Livestock space requirements, stampedes, nuisance

[Icelander]

In the singular gaming session that I've managed to fit into the last few weeks, I found myself asking a strange question.

Namely, when the foeman has retreated into hill fort, a circle 200 yards in diameter, with 30' tall and wide earthworks walls, and he has taken all his lifestock with him, how much bother are those going to be?

The fort is meant to hold a garrison of 1,000 through winter quarters and has extensive subterranean granaries and fairly decent pens capable of holding some 500 bovines. It now holds a garrison of some 1,250, survivors from a force from this fort and a neighbouring one who have lost a field battle. It also holds 700 oxen and cows, as well as some 1,200 sheep and goats. The 200 'surplus' cows that won't fit comfortably into the pens, as well as the sheep, will either have to be forced into the pens, meaning that the 40 square feet each animal is alloted will be substantially reduced, or they will have to roam free along the walkways of the inner courtyard of the fort.

There is a firestep around the fort and, theoretically, the whole garrison could defend the walls from there.*

The fort will be attacked within the hour in which the last group of men and animals made it in. So long-term comfort is not all that important.

On the other hand, after subtracting for the barracks, officers quarters, pens and entrances to the granaries, I have less than 80,000 square feet left. These are the internal walkways, spaces between barracks, mustering field, etc.

Given that I'm afflicted with some 1/400 bovines per square foot and a whooping 3/200 caprids per same, how much is this going to interfere with defending the fort? How many men needed to keep them from getting in the way? How good are the chances that some alchemical fires and a flashy spell or three in one location of the fort will trigger a stampede?

*They won't, however, prefering to keep a reserve somewhere central, as well as assigning a fair lot to the main gates.

[Dalillama]

(Information is from my partner, who grew up in a ranching family)
I am told that you can reasonably put 2 cattle into a stall meant for 1 if they'll only be there for a relatively short (>1 day) time, and twice that many caprids, which means that the 500 stalls could have all of the cattle and about 1/2 the caprids shoved in for the duration of a battle, so you only have about 600 caprids running around in the courtyard. The caprids will need about 1 herdsman per hundred, so long as they're docile/calm, more if the herdsmen are unskilled or if the animals are panicky. Unfortunately for the defenders, panic is a very likely reaction, especially if there are flames/explosions nearby, and panicked livestock will be very inconvenient. They will run into people's path, serving as moving obstacles, trample supplies left on the ground, and quite possibly attack people, deliberately or otherwise. This is considerably less dangerous with sheep and goats than with bovines, but a slam from a large ram can knock a person down and possibly break bones, and a billy goat might well gore someone fatally on an unlucky hit.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DAlillama

(Information is from my partner, who grew up in a ranching family)
I am told that you can reasonably put 2 cattle into a stall meant for 1 if they'll only be there for a relatively short (>1 day) time, and twice that many caprids, which means that the 500 stalls could have all of the cattle and about 1/2 the caprids shoved in for the duration of a battle, so you only have about 600 caprids running around in the courtyard.

The stalls are already pretty small, at less than 40 square feet per animal. Modern stalls have to be 65-70 square feet, I seem to think. Could you still fit two cows into a 40 square feet stall?

The bovines, incidentally, are mostly water buffalos or related. Some 250 are draft oxen, the rest cows and presumably smaller. The figure of 500 cattle that can fit into the animal pens inside the fort is far more than what they permanently keep there. I just assumed that less than 40 square feet per animal (less what space is lost on walkways and suchlike) was impractical. Maybe 500 animals already assumes 2 per stall? That would seem about right, assuming that the stalls are modern-sized.

Originally Posted by DAlillama

The caprids will need about 1 herdsman per hundred, so long as they're docile/calm, more if the herdsmen are unskilled or if the animals are panicky. Unfortunately for the defenders, panic is a very likely reaction, especially if there are flames/explosions nearby, and panicked livestock will be very inconvenient. They will run into people's path, serving as moving obstacles, trample supplies left on the ground, and quite possibly attack people, deliberately or otherwise. This is considerably less dangerous with sheep and goats than with bovines, but a slam from a large ram can knock a person down and possibly break bones, and a billy goat might well gore someone fatally on an unlucky hit.

There are a couple of hundred herdsmen among the garrison, so they'll have plenty of skilled people to manage the lot. On the other hand, as you say, panicked lifestock will be the mother of all annoyances, skill or no skill.

