Now this disturbed me - numbers

[magnutz]

A short invite to discuss Armies and their numbers.

 

I feel RJ didn't convince me about his choice of numbers where armies are concerned. 40 000 Aiel here - 10 000 there.. and 100 000 men over there. Sure if you have an army of 100 000 you can tell it to invade some place. Moving 40 000 men - 100 000 men is not something done over the weekend. It feels like it though.

 

40 000 Aiel would have hunted the local game to extinction and done all sorts of damage to... everything. If 40 000 Aiel piss in a river the ecosystem would freak out. If 40 000 Aiel ate deer, deer would become rare.

 

What are your thoughts on this?

[Bob T Dwarf]

Logistics was not Jordan's forte.

 

There's no explanation for how the supposedly millions of Trollocs have been supporting themselves, either.  Nor, who kept them organized, fed, and supplied for the 3000 year interregnum.

 

No society, especially the relatively low population, primitive ones we see here, can sustain the kind of standing armies they all supposedly possess either.

 

Some things in fantasy are just magic no matter what.

[magnutz]

Some things in fantasy are just magic no matter what.

 

Too true. ;)

 

it does disturb me though as I have more time to think while I read the story every time I re-read it. Seanchan armies, Shaido... oh lord. All of Randland would be caputt! if normal rules applied. ;)

[erickm001]

There's no explanation for how the supposedly millions of Trollocs have been supporting themselves, either. 

 

Trollocs don't need a logistics train. All they need are those big cook pots they haul around. That's one of their biggest advantages.

[Bob T Dwarf]

They do need weapons and armor.  That means raw materials and all of the infrastructure to produce, transport, refine, work, and distribute.  They're non-cooperative and utterly untrainable.  Even cookpots wear out after 3000 years and have to be replaced.

 

Just let it go at magic and don't try to rationalize it.  There is simply no way Trollocs survived other than magic.

[Nikmi]

Yeah.. While RJ did cover alot of details in WOT. Logistics is one of the things he kinda failed on. It is a flaw in the books im willing to live with. It is probably impossible to make fiction without plotholes. And considering how much attention to detail and work he had putted into making the plot hold water where it really counts. I can live with the fact that the armies gathered at certain times in the books would be impossible to maintain as a gathered garrison for so long as its done in the book..

 

He kinda forgets the logistic of things about the Aiel as well. Im not sure but there is at least 300.000 Aiel including more (with the shaido) that leaves the waste with Rand. Unless there is more civilian Aiel than indicated. its impossible that a culture could support that many *full time warriors*. Although I imagine that they did have alternative jobs than just fighting. I believe its mentioned at some point that they for example also serve as guards over the Aiels herde animals?..

 

None the less. without completely starting a new discussion. Yeah RJ Fails to explain the logistic. and meet the limit and sometimes crosses it of what seems possible. But it is again a lack in the lore I am willing to live with :)

[magnutz]

I just feel that he could have used fewer men in these armies. The numbers aren't what makes an army super great/interesting, it is what the army does that makes it so. :) I still love the whole story though!

[ohaitharguiz]

Ah cmon now, we all no 100,000 vs. 100,000 is way cooler than 1,000 Vs. 1,000.

[magnutz]

Ah cmon now, we all no 100,000 vs. 100,000 is way cooler than 1,000 Vs. 1,000.

 

Nah, 100 000 vs 100 000 is crazy hackathon. ;) And I'd say 10 000 vs. 10 000 offers pretty much what 100k vs 100k offers. Only more condensed.

[ohaitharguiz]

Or when the Ash'aman are involved, a crazy lawn mowerathon.

[Muad Cheade]

A short invite to discuss Armies and their numbers.

 

I feel RJ didn't convince me about his choice of numbers where armies are concerned. 40 000 Aiel here - 10 000 there.. and 100 000 men over there. Sure if you have an army of 100 000 you can tell it to invade some place. Moving 40 000 men - 100 000 men is not something done over the weekend. It feels like it though.

 

40 000 Aiel would have hunted the local game to extinction and done all sorts of damage to... everything. If 40 000 Aiel piss in a river the ecosystem would freak out. If 40 000 Aiel ate deer, deer would become rare.

