I suspect Manderly has at least 4000 heavy horse left in his hands

[Wynter Manderly]

"Once you are home, send word to Helman Tallhart and Galbart Glover under my seal. They are to raise a hundred bowmen each and fortify Moat Cailin. Two hundred determined archers can hold the Neck against an army. Instruct Lord Manderly that he is to strengthen and repair all his defenses at White Harbor, and see that they are well manned. And from this day on, I want a careful watch kept over Theon Greyjoy. If there is war, we shall have sore need of his father's fleet."

Eddard IV.

while i knew that most of Manderly's forces were ordered to defend white harbor, instead of going with Robb, that is why he has more men left. i thought it was Robb who ordered it, not Ned.

[conon394]

- heavy horse is probably 1 in 20 of any Lord's entire host and Manderley fields ~15k altogether, give or take a couple thousand. His ~50 war galleys need at least 7,000 men, his land forces should be of the same size

Although that is light compared to what Karstarks brought to Robb's army something like 1 in ~7.5

Unless Manderley is just building Harbor decorations or tiny ships unfit for the sea I would say 50 war galleys implies more like 11,000+ men and that with only a minimum load of marines.

Its also useful to recall the observations of Davos about the scale of new fortifications:

"The jetty that divided the inner and outer harbors had been fortified with a long stone wall, thirty feet tall and almost a mile long, with towers every

hundred yards"

"There was smoke rising from Seal Rock as well, where once there had been only ruins."

That is a lot masonry to toss up in not the best working area. Manderly must have had a lot able bodied men on had to mine, move and build all that, not to mention the animal power to move the stone. add ino the it looks like he is taking in every able man fleeing from Bolton territory and looks have a lot of manpower at hand.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

while i knew that most of Manderly's forces were ordered to defend white harbor, instead of going with Robb, that is why he has more men left. i thought it was Robb who ordered it, not Ned.

Robb issued the same order again when he called for the banners. And Bran ordered an increase in the fleet at the harvest feast, Three Starks ordered it. There is no reason at all to dispute Manderleys loyalty for keeping most of his forces at White Harbor.

Although that is light compared to what Karstarks brought to Robb's army something like 1 in ~7.5

Unless Manderley is just building Harbor decorations or tiny ships unfit for the sea I would say 50 war galleys implies more like 11,000+ men and that with only a minimum load of marines.

Its also useful to recall the observations of Davos about the scale of new fortifications:

"The jetty that divided the inner and outer harbors had been fortified with a long stone wall, thirty feet tall and almost a mile long, with towers every

hundred yards"

"There was smoke rising from Seal Rock as well, where once there had been only ruins."

That is a lot masonry to toss up in not the best working area. Manderly must have had a lot able bodied men on had to mine, move and build all that, not to mention the animal power to move the stone. add ino the it looks like he is taking in every able man fleeing from Bolton territory and looks have a lot of manpower at hand.

There are four kinds of ships called wargalleys in the books.

- 80 oars. Old-fashoned, used by petty Lords.

- 100 oars. The bulk of the Royal Fleet, Davos and his sons command ships of this type. Noted as "smaller ships" at Dragonstone.

- 200 oars. Another hefty portion of the Royal Fleet.

- 300 oars. A handful. Fury, King Robert's Hammer, Lady Lyanna, maybe a few more. The flagships of the Royal Fleet.

All wargalleys need some sailors, some officers, some archers and an assault troop on top of the oarsmen. I'd put them at 30% the number of the oarsmen. Minimum.

Manderley is likely to have mostly 100ers with a couple 200ers as flagships, lets call it 45*130 + 5*260 crew.

I agree on the fortfications. White Harbor is quite a big city, but Manderley turned it into a veritable fortress. He should be capable of manning these long, long walls easily or he wouldn't have bothered throwing them up in the first place.

[conon394]

But as far as I know we don't have good basis for guessing men to oar(s). But even at one man to an oar and 100 oars 130 men is only really the base crew and still leaves out the fighting compliment. Most of GRRM's ships are multi masted and that means a fair number of hands to work the the sailing rig - If you really intend to fight at sea you can't have the men at the oars double as marines in general (well assuming you want to use the ram primarily).

In any case I was just looking at the fact that the from he point Ned and than Robb order the re-fortification and fleet building in the East - Manderley looks to have had a really significant amount pf prime manpower tied up in those works and thus not killed down south. In addition with silver in hand he has the opportunity to draw men from Essos and take in refugees from Bolton rule on balance I would think he might have more men than he had before the Wo5k started. I mean if he has been saving coin as he says he is in a position to help a lot of say second sons afford a horse or plate and secure the for example his confidence that the whole region will follow his lead.

He knows the stories about Bolton's bastard I wonder if he has not gone out of his way to make sure everyone else does as well.

