How Dothraki take a city?

[Lesly]

Their military tactics were non-stop cavalry charge. When approching a city which has high wall and steel gates though... do they use siege engines or just fashion rope and ladder? Or just starve them out?

[Bright Blue Eyes]

They don't.

In the couple instances where the Dothraki actually managed to beat somebody, the defenders came out with their Bronze Age military, almost won the battle, but ultimately lost. No defenders left, Dothraki ride in. But that was always damn rare.

The Dothraki are not a serious threat to any halfway modern military. Never were. At best, they are an economic threat, putting pressure on the hinterland.

[The silver dragon]

they burn the crop fields.

kill and enslave all the farmers.

and just wait until the city's defenders come out and face them or until they surrender.

[The silver dragon]

They don't.

In the couple instances where the Dothraki actually managed to beat somebody, the defenders came out with their Bronze Age military, almost won the battle, but ultimately lost. No defenders left, Dothraki ride in. But that was always damn rare.

The Dothraki are not a serious threat to any halfway modern military. Never were. At best, they are an economic threat, putting pressure on the hinterland.

the dothraki came out after the doom of valyria (around 500 years ago from the story). people all over essos had been using steel for thousands of years before the dothraki happened.

so i don't know where you get "bronze age militarily"

[SeanF]

Nothing more sophisticated than starving them out.

[hodorisfaclessman]

Starvation ,agreements and insider betrayal took the majority of cities not epic siege weapons and storming

For taking cities by force we know they are horse archers so dismounting a few thousand to put fire on defenders is feasible

We know they have large wheeled carts and metal ....not a huge leap there to convert to wheeled battering ramsor moving arrow shielding platforms

We kniw they have rope and metal so grappling hooks or fixing gates to horse to drag them off isnt a stretch (see tv show vikings siege of paris for an example)

And finaly they have slaves at their city so they may have those who can build siege weaponry among those

All in all we know they have sacked ibbenese,sanori,ghiscari,valyrian and who knows wat other peoples cities

[Bright Blue Eyes]

the dothraki came out after the doom of valyria (around 500 years ago from the story). people all over essos had been using steel for thousands of years before the dothraki happened.

so i don't know where you get "bronze age militarily"

I'm referring to structure, strategy and tactics, not the actual metal. The Sarnori "military" with it's emphasis on chariots is straight from the Bronze Age and basically a joke.

Well, it actually wasn't even a proper military, more like assembling the populace into a mob and charging out.

[hodorisfaclessman]

I'm referring to structure, strategy and tactics, not the actual metal. The Sarnori "military" with it's emphasis on chariots is straight from the Bronze Age and basically a joke.

Well, it actually wasn't even a proper military, more like assembling the populace into a mob and charging out.

To be fair chariots wernt phased out for being useless its just for 6k of them u can have 12 or 24k cavalry instead...they are wasteful use of horses.

Theres no evidence their military was anythingless than professional...they were just outsmarted in one battle

Overall their record against or being hired by both ghiscari ,valryrian ibbenese and quarth all seem to hint they knew their trade....losing one battle to traditional horse archer tactics of feint and envelop doesnt = suck

[TheSovereignGrave]

Theres no evidence their military was anythingless than professional...they were just outsmarted in one battle.

I believe he's the one who thinks it's impossible for a civilization in a fantasy setting to actually have female warriors like the Sarnori did, so it must have just been a last ditch effort despite there still being numerous Sarnor cities.

I'm referring to structure, strategy and tactics, not the actual metal. The Sarnori "military" with it's emphasis on chariots is straight from the Bronze Age and basically a joke.

Well, it actually wasn't even a proper military, more like assembling the populace into a mob and charging out.

And I suppose the Essarians and Ibbenese were both Bronze Age too?

[hodorisfaclessman]

I believe he's the one who thinks it's impossible for a civilization in a fantasy setting to actually have female warriors like the Sarnori did, so it must have just been a last ditch effort despite there still being numerous Sarnor cities.

