Question about armies

[Black Crow]

I believe so although the French armies aren't my main field of expertise, but the problem there is that they do what it says on the tin, ie; they will turn out with a respectable amount of proper arms and armour and at least a modicum of training to defend their town, but try to take them more than a day's march away from it and they'll suddenly remember they left the gas on or a tap running...

[ibby123]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before. The levies, foot soldiers etc in an army of Westeros consists of every able male of age, or some "soldiers" that follow knights like men-at-arms?

For example Robb gathered about 12,000 men from the North, is that all men from holdfasts etc.??

robb had a army of 20,000 men when he came south

[lyvyathan]

It's like wondering why France never conquered Italy, despite it being broken up into rival city-states for a long while, I think. Eventually people band together. The kings of the Reach had potential enemies ..

My history of the Napoleonic Wars is a bit fuzzy but didn't France under Napoleon conquer Italy?

[Rickon The Fierce]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before. The levies, foot soldiers etc in an army of Westeros consists of every able male of age, or some "soldiers" that follow knights like men-at-arms?

For example Robb gathered about 12,000 men from the North, is that all men from holdfasts etc.??

Like in medieval Europe, main force in army were armored knights, and it was counted like 1 knight is worth 100 footmen. Same in Westeros, army's strength is not decided solely with number but also with quality of army men. Martin never described composition of armies, but, since nobody is wielding pitchforks, they are men-at-arms equipped and led into battle by their feudal Lord.

Those are men Lord's under Rob's command could muster in such short time + the men they left to defend their own lands + probably even more left because they weren't familiar with Rob .

The North can muster over 40000 soldiers, considering other sources beside Lords of the land.

[ToFu.]

My history of the Napoleonic Wars is a bit fuzzy but didn't France under Napoleon conquer Italy?

you forget that the reason the French were successful was because they were the first to implement a system of general conscription, the levee en masse.

but again, wars in westeros don't involve rounding up every able bodied man yet, so the analogy stands.

[ibby123]

GRRM doesn't think much of the Stormlands' military potential? Where has he said that? (I don't doubt your word, Ran, I'm just curious as to where he mentioned it.)

And 20-25k men... That would mean that Renly raised all/very nearly all of the Stormlands' available figthing men in his bid for the throne, leaving his lands virtually undefended against other threats. Would he really do that? I mean, I know he was overconfident and took Dorne's allegiance for granted, but still...

The storm lands and the north have the around the same population,The martells have the least populated land in westoros but still can raise a army of 50k so if thats true the north and the stormlands can easily raise a bigger host

[Black Crow]

Like in medieval Europe, main force in army were armored knights, and it was counted like 1 knight is worth 100 footmen. Same in Westeros, army's strength is not decided solely with number but also with quality of army men. Martin never described composition of armies, but, since nobody is wielding pitchforks, they are men-at-arms equipped and led into battle by their feudal Lord.

Actually he tells us quite a lot about the northmen - relatively few cavalry, though its unclear how many are men at arms and how many light cavalry, with most of the infantry being pikemen backed up with archers. As I've said before it sounds like a pretty typical Scots mediaeval army - and no, there aint any pitchforks.

[Ser Lepus]

The reason Italy wasn´t conquered is that the popes and the other italian princes always played France, Spain/Aragon, Austria and the Holy Empire against each other; and everyone of those powers still managed to grab big chunks of it and keep them for centuries, until they got weaker and another player took it from them in turn.

Why do you think France, Spain and Austria remain catholic while England, Denmark, Scandinavia, ...etc. are protestant and Germany is divided? Because when the pope said or did something the king of France, Austria or Spain or the Emperor disliked, then the Papal States got invaded, Roma got burned or the pope imprisioned, so he wouldn´t dare to bother them too much, but the kings of northem Europe, far from Italy, couldn´t do a thing, and had to swallow (if, for example the king of Spain had asked the pope to divorce him, instead of Richard VIII of England, the pope would ad done so out of fear of retribution). Eventually the northem kings got sick of such a bad deal and broke from Rome.

As for the medieval method of recruitment, the lord usually granted a knight a plot of land, and, in exchange, the latter one promised to train and keep his armor, weapons and some horses ready and to train another couple horsemen, a couple archers, a couple crossbowmen and a couple halberdiers, spearmen or pikemen, and to lead them to battle for a number of days per year when asked. In theory, the knight was supposed to train his men in advance, but, since their land wasn´t enough to pay so many profesional men-at-arms, the knight often trained only his squire and a couple more men and, when called to war, he just grabbed the fittest of his peasants, armed when and gave them a improvised crack training (the law said he had to raise a number of archers, spearmen and the like, but nobody tested them to see if they were competent). Then the knight took them to the battlefield, put them in the place were their weapons were suposed to be, and went to fight to the side of his equals while the poor scared serfs were trying to figure what to do. Of course things changed over time, and mercenary corps like the swiss pikemen or the genoese crossbowmen and even profesional armies like the french gendarmerie growed in importance over time, and drafted peasants were less and less used.

So you see, there were no official peasant levies, but they were often recruited anyway.

Mmmm...I´ve read some later posts, and I think some of you guys know about the subject more than me (at least about the medieval armies of countries other than my own); I hope my post doesn´t look too pretentious. :blushing: :frown5:

[mor2]

How accurate are those depictions of asoiaf bannermens, in terms of armament according to the novel?

soiaf_bannermen_sketches_i_by_tribemun-d47p865.jpg

soiaf_bannermen_sketches_ii_by_tribemun-d47p8ff.jpg

[Ran]

Where are those from? Not too bad. The Lannister is a bit fanciful (in a way that George is not fanciful), don't care for ironman, but the Tully and Stark men would probably pass wthout a blink in Westeros.

[mor2]

those sketches are by tribeman.

[Grip]

The Tully one is the best imo, I like the combination of leather and steel.

[Black Crow]

The general character isn't bad but the shields are a problem, especially for the Stark bannerman. With that halberd thingey he's obviously intended to be an infantryman, but the long "heater" shield is classic Norman cavalry style shaped the way it is to protect the shoulder/upper body from other horsemen, but tapering downwards to a long point to protect the leg from men on foot. The shields as carried by the Tully and Lannister bannermen are derived from it but much shorter since they're wearing proper leg armour and can also fight on foot without tripping over that long point.

On the whole the men are fine, though I might be inclined to give the Stark bannerman a long spear instead insteal of the halberd and a much shorter mail shirt, but either way he would look a lot more convincing with a round shield - and probably quite a small one at that if he's expecting to handle a long shafted weapon. On the other hand those furry legging things could be replaced by boots and the halberd by a lance and you'd get a passable cavalryman - albeit very old-fashioned by comparison with the Tully and Lanister guy.

There was a comment by the way about the new knightly brotherhood attached to the Seven carrying old-fashioned shields of a style harking back to the conquest; this sounds very much like them carrying Norman style shields (per the "Stark bannerman") as carried in 1066 and all that in contrast to the smaller ones carried in the 14th century per "Tully" and "Lanister"

[Black Crow]

Duplicate

[AllenY]

That would mean that Renly raised all/very nearly all of the Stormlands' available figthing men in his bid for the throne, leaving his lands virtually undefended against other threats. Would he really do that? I mean, I know he was overconfident and took Dorne's allegiance for granted, but still...

In the book,it describes Renly as cheerful, and that he was a very colorful, almost childish person. I would say that he did a rather major misjudgement, but not out of character.

[Ser Lepus]

GRRM doesn't think much of the Stormlands' military potential? Where has he said that? (I don't doubt your word, Ran, I'm just curious as to where he mentioned it.) And 20-25k men... That would mean that Renly raised all/very nearly all of the Stormlands' available figthing men in his bid for the throne, leaving his lands virtually undefended against other threats. Would he really do that? I mean, I know he was overconfident and took Dorne's allegiance for granted, but still...

In the book,it describes Renly as cheerful, and that he was a very colorful, almost childish person. I would say that he did a rather major misjudgement, but not out of character.

Maybe Renly would do it, but his bannermen not so much...look what Lord Swann did: He sent each of his sons to a different side; there may be many lords that, without being reaching that level of cynicism, would still be very cautious and keep a good number of swords in their own keeps just in case the war goes badly.

[Black Crow]

Without getting too technical about this, because I've discussed the Scots and other relevant armies above, there is a fairly wide difference between the offensive and defensive strength of a given area.

Basically when a bannerman goes off to war in foreign parts he'll balance up how many men he'd like to take against how many he can afford to take, ie how many he can equip properly and feed, and if they're levies how many he can afford to take away from the land, who can be spared and who can't.

If on the other hand somebody nasty comes knocking on his door its all hands to the pumps.

[Black Crow]

Another, often overlooked factor, when dealing with feudal or semi-feudal armies, is the harvest. A summons to turn out for service after the harvest is safely in will always produce far more soldiers than one earlier in the year - which is precisely why as late as World War 2 mobilisation of reservists didn't begin until late summer and why those wars began in August and September respectively.

[mor2]

I believe that one of THE most overlooked factors is that it's still fantasy. most of the inaccuracies in "historical" entries you can dismiss with lack of proper documentation, different perception etc, but I was updating the battle of castle black entry and PLEASE !!!

less than 40 "men"(half of them are green boys, old men and stewards), manged to fool 200 raiders, hard men who scaled just scaled a 500+ ft wall, lead by competent commander and they all falling into the same trap like idiots... it's tower defense not real life and then those same boys managed to hold thousands of wildlings for several days with those toys... :rolleyes:

EDIT:

also shooting arrows from a 700ft wall?! 700ft is more than a normal effective range for longbow and they are green boys, also even if they shoot straight down, 700ft ~ a 70 story building, which means wind and even if no with 40 "men" -minus those who cant fight minus about 10 dead in the first attack and only half as that "replacements" from town, plus exhaustion/sleep(from shooting few days straight), 3 stewards, getting supplies up, etc etc they dont have enough men to create an effective volley, they also use siege weapons to hit anything close and cant use stones or oil to hit anything the not close.

mance can start a camp 20meters from the wall and play some music while he watch the gate burning. plus I have more chance to get electrocuted by pissing on electric rail than they have to light that tar and oil they are puring day and night form their hidden tanker).

[Black Crow]

EDIT:

also shooting arrows from a 700ft wall?! 700ft is more than a normal effective range for longbow

Nonsense - 700 feet is 233 yards or thereabouts, lets say 250 yards. I can cheerfully shoot a 60lb longbow at large targets at that range and beyond - and that's despite the fact I don't do anything like as much practicing as I should do. :cool4: