astarkchoice Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, Aldarion said: -Stone castles would have always mattered. Would have they mattered enough to force Mongols into withdrawal? Going by the first invasion, possibly so. But fact remains that, as it was, they were only one element of the force which drove off the Mongols in the second invasion, so it is hard to conclusively say one way or another. -My point is that Mongols relied on knowledge of settled peoples for all their conquests and without that knowledge, they will have failed. As they indeed did fail whenever said knowledge was not available. What do Dothraki do? Disparage settled peoples as cowards and ignore all the knowledge said people have. Also, you really need to brush up your knowledge of history, because holy cow was that a mess up. Bela IV was the king during the first invasion, and the stone "castle" in question was Croatian fortress of Klis which had been around since antiquity and had little in common with "modern" castles beyond being built of stone. And, it should be noted, resisted the Mongol attack rather handsomely: https://warinhistory.wordpress.com/2021/12/09/mongol-siege-of-klis-fortress/ And this was in fact a general pattern: https://www.academia.edu/39219546/Hungarys_Castle_Defense_Strategy_in_the_Aftermath_of_the_Mongol_Invasion_1241_1242_?email_work_card=title https://warinhistory.wordpress.com/2021/11/21/why-1241-mongol-invasion-of-hungary-failed-part-2-reasons-for-mongol-withdrawal/ https://warinhistory.wordpress.com/2021/12/16/how-mongol-invasion-shaped-hungarys-defense-strategy/ Mongols generally failed to take - in many cases even failed to attempt to take - well-located stone fortresses. Ten out of ten Hungarian stone castles survived the 1241 invasion, whereas nearly all wooden fortresses were burnt down. -Major shift was stiffening defense overall because now lords could construct stone castles and recruit heavy cavalry and recruit crossbowmen and armored infantry. Big difference was that forces were now far more resillient, not more mobile... in fact, logistical requirements of heavy cavalry would have made them less mobile than earlier, light-cavalry dominated forces. Main reasons being mobility, very developed C4ISR organization, excellent combined arms coordination and willingness to integrate conquered people into their military apparatus as well as emulate their achievments in terms of tactics, logistics and military technology (particularly armor and siege technology). This meant using heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, siege engineers and a lot of other stuff in addition to horse archers... I have already pointed out that Mongol armies that had conquered China looked and acted more like Chinese or European armies of the time than a steppe nomad army. -Out of all these characteristics, Dothraki only have mobility. They are literally football hooligans on horses. We don't see developed C4ISR, there are no combined arms here (they have only lightly armored horse archers), they wipe out conquered peoples instead of integrating them, and (in modern times at least) have shown absolutely no ability to mount sieges. Dothraki are not Mongols, they are seriously downgraded version of the Comanche. -Uh, no. Anybody can hit a city with a trebuchet, but hitting a specific part of a wall takes knowledge. -Oh, any infantry can stand up to heavy cavalry... assuming they have time to dig ditches and put up stakes in front of their positions. But putting up spearmen against lancers in open field is a recipe for losing your infantry. There is a reason why heavy cavalry was so important deep into mass employment of gunpowder weapons in spite of the massive expense of forming and maintaining it. Of course, things are a lot more complex than this. Pikemen caught out of formation will die to anything, from light infantry to light cavalry. Pikemen disordered by missiles are also vulnerable. If heavy cavalry is disordered during charge, they will have trouble penetrating wet tissue paper, let alone an infantry formation. If cavalry is charging in a bad cavalry terrain, they may also be defeated by things that would normally be unable to stand up to their charge. But all of these are "anomalies" induced by the battlefield, and tell us little about inherent strengths and weaknesses of particular units, which you have to understand before introducing any further variables. Uh... 1) you are basically paraphrasing my point from earlier 2) it were not lance squares but infantry squares, and said infantry had muskets with bayonets, and relied heavily on firepower to defend against cavalry. Most of the cases where square broke were when infantry fired too late, or too early, or couldn't fire at all (e.g. wet gunpowder). Bayonets were important, but were not alone enough to defend against a cavalry unit in good order. Firepower was crucial, as a volley fired at a correct moment would break up cohesion of the cavalry attack, as well as creating a physical obstacle of fallen horses. For this reason, infantry aimed at horses' heads when firing. 3) While it is true that cavalry could and did break infantry squares with sabres, this usually resulted in the (unarmored) horse dying... with the weight of the horse driving itself into the infantry ranks, disordering them, and allowing the rest of the cavalry to break into the square. It is, in short, a very good display of why a) pikes are far superior weapon compared to spears for defending against the cavalry, b) lances are very important for breaking ordered infantry and c) armor matters. There is a reason why cavalry heavily utilized lances in Napoleonic wars and even the First World War, and it isn't just for cavalry versus cavalry combat... for example, in Albuerra in 1811, Polish lancers broke British infantry in a head-on charge. This is even more remarkable because infantry in this case was a) able to get volley off (though no data as to the timing), b) was not disordered by the artillery and c) was in fact at advantageous terrain, with Polish Uhlans having to charge uphill. AND this was achieved against the British regulars, possibly the best line infantry of the time. -Yet we see in Meereen that Unsullied are far from useful in actual bodyguarding-like stuff. And their entire training would make them horrible bodyguards. Big selling point of the Unsullied is that they are utterly disciplined, utterly obedient and show no initiative, including the initiative of running away. Which is good for hoplite infantry, but disastrous if you want good bodyguards. Bodyguards have to be able to show initiative. -Yes, but individual sellsword companies, especially those we see in the Slaver's Bay and not in Disputed Lands, seem to be rather small. -i am not convinced current-day Dothraki even fight at all against anybody except the other Dothraki. Free Cities clearly prefer to buy them off, and as for the Lhazareen, bunch of hippies are no threat to anybody except themselves. It seems to me that Dothraki are mostly getting by on their reputation of old. -Uh, it actually does. Unsullied are described less as soldiers and more as robots. -Where possible being the key aspect which you appear to be ignoring. Westeros also consists of massive kingdoms instead of dozens if not hundreds of individual city states. And Westeros also has military that has advanced well past the Bronze Age. -Nope, not even close. You appear to have not even read the description of their battle. In fact, except for them using steel, everything screams Bronze Age military... at best. So, several notes: Dothraki had 80 000 cavalry. Sarnori had 6 000 chariots, 10 000 armored riders, 10 000 light cavalry and 100 000 infantry. On paper, this looks like Sarnori had a massive numerical advantage. BUT that is not so. In the flat open field, cavalryman can easily be as effective as several infantrymen - dependant, of course, on the equipment and tactics. Horse archers don't do well against foot archers. But as can be seen below, Sarnori were hardly advanced or effective force. Chariots are used only in absence of effective cavalry! This indicates that Sarnori riders may not have had stirrups and other equipment necessary for effective cavalrymen - meaning the situation would be even worse for the Sarnori, because their cavalrymen would be disadvantaged against the Dothraki. Many of Sarnori light cavalry were women, which is just dumb. So that is another notch down for the Sarnori. Sarnori army fought with no combined-arms coordination (which we do see in Westeros). Behavior of their infantry also indicates that they were light infantry, with little armor and less discipline... heavy infantry simply do not break into run to pursue cavalry. This is what I think of whenever I read description of Sarnori infantry in this battle. Except ancient Egyptians would walk all over the Sarnori (to be fair, all real-life armies would walk all over their Planetos counterparts). Dothraki did not actually carry out a feigned retreat - you do not lose a khal in a feigned retreat! The khalassar in question broke and fled, and only regrouped later (under leadership of khal's successor, I assume). Dothraki are shitty nomads! Feigned retreat was a normal tactic for any nomadic force, and even for many settled forces (Byzantines, Ottomans etc.), yet here, Dothraki either failed to use it or else completely botched it to the point of losing a khal. Sarnori infantry was clearly incapable of forming the infantry square, considering they were quickly cut down after being surrounded. By contrast, Byzantine infantry at Manzikert stood their ground and fought long after having been surrounded and with victory clearly impossible. Crusader infantry in Levant regularly formed infantry squares when facing Turks. In multiple battles that Hungarians lost against the Ottomans, infantry that got surrounded still fought for hours after being surrounded. Sarnori cities ended up bereft of defenders after the battle and demoralized... so Dothraki will not even had to have been masters of siege warfare to conquer them! All and all, a bunch of hippies could have probably conquered the Sarnori. Sumerians certainly could have. While first point is true, second point does not follow from the first. So I'll need some proof here. -Also, major thing with Westeros is that it is full of castles. I don't recall any indication of such extensive fortification system existing anywhere in Essos outside maybe Yi Ti borderlands. -There is simply no way current Dothraki could have pulled off everything they are said to have done during the Century of Blood. So either they devolved, or all the civilizations they had conquered got a major rush of shit to the bran for Dothraki conquests to even be possible. -There is no bias here, you just don't understand what really happened. Yes, his opponent clearly was a better fighter - I have already pointed out as much. It is also very clear that armor was what allowed Jorah to win in the end, as he was able to kill the opponent despite latter getting multiple hits in in short time. Each one of these strikes had the potential to end the fight then and there - but they were (up until the last one) ineffective because Jorah had armor on. Is it possible bloodrider might have won anyway if it weren't for that last unlucky cut? Maybe. But that doesn't detract from the display of massive advantage provided by armor in the fight. -That is true, but generally speaking, Zerg Rush doesn't tend to work out for human armies against other human armies, so long as latter know what they are doing. And against the Others, it just means that Dothraki would be the Night King's greatest human ally. -Not really. Unsullied are described as basically a shield wall: they stand in the line, take the enemy head-on and stab them with short spears. Now, it is true that late Roman army also adapted shield wall tactics. Late Roman infantry tactics were in fact very static, far more so than Alexander's even, relying heavily on missiles (plumbata) and holding the line. But the reason for this is because infantry was no longer the decisive element. What Romans did was basically adopt Alexander's hammer-and-anvil tactics, where decision is achieved by the heavy cavalry. Problem is that the Unsullied have no heavy cavalry of their own and would thus be reliant on allies. And keep in mind who the late Romans fought: barbarians (though barbarians also adopted Roman tactics and equipment to an extent) and Sassanids. So Roman infantry tactics were essentially tailored to counter less-disciplined infantry (Sassanid infantry was kinda cnrap) and horse archers, with cataphracts to counter enemy heavy cavalry. -Martin mentions crinet (he spells it chinet) and chafron here: https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/Section/2.7./ Both of these are specifically elements of plate barding. So no, horses in Westeros wear plate armor. Which is logical since riders have plate armor. -And I never said it makes horse a tank. But infantry spears aren't HEAT rockets either. Pikemen countered knights not by killing armored horses (pikes wouldn't get through plate armor) but by unseating the riders. -i looked the chapter again, and they are six deep: Which is better, but still not a depth Byzantines considered sufficient to resist heavy cavalry charge. As I pointed out, when Byzantines faced only horse archers and light cavalry, they had infantry formation seven deep (two ranks of heavy infantry, three of archers, then again two of heavy infantry). When faced with cataphracts, they utilized formation 8 deep (1 line of pikemen, three heavy infantry, three archers and on⁷e heavy infantry) at least, and later increased it to sixteen lines deep (two pikemen, four heavy infantry, six archers, four heavy infantry). And keep in mind that cataphracts of the time utilized maces, not lances, meaning infantrymen had reach advantage. So while it will not just be trampling like a three-deep formation I had thought of originally will have been, it is still not good simply because they are spearmen. -Because horses were unarmored. Westerosi heavy cavalry horses have barding. -And no, that is not "almost losing". Yes, Richard had taken casualties among cavalry, but Saladin's horse archers also proved incapable of either penetrating his infantry or even stopping his march. Even if the charge hadn't worked out, it would have been a draw at most, with Richard unable to counterattack and Saladin unable to stop Richard's march. Of course it didn't work when they didn't have heavy cavalry. -Even just using couched lance makes a massive difference in performance of heavy cavalry. Just compare Norman heavy cavalry at Hastings 1066 where Anglo-Saxon irregulars withstood several Norman cavalry charges, to Dyrrachium 1081 where Norman cavalry charge broke the lines of Byzantine regulars. But Dothraki don't have heavy cavalry. They don't use couched lances (or lances at all), they don't wear armor. Peasants with pitchforks can probably stop Dothraki charge dead, assuming they don't panic. -the stone castles where part of the defensive strategy. We know mongols (esp pre fragmentation into the golden horde etc) dealt with stone castles. -right so this devolves inton nonsense semantics now. The mongols and huns hired people with skills they needed as did romans, carthagians,han..they were psrt of their sucessful military.machine (in fact in both hun and mongol anyome being allowed to move up based on skill was a major component in their sucess) by the same logic if dothraki can hire/recruit the same guys the clanker lords did for the 2nd mereen siege. -right so stiffer defence but also far more mobile cavalry to scatter the invaders before they can settle down to besiege anything -nope we hear from grmm they are far more than they