 

What are your thoughts on this?

 

If there are 10 million people (that's a very low and unrealistic statement) it is very plausible that at the least 3 or 4 million could be soldiers.

 

If you study history, armies consisting of tens and hundreds of thousands are fairly common. After Napoleon's defeat in Russia, he raced back to France and raised an army of atleast 100,000 in a very short time.

 

 

Large armies have been a consistent fixture in human warfare. Yes, moving large groups of men is not "something done over the weekend," the Aiel can move extremely fast and so can cavalry. Moving men takes a long time which is why the army Rand assembled in Illian took a book and a half to gather.

 

When the Aiel came over the Dragonwall, they brought enough food to support the hundreds of thousands for a while because according to prophecy, they wouldn't be going back.

 

I'm sure the Aiel could successfully manage to eliminate waste since we figured it out very early on in human history.

 

Logistics was not Jordan's forte.

 

There's no explanation for how the supposedly millions of Trollocs have been supporting themselves, either.  Nor, who kept them organized, fed, and supplied for the 3000 year interregnum.

 

No society, especially the relatively low population, primitive ones we see here, can sustain the kind of standing armies they all supposedly possess either.

 

Some things in fantasy are just magic no matter what.

 

Just like there is never a shortage of wars, there's never a shortage of men to fight in them.

 

As for the WoT being primitive, that is very wrong. The period resembles the Early Modern Period of history with both the innovations on a social and military scale.

 

Early in the story there were small standing armies. There were the nobility and retainers and then some nation had specialized military forces (Queen's Guard, Companions, Defenders of the Stone, Legion of the Wall, Winged Guards). The rest of the troops were levies: commoners from the general population pulled up for fighting.

 

They do need weapons and armor.  That means raw materials and all of the infrastructure to produce, transport, refine, work, and distribute.  They're non-cooperative and utterly untrainable.  Even cookpots wear out after 3000 years and have to be replaced.

 

Just let it go at magic and don't try to rationalize it.  There is simply no way Trollocs survived other than magic.

 

They made their own armor and presumably cookpots. How could you not see that? That is why their armor and weapons are inferior to those of Myrdraal which are made by the Forgers.

 

Obviously, they don't really need food because they raid constantly across the Blightborder.

 

If they are capable of speaking their own language, it makes sense that they can atleast function on a basic level.

 

Jordan fought in Vietnam and studied history and warfare religiously. I think he would have a tin bit of knowledge of logistics.

[Mr. Micawber]

Logistics was not Jordan's forte.

 

There's no explanation for how the supposedly millions of Trollocs have been supporting themselves, either.  Nor, who kept them organized, fed, and supplied for the 3000 year interregnum.

 

No society, especially the relatively low population, primitive ones we see here, can sustain the kind of standing armies they all supposedly possess either.

 

Some things in fantasy are just magic no matter what.

 

Exactly.

 

And Muad, the Trollocs have explicitly *not* been doing any raiding for two years now. Yet we're supposed to believe there're are millions of them.

 

I can think of only two ideas:

 

a. Sharandred has set up Sharan feeding pens.

 

Balthamel's principal job during the First War was apparently to create breeding camps to feed the Trolloc hordes.

 

or

 

b. "Narg smart. Narg cook jumara real good."

[magnutz]

Ok, so our real life history shows us that vast armies were common. Ok, I agree. With history. ;) And I don't have a BIG beef with this. It just feels unsupported and too large a scope for the world of Randland to cope with. When I look at the map of Main Randland I don't see how it could house that many armies of such numbers without crowding the place.. ;)

[Bob T Dwarf]

 

I'm sure the Aiel could successfully manage to eliminate waste since we figured it out very early on in human history.

 

At the analogous period in our history, people were still emptying chamberpots into the street.  Disease was rampant.  Life expectancy was low.

 

Jordan fought in Vietnam and studied history and warfare religiously. I think he would have a tin bit of knowledge of logistics.

 

If you're satisfied with Jordan's non-attempt to rationalize the logistical realities of large standing armies, and large mobile forces, great.  Some of us are not.

