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Armies of Westeros and Essos


Aldarion

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49 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

And yeah, Byzantines might have been placing the bar too high for Westerosi, but they are what I am most familiar with.

I may be to generous to the Westerosi but I don't see this being the case. Westerosi vs Byzantines will be a closely fought one, so its a very interesting discussion.

If we look at the composition of at least one Westerosi army, then we can see that at the Battle of the Green Fork, we can see that about 1/3 was cavalry. That's an insane ammont of shock power right there, even a degree of them would not be heavy cavalry.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Battle_on_the_Green_Fork

Thus I feel that I must reject the notion of the Westerosi being part of the prejudice and caricature that the term "Dark Ages" often refer to.

EDITED: And one more thing. Do remember that Westerosi armies have faced and fought professional solders in form of the Golden Company, and others, before with success. Both at home and abroad, so there's no reason to think they will per definition lose to a professional army.

 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Lion of the West said:

I may be to generous to the Westerosi but I don't see this being the case. Westerosi vs Byzantines will be a closely fought one, so its a very interesting discussion.

 If we look at the composition of at least one Westerosi army, then we can see that at the Battle of the Green Fork, we can see that about 1/3 was cavalry. That's an insane ammont of shock power right there, even a degree of them would not be heavy cavalry.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Battle_on_the_Green_Fork

Thus I feel that I must reject the notion of the Westerosi being part of the prejudice and caricature that the term "Dark Ages" often refer to.

EDITED: And one more thing. Do remember that Westerosi armies have faced and fought professional solders in form of the Golden Company, and others, before with success. Both at home and abroad, so there's no reason to think they will per definition lose to a professional army.

Westeros to me seems to be more Renaissance military than Dark Ages. Their main problem would be not weapons or training, but rather tactics and discipline. Even Renaissance armies, I think, rarely had proper camps - and I have already mentioned (somewhere) how Golden Company is apparently unique in having a proper, orderly camp. So tactically Westerosi would be dangerous to Byzantines, but Byzantines usually avoided direct clash anyway - and when it comes to irregular warfare, Byzantines would have the advantage.

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4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Westeros to me seems to be more Renaissance military than Dark Ages. Their main problem would be not weapons or training, but rather tactics and discipline. Even Renaissance armies, I think, rarely had proper camps - and I have already mentioned (somewhere) how Golden Company is apparently unique in having a proper, orderly camp. So tactically Westerosi would be dangerous to Byzantines, but Byzantines usually avoided direct clash anyway - and when it comes to irregular warfare, Byzantines would have the advantage.

I think you're right on discipline and in regards to tactics I think the Byzantines will also be more adaptable and diverse than the Westerosi given how the Westerosi would seem to suffer from essentially the same kind of problem that the, almost fabled, Samurai would seem to have suffered from; military development incest. A harsh term yes, but in both cases their military system primarily had experience to fight against itself. Westerosi normally only fights other Westerosi and the Samurai, to my knowledge, primarily only fought opponents from the same military system. Hence the systems would have been developing to face itself, but if a different kind of opponent showed up, that could cause it to struggle. And just like the Samurai, again to my limited knowledge, didn't make much headway against the Chinese or Koreans, so the Westerosi may be at a disadvantage to fight the Byzantines who do not fight like the Westerosi have prepared for. Even if the Westerosi have managed to win against both Golden Company and Dornish, who would seem to fight differently than Andals or Northmen (I am here thinking of tactical victories, not that the Westerosi lacked a successfull strategy to overtake Dorne). While the Byzantines would have much experience and tactics to do many different things and face many different opponents, including throwing in a few tricks the Westerosi would find hard to counter, like the before mentioned mounted archers.