Clearly states they are a culture with warrior women

One sanori city on its last legs sent all its warriors out leaving women and children behind..so the idea that they just decided to arm and commit some non professional women to the field of crows major battle when it was so critical is daft.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

To be fair chariots wernt phased out for being useless its just for 6k of them u can have 12 or 24k cavalry instead...they are wasteful use of horses.

Furthermore, 1,000 chariots were less useful than 1,000 cavalry. Chariots were nice before horses of proper size could be bred, but they quickly became obsolete when horses actually could carry an armed man.

And I suppose the Essarians and Ibbenese were both Bronze Age too?

The Ibbenese are linked to Neanderthalians.

Clearly states they are a culture with warrior women

One sanori city on its last legs sent all its warriors out leaving women and children behind..so the idea that they just decided to arm and commit some non professional women to the field of crows major battle when it was so critical is daft.

And that's a clear indication for either a tribal culture - or one with guns and trucks and contraceptives.

With the given technology, women had a gigantic physical disadvantage. Furthermore, warfare and children basically excluded each other.

[TheSovereignGrave]

The Ibbenese are linked to Neanderthalians.

And that's a clear indication for either a tribal culture - or one with guns and trucks and contraceptives.

With the given technology, women had a gigantic physical disadvantage. Furthermore, warfare and children basically excluded each other.

I don't see how the Ibbenese being based on Neanderthals has anything to do with it, since they're obviously on par with the rest of the world in what we know of them.

And I don't understand why you can't accept that in a fantasy series you can have a non-tribal culture that has warrior women. It's stated that they had women in their armies, and there's no reason to think it was any sort of "last-ditch" effort to resist the Dothraki. And it's not like they're that far away, and there's still Sarnori people alive. You can hop on a boat, sail to Saath, and talk to the Tall Men; so it's not like we're talking about a completely extinct culture either.

[hodorisfaclessman]

-Furthermore, 1,000 chariots were less useful than 1,000 cavalry. Chariots were nice before horses of proper size could be bred, but they quickly became obsolete when horses actually could carry an armed man.

-The Ibbenese are linked to Neanderthalians.

-And that's a clear indication for either a tribal culture - or one with guns and trucks and contraceptives.

With the given technology, women had a gigantic physical disadvantage. Furthermore, warfare and children basically excluded each other.

-chariots had various uses and weaknesses but overall its just ur talking 2 men and 2-4 horses that could otherwise be engaged is why they faded.

- physicaly similar but have an advanced society by the books standards.

-or one in a fantasy book where theres warrior women like everywhere in the world i mean we literaly have 2 povs from the perspective of 2 of them (brienne and asha) both slicing their way through their story arcs.

Its not like it was unheard of in our world either

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_post-classical_warfare#7th_century..

[The Grey Wolf]

Asha and Brienne are exceptions to the norm. Besides them can you name any female POV that actually fights? Off the top of my head the only non-POV characters that can fight are the Mormont women (explained by the prescence of the Ironborn), the Sand Snakes (again explained by their dad being a little progressive compared to the rest of Westeros), and the pit fighters (who are honestly a joke since they're supposed to be a grisly spectacle, the grisly part being them usually. Furthermore, the link you posted lists individuals, not rank-and-file groups of soldiers. Beyond that, while this is a fantasy world it still has to abide by the rules of verisimilitude, which is the big issue since ASOIAF is praised for being (mostly) realistic. In the real world throughout history war was a man's profession (even today it still is primarily) and there were reasons for that. One, generally superior endurance and upper body strength, which in the days where you had to carry weapons and armor and march for miles was rather important. Two, if women are fighting and getting killed depending on the number you're not going to have a sustainable population because biologically speaking men are expendable while women are not since one man can father many children at the same time while the reverse is not true, not to mention the whole issue of already existing children. Three, having women in your army (forgive me if this has been debunked and feel free to point that out) but having women in your army is probably going to distract the men. Its one thing to hear your fellow men screaming, dying, and shitting themselves and keeping formation and quite another to hear on top of that women doing the same. As for the Sarnori specifically, as BBE pointed out, they're using chariots (as well as slingers with no mention of archers) at a time when everyone else (including their enemies, the Dothraki)are actually riding the horses and since the Sarnori are said to have cavalry why they bothered to keep the chariots is mind-boggling. Finally, as someone mentioned the men of Mardosh slew their women and children before charging out the gates but if women fighting was the norm you'd think only the children would be killed. We can't really extrapolate about the Qaathi, Ibbennesse, or Valyrian colonies destroyed since we don't know the particulars of how they happened and what kind of military they had. The Ghiscari though is explainable since their armies are still the same they were during the time when Ghiscar was one of the great (if not the greatest apart from Yi Ti potentially) civilizations of the world, bronze-armored and equipped hoplite-esque soldiers primarily relying on the phalanx, which was abandoned along with chariots for a number of good reasons. Sorry if this post is rather long.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