[Free Northman]

But as far as I know we don't have good basis for guessing men to oar(s). But even at one man to an oar and 100 oars 130 men is only really the base crew and still leaves out the fighting compliment. Most of GRRM's ships are multi masted and that means a fair number of hands to work the the sailing rig - If you really intend to fight at sea you can't have the men at the oars double as marines in general (well assuming you want to use the ram primarily).

In any case I was just looking at the fact that the from he point Ned and than Robb order the re-fortification and fleet building in the East - Manderley looks to have had a really significant amount pf prime manpower tied up in those works and thus not killed down south. In addition with silver in hand he has the opportunity to draw men from Essos and take in refugees from Bolton rule on balance I would think he might have more men than he had before the Wo5k started. I mean if he has been saving coin as he says he is in a position to help a lot of say second sons afford a horse or plate and secure the for example his confidence that the whole region will follow his lead.

He knows the stories about Bolton's bastard I wonder if he has not gone out of his way to make sure everyone else does as well.

Yes, all the evidence seems to point to the simple benchmark comparison between Lord Karstark and Lord Manderly. If Karstark can raise 3000 men from sparsely populated far northern woodlands, then Manderly MUST be able to raise many times that number from fertile economically vibrant lands far to the south and situated next to the North's only great trade port.

He must have many times lord Karstark's population, hence many times Lord Karstark's armed capability. This aside from the fact that he has many times Lord Karstark's wealth. So if Karstark can raise 3000 men, well, we can calculate for ourselves how many Manderly must be able to raise, should he wish to.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Yes. 30% is an absolute minimum. In the http://en.wikipedia....ttle_of_Lepanto, the rate of soldiers to sailors/oarsmen was about 75%. There is a distinction between sailor and oarsmen as well: 1 sailor to two oarsmen. Which would put the crew number at ~270 men for a 100er galley. Not counting spare oarsmen. Which would put Manderleys Navy alone at a whooping 13,500+ men.

Holy shit. That's way more than I expected.

[PrimeRhaegar]

man i just pray he isn't killed in the battle of winterfell i mean stannis is already pissed with him for "killing" his onion knight. But man i do like manderly though i sure do other than the umber and mormonts he is my fave stark banner men

[Lord of Castamere]

Yes. 30% is an absolute minimum. In the http://en.wikipedia....ttle_of_Lepanto, the rate of soldiers to sailors/oarsmen was about 75%. There is a distinction between sailor and oarsmen as well: 1 sailor to two oarsmen. Which would put the crew number at ~270 men for a 100er galley. Not counting spare oarsmen. Which would put Manderleys Navy alone at a whooping 13,500+ men.

Holy shit. That's way more than I expected.

I dont know how much thought GRRM has put at the size of the fleets and how many men a galley in his mind really needs to be properly manned. If we use the numbers of Lepanto to Redwyne fleet. It would mean that the combined number of sailors/ oarsmen / marines, would be at minimum akin to 60k, more like 70k. Which would mean Redwyne is alone stronger then most of Kingdoms.

If we would be bit more conservative and think that most of the galleys are with 80 oars. That would give us 80 oarsmen, 40 sailors and about 40 marines per each ship. Combined: 160 men per ship. If we use that number on 200 galleys of Redwyne fleet. We get 32k men for his fleet, (which is still a huge number at par with the total number of men entire Stormlands can muster) and 8k men for the Manderlys 50 galley fleet.

[Free Northman]

In my view we shouldn't count the non soldiers on the ships. Available manpower has never been an issue - there are millions of young men in Westeros. Available soldiers, however, are a different story.

So all the sailors are just normal folk that can pull an oar, but who aren't warriors.

They're part of the approximately 300,000 or so adult able bodied men in Manderly's lands who aren't soldiers.

Its the number of soldiers that we're interested in.

[Lord of Castamere]

In my view we shouldn't count the non soldiers on the ships. Available manpower has never been an issue - there are millions of young men in Westeros. Available soldiers, however, are a different story.

So all the sailors are just normal folk that can pull an oar, but who aren't warriors.

They're part of the approximately 300,000 or so adult able bodied men in Manderly's lands who aren't soldiers.

Its the number of soldiers that we're interested in.

Thats a good point. In such case.If we would only count marines. We should have akin to 40 marines in a 80 oars ship, 50 for 100 oars, 100 for 200 oars. With such figures. We could easily get into less mind blowing numbers. If we would use 100 oars as medium of a fleet ship. In such case the Redwyne fleet would have akin to 10k marines and Manderlys fleet of 50 ships: 2500 marines.

[Free Northman]

Yes, that makes more sense to me.

[Fetch me a block]

I'm not sure GRRM cares much about the numbers on the ships, but all we need to know is that Mandaerly has a lot of troops for a vassal lord, especially this late in the war.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

The 75% rate is soldiers to the sum of sailors and oarsmen. For a galley of 80 oars: 80 oarsmen, 40 sailors, 90 soldiers. 210 crew members altogether.

