Greyjoy fleet size

[Dc Castillo]

So Euron has said he wants 1000 ships and he can bring the Iron Men greatness.  First off they built those ships sooooo fast.  But besides that, how many warriors/seaman do the iron islands have?  Even if they had 10,000 men, that'd mean about 10 people per ship (if there are 1000 ships).  That seems like an insanely low amount of people per ship and 10,000 warriors seems more than generous based on the size of the islands. 

 

Is this oversight?  Obviously they probably only built a fraction of the 1000 ships, but even half makes the numbers still seem a bit extreme.

 

thoughts?

[cpg2016]

12 hours ago, Dc Castillo said:

So Euron has said he wants 1000 ships and he can bring the Iron Men greatness.  First off they built those ships sooooo fast.  But besides that, how many warriors/seaman do the iron islands have?  Even if they had 10,000 men, that'd mean about 10 people per ship (if there are 1000 ships).  That seems like an insanely low amount of people per ship and 10,000 warriors seems more than generous based on the size of the islands. 

 

Is this oversight?  Obviously they probably only built a fraction of the 1000 ships, but even half makes the numbers still seem a bit extreme.

 

thoughts?

Yes, it's typical lazy plotting and attention to detail on the part of the writers.  Basically, par for the course for the last two seasons.  They're much more interested giving the show the ability to have lovely cinematography than in a story that makes any kind of sense. 

[El Guapo]

I doubt he has anywhere close to a thousand ships. Probably a couple hundred at the most.

[Moiraine Sedai]

Euron will beat Yara because he's a better captain, not because of superiority in numbers.

[Nerevanin]

Well, clearly the things happening in the previous season weren't going on at the same time. Remember that last episode of season 6, when one moment Varys was talking with Olenna and the next moment he was on ship with Dany. Clearly there were long weeks, if not months between the two scenes. Who knows how much time passed between S06E10 and S07E01. That being said, 1000 ships is a bit of a reach either way, I fear.... I decided to take the "1000 ships" as "a large fleet", regardless of the actual number of ships...

[Prince Jon]

The money and resources it would take to build 1000 ships would be enormous.  This was a challenge when Cersei wanted her navy.  But they skip past this logistical problem to provide the villain for the season and an ally for Cersei.  

[X-Buster]

10 hours ago, El Guapo said:

I doubt he has anywhere close to a thousand ships. Probably a couple hundred at the most.

Did you notice anything peculiar about Euron's command ship?  The deck is fortified with shields.  The prow has what appears to me a retractable ram.  It's a formidable warship. 

[Lord Godric]

I took Euron's speech from last season to be just a rallying speech that was exaggerated. Of course he doesn't really have 1,000 ships, it's a nice round number to say "a lot of ships." At most I'd wager a few hundred. 

[Ice Walker]

He tells Cersei that he has brought a 1000 ships and two hands. Not that I trust Euron's words but it does seem like he has built them all.

From that scene, I would estimate it to be around 200 ships. 50 men on each ship would make it 10000 men. That's more realistic than having just 10 men on a ship.

[Rhollo]

Just for comparison, the Spanish Armada hat around 130 ships at it's peak. And most of them were repurposed merchant ships, not newly built warships and it still took them a few years to assemble.

So yeah, I'm also going with "1000 ships" as either a a figure of speech or an indication that Euron is trying to make everything about him much bigger than it is in reality 

 

From the establishing shot's we got, I'd guess that both Yara and Euron have between 50-100 ships at their disposal.

[pinoyathletics]

8 hours ago, Lord Godric said:

I took Euron's speech from last season to be just a rallying speech that was exaggerated. Of course he doesn't really have 1,000 ships, it's a nice round number to say "a lot of ships." At most I'd wager a few hundred. 

He also said he had a big cock. But he has no heir yet at his age.

[Megaera]

Obviously Dany and Eurons fleets aren't that big otherwise they would have spotted each other. Euron would have gone past Dragonstone on his way in and out of KL!

[snow is the man]

Pretty much he was exaggerating to sound better. Saying I have three hundred and twenty six ships for example just doesn't sound as cool

[snow is the man]

1 minute ago, Megaera said:

Obviously Dany and Eurons fleets aren't that big otherwise they would have spotted each other. Euron would have gone past Dragonstone on his way in and out of KL!

Dany' fleet is around three hundred ships if I remember correctly or something around that because she took the master's armada. That was the combined fleet of at least three free cities. Euron was exageratting. Although something to think about is that dany was only using her fleet to transport troops so i have to wonder how many are really able to do ship to ship combat

[TyrionFan82]

On Invalid Date at 10:05 PM, Ice Walker said:

He tells Cersei that he has brought a 1000 ships and two hands. Not that I trust Euron's words but it does seem like he has built them all.

From that scene, I would estimate it to be around 200 ships. 50 men on each ship would make it 10000 men. That's more realistic than having just 10 men on a ship.

This seems more plausible. I just don't buy anything he says. It's not like the Ironborn are known for their honesty.

[Amris]

3 hours ago, TyrionFan82 said:

This seems more plausible. I just don't buy anything he says. It's not like the Ironborn are known for their honesty.

It is how I imagine things too.

