Dothraki Army - Incompetent Huns

[astarkchoice]

Again for the dothrai to be sucessful theyd need to be either insanely talented as individuals.as well as coordinated like a bee swarm...like levels only a fantasy universe could.support AND or theyd need to be suicidaly commited to win, willing to die on big numbers to get a win!

With winter comming , battle ravaged food fields, a network of battle tested forts and castles as well as raven network take away their biggest advantage  in sheer speed to take suprise and shape battlefields.

That said they can be used to shape.danys biggest advantage., shel.have massive support.in essos, dragons and a rightful claim..the dothraki sweeping at high speed in will help bend minor lords sitting on the fence to join her! 

[astarkchoice]

On 12/21/2023 at 3:31 AM, Lord Varys said:

 

Also, of course, the Westerosi people have no experience at all fighting the Dothraki.

Not really true there seems to be a solid back and forth of poor lords/knights going to essos and westeros. Go east poor as a sellword  make money and come home! As we see with house kettleback for example its a way for a poor house to keep enough coin flowing to survive. Its hard to imagine none of those sellsword companies havent met dothraki if only small skirmishs of scouts from a khalassar vs a merchant convoy

 

 

Edit : also think wed covered before how to square away jon conningtons remarks about bows and jorahs.

Jorah says dothraki bows outrange westerosi ones

Jon says of his archers " a third used the double curve horn and sinew bows of the east .Better than these where the big yew longbows borne by the archers of westerosi blood"

Now there will be variation in recuve bows and longbows . The dothraki may simply produce one thats got excellent range compared to other recurve bows from eastern forces. 

It could also be a case of the fact longbows come in different drawweights and woods, yew is probably the very best wood for making them therefore jorah could mean dothraki outrange most westerosi bow BUT jons men have the heaviest/best  type made of yew which outrange the horslords  (as one would expect a well funded professional force to have the best of the best equipment)

Edited January 10 by astarkchoice

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 1/7/2024 at 7:46 AM, SeanF said:

Even under Genghis Khan, when they took vast numbers of captives, many as slaves, my impression is the Mongols weren’t looking to sell them.  They wanted wives, soldiers, artisans, and bureaucrats.

 

They definitely took those but they also used the larger portion of the captives as unskilled manual labor and for better or worse human shields / cannon fodder / zergs. 

The Mongols often used great numbers of enemy captives to cover their advances–ruthlessly forcing enemy forces to kill their own countrymen in order to engage the Mongols in hand-to-hand combat. The Mongols added to the confusion by continuing to fire arrows at the enemy behind their reluctant human shields. 

Ghenghis Khan and 13th Century Mongolians

 

On an unrelated note, it is really a fucking bummer that more library systems don't have access to military warfare history journals.

[SeanF]

24 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

They definitely took those but they also used the larger portion of the captives as unskilled manual labor and for better or worse human shields / cannon fodder / zergs. 

The Mongols often used great numbers of enemy captives to cover their advances–ruthlessly forcing enemy forces to kill their own countrymen in order to engage the Mongols in hand-to-hand combat. The Mongols added to the confusion by continuing to fire arrows at the enemy behind their reluctant human shields. 

Ghenghis Khan and 13th Century Mongolians

 

On an unrelated note, it is really a fucking bummer that more library systems don't have access to military warfare history journals.

“Living boards.”  A tactic adopted also, by the cultured intellectual, Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet, during the Peninsular War.

Edited January 12 by SeanF

[Universal Sword Donor]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

“Living boards.”  A tactic adopted also, by the cultured intellectual, Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet, during the Peninsular War.

That's a new name for me and I've read a fair amount about the Napoleonic wars, mostly centered on the man himself. Will have to scurry off and read up on this gentleman.

[SeanF]

58 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

That's a new name for me and I've read a fair amount about the Napoleonic wars, mostly centered on the man himself. Will have to scurry off and read up on this gentleman.

By the standards of 1810, when he did it, the action was a war crime (like much of what the French did, in Spain).

[SeanF]

Coming back to this, the more general point is, how often is war depicted realistically, either in fantasy fiction, or TV and film?

1. I mentioned above, armour seems to be useless, worn largely for decoration (see the Spartacus TV series).

2.  “Honour” is far more important than winning.  If you have a powerful fortified position, and the enemy approach, naturally you leave it to fight them in the open, or else let them through the gates,  in the interests of good sportsmanship (see King Arthur, 2004).

