hergrim

[hergrim]

Table of Contents for My Upcoming Book (Update #4)

Stories written by Duck (AKA yours truly):

1) Dead Man’s Trial

2) Sorrow’s End

3) The Last Recollection of the Great Mahdi

4) Promontory

5) The Dragon’s Cemetery

6) Girl in Blue

7) Anathema (Part I)*

Stories written by Spoon:

1) Thursday Off

2) Autumn Eternal

3) The Hound of Ashmire*

Stories written by Friends:

1) Sun Tiger*/** (Friend #1)

2) Cold*** (Friend #2, SLAL over at @warsofasoiaf!)

3) Heir to Scotland*** (Friend #3, @cynicalclassicist!)

Total number of pages: ≈100+

*Set in Mistland **Formerly titled “Without Home” ***Tentative title

Still aiming for a July release date. Decided how much art will be included as well.

If you’re interested please reblog!

Also, if you have questions about it, feel free to ask me!

[hergrim]

Ah, that makes it easier to find.

Going off John Jefferson’s The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad and “The Ottoman-Hungarian Campaigns of 1442″, Mezid Bey had about 16 000 men at Hermannstadt, while Hunyandi’s numbers are unknown. Oruç Bey, an Ottoman historian of the late 15th and very early 16th century gives figures of 10 000 and 15 000 for Hunyandi, depending on which manuscript is used, but these figures are probably inflated.

From the 15th century accounts, it seems clear that  Hunyandi’s attack on Mezid Bey revolved around attacking the small number of men he had in the base camp while the vast majority of his army was scattered across the countryside, looting and burning. While he did divide his forces and use the armour switching ruse, the earliest and best accounts having him simply attack the front and two sides of the camp, rather than using part of his force to attack from the rear. 

He then dressed some of his soldiers in enemy uniforms and had them play the part of the Ottoman camp guards so that, when the raiders returned, they wouldn’t realise what had happened. This allowed him to hide his army along their approach so that, when they were strung out with their booty and the force in the camp blocked their path, he could sweep down on them and slaughter a large portion of their numbers. Unable to mount an effective resistance because of their massive accumulation of booty and slaves, the raiders proved easy meat for Hunyandi’s soldiers.

For Hunyandi’s second victory, over Şehabeddin (Jefferson puts Mezid at the Iron Gates and Şehabeddin near Silistra), we don’t know the number of Hunyandi’s army1, and the Ottoman forces probably didn’t exceed 44 000 men2. The sequence of events you’ve provided sounds like a fusion of the defeat of Mezid, an unreliable 16th century account of Şehabeddin ‘s defeat and the the Battle of Varna, since Ottoman and early European sources make it clear that Hunyandi allowed the better part of the Ottoman army to cross back over the Danube, primarily the akinji and some of the sipahis, before launching an attack on those left on his side of the river. What followed was a long, bloody fight that lasted until nightfall.  Şehabeddin  managed to cross back over during the night, along with the janissaries and probably at least some of the sipahis, but the sixteen sanjak beys and the men who stayed with then to cover the crossing were killed or drowned attempting to cross the river after their defeat.

This second victory was necessarily incomplete because Şehabeddin had the good sense to fortify his camp and keep the sipahis and janissaries beyond, while the raiders made their expedition. Hunyandi could only keep a watch on the camp and then, because of the size of the army, only keep up nuisance raids until a large part of it had crossed the Danube.

Coming to the Battle of Varna, we do see a 3:1 force disparity, with the Crusaders most likely numbering only 16 000 compared to somewhere between 50 and 60 000 Ottoman soldiers. The larger Ottoman numbers allowed them to outflank the crusaders on the right (a risky move since terrain would prevent the Rumelian troops from retreating), but terrain selection prevented the crusader left from being outflanked.

The Ottoman left was able to crack, if not completely shatter, the crusader right, but the wagons placed at the rear prevented a rapid break out and attack on the rear of other parts of the line, allowing for Hunyadi to bring up part of the reserve, which was then beaten back. However, the superior armour of the crusaders on the left stalled the attack of the Ottoman right and, when their commander was killed, the Ottoman right wing broke and fled. This allowed the crusaders on the left to aid those on the right, forcing the Ottoman left into flight.

The Ottoman center, however, contained the best troops, and these had been behind quite considerable field fortifications up until this point. The Sultan now threw them into the battle. As skilled, well equipped and fresh as they were, the Ottoman slave troops were unable to defeat the crusaders, who may have outnumbered them3. They were driven back to their fortified camp, where King Wladislas made an ultimately suicidal attack with no more than 500 men in an attempt to strike a killing blow. Hunyadi retreated during the night, while some crusaders, thinking they had lost the battle, also retreated in a different direction. The remaining crusaders retreated to the wagons, while the Ottoman forces slowly coalesced around the Sultan’s camp as word spread of Wladislas’ death.

The key to the relative success of the crusaders during Varna, in spite of being outnumbered, seems to me to be a combination of superior armour compared to the Ottoman levy cavalry and choosing a site where it was very difficult for the Ottoman troops to outflank them. Using the wagons as a barrier to their rear and goading the Ottomans into attacking so that they didn’t just starve the crusaders out were also important contributing factors to their early success in the battle.

***

1 A letter from King Wladislas, preserved in an Italian chronicle, gives Hunyandi 25 000 men. This is likely an exaggeration, since only 14-20 000 men (and most likely the lower figure) were mustered by Hungary for the first stage of the Varna Crusade. 2 Based on the average number of sipahis of the Rumelian provinces being 1156, the average number from the Anatolian provinces being 1820 and there been ten Rumelian sanjak beys from and six Anatolians. This provides a total of ~25 000 sipahis, 15 000 akinji and 2-4 000 janissaries. The sipahis, it must be noted, were of very variable quality and some were armed with no more than a wooden club, while others were equipped better than any European knight.

