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[10ebbor10]

Bows tend to do terrible if wet. Might complicate an amphibious assault.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Mobs can be astonishingly effective. Longbows are a lot less useful when the enemy can get to you can pin you down with sheer numbers before you get to that minute. I'm not sure if I want to risk it...

[Gervassen]

Bows tend to do terrible if wet. Might complicate an amphibious assault.

You don't walk around with a strung bow unless its being used, it would just warp the wood and lose its spring. The bows are staves that get strung before battle, and we are quite capable of beaching the boats, pushing them onto dry land, each archer pulling out a bowstring and doing what he practices every time he has used his bow since childhood.

Mobs can be astonishingly effective. Longbows are a lot less useful when the enemy can get to you can pin you down with sheer numbers before you get to that minute. I'm not sure if I want to risk it...

Mobs disperse with a whiff of grapeshot, as Napoleon once said. He knew his way around mob dynamics, having successfully ridden the Parisian mob from Corsican nobody to Emperor of France. Mobs scent weakness and fear, and I trust we shall have none of that liquid yellowing our pants and running down our legs.

[tryrar]

Gerv, even of none of the crowd are real combatants(unlikely), a battle versus a mob of several thousand would be a pretty hairy battle, and I'm not gonna assume they'll disperse after a few volleys(a bad idea to do, after all the saying is assuming makes an ass out of you and me!). If we're gonna do this, we need to be smart about it, and plan for worst case.

Ok, we beach some point before the village, and go on foot. We try to get them to come out of the walls, but if we can, we make torches and see how flammable the palisade is. Whenever we meet a group of enemies, we'll fall back while having our archer fire on them(concentrating on anyone who looks like they can actually fight), and repeat until we run out of arrows. Then we go to melee work, but at this point, if we haven't managed to at least significantly damage the palisade and/or town, we'll fall back to the boats and retreat. The main point to keep in mind is that we cannot-I repeat, cannot afford a straight up fight against these numbers

[GreatWyrmGold]

And, as noted, these are people of a "warrior culture," which means that the random citizens are more likely to have combat training and more likely to attack regardless of training.

[Gervassen]

In the western context, when you think of mobs, you think of occasions where police were constrained to mild reactions like standing around with riot shields. Have you ever seen a mob surging forward against real gunfire? What people here think of mobs is unfounded, because western powers have long since stopped effectively dealing with mobs by killing them.

And again, how do these thousands all get the word to advance at once? It's just not possible to get that many people going in one direction without a predetermined chain of command. Women and children. The lame and the spineless among the men who stayed behind.

That plan is so passive, Tryrar, that we'll be massacred on the beach by mobs that sense weakness and are given time to rally around people with leadership in the assembly point of the central city. that's the plan that kills us. Go big or go home. Seize the locations where they would gather and organise, and cut this off at the head before leaders can form a real force out of the mob. Given them no obvious place to stage, attack the leaders quickly, take hostages. These things stop them. Your weak attempt emboldens them into a frenzy.

What's the major malfunction here? Do any one you disagree that Constantinople fell? It wasn't by dickless men limp-wristed plinking pointless sprinkles of arrows from afar. A mere 70 crusaders got into a breach in a city of 400 thousand and they fucked shit up like meat-eating predators, not this tofu-eating shit I'm starting to witness gaining steam.

Watching a palisade burn? how many hours does it take a thick pole to burn? We'd be there hours, whereas a heavy boat prow propelled by 20 man bashes a gate in a few knocks.

[Maldevious]

Please watch the language, Gerv. It could be taken personally, and your points could be made without the colorful terms.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wait.

You're arguing that torching the town and shooting arrows into the crowd will provoke a mob response, but slaughtering them won't?

Also...

What's the major malfunction here? Do any one you disagree that Constantinople fell? It wasn't by dickless men limp-wristed plinking pointless sprinkles of arrows from afar. A mere 70 crusaders got into a breach in a city of 400 thousand and they fucked shit up like meat-eating predators, not this tofu-eating shit I'm starting to witness gaining steam.

Major offenses highlighted. Watch it. This is exactly what we got the thread locked for before.
Ninja'd by GM saying same thing, which just proves my point.
And, for that matter, don't bad-mouth the longbow. It won wars back in the Middle Ages, which is about when we are.

[Gervassen]

And, as noted, these are people of a "warrior culture," which means that the random citizens are more likely to have combat training and more likely to attack regardless of training.

The hundred civilians that we just captured where from the same culture, and please describe in detail the fierce resistance that they put up when we raided them before you breathe "warrior culture" again--or were they not the same kind of civilians?

I don't want to hear warrior culture again until you've explained what happened at the last village in context of them being so fierce.

[Gervassen]

Please watch the language, Gerv. It could be taken personally, and your points could be made without the colorful terms.

I'm just channeling R.L. Ermey here.

Gotta wrap it up for today now, anyway. Last words: go big and cut this off right with decisive action, or turn tail now and get away before half-hearted action truly obliterates us.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The difference is approximately 1.8 orders of magnitude.

[Gervassen]

The difference is approximately 1.8 orders of magnitude.

But you say nothing of whether they acted like fearless warriors. Because you know that they acted like normal civilians. Civilian mobs do not congeal if you rob them of obvious gathering points and leadership. Now we're proposing to give them all the time in the world to have both, marshall, get leaders and become organised. Madness. Decisive or go home.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Burning their town before attacking makes it less decisive?

[10ebbor10]

What's the major malfunction here? Do any one you disagree that Constantinople fell? It wasn't by dickless men limp-wristed plinking pointless sprinkles of arrows from afar. A mere 70 crusaders got into a breach in a city of 400 thousand and they fucked shit up like meat-eating predators, not this tofu-eating shit I'm starting to witness gaining steam.

By my knowledge, there were at least 20.000 crusaders involved in the siege. Those 70 men might have delivered the decisive blow, but they weren't alone. Besides, it didn't help that most of their militia was fighting of the Venetians on the other side of the city.

[Talvara]

a bit of tl.dr here,

But the difference in numbers just seems to great here, even if the people in the city are all civilians, they can still overwhelm us with nets, pitchforks and timber axes.

while striking at the city is the most impact we can do on the war effort ... I don't believe our odds are realistic, We need to get away. regroup with our uncle in law and bring the entire host down here.