So was most of the men personally raised by the Starks cavlery

[Free Northman Reborn]

3 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No crannogmen are specifically mentioned, IIRC, though of course, that doesn't mean that there were none. However, the fact that Robb later, in ASOS, places emphasize on sending people out to get the aid of the crannogmen, might suggest that the main forces of the crannogmen have not yet marched.

 

Ok, thought as much. Regarding the Flints of Flints finger, I've looked at the biggest map I have, and it seems as if their best route to the Kingsroad would be to skirt along the southern edge of Blazewater Bay, to Moat Cailin itself, rather than cut through the heart of the Neck to get to the Twins directly. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the North could have kept Flints Finger as part of its kingdom over the centuries if it could be reached from the South directly, without having to pass through Moat Cailin.

So all of this suggests to me that the Flints of Flints Finger were already part of Robb's host at Moat Cailin.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Just on something Nyrhex mentioned earlier. It is something I noticed before, but chose to ignore, simply because it makes the heavy cavalry number at Winterfell even more remarkable.

Luwin does not actually say that there are 3000 heavy cavalry out of the 12000 men at Winterfell. He in fact says that there are 300-400 knights, in addition to 3000 Old Gods worshipping heavy cavalry. So in truth, there are at least 3300 heavy cavalry out of the 12000 men gathered at Winterfell. This is better than a 1-3 ratio.

That is remarkable for a number of reasons. Firstly, this is from the northern half of the North, which most deem to be the poorer part. For it to have a ratio better than 1-3 is unusual in the extreme, given that even the Freys only have a ratio of 1-3 cavalry.

Secondly, given the Karstark's low cavalry ratio (and the likely low heavy cavalry contributions of the Mormonts and Mountain Clans), this pushes the cavalry contributions of the other assembled lords up even higher than the overall average. It in fact takes them to Westerland cavalry ratio levels, or better.

And more importantly, it brings down the cavalry contribution of the southernmost lords who join after the host leaves Winterfell, even more.

There are three conclusions to reach, if we take these numbers as fact.

1. The southernmost lords held back significant portions of their strength - virtually across the board. Particularly their cavalry strength, which should theoretically be higher than that of the likes of the Umbers, Glovers etc.

2. The Northernmost lords like the Boltons, Starks, Hornwoods, Cerwyns etc. have a lot of heavy cavalry.

3. While the Northernmost lords clearly have a lot of cavalry in absolute terms, it is possible that they in fact don't have cavalry ratios inconsistent with what we would expect them to have. In other words, they might well still have cavalry ratios of only 1-5 or even 1-6, just like the Karstarks, but unlike the Karstarks, they left the bulk of their infantry behind, either due to reasons of haste, or because of the harvest, or whatever.

That would mean that if there are 3300 heavy cavalry at Winterfell, this might represent 80-90% of the cavalry of these Northernmost lords, but that they sent a rather low portion of their infantry along with it. The Karstarks are then one of the few Houses that sent the bulk of their infantry too, because of their eagerness for war.

If we take the Karstark cavalry ratio as standard, then we should expect a ratio of around 1-6 in the Northern half of the North. If that ratio holds true for the full 3300 cavalry at Winterfell, that means the Northernmost lords should be able to assemble a total force of around 23000 men, if they raised their infantry to the level that the Karstarks did.

I exclude the Boltons and Starks from the above, as I think they are likely to have strong cavalry ratios. But surely that cannot hold true for all the Northernmost lords.

Anyway, that is one way of making sense of the figures.

[Nyrhex]

22 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No. Catelyn has just arrived, and the Manderly men arrive with her. When Catelyn and Robb come face to face for the first time, Robb informs her how many men he has.. That is without the Manderly men, of whom he most likely doesn't even have a count yet, at that point.

From the context it is clear that Robb knew well enough to wait for the Manderlys and it would make very little sense to ommit them, when he specifically asks only about the Vale, which had not answered any of his ravens.

15 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Another question I have is where exactly the Flints of Flints Finger met up with Robb's host? The map is not very clear, but it seems as if they would need to march through the swamps of the Neck itself to reach Moat Cailin. Did they join at Moat Cailin, or did they take a more direct route and join at the bottom of the causeway? If the latter, their numbers would not be included yet in the 19500.

Similarly, the wiki appears to indicate that Robb did not include the Crannogmen in his southern host, but instead instructed them to hold the Neck against a southron attack. Again, I cannot recall if this was directly confirmed in the text. I know Maester Luwin tells Bran that crannogmen will be joining the host on the way South, but I do not recall if any crannogmen are ever mentioned as part of the host at a later stage.

I see no reason why the Flints would not join Robb at Moat Cailin, considering that after that he is marching on the wrong side of the Green Fork for them to join him (his original target was King's Landing, and he only gets news after camping at Moat Cailin).

Regarding the Reeds, the Crannogmen were specifically ordered to keep watch. The Crannogmen don't fight the same as Westerosi armies, and are more suited for thier swamp and thier ambush tactics. We have not a single recorded case of any of them leading men outside of the Neck to conventional war.

"If he comes so far, but no one thinks he will," Robb said. "I've sent word to Howland Reed, Father's old friend at Greywater Watch. If the Lannisters come up the Neck, the crannogmen will bleed them every step of the way, but Galbart Glover says Lord Tywin is too smart for that, and Roose Bolton agrees. He'll stay close to the Trident, they believe, taking the castles of the river lords one by one, until Riverrun stands alone. We need to march south to meet him."

How effective were the Crannogmen?

When Victarion leaves for the Kingsmoot he leaves behind 10 ships (and 500-1,000 Ironborn fighters, but that is a debate by itself). But he has 100 again when he attacks the Shield Islands, which suggests that he had replaced the ships of the Iron Fleet with some common longships from the greater Greyjoy fleet to get the full number of actual warships.

What we do know is that of the original number of Ironborn left at Moat Cailin, only 62 remain, sick and wounded. That the Crannogmen won't simply finish them off shows that they just don't work like conventional forces, and assaulting such a weakly held fortification is still not something that they would do. 

13 minutes ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

As Hightower has said it is a pointless argument that either means he had 18k and fewer casualties in the war or 19.5k and higher casualties. I tend to go with the 19.5k but someone claiming 18k is just as correct. GRRM, often intentionally, does this with numbers.

The argument is pointless in that whatever the numbers, they quickly change to leave Roose with ~10,000 men after the Green Fork. But if we are going to try and get the numbers that the North sent and how many could still be recruited, there is an interest in seeing how many were sent to try and figure by that logic how many could still turn up.

Personally I'm a minimalist because the figure we get at Winterfell is with the Karstarks and there is no reason for the figures at Moat Cailin not to include the Manderlys, and I also look at the light forces we see from several houses which tend to look the same - Several hundreds, usually boys or old men, very little cavalry (aside of Bolton who for plot reasons suddenly has more cavalry than others have men) and Manderly (which is understandable considering that he is specifically meant to guard against the Lannisters should they arrive to the North). The North is also repeatedly mentioned as being a levy and how everyone is leaving thier fields to go to war and how the ones who are left are not enough to gather the harvest. 

The main difference of the points of view is if the North has a realistic chance of getting another host that can actually march south and be a relevant part of the wars there, or if it's exactly what it looks like, the North being at full Volkssturm mode and using anyone capable of using a weapon to raise a host that is very much inferior in numbers and capabilities to any of the southern armies.

