Why are Trollocs "super-soldiers"?

[WhiskyJack]

Let me guess, you are not American and probably Chinese ;)

 

 

As to OP, too much is being made of "individual" soldiers. War is not won by talent of some random soldier. If you have smart leaders and dedicated soldiers, indvidual displine is not that important. Afterall, trollocs will do what Fade tell them to do. We have already seen some of that against Ituralde's force in ToM. No one just runs into Shocklance and there is no reason to believe that trollocs couldn't have used shocklance. So what if their "quality" is bit inferior. Their commanders are not stupid.

[solarz]

As to OP, too much is being made of "individual" soldiers. War is not won by talent of some random soldier. If you have smart leaders and dedicated soldiers, indvidual displine is not that important. Afterall, trollocs will do what Fade tell them to do. We have already seen some of that against Ituralde's force in ToM. No one just runs into Shocklance and there is no reason to believe that trollocs couldn't have used shocklance. So what if their "quality" is bit inferior. Their commanders are not stupid.

 

Again, not true at all. Look at any of the great military commanders in history. All of them emphasized the importance of discipline in an army. The greatest general cannot do anything if he does not have soldiers disciplined enough to carry out his orders.

 

Even trollocs bound to Myrdraal are not as disciplined as human troops. At best they are barely restraining their natural urges for killing. It would be extremely difficult to imagine trollocs having the patience to lie in ambush while a battle rages around them, in order to strike at the most opportune moment. Which incidentally, was a tactic used to great effect by Genghis Khan.

 

The Mongols, contrary to yet another Western myth, were an extremely disciplined fighting force, and were often outnumbered by their opponents.

[WhiskyJack]

As to OP, too much is being made of "individual" soldiers. War is not won by talent of some random soldier. If you have smart leaders and dedicated soldiers, indvidual displine is not that important. Afterall, trollocs will do what Fade tell them to do. We have already seen some of that against Ituralde's force in ToM. No one just runs into Shocklance and there is no reason to believe that trollocs couldn't have used shocklance. So what if their "quality" is bit inferior. Their commanders are not stupid.

 

Again, not true at all. Look at any of the great military commanders in history. All of them emphasized the importance of discipline in an army. The greatest general cannot do anything if he does not have soldiers disciplined enough to carry out his orders.

 

Even trollocs bound to Myrdraal are not as disciplined as human troops. At best they are barely restraining their natural urges for killing. It would be extremely difficult to imagine trollocs having the patience to lie in ambush while a battle rages around them, in order to strike at the most opportune moment. Which incidentally, was a tactic used to great effect by Genghis Khan.

 

The Mongols, contrary to yet another Western myth, were an extremely disciplined fighting force, and were often outnumbered by their opponents.

 

 

In the presence of a Fade, trollocs carry out order. You are making too much of discipline. Mighty disciplined British Army was beaten by Militia force. A crazy mob can overrun best trained soldiers. Happens all the time. When they say trollocs lack discipline, they are implying that you are never going to see trollocs forming a "shield" formation like Greeks used to do and how they held against massive Persian army. Fortunately, trollocs are not Persians. They can be as tall as 9 feet and very strong and fast. All your "stories" are coming from human vs human combat. Trollocs only lose discipline in close combat, not in things like when to strike, where to strike, when to charge,..stuff like that. You make it sound like trollocs will see humans and they will just charge. They won't. No where in story trollocs have disobeyed a Myrrdral directly. If Fade is present, trollocs will follow the command. All you are saying has been proven actually wrong in books. In 4th book, human band led by Perrin was ambushed by Trollocs. Give us one example where Trollocs did something against express permission of a Fade.

[solarz]

In the presence of a Fade, trollocs carry out order. You are making too much of discipline. Mighty disciplined British Army was beaten by Militia force. A crazy mob can overrun best trained soldiers. Happens all the time. When they say trollocs lack discipline, they are implying that you are never going to see trollocs forming a "shield" formation like Greeks used to do and how they held against massive Persian army. Fortunately, trollocs are not Persians. They can be as tall as 9 feet and very strong and fast. All your "stories" are coming from human vs human combat. Trollocs only lose discipline in close combat, not in things like when to strike, where to strike, when to charge,..stuff like that. You make it sound like trollocs will see humans and they will just charge. They won't. No where in story trollocs have disobeyed a Myrrdral directly. If Fade is present, trollocs will follow the command. All you are saying has been proven actually wrong in books. In 4th book, human band led by Perrin was ambushed by Trollocs. Give us one example where Trollocs did something against express permission of a Fade.

