The armies of a conworld

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The armies of a conworld

Post by Duaseron »

A while ago, I have started to write my definite version of the history of my conpeople, the Moranians and their relatives. But I am now stuck in a period with civil war, the fall of cities, the late rise and the downfall of the predecessor empire,...
So had a few questions about the army and military tactics...
1) How can a ruler avoid an uprising of the army?
2) If you are outnumbered : diplomacy, guerrilla, or just throw your men by surprise in the enemy ranks and pray that everything will end well?
3) What are the best tactics to defeat an army?
4) What is the best way to penetrate a walled city, and what are the best ways to defend it?
5) If the city isn't walled, what is the best way to defend/penetrate it?
6) the survival tricks for an army in a region hit by 'dirty war'(attacks with biological, chemical, nuclear weapons)
7) Are there interesting sites concerning this interesting, but bloody subject?

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Pazmivaniye »

1) How can a ruler avoid an uprising of the army?
Keep them loyal and if possible happy. Motivations for loyalty include: worship of the ruler, religious righteousness, the need to defend oneself/one's people/one's homeland, perception of the enemy as inferiors or savages. Keeping them happy mostly consists of showing them you care about them and respect their sacrifice, but on the flipside (sort of) you have to show them you're strong and be commanding.

2) If you are outnumbered : diplomacy, guerrilla, or just throw your men by surprise in the enemy ranks and pray that everything will end well?
Mainly depends on how much you want to not lose. If you're okay with surrender, diplomacy, if you're a fanatic, guerrilla tactics. I don't recommend throwing your men at them at random, but it's been done, and makes sense if you can't do guerrilla warfare and won't surrender.

3) What are the best tactics to defeat an army?
Totally depends on relative strengths, morale levels, home fronts, logistics, and the battle environment. And tech level is a big one in tactics, because it determines how many men you have and how fast they move and how close they have to be to each other.

4) What is the best way to penetrate a walled city, and what are the best ways to defend it?
If you can, break down or go over the wall (or go under it, I guess). In terms of defense, keep the other guys off your wall so they can't do the other things. If you have a wall, you'll probably want to fortify it as much as you can, and it helps if you stockpile siege supplies beforehand if you're expecting to be trapped.

5) If the city isn't walled, what is the best way to defend/penetrate it?
Depends a lot on circumstance, tech level, etc.

6) the survival tricks for an army in a region hit by 'dirty war'(attacks with biological, chemical, nuclear weapons)
That's a hard one, I can't think of any tricks off the top of my head.

7) Are there interesting sites concerning this interesting, but bloody subject?
Don't know, but there probably are. Also I believe I've used Wikipedia for this stuff before.

Some detail about who's fighting whom and where and how would help me be more specific.

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Torco »

1- he can't... he can postpone them a few ways, though: indoctrination of the army, having branches of the army have different political aims, keeping them happy by giving them a privileged position in society; more money, prestige "the fine men who protect our liberty", carefully choosing their leadership <to be loyal to him>, and making them useless as rulers [for example, fostering a strong official-non-official distinction, so that most soldiers are too stupid to rule or hope to rule anything, and the smart dudes on the top are too comfy to want to risk an uprising], and preventing the rise of a distinct military class [for example, having everyone serve for a while as a soldier, and making soldiers reinsert into civilian life after a while]. failure to meet these criteria pretty much describes feudalism, with its common warrior uprisings.

2- culture will dictate this. also geography.

3- depends on the army, of course.

4- a siege. or tanks, tanks are nice.

5- unwalled cities? meet the enemy on the field [or the sea, depending]; this is why WW2 happened so much on the rural countryside and on small towns: its p hard to defend a city when everyone has tanks and artillery: the city quickly stops being a city.

6- depends on the weapons, but generally either tech <antigas masks> or the old gtfo strategy.