[Universal Sword Donor]

44 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No crannogmen are specifically mentioned, IIRC, though of course, that doesn't mean that there were none. However, the fact that Robb later, in ASOS, places emphasize on sending people out to get the aid of the crannogmen, might suggest that the main forces of the crannogmen have not yet marched.

 

Robb tells Cat he instructed HR to bleed Tywin if he came up the KR, so I'd imagine if he had forces mustered they'd have been around MC or Greywater Watch most likely.

[Free Northman Reborn]

57 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

From the context it is clear that Robb knew well enough to wait for the Manderlys and it would make very little sense to ommit them, when he specifically asks only about the Vale, which had not answered any of his ravens.

I see no reason why the Flints would not join Robb at Moat Cailin, considering that after that he is marching on the wrong side of the Green Fork for them to join him (his original target was King's Landing, and he only gets news after camping at Moat Cailin).

Regarding the Reeds, the Crannogmen were specifically ordered to keep watch. The Crannogmen don't fight the same as Westerosi armies, and are more suited for thier swamp and thier ambush tactics. We have not a single recorded case of any of them leading men outside of the Neck to conventional war.

"If he comes so far, but no one thinks he will," Robb said. "I've sent word to Howland Reed, Father's old friend at Greywater Watch. If the Lannisters come up the Neck, the crannogmen will bleed them every step of the way, but Galbart Glover says Lord Tywin is too smart for that, and Roose Bolton agrees. He'll stay close to the Trident, they believe, taking the castles of the river lords one by one, until Riverrun stands alone. We need to march south to meet him."

How effective were the Crannogmen?

When Victarion leaves for the Kingsmoot he leaves behind 10 ships (and 500-1,000 Ironborn fighters, but that is a debate by itself). But he has 100 again when he attacks the Shield Islands, which suggests that he had replaced the ships of the Iron Fleet with some common longships from the greater Greyjoy fleet to get the full number of actual warships.

What we do know is that of the original number of Ironborn left at Moat Cailin, only 62 remain, sick and wounded. That the Crannogmen won't simply finish them off shows that they just don't work like conventional forces, and assaulting such a weakly held fortification is still not something that they would do. 

The argument is pointless in that whatever the numbers, they quickly change to leave Roose with ~10,000 men after the Green Fork. But if we are going to try and get the numbers that the North sent and how many could still be recruited, there is an interest in seeing how many were sent to try and figure by that logic how many could still turn up.

Personally I'm a minimalist because the figure we get at Winterfell is with the Karstarks and there is no reason for the figures at Moat Cailin not to include the Manderlys, and I also look at the light forces we see from several houses which tend to look the same - Several hundreds, usually boys or old men, very little cavalry (aside of Bolton who for plot reasons suddenly has more cavalry than others have men) and Manderly (which is understandable considering that he is specifically meant to guard against the Lannisters should they arrive to the North). The North is also repeatedly mentioned as being a levy and how everyone is leaving thier fields to go to war and how the ones who are left are not enough to gather the harvest. 

The main difference of the points of view is if the North has a realistic chance of getting another host that can actually march south and be a relevant part of the wars there, or if it's exactly what it looks like, the North being at full Volkssturm mode and using anyone capable of using a weapon to raise a host that is very much inferior in numbers and capabilities to any of the southern armies.

Just on the Crannogmen. Their strength lies in bleeding armies as they move up the causeway. Not in taking a manned Moat Cailin from the South. Those are two very different roles.

Ned seems to think that 100 bowmen could hold Moat Cailin from an army. So the fact that the Crannogmen did not storm Moat Cailin from the South is hardly an indictment of their strength. Even Ramsay's army was repelled three times by the paltry number of Ironborn in the Towers. And they attacked from the Northern side.

Regarding the nature of the North's levies. Martin makes it clear that this is the model for the entire Westeros. You have your core of trained knights - maybe 20% of your entire force. The rest are mostly levies pulled from the peasantry. With various levels of training. Clearly most of them aren't simply fieldhands with pitchforks in their hands. We see from the North's formations at the Green Fork that their infantry are in fact very disciplined.

But they are still part timers, who are let go after the war to go back to making a living. That's how Martin designed his world.

So the bottomline is that the North is not alone in following this model. It is not only Robb's men who are mostly part timers. Note that at the Field of Fire for example, the 55,000 men from the Reach and the West are said to have included only 5000 mounted knights. That is less than 10% of the total.

In any case, it seems clear that the 3300 heavy cavalry at Winterfell represent way too high a percentage of the total host size. If we add the Boltons remaining cavalry, and some small remaining cavalry numbers for the other lords that were gathered at Winterfell, I think we would easily reach 4000 cavalry for the Northnmost lords of the North.

If we extrapolate from there just a 1-4 ratio, which is good even for southern hosts, we get to a total potential for the Northern half of the North of around 20k men. And this excludes Skagos, who provided zero men to the host. So, how would we realistically get to this 20k figure? Easy.

The following lords were gathered at Winterfell. We just assign them the following total strengths:

Mormont: 1250

Mountain Clans: 3000

Umber: 2500

Karstark: 2750

Bolton: 4000

Stark: 3000

Cerwyn: 1500

Glover: 1250

Tallhart: 1000

Hornwood: 1000

And there we have our 20k men and more. And this excludes Skagos. Note that these are the estimates for their total strengths. Not just the portions thereof that they sent to Winterfell.

And this is before we count southerly Houses such as:

Flint of Widow's Watch

Locke

Slate

Manderly

Dustin

Ryswell

Reed

Flint of Flint's finger

These Houses should add at least the same number of men again, if not more, than the Northern Houses did.

[Nyrhex]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Ned seems to think that 100 bowmen could hold Moat Cailin from an army. So the fact that the Crannogmen did not storm Moat Cailin from the South is hardly an indictment of their strength. Even Ramsay's army was repelled three times by the paltry number of Ironborn in the Towers. And they attacked from the Northern side.

Regarding the nature of the North's levies. Martin makes it clear that this is the model for the entire Westeros. You have your core of trained knights - maybe 20% of your entire force. The rest are mostly levies pulled from the peasantry. With various levels of training. Clearly most of them aren't simply fieldhands with pitchforks in their hands. We see from the North's formations at the Green Fork that their infantry are in fact very disciplined.

But they are still part timers, who are let go after the war to go back to making a living. That's how Martin designed his world.

So the bottomline is that the North is not alone in following this model. It is not only Robb's men who are mostly part timers. Note that at the Field of Fire for example, the 55,000 men from the Reach and the West are said to have included only 5000 mounted knights. That is less than 10% of the total.

In any case, it seems clear that the 3300 heavy cavalry at Winterfell represent way too high a percentage of the total host size. If we add the Boltons remaining cavalry, and some small remaining cavalry numbers for the other lords that were gathered at Winterfell, I think we would easily reach 4000 cavalry for the Northnmost lords of the North.

If we extrapolate from there just a 1-4 ratio, which is good even for southern hosts, we get to a total potential for the Northern half of the North of around 20k men. And this excludes Skagos, who provided zero men to the host. So, how would we realistically get to this 20k figure? Easy.

