Dothraki Army - Hunnic Wannabes

[Aldarion]

So I have had discussions about Dothraki over at ASoIaF forum, and decided to write an article about Dothraki army. And then I kept writing. And kept writing, until I ended up with a four-part series.

Here be the Part 1 of series about our favorite lobotomized horse nomads:

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 1: Organization, Logistics, Strategy

Dothraki are the local Essosi nomads from A Song of Ice and Fire book and A Game of Thrones TV series. They are one of the most prominent groups in Essos, and are the local to-go horse nomads. Whil…

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Dothraki are the local Essosi nomads from A Song of Ice and Fire book and A Game of Thrones TV series. They are one of the most prominent groups in Essos, and are the local to-go horse nomads. While Martin claims that they are an “amalgman of a number of steppe and plains cultures”, discussions about their military capability mostly focus on two specific models: the Huns and the Mongols, and more often the latter.

But how good of nomadic army Dothraki really are? I will be addressing this question in four parts.

Historical Model​

In an interview (available on Youtube here), George Martin had stated that he has based Dothraki on “a number of influences from the horse tribes from the Eurasian steppes. Certainly there is a lot of Mongols in them, but they are not purely the Mongols, I added some sort of material about the Huns, there is some material there that I took from Amerindian tribes such as the Sioux and the Cheyenne, the horse tribes of the Great American Praeries. And there is a certain amount that is pure fantasy – you know, where you have a little fun, and you mix all this stuff together, you come up with a thing and then you add few fantasy twists on it… Because this is after all, a fantasy series.”.

This is repeated nearly word-for-word in So Spake Martin: “The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures… Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes… seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy. So any resemblance to Arabs or Turks is coincidental. Well, except to the extent that the Turks were also originally horsemen of the steppes, not unlike the Alans, Huns, and the rest.

There do exist many other cultures and civilizations in my world, to be sure. The peoples of Yi Ti have been mentioned, as have the Jogos Nhai. I am not sure to what extent those peoples will ever enter this present story, however… their lands are very far away.

(I also have peoples and tribes that are pure fantasy constructs, like the Qartheen and the brindled men of Sothoryos).

In general, though, while I do draw inspiration from history, I try to avoid direct one-for-one transplants, whether of individuals or of entire cultures. Just as it not correct to say that Robert was Henry VIII or Edward IV, it would not be correct to say that the Dothraki are Mongols.”

But as will become obvious later, Dothraki are absolutely nothing like the Eurasian nomads, especially the Mongols. Even the American Indians would likely feel insulted by comparison of their own tactics and military capabilites to those of Dothraki. There is not a “certain amount that is pure fantasy” – Dothraki are, in fact, nearly 100% pure fantasy, are are very different from (and inferior compared to) any and all of their “historical inspirations”.

User Craving Peaches from A Song of Ice and Fire forum has noted that Dothraki are possibly based on the Sea Peoples that had destroyed the Hittite Empire and had also attacked Egypt. They would rape, pillage and burn, never building anything, and were likely unarmored or only lightly armored. Sarnori themselves are a good parallel to Hittites as they utilized chariots and were also very prone to infighting.

But since claims about capabilities of the Dothraki are usually based on their alleged Mongol and, to a lesser extent, Hunnic inspiration, this is what I will be focusing on.

 

[Finchbearer]

It’s an interesting topic to investigate.

 

[Aldarion]

Part 2 of the series:

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 2: Tactics

Nomadic battle tactics generally favored deception, feigned retreats and ambushes. In combat, nomads such as Huns would form army into several units of irregular size with a separate force in reser…

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Nomadic battle tactics generally favored deception, feigned retreats and ambushes. In combat, nomads such as Huns would form army into several units of irregular size with a separate force in reserve, ready to spring an ambush.

Huns​

Hunnic tactics were based on their hunting tactics, which were based around mounted archery. They would attack the enemy by bombarding them with arrows while approaching, shoot from very close distance before stopping and then withdraw while still shooting. This tactic was very effective against generally not well protected barbarian infantry, especially since barbarians and Romans both lacked sufficient foot archers to deal with the Hunnic archers (unlike later Byzantine armies).

But the above does not mean that Huns did not train. In fact, Hunnic (and Mongol) tactics and warfare requred as much training to be effective as that of the professional sedentary armies they faced. The martial lifestyle came to them no more naturally than it did to the sedentary populations. Effective employment of horse archers required proper spacing between the horses to give room for maneuvering, and sufficient number of horses must have been had not only to provide mounts but also to replace any losses.

 

[Aldarion]

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 3: Weapons and Equipment

Aside from tactics and organization, superior technology was in fact crucial for successes of nomadic armies against their sedentary opponents. Scythians and later Mongols used lamellar armor at th…

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Aside from tactics and organization, superior technology was in fact crucial for successes of nomadic armies against their sedentary opponents. Scythians and later Mongols used lamellar armor at the time when their opponents used mail. It was the Mongols who introduced cannons to the Islamic world and may have introduced them to Europe as well.

Primary nomadic weapon was a composite bow, composed of at least three layers of different materials (compare to self bows which are from a single piece and laminated bows which have several layers of the same material). For most nomads, three materials used in composite bows were wood, horn and sinew. Wood formed the core and the grip of the bow, and was backed by sinew to add tensile strength. It was then fronted by horn whose springiness allowed bow to quickly return to its original shape. As a result, composite bow transfers energy to arrow far more efficiently than the self bow does. Composite bows are also often recurved, reflexed, or both. This allows more potential energy to be stored in the limbs at full draw without increasing draw length, since tension is preloaded on even undrawn strung bow. As a result, recurved / reflexed composite bow will be far more powerful than a D-shaped self bow of the same draw weight.

 

[Aldarion]

Final part of the series, detailing Dothraki combat performance:

Fantasy Army: Dothraki, Part 4: Combat Performance

Nomadic victories are often attributed to simplistic factors: superior numbers of combatants, incompetence of nomads’ enemies, or innate advantages of nomadic societies over sedentary counter…

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