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Great battle plan! Dubious tactics discussion.


Wagshell

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1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

That is nonsense. Even a medieval cavalry charged when ordered and not on a whim.

I have to mention here, the Dothroki aren't (weren't ?) exactly the type to take orders from anyone, especially a foreigner, nor were they trained in organized tactics. They're strengths were mostly Savage ferocity, inducing terror and being fearless. They operated as a horde. 

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1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

There is a difference if you do it once in a time, or umpteen times within half an hour. The former can be OK if done well, the latter is fine only in comedies

Yes! A good author uses them sparingly in order to maintain a suspension of disbelief. Not:

"You get a just in time and you get a just in time and you get a just in time... Oh what the heck, then EVERYONE gets saved just in time!!! 

But I knew. When Jaime and Bronn dived in the water just in time and next episode miraculously hadn't drowned and somehow escaped.. I knew. Good writing had gone bad. 

So shame on me for expecting anything else now. 

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So I'm a little hazy on dragonglass and valyrian steel. What is necessary to destroy a wight or white walker with it? 

Just touch? Damage?

Wouldn't dragonglass ranged weapons used by like massed archers be far more effective that what we were shown? 

Would not dragonglass arrows or a lance or a rock or slingshot or anything thrown hurled or fired be capable of destroying Viserion? 

The night king flew his dragon with an ice lance capable of turning dragons into undead dragons. White Walkers had them too. 

Why don't our heroes have dragonglass lances capable of destroying the undead dragon? Bows and arrows? Slingshots? Anything?

Could Jon not have destroyed Viserion in the end scene with 1, little, dragonglass arrow? Or a dragonglass throwing dagger? Like Arya threw when she was showing off to Gendry? No, the writers just trolled us through her. 

I find it incredibly frustrating this was overlooked. 

The Dothroki could have had bows and many dragonglass arrows each, but no, they had weapons that without Mel...would not have even damaged the enemy. 

So. Very. Stupid. 

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There was a lot wrong about the battle (on both sides, but to be fair the Night King and his disposable Other bodyguard doesn't seem to exactly have fine motor control over their wight minions, even the zoombie variant of the show, so there's only so many things they can get up to).

First and foremost, it was somewhat ill-advised not to bring supplies for the army. In fact, it might have been necessary to leave parts of the army in the south, waiting for Lannister supplies that will never arrive, as feeding the vast force depicted in the marching photos must have been a tall order.

Second, they had a giant light cavalry force (somewhat oddly, one that seems to have left all their bows at home) and a magical boy who can warg into flying animals. So a bit of scouting, perhaps?

Once you have done these two things, neither of which they bothered with, they've got a really strong defensible position in the castle and (from the information gained from their scouting parties, who probably could have done a bit of light harassment, possibly covered by a double dragon formation that keeps a lookout for the undead dragon) an enemy force that seems to mass up and assault from one direction. So time to start digging a lot of ditches, behind each other, positioning them to funnel the dead into each other in a big clump well suited for dragonfire raids, and making lots of dragonglass and incendiary arrows, as wights burn well. Considering how closely the Wights mass and how combustible they are, the trebuchets and 19th century misunderstanding of mangonels the Unsullied drag around could probably also be used to fire into the wight ranks, positioned on towers. Springalds should be plentiful in the walls and on the smaller towers, spesifically to bring down that enemy dragon. The ditches should be filled with whatever magical substance you seemingly have access to that can cause a simple palisade to burn for a looong time. And we're talking MANY ditches here. The walls should be reinforced and loaded up with stuff you can drop on the enemy, as should the gates, likely using that nice dragonglass surplus you have a lot of to make a spiky affair that is difficult to burst through. There should also be prepared positions inside the courtyard and on the central keep, enabling you to use a defense in depth effectively. The civies get put in the crypt and for chrissakes, you seal the tombs. Everybody knows Team Evil can raise the dead.

Since the Others seems to call up their blizzard only when necessary, it means you'd be unaware of it. So your Dothraki and Vale cavalry should probably plan for a flanking and harassament maneuver, relying on their speed to get out of the way of the dead wight-wall. If Winterfell has any sally ports, the cavalry might slip out there. If not, they'd have to stay on the move. 

Your weirdo brother Bran's plan seem to be a good one. He can try to draw the Night King in and ensure he commits to his wasteful frontal assault. 