The following lords were gathered at Winterfell. We just assign them the following total strengths:

Mormont: 1250

Mountain Clans: 3000

Umber: 2500

Karstark: 2750

Bolton: 4000

Stark: 3000

Cerwyn: 1500

Glover: 1250

Tallhart: 1000

Hornwood: 1000

And there we have our 20k men and more. And this excludes Skagos. Note that these are the estimates for their total strengths. Not just the portions thereof that they sent to Winterfell.

And this is before we count southerly Houses such as:

Flint of Widow's Watch

Locke

Slate

Manderly

Dustin

Ryswell

Reed

Flint of Flint's finger

These Houses should add at least the same number of men again, if not more, than the Northern Houses did.

1. Ned calls for 200 bowmen, 100 from Tallhart and 100 from Glover.

2. The Ryswells and Dustins were thrown back 3 times, and Theon thinks that had Ramsay attacked he would have lost maybe 3 times as many men as were defending before he took Moat Cailin. This actually leads one to think that the Ryswells don't actually have that many men camped north of Moat Cailin. They and the Dustins burned the few ships that were left on the Fever River, but were clearly not enough to take on Moat Cailin by themselves and had to wait for the ~1,000 men with Ramsay. This would ballpark the combined Ryswell-Dustin contingent at few hundreds, probably no more than 500-600.

3. Martin actually makes it very clear that the North is far more dependent on it's levies than the rest of Westeros. Yes, the ratio of cavalry to foot is about the same everywhere not the Iron Islands and probably Dorne, but at no point do we see anyone else reduced to calling up every boy and grey-beard strong enough to carry a spear. Yes, the levy that the North called for Robb's war had equipment even if Catelyn describes mostly those with pitchforks, but the population that was sent with Robb is clearly the bulk of the available manpower. And the definition of available manpower in the North is far wider than in the south, when we see that in several regions of the North the only thing left is boys and old men, and far fewer than were sent to war. The gear that is used also gets progressively more advanced south of the Neck by Martin's own words, which means that a larger population is needed to supply the army with the advanced gear. If in the North a noble can still wear a chain shirt, in the south you have full-plate as pretty much standard for nobility and knights. Robb gives us the armor of most of his riders as mail:

"I must have that crossing!" Robb declared, fuming. "Oh, our horses might be able to swim the river, I suppose, but not with armored men on their backs. We'd need to build rafts to pole our steel across, helms and mail and lances, and we don't have the trees for that. Or the time. Lord Tywin is marching north …" He balled his hand into a fist.

4. The second half is kind of off track. What 20,000 men? Are you talking about the entire potential of the northern half of the North? Then yes, we can see that Robb took close to 20,000 men, and if we scrounge up literally everything else including Skagos and the Mountain Clans and the Reeds and boys and old men and crippled sergeants who were left behind, you could get another 20,000 men from the entire North. But please remember that we are talking about a host that is far below the abilities of the first one, and that the potential forces of the southern kingdoms are counted without adding literally everyone who can hold a spear. FFS, the Clansmen are said to be fighting with staffs and slings, with a few dozen of them being the chiefs and champions with rusted mail and a bit of steel weapons. In the context of the campaign for Winterfell they are a force, but literally anywhere else south of the Neck they are little more than arrow fodder and would shatter if faced with cavalry on open field. It's not "the North can raise 40,000 men", it's "the North can raise 20,000 men for war, 30,000 if it takes the time to get everyone and leaves skeleton garrisons, 40,000 if it literally calls every lad and greybeard and cripples able to hold a spear". It's not the same calcualtion that is done for any other kingdom in Westeros or the Reach would bring hundreds of thousands and would still be producing more arms and armor to equip more. King's Landing had fewer than 7,000 defenders because it had a standard and was low on cash. Had they the cash and they decided that they should lower the standard, a city of half a million would have produced them 40,000 on it's own and it would still not be calling everyone strong enough to hold a spear.

[Free Northman Reborn]

7 hours ago, Nyrhex said:

1. Ned calls for 200 bowmen, 100 from Tallhart and 100 from Glover.

2. The Ryswells and Dustins were thrown back 3 times, and Theon thinks that had Ramsay attacked he would have lost maybe 3 times as many men as were defending before he took Moat Cailin. This actually leads one to think that the Ryswells don't actually have that many men camped north of Moat Cailin. They and the Dustins burned the few ships that were left on the Fever River, but were clearly not enough to take on Moat Cailin by themselves and had to wait for the ~1,000 men with Ramsay. This would ballpark the combined Ryswell-Dustin contingent at few hundreds, probably no more than 500-600.

3. Martin actually makes it very clear that the North is far more dependent on it's levies than the rest of Westeros. Yes, the ratio of cavalry to foot is about the same everywhere not the Iron Islands and probably Dorne, but at no point do we see anyone else reduced to calling up every boy and grey-beard strong enough to carry a spear. Yes, the levy that the North called for Robb's war had equipment even if Catelyn describes mostly those with pitchforks, but the population that was sent with Robb is clearly the bulk of the available manpower. And the definition of available manpower in the North is far wider than in the south, when we see that in several regions of the North the only thing left is boys and old men, and far fewer than were sent to war. The gear that is used also gets progressively more advanced south of the Neck by Martin's own words, which means that a larger population is needed to supply the army with the advanced gear. If in the North a noble can still wear a chain shirt, in the south you have full-plate as pretty much standard for nobility and knights. Robb gives us the armor of most of his riders as mail:

"I must have that crossing!" Robb declared, fuming. "Oh, our horses might be able to swim the river, I suppose, but not with armored men on their backs. We'd need to build rafts to pole our steel across, helms and mail and lances, and we don't have the trees for that. Or the time. Lord Tywin is marching north …" He balled his hand into a fist.

4. The second half is kind of off track. What 20,000 men? Are you talking about the entire potential of the northern half of the North? Then yes, we can see that Robb took close to 20,000 men, and if we scrounge up literally everything else including Skagos and the Mountain Clans and the Reeds and boys and old men and crippled sergeants who were left behind, you could get another 20,000 men from the entire North. But please remember that we are talking about a host that is far below the abilities of the first one, and that the potential forces of the southern kingdoms are counted without adding literally everyone who can hold a spear. FFS, the Clansmen are said to be fighting with staffs and slings, with a few dozen of them being the chiefs and champions with rusted mail and a bit of steel weapons. In the context of the campaign for Winterfell they are a force, but literally anywhere else south of the Neck they are little more than arrow fodder and would shatter if faced with cavalry on open field. It's not "the North can raise 40,000 men", it's "the North can raise 20,000 men for war, 30,000 if it takes the time to get everyone and leaves skeleton garrisons, 40,000 if it literally calls every lad and greybeard and cripples able to hold a spear". It's not the same calcualtion that is done for any other kingdom in Westeros or the Reach would bring hundreds of thousands and would still be producing more arms and armor to equip more. King's Landing had fewer than 7,000 defenders because it had a standard and was low on cash. Had they the cash and they decided that they should lower the standard, a city of half a million would have produced them 40,000 on it's own and it would still not be calling everyone strong enough to hold a spear.

Again, I hear your point. But due to a number of factors, it does not hold up to scrutiny.

Firstly, it should be noted that even the Freys are sending peasants with pitchforks and sharpened sticks as the core of their 1000 or so infantry with Hosteen and Aenys, as observed by Theon in Dance. So the North is not unique in doing so. In fact, the North's original host was quite a bit better equipped than that.

