Drogon's Fighting Worth

[PrinceHenryris]

I'm trying to get a better idea of Drogon's size at the end of aDwD.  How would he stack up against the historical dragons from The Dance.  Obviously, Drogon can carry Dany, but does that mean he's of fighting weight?

I'm leaving out the "heavyweights" (Vhaghar, Caraxes, Vermithor, etc.), and trying to compare them to the younger dragons in The Dance.

Dany's roughly the same age as Prince Daeron, Lady Baela and the Velaryon boys were during The Dance.

Daeron's Tessarion was an effective force during the war.

The Velaryon boys had young dragons.  Vermax and Arrax fought and died.  It seems that Tyraxes died without ever seeing battle.

Moondancer was apparently, a warhorse with wings during The Dance.

Even though Aegon II was older, I'll include Sunfyre for the sake of Argument.  Sunfyre and Vhaghar fought Meleys.  Sunfyre left the battle crippled.

So, that's where I'm going with the comparisons.  My personal guess would be that Drogon is somewhere between Moondancer and Tessarion, but I'm interested in hearing other opinions.

[Leo of House Cartel]

@PrinceHenryris good question Ser! 

I like your Tessarion/Moondancer comparison, sounds accurate to me, give or take a few lbs. 

Tessarion's dogfight with Seasmoke hints toward fighter jet like capabilities for more agile dragons. If this battle was "where the dragons truly danced" - an impressive display of in air acrobatics - then I reckon Drogon, even at smaller size, would be a nightmare for any army to deal with.

Look at Aemond One-Eye's strategy with the great Vhagar - swoop down from the clouds, torch the scenery, then disappear back into the sky. If this technique was sound enough for the biggest dragon in the land, I imagine a faster and more supple Drogon would be able to have similar success. 

There is the question of how big Drogon and his siblings will be come the end of TWOW. 

Drogon seems to have grown larger than the others due to flying and eating more. I think Viserion and Rhaegal will grow considerably in the aftermath of the battle of fire; having been locked up in the pyramid for so long, both will likely want to fly and feast as much as they see fit - with the probable thousands of human and horse bodies which will be lying around after the battle (and a few elephants too) I expect both dragons to grow considerably. Same goes for Drogon.

[PrinceHenryris]

I AM NO SER!

[Leo of House Cartel]

1 minute ago, PrinceHenryris said:

I AM NO SER!

Your Grace or My Prince then?

[aryagonnakill#2]

Spoiler

Rhaegal and Viserion are fast enough to torch the corpses being thrown from trebuchets and catch them in midair.  

We see in the real world that air power is a complete game changer, I don't think the dragons are any different.  If a dragon swoops in on the front line of the enemy right before your own forces charge into them, your charge is going to tear right through them.  The dragons don't need to do everything if they can be used tactically like I described.  The sheer amount of fear they put into the enemy can't be understated either, because in the vast majority of battles, the winner is decided by which side runs first, not be how many men are killed before that.

[Skahaz mo Kandaq]

Dany's dragons are smaller than the ones ridden by Aegon and his sisters.  However, they come from different stock.  Hers came directly from the rumored origins of the dragons:  Asshai.  New DNA and quite possible bringing some special abilities with it.  Drogon, in particular, has all the freedom he wants to roam.  He eats as much as he wants.  He will grow fast.  The dragons of the dance were kept and raised in the Dragon Pit.  Drogon has the advantage if given enough time to mature.  Besides, Drogon is special like his rider. 

[Megorova]

He's this big:

Quote

Soon one horse began to lag behind the others. The dragon descended on him, roaring, and all at once the poor beast was aflame, yet somehow he kept on running, screaming with every step, until Drogon landed on him and broke his back. Dany clutched the dragon’s neck with all her strength to keep from sliding off.

The carcass was too heavy for him to bear back to his lair, so Drogon consumed his kill there, tearing at the charred flesh as the grasses burned around them, the air thick with drifting smoke and the smell of burnt horsehair.

He's small enough to land on top of a horse. And he's not big enough to lift and carry horse's body. Which means that he's bigger than a horse, but smaller than an elephant (in weights, not volume). And also dragon's body is mostly neck, tail and wings. GRRM's dragons don't look like dragons in the GOT-TV-show.

Seems that even though currently Dany's dragons are not very big, but still they need to eat a lot. If I remember correctly, the other two (Viserion and Rhaegel) eat two sheeps per day. Which means that they have fast metabolism. Thus they eat lots of food, close to their own weight each day, but they don't grow that much.

It could be that while dragons are small, and still growing (like Drogon now), they need to eat a lot every day. But when they are fully grown, their metabolism is slowing down, and they rarely eat. Like snakes, crocodiles, and other reptiles, that eat once per week, or even rarer. So until Drogon's metabolism will slow down, he isn't very effective as a war weapon. He will constantly need to go away from battlefield, to hunt and eat. Unless Dany is willing to make her dragons to switch to human meat ration, and eat whomever they will kill on battlefield.

Also now they are not big enough to pose a serious treat to army and trained warriors. People in Daznak's Pit were mostly civilians, and they were panicking. If Drogon was facing off against Westerosi knights, commanded by someone like Jaime Lannister or even Roose Bolton, then those warriors would have killed dragons in organized attack with spears and arrows. Furthermore, current Drogon won't be able to cross the Narrow Sea on his own. He need to grow more, for at least a year or two. 