However my impression of the show is they really take their 1000 ship line seriously. I have two reasons for this: one is that in season 6 Euron actually gives the order to build a thousand ships. The other is that in that same episode Dany gets told she'd need at least 1000 ships to transport her troops to Westeros. So we know the show thinks Dany has 1000 ships or more - which means for Euron to be a threat he has to have something in at least shouting range of that.

The number is preposterous of course for something as small and barren as the Iron Islands and the relatively short time. (Even if we assume two full years had passed between Euron ordering his fleet built and his showing up in King's Landing - which would be on the high side timewise): how are the Iron Islands supposed to build 1000 warships in that time?

Even if they had all the shipbuilders and drydocks for such a huge number (which they can't really but lets assume they can for a moment) - where did they get the materials? The Iron Islands don't appear to have a lot of wood. And even if we overlook that problem too: if the wood itself was there somewhere that would not be sufficient because shipbuilding needs seasoned wood. Seasoning (air-drying) wood takes years. To make the seasoned wood available, the Iron Islands would have had to lay down enough green wood to build a thousand warships (in addition to any shipbuilding for normal replacements) years in advance of Euron declaring his grand plan.

It all doesn't add up. So to get back to your posts: yeah, lets just assume Euron is grandstanding and means 'a lot' rather than a literal 1000. It is just unbelievable else.

 

[Zumbs]

I have been pondering these issues as well, because it seems to make little sense. A highly speculative possibility without any clues from the series (or book IIRC) would be the following:

When the iron born raided the North from season 2 onwards, they could also have started felling the forests on the western coasts and sailed the lumber to the Iron Islands. This could have been a long term plan of Balon and/or Yara to build a powerful fleet.

Given that the Iron Islands do not appear to have much in terms of agriculture ("We do not sow"), it stands to reason that their food comes from fishing, trade and piracy, each requiring lots of boats and ships. Thus, they should have a lot of ship builders, carpenters and weavers able to build and maintain ships.

With a number of ships they could feasibly also increase their ships by conscripting and capturing other ships, possibly also yielding slaves, both to build and crew their ships and work their fisheries. They could also have tried to attract other pirates, like Stannis and Davos did.

Still, 1000 ships is still a huge fleet to build in any time. Crewing them would also likely drain the Iron Islands of their ablebodied men and women, betting that noone would bother attacking them. Or maybe just not caring.

[TyrionFan82]

10 hours ago, Zumbs said:

I have been pondering these issues as well, because it seems to make little sense. A highly speculative possibility without any clues from the series (or book IIRC) would be the following:

When the iron born raided the North from season 2 onwards, they could also have started felling the forests on the western coasts and sailed the lumber to the Iron Islands. This could have been a long term plan of Balon and/or Yara to build a powerful fleet.

Given that the Iron Islands do not appear to have much in terms of agriculture ("We do not sow"), it stands to reason that their food comes from fishing, trade and piracy, each requiring lots of boats and ships. Thus, they should have a lot of ship builders, carpenters and weavers able to build and maintain ships.

With a number of ships they could feasibly also increase their ships by conscripting and capturing other ships, possibly also yielding slaves, both to build and crew their ships and work their fisheries. They could also have tried to attract other pirates, like Stannis and Davos did.

Still, 1000 ships is still a huge fleet to build in any time. Crewing them would also likely drain the Iron Islands of their ablebodied men and women, betting that noone would bother attacking them. Or maybe just not caring.

Yeah, are they going to empty the Iron Islands except for Rodrik and leave it open to attack? I mean how much do even have to offer pirates or so forth for their efforts?

[snow is the man]

On 7/19/2017 at 9:19 PM, E.S. Dinah said:

Did you notice anything peculiar about Euron's command ship?  The deck is fortified with shields.  The prow has what appears to me a retractable ram.  It's a formidable warship. 

he has had that ship for a long time though. It isn't new

[snow is the man]

On 7/21/2017 at 6:53 AM, Amris said:

It is how I imagine things too.

However my impression of the show is they really take their 1000 ship line seriously. I have two reasons for this: one is that in season 6 Euron actually gives the order to build a thousand ships. The other is that in that same episode Dany gets told she'd need at least 1000 ships to transport her troops to Westeros. So we know the show thinks Dany has 1000 ships or more - which means for Euron to be a threat he has to have something in at least shouting range of that.

The number is preposterous of course for something as small and barren as the Iron Islands and the relatively short time. (Even if we assume two full years had passed between Euron ordering his fleet built and his showing up in King's Landing - which would be on the high side timewise): how are the Iron Islands supposed to build 1000 warships in that time?

Even if they had all the shipbuilders and drydocks for such a huge number (which they can't really but lets assume they can for a moment) - where did they get the materials? The Iron Islands don't appear to have a lot of wood. And even if we overlook that problem too: if the wood itself was there somewhere that would not be sufficient because shipbuilding needs seasoned wood. Seasoning (air-drying) wood takes years. To make the seasoned wood available, the Iron Islands would have had to lay down enough green wood to build a thousand warships (in addition to any shipbuilding for normal replacements) years in advance of Euron declaring his grand plan.

It all doesn't add up. So to get back to your posts: yeah, lets just assume Euron is grandstanding and means 'a lot' rather than a literal 1000. It is just unbelievable else.

 

well to be fair most of dany's ship are not for ship to ship combat but just transporting people and supplies. It makes a big difference in terms of what they can really do. In terms of ship to ship fighting I thing euron's fleet would killed dany's fleet easy.