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Salmoneus »

Duaseron wrote:A while ago, I have started to write my definite version of the history of my conpeople, the Moranians and their relatives. But I am now stuck in a period with civil war, the fall of cities, the late rise and the downfall of the predecessor empire,...
So had a few questions about the army and military tactics...
1) How can a ruler avoid an uprising of the army?
i) Fear of you. Rule with an iron fist, killing anyone who even suggest an uprising. This is probably the hardest way, since by definition when you start to lose control of the army, you lose the ability to intimidate people as well...
ii) Fear of others. Put up an enemy, foreign or domestic, and tell your army that keeping you, and keeping stability, is the best way to defend against the enemy. Can backfire if they decide there is a threat but you're not the best one to face it...
iii) Greed. Give your soldiers lots of money. Tends to require more and more and more money over time.
iv) Loyalty. Make your soldiers like you. Helps if they like you personally - eg if many of their leaders are your friends and relatives who wouldn't want to hurt you. Failing that, present yourself as the sort of person they like.
v) Ideology. Inculcate strong beliefs in the army that prize obedience and condemn rebellion.

Generally, a combination of the above is favoured.
2) If you are outnumbered : diplomacy, guerrilla, or just throw your men by surprise in the enemy ranks and pray that everything will end well?
Obviously, it depends.
3) What are the best tactics to defeat an army?
...? You want a summary of the entire science of tactics in one sentence?
OK: move your resources in a way unanticipated by the enemy, that allows you to concentrate forces where your enemy is weak, but that also minimised risk to yourself, and cost in resources, and maximises potential gains. That's true of both strategy and tactics. However, I suppose you could say that most battles are won through strategy, not tactics. If you really have to win through tactics (ie the enemy has more men than you, and better equipment, and are better trained), you need to encourage the enemy to do something stupid.
4) What is the best way to penetrate a walled city, and what are the best ways to defend it?
It depends, obviously.
Your options, broadly, are:
a) do nothing and wait for them to surrender
b) storm the walls
c) lead a sneak attack
d) destroy the walls by bombardment and/or undermining.
Which is best depends on your resources.
Likewise, the best way to defend is to:
a) be prepared for a lengthy seige
b) man the walls
c) be disciplined to prevent surprise attacks and eliminate weaknesses the enemy can exploit
d) build strong walls, counter-bombard enemy seige engines and the beginning of saps, and if necessary counter-mine their undermining (better, though, to build on a firm foundation that can't be undermined)
5) If the city isn't walled, what is the best way to defend/penetrate it?
Build walls.
If you don't have walls, you can't defend the city. You can try to make the city a battle-ground, if you have extremely disciplined and well-trained troops, but this will damage the city more than abandoning it would.
6) the survival tricks for an army in a region hit by 'dirty war'(attacks with biological, chemical, nuclear weapons)
Death is the favoured option in these circumstances.
Failing that, take food with you, preferably stored in a way that reduces ongoing contamination. Take antidotes, antivirals, antibiotics, and antiradioactive drugs. In particular, take iodine in radioactive areas.
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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Duaseron »

3) What are the best tactics to defeat an army?

...? You want a summary of the entire science of tactics in one sentence?
OK: move your resources in a way unanticipated by the enemy, that allows you to concentrate forces where your enemy is weak, but that also minimised risk to yourself, and cost in resources, and maximises potential gains. That's true of both strategy and tactics. However, I suppose you could say that most battles are won through strategy, not tactics. If you really have to win through tactics (ie the enemy has more men than you, and better equipment, and are better trained), you need to encourage the enemy to do something stupid.
Well, not exactly. A longer summary with some army stategies would be usefull too.

Anyway, thanks a lot

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by cybrxkhan »

Might want to read the Art of War, Clausewitz's book (I forgot its name), and other classic 'guides' to military tactics and strategy. While they aren't necessarily 100% the best, they will hlep provide you perspective into how some military men (at least from certain time periods and cultures) view the art of war.

You might also want to play the Total War series. Not 100% historically accurate, obviously, but it does help spark some thoughts on how tactics might work.
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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Torco »

i recommend the mod 'europa barbarorum'. for rome total war

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Salmoneus »

Duaseron wrote:
3) What are the best tactics to defeat an army?

...? You want a summary of the entire science of tactics in one sentence?
OK: move your resources in a way unanticipated by the enemy, that allows you to concentrate forces where your enemy is weak, but that also minimised risk to yourself, and cost in resources, and maximises potential gains. That's true of both strategy and tactics. However, I suppose you could say that most battles are won through strategy, not tactics. If you really have to win through tactics (ie the enemy has more men than you, and better equipment, and are better trained), you need to encourage the enemy to do something stupid.
Well, not exactly. A longer summary with some army stategies would be usefull too.

