Quill & Blade Equestrian Military And Tactics · 1:40pm May 24th, 2016
One of the things I've been aware of since starting to write the "of a Royal Guard" series was my readers' general interest in the military side of it. There are a lot of folks who have great and interesting experiences that I enjoy hearing about. Those experiences color how they see the story and what the characters do in it. With that in mind, there are some things I'd like to address! Spoilers after the break.
Seriously, there are spoilers down here. If you're not caught up on "of a Royal Guard" you'll want to stop here.
The Ponies Should have Known X
I see this one a lot. The ponies should have known about the explosives. The ponies should have known about the gryphons. The ponies should have known about x, y, or z. To that, I have two questions: why and how?
Some readers seem to come from the perspective that the Q&B Equestrian military IS and SHOULD BE on the same level as a modern, first world military. I don't. I don't because it doesn't make sense to me for a few reasons:
1. This is clearly not modern. Putting the "ponies" aside we as humans learned a LOT about waging war by making awful mistakes. War has advanced hugely in the last 100 years. I don't see why it is acceptable to say "the ponies should have known..." when we all agree it would be silly for us to say "Well the commanders of World War I should have known to do things differently."
Why do the ponies march in lines? That is what they learned to do! Those are the tactics of the day. This isn't modern warfare. We're looking at late middle ages with some influences based on their experiences as I understand them. Any perspective beyond that, to me, doesn't come into my view as the author.
2. People seem to hate this one but it is my writing point of view: ponies don't war often. We know they've had three "wars" in Clement's entire life. The current one they are in, one that happened 20 years prior (Stratus's War), and the one Clement was in. We also learned recently that those previous two "wars" were minuscule by comparison. In short, the war in Trials is the largest, most brutal, war any living regular pony has ever seen. Why would we, as readers, expect the ponies and their officers to immediately know how to deal with that? See point 1.
3. Their intelligence is not the same as our cold war or modern CIA. Yes, historically speaking there have always been spies. Some of them were exceptional. Here's my issue though: we're all humans. Ponies don't look like gryphons. Equestria would have to rely heavily on Nordanver for "agents" and, on top of that, their spycraft isn't as mature as ours. Remember, late middle ages. Not Tom Clancy.
4. Their definition of a good officer may be laughable to us. Just because Silent Knight says Brigadier Hammer is a good officer it doesn't mean I'm equating him to Patton. We're also looking in hindsight. Officers get better over time because they have more historical references to look at. Our ponies don't.
That brings me to the second question: How?
How, based on what we've seen, should the Q&B ponies suddenly have all of this data? They haven't been in an armed conflict in 20 years. The vast majority of their soldiers at the onset of the war had never, ever, been in combat. I didn't say that explicitly? Darn! I would have thought the fact that Stratus Knight was in the last conflict prior to his son's birth and his son was in his 20s would be obvious... or the fact I didn't mention any other conflicts ;)
The point I'm getting at is this: I think people have very unrealistic expectations of the characters depicted based on real world knowledge that the ponies could not have.
All nice points. Facial hair for Anzel for that.
With the small exeption of calling it strictly medieval - I would rather call it miitary interpretation of the middle ages from the 18th century standpoint or late eastern european/middle east reanessance. Eventally Napoleonic era with melee combat.
3968308 Thus my using the term "late middle ages" and not medieval even once
3968315 Just remember I have my opinion and I'll remember that ponies are an abstract art.
Napoleonic era without guns...
That fits even too well.
Well I for one think you are spot on and going great
The thought that you guys have put into this story really shows through, and the rate of technological advance is consistent, with the Gryphons using explosives in direct manner similar to the first aerial bombs of WW1, moving on through necessity into incorporating them into ground based traps that likely use old techniques in a new manner ie, the use of woven covers to provide the appearance of one thing when in reality it's a trap! Sorry, I couldn't resist 
On point 3, I would like also to illustrate this:
During the American Civil War, the standard method used by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to determine the size and strength of
Confederate regiments was to
Go into the field, count the number of regimental banners, and then guess. This was considered SOTA intel in that day; so much so that when the Union began to deploy balloons with operators that actually count unit strength, those figures were usually discounted as not accurate.
An actual figure was considered less accurate than a guess.
well on the explosive thing for me it more applies to the last chapter. Since the Gryphons had already used the stuff and after the beating they got at first i would think they would be more careful.
Besides that i agree with the rest. Besides from monster attacks they have had only small wars and have been so peacful that any tactical skill they might have had would be dulled.
