Dragons!

[BansheeOne]

Okay, so maybe not the mythical firespitting damn-near indestructible kind. But what if there had been a natural, practically usable flying mount available to mankind? Holdout Pterodactyli, giant birds, winged horses, you get your choice. What happens to history, military history specifically?

 

Obviously the effects of modern airborne forces apply to some degree. Geographic obstacles lose importance. So do fortifications. You get air-to-air, air-to-ground (and anti-air) and vertical envelopments. There'll be some Dragoons that deserve that name!

 

OTOH there will be pretty much the same natural limitations as to ground cavalry regarding speed, endurance and payload. You won't just take off in Rome and bomb Carthago. You can't pack much more than one rider on one mount, too (unless we're talking flying elephants ...), so you don't get to drop a crusader division onto Jerusalem either.

 

What if the mounts are not available throughout the world, but rather native to a limited area? If it's South America, the shock about mounted warriors is likely to be on the side of the Conquistadores. What if it's Mesopotamia? What if it's Europe? China? India? What if it's somewhere off in a place with no advanced civilization of its own, with the first European power to get there in the age of discovery managing to use them?

[Guest JamesG123]

Are you asking "IF" its possible? Or What if it "were" possible?

 

Despite what hollywood would like you to believe, At Earth's current gravity, air pressure, and percentage of oxygen, flying creatures large enough to carry/support an average sized human aren't physically possible.

 

If it were possible? Haven't you seen The Lord of the Rings?

 

Most likely they would be used primarily as scouts I would imagine. They would bound to be high maintenance and their load capacity would be limited (no armor and maybe just a light lance or bow). Regular horse cavalry would have pretty close to the same tactical mobility and would be more useful/threatening in a large battle. Ancient battles tended to be formalized affairs any way. You line your guys up on this side of the valley and I'll line mine up on that side and we'll let them have at it and the gods will decide the victor. Having a bunch of skinny runts fly critters to cause mischief among our camp followers would be down right unchivalrous...

[Colin]

I think the biggest effect would be in communications and reconnaissance, a winged mount and rider would have height of eye that would have greatly reduced the fog of war. Unless they are a fire breathing dragon, I doubt they would make great offensive weapons. There might be aerial skirmishing to prevent their scouts from looking at your forces. Considering the Physics involved the would be high maintenance and to valuable to waste.

 

ADA would be the longbow, crossbow and the large mounted crossbow as used by the Romans. Any winged cavalry would get turned into a pin cushion fairly quickly. At most they could drop a limited number of fist sized rocks to annoy and piss off the peasants.

[Lampshade111]

,At Earth's current gravity, air pressure, and percentage of oxygen, flying creatures large enough to carry/support an average sized human aren't physically possible.

 

That is what THEY want you to think.

[ShotMagnet]

Shock troops, light infantry, recon and scouting; but with an edge. The Big Birds are going to be hungry beasts under any condition, and would like maybe to snack on an isolated unit if it were so foolish as to leave itself exposed and/or vulnerable.

 

Presumably Dragonrider Cav would capitalize on this and maybe overplay the snacking aspect, if it might keep the other guy relatively immobile while there's a chance that Dragon Cav are overhead.

 

 

Shot

[Ariete!]

LOL!

 

you guys and your what ifs are gettin' seriously outta hand.

 

Dragon cavalry indeed...

[BansheeOne]

Yeah well, that's what you get when you read BillB's account of early airborne operations, watch the "Carrier" episodes kindly pointed out in the FFZ, then watch "Avatar" with its anachronistic steamship technology and flying creatures.

 

Despite what hollywood would like you to believe, At Earth's current gravity, air pressure, and percentage of oxygen, flying creatures large enough to carry/support an average sized human aren't physically possible.

 

Actually that never occurred to me. Why is that, in detail?

[Marek Tucan]

Scouts. Maybe even mounts for higher commanders? But due to their limits (weight etc) I cannot see how would they negate fortifications etc.

[Paul in Qatar]

Strengthening of the aristocracy. THose who could afford to get, train and keep flying whatits would have a role to play even after horses were being phased out.

 

Better maps. (A graphical representation of a portion of the earth's surface as seen from above and drawn to scale.)

 

Better mail.

[Yama]

Are you asking "IF" its possible? Or What if it "were" possible?

 

Despite what hollywood would like you to believe, At Earth's current gravity, air pressure, and percentage of oxygen, flying creatures large enough to carry/support an average sized human aren't physically possible.

 

Largest known* flying creatures (pterosaurs, teratorns) are estimated to have weighted about same as adult man (~80kg). Whilst birds of preys like an eagle can indeed lift loads similar or even slightly more than their own weight, I doubt that the ability scales up for a creature 10 to 20 times bigger. OTOH, perhaps you could train children or midgets to fly them...

 

*in fairness, it is not impossible that even larger currently undiscovered beasties exist. In early 20th Century, it was thought that largest eagle and swan species represented physical size limit for flying creatures...

Edited May 2, 2008 by Yama

[Marek Tucan]

Largest known flying bird had a wingspan of 7 meters and estd. weight of 70kg, but according to scientists it would have really hard time getting airborne and when airborne he'd mostly glide using thermics.

[Yama]

I think the biggest effect would be in communications and reconnaissance, a winged mount and rider would have height of eye that would have greatly reduced the fog of war. Unless they are a fire breathing dragon, I doubt they would make great offensive weapons. There might be aerial skirmishing to prevent their scouts from looking at your forces.

 

Hmmm. A big bird loaded by a scout would be at severe disadvantage against unladen bird. So, you'd have scouts, and separately "interceptors" who would be trained to take out other sides flying scouts (any idea how to avoid blue-on-blue incidents? It's one thing getting shot at by a Patriot, and another to see a honking big flying beastie diving on you with talons extended...

 

That would, of course, lead to your scouts having "escort fighters" of their own...

[Marek Tucan]

The interceptors won't even need to be big - I'd say that common falcon would pack enough pucnch to unload the scout from his mount.

[Ariete!]

Why is that, in detail?

 

basically, weight incrreases with volume (roughly, or at least with muscle/bone tissue volume), so cubically, while lift increases

roughly with surface (unless you can increase velocity through mechanical/rocket rpopulsion), so quadratically.

 

At some point, each extra bit of size requires wings that require too much muscle/bone, which requires bigger wings, etc. until it's not practical.

 

More complex: tensile strength of hollow 'bird' bones is not geomnetrically scalable.

[Colin]

Eagle vs goat

 

http://www.snotr.com/video/1093

[BansheeOne]

basically, weight incrreases with volume (roughly, or at least with muscle/bone tissue volume), so cubically, while lift increases

roughly with surface (unless you can increase velocity through mechanical/rocket rpopulsion), so quadratically.

 

Ah, okay. That kinda kills the idea.

[Marcello]

Ah, okay. That kinda kills the idea.

 

Similar limitations apply to land animals. IIRC the practical limit would be around 150 tons.

[Xavier]

Similar limitations apply to land animals. IIRC the practical limit would be around 150 tons.

still beats a 6ton elefant

such a beast would be a moving fortress!

[Marcello]

still beats a 6ton elefant

such a beast would be a moving fortress!

 

Apparently there were (sauropod) dinosaurs who may have weighed as much as 100 tons, maybe more but it is hard to tell.

Limits inherents in respiratory systems and exoskeleton efficiency put also upper limits to the size of animals like arachnids and insects as well.

[Gregory]

Eagle vs goat

 

http://www.snotr.com/video/1093

Clearly, goats do not land on all fours.

[pikachu]

How about a sapient or semi-sapient flying creature instead? You don't even need to mount them, just send a pack of trained ones loose and control them by battlefield signals. I'm thinking something like fantasy's hordes of gargoyles and, well, dragonmen/dragonkin/draconians. Admittedly those creatures have an unrealistic three pairs of limbs, but a big enough flying sapient beast can probably be taught to manipulate specially-designed weaponry with their claws. If sapient enough, they can even do scouting functions and report back enemy movements. They don't even need the ability to speak, just point them to a map and give them miniatures to place on it.

 

Even stupid beasts might do, if big enough. Mongols pre-Genghis Khan used large, specially-bred golden eagles to freak out enemy horses and even attack mounted riders to create distraction, but that only worked because they were fighting in smaller formations then. A larger battle-trained teratorn can probably cause significantly greater disruption than a golden eagle, and to even larger formations. Imagine a swarm of them gliding down with morningstars fastened to their claws, heh, heh.

[BansheeOne]

D'oh, some Terry Pratchett fan I am.

 

Natural born jet fighters! They will have boney asses hardened by ingested mineralia and their own flame, running on stored methan and air compressed by their powerful breathing apparatus, ignited by electroplaques ...

 

Okay, here, I'll hand you the club myself.