Anyway, thanks a lot
Unfortunately, strategy and tactics both depend on your resources, and those of your enemy. You haven't even given an indication of time period or technology, or the types of terrain involved!

Strategically, you want to concentrate your forces and force battle with the enemy where they are weak. This will leave you weak elsewhere. So you want your weak spots to be in places that don't matter - but also to be in unexpected places, so that the enemy doesn't know where to attack until it's too late. Strategy and tactics are both a trade-off between what is essentially sensible and what is unpredictable - you can neither be too unpredictable (because this would involve doing things that are unpredictable because they are stupid) nor too sensible (because it's nice to do what makes most sense, but if that means your enemy knows exactly what you're going to do, they can exploit your weaknesses too effectively). Generally, you want to divide the enemy forces, and drive them away from the things they want to protect. You want to force them them to use up resources while you hoard your own. Remember also that morale and political capital are resources (eg in pre-modern times it was very difficult to avoid giving battle for too long, because the troops would rebel, and/or desert, and/or your political superiors would fire you. A lot of battles were lost because the losing party didn't have the strength but felt compelled to give battle before they lost what little strength they had). And of course, speed is essential in maintaining surprise and confusion.

Tactically, it depends entirely on your resources. For instance, if you have destriers but have no pikes, halberds, crossbows, or powerful bows that lots of your enemy know how to handle, the most devastating thing possible is a full-frontal charge with heavy cavalry, which can obliterate an infantry unit. If, on the other hand, your enemy has pikes, halbards, crossbows and longbowmen and have constructed breastworks to defend their position, then a full-frontal cavalry charge is unmitigated suicide, and your knights will all be mercilessly slaughtered. If you have a highly-disciplined infantry arm with extensive training and iron obedience, a Cannae manoeuvre, where the middle of your line pretends to retreat, dragging the enemy in, and then your wings surround them, is a recipe for bloody and merciless victory - if your infantry arm are poorly-trained peasant levies, then the same manoeuvre will instantly lose you the battle (because when peasants pretend to retreat, it very quickly becomes a real retreat, and you can't trust any of them to stick with the plan).
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Re: The armies of a conworld

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Torco »

A perhaps good idea here is to mention that war is politics and definitely does not look like an RTS where you're trying to destroy the guys of a different colour completely: war is about recursively concatenated strategic objectives. wars are fought *for* something. <although its more often than not unclear what the whole war is about from the view of a fighter>. The strategic landscape of a conflict might look like this.

the Blues want to become the rulers of Orangina in order to carry out a capitalist revolution. The Greens want that not to happen because they hate capitalism and want the current system to prosper. Orange is the king of Orangina. Check it out from the perspective of the Blues.

the strategic grand objectives of the Blues, as the Blues see them, are:

a) to bring the Oranginians <whom are NOT the king's men> to their side, gain allies, informers and agents within Orangina.
b) to make the Greens and Oranges look like evil monsters to the population.
c) to make the population to recognize them as the rulers, and not the Greens or Oranges.
d) to make the revolution and stop the counter-revolutionary actions of the Greens.

just take a). in order to do that they need to move around the country identifying sympathizer groups and elements to empower, and antagonic groups to combat. to move around looking for supporters, they need to move around in the first place. In order to do that, however, they need agents in Orangia, but they also need somewhere to shelter, train, coordinate, supply and heal those agents. There are a few good places to do that, and that's where the Lemon mountains become relevant. the Lemon mountains are close to two of the most Blue-friendly urban centers of Orangina, they're easily defendable and they're easy to get in and out of under cover of night. One day, early in the conflict, a bunch of blues sneak into the mountains and set up a fowards operations base. SO, the Blues now have a second-order strategic objective, in this case a location of strategic importance: the Lemon mountains. It might look like this would make retaking the blue mountains a strategic objective for the Greens, but it doesn't, its dumb to take them, they're too easily defendable and it would be too expensive to take: so they need to make it so the Blues cannot use the Lemon mountains to carry out their operations. they can

a) surround them with sentries
b) take the nearby port that connects the mountains to Blueland
c) prevent the Blues from interacting with the populations

imagine they go with c) and a) cause the port is too heavily defended <or they tried and failed to do so>, the Greens now have a strict policy of curfews and policing, hanging whoever in these two cities is found to interact with or be a Blue agent. the Blues now have a problem: they can't very well stage an uprising with the population if the population can't recieve coordination, weapons, training or instructions from their mountain command: SO, they can either.