Secondly, even the wildlings are able to raise a 30k fighting force if they call up all their greybeards and green boys. This from a population of maybe 100,000 by the time they came into contact with the Watch at the Skirling pass.

No one can seriously contend that the wildling population comes anywhere close to the population of the North itself. So if the wildlings can raise tens of thousands by pulling in every able bodied man (note that spear wives form only a small component of the fighting force), then the North itself will be able to raise many times that number if they resorted to the same. Ten times that number most likely.

So clearly, the North as a whole is not resorting to every able bodied male when they raise 30k men, or even 60k or 90k men for that matter. It is simply not possible, given the wildling example.

This is further reinforced by an unrelated comment from Martin about the Ironborn, where he states that they are able to raise the number they do because they can raise a much larger percentage of their total population to arms than the mainland kingdoms do, due to the martial culture (and likely due to their use of thralls to do much of their manual labor). So, clearly if the Ironborn are raising a much larger proportion of their population to arms than the North does, then by default the North is not raising close to its full able bodied male population to arms.

All of the above is quite aside from the historical reality that a medieval society cannot mobilize, equip and logistically support more than a fraction of its male population for war.

So it is logically impossible for the North - or even the Karstarks - to be pulling in close to every able bodied male. it has to mean just the likely lads in close proximity to Karhold itself. And that doesn't mean there are no able bodied males left around Karhold. It just means there aren't able bodied males left to spare, because they are needed to bring in the Harvest. So men who cannot work the fields so productively are sent off instead. Meaning old men and boys. Consider that maybe 9 in 10 able bodied men are needed to work the fields, in a medieval society. And in the North that requirement is even higher, given the lower yield per square mile.

[Free Northman Reborn]

So to follow on from this discussion, I am interested in the full estimated cavalry strength of the North.

We know now that Maester Luwin says that there are 3300-3400 heavy horse gathered at Winterfell.

However, we also know that the Boltons seem to have as many as 600 additional cavalry above this number, with Ramsay. Then there are assorted cavalry remaining with the likes of the Karstarks, and a large contingent of cavalry with the Mountain Clans with Stannis (say 500 to be conservative), Benfred Tallhart raised a company of mounted lances in the west and so on. In short, it seems that the lords from the Northern half of the North have a realistic cavalry strength of at least 4500 in their own right.

Considering that among the lords from the southern half of the North you then have the likes of the Manderlys - who have more heavy horse than even the Boltons -, the comparatively wealthy Dustins, the Ryswells who seem to be famed for breeding horse herds, in addition to more average lords like the Flints, Lockes, Slates etc, it seems quite likely that the Southerly lords should be able to at least match the 4500 cavalry potential of the Northerly lords.

So a total Northern cavalry strength of around 9000 seems quite likely, based on the evidence.

 

[Universal Sword Donor]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So to follow on from this discussion, I am interested in the full estimated cavalry strength of the North.

We know now that Maester Luwin says that there are 3300-3400 heavy horse gathered at Winterfell.

However, we also know that the Boltons seem to have as many as 600 additional cavalry above this number, with Ramsay. Then there are assorted cavalry remaining with the likes of the Karstarks, and a large contingent of cavalry with the Mountain Clans with Stannis (say 500 to be conservative), Benfred Tallhart raised a company of mounted lances in the west and so on. In short, it seems that the lords from the Northern half of the North have a realistic cavalry strength of at least 4500 in their own right.

Considering that among the lords from the southern half of the North you then have the likes of the Manderlys - who have more heavy horse than even the Boltons -, the comparatively wealthy Dustins, the Ryswells who seem to be famed for breeding horse herds, in addition to more average lords like the Flints, Lockes, Slates etc, it seems quite likely that the Southerly lords should be able to at least match the 4500 cavalry potential of the Northerly lords.

So a total Northern cavalry strength of around 9000 seems quite likely, based on the evidence.

 

 

Just re-read the quote by Luwin:

“Maester Luwin sighed. “Three hundred, perhaps four … among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.”

I don't see how that can be read as 3300 or 3400

 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

On 18-7-2016 at 0:27 AM, Universal Sword Donor said:

Robb tells Cat he instructed HR to bleed Tywin if he came up the KR, so I'd imagine if he had forces mustered they'd have been around MC or Greywater Watch most likely.

That's true.

2 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

 

Just re-read the quote by Luwin:

“Maester Luwin sighed. “Three hundred, perhaps four … among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.”

I don't see how that can be read as 3300 or 3400

 

The 300 to 400 knights are in addition to the three thousand armored lances. Or am I not understanding what you are trying to say?

[Free Northman Reborn]

6 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

 

Just re-read the quote by Luwin:

“Maester Luwin sighed. “Three hundred, perhaps four … among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.”

I don't see how that can be read as 3300 or 3400

 

Well quite simply, if there are 300-400 knights, and 3000 armored lances who are NOT knights, that gives you 3300-3400 heavy cavalry altogether.

[Lion of the West]

59 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well quite simply, if there are 300-400 knights, and 3000 armored lances who are NOT knights, that gives you 3300-3400 heavy cavalry altogether.

But the quotes says "Three hundred, perhaps four … among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.” So to me it says that there are 3000 armored lances, of whom 300-400 are knights. The "among" is the keyword here as far as I can tell.

[Universal Sword Donor]

22 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

But the quotes says "Three hundred, perhaps four … among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.” So to me it says that there are 3000 armored lances, of whom 300-400 are knights. The "among" is the keyword here as far as I can tell.

My thought as well. It's worded rather weirdly though.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, LionoftheWest said:

But the quotes says "Three hundred, perhaps four … among three thousand armored lances who are not knights.” So to me it says that there are 3000 armored lances, of whom 300-400 are knights. The "among" is the keyword here as far as I can tell.

 

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

My thought as well. It's worded rather weirdly though.

Err...not that it makes a major difference to the overall number, but he says there are 3000 armored lances who are NOT knights.

Anyway, call it 4000 cavalry available from the Northern lords then, if you only assume 3000 heavy cavalry at Winterfell, and include the extra Dreadfort garrison cavalry and other assorted cavalry from the northern lords, including the Mountain clans. Then add another 4000-4500 from the southern lords. That gives you between 8000 and 8500 Northern cavalry altogether.

 

[fenr1s]

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

Err...not that it makes a major difference to the overall number, but he says there are 3000 armored lances who are NOT knights.

Anyway, call it 4000 cavalry available from the Northern lords then, if you only assume 3000 heavy cavalry at Winterfell, and include the extra Dreadfort garrison cavalry and other assorted cavalry from the northern lords, including the Mountain clans. Then add another 4000-4500 from the southern lords. That gives you between 8000 and 8500 Northern cavalry altogether.

 

Robb took close to 6000 cavalry west, Edmure had 3000 when he faced Tywin at the fords and Roose had 500 at the Greenfork.

[Nyrhex]

On 18.7.2016 at 11:15 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Again, I hear your point. But due to a number of factors, it does not hold up to scrutiny.

Firstly, it should be noted that even the Freys are sending peasants with pitchforks and sharpened sticks as the core of their 1000 or so infantry with Hosteen and Aenys, as observed by Theon in Dance. So the North is not unique in doing so. In fact, the North's original host was quite a bit better equipped than that.