3 Casualty figures are not available, and it’s unknown how many crusaders had pursued the fleeing Ottoman cavalry. I think it’s plausible, however, than as many as 10 000 remained, compared to 6-8 000 Ottoman slave troops.

Need expert advice for battle situation in fanfic

I am writing a fanfic about Lord Of The Rings, & would really appreciate any inputs about a battle scenario. In this scenario, an army of Gondor around 9-10K strong is marching to war. The army is ~80% infantry; disciplined heavy & medium infantry capable of forming shieldwall backed up by good quality foot archers & a small but well armored cavalry. Their enemy Easterling army is around 30-35K strong, with around 50% being cavalry or riding on armored wains. In general, the enemy army is more lightly armored & less disciplined BUT they are definitely not incompetent or unwilling levies. Gondor’s plan was to take up a defensive position & allow the enemy forces to break upon their shield wall repeatedly. However the Easterlings managed to hook around Gondor’s line of advance & have managed to cut off their path of retreat. Now they are waiting on a broad flat plain & Gondor has to attack & cut through their lines or else risk running out of food. The only geographical feature of interest is a small hill that is anchoring the left flank of Easterling army, which is guarded by the personal guard of the Easterling chieftain. Now is there any way the Gondor army can secure an open field victory here? I don’t want to resort to a sudden downpour that softens ground too much for cavalry maneuvers, or an unexpected night attack :P

I’m no expert. I’m a military enthusiast, not an expert.

The question I have with this is why didn’t the Gondor force take up a defensive position on ground more to their liking? From what you’ve given me, it sounds like they could pick the terrain for a defensive position. If so, especially given the enemy superiority in cavalry and wainriders (which from what I understand is a chariot of some sort), they’d want ground that would counter enemy strengths either in manpower or in mobility. If possible, prepare some slight fieldworks to break up the charge. Being on an open, flat plain against a cavalry army is not good placement. Similarly, if their line was so exposed, are the Gondor forces on enemy ground? Why are they cut off, why aren’t their lines secured? 

You’ve put your Gondorian force at a significant disadvantage. 3:1 is the preferred attacker/defender ratio. If you’re looking to write the success of your Gondorian army, I’d stress their discipline, to keep formation in the difficult battle, particularly for facing cavalry charges. Protect the archers, and use the lack of enemy discipline against them, either by provoking them into charging against orders and breaking up the cohesion of their line, or having them break after a sustained stalemate in a charge when they had expected to roll right over the Gondorians.

-SLAL

[hergrim]

I’m not the person who made the original submission. Do you know of an alternate name for the battle of Gyulafehervar, or the date and the commanders? I’m not turning up anything on it.

Need expert advice for battle situation in fanfic

I am writing a fanfic about Lord Of The Rings, & would really appreciate any inputs about a battle scenario. In this scenario, an army of Gondor around 9-10K strong is marching to war. The army is ~80% infantry; disciplined heavy & medium infantry capable of forming shieldwall backed up by good quality foot archers & a small but well armored cavalry. Their enemy Easterling army is around 30-35K strong, with around 50% being cavalry or riding on armored wains. In general, the enemy army is more lightly armored & less disciplined BUT they are definitely not incompetent or unwilling levies. Gondor’s plan was to take up a defensive position & allow the enemy forces to break upon their shield wall repeatedly. However the Easterlings managed to hook around Gondor’s line of advance & have managed to cut off their path of retreat. Now they are waiting on a broad flat plain & Gondor has to attack & cut through their lines or else risk running out of food. The only geographical feature of interest is a small hill that is anchoring the left flank of Easterling army, which is guarded by the personal guard of the Easterling chieftain. Now is there any way the Gondor army can secure an open field victory here? I don’t want to resort to a sudden downpour that softens ground too much for cavalry maneuvers, or an unexpected night attack :P

I’m no expert. I’m a military enthusiast, not an expert.

The question I have with this is why didn’t the Gondor force take up a defensive position on ground more to their liking? From what you’ve given me, it sounds like they could pick the terrain for a defensive position. If so, especially given the enemy superiority in cavalry and wainriders (which from what I understand is a chariot of some sort), they’d want ground that would counter enemy strengths either in manpower or in mobility. If possible, prepare some slight fieldworks to break up the charge. Being on an open, flat plain against a cavalry army is not good placement. Similarly, if their line was so exposed, are the Gondor forces on enemy ground? Why are they cut off, why aren’t their lines secured? 

You’ve put your Gondorian force at a significant disadvantage. 3:1 is the preferred attacker/defender ratio. If you’re looking to write the success of your Gondorian army, I’d stress their discipline, to keep formation in the difficult battle, particularly for facing cavalry charges. Protect the archers, and use the lack of enemy discipline against them, either by provoking them into charging against orders and breaking up the cohesion of their line, or having them break after a sustained stalemate in a charge when they had expected to roll right over the Gondorians.

