep into what the fallout would be politically. The backbone of feudalism is the heavily armoured, highly trained knight. He is expensive, haughty, violent, and ofttimes a law unto himself. Now, you're introducing a large number of archers armed and equipped with anti-knight weaponry.

You're eroding the prevailing social structure in ways gunpowder did. If a peasant or a craftsman knows he can face and kill a knight, it cuts the landed nobility out of the power structure. Even if the massive Dothraki invasion failed, you've traing tens of thousands of soldiers with lethal weaponry. They will demand enough land to live on, rights against arbitrary justice, and consumption of goods. And, you've nationalized politics with literal class warfare. Assuming the Dothraki bows are effective, you have them floating around as well to use on horseback. The day of the knight would be done.

Um there are already clearly hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Westeros, like professional or good quality soldiers. Archers didn't take over England. There's no reason to think they'd somehow conquer Westeros. Knights outlived horse archers by a long shot.

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Governments are beholden to veterans of wars, usually in disabling ways. We are describing a widespread total war of survival here. This is not rebellious lords or a short insurrection to decide what pretender sits a throne. Yes, Anguy types can kill knights. But this type of struggle would require mass training on a scale never seen in medieval settings.

100000 armed veterans are not just laying down their bows and knuckling m'lord as he rapes their sister on the barroom trestle table. Imagine compressing the social wars, Marius and Sulla, and the first two triumvirates into one war, and having all those legionnaires demanding land and franchise.

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Governments are beholden to veterans of wars, usually in disabling ways. We are describing a widespread total war of survival here. This is not rebellious lords or a short insurrection to decide what pretender sits a throne. Yes, Anguy types can kill knights. But this type of struggle would require mass training on a scale never seen in medieval settings.

100000 armed veterans are not just laying down their bows and knuckling m'lord as he rapes their sister on the barroom trestle table. Imagine compressing the social wars, Marius and Sulla, and the first two triumvirates into one war, and having all those legionnaires demanding land and franchise.

Not really. The dothraki would starve before they did anything else and if split up would be defeated before they starved. RR and the first Blackfyre Rebellion had 100K veterans just milling around and somehow Westeros managed to soldier on.

I mean, RR had 82K men just in between the Trident and Sack of KL. No way there was not another 20K or so between the Vale, Reach, and Stormlands. Mace and his navy alone would hit that.

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Before we go too far with the steppe bow vs the merry England BFG maybe we should sidestep into what the fallout would be politically. The backbone of feudalism is the heavily armoured, highly trained knight. He is expensive, haughty, violent, and ofttimes a law unto himself. Now, you're introducing a large number of archers armed and equipped with anti-knight weaponry.

You're eroding the prevailing social structure in ways gunpowder did. If a peasant or a craftsman knows he can face and kill a knight, it cuts the landed nobility out of the power structure. Even if the massive Dothraki invasion failed, you've traing tens of thousands of soldiers with lethal weaponry. They will demand enough land to live on, rights against arbitrary justice, and consumption of goods. And, you've nationalized politics with literal class warfare. Assuming the Dothraki bows are effective, you have them floating around as well to use on horseback. The day of the knight would be done.

I don't think gunpowder really changed social structures that much. Landed nobility was a powerful group in most European countries well into the 19th and even the 20th centuries.

Being able to kill a knight doesn't really change anything, unless you have the organization and cooperation and resources to do it on a large scale to very many knights and their soldiers, which peasants don't.

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From the other thread which I feel compelled to comment on:

It's worth noting that fully riveted mail is more time-consuming and thus expensive to make and so was not the norm, certainly pre-15th century. Most mail before this period, and quite a lot after, was either partially or wholly butted. Butted mail would be more vulnerable to thrust. (Westeros is a melange, of course, and I've no doubt GRRM hasn't given the issue of the prevalent mail construction techniques any thought!)

In any case, as noted before, the primary protection for this kind of attack is the padding. If well made, it will genuinely stop more of the force of the blow.