In my view we shouldn't count the non soldiers on the ships. Available manpower has never been an issue - there are millions of young men in Westeros. Available soldiers, however, are a different story.

So all the sailors are just normal folk that can pull an oar, but who aren't warriors.

They're part of the approximately 300,000 or so adult able bodied men in Manderly's lands who aren't soldiers.

Its the number of soldiers that we're interested in.

They aren't slaves chained to their oars though. These oarsmen and sailors are armed, motivated and at least somewhat trained. Maybe we shouldn't count them as full soldiers, but they aren't worthless in a fight. At least as good as the Wildlings or Clansmen of the Vale.

If we count them as 0.5 soldiers each, Manderley would still need 6750 "soldiers" with a fleet entirely comprised of these outdated, smaller wargalleys.

[Usrnmhsnomning]

If Manderly has such big forces, why did he just take 300 with him to Winterfell when Bolton called for him? If his plan is to attack the Boltons and Freys from behind, surely his odds would improve if he got more of his men inside the walls before the battle commences. It's pretty useless to have all that strength left in White Harbour when the fate of the North is determined in Winterfell.

How many men did Ramsey have when he killed Ser Rodrik and slaughtered his forces? One tenth their number or so. Not to mention, as has been pointed out, it was a wedding. Can't just bring a thousand or more men to that.

[conon394]

If we would be bit more conservative and think that most of the galleys are with 80 oars. That would give us 80 oarsmen

Of course we have no clear ideal what GRRM has in mind but an 80 oar ship with one man to an oar is a toy and is not a credible warship in the Classical or Medieval world.

In my view we shouldn't count the non soldiers on the ships. Available manpower has never been an issue - there are millions of young men in Westeros. Available soldiers, however, are a different story.

So all the sailors are just normal folk that can pull an oar, but who aren't warriors.

They are able bodied men under order and expected to sail of and die. If Mandery needs to fight on land rather than sea I suspect many of them would make excellent soldiers. On Venetian merchant galleys for example at least 20+ of the oar men were expected to to be skilled (actual crack shots) with bow or crossbow and the rest also had alternative skills and likely were at least serviceable with some weapon.

[King Aerys the Just]

Of course we have no clear ideal what GRRM has in mind but an 80 oar ship with one man to an oar is a toy and is not a credible warship in the Classical or Medieval world.

If we on the other hand assume that there'd be several, say three, men to an oar in Westerosi war galleys that'd make warships like Lord Tywin with 400 (?) oars, and that old flagship with 300 so ridiculously large that any seaman from the Medieval or Classical period would shit himself and surrender just from looking at them.

[Lord of Castamere]

Of course we have no clear ideal what GRRM has in mind but an 80 oar ship with one man to an oar is a toy and is not a credible warship in the Classical or Medieval world.

They are able bodied men under order and expected to sail of and die. If Mandery needs to fight on land rather than sea I suspect many of them would make excellent soldiers. On Venetian merchant galleys for example at least 20+ of the oar men were expected to to be skilled (actual crack shots) with bow or crossbow and the rest also had alternative skills and likely were at least serviceable with some weapon.

We are dealing with fantasy like i said. Lets have a funny scenario and compare to lets say a Venetian galley of 16th century. A normal war galley of the time would have had 23 oars on each side, three rowers on each oar. In Asoaif terms we could call them 46 oar galleys. So basically almost half smaller then the 80 oar ships that are the smaller war galleys in this. For such ships the crew was 138 rowers, 10 officers and about 65 other sailors and soldiers. A larger flag ship type was called a "lantern" and it had 26 oars on each side, making it a 52 oar ship, with crew of 156 rowers, 15 officers and about 105 sailors and soldiers.

In Asoiaf the average galley is twice the size of Venetian Lantern and the flagships 4 times or more. So each 100 oar galley would have contingent of akin to 240 non rowers. In that case the Navy of Manderly would have minimum of 12k of said men and fleet of Redwyne 48k. These are no realistic vessels, but maybe in the end it is bit futile even to try to reason with such beasts.

[Andros Sotherton]

Can someone clearify, why did he only bring 300 men to Winterfell in ADWD? If he has much more (not counting the hidden/secret forces) then Bolton ought to know that and demand more of them?

[Knight Of Winter]

Can someone clearify, why did he only bring 300 men to Winterfell in ADWD? If he has much more (not counting the hidden/secret forces) then Bolton ought to know that and demand more of them?

Probably a combination of several factors:

• Bolton didn't know of size of Manderly's army until he reached WF, when it's too late to complain
  
• Bolton sent Northern lords invitation for wedding, not summons for war. I don't think any of the Northern lords in WF brought more than few hundred men with him. Bringing too large army to a wedding could be seen as threat
  
• most of Northmen despised Boltons and probably wanted to aid them as little as they dared
  

[C0bR]

He may have the most heavy horse, but Rickon has the most heavy unicorn :cool4: