Jump to content

The Economics of Warfare


Recommended Posts

Just now, astarkchoice said:

No your right my bad

Reread the storm of swords chapter its someone else who says tutors etc want to be sold not a tutor asking to be sold

There are some "gently-born" Meereenese, begging a slaver to take them in the immediate aftermath of the city's fall.  I guess they've lost all their slaves, and their slaves have also looted their property. I don't think there are any ex-slaves among that group, however. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Lady_Qohor said:

This is a really interesting topic. Daenerys' side definitely has the advantage but there are plenty of instances in history where a rich country has failed to win against a poor country. 

The Westerosi have the home ground advantage. 

True but then again some of those home ground westerosi may support the targs comming back!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There are some "gently-born" Meereenese, begging a slaver to take them in the immediate aftermath of the city's fall.  I guess they've lost all their slaves, and their slaves have also looted their property. I don't think there are any ex-slaves among that group, however. 

Yeah most likely

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/11/2022 at 11:04 PM, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

and why Daenerys can defeat the forces of Westeros.

I have read the two threads debating the effectiveness of Daenerys Targaryen's armed forces against the forces of Westeros.  Now, it is obvious to me that the Anti-Daenerys folks are not going to be convinced, so this thread may not be for them. They have dug themselves into a position and will stay there.  But for those who are already on Team Daenerys or who possess a reasonable level of objectivity, read on. 

The armed of forces of Westeros are composed of peasants, farm workers, craftsmen, fishermen, and builders.  Soldiering is not their livelihoods.  Most of them have never been in battle.  A wealthy family like the Lannisters might be able to equip most of their soldiers with decent quality weapon but they are the exception.  The economy of Westeros cannot support a large, standing army.  What it has is a small number of knights.  Some are very good, most are going to be mediocre, and a significant number are there for show.  They would make Oznak look like a pro.  You see, in Westeros, the people who will be called to fight are the economic engine.  They produce the goods needed for the population to eat, have shelter, and maintain livable conditions.  Any lengthy war will be devastating because the leaders will send their labor force to go to battle.  Just about everything needed by the people will stop being produced.  Social order will break down.  They will definitely run to hide inside their castles.  But as you can see from Roose's dilema in Winterfell, supplies will run out very quickly.  Battle horses will become food after the mice and vermin have been consumed.  There will be desertion where soldiers will sneak out at night. Men will turn to cannibalism.  Are mothers psychologically prepared to see their farmboy sons die?  I don't think so.  Farmboys are not supposed to die in battle.  Most have never experienced battle. 

The Dothraki, The Unsullied, and the mercenaries are all professional fighting forces.  To the Dothraki, warfare IS the economy.  The culture they come from are accustomed to casualties and the hardships of war.  The Unsullied are even better.  The dragons are not needed as long as Daenerys can bring a number that is sufficiently close to the number of the enemy.  So if Westeros can squeeze 50K able-bodies from their farms, Daenerys will need close to that.  And all of hers will be able-bodied, armed, trained, and by then, experienced.  Of the 50K from the Westeros side, maybe 5K will be annointed knights.  They won't all have good quality armor.  It depends on their finances.  Daenerys will need the advantage she has because it is usually harder to be on the offense.  The attacking force need the advantage in most cases. 

If Team Daenerys can build war machines out of boat timber, like they did, they can surely build effective equipment to lay siege to any castle in Westeros.  They have no need to batter the gates or the walls.  Just the belief can put stress on the army hiding inside.  Food, arrows, weapons, and horses can always be resupplied from Essos and the Free Cities.  Daenerys will have Essos to support her campaign.  The men whom she rescued from slavery will be bringing important skills.  Crafts people, healers, carpenters, farmers, and herders.  They will provide the army with what is needed. 

George Martin can do what he wants.  He can make Patchface the most formidable warrior ever to carry a sword.  But we are making this evaluation based on what we have read from the text.  And when a man like Robert fear the Dothraki, there is a good reason to believe that they will be very effective in Westeros.  The addition of the Unsullied provides a magnificent synergy. 

 

Westeros already lost the economic warfare.  They are losing men every day as their petty quarrels have not stopped.  Just the battle in the north alone will kill most of the men.  Bolton, Baratheon, wildlings will lose most of their men in the battle.  Aegon's battles to reach the throne will kill hundreds of thousands of Lannisters, Tyrells, Martells, and Hightowers.  It will not be long before they lose the numbers.  Westeros will have already lost before Daenerys sets her sails for home.  I do not think Daenerys will leave unprepared.  She will be well-informed, well-prepared, well-financed, and her armed forces will be trained for the campaign. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Despite the valiant effort of multiple people to point out how Dothraki are horrible fighting force, so unlike Mongols it's not even funny and that phalanx was discontinued for a more than a good reason, after failing to offer much resistance to Roman Legions, especially after Pyrrhic wars and that Unsullied have zero connection to the successful pike and shot formations, some people refuse to listen.

But it means nothing, she couldn't conquer larger lordship with Dothraki and Unsullied but she won't have to. She will have dragons, and no matter how over-complicated and improbable the explanations would sound to some she will have allies in Westeros, ships, gold and provisions enough to make successful landing and start of the campaign.

I am not anti Daenerys as some here really seem to be, I don't hate her as a character, sure I don't agree with everything she did and her chapters in ADWD could be a lot tighter and less self-indulgent (same with Jon btw, ruling is hard we get it George), but people who are perceived to be anti Daenerys (rightly or wrongly) are 100% right about military utility of Unsullied and Dothraki.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/18/2022 at 2:45 PM, Equilibrium said:

phalanx was discontinued for a more than a good reason, after failing to offer much resistance to Roman Legions, especially after Pyrrhic wars

Epirus won every but last battle in Pyrrhic wars and phalanx formation did well against legions. The reason Pyrrhic term means victory where you lost more than the enemy is because Pyrrus lost many of the officers in battles but would actually have less losses number wise. He also couldn't replenish his losses like Romans did. Trend in many early Roman republican wars is that Romans suffer massive defeats but just recruit new armies out of thin air in very short period of time. Like against Hannibal their 50 thousand army get completely killed in a surround and they just come with another 50k. 

Hellenic world fell to Romans because they weren't united and didn't have the resources like Romans did. Another issue was phalanx kept getting more armed with longer pikes and more armor which was best way to counter another phalanx. But this wasn't good vs roman legions because phalanx became very clumsy. Regardless of that phalanx did well versus Roman military. Even the old style phalanx with spears instead of pikes should do pretty okay vs roman legions. Romans simply beat them with their wallet and politics.

I am not sure if its specified in books of what % of Dothraki army uses bows because archer cavalry is the only thing Westerosi medieval army has to fear. If 50k Dothraki charged into 1000 westerosi knights they would get destroyed. Skill just doesn't matter here it is just physics heavy armoured knights will destroy naked horsemen in a straight up charge. If however Dothraki use parthian/mongol/hun tactics where you kite the enemy and shoot at them that is very good counter to westerosi style of army. Then westerosi would have to use forests where horses cannot be used properly to defeat them. 

Then again Dothraki hate sea and Dany doesn't even have ships yet so might be irrelevant.

Unsullied gear is pretty bad and considering crossbows exist you can just walk up to them and shoot bolts that penetrate their shields until they are all dead. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Tygett Lannister said:

If however Dothraki use parthian/mongol/hun tactics where you kite the enemy and shoot at them that is very good counter to westerosi style of army.

Yes and after Pyrrhic wars Roman legion was reformed for easier maneuverability and more mobility, making it stellar counter to the phalanx. Romans won wars against powerful opponents like Hellenistic monarchies and Greek city coalitions not with imperial campaigns like Third Punic War and later invasions of Persia, Germania etc, but by smallish almost private armies of various proconsuls and other political bigwigs aching for the plunder and the Triumph. 

Those tactics wouldn't work against plate armor, since you can't pierce it with longbow at point blank range, shorter recurved riding bows wouldn't even make a dent or even be felt much since plate armor curves and redistributes the impact. And Westerosi have longbows which outrange anything that can be ridden with, and late medieval multiple hundreds of pounds draw crossbows, not to mention their own mounted archers which are armored. 