Not quite. While riveted mail is time consuming to make and is expensive, it was most definitely the norm pre-15th century, and there is no evidence at all to suggest butted mail was used at all. Butted mail is absolutely useless as armour, because it falls apart under it's own weight. There is no historical evidence of butted mail in Europe from it's introduction by the Celtic tribes, all the way through the medieval period.

Mail is certainly good against slashing, but that does not mean a cut is useless! It still carries a good deal of force - see earlier remarks about how to take down a man in plate. It's true that longswords can thrust, but mostly they'd be used to deliver body blows, and an arakh could certainly copy that.

Mail is good against slashing and thrusts. A cut against armour is relatively useless however. You might break the person's bone (not likely, the human body is rather tough), but in the ancient period, Roman surgeons were adapt at setting bones. Likewise medieval surgeons were as well. A broken bone is majorly preferable to any sort of laceration (unless the bone is broken in such a way that it ends up breaking the skin, but the chances of that happening from any sword is slim. An axe or a mace might do that, but this is about swords.

An arakh is also not going to do all that much to someone armoured in mail, with an arming sword and a shield. The shield closes a line that the arakh cannot get through. Sword and shield is a very difficult weapon setup to fight against.

There's been tests done on mail that show to defeat it, it requires about 120J to get through, or some kind of force multiplier like a very acute point. One handed swords have also been tested, and they don't deliver anywhere near this amount of force, even with an overhand thrust. Even a 150 lb longbow has a hard time delivering that much force at anything further than 20 yards. At 20 yards, a person on horseback would cover that distance very quickly. By that point the Dothraki would either have to flee or engage with a sword.

In addition, even those professional soldiers who have mail shirts rarely have full protection (closed-faced helm, full leg protection such as chausses, metal gauntlets and/or vambraces). There are vulnerable areas.

There are vulnerable areas yes, but even a simple spangenhelm with a nose guard and a mail coif offers more protection than an exposed head. The danger comes from arrows there, but that has nothing to do with personal combat. Leg protection would be important, but that's also why at the height of mail being used, they were long, reaching to the knees. The shins may or may not be vulnerable. Even the Norman method of simply wrapping bands of cloth around the legs as puttees has been experimented with and shows to offer generally good protection. And if the warrior fighting you with a one handed sword is trying to strike your shins... they're already dead. Hands are vulnerable, but not as vulnerable as they would appear. Medieval fighting styles prior to the Renaissance with it's complex hilted swords used guard positions that did not leave the hands exposed, because they were held close to the body (and with Renaissance complex hilt swords, guards positions that offered more reach were used because of the increased hand protection). Not to mention the other hand and arm and body would have the entire line closed with a shield.

Put it this way - if I was armoured in mail and padding and facing a guy with an arakh, I wouldn't be chuckling at how safe I was. I'd be taking him seriously.

That is true. But anyone who is trying to kill you should be taken seriously. That being said, he's going to have a hard time killing you with how well protected you are. He needs to make very precise strikes on areas that are not easy to get to. In a cavalry fight between an armoured knight against a mostly naked/unprotected Dothraki, I would put the advantage to the knight. Their lance is perhaps the most important thing in that fight. It has so much more reach than any Dothraki sword could have. The Dothraki don't seem to use shields either. Fighting with sword on horseback against someone with a lance and shield on horseback is not an easy thing to do at all, even for someone who is fully armoured.

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Now, you're introducing a large number of archers armed and equipped with anti-knight weaponry.

What anti-knight weaponry ? The bow ? Not really. The crossbow was much more of an equalizer, to the point where the pope tried banning it because it was so dishonorable. You can teach a peasant to use a crossbow in a day, it's point and click. The bow ? Not so much. And yet, despite the crossbow being around for hundreds of years, the social structure prevailed.

You're eroding the prevailing social structure in ways gunpowder did. If a peasant or a craftsman knows he can face and kill a knight, it cuts the landed nobility out of the power structure. Even if the massive Dothraki invasion failed, you've traing tens of thousands of soldiers with lethal weaponry. They will demand enough land to live on, rights against arbitrary justice, and consumption of goods. And, you've nationalized politics with literal class warfare. Assuming the Dothraki bows are effective, you have them floating around as well to use on horseback. The day of the knight would be done.