All good points. If you look at the number of CoD inserts in the [Human] tag, it's obvious we have a lot of armchair generals here. Even if you don't read those fics, by proximity people get used to big competent militaries and their influence spreads.
The two most plausible interpretations are something like yours, with a small professional military, or some unspoken foreign war that's keeping the onscreen proportion of males to around ~20%, both of which I'd like to see more of.
I've already said my peace on the "explosives" (Is that what they are?) - and clarified it - and honestly, in a world of quadrupeds and flyers, it's a bit amazing to me that block formation tactics are apparently the norm. But it's also not my world. (Mine would have more Mongols...
)
3968670
After having that label used against me and spending time thinking about it, I have to ask: what's the problem with that? The difference between armchair general and not seems to come down to whether a particular person thinks the other is correct or not. in my opinion, defending the ponies' tactics as written is just as much "armchair generalling" as criticizing them is.
3968820 For the armchair generally portion I think it comes down to how it is presented.
Often times I see it presented as the characters are stupid, should know everything I mentioned, and/or that the author is stupid for presenting it that way.
It isn't so much discussing things so much as the presentation.
So, for instance, I'd be curious to learn your view of how quadruped relates to not using block tactics.
3968820 Exactly as 3968853 said.
The one issue I have is related to your statement that Pony tactics are still evolving. Explosives have evolved quite a bit too. Since it was discovered by Chinese alchemists gunpowder weapons and explosives developed over a period of a 1000 or so years in tandem with so called "medieval," weapons.
The tactics the gryphon's are using with their bombs implies a high degree of sophistication with highly reliable charges and complex fuses. The bombs shouldn't be such a shock because their ancestral antecedents should have been deployed and experimented for centuries in gryphon warfare for them to have what they do now.
However, I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt and assume that several centuries of explosives development somehow being compressed into a few years is a plot point.
3968862
This is, more or less, my point. You're apply human world history, knowledge, and expectations to a world that doesn't share it.
And this is precisely what I was pointing out. You're using the word should.
You're basing should on our history, our science, our technology, our physics, the elements of our world and trying to hold the story to that standard.
Should? I politely disagree. You're making a lot of assumptions.
1. That the explosives are made like ours, from the same materials as ours, and are as stable as ours.
2. That they're sophisticated. Could you elaborate on what this is based on within the story and the lore?
3. That for all species, in a worlds, that all development will be equal.
4. Are basing on minimal information about the devices in question.
You can say it is just because of a "plot point" but I don't personally agree. There is a thought process behind it and I reject our world physics and science as "rules" in a world where dragons are real, horses can fly with small wings, and magic exists.
3968820
Since we're critiquing fanfiction of a cartoon without war, calling someone an armchair general is just my way of tone policing the comments. It's the difference between seeing them surprised by a secret weapon and saying "boy their intelligence sucks" or "wow the enemy is good" and someone else saying that it's not realistic for them not to have known, or saying there's no way the griffons would be that technologically advanced.
And Anzels' comment above about assumptions is pertinent as well. Too many people make assumptions, and although there hasn't been a ton of detail about everyone's tech and strategies, if you look at their airship situation, for example, you'll see that they're not experienced with mobilizing or weaponizing.
3968892 Its the fact that the gryphons can fly with them. Historically being a Grenadier was a highly skilled job that required patient and careful set-up of the fuse and even then the chance of blowing yourself up was high. It would be extremely difficult to properly set up and light a fuse while in mid-flight. That implies a sophisticated reliable fuse that can be triggered simply.
The fuse being magical doesn't matter. Complexity is complexity and explosives by their very nature are touchy and unpredictable regardless of what they're made of. It would take real time and real hard won experience for them to be perfected. All indications in the show and in your fic verse is that Magical traditions also built up slowly over thousands of years they're no different from technology in that regard.
Good points, I never thought there was a problem with your tactics because of some of the points you mentioned. Never thought about the spies and how difficult being different species would make that.
3969025 My counters would be that a) again, we don't know anything about how the technology worked based on the story as-is and b) we saw the gryphons fumbling with them.
Until we actually know what the gryphons are doing and what is going on, everything is conjecture and assumptions. Everything. And arguing with the author is just kind of pointless, because he knows things you don't.
3969025
This is again assuming they're using explosives we would recognize as being used by grenadiers.
Also, who said they lit the fuses mid-flight? Who said there are fuses? You're continuously making assumptions and trying to force something into a box to make your point.
To be quite frank: what?! I believe we have a different view on "magical." Ponies can literally drop giant shields of light from the sky that stop fast moving projectiles but allow slow ones through.