Secondly, even the wildlings are able to raise a 30k fighting force if they call up all their greybeards and green boys. This from a population of maybe 100,000 by the time they came into contact with the Watch at the Skirling pass.

No one can seriously contend that the wildling population comes anywhere close to the population of the North itself. So if the wildlings can raise tens of thousands by pulling in every able bodied man (note that spear wives form only a small component of the fighting force), then the North itself will be able to raise many times that number if they resorted to the same. Ten times that number most likely.

So clearly, the North as a whole is not resorting to every able bodied male when they raise 30k men, or even 60k or 90k men for that matter. It is simply not possible, given the wildling example.

This is further reinforced by an unrelated comment from Martin about the Ironborn, where he states that they are able to raise the number they do because they can raise a much larger percentage of their total population to arms than the mainland kingdoms do, due to the martial culture (and likely due to their use of thralls to do much of their manual labor). So, clearly if the Ironborn are raising a much larger proportion of their population to arms than the North does, then by default the North is not raising close to its full able bodied male population to arms.

All of the above is quite aside from the historical reality that a medieval society cannot mobilize, equip and logistically support more than a fraction of its male population for war.

So it is logically impossible for the North - or even the Karstarks - to be pulling in close to every able bodied male. it has to mean just the likely lads in close proximity to Karhold itself. And that doesn't mean there are no able bodied males left around Karhold. It just means there aren't able bodied males left to spare, because they are needed to bring in the Harvest. So men who cannot work the fields so productively are sent off instead. Meaning old men and boys. Consider that maybe 9 in 10 able bodied men are needed to work the fields, in a medieval society. And in the North that requirement is even higher, given the lower yield per square mile.

1. Peasnts are not the core, they are mentioned after the bowmen and the spearmen and together with freeriders and mounted bowmen, and another 100 knights at the rear plus 400 in the van. This is by far not the composition of the "reserves" we see from any of the Northern forces. Aside of the Boltons' 600 riders which is an outlier, Karstark had 12 lancers out of ~450 men, Whoresbane had 300 greybeards with spears and 100 with bows. The peasants with scyths and sharpened sticks are a bit extra, not the core. And this is not the original Frey host either, they suffered losses with Roose on the Green Fork. This is part of the original host plus bit more from a bit of new recruitment. Frey is currently sending 1,500 men North while having a similar amount lay siege to Riverrun, plus hold a garrison. He controls nearly a third of the Riverlands before the war, he has the men to spare.

2. And? The Wildlings have stolen steel at best, with most using stone age technology and the Thenns bronze. What on earth is there to compare? It's a people in migration, literally everyone grabs a stick and fights. Comparable to the Clansmen, maybe, but not to a Westerosi army. And I honestly doubt that even had the North used Wildling level tech they could pull off 300,000 fighters. Not even half that, not even if the entire North is migrating south of the Neck like Wildlings. I get that you like using medieval measurments to go with population for the size of the area, but Martin doesn't, and the North is not as populated as you seem to think.

3. The North, for all intent and purposes, is resorting to using every able bodied man it can spare. 20,000 men march south and 2 major regions report losing 50% of thier harvest? The capital of the North and sorrounding area can barely scrape together 600 teenage boys who did not join the war already like the rest of thier kin? Can you find some older greybeards? Can you recruit boys aged 8-11 to pick up a stick? Sure you can. Can you take all the scraps that were left behind to guard after the garrisons and the other scraping of the barrel have left if you are a migratory people and have nothing left to guard? Sure you can. Can you take all the small hamlets that could afford to send a man with a spear and take what they have left even if they have 1 kitchen knife between them? Sure you can. But this is getting ridiculous. The North does not have the population that other regions have, and if the North is going Wildling for ~150k then the other kingdoms can do the same for millions. Again, the North is not that populated. And again, you are using one measurment to give the North as many troops as possible, while failing to do the same for everyone else. You can continue to compare to the Ironborn and the Wildlings, fine. But they are not the Riverladns or the Vale or the Westerlands or the Crownlands or the Reach. This keeps being a thing, to give the North and the Starks as many "troops" as possible you try and find any hint of evidence to say that they have vast reserves, and you fail to do so for anyone else because logically then the ratio compared to the North stays the same, and you want the North to punvh above that. 

When you count for the North, you count everything and the kitchen sink to give large numbers. But for the others? Nah, just compare 40,000 Northmen to 35,000 Lannisters at the start of the war, because those numbers are completely the same, right?

4. The Ironborn barely have 20,000 fighters in total. And by fighters I mean raiders. They are not an army. If the North has 20,000 fighters, and can raise ~10,000 more if it strips the castles from garrisons and recruits boys and greybeards, and can get to maybe 40,000 if they recruit everything left, this is still the North recruiting everything they can to get 40,000 men. The Lannisters started the war with 35,000 men, of those only ~1,000 of Tywin's had some tag-along farmers on farm horses and some half trained boys from Lannisport who wanted to see some action... but they were in between the mounted bowmen and freeriders and sellswords and 300 mounted Vale clansmen who were now wearing spanking new armor from Tywin's stores. The Reach and the Stormlands produced 90,000 men between them without all of their houses and some large bannermen, and without going for garrisons and old men and young boys. And they require a larger population and larger income to support an army that is far better equipped than the North's. The Florents only have 2,000 swords? But at least the knights wear full plate and the foot has better gear. The population to support this is far larger than Karstark's, and even though most of them die on the Blackwater or go on with Stannis we hear nothing about losing harvest or anything of the sort. With Umber and Karstark specifically, areas untouched by war, we hear of massive losses of harvest. Clearly there were no men left for the harvest. There are no "spares" to do that. 

10 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So to follow on from this discussion, I am interested in the full estimated cavalry strength of the North.

We know now that Maester Luwin says that there are 3300-3400 heavy horse gathered at Winterfell.

However, we also know that the Boltons seem to have as many as 600 additional cavalry above this number, with Ramsay. Then there are assorted cavalry remaining with the likes of the Karstarks, and a large contingent of cavalry with the Mountain Clans with Stannis (say 500 to be conservative), Benfred Tallhart raised a company of mounted lances in the west and so on. In short, it seems that the lords from the Northern half of the North have a realistic cavalry strength of at least 4500 in their own right.

Considering that among the lords from the southern half of the North you then have the likes of the Manderlys - who have more heavy horse than even the Boltons -, the comparatively wealthy Dustins, the Ryswells who seem to be famed for breeding horse herds, in addition to more average lords like the Flints, Lockes, Slates etc, it seems quite likely that the Southerly lords should be able to at least match the 4500 cavalry potential of the Northerly lords.

So a total Northern cavalry strength of around 9000 seems quite likely, based on the evidence.

 

The Karstarks had 12, we see them when the Karstarks join Stannis' camp. Of the ~2,000 men who laid siege to Winterfell, the overwhelming majority were infantry for a reason - those houses did not have much cavalry left. The Clansmen don't have cavalry, they have shaggy runtish horses that they travel on. They don't ride them to battle. Justine Massey gives the warhorses at Deepwood Motte as 800, and the bulk, if not all of those, would have been Stannis', with a few maybe belonging to Glover or some of the other ~800 non-Clansmen who joined Stannis. There is no mentioning of Clansmen cavalry at any point in the text, this is completely made up to, again, drive up the Stark forces and making them sound greater than they are. Jon Snow tells us how they fight, with staffs and slings, and the clan chiefs and champions have large two handed swords. When we actually see them fight the clan chiefs and champions seem to have at best some rusty mail, and they don't ride horses to battle.

