Way back when I made a quick little promo video for 'redcoats fighting a dragon' but it was just to promote a poster design I commissioned. It was only a few minutes long, it didn't actually go into anything beyond a little story.
By the Napoleonic era, the technology for submersibles and undersea mines existed. The real test is whether standard artillery of the time could puncture a cephalopod creature's carapace.
How long do you think it would take some bright spark to combine one of those new-fangled pocket watches, a flintlock mechanism, and a carefully sealed cask of powder into the world's first depth bomb?
Considering the fact that Neptune surrendered his Empire of the sea to Britain in 1805, I'm guessing it means that the kraken is now part of the Royal Navy
“The dragon has a limited amount of fire it can breathe in a day, so after grounding it, I sent wave after wave of my own men at it until it became exhausted. Then I personally shot it with a cannon.” (Twirls impeccably waxed mustache)
@@BrandonF Use lancers as bait... As in the lancers would attack the hatchlings, the grenadiers and sappers would destroy the eggs, and the hussars would lure the angry reptile into a full battery of quicklime shot and bursting shot.
There is a book series that explores the ideas of Dragons in the Napoleonic wars, being employed as an air force. Naomi Novik’s “Temeraire” series. I like to describe it as Master and Commander meets How To Train Your Dragon. It delves quite well into the geopolitical consequences as well as the Napoleonic wars themselves, but centres on the main character, a Royal Navy Captain roped into service with the British Aerial Corps. Dragons are employed almost as ships, with crews of riflemen shooting from them as they provide mobile firepower. Different “weight classes” and not all dragons being capable of breathing fire leads to, as on the sea, strengths and weaknesses between each type, but also each nation’s particular dragon species. Typically, forts, ships and armies equip themselves with “pepper guns”, skyward facing cannons that fire a special kind of canister shot at an overhead dragon. The third book, “Black Powder War”, depicts the French invasion of Prussia, and gives a pretty good account of what a Birds Eye view of Napoleonic Warfare may have looked like, with dragons of course.
There’s two things I think people forget about it: #1. Humans, ever since prehistory, has been super creative at taking down megafauna. Making Mammoths fall into pitfall traps, making bison shove each other off cliffs, whale hunting, creating certain spears to be thrown from a farther distance have all existed, We have been able to hunt larger animals that are so much heavier and more deadlier than us. Plus, humans tend to fear large predators and unfortunately typically try to wipe them out to defend livestock or out of fear (just look at how European colonialists practically wiped out the gray wolf and grizzly bear populations from their native ranges when arriving in North America). Dragons, if they existed, would probably be wiped out over centuries and go extinct before the Napoleonic Wars due to the fact they would be viewed as the ultimate pest or enemy. #2. People often forget about how deadly Napleonic weaponry was. Just look at the effects that grapeshot has on the body… a dragon’s wings would be absolutely shredded.
I don't think we would fight them. Probably, we would kill all of their natural prey and make nesting impossible. We're clever, but a flying fire breathing sentient monster is probably beyond what we can handle until the late 19th century.
We can take down megafauna due to our teamwork, a military is a large body of organized cooperative units, that alone could wipe out an entire ecosystem.
Volley fire would end dragons. Dragoon pistols would kite dragons endlessly while being relatively cheap to train and equip Unless the dragons have magical metal skin
The scary thing about fire is the way it affects people in enclosed spaces like bunkers, forts and basements. It's counterintuitive, but inside is where you want to avoid being when a dragon is attacking.
Hah, this reminds me of an RPG scenario I ran in which an 18th century army was tasked with confronting a "Superman" style [near invulnerable] superhero. The superhuman was lured into a trap that included huge artillery batteries, sapping tunnels, mines, and things like that.
This reminds of a custom battle I did in Shogun 2 where I got Portuguese tercios vs Katana heros which are just people who are really skilled and famed with Katan, they died instantly
I remember in the Temeraire books, they use “pepper guns” to fend off dragons. They have cannons specially designed to aim upward and fire charges filled with irritating chemicals that explode like flak rounds. The cloud of “pepper” is too irritating for dragons to risk flying through without becoming temporarily blind and distracted. Which might not sound like much, but it degrades their fighting ability and makes them very vulnerable to further gunfire, or being pounced on by an enemy dragon
I guess I have three problems with this plan. One: It goes against doctrine, which may force an army to rewrite its playbook on the fly. That's risky as hell. Two: The dragon has the initative throughout most of the fight. It can withdraw at any time after wasting most of batteries, heal up, and come back when you're in camp. Three: The bait is pretty much unguarded once the Forlorn Hope withdraw. What's to stop the dragon absconding with the bait once the batteries are toast? Also, great video. Love the empirical angle and studiousness. Well done!
Temeraire series does exactly this. One of the main themes is the dragons realizing they are militarily important enough that the British Empire would lose to Napoleon if they just refused to fight. They used this to demand political representation and rights, such as actually being paid a wage.
It compares them to slaves several times, and it’s actually a quite good comparison. While the dragons aren’t subjected to brutal punishments, they are treated as animals despite being highly intelligent. If one of them is unable to fight, they are simply left in a breeding ground where they are forced to mate with each other and otherwise left alone with nothing to do. Temeraire even experiences this in the fifth book, and it’s shown to be awful for him. And the British system is shown to be one of the better non-free systems; Russia are even worse, to the point of starving dragons who refuse to breed (it’s arguably institutional rape, whereas at least the British dragons can refuse).
In the book 'The Origin of War' by Arther Ferrill, it ends with the hypothetical question of Alexander the Great fighting Waterloo. It compares the usage of skirmishers, cavalry and heavy infantry. Now that's what I'd like to see.
I think you underestimate how quickly a dragon's wings would lose their lift capacity given a few holes in the membrane. Musket balls may not do much damage in small numbers, but anything larger caliber is a different story. And since it wouldn't be able to fly on one wing alone, all it would take (in my baseless opinion) is a couple high caliber cannon rounds, or even a single well-placed chain shot if it made contact at the ideal angle, on a single wing to effectively ground a dragon.
Yes, if your can hit a fast moving flying target with a half ton tube of metal you need to point by hand. And you are assuming that a musket round would pierce the skin when shot upwards. But actually the worst part, is fear, trained soldiers shat their pants and ran for the hills from the trembling of the ground under a unit of horses, a dragon tho? It makes you feel like a rabbit staring at a gigantic eagle, people panicked mid combat, forgetting to shoot before reloading again fighting men, imagine fighting something so large, the sound of wings like war drums in the distance growing in strength into a cannonade that can suddenly go silent. Impossibly fast, but worse, intelligent. Imagine the burning hell, people running scared, veterans trying desperately to land a shot, and amidst the smoke you hear it taunting you, laughing, gleeful in the slaughter. Who wouldn’t run?
Right, grounding a dragon is key. The one time my party was able to take one down in D&D was through concentrated ice spells to the wings. I think some canister or grape aimed in the general direction would help a lot in making them drop from the sky.
If we're talking a LotR Smaug-level dragon, there's no contest. A dragon in that era is essentially a super weapon. Fast, can fly, fire breathing, its dragon scales are essentially steel plating, very intelligent, extremely strong. I actually think most men would simply shit their pants and run away from it. Once they see entire swathes of ranks being incinerated within seconds, moral is absolutely gone
Hey, if a single arrow to an exposed bit of flesh can take down Smaug, I'm sure that the Household Division could make it happen! Just so long as there's some kind of old-timey, very English, poetic way of making it happen!
@@BrandonF 100.000 muskets, even only a fraction at once, would arguably be a lot of battering for even dragonscales to endure for long, even if there's no exposed flesh.
@@widewan7585 A lucky hit on part of the supporting structure for the wings would be an instant shoot-down, absolutely. Luck is the problem with that, of course since unlike standard musketry, you can't just throw twenty thousand cannonballs at the problem and hope one rolls 'Bard' :p
@@BrandonF Well a giant ballista bolt from some sort of fantasy mega skorpion. The problem would be hitting it. I am just thinking of how hard it was for even WW2 AA to hit aircraft at all. Doing the same with a napoleonic cannon is going to be a challenge.
You need to read the TEMERAIRE series. It is honestly one of the most well done portrayer’s of historical fantasy when it comes to this topic. It’s effectively the Napoleonic wars with the addition of dragons. And I cannot recommend that enough. The series is made by Naomi Novik and the first book is called his Majesty’s dragon.
Because advancement of human weaponry and tactics in napoleonic era will definitely take down traditional medieval fantasy dragons, it might make more sense dragons will also evolve to industrial fantasy dragons where they can fire cannons instead of just fire, keeping up with the times you know?
@@muhammadfaqihalazhar8443 Interesting, looks like the dragons isn't evolving at all, rather they're extinct and now being replaced by man made steam-powered dragon that fires cannons
That's eight average-sized adult T-Rexes lined up nose-to-tail. An Airbus A380 is just 73m. I think even an army who marched against enemy grapeshot without flinching would take one look at that thing incinerating and eating men and collectively shit itself and flee.
Love this, you should do more of this, maybe Napoleonic Tactics vs Warhammer fantasy or Napoleonic Tactics vs a Modern army (I know that one would be silly one but it would be a interesting hypothetical)
For the anecdote, there's also the Chaos Cyber-Dracolich of Destruction, also nicknamed "El Bourrinador " or with its scientific name "Draco Grosbillis Terminus". -Asp Explorer.
Bravo! I've seen the topic brought up before, but usually it just devolved into arguments over 'is dragon bulletproof'. In contrast, this is very well thought through and what I'd consider an excellent guide to handling the absolute worst case scenario: The Smaugs or Ancalagons of the world which admittedly are the sort of beast you would bother mobilising an entire field army for. The last stage with the use of cavalry is straight out of the Silmarilion, where Fingon leads a company of horse to defeat Glaurung, and indeed probably would have been a better solution to that which Fingon employed as his arm's length mounted archery allowed the young Glaurung to run away. As I said though, this is probably the worst case, a fire drake at the peak of its powers. Let us not waste time sending the army against a swamp dragon hailing from the Discworld (the poor thing would probably self-destruct should a single man rush it with a bayonet), but I may as well weigh in on the two other kinds of dragon native to Arda for the sake of completionism, as that is a setting I am very familiar with. Most dragons there aren't Smaug or Ancalagon, but rather Glaurungs or Scathas. That is to say, worms and cold drakes: Wingless worms like Glaurung would essentially allow skipping the initial steps intended to ground the beast, and would make large, lumbering (when adult) targets which a horse could easily outrun, and probably an infantryman with a little luck on his side. We see an adult Glaurung defeated in open battle by Dwarven infantry, whose armour and shields are able to withstand his fire. His claws and teeth not so much, and the victory comes at great cost. This gives a good benchmark for the sort of opposition the cavalry might be facing when applying the final stage of the video's doctrine, and quite possibly the horsemen would lose less than expected due to their mobility against the massive opponent. Against a wingless but still fire breathing dragon, it may be best to forego the strongpoints and instead move immediately to a battle of manoeuvre to take advantage of that critical weakness, potentially doing away with the infantry entirely as they may serve simply to inflate the losses suffered. As for the Scatha model of cold drake, these dragons can fly but have no fire breath (nor any ice breath, as some assume from the name). As such, the dragon would be limited to melee attacks where an infantry square might prove a substantial opponent, as it would have to expose its underbelly on any sweeping pass (assuming stamina is not a concern for flight and the dragon is not so stupid or proud as to try to brawl), where massed volleys could be aimed at close range into the joints, groin or head with good expectations of accuracy so long as the men are not panicking overmuch. Which they quite possibly might be if a dragon is swooping at them. It might be expected that the strongpoints at the beginning of the battleplan would work very well here as the dragon would have to manually tear into them, buying enough time that the men inside could escape or else might be able to use their swivel guns or else jam a musket's barrel directly into a gap in the scales and fire, dealing lethal damage. This would take a degree of heroism, though I'm not entirely sure if it would cross the line for the scenario as similarly brave deeds are rare but far from unknown against tanks in later years. Otherwise as before, the tactics following through should the forlorn hope fail would remain effective and be easier to perform without fire in the mix, though there would be no static moment of fire breathing to exploit for aim.
Since the "Temeraire" Series by Naomi Novik revolves around a Napoleonic War with dragons being employed by the various sides i would be interested in your thoughts on the series in regards to its portrayal of the period, assuming you are aware of it. Especially what your thoughts on the tactics employed by the dragonriders are (dropping grenades on infantry, airlifting artillery to strategic positions, etc.)
I recommend the excellent Temeraire series. 9 Books with all kinds of conventional and unconventional warfare in it featuring dragons in the Napoleonic era. The books also have a great emphasis on supply chains, something that a lot of fiction just leaves out. Good stuff.
My fantasy worldbuilding pet project has this exact scenario in one of its time periods, and before I watch the video to get your thoughts I want to comment on what I thought about it: Gunpowder technology seriously weakened the military signifiance of Dragons and, while they certainly didn't immediately become obsolete, it signified the start of a long and humiliating decline. Ordinary ground-based men and women had tactics to defeat Dragons before but they were always risky and extremely bloody, taking massive losses to just kill one single Dragon. Firearms and cannon changed that. The main advantage was in how fast a bullet moves, making it far easier to target the wings. A single hit won't do much, but an entire regiment's worth of muskets hitting a Dragon's wings will shred them to pieces and disable their flight. Once grounded, their massive bodies would be trivially easy targets for artillery, which could punch through the scales even at long range. Of course, a lucky shot from artillery could also take out a Dragon in one hit without having to ground it, but this was rare as cannon obviously have a hard time tracking a flying target. The Dragons weren't idle and developed their tactics to try and counter gunpowder weapons. They learnt to never fly directly at an artillery position - instead zig-zagging and flying perpendicularly to it - and were forced to perform risky dive-bomb manoeuvres, closing up their wings to rapidly dive and present a smaller target and only opening them up at the last possible moment. A few Dragons cocked this up and face-planted into the target they were trying to attack, which in fairness also did pretty catastrophic damage. Many Dragons stopped trying to use their natural strength and fire-breath completely, and instead exploited their flying ability, going higher than the effective range of a musket and dropping heavy stuff onto their target. As the Dragons in my world are intelligent, and they were just one element in a war that was really primarily between humans, they also got humans to make large grenades, incendiary bombs and huge ceramic jars full of metal shards that they would drop onto the enemy. This was actually where they proved most powerful, and it was only by essentially abandoning what made them Dragons and becoming fantasy bomber planes that they remained militarily relevant, as there was very little a Napoleonic-era (or, in my case, slightly beyond Napoleonic) army could do about this.
