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300 Dragons?


The Vulture King

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Interesting except. Still, the numbers are clearly inflated. A quarter million men? That's impossible.



Now, a tenth, or even a fifth of that is feasible. If the number of dragons is equally inflated, we'd be looking at 30-60 dragons. Still, that's only the dragons participating in the campaign, those back at home not included.


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Interesting except. Still, the numbers are clearly inflated. A quarter million men? That's impossible.

Now, a tenth, or even a fifth of that is feasible. If the number of dragons is equally inflated, we'd be looking at 30-60 dragons. Still, that's only the dragons participating in the campaign, those back at home not included.

Not sure why the number are "clearly" inflated.

If we look at the amount of men Westeros can field at one time a empire as "old and fabled" as Old Ghis can surely field more or around the same.

As the the dragon number being inflated I am more suspect on that matter. A dragon is not a horse or even a war elephant. Each one would have a name and a well know rider. To go from 300 to 30-60 in not feasible in my option getting that many named creatures and know riders wrong.

And we have to assume not every family participated in every campaign. In fact the 300 mentioned might only be the families with the most vest interest in the arena or relation to Volantis. Maybe not even a dragon from every ruling family.

Also the amount of juvenile dragons back in Valyria could number in the hundreds alone.

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This thread has had some excellent posts in every page to go by.



The big point is if Dragonstone could host so many large dragons then why do we think Valyria can't? I doubt 300 dragons the size of balerion and bigger were a problem. I agree with most of the posters before and stand by that Valyria had easily over 1000 dragons with ease. Heck I would say well over 1500 to 2000 although that is going a bit too high now but could work with dragons being kept at the outposts as well as within Valyria as well.



Regarding so many dragons going wild: The valyrians had full control of their dragons. They weren't like Dany. They used fire and blood, blood magic, sorcery, whips and dragonhorns and who knows what else to keep full control of the dragons so with this maintaining over 1000-2000 dragons on Valyria does not seem like a problem for the valyrians!


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Not sure why the number are "clearly" inflated.

If we look at the amount of men Westeros can field at one time a empire as "old and fabled" as Old Ghis can surely field more or around the same.

As the the dragon number being inflated I am more suspect on that matter. A dragon is not a horse or even a war elephant. Each one would have a name and a well know rider. To go from 300 to 30-60 in not feasible in my option getting that many named creatures and know riders wrong.

And we have to assume not every family participated in every campaign. In fact the 300 mentioned might only be the families with the most vest interest in the arena or relation to Volantis. Maybe not even a dragon from every ruling family.

Also the amount of juvenile dragons back in Valyria could number in the hundreds alone.

Because a quarter million men couldn't be fed at once with the available technology. Logistics is the bottleneck here, not the potential number of men.

In comparison, Westerosi armies average at about 20,000 men. There's the odd outlier in very special circumstances, but generally speaking, that's a good estimate for the maximum size of a viable army.

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Because a quarter million men couldn't be fed at once with the available technology. Logistics is the bottleneck here, not the potential number of men.

In comparison, Westerosi armies average at about 20,000 men. There's the odd outlier in very special circumstances, but generally speaking, that's a good estimate for the maximum size of a viable army.

This is wrong though, because neither the Valyrians or the Rhoynar were pseudo medieval kingdoms like the present day Westerosi, because they had access to very powerful magic.

Westerosi armies can't create enormous pillars of water to hold off dragons either. Maybe the Rhoynish sorcerers kept their army fed by using their water spells to drive millions of fishes up onto the beaches, ready to be picked up by anyone who was hungry?

Sure the numbers might technically be inflated because the book is written from a in universe perspective ( a maester) but, on the other hand I don't think GRRM would have a world book written just to spread desinformation.

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Because a quarter million men couldn't be fed at once with the available technology. Logistics is the bottleneck here, not the potential number of men.

In comparison, Westerosi armies average at about 20,000 men. There's the odd outlier in very special circumstances, but generally speaking, that's a good estimate for the maximum size of a viable army.

I don't see how you can say that the technology of the time can't feed that many men. We know for a fact that many men have been gathered before in our worlds past aka the Persians , Genghis Khan and so on. Also the 20k men is just 1 major house if all of the major and minor houses joined they could easily field that many men and this is a civilization at least 100 times older.

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What is says is "if the old tales are to be believed". If they are not to be believed it was a whole lot fewer.

"300 or MORE" is also what it says. When the word more is used its usually safe to conclude the first number given is relativity close the the right number. And if you read the entire post you would see that many posters agree with the numbers we do know about Targ dragons and Targ standing in the freehold 1000+ seems to be the magic number of dragons under Valyrian controll. 200 year old monsters down to freshly hatched and juveniles all must be included.

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When the word more is used its usually safe to conclude the first number given is relativity close the the right number.

I respectfully disagree. The story is legend, and those tend to grow and become embellished. Sam, going through the archives at the Wall, found that many accounts were erroneous.

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Because a quarter million men couldn't be fed at once with the available technology. Logistics is the bottleneck here, not the potential number of men.

In comparison, Westerosi armies average at about 20,000 men. There's the odd outlier in very special circumstances, but generally speaking, that's a good estimate for the maximum size of a viable army.

They would not be hard to feed if they were living off of the conquest. The crusaders would have to sack cities to feed themselves on their long journey. When they didn't they ended up starving and resorting to cannibalism en route to the holy land. Garin's forces were sacking and pillaging as they went, specifically to remove all traces of their enemy from the banks of the river. They were not looking to occupy and hold, just destroy.

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This is wrong though, because neither the Valyrians or the Rhoynar were pseudo medieval kingdoms like the present day Westerosi, because they had access to very powerful magic.

Westerosi armies can't create enormous pillars of water to hold off dragons either. Maybe the Rhoynish sorcerers kept their army fed by using their water spells to drive millions of fishes up onto the beaches, ready to be picked up by anyone who was hungry?

Sure the numbers might technically be inflated because the book is written from a in universe perspective ( a maester) but, on the other hand I don't think GRRM would have a world book written just to spread desinformation.

Living from magic bread is one thing. But the entire part is written from an in-world perspective based on sources acknowledged to be untrustworthy in-world.

I don't see how you can say that the technology of the time can't feed that many men. We know for a fact that many men have been gathered before in our worlds past aka the Persians , Genghis Khan and so on. Also the 20k men is just 1 major house if all of the major and minor houses joined they could easily field that many men and this is a civilization at least 100 times older.

Uh, no. Herodot is named "the Great Liar" for a reason.

And yes, Westeros could field way, way above 20,000 men. Each and every single house could field way more. But not in one place!

They would not be hard to feed if they were living off of the conquest. The crusaders would have to sack cities to feed themselves on their long journey. When they didn't they ended up starving and resorting to cannibalism en route to the holy land. Garin's forces were sacking and pillaging as they went, specifically to remove all traces of their enemy from the banks of the river. They were not looking to occupy and hold, just destroy.

Not with these numbers! The size of armies is limited by what foraging parties can gather and bring back to the camp in time. With pack animals or oxcarts, that's limited to a very small area and a relatively low load.

For a quarter million infantry (not a single animal included, neither horse nor oxen nor pack animal), we are talking about ~2,000 oxcarts full of foodstuffs per day. Oxcarts, who'd manage about 17-18 km per day on reasonably good roads, not cross-country. One way.

With a bit of cavalry, or just pack and draw animals this number multiplies several times. And you have to add the camp followers and other non-combatants, at least doubling the number of people needing food.

There simply is a limit to what the countryside can provide for, and it's about ~20,00 men, give or take.

By the way, the crusader armies numbered less than thirty thousand men on average. And they often had to split the army to manage feeding them. Which ties in with the "about 20,000 men average" I mentioned for Westerosi armies.

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Bright Eyes I wonder if being on the Rhoynar has to be considered. I mean they would have all the fresh water and fish they could eat. Not to mention farmland and fisher folk all still being able to provide for them being so close.



Thread is getting a little of topic.



Back to the dragons. How many of the 40 ruling families do you think contributed to the 300 that come to end the war?



I would be inclined to think that at least some would not contribute any due to inner freehold drama or not having in invested interest in that part of the freehold. Thoughts?


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Bright Eyes I wonder if being on the Rhoynar has to be considered. I mean they would have all the fresh water and fish they could eat. Not to mention farmland and fisher folk all still being able to provide for them being so close.

Yes, a river is a major advantage. Ships could bring way more foodstuffs from back home. But there's still a limit to what is possible and it would tie the army to the river. I'd be fine with ~50,000 as well, accounting for the advantage of the river. But with the claim of 250,000 men and the stated fact that the original sources are ...shady, it's pretty much a given that numbers are vastly inflated. And that would apply to the dragons as well.

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Not with these numbers! The size of armies is limited by what foraging parties can gather and bring back to the camp in time. With pack animals or oxcarts, that's limited to a very small area and a relatively low load.

For a quarter million infantry (not a single animal included, neither horse nor oxen nor pack animal), we are talking about ~2,000 oxcarts full of foodstuffs per day. Oxcarts, who'd manage about 17-18 km per day on reasonably good roads, not cross-country. One way.

With a bit of cavalry, or just pack and draw animals this number multiplies several times. And you have to add the camp followers and other non-combatants, at least doubling the number of people needing food.

There simply is a limit to what the countryside can provide for, and it's about ~20,00 men, give or take.

By the way, the crusader armies numbered less than thirty thousand men on average. And they often had to split the army to manage feeding them. Which ties in with the "about 20,000 men average" I mentioned for Westerosi armies.

The Force was split onto three, with troops on each side and a naval force in the middle. They were consuming as they went pillaging and destroying. And they had magic.

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The Force was split onto three, with troops on each side and a naval force in the middle. They were consuming as they went pillaging and destroying. And they had magic.

So what? That may enable them to get up to 70,000 or the like. Do you truly wish to argue how much the numbers were inflated? Because there can't be any question that they were.

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Here might be a useful comparison, viz. The Battle of Cannae; roughly 50,000 for Carthage and 80,000 for Rome. Both armies were on the march and carrying their supplies and neither appear to have had much in the way of sea or river transport for supplies:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae

Another, perhaps might be the battle between Egypt and the Hittites at Kadesh, for which the armies were smaller, but also on maneuver.

In the case of Garin vs. Valyria the forces could be larger, given that both sides had river and sea transport available. As large as stated, probably not.

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When the Xerxes' Persian army march for over a year to invade Greece (remember Thermopyly) the army was massive, the biggest one of it's time. Still today, the numbers are not exactly known, and estimates of the number of fighting men vary from 20,000 to 3,000,000 . I personally think it could have been up to a quarter million.



http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_wars5.php




The persian army was not aided by a river, it marched much farther and much longer, and took much longer to gather. (All reports say that men from all over the Persian empire marched). I don't think a quarter of a million for the Rhoynar army is unreasonable. I mean, the High Garden Army grew to about 100,000 under Rently at the biggest. That was after only a few months from just the Reach, marching on foot, moving slowly. The Rhoynar was one of the strongest nations ever in the history of the world of Ice and Fire. I'm sure that they could organize food carts enough for a mobile city for a few weeks.


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I'd be willing to believe that Valyrian dragons were smaller. If you have a society built to house 500 dragons, you need to keep them small in order to house them all. When that number suddenly drops to five, there is room for them to grow much bigger.

We now know that the Targaryen dragons nested mainly at Dragonstone, and we have no indication that the volcano was overly crowded. Let's say for the sake of argument that the maximum population of a single volcano is around twice what the Targaryens had at the time of the Dance, say 25 dragons. The Valyrians had fourteen volcanos surrounding the peninsula. That gives us 350 dragons. If the volcanos were bigger it could be much more.

I don’t think lack of space was an issue.

They would not be hard to feed if they were living off of the conquest. The crusaders would have to sack cities to feed themselves on their long journey. When they didn't they ended up starving and resorting to cannibalism en route to the holy land. Garin's forces were sacking and pillaging as they went, specifically to remove all traces of their enemy from the banks of the river. They were not looking to occupy and hold, just destroy.

And they controlled the river and never were far from it, so they could be constantly resupplied from their homelands. Consider the numbers of troops fielded by all sides during the War of the Five Kings and they didn’t have the advantage of a readymade extremely fast supply line.

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