-SLAL

[hergrim]

Just a note on this, but the 3:1 attacker/defender ratio is something of a misunderstood concept. It doesn’t really show up in pre-modern or even gunpowder era manuals - Sun Tzu is happy fighting battles where both sides have equal strength, while Clausewitz believed you didn’t need to outnumber the enemy 2:1 to be guaranteed victory - and seems to derive from the Cold War era1. It was used in the sense of need a 3:1 numerical advantage to ensure a localised breakthrough, with a theater superiority of 1.5:1 considered the bare minimum to allow for sufficient troops to be concentrated for the breakthrough. Looking through history, I don’t think that the 3:1 concept is really particularly valid for the pre-modern world. Armies tended to be of a similar size or, in extreme cases, twice the strength of the enemy. Beyond a few scouting forces caught out in the open, I can’t think of any cases where a disparity of 3:1 existed during a battle2. I definitely wouldn’t argue that it’s pointless to outnumber your enemy (far from it), but fixing an “ideal” ratio well above plausible levels seems counter-productive to me.

1 Admittedly, it could be from the second half of the 19th century or the early 20th century, since this has been a tricky beast to track down, but the indications I have so far is that it was a Cold War era concept.

2 Unreliable accounts of barbarian hordes excepted

Need expert advice for battle situation in fanfic

I am writing a fanfic about Lord Of The Rings, & would really appreciate any inputs about a battle scenario. In this scenario, an army of Gondor around 9-10K strong is marching to war. The army is ~80% infantry; disciplined heavy & medium infantry capable of forming shieldwall backed up by good quality foot archers & a small but well armored cavalry. Their enemy Easterling army is around 30-35K strong, with around 50% being cavalry or riding on armored wains. In general, the enemy army is more lightly armored & less disciplined BUT they are definitely not incompetent or unwilling levies. Gondor’s plan was to take up a defensive position & allow the enemy forces to break upon their shield wall repeatedly. However the Easterlings managed to hook around Gondor’s line of advance & have managed to cut off their path of retreat. Now they are waiting on a broad flat plain & Gondor has to attack & cut through their lines or else risk running out of food. The only geographical feature of interest is a small hill that is anchoring the left flank of Easterling army, which is guarded by the personal guard of the Easterling chieftain. Now is there any way the Gondor army can secure an open field victory here? I don’t want to resort to a sudden downpour that softens ground too much for cavalry maneuvers, or an unexpected night attack :P

I’m no expert. I’m a military enthusiast, not an expert.

The question I have with this is why didn’t the Gondor force take up a defensive position on ground more to their liking? From what you’ve given me, it sounds like they could pick the terrain for a defensive position. If so, especially given the enemy superiority in cavalry and wainriders (which from what I understand is a chariot of some sort), they’d want ground that would counter enemy strengths either in manpower or in mobility. If possible, prepare some slight fieldworks to break up the charge. Being on an open, flat plain against a cavalry army is not good placement. Similarly, if their line was so exposed, are the Gondor forces on enemy ground? Why are they cut off, why aren’t their lines secured? 

You’ve put your Gondorian force at a significant disadvantage. 3:1 is the preferred attacker/defender ratio. If you’re looking to write the success of your Gondorian army, I’d stress their discipline, to keep formation in the difficult battle, particularly for facing cavalry charges. Protect the archers, and use the lack of enemy discipline against them, either by provoking them into charging against orders and breaking up the cohesion of their line, or having them break after a sustained stalemate in a charge when they had expected to roll right over the Gondorians.

-SLAL

[hergrim]

One of my favourite pieces of medieval literature is Jean de Joinville’s description of fire arrows in action:

It happened one night, whilst we were keeping night-watch over the tortoise-towers, that they brought up against us an engine called a perronel, (which they had not done before) and filled the sling of the engine with Greek fire. When that good knight, Lord Walter of Cureil, who was with me, saw this, he spoke to us as follows: "Sirs, we are in the greatest peril that we have ever yet been in. For, if they set fire to our turrets and shelters, we are lost and burnt; and if, again, we desert our defences which have been entrusted to us, we are disgraced; so none can deliver us from this peril save God alone. My opinion and advice therefor is: that every time they hurl the fire at us, we go down on our elbows and knees, and beseech Our Lord to save us from this danger."   

So soon as they flung the first shot, we went down on our elbows and knees, as he had instructed us; and their first shot passed between the two turrets, and lodged just in front of us, where they had been raising the dam. Our firemen were all ready to put out the fire; and the Saracens, not being able to aim straight at them, on account of the two pent-house wings which the King had made, shot straight up into the clouds, so that the fire-darts fell right on top of them.   

This was the fashion of the Greek fire: it came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed.   

Thrice that night they hurled the Greek fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet cross-bow.   

Every time that our holy King heard that they were throwing Greek fire at us, he draped his sheet round him, and stretched out his hands to our Lord, and said weeping: " Oh! fair Lord God, protect my people! " And truly, I think his prayers did us good service in our need. At night, every time after the fire had fallen, he used to send one of his chamberlains to us, to ask us how we did, and whether the fire had not done us any harm.   

Once when they flung it at us, it fell close beside the tortoise-tower that my Lord of Courtenay's men were guarding, and buried itself in the river bank. And presently comes a knight, named "the Albigensis," and: "Sir," says he to me, "unless you help us, we are all burnt; for the Saracens have let fly so many of their fire-darts, that it is just like a great hedge all ablaze bearing down on our turret." We jumped up, and hurried to the spot, and found that he had spoken the truth. We put out the fire, and before we had got it under, we were covered from head to foot with the fire-darts that the Saracens shot across the river.   

The King's brothers used to keep guard up in the turrets of the tortoises, so that they might shoot quarrels from the cross-bows right into the Saracen camp. Now the King had arranged, that when the King of Sicily watched the tortoise-towers in the day-time, we were to watch them by night. When the day came that the King had day watch and it was to be our turn at night, we were very uneasy, for our tortoise-towers had been quite shattered by the Saracens. On that day they brought up their perronel in broad daylight, which so far they had only done at night, and flung the Greek fire into our tortoise-towers; and their engines had got the range so accurately onto the finished part of the causeway that no one durst go to the tortoise-towers because of the huge stones that the engines threw, which were falling all over the road. So it came to pass that our two turrets were burnt, whereat the King of Sicily was so beside himself, that he wanted to rush into the flames to put them out. But if he was furious, I and my knights praised God, for had we kept watch that night, we should all have been burnt up.