Should the dragons also just burn everything they can? Not only they could attack with the smoke as their cover if the humans were anywhere near something that burns the dragons could just make huge fires, burning every town field and forest
@@taistelusammakko5088 Evil, monstrous or animalistic dragons whose objective genuinely is "kill all humans" (or non-dragon creatures, in a fantasy setting with non-human intelligent species) would possibly do this so long as it's not in the area they source their food from. Dragons need to eat too, and those fields, forests and human farmers with their livestock provide a food supply that the dragons themselves need. It goes without saying that you don't win the war if you burn your means of survival to ash. Without them, the dragons have to rely on hunting and gathering, which is far less secure as a food source and can only support a tiny population. If the dragon is intelligent enough to recognise it, it will want humans as subjects or slaves, not corpses. With my dragons, they have specific political objectives they're trying to achieve (again, they're participants in a war that is primarily between humans, it's not a pure dragons vs humans situation) and destroying the lands of non-dragons doesn't lead to victory in any way - their aim isn't to slaughter, it's to conquer. They'd not just be destroying their food source, they'd also be destroying their reputation, as their non-dragon allies will turn on them very fast if they see them indiscriminately burning, and it's likely nobody would ever trust them again. In a world where the military power of dragons is quickly declining and they can only maintain relevancy by utilising non-dragon allies, this cannot be allowed to happen.
The Bull Dragon from A Reign of Fire does something similar. It learns to ambush at night and takes down a heavily armed force by doing hit and run attacks, strafing and circling while breathing fire.
Enjoyed this thought provoking discussion. In 1981 the Napoleonic players and Fantasy players pondered over a battle between a Napoleonic army and a wizard. But closer to topic there is a account of a more American Revolutionary army group fighting a dragon sort of monster but at least not fire armed, the Jersey Devil. Would if possibly ground the Dragon it would be trying to get away and would let loose on it horse artillery, think Napoleonic Artillery would do great damage to a Dragon
"How effective is a Panzerfaust against a Troll, Heinz" is a tractics/D&D scenario that appeared in the early Dragon magazines, back in the late 70's IIRC.
Actually Napoleon's brother ( Joseph Bonaparte) actually was part of a battle that shot the devil with a cannon shot - after facing Joseph, the beast was never seen in those parts.
@@Bothrops_Asper_89 that is where Napoleon's bother was at the time, with Decatur. So you would have two "hero's" - an American patriot and a French one fighting the dragon.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik is basically dragons being used in the Napoleonic wars. Counter tactics depend greatly on the size/weight category of the dragon in question. Pepper guns (Upward facing cannons/mortars filled with irritants to damage the dragon's enhanced senses) are effective on all sizes but lack any lethal effect. ( One could theoretically load it with grapeshot of a higher than normal caliber) Line infantry is more or less ineffective when facing dragons above lightweight due to scale thickness and the amount of muscle behind it. (Wings excluded of course) Categories as follows from smallest to largest, Ultra-light/courier (Normally only big enough for a single rider) Lightweight (1 captain + a handful of crew) Medium weight,this one has some subclasses (1 captain + around a dozen crew or more depending on body shape) Heavyweight ( More or less the size of a frigate with a crew to match,The dragon the series is named for is named after HMS Temeraire and in the final book is around the size of said ship.) Musket fire is only lethal to the first two outside of weakspot hits. Other than that the standard tactic for line infantry is to fire every musket in the line at the wings or at the same limb. When developing tactics in this kind of scenario one has to consider the dragon's level of intelligence. In Temeraire, dragons are just as intelligent as humans and can talk and strategize. But there is one major weakness, European dragons are very overprotective of their captain. Capture the captian and the dragon will do what ever you tell it to,but do not kill the captain unless you can kill the dragon in short order as dragons tend to frenzy when the captain dies in battle. Overall the dragons are generally perceived like living ships that can fly,capture is preferable to destruction. This leads to a crazy tactic of flying directly above another dragon and dropping soldiers directly onto the back of the dragon below, this is called out as crazy in the series yet is done. After all once you are on the enemy dragon you have no way off unless you capture the captain and the crew is generally well armed and trained against such attacks as they also act as bodyguards to the captain. Most dragons also lack a breath attack,some can spit venom and some spray acid, firebreath is very rare but very valuable. Some dragon species also have natural night vision while others lack it.
There are just so many variables in the design of the dragon to make a definite conclusion. If one goes with Dragons who have a lightning attack instead of fire Humans lose the range advantage. If Dragons are smart like humans or even smarter they can out think humans. If Dragons have Minions, Servants, their own States with plenty of Humans serving them they can field their own armies etc. Still a great topic to discuss. Love it.
Obligatory recommendation for the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The Napoleonic Wars, but with Dragons, its a fun read; nine books long, but it reads very fast.
I had the thought that cannon could be loaded with the reverse of chain shot, that being a much smaller sphere of iron attached to many lengths of chain wound around it, each bearing a hook at the end. The idea is that, once fired, the sphere would occupy a much larger volume due to the chains unfurling in flight, with the hooks digging into and snagging upon the dragon (making sure they unfurl due to the chains might be unreliable). Once downed men upon horses could cast similar chains over the dragon and ride away radially to pin it.
Like you, I would also try to ground the dragon down, but then shoot it with a grand battery. I don't think the heaviest of scales can withstand a 12+ pounder shot. But I also miss the use of rocket artillery. That can potentially fire higher into the air. And, while mostly inaccurate, can be a distractor as well as causing some minor damage.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik is a very relevant book series to this video. It’s dragons during the Napoleonic wars and is my second ever favorite series.
Reading suggestion... in French (I doubt it has ever been translated): one of my all-time favorite books is *Les Soldats de la Mer* by Yves and Ada Rémy. It's a great collection of horror/sci-fi stories set in a very, very Napoleonic-inspired world, with most characters being related to warfare in one way or another. It's an absolute masterpiece, which should be way more famous than it is.
Here's a quote: - Qu'est-ce que vous avez aujourd'hui , mon garçon ? Je ne vous ai jamais connu si agressif. - Je suis las, général. Trop de batailles. Trop de shakos dans les fossés, trop de talpacks sur les eaux des marais, trop de casques dans les champs, trop de bonnets ensanglantés, et des toques et des casquettes et des képis et des chevaux morts et des équipages ruinés. La guerre est triste. - La guerre est belle. - La guerre est triste. - Silence, mon garçon ! Je suis un petit bonhomme graisseux et probablement assez dégoûtant. Je suis habillé comme un paltoquet et vous qui avez l'élégance d'un épouvantail, n'en manquez certes pas à mes côtés, mais je connais la beauté des bataillons en marche, la grandeur d'un escadron qui charge, l'incomparable, le vertigineux décor de la guerre. - Je connais aussi les quatre armées qu'elle laisse sur ses champs de bataille, une armée de morts, une armée de pleureuses, une armée de bandits et une armée de pauvres.
I've always enjoyed your content in the utmost of solitudes. Today, you have provided me with a prime excuse to share your channel with my entire DND group! I shall use this as a prime excuse to justify why it would be at least possible for a Victorian gentleman and a enterprising gunslinger to take on a smaller dragon all by themselves. After all, what grapeshot and flintlock rifles do well, a maxim and a scoped lever action shall do superbly! The DM is...less inclined to share my optimism. And has stated that the cost of gunpowder alone shall drive the duo to bankruptcy.
I once played in a DnD campaign in a pseudo-Napoleonic setting. Unfortunately due to scheduling issues the campaign died too early for us to get to any dragons, but I really enjoyed the combination of fantasy and long-18th century-style aesthetics and technology. I wish more fantasy would explore settings inspired by historical periods outside the middle ages (and to a lesser extent the Victorian Era, which seems to be the only other historical period fantasy settings draw from, probably owing to steampunk), it's such a breath of fresh air with how standard medieval-esque settings are to the genre lol
Late to the video but I think we could make few improvements to the battle plan. For starters ROCKETS and lots of them. To massively increase our artillery park despite their inaccuracy. Quantity has quality of it's own. Secondly, mine those strong points and dug in batteries with fougases filled with everything you can find. For when inevitably the dragon will burn those stations. He's for a nasty surprise. Third, forget cavalry pistols and sabers. Give them bags of grenades and have them toss them at the grounded dragon. Could even have some string attached to increase range in slingshot style. Fourth exchange cavalry lances to that with detachable barbed tip with powder charge/grenade fixed to it. Detonated via a lanyard pulled while riding away. The nature of phosphorus and sulfur we know in matches was known from the later half of the XVII century. Friction detonator it is. Finish it of 40k cavalry/Attack on Titan style.
You know, if you want to do an interesting Washington vs Napoleon fight, it would be Washington trying to pick off one of Napoleon's columns, trying to pull a Princeton or a Monmouth, and he'd have to try to overcome the French before the other columns react and form up. Washington would still lose, but it's sure better than "5 guys and a 6 lber" That would be an interesting topic for a video: evolution of army movement across the 19th century and the quest for speed. Would waiting for favorable weather help, like how Charles XII and Washington attacked under the cover of blizzards and fog? I haven't seen anyone try to fight a dragon using natural weather effects, and it's a long shot it would have an effect, but it's an interesting idea. Earthworks would be a good idea. While moving around to avoid fire while maintaining fire in return is a good idea, I think throwing up some trenches and hills or stone fences would be good cover when the only ranged offense is fire. In the Ming period in China, for example, or the French Wars of Religion, stone fortifications getting smacked around by cannons and mines and rockets really caused redesigns to use thick walls of earth that could absorb that shock. Even assuming explosive fire using a film dragon, that thick soil could help a lot- I'm thinking the reversed slope at Waterloo as well. Another video suggestion: swivel guns and wall guns, and small 1-4 lb cannons and how important they were. Would Dragoons be a good idea for bait? Perhaps some Chasseurs a cheval? However, they'd have to use the old style dismounted infantry role rather than the Napoleonic use as swordsmen. Yeah, my first thought in this scenario was grape and canister, like the old Pom Poms. Googling antiair tactics brought me to the 1870 Ballonabwehrkanone, used by the Prussians to snipe French observation balloons. It's hard to judge given the unknown of the dragon's speed and armor. In the Hobbit films, Smaug covered a fair clip- 20 miles in about 5 minutes. Now, it's hard to estimate the power of that ballista, and compare it to both musketry and cannon. I'm assuming the field guns are far more powerful but I'm wondering if a .60-80 caliber ball would do much.
if you like gimmicky alt-history/ahistoric scenarios such as this, if you haven't already, consider reading The Red Baron VS Mothman, really entertaining story
As much as I love Dungeons and Dragons, I do wish there is more early modern and Napoleonic fantasy RPGs. Although bows and polearms are cool, so are muskets and cannons, with star fortresses and redoubts, these were the successors to castles. It would also be more awesome to see more maritime based adventures, with ships-of-the-line and frigates, and to see all of this tech versus magic square against each other, moreover, I do like the hypotheticals of gunpowder units versus dragons and monsters, by the way, Osprey Games of Osprey Publishing known for military books, actually has some RPGs, including medieval fantasy, I recommend Frostgrave.
Blücher would have ordered his Prussian Line Infantry to Attack with fixed bayonetts....and pray for any kind of Success and of course curse Bernadotte loudly for never reaching the Battlefield with the Dragon in time...But beside this you really present a wonderful and convincing scenario
How did we go from him to talking about how a loading maneuver in sharpe is stupid to him saying “hey, let’s shove a dragon in the middle of Borodino or something.” Either way, I want more of this.
This reminds me of the Roman Legion vs Marine platoon themes from Binkov's battleground videos on this Fanciful yet fun. I like the referce to the US version of Godzilla in the late 1990's.
The mythical dragon is tamed, like a living airship, manned like a galleon with Napoleonic troops on its back to repel boarders who seek to take control of the dragon. That's the idea behind Naomi Novik's Temeraire book series. A great idea for a ttrpg.
Great video! I just wanna know: Why would the dragon only use it's firebreath when the cavalry came to fight it? It would spin around, strike with it's mighty tail and claws, crush the cavalry close to it with it's gargantuan body and smear it's scales with the blood of unfortunate steeds and foolish soldiers alike. Allowing no space for the cavalry to find weakness in it's hide and granting it victory.
As someone who's worldbuilding a Byzantium Dragon faction, Dragons wouldn't stand in front of a cannon or a musket line. You know what they would do? Airdrop and ravage the supply lines. They're basically living Helicopters.
The book series Temeraire is exactly this! An absolutely fantastic couple of books that also cover the politics and societal aspects of dragons. Highest recommendation for them!
I would love for you to cover more sillier concepts like this. such as how would different fantasy races, ala elves, dwarves, gnomes, fight in 18th century and napoleonic warfare compared to historical humans. How might say a low level dnd wizard or cleric integrate into such armies.
Video idea: what if a nonbending napoleonic era army was placed in the avatar the last airbender world and got tasked in defending the Earth kingdom against the Fire nation and counter attacking them. How well would they do that without the help of avatar, assuming that the Fire nation tactics mostly just rely on direct attacks and industrial might?
Funny enough, I'm current worldbuilding some monsters for a fantasy story in a revolutionary wars analog era, so this will be helpful for the lads on the field slaying beasts beyond their compreension. One question: wouldn't howitzers be more appropriate for the job rather than canister and chain shot? Imo the higher angle would give it better "anti-air" capacities. It would also be devastating if a shell exploded too close to the dragon
Im saying we have a X sided shape (doesn't matter how many sides: less you have the more vulnerable you will be but the quicker you will kill the dragon) and at each of the corners of this shape you have a battery that is pre-sighted at estimated dragon high above all the other batteries. Then between them, on the lines, are zig-zaged infantry (not straight lines or the dragon can just get them all in one burst of fire). These will fire at the dragon as it travels between the batteries, slowing it down. I personaly think artillery would be sufficient to pierce and wound the dragon so you would want to wound it and then hope bleeding hurts it. If it becomes downed from its wounds, then all the batteris can simply just point at where the dragon is. As the dragon will presumably be either at a battery or between 2 batteries it will be easy to have a pre-sighted table for greater accuracy for these locations aswell. I think that your plan works better if you presume that artillery will be insufficient to kill it alone. If we presume it is sufficient, as well as having time to prepare, I think the method above would be very effective.
I would say don't send cavalry at a downed dragon. Especially not if it's a wyvern style dragon that isn't all that nimble on the ground. Stay back and pound it with heavy cannons until you hit something vital. Ideally from well beyond the range where it can actually attack. Don't waste men and material doing the final charge with small arms when it's now a large slow ship-like target that can be taken out with artillery.
I see two problems A) Dragons are highly intelligent and wise, and thus would have tactics of its own. Because of this, Dragons are also almost always powerful spellcasters, as well as having their own innate magic. B) Striking a dragon's wing, while probably painful, is ultimately useless, as dragon wings aren't large enough to support the dragon's weight, implying that their innate magic is powering their flight, and the wings are either a supplement to their actual method of flight (magic), or entirely ornamental. (Or maybe they just find big wings attractive, and thus they evolved out of sexual selection.)
I think it also matters a Lot if the dragon is an out of context problem. A dragon just shows up, every one is panicked. Dragons are a known thing, they probably have there own specialized anti dragon weapons.
I agree this battle will play more like naval engagemen than ground one. 1; Cripple the dragons' wings (naval guns were designed to shot opwards to destroy sails). 2; Finnish him with heavy artillery. Lot depends on if this is one time freak occurence or dradons are common to attack settlements.
