Ask me about Warfare

[Gray-Hand]

It seems like cultural warriors are a thing in a decentralised society where the warriors need to be spread out throughout local areas to provide protection and maintain order. A certain amount of the resources of each local area are used to maintain the local warrior caste.

Professional soldiers start appearing when authority centralises and more wealth gets redirected to the central government which allows it to raise and maintain a professional army. The cultural warriors gradually become less relevant as the local resources that used to support them get redirected to the centre.

 

[Aldarion]

It seems like cultural warriors are a thing in a decentralised society where the warriors need to be spread out throughout local areas to provide protection and maintain order. A certain amount of the resources of each local area are used to maintain the local warrior caste.

Professional soldiers start appearing when authority centralises and more wealth gets redirected to the central government which allows it to raise and maintain a professional army. The cultural warriors gradually become less relevant as the local resources that used to support them get redirected to the centre.

Good for a start, but too much of a generalization, I think.

It would be good to consider a) effectiveness of state administration and b) cultural norms and values. Basically, a normally peaceful society generally needs to have professional soldiers to have an effective army. Society that is constantly in conflict (e.g. nomads) can just pick people up from their day jobs and march them off to war - though even there a professional army will be better.

Likewise, is political centralization cause or effect of the military centralization? Consider following examples:

1. In Western Roman Empire, you had said feedback loop. As barbarians invaded and raided, damage weakened the central government while also creating the incentive for local protection - cities and rich individuals raising personal militias. So magnates and cities raised their own armies, but this took money to support, meaning that central government's resources were even more limited. Which then weakened central government further, creating even greater incentive towards the local autonomy. So you have political and military decentralization feeding each other.
2. In medieval Hungary, king actively created a class of magnates that could raise the heavy cavalry necessary to counter the Mongols after the disaster that was the 1241 Mongol invasion. This active military decentralization then caused political decentralization.
3. In post-7th century Byzantine Empire, you had precisely the situation you describe for "cultural warriors": soldiers were spread through the provinces to provide protection and maintain order. Yet because the Empire had maintained tradition of the strong central government, this military decentralization did not cause decentralization of the society. Governors of the themes were military commanders, appointed and dismissed by the central government, and armies were entirely professional - despite soldiers being paid with land.

So Byzantine Empire at least breaks with your pattern, and you also have pomestie system in Russia, and Timar system in the Ottoman Empire. All three systems used local resources to maintain professional armies.

 

[Mad Swede]

It was indeed about economics, at least in part. Also needed is a solid infrastructure, for soldiers need to be housed, fed, and outfitted on some sort of reliable basis. Many will have families, so the pay has to be sufficient and regular. All of that presupposes a government with sufficient stability, organization, and income to pull it off. It also presupposes the government and people both see the need for such a national expense.

I agree there were precursors as early as the 15thc, I tend to place the shift more in the 16thc when a hundred years of religious warfare caused many governments to see the need for more than just mercenaries. But I would also argue you don't really see standing armies until the 18thc, when a whole range of social and economic changes ranging from the maintenance of colonies to the identification of national prestige with national wealth (and much else) produced a constant and permanent need. We move from some nations having standing armies to no nation being without one.


Epochal change happens like that. It takes epochs to transpire.

One interesting example of this is Sweden, where Gustav II Adolf and his Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna first organised the administration of Sweden and then used that as a basis for his foreign policy. One of the most important reforms in all this was the separation of military and civil administration and organisation. The legal system and courts were overhauled and re-organised. The tax system was also simplified and a proper set of national accounts (the so-called rikshuvudbok) was collated showing all the state incomes and expenditures. Together with a proper census these all laid the basis for the very first standing Swedish Army (1634), with organised regiments, recruitment, training and (what we now call) logistics.

 

[Gray-Hand]

Good for a start, but too much of a generalization, I think.

It would be good to consider a) effectiveness of state administration and b) cultural norms and values. Basically, a normally peaceful society generally needs to have professional soldiers to have an effective army. Society that is constantly in conflict (e.g. nomads) can just pick people up from their day jobs and march them off to war - though even there a professional army will be better.