3.  When you’re defending a fortress, there’s a wide ramp leading up to the gates, which might as well have a sign saying “attack here.”  No one thinks to construct moats, arrow slits, murder holes, nor to prepare cauldrons of boiling water and oil to tip over the attackers (Helms Deep).

4.  Always use fire arrows, even in open battle in broad daylight (Gladiator).

5.  The best use for heavy cavalry is to charge stone fortifications (Return of the King).  The best use for light cavalry is to charge lines of heavy infantry or the undead (Game of Thrones).

6.  Logistics are for wimps.  Armies either carry vast wagonloads of food with them, or can march across an entire continent living on air.  100,000 men can be accommodated on an island the size of Man (Game of Thrones again).

7.  Disciplined armies appear to have no battle tactics other than the wild charge, followed by individual duels (Braveheart).

8.  Despite heavily outnumbering you, enemy mooks are often quite chivalrous, fighting you one at a time.  Also, they are quite incapable of aiming guns properly (too numerous to mention).

Edited January 19 by SeanF

[Aldarion]

6 hours ago, SeanF said:

3.  When you’re defending a fortress, there’s a wide ramp leading up to the gates, which might as well have a sign saying “attack here.”  No one thinks to construct moats, arrow slits, murder holes, nor to prepare cauldrons of boiling water and oil to tip over the attackers (Helms Deep).

 

Uh, that "wide ramp" is in fact a chokepoint. Notice how when elves get a breather, they manage to hit the Uruks on the ramp straight into the flank.

What there should have been is a bastion or a tower flanking the ramp so that attackers will get into enfilade just as they attack the gates.

Basically, take the fortress as-is:

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-69bb0563fe4b4102882377cc348f341c-lq

and just depress the gates some 5 - 15 meters backwards, so that you get situation similar to main gates of Minas Tirith:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a3/32/52/a3325257e0188f8311da2b7425bf0691.jpg

[SaffronLady]

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

which might as well have a sign saying “attack here.”

I think there is a fortress design philosophy that proposes you should have obvious points of attack for the enemy to make them predicatable.

[Aldarion]

On 1/10/2024 at 11:48 PM, astarkchoice said:

Not really true there seems to be a solid back and forth of poor lords/knights going to essos and westeros. Go east poor as a sellword  make money and come home! As we see with house kettleback for example its a way for a poor house to keep enough coin flowing to survive. Its hard to imagine none of those sellsword companies havent met dothraki if only small skirmishs of scouts from a khalassar vs a merchant convoy

 

 

Edit : also think wed covered before how to square away jon conningtons remarks about bows and jorahs.

Jorah says dothraki bows outrange westerosi ones

Jon says of his archers " a third used the double curve horn and sinew bows of the east .Better than these where the big yew longbows borne by the archers of westerosi blood"

Now there will be variation in recuve bows and longbows . The dothraki may simply produce one thats got excellent range compared to other recurve bows from eastern forces. 

It could also be a case of the fact longbows come in different drawweights and woods, yew is probably the very best wood for making them therefore jorah could mean dothraki outrange most westerosi bow BUT jons men have the heaviest/best  type made of yew which outrange the horslords  (as one would expect a well funded professional force to have the best of the best equipment)

It is possible. Mongol bows for example were distinctly superior to Hunnic bows of centuries prior, despite having similar origins.

Most likely however is that Jorah Mormont simply doesn't know what he is talking about. Jon Connington mentions how Westerosi knights have a disdain for archers. It seems likely that for both Jorah and Jon, their first close experience with bows in warfare was in Essos - any experience they had with bows in Westeros will have been limited to hunting bows, which are of low draw weight compared to war bows. But where Connington joined the Golden Company and thus actually saw the Westerosi archers in war, Mormont went to the Dothraki khalasar and never gained experience with actual Westerosi army.

Basically, Jorah Mormont is Westerosi Pierre Sprey.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Uh, that "wide ramp" is in fact a chokepoint. Notice how when elves get a breather, they manage to hit the Uruks on the ramp straight into the flank.

What there should have been is a bastion or a tower flanking the ramp so that attackers will get into enfilade just as they attack the gates.