I think cavalry would make better bait as smaller groups of cavalry under the command of junior officers could be more dynamic. I think the worst infantry should be used in the buildings as they're all going to die anyways while the light infantry and riflemen would be better at dealing a lot of damage. Also some cavalry should be dispatched to ensure that the soldier don't attempt to flee, As this battle will be extra chaotic and far more soldiers may attempt to flee.
Brandon's just flexing the time he and his buddies took down a dragon from Game of Thrones. In all honestly, I totally want to read Napoleonic soldiers versus fantasy beasts, any good recommendations anyone?
Okay, so I missed St George's Day. By a lot. But I hope you enjoy this sillier video all the same. More serious content to follow...
Did you do this already? This sounds vaguely familiar.
Way back when I made a quick little promo video for 'redcoats fighting a dragon' but it was just to promote a poster design I commissioned. It was only a few minutes long, it didn't actually go into anything beyond a little story.
@@BrandonFcan I have a ⭐️ for remembering that video?
I suspect uou'd like "Termeraire"
St George Ora pro Nobis
Now we need to know how a Napoleonic Navy would fight the Kraken.
I like this one! Maybe some time!
I heartily agree.
By the Napoleonic era, the technology for submersibles and undersea mines existed. The real test is whether standard artillery of the time could puncture a cephalopod creature's carapace.
How long do you think it would take some bright spark to combine one of those new-fangled pocket watches, a flintlock mechanism, and a carefully sealed cask of powder into the world's first depth bomb?
Considering the fact that Neptune surrendered his Empire of the sea to Britain in 1805, I'm guessing it means that the kraken is now part of the Royal Navy
The Draconic mind cannnot conprehend the Duke of Wellington
The battle of the snouts
Wellington is the red mantle of the Torero that distracts the dragon while Blücher and the Prussians do the coup de grace.
“The dragon has a limited amount of fire it can breathe in a day, so after grounding it, I sent wave after wave of my own men at it until it became exhausted. Then I personally shot it with a cannon.” (Twirls impeccably waxed mustache)
"You see, dragons have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit..."
-Lord Brannigan
@@BrandonF::a voice, faintly from the bivouac of the tiralleurs:: "you suck!"
The Zap Brannagan strategy. Yes.
Fantasy and napoleonic era, a sweet mixture that I wish I saw more of in media.
It's such a double-edged sword for me, though. I'd love to see it- but I know I'd just get upset at all the inaccuracies!
I'm already working on an animation project about that
@@BrandonFTrue that, another worry I have is ending up with what is essentially just medieval fantasy with a napoleonic skin.
terror belli is one of the japanese cartoon fanfics of all time
Read Teremaire by Naomi Novik
Grapeshot to the wings. Skirmishing cavalry bait into a full battery.
It's a bit reversed from what I ultimately went with, but using cavalry as bait would work just as well I think.
@@BrandonF Use lancers as bait... As in the lancers would attack the hatchlings, the grenadiers and sappers would destroy the eggs, and the hussars would lure the angry reptile into a full battery of quicklime shot and bursting shot.
This is absolutely how I'd deal with a wingless Glaurung-style dragon.
Hitting a fast flying target with a napoleonic cannon is going to be pretty damn hard grapeshot or not.
@@tedhubertcrusio372 A favourite war strategy of mine - Genocide
There is a book series that explores the ideas of Dragons in the Napoleonic wars, being employed as an air force. Naomi Novik’s “Temeraire” series. I like to describe it as Master and Commander meets How To Train Your Dragon. It delves quite well into the geopolitical consequences as well as the Napoleonic wars themselves, but centres on the main character, a Royal Navy Captain roped into service with the British Aerial Corps. Dragons are employed almost as ships, with crews of riflemen shooting from them as they provide mobile firepower. Different “weight classes” and not all dragons being capable of breathing fire leads to, as on the sea, strengths and weaknesses between each type, but also each nation’s particular dragon species. Typically, forts, ships and armies equip themselves with “pepper guns”, skyward facing cannons that fire a special kind of canister shot at an overhead dragon. The third book, “Black Powder War”, depicts the French invasion of Prussia, and gives a pretty good account of what a Birds Eye view of Napoleonic Warfare may have looked like, with dragons of course.
Thanks for this ive been looking for something different to listen to!
Love that series!
First three are really good, the other ones are a little more meandering
This
Yes holy shit I love that book series.
There’s two things I think people forget about it:
#1. Humans, ever since prehistory, has been super creative at taking down megafauna. Making Mammoths fall into pitfall traps, making bison shove each other off cliffs, whale hunting, creating certain spears to be thrown from a farther distance have all existed,
We have been able to hunt larger animals that are so much heavier and more deadlier than us. Plus, humans tend to fear large predators and unfortunately typically try to wipe them out to defend livestock or out of fear (just look at how European colonialists practically wiped out the gray wolf and grizzly bear populations from their native ranges when arriving in North America). Dragons, if they existed, would probably be wiped out over centuries and go extinct before the Napoleonic Wars due to the fact they would be viewed as the ultimate pest or enemy.
#2. People often forget about how deadly Napleonic weaponry was. Just look at the effects that grapeshot has on the body… a dragon’s wings would be absolutely shredded.
I don't think we would fight them. Probably, we would kill all of their natural prey and make nesting impossible. We're clever, but a flying fire breathing sentient monster is probably beyond what we can handle until the late 19th century.
We can take down megafauna due to our teamwork, a military is a large body of organized cooperative units, that alone could wipe out an entire ecosystem.
Using grapeshot on a dragon would kinda be like birdshot, or dragonshot perhaps?
PETITION TO RENAME GRAPESHOT TO DRAGONSHOT that is so funny and fitting
Volley fire would end dragons. Dragoon pistols would kite dragons endlessly while being relatively cheap to train and equip
Unless the dragons have magical metal skin
The scary thing about fire is the way it affects people in enclosed spaces like bunkers, forts and basements. It's counterintuitive, but inside is where you want to avoid being when a dragon is attacking.
Hah, this reminds me of an RPG scenario I ran in which an 18th century army was tasked with confronting a "Superman" style [near invulnerable] superhero.
The superhuman was lured into a trap that included huge artillery batteries, sapping tunnels, mines, and things like that.
This reminds of a custom battle I did in Shogun 2 where I got Portuguese tercios vs Katana heros which are just people who are really skilled and famed with Katan, they died instantly
He must be pretty dumb to be caught in that lol
He must be pretty dumb to be caught in that lol
"But what about dragons?!" Some Australian medieval enthusiast.
I'm literally wearing that shirt right now 🤣
"What *about* Dragons?" Some American Loyalist Gunpowder enthusiast.
Ugh, the most annoying idiot in the history community, actually scratch that, on UA-cam
I miss being able to wear that shirt without feeling bad. Man do I regret it now lol
I remember in the Temeraire books, they use “pepper guns” to fend off dragons. They have cannons specially designed to aim upward and fire charges filled with irritating chemicals that explode like flak rounds. The cloud of “pepper” is too irritating for dragons to risk flying through without becoming temporarily blind and distracted. Which might not sound like much, but it degrades their fighting ability and makes them very vulnerable to further gunfire, or being pounced on by an enemy dragon
I guess I have three problems with this plan.
One: It goes against doctrine, which may force an army to rewrite its playbook on the fly. That's risky as hell.
Two: The dragon has the initative throughout most of the fight. It can withdraw at any time after wasting most of batteries, heal up, and come back when you're in camp.
Three: The bait is pretty much unguarded once the Forlorn Hope withdraw. What's to stop the dragon absconding with the bait once the batteries are toast?
Also, great video. Love the empirical angle and studiousness. Well done!
