Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIV

[Vinyadan]

If pulling a bowstring backwards while flapping wings could ruin flight, then the bow could be held with the feet, and the string pulled towards your chest, maybe even with both hands. Crossbows would limit this problem somehow.

I wonder how much lack of modern communication would limit the potential of a flying army.

Also yes, the game had both war cries, grunts while striking, and screams of terror when falling

[Galloglaich]

If pulling a bowstring backwards while flapping wings could ruin flight, then the bow could be held with the feet, and the string pulled towards your chest, maybe even with both hands. Crossbows would limit this problem somehow.

I wonder how much lack of modern communication would limit the potential of a flying army.

Also yes, the game had both war cries, grunts while striking, and screams of terror when falling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGoT9eO7vU8

[Haighus]

If pulling a bowstring backwards while flapping wings could ruin flight, then the bow could be held with the feet, and the string pulled towards your chest, maybe even with both hands. Crossbows would limit this problem somehow.

I wonder how much lack of modern communication would limit the potential of a flying army.

Also yes, the game had both war cries, grunts while striking, and screams of terror when falling

I think crossbows would be more impractical- they are heavier, the bolt is harder to keep in place when aiming down (or upside-down!), and the methods of loading that are most possible (crannequin and maybe windlass) are fiddly, and could be dangerous to the wielder to use underwing. Especially so on powerful crossbows, where attaching the crannequin wrong can result in lethal injuries. Belt hooks are obviously very difficult when flying, and hand drawing has the same draw backs as using a bow.

I am not sure if using the feet to draw is practical either- this would require fairly stationary flying to resonably aim, which would invite retaliation. Realistically, only light crossbows and low-draw-weight bows would be useable. I think rocks and javelins, which could be dropped, would be most useful (and incendiaries if the fuse can be worked out for flight). Constant resupply would be necessary to make up for their light load bearing of course. An interesting option could be nets to disrupt troops?

[Mr Beer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_Dog_(bomb)

They could be dropping these projectiles, less than 0.5 oz each and hit with the force of a 0.50 calibre bullet.

[Mike_G]

I still think the idea of bombers is less useful until you get better bombs.

But the usefulness as scouts, messengers and to strike behind enemy lines like paratroopers or commandos or helicopter infantry is huge. They could be used to resupply besieged towns, set fire to enemy supply depots, set ambushes well behind the lines and generally make the enemy waste troops guarding EVERYTHING or accept the losses.

I wouldn't waste them in bombing runs on troops that will be trying to optimize anti-air weapons.

[Deepbluediver]

I am not sure if using the feet to draw is practical either- this would require fairly stationary flying to resonably aim, which would invite retaliation.

It sounds ridiculous, but there's a D&D 3.5 race that does exactly that- I think it's the Raptorans from Races of the Wild.

[Vinyadan]

It sounds ridiculous, but there's a D&D 3.5 race that does exactly that- I think it's the Raptorans from Races of the Wild.

That's funny, I was actually thinking of the final scenes from The Mission. Some Indios use their bows by lying supine and drawing the string with their hands, while holding the bow with both of their feet and straight legs.

[Clistenes]

About the winged army, they don't really need powerful bows or crossbows; diving vertically on the enemy army and throwing heavy darts, javelins, pilums and soliferra on them would be more effective than arrows or bolts... A soliferrum thrown from enough height could push through shields, armor and helms...

Arrows thrown against them, on the other hand, would carry little power after rising a few dozen yards, and would fall back on the land-bound army...

The land-bound army would have to use very open formations to avoid being peppered with iron darts from great heights. The flyers would have to fly low to aim at individual targets rather than just bombarding dense, tighly packed groups... but the flyers could still manouver at their pleasure, concentrating their numbers on and destroying whatever section they chose to...

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I figure they're two and a half things you can reasonably do against flyers. The half thing is not getting hit. Either by not clumping together or by having fortifications. Medieval style castles didn't have the best roofs ever, since bow constructions were under utilized, but if you design for a strong roof or use smaller buildings like more modern forts you will get reasonable protection. But this only gets you into a stalemate with them having the map control, and thus more means to end the stalemate. They could go attack some place you want to protect, they could go fetch flasks of oil and torches to firebomb you...

One of the two things (that I can think of now) you can do offensively is saturate the air with projectiles up to around the highest height they can reasonably attack from. Shot seems a good option if you have gunpowder. Maybe load cannons (mortars technically I guess) with it. Some form of catapult could launch a bucket of junk, but I don't think you'd get high enough.