[Mr. Micawber]

Jordan fought in Vietnam and studied history and warfare religiously. I think he would have a tin bit of knowledge of logistics.

 

But see, Muad, I don't think he did. Military History, Early Modern Military History, is something I do academically - along with Intellectual and Political History - and RJ always seemed to be more of a War Buff than a Military Historian.

 

There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with being one, my late Grandpa who bequeathed to me a love of history and all things military was one, but War Buffs tend not to spend an enormous amount of time on things like logistics.

 

If they talk about equipment, then they tend to focus on weapons and munitions - something we know RJ loved, based on his *ridiculously awesome* collection.

 

They will often have an elite understanding of tactical and even operational issues.

 

But things like logistics are boring to the vast majority of people. I am fascinated by things like native military participation in Italian city states, in bodies like militias, or the unprecedented mobilization of not merely men, but material by the French Republic. You see, to understand these kinds of things, even bodies like the Großer Generalstab, you need to understand how elements of entire societies work, you need to know about industrialization or trade or banking and finance or taxation or social attitudes towards warfare.

 

I absolutely love this series, but RJ's understanding of just what a district can reasonably support is woefully lacking. Indeed, the number one thing he fails to address on an epic level is the impact of disease on armies and military operations. In Early Modern Europe, the vast majority of army casualties were from disease. In the Civil War, most casualties were from disease. Napoleon did not lose his army because of the Russian Winter. By the time he left Moscow, he had already been decimated. He lost men to things like Typhus and Malaria and Dysentery.

 

In fact, all this was true until the First World War. And even then, the Spanish Influenza Pandemic probably killed nearly as many people as the First World War did...and without the War, there's no way the disease would have been as destructive.

 

These massive camps filled with Seanchan or Aiel or Rand's other people, and most importantly, the 100,000 man Borderland army, ought to be experiencing deaths on a massive scale, even without the Big Guy making all the food go bad.

 

RJ was a decorated gunner, but he spent his time flying over the Central Highlands or the Delta or below the DMZ, not in Saigon with MACV on Westmoreland or Abrams' staff.

[magnutz]

Hear hear!

[Mr. Micawber]

Ok, so our real life history shows us that vast armies were common. Ok, I agree. With history. ;) And I don't have a BIG beef with this. It just feels unsupported and too large a scope for the world of Randland to cope with. When I look at the map of Main Randland I don't see how it could house that many armies of such numbers without crowding the place.. ;)

 

That's not something that bothers me too much.

 

The distance from the Aryth Ocean to the Dragonwall is something like 3,500 miles.

 

Randland is about the same size as the contiguous 48 States. It's *definitely* bigger than Europe west of the Dniepr.

 

What *does* bother me is the sizes of armies when basically everything seems uninhabited except for about a dozen or so cities.

 

Moreover, I am incredibly annoyed by the traveling times. Our Guys move around way too quickly. And a lot of this is handwaved away by saying Aiel can run as far and as fast in a day as horses.

 

Which is bovine fecal matter. No human being can do this, which is one more reason why I believe the Aiel were genetically engineered in the AoL.

[Muad Cheade]

I agree with you on Napoleon's invasion of Russia, but I believe his army was affected before he took Moscow. He started out with very poor supply and logistic trains which probably doomed the invasion before it began. Because Jordan does not specifically mention tht fact does not mean the WoT world is one without that. Also, you have to remember that there are channelers with each major group of Rand's armies which allows the removal of disease through Healing. While that does not apply to the Seanchan, they are known to be very proficient soldiering and in taking care of their soldiers by supporting them and consistently suupplying them (even Mat is impressed).. So while Jordan does not go in depth on that side of logistics, it does not mean if does not affect armies.

 

As for the quickness of travelling, I think it's realistic. Rand and his armies are now moved primarily by Travelling. They have been for atleast the past four books, and early on in the books they used boat for a large portion of their movement, so I'm not sure why you think they travel too fast. As I mentioned before, when Rand gathered the army to take Illian, it took nearly a book and a half to be fully gathered. The Band's ability to move is logical and has historical basis.