 

You seem to think that discipline = forming ranks. That's not true. The American militia had the Minutemen, a rapid response organization that cannot function properly without good discipline and communication.

 

No, I don't recall Trollocs expressly disobeying a Fade linked to it, but I think what's far more telling is that we've *never* seen Trollocs engage in any kind of strategic or tactics beyond the "trolloc-wave" charge and the occasional ambush (which is a far different matter from luring enemies into a trap).

 

Look at how Ituralde fights the Seanchan, and how the Seanchan respond. We've never seen that kind of feint, deception, and adaptation from the Trollocs. Every Trolloc battle scene we've seen involves either massive Trolloc hordes charging against an outnumbered human force, or squads of Trollocs mysteriously appearing out of nowhere to attack our protagonists.

[WhiskyJack]

In the presence of a Fade, trollocs carry out order. You are making too much of discipline. Mighty disciplined British Army was beaten by Militia force. A crazy mob can overrun best trained soldiers. Happens all the time. When they say trollocs lack discipline, they are implying that you are never going to see trollocs forming a "shield" formation like Greeks used to do and how they held against massive Persian army. Fortunately, trollocs are not Persians. They can be as tall as 9 feet and very strong and fast. All your "stories" are coming from human vs human combat. Trollocs only lose discipline in close combat, not in things like when to strike, where to strike, when to charge,..stuff like that. You make it sound like trollocs will see humans and they will just charge. They won't. No where in story trollocs have disobeyed a Myrrdral directly. If Fade is present, trollocs will follow the command. All you are saying has been proven actually wrong in books. In 4th book, human band led by Perrin was ambushed by Trollocs. Give us one example where Trollocs did something against express permission of a Fade.

 

You seem to think that discipline = forming ranks. That's not true. The American militia had the Minutemen, a rapid response organization that cannot function properly without good discipline and communication.

 

No, I don't recall Trollocs expressly disobeying a Fade linked to it, but I think what's far more telling is that we've *never* seen Trollocs engage in any kind of strategic or tactics beyond the "trolloc-wave" charge and the occasional ambush (which is a far different matter from luring enemies into a trap).

 

Look at how Ituralde fights the Seanchan, and how the Seanchan respond. We've never seen that kind of feint, deception, and adaptation from the Trollocs. Every Trolloc battle scene we've seen involves either massive Trolloc hordes charging against an outnumbered human force, or squads of Trollocs mysteriously appearing out of nowhere to attack our protagonists.

 

We have NOT seen much trolloc action. All the AoL wars and Trollocs wars don't give any detail. Your point about Seanchan doesn't work. It were not Seanchan soldiers who changed tactics. It was the high command. Genius lies with commanders, be it Seanchan or Ituralde..not the individual soldiers. On the other hand we have SEEN trollocs overrun a very defensible potions in ToM under good command. You don't have any actual support from the story! You keep repeating this "trolloc didn't do this, trolloc didn't do that" as if in your mythical world, average soldiers comes up with feints, deceptions and strategies in the middle of a battle. All these things are done by the command and command is not run by trollocs. Fades are the commanders and they showed cunning and feint against Ituralde ( a great captain) in ToM. But I doubt that anything I would say will change your mind since it's already made up and you just want to convince others to your POV. Good luck!

 

P.S: Surprise attacks can be awesome. Whitecloaks would have made good human stew if not for "surprise" appearance of Perrin's force.

[XXX]

Not sure why people are saying Trollocs are poor solders..they might be undisciplined but that pales if you look at the fact that they need no supplies of any kind.