Basically, take the fortress as-is:

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-69bb0563fe4b4102882377cc348f341c-lq

and just depress the gates some 5 - 15 meters backwards, so that you get situation similar to main gates of Minas Tirith:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a3/32/52/a3325257e0188f8311da2b7425bf0691.jpg

 

51 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

I think there is a fortress design philosophy that proposes you should have obvious points of attack for the enemy to make them predicatable.

But, there’s not a lot to protect the gate from the ram.  I think the ramp makes it easier for Uruk hai to attack.

Edited January 19 by SeanF

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

 

But, there’s not a lot to protect the gate from the ram.  I think the ramp makes it easier for Uruk hai to attack.

As opposed to open ground? No.

There should be towers or a walled extension next to the ramp so that you can hit attackers from the flank, but merely presence of the ramp means that troops attacking the gate are more vulnerable. Not only can they be hit from the Deeping Wall (as we see), but narrow ramp means that they are limited in what exactly they can bring to attack the gate.

There is no way Grond will have made it up the ramp, and even just that makes it better than not having the ramp.

Issue I do have is that apparently no effort had been made to protect the gate itself. Firstly, as I have noted, gates were generally protected by fortifications (towers, bastions) whose entire purpose was to turn the approach to the gates into a kill zone. Secondly, fortresses would have double gates at each wall. In some cases (e.g. many medieval castles, Diocletian's Palace) the area between the two gates will have been turned into an effective killzone, where attackers would be vulnerable to attacks from above or even all four sides. In other cases (e.g. Klis fortress), area between the gates will have been filled with earth. In both cases, Uruks will have been in a far worse position than they were in the movie.

[SeanF]

33 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

As opposed to open ground? No.

There should be towers or a walled extension next to the ramp so that you can hit attackers from the flank, but merely presence of the ramp means that troops attacking the gate are more vulnerable. Not only can they be hit from the Deeping Wall (as we see), but narrow ramp means that they are limited in what exactly they can bring to attack the gate.

There is no way Grond will have made it up the ramp, and even just that makes it better than not having the ramp.

Issue I do have is that apparently no effort had been made to protect the gate itself. Firstly, as I have noted, gates were generally protected by fortifications (towers, bastions) whose entire purpose was to turn the approach to the gates into a kill zone. Secondly, fortresses would have double gates at each wall. In some cases (e.g. many medieval castles, Diocletian's Palace) the area between the two gates will have been turned into an effective killzone, where attackers would be vulnerable to attacks from above or even all four sides. In other cases (e.g. Klis fortress), area between the gates will have been filled with earth. In both cases, Uruks will have been in a far worse position than they were in the movie.

Yes, I agree with that.  In a proper fortress, the Uruk hai would break through the first gate, only to find there was another, and they must run the gauntlet of fire, lime, boiling oil, water, and heated sand to get to it.

[astarkchoice]

21 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It is possible. Mongol bows for example were distinctly superior to Hunnic bows of centuries prior, despite having similar origins.

Most likely however is that Jorah Mormont simply doesn't know what he is talking about. Jon Connington mentions how Westerosi knights have a disdain for archers. It seems likely that for both Jorah and Jon, their first close experience with bows in warfare was in Essos - any experience they had with bows in Westeros will have been limited to hunting bows, which are of low draw weight compared to war bows. But where Connington joined the Golden Company and thus actually saw the Westerosi archers in war, Mormont went to the Dothraki khalasar and never gained experience with actual Westerosi army.

Basically, Jorah Mormont is Westerosi Pierre Sprey.

 

Yeah  for their age though  the hunnic bow was one of the most powerful around. 'The fall of the roman empire' by peter  heather is an iconic book on the subject and he details how many horse archer tribes  struggled agaisnt tribes that favoured heavy cavalry (many overlap with the famous chainmail wearingn catahract of perisan empire tribes ) so the question was why did the hun suceed where othere failed? The awnser seemed to be both the hun bow being larger and more powerful than many turkish tribes etc AND contemporary sources show the huns loosed at closer ranges! The result was enough to go through the chaim mail of the day andnallowed them to subdueb and brow beat variois tribes into an alliance with the hun of course being 1st among equals

Centuries later the mongols larger recurve bows and english longbow where the heavy hitters of their day (with the mongols having a healthy mix of bow types) 

As for westeros and the 2 contradictory accountd   jorah has fought with essosi mercs and most importantly the siege of pyke so hed be well aware of westerosi bows range.