Benfred's company is connected to the Tallhart reserves, which we know were so few that fewer than 200 Ironborn were able to lay siege to. I think that a dozen or two at most is more than enough here.

The Dustins and Ryswells I've already mentioned as having fewer men than Ramsay's ~1,000 combined. Manderly is the only lord with a large cavalry force left. 

 

3 hours ago, fenr1s said:

Robb took close to 6000 cavalry west, Edmure had 3000 when he faced Tywin at the fords and Roose had 500 at the Greenfork.

You are counting at least ~4,500 Riverlands cavalry into that one.

 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

8 hours ago, fenr1s said:

Robb took close to 6000 cavalry west, Edmure had 3000 when he faced Tywin at the fords and Roose had 500 at the Greenfork.

Yes, but those includes men from the riverlands as well.

5 hours ago, Nyrhex said:

You are counting at least ~4,500 Riverlands cavalry into that one.

 

Actually, only some 2.000. Robb has some 3300 calvery from the north, and House Frey adds another thousand. He then takes 9/10th with him to Riverrun that's nearly four thousand men. The fact that he has six thousand men when the Whispering Woods takes place, means that the riverlanders had added some two thousand men to his forces.

 

Even if you assume only three thousand northern calvery in total, that still doesn't bring the number of riverlanders who join Robb's army anywhere near 4.500, but closer to 2.500

[Nyrhex]

2 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Yes, but those includes men from the riverlands as well.

Actually, only some 2.000. Robb has some 3300 calvery from the north, and House Frey adds another thousand. He then takes 9/10th with him to Riverrun that's nearly four thousand men. The fact that he has six thousand men when the Whispering Woods takes place, means that the riverlanders had added some two thousand men to his forces.

 

Even if you assume only three thousand northern calvery in total, that still doesn't bring the number of riverlanders who join Robb's army anywhere near 4.500, but closer to 2.500

Robb has 3,000-3,400 horse in Winterfell. He has ~5,000 horse at Moat Cailin after everyone joined the army. He is joined by 1,000 Frey knights for a total of 6,000 cavalry at the Twins. He removes 10% to go with Roose - 500-600 depending if from Northmen only or from North-Frey cavalry and if Roose suffered losses (we know later on he has 500 horse), and is later joined by the Mallisters and some other Riverlords to round it back up to 6,000 horse at the Whispering Woods.

While Robb is away in the west with 6,000 cavalry (not including losses from Whispering Woods and the Battle of the Camps), Roose is still in the east with 500. For the Battle of the Fords Edmure calls up 3,000 horse who are not Northmen, nor the Freys (technically there were some ~40 Freys with Edmure who left after Jeyengate, but the bulk of the horse were with Robb under the command of Stevron Frey). So, 6,000+3,000+500=9,500 cavalry, but of those 1,000 Freys, 500 Mallister and others, 3,000 other Riverlands cavalry with Edmure for 4,500 Riverlands horse in total out of the combined 9,500 North-Riverlands cavalry. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Nyrhex said:

Robb has 3,000-3,400 horse in Winterfell. He has ~5,000 horse at Moat Cailin after everyone joined the army. He is joined by 1,000 Frey knights for a total of 6,000 cavalry at the Twins. He removes 10% to go with Roose - 500-600 depending if from Northmen only or from North-Frey cavalry and if Roose suffered losses (we know later on he has 500 horse), and is later joined by the Mallisters and some other Riverlords to round it back up to 6,000 horse at the Whispering Woods.

While Robb is away in the west with 6,000 cavalry (not including losses from Whispering Woods and the Battle of the Camps), Roose is still in the east with 500. For the Battle of the Fords Edmure calls up 3,000 horse who are not Northmen, nor the Freys (technically there were some ~40 Freys with Edmure who left after Jeyengate, but the bulk of the horse were with Robb under the command of Stevron Frey). So, 6,000+3,000+500=9,500 cavalry, but of those 1,000 Freys, 500 Mallister and others, 3,000 other Riverlands cavalry with Edmure for 4,500 Riverlands horse in total out of the combined 9,500 North-Riverlands cavalry. 

Yes, around 5000 Northern horse at Moat Cailin, in other words. Of which the Manderlys sent only 200. Yet we know that Manderly has more heavy horse than even House Bolton. House Bolton in turn easily has 1000-1200 heavy horse, based on their contribution to Winterfell plus the remaining mounted lances at the Dreadfort with Ramsay. So Manderly potentially has between 1200-1500 heavy horse in addition to what they sent to Robb. That's just their heavy horse.

Meaning just by adding Manderly's horse, the North's cavalry total goes to around 6000-6500. Then you add the Boltons' remaining horse with Ramsay and you approach 7000 cavalry already. Then the Dustins and Ryswells remaining forces, plus the knights in Ser Rodrik's force (which broke Dagmer's shieldwall by repeated charges of mounted lances at Torhenn Square), plus assorted other horse and you get to around 8000 cavalry for the North without even counting the Mountain Clans who you state should be excluded.

9 hours ago, Nyrhex said:

1. Peasnts are not the core, they are mentioned after the bowmen and the spearmen and together with freeriders and mounted bowmen, and another 100 knights at the rear plus 400 in the van. This is by far not the composition of the "reserves" we see from any of the Northern forces. Aside of the Boltons' 600 riders which is an outlier, Karstark had 12 lancers out of ~450 men, Whoresbane had 300 greybeards with spears and 100 with bows. The peasants with scyths and sharpened sticks are a bit extra, not the core. And this is not the original Frey host either, they suffered losses with Roose on the Green Fork. This is part of the original host plus bit more from a bit of new recruitment. Frey is currently sending 1,500 men North while having a similar amount lay siege to Riverrun, plus hold a garrison. He controls nearly a third of the Riverlands before the war, he has the men to spare.

2. And? The Wildlings have stolen steel at best, with most using stone age technology and the Thenns bronze. What on earth is there to compare? It's a people in migration, literally everyone grabs a stick and fights. Comparable to the Clansmen, maybe, but not to a Westerosi army. And I honestly doubt that even had the North used Wildling level tech they could pull off 300,000 fighters. Not even half that, not even if the entire North is migrating south of the Neck like Wildlings. I get that you like using medieval measurments to go with population for the size of the area, but Martin doesn't, and the North is not as populated as you seem to think.

3. The North, for all intent and purposes, is resorting to using every able bodied man it can spare. 20,000 men march south and 2 major regions report losing 50% of thier harvest? The capital of the North and sorrounding area can barely scrape together 600 teenage boys who did not join the war already like the rest of thier kin? Can you find some older greybeards? Can you recruit boys aged 8-11 to pick up a stick? Sure you can. Can you take all the scraps that were left behind to guard after the garrisons and the other scraping of the barrel have left if you are a migratory people and have nothing left to guard? Sure you can. Can you take all the small hamlets that could afford to send a man with a spear and take what they have left even if they have 1 kitchen knife between them? Sure you can. But this is getting ridiculous. The North does not have the population that other regions have, and if the North is going Wildling for ~150k then the other kingdoms can do the same for millions. Again, the North is not that populated. And again, you are using one measurment to give the North as many troops as possible, while failing to do the same for everyone else. You can continue to compare to the Ironborn and the Wildlings, fine. But they are not the Riverladns or the Vale or the Westerlands or the Crownlands or the Reach. This keeps being a thing, to give the North and the Starks as many "troops" as possible you try and find any hint of evidence to say that they have vast reserves, and you fail to do so for anyone else because logically then the ratio compared to the North stays the same, and you want the North to punvh above that. 