[solarz]

We have NOT seen much trolloc action. All the AoL wars and Trollocs wars don't give any detail. Your point about Seanchan doesn't work. It were not Seanchan soldiers who changed tactics. It was the high command. Genius lies with commanders, be it Seanchan or Ituralde..not the individual soldiers. On the other hand we have SEEN trollocs overrun a very defensible potions in ToM under good command. You don't have any actual support from the story! You keep repeating this "trolloc didn't do this, trolloc didn't do that" as if in your mythical world, average soldiers comes up with feints, deceptions and strategies in the middle of a battle. All these things are done by the command and command is not run by trollocs. Fades are the commanders and they showed cunning and feint against Ituralde ( a great captain) in ToM. But I doubt that anything I would say will change your mind since it's already made up and you just want to convince others to your POV. Good luck!

 

P.S: Surprise attacks can be awesome. Whitecloaks would have made good human stew if not for "surprise" appearance of Perrin's force.

 

We haven't seen much trolloc action? Seriously? There are trolloc attacks at least once every book, if not more!

 

You seem to think that commanding an army is like playing an RTS, and all you need is a genius commander. Well, in Real Life, people don't always do what you command them to do. Ituralde's disastrous horn sounder is one such example. That is why discipline is paramount.

 

Let's further examine *why* that horn sounding at the wrong moment is so disastrous: Ituralde was trying to fall back in good order, but the early sounding of the retreat broke his line and sent his army into a rout.

 

That's the difference discipline makes. We've seen the Seanchan defeated, but retreating in good order. Have we ever seen Trollocs do the same? No. Everytime the trollocs are defeated, they fall apart and trample all over each other trying to escape, and not even the Myrddraal can control them. That's what happened at Tarwin's Gap, at Emond's Field, and at the Battle of Maradon, after Rand unleashed his Divine Fury.

 

In KoD, 100k trollocs and Myrddraal attacked Rand and his Ashaman, with no Channeler support, and got completely slaughtered as a result. If it wasn't for the implausible idea (discussed earlier in this thread) that Trollocs seem to have all but unlimited numbers, they would have been wiped out long ago by those kinds of "battles"!

 

In ToM, the Trollocs again outnumbered the Whitecloaks and Perrin's forces combined. Again, they used the charge, even though they were being peppered by archer fire from Perrin's forces above. The Trollocs all but ignored that army until they came charging down on their flanks! Does that sound like good tactics to you?

[WhiskyJack]

We have NOT seen much trolloc action. All the AoL wars and Trollocs wars don't give any detail. Your point about Seanchan doesn't work. It were not Seanchan soldiers who changed tactics. It was the high command. Genius lies with commanders, be it Seanchan or Ituralde..not the individual soldiers. On the other hand we have SEEN trollocs overrun a very defensible potions in ToM under good command. You don't have any actual support from the story! You keep repeating this "trolloc didn't do this, trolloc didn't do that" as if in your mythical world, average soldiers comes up with feints, deceptions and strategies in the middle of a battle. All these things are done by the command and command is not run by trollocs. Fades are the commanders and they showed cunning and feint against Ituralde ( a great captain) in ToM. But I doubt that anything I would say will change your mind since it's already made up and you just want to convince others to your POV. Good luck!

 

P.S: Surprise attacks can be awesome. Whitecloaks would have made good human stew if not for "surprise" appearance of Perrin's force.

 

We haven't seen much trolloc action? Seriously? There are trolloc attacks at least once every book, if not more!

 

You seem to think that commanding an army is like playing an RTS, and all you need is a genius commander. Well, in Real Life, people don't always do what you command them to do. Ituralde's disastrous horn sounder is one such example. That is why discipline is paramount.

 

Let's further examine *why* that horn sounding at the wrong moment is so disastrous: Ituralde was trying to fall back in good order, but the early sounding of the retreat broke his line and sent his army into a rout.

 

That's the difference discipline makes. We've seen the Seanchan defeated, but retreating in good order. Have we ever seen Trollocs do the same? No. Everytime the trollocs are defeated, they fall apart and trample all over each other trying to escape, and not even the Myrddraal can control them. That's what happened at Tarwin's Gap, at Emond's Field, and at the Battle of Maradon, after Rand unleashed his Divine Fury.

 

In KoD, 100k trollocs and Myrddraal attacked Rand and his Ashaman, with no Channeler support, and got completely slaughtered as a result. If it wasn't for the implausible idea (discussed earlier in this thread) that Trollocs seem to have all but unlimited numbers, they would have been wiped out long ago by those kinds of "battles"!