seem. We know they travel free cities and beyond as individuals, fight in pits and even take work in sellsword companies -the sort of advanced engineering skill to build a series of trebuchets will of course be had by those who know how cities ,castles and walls work man - the musket was shorter than the spear going up agaisnt lance and much heavier horses better sadddles.stirrups etc usong the same tactic the unsullied are employing (minus locked shields). Now there is musket fire yes but thats too innacurate and too infrequent(3 times a min was the ideal once every 3-5was more accurate) nor is the 1st row holding up at 45 degrees gonna hit shit....its the simple fact horses wont charge a wall of points that did it!! Add in the throwing spears ( much heavier than agincourts longbow arrows and we know pilums thrown at an arc penetrate mail and thin armour as do later era heavier spears at closer range) -they are diciplined and utterly obedient ....so are the fire priests troops, the bearded priests and shit to a lesser extent the kingsguard. We see them standing individuals on guard duty in pentos. In mereen they die for the same reasons our marines died in iraq (which the mereense knot is based on) ie they fighting a guerillia war among an enemy who can be anyone of 1000s of locals and never know who and where theyl be struck and unlike the real deal dany has no 'green zone' just as in iraq bodyguarding and a full blown insurgency are 2 different beasts. -nope in virtualy no time sellsword companies are hired in amounts of 500 to 3k , if the disputed lands conflict hadnt heated up again at books start and if the ghoscari had more time.its clear more could be had. In fact to put it to bed stannis feels a few months is realistic for 20k mercs to be hired -itd be utterly bizzare of they hadnt faced off vs these forced given how fight happy they are described as AND we do know they fight in the pits vs all kinds and have been doing so for centuries -theres 0 to say these werent also huge kingdoms just because we kmow nothing of the villsges and towns outside the huge foretress cities. -bronze age who wear steel ...the key there is in the name. A mixed force of heavy and light cavalry, infantry and missle troops...the only backward aspect is the chariots and their nobility wanting challenge enemy commanders. As for your points no chariots were replaced as they are wasteful ..every chariot is 2-4-cavalry that could have been. Women (eso in grmms fantasy world where they are rife) indicates nothing esp as we use them today in our own military...ie its common sense = they are half the population!! Heavy infantry did sometimes chase cavalry (the romans esp charged vs cataphracts knowing they wrre the only dangerus part of manybeastern forces and would collapse when their leaders fell) and we know infantry of all kinds almost always chased routing enemies off for a mixture of reasons such as to kill/enslave as many enemy as possible (esp where loot is shared) , to prevent enemy reforming and that even ultra diciplined roman legion officers frequenty founds their mens agression in the face of a beaten enemy hard to contain!!! The dothraki clearly mean to surround them unless you think the bother khals showimg up was good luck! Theres 0 evidence they didnt form squares its just surrounded and far from cities taking archer fire and charges from 4 directions in the hot sun. -yes but everything bar the 'supercastles' .of westeros(casterly rock ,harrenhall, stormsend etc) are on a smaller scale than essos, its all just slightly behind tech and society wise. -theres every indication they can given most sieges actually ended.witu deals, starvation , traitors within or just something sneaky! Add in the clanker lords managed it -no bias here the other guy has 0 armour jorah doesnt tag him once! armour allowed him to hang in there but the fact the guy connects with guantlet and finaly catches jorahs mailed part while ser simp can land a blow tells us the bloodrider has dealt with men in innarmour before The rest you typed is the same incorrect stuff we have covered already , spears can clearly do what bayonetts did and yes unsullied would need backing by kther mixed units...s would any westerosi infantry Edited July 30, 2023 by astarkchoice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaffronLady Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 4 minutes ago, astarkchoice said: -yes but everythingbar the 'supercastles' .of westeros are on a smaller scale than essos, its just behind tech and spciety wisent Dude is this Polish or something? Why is your English so garbled? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarkchoice Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 3 minutes ago, SaffronLady said: Dude is this Polish or something? Why is your English so garbled? Fixed it ! Because im often typing tired sport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alester Florent Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 (edited) 2 hours ago, Aldarion said: It was a head-on charge, not outflanking, so for all intents and purposes it was the same. Not really? Infantry in line vs infantry in square is a qualitative difference when resisting a cavalry charge: indeed, the whole point of a square was to resist cavalry charges, given that it was a rubbish formation against opposing infantry of the era. Can we even be sure that the infantry at Albuerra had bayonets fixed, given the circumstances of the charge?What Albuerra shows is the effectiveness of cavalry against unprepared infantry who haven't had the chance to form up properly to resist a charge: nobody is disputing the effectiveness of cavalry in that situation. What it does not show - and what is the subject of debate - is the effectiveness of cavalry against prepared infantry in appropriate formation, since the infantry who formed square did manage to resist the cavalry charge on that occasion. Quote Thing is, if Dothraki are supposed to do well in Westeros... how exactly is that going to happen? Are we just going to hear of their off-screen successes? Because if Martin tries to make them win against a Westerosi army and make it sound not even realistic but just plausible - yeah, I don't see him pulling that off. Well, we don't actually see that many battles first-hand in ASoIaF so I wouldn't be wholly surprised if a lot of the battles do happen off-page. But when we see them I would expect to see Dothraki simply overrunning Westerosi infantry lines, and outmanoeuvring and surrounding knights, no matter how realistic these scenarios are. Indeed, I wouldn't be too surprised if it broadly mirrors the Dothraki performance when we see them in action in the show: Spoiler In their first Westerosi showing of significance, they charge an infantry-heavy army in a disordered mass and swarm over it (with some assistance from a dragon). The actual tactics used (on both sides) are kind of nonsense, and of course the dragon makes a huge difference, but the intended effect is, apparently, that the Dothraki are just "better". In their second appearance, the Dothraki do the same disordered charge en masse against an army of wights, and it is hilarious. I don't know though. I would hope that now GRRM has had the chance to do a bit more thinking and a bit more research and has rethought how the Dothraki will actually operate and how successful they might be. Indeed, the introduction of the Golden Company may have been in part with the intention of providing the Targaryens in Westeros with an actually credible fighting force to supplement the less believable Dothraki, once he realised the issues. Edited July 30, 2023 by Alester Florent Aldarion and SeanF 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aldarion Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 7 hours ago, Alester Florent said: Not really? Infantry in line vs infantry in square is a qualitative difference when resisting a cavalry charge: indeed, the whole point of a square was to resist cavalry charges, given that it was a rubbish formation against opposing infantry of the era. Can we even be sure that the infantry at Albuerra had bayonets fixed, given the circumstances of the charge?What Albuerra shows is the effectiveness of cavalry against unprepared infantry who haven't had the chance to form up properly to resist a charge: nobody is disputing the effectiveness of cavalry in that situation. What it does not show - and what is the subject of debate - is the effectiveness of cavalry against prepared infantry in appropriate formation, since the infantry who formed square did manage to resist the cavalry charge on that occasion. Qualitative difference between the line and the square consists of the fact that square cannot be outflanked whereas infantry line can. But if the cavalry does not even try to ouflank the line - and from description at Albuerra, it didn't - then the line and the square are functionally the same. In either case, cavalry is essentially facing the line of infantry. 7 hours ago, Alester Florent said: Well, we don't actually see that many battles first-hand in ASoIaF so I wouldn't be wholly surprised if a lot of the battles do happen off-page. But when we see them I would expect to see Dothraki simply overrunning Westerosi infantry lines, and outmanoeuvring and surrounding knights, no matter how realistic these scenarios are. Indeed, I wouldn't be too surprised if it broadly mirrors the Dothraki performance when we see them in action in the show: Hide contents In their first Westerosi showing of significance, they charge an infantry-heavy army in a disordered mass and swarm over it (with some assistance from a dragon). The actual tactics used (on both sides) are kind of nonsense, and of course the dragon makes a huge difference, but the intended effect is, apparently, that the Dothraki are just "better". In their second appearance, the Dothraki do the same disordered charge en masse against an army of wights, and it is hilarious. I don't know though. I would hope that now GRRM has had the chance to do a bit more thinking and a bit more research and has rethought how the Dothraki will actually operate and how successful they might be. Indeed, the introduction of the Golden Company may have been in part with the intention of providing the Targaryens in Westeros with an actually credible fighting force to supplement the less believable Dothraki, once he realised the issues. Yeah, I hope so as well. 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -the stone castles where part of the defensive strategy. We know mongols (esp pre fragmentation into the golden horde etc) dealt with stone castles. Yes, Mongols dealt with stone fortresses. By recruiting Chinese infantry and engineers to capture them for the Mongols. Mongol native tactics against any sort of a fortress were... less than impressive. Essentially, if they couldn't burn it down, they had no clue what to do. 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -right so this devolves inton nonsense semantics now. The mongols and huns hired people with skills they needed as did romans, carthagians,han..they were psrt of their sucessful military.machine (in fact in both hun and mongol anyome being allowed to move up based on skill was a major component in their sucess) by the same logic if dothraki can hire/recruit the same guys the clanker lords did for the 2nd mereen siege. It is not nonsense semantics. Mongols recruit settled peoples with appropriate skills. Dothraki exterminate settled peoples. Therefore comparing Mongols to Dothraki is nonsense because Dothraki are nowhere near the level of Mongols in anything. Capisci? 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -right so stiffer defence but also far more mobile cavalry to scatter the invaders before they can settle down to besiege anything Evidence that they had far more mobile cavalry? Because Hungarians did have cavalry in the first invasion, it was just predominantly light cavalry. Which by the way is cheaper than the heavy cavalry. 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -nope we hear from grmm they are far more than they seem. We know they travel free cities and beyond as individuals, fight in pits and even take work in sellsword companies And? 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -the sort of advanced engineering skill to build a series of trebuchets will of course be had by those who know how cities ,castles and walls work man Uh, wtf are you trying to say here? 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: - the musket was shorter than the spear going up agaisnt lance and much heavier horses better sadddles.stirrups etc usong the same tactic the unsullied are employing (minus locked shields). Now there is musket fire yes but thats too innacurate and too infrequent(3 times a min was the ideal once every 3-5was more accurate) nor is the 1st row holding up at 45 degrees gonna hit shit....its the simple fact horses wont charge a wall of points that did it!! Add in the throwing spears ( much heavier than agincourts longbow arrows and we know pilums thrown at an arc penetrate mail and thin armour as do later era heavier spears at closer range) Infantry square protected itself from cavalry by musket fire. It doesn't matter what rate of fire is when you kill horses in the front row and create a literal physical barrier of horse bodies. And after such a shock cavalry will have to retreat and reorder before charging again, which means that you get to reload. Last time I checked, Unsullied do not have muskets nor do they have those magical rocket spears Spartans used in Samurai Jack. And yes, horses absolutely will charge a wall of points. Quote if it should happen - and we do hope not - that the three-deep spears of the heavy infantrymen are shattered by the enemy kataphraktoi - Nikephoros Phokas How do you suppose cataphracts shattered enemy spears? By mooning them? And what about all other cases of cavalry charging infantry? https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/07/19/heavy-cavalry-vs-infantry-impact-of-cavalry-charge/ 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -they are diciplined and utterly obedient ....so are the fire priests troops, the bearded priests and shit to a lesser extent the kingsguard. We see them standing individuals on guard duty in pentos. In mereen they die for the same reasons our marines died in iraq (which the mereense knot is based on) ie they fighting a guerillia war among an enemy who can be anyone of 1000s of locals and never know who and where theyl be struck and unlike the real deal dany has no 'green zone' just as in iraq bodyguarding and a full blown insurgency are 2 different beasts. "Disciplined and utterly obedient" doesn't help you when you are crap at fighting. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -itd be utterly bizzare of they hadnt faced off vs these forced given how fight happy they are described as AND we do know they fight in the pits vs all kinds and have been doing so for centuries Pit fighters are not soldiers. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -theres 0 to say these werent also huge kingdoms just because we kmow nothing of the villsges and towns outside the huge foretress cities. And? China was a huge kingdom yet it didn't develop (at the time of Mongol invasion) anything close to what Europe did in terms of networked fortifications. Point is that we have no indication they had decentralized system of fortifications akin to feudal castle system. 