In regards to the camps I think you've struck the nail, although I think that it shows how dependent the Westerosi armies are on their leaders. Now this is just my speculation but my thoughts on it is that if the Westerosi have a competent leader, like Stannis or Tywin or someone like that, then things can work alright with an ordered camp, defenses, patrols and all that. But if the leader is not up to the task of ensuring that these things gets done, the Westerosi would seem not have the discipline to, you know, get their asses moving unless someone essentially tells them or kicks them, to do it. I am mostly here thinking about the examples of the "Battle of the Camps" in WoFK and the "Second Battle of Tumbleton" in the Dance. In fact the way that leadership breaks down in the Green army after the Hightower commander is killed with infighting and scheming while ignoring the Blacks, would seem a perfect example of dependence on a strong leader for a Westerosi army and the lack of discipline at essentially all levels. Problems which I am pretty sure would not exist among professional Byzantine soldiers.

As for irregular fighting I totally agree with you. Everything I've read states to me that the Westerosi favors a decisive engagement, not drawn out campaigns of skirmishes, raids and ambushes. Sure, Tywin avoids that impulse after the "Battle of the Green Fork", but that would seem to be against the norm. The more I write the more I'm starting to change my perception that the Byzantine soldiers would probably have an advantage over Westerosi warriors during a war, if not a single battle. The more drawn out a war would be the more the odds are likely to tilt over in advantage of the Byzantines as these could grind the Westerosi down and use the Westerosi desire for a decisive engagement against them. Not to mention that, as was mentioned before, the lack of more advanced Westerosi logistics would allow the Byzantines to pick off groups of foragers, unless the Westerosi had a Brynden or someone of that calibre to play the Byzantines' own game of skirmishes, raiders and ambushes against them.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Lion of the West said:

 I think you're right on discipline and in regards to tactics I think the Byzantines will also be more adaptable and diverse than the Westerosi given how the Westerosi would seem to suffer from essentially the same kind of problem that the, almost fabled, Samurai would seem to have suffered from; military development incest. A harsh term yes, but in both cases their military system primarily had experience to fight against itself. Westerosi normally only fights other Westerosi and the Samurai, to my knowledge, primarily only fought opponents from the same military system. Hence the systems would have been developing to face itself, but if a different kind of opponent showed up, that could cause it to struggle. And just like the Samurai, again to my limited knowledge, didn't make much headway against the Chinese or Koreans, so the Westerosi may be at a disadvantage to fight the Byzantines who do not fight like the Westerosi have prepared for. Even if the Westerosi have managed to win against both Golden Company and Dornish, who would seem to fight differently than Andals or Northmen (I am here thinking of tactical victories, not that the Westerosi lacked a successfull strategy to overtake Dorne). While the Byzantines would have much experience and tactics to do many different things and face many different opponents, including throwing in a few tricks the Westerosi would find hard to counter, like the before mentioned mounted archers.

 In regards to the camps I think you've struck the nail, although I think that it shows how dependent the Westerosi armies are on their leaders. Now this is just my speculation but my thoughts on it is that if the Westerosi have a competent leader, like Stannis or Tywin or someone like that, then things can work alright with an ordered camp, defenses, patrols and all that. But if the leader is not up to the task of ensuring that these things gets done, the Westerosi would seem not have the discipline to, you know, get their asses moving unless someone essentially tells them or kicks them, to do it. I am mostly here thinking about the examples of the "Battle of the Camps" in WoFK and the "Second Battle of Tumbleton" in the Dance. In fact the way that leadership breaks down in the Green army after the Hightower commander is killed with infighting and scheming while ignoring the Blacks, would seem a perfect example of dependence on a strong leader for a Westerosi army and the lack of discipline at essentially all levels. Problems which I am pretty sure would not exist among professional Byzantine soldiers.