 

In ToM, the Trollocs again outnumbered the Whitecloaks and Perrin's forces combined. Again, they used the charge, even though they were being peppered by archer fire from Perrin's forces above. The Trollocs all but ignored that army until they came charging down on their flanks! Does that sound like good tactics to you?

 

You are no expert on war either and neither have you fought in one. So stop pretending to be an expert on War just because you have read couple of stories.

 

Awesome discipline and yet people always don't do what they are told? Which one is it? So when exactly you get to show your discipline? When you are obeying or disobeying? Unbelievable that you ignore the clever tactics used by Fades in Maradon.

 

Who cares if they retreat well or not? Is that why soldiers have discipline? To lose war and retreat well?

How many times it has been told to you that shadow has way to many trollocs! They don't care about the losses. Keep building mythical world about retreat though. Hell, Trollocs only ran when they were completely routed. Tell me in your "book", where exactly an army gets completely routed and yet they "retreat" with discipline? When Ituralde was trying to "fall back", he was not completely beaten. Yet, all discipline was lost.

 

Trollocs were created in an age when they had channelers fighting for them. Both sides had channelers. When Breaking happened, whole ranks of channelers basically disappeared and women left behind in WT grew progressively weaker. When trollocs came back 1000 years later, main force they fought were humans with swords. WT was weak but due to them, war was not lost.

 

There were 20K whitecloaks and probably 50K or more shadowspawn. Perrin had army of close to 80K albeit a good chunk not well trained. He brought way more than 30k soldiers. Probably ALL! And he had Asha'man and wise ones. He had better position. In the very first paragraph when Perrin's forces attack Trolloc, trollocs split between attacking WC and trying to reach the archer on the top of a small hill. Yep, Perrin's forces were immediately attacked or atleast trollocs tried. But see, here is the awesome thing. Perrin was on high ground with Asha'man and what not. Any charge on Perrin would have been suicidal. So just hitting WC basically ensured that Perrin's soldiers cannot just blindly hit Troolocs for the fear that they might also kill WCs. And the strategy worked forcing Perrin to bring his troops down. But never mind. Your book is equally fascinating.

 

P.S: Trolloc Wars lasted for like 100 years. We really haven't seen that much action. 4-5 real engagement. Twice with Perrin and like 2-3 times with Rand. I am sure you could find a "real life general" who could fought against Rand in Maradon or Tear but I am pretty sure against channelers, sword don't amount to much, it doesn't matter who is commanding the sword army. And that's why Seanchan had ever Ever Victorious army.

[WhiskyJack]

Not sure why people are saying Trollocs are poor solders..they might be undisciplined but that pales if you look at the fact that they need no supplies of any kind.

 

 

Just one guy. He created this thread and he is out there to "convert" people what with him being an expert on war and all.

[Thor]

One normal trolloc is strong enough to go toe to toe with an Ogier.

 

Look at the Deathwatch Guards' reactions to the Ogier Gardeners, clearly they know they are no match for the gardeners. Fact is trollocs can and has gone up against the best troops and been effective. You can argue what you want, but history is there and not for you to dispute.

[Suttree]

Trollocs almost defeated all of Randland, when the "Military Arts" were at a pinnacle. That says all you need to know about the topic right there. It took major diplomatic and military overtures from Rashima Kerenmosa to bind all the nations together to throw back the shadow.

[Kal11]

I'm seeing the shocklance as similar to the M1 rifle used in Korea before the US army adopted the M14. Semi-auto, throws a huge round, good for taking down a target at range and big enough to take a trolloc easy. I seem to recall that when Aginor first popped out the first batches of battlebeasts they were almost impossible to control untill they started producing Fades, that implies the majority of the armies in the AoL were human, presumably using shocklances as well. Thing is, the M1 was a great weapon until the Chinese started using human wave attacks (which would be a tactic tailer made for use by trollocs) which overwhelemed American lines untill tactics and technology evolved to counter them. In the AoL, the technolegy did not evolve; it regressed, they lost thir tech base to a point where the shocklances were replaced by sword and spear. Granted the "super-soldiers" of the AoL were created by a madman with absolutly no combat experience, but that doesnt change their effectivness as shock troops.