Or, in other words, fire arrows are a threat to organic structures, though hardly likely to set timber on fire unless left unattended, but aren’t much of a threat to armoured men. On the other hand, barrels of incendiary mixture are an incredibly terrifying sight and a major threat to anyone caught nearby them when they impact.

Did medieval warfare actually see fire arrows being used? What about catapult and trebuchet payloads set on fire?

Yes, but they aren’t as effective as depicted in movies. You specifically need to have a loose bow with a longer than usual arrow, which keeps the fire from burning your bow hand and has the arrow going slow enough so it won’t be extinguished since shooting it too fast will snuff it out. Specially-designed fire arrows were built with a small metal lattice cage which could carry a small piece of coal, which could be used to set thatching alight. Some evidence exists of big, machine-launched crossbow bolts which could carry a flaming payload similar to a cartridge. Javelins could also he used in this fashion, either by tying a torch to it or launched from a spear thrower. You’d have to shoot a bunch of them, because most would gutter out, but if you wanted to start a fire, that’s one way to do so. 

Siege weapons could launch burning projectiles, the Mongols were documented to have covered projectiles in pitch and tar and setting it alight. Defenders on castle walls could dump cauldrons of boiling water or heated sand (oil, by contrast, was much rarer because it was so expensive). In naval warfare, merchant ships could use their crane to drop piles of flaming hay on other ships as an improvised weapon. 

In my panel “Death of the Other” which I gave at both Ice and Fire Con and Con of Thrones discussed strategies to defeat the Others and a lot of them involved thermal weaponry, because you can’t count on a dragon to save your bacon.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[hergrim]

I actually don't know how to block/unblock anons, so my apologies there, but thank you very much!

Odd ask, but hegrim's essay is insanely well researched and argued. But he's blocked from anons so could you give him my props? Also, how does Dunk's training of Eustace Osgrey's peasants hold up? Could the Blackfyre Rebellion and intervening problems killed off all the Osgrey fighting men and left the ill equipped and ill trained farmers all that's left? Or does Dunk's "hail mary" fit with a desperate lord on this last legs?

I know more than a few people who ban Anon’s, because they get spammed hard. Not sure if hergrim did it for that reason, but I will be sure to pass along your regards. Hopefully the next part comes soon, then I’ll be writing an essay on how to turn that scholarship into writing, to satisfy the original person’s ask a long while back.

-SLAL

[hergrim]

At long last, the start of my shieldwall post.

The Clashing Storm of Shields - Fighting in the Shield Wall (Part 1: Background)

I think I promised @warsofasoiaf​ a write up on shield wall combat nearly two years ago now but, after several different versions that each took a slightly different approach, I’ve finally nailed down something that works for me.

As my small introduction has become a rather large post, I’ve decided to split the subject into two sections: a section on the background (introduction, recruitment and organisation, equipment) and a section on how the battle actually took place. I’m posting the first section now, and will post the second in a couple of weeks.

Keep reading

[hergrim]

Some Awesome Osprey Books - Free and Legit!

I haven’t posted anything recently, although I’m close to finishing the post on shield wall combat I promised @warsofasoiaf a couple of years ago, but I just found out that Dr Nic Fields has posted almost all of his books for Osprey on his academia.edu page. If you’re interested in reading up on the warriors, armies, campaigns and fortifications of Antiquity, they’re well worth a read!

[hergrim]

How would ordinary people become mercenaries? Given the requirements for equipment, passage to warzones and all the rest short of an organised company coming through your area asking for bodies how would people end up in such a profession? Would they need to be well off financially to even consider it (then why commit themselves to very irregular and dangerous work?) I suppose a better question would be how did the mercenary trade work in medieval Europe.

We can tell a lot about mercenary service in the Middle Ages, thanks to a combination of surviving pay records and details in chronicles. We can work out approximate numbers, rates of pay, the ethnicities of the mercenaries and even sometimes their social status. Unfortunately, one detail that generally doesn’t show up in the surviving records is how recruitment was done.

Some cases are fairly obvious: William of Ypres, for instance, almost certainly recruited his mercenary forces from other Flemish exiles, while the butescarls of Anglo-Saxon England were the crews serving under specific captains from Scandinavia. Similarly, the core of the Free Companies of the 14th century were usually made up of soldiers who had entered into an indenture for service with a king or major lord, only to be released from service far from home once the campaign ended.

On the other hand, we know nothing about how mercenaries were recruited in the 12th and early 13th centuries. No large companies existed then, and the general consensus is that mercenaries tended to be recruited on a near-individual level, perhaps no more than five or six men at a time. How this worked is unknown, but it’s likely to have involved sending out messages to more prominent mercenaries who would then have used both their reputation and contacts to put out the word that good pay was on offer and try to attract both old hands and new blood. Similar methods were used in the 14th and 15th centuries to recruit paid infantry/men-at-arms, and what you would likely see is relatives or friends of previous mercenaries deciding to join up on the basis of their personal relationship with their friend or relative. Individuals needing money, to escape some sort of trouble or just longing for an adventure no doubt also signed up when they heard of the recruitment drive, but I expect that these would be less common than those who joined up because they had ties to the person doing the recruitment.