Now the dead have to cross a myriad of burning ditches while being showered with burning pitch and the occasional dragon sweep (again, keeping a watch for the undead one, trying to draw it close enough to the walls to skewer it with a couple of springald spears, dragonglass-tipped or incendiary). If you can bring it down you will be able to really hurt the wight ranks with impunity. When they get close to the walls they get showers upon showers of arrows while crossing the burning ditches that you have a better way to light than trying to hit it with arrows. The sappers can probably fix that.

Ooops. Blizzard. Ok, luckily that also means that the enemy dragon can't see anything either and the trebuchets can just keep firing blindly, ranging from the last ditch you lit on fire with prepared ranges as it illuminates the horde. When the dead finally reach the walls you already have them manned, and can distrupt their circus human pyramids quite badly by dropping burning stuff and rocks on them. They can't really form those under bombardment from the walls. Most of your infantry should have a field day whacking zombies on the walls.

If the baddies break through, which they probably only will with a really depleted force, you have prepared positions to fall back on. It is really too bad about the cavalry, but at least you don't lose them in meaningless frontal assaults and if the storm breaks they can start hitting the flanks as the dead are funneled in.

This sounds like a plan. Your valyrian steel-armed dudes can hunt others, as can the dragonglass archers and dragons, if you can free them up by bringing down Dragon McZombieface. 

Bring it on Mr. Thornhead.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Kaptajn Congoboy said:

First and foremost, it was somewhat ill-advised not to bring supplies for the army. In fact, it might have been necessary to leave parts of the army in the south, waiting for Lannister supplies that will never arrive, as feeding the vast force depicted in the marching photos must have been a tall order.

Logistics master planning. First establish they had sufficient stores at their base camp then work out the amount of transport they require, then work out how the road system would cope. Fan fiction is fun. But it is not the same thing as finding plot holes. 

But your suggestion is that they would have been better to allow their forces to be dissipated? An aggressive invasion by a genocidal foe and you think they should be bean counting before deploying? 

Perhaps stick to the computer games. IN the real world, when invaded, you tend to have to fight with whats on hand not what in your head. 

 

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So your Dothraki and Vale cavalry should probably plan for a flanking and harassament maneuver, relying on their speed to get out of the way of the dead wight-wall. 

Another tactical masterclass. Harassing the undead. How exactly do 30 000 horsemen co-ordinate a "flanking" manoeuvre against an an enemy in the dark, one that has no effective flank, one that has nothing to harass and is commanded by appart telepathy from a hand full of White Walkers. 

I think most people seem to think this is two evenly matched human forces in daylight. 

 

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Now the dead have to cross a myriad of burning ditches while being showered with burning pitch

Or they just stand away and watch them burn out. 

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Bean counting is what made it possible to win wars in the middle ages and it is what makes it possible to win them today. Any premodern commander worth his salt knows what he can move his forces and how to provision, or he is not going to have an army pretty soon.

You harass for the same reason you harass the living: to disorder and slow the enemy, and to gain his disposision. 

Seemingly, they have something that burns for a very long time. And you have both static and airborne artillery. If they stand away from the outer ditch you wait until they’re on the move again before you light the next. 

 

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there is a pretty simple reason why the stupidity of the tactics was so blatant. danys and jons armies werre never meant to win the fight. this and the lack of creativity amongst the writers of the show led to what we got presented.

the baseline was, we have to get rid of the armies so that cersei will pose a bigger threat in the aftermath, because thats what we want the endgame to be. how can the armies be depleted in a visually and emotionally effective way?

now from this point they didnt invest any deeper thought in authentic or smart military strategy because they wanted them to fail. its too obvious and simple to see. the displayed strategies were just stupid and had nothing to do with anyone investing a serious thought. people defending the shows strategies look over the most simplest basics of tactics. and be reminded that we are talking about parties that have been involved in serious warfare and thus strategy before.

the very first and most important thing in any kind of war is information. that said, not taking the information we got from survivors, especially high level leaders with first hand experience like jon snow is beyond plausible and everything beyond that is part of the realm of subcreative, uninspired writing of low-talented people who dont make a living writing bestselling books but parastising on bestsellers others have written before.

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1 hour ago, GilletteMace said:

<snip>

the very first and most important thing in any kind of war is information. that said, not taking the information we got from survivors, especially high level leaders with first hand experience like jon snow is beyond plausible and everything beyond that is part of the realm of subcreative, uninspired writing of low-talented people who dont make a living writing bestselling books but parastising on bestsellers others have written before.

There were apparently no outposts, no scouts and no reports on the progress or location of the enemy. They just all decided to line up in the dark for unstated reasons and send the cavalry charging out into the blind darkness because of other reasons. If anybody was in command of the army, it was never apparent.

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1 hour ago, ferrelhadley said:

Logistics master planning. First establish they had sufficient stores at their base camp then work out the amount of transport they require, then work out how the road system would cope. Fan fiction is fun. But it is not the same thing as finding plot holes. 

But your suggestion is that they would have been better to allow their forces to be dissipated? An aggressive invasion by a genocidal foe and you think they should be bean counting before deploying? 

Perhaps stick to the computer games. IN the real world, when invaded, you tend to have to fight with whats on hand not what in your head. 

An army is never sent ahead without supplies. Preserve your forces and you can fight more than once. Bizarre that you should talk about "real world" in regard to putting a medieval army into the field without food. It didn't happen and pretty much couldn't. Unfed armies dissipate rapidly. 

Another tactical masterclass. Harassing the undead. How exactly do 30 000 horsemen co-ordinate a "flanking" manoeuvre against an an enemy in the dark, one that has no effective flank, one that has nothing to harass and is commanded by appart telepathy from a hand full of White Walkers. 

I think most people seem to think this is two evenly matched human forces in daylight. 

There's not an easy answer but charging your entire cavalry into the darkness isn't it. For sure. The real answer probably has something to do with outposts, patrols, planning, and disposing your force to meet the enemy, subjects that were never even brushed up against on the show.

Imagine breaking that giant mass of Dothraki into 1000 groups of 100 horse archers. Charge them and they run away. Don't charge them and they plink plink plink at the edges of your group.

Or they just stand away and watch them burn out. 

While dragons return them to the dust from whence they came.

 

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It is a pretty basic and somewhat questionable analysis until he starts writing about fortifications and shows he has no idea what he is talking about. At all. Signs also appear early in his description of the use of the Dothraki.

I read it mostly as a humour piece, with some actual analysis for obfuscation. It is very well written.

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Talking about the battle plan. Jon has seen that the Night King can resurrect the dead. No person is dumb enough to totally neglect this part in regards to the battle plan and not mention the crypts and the dead laying there. Yes I know, incredibly lazy writing on D&Ds part. They needed fake tension etc. but they could have written around that. That one still baffles my mind.

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1 hour ago, storm.131 said:

Not to do with the soldiers but the dragons:  unViserion was a Wight.  Dany and Jon didn't use fire on him ONCE even though they knew fire destroys Wights.

Fire destroys everything, not only wights. Wights are just immune to regular stabbing and cutting through regular weapons. They are just not immune to fire, just like regular people aren't.

Viserion is a dragon, and dragons are immune to fire unlike other living things. Wight Viserion can use and breath blue flames, and yet you think it can be hurt by regular flames? Doesn't make sense. :D

 

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10 minutes ago, Gianna Dorenberg said:

Talking about the battle plan. Jon has seen that the Night King can resurrect the dead. No person is dumb enough to totally neglect this part in regards to the battle plan and not mention the crypts and the dead laying there. Yes I know, incredibly lazy writing on D&Ds part. They needed fake tension etc. but they could have written around that. That one still baffles my mind.

Or if they were going to use it, at least have zombie Ned pop out and go straight for Sansa to ratchet up the emotional impact.

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1 hour ago, storm.131 said:

Not to do with the soldiers but the dragons:  unViserion was a Wight.  Dany and Jon didn't use fire on him ONCE even though they knew fire destroys Wights.

According to d&d he was an ice dragon, not a wight, since NK touched him.

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Kaptajn Congoboy, dude I know you’d own those undead and drop the atom bomb on them but...

...diggin’ trenches in the winter? You ever tried that?

I think that two shallow trenches and a rampart is the best they could do.

 

 

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Well, yes, repeatedly. I served in the norwegian army. It is only a matter of manpower, and getting past the upper frost layer. Which can be softened by lighting a fire on top of it.

i dug a trench in my own back yard this last November to replace the power cable for the pipe heater. Didn’t even need to light any fires, and there was a 30cm or so of ice.

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I guess dragonfire would work pretty decently to soften the ground as well.

It is not like they stopped digging trenches during the colder WW1 western front winters. Besides, it is likely not all that cold. Nobody are wearing wool caps and barely anyone uses mittens. 

The North as depicted in the show (even many scenes north of the wall) look quite wimpy cold-wise by the standards of rural scandinavians. The books describe it better. But hopefully the books won’t give us last episode’s travesty.

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