Biggest battles in known Westerosi history

[Free Northman Reborn]

So we have discussed warfare in Westeros, and battles in particular, for many years on this forum. However to me, numbers provide a picture in their own right, especially when compared to one another. In this vein, I was wondering how the sizes of individual battles in the known history of Westeros weigh up against one another, and how this might give us some insight into the comparative scale of various conflicts. People might make a big deal about Roddy the Ruin and his battle at the lake, but this involved maybe 5000 combatants combined, so in terms of scale, it is really an insignificant event. So just from memory, my list of the biggest battles in Westerosi history goes something like this:

1. Battle of the Blackwater: 80k+ (not sure about this one, actually, but it seems the combined combatants are about the highest we have seen to date)

2. Battle of the Trident - 75k (approx. 40k Royalists vs 35k Rebels)

2. Tied. Battle if the King hadn't knelt: - 75k (If Torhenn and Aegon had gone to war at the Trident)

3. The Field of Fire: 65k  (approx. 55k Reach/Westermen vs about 10k Targaryens)

4. Battle of the Green Fork: 37k (About 20k Lannisters vs 17k Northmen)

And I guess my surprise is how quickly it drops off after this point. Maybe I'm missing a bunch of big battles, but it seems at first glance that the majority of battles in Westeros tend to be rather small affairs, with forces under 10k on each side, with very few exceeding 20k combatants in total.

Note, I can't recall/don't know the numbers of Daeron's breaking of the Planky Town, Aegon's battle against Argilac in the Last Storm, the siege of Pyke, etc. But the number of actual battles exceeding 20k combatants seem rather low to me. It puts the size of the War of the Five Kings into proper context, in my view. It was a war of unprecedented scale. Anyway, any updates to the above list would be appreciated, to try and see how the various historical wars and battles really stack up to one another.

 

[Daemon The Black Dragon]

 Redgrass field sounds like it was a large battle. Sadly we don't know how many fought in it.

[Adam Yozza]

As @Daemon The Black Dragon pointed out the Redgrass Field sounds rather large. With a name like the Redgrass Field I would assume casualties to be shockingly high for the context of conventional warfare.

I would also point out that the Conquest of Dorne should also be up there in terms of numbers. Daeron had at least 20k men when he marched in (he lost 10k taking Dorne) and we can assume the Dornish had somewhere between 15k-30k.

The Battle's in the Dance and in Maegor's reign (which was pretty much the only major wars fought between the Conquest and the death of the last dragon) are all far lower in numbers. I would assume this is down to the presence of dragons on the battlefield. Why send massive armies into the field when they can just be anhilated by a dragon. So it's likely that the Lords in this period sent smaller, more professional armies of knights and men-at-arms instead of the far larger levy based ones we see in the War of Five Kings.

[Corvo the Crow]

10 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So we have discussed warfare in Westeros, and battles in particular, for many years on this forum. However to me, numbers provide a picture in their own right, especially when compared to one another. In this vein, I was wondering how the sizes of individual battles in the known history of Westeros weigh up against one another, and how this might give us some insight into the comparative scale of various conflicts. People might make a big deal about Roddy the Ruin and his battle at the lake, but this involved maybe 5000 combatants combined, so in terms of scale, it is really an insignificant event. So just from memory, my list of the biggest battles in Westerosi history goes something like this:

1. Battle of the Blackwater: 80k+ (not sure about this one, actually, but it seems the combined combatants are about the highest we have seen to date)

2. Battle of the Trident - 75k (approx. 40k Royalists vs 35k Rebels)

2. Tied. Battle if the King hadn't knelt: - 75k (If Torhenn and Aegon had gone to war at the Trident)

3. The Field of Fire: 65k  (approx. 55k Reach/Westermen vs about 10k Targaryens)

4. Battle of the Green Fork: 37k (About 20k Lannisters vs 17k Northmen)

And I guess my surprise is how quickly it drops off after this point. Maybe I'm missing a bunch of big battles, but it seems at first glance that the majority of battles in Westeros tend to be rather small affairs, with forces under 10k on each side, with very few exceeding 20k combatants in total.