As to the social station of the mercenaries, the evidence suggests that it varies. The mercenary knights and mounted sergeants were either members of the aristocracy, the gentry or the merchant class, since only those could afford the horses and equipment necessary for mounted service. The crossbowmen similarly came from the wealthier urban classes or, in some cases, from the lesser gentry since, in spite of much repeated claims about crossbows allowing peasants to easily kill knights, the equipment of a crossbowman was significantly more expensive than that of an archer or spearman.

The bulk of the infantry, the spearmen, would have varied much more considerably. In the 12th and 13th centuries, significant numbers doubtless came from the urban communities, as even a spear, shield and iron helmet were not precisely “cheap”, or from the wealthier free farmers. In some cases, though, there was deliberate recruitment from poor rural regions, such as Wales and northern Spain. Welsh spearmen and archers made for excellent raiders and skirmishes, as did the javelin men of Southern France and northern Spain, and they could even fight reasonably well in a stand up fight if pressed, although they were always at a disadvantage against infantry with bigger shields and better equipment.

By the 14th century, infantry tended to be recruited more from the urban communities and wealthier parts of rural society as armour became increasingly important and increasingly expensive. Urban militias were expected to wear mail armour in Italy, France, Flanders and England, with textile armour being considered a poor substitute. Even then, textile armour was far from cheap, and the Statutes of Westminster assign it only to the rural class who were just a step below the gentry, something paralleled in France. Genoese sailors, serving as mercenaries for France, were even required to have both a coat of mail and a coat of plates, in addition to a helmet, shield and plate gauntlets.

Thanks for the question!

[hergrim]

Sorry, I probably should have been clearer regarding concentric castles. They definitely existed as purpose built structures and they're definitely a great choice in this scenario, I just wanted to clarify that they're not really an import from the Middle East. Lots of other innovations, like machicolations, probably are (there is always some debate on matters of influences), but the concentric design had a long history prior to the Crusades.

Fortifications are definitely always fun hypotheticals, especially in secondary world scenarios where Classical/Ancient elements can be blended with medieval elements for true hell forts that would make any sane general dread even the mere thought of a siege.

You are an engineer/architect in medieval Europe (let’s say high Middle Ages). You are summoned to the court of your Monarch who commands you to design and build a grand and Impregnable fortress. How do you go about completing this monumental feat?

If we’re at the High Middle Ages, I’m at a good point to start suggesting improvements to castles that came back during the Crusades. I’d start planning and designing a concentric castle with some lovely machiolocations. If I can take with me a blueprint of something truly impressive like Krak des Chevaliers to base my design off of, so much the better.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[hergrim]

Concentric castles, even in the Middle East, tended to be far less frequently concentric from design than from gradual accretion, especially prior to the late-13th century. The few famous purpose built examples have tended to overshadow the hodge-podge nature of most concentric castles and, if you think about it, most moat and bailey castles were themselves concentric to some degree when first built and became moreso as they were gradually strengthened and improved.

I'd say that the three most important elements for an "impregnable" castle would be water access that cannot be easily cut (so you can't be as reliably starved out), walls with a broad talus (and, preferably, marble columns as Islamic fortifications sometimes had) to make undermining more difficult, and a deep, broad moat than will take considerable effort to fill. With sufficient springalds, crossbowmen and traction trebuchets you could then make the siege costly enough that few would even make the attempt.

A bonus, fourth, option is to have a massive gatehouse with two or more entrances at right angles to each other, with arrowslits and murder holes allowing men to attack any attempt at storming through the gates from the sides and above.

You are an engineer/architect in medieval Europe (let’s say high Middle Ages). You are summoned to the court of your Monarch who commands you to design and build a grand and Impregnable fortress. How do you go about completing this monumental feat?

If we’re at the High Middle Ages, I’m at a good point to start suggesting improvements to castles that came back during the Crusades. I’d start planning and designing a concentric castle with some lovely machiolocations. If I can take with me a blueprint of something truly impressive like Krak des Chevaliers to base my design off of, so much the better.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[hergrim]

What is the lower end of what is deemed acceptable for bedding and wedding in Westeros? Tyrion considered marrying Sansa to be perverse, but no one minds about Roose and Walda (15 and around 50) and Alys and Sigorn (15 and unspecified - but hes already balding). You also have Rohanne Webber and a ton of Targaryen women being wedded and bedded very young. In Dorne, Arianne was shocked to find 14 year old Elia Sand with a man. But no one brings up Lyanna's young age? It seems very inconsistent.

Well.

You see, this is an area where there has been plenty, and very justified, criticism of GRRM’s writing. What GRRM says about the ages of bedding teenage girls is this:

A girl who has flowered, but not yet attained her sixteenth name day, is in a somewhat ambiguous position: part child, part woman. A “maid,” in other words. Fertile but innocent, beloved of the singers.

In the “general Westerosi view,” well, girls may well be wed before their first flowerings, for political reasons, but it would considered perverse to bed them. And such early weddings, even without sex, remain rare. Generally weddings are postponed until the bride has passed from girlhood to maidenhood.

Maidens may be wedded and bedded… however, even there, many husbands will wait until the bride is fifteen or sixteen before sleeping with them. Very young mothers tend to have significantly higher rates of death in childbirth, which the maesters will have noted.