12 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -bronze age who wear steel ...the key there is in the name. A mixed force of heavy and light cavalry, infantry and missle troops...the only backward aspect is the chariots and their nobility wanting challenge enemy commanders. As for your points no chariots were replaced as they are wasteful ..every chariot is 2-4-cavalry that could have been. Women (eso in grmms fantasy world where they are rife) indicates nothing esp as we use them today in our own military...ie its common sense = they are half the population!! Heavy infantry did sometimes chase cavalry (the romans esp charged vs cataphracts knowing they wrre the only dangerus part of manybeastern forces and would collapse when their leaders fell) and we know infantry of all kinds almost always chased routing enemies off for a mixture of reasons such as to kill/enslave as many enemy as possible (esp where loot is shared) , to prevent enemy reforming and that even ultra diciplined roman legion officers frequenty founds their mens agression in the face of a beaten enemy hard to contain!!! The dothraki clearly mean to surround them unless you think the bother khals showimg up was good luck! Theres 0 evidence they didnt form squares its just surrounded and far from cities taking archer fire and charges from 4 directions in the hot sun. And now you are just making shit up. Bronze age civilizations did use iron. Merely using iron or even still is not enough to disqualify civilization from being a Bronze Age one. And regardless of the materials, point I was making here is about organization and tactics: chariots, light infantry, and all of them are charging forward like a disordered mob. Forget Bronze Age, these guys are barely a match for Neandarthals! And yes, there is evidence that they did not form squares. Firstly, behavior of the Sarnori infantry just screams "light infantry". Second, description implies they were very quickly slaughtered. So yeah - not exactly conclusive evidence, but on balance, it does imply that them having formed squares is unlikely. 12 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -yes but everything bar the 'supercastles' .of westeros(casterly rock ,harrenhall, stormsend etc) are on a smaller scale than essos, its all just slightly behind tech and society wise. No, it isn't. Westeros is behind in terms of tech compared to western Essos (namely Braavos), old Valyria and perhaps Yi Ti. But compared to literally everybody else? Slaver's bay, Lhazareen, old Sarnor etc.? Westeros is leaps and bounds ahead of them. And again: density of castles matters more than merely size when resisting nomadic force. Wooden Hungarian commital castles weren't exactly a major obstacle individually, but they still caused massive problems for the Mongols in the 1241 invasion. 12 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -theres every indication they can given most sieges actually ended.witu deals, starvation , traitors within or just something sneaky! Add in the clanker lords managed it Current-day Dothraki would get slaughtered by the first Westerosi army they met in the field... Also, army outside the castle is more likely to starve than one within. 12 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -no bias here the other guy has 0 armour jorah doesnt tag him once! armour allowed him to hang in there but the fact the guy connects with guantlet and finaly catches jorahs mailed part while ser simp can land a blow tells us the bloodrider has dealt with men in innarmour before And back to BS. Yes, I have pointed out that Jorah is a crap fighter. Which was my point. By all intents and purposes he should have lost, but he won because Dothraki had no clue about how to deal with armor. 8 hours ago, astarkchoice said: The rest you typed is the same incorrect stuff we have covered already , spears can clearly do what bayonetts did and yes unsullied would need backing by kther mixed units...s would any westerosi infantry Nothing I wrote is incorrect, you are just making shit up to make the Unsullied (and the Dothraki) sound better than they should, and you are ignoring historical evidence and logic time and again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 13 hours ago, Alester Florent said: Not really? Infantry in line vs infantry in square is a qualitative difference when resisting a cavalry charge: indeed, the whole point of a square was to resist cavalry charges, given that it was a rubbish formation against opposing infantry of the era. Can we even be sure that the infantry at Albuerra had bayonets fixed, given the circumstances of the charge?What Albuerra shows is the effectiveness of cavalry against unprepared infantry who haven't had the chance to form up properly to resist a charge: nobody is disputing the effectiveness of cavalry in that situation. What it does not show - and what is the subject of debate - is the effectiveness of cavalry against prepared infantry in appropriate formation, since the infantry who formed square did manage to resist the cavalry charge on that occasion. Well, we don't actually see that many battles first-hand in ASoIaF so I wouldn't be wholly surprised if a lot of the battles do happen off-page. But when we see them I would expect to see Dothraki simply overrunning Westerosi infantry lines, and outmanoeuvring and surrounding knights, no matter how realistic these scenarios are. Indeed, I wouldn't be too surprised if it broadly mirrors the Dothraki performance when we see them in action in the show: Hide contents In their first Westerosi showing of significance, they charge an infantry-heavy army in a disordered mass and swarm over it (with some assistance from a dragon). The actual tactics used (on both sides) are kind of nonsense, and of course the dragon makes a huge difference, but the intended effect is, apparently, that the Dothraki are just "better". In their second appearance, the Dothraki do the same disordered charge en masse against an army of wights, and it is hilarious. I don't know though. I would hope that now GRRM has had the chance to do a bit more thinking and a bit more research and has rethought how the Dothraki will actually operate and how successful they might be. Indeed, the introduction of the Golden Company may have been in part with the intention of providing the Targaryens in Westeros with an actually credible fighting force to supplement the less believable Dothraki, once he realised the issues. Without the dragon, in Season 7, I expect the infantry would have prevailed, given they had time to form ranks, with a river to prevent their being surrounded. By Season 8, any semblance of sense had been abandoned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarkchoice Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 1 hour ago, Aldarion said: -Yes, Mongols dealt with stone fortresses. By recruiting Chinese infantry and engineers to capture them for the Mongols. Mongol native tactics against any sort of a fortress were... less than impressive. Essentially, if they couldn't burn it down, they had no clue what to do. it is not nonsense semantics. Mongols recruit settled peoples with appropriate skills. Dothraki exterminate settled peoples. Therefore comparing Mongols to Dothraki is nonsense because Dothraki are nowhere near the level of Mongols in anything. Capisci? -Evidence that they had far more mobile cavalry? Because Hungarians did have cavalry in the first invasion, it was just predominantly light cavalry. Which by the way is cheaper than the heavy cavalry. -And? -Uh, wtf are you trying to say here? -Infantry square protected itself from cavalry by musket fire. It doesn't matter what rate of fire is when you kill horses in the front row and create a literal physical barrier of horse bodies. And after such a shock cavalry will have to retreat and reorder before charging again, which means that you get to reload. Last time I checked, Unsullied do not have muskets nor do they have those magical rocket spears Spartans used in Samurai Jack. And yes, horses absolutely will charge a wall of points. How do you suppose cataphracts shattered enemy spears? By mooning them? And what about all other cases of cavalry charging infantry? https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/07/19/heavy-cavalry-vs-infantry-impact-of-cavalry-charge/ -"Disciplined and utterly obedient" doesn't help you when you are crap at fighting. -Pit fighters are not soldiers. -And? China was a huge kingdom yet it didn't develop (at the time of Mongol invasion) anything close to what Europe did in terms of networked fortifications. Point is that we have no indication they had decentralized system of fortifications akin to feudal castle system. -And now you are just making shit up. Bronze age civilizations did use iron. Merely using iron or even still is not enough to disqualify civilization from being a Bronze Age one. And regardless of the materials, point I was making here is about organization and tactics: chariots, light infantry, and all of them are charging forward like a disordered mob. Forget Bronze Age, these guys are barely a match for Neandarthals! And yes, there is evidence that they did not form squares. Firstly, behavior of the Sarnori infantry just screams "light infantry". Second, description implies they were very quickly slaughtered. So yeah - not exactly conclusive evidence, but on balance, it does imply that them having formed squares is unlikely. -No, it isn't. Westeros is behind in terms of tech compared to western Essos (namely Braavos), old Valyria and perhaps Yi Ti. But compared to literally everybody else? Slaver's bay, Lhazareen, old Sarnor etc.? Westeros is leaps and bounds ahead of them. -And again: density of castles matters more than merely size when resisting nomadic force. Wooden Hungarian commital castles weren't exactly a major obstacle individually, but they still caused massive problems for the Mongols in the 1241 invasion. -Current-day Dothraki would get slaughtered by the first Westerosi army they met in the field... Also, army outside the castle is more likely to starve than one within. -And back to BS. Yes, I have pointed out that Jorah is a crap fighter. Which was my point. By all intents and purposes he should have lost, but he won because Dothraki had no clue about how to deal with armor. -Nothing I wrote is incorrect, you are just making shit up to make the Unsullied (and the Dothraki) sound better than they should, and you are ignoring historical evidence and logic time and again. - not exactly right mongols understood modern anti siege techology and tactics just fine they just hadnt the the skills themselves just as you and i understand how a jet works but would need to hire professionals to build one. Semantics in that the mongols recruited , promoted and rewarded thise with the skills they needed in a meteocratic system. The dothraki as we see have slaves do the things they cant/wont just as the clanker lords do to make trebuchets and trench lines for them...grmm hasnt gone into detail of siege engineering but the same slave pool is clearly available to the dothraki (as are sellsword engineers) -yes they are cheaper. The lower + mid level lords and bishops etc however were allowed to foot the bill for more cavalry , better forts and crossbowmen etc. So basicaly every area had stronger forts and more knights and archers etc to scatter the mongols before they could besiege. So its more mobile (far more men on horseback and more of them everywhere) AND it has more staying power (more knights, heavier buildings and crossbowmen to defend them) AND of course all that was a lot more expensive....hence the king allowed the middle to lower lords to foot the bill for their own defence on top of the kings contribution....vastly increasing the defensive status at great cost but also massively increasing local independence too. -so theres clearly more to them than we see -the sort of engineers who built and operate a working trebuchet back then will know about building walls or at least taking themm down too - the muskets will fire once and most wont hit shit , source after source states its clearly the 3 forming a wall of points , now thats not to say sometimes lancers didnt break it but that they (as you suggest) would not go through it with ease and where often repelled with it ..and again larger horses , better saddles and stirrups and no locked shields in the upcomming obstacle. -they arent crap at fighting nor are marines in iraq..its an insurgency, grmm.literaly tells us this. We are litersly told few will match them at skill at arms, that westerosi knights would probably be needed to beat them one on one. -no but again you are suggestingnsomehow these agressive savages avoided fights with swllswords for decades AND lost every pit fight too and didnt adapt!!!!!!!! -chinese and arab states had fortificatons easily on par with europe at the time and china doesnt do interlinked forts? Erm theres this big wall you might want to look into there. -steel sport not iron steel their warriors and weapons were made of steel. They had moxed light and heavy cavalry and literaly nothing to state their infantry warriors werent in their trademark silk under steel. Their tactics dont scream Light infantry as heavy infantry from hoplites to legionares to vikings to dismounted knights have chased routed enemies...its what normaly happens when an enemy breaks. Nor is there nay evidence what came aftee was quick nor any that they didnt form squares (if their leaders + cavalry was seperated from them forming squares miles from any fort means fuck all but being archery practice all day til you break. -slavers bay seems like most of essos to be ona much grander scale than westeros and sanor we know nothing of bar its another fortress city. -density of castles means not much if the bulk of the population are outside them in smaller easily takeable forts. -robert seems to think otherwise as did jorah (and thats before he was smitten) avain if it was that easy no fort of any culture would have fallen in.the century of blood theyd have just hired a half dozen or so sellsword companies and slaughtered the dorhraki with ease -jorah clesrly isnt a crap fighter hes an aging man in a profession men die young.....active mercs dont reach upper middle age by accident. The dothraki avoids his blows and lands where hes vunerable, seems clear he knows how to deal with armour. If his shot hadnt stuck on jorahs bone hed have killed him with ease. -says the guy who feels pikes and pikes alone can stop cavalry and they are einvincible vs other infantry too!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarkchoice Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 55 minutes ago, SeanF said: Without the dragon, in Season 7, I expect the infantry would have prevailed, given they had time to form ranks, with a river to prevent their being surrounded. By Season 8, any semblance of sense had been abandoned. It was gone wayy before that The dornish rescue of mycella was school play levels of bad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craving Peaches Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 2 hours ago, SeanF said: Without the dragon, in Season 7, I expect the infantry would have prevailed, given they had time to form ranks, with a river to prevent their being surrounded. I mean armies in season seven were basically teleporting or at least moving much faster than they should have. Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 and Aldarion 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 9 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said: I mean armies in season seven were basically teleporting or at least moving much faster than they should have. If all else failed, they could have simply jumped across the river and landed in Kings Landing. Craving Peaches 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loose Bolt Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 In nightmare Dothraki seems to have ability to re-spawn. Or during Battle of Winterfell they launched hot looking kamikaze attack against Army of Death that wiped out about 99 % of their screamers and horses. But somehow about moon later their horde had enough warriors for another zerg rush. Or Dothraki would be perfect unit for any player who would want to use that tactic against their enemies. Aldarion 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alester Florent Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 7 hours ago, Aldarion said: Infantry square protected itself from cavalry by musket fire. It doesn't matter what rate of fire is when you kill horses in the front row and create a literal physical barrier of horse bodies. And after such a shock cavalry will have to retreat and reorder before charging again, which means that you get to reload. Last time I checked, Unsullied do not have muskets nor do they have those magical rocket spears Spartans used in Samurai Jack. I do wonder about the effect of javelins, though. While they don't have the noise/smoke effect of muskets, a well-timed javelin barrage against charging cavalry could be effective at breaking up the formation. Even if the front rank can't participate because they won't have time to switch weapons to receive the charge (which will depend on a number of factors) the rear rank(s) will be able to throw over their heads. Essentially a similar kind of approach to that (probably) used by Roman legionaries. Given that the Unsullied carry multiple spears it seems likely that at least some of them are for throwing, which makes this kind of tactic feasible. astarkchoice 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarkchoice Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 2 hours ago, Alester Florent said: I do wonder about the effect of javelins, though. While they don't have the noise/smoke effect of muskets, a well-timed javelin barrage against charging cavalry could be effective at breaking up the formation. Even if the front rank can't participate because they won't have time to switch weapons to receive the charge (which will depend on a number of factors) the rear rank(s) will be able to throw over their heads. Essentially a similar kind of approach to that (probably) used by Roman legionaries. Given that the Unsullied carry multiple spears it seems likely that at least some of them are for throwing, which makes this kind of tactic feasible. Id say so , id picture agincourt and if those where spears instead of arrows incomming!! If i recall the winds of winter chapter barristan mentions one of the legions has the rows behind the 1st 3 are all ready with their throwing spears and to step forward if collegues fall. The fact they are all trained in 'the 3 spears' would indicate one basic thrusting one and 2 types of throwing ones. We know the romans evolved from the pilum to throwing darts but had various throwing spears of germanic origins inbetween the 2 so the common idea is for long periods they probably had 2, a light one for distance and a heavier one closer up throw. 100-110ft would be the range and if the forces are skilled and well drilled then a barrage could probably be easily arranged! The pilum could penetrate light plate or quality chainmail and id say the slightly heavier variants probably absolutely suck to be hit with too even with plate!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: I don't. I don't think you understand issues involving transport of such massive amounts of food from Essos. Question is of course whether Martin understands it either. I guess we will see. If Renly can feed 100,000 during his campaign then ships can also bring in food to Westeros. There is no problem there. And I actually think you underestimate the amount of naval trade that is going in the big harbors of Westeros. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Still, Golden Company managed to cross the Narrow Sea just before the winter storms started in earnest, and they still got dispersed. In such conditions I have to question the practicality of transporting massive amounts of food even if she somehow acquires the ships and the logistical know-how to even begin thinking of it in the first place. Obviously the point there is her using existing trade relations between Pentos and KL. The Golden Company got dispersed because they were not in control of their ships. The Volantenes just dumped them wherever their ships reached a shore. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Read the books. We already see discipline declining: that Unsullied who went to the brothel and got killed. Daenerys is also using the Unsullied as a police force, which is a big no-no with line infantry as it breaks up their cohesion and requires a completely different skillset compared to fighting a pitched battle. LOL, what? That is you imagining things. Yes, we have chapters where some Unsullied show that they are actually human (which is a good thing) and we have the author show us that lonely guys can be murdered by superior numbers or if they are lured into a trap (nothing new). But there is no indication that there is a decline in discipline. Also, reread the book. How long is Dany actually using the Unsullied as a police/guardsmen? For, like, three chapters or so, which translates into weeks, perhaps two months or so. Once a couple of Unsullied have been murdered she decides that her soldiers are not the ones to uphold the order in the city, but the Meereenese themselves - by way of the Brazen Beasts. The Unsullied are still in perfect condition when Barristan is starting his little war. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Religious fanaticism can only take you so far. Templars won battles because they were a well-equipped, trained and disciplined force, not because they were fanatics. They lost battles when they met equally well-trained and disciplined forces that may not have been as well equipped (though they often were) but outnumbered them. The Volantene tiger soldiers are likely very great soldiers considering they were the instruments of Volatene conquest in the past - and her still the men fighting the minor wars the Volatenes fight these days. But their fanaticism means they will do whatever their prophesied savior tells them to. And there are clearly thousands of them, perhaps more. The Triarchs are bringing 500 war ships to Slaver's Bay. And not all their soldiers might be onboard those ships. You don't realize the numbers there. Volantis controls so many ships that they could dump 10,000 Golden Company men on the Westerosi shores without even having to use their own military fleet. The Triarchs just commissioned independent traders in the Volantene port to do this. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: That was never going to happen. With Meereen, George wanted to accomplish two things. First, have Daenerys experience ruling before coming to Westeros. It is necessary for her character growth, and her experiences in Meereen will color her judgment going forward. Second, allow the time for her dragons to grow. If she had gone immediately for Westeros, either dragons will have to grow at the rate of Saphira in Eragon, or be completely useless by the time she arrived. So no, what you wrote was never an option, regardless of the threat of the Others. It was simply impossible if you want Daenerys and her plotline to remain even roughly the same. She had to have an experience ruling, and she had to have time for her dragons to grow. The Meereen nonsense was part of the plan for the five year gap. If George had known he would continue as usual the cliffhanger of ASoS would have likely been her ADwD cliffhanger - returning to the Dothraki. If you look in the book then Aegon's campaign has but started in ADwD. It could have been his and Dany's. Or Dany's and Quentyn's. If her plot was that of conqueror, somebody to avenge her family, somebody to play the same game as the thugs who molest and rape Westeros ... then she would do it now. Because now is the time for that, not later. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Literally everything else is in the service of these two goals. She had to acquire the Unsullied in order to allow her to begin her conquests (because how she will otherwise gain experience ruling)? In order for that to happen, Unsullied had to be dumb robots in service of even dumber slavers. She had to have problems ruling in order to turn her more cynical and to prevent her from leaving for Westeros too quickly. And so on. Those "additional troops" were never necessary. They are a side-effect of necessities of Daenerys' storyline. In fact, the entirety of Essos - especially the Dothraki and the Slaver's Bay - is a side-effect of necessities of Daenerys' storyline. Shallow worldbuilding, mass of illogicalities, plot contrivances and so on - all of that exists to lead Daenerys to where she needs to be. She basically dumbed down the entire world surrounding her. LOL, no. Dany could, for instance, have gotten her experience at ruling with the Dothraki. Which she will still have. The Slaver's Bay plot was for her to remain herself, for her to no longer be a pawn ... which she would have been if she had returned to Pentos and Illyrio. George wanted her to have her own power base. And that is not a base she is to lose again to caper to the whims and desires of feudal lords. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: And why would he fail? More likely scenario is that he will succeed. Look at the situation in Westeros: Lannisters are on their last legs, North is basically spent and is fighting internal war... the only kingdoms that still have significant military forces are likely to either remain neutral (Vale), ally with him from the outset (Dorne) or end up split between opposing him, supporting him and ignoring him while fighting the Ironborn (Reach). Aegon is a joke. Yes, yes, he can and likely will take the throne. But he has so obviously set up to fail that it is written all over him. Perhaps only against Dany, but even if he was to last until she showed up ... he will never unite the Realm. Yeah, lots of lords might bend the knee to him ... but who will send troops to him, how many enemies is he likely to actually defeat in the field? And what are you reading? The Lannisters are not on their last legs. They are the second most powerful house in the Realm, rich as hell. They disbanded their troops, but they can - and likely will - marshal new troops. And the Tyrells will fight him since they control the throne now. As does Tarly. They are not Aegon's friends. Some Reach lords might eventually end up in his camp, but if he ends up with a Martell wife things will not go well with him and the Reach. The guy won't deal with Euron, he won't deal with Stannis, he won't deal with Cersei, and he won't pacify the Riverlands or other regions. And he will also not defeat or beat back the Others if they show. And when Dany shows who is going to stand with Aegon and why? On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: When Daenerys comes, if she wants the throne, she will have to restart the wars. And that will be her irony and "heart in conflict". In Essos, Daenerys never had to really choose: Maesters were despicable and had to go, so there never was any moral dilemma about Daenerys being a conqueror. But if that lack of moral dilemma remains true in Westeros as well, if she gets to play the conqueror and the savior in the same breath... I simply don't see that happening. She will have to choose between the two. LOL, what? Restart the wars? They are being restarted right now, and they will be still going on when Dany comes. And if they were over then the survivors would be in a very bad shape, much worse than things are presented in AFfC. Westeros will still looking for a savior then, more than ever. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Even civil war isn't that, and considering division by kingdoms I'm not sure war in Westeros fully qualifies. The Seven Kingdoms are a single Realm and the social order and basic morality collapses during the books. Go back and show how things stand under Robert. And then reread AFfC. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Or she gets sick of helping people (she is already showing signs of that in the books) and decides to go for conquest before being interrupted by the Others. Right, because we need a carbon copy of Aegon, plot-wise. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: I mean, how likely is it that she will even learn of or believe the threat of the Others until it is literally do or die? The fact that all characters believing in the Others either (wanted to) go to her or are sending envoys to her? That there are people interested in her who know and believe in the prophecy? On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: And Daenerys as she was until now would be willing to do so - but we see the seeds of a change in the last book. She is sick of compromises she has had to make in Meereen, she basically came to hate herself and, well, "dragons plant no trees". She is changing, and not for the better. Actually, she changes for the better because the woman we see throughout ADwD was worse than King Aenys ... but driven by the same desires. Dany in ADwD is like Robb wanting to talk to and reach compromises with Joffrey and Tywin. She is disgusting. If 'dragons plant no trees' means what you imply then she should unleash her dragons against the people who fight the Others ... and die happily kissing and fucking a victorious Other because her destiny is to destroy the world. But that is just nonsense. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: I am aware. What about it? It means that most people actually don't have the resources to field or finance men-at-arms. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Possibly, but I rather doubt the Ironborn are that much of a threat. What? Euron is obviously the biggest big bad in the entire series - at least the biggest human/mortal big bad. And George writers about leaders and generals, not numbers and soldiers. Euron will have the means to make everybody suffer more than the Lannisters, Freys, Boltons, etc. ever did so far. How he gets those means is irrelevant, important is that the text hammers it home that he will. If he has pull armies out of his ass it will happen. That isn't my most favorite plot line, to be sure. But discounting Euron as a threat was already stupid in AFfC, but with 'The Forsaken' out there the threat he poses became obvious to everyone. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: It is not modernistic at all. That is pretty much exactly what happened to Bela IV after he invited the Cumans into the kingdom. Inviting Cumans damaged Hungary's ability to resist the Mongols because Cumans a) started pillaging across the kingdom and b) Bela's subjects did not like that. At all. So Bela wasn't even able to fully mobilize his army when Mongols invaded because his subjects hated him. The point is that there is literally no reason that something like that happens in a succession war. This is a dynastic struggle, not a struggle of conquest. The Dothraki are what Flemish or Welsh or French mercenaries were to the various English pretenders who did or tried to take the throne through invasion. This is not likely to be a story of barbaric invasions. There is no time for something like that. Aegon actually has time to become a hated foreigner as his foreign sellsword army will eventually demand their rewards and spoils. He might be forced to take quite a few lands and lordships from old and established Westerosi houses to reward the captains and generals of the Golden Company. I'm sure the Westerosi peasants might not look forward to address the likes of Lysono Maar, Black Balaq or Garys Edoryen as 'M'lord'. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Of course, it was entirely possible that Targaryen loyalists will have been willing to overlook that in favor of removing Robert. Obviously. That was the plan. And it wasn't made by some morons. If Robert had been what you want to believe he was in 298 AC, and if his court and family had been able to band together and throw Viserys back ... then Varys and Illyrio would have never set the plans in motion they set in motion. Sure enough, Varys helped creating the dissension ... but he could only fuel existing animosities, not create them from scratch. I don't doubt that Robert himself might have tried to play a Edward IV and get rejuvenated by war ... but he was a fat drunkard. And his court was rotten to the core. The new generation wouldn't have marveled at the sight of that ruin of a man and king. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Still, you don't simply pull a peasant off the field and put a spear or a pitchfork into his arms. But that is what they do in those books. Repeatedly. They do exactly that. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: Of course they won't keep large number of soldiers permanently under arms - no medieval society did that, not even the Byzantine Empire. It is simply too expensive. They would also not keep semi-professional warriors under arms they don't need. The lords have garrisons in their castles, and that's it. Rhaenyra and Daemon have but the garrison of Dragonstone as soldiers in 129 AC. And that was at a time when a potential war was in the air for years. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: A mail shirt costs about as much as several cows. That is not something you waste on a person who will just go and get himself killed in the first battle without doing anything. It seems to be much cheaper in Westeros. Else they wouldn't be as common as they are. And it is clear that the Freys have the money to throw such things on their men. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: If you want to throw an untrained peasant into the line, you give him a sharpened stick, a felt cap, and position him somewhere his death won't actually have much of a detrimental impact on your army. You don't give them mail shirts and send them to a main battle line. I never said that most such men would be given proper mail. That would be for men-at-arms in permanent employ of the lords. The men wearing Frey livery, for instance. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: I don't remember much from TTS, but in the main series, when we see untrained rabble, they are not well armed and nobody expects them to last for long. You should reread it. It actually depicts how recruiting is done in this world. It also shows us with what troops a petty lord would go to war - namely, with his or her castle men-at-arms, the troops Lady Webber shows up with at the river. If a minor lord has still some landed knights, etc. sworn to him/her he might call in levies from such places, too. But the actual soldiers a lord has are the ones in his castle - and the host of a great lord is, for the most part, made up of the combination of such men. On 7/30/2023 at 8:46 PM, Aldarion said: I think it is just another case of Martin flat-out just not thinking about things and kinda sucking at worldbuilding. He read history books describing medieval armies, which obviously consisted of trained soldiers, and thus his descriptions reveal that - but he never considered where those soldiers come from. While that is true, it doesn't allow us to take real history and insert into the fantasy world. You can draw parallels, but if you want to know where the men might actually come from, in-universe, you have to look for clues in the text. And they are there. Westeros is distinctly not like the real middle ages in the sense that high culture takes place at the castle, not the town or city. The castle is where proper life happens, and the castle is where weapons are made, men trained at arms, and where the men who go or ride to war mostly come. Nothing of importance happens in the country. And while this is true especially for the great castles it is equally true for minor and modest castles - like Coldmoat from TSS. Also, we know that lords also draw random men their henchmen recruit into their armies. George's take on things there might be modern in the sense that Meribald is basically a guy who is drafted in Westeros' version of the Vietnam war. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 Neither the North, nor the Tyrells, nor the Lannisters, nor Euron will submit to Aegon and the Dornish. His will be a very truncated Realm. Basically, the Crownlands, Stormlands, Dorne, bits of the Reach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarkchoice Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 The golden company seems.to be the finest force we know of , mixed arms with good professional leadership and dicipline and well equipped. Now for such a massive force to feasibly exist and not be an instant win for anyone who employs them int he constant triarchy wars in the huge disputed lands there would need to be large counter forces of sellswords , stannis (whofor all his faults is precises with troop numbers) feels raising 20k in bravos is feasible in a matter of weeks! So there must be around 40-50k just milling around in sellsword companies of a few hundred to a few thousand before we even talk sellsails!! The bulk will be essosi born and bred, then 2nd-3rd gen essosi born westerosi exiles who probably feel theyve claims to lands theyve never seen! followed by actual westerosi exiles...failures in wars or just extra sons not required for their lordly fathers plans or.poor adventure/money seekers! The golden company being the exception due to its secret agenda. We arent given any scale of these clashes but the losses of men from the free cities probably adds to the bitterness between them. SaffronLady and Aldarion 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted August 2, 2023 Share Posted August 2, 2023 11 hours ago, SeanF said: Neither the North, nor the Tyrells, nor the Lannisters, nor Euron will submit to Aegon and the Dornish. His will be a very truncated Realm. Basically, the Crownlands, Stormlands, Dorne, bits of the Reach. Aegon's case is pretty curious. He has no real Westerosi power base. But he comes at a very opportune moment. If he were Daenerys and/or had dragons he might have the allegiance of effectively the entire continent in a very short time. The people either want a Targaryen to come back and save them or they are fine with it happening when it happens. They won't try to resist such a restoration. As things stand his campaign could still go very well for him as George effectively wrote an entire book, AFfC, laying the groundwork for the light speed fast fall of KL to a Targaryen pretender. The problem is what Aegon will do once he has the throne. That is the important question. Who will he reward and why, who will he punish or promise to punish or crush in another campaign. Since the Realm is not pacified he is very likely to march against somebody afterwards. His job will be to restore order to his kingdoms, and he can't do that from the Iron Throne. Thus his KL campaign might very much culminate in a splendid Targaryen coronation at the Great Sept, combined with him taking Arianne Martell to wife. How splendid things go will also depend on how things go with Mace Tyrell, Randyll Tarly, and, especially, Margaery Tyrell. The possibility for things going very easy are on the table. Effectively all the Reach men could refuse to fight against a Targaryen prince or actively defect to his side. Then Mace Tyrell would be caught with his pants down. But that would be too easy, I think. Mace and Randyll are at the top of the food chain now. Finally they and not the fucking Lannisters run the government of the Realm, and they would be utter morons to give that up and hand the power to a pretender who is most likely a fake and propped up by a bunch of foreign sellswords. That is as likely as them cutting both their hands off. So there will be some fighting, and it is likely going to go bloody. We can expect some crucial Reach houses to declare for Aegon (Mathis Rowan, especially, but also the Merryweathers and Titus Peake - assuming the guy will show up) but that won't be enough to prevent a battle. And that might leave scars. Varys will see to it that the city goes to Aegon without siege or sack, but that doesn't guarantee that Aegon's people won't kill anyone. Elia and her children might be avenged, Margaery Tyrell might be killed, etc. and that could put a bloody stain on Aegon's new reign. Even if Margaery yet lives, we can expect that the Dornish armies will quickly become Aegon's most crucial Westerosi supporters ... and that will have an effect on both the Stormlanders and Reach lords who are joining him right now or will do so in the future (Mathis Rowan is likely to switch camp during the taking of Storm's End). If Aegon ends up falling for Arianne, rejecting Margaery's hand for Arianne's, it will be hard to patch up things with Highgarden. Even worse would it be if Margaery and/or Mace are going to be killed in the fighting. Lord Willas is likely just going to ignore Aegon, focusing on the Ironborn and recalling whatever Tyrell remain in the capital or the Crownlands. If Margaery is no longer queen and House Tyrell has been ousted from power they will have no stakes in supporting Aegon. Especially since they are facing their own problems with the Ironborn. The fact that Garlan and Willas are right now organizing the anti-Ironborn campaign will also dissuade the more fervent Targaryen loyalists in the Reach from turning against Highgarden. They might send men to Aegon or even join him at KL but they won't turn against the Tyrells in the name of their new king. In context, though, it seems most likely that Aegon would actually lead his men into the Riverlands after he has taken the throne, with the intention to restore order there and then take the West before Cersei - who I assume will flee KL before Aegon can capture her - can raise a new army. Also, of course, Arianne and he cousins long for revenge against the Lannisters because of Elia ... and she is Aegon's mother just as Rhaenys was his sister. He might want to give Casterly Rock and Lannisport a Castamere treatment. Not to mention that the Crown is very much in debt, etc. and the new king will have little coin to give gifts or start rebuilding, so seizing the fortunes of the Lannisters might also look like a good idea. Illyrio might pump money into Aegon's government but the Iron Throne's finances are a bottomless hole at this point. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to imagine what could go wrong during such a campaign. And there is foreshadowing - very clear and concrete foreshadowing - that Euron will take the Iron Throne. The moment for him to do that is likely going to be when Aegon and his army are away again. The chances that he could seize the city and hold it while there are still men stationed there are very low. If the Vale were to enter the war on Aegon's side things would be even more complex, but not necessarily easier for him. Littlefinger would want to make Sansa Aegon's queen, so we would have considerable plotting and backstabbing going on. Nobody will be able to prepare the Realm for the arrival of Daenerys, nor is this fighting going to unify the Realm. It will only fracture more, draw more people into the war, give more people reasons to hate each other, etc. And I really think that in reaction to the Riverlands freeing themselves from the Lannisters and Freys we will see the Westermen deciding they had had enough of other people trampling and abusing their lords, so we will see them reacting to the destruction of the Twins and the butchering of Genna Lannister and Daven Lannister - which are both coming, I think - like the Northmen have been reacting to the Freys and Boltons in AFfC and ADwD. This is a circle or violence and retribution and it will just continue and continue. The idea that anyone will look to Daenerys as a threat is very unlikely - since the next news they will receive about her will be the news about her death in Daznak's Pit. And earlier about her marriage to some Ghiscari slaver which should convince everyone that she intended to settle down in Slaver's Bay. The moment to consider her a threat is when good news about her surviving her alleged death will reach Westeros - and that might very well only be the case once her Dothraki take Pentos. Because she is not going to send memos to her potential enemies from Vaes Dothrak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aldarion Posted August 5, 2023 Author Share Posted August 5, 2023 On 7/31/2023 at 9:03 PM, Alester Florent said: I do wonder about the effect of javelins, though. While they don't have the noise/smoke effect of muskets, a well-timed javelin barrage against charging cavalry could be effective at breaking up the formation. Even if the front rank can't participate because they won't have time to switch weapons to receive the charge (which will depend on a number of factors) the rear rank(s) will be able to throw over their heads. Essentially a similar kind of approach to that (probably) used by Roman legionaries. Given that the Unsullied carry multiple spears it seems likely that at least some of them are for throwing, which makes this kind of tactic feasible. Against unarmored cavalry, maybe. I doubt it will be very effective against Westerosi heavy cavalry. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: - not exactly right mongols understood modern anti siege techology and tactics just fine they just hadnt the the skills themselves just as you and i understand how a jet works but would need to hire professionals to build one. Semantics in that the mongols recruited , promoted and rewarded thise with the skills they needed in a meteocratic system. The dothraki as we see have slaves do the things they cant/wont just as the clanker lords do to make trebuchets and trench lines for them...grmm hasnt gone into detail of siege engineering but the same slave pool is clearly available to the dothraki (as are sellsword engineers) Slaves are not a good source for skilled workforce... On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -yes they are cheaper. The lower + mid level lords and bishops etc however were allowed to foot the bill for more cavalry , better forts and crossbowmen etc. So basicaly every area had stronger forts and more knights and archers etc to scatter the mongols before they could besiege. So its more mobile (far more men on horseback and more of them everywhere) AND it has more staying power (more knights, heavier buildings and crossbowmen to defend them) AND of course all that was a lot more expensive....hence the king allowed the middle to lower lords to foot the bill for their own defence on top of the kings contribution....vastly increasing the defensive status at great cost but also massively increasing local independence too. PRECISELY. Heavy cavalry + crossbowmen + castles. But that still does not change the fact that out of these three only castles were present in the first invasion, yet Mongols still got repelled. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -so theres clearly more to them than we see Not "clearly". None of what you wrote has the relevance for warfare, unless Dothraki integrate whatever they learn outside into their culture. Which they clearly do not. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -the sort of engineers who built and operate a working trebuchet back then will know about building walls or at least taking themm down too Maybe? During siege of Meereen we only see trebuchets being used to fling corpses, which is not a difficult thing to do. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: - the muskets will fire once and most wont hit shit , source after source states its clearly the 3 forming a wall of points , now thats not to say sometimes lancers didnt break it but that they (as you suggest) would not go through it with ease and where often repelled with it ..and again larger horses , better saddles and stirrups and no locked shields in the upcomming obstacle. Do they? Because again: I have found (and shown you) cases where lancers broke straight into infantry squares. And I have shown you that Byzantine cataphracts literally physically broke infantry spears. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -they arent crap at fighting nor are marines in iraq..its an insurgency, grmm.literaly tells us this. We are litersly told few will match them at skill at arms, that westerosi knights would probably be needed to beat them one on one. They are basically an army of mid-to-late Antiquity going into what is 14th century Europe. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -no but again you are suggestingnsomehow these agressive savages avoided fights with swllswords for decades AND lost every pit fight too and didnt adapt!!!!!!!! I am suggesting that Dothraki mostly got on by their reputation and cities paying them off. Which is literally what Illyrio says when questioned: Free Cities don't need to fear the Dothraki, it is simply cheaper to buy them off with gifts. I don't think Dothraki have fought a real war against anyone except each other since the Century of Blood. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -chinese and arab states had fortificatons easily on par with europe at the time and china doesnt do interlinked forts? Erm theres this big wall you might want to look into there. You might want to look into history, first. The Great Wall didn't even exist back then. Current Great Wall was finished in the 16th century. There were some walls back then, but no single continuous system of fortifications. And being located smack in the middle of the Jin territory, these walls served no defensive purpose at the time, and were essentially nonexistent after centuries of disrepair (original walls were built of rammed earth, so rains basically washed them away). Mongols didn't defeat the Great Wall of China because the Great Wall of China didn't exist at the time of the Mongol invasion of China. And it wasn't even the Mongols who really conquered the China, it was the Chinese. And no, Arab fortifications - at least those Mongols faced - were not on par with those in Europe. When Mongols encountered European Crusader castles in Levant, they took one look and went "Nope! Forget this shit, I'm outta here!". On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -steel sport not iron steel their warriors and weapons were made of steel. They had moxed light and heavy cavalry and literaly nothing to state their infantry warriors werent in their trademark silk under steel. Their tactics dont scream Light infantry as heavy infantry from hoplites to legionares to vikings to dismounted knights have chased routed enemies...its what normaly happens when an enemy breaks. Nor is there nay evidence what came aftee was quick nor any that they didnt form squares (if their leaders + cavalry was seperated from them forming squares miles from any fort means fuck all but being archery practice all day til you break. As I said, it doesn't bloody matter what their weapons were made of when they were acting like a bronze-age military at best, drunken rabble at worst. And yes, they are undisciplined light infantry rabble. Heavy infantry did chase the enemy... but only occasionaly, only when the enemy was the heavy infantry as well, and generally only when they did not have cavalry to pursue. In this case, however, none of this holds true. The enemy were mounted - light cavalry, moreover, so infantry were never going to catch them. Sarnori had cavalry and chariots, so there was no need for infantry to even try to pursue. This suggests that either Sarnori were undisciplined as hell, or else had a custom of having infantry run alongside the chariots... something that makes sense only if it is light infantry. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -slavers bay seems like most of essos to be ona much grander scale than westeros and sanor we know nothing of bar its another fortress city. OK, so entirety of Essos is basically Bronze Age society at best? I doubt that. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -density of castles means not much if the bulk of the population are outside them in smaller easily takeable forts. Please, learn some history, because that statement is just wrong. I mean, think about it for a second: if castles didn't matter, nobody would be building them. Castles are expensive. Also: even "smaller easily takeable forts" matter, especially when you are talking about nomads. Taking forts takes time and resources, and nomads tend not to do that well with siege technology or sieges in general. And they also don't have much manpower, so losses incurred in sieges tend to hurt them lot more than they would sedentary armies. Mongols suffered losses even taking hungarian committal castles, which were made of wood. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -robert seems to think otherwise as did jorah (and thats before he was smitten) avain if it was that easy no fort of any culture would have fallen in.the century of blood theyd have just hired a half dozen or so sellsword companies and slaughtered the dorhraki with ease Robert was not afriad of the Dothraki, he was afraid of uprisings by the still-widespread Targaryen loyalists. Jorah is an idiot. In the century of blood, they were too busy fighting each other to care about the Dothraki until it was too late. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -jorah clesrly isnt a crap fighter hes an aging man in a profession men die young.....active mercs dont reach upper middle age by accident. The dothraki avoids his blows and lands where hes vunerable, seems clear he knows how to deal with armour. If his shot hadnt stuck on jorahs bone hed have killed him with ease. Read the scene again. Dothraki lands several blows which just glance off Jorah's mail before one finally penetrates. Without armor, Jorah will have died there. On 7/31/2023 at 3:58 PM, astarkchoice said: -says the guy who feels pikes and pikes alone can stop cavalry and they are einvincible vs other infantry too!! I never said pikes alone can stop cavalry. In fact, depending on the situation, sometimes even pikes are not enough, while other times even bills and halberds may suffice. But your idea that a bunch of hoplites can easily deal with heavy knightly cavalry is just wrong. And yeah, pikemen are the closest you can get to "invincible" on a premodern battlefield. Generally speaking, dealing with a pike formation required either a) another pike formation or b) a combined army approach of missile troops and heavy cavalry. Of course, exceptions happened. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: If Renly can feed 100,000 during his campaign then ships can also bring in food to Westeros. There is no problem there. And I actually think you underestimate the amount of naval trade that is going in the big harbors of Westeros. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: Obviously the point there is her using existing trade relations between Pentos and KL. The Golden Company got dispersed because they were not in control of their ships. The Volantenes just dumped them wherever their ships reached a shore. There is a problem there. Feeding 100 000 troops in a friendly territory is difficult, but not impossible, even for a medieval society. Ships feeding a continent of nearly 40 million people? Bloody impossible. Individual cities, yes - King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport and other coastal ports may be fine. Maybe, depending on how many ships are avilable, on whether storms allow supplies to get through, and on how good Westerosi administration in general is. But considering King's Landing has a population of half a million, it must be rather good. But everything away from the coast will starve to death if it comes down to food from Essos, no matter how many ships Daenerys or anybody else has. And that, again, is not even taking into account the storms. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: LOL, what? That is you imagining things. Yes, we have chapters where some Unsullied show that they are actually human (which is a good thing) and we have the author show us that lonely guys can be murdered by superior numbers or if they are lured into a trap (nothing new). But there is no indication that there is a decline in discipline. Also, reread the book. How long is Dany actually using the Unsullied as a police/guardsmen? For, like, three chapters or so, which translates into weeks, perhaps two months or so. Once a couple of Unsullied have been murdered she decides that her soldiers are not the ones to uphold the order in the city, but the Meereenese themselves - by way of the Brazen Beasts. The Unsullied are still in perfect condition when Barristan is starting his little war. You are in denial. Troops going to brothels unescorted, in a known hostile territory, is a problem. Notice the name of the Unsullied who got killed? Stalwart Shield. Clearly the point here is that the Unsullied are beginning to crack. Also, the entire point of the Unsullied's unbreakable discipline is a sales pitch by Kraznak, who explicitly states that "no woman can tempt them, nor any man". Yet Stalwart Shield was murdered in a brothel. So it is clear that, whatever the cause, Unsullied discipline is breaking down. And it is not just about the Unsullied being used as police force. It is about the Unsullied not having been in a proper field battle since... well, since Daenerys had acquired them. All her victories so far had been won by subterfuge. And I doubt she had bothered seeing whether their training regiment had been kept up either. So yeah, LOL at "Unsullied are still in perfect condition". They're not. Regardless of whether it is the knights or the wights that they end up facing in Westeros, chances are, we will get a scene of the Unsullied simply breaking at some point. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: The Volantene tiger soldiers are likely very great soldiers considering they were the instruments of Volatene conquest in the past - and her still the men fighting the minor wars the Volatenes fight these days. But their fanaticism means they will do whatever their prophesied savior tells them to. And there are clearly thousands of them, perhaps more. The Triarchs are bringing 500 war ships to Slaver's Bay. And not all their soldiers might be onboard those ships. You don't realize the numbers there. Volantis controls so many ships that they could dump 10,000 Golden Company men on the Westerosi shores without even having to use their own military fleet. The Triarchs just commissioned independent traders in the Volantene port to do this. I do realize numbers, far better than you do in fact. Ten thousand soldiers is not that much. I mean, look at the navy of King Matthias: https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/army-of-john-hunyadi-and-matthias-corvinus/ Quote An Italian report places navy at 364 ships, with 2 600 sailors and 10 000 soldiers. Of these 10 000 soldiers, 1 700 were men-at-arms, 1 200 infantry with pavises, and remainder crossbowmen and handgunners. Among ships, 16 were galleys with four great bombards and 300 gunmen each. Of 364 vessels of the navy, there were 330 actual ships and additional 34 sloops at Belgrade. Each sloop had 18 oars and 18 soldiers with a rifle and two artillerymen. Bombards on large ships could fire a ball weighting 300 lbs. So, in short, a war fleet of a landlocked kingdom of some 3 000 000 - 5 000 000 people is capable of carrying 10 000 soldiers. On dedicated warships. Granted, they don't have horses or elephants, but you also have to consider that Volantis is not using its navy to transport the Golden Company but rather its merchant marine, which is several times larger. Now, the fun part: 1) Hungary is a landlocked kingdom of ~4 000 000 with only a small riverine fleet. Volantis is specifically a naval power with city itself being probably above 1 000 000 population - and at medieval population rates, that would mean total population of 6 million or more. 2) Hungary had 364 vessels in its river fleet, carrying 2 600 sailors and 10 000 soldiers. So even 15th century Hungary will have been able to easily transport the Golden Company. But again - a landlocked kingdom, and this was just actual navy. 3) For Volantis, better rate is Byzantine Empire, which in 10th century had 300 warships and cca 42 000 rowers. Large dromond had 230 rowers and 70 marines, but most ships are far smaller. So 500 Volantene warships would have 70 000 rowers and some 20 000 marines. And that is just warships. 4) Merchant marine would be far larger. Usual Byzantine expeditionary fleet had some 100 warships and 500 transports. In 533, fleet of 92 dromonds and 500 transports carried an army of 15 000. In 960., a fleet of 100 dromonds and 500 transports (of which 200 chelandia which were both) carried an army of 77 000. 5) Going from the above, Volantene merchant fleet will have been at least 2 500, capable of carrying 385 000 troops (being on ocean, their transports would likely trend towards larger size). Yet Volantis itself cannot have 385 000 troops. For population of 6 000 000, total military cannot be much above 150 000. And if you assume Volantene troops are full-time professionals, then their military cannot really go much beyond 20 000. 6) By comparison, Westeros as a whole should have a navy of 1 180 warships carrying 152 500 men. Discounting the Iron Islands, we have 680 warships carrying 110 500 men. Calculations are below: https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/07/08/military-of-westeros-1-organization-and-manpower/ 7) Going by the same comparison, Westerosi merchant marine without the Iron Islands would likely be some 3 400 ships, capable of - if necessary - transporting up to 524 000 soldiers. Which, by the way, is more troops than Westeros has. And yes, all of the above will have been done using independent traders, because that is what states - especially in Middle Ages - did for military expeditions. They commissioned independent traders to provide ships for transporting troops and provisions. In many cases (e.g. medieval England), state didn't even have warships but rather commissioned merchant ships and modified them with fighting platforms (battle towers) for purposes of combat. And you are trying to convince me that them transporting the Golden Company is somehow impressive? Even if you drop the numbers to one tenth to account for the distance, Volantis should have been able to easily transport several Golden Company-sized armies to Westeros. Volantene conquests in the past... well, it is questionable how much they matter, considering the general military state of Essos. I mean, we are talking about a place where Dothraki are a massive military threat and the Unsullied some of the best there is. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: The Meereen nonsense was part of the plan for the five year gap. If George had known he would continue as usual the cliffhanger of ASoS would have likely been her ADwD cliffhanger - returning to the Dothraki. If you look in the book then Aegon's campaign has but started in ADwD. It could have been his and Dany's. Or Dany's and Quentyn's. If her plot was that of conqueror, somebody to avenge her family, somebody to play the same game as the thugs who molest and rape Westeros ... then she would do it now. Because now is the time for that, not later. And five year gap existed for a reason. Just the fact that Martin decided to do away with actual gap doesn't mean it did away with reasons for it. Hence, Daenerys in Meereen. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: LOL, no. Dany could, for instance, have gotten her experience at ruling with the Dothraki. Which she will still have. The Slaver's Bay plot was for her to remain herself, for her to no longer be a pawn ... which she would have been if she had returned to Pentos and Illyrio. George wanted her to have her own power base. And that is not a base she is to lose again to caper to the whims and desires of feudal lords. No, she couldn't have. Dothraki are not a settled society; any experience she gained there will have been useless. Unless Daenerys conquers western Essos to the west of Volantis (so Volantis, Lys, Tyrosh, Myr, Pentos, Braavos...), any power base in Essos is useless. Of course, there is every chance she may do so... but is there time? And even with power base in Western Essos, unless the Others wipe out like 50-90% of population of Westeros, it won't really help in Westeros. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: Aegon is a joke. Yes, yes, he can and likely will take the throne. But he has so obviously set up to fail that it is written all over him. Perhaps only against Dany, but even if he was to last until she showed up ... he will never unite the Realm. Yeah, lots of lords might bend the knee to him ... but who will send troops to him, how many enemies is he likely to actually defeat in the field? And what are you reading? The Lannisters are not on their last legs. They are the second most powerful house in the Realm, rich as hell. They disbanded their troops, but they can - and likely will - marshal new troops. And the Tyrells will fight him since they control the throne now. As does Tarly. They are not Aegon's friends. Some Reach lords might eventually end up in his camp, but if he ends up with a Martell wife things will not go well with him and the Reach. The guy won't deal with Euron, he won't deal with Stannis, he won't deal with Cersei, and he won't pacify the Riverlands or other regions. And he will also not defeat or beat back the Others if they show. And when Dany shows who is going to stand with Aegon and why? On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: LOL, what? Restart the wars? They are being restarted right now, and they will be still going on when Dany comes. And if they were over then the survivors would be in a very bad shape, much worse than things are presented in AFfC. Westeros will still looking for a savior then, more than ever. Lannisters are being propped up by Tyrells right now. They suffered heavy losses in the war already. And Tyrells are being set up to fail: it seems clear that Mace will lead expedition against Aegon, and guy is an idiot. Reach itself is full of Targaryen loyalists - possibly including Tarly - and with Daenerys nowhere near (and possibly dead), who is left to rally to? We don't know if Euron is a real threat yet, Stannis is stuck in the North where he will likely remain, and Cersei has lost her power base. And if Daenerys shows up with an army of Unsullied + Tiger Soldiers + Dothraki, Westeros will have every reason to stand behind somebody who didn't bring foreign barbarians to their shores. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: The Seven Kingdoms are a single Realm and the social order and basic morality collapses during the books. Go back and show how things stand under Robert. And then reread AFfC. That is what happens in a war. And no, Seven Kingdoms are not a single realm. They are a union of kingdoms that accept a single crown as a tradition. https://www.politicalscienceview.com/personal-and-real-unions/ On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: The fact that all characters believing in the Others either (wanted to) go to her or are sending envoys to her? That there are people interested in her who know and believe in the prophecy? OK, there is that. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: Actually, she changes for the better because the woman we see throughout ADwD was worse than King Aenys ... but driven by the same desires. Dany in ADwD is like Robb wanting to talk to and reach compromises with Joffrey and Tywin. She is disgusting. If 'dragons plant no trees' means what you imply then she should unleash her dragons against the people who fight the Others ... and die happily kissing and fucking a victorious Other because her destiny is to destroy the world. But that is just nonsense. Nonsense you made up out of the air. I already explained what I believe it means. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: It means that most people actually don't have the resources to field or finance men-at-arms. Neither did most people in 15th century Hungary, yet Hungarians happily raised armies that consisted almost exclusively of cavalry. Many of whom were mounted men-at-arms. https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/army-of-john-hunyadi-and-matthias-corvinus/ Cooperation is a thing. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: What? Euron is obviously the biggest big bad in the entire series - at least the biggest human/mortal big bad. And George writers about leaders and generals, not numbers and soldiers. Euron will have the means to make everybody suffer more than the Lannisters, Freys, Boltons, etc. ever did so far. How he gets those means is irrelevant, important is that the text hammers it home that he will. If he has pull armies out of his ass it will happen. That isn't my most favorite plot line, to be sure. But discounting Euron as a threat was already stupid in AFfC, but with 'The Forsaken' out there the threat he poses became obvious to everyone. Euron is a magic-based threat. And what do we see of the magic so far in the series? That it tends to bite the user in the ass. Chances are, Euron will end up killing himself with a failed spell or something. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: The point is that there is literally no reason that something like that happens in a succession war. This is a dynastic struggle, not a struggle of conquest. The Dothraki are what Flemish or Welsh or French mercenaries were to the various English pretenders who did or tried to take the throne through invasion. This is not likely to be a story of barbaric invasions. There is no time for something like that. Aegon actually has time to become a hated foreigner as his foreign sellsword army will eventually demand their rewards and spoils. He might be forced to take quite a few lands and lordships from old and established Westerosi houses to reward the captains and generals of the Golden Company. I'm sure the Westerosi peasants might not look forward to address the likes of Lysono Maar, Black Balaq or Garys Edoryen as 'M'lord'. Possibly. But Golden Company is already established as being extremely disciplined. Dothraki are not. So if one of two is more likely to incur the wrath of average Westerosi, Dothraki are far more liable to end up doing so. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: But that is what they do in those books. Repeatedly. They do exactly that. And then they equip and train them, for the most part. Remember when Tywin had to raise new recruits? He left them deep within his own territory where they should have been safe so that they could be trained before being thrown into battle. Again, trained soldiers are clearly the norm. And the first callup all marched without commanders spending months training them, meaning they were already trained. Which is precisely what we see in actual battles. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: They would also not keep semi-professional warriors under arms they don't need. The lords have garrisons in their castles, and that's it. Rhaenyra and Daemon have but the garrison of Dragonstone as soldiers in 129 AC. And that was at a time when a potential war was in the air for years. So you are saying that pre-Wot5K Westeros is some idyllic land where there are no bandits, no minor flareups between uppity nobles, no warfare at all? On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: It seems to be much cheaper in Westeros. Else they wouldn't be as common as they are. And it is clear that the Freys have the money to throw such things on their men. OR the people wearing them can actually afford them, meaning they are actual soldiers and not just armed peasants. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: I never said that most such men would be given proper mail. That would be for men-at-arms in permanent employ of the lords. The men wearing Frey livery, for instance. And we know from Tywin's army roughly how big of a proportion each group is: 20 000 troops total 4 000 heavy cavalry on right wing (professionals) 2 500 heavy cavalry in reserve (professionals) 2 500 infantry in reserve (professionals) 7 000 (?) infantry in center (professionals) 4 000 (?) cavalry on left wing mounted archers (professionals) freeriders (mercenaries or conscripts) sellswords (professionals) fieldhalds (conscripts) sweepings of Lannisport (conscripts) So at very least, 16 000 - 17 000 out of 20 000 troops are actual soldiers. And peasants are deployed as a bait, because they are expected to break. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: You should reread it. It actually depicts how recruiting is done in this world. It also shows us with what troops a petty lord would go to war - namely, with his or her castle men-at-arms, the troops Lady Webber shows up with at the river. If a minor lord has still some landed knights, etc. sworn to him/her he might call in levies from such places, too. But the actual soldiers a lord has are the ones in his castle - and the host of a great lord is, for the most part, made up of the combination of such men. I'm just rereading it (just passages regarding recruitment, though) and I found nothing to suggest that that is standard. Eustace Osprey is clearly impoverished, and considered something of a joke. Lady Webber by comparison deploys no peasants. And as I pointed out before, I never denied that there are hastily armed peasants in Westerosi armies. Just that they are not standard. On 8/1/2023 at 4:59 AM, Lord Varys said: While that is true, it doesn't allow us to take real history and insert into the fantasy world. You can draw parallels, but if you want to know where the men might actually come from, in-universe, you have to look for clues in the text. And they are there. Westeros is distinctly not like the real middle ages in the sense that high culture takes place at the castle, not the town or city. The castle is where proper life happens, and the castle is where weapons are made, men trained at arms, and where the men who go or ride to war mostly come. Nothing of importance happens in the country. And while this is true especially for the great castles it is equally true for minor and modest castles - like Coldmoat from TSS. Also, we know that lords also draw random men their henchmen recruit into their armies. George's take on things there might be modern in the sense that Meribald is basically a guy who is drafted in Westeros' version of the Vietnam war. And I never denied that such stuff happens - but see above. Literally the only time we get anything close to exact composition of a Westerosi force, it is clear that majority of the army are well-trained and well-equipped soldiers. Untrained rabble are there, but are in a minority and nobody expects them to hold. Craving Peaches 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astarkchoice Posted August 5, 2023 Share Posted August 5, 2023 2 hours ago, Aldarion said: -Slaves are not a good source for skilled workforce... -PRECISELY. Heavy cavalry + crossbowmen + castles. -But that still does not change the fact that out of these three only castles were present in the first invasion, yet Mongols still got repelled. -Not "clearly". None of what you wrote has the relevance for warfare, unless Dothraki integrate whatever they learn outside into their culture. Which they clearly do not. -Maybe? During siege of Meereen we only see trebuchets being used to fling corpses, which is not a difficult thing to do. -Do they? Because again: I have found (and shown you) cases where lancers broke straight into infantry squares. And I have shown you that Byzantine cataphracts literally physically broke infantry spears. -i am suggesting that Dothraki mostly got on by their reputation and cities paying them off. Which is literally what Illyrio says when questioned: Free Cities don't need to fear the Dothraki, it is simply cheaper to buy them off with gifts. I don't think Dothraki have fought a real war against anyone except each other since the Century of Blood. -You might want to look into history, first. The Great Wall didn't even exist back then. Current Great Wall was finished in the 16th century. There were some walls back then, but no single continuous system of fortifications. And being located smack in the middle of the Jin territory, these walls served no defensive purpose at the time, and were essentially nonexistent after centuries of disrepair (original walls were built of rammed earth, so rains basically washed them away). Mongols didn't defeat the Great Wall of China because the Great Wall of China didn't exist at the time of the Mongol invasion of China. And it wasn't even the Mongols who really conquered the China, it was the Chinese. -And no, Arab fortifications - at least those Mongols faced - were not on par with those in Europe. When Mongols encountered European Crusader castles in Levant, they took one look and went "Nope! Forget this shit, I'm outta here!". -As I said, it doesn't bloody matter what their weapons were made of when they were acting like a bronze-age military at best, drunken rabble at worst. And yes, they are undisciplined light infantry rabble. Heavy infantry did chase the enemy... but only occasionaly, only when the enemy was the heavy infantry as well, and generally only when they did not have cavalry to pursue. In this case, however, none of this holds true. The enemy were mounted - light cavalry, moreover, so infantry were never going to catch them. Sarnori had cavalry and chariots, so there was no need for infantry to even try to pursue. -This suggests that either Sarnori were undisciplined as hell, or else had a custom of having infantry run alongside the chariots... something that makes sense only if it is light infantry. -OK, so entirety of Essos is basically Bronze Age society at best? - -Please, learn some history, because that statement is just wrong. I mean, think about it for a second: if castles didn't matter, nobody would be building them. Castles are expensive. -Also: even "smaller easily takeable forts" matter, especially when you are talking about nomads. Taking forts takes time and resources, and nomads tend not to do that well with siege technology or sieges in general. And they also don't have much manpower, so losses incurred in sieges tend to hurt them lot more than they would sedentary armies. Mongols suffered losses even taking hungarian committal castles, which were made of wood. -Robert was not afriad of the Dothraki, he was afraid of uprisings by the still-widespread Targaryen loyalists. Jorah is an idiot. -in the century of blood, they were too busy fighting each other to care about the Dothraki until it was too late. -Read the scene again. Dothraki lands several blows which just glance off Jorah's mail before one finally penetrates. Without armor, Jorah will have died there. -I never said pikes alone can stop