Ask me about Warfare

[skip.knox]

If I'm an officer, I'm not going to do anything other than try to follow orders. I'm to join the main army.

How I manage that is largely up to me, so I'm going to try to preserve my men and supplies as best I can. This means, after that first dragon attack, I head for cover. I post lookouts to watch the sky and keep moving as long as it's clear. But if I can move near some sort of protection, I'll do that. This might make for detours, but so long as those don't delay me too long (I'll have a date by which I'm supposed to show up at main army camp), then I'll take safety over speed.

But even that can vary. If I'm one sort of officer, I say run for it and trust to luck. If I'm another type, I'm extremely cautious. Maybe there's only one attack. But if it's frequent, that changes my decisions. Over all, however, I'm to join the main army and make for the enemy besieging our city.

One other factor is the morale of the troops. Much depends on who they are. Recent recruits or conscripts might slip away at the first opportunity. Seasoned troopers will likely stick longer.

Still another factor is casualties. You'll want to decide how many died in that attack--burying takes time and presumably we're out in the open. After that, I have multiple injured soldiers who either cannot march or who will grievously slow the advance. And I probably lost many horses and mules; being sensible creatures, they very likely stampeded at the first sign of fire.

All in all, what you as author want to do is to do all you can to put yourself into the boots. Into the moment. Imagine as vividly as you can, then look around and ask what are the various ways in which I could react? What decisions does my character make and what are the consequences of those decisions?

Then start writing.

 

[Mad Swede]

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:

Also, try looking for drawing or maps of Geneva before 1841 - there are some on Wikipedia if I remember correctly.

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.

Yes, and then again no. It depends. Bearing in mind that it is one attack per week and that the dragon will be vulnerable to shots from things like ballistas (big crossbows on wheels) and cannon firing grape shot, so it won't all be one way traffic.

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...

It depends on how close the dragon can get. A steady rain of shots from ballistas and cannons will keep it at a distance and at that point the fire will have dispersed when it hits the buildings.

Finally, fearless troops. I've faced those in real life in Africa, doped up soldiers who think they're invulnerable. They aren't, and if you fire enough shots at them you will kill or injure most of them. At that point the other attacking soldiers may well decide to give the attack up, at least for a while.

The other thing to remember about the dragon attack is that it is dark. Unless the dragon and it's rider have very good night vision they will need a moonlit night for an attack (whoch makes them vulnerable to shots from the defence) otherwise there is a very reasonable chance they'll get lost and miss the target. Finding a target which has learnt to dim or extinguish all lights at night is very very difficult without things like infra-red vision.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Are you talking about betel nut chewing? Because while I'm sure it's a narcotic and soldiers chew it in the bucket loads, I don't think it makes them fearless. It's mostly described as a self-administered, highly addictive, anti-depressant. I suspect soldiers on it would just be sort of happy and a little bit stoned.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Crooked Bird]

If I'm an officer, I'm not going to do anything other than try to follow orders. I'm to join the main army.

How I manage that is largely up to me, so I'm going to try to preserve my men and supplies as best I can. This means, after that first dragon attack, I head for cover.
I post lookouts to watch the sky and keep moving as long as it's clear. But if I can move near some sort of protection, I'll do that. This might make for detours, but so long as those don't delay me too long (I'll have a date by which I'm supposed to show up at main army camp), then I'll take safety over speed.

This is good, thank you! I had thought a bit about cover; embarrassingly, it's taken me until writing this response to figure out that forest could actually constitute cover from a dragon, even though it can burn--because if it's thick enough, it can hide you. (And really nothing will outright protect you.) The dragon can't scout during the day, so have everything completely hidden under the trees and all cookfires extinguished by nightfall... that'll slow an army down all right.

But even that can vary. If I'm one sort of officer, I say run for it and trust to luck. If I'm another type, I'm extremely cautious. Maybe there's only one attack. But if it's frequent, that changes my decisions. Over all, however, I'm to join the main army and make for the enemy besieging our city.

One other factor is the morale of the troops. Much depends on who they are. Recent recruits or conscripts might slip away at the first opportunity. Seasoned troopers will likely stick longer.

I'm going to be doing these particular scenes from the POV of a recent conscript who massively doesn't want to be there & eventually deserts. I've been picturing an officer & unit kind of floundering, trying one course of action then reversing it, morale being awful, everyone terrified (I know my dragon doesn't sound all that bad when you're used to dragons but in my world they were considered to no longer exist till 2 weeks ago, & only the enemy has one...) but maybe I better not go quite so hard right at the start. They'd hemorrhage men in that case, I suppose, and my guy might desert too early. Would conscripts possibly be included with more seasoned troops in some cases?

Still another factor is casualties. You'll want to decide how many died in that attack--burying takes time and presumably we're out in the open. After that, I have multiple injured soldiers who either cannot march or who will grievously slow the advance. And I probably lost many horses and mules; being sensible creatures, they very likely stampeded at the first sign of fire.

Just wanted to say, thanks for all the details (the burying, the horses & mules etc.) It fleshes out the picture in my head, getting a good deal closer to the moment I can drop myself into it, into the boots as you say. I have some nice images of terror in the night that've been spinning in my head but I didn't want everything round them to be too blurry!

 

[Crooked Bird]

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.

Ooh, thanks!

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.

Oh, that makes sense about spreading out troops, that's good! You would know about the dragon b/c it's hit 2 cities by then. Somehow I felt like this might not translate to commanders expecting it to hit armies in the field but I suppose that's illogical (and it's really that I'm attached to the first attack being a complete surprise. It can be a complete surprise to my lowly character if not to his commanding officer....)

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.

Hm thank you, it's nice to have a rough number on that type of decision.

 

[Crooked Bird]

Also, try looking for drawing or maps of Geneva before 1841 - there are some on Wikipedia if I remember correctly.

Thank you!

Yes, and then again no. It depends. Bearing in mind that it is one attack per week and that the dragon will be vulnerable to shots from things like ballistas (big crossbows on wheels) and cannon firing grape shot, so it won't all be one way traffic.

I'm thinking they likely wouldn't have ballistas, as they'd have had nothing to use them on till 2 weeks ago (when the dragon mysteriously came into existence, long story.) I hadn't thought of grapeshot in the cannon! That's good, thank you. The dragon actually has some strong advantages in vision (as you touch on later in your post)--excellent night-vision (& it directs itself--no rider, human-like intelligence of its own) and it attacks only on moonless nights for, actually, propaganda reasons. (The emperor wants to be able to kind-of-plausibly deny that it's a dragon--he's propagating the claim that it's a flying machine--b/c in the invaders' culture dragons are the epitome of evil.) So there's a strong terror and surprise effect and it's rather hard to shoot at it, but it seems like they'll be supremely motivated to find ways. Braziers on the walls that can be lit instantly in case of an attack, for light to shoot by? Mm, seems insufficient & too blinding to the gunners. A light in the city's highest tower? I need to look up what sort of lighthouse technology existed!

Finally, fearless troops. I've faced those in real life in Africa, doped up soldiers who think they're invulnerable. They aren't, and if you fire enough shots at them you will kill or injure most of them. At that point the other attacking soldiers may well decide to give the attack up, at least for a while.

I don't know, maybe I should just defer to your experience, but I wonder if we're talking about the same thing. I mean to be clear, I fully believe you, it's just that fearlessness + drugs doesn't quite seem the same as fearlessness + unnatural levels of obsessive military discipline. But thank you seriously for the food for thought, b/c it does complicate the matter in needed ways.

And thank you for everything else! This has been very fruitful & I appreciate it.

 

[pmmg]

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?

Recover, assess, and work on the problem.

Is there any reason to believe we could fight the dragon? or had anything that could hurt it?

Is there any reason to believe we could escape the dragon, or find cover?

Is there any reason to believe turning around and heading back is better than just going forward?

And for the answer to all of those, if I don't have good options, what do I need to have good options, and I look for those.


Assuming every option is poor, I scatter so as not to be an easy cluster to burn up, and either go forward or back depending on whether I believe one will work out better than the other. Generally, I don't want to be the one unit that turned back when everyone else didn't. But maybe we need to fall back and plan for a dragon before returning.