War tactics

[elder brother jonothor dar]

So the Lannisters abandoned the Rock, fine he who defends everything defends nothing; but I have several problems with this master plan.

Why did Euron and his fire breathing ships not destroy them on route? Would have saved loosing your home capital.

Anyway the plan is to strand them and starve them to death, sounds good except why would they sit in an empty castle starving to death?  The Lannister army has gone south, Lannisport the city is undefended as is most of the westerland.

So we should assume that the west has lost its main castle it's capital has been raised to the ground and the countryside is burning (think Riverlands).  We have seen the effect on moral already by Robb loosing Winterfell; Lannister soldiers have been ordered to abandon their home and family.

Cersei has succeeded in splitting Danys forces but the cost is huge, she has succeeded in subduing the Reach, Dorne is leaderless and rules the sea as long as they stay clear of the dragons.  But she has lost her home region.

[Future Null Infinity]

The 7K are in war and sometimes sacrifice a pawn is the best way to win a war, I think that the tactic is

• Temporarily losing Casterly Rock in order to immobilize the Unsullied is a profitable sacrifice
• Minimize losses : no need to lose too many soldiers defending a city in the other side of Westeros, KL is more important than CR
• If she win the war in KL and send Daenerys back to Essos then she can send the army to CR and lay siege on it until the Unsullied die by starvation.

[Lucius Lovejoy]

I agree with @Future Null Infinity and would add that I don't think they fully intended to lose Casterly Rock - it can be defended by a skeleton crew.  Tyrion's sneak attack allowed the Unsullied to take it.  But they are still screwed because the Lannisters were planning an Unsullied Sandwich with Euron in the sea and Lannisters on land, only now instead of being caught on the shore between the Rock and the sea they are caught at the rock between highgarden and the sea.  Draining the resources from CR was just a necessary precaution when leaving a skeleton crew, not an admission of planning to be defeated.

This is where I admit that I have no idea how far Highgarden is from Casterly Rock.

[storm.131]

The true stupidity of the whole Casterly Rock farce was Tyrion advising Dany to send the Unsullied there in the first place.  There was no real advantage to be gained from conquering it but very obvious disadvantages in sending her best fighters to the other side of the country.

[Sir Dingleberry]

4 minutes ago, storm.131 said:

The true stupidity of the whole Casterly Rock farce was Tyrion advising Dany to send the Unsullied there in the first place.  There was no real advantage to be gained from conquering it but very obvious disadvantages in sending her best fighters to the other side of the country.

I mean I'd disagree with that because at the time, Dany controls dragonstone, has allies in the Reach and Dorne, Riverlands are non-existent, the Eeryie is aligned with the North, the Northern King is coming to treat with Danny, and she has already stated she did not want to take Kngs Landing.  So, the only obvious choice was to take your enemies only other stronghold (aka Casterly Rock).  I don't really understand why going after Euron's fleet wasn't a high priority though.

[storm.131]

15 minutes ago, Sir Dingleberry said:

So, the only obvious choice was to take your enemies only other stronghold (aka Casterly Rock).

That's a big part of why I think it was stupid:  it was the obvious thing to do and Tyrion even said that Cersei would expect them to do it.  It's a no brainer that doing what your enemy expects you to do, is not a smart move.

There was no urgency in sending the Unsullied off to the west coast of Westeros, so why not wait for the Dornish and Highgarden forces to lay siege to King's Landing before making another move?  If Dany had waited, she wouldn't be in the greatly weakened position of losing her allies, a large part of her fleet AND having the Unsullied so far from Dragonstone.

However, that was the point:  the showrunners needed a down and out Dany asking for help from her nephew.  Unfortunately they did it in a way that made a character who is supposed to be clever, Tyrion, look like a fool.

[Sir Dingleberry]

29 minutes ago, storm.131 said:

That's a big part of why I think it was stupid:  it was the obvious thing to do and Tyrion even said that Cersei would expect them to do it.  It's a no brainer that doing what your enemy expects you to do, is not a smart move.

There was no urgency in sending the Unsullied off to the west coast of Westeros, so why not wait for the Dornish and Highgarden forces to lay siege to King's Landing before making another move?  If Dany had waited, she wouldn't be in the greatly weakened position of losing her allies, a large part of her fleet AND having the Unsullied so far from Dragonstone.

However, that was the point:  the showrunners needed a down and out Dany asking for help from her nephew.  Unfortunately they did it in a way that made a character who is supposed to be clever, Tyrion, look like a fool.

Ya I'm with ya.  It was stupid in general but the way the two previous episodes had set up it was the only route for them to go.  My only problem was that no minimum precautions were taken in protecting her allies.  Overall, Dorne was fine in terms of power but Olenna was barely hanging on and it was pretty obvious that if Cersei tried to get allies it would be from the Reach, aka Tarly.  But, the writers want dany's cause to seem hopeless and force her to use her dragons and do dragon things.