Now that fitness thing is an arguement, I might go along with also. But I wouldn't say that makes them superhuman in the degree that it should deter from the enjoyment or make you "loathe" them. Pretty much everyone in the series is fit, the girls are all pretty and well proportioned. (all loaned clothes seem to bee too tight on the bust etc.) All that is just part of fantasy writing. And I still maintain that the aiel are still in the realm of feasibility even if they are a bit unlikely given the dietary requirements, but really if your beef boild down to dietary requirements or being just a tad too fit then that really is your problem.

As for tactics side, those have been discussed, and unless someone brings something new to the table I don't see anything changing. Militiades gave his arguements, we gave ours and no one changed their mind. That how debates usually go unfortunately...

And you're assuming the cavalry would travel at the speed of the best horses, while in actual fact they would have to pace themsleves with the slowest horses in the formation while also avoiding any difficult terrain and their dead comrades, while the aiel would be able to move allmost unhindered. Not to mention that the horses would not be able to maintain a full charge for long, losing momentum very fast while it's allready been astablished that the aiel would win in endurance.

 

You only get part of the flankS if you assume relative numerical equality, but that would most likely not be the case. And it isn't very likely the rest of the cavalry would suicide charge the enemies in front while half of their numbers (conservatively) would either be dead or in the process of dying. Once the cavalry starts to lose it's momentum, it's power rapidly diminishes and won't only not be a good counter but would become easy pickings. And that's assuming the cavalry doesn't get tied down before it even gets to charge.

 

As for the formation, they wouldn't stay in the formation long enough to lose their advantages and it wouldn't be the whole aiel army just part of it. And which do you think is in more danger from shooting, the aiel at long to out of range, or the unbarded cavvies at short range?

 

Stopping a cavalry charge isn't easy by any means, I'm not suggesting that, but neither is the charge even close to as devastating or easy to pull off as you seem to assume. Using real life as an example is not a very good comparison, seeing that there really isn't a very good equivalent to the aiel, and most of the time when the glorious light skirmish slaughter by cav's happened, it was against peasants, fleeing or throwaway units, archers or numerically equal to less forces that most of the time had no real grasp of strategy, morale, skill or ability to work as a unit. It's one thing to ride down peasant, but don't try to equalize the situation with what would happen with aiel.

 

Not really, the best horses can reach 45-50 miles per hour, and it seems clear that most wetland nations know a fair bit about horse breeding so its not unreasonable to assume they'd have at least good quality horses if not superb.

 

Also, it's not a matter of numerical advantage with the flank, it's that there just wont be that much frontage to attack, because you have to make sure you aren't in front of them and they'll be moving very fast. Sort of like when shooting at a target moving perpendicular to you. If you try to lap round the back they'll speed ahead of you and if you try to gain more frontage by attacking the front you'll have to take some of the charge. If you stop to shoot you aren't running and so the charge will crash home. And the cavalry in the middle would keep going, it would be unlikely they would even notice that their comrades on the wings were becoming bogged down until after the melee began.

 

And the reason there are no real life examples to choose from is because we only have human beings to work with here out in the real world. We don't have demi-gods which is why nobody compares to the Aiel.

 

 

Just...no. See you again forgot numerical superiority and everything about tactics. You don't have to make the flank charge all at once on a narrow frontage. Making a tiered charge to the flank woould neatly bybass any frontage issues. And again, they don't move at the speed of best horses, they move at the speed of the slowest horses in the unit carrying significant weight. The reason there isn't a real life example isn't becaus superhuman abitilities, but because the Aiel are a combination of factors from several different groups that existed. There isn't a direct equivalent for seanchan either but that doesn't make them superhuman now does it? (the damane and the creatures do ;D)

As for Elmis' list, numebrs 1 through 5 and 8 are the result of constant practice and experience, number 6 the aiel have their own quirks too, 7 is a bit odd I'll give you that but not exactly something that makes them superhuman. 9 is a cultural and societal thing and similar behavior has been observed in real world too to some extent, while 10 is just genetics thought I'll grant you that I don't know how they get enough nutrition in the waste to maintain that but again are you really going to base your arguement on nutritional factors?

In the end though all this is fairly irrelevant in the sence that while there might be some suspensions of logic attached to aiel, it's not really that major and this is fantasy afterall and as far as fantasy worlds go the aiel are pretty minor.