cavalry. In fact, depending on the situation, sometimes even pikes are not enough, while other times even bills and halberds may suffice. But your idea that a bunch of hoplites can easily deal with heavy knightly cavalry is just wrong. -And yeah, pikemen are the closest you can get to "invincible" on a premodern battlefield. Generally speaking, dealing with a pike formation required either a) another pike formation or b) a combined army approach of missile troops and heavy cavalry. Of course, exceptions happened. -depends on the skills of the people enslaved and besides as grmm clearly has no interest in going into detail about siege engineering in this setting unnamed slaves can apaprently build trebuchets and trenches which is really all we need to know -yes a mix created by allowing the mid to lesser lords pay into the defence -and yet they also took fortified cities that make most of whst was in europe look like outhouses -just because they dont wear armour when they come back doesnt mean they didnt grasp the pros and cons of it -yeah changing people for stones and then aiming for weak points isnt any kind of hard change there -lancers can break into squares yes but at high cost or be repelled at high cost hence heavy cavalry is generaly used to attack gaps or formations not yet formed up or comming apart as they move around and inevitablely drift apart (unless extremely well diciplined) -and yet by your logic none of those cities had to fall during the centuty of blood they could have just hired selldwords and slaughtered them -so people intergated joined the mongol military , paid wages, allowed to rise the ranks ie they became part of the mongol armed forces....metiocracy was as much its strength as well as speed -ooh one of those who thinks western forts where vastly superior to arab and chinese ones ..incorrect omce again dude -highly diciplined roman legionares ran after both infantry and cavalry routed all the time. Light cavalry routed trying to escape getting in each others way , some probably dismouted anyway to get using their larger bows and if theres enviromental bottlenecks etc -no diciplined heavy infantry did and even diciplined infantry can follow bad orders and armour doesnt stop you running for a short bit (theres guys doing gymnastics in armour online) -no they ae clearly ahead of westeros -never said castles didnt matter im pointing out that nomads (hun and mongol).broke heavy fortifications -right but we've covered that apparently thr siege engineering expertiese is apprently easily available in essos and besides that most sieges ended with starvation, sneak attacks, betrayal from inside and the majory by negotiated settlement. Shit theon took a skeleton crew defended winterfell with rope and shock, the dothraki can.manage that plus we know they have multiple large wheelee carts with them which any.idiot can convert to a mobile battering ram etc -right but they wouldnt join him if the dothraki posed 0 threat . jorah is a veteran of decades of warfare in this books setting -theres o evidence the other cultures whos cities they destroyed were fighting among themselves plus by your theory they could have easily hired sellswords to make the easy defeated dothraki run away -yes its a fight ! hitting an opponents weak points just because you know how isnt as easy as just thinking it , the bloodrider we hear aims for his gauntlet then crunches through mail. So the only 2 places we hesr him aiming for are somw of the places youd aim for vs an armoured opp -but your idea that spearmen with sheilds cannot (not hoplites we covered this they use throwing spears= not hoplites) is incorrect in both the real world or this grmm created one. - but they can and did lose to other melee weapon armed infantry hence why real armies and the ones in westeros are mixed. The swiss and others came to have a short period of dominace due to their elite drilling something the unsullied have over their potential westerosi enemies + as we see they and the iron legions use missles. Besides tyrion sees the slave massed forces have 'long spears and crossbows' so they meet your invincible criteria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aldarion Posted August 6, 2023 Author Share Posted August 6, 2023 9 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -and yet they also took fortified cities that make most of whst was in europe look like outhouses By using Chinese infantry, Chinese engineers, Chinese commanders. Mongols' own siege doctrine was garbage. Throw Chinese armies at Europe and they will have far better success than Mongols did. But then that is China against Europe, and Mongols are famous for being apparently unbeatable horse nomads, not for what they should be famous for which is getting entire Chinese armies to work for them. 9 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -just because they dont wear armour when they come back doesnt mean they didnt grasp the pros and cons of it Uh, that is precisely what it means. Armor is a massive advantage, and even Plains Indians wore armor when going to battle. Crap armor, but armor nonetheless. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -yeah changing people for stones and then aiming for weak points isnt any kind of hard change there Uh, aiming for weak points is a difficult thing to do. It is in fact the only really difficult thing about operating a trebuchet. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -lancers can break into squares yes but at high cost or be repelled at high cost hence heavy cavalry is generaly used to attack gaps or formations not yet formed up or comming apart as they move around and inevitablely drift apart (unless extremely well diciplined) Yes, attacking pike squares is costly... in large part because pikes significantly outreach the lance. Things are different when infantry are using spears. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -and yet by your logic none of those cities had to fall during the centuty of blood they could have just hired selldwords and slaughtered them If they hired sellswords, they used them to fight each other. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -so people intergated joined the mongol military , paid wages, allowed to rise the ranks ie they became part of the mongol armed forces....metiocracy was as much its strength as well as speed Precisely. Yet Dothraki do absolutely nothing of that. 10 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -ooh one of those who thinks western forts where vastly superior to arab and chinese ones ..incorrect omce again dude Who said superior? That is just your lack of understanding of... well, anything. Difference was not that Western forts were superior to Chinese forts, difference was that they were so numerous that taking one or two didn't matter at all. Contrast this with Chinese fortifications, where fall of one major fortified city basically unraveled the entire system, because only border was fortified and nothing else (and again, that city was captured by Chinese working for the Mongols). Also, Mongols never fought Arabs. They fought Mamluks, and they lost all battles except for one. Learn history, my dude, because as it stands, things you say are more of a fantasy than ASoIaF. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -highly diciplined roman legionares ran after both infantry and cavalry routed all the time. Light cavalry routed trying to escape getting in each others way , some probably dismouted anyway to get using their larger bows and if theres enviromental bottlenecks etc 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -no diciplined heavy infantry did and even diciplined infantry can follow bad orders and armour doesnt stop you running for a short bit (theres guys doing gymnastics in armour online) Uh, they didn't. We don't have Roman manuals, but Byzantines specifically warned against pursuing the retreating enemy... pursuit was to be left to cavalry (light cavalry, specifically) while infantry remained in formation to provide a place of refuge should cavalry come in danger (if the retreat is feigned, or the enemy rallied, etc.). 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -no they ae clearly ahead of westeros In what, exactly? Because beyond cruelty, there is nothing that shows them to be ahead. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -never said castles didnt matter im pointing out that nomads (hun and mongol).broke heavy fortifications By employing the know-how of settled peoples, which Dothraki don't do. Huns took Roman cities... by recruiting Roman engineers. Mongols took Chinese cities... by recruiting Chinese engineers and infantry. Hmm... I think I am noticing a pattern here. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -right but we've covered that apparently thr siege engineering expertiese is apprently easily available in essos and besides that most sieges ended with starvation, sneak attacks, betrayal from inside and the majory by negotiated settlement. Shit theon took a skeleton crew defended winterfell with rope and shock, the dothraki can.manage that plus we know they have multiple large wheelee carts with them which any.idiot can convert to a mobile battering ram etc Theon took Winterfell because Winterfell was a) basically undefended and b) Theon had inside knowledge of the castle, having lived there his entire life. Issue isn't that siege knowledge is or is not available in Essos, issue is that Dothraki despise settled peoples and so I don't really see them recruiting said peoples, seeing how they destroy cities to return them to grassland instead of doing what actual nomads did and ruling said cities. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -right but they wouldnt join him if the dothraki posed 0 threat . jorah is a veteran of decades of warfare in this books setting They were to join up with the Golden Company as well, at least according to the plan that GC had received. Dothraki alone may not be a threat to fortified cities, Dothraki + Golden Company are another matter. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -theres o evidence the other cultures whos cities they destroyed were fighting among themselves plus by your theory they could have easily hired sellswords to make the easy defeated dothraki run away Sarnori did: Quote Contemptuous of the horselords, who had been no more than a nuisance to them for centuries, the Tall Men ignored the threat from the east for far too long, even as the khalasars began to raid across their eastern marches. Some of their kings even sought to use the Dothraki in their own wars, offering them gold and slaves and other gifts to fight against their rivals. Khal Mengo took these gifts gladly … then took the conquered lands as well, burning fields and farms and towns to return the grasslands to their wild state (for the Dothraki consider the earth to be their mother and think it sinful to cut her flesh with plows and spades and axes). Not until Mengo’s son Khal Moro brought his khalasar to the very gates of Sathar, the fabled Waterfall City, did the Tall Men seem to realize their peril. Broken in battle, the men of Sathar were put to the sword, their women and children carried off as slaves; three-quarters of them died on the grueling march south to slave marts at the Ghiscari hill city Hazdahn Mo. Sathar, loveliest of the cities of the grasslands, was burned to ash and rubble. It is written that it was Khal Moro himself who gave the ruins their new name: Yalli Qamayi, the place of Wailing Children. Even then, the kings of Sarnor proved unable to unite. As Sathar burned, the kings of Kasath to the west and Gornath to the north sent forth their armies, not to aid their neighbors but to lay claim to a share of the plunder. In their greed for land, Kasath and Gornath even came into conflict with one another and fought a pitched battle three days’ ride west of Sathar, as plumes of black smoke rose in the eastern sky. This is not the place to chronicle the events of the years and wars that followed, as the great cities of the Kingdoms of Sarnor fell piecemeal to the Dothraki. Only other civilizations that Dothraki destroyed were individual cities and the Qaathi kingdom, but with latter, we know that: Quote the great city of Qarth remained, protected by its towering triple wall. In short, fortifications matter. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -yes its a fight ! hitting an opponents weak points just because you know how isnt as easy as just thinking it , the bloodrider we hear aims for his gauntlet then crunches through mail. So the only 2 places we hesr him aiming for are somw of the places youd aim for vs an armoured opp Gauntlet is not a weak point, and that "cutting through mail" is basically a fluke. Read the description again: Quote Qotho danced backward, arakh whirling around his head in a shining blur, flickering out like lightning as the knight came on in a rush. Ser Jorah parried as best he could, but the slashes came so fast that it seemed to Dany that Qotho had four arakhs and as many arms. She heard the crunch of sword on mail, saw sparks fly as the long curved blade glanced off a gauntlet. Suddenly it was Mormont stumbling backward, and Qotho leaping to the attack. The left side of the knight’s face ran red with blood, and a cut to the hip opened a gash in his mail and left him limping. Qotho screamed taunts at him, calling him a craven, a milk man, a eunuch in an iron suit. “You die now!” he promised, arakh shivering through the red twilight. Inside Dany’s womb, her son kicked wildly. The curved blade slipped past the straight one and bit deep into the knight’s hip where the mail gaped open. So Qotho basically did as many cuts against Jorah's armor as he could, until one hit broke through the mail, and then he hit there again which is when arakh got lodged into Jorah's hip. There was no "hitting weak points" there, just one guy doing the best emulation of a blender until he got lucky. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: -but your idea that spearmen with sheilds cannot (not hoplites we covered this they use throwing spears= not hoplites) is incorrect in both the real world or this grmm created one. In the GRRM world, we see heavy cavalry penetrating pike formations. So while it is not impossible for spearmen to resist a cavalry charge, them doing so would require either a) field fortifications or b) massive luck. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: - but they can and did lose to other melee weapon armed infantry hence why real armies and the ones in westeros are mixed. They can, but it happens rarely. Frankly, pikemen lost to heavy cavalry more often than they did to other types of melee infantry. Greatest danger to pike blocks were pikemen mixed with other types of infantry, because said infantry could then use distraction provided by pikemen to get close. But axemen alone? Yeah, not much of a threat. At the very least, they would need archers to try and disorder the pike formation. 11 hours ago, astarkchoice said: The swiss and others came to have a short period of dominace due to their elite drilling something the unsullied have over their potential westerosi enemies + as we see they and the iron legions use missles. Besides tyrion sees the slave massed forces have 'long spears and crossbows' so they meet your invincible criteria "Long spear" is not a pike. And I never said pikemen are "invincible", so that is just you misunderstanding my arguments the way you misunderstand history. There are various ways of "dealing" with a pike formation... it is just that sending a hoplite phalanx (or even a Roman legion) in a head-on charge against one is not it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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