How did so few men die on the Field of Fire?

[Floki of the Ironborn]

We're told that fifty five thousand men assaulted Aegon's forces, and the dragons then took the air. They apparently set the field on fire on all sides, with Lord Mooton's men standing upwind to cut down any survivors. Clearly the makings of a complete rout.

And how many die in that maelstrom of flames? Four thousand, plus an extra one thousand who were cut down by human weapons. Not that I revel in the death of thousands, but I find it odd how fifty-five thousand men gets trapped by fire on all sides, with dragons flying above them, and only four thousand of them are killed. At Cannae, when a Roman army was surrounded by Hannibal's forces, all fifty thousand of them were slaughtered. And yet Aegon can't do that with dragons and fire?

And for the record, I know that casualties of armies are often exaggerated by the victors in hindsight to glorify a great victory. But if that's the case here, then that means four thousand is still an exaggeration. And that makes the light casualties even more puzzling.

[Max of the Magic Friends]

I have no doubt that, had Aegon and his sister desired it, there would have been far more casualties - the armies of the Reach and Rock didn't stand a chance. I think that the low numbers of dead, however, illustrate a conscious decision on the Conqueror's part to not kill too many. 

What would a few more thousand dead accomplish? In the battle, very little: battles at this time were fought until one side routed, and the enemy was already fleeing. They no longer posed an immediate threat. Perhaps he could have killed them in order to deprive the realm of potential enemies, but that wasn't Aegon's way. He strove to win friends and forgive enemies, in order to ensure a peaceful reign. Needlessly killing thousands more men when there was little reason for it would win him few friends, and simply letting them go had no cost to him - there was no chance that the Reach and Rock would continue to fight after such a defeat. It was a low-risk, high-reward choice, and it seems to have paid off.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

3 minutes ago, Max of the Magic Friends said:

I have no doubt that, had Aegon and his sister desired it, there would have been far more casualties - the armies of the Reach and Rock didn't stand a chance. I think that the low numbers of dead, however, illustrate a conscious decision on the Conqueror's part to not kill too many. 

What would a few more thousand dead accomplish? In the battle, very little: battles at this time were fought until one side routed, and the enemy was already fleeing. They no longer posed an immediate threat. Perhaps he could have killed them in order to deprive the realm of potential enemies, but that wasn't Aegon's way. He strove to win friends and forgive enemies, in order to ensure a peaceful reign. Needlessly killing thousands more men when there was little reason for it would win him few friends, and simply letting them go had no cost to him - there was no chance that the Reach and Rock would continue to fight after such a defeat. It was a low-risk, high-reward choice, and it seems to have paid off.

Well if he was that concerned with sparing the men he wanted to rule, why surround them with fire? It's a miracle that anyone could get out of such a trap.

[Nyrhex]

Because the dragons are overrated as WMDs. Think for a second on the great feats of dragons - We start off by hearing of how the largest dragon ever burned down a large castle. A stationary target, and with zero ability to cause harm to the dragon. The top floors were destroyed, but that's about it. The Field of Fire, 3 dragons, massive by any scale, only kill about 4,000 people, and even that with the aid of a dry field? The Reach forces were apparently the ones struck the hardest, and there the entire Gardener line died of burns and related injuries. Tens of thousands of others suffered burns and the like, and Loren Lannister had to ride through a wall of smoke and flame. If he could ride through it, it seems that we are not talking about that large a fire. Practically ideal conditions, a clear victory, but not as clear as we think when we think massive fire-breathing dragons.

During the Second Spice War, the Rhoynar faced an army 100,000 strong, with 100 war elephants and 3 dragonlords. They won that day, though they had lost a few thousands. The Rhoynar marched neatly alongside a river with a massive fleet of wooden ships, drunk on victory. At 250,000 strong, they were 5 times the numers on the Field of Fire, and they all fell to the fire of dragons in the next battle with dragons. But the ratio was not the same for the other side, as the host was attacked by 300 dragons or more. Tens of thousands died in the fires, and the rest died stuck on the river, with no place to escape once the dragons started boiling the river itself.  

Dragons need ideal conditions, and also numbers and considerable size, to truly be the WMDs they are being compared to. In most other cases of dragons in battles they tend to be underwhelming. The only time where they truly show themselves to be a WMD is when we are told that two burned down all of Dorne's towns and holdfasts and castles twice over, and yet somehow the Dornish populace managed to live off the land in hiding. This streches suspencion of disbelief to the point where it snaps. Dorne is 3/4 a desert and yet we do not hear of the catastrophic famine, the hostages anything forcing the populace to return from hiding. Houses who hate the Martells and took every chance to depose them stay loyal to the end, and when enemy garrisons take over abandoned castles and holdfasts, the Dornish retake them easily the instant the dragons leave, as if Aegon had placed straw soldiers as garrison. The entire story is so off that one can't make out if the Dornish are simply the auther's favourites or if this is meant to be unreliable history. If this is the former, then the only times Dragons are meant to be WMDs are when the have numers in the three digit range and ideal conditions, or if they go against a people with an inherent inability to be affected by... well, logic.

[Trigger Warning]

4,000 is a lot of men, 4,000 men dying quickly in a wave of flame is a hell of a lot of men. 

The rest probably immediately thought fuck this and broke, why would Aegon needlessly continue burning through fleeing men. Men he'll want to swell his armies. 

[Floki of the Ironborn]

4 minutes ago, Trigger Warning said:

4,000 is a lot of men, 4,000 men dying quickly in a wave of flame is a hell of a lot of men. 

The rest probably immediately thought fuck this and broke, why would Aegon needlessly continue burning through fleeing men. Men he'll want to swell his armies. 