And you're assuming the cavalry would travel at the speed of the best horses, while in actual fact they would have to pace themsleves with the slowest horses in the formation while also avoiding any difficult terrain and their dead comrades, while the aiel would be able to move allmost unhindered. Not to mention that the horses would not be able to maintain a full charge for long, losing momentum very fast while it's allready been astablished that the aiel would win in endurance.

You only get part of the flankS if you assume relative numerical equality, but that would most likely not be the case. And it isn't very likely the rest of the cavalry would suicide charge the enemies in front while half of their numbers (conservatively) would either be dead or in the process of dying. Once the cavalry starts to lose it's momentum, it's power rapidly diminishes and won't only not be a good counter but would become easy pickings. And that's assuming the cavalry doesn't get tied down before it even gets to charge.

As for the formation, they wouldn't stay in the formation long enough to lose their advantages and it wouldn't be the whole aiel army just part of it. And which do you think is in more danger from shooting, the aiel at long to out of range, or the unbarded cavvies at short range?

Stopping a cavalry charge isn't easy by any means, I'm not suggesting that, but neither is the charge even close to as devastating or easy to pull off as you seem to assume. Using real life as an example is not a very good comparison, seeing that there really isn't a very good equivalent to the aiel, and most of the time when the glorious light skirmish slaughter by cav's happened, it was against peasants, fleeing or throwaway units, archers or numerically equal to less forces that most of the time had no real grasp of strategy, morale, skill or ability to work as a unit. It's one thing to ride down peasant, but don't try to equalize the situation with what would happen with aiel.

About ths speed difference between aiel and horsies. They don't have to run faster than the fastest horse in optimum conditions. All they have to do is slink back ahead of them (remember they don't start from melee contact with the horses) long anough for the cavalry to get flanked and bogged down. Remember a properly formed up cavalry formation isn't exactly fast in changing directions at speed, so flanking would not be hard. And the cavvies aren't exactly going to make optimum speed when their horses are being shot down from under them, especially if they try to retain some cohesion in their charging formation without which they're pretty much toast against numerically superior, more agile and both bow and throwing weapon wielding expert soldiers.

None of this even takes into consideration that even though the aiel prefer not to fight in formation, that they can easily form one to soak up the damage from the charge if necessary. And remember these aren't exactly the barded, lance wielding knights in shining armor type cavalry, so they could be fairly reliably stopped without the use of pikes with propably reasonable death ratio on collision, especially considering the cavalry is heavily outmanned, and most likely with heavy casualties from shooting and throwing spears to boot. Now I'm not saying there wouldn't be losses, but it's not quite as one sided as you assume. And I still think they won't even be able to properly connect a charge in the first place if the aiel do their job properly.

And about the stonedog charge thing, the point most likely is that there would be a reaction time, time to relay orders, after which the cavalry would need to form up for the charge and after that they need to gain proper momentum, which doesn't happen in an instant. By this time the aiel should have long since connected, so it isn't "just counter charge them".

I think the main point of notice about the conquest of stone of tear is that most of the defenders were woefully unprepared for the fight. Most of them were asleep, didn't expect the enemy to allready be in the heart of the stone and hadn't fought any aiel before. Not to mention that the aiel did have a little help from Rand snagging Callandor and all that. It has been a while since I read those chapters but IIRC the fight for the control of the stone wasn't a prolonged melee, rather the defenders pretty much gave up after their leader got whacked and Rand took Callandor. I mean a pretty large portion of the defenders were still alive  when the trollocks attacked and even afterwards so they couldn't have taken much of a beating from the aiel.

 

 

A few points.

1) The Aiel have never actually been "caught in the open" by anyone.  As multiple people have pointed out, they employ scouts and wear camouflage.  They also move very fast for a very long time.  They are both aware of their surroundings and very hard to track down.

2) Mr Ares just provided an example of the Aiel standing up to cavalry and the tactics they used.

3) The Aiel do not fear death.  If cavalry charged them, they would take the losses necessary to break the charge.

3.5) The Aiel would maybe fear cavalry if the cavalry were used effectively, but they aren't.  Like I said before, Rand's POVs during battle scenes makes it pretty clear that many of the Cairhienin and Tairen officers simply want to throw their cavalry at the enemy without even stopping to consider the circumstances.

4) If a couple of farmboys can train for less than a year and be better than the majority of the wetlander fighters, than I think the Aiel - who are in peak physical condition and trained in martial arts practically from birth -  have the right to scoff at wetlander martial abilities.