That is acceptable...
A fuse that is easily lit and stable in flight.
That is unacceptable...
Forgive me for my bluntness. No.
I fully understand your argument. It is valid for our world. I feel you're overreaching for this one.
People having problems with suspension of disbelief for a fantasy setting ITT. Good grief.
I generally take each fanfiction as self-contained and try to accepted the vast majority of what an author writes as unique to the world they are building. Unless it directly contradicts the source material, anyway, and even then I allow for a great deal of leeway in how an author fits the world of MLP into the story they want to tell.
I have very little problem with how the story is written thus far because I know that we haven't seen everything. IF the ponies that survived Harmony saw what the gryphons were using and IF that info got to the metal collared desk jockeys and IF the gryphons have used explosives in a land battle before (even in an attacking manner) then maybe someone was wearing a stupid hat. But until we know the answers to those questions, everything is speculation.
EDIT: And by the gryphons using them in a land battle, I mean in a 'wastrel' sense of the word. That would mean the gryphons had a LOT of this stuff and it wasn't just some one-time deal with the Harmony as well as meaning that it wasn't a single-use or massive artifact thing.
Awesome points. While I was reading Trials, I thought more of 1914, and how naive the initial engagements were. Even with the technology (WW1 machine guns, aircraft, and eventually tanks) The doctrine really isn't laid down until the latter stages of the war.
So as I read trials I got that similar feeling: They have magic, airships, large "artillery" etc.. But have little experience of deploying it effectively (in a retrospective view of course)
But since you mentioned late medieval period, it clicks a bit more for me. :)
The thing some people need to see is that, as you say Anzel, a major war is a different kettle of fish when compared to any other types of conflict. You go from mobilizing say a handful of regiments, and being able to support them logistically with a degree of comfort. To forcing a whole percentage of your armed forces total strength, THEN trying to make the logistics work for that. And it often fails and struggles for the opening part of any large scale war.
Just my thoughts on it :)
3968853
This does relate to my perceptions of human cavalry tactics, and potentially a misunderstanding of your intentions in various scenes, but the way things sounded to me is that the ponies are relying on large blocks of human-style infantry. Yet every soldier essentially comes with built-in cavalry and, again by the sound of things, they're largely forgoing the increased mobility that can allow. Similarly, all gryphons come with built-in air force, and yet their primary tactic seems to be human-style ground defense.
As much as you make a point that these are not humans, and they don't necessarily use human tactics/methods, both sides still seem to base quite a bit of strategy on human-style warfare.
For example, imagine a massed line of gryphons. On command they all lift off and fly several hundred yards left or right, keeping low the entire way. Can the other side redeploy fast enough to compensate?
3969573
I totally see what you're getting at. Let me explain my thought process.
Cavalry is effective because horses move faster and present a larger, heavier unit than a man by himself. A man on horseback does not expend energy to get to where he is going. He is taller than a man on the ground and has a heavy animal to help me fight.
A pony, unless ridden by another pony, isn't the same in my eyes. That increased mobility requires them to expend energy. They're also not taller, nor do they have the advantage of a partnership. Essentially, they're not cavalry (in my eyes) so much as horses running around on a battlefield without men.
So, more or less, when everyone's cavalry, nobody is. That may or may not make sense but that is my process and logic.
Perfectly valid point as well. Could the ponies react as fast? Probably not. Ponies do have flyers but they're not as numerous. Here is my process for this.
Going back to the cavalry thing. Gryphons are not men riding birds. This is a single creature. The more your arm and armor them the heavier they get. The heavier they get the more effort it takes to fly.
So yes, they could redeploy faster but how much additional energy do they expend to do so? When they end up in an advantageous position, how does it balance against the fatigue of having made that move?
Finally, for all of this, the primary weapon of ranged combat is the crossbow. Flying and shooting one, plus reloading one, would be pretty hard.
Plus ponies on the ground can shoot back with both crossbows and the limited number of unicorns. Eventually, if you're going to fight your enemies, it is going to be on the ground.
Fights can occur in the sky but now you're flying, carrying all that weight, AND exerting yourself there. That is why the dragoons work. They lance you, drop the thing, and then move on. Sustained combat, in my mind, would be exhausting.
3969113 Fact of life, sorry. Any time you have any reasonably serious, self-consistent work, there's going to be a significant crowd of folks who think (sometimes rightly) that they've found holes in your logic, unseen assumptions, and generally dubious worldbuilding. You can reduce the number of complaints by making the explanations come together more thoroughly and sooner, and sometimes author's notes and so forth are helpful in preemptively dispelling various silly misconceptions, but you can't totally eliminate the noise except by reducing readership towards zero.