 

The M1 was and still is a damn fine weapon for infantry riflemen, a true American classic (I have one produced during the Korean War era that was a gift from my dad when I got back from Iraq, love the thing). The only drawback it really has is using an 8 round top loading clip instead of a detachable magazine, which is not really a huge deal as it takes all of a few seconds to reload and has both accuracy and great stopping power. Personally I would rather carry less 7.62 or 30-06 than more 5.56 as the difference in what the rounds are capable of is huge. You use light machine guns and crew served weapons primarily for suppressive fire anyways.

 

Giving every rifleman a full-auto was in hindsight a mistake and utterly useless, guys just burned through their ammo quickly with little effect. Hence the standard 3 round burst setting on modern M-16/4 platform, which never even gets used as semi-auto is what every soldier is trained to use. You fire single shots at distance and controlled pairs in close quarters and urban warfare because it gives you way more muzzle control and accuracy than firing on an automatic/burst setting.

 

For fun we played with and shot the AK-47s we captured and confiscated and it is just retarded on full-auto in regards to controlling muzzle rise and keeping any kind of shot group. The only way auto really works well is on a machine gun with a bipod (or preferabbly a tripod or vehicle mount), or with a submachine gun because it uses a smaller pistol round such as the 9mm that has far less power and kick behind it. It is just not a good assault rifle feature as they are too light and unsteady to be rattling off rifle rounds so quickly.

[CaseyWoL]

Like the orcs from LotR they can be manipulated, mass produced, and are bigger and stronger.

 

 

Plus some of them have the heads of eagles. Who isn't going to want that in his army?

[SylvanFox]

I hope one of the forsaken has found a shocklance (in a stasis box?), because I'd really like to know what kind of weapon it really is.

 

I just had a mental image of Moridin chasing Rand around with an electric cattle prod.

[bsmnt23]

I'm seeing the shocklance as similar to the M1 rifle used in Korea before the US army adopted the M14. Semi-auto, throws a huge round, good for taking down a target at range and big enough to take a trolloc easy. I seem to recall that when Aginor first popped out the first batches of battlebeasts they were almost impossible to control untill they started producing Fades, that implies the majority of the armies in the AoL were human, presumably using shocklances as well. Thing is, the M1 was a great weapon until the Chinese started using human wave attacks (which would be a tactic tailer made for use by trollocs) which overwhelemed American lines untill tactics and technology evolved to counter them. In the AoL, the technolegy did not evolve; it regressed, they lost thir tech base to a point where the shocklances were replaced by sword and spear. Granted the "super-soldiers" of the AoL were created by a madman with absolutly no combat experience, but that doesnt change their effectivness as shock troops.

 

The M1 was and still is a damn fine weapon for infantry riflemen, a true American classic (I have one produced during the Korean War era that was a gift from my dad when I got back from Iraq, love the thing). The only drawback it really has is using an 8 round top loading clip instead of a detachable magazine, which is not really a huge deal as it takes all of a few seconds to reload and has both accuracy and great stopping power. Personally I would rather carry less 7.62 or 30-06 than more 5.56 as the difference in what the rounds are capable of is huge. You use light machine guns and crew served weapons primarily for suppressive fire anyways.

 

Giving every rifleman a full-auto was in hindsight a mistake and utterly useless, guys just burned through their ammo quickly with little effect. Hence the standard 3 round burst setting on modern M-16/4 platform, which never even gets used as semi-auto is what every soldier is trained to use. You fire single shots at distance and controlled pairs in close quarters and urban warfare because it gives you way more muzzle control and accuracy than firing on an automatic/burst setting.

 

For fun we played with and shot the AK-47s we captured and confiscated and it is just retarded on full-auto in regards to controlling muzzle rise and keeping any kind of shot group. The only way auto really works well is on a machine gun with a bipod (or preferabbly a tripod or vehicle mount), or with a submachine gun because it uses a smaller pistol round such as the 9mm that has far less power and kick behind it. It is just not a good assault rifle feature as they are too light and unsteady to be rattling off rifle rounds so quickly.

 

The only real feature of the venerable M1 that I was really alluding to as similar to the shocklance is the semi-auto, big bullet aspect. I agree with everything you said but I'm really just trying to illustrate how I've been infering the early years of the War of Power while the light still had a tech base to use against the wave attacks of trollocs.