 

As for populations, the population of France was 600,000 in 1700. I've always thought of Caemlyn and Cairhien and other other main cities to be that size. Also, the country side not unpopulated. if you are judging a nation's size by the in on the book, that basis is distorted because not that many cities and large towns are on that map, just the capital and cities of note.

 

I have to admit: "bovine fecal matter" made me laugh pretty uproariously. I don't think the Aiel were genetically engineered. However, I do think somehow there were at the pinnacle of human health and fitness in the AoL and their subsequent "inbreeding" kept that trait in the "family." Kinda like the Old Blood in the Two Rivers.

 

I have an interesting thought (rather comment). actually, I read it in a post on the Thirteenth Depository website (which i urge you to read. Very detailed and informative). In a post, one of the hosts there said that the Hill Tribes of Seanchan (like ajimbura from the Kaensada Hills) are most likely the Daishan Aiel that remained on the Seanchan continent. I've personally thought the Sea Folk were descended from the Daishain too. What are your thoughts?

[Mr. Micawber]

 

As for populations, the population of France was 600,000 in 1700. I've always thought of Caemlyn and Cairhien and other other main cities to be that size. Also, the country side not unpopulated. if you are judging a nation's size by the in on the book, that basis is distorted because not that many cities and large towns are on that map, just the capital and cities of note.

 

 

 

Err, Muad, you've *got* to mean the population of Paris. :P

[Muad Cheade]

 

As for populations, the population of France was 600,000 in 1700. I've always thought of Caemlyn and Cairhien and other other main cities to be that size. Also, the country side not unpopulated. if you are judging a nation's size by the in on the book, that basis is distorted because not that many cities and large towns are on that map, just the capital and cities of note.

 

 

 

Err, Muad, you've *got* to mean the population of Paris. :P

 

Haha. Thanks for the catch.

[WWWwombat]

Just because he doesn't go into logistics doesn't mean he didn't take the time to think of them.  I think he left them out for a reason you already stated; logistics are boring for most people.

[Thorn]

A few points:

 

1) Presumably, Trolloc armies are supported by a "magical" Dark-One-powered infrastructure of some kind in the Blight, which produces their gear, and have digestive systems similar to pigs or goats, such that they can live off of almost anything and don't need extensive resupply systems. Think of them as more akin to a herd of cannibal buffalo in steel armor instead of as an army and a lot of their logistical issues boil away. Not all of them certainly -- if nothing else, there's the question of producing all that armor -- but the Blight's been mostly undisturbed for 3,000 years, plenty of time to build up an infrastructure.

 

2) As to the Aiel -- I think the presumption there is that they're capable of living off of greatly reduced supplies due to their desert upbringing. I agree he could've done more with Aiel logistics, though.

 

3) As to disease -- this is a good point, but we don't see all that much disease in Randland generally. Given that plagues are generally part of the Apocalyptic A B C, their relative exclusion from the WoT may be deliberate.  In fact, I can think of only two "normal" diseases mentioned at any point in the series (breakbone fever and yelloweye fever; the other is channeling sickness). It's possible that large-scale diseases were mostly wiped out during the Age of Legends, and the Borderlanders aren't losing men to things like Typhus, Cholera, and Dysentery because those diseases don't exist any more.

 

#1 and #3 may be handwaving, but I think both are handwaving within acceptable limits for a fantasy series.

[algspkr]

It is probably impossible to make fiction without plotholes.

 

I have thought about this for a long time and have come to the conclusion that it is possible, but would require an insanely dedicated author, vast amounts of time and either a very patient publisher or an author capable of writing without getting paid for a very long time.

 

What I see as being required to accomplish this with WOT would have been RJ sitting down writing the entire series then going back through it and fixing plot holes.  It is possible but the time investment required to accomplish it is unreasonable.

[Blackhoof]

Hes only one man, you cant expect him to be a tank of knowledge everything.

[moroten]

A short invite to discuss Armies and their numbers.

 

I feel RJ didn't convince me about his choice of numbers where armies are concerned. 40 000 Aiel here - 10 000 there.. and 100 000 men over there. Sure if you have an army of 100 000 you can tell it to invade some place. Moving 40 000 men - 100 000 men is not something done over the weekend. It feels like it though.