There isn't time to make any kind of improvised sheep pens, because the PCs decided to launch an attack almost immediately after the truce expired on the last group of people entering the fort. Nor is there time to tie the animals anywhere.

When I think about it, it seems likely that a segment of the free space inside the fort is fenced off, since the garrison keep 200 of the 1,200 caprids on a permanent basis (but usually in the surrounding countryside) and will have arrangements to keep them inside the fort if besieged. This could help them a little, I suppose. But space is at a premium, so I expect that there is only space for as many as they expected to hold, i.e. 200 and not much more, even in a pinch. A fenced-off enclosure meant to hold sheep for about a week would have to be how big per animal? If you planned to feed them hay and stored grains*?

*Probably a shocking waste, but the fort is a supply store for a large army and if it was besieged, they'd have a massive surplus of grain meant to feed oxen.

[Icelander]

Having established that some of the garrison, say, about a third of it, will be at ground level during the attack and that they will have to share that space with at least some livestock, I thought I'd try to GURPS-ize the results a bit.

Now, each soldier who is not on the walls will have, on average, 200 square feet of space to himself. On average, he will share this space with one bovine and three caprids.

Obviously, the commander of the fort will try to isolate the livestock somewhere the soldiers are not and to leave paths through the ad hoc stockyards where the reserve to run to sections of the walls or to the gate, wherever they are needed. Equally obviously, the livestock will be opposed to this and seek to maximise the confusion, annoyance and general mooing and bleeting going on.

Assuming some sweet explosions coming from the main gate, say, maybe 6dx5 burn ex fuel air explosions, maybe, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the animals will not be well-disposed towards their temporary guardians. Adding some dozens of gallons of Alchemist's fire burning around the gates and I think I can safely state that no self-respecting animal wants to be anywhere near it.

Actually, the defenders would probably be pleased to have the animals cluster around the section of wall furthest away from the gates, because they're pretty sure that the main assault will come right at the drawbridge. On the other hand, four panicked herbivores for each soldier means an awful lot of wooly or leathery stupidity on the loose.

Are there any skill checks I ought to be rolling for the commanders of the defence to guesstimate how well their men manage to set up ad hoc areas where animals are allowed and other areas where they are not? I was thinking that I'd steal the mechanism for Shiphandling and Crewman, i.e. that I'd make one roll for the average of the commander's Leadership and Administration (modify by the skill of his administrative staff of officers) and then one roll against the average of the defenders' Soldier and Animal Handling (with positive or negative adjustments depending on Leadership of their NCOs).

Then I'd base the success of their efforts on the combined margin of success or failure. Does anyone have any idea for what success by 10+ would mean? What about success by 5+? Success by 3+? Success by 1-2? Exact success? Ordinary failure?

I was thinking that a certain percentage of the animals could be fenced off so that they were less of a bother, based on the success roll. But given that they barely had some 15 minutes to work with, how difficult ought it be to secure any of them?

Those animals who remain and are running loose ought to have some chance of running into a soldier every turn. Obviously, I'd handle that as with Bombardment, i.e. that every turn that the soldier was around some of those loose animals, rolling under a certain number on 3d would mean a Slam attack by a frenzied ungulant.

But how big are the odds for each animal occupying the ca 25 hex area with each soldier? 4 or lower with one animal; +1 per extra beast? Lower? Higher?

[Verjigorm]

If I were the garrison commander, i would slaughter any animals i can't keep under contorl and penned. You'll have food for the siege, and you don't have to worry about the hinderance of loose hooves during an assault.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

If I were the garrison commander, i would slaughter any animals i can't keep under contorl and penned. You'll have food for the siege, and you don't have to worry about the hinderance of loose hooves during an assault.

In that case, though, you have just handed the enemy a partial victory.

250 oxen means 125 ox-carts that can be used for the summer campaign due to start in the month. The ovicaprids and the cows are meant to feed some of the thousands of men that will travel this road then.

The enemy isn't defending this fort because the earthworks themselves have any innate value. The entire point of this fort and the neighbouring one (now lost) was to provide a provide the forward supply dump for the army that built it and to defend supply dumps behind it. The monetary value of the livestock might be 'only' $1,400,000; but with the severing of the naval supply line behind them, the actual value of oxen at the front-line is much higher.

Also, how would anyone manage to slaughter all the animals in 15 minutes? Even if you use all 200 men who have experience as herdsmen as ad hoc butchers, it would be very tight in terms of time and I'm not sure if the animals wouldn't start panicking rather early if you were cutting them down like... well, sheep.