Note, I can't recall/don't know the numbers of Daeron's breaking of the Planky Town, Aegon's battle against Argilac in the Last Storm, the siege of Pyke, etc. But the number of actual battles exceeding 20k combatants seem rather low to me. It puts the size of the War of the Five Kings into proper context, in my view. It was a war of unprecedented scale. Anyway, any updates to the above list would be appreciated, to try and see how the various historical wars and battles really stack up to one another.

 

From memory,world book says when Lannisters and Gardeners joined their forces it was the biggest army Westeros has ever seen until then.

Dance of the Dragon has some big armies, in second Tumbleton blacks had 9000 men and while we do not know the Hightower numbers, they significantly overwhelmed the blacks so it definitely exceeded 20k. And this is after Hightowers added some of the lords they defeated earlier to their own army.

As for Blackwater, Stannis had ~20000 Renly's foot was near 60000 with 2000-4000 horse(depending on wheteher a fifth of all the cavalry or just the knights) with Loras, Tarly and Rowan. Renly said Mace had another 10000, i see no reason not to believe him here as he said this to Catelyn. Tyrion had over 6000 with gold cloaks, crownlander support and mercenaries. It's already around 100k without even adding Tywin's supposedly still 20k.

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

If we count sailors then nothing can even come close to the Blackwater, even if we go for lower estimates of the number of soldiers.

Essentially 20K Stannis, 8K defenders, 17-18K Western relief, anywhere from 50-75K Reachmen, plus of course some 25K+ sailors.

 

Regrass would have been absolutely huge, but still not as large as Blackwater, maybe the equal or slightly the greater of The Trident.

 

Battle of Castle back wast Maybe 31,000 total, but that is beyond the Wall and it could be argued that the abysmally low quality of 1 side disqualifies them as soldiers.

 

3 hours ago, Adam Yozza said:

The Battle's in the Dance and in Maegor's reign (which was pretty much the only major wars fought between the Conquest and the death of the last dragon) are all far lower in numbers. I would assume this is down to the presence of dragons on the battlefield. Why send massive armies into the field when they can just be anhilated by a dragon. So it's likely that the Lords in this period sent smaller, more professional armies of knights and men-at-arms instead of the far larger levy based ones we see in the War of Five Kings.

I used to hold to this idea, but why then isn't there a much higher proportion of heavy cavalry in those wars? Generally it seems to be lower.

It is honestly a bit of a stretch that logistics would advance to the degree that they have in most cases.

[Fishb20]

blackwater is hard to count because it took place in a city 

for example, if Drunk Steve down the street grabbed a bottle and threw it at one of Stannis' ships would that count him as a combatant?

if all the people stuck in KL during the battle count as participating in the battle in any way (making food for soldiers, moral support, etc), then the total numbers of the battle would be somewhere around a million

[Nihlus]

After Blackwater and the Trident, I think Fair Isle might be a contender. We know the entire Iron Fleet was there, as well as ships not of the Iron Fleet given that Harlaw was there. The Iron Fleet alone is ~100 ships of ~12,000 men (since they're similar to the 100- oar war galleys of the Royal Fleet); the Ironborn had hundreds of smaller longships and probably rare specimens of ships on par with the Iron Fleet ones in the hands of various lords. We could be looking at 20,000 Ironborn (all doubling as mailed and armed assault troops) altogether on ~400 ships; it would certainly make sense if the bulk of their forces were concentrated here (the Iron Islands can raise ~25,000 soldiers altogether), as we don't hear about any major battles after it.

On the other side you have the Royal Fleet at 100 war galleys and ~13,000 men at least (including ~2,000 marines and archers), plus the Redwyne Fleet with 200 warships of unspecified type and possibly as many as 26,000 men including ~4,000 marines and archers; this is assuming their ships are on average as big as the ones of the Royal Fleet, but even if they're half the size that's still another 13,000 men. Then you must add on the other forces present, like the other Reach ships and Stannis's personal war galleys as Lord of Dragonstone.