The other thing is be there when they need to land. They attack your fortress, they fire what they have, you follow them back out with heavy cavalry. You destroy the supply train handing out weapons/munition, and from there the light cavalry takes over and stays in pursuit of the fleeing now unarmed flyers until they set down somewhere. Less effective if they have a fortress of their own inside of a few hundred kilometers (you can't even reasonably attack that just after they leave from there on campaign, even if you did manage to conquer the fort in a few days they'd almost certainly get messengers out). Also, they're probably quite a bit faster than horses, that would help them not fall out of the sky.

So yeah, you're screwed.

[Clistenes]

One of the two things (that I can think of now) you can do offensively is saturate the air with projectiles up to around the highest height they can reasonably attack from. Shot seems a good option if you have gunpowder. Maybe load cannons (mortars technically I guess) with it. Some form of catapult could launch a bucket of junk, but I don't think you'd get high enough.

Primitive guns are slow to reload and have a short range plus they would be shooting upwards, so the effective range would be awful...

Flyers, on the other hand, could drop iron darts, grenades and Molotov cocktails from any height; they could attack from beyond the range of your primitive guns...

Cannons would be better, but cannons are expensive, and are hard and slow to move, aim and reload.

The flyers could come from any direction, so you would have to prepare cannons aimed to everywhere and keep shooting without pause. But that would be a static position; soon or later the landbound army would run out of ammo, gunpowder and food, they would have to move and then the flyers would obliterate them.

EDIT: I think the groundlings' best option would be to create subterranean fortresses and come out only at night or under the cover of woods. Send strike teams to the places where the flyers sleep and get their food, ambush and kill as many as they can, and run away before their main force arrives. Also, poison their sources of water and food, burn their crops, if they had them, and spread infectious diseases among their cattle; try to infect the flyers themselves too, if possible.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

EDIT: I think the groundlings' best option would be to create subterranean fortresses and come out only at night or under the cover of woods. Send strike teams to the places where the flyers sleep and get their food, ambush and kill as many as they can, and run away before their main force arrives.

And even then you're surprise-attacking people you can just fly away. A single alarm shout gets the whole bunch off the ground with whatever sharp or heavy objects were around.

I think to do a war against flyers in a fantasy setting you need to give them a drawback. Like maybe they're a bunch smaller then us, or don't have proper hands (but beaks, feet and spurs), or both. I could maybe come up with a decent plan to fight intelligent birds, but not really against flying winged humanoids. (I see now that in the original question the flyers were somewhat less intelligent, so that's a drawback, but they were being armed and sent out by humans and can work in groups, negating a significant part of the drawback immediately.)

In a sci-fi or even a modern setting it gets a lot better, the sky provides no cover (other than height and distance) and very little concealment. A flying soldier on the battlefield is called skeet, after all.

[Galloglaich]

I am itching to reply to this flying monkeys thing, but I want to wait until the new thread

[rs2excelsior]

I think to do a war against flyers in a fantasy setting you need to give them a drawback. Like maybe they're a bunch smaller then us, or don't have proper hands (but beaks, feet and spurs), or both. I could maybe come up with a decent plan to fight intelligent birds, but not really against flying winged humanoids. (I see now that in the original question the flyers were somewhat less intelligent, so that's a drawback, but they were being armed and sent out by humans and can work in groups, negating a significant part of the drawback immediately.)

Actually, I'd said to assume they were just as intelligent as humans (in the actual setting I'm working on a bit moreso--they aren't being armed and sent out by humans, the non-flyers are their subject races).

I figured it wouldn't look very good for the people without flying troops. Seems the consensus ranges from "it's an advantage" to "they'd crush everyone entirely." I think I'm going to limit their strength a bit, as well as hovering endurance, simply to limit their ability to fly out of range and bombard. Their most common type of attack will be dropped metal darts--I hadn't thought about the shared muscle groups for flying/archery, but you're probably correct--I don't think it'd be easy, if possible at all. Maybe some gunpowder/incendiaries, but I think these will be less common. Loose, rapidly-moving formations would probably be the best counter for an open field battle: force the flyers in low to hit, then retaliate with crossbows and muskets. That leaves you vulnerable to heavy cavalry and makes command and control difficult... but with a large amount of ranged weapons you'd hopefully be able to fall back and blunt a charge. Castles and whatnot would be much more protected from above, of course. And there will be magical/technological things that can level the playing field a bit, but as I said before, I wanted a "real-world" baseline to work from.

Thanks for the input, everyone! I didn't think it would look very good for the ground-based army, but given how often I've been surprised by the technology, flexibility, and ingenuity of the medieval era I thought it was best not to assume.

[Vinyadan]

Could a flying monkey squad take a dump over resources like food or water? Or high-altitude poop during the commander's speech?

[Brother Oni]

I am itching to reply to this flying monkeys thing, but I want to wait until the new thread

As requested, Thread 25 is up.