 

40 000 Aiel would have hunted the local game to extinction and done all sorts of damage to... everything. If 40 000 Aiel piss in a river the ecosystem would freak out. If 40 000 Aiel ate deer, deer would become rare.

 

What are your thoughts on this?

 

If there are 10 million people (that's a very low and unrealistic statement) it is very plausible that at the least 3 or 4 million could be soldiers.

 

If you study history, armies consisting of tens and hundreds of thousands are fairly common. After Napoleon's defeat in Russia, he raced back to France and raised an army of atleast 100,000 in a very short time.

 

 

Large armies have been a consistent fixture in human warfare. Yes, moving large groups of men is not "something done over the weekend," the Aiel can move extremely fast and so can cavalry. Moving men takes a long time which is why the army Rand assembled in Illian took a book and a half to gather.

 

When the Aiel came over the Dragonwall, they brought enough food to support the hundreds of thousands for a while because according to prophecy, they wouldn't be going back.

 

I'm sure the Aiel could successfully manage to eliminate waste since we figured it out very early on in human history.

 

Logistics was not Jordan's forte.

 

There's no explanation for how the supposedly millions of Trollocs have been supporting themselves, either.  Nor, who kept them organized, fed, and supplied for the 3000 year interregnum.

 

No society, especially the relatively low population, primitive ones we see here, can sustain the kind of standing armies they all supposedly possess either.

 

Some things in fantasy are just magic no matter what.

 

Just like there is never a shortage of wars, there's never a shortage of men to fight in them.

 

As for the WoT being primitive, that is very wrong. The period resembles the Early Modern Period of history with both the innovations on a social and military scale.

 

Early in the story there were small standing armies. There were the nobility and retainers and then some nation had specialized military forces (Queen's Guard, Companions, Defenders of the Stone, Legion of the Wall, Winged Guards). The rest of the troops were levies: commoners from the general population pulled up for fighting.

 

They do need weapons and armor.  That means raw materials and all of the infrastructure to produce, transport, refine, work, and distribute.  They're non-cooperative and utterly untrainable.  Even cookpots wear out after 3000 years and have to be replaced.

 

Just let it go at magic and don't try to rationalize it.  There is simply no way Trollocs survived other than magic.

 

They made their own armor and presumably cookpots. How could you not see that? That is why their armor and weapons are inferior to those of Myrdraal which are made by the Forgers.

 

Obviously, they don't really need food because they raid constantly across the Blightborder.

 

If they are capable of speaking their own language, it makes sense that they can atleast function on a basic level.

 

Jordan fought in Vietnam and studied history and warfare religiously. I think he would have a tin bit of knowledge of logistics.

 

I dont really see WoT resembling early modern time, you far too few organizations for that. The idea of nationalism has hardly been born, maybe in Andor but I seriously doubt that looking at some of the cities/villages we have seen. Goals of militaristic actions has been small territory gains, very alike that of a feudal time and the aristocracy. Monarchy is still the ruling way of nations, so technically the french revolution havnt occured yet leaving us in the late medieval time.

 

If you have a 10 millino population supporting a 3 million army in a society like this is impossible. The income of the remaining 7 million could not make up the cheers cost of an army that size. The army involves men, younger men mostly, and take away a bulk of the popultion that size leaves a tons of farms not being sufficiently taken care of, women, children and old people are left to tend for societies and villages. Manufacturing cant produce enough goods for an army that size since the industrial revolution hasnt taken place yet. Aristocracy usually got away cheaply from the king/queen leaving lesser places to tax heavily to support the army. You need good communication system, roads, preferably railroads which hasnt been invented yet...not even en army of one million could be supported by a popultion of 10 in an undeveloped society such as WoT. You give Napoleon Bonaparte as an example, his greatest army was 500.000 when he invaded Russia, and then he had recruited tons in the conquered areas of his empire, giving him a waste sustaining population for an army like that.

True he raised another big army before his loss in Leipzig, an that was because the drafting system had been invented in France, given them a huge advantage towards the rest of Europe.

 

Not even in modern times today can you support an army that size, the cost is simply too great to uphold in the long run.