When you count for the North, you count everything and the kitchen sink to give large numbers. But for the others? Nah, just compare 40,000 Northmen to 35,000 Lannisters at the start of the war, because those numbers are completely the same, right?

4. The Ironborn barely have 20,000 fighters in total. And by fighters I mean raiders. They are not an army. If the North has 20,000 fighters, and can raise ~10,000 more if it strips the castles from garrisons and recruits boys and greybeards, and can get to maybe 40,000 if they recruit everything left, this is still the North recruiting everything they can to get 40,000 men. The Lannisters started the war with 35,000 men, of those only ~1,000 of Tywin's had some tag-along farmers on farm horses and some half trained boys from Lannisport who wanted to see some action... but they were in between the mounted bowmen and freeriders and sellswords and 300 mounted Vale clansmen who were now wearing spanking new armor from Tywin's stores. The Reach and the Stormlands produced 90,000 men between them without all of their houses and some large bannermen, and without going for garrisons and old men and young boys. And they require a larger population and larger income to support an army that is far better equipped than the North's. The Florents only have 2,000 swords? But at least the knights wear full plate and the foot has better gear. The population to support this is far larger than Karstark's, and even though most of them die on the Blackwater or go on with Stannis we hear nothing about losing harvest or anything of the sort. With Umber and Karstark specifically, areas untouched by war, we hear of massive losses of harvest. Clearly there were no men left for the harvest. There are no "spares" to do that. 

The Karstarks had 12, we see them when the Karstarks join Stannis' camp. Of the ~2,000 men who laid siege to Winterfell, the overwhelming majority were infantry for a reason - those houses did not have much cavalry left. The Clansmen don't have cavalry, they have shaggy runtish horses that they travel on. They don't ride them to battle. Justine Massey gives the warhorses at Deepwood Motte as 800, and the bulk, if not all of those, would have been Stannis', with a few maybe belonging to Glover or some of the other ~800 non-Clansmen who joined Stannis. There is no mentioning of Clansmen cavalry at any point in the text, this is completely made up to, again, drive up the Stark forces and making them sound greater than they are. Jon Snow tells us how they fight, with staffs and slings, and the clan chiefs and champions have large two handed swords. When we actually see them fight the clan chiefs and champions seem to have at best some rusty mail, and they don't ride horses to battle.

Benfred's company is connected to the Tallhart reserves, which we know were so few that fewer than 200 Ironborn were able to lay siege to. I think that a dozen or two at most is more than enough here.

The Dustins and Ryswells I've already mentioned as having fewer men than Ramsay's ~1,000 combined. Manderly is the only lord with a large cavalry force left. 

 

I reject your basic premise that the North calls up a larger portion of their peasants in their hosts than the South does. The opposite is in fact the case. The fact is that the North needs more of their peasants to work on the harvest than the South does, so they can spare fewer of them to go off to war. That's why the harvests start going to waste if the lords send too many men off to war. Martin says as much. He says:

...but the north is much bigger, so it takes longer for an army to gather. And life is harsher there as well, so lords and smallfolk both need to think carefully before beating those plowshares into swords.

The above is quite clear. Just to raise the same portion of their population to arms, the Northern lords and smallfolk need to think much more carefully than their southron counterparts before beating those plowshares into swords. This is the opposite of them sending a greater portion of their peasants to war than the South. They in fact struggle to mobilize even the same percentage of their peasants for war. And when they do, you see results such as what happened at Karhold's harvest. Because they need more peasants to focus on bringing in the food than the South does. Due to lower yields.

As for the Ironborn, Martin says this:

The ironborn come from a culture with a very strong warrior tradition -- much more so than mainland Westeros. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms have a warrior caste (the knights) on top of a larger base of peasants, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc. The "Old Way" of the islands encouraged almost all men (and some women, like Asha) to take up raiding, at least if they were young and healthy.

Also, we know for a fact that the North is not the least populous Kingdom. Dorne is. So the North cannot have this order of magnitude lower population than the Southron kingdoms like you suggest, as that would put Dorne even lower down on the scale.

And once you look at the heavy cavalry numbers that the regions can raise, well, that cannot be more than a fraction of the total population. And based on the evidence, the North can raise even more heavy cavalry than the likes of the Stormlands, as shown above. And this while we know  that regions like the Neck, Mountain Clans and Skagos provide zero heavy cavalry, so their entire populations are not even reflected in the heavy cavalry numbers.

Some odds and ends from your post:

The Freys. Their total numbers compared to the Karstarks don't matter. The fact that they have raised 4000 men to date simply puts them at a higher level than the Karstarks, more similar to the Boltons. They are after all the strongest Riverland House, so that would be expected. The point is that they too have peasants in their army. We have seen no peasants with sharpened sticks in Roose Boltons armies for example. Ironically, not even the 450 Karstark men with Arnolf described as "peasants with sharpened sticks in their hands".

Then the Dustins and Ryswells. The argument that they had fewer men than Ramsay is baseless. They merely knew they would lose three times the number of Ironborn if they stormed the Towers. And they were clearly not prepared  to do that. Note that Ramsay does not do it either. He sends Theon to coax them out.

The Dustins and Ryswells could have had 2000 men between them, and they could still not have been willing to lose three times the number of defenders in the assault. And as they said, they thought there were a lot more than 62 men in the Towers. So losing a few hundred men in taking the Towers, was clearly not palatable to them. Especially while they knew Roose was on his way from the South and Ramsay from the North to deal with it in their stead. Why throw their own men away needlessly?

Not to mention that there is no indication that the Dustins and Ryswells sent their full strengths to Moat Cailin. Lady Dustin sent as few as possible with Robb. Why would she not send as few as possible to Ramsay too, while keeping her main force at home to defend Barrotown?

In any case. Your proposal is fundamentally flawed.

The idea that the North is raising a massive portion of their able bodied men to war compared to the South is not supported by the evidence. It is in fact contradicted by the evidence.

[Nyrhex]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yes, around 5000 Northern horse at Moat Cailin, in other words. Of which the Manderlys sent only 200. Yet we know that Manderly has more heavy horse than even House Bolton. House Bolton in turn easily has 1000-1200 heavy horse, based on their contribution to Winterfell plus the remaining mounted lances at the Dreadfort with Ramsay. So Manderly potentially has between 1200-1500 heavy horse in addition to what they sent to Robb. That's just their heavy horse.

Meaning just by adding Manderly's horse, the North's cavalry total goes to around 6000-6500. Then you add the Boltons' remaining horse with Ramsay and you approach 7000 cavalry already. Then the Dustins and Ryswells remaining forces, plus the knights in Ser Rodrik's force (which broke Dagmer's shieldwall by repeated charges of mounted lances at Torhenn Square), plus assorted other horse and you get to around 8000 cavalry for the North without even counting the Mountain Clans who you state should be excluded.