 

I did think it was funny that solar guy called history "propaganda" and got all riled up buy it. Trying not to get personal here so I'll be good, but um, yeah, the human wave attacks were what the claymore anti-personell mine were specificaly designed to conteract. And the UN ahd the Korean war all but won when the Red Chinese sent an unlimited number of trollocs...i mean soldiers. "Inteligent light infantry tactics" apparently means, according to this military history expert sending masses of poorly trained and poorly equiped with obsolete weapons to die. Mao Zedong's entire strategy of dealing with, well, any problem at all was to swamp it with the blood of his own people (bringing him up there with the Forsaken in terms of bodycount; the Chairman could probably be considered the the most effecient mass murderer in human history). The Korean Conflict sounds like a lot of the descriptions of the War of Power, even though it's obviously based on WWII.

[Stitch]

I don't see what the major problem is with accepting that Trollocs are super soldiers or perhaps super brawlers would be more appropriate a name...

 

As Individuals: They have strength on par with an Ogier, are fast and (sometimes) cunning, some of them are even reasonably intelligent (the wolf trollocs) - they are numerous and quite terrifying, therefore it is not a stretch to see why on an individual basis they are usually more dangerous than a regular human (even if that human is an armoured soldier - though not counting the elites like blademasters).

 

As members of a fist or small squad: Here the usual lack of intelligence on the part of Trollocs begins to count against them, however they are probably more than a match against even numbers or even two to one odds of even well trained and outfitted regular soldiers (again not counting elites). The standard trolloc attack is merely to overwhelm, perhaps following an ambush; in combat between small groups, such tactics are probably very effective, because there are fewer things that even a well trained small group (of non elites) can do to counter this, perhaps their worst type of opponent would be a phalanx, but in small numbers the types of formations available to the pahalanx would be minimal - therefore unless the lightsiders are equipped with some heavy duty ranged weapony (like high speed or high impact crossbows), the combat will almost definitely come down to face to face fighting, where the trolloc fist would have a major advantage.

 

As members of a large group or army: Firstly, by themselves - trollocs do not usually form large groups or armies, they have no inclination to do so; instead they are made to by those they fear enough to obey, which usually means Fades - without these fades to control them it is a very good chance that the trollocs would merely mill about unless they have a clear target to overwhelm in a single charge. Therefore any discussion of large scale combat with trollocs must take into account fades.

 

Fades are far more dangerous that their trolloc bretherin, matching some of the elite humans (for some reason as the series has progressed the Fade dominance in this area has been diminished to such an extent that we could expect average humans to have a decent chance - with luck on their side, whereas before a single fade could have killed a hundred such without taking a scratch), in addition they are capable fo sensing the one power and can form bonds with the trollocs - making them more disciplined at the expense of having a single point of failure... it is unknown what other benefits such a link may have, I would not be surprised if the linked trollocs were the recipients of warder-esque benefits.

 

With fades to balance the human elites, the main difference comes from group skill such as formations and strategies, in this the fades are forced to attempt to make the trollocs do what they want which is a difficult proposition, particularly when the ratio of fades to trollocs is smaller, however with sufficient fades at the helm it is quite possible that the trolloc hordes would be able to be manouvered quite deftly and obey the commands of those fades - since fades seem to have human level intelligence this means that were a fade to study strategy and tactics (which they quite probably do not to any large extent) that a fade driven army of trollocs would be superior to equal numbers of humans regardless of the scale of those armies.

 

There are however two main problems with this, the single point of failure that the fades represent to the squad of trollocs they have linked to and the lack of the one power (or true power) at their disposal. The fades command the trollocs and make them follow orders, this is true regardless of whether or not they are linked and killing the fades removes this authority and if they are linked then it not just removes the fade giving orders to the fractious trollocs but rather actually KILLS the linked trollocs, which likely scares the heck outta other nearby trollocs. The absense of the one power is a more tricky proposition, perhaps in the past dreadlords offset the difference, if combined with assasinations from beings like the soulless or the gholam then this would have been effective.

 

 

 

Trollocs are great warriors, but usually poor soldiers - unless a fade grabs em by the gonads, in which case it depends on how good the fade is.