But what he’s shown is a whole host of barely pubescent female children being forced into sex or trying to be forced into sex. Jeyne Poole, who is Sansa’s age, was forced into sex work when she was about 12 or 13, and married to Ramsay when she was about 13 or 14 (which marriage was of course immediately consummated). Tywin expected that Tyrion would consummate his marriage to the 12-year-old Sansa immediately after the marriage was made. Khal Drogo married and had sex with Dany when she was 13. Lyanna Stark seems to have been betrothed to Robert when she was about 12 and intended to marry him when she was about 14 or 15. Rhaella Targaryen, the sister-wife of Aerys II, married him when she was no older than 14 (and very possibly younger than that), and gave birth to Prince Rhaegar when she was no older than 14. Rohanne Webber was married (for the second time) at the age of 13, and gave birth to a posthumous child by her husband within a year of their marriage. Myrielle Peake was promoted as a good choice Aegon III’s second wife in no small part because, at 14, she could get pregnant immediately. Unwin Peake’s unnamed daughter died in childbirth at the age of 12, meaning that whomever she had been married to had had sex with an 11 or 12-year-old. Helaena Targaryen was married to her brother Aegon when she was 13, and gave birth to twins the following year. Aemma Arryn’s marriage (made when she was 11) was consummated as soon as she flowered, at the age of 13. The blacksmith whose daughter’s tragic story inspired Queen Alysanne to insist on an end to the right to the first night was married off at 14, and her husband is depicted as having been furious that the regional lord had sex with her before he did. Nor are these all of the examples of child brides in GRRM’s various Westerosi works.

(This, of course, doesn’t count extramarital relationships either, even though there is plenty of sex with young girls happening there too. Barra’s mother was almost certainly a young teenager when Robert fathered Barra on her. Glendon Flowers’ younger sister was maybe 14 at the oldest when Ser Morgan Dunstable traded a knighthood for Glendon for sex with her. Gyldayn pretended to be horrified at the idea of a 12-year-old performing oral sex on Aegon II while assuming Nettles “would most likely have surrendered her innocence not long after her first flowering (if not before)”.)

In other words, GRRM’s commentary on child brides in this universe simply doesn’t stand up to his depiction of child brides in this universe. Not only has he flooded his stories with them, but in most cases, he normalizes the situation, without any attempt by characters in-universe to reiterate what GRRM himself has stated should be the prevailing worldview. It’s not just that Tywin expected Tyrion to consummate his marriage to Sansa, for example; “half the castle” knew that it had not been consummated and mocked Tyrion for it. Rodrik Arryn and Thaddeus Rowan immediately consummated their marriages to their teenage brides (Floris Baratheon was 14, and while Princess Daella was 16, she was also specifically emphasized as being physically small and weak) despite both having multiple extant male heirs, yet each bride died in childbirth with not a peep (apart from a response from Alysanne, which was immediately undermined) about how their deaths could have been prevented. Gyldayn noted that Aegon III “had never shown any carnal interest in either of his queens”, and used the lack of sexual interest Aegon III had had in Jaehaera (who was 10 at the time of her death) as grounds to say that Aegon was less mature than his brother Viserys. Grand Maester Runciter suggested the “freshly flowered” 12-year-old Laena Velaryon as a suitable second wife for Viserys I, and neither the king nor Laena’s parents seem to have been shocked at the idea of a barely pubescent child being offered in marriage (in fact, Corlys then went on to make another betrothal for Laena when she was 12, which only did not go forward in marriage because Corlys was disappointed in the bridegroom).  Edwell Celtigar offered his two daughters, ages 12 and 13, as brides for Maegor the Cruel, and the only commentary came from a sexist dismissal of them by Rogar Baratheon.

This is what I called “The Problem of Lady Peake”; I wrote that piece specifically about Fire and Blood Volume 1 (which was a huge offender in this area), but I think its points can be applied to GRRM’s Westerosi writing as a whole. GRRM regularly writes 12 or 13 year old female children consummating marriages or being prepared to consummate marriages in this universe, and does little if anything to call out these marriages by characters in-universe. It’s as though GRRM took the example of Margaert Beaufort without either considering the context of that marriage or understanding the effect that marriage had on Margaert, both physically and personally. @joannalannister has done some fantastic critical work in this sphere, I highly recommend checking out her child brides tag if you want to read more.

(For the record, though, I don’t think we’re supposed to think of Sigorn as old, or at least as significantly older than Alys Karstark - Jon notes at their wedding that Sigorn’s “receding hair made him look older than his years” but that he, Jon, “could see the boy in him” as Alys came forward.)

[hergrim]

100%.

Like a lot of modern martial arts, grappling was treated as foundational to the techniques with weapons, since it taught how to judge distance, your opponent's strengths and weaknesses and gave you the ability of practicing with different guards. You see this in the system of Fiore de'i Liberi, the first detailed medieval fightbook, as well as in Duarte I of Portugal's Book of Horsemanship, where he considers it the step for teaching a man to fight because it helps him lose his fear.

Would knights and/or men-at-arms in both Westeros and the real medieval world have had any kind of training in unarmed combat? Asia clearly has a far richer tradition of this, but I was wondering if medieval European men would have been trained in any kind of proto-boxing or grappling; anything to fall back on if you get knocked off your horse and lose your sword.

Wrestling was a pretty standard part of European medieval knightly training. 

[hergrim]

I think we should see Roose, being the commander, having 500 of his own cavalry (as he had roughly this number in ASOS), with up to another 100 cavalry being provided by the other lords and their sons/friends/retainers for prestige. In this scenario, Harrion likely does have one of the largest individual contingents, but also still just a fraction of Roose.

With another enemy commander, I might agree that a night raid would be possible, but I think Robb’s observation that “Tywin Lannister won’t be so easily surprised” applies here as well. He already likely places pickets at a distance of a mile from the camp, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept a small force of men either on active duty within the camp or sleeping in their armour for just this sort of situation.