While I agree that Manderly may have another ~1,000-1,300 horse, we have literally nothing differentiating heavy from light horse in the books when talking army numbers. That's the number of horse he has, or at least that's the number he tells Davos (though I find little reason to doubt him). 

Just with Manderly's horse the North goes up to 6,000-6,300 (200 are already counted in the original 5,000). But together with 600 riders at the Dreadfort, a dozen with Karstark, a dozen or with Tallhart, and whatever the Dustins and Ryswells have, let's round it up to a solid 7,000.

Add the Glovers and the Mormonts and what they got for Stannis, add some mountain clansmen who'll ride on thier ponies to war, and whatever you can find on Skagos, and round up from whatever is east of White Harbor that would take lead from Manderly, and fine, I'll settle for 8,000 total cavalry for the North.

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I reject your basic premise that the North calls up a larger portion of their peasants in their hosts than the South does. The opposite is in fact the case. The fact is that the North needs more of their peasants to work on the harvest than the South does, so they can spare fewer of them to go off to war. That's why the harvests start going to waste if the lords send too many men off to war. Martin says as much. He says:

...but the north is much bigger, so it takes longer for an army to gather. And life is harsher there as well, so lords and smallfolk both need to think carefully before beating those plowshares into swords.

The above is quite clear. Just to raise the same portion of their population to arms, the Northern lords and smallfolk need to think much more carefully than their southron counterparts before beating those plowshares into swords. This is the opposite of them sending a greater portion of their peasants to war than the South. They in fact struggle to mobilize even the same percentage of their peasants for war. And when they do, you see results such as what happened at Karhold's harvest. Because they need more peasants to focus on bringing in the food than the South does. Due to lower yields.

As for the Ironborn, Martin says this:

The ironborn come from a culture with a very strong warrior tradition -- much more so than mainland Westeros. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms have a warrior caste (the knights) on top of a larger base of peasants, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc. The "Old Way" of the islands encouraged almost all men (and some women, like Asha) to take up raiding, at least if they were young and healthy.

Also, we know for a fact that the North is not the least populous Kingdom. Dorne is. So the North cannot have this order of magnitude lower population than the Southron kingdoms like you suggest, as that would put Dorne even lower down on the scale.

And once you look at the heavy cavalry numbers that the regions can raise, well, that cannot be more than a fraction of the total population. And based on the evidence, the North can raise even more heavy cavalry than the likes of the Stormlands, as shown above. And this while we know  that regions like the Neck, Mountain Clans and Skagos provide zero heavy cavalry, so their entire populations are not even reflected in the heavy cavalry numbers.

Some odds and ends from your post:

The Freys. Their total numbers compared to the Karstarks don't matter. The fact that they have raised 4000 men to date simply puts them at a higher level than the Karstarks, more similar to the Boltons. They are after all the strongest Riverland House, so that would be expected. The point is that they too have peasants in their army. We have seen no peasants with sharpened sticks in Roose Boltons armies for example. Ironically, not even the 450 Karstark men with Arnolf described as "peasants with sharpened sticks in their hands".

Then the Dustins and Ryswells. The argument that they had fewer men than Ramsay is baseless. They merely knew they would lose three times the number of Ironborn if they stormed the Towers. And they were clearly not prepared  to do that. Note that Ramsay does not do it either. He sends Theon to coax them out.

The Dustins and Ryswells could have had 2000 men between them, and they could still not have been willing to lose three times the number of defenders in the assault. And as they said, they thought there were a lot more than 62 men in the Towers. So losing a few hundred men in taking the Towers, was clearly not palatable to them. Especially while they knew Roose was on his way from the South and Ramsay from the North to deal with it in their stead. Why throw their own men away needlessly?

Not to mention that there is no indication that the Dustins and Ryswells sent their full strengths to Moat Cailin. Lady Dustin sent as few as possible with Robb. Why would she not send as few as possible to Ramsay too, while keeping her main force at home to defend Barrotown?

In any case. Your proposal is fundamentally flawed.

The idea that the North is raising a massive portion of their able bodied men to war compared to the South is not supported by the evidence. It is in fact contradicted by the evidence.

1. This just confirms my point... That the North is suffering upto 50% losses from harvest in some areas after they have sent a few thousand men shows that the North is just about tapped out as far as available manpower. 

This does not show that the North uses more people than the south to support it's army, it shows that the North is limited in what it can spare to war. The south on the other hand needs a financial basis to equip far larger armies with far more expensive gear, thus requiring alot more excess production.

2. The Iron Isles' economy and culture produces ~20,000 raiders. Yay for them. Dorne maintains the fable that it can get 50,00 spears, but we know that that is bull. I left Dorne out for a reason, I know it's the least populated, and they can probably raise 20,000-25,000 in total. But the Westerlands pulled out 35,000 right at the start, the Stormlands and the Reach likely a 30,000-60,000 split and that was without some bannermen. They did that without calling garrisons and without recruiting boys and old men. If the Stormlords had 30,000 men and 1 in 4 was mounted as is standard, they would have fielded ~7,500 horse in Renly's camp when Catelyn arrived. Renly's host at Storm's End had over 20,000 horse, some were left at Bitterbride but even if we only take 20,000 and divide by 3 the Stormlords had almost as many cavalry in this initial call-up and without all the bannermen than the entire cavalry of the North if we scrape everything into a huge pile.

3. It does matter. You made it sounds like the Freys are reduced to using mainly peasants, and I pointed out that the few peasants with sub-par armament are a minority here. Theon in Winterfell does not go on about unarmed peasants all over the place, does he? When we see the Freys leave the Twins in AGOT it's:

A swollen red sun hung low against the western hills when the gates of the castle opened. The drawbridge creaked down, the portcullis winched up, and Lady Catelyn Stark rode forth to rejoin her son and his lords bannermen. Behind her came Ser Jared Frey, Ser Hosteen Frey, Ser Danwell Frey, and Lord Walder's bastard son Ronel Rivers, leading a long column of pikemen, rank on rank of shuffling men in blue steel ringmail and silvery grey cloaks.

The 4,000 men in Frey's original force were fully equipped. That his second round of recruitment has archers and spearmen and mounted bowmen and feeriders and next to them some peasants who joined up, is not even close to the poor showing of the North's "some old timers or boys with a spear, maybe a dozen lancers". We have seen no peasanst in Roose Bolton's army because, again, the 600 reserves are all mounted fighters for plot sake. It's the entire point of the plot in the North right now. 

4. The Dustins and the Ryswells attacked Moat Cailin 3 times and failed. But sure give them 2,000 men. It's that extra 1,000 with Ramsay that were not there that was holding them back.

 

The idea that the North is not raising a massive portion of it's population for war, when regions report up to 50% losses of harvest and great lords can only call up a few hundred boys and old men, is ludicrous. A third of the North, from Bear Isle to Deepwood Motte to the Stony Shore and the Wolfwood, plus left overs from the host near Winterfell from Cerwyn and Hornwood and Tallhart amount to barely ~800 in Stannis' host as they are motivated to restore the Starks. But sure, there are thousands of men of fighting age and left all over the place who would totally take up arms and march to war if only there was a Stark to lead them...

Give me a break.