[Zentari]

Trollocs are stronger and more powerful than humans, but they lack discipline, and even when controlled by Myrdraal, they seem incapable of mounting any kind of effective strategy other than "the charge".

 

One would think that in the Age of Legends, where soldiers fought with "Shock Lances", a Trolloc army would be slaughtered.

 

Why then, do the Shadow continue to use Trollocs as their main fighting force?

Let's say it takes half a dozen trollocs to bring down a single soldier.Even with THAT high a price the Shadow still comes ahead.Trollocs seem more like animals and if they breed so, that means that the Shadows replenishes their troops way more quickly than the light does which explains why the Shadow had THREE major offensives ready to go at the end.

[Muad Cheade]

Obviously, you have forgotten the way in which the Shadow hammered Galad's Whitecloaks and Amadacians. Galad's cycling of charges worked until they adapted and were one ta'avern charge down a mountainous path away from destroying them.

[Durinax]

Obviously, you have forgotten the way in which the Shadow hammered Galad's Whitecloaks and Amadacians. Galad's cycling of charges worked until they adapted and were one ta'avern charge down a mountainous path away from destroying them.

actually galads tactics where completely ineffective, they didnt have to adapt, remember that a trolloc can run as fast a horse over short distances, so the WC's would have only gotten one charge, which they did not commit the full force and thus got only one small charge out of it.

 

 

the trollocs have fear on their side, an average soldier may be as tall as 5'10 in the books (over six feet if their an oddity) excepting aiel, which means fighting a creature 2-3 feet taller then themselves would be incredibly demoralizing, especially when combined with trolloc hardiness.

[AvroChris]

They're not super soldiers. They were meant to be, but it didn't quite work. However, they're still big, ugly and hard to kill. They seem fairly easy to supply and maintain and they are available in vast numbers. The siege of Maradon seems fairly indicative of how they can be effective - against a well disciplined, well organised force of humans, with Ashaman support, they were slowly winning through force of numbers even if they were getting slaughtered by the thousand. When the Shadow's generals, whoever they were, managed to disrupt the discipline and command of the Light forces with some sneaky tricks, the Trollocs, being big, bad and ugly, were pretty good at turning some cracks in the line into what would have been a rout if there'd been a lesser general in charge.

The final reason why Trollocs exist is that they're a big, scary monster that are just dangerous enough to be a real headache for anyone normal but can be slaughtered by our glorious protagonists :P

[solarz]

I did think it was funny that solar guy called history "propaganda" and got all riled up buy it. Trying not to get personal here so I'll be good, but um, yeah, the human wave attacks were what the claymore anti-personell mine were specificaly designed to conteract. And the UN ahd the Korean war all but won when the Red Chinese sent an unlimited number of trollocs...i mean soldiers. "Inteligent light infantry tactics" apparently means, according to this military history expert sending masses of poorly trained and poorly equiped with obsolete weapons to die. Mao Zedong's entire strategy of dealing with, well, any problem at all was to swamp it with the blood of his own people (bringing him up there with the Forsaken in terms of bodycount; the Chairman could probably be considered the the most effecient mass murderer in human history). The Korean Conflict sounds like a lot of the descriptions of the War of Power, even though it's obviously based on WWII.

 

And there you have it. Ignorance at its best.

 

Here are some facts:

 

1- The strength of both sides were evenly matched, at ~1.2 million each side. There goes your myth that the Chinese won by numbers alone.

 

2- Chinese forces were poorly equipped compared to US forces, but they were extraordinarily well-trained. These were the veterans of the 8-year Sino-Japanese War and the ensuing Civil War. Calling them poorly trained shows how little you know about the Korean War. Here is an American source describing the Chinese soldiers:

 

To defend their own land, the Chinese force had to have a plan which reduce American advantage and catch Americans unaware. At that time, it was just after the domestic conflict in China. So China had a number of soldiers but did not have enough weapons to fight with. To cover the disadvantage, the Chinese military sent hundreds of thousands of personnel that was unpredictable by UN force. From the night of October 15,1950, the highly disciplined Chinese combat ingantrymen walked accross the Yalu bridges and hid themselves in the mountainous North Korean hinterland, where UN force could not penetrate.The Chinese soldiers were small for American average but they were well trained, could carry as much as American army did with only few rice bolls, and they could march twenty miles for fifteen nights in succession through the mountains and valleys of North Korea. They hid in mountains in daytime to avoid the attacks by American Air-force, and they move or took the American army by surprise in the night time.