a) impede the police force from doing their thing
b) use the situation to amplify the anti-green sentiment.
c) fuck forward base, we'll attack them elsewhere while they've got their hands full with this whole Lemon Mountain thing. <and hopefully they'll take their forces away from Lemon country, allowing us to stage the rebellion there, or something>

b would make the whole Lemon Mountain thing useless for the time being, and imagine c is too risky and there's no political will in the Blue party back home, so assume the Blues go with a). Now they've got smaller order strategic objectives, like

* have the cops falsely accuse innocent people of collaborating with the insurgency, making the cops waste their time on innocent people while the actual insurgents work
* destroy the cop's means of transportation <that is, kill ALL the cop's horses>.
* make the cops go hungry, so as they can't do their jobs <kill ALL the "this food is for cops" convoys>
* make the cops join the rebellion <for example, intercepting the trucks that carry the cop's wages>
* kill ALL the cops

however, killing the cops would make them less amicable towards joining the rebellion, so they don't kill the cops. And now we reach the tactical level; there's a Green-Orance Alliance convoy carrying horses to their local headquarters: your squad is to ambush them. Bob's squad will provide distraction in the nearby town, burning the fields of a prominent anti-insurgency breadmaker disguised as Green soldiers. steal the horses and kill them in the poorest district of town, our agents have made sure to promise a christmas feast of hose from the Blue Rebels.

see? its a bit more sophisticated than "kill all of them".
Last edited by Torco on Fri May 24, 2013 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Torco »

Also, there's pre-strategic stuff: basically, any group needs food, shelter, communications and supplies to keep functioning properly... the way that group provides that stuff to its members will determine if its an army, a guerrilla, or what. so the Blues, here, also have the strategic need to, say, communicate, and they will do so through some communication solution, which is vulnerable to actions by the greens and oranges. you get the picture

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Ars Lande »

Torque wrote:Also, there's pre-strategic stuff: basically, any group needs food, shelter, communications and supplies to keep functioning properly... the way that group provides that stuff to its members will determine if its an army, a guerrilla, or what. so the Blues, here, also have the strategic need to, say, communicate, and they will do so through some communication solution, which is vulnerable to actions by the greens and oranges. you get the picture
Military logistics! This is one of the most important, and neglected factors.
For instance, it's an old military tradition that military leaders conducting war against Russia will fuck up in that department, leading to a humiliating defeat. (e.g.: Napoleon, Hitler).
One of the factors that led to Roman military dominance was that the Romans were good at logistics.

I'll add another recommandation: you could try out Victor Davis Hanson, starting with the Western Way of War.
The focus is on classical Greek warfare, yet he does a pretty good job of explaining strategy and tactics, and how politics, logistics, the economy all influence the result of a war.

As for your questions:

1) How can a ruler avoid an uprising of the army?
Has already been answered better than I could have done.

2) If you are outnumbered : diplomacy, guerrilla, or just throw your men by surprise in the enemy ranks and pray that everything will end well?
First of all: are you really outnumbered? If the enemy troops are using outdated tactics and equipment, they don't really outnumber you; they just think they do. (The battle of Azincourt is a good example).

Your respective tech level are mostly equal? Then the key is to arrange the situation so that the relative numbers do not matter.
Guerilla is one such strategy.
Scorched earth policy might work too; a large army needs to be fed, and when 90% of the opponent army is dying of hunger, the situation is a lot more even.
A good example is the battle of Thermopylae; the Greeks engaged the vastly more numerous Persian army in a narrow coastal passage. The Persians still outnumbered the Greeks, but they had to pass through Thermopylae in small numbers.
It also helps if you have a slight technological advantage; the Greeks gave hell to the Persians by taking advantage of the Greek geography, but also because they had better equipment.