I think you're overestimating the impact of gunpowder. Gunpowder was around for hundreds of years, there was no sudden revolution when gunpowder "came" to europe, as many people seem to think.

What happened to end the kings being dependent on feudal vassals for aid was the slow, yet inevitable monetarization of society that happened throughout europe all through the high medieval period. This eventually enabled sovereigns to hire mercenaries and eventually support full-time standing armies.

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I'm not a medieval infantryman, but I wouldn't be too worried if you were 100 yds away with a 180lb bow sitting down. That said, I'd be more worried about you being 100 yards away with a recurve bow. I'd also be wondering how on GRRM's green planetos you got a 180 lb draw weight recurve bow, considering that's the upper limit of a English longbow. A horse bow is maybe half that, a bit more maximum.

Your accounts and studies have been debunked, and the other half of your sources are random forum posts with no citations.

I read the previous thread, and they weren't debunked at all IMO. Here is the study again http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf

Note that the tests are done to simulate arrow fire from long range, not point blank.

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I read the previous thread, and they weren't debunked at all IMO. Here is the study again http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf

Note that the tests are done to simulate arrow fire from long range, not point blank.

Oh ffs. Ok, here we go:

The target is stationary and unyielding. Neither of which applies to shooting at moving bodies.

The calculations supposedly simulating arrow fire from a long range apparently do not take drag into account whatsoever. This is a coarse simplification at best, at worst it makes the test completely useless. It also assumes that angle of attack is irrelevant, another gross simplification.

Finally, the armour used is nearly all of it irrelevant: The textile armour is too thin, the mail is in all instances but one, not something you would see worn, and the plates are simply flat sheets of steel, as opposed to angled armour.

To put it mildly, the test is severely skewed towards the archer, both in setup, theory and choice of material.

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Not quite. While riveted mail is time consuming to make and is expensive, it was most definitely the norm pre-15th century, and there is no evidence at all to suggest butted mail was used at all. Butted mail is absolutely useless as armour, because it falls apart under it's own weight. There is no historical evidence of butted mail in Europe from it's introduction by the Celtic tribes, all the way through the medieval period.

'No' historic evidence at all?

https://sites.google.com/site/archoevidence/home/mail-armour

Having said that, my impression was that the prevalent construction pre-15th c. was partially riveted mail (either one riveted link to four butted or welded links, or alternating rows), hence why I say 'fully riveted mail' was not the norm. My info may be bad on this, though.

As to whether butted mail is 'absolutely useless', it's undoubtedly inferior (as I noted). But 'inferior' doesn't mean 'absolutely useless'. It provides protection against cuts, if not thrusts.

The idea that it would fall apart under its own weight is one I find strange. Some modern re-enactors use wholly butted mail, and while I'd never wear it myself (because it does indeed split if you take a thrust), and there are caveats such as the links on modern reproduction shirts being lighter, I've never seen such a shirt literally fall apart under its own weight. If you have evidence of that happening, I'd like to see it. (Genuinely. It would be great to have another argument as to why people should not be wearing them on the field...)

Mail is good against slashing and thrusts. A cut against armour is relatively useless however. You might break the person's bone (not likely, the human body is rather tough), but in the ancient period, Roman surgeons were adapt at setting bones. Likewise medieval surgeons were as well.

The ability to set the bone afterwards is not the issue when it comes to combat, though. The aim in combat is not to kill the other guy. It's to take him out of the fight, make him not a threat. A broken collarbone or shoulder will do that very effectively.

An arakh is also not going to do all that much to someone armoured in mail, with an arming sword and a shield. The shield closes a line that the arakh cannot get through. Sword and shield is a very difficult weapon setup to fight against.

True, but true also of a man armed with a longsword.

I'm still puzzled as to the suggestion that the arakh is so markedly inferior to a longsword or arming sword in combat against a man in armour and/or with a shield as to be absolutely useless. This appears to be based on assumptions about characteristics of the weapon that aren't actually covered in the text. We can say it's not a thrusting weapon, but that's all we can say. The main thing we know about the weapon is that it has a curved blade. And that's it! That's all we know. We don't even know for certain whether it's curved like a scimitar or like a khopesh. (Though IIRC, GRRM has indicated it's the former.)