 

Here is a wikipedia article: you can check the references to see that this information is almost all from US academic sources:

The term "human wave attack" was often misused[11] to describe the Chinese short attack — a combination of infiltration and the shock tactics employed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the Korean War.[12] A typical Chinese short attack was carried out at night by small fireteams on a narrow front against the weakest point in enemy defenses.[12] The Chinese assault team would approach undetected within grenade range, then launch surprise attacks against the defenders in order to create a penetration and to achieve maximum shock and confusion.[12]

If the enemy defenses failed to give way after the initial shock, additional fireteams would press on and attack the same point until a wedge was created in the enemy's defense.[12] Once a penetration was achieved, the bulk of the Chinese forces would move into the enemy rear and attack from behind.[13] During the attacks, the Chinese assault teams would disperse while masking themselves using the terrain, and this made it difficult for UN defenders to target a large number of Chinese troops over a short period of time.[7] The attacks by the successive Chinese fireteams were also carefully timed to minimize casualties.[14] Due to the primitive communication systems and the tight political controls within the Chinese army, short attacks were often repeated indefinitely until the defenses were penetrated or the attackers were exhausted.[12]

This persistent attack pattern left a strong impression on UN forces that fought in Korea, thus the description of "human wave" was born.[8] US Army historian Roy Edgar Appleman observed that the term "human wave" was later used by journalists and military officials to convey the idea that the American soldiers were assaulted by overwhelming numbers of enemies, but it had no relation to the real Chinese infantry tactics of the same period.[1] S.L.A. Marshall also commented that the word "mass" was indiscriminately used by the media to describe Chinese infantry tactics, and it is very rare for the Chinese to actually use densely concentrated infantry formations to absorb enemy firepower.[15] In response to the media stereotype, a joke that circulated among the US servicemen was "how many hordes in a platoon?"[12][16]

 

3- Mao Zedong was the civilian political leader. Though he ordered the Chinese intervention in the Korean War, he took no part in directing the battles. The general of the was Peng Dehuai. Whatever you may think of Mao's governing policies, it has no bearing on the performance of the Chinese soldiers in the Korean War.

[WhiskyJack]

China awesome. US bad! No need to make it political on this forum

[Mats Spare Hat]

NO CONDITIONER IS BETTER, I MAKE THE HAIR SILKY AND SMOO...er..yeah, nevermind

 

 

For real, though I'm loathe to go the route of having googled around for a literal definition of what constitutes a 'super-soldier'... Trollocs are genetically designed creatures that operate beyond the limits of a normal human. They're bigger, stronger, can travel over open ground faster, eat less - or rather will eat anything, reproduce more, and their natural appearance is frightening to behold.

 

Trolloc = Supersoldier

[dexterryu]

Here are some facts that we know about Trollocs

Positives:

8-10' Tall = Size & Strength vs any man.

Fast = Able to keep pace with a horse

Lots of them = expendable

Enjoy killing = motivation to fight

Eat anything = easy to keep fed and supplied

 

Negatives:

Undisciplined

Not smart

 

Now... looking at that one could easily call them super soldiers. Especially in a melee when they aren't the ones thinking or doing the battle plans. When all they have to do is run in and fight where told the advantages hold up pretty well.

 

As for tactics, one of my hobbies is playing RTS games on computer. One of the prevailing tactics has always been the zerg technique. Build up a large force of cheap units and keep sending them and overwhelm your opponent. It's not surefire, but if you have virtually unlimited supply of grunt units it's a solid tactic at worst and an excellent diversion to set up use of your better units in strategic places.

[jwood01]

Trollocs ... seem incapable of mounting any kind of effective strategy other than "the charge".

 

 

But we do have an example right away in tEotW of a trolloc showing a little cunning. After Rand and Tam's farm is attacked, Tam leads most of the Trollocs off on a wild goose chase, but one trolloc decides to play dead, and it almost works out for him. If his mission was to kill Rand, he would've probably completed it.

 

Trollocs also act in many diffuse parties that prove relatively effective at searching Shadar Logoth in tEotW.