[Banestorm] The war of Megalos against Caithness

[isf]

Another possibility is that Caithness was settled to become borde rmarches after a major campaign against the orcs. Many of theearly bronies? were originally part of a chain of fortresses and settlements designed to blunt any orcish advances and give early warning for an invasion. They would also serve as strongpoints in pacifying the area and driving the orcs farther west.

[DrTemp]

Originally Posted by hal

[...] Horses are food hogs when it comes to constant work, and their water needs go up beyond belief.

So? Water should be abundant in Caithness, and food, well, indeed I do belive that grass will suffice for a few weeks. The horse will probably be used up in the process anyway. Don't measure by Earth's standards- for the people of Yrth, horses are mainly an object of utility.

As for Orcs attacking human settlements and getting wiped out by human inginuity begs the question of "Ah, the Elves needed a BANE spell to put paid to the orcs just to handle them, but humans can handle them better?" Something rots in Denmark with that reasoning.

Not so much human "inginuity" as brute force, combined with superior numbers and warcraft. If you loose some people, it does not matter, there are enough others. Elves, by contrast, must be very careful about their losses, since their numbers grow only slowly.

So every what, 10 to 20 years you need more land for the 2nd born and 3rd born son? Problem with that logic is that you need support personnel to expand. As I mentioned - a fief of roughly 2 square miles is needed to sustain a Knight, his squire, and 3 to 5 mounted men-at-arms. That works out to 250 people you need in addition to those 5 to 8 fighting men. That kind of population expansion is good - but would you expand from a nice safe community where there are those willing and able to help within 3 hour's notice, or would you go miles and miles further away - say, 15 miles, just to pick a new place for your new holding?[...]

That was not uncommon in the middle ages. One theory about the Pied Piper of Hamelin is that he was just someone who urged people to go with him and found a new city some 200 km to the east (many recordings about such things survive) and who was exceptionally successful in doing so. Who do you think settled Brandenburg, Pommerania and the Teutonic Knight's land? Where did all those Germans come from, in your opinion?

Really, finding people who are willing to settle new land in exchange for low taxes was a rather easy task in the middle ages. I imagine it won't be different on Yrth.

[...]
England's population density circa 1200 AD was approximately 30 to 40 people per square mile. Some sections of England, especially during the time just after the rebellions against King William the Conqueror, were down to about 5 people per square mile. France ended up with populations in excess of twice England's per square mile and they both had HUGE regions of land that were unsettled or largely unpopulated.
[...]

Well, "huge" by European standards.

Caithness stretches about 1,000 miles from north to south. (That's about the distance from Denmark to Sicily.) However, it also has huge forests which are probably settled by Elves (Deerwood alone has the size of Ireland, and there are three to four other such woodlands of about that size in Caithness). The far east of Caithness is reportedly thinly settled, as is the area south of the River Smoke. Sure, it might be true that some orc tribes survive there. But in central Caithness, I really do not see any chance for that.

[DrTemp]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

[...]
You might get a lightly-equipped force for short border raids Spanish style, but a large army able to press into the territory of a large orc tribe and force it to battle needs a real logistics base.

A large army should not be necesssary, not at all.

How many knights does it need to wipe out a single tribe of undisciplined orcs? As hunters, they will probably not have tribes larger than 200 individuals, of which at maximum one third should be capable of fighting, none of which have anything harder than leather armor. I cannot see twenty knights failing at slaying the whole tribe. Possibly less.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

So? Water should be abundant in Caithness, and food, well, indeed I do belive that grass will suffice for a few weeks. The horse will probably be used up in the process anyway. Don't measure by Earth's standards- for the people of Yrth, horses are mainly an object of utility.

... grass will not suffice. Your "warhorse" will drop dead under you from malnutrition, thereby totally not helping you. Allow me to compare, if you will, with having to buy a new car every few weeks. Expensive, no? A horse in this time period cost more of the average persons income than a car does. A war-horse's pricetag is astronomical, and it takes two to three years to raise and train it. You don't casually run that into the ground.

[DrTemp]

Originally Posted by Bruno

... grass will not suffice. Your "warhorse" will drop dead under you from malnutrition, thereby totally not helping you.[...]

A man can fight for a few weeks with only crap food, and it won't really affect his physical capabilities. Why should this be different with horses?

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by hal

First - militaries that are "professional" are going to take the time and the effort to determine what works versus what doesn't work on the field. After the first "disaster" or major defeat, you know the Megalosian Generals are going to be working on ways to counter the initial problems.

So you would think, but then "People should think, Machines should work", as IBM noted.

Reality is the reason the word 'should' is included in that phrase. The reasons the future Commodore Perry was able to ask one of the ship captains he commanded how the weather was during a battle is testimony to the independence of commands that existed prior to the invention of radio and the power of spite and stubborn cussedness to trump 'efficiency'.

Until Nelson, the British Navy had been using "the Line" as it's primary navy tactic for more than a century. Admirals who broke with the Line had been Hanged. Talk about hidebound. And Megalos by the time of Caithness being settled was pretty hidebound, all the more so with innovators of any sort drawing the attention of the Ministry's agents.

[Ian N]

Hidebound Megalan Lords are the very best reason for "one in every six" people to up and leave. Considering the Hospitallers run a big chunk of the Western Empire, I can see many families jumping to set up shop elsewhere, particularly under a generous leader. Faced with high taxes, mandatory tithes, and decadent aristocrats, how many skilled workers would stay home?

The founder of Caithness had to have been a skilled tactician, and to start with, he did not need to attract commoners, only second-sons and unlanded knights. Each knight supplies his ten men, so with just 20 nobles to his side he could take on any single orc tribe on a one for one basis.

Once a few tribes are cleared away, advertise for farmers, craftsmen, etc... If word gets around to the rest of Megalos' hangers-on that they can get hold of land and title to the west, then funding for fortification should be no trouble. The first winter might be tough, and would explain those initial failures, but once a defensible position is established, every 10 knights means another orc tribe is going down.

The way to explain the trouble the elves had is written into the game; a community of 200 elves is rather rare, and getting then to array themselves for battle would be like herding cats.

"Maybe next week darling, I'm too busy contemplating this leaf to go lobbing arrows at filthy orcs today."

[copeab]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

A man can fight for a few weeks with only crap food, and it won't really affect his physical capabilities. Why should this be different with horses?

A horse isn't a man?

And a man can't go "for a few weeks" on poor rations and not suffer a deterioration in fighting ability.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

A large army should not be necesssary, not at all.

How many knights does it need to wipe out a single tribe of undisciplined orcs? As hunters, they will probably not have tribes larger than 200 individuals, of which at maximum one third should be capable of fighting, none of which have anything harder than leather armor. I cannot see twenty knights failing at slaying the whole tribe. Possibly less.

Were the Caithness orcs hunters or a mixture of hunters and herders, though? And the orcs can retreat into the woods and hills and bogs. Twenty knights will have a difficult time facing sixty orc warriors in rough terrain. If the orcs are up to building field fortifications and crude barricades at strategic spots the knights will be even worse off. The Irish proved quite succesful at avoiding being beaten by their Norman invaders in the twelfth century using such tactics. They lost battle after battle, and couldn't take castles, but Norman expeditions into the interior normally failed. Of course, the Irish had agriculture, and the Megalans probably had less of a disadvantage in numbers than the Normans, but orcs are better fighters than humans.

[Ian N]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Were the Caithness orcs hunters or a mixture of hunters and herders, though? And the orcs can retreat into the woods and hills and bogs. Twenty knights will have a difficult time facing sixty orc warriors in rough terrain. If the orcs are up to building field fortifications and crude barricades at strategic spots the knights will be even worse off. The Irish proved quite succesful at avoiding being beaten by their Norman invaders in the twelfth century using such tactics. They lost battle after battle, and couldn't take castles, but Norman expeditions into the interior normally failed. Of course, the Irish had agriculture, and the Megalans probably had less of a disadvantage in numbers than the Normans, but orcs are better fighters than humans.

But even a poor knight is not just a man, a lance, and a horse. Judging by the 3e stuff I have lying around, each knight would be expected to provide his lord with a "lance". So, a knight would really be one heavy cavalry, one light cavalry/messenger (squire), two polearm, two bow/crossbow, and two man-at-arms. Even a poor knight should provide one of each on the infantry.

So the orcs would remain a serious problem, but they cannot retreat too far into the woods, or the elves will get them. It's the orc settlements that would fall, and without a base to strike from, they would be at a serious disadvantage come winter.

The best reason for the orcs to retreat is also built in; they are beserks, and have a "strongest warrior leads" mentality. If your leader failed to protect your wives from the horse-men, then why should you follow him? With the strongest tribes (the ones that can sustain settlements) being scattered, there are going to be serious leadership squbbles in the remaining tribes. Every time a settlement burns, a half dozen bloodied warriors turn up at the next tribe to cause trouble.