-chariots had various uses and weaknesses but overall its just ur talking 2 men and 2-4 horses that could otherwise be engaged is why they faded.

And it's lack of cross-country options.

- physicaly similar but have an advanced society by the books standards.

Sort of. The description of their architecture doesn't exactly scream "up to standards".

-or one in a fantasy book where theres warrior women like everywhere in the world i mean we literaly have 2 povs from the perspective of 2 of them (brienne and asha) both slicing their way through their story arcs.

Its not like it was unheard of in our world either

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_post-classical_warfare#7th_century..

GRRM lampshades the problems of female warriors with those PoVs. Brienne is literally "a freak of nature" (GRRM's own words) while Asha acts more as a leadership figure and has to be protected in actual, physical combat.

[hodorisfaclessman]

- still before it became an expensive waste of 4 horses it had a variety of uses

- Their society is as modern as any , even architecture wise

we hear of rural villagers using tile and thatch houses(not like the westeros villages will be any better) but the port of ibben has cobbled streets (a rarity in planetos to hear of any paving) , whale oil fueled iron lanterns to light their streets, a castle , a huge teeming harbour etc etc.

-And yet they are all over westeros , essos , the summer islands

asha kills many men in her fight fleeing deepwood she gets saved once by qarl in that free for all fight and more before that we can assume

Overall the idea that the sanori would suddenly arm untrained women and given them horses before such a critical battle makes 0 sense or that they had armed everyone (their population was in the millions meaning plenty of men could have been on those horses had it just been a freshly raised milita)

We know earlier they send out their warriors and leave the untrained women behind or kill them ......in fact the idea theyd give something as valuable as horses to any non professionals male or female is stupid

[Knight Of Winter]

That same question baffled me as well. If it's established that Dothraki have no concept of siege warfare, and thus have to rely on starving out besieged cities, how the hell did they manage to conquer coastal cities, ones which could be resupplied from the sea? Ibbish aka Vaes Aresak is one such example.

[hodorisfaclessman]