It would be a chore chasing them down in the steppe, but in Westeros intersected with large rivers, forests and hills their utility is zero.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/18/2022 at 4:33 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Queen Daenerys of the Barren Womb is at an advantage in short run with all the infighting. But she needs alliances,  who will she marry? She needs an heir, how would she get one? Now that I think of it, should Selyse burn somehow, she can marry Stannis, not a popular man but with Cersei’s bastards gone, he’ll be the only real pretender, it would merge the two houses and with fAegon handled, it’ll leave no one else for the lords to rebel under the banner of. They can name Jon as an heir if he’s ever revealed to be Rhaegar’s son. Dany comes before Jon anyway, since Rhaegar was disinherited.

Stannis is not who I would pick for Dany.  Although he is the first lie to be slain.  I admit to not knowing how the lie will be slain and resolved.  Perhaps through marriage.  My choice for Dany is a worthy prince from the Tyrells. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/14/2022 at 12:32 PM, Aldarion said:

Unsullied tactics are literally tactics for idiots. They are based on Spartans, in large part, and Spartans were morons. Unsullied, if anything, are even worse.

https://fantasyview.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/tactical-overview-the-unsullied/

In fact, Unsullied copy the worst aspects of the Spartan society. I will drop ACOUP links below for more detailed reading, but fact is that rather than producing absolute badasses, Unsullied training - dehumanization, deindividualization and breaking down of human spirit and dignity - will have produced broken automatons incapable of acting without guidance from above, without actually giving them any superior combat skills in exchange. It literally ruined people for absolutely no gain: we have no reason to believe that an Unsullied is in any way a better soldier - not a better fighter, but a better soldier - than your average Westerosi levy infantryman. Despite the brutality of the agoge system - which Unsullied training replicates - Spartiates were not, in fact, better hoplites than citizen militiamen which most other poleis relied on. They were decidedly average.

https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/

And Unsullied tactics are also similar to Spartans - form a shield wall, hold the line. That's it, that is what the Unsullied do. There is literally nothing advanced about these tactics, they are in fact tactics for dummies, something you don't actually need any training for. All you need is fear of disappointing your comrades, and that is something any army provides. In other words, excessive Unsullied training is completely wasted, because they use tactics that are perfectly usable by militia. Hell, 15th century European militias used pike block tactics which were far more sophisticated than phalanx tactics. In fact, Spartan phalanx was - despite their "Spartan training" which the Unsullied emulate - completely incapable of complex maneuvers - which, I should note, Macedonian professional phalangites, Roman landowning legionaries and Byzantine and later European landowning troops did with regularity.

https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/

So yeah: Unsullied tactics are not advanced even by the standards of antiquity. Compared to tactics we actually see utilized by Westerosi armies, Unsullied tactics are basically child's game. Hell, wildlings utilize more complex tactics than what we see Unsullied do, and these are just armed civilians and hunters.

Nothing personal Aldarion. I  don't put much value in your argument.  I have seen a lot of your postings on this topic and disagree with you.  The Unsullied are the best infanty and they will perform well for Daenerys if or when she takes them to Westeros.  They are trained to an extreme level and cannot be matched by any army in Westeros.  Sure there are few of them but their number should equal the number of passable quality knights in Westeros.  The Unsullied alone are not enough to take the whole territory of Westeros but they will be invincible with the main force consisting mainly of Dothraki, Together they will make the  armored meat heads in Westeros run from the battlefield.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, James West said:

Nothing personal Aldarion. I  don't put much value in your argument.  I have seen a lot of your postings on this topic and disagree with you.  The Unsullied are the best infanty and they will perform well for Daenerys if or when she takes them to Westeros.  They are trained to an extreme level and cannot be matched by any army in Westeros.  Sure there are few of them but their number should equal the number of passable quality knights in Westeros.  The Unsullied alone are not enough to take the whole territory of Westeros but they will be invincible with the main force consisting mainly of Dothraki, Together they will make the  armored meat heads in Westeros run from the battlefield.  

Eh, I like having an argument, so disagreement is actually a good thing. But I would appreciate if you went into detail of why you have those opinions instead of just writing same things I have read gazillion times before. At this point, it is beginning to sound like a broken tape. You said you "don't put much value in my argument", but all you provided to counter it are opinions, not an argument. Argument supposes offering support for opinions.

Why do you think the Unsullied are the best infantry? Sure, Unsullied are trained, but what value that training is? As I have explained, Greeks did not consider training important for phalanx combat, and we never actually see Unsullied (or anyone from the Slaver's Bay) use any kind of complex tactics. Normal Westerosi tactics are genuis-level miracle for these guys. So why do you think Unsullied training provides them with any kind of noticeable advantage over Westerosi infantry?