Again, I agree with this, but from the sounds of it, Aegon surrounded the whole army with fire. And yet Loren Lannister and the vast majority of men apparently ran through it and escaped. Oh sure, ten thousand of them had burns, but they still somehow lived. After running through torrents of dragon flame and breathing in vast amounts of carbon dioxide in the smoke.

I have no problem with the idea that Aegon would spare men to rule them later, I just don't find it likely that so many men could survive the trap which he set up for them.

[James Steller]

40 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Again, I agree with this, but from the sounds of it, Aegon surrounded the whole army with fire. And yet Loren Lannister and the vast majority of men apparently ran through it and escaped. Oh sure, ten thousand of them had burns, but they still somehow lived. After running through torrents of dragon flame and breathing in vast amounts of carbon dioxide in the smoke.

I have no problem with the idea that Aegon would spare men to rule them later, I just don't find it likely that so many men could survive the trap which he set up for them.

There is the option that the writer of TWOIAF was exaggerating the effects of the battle. It's established that he is an unreliable narrator (Robert being described as a great King, for example). 

[Sage of Westeros]

1 hour ago, James Steller said:

There is the option that the writer of TWOIAF was exaggerating the effects of the battle. It's established that he is an unreliable narrator (Robert being described as a great King, for example). 

Yandel is unreliable true, but all things considered so is George, especially when regarding numbers. He wants everything to be vague so that no exact amount is ever presented, only assumed upon.

Perhaps 4 thousand men died in the field of fire, perhaps more did. Maybe 4 thousand were those who died in the first instance of fire. If only four thousand died total than the reader is either be clued to the fact that dragons aren't as strong as we may think, or that were being given an unreliable account by the writer (either Yandel, the Maesters who wrote on the Field of Fire, or George himself).

[Leonardo]

Because medieval tactics were, generally, lightyears behind what Hannibal was doing on a daily basis. That's not to say there were outliers and great commanders, but Hannibal is probably the single highest bar to hit in history in terms of ingenuity.

 

As someone else mentioned, you fight a battle of this time period until one side routs, and you capture/kill their leaders. Once the force is broken, they just get mown down after the battle, taken prisoner etc... Without their leaders they aren't reuniting.

 

You also aren't taking into account the huge numbers of wounded. Loren Lannister fought for Aegon after this battle, so why chase down and destroy the host you're about to win? Aegon's was also small in comparison so there's no envelopment, no advantage of the field to be had really.

[Kaibaman]

Did 4000 really account for the total number of casualties from the battle? Since its mentioned that 4000 died then perhaps a lot more people were able to survive but ended up with third degree burns. In the conclusion of most battles, its usually there is more wounded men then there are dead.

[Dorian Martell]

3 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

We're told that fifty five thousand men assaulted Aegon's forces, and the dragons then took the air. They apparently set the field on fire on all sides, with Lord Mooton's men standing upwind to cut down any survivors. Clearly the makings of a complete rout.

And how many die in that maelstrom of flames? Four thousand, plus an extra one thousand who were cut down by human weapons. Not that I revel in the death of thousands, but I find it odd how fifty-five thousand men gets trapped by fire on all sides, with dragons flying above them, and only four thousand of them are killed. At Cannae, when a Roman army was surrounded by Hannibal's forces, all fifty thousand of them were slaughtered. And yet Aegon can't do that with dragons and fire?

And for the record, I know that casualties of armies are often exaggerated by the victors in hindsight to glorify a great victory. But if that's the case here, then that means four thousand is still an exaggeration. And that makes the light casualties even more puzzling.

4000 was the count of the dead. That would be the ends of the formation that could get caught up in in the spreading flame. Those near the center of the mass would be protected and able to flee. Then there isthe whole aspect of injury. someone can be severely burned and still be able to run. they may have died later but since there is piss poor battlefield records we will never know. 4k could have died, and 40k could have been injured 

[The Commentator]

It's obvious.  Within 10 microseconds of watching their comrades go up in flames, the remaining 56,000 men made an instantaneous group decision to ignore their lord commanders, break formation, and do a vanishing act.  Three seconds later, only the lords were left on that field, jaws agape, and scratching their balls, wondering how 56,000 men and 3,000 horses could vanish so fast. 

[Floki of the Ironborn]

1 hour ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

It's obvious.  Within 10 microseconds of watching their comrades go up in flames, the remaining 56,000 men made an instantaneous group decision to ignore their lord commanders, break formation, and do a vanishing act.  Three seconds later, only the lords were left on that field, jaws agape, and scratching their balls, wondering how 56,000 men and 3,000 horses could vanish so fast. 

Reminds me of that hilarious line in "The Wild Bunch" where Sykes laughs and states "Here y'are with a handful of holes, a thumb up your ass, and a big grin to pass the time of day with!"

[lomiller]

I can't see a grass fire killing that many people.

[Kyll.Ing.]

5 hours ago, lomiller said:

I can't see a grass fire killing that many people.

Bingo.

Consider that a dragon's fire is all fuel burning in air. It makes huge fireballs, and ignites what it touches, but doesn't burn for long on its own. Those caught directly inside the plume of fire would be burnt to a crisp, but ten secons later the dragon is far away, and the air isn't on fire any more. The grass on the field would catch fire, but grass doesn't burn very intensely, or for that matter very long. The dragons could scorch strips of land as they flew past, but a minute later a man could easily cross the burnt strip without problems. There simply isn't enough fuel to sustain the fires the dragons are making. In other words, you'd have to be directly underneath the dragon for its fire to burn you.

Had the battle been fought in a forest or a city, with lots of fuel nearby, you'd have masses of men trapped by flames and killed by fires started by the dragons. In an open field, however, there are no sustained fires, the ones the dragons start quickly burn out on their own. That means there was plenty of room to rout, just wait for the dragons to pass, plus another few seconds, and you can break ranks with no problems.