You can always try diplomacy, but it's doubtful it'll help you. If you are at war at all, chances are you've tried diplomacy and it has failed.
Throwing men blindly at your enemy by surprise is probably not a good idea either. If they outnumber you, they'll slaughter you, even if you attack them by surprise.

3) What are the best tactics to defeat an army?
First, assess your respective strength and weaknesses, and that of the enemy. Then, arrange the situation on the battlefield so that the factors at play are your own strengths and the enemy's weaknesses, not the other way around. And then, keep in mind that the enemy is trying to do the same: try to guess what they're thinking, and act accordingly. (Hence the importance of military intelligence, diversions, red herrings and outflanking).

4) What is the best way to penetrate a walled city, and what are the best ways to defend it?
Siege machines (including cannons), aiming either at the walls, or what's inside them. Sapping also helps. Also, making sure the rival city can't get any outside supplies. Then you either hope you can create a breach in the walls, or just wait it out.
From inside the walls: destroying the siege machines; trying to find a way to get outside supplies and getting allies or outside force to distract the enemy. If all else fails, wait it out and hope you don't die of hunger.

5) If the city isn't walled, what is the best way to defend/penetrate it?
If the city isn't walled, you're more or less fucked. The best defense is attack (you can quote me on that :p), in other words, making sure the enemy can't get near enough the city.

6) the survival tricks for an army in a region hit by 'dirty war'(attacks with biological, chemical, nuclear weapons)
Protection equipment (ie, gas masks, iodine tablets, and so on), regular measurements, alerts and drills. The area won't stay poisoned forever anyway; the wind is bound to blow the other way sooner or later.

7) Are there interesting sites concerning this interesting, but bloody subject?
Wikipedia has a pretty decent coverage of military history. There are also abundant online resources if you look for specific topics (especially World War Two!) But once again, the best resources are on dead trees.

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Re: The armies of a conworld

Post by Salmoneus »

I mostly agree, but have to stick up for the 'throw everyone at the vastly superior enemy, it might just work' approach. What matters in battles isn't force, but the ability to utilise force - if you can attack quickly and suddenly enough that the enemy's ability to co-ordinate is disrupted, you may well win. Particularly if the enemy doesn't know that they outnumber you - when you wake up and your camp is full of enemy soldiers killing people, you tend to assume they're winning, and hence run away, surrender or hide. Alternatively, if you can attack rapidly with a disciplined and concentrated force, you may be able to destroy particular targets (eg their commanders!) before they are able to adequately organise. This works particularly well if, say, you're an empire and they're a pre-modern warband.

So, for the 'just run at them screaming' tactic, I present: the battle of Okehazama!

Imagawa Yoshimoto led an army of - accounts differ - between 20,000 and 45,000 men, meeting almost no opposition. Oda Nobunaga met him by fortifying a temple in his path - but he only had between 1,500 and 2,500 men. He was outnumberd by at least 10 to 1, maybe even 25 to 1. Some of his lieutenants told him to surrender, others told him to hope Imagawa went away, unable to support his huge army for too long.

Instead, Oda left a small force at the temple and snuck the rest of his troops out. They circled around Imagawa's camp (in a heavy rainstorm, so nobody could see or hear them), and suddenly fell on it from the opposite direction. It was a hot afternoon, and Imagawa's samurai were drinking and eating, not expecting a battle - and his army was so large, and Oda's was so small, that even when the battle started, parts of the larger army still didn't know it was happening, they thought it was just some people getting drunk and being rowdy. Oda's men fought through to Imagawa's tent and killed him and all his commanders, and scattered all the survivors. Oda then persuaded the remaining enemy officers to serve him instead.

Or take the Battle of Kloshino. 6500 Poles attacked a fortified army of 35,000 russians and allies. Destroyed the Russian army. Didn't even involve any flashy tactics!

More famously and less weirdly, take the Punic Wars. At the Trebia, Hannibal was outnumbered by 4:3 and destroyed the Roman army. At Cannae, he was outnumbered 9:5, and obliterated the Roman army!

---

Of course, if you're facing overwhelming odds, the best choice by far is to find somewhere you can defend. At Lacolle Mills, for instance, 80 British troops fought off 4000 Americans. At the Battle of Blood River, 470 Boers fought off 15,000 Zulu (three Boers were lightly wounded, 3000 Zulu were killed).
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