Flying Battle

[Pedant]

Not really sure if I can ask for help here; I'll assume I can't if nobody answers.
I've been working for a number of years on the development of a flying sapient species for my own world, one which has wings with opposable thumbs (like pterosaurs, only more developed) and opposable toes as well. In effect, once the wings are folded away partially they have two sets of working limbs. I've managed basically everything with them, from mining to agriculture to making fire, but what I don't quite know how to do is to get them to fight. With weapons in the air, I mean. I could go completely fantastical, but I'd prefer to keep a small semblance of realism (I fly myself, see).
Any ideas?

[M Mira]

If I understand you correctly, then your species is quadruped, has "arms" that can grasp objects or be used to fly, but not at the same time, while the "legs" could grasp objects or be used to walk.

Here are several cases I came up with based on the assumption that I got you right:

How flexible are their "legs"? Which parts of their bodies could they reach with their "legs" in flight? For either a bird-like or human-like anatomy, their right feet probably couldn't reach any body part aside from their left leg, so anything they could use with their legs in flight needs to be attached to their legs. While this might not be a significant handicap for swords, spears, or a footful of javelins, archery could be much harder because the draw distance is shorter due to lower flexibility and where to keep the quiver without obstructing draw is a challenge too. To sum up: less flexible legs likely leads to closer engagements, as ranged combat is more inconvenient and less accurate.

How hard would they fall if they lost lift? Totally splattered? Break a few bones? Just a few scratches? If the fall is punishing enough then weapon and tactics may adapt to target wings more than head and torso, such as using bolas as their main weapon and kill enemies by tying their wings, or (assume they use feathers) launching tar balls or soap water buckets to mess up enemy wings. If the contrary is true, then their weapons might be more similar to human's.

Fortifications would be largely nonexistent as the enemies can just fly past them. It's possible to build domes, but they would be more similar to castles than city walls as it's near impossible to enclose too big a place due to the difficulty involved in constructing such structures.

I'd like to think further but I'm too tired to think straight now, gotta catch some sleep.

[CatDoom]

As far as fortifications go, I could see underground construction being very popular in regions that support it, with natural cave complexes becoming desirable settlement sites in much the same way that hilltops are in our world. Even if a cave complex could not be adapted to house the entire settlement, it could act as a refuge for civilians to fall back into in the event of an air raid (which I suppose in this world would just be a regular raid ).

If the species in question were able to wield some kind of spear or lance effectively during a dive, I could see high perches granting a tactical advantage, as combatants at a higher altitude might be able to perform powerful "charges" aided by the force of gravity. Returning to normal flight after and impact with an enemy combatant might be tricky, however...

I could see unarmed combat being somewhat more important than in our world, since flyers probably couldn't carry all that much extra weight, and weapons dropped while flying are unlikely to be recoverable. Maybe they could develop some kind of kicking and toe-grappling techniques, with the aim of injuring an opponent's wings or otherwise interfering with their ability to fly.

[Fixsme]

Gaining momentum has a drawback you loose agility. And in a fight, you become an easy target. These tactics work only in a surprise attack. In infighting, it is not applicable due to short distances and if the enemy spots you, he just have to wait to stab you. That's why few martial have jumped kicks, consumes too much energy. A battle lasts for hours or even days.
For weapons, I would use knife, gauntlets for claw enhancement and blade-feathers, that you would put on your wings in order to wound your opponent when you pass by. No stopping as you would increase your size as a target, lose mobility, offer your claws, guts and wings to the first lance wielder.
Few punches, that would way too dangerous.It would be like asking to be amputated. Winglocks, strangulations, leglocks. Would be more usefull.
If you want to shoot arrows, you would need some air cavalry, you ride an eagle so that it flies for you.
As for underground fortresses, i'm not a big fan of these. It's so easy to light a fire and gaz people that way, moreover you lose your main mean of escape: flight.
More specification about the world and the specie would help me get other ideas. As I am no military, I may utter nonsenses.

[Torco]

I'm a bit too swamped at work to properly think about this, but here's what immediately springs to my mind: if i'm flying and I'm using my hands to do it, then there's two kinds of people I'm fighting against: flyboys and ground fellas. Flyboys are, as am I, fragile: one good hit of anything and I'm probably out of it, possibly falling to my death. So what I want is something that maximizes chance to hit without me getting very close to the other dude. What I immediately think about is a bag of caltrops. I don't need to accelerate any projectiles, I *am* already going fast enough, and if I can get above the other flyboy I can loose the caltrops and quickly break away, either to the side or, if I really need some speed, dive [which makes me a target for the other guy's caltrops, but whatever]. I suppose I could also use like a bag of darts that automagically put the point towards the vector of motion on account of fletching... Hell, If I'm really confident in my skills I might carry with me six or seven small javelins and throw them piecemeal: I might kill more of 'em, but it takes more accuracy. It also has the advantage that everyone's a stuka, which look badass as fuck.