 

 

 

1)But if you're never prepared to fight in the open than you arent really an invasion, you're just a group of bandits. What are you going to achieve running and hiding all the time?

 

2)The fact that it happened in the books doesnt mean it is plausible in real life. Loose foot against cavalry is a massacre, every time. There is no tactic that will allow light infantry equipped for skirmishing to defeat, or even not get slaughtered by, heavy cavalry, once they have closed.

 

3)This is another aspect of the Aiel that is utterly unbelievable. Humans fear death. Even Spartan soldiers surrendered during the Peloponnesian  war. And they were routed at Leuktra. The fact that the Spartans never experienced a route in so long was more testament to their ability to win than their courage in the face of defeat. Everyone can be broken. While there are examples like Thermopylae where men fought to the death, they had time to prepare for this, even the bravest are scared of sudden terrors and being massacred by a sudden cavalry charge will send ANYONE running.

 

3.5)When your opponent has nothing on the field but light infantry throwing your cavalry at them is an effective tactic. All you need is a clear shot at them and you can charge to victory, they have nothing to withstand you. If they had some, any sort of deterrent it would be different. But there's just nothing there with the staying power to hold. They're all just flimsy, juicy targets. As I've said, troops like the Aiel were always cavalry's preferred target, even before stirrups, mail armour, or lances. They were the paper to your scissors.

 

4)The farmboys are magic.

1) Well the wetlands commanders being what they are, they're usually happy to go traipsing in wrong terrain. And I wouldn't call 100k army a group of bandits even if they did use skirmishing and avoidance tactics. As said before the aiel are better suited to being compared with light cavalry if we want to make parallels in fighting styles. You know what the usual effective fighting style is with massed light cavalry not hampered by terrain? I'll give you a hint: I doens't have anythign to do with taking frontal charges from heavy cavalry.

2) Loose foot is usually massacred in real world is such situation because it's usually not skilled enough to counter effectively. A well trained skirmishing infantry would not have such an issue, because the heavy cavalry is easy to bait, flank and bog down in melee. Once that heavy cavalry loses momentum, it's just a huge target waiting to get killed. Remember chasing down fleeing peasants is slightly different from what were talking about here.

3) The aiel psyche is a bit odd, but I have absolutely no problem believing they wouldn't not rout in combat situations such as this. This is what they live for. They face death often, so they are used to it. All in all they behave exactly as I would expect them to behave given all that we know of their culture and mentality.

3.5) All I can say is it ain't so easy as you seem to assume. It's all fine and dandy to say "cavalry charge UWAA!" but it rarely works out quite as easily. And the cav's are a one trick pony afterall. We've given you plenty of things to counter your "my cavalry pwns your infantry" but if you choose to igonre it and just bet everything you have on cavalry winning on the charge then there's not much discussion.

As far as the gaul&friend vs. X opponents goes, I would argue that the type of armor that the whitecloacks use is more or a hindrance than a benefit as far as hand to hand goes. Yeah it's not a nice feeling to bruise your knucles against a breastplate, but who told you to hit him with a closed fist in the chest anyway? There are after all a lot of different ways of unarmed hand to hand, and things like grappling, twisting and throwing would only be more effective against armoured targets. Not to mention that we aren't exactly talking about a gothic plate here, so there are quite a few gaps to strike at and there is also the slowing factor, while not major it would still be a hindrance. And at the end it is a trained combatant vs those that might not have that much experience against proper unarmed fighting.

As far as cavalry usefullness goes, was it not mentioned that the shienarans were the only ones to utilize lances? That alone takes away lot of the hitting power of the normal cavalry especially against opponents that don't give you a solid front to charge against. Now if I have understood correctly the main benefits of cavalry charge are the shock effect and the weight of the charge. Against enemies that both don't fear death and that can dilute or nullify the weight of the charge those advantages aren't really that hot. So even in the ideal circumstance where they would get an unhindered charge (not often I assume) I would imagine the that aiel response would be something on the lines of giving way to to the charge deliberately while striking from the flanks and rear and them binding them into melee once the cavalry loses their momentum, all the while peppering them with both arrows and thrown spears, propably aimed at the zero armor horses.

And you have to remember that a cavalry charge isn't exactly the most sublte tactic so the enemy would see it coming long before it happens which gives ample time to prepare and charging cavalry won't really charge very far, so if you can either bog them down before they gather momentum or give way so they lose momentum while wheeling, either way the advantage is largely negated. And all that is in the cavalry ideal situation.