Now THIS is what I subscribed for!
Now hang on- this is the first of such videos I've ever made! Although if it does well, the new "silly videos" playlist may expand...
@@BrandonF Please do.
I'd suggest giving Temeraire a read. It's basically this. Dragons in a Napoleonic era.
Temeraire series does exactly this. One of the main themes is the dragons realizing they are militarily important enough that the British Empire would lose to Napoleon if they just refused to fight. They used this to demand political representation and rights, such as actually being paid a wage.
It compares them to slaves several times, and it’s actually a quite good comparison. While the dragons aren’t subjected to brutal punishments, they are treated as animals despite being highly intelligent. If one of them is unable to fight, they are simply left in a breeding ground where they are forced to mate with each other and otherwise left alone with nothing to do. Temeraire even experiences this in the fifth book, and it’s shown to be awful for him. And the British system is shown to be one of the better non-free systems; Russia are even worse, to the point of starving dragons who refuse to breed (it’s arguably institutional rape, whereas at least the British dragons can refuse).
Temeraire is a book series set in the Napoleonic Wars with dragons. Don't know if it's good yet, still have to finish.
It's a solid series, really well written. Loved it from start to finish.
24:47 No! I want more ridiculous content like this! I love these kinds of topics and thought experiments! Make more like this please!
In the book 'The Origin of War' by Arther Ferrill, it ends with the hypothetical question of Alexander the Great fighting Waterloo. It compares the usage of skirmishers, cavalry and heavy infantry. Now that's what I'd like to see.
I think you underestimate how quickly a dragon's wings would lose their lift capacity given a few holes in the membrane. Musket balls may not do much damage in small numbers, but anything larger caliber is a different story. And since it wouldn't be able to fly on one wing alone, all it would take (in my baseless opinion) is a couple high caliber cannon rounds, or even a single well-placed chain shot if it made contact at the ideal angle, on a single wing to effectively ground a dragon.
Yes, if your can hit a fast moving flying target with a half ton tube of metal you need to point by hand. And you are assuming that a musket round would pierce the skin when shot upwards. But actually the worst part, is fear, trained soldiers shat their pants and ran for the hills from the trembling of the ground under a unit of horses, a dragon tho? It makes you feel like a rabbit staring at a gigantic eagle, people panicked mid combat, forgetting to shoot before reloading again fighting men, imagine fighting something so large, the sound of wings like war drums in the distance growing in strength into a cannonade that can suddenly go silent. Impossibly fast, but worse, intelligent. Imagine the burning hell, people running scared, veterans trying desperately to land a shot, and amidst the smoke you hear it taunting you, laughing, gleeful in the slaughter. Who wouldn’t run?
Right, grounding a dragon is key. The one time my party was able to take one down in D&D was through concentrated ice spells to the wings. I think some canister or grape aimed in the general direction would help a lot in making them drop from the sky.
As my AWOI monster tale reaches the conclusion of a rorugh draft, I appreciate your serious approach to the subject.
Sounds like a fun time!
This is probably the only sponsorship that's actually worked on me, they made a great decision partnering with you, I want to get it now
0:29 *Laughs in GATE: Thus the JSDF fough there *
Hated that anime. Turned into a half harem anime
If we're talking a LotR Smaug-level dragon, there's no contest. A dragon in that era is essentially a super weapon. Fast, can fly, fire breathing, its dragon scales are essentially steel plating, very intelligent, extremely strong. I actually think most men would simply shit their pants and run away from it. Once they see entire swathes of ranks being incinerated within seconds, moral is absolutely gone
Hey, if a single arrow to an exposed bit of flesh can take down Smaug, I'm sure that the Household Division could make it happen! Just so long as there's some kind of old-timey, very English, poetic way of making it happen!
@@BrandonF 100.000 muskets, even only a fraction at once, would arguably be a lot of battering for even dragonscales to endure for long, even if there's no exposed flesh.
@@canicheenrageperhaps cannon could be used to bludgeon the dragon+maybe break bones
@@widewan7585 A lucky hit on part of the supporting structure for the wings would be an instant shoot-down, absolutely. Luck is the problem with that, of course since unlike standard musketry, you can't just throw twenty thousand cannonballs at the problem and hope one rolls 'Bard' :p
@@BrandonF Well a giant ballista bolt from some sort of fantasy mega skorpion.
The problem would be hitting it. I am just thinking of how hard it was for even WW2 AA to hit aircraft at all. Doing the same with a napoleonic cannon is going to be a challenge.
You need to read the TEMERAIRE series. It is honestly one of the most well done portrayer’s of historical fantasy when it comes to this topic. It’s effectively the Napoleonic wars with the addition of dragons. And I cannot recommend that enough. The series is made by Naomi Novik and the first book is called his Majesty’s dragon.
Because advancement of human weaponry and tactics in napoleonic era will definitely take down traditional medieval fantasy dragons, it might make more sense dragons will also evolve to industrial fantasy dragons where they can fire cannons instead of just fire, keeping up with the times you know?
Only if you mount them with cannon on their back😅
@@muhammadfaqihalazhar8443 Interesting, looks like the dragons isn't evolving at all, rather they're extinct and now being replaced by man made steam-powered dragon that fires cannons
A 100 METERS!? What kind of mutant dragon is this? By George that's hilariously massive.
That's eight average-sized adult T-Rexes lined up nose-to-tail. An Airbus A380 is just 73m. I think even an army who marched against enemy grapeshot without flinching would take one look at that thing incinerating and eating men and collectively shit itself and flee.
Naomi Novok wrote "His majesty's dragon". It is all about napoleonic times with dragons.
Everyone who is interested in this. Read Temeraire by Naomi Novik
Love this, you should do more of this, maybe Napoleonic Tactics vs Warhammer fantasy or Napoleonic Tactics vs a Modern army (I know that one would be silly one but it would be a interesting hypothetical)
For the anecdote, there's also the Chaos Cyber-Dracolich of Destruction, also nicknamed "El Bourrinador " or with its scientific name "Draco Grosbillis Terminus". -Asp Explorer.
could this become a series were various mythical monsters or fantasy beasts are put against Napoleonic armies?
Bravo! I've seen the topic brought up before, but usually it just devolved into arguments over 'is dragon bulletproof'. In contrast, this is very well thought through and what I'd consider an excellent guide to handling the absolute worst case scenario: The Smaugs or Ancalagons of the world which admittedly are the sort of beast you would bother mobilising an entire field army for. The last stage with the use of cavalry is straight out of the Silmarilion, where Fingon leads a company of horse to defeat Glaurung, and indeed probably would have been a better solution to that which Fingon employed as his arm's length mounted archery allowed the young Glaurung to run away.
As I said though, this is probably the worst case, a fire drake at the peak of its powers. Let us not waste time sending the army against a swamp dragon hailing from the Discworld (the poor thing would probably self-destruct should a single man rush it with a bayonet), but I may as well weigh in on the two other kinds of dragon native to Arda for the sake of completionism, as that is a setting I am very familiar with. Most dragons there aren't Smaug or Ancalagon, but rather Glaurungs or Scathas. That is to say, worms and cold drakes:
Wingless worms like Glaurung would essentially allow skipping the initial steps intended to ground the beast, and would make large, lumbering (when adult) targets which a horse could easily outrun, and probably an infantryman with a little luck on his side. We see an adult Glaurung defeated in open battle by Dwarven infantry, whose armour and shields are able to withstand his fire. His claws and teeth not so much, and the victory comes at great cost. This gives a good benchmark for the sort of opposition the cavalry might be facing when applying the final stage of the video's doctrine, and quite possibly the horsemen would lose less than expected due to their mobility against the massive opponent. Against a wingless but still fire breathing dragon, it may be best to forego the strongpoints and instead move immediately to a battle of manoeuvre to take advantage of that critical weakness, potentially doing away with the infantry entirely as they may serve simply to inflate the losses suffered.