Likewise, is political centralization cause or effect of the military centralization? Consider following examples:

1. In Western Roman Empire, you had said feedback loop. As barbarians invaded and raided, damage weakened the central government while also creating the incentive for local protection - cities and rich individuals raising personal militias. So magnates and cities raised their own armies, but this took money to support, meaning that central government's resources were even more limited. Which then weakened central government further, creating even greater incentive towards the local autonomy. So you have political and military decentralization feeding each other.
2. In medieval Hungary, king actively created a class of magnates that could raise the heavy cavalry necessary to counter the Mongols after the disaster that was the 1241 Mongol invasion. This active military decentralization then caused political decentralization.
3. In post-7th century Byzantine Empire, you had precisely the situation you describe for "cultural warriors": soldiers were spread through the provinces to provide protection and maintain order. Yet because the Empire had maintained tradition of the strong central government, this military decentralization did not cause decentralization of the society. Governors of the themes were military commanders, appointed and dismissed by the central government, and armies were entirely professional - despite soldiers being paid with land.

So Byzantine Empire at least breaks with your pattern, and you also have pomestie system in Russia, and Timar system in the Ottoman Empire. All three systems used local resources to maintain professional armies.

I don’t think that the situation in the Byzantine Empire really breaks the pattern. The Byzantine Empire was the cultural inheritor of the Roman Empire which had converted to a professional military culture 700 years earlier following the Marian reforms. They still had a strong central government in the mid 7th century, so there is no reason why it would revert to a cultural warrior military system.

And in any case - those ‘provinces’ were basically countries. The authority within those provinces was centralised around the Governor who had the means to maintain professional armed forces. It’s not like every village was relying on the local knight for protection.

 

[Aldarion]

I don’t think that the situation in the Byzantine Empire really breaks the pattern. The Byzantine Empire was the cultural inheritor of the Roman Empire which had converted to a professional military culture 700 years earlier following the Marian reforms. They still had a strong central government in the mid 7th century, so there is no reason why it would revert to a cultural warrior military system.

And in any case - those ‘provinces’ were basically countries. The authority within those provinces was centralised around the Governor who had the means to maintain professional armed forces. It’s not like every village was relying on the local knight for protection.

Well, you should have worded it better then because the description you provided was pretty much what was going on in the Byzantine Empire. Literally the only difference between Byzantine theme system and Western European feudalism was that in Byzantine Empire there was no dissolution of the central authority.

Also, as I said - there is a difference between professional soldiers and professional army. I still consider knights to be de-facto professional soldiers.

 

[Gray-Hand]

Well, you should have worded it better then because the description you provided was pretty much what was going on in the Byzantine Empire. Literally the only difference between Byzantine theme system and Western European feudalism was that in Byzantine Empire there was no dissolution of the central authority.

Also, as I said - there is a difference between professional soldiers and professional army. I still consider knights to be de-facto professional soldiers.

Yeah, I thinking on the nation rather than empire scale when I wrote what you responded to.

I agree with you about knights being professional warriors, but I think that’s probably true of pretty much any type of ‘cultural warrior’ I can think of off the top of my head. If it were a Venn diagram, the cultural warrior circle would be inside the professional warrior circle.

 

[Finchbearer]

Knights were a fickle invention though…not all knights were interested in protecting communities or of being gallant or even proficient ‘warriors’. A lot of them were just culturally expected to enter into knighthood for personal gain or loyalty to the Lords. Some were just sons of noblemen who probably felt obligated to go down that route.

 

[Aldarion]

Knights were a fickle invention though…not all knights were interested in protecting communities or of being gallant or even proficient ‘warriors’. A lot of them were just culturally expected to enter into knighthood for personal gain or loyalty to the Lords. Some were just sons of noblemen who probably felt obligated to go down that route.

That however depends on the period. Original definition of knight is fundamentally "heavily armored horseman". Hence why "cavalry" comes from "cavalier". Many knights weren't even landed but rather paid with money... professional soldiers in all senses of the term.

It was only later that knights become an official social stratum in their own, and from that point on you also get differentiation of "knight" from "mounted man-at-arms", with latter being basically what knight used to be before.

 

[Malik]

That however depends on the period. Original definition of knight is fundamentally "heavily armored horseman". Hence why "cavalry" comes from "cavalier". Many knights weren't even landed but rather paid with money... professional soldiers in all senses of the term.

It was only later that knights become an official social stratum in their own, and from that point on you also get differentiation of "knight" from "mounted man-at-arms", with latter being basically what knight used to be before.

The way I built this in my fantasy world, knights are mounted cavalry, expensive and rare. They're mostly lower nobility, primarily because of the expense involved in training and outfitting. They buy their own gear, horses, etc., as their duty to the king. They don't draw a salary. The orders are specialized: there's an order or knights for mapping, one for finding lost travelers, one for training knights in distant castles (who are actually spies visiting their contacts), one for airborne operations via pegasus, and of course orders of heavy cavalry, rich guys with huge weapons who grunt a lot and always look kinda sleepy.

There's a way for those who have shown promise and skill in battle to join an order of knighthood; they become "riders" for the Order, basically sergeants who command soldiers for the knights, relay information on the field, and serve as the knights' seconds. Riders draw a salary--they're not wealthy--and they rise in social standing with knighthood, which involves a grant of land or a well-paid military position at court or perhaps on staff at a castle or fortress.

Their dragoons, who ride to battle but fight on foot (much cheaper and faster than heavy cavalry), are salaried professional soldiers. Rather than being a toothless rabble, they're revered members of the artisan class and often come from generations of soldiers. This way, too, most soldiers have grown up in the trade. I don't do mooks. The lords can call up a levy if they really need one, but it's a once-in-a-generation occurrence, and most of the levied troops are support, primarily because they'd get their asses kicked.

Since there aren't a lot of knights, they're used as shock troops, flankers, and to break formations. The running joke is that knights' horses kill more people on the field than they do.

(I also did a whole thing where the merchant class is below the artisan class. Selling things you didn't make isn't nearly as respected as making the things that people sell. A merchant might make more money than an artisan, but it's considered a lower-class profession and looked-at side-eyed. My world, my rules. It's also fun because you'll have a merchant train with unfathomable wealth being guarded by salaried troops, but the merchants bow to the soldiers and treat them very kindly.)

Knights and riders greet each other as "Rider" as a term of respect, the same way soldiers in the U.S. Army who have Ranger tabs address each other as "Ranger." This also goes back to the "cavalier"/"cavalry" etymology, and I hint that their words for "rider" and "knight" share a common root.

 

[Crooked Bird]

7:

An army incapable of fear... gods If i had an army that stands without fear the things I could conquer ...

SO hehe... Fear my friend is the thing commanders dread most in their men. When push comes to shove, are my men going to hold their ground or run? Even the most veteran soldiers will brake if pushed too far. Napoleon's Old Guard in the battle of Waterloo, his elite men who had campaigned with him virtually everywhere were being shot to pieces, they hit the marker that every man has and broke.

Now presuming that both armies are the same (never happens but for the SAKE of argument) and the only difference is one with fear and one without.. I would generally place my bets on the one without. Of course things do happen in battle that turn the tide, but an army that has no fear cant have fear put into them, thus they will fight until they are too exhausted or are told to retreat. Self preservation is taken out of the equation for one army.

Now.. before everyone shouts... Fear makes you do amazing things. TRUE... fighting for your life can make men do incredible things in the face of adversity. The fear that if you fail your friends, your family could die will make a man worth ten, and allow him to carve a bloody path.

Fear of embarrassment kept men in line of battle in the American Civil War, where most of those by your side were people you knew growing up, sons, fathers, brothers and neighbors. Men would stay in the line for fear that they could never return home in shame if they ran.

The reason I stick to the army without fear is, if they are not mindless drones and can still think, they can still fight. Fear does some amazing beneficial things but it also makes men weak. Historically, if a SINGLE man ran it could cause an increased 45% chance of others running who see him run (This added onto what they already feel inside). They get in their head... he might be right, I'm not going to die for this.

The army without fear is more consistent in at least they are not getting this same penalty.
Now, the scenario I would switch my bet onto the army with fear side would be in that back against the wall scenario. You run you die regardless, so you better fight and take as many of these guys with you as possible. This scenario while, rooting out fear still has self preservation. That natural human instinct to kill your attacker is paramount to survival. Men would fear death, and with no option to run, no escape, back to the wall they would fight for their lives or know 100% that they will die if they don't. Even if its a 1% chance of survival, by hacking your way through enemy lines and getting to safety on the other side.

It's a simple question, but it has a lot behind it.

Hope some of this helped Shadowfirelance

-Cold

Oooh this is so good. Thank you for this! I have one of these (army w/o fear), and I will be coming back to ask you about it most likely. What you've said here is kind of what I'd thought, but I'm no expert so it's good to hear it from you.

But today I have a different question. I'm doing a magical early 17th century. I have a siege of a fortified city, fortified with bastions, revelins, earthworks etc. Military technology is pretty much the normal 17th century stuff; most magic in this world is psychological, rare, and not all that strong compared to most fantasy. BUT the fantasy-Russian empire has risen up in the last few years and conquered most of fantasy-Europe because they've gotten their hands on some of the older, stronger magic: first how to make an army w/o fear (though a small one due to the labor-intensiveness of the magic)... and now they have a dragon.

My question is this: supposing this is the foremost, strategically designed, well-built fortress city in all fantasy-Europe, and factoring in 1 or 2 thousand elite literally-fearless troops on the invaders' side and the dragon's particular limitations, how much of a foregone conclusion is this siege? How long can the defenders hold out--is it over, or can they make it for a month or two depending?

Dragon's limitations: can't endure sunlight, must shelter in a cave large enough to contain it by day, can't fly any faster than the fastest real bird. (I did the math but I don't remember it so I'll just give the practical results. Basically it can do there-and-back bombing runs & return to base with somewhat less than the range of a WWII bomber. It has one single base in western fantasy-Europe and another one or two in the east.) It needs a long process to build up enough flame for a really good attack (which is 3-4 really devastating gouts of flame, each of them enough to instantly take a house or 2 from intact to engulfed in flames), so it can do one roughly once a week. Also they only have it attack on moonless nights b/c they're trying to conceal from their own people, due to fantasy-Russian cultural factors, that this is a dragon and not a flying machine as the propaganda states.

Oh, and one other important thing: the fortress city, Palade, is built on a riverbend. The ditch around the outworks can be flooded with the opening of a sluice gate, the city has continual access to water, and they have a pretty decent fire squad for the time and a smart commander who starts beefing that up the day after the first fire attack is reported from the border, maybe 2-3 weeks before the siege begins. Just trying to even the odds. I'm hoping they can hold out for a month or 2, it would really help my plot.

Thank you!!

 

[Mad Swede]

Oooh this is so good. Thank you for this! I have one of these (army w/o fear), and I will be coming back to ask you about it most likely. What you've said here is kind of what I'd thought, but I'm no expert so it's good to hear it from you.

But today I have a different question. I'm doing a magical early 17th century. I have a siege of a fortified city, fortified with bastions, revelins, earthworks etc. Military technology is pretty much the normal 17th century stuff; most magic in this world is psychological, rare, and not all that strong compared to most fantasy. BUT the fantasy-Russian empire has risen up in the last few years and conquered most of fantasy-Europe because they've gotten their hands on some of the older, stronger magic: first how to make an army w/o fear (though a small one due to the labor-intensiveness of the magic)... and now they have a dragon.

My question is this: supposing this is the foremost, strategically designed, well-built fortress city in all fantasy-Europe, and factoring in 1 or 2 thousand elite literally-fearless troops on the invaders' side and the dragon's particular limitations, how much of a foregone conclusion is this siege? How long can the defenders hold out--is it over, or can they make it for a month or two depending?

Dragon's limitations: can't endure sunlight, must shelter in a cave large enough to contain it by day, can't fly any faster than the fastest real bird. (I did the math but I don't remember it so I'll just give the practical results. Basically it can do there-and-back bombing runs & return to base with somewhat less than the range of a WWII bomber. It has one single base in western fantasy-Europe and another one or two in the east.) It needs a long process to build up enough flame for a really good attack (which is 3-4 really devastating gouts of flame, each of them enough to instantly take a house or 2 from intact to engulfed in flames), so it can do one roughly once a week. Also they only have it attack on moonless nights b/c they're trying to conceal from their own people, due to fantasy-Russian cultural factors, that this is a dragon and not a flying machine as the propaganda states.

Oh, and one other important thing: the fortress city, Palade, is built on a riverbend. The ditch around the outworks can be flooded with the opening of a sluice gate, the city has continual access to water, and they have a pretty decent fire squad for the time and a smart commander who starts beefing that up the day after the first fire attack is reported from the border, maybe 2-3 weeks before the siege begins. Just trying to even the odds. I'm hoping they can hold out for a month or 2, it would really help my plot.

Thank you!!

You haven't really given me enough information to answer your question. However, in the period you're talking about a besieging force of 2000 men wouldn't be enough to take a city like that. Not even with a weekly attack by a dragon. As an example, the Duke of Wellington famously failed to take Burgos during the Peninsular War, despite the fact that Burgos was defended by only 2000 men and the Duke had an army of 35000 men with him for the siege.

 

[Crooked Bird]

You haven't really given me enough information to answer your question. However, in the period you're talking about a besieging force of 2000 men wouldn't be enough to take a city like that.

Sorry to have been imprecise! They have way more than 2000 men; I only meant that no more than 2000 of them are the elite force that has no fear. I haven't run exact numbers yet (this is actually more of a character-driven story, so the siege is not my starting point for building the plot but I still want it to be accurate, and I'm worried about whether I might have to scrap the siege entirely if the dragon is too powerful) but I do know besieging forces have to be comparatively huge, and the invaders have plenty of men, so please picture a fairly typical ratio of defenders to besiegers... if that doesn't work for you, I'll run those numbers and get back to you. But I was mostly wondering just how badly the threat of firebombing would tip the scales; it's not an easy question to get an answer for from Google.

Thank you!

 

[Prince of Spires]

I would think that the main issues would be food and amunition. If we're thinking the best defensively designed fortress city, then it's something like a star-fortress, which can hold out against most things indefinitely, unless you really know what you're doing (which usually involves burrowing underneath the walls and collapsing them). That is, given enough food and amunition.

Since you're on a river, you could have daring river-runs to re-supply the city frequently. Or you could have the enemy forces on only one bank of the river, which also give you a resupply option. The dragon bombing doesn't affect all that much, unless you can time it perfectly to match with a charge at the walls (which is hard in the dark). If the morale in the city is high enough, people will endure. And there would already be plenty of hiding places, since the thing would be designed to withstand enemy bombardments. There's a reason the germans went around the Maginot Line in the second world war.

 

[Mad Swede]

Sorry to have been imprecise! They have way more than 2000 men; I only meant that no more than 2000 of them are the elite force that has no fear. I haven't run exact numbers yet (this is actually more of a character-driven story, so the siege is not my starting point for building the plot but I still want it to be accurate, and I'm worried about whether I might have to scrap the siege entirely if the dragon is too powerful) but I do know besieging forces have to be comparatively huge, and the invaders have plenty of men, so please picture a fairly typical ratio of defenders to besiegers... if that doesn't work for you, I'll run those numbers and get back to you. But I was mostly wondering just how badly the threat of firebombing would tip the scales; it's not an easy question to get an answer for from Google.

Thank you!

You need to think through how the town itself is fortified. Somewhere like Pamplona in Spain is a good example, but an even better example is Fort Bourtange in the Netherlands. In fact the latter is probably the sort of thing you have in mind.

A fortified town like that is very difficult to take in the period you are talking about, a siege will take months and a dragon won't help you very much as there isn't very much it can set alight. To take a city like that the attackers would need to outnumber the defenders by at least 20 to 1, especially if the defenders have reasonable artillery of their own and plenty of food and ammunition

 

[skip.knox]

The siege can take exactly as long as you want it to. Most sieges ended, when they ended successfully, with someone opening a way in. Simple as that. A postern gate. A ladder over the side. Leaving a section of wall undefended. Betrayal in one form or another and the dragons don't matter.

When a siege failed, it was usually because the attacking army failed due to disease, hunger, or the approach of an enemy army (you do not want to get trapped between armies and walls). That, too, can happen within days or can take months. What matters here is what the story needs. Success or failure? Fast or slow? By what means?

There can be other methods, too, such as the defenders reaching the starving point then charging out in desperation. Lots of possibilities.

But I have to put in my marker on fearless armies. IMO, they're all dead. If they are not afraid of anything (not guns, not bees, not scorpions, not starvation, not dragons), then they are going to charge regardless of military judgment. Sooner or later, they're all dead because that's the only road they know. Keep going until you can't. What's wanted is soldiers who can judge just exactly the right time to run. And in which direction.

But fearless? Nope. Send those soldiers home and give me new ones.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Just a thought - but there's an entire military group devoted to breaking in to fortresses - sappers. So if they managed to burrow under the walls successfully, at night, you could manage to win the battle with smaller numbers of troops. And two thousand fearless warriors - I'm thinking berserkers here - striking inside the walls in the dark by surprise, could be a powerful siege breaker.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Crooked Bird]

Thank you all, this is encouraging.

If we're thinking the best defensively designed fortress city, then it's something like a star-fortress,

Yes, exactly.

Since you're on a river, you could have daring river-runs to re-supply the city frequently. Or you could have the enemy forces on only one bank of the river, which also give you a resupply option. The dragon bombing doesn't affect all that much, unless you can time it perfectly to match with a charge at the walls (which is hard in the dark). If the morale in the city is high enough, people will endure.

This is good, yeah. I was thinking of having the soldiers & inhabitants work together to quell the fires started in the first bombing & their success establishes a very high morale right at the start.

You need to think through how the town itself is fortified. Somewhere like Pamplona in Spain is a good example, but an even better example is Fort Bourtange in the Netherlands. In fact the latter is probably the sort of thing you have in mind.

Thanks for the examples. This brings up another thing I didn't spell out, which is: if this was more of just a fort, I'd be picturing something exactly like Fort Bourtange, but what I had in mind was more like an important city with star fortifications round it--like Vienna. Which is what got me worried re the dragon:

a dragon won't help you very much as there isn't very much it can set alight.

This is less true in a large, important city, I think? I had initially thought hey, you can't really burn a fortress of stone and earthworks... but what I realized is, you can burn houses*, and doesn't that mess horribly with morale? (esp among a population for whom air attacks have never been a thing till right now...) I think I heard in a video on this period that it was sometimes possible to get the inhabitants themselves to mutiny & force a surrender if you could start a spreading fire within the walls.

This definitely raises the question of whether I should make it more of a fort or fortified town than large, fortified city. It would be less than ideal for me, though, b/c of some characters I'd like to portray among the defenders. But practically speaking, it only needs to be the gateway to the nation under attack, and a fort can serve that role.

*other possibility: they build with stone rather than timber in this region. Which they do, it's (very) roughly equivalent to the south of France. But stone houses still require beams, and they can burn and roofs collapse. Perhaps the fire would spread less readily though...

To take a city like that the attackers would need to outnumber the defenders by at least 20 to 1, especially if the defenders have reasonable artillery of their own and plenty of food and ammunition

Thank you for the numbers!

 

[Crooked Bird]

The siege can take exactly as long as you want it to

Well that's encouraging!

. Most sieges ended, when they ended successfully, with someone opening a way in. Simple as that. A postern gate. A ladder over the side. Leaving a section of wall undefended. Betrayal in one form or another and the dragons don't matter.

When a siege failed, it was usually because the attacking army failed due to disease, hunger, or the approach of an enemy army (you do not want to get trapped between armies and walls). That, too, can happen within days or can take months. What matters here is what the story needs. Success or failure? Fast or slow? By what means?

So the hope is this: the siege lasts maybe a month, maybe a month and a half (still working on the timeline.) The defending nation is getting together a relief army, but the invaders start using the dragon against the relief army rather than the besieged city. I'm still trying to picture just how this works, but I think that the constant threat of a night fire attack is really, really going to mess with the process of assembling a large army in the field (especially in an era where no-one's psychologically prepared for this & there's no anti-aircraft guns) & especially having them camp together in preparation for attacking the besiegers. So the relief-army process is thrown into chaos & slowed way down by the dragon. (If I've nerfed the dragon too much to make this work, I may need to bump up the frequency of its attacks--BUT it's important to note that the defenders don't know its limitations & to them its attacks seem random. The invaders are doing everything they can to make them seem random rather than rhythmic--going all out to prep a 2nd attack within a couple days sometimes, to give the impression they could attack as often as they liked. So there's that uncertainty factor.) Then a major plot event causes the dragon to leave the region entirely for several days, and one character who knows this brings the message to the relief army, letting them know how long they'll be safe for; in that time, they manage to organize, attack & lift the siege.

So that's actually my other question: you're a 17th-century infantry officer. You're leading your unit to join others to mass into a large relief army. As you're camped in the open one night, a dragon swoops down on your unit, burning supplies, spreading terror & killing men. In the morning when the fires are out... what do you do? Esp if you think it could happen again anytime?

But I have to put in my marker on fearless armies. IMO, they're all dead. If they are not afraid of anything (not guns, not bees, not scorpions, not starvation, not dragons), then they are going to charge regardless of military judgment. Sooner or later, they're all dead because that's the only road they know. Keep going until you can't. What's wanted is soldiers who can judge just exactly the right time to run. And in which direction.

But fearless? Nope. Send those soldiers home and give me new ones.

I do see your point! What do you think about this, though: an unnatural balance of motives. It's not that they have no self-preservation at all, but that something is stronger than fear in them to an unnatural degree. They're magically addicted to their emperor's praise: if he doesn't touch each one on the shoulder and praise him about once a month, they wither away and die, but if he does, they're fulfilled beyond anything normal people can feel. But if he says he's disappointed in them instead, they live in torment till they can redeem themselves or die. So they fear defeat more than death. It's sort of a riff on the janissaries & how successful their psychogical conditioning was (& their direct attachment to the sultan), but taken up to 11.

I don't know if maybe you'd still see this the same way as you say above, though.

 

[Crooked Bird]

Hi,

Just a thought - but there's an entire military group devoted to breaking in to fortresses - sappers. So if they managed to burrow under the walls successfully, at night, you could manage to win the battle with smaller numbers of troops. And two thousand fearless warriors - I'm thinking berserkers here - striking inside the walls in the dark by surprise, could be a powerful siege breaker.

Cheers, Greg.

That's an interesting thought, thanks!

 

[Prince of Spires]

If you want a real world example from France, you could look at Langres, which is a town (population around 10.000), combined with impressive walls and star-fort like design.

As for how long the siege can last, as long as you stay under 26 years you're good from a historical perspective. The siege of Ceuta lasted 26 years, the siege of Candia 21 years. So they can take a long time. Though it should be noted that both these cities lay on the sea, which meant they could get food.

So that's actually my other question: you're a 17th-century infantry officer. You're leading your unit to join others to mass into a large relief army. As you're camped in the open one night, a dragon swoops down on your unit, burning supplies, spreading terror & killing men. In the morning when the fires are out... what do you do? Esp if you think it could happen again anytime?

To start with, do I know about the dragon? Because if I do I might not camp out in the open. I would also spread out my troops to minimize dragon damage.

As for the question, would I continue? That depends on a lot of factors. A loss over 10%-ish of my troops would make me reconsider continuing. Below that, I might consider it similar to any other time of night time raid. Deaths happen in war. As long as it's a manageable amount, I continue. Otherwise I stop. After all, if it's not a dragon, then I could expect my opponent to try something else to hinder my advance.