 As for irregular fighting I totally agree with you. Everything I've read states to me that the Westerosi favors a decisive engagement, not drawn out campaigns of skirmishes, raids and ambushes. Sure, Tywin avoids that impulse after the "Battle of the Green Fork", but that would seem to be against the norm. The more I write the more I'm starting to change my perception that the Byzantine soldiers would probably have an advantage over Westerosi warriors during a war, if not a single battle. The more drawn out a war would be the more the odds are likely to tilt over in advantage of the Byzantines as these could grind the Westerosi down and use the Westerosi desire for a decisive engagement against them. Not to mention that, as was mentioned before, the lack of more advanced Westerosi logistics would allow the Byzantines to pick off groups of foragers, unless the Westerosi had a Brynden or someone of that calibre to play the Byzantines' own game of skirmishes, raiders and ambushes against them.

Yeah, I agree about military development incest. Westeros appears to have no combined arms doctrine, and no opportunity to develop one either.

Regarding commanders, most ancient and medieval armies depended on the presence and quality of commander - Byzantines were no exception. If commander is incompetent, the army does not perform well. If commander dies, the army typically routs (exceptions there were, but few and far between - IIRC, in Battle of Yarmouk, Byzantine army held for a long time even after most of their commanders got killed off). What Byzantines do have advantage in wrt command is their military tradition: they were prolific writers, and military manuals ensured that even basically-competent, uninspired commanders had access to wide array of tactical scenarios and solutions. Of course, this still required some basic level of competence from commander. Further, they do not have cultural imperative of a commander also being a great warrior, and although Byzantine commanders did sometimes take great risks in order to motivate their troops, these examples were more of a last-ditch-prevent-rout action than common practice.

Westerosi vs Byzantines I think would go similar to how Byzantines handled Normans. Normans, with their shock cavalry and crouched lance charge, had advantage in a straight-up engagement, but they also failed to properly scout, failed to secure camp etc. They were also quite divided, so Byzantines were able to bribe some of subcommanders to their side.

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26 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Regarding commanders, most ancient and medieval armies depended on the presence and quality of commander - Byzantines were no exception. If commander is incompetent, the army does not perform well. If commander dies, the army typically routs (exceptions there were, but few and far between - IIRC, in Battle of Yarmouk, Byzantine army held for a long time even after most of their commanders got killed off). What Byzantines do have advantage in wrt command is their military tradition: they were prolific writers, and military manuals ensured that even basically-competent, uninspired commanders had access to wide array of tactical scenarios and solutions. Of course, this still required some basic level of competence from commander. Further, they do not have cultural imperative of a commander also being a great warrior, and although Byzantine commanders did sometimes take great risks in order to motivate their troops, these examples were more of a last-ditch-prevent-rout action than common practice.

I agree with the rest but I would say that we are talking past each other here. I am not talking about the strategy laid out or the tactical decisions made by the commander or if the army routs or not without its commander. I am talking about if routine aspects of soldiering, like building and securing the camp, posting sentries and such, normally works regardless of the competence of the commander or if these routine things are dependent on the commander to be carried out by the soldiers and sub-commanders?

For example, if a Byzantine commander orders his men to make camp in a place, does he need to specify that the camp is build according to regulations and sentries posted, or will the soldiers and sub-commanders be, well, good enough soldiers know this needs to be done and how to do it?

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2 hours ago, Lion of the West said:

I agree with the rest but I would say that we are talking past each other here. I am not talking about the strategy laid out or the tactical decisions made by the commander or if the army routs or not without its commander. I am talking about if routine aspects of soldiering, like building and securing the camp, posting sentries and such, normally works regardless of the competence of the commander or if these routine things are dependent on the commander to be carried out by the soldiers and sub-commanders?

For example, if a Byzantine commander orders his men to make camp in a place, does he need to specify that the camp is build according to regulations and sentries posted, or will the soldiers and sub-commanders be, well, good enough soldiers know this needs to be done and how to do it?

Both, actually. Byzantine armies built secure camps etc. as a matter of routine, but there were some commanders who decided to ignore the routine and suffered significant defeats as a result. Nikephoros I. is probably the best example, he apparently decided to ignore terrain, not post scouts and not build fortified camp; end result, Bulgars trapped him and wiped out his army. But such examples were an exception rather than rule.

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