 

We're looking at at least 40,000 and possibly as many as 70,000 men duking it out on at least several hundred ships.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 9/16/2017 at 10:03 PM, Fishb20 said:

blackwater is hard to count because it took place in a city 

for example, if Drunk Steve down the street grabbed a bottle and threw it at one of Stannis' ships would that count him as a combatant?

if all the people stuck in KL during the battle count as participating in the battle in any way (making food for soldiers, moral support, etc), then the total numbers of the battle would be somewhere around a million

Well none of those would count, so it would not come close to a million. 

[Corvo the Crow]

On ‎15‎.‎09‎.‎2017 at 0:00 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

 

Reviving the topic after some months

 

Quote

This tactic proved less effective than Daeron might have hoped, however. Whilst the hostages helped ensure the continued loyalty of their own blood, the king had not anticipated the tenacity of Dorne's smallfolk, over whom he had no hold. Ten thousand men, it is said, died in the battle for Dorne; forty thousand more died over the course of the following three years, as common Dornishmen fought on stubbornly against the king's men.

Forty thousand men die after the battle, during the campaign but unless they made a rotation of forces or brought new men, the original battle had more than 50K combatants just on the invading side.

[Yukle]

The Battle at the Wall would be enormous, depending on the scope given to the Battle. Obviously not all of the Free Folk were in fighting shape, but they were all there. If you extrapolate the figures it's nonetheless impressive.

They make a rough estimate of about 100,000 Free Folk. A typical nomadic or moving population would be able to rely upon 30,000 men in fighting age and condition. Stannis' reinforcements were several thousand, plus the negligible numbers of the Watch itself means that perhaps 40,000 were fighting at the Wall when Mance attempted to force through.

[Colonel Green]

We don't have numbers for battles in antiquity, but a likely candidate for the largest battle prior to the modern era would be the Battle of the Three Armies, where Garth the Goldenhand routed the combined armies of House Lannister and House Durrandon.

[Yukle]

It's entirely possible that the Andal invasions led to huge battles, too, although this also has to be tempered by the fact that the populations of the time were possibly smaller.

Of course, in real life, battle sizes fluctuated; Early Antiquity had larger battles for the most part than Late Antiquity, which was in turn larger than the middle ages. Then, well after the Crusades, army sizes began to grow again in key areas.

So it's entirely plausible that in aSoIaF there were even bigger battles stretching back; the Andal invasions being the likely candidates for this.

[Whitering]

I think Redgrass was more notable in that everyone in the story knew people who had died there. It was the most impactful battle outside the Trident in our books thusfar. As many men were in Blackwater, nobody of note really died there as far as the story is concerned.

[direpupy]

The redgrass field should have had a lot of people in it 10000 men die, in comparison in the field of fire there are only about 4000 dead and the casulties in the battle of the blackwater are also lower (on the the side of the landforces that is)

[Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn]

Hardhome

[Yukle]

 

2 hours ago, direpupy said:

The redgrass field should have had a lot of people in it 10000 men die, in comparison in the field of fire there are only about 4000 dead and the casulties in the battle of the blackwater are also lower (on the the side of the landforces that is)

I think the dragons specifically killed 5,000 people after all three were unleashed at the same time, incinerating a large bulk of the army. I could be mis-remembering this but I think that there were additional casualties beyond this, too. So the scope of the battle was probably huge.

[direpupy]

6 minutes ago, Yukle said:

 

I think the dragons specifically killed 5,000 people after all three were unleashed at the same time, incinerating a large bulk of the army. I could be mis-remembering this but I think that there were additional casualties beyond this, too. So the scope of the battle was probably huge.

I just looked it up and its indeed 5000, the 4000 i was thinking off are just the men that the dragons killed, there where an other 1000 or so killed in battle, so approximatly 5000 dead in total.

[Yukle]

Hmm, there you go. Interesting that when the dragons were used there were fewer deaths that battles where they weren't. That's food for thought...