I think its more that he means in  general whereas jon means he has bought the biggest yew (best wood for it) bows for his archers! There would be many many different types of longbow and it makes sense that the rich golden company would purchase only the finest!  Based on his description it seems the summer island bows and the best of westerosi bows are used by a smaller  elite of his archers..these are the longest ranged bows

the rest use the recurve bows (possibly able to do so mounted too it doesnt say)  and finaly the least skilled have crossbows and are there to help bulk up their missile troop numbers.

Edited January 20 by astarkchoice

[Angel Eyes]

On 1/19/2024 at 3:51 AM, SeanF said:

Coming back to this, the more general point is, how often is war depicted realistically, either in fantasy fiction, or TV and film?

1. I mentioned above, armour seems to be useless, worn largely for decoration (see the Spartacus TV series).

2.  “Honour” is far more important than winning.  If you have a powerful fortified position, and the enemy approach, naturally you leave it to fight them in the open, or else let them through the gates,  in the interests of good sportsmanship (see King Arthur, 2004).

3.  When you’re defending a fortress, there’s a wide ramp leading up to the gates, which might as well have a sign saying “attack here.”  No one thinks to construct moats, arrow slits, murder holes, nor to prepare cauldrons of boiling water and oil to tip over the attackers (Helms Deep).

4.  Always use fire arrows, even in open battle in broad daylight (Gladiator).

5.  The best use for heavy cavalry is to charge stone fortifications (Return of the King).  The best use for light cavalry is to charge lines of heavy infantry or the undead (Game of Thrones).

6.  Logistics are for wimps.  Armies either carry vast wagonloads of food with them, or can march across an entire continent living on air.  100,000 men can be accommodated on an island the size of Man (Game of Thrones again).

7.  Disciplined armies appear to have no battle tactics other than the wild charge, followed by individual duels (Braveheart).

8.  Despite heavily outnumbering you, enemy mooks are often quite chivalrous, fighting you one at a time.  Also, they are quite incapable of aiming guns properly (too numerous to mention).

4. It makes sense when you're trying to frighten or trap. e.g. The Magnificent Seven (2016) when several wagons are set on fire by Red Harvest, frightening horses and forcing some of the bad guys to turn round or just stop.

5. With that Return of the King reference, that was intentional on the writers' part to show how much the pressure has gotten to Denethor.

6. I wonder how Renly managed to accommodate that many at one time.

Edited January 20 by Angel Eyes

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

Yeah  for their age though  the hunnic bow was one of the most powerful around. 'The fall of the roman empire' by peter  heather is an iconic book on the subject and he details how many horse archer tribes  struggled agaisnt tribes that favoured heavy cavalry (many overlap with the famous chainmail wearingn catahract of perisan empire tribes ) so the question was why did the hun suceed where othere failed? The awnser seemed to be both the hun bow being larger and more powerful than many turkish tribes etc AND contemporary sources show the huns loosed at closer ranges! The result was enough to go through the chaim mail of the day andnallowed them to subdueb and brow beat variois tribes into an alliance with the hun of course being 1st among equals

Centuries later the mongols larger recurve bows and english longbow where the heavy hitters of their day (with the mongols having a healthy mix of bow types) 

It should be noted that both Huns and Mongols had heavy cavalry, though. Specifically cataphracts, same as used by Roman/Byzantine and Persian/Sassanid Empires. Mongols in particular had very good heavy cavalry.

Horse archers were crucial in their successes, but horse archers alone were not enough!

[astarkchoice]

15 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It should be noted that both Huns and Mongols had heavy cavalry, though. Specifically cataphracts, same as used by Roman/Byzantine and Persian/Sassanid Empires. Mongols in particular had very good heavy cavalry.

Horse archers were crucial in their successes, but horse archers alone were not enough!

Yeah the huns co-opted other tribes that where good in those areas into their army.

Confusingly both also had a mix of light and heavy horse archers with one exclusively shooting and the other carrying lances, spears, sabres etc and heavier armour to be able to not just harass but activly engage. Now our dothraki could possibly still do this BUT minus armour its gonna be very verrryyyy costly.

Not sure how these heavy archers carried both im assuming the spear was just over their back tied at an angle  OR something the equavilent of a squire/slave brought them their change of weapon OR  most likely they simply carried the lance/spear as normal with with bow and small arrow pouch on  their back, put the lance down and fire massed   arcs volleys before lifting the lance and charging to time with the last arrow volley! Not that any of that matters to much the the dothraki.

Generaly archers fired in arched volleys and even horse archers we know dismounted to produce a faster volume of arrow volleys this way ,they could ofcourse in theory fire while mounted but accuracy and reload speed suffers. We know they also closed the gap and fired more aimed shots  outside pike/spear range with the mongols and earlier huns both having  much heavier recurve bows for this as well as mixing in lancers/spearmen charges.

Now with all this in mind the dothraki lack of armour seems even dafter. They lack the armour to charge into infantry (even ones softened up by volleys) without heavy heavy casulties and even if they stay back and mix up arrow/bow types  they risk loads of friendly fire deaths !!! 

 

 

 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

Yeah the huns co-opted other tribes that where good in those areas into their army.

Confusingly both also had a mix of light and heavy horse archers with one exclusively shooting and the other carrying lances, spears, sabres etc and heavier armour to be able to not just harass but activly engage. Now our dothraki could possibly still do this BUT minus armour its gonna be very verrryyyy costly.

Not sure how these heavy archers carried both im assuming the spear was just over their back tied at an angle  OR something the equavilent of a squire/slave brought them their change of weapon OR  most likely they simply carried the lance/spear as normal with with bow and small arrow pouch on  their back, put the lance down and fire massed   arcs volleys before lifting the lance and charging to time with the last arrow volley! Not that any of that matters to much the the dothraki.

Generaly archers fired in arched volleys and even horse archers we know dismounted to produce a faster volume of arrow volleys this way ,they could ofcourse in theory fire while mounted but accuracy and reload speed suffers. We know they also closed the gap and fired more aimed shots  outside pike/spear range with the mongols and earlier huns both having  much heavier recurve bows for this as well as mixing in lancers/spearmen charges.

Now with all this in mind the dothraki lack of armour seems even dafter. They lack the armour to charge into infantry (even ones softened up by volleys) without heavy heavy casulties and even if they stay back and mix up arrow/bow types  they risk loads of friendly fire deaths !!! 

 

 

 

Eschewing armour only makes sense if mid 19th century firearms are in use.  At that point, armour has been made redundant (long before anyone invented modern body armour), and speed and mobility are more important.

[Hmmm]

On 1/19/2024 at 8:18 PM, Aldarion said:

As opposed to open ground? No.

There should be towers or a walled extension next to the ramp so that you can hit attackers from the flank, but merely presence of the ramp means that troops attacking the gate are more vulnerable. Not only can they be hit from the Deeping Wall (as we see), but narrow ramp means that they are limited in what exactly they can bring to attack the gate.

There is no way Grond will have made it up the ramp, and even just that makes it better than not having the ramp.

Issue I do have is that apparently no effort had been made to protect the gate itself. Firstly, as I have noted, gates were generally protected by fortifications (towers, bastions) whose entire purpose was to turn the approach to the gates into a kill zone. Secondly, fortresses would have double gates at each wall. In some cases (e.g. many medieval castles, Diocletian's Palace) the area between the two gates will have been turned into an effective killzone, where attackers would be vulnerable to attacks from above or even all four sides. In other cases (e.g. Klis fortress), area between the gates will have been filled with earth. In both cases, Uruks will have been in a far worse position than they were in the movie.

In the movie version, a simple drawbridge at the end of the ramp to the Hornburg should have made it massively more difficult to take the keep. The Uruk Hai might not have been able to begin their assault until after several weeks. 

I do not recall if Tolkien describes the defenses of Helm's Deep in detail in the books. But I do think it is a bit strange that Saruman's army could begin the assault less than a day after arriving outside the castle. 

Edited January 21 by Hmmm

[SeanF]

21 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

4. It makes sense when you're trying to frighten or trap. e.g. The Magnificent Seven (2016) when several wagons are set on fire by Red Harvest, frightening horses and forcing some of the bad guys to turn round or just stop.

5. With that Return of the King reference, that was intentional on the writers' part to show how much the pressure has gotten to Denethor.

6. I wonder how Renly managed to accommodate that many at one time.

Denethor’s character was butchered, being written as both a coward, and an idiot.