Now he just eats a lot, he can start a fire, and cause people to panic and run, but as a weapon of war and conquest, he isn't there yet.

[Ckram]

11 hours ago, PrinceHenryris said:

My personal guess would be that Drogon is somewhere between Moondancer and Tessarion

Considering his wingspan, I believe Drogon couldn't be larger than a warhorse.

20 ft is the length of an average shipping container and corresponds to the wingspan of the extinct bird Argentavis Magnificens.

My guess is that he's the same size of Moondancer was in 130 AC or even smaller.

[Sigella]

The dragons sizes doesnt matter so long as they arent facing other dragons. 

[The Mountain That Flies]

30 minutes ago, Sigella said:

The dragons sizes doesnt matter so long as they arent facing other dragons. 

Have to disagree. A larger dragon, with a larger mouth/head, should be able to produce a larger stream of fire. Besides the obvious value there, there’s also the psychological push a larger dragon would yield.

[Lord Varys]

Drogon could scarcely carry Dany when she mounted him in the pit. He might have grown somewhat between then and the final chapter, but not that much.

I assume he would be somewhat larger than Moondancer but not yet as large as Vermax and Arrax were when they died (they could carry those strong boys of Rhaenyra's). He could be around the size of Tyraxes and Tessarion, perhaps.

I can see him grow as large as Sunfyre and perhaps even Syrax and Caraxes as the story progresses. But not much larger than that.

[Leo of House Cartel]

On the field of fire:

"As his dragons gorged themselves on the dead, Aegon commanded the swords of the slain be gathered up and sent downriver."

- TWOIAF page 41.

Here we have evidence that the Conqueror allowed his dragons to feast on human soldiers. We have no stories of Balerion, Vhagar or Meraxes running wild and praying upon innocents so one would think Dany would be able to allow her dragons a similar diet without having to worry about more "dead children's bones showing up".

Realistically, I can see Dany allowing Drogon and co to eat the dead in Mereen - if "remembering who she is" does indeed have something to do with her upholding the"fire and blood" values of her family, promoting the growth of her dragons should come before the taboo of eating people.

Aegon seemed to manage it without the dragons going wild, no reason to think the "Mother of Dragons" couldn't.

 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

14 hours ago, Sigella said:

The dragons sizes doesnt matter so long as they arent facing other dragons.

It matter's less, but it still matters. The larger they are, the less damage conventional weapons can do. If your dragon can be felled by a simple arrow then it's obviously more vulnerable. 

[Sigella]

7 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

It matter's less, but it still matters. The larger they are, the less damage conventional weapons can do. If your dragon can be felled by a simple arrow then it's obviously more vulnerable. 

True but I assume they are big enough for arrows not to matter. So long as its not in the eye ofc. (Drogon survived spears in Daznak.)

21 hours ago, The Mountain That Flies said:

Have to disagree. A larger dragon, with a larger mouth/head, should be able to produce a larger stream of fire. Besides the obvious value there, there’s also the psychological push a larger dragon would yield.

The greatest psychological effect of war dragon would be massive dessertions from the opponents side and I expect most of those will run long before anyone has actually seen the dragon.

Many will run when they realise that they are in fact facing a dragon fo real.

The rest will run when they are burning and host has broken.

Dragon size might play some small part somewhere up there but its not a deciding factor for anything as long as they arent facing other dragons or if they are bird sized. Which isnt the case.

Its the same for ”larger flame” argument. So long as they arent facing equal foes or are tiny flame size is moot.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 26/02/2018 at 7:36 PM, Sigella said:

True but I assume they are big enough for arrows not to matter. So long as its not in the eye ofc. (Drogon survived spears in Daznak.)

Absolutely, I was just making the point that the bigger the dragon, the harder they are for humans to kill. The efficacy of scorpions, catapults, etc. etc. will be relative to their size.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 26/02/2018 at 7:36 PM, Sigella said:

Its the same for ”larger flame” argument. So long as they arent facing equal foes or are tiny flame size is moot.

True, but again, only to a point. Balarion was able to melt stone, which was very useful to destroying castles (Harrenhal, Dorne), a smaller dragon might not be as effective in that respect. 

[Sigella]

On 2018-02-28 at 11:31 AM, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

True, but again, only to a point. Balarion was able to melt stone, which was very useful to destroying castles (Harrenhal, Dorne), a smaller dragon might not be as effective in that respect. 

But there is a problem with this: dragons are magical and we don't know how they work - except some weird lines like "death does not come in that way" (about dragons mouths), Knight of the Mirror Shield, and something about Balerions fire burning super hot during the Field of Fire because reasons.

I'm dying for Tyrion to straighten shit out.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

On 3/4/2018 at 2:22 PM, Sigella said:

I'm dying for Tyrion to straighten shit out.

Absolutely :-)

[1000th Lord Commander]

Given that Dany has only just ridden Drogon, I would argue for a weight comparable to Moondancer and Stormcloud. Both are only able to bear lighter riders, children, and still growing. I thought Tessarion was bigger, as he was considered of fighting weight, whereas Moondancer and Stormcloud were ridden only at great need.

[Yucef Menaerys]

Check out this thread of mine I started 3 years back (I can't believe it has been that long!)