Now, if I'm fighting ground fellas the proposition is different: if I get in their reach they can fuck me up, and they can have machinery or bows or whatever: crucially, they can have shields and withstand a few blows... but if I fly above their reach, perhaps I can pelt them with stones or iron balls. Still, I'm in the position of being a bit of a glass chin: i can sting like a bee, but they have the staying power.

Gunpowder, of course, changes everything.... suddenly flying's not such a great idea.

------

If i'm a ground fella, I want cover. forests are where i want to fight, though the flyboys can throw fuel and burning oily rags at me, so maybe i want to be in a really wet forest. At any rate, fortification's going to be a lot more about towers with ballistae loaded with nets or something than about walls... walls have suddenly become useless.

The obvious combined arms tactics are using flyboys in the roles of recon, fast response support, and command and control, and having infantry do most of the fighting. Of course my infantry flies, so we're all kind of dragoons, but fighting on the air seems to me about as dangerous as rolling to a firefight on the seat of a bike.

Melee fights on the air seems absurd, but i could be wrong.

[CatDoom]

When I was considering in-air melee and grappling, I was imagining something a bit like this. Come to think of it, I could imagine some kind of display very much like that serving as a kind of formal duel or rite of passage or somesuch.

[Torco]

Oh, very true... kind of like fistfights with us.

[cntrational]

Armor and weaponry would be very light. Probably made of plant or leather equivalents rather that metal.

On the other hand, I could imagine warriors who sacrifice flying in favor of armor, thus making themselves immune to comparatively weak fliers.

[Torco]

Well I suppose that definitely depends on the relative strenght of the fliers: I've heard of birds flying away carrying goats, so a bit of armor doesn't sound necessarily impossible.

[cntrational]

Assuming materials are similar to Earth, though, any stiff armor would reduce flexibility.

[Torco]

Very true, plate is probable not going to happen. At most I see a plate over the viscera and a skullcap, maybe greaves or some scale covering the chest: Then again, it's your wings that keep you alive up there, and they're big things, so maybe armor is besides the point since any hit to the wings, which are most of the target, sends you in freefall..

So looks like armor wouldn't help much after all.

[cntrational]

Hmm. Perhaps it would be better to study 20th and 21st century battle for this, where personal armor is virtually useless, rather than ancient battle.

[M Mira]

Gaining momentum has a drawback you loose agility. And in a fight, you become an easy target. These tactics work only in a surprise attack. In infighting, it is not applicable due to short distances and if the enemy spots you, he just have to wait to stab you. That's why few martial have jumped kicks, consumes too much energy. A battle lasts for hours or even days.

That's called boom and zoom, and it works much better then turn-fighting when the mounted weapon is strong enough, so I must say you're wrong.
An accelerating target is never an easy target, unless you stand in the trajectory, and when you do, you're its target. Now even if you spotted it and aim your spear, all it has to do is pull up and abort the attack, but if you don't, which is far more likely if you don't have eyes on the top of your head, then you're dead. Unless this species' anatomy results in a poor energy retention or physically too weak to turn in high speed, then there's really nothing to prevent this way of fighting.

I'm a bit too swamped at work to properly think about this, but here's what immediately springs to my mind: if i'm flying and I'm using my hands to do it, then there's two kinds of people I'm fighting against: flyboys and ground fellas. Flyboys are, as am I, fragile: one good hit of anything and I'm probably out of it, possibly falling to my death. So what I want is something that maximizes chance to hit without me getting very close to the other dude. What I immediately think about is a bag of caltrops. I don't need to accelerate any projectiles, I *am* already going fast enough, and if I can get above the other flyboy I can loose the caltrops and quickly break away, either to the side or, if I really need some speed, dive [which makes me a target for the other guy's caltrops, but whatever]. I suppose I could also use like a bag of darts that automagically put the point towards the vector of motion on account of fletching... Hell, If I'm really confident in my skills I might carry with me six or seven small javelins and throw them piecemeal: I might kill more of 'em, but it takes more accuracy. It also has the advantage that everyone's a stuka, which look badass as fuck.

I thought caltrops only works when they stand on their "tripod"? They're too light to penetrate anything on their own so they need something to keep them from just bounce away on contact. And exactly how fast this species fly matters too. If they fly no faster than human throw speed, then they would hurt less than human-tossed caltrops.

[Torco]

Perhaps caltrops is not the right word: I mean relatively heavy pointy cutty hurty things that hurt when you throw them.