Honestly, Roose’s actions don’t make any kind of sense, regardless of whether he’s already a traitor or just coldly making calculations and hoping to bump off rivals. It’s an incredibly risky proposition that was more likely to end in the destruction of the Northern foot, including the Bolton men, than either success or a minor defeat that weakens his enemies. It’s entirely out of character for him.

Why did Roose throw the Battle of the Green Fork? I get he wanted to weaken his rivals and his objective wasn't to necessarily beat Tywin but to delay him, but if he beat Tywin wouldn't Robb/Ned (depending on how things worked out when word of Tywin's defeat reached KL) reward him with lands, give him special treatment and/or coin? Plus the prestige of beating the great Tywin Lannister would go down in the history books.

The strategic calculus of Roose probably determined that course of action to benefit him the most. Since Robb’s objective was to pin Tywin so that he could destroy Jaime’s army, secure the Riverlands, and then threaten him from the west, the battle’s tactical success was strategically secondary to Robb’s victory on the western bank of the Green Fork. If Roose went in looking to secure victory, he might have to share in the glory if the van had a heroic charge, or someone captured a key Westerlander noble. Alternatively, if Roose weakens his rivals, he can pass the blame on his subordinate’s ultimate failure to maintain their lines among their own troops (it’s not like they could question him), but still secure Robb’s strategic objectives and so demonstrate utility to Robb, keeping him in overall theater command where he has a relatively free hand to continue weakening his rivals, since he probably wouldn’t be able to get away with that shit if someone else was in overall command.

Thanks for the question, Bruin.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[hergrim]

The only thing I’d add is that bloomeries are not necessarily the weak point. The Romans used bloomeries capable of producing 100lbs of blooms in a single firing (~5 blooms weighing 20lbs), and they operated on a scale of production similar to the 15th and 16th centuries. The blast furnace was more efficient, but bloomeries could still be used to produce huge volumes of reasonable quality iron. 

There are also interesting hybrids, like the tatara, which can produce as much as 5 tons in a single firing, a good portion of which is high quality steel. It would be interesting to see a world that combined a tatara furnace or a African mafa smelter (which likely produced 17-21kg of recoverable iron per firing) to produce almain rivet or similar munition armour.

Anon asking about munitions-grade armor: I am indeed talking about munitions-grade armor, but historically munition-grade seems limited to breastplates and tassets, maybe a cuirass, not a full harness. Is there a level of craftsmanship that precludes an entire munitions-grade harne from being mass-produced?

Well, munition plate is a grade. Depending on the set you’re looking at, there’s half or three-quarter or something like the Almain Rivet. Most munition plate had a pair of splints for the arms. But we have to accept there’s a loss of quality in a non-customized set; check the articulation of a mass-produced piece in the arms versus a customized harness that someone with serious coin might purchase, similarly, munition-grade armor was not heat-treated as well (although this all depends on the manufacturer and the commission as well). As with most anything, a fully customized and precision-engineered item will be of higher quality than something mass produced. Most of this comes from Alan Williams and my own amateur studies into metallurgy. @hergrim correct me if I missed something.

The earlier you go back in the Middle Ages though, the cost of iron and steel alone would make munition-grade armor cost-prohibitive compared to a stout shield. At least as I understand it, greater use of blast furnaces over bloomeries increased the supply of iron, decreasing the price (and quality) of armor pieces as quantity became more important.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[hergrim]

While I have many criticisms for both sides when it comes to the Battle of the Green Fork, Roose stopping to deploy his men is not something that should be held against him. 

Tywin most likely detected Roose about a mile away from his camp1 and Roose’s vanguard was unable to stop the pickets reporting. A horse can travel this distance at a gallop in three minutes which, once you factor in the time spent informing the guards and getting through the camp, means that within five minutes the camp will be roused and preparations will begin. Men still have to arm themselves, form up in their units, exit the camps, etc, but they’re aware of you and are preparing to face you while you’re still on the march.

Roose’s infantry, having marched for large parts of the night and the previous day, aren’t going to be travelling this distance in more than twenty minutes. Moreover, once they reach the enemy camp, they will still need to shake out into line. Tywin’s formation ends up being somewhere between 2300 yards and 3000 yards, depending on whether his cavalry are 4 or 8 deep, which means that some of Roose’s men are going to have to march a minimum of 1.4 miles (if the front of the column marches diagonally to the far side of the line). The distance is actually considerably greater if the head of the column remains close to the river and the middle and rear deploy off into the stony and broken ground on the Northern left. Even if Roose was marching the infantry in twelve files, the line of march would extend for over a mile, making it a minimum of 2.4 miles for the rear ranks, or close to an hour to fully deploy in line of battle.

You might think that this doesn’t matter, since Roose could just deploy his force as it came up to the battle, both sides extending their lines as more and more reinforcements came up. While battles like this have been fought occasionally2 there’s usually been some limiting factor that allows both sides to gradually deploy. At Hastings it was the terrain and William’s initial lack of cavalry, while at Bouvines it was the fact that both sides had roughly equal numbers of cavalry and the French were able to deploy enough knights in a blocking force to prevent the allies for cutting off the bridge. In this case, though, Roose doesn’t have much luck. He has, at best 600 cavalry, in comparison to Tywin’s ~5000 heavy cavalry, ~1800 good quality freeriders and ~1000 low quality cavalry, which means that, even if only a fraction of Tywin’s cavalry are available when Roose arrives and begins to extend his lines, Roose won’t be able to stop him from sending men around to attack the flank of the still deploying infantry. This would be an utter disaster and possibly lead to the total destruction of the Northern foot.