Asha and Brienne are exceptions to the norm. Besides them can you name any female POV that actually fights? Off the top of my head the only non-POV characters that can fight are the Mormont women (explained by the prescence of the Ironborn), the Sand Snakes (again explained by their dad being a little progressive compared to the rest of Westeros), and the pit fighters (who are honestly a joke since they're supposed to be a grisly spectacle, the grisly part being them usually. Furthermore, the link you posted lists individuals, not rank-and-file groups of soldiers. Beyond that, while this is a fantasy world it still has to abide by the rules of verisimilitude, which is the big issue since ASOIAF is praised for being (mostly) realistic. In the real world throughout history war was a man's profession (even today it still is primarily) and there were reasons for that. One, generally superior endurance and upper body strength, which in the days where you had to carry weapons and armor and march for miles was rather important. Two, if women are fighting and getting killed depending on the number you're not going to have a sustainable population because biologically speaking men are expendable while women are not since one man can father many children at the same time while the reverse is not true, not to mention the whole issue of already existing children. Three, having women in your army (forgive me if this has been debunked and feel free to point that out) but having women in your army is probably going to distract the men. Its one thing to hear your fellow men screaming, dying, and shitting themselves and keeping formation and quite another to hear on top of that women doing the same. As for the Sarnori specifically, as BBE pointed out, they're using chariots (as well as slingers with no mention of archers) at a time when everyone else (including their enemies, the Dothraki)are actually riding the horses and since the Sarnori are said to have cavalry why they bothered to keep the chariots is mind-boggling. Finally, as someone mentioned the men of Mardosh slew their women and children before charging out the gates but if women fighting was the norm you'd think only the children would be killed. We can't really extrapolate about the Qaathi, Ibbennesse, or Valyrian colonies destroyed since we don't know the particulars of how they happened and what kind of military they had. The Ghiscari though is explainable since their armies are still the same they were during the time when Ghiscar was one of the great (if not the greatest apart from Yi Ti potentially) civilizations of the world, bronze-armored and equipped hoplite-esque soldiers primarily relying on the phalanx, which was abandoned along with chariots for a number of good reasons. Sorry if this post is rather long.

Ok so right off you mention multiple examples of women killers in grmms world and cultures that have them in the military however scarce bear in mind in this case the women made up just part of a 10k cavalry force (its never amatuers with cavalry ) amongst an army of 126k !! ...even if the full 10k were women thats a still a low % of their fighters.

Overall they seem to have women warriors as part of their culture but in a tiny ratio vs men there as expected , given what we know of real world militaries and grmms world saying them making up a fraction of their the military automaticaly means that their force is unprofessional is stupid

as for your 3 points

1) agreed hence why they arent the norm then and even now

2)the military will only ever be a small % of the population anyway so thats not really a factor at all

3)yep it has been , read some of the stories of women on the russian front alone

The fact they wastefully used 2-4 horses for chariots when they have heavy cavalry themselves seems more like an attempt to add a touch of the exotic by the writers

the fact they slew their wives and women were part of a cavalry contingent (expensive) seems to actualy ram home the point quite clearly that they distinguish between the very few females who are professional warriors fit to fight and ordinary womenfolk

[hodorisfaclessman]

That same question baffled me as well. If it's established that Dothraki have no concept of siege warfare, and thus have to rely on starving out besieged cities, how the hell did they manage to conquer coastal cities, ones which could be resupplied from the sea? Ibbish aka Vaes Aresak is one such example.

Its not really established at all that they cant (the evidence seems to show they can ) all we know is jorah says

''The riders have no taste for siegecraft. I doubt they could take even the weakest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, '' but as i pointed out in an earlier post in this thread theres plenty of possibllities

overall it prob depends on the khal if you have an idiot like tommo then your city is prob safe , on the other hand a different khal may force his riders to overcome their distaste for sieges.....drogo we know dreamed of sacking qarth

[Nihlus]

Just gonna point out that the Essosi base their militaries on those used thousands of years ago and literally use bronze for their armor and shields. Also: slingers, non-couched lances (or horsemen that don't carry lances), chariots, and huge numbers of totally unarmored troops (bar MAYBE wooden shields). Everything east of the west coast is very blatantly stuck in the Bronze Age. Yet these primitives still don't too badly against the Dothraki.

See: the Ibbenese winning many victories before being zerg rushed to death, Qohor's own city watch inflicting huge casualties on the Dothraki while extremely outnumbered, the Unsullied destroying Temmo's host, the Sarnori inflicting heavy casualties on the combined Dothraki host and killing one of the four leaders.

As for how they take cities... one must remember that the Dothraki only achieved success in the immediate aftermath of the Doom. It's like if Italy and Greece and Thrace were all nuked off the face of the Earth at the height of the Roman empire. The city-states that Essos was fracturing into would be very disorganized and poorly defended and maintained. Perfect for Huns/Goths/Vandals/Dothraki to sack some undefended villages and some very poorly defended cities. Not all cities are gonna have strong walls, and even a strong wall is useless if next to no one is holding it.