I mean, a bag of those things dropped onto a guy... auch!

[Pedant]

...wow. This got way more attention than I'd dared to hope. Thanks for all this, guys!

[Sew'Kyetuh]

Not really sure if I can ask for help here; I'll assume I can't if nobody answers.
-snip-
Any ideas?

Oh, my bad. That would have been tremendously useful to know in the clothing post in which I already responded similarly to this question.

For starters, before we even start discussing weapons, different cultures from different climates will produce different tactics. You also said that you had flying sapients one of which... which I take to mean that there are multiple different kinds which does add to the complexity of the question.

You said the wings are foldable and resembling that of a pterosaurs. This makes them extremely long-distant, high-altitude soaring creatures, but if they can move and bend their wings like a bat, then you have more muscle and work involved, but you can change the angle of the wing for speed or coasting.

= = =

UNARMED COMBAT

So let's start with close combat, since you mentioned mining and building fire, I'm going to start with primitive first. Since you yourself fly and you've been looking at this, I'm going to assume you know the basic principles to air combat; fly with the sun behind you to blind your opponent; attack from above and/or behind, shake an enemy to get behind him and curl in a turn or brake suddenly so he passes in front of you. It's easy to look at large eagles, but it must be remembered the animal kingdom (with a few exceptions) is largely concerned with survival, and most fights between opposing animals of the same nature are displays to scare the other off. Because in the wild, life is precious and there aren't medics around.

In a war, you have a higher intelligence motivated in a kill-or-be-killed mentality which changes tactics and risk dramatically. But we're still looking at unarmed first. What you likely end up with is first a display of using those powerfully large wings to flip an enemy, like what you see police cars do in a chase. The idea is to bump, tap, or ram the opponent in such a way that does minimal (if any) damage or risk to you and maximum risk/damage to the opponent. These aren't as agile flyers, and in a dogfight the one sent tumbling down in a stall can basically be considered dead. Thin membrous wings like that aren't very hard to damage and any muscles or lightweight bones can be snapped easy. Using the largeness of the front bones of the wings and the opposable thumbs, it would be possible to scratch, thump, and ram the larger frontal bones into the softer underbelly portion. Like how Maui Thai fighters use knees and elbows to hit rib cages and groins.

The skill of the defender would have to be tremendously greater than the opponent to survive any partially significant blow, which means attacking is going to be a lot easier than defending. The best air combatants are going to have dexterity with those wings and endurance over large size (which just makes you a bigger, often slower target). This means most of the fight would be trying to line up for position. Defenders could use air-brake techniques to try and throw off opponents and hit them in vital areas when they don't expect it.

On occasion, two daring opponents could get into a weaving battle with each other, going head-on and playing chicken as much as trying to ram the other in such a way as to totally break a wing (because as you know as a pilot yourself, such a midair head-on impact would) with again minimal damage. This would involve bunching up the wings and providing a more arrow-structure if possible and trying to dart in with a glancing blow (which is all it would take). Once the glancing blow lands, it would be over. The wing or body part struck would be useless.

Locking tight and grappling would be rare but could happen if one is a messenger or holding valuable information (like the fish in the video with the eagle). This would be important for intercepting strategic military messages (instructions and sensitive internal information). And they would do this often too because flying is of course more advantageous most of the time over ground transport. Especially if they have such large and broad wings for long-distance travel.

= = =

SHORT RANGE COMBAT

So now that there's some idea how close combat would go without weapons with extreme lethality, let's amplify this. One of the very first to implement as a good idea is to equip the edges of the front of the bones. Look at a pterosaurs, a little reinforcement wouldn't hurt, and it would not only provide a little stability and protection, but allow a strike to hit harder, like knuckle dusters. You could increase this with semi-loose quill attachments or razor blades. Now defense becomes more endangering. You fit a long, bone-sickle razor along a weak point and if your opponent tries to flip you, he's going to impale himself with a wickedly barbed weapon that... he has virtually no way of pulling out. He's using his arms to fly! Unless he were at an extremely high altitude, could fight the cursed assault of g-forces and painstakingly pluck/cut it from his wing, and then hope its in good enough condition to continue flying.

So with short-ranged fighting like this, accuracy becomes more crucial. A fight is over in 1 move. Once an attack is committed it will do somebody hurt.

I thought caltrops only works when they stand on their "tripod"? They're too light to penetrate anything on their own so they need something to keep them from just bounce away on contact. And exactly how fast this species fly matters too. If they fly no faster than human throw speed, then they would hurt less than human-tossed caltrops.

[/quote]
Then an idea comes up for defense: hold something light in the legs that can be released. When someone is on your six, and you can angle it juuuuust right, you can let go and out comes a whirlwind of nasty. Caltrops in hand (or foot) are not very likely I think (weigh too much and too hard to hold and release) but this is where they would do some extreme hurt. A net is more likely; you can wad up any cloth with sharp pointy things inside (so it doesn't stick you). This is how caltrops would likely be used because it is way too difficult to drop things on someone while you're flying (I'll explain in longer range area). A faceful of those, small stones, glue, sac of acid, any of those would easily do a lot of harm. A net or cloth is likely to blow in the wind very hard but it could still work. Being so much as scaythed by such a thing could be disastrous.

So now defense at this point is stronger than offense. It now becomes a maneuverability game and patience to try and get the target to release his baggage train attack before going in for a close kill. Deaths in this area/time frame would go down as much greater caution is required. There is no defense against these types of attacks except to dodge. You could incite cunning though to get him to drop it too early, using maneuvering feints or tag-teaming.

Which brings me to the next point for close range. Just like in dogfighting, expert flyers are going to have wingmen, partners that will tag along slightly behind. This gives greater protection and two targets to deal with instead of just one. If the wingman survives long enough, he can give an edge for his ace to pull a surprise stunt. Talking would be really difficult though not impossible, having to shout or use winging signals to motion forth certain maneuvers to take part. In this way, skilled team play can overcome greater numbers.

= = =

LONG RANGE COMBAT
So now things are getting more advanced. The enemy is using some tech, cunning, and innovation to stay alive and keep offensive attacks difficult. It would be useful to send something out and at the enemy so you didn't have to risk getting in a good attack position only to get sliced by razor wire, get a glue-cloth on yourself, or worse. But there's a big problem. The sky is huge. There's no way to throw things since the arms are used in flight.

There's no way to drop things because the odds of either hitting a passing target or aligning up perfectly above them are minuscule to none. Simply hitting ground targets was hard enough; which is why things like carpet bombing was the only way to be sure until extremely high-tech modern guidance systems came along. The only reliable way to bombard an enemy was to dive-bomb, getting as close as possible and then pulling up hard. In a WWI airplane, if you targeted a specific car to drop a bomb on from flying overhead, you would be lucky to even get the same street. Much less using a primitive non-explosive weapon. Large enemy formations can spread out to make hitting hard or tighten up to make aiming difficult.

One thing that would probably be attempted is a blowgun. It's simple: wherever you can face to look at, you can shoot at. Another could be a relatively weak and thin crossbow mounted on the wings that could be activated by a trigger mechanism by these extended thumbs you were talking about. It wouldn't take much; even a stone slung in such a way could really hurt. But we're not doing enough damage with either of these; your projectile has to overcome the velocity at which you are flying (otherwise, like spitting into the wind...) which limits the use of these tremendously. You would have to most certainly be above your opponent to aim down.

And there aren't exactly any projectiles lying around to home in on targets. Or would there?

The most effective long-ranged weapons would be BIRDS. Why not?

We use falconeering to train birds of prey to hunt small animals, including small birds. You could train them to attack flying enemies. They have extremely excellent eyesight and could identify by sight and smell who is good and who is bad. They are very small targets and less likely to get struck, hit, rammed, or bumped by an enemy who would also have a hard time seeing them. Birds of prey as projectiles could also fly back to you (not 1-time use), act as wingmen, and are smart enough to perform a few limited special maneuvers. They can circle overhead of a furball (nickname fighter pilots use for a chaotic mess of dogfighting) and pick out targets to dive into, using their talons (and enhancements or weapons on the claws) to scoop and jab a target. Even just flying in their face provides a harrowing distraction. This of course means they would need escorts from other birds of prey to intercept and scare other birds of prey (to identify as friends) which could make things rough in training or competitive but still plausible.

[Torco]

"The ones from beyond the desert, son, they are dangerous. They're too cowardly to fight, so they train their birds to do it for them"

a cool idea.

[Mike Yams]

Humans used war dogs. So following the human model, war birds would be widespread but not intensively used. Then again, war birds seem like they would be very useful, so I'd say they'd be a good deal more commonly used than war dogs on Earth.

"The ones from beyond the desert, son, they are dangerous. They're too cowardly to fight, so they train their birds to do it for them"

a cool idea.

That raises an interesting series of questions as to how the nature of combat would affect these species cultures, and in turn be affected by them. For instance, are war birds, as Torco mentioned, taboo or considered cowardly in some cultures? Is the sky considered a source of danger? Such questions are, I think, fertile ground for creating cultures which are both plausible and unique.

Also, at what altitude can this species fly? Because that would change a lot, at least the relationship between aerial and terrestrial combat, the role and manner of defenses, and the magnitude and variety of possible aerial maneuvers.