How do you define what makes the "best infantry"? Why would Unsullied be the best infantry? Why would that allow them to defeat Westerosi infantry? How are they supposed to counter knights, considering their tactics and equipment? How are they supposed to counter Westerosi pikemen?

Unless you can give me satisfactory answers to these questions, I cannot accept your opinions as valid. Or even a valid basis for an argument.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

One simple answer to all these. Georgus Vult. Characters die from stubbing their pinky toe on a tiny piece of gravel while other characters survive, say, an axe to the face. Because the spice plot must flow. It's happened one too many times that at this point it no longer makes for an enjoyable reading. armies appear out of thin air and vanish without any reasonable explanation.

It is definitely possible. But I do think George may be setting Daenerys for massive disappointment in Westeros, when her entire Jorah-given God Army of Massive Destruction turns out to be basically useless.

In fact, matches in Daznak's pit foreshadow precisely that, for Dothraki at the least:

Quote

After the beast fights came a mock battle, pitting six men on foot against six horsemen, the former armed with shields and longswords, the latter with Dothraki arakhs. The mock knights were clad in mail hauberks, whilst the mock Dothraki wore no armor. At first the riders seemed to have the advantage, riding down two of their foes and slashing the ear from a third, but then the surviving knights began to attack the horses, and one by one the riders were unmounted and slain, to Jhiqui’s great disgust. “That was no true khalasar,” she said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Westeros is having to beg for additional loans just to finance operations.  It cannot fight a large scale war.  The battle going on in the north is child's play in scale to what war with the Dothraki + Unsullied will be like.  Westeros does not have the resources to fight like that.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An awful lot of the commentary I'm seeing here (especially the pro-Dany) reminds me of what I saw back in February before the invasion of Ukraine.  The massive Russian army would smash the overmatched, demoralized Ukrainians.  Well we saw how that turned out.  Useful lessons:

1.  Training and tactics matter.  Do your troops know what they're doing and are they any good at it?

2.  Logistics are important.  An army really does march on its stomach (or in modern terms, its fuel tank).  Supply lines matter.  So does the ability to move troops when they can't march.

3.  A motivated enemy on its home ground can make your life a living hell.

I'm unsure as to how effective the Dothraki and unsullied will be in Westeros.  The Dothraki are used to open ground, not necessarily the case in Westeros, with its woods, hills, and mountains.  They also have not struck me as particularly disciplined, or used to facing a formidable enemy.  The unsullied may be great fighters, but I think they have to be told what to do and don't think independently well.

The Westerosi have just finished fighting.  They may be a bit worn out but they know what to do and how to do it.  That could be important.

Dany is going to have to run her supply lines across the Narrow Sea, and hopefully not all the way from Volantis.  She is also going to have to move her army across the sea as well.  You can cram lots of troops on a ship; horses are likely another matter as they take up a lot of space.  And we know the Dothraki don't like the sea.  Arriving without mounts won't help.

And the Westerosi will be defending their homes and livelihoods.  I wouldn't bet against them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/20/2022 at 9:49 PM, Equilibrium said:

Yes and after Pyrrhic wars Roman legion was reformed for easier maneuverability and more mobility, making it stellar counter to the phalanx. Romans won wars against powerful opponents like Hellenistic monarchies and Greek city coalitions not with imperial campaigns like Third Punic War and later invasions of Persia, Germania etc, but by smallish almost private armies of various proconsuls and other political bigwigs aching for the plunder and the Triumph. 

Those tactics wouldn't work against plate armor, since you can't pierce it with longbow at point blank range, shorter recurved riding bows wouldn't even make a dent or even be felt much since plate armor curves and redistributes the impact. And Westerosi have longbows which outrange anything that can be ridden with, and late medieval multiple hundreds of pounds draw crossbows, not to mention their own mounted archers which are armored. 

It would be a chore chasing them down in the steppe, but in Westeros intersected with large rivers, forests and hills their utility is zero.

The lore say otherwise. Jorah says that Dothraki shortbows outrange anything that westerosi might have even if it doesn't make much sense physics wise. 

And legion wasn't really a counter to phalanx. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...