The riskiness of deploying for battle while also fighting the battle is why it has so rarely been done. Harold Godwinson might have managed to surprise Harald Hadrada out in the open with little in the way of armour, but he still had to draw up his men, and that meant that Hardrada had time to do the same. At Lincoln, although @racefortheironthrone has portrayed Robert of Gloucester as attacking without drawing up in battle order, both sides drew up against each other in full array before going on the offensive3. Similar circumstances occurred in the other examples provided4 and, if we look to Classical battles, for instance Cynoscephalae, we also see both the danger of attacking with only part of your army and the preference for assembling a substantial amount of it before attacking.

The long and the short of it is that Roose lacked the forces needed to successfully mount an immediate attack on Tywin once he had been discovered. There was too much chance of him being destroyed himself, thanks to the time necessary to deploy his men and Tywin’s vastly superior number of cavalry. Many other aspects of his attack can be criticised5, but not his choice to form a battle line before advancing once again.

Notes

1 In Tyrion VIII, Bronn notes that the Northern Army is forming up for battle less than a mile away. As he can only know this if a) there c.f. Johne’s translation of Froissart (p20): “They were also obliged to keep detachments continually on the watch in the fields and roads round the city, and to send scouts to the distance of half a league, to see if those people, of whom they had received information, were coming, with orders, that, if they perceived any bodies in motion advanceing toward the town, they were immediately to return to the detachments in the fields, in order that they might be quickly mounted, and collected together under their own banner, at an appointed alarm-post.”

2 For instance, the Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Bouvines.

3. Gloucester’s speed and surprise enabled him to cross the Witham and the boggy area around it unopposed. c.f. the primary sources on the Battle of Lincoln here. Note the covering force that the Gesta Stephani suggests was sent to guard the ford; this appears in no other source and is probably a compression of events.

4 For Falkirk, see Stirling Bridge and Falkirk 1297–98: William Wallace’s rebellion, by Peter Armstrong. For Sekigahara, see Sekigahara 1600: The Final Struggle For Power, by Anthony Bryant. For Culloden Moor, see Culloden Moor, 1746: The Death of the Jacobite Cause, by Stuart Reid. At Falkirk, the Scottish were fully deployed and the English cavalry, which outnumbered the Scottish cavalry by a considerable margin, defeated both the Scottish cavalry and slaughtered their archers and only need the infantry to break apart the schiltrons. At Sekigahara, there was only a brief contact in the mist and the dark, before Fukushima Masanori withdrew his men and both sides waited in their battle lines until the fog burned away. At Culloden, the night attack was aborted once the Jacobites, having formed up in line of battle, realised that a third of their army wasn’t there.

5 By this I mean pretty much everything about the attack, the from the decision to make the attack, to the night march, to charging down off the hills instead of holding them. It is an utterly idiotic move that, had Tywin not been even more incompetent than Roose, would have seen Roose’s command utterly wiped out.

Why did Roose throw the Battle of the Green Fork? I get he wanted to weaken his rivals and his objective wasn't to necessarily beat Tywin but to delay him, but if he beat Tywin wouldn't Robb/Ned (depending on how things worked out when word of Tywin's defeat reached KL) reward him with lands, give him special treatment and/or coin? Plus the prestige of beating the great Tywin Lannister would go down in the history books.

The strategic calculus of Roose probably determined that course of action to benefit him the most. Since Robb’s objective was to pin Tywin so that he could destroy Jaime’s army, secure the Riverlands, and then threaten him from the west, the battle’s tactical success was strategically secondary to Robb’s victory on the western bank of the Green Fork. If Roose went in looking to secure victory, he might have to share in the glory if the van had a heroic charge, or someone captured a key Westerlander noble. Alternatively, if Roose weakens his rivals, he can pass the blame on his subordinate’s ultimate failure to maintain their lines among their own troops (it’s not like they could question him), but still secure Robb’s strategic objectives and so demonstrate utility to Robb, keeping him in overall theater command where he has a relatively free hand to continue weakening his rivals, since he probably wouldn’t be able to get away with that shit if someone else was in overall command.

Thanks for the question, Bruin.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[hergrim]

In this specific case, the Venetians had defeated the Milanese at the Battle of Maclodio and stripped them of their armour before releasing them, so there was a sudden need for a mass re-equipment. This generally didn't happen on such a large scale, and the armour was likely earmarked for export to general markets (via armour merchants or dedicated shops run by the armourers in foreign towns) rather than any particular customer. The stock was probably being saved up for the next major fleet to sail to England and Flanders and/or for merchant trains to come and pick it up for export over the Alps.

There were probably more than 50 000 men-at-arms in the modern regions of Italy, France, England, Belgium and Germany at any one time (although rarely gathered in numbers above 8000), and a portion of these would need new armour every year, as would sons or newly minted men-at-arms. Add to this the hundreds of thousands of mercenaries and members of town militias, and the market becomes quite large.

Milanese production was also pretty awe inspiring. Twenty five years later, in 1452, we hear of three armourers who, sharing labour, were capable of producing eighteen full suits of armour for men-at-arms (6 each) per day. Similar volumes seem to have been produced through to the end of the 15th century, and large quantities of armour were exported as early as the 1370s, with Marco Datini importing 11 bales of armour into Avignon for resale in 1370 and another 47 bales in a later part of the decade.

Worldbuilding Question: With the proper tech advancement and resources, could a kingdom/country feasibly mass-produce full-plate harnesses for the rank-and-file, with interchangeable breastplates/pauldrons/etc. for different wearers, or is all full-plate by definition bespoke items?

Are you talking about munition-grade armor? It sounds like you're describing munition-grade armor, which was a thing.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King