So long as we accept that a longsword is a viable threat - and I think we have to, at least as far as ASOIAF goes, because the author treats it as one - we should accept that an arakh is potentially a threat too.

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Remember when the wildlings were able to shoot arrows to reach the top of the Wall?



Yeah. The Dothraki will be exactly as formidable as GRRM wants them to be, accuracy be damned. And what are we told in the text about the Dothraki?




“When I first went into exile, I looked at the Dothraki and saw half-naked barbarians, as wild as their horses. If you had asked me then, Princess, I should have told you that a thousand good knights would have no trouble putting to flight a hundred times as many Dothraki.”



“But if I asked you now?”



“Now,” the knight said, “I am less certain. They are better riders than any knight, utterly fearless, and their bows outrange ours. In the Seven Kingdoms, most archers fight on foot, from behind a shieldwall or a barricade of sharpened stakes. The Dothraki fire from horseback, charging or retreating, it makes no matter, they are full as deadly... and there are so many of them, my lady. Your lord husband alone counts forty thousand mounted warriors in his khalasar.”



“Is that truly so many?”



“Your brother Rhaegar brought as many men to the Trident,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but of that number, no more than a tenth were knights. The rest were archers, freeriders, and foot soldiers armed with spears and pikes. When Rhaegar fell, many threw down their weapons and fled the field. How long do you imagine such a rabble would stand against the charge of forty thousand screamers howling for blood? How well would boiled leather jerkins and mailed shirts protect them when the arrows fall like rain?”



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The calculations supposedly simulating arrow fire from a long range apparently do not take drag into account whatsoever. This is a coarse simplification at best, at worst it makes the test completely useless. It also assumes that angle of attack is irrelevant, another gross simplification.

Yes, I too wondered about this. The math looks way over simplified. I get the basic Newtonian physics involved, but there doesn't seem to be any allowance for drag. Also, it would have been nice if there would have been some empirical testing for the relevant ranges to study the effect of drag.

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Remember when the wildlings were able to shoot arrows to reach the top of the Wall?

Yeah. The Dothraki will be exactly as formidable as GRRM wants them to be, accuracy be damned. And what are we told in the text about the Dothraki?

And yet, we often see this "rabble" holding up quite well against heavy calvary.

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True, but true also of a man armed with a longsword.

I'm still puzzled as to the suggestion that the arakh is so markedly inferior to a longsword or arming sword in combat against a man in armour and/or with a shield as to be absolutely useless. This appears to be based on assumptions about characteristics of the weapon that aren't actually covered in the text. We can say it's not a thrusting weapon, but that's all we can say. The main thing we know about the weapon is that it has a curved blade. And that's it! That's all we know. We don't even know for certain whether it's curved like a scimitar or like a khopesh. (Though IIRC, GRRM has indicated it's the former.)

So long as we accept that a longsword is a viable threat - and I think we have to, at least as far as ASOIAF goes, because the author treats it as one - we should accept that an arakh is potentially a threat too.

You're right that an arakh is more similar in design to a scimitar, which is advantageous to the Dothraki because they only fight on horseback.

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Alright, assuming the Dothraki land in Dorne and go from there, i think they'd be able to take Dorne. They would have a good advantage over the Dornish lords because if they would meet the Dothraki in the open (Dorne has the only desert in Westeros), they would get rekt. It would get a lot more difficult for them once they enter The Reach. Assuming the Dothraki lost quite a few men taking the whole of Dorne, i just don't see them win against the Tyrells. According to a semi canon source in 2005, the Reach could raise an army of between eighty and one hundred thousand soldiers. That i reckon would be enough to slaughter atleast 80% of the remaining Dothraki army and send the rest home with their tails tucked between their legs.


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And yet, we often see this "rabble" holding up quite well against heavy calvary.

They would certainly be a "rabble" compared to a united khalasar where every warrior fights on horseback. 40,000 riders against 4,000 knights and 36,000 men on foot? I'd put my money on the riders.

But anyway, my point is that Jorah seems to think the arrows would be a serious threat.

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