As for the Scatha model of cold drake, these dragons can fly but have no fire breath (nor any ice breath, as some assume from the name). As such, the dragon would be limited to melee attacks where an infantry square might prove a substantial opponent, as it would have to expose its underbelly on any sweeping pass (assuming stamina is not a concern for flight and the dragon is not so stupid or proud as to try to brawl), where massed volleys could be aimed at close range into the joints, groin or head with good expectations of accuracy so long as the men are not panicking overmuch. Which they quite possibly might be if a dragon is swooping at them. It might be expected that the strongpoints at the beginning of the battleplan would work very well here as the dragon would have to manually tear into them, buying enough time that the men inside could escape or else might be able to use their swivel guns or else jam a musket's barrel directly into a gap in the scales and fire, dealing lethal damage. This would take a degree of heroism, though I'm not entirely sure if it would cross the line for the scenario as similarly brave deeds are rare but far from unknown against tanks in later years. Otherwise as before, the tactics following through should the forlorn hope fail would remain effective and be easier to perform without fire in the mix, though there would be no static moment of fire breathing to exploit for aim.
True
Dragons can only be slain by knights, silly.
Arthur Wellesley was a Knight of Order of the Garter AND a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Boom.
@@BrandonF fair enough....
Slain ?? Nah in this era we shot down dragons instead
Since the "Temeraire" Series by Naomi Novik revolves around a Napoleonic War with dragons being employed by the various sides i would be interested in your thoughts on the series in regards to its portrayal of the period, assuming you are aware of it. Especially what your thoughts on the tactics employed by the dragonriders are (dropping grenades on infantry, airlifting artillery to strategic positions, etc.)
Thank you for answering this question that we have all had at some point in our lives.
Greetings from Brazil.
It is very pertinent in many of our lives, I know.
"Plan it well sir. Do plan it well, I pray you." "We risk all, upon this."
I recommend the excellent Temeraire series. 9 Books with all kinds of conventional and unconventional warfare in it featuring dragons in the Napoleonic era. The books also have a great emphasis on supply chains, something that a lot of fiction just leaves out. Good stuff.
My fantasy worldbuilding pet project has this exact scenario in one of its time periods, and before I watch the video to get your thoughts I want to comment on what I thought about it:
Gunpowder technology seriously weakened the military signifiance of Dragons and, while they certainly didn't immediately become obsolete, it signified the start of a long and humiliating decline. Ordinary ground-based men and women had tactics to defeat Dragons before but they were always risky and extremely bloody, taking massive losses to just kill one single Dragon. Firearms and cannon changed that.
The main advantage was in how fast a bullet moves, making it far easier to target the wings. A single hit won't do much, but an entire regiment's worth of muskets hitting a Dragon's wings will shred them to pieces and disable their flight. Once grounded, their massive bodies would be trivially easy targets for artillery, which could punch through the scales even at long range. Of course, a lucky shot from artillery could also take out a Dragon in one hit without having to ground it, but this was rare as cannon obviously have a hard time tracking a flying target.
The Dragons weren't idle and developed their tactics to try and counter gunpowder weapons. They learnt to never fly directly at an artillery position - instead zig-zagging and flying perpendicularly to it - and were forced to perform risky dive-bomb manoeuvres, closing up their wings to rapidly dive and present a smaller target and only opening them up at the last possible moment. A few Dragons cocked this up and face-planted into the target they were trying to attack, which in fairness also did pretty catastrophic damage.
Many Dragons stopped trying to use their natural strength and fire-breath completely, and instead exploited their flying ability, going higher than the effective range of a musket and dropping heavy stuff onto their target. As the Dragons in my world are intelligent, and they were just one element in a war that was really primarily between humans, they also got humans to make large grenades, incendiary bombs and huge ceramic jars full of metal shards that they would drop onto the enemy. This was actually where they proved most powerful, and it was only by essentially abandoning what made them Dragons and becoming fantasy bomber planes that they remained militarily relevant, as there was very little a Napoleonic-era (or, in my case, slightly beyond Napoleonic) army could do about this.
Should the dragons also just burn everything they can? Not only they could attack with the smoke as their cover if the humans were anywhere near something that burns the dragons could just make huge fires, burning every town field and forest
@@taistelusammakko5088 Evil, monstrous or animalistic dragons whose objective genuinely is "kill all humans" (or non-dragon creatures, in a fantasy setting with non-human intelligent species) would possibly do this so long as it's not in the area they source their food from.
Dragons need to eat too, and those fields, forests and human farmers with their livestock provide a food supply that the dragons themselves need. It goes without saying that you don't win the war if you burn your means of survival to ash. Without them, the dragons have to rely on hunting and gathering, which is far less secure as a food source and can only support a tiny population. If the dragon is intelligent enough to recognise it, it will want humans as subjects or slaves, not corpses.
With my dragons, they have specific political objectives they're trying to achieve (again, they're participants in a war that is primarily between humans, it's not a pure dragons vs humans situation) and destroying the lands of non-dragons doesn't lead to victory in any way - their aim isn't to slaughter, it's to conquer.
They'd not just be destroying their food source, they'd also be destroying their reputation, as their non-dragon allies will turn on them very fast if they see them indiscriminately burning, and it's likely nobody would ever trust them again. In a world where the military power of dragons is quickly declining and they can only maintain relevancy by utilising non-dragon allies, this cannot be allowed to happen.
The Bull Dragon from A Reign of Fire does something similar. It learns to ambush at night and takes down a heavily armed force by doing hit and run attacks, strafing and circling while breathing fire.
Enjoyed this thought provoking discussion.
In 1981 the Napoleonic players and Fantasy players pondered over a battle between a Napoleonic army and a wizard.
But closer to topic there is a account of a more American Revolutionary army group fighting a dragon sort of monster but at least not fire armed, the Jersey Devil.
Would if possibly ground the Dragon it would be trying to get away and would let loose on it horse artillery, think Napoleonic Artillery would do great damage to a Dragon
"How effective is a Panzerfaust against a Troll, Heinz" is a tractics/D&D scenario that appeared in the early Dragon magazines, back in the late 70's IIRC.
Actually Napoleon's brother ( Joseph Bonaparte) actually was part of a battle that shot the devil with a cannon shot - after facing Joseph, the beast was never seen in those parts.
@@peterwindhorst5775There's also that legend involving Decatur firing cannonballs at the Devil and failing to hurt it at all.