Look up the Tippyverse arguments sometime to see how complicated things can get.
3969647
Yes, but quadrupeds - equine-like ones in particular - tend to have greater speed and carrying capacity than your average person. Even if everyone is moving at the same rough speed, the overall battle would play out faster overall. The way I see it, the moment one side of quadrupeds gives up that mobility in favor of a massed block, the other side is freer to exercise cavalry-like mobility. But enacting/receiving a charge works better with some amount of massing, so it would be more complicated than "nobody is cavalry because everyone is" - I think a pitched battle between quadrupeds would be a more hectic dance as units transition between blocks for sending/receiving charges, and looser formations to rush to more advantageous positions.
Depends very much on the effect it has on your enemy. Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign also comes to mind. The enemy doesn't necessarily know you're exhausted, and the confusion and dismay can be enough to balance the costs.
I wish I could recall where I remember a lone cannon successfully defending a copse of trees from. If I recall correctly, the defenders were down to one, so they moved it around between shots and made the enemy think it was a full battery. Plus, similar to my thoughts on everypony being cavalry, flying and shooting in conjunction might not be the ultimate goal. Quickly getting to a better location from which to shoot might be.
3970167
This entire argument seems to center around decisive engagement of maneuver elements, wherein capability dictates maneuver and thus the likely outcome of a combat scenario. What this means is that the two sides are tied in combat, trying to out maneuver whilst in combat, and the distinct variation in their combat capability is the limiting factor that decides the outcome. Please let me know if I am misunderstanding the argument.
Whilst the nature of the Equestrian forces may lend itself to Calvary style combat, from what I have read so far they do not seem to be employing cavalry tactics.
Calvary does and always has revolved around it's ability to maneuver. To grant freedom of maneuver, one of the key caveat's of calvary is to not become decisively engaged. They hit and run (over simplification), provide forward observation and battlefield commentary, and flanking support during the attack. They can provide weapons overmatch but can rarely sustain prolonged support. A likely candidate for this task for Equestrian Forces would be the Pegisi.
You do not maneuver in the Assault. You can't, it just doesn't work. All maneuver is planned, meticulously, prior to the fact, and consists of battle effects that you can either employ or remove. Once H hour arrives, a maneuver commanders job restricts itself to a series of decisive events that mark success or failure of the particular phases of a battle. To change a plan half way through invites attrition.
From a Sudramoar POV, they are facing Weapons overmatch and are desperate to gain the upper hand. They have proven that fire and blast weapons are effective, so it should be no surprise that they have dedicated their war research effort along these lines. They are quite easy and cheap to make. They require VERY rudimentary fusing, usually requiring little more than glass vials of one chemical suspended in another. Throw or smash, instant and devastating chemical reaction. Apply and refine that theory, and you can create devastating weapons and battlefield effects.
The Sudramoar are conducting retrograde actions. They are employing a blocking and delaying defence prior to maneuvering the Equestrians into a Killzone. The Equestrians have never come across these tactic's before and are likely to fall head first into them (sorry if I'm taking too many liberties, but honestly, this is pretty much a text book Delaying defence and the setup from the previous few chapters leads towards it. And please by no means take that as a shot at the story, in fact, quite the oppisite). The use of Explosive Obstacles by the Sudramoar will likely be quite a watershed in the tide of the war. They will likely be able to use them to regain the initiative and inflict the kind of casualties that will create a massive political backlash for the Equestrians. And that is how a war is won. By politicians and public opinion. And where the line sits when everyone has had enough.
Well done so far with your story, I hope to continue to read it with this kind of attention to detail.
3970167 I certainly think you have some neat ideas. I'd be interested in seeing them in practice.
At this point my particular story isn't going to deviate from the views I hold and the plan I've laid out.
As such and based on this comment I don't really think we're discussing so much as presenting our "how I'd write my story" points so I guess I'll leave it there :)
The only complainr I might have had at some point is that, considering their situation, using Pegasi troops as a "Shock Cavalry" charging from above before an "infantry" Earth Pony and Unicorn attack could be good... however they are fighting against a race where 100% of their soldiers can fly, AND that has a larger army (even if by this point it could be less well-trained) So that possibility is negated.
Altough, looking at the situation, whoever comes up with some of the things Jan Zizka did in real life has a good chance at winning...