@@Bothrops_Asper_89 that is where Napoleon's bother was at the time, with Decatur. So you would have two "hero's" - an American patriot and a French one fighting the dragon.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik is basically dragons being used in the Napoleonic wars. Counter tactics depend greatly on the size/weight category of the dragon in question. Pepper guns (Upward facing cannons/mortars filled with irritants to damage the dragon's enhanced senses) are effective on all sizes but lack any lethal effect. ( One could theoretically load it with grapeshot of a higher than normal caliber) Line infantry is more or less ineffective when facing dragons above lightweight due to scale thickness and the amount of muscle behind it. (Wings excluded of course) Categories as follows from smallest to largest, Ultra-light/courier (Normally only big enough for a single rider) Lightweight (1 captain + a handful of crew) Medium weight,this one has some subclasses (1 captain + around a dozen crew or more depending on body shape) Heavyweight ( More or less the size of a frigate with a crew to match,The dragon the series is named for is named after HMS Temeraire and in the final book is around the size of said ship.) Musket fire is only lethal to the first two outside of weakspot hits. Other than that the standard tactic for line infantry is to fire every musket in the line at the wings or at the same limb. When developing tactics in this kind of scenario one has to consider the dragon's level of intelligence. In Temeraire, dragons are just as intelligent as humans and can talk and strategize. But there is one major weakness, European dragons are very overprotective of their captain. Capture the captian and the dragon will do what ever you tell it to,but do not kill the captain unless you can kill the dragon in short order as dragons tend to frenzy when the captain dies in battle. Overall the dragons are generally perceived like living ships that can fly,capture is preferable to destruction. This leads to a crazy tactic of flying directly above another dragon and dropping soldiers directly onto the back of the dragon below, this is called out as crazy in the series yet is done. After all once you are on the enemy dragon you have no way off unless you capture the captain and the crew is generally well armed and trained against such attacks as they also act as bodyguards to the captain. Most dragons also lack a breath attack,some can spit venom and some spray acid, firebreath is very rare but very valuable. Some dragon species also have natural night vision while others lack it.
There are just so many variables in the design of the dragon to make a definite conclusion. If one goes with Dragons who have a lightning attack instead of fire Humans lose the range advantage. If Dragons are smart like humans or even smarter they can out think humans. If Dragons have Minions, Servants, their own States with plenty of Humans serving them they can field their own armies etc.
Still a great topic to discuss. Love it.
I clicked "like" before it even started playing
I 'hearted' your comment before I even read it.
Okay, that isn't true, but I appreciate the support!
Obligatory recommendation for the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The Napoleonic Wars, but with Dragons, its a fun read; nine books long, but it reads very fast.
The book series Temeraire is literally about the Coalition Wars, but everyone has a dragon riding Air Force.
I had the thought that cannon could be loaded with the reverse of chain shot, that being a much smaller sphere of iron attached to many lengths of chain wound around it, each bearing a hook at the end.
The idea is that, once fired, the sphere would occupy a much larger volume due to the chains unfurling in flight, with the hooks digging into and snagging upon the dragon (making sure they unfurl due to the chains might be unreliable).
Once downed men upon horses could cast similar chains over the dragon and ride away radially to pin it.
Like you, I would also try to ground the dragon down, but then shoot it with a grand battery. I don't think the heaviest of scales can withstand a 12+ pounder shot.
But I also miss the use of rocket artillery. That can potentially fire higher into the air. And, while mostly inaccurate, can be a distractor as well as causing some minor damage.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik is a very relevant book series to this video. It’s dragons during the Napoleonic wars and is my second ever favorite series.
new alternate history novel idea: napoleon and wellington are forced to put aside their differences to protect from the dragon invasion
Unspeakably great video Brandon.
Reading suggestion... in French (I doubt it has ever been translated): one of my all-time favorite books is *Les Soldats de la Mer* by Yves and Ada Rémy. It's a great collection of horror/sci-fi stories set in a very, very Napoleonic-inspired world, with most characters being related to warfare in one way or another. It's an absolute masterpiece, which should be way more famous than it is.
Here's a quote:
- Qu'est-ce que vous avez aujourd'hui , mon garçon ? Je ne vous ai jamais connu si agressif.
- Je suis las, général. Trop de batailles. Trop de shakos dans les fossés, trop de talpacks sur les eaux des marais, trop de casques dans les champs, trop de bonnets ensanglantés, et des toques et des casquettes et des képis et des chevaux morts et des équipages ruinés. La guerre est triste.
- La guerre est belle.
- La guerre est triste.
- Silence, mon garçon ! Je suis un petit bonhomme graisseux et probablement assez dégoûtant. Je suis habillé comme un paltoquet et vous qui avez l'élégance d'un épouvantail, n'en manquez certes pas à mes côtés, mais je connais la beauté des bataillons en marche, la grandeur d'un escadron qui charge, l'incomparable, le vertigineux décor de la guerre.
- Je connais aussi les quatre armées qu'elle laisse sur ses champs de bataille, une armée de morts, une armée de pleureuses, une armée de bandits et une armée de pauvres.
Smaug: "You fools! I am DEATH!"
Wellington: "Now's your time, Maitland!"
Brandon, you can do as many more of these fantastical videos as you wish. This was brilliant.
Gonna have to bust out Nations & Cannons and see how that campaign setting stats musketeers and such.
I've always enjoyed your content in the utmost of solitudes. Today, you have provided me with a prime excuse to share your channel with my entire DND group! I shall use this as a prime excuse to justify why it would be at least possible for a Victorian gentleman and a enterprising gunslinger to take on a smaller dragon all by themselves. After all, what grapeshot and flintlock rifles do well, a maxim and a scoped lever action shall do superbly!
The DM is...less inclined to share my optimism. And has stated that the cost of gunpowder alone shall drive the duo to bankruptcy.
The value of a dragon corpse, even just the meat alone, will bankroll the endeavor.
Great vid. Thanks for posting it.
Now I expect some D&D gamer to make a vid about how a dragon could win against a Napoleonic army.
Alrighty then time for Drach to get on how the Navy would deal with this problem in the ironclad era
Easily, rocket artillery...! Congreve rockets with blades attached to them, like the ones used by the Mughal empire and the Mysorean kingdom.
1:00 for anyone thinking "bro, you don't need to sell me on this."
I once played in a DnD campaign in a pseudo-Napoleonic setting. Unfortunately due to scheduling issues the campaign died too early for us to get to any dragons, but I really enjoyed the combination of fantasy and long-18th century-style aesthetics and technology. I wish more fantasy would explore settings inspired by historical periods outside the middle ages (and to a lesser extent the Victorian Era, which seems to be the only other historical period fantasy settings draw from, probably owing to steampunk), it's such a breath of fresh air with how standard medieval-esque settings are to the genre lol
The Bronze-age, the iron age, the early to mid 20th century, and the modern day would all be interesting fantasy settings.
Late to the video but I think we could make few improvements to the battle plan.
For starters ROCKETS and lots of them. To massively increase our artillery park despite their inaccuracy. Quantity has quality of it's own.
Secondly, mine those strong points and dug in batteries with fougases filled with everything you can find. For when inevitably the dragon will burn those stations. He's for a nasty surprise.
Third, forget cavalry pistols and sabers. Give them bags of grenades and have them toss them at the grounded dragon. Could even have some string attached to increase range in slingshot style.
Fourth exchange cavalry lances to that with detachable barbed tip with powder charge/grenade fixed to it. Detonated via a lanyard pulled while riding away. The nature of phosphorus and sulfur we know in matches was known from the later half of the XVII century. Friction detonator it is.
Finish it of 40k cavalry/Attack on Titan style.
You know, if you want to do an interesting Washington vs Napoleon fight, it would be Washington trying to pick off one of Napoleon's columns, trying to pull a Princeton or a Monmouth, and he'd have to try to overcome the French before the other columns react and form up. Washington would still lose, but it's sure better than "5 guys and a 6 lber"
That would be an interesting topic for a video: evolution of army movement across the 19th century and the quest for speed.
Would waiting for favorable weather help, like how Charles XII and Washington attacked under the cover of blizzards and fog? I haven't seen anyone try to fight a dragon using natural weather effects, and it's a long shot it would have an effect, but it's an interesting idea.
Earthworks would be a good idea. While moving around to avoid fire while maintaining fire in return is a good idea, I think throwing up some trenches and hills or stone fences would be good cover when the only ranged offense is fire. In the Ming period in China, for example, or the French Wars of Religion, stone fortifications getting smacked around by cannons and mines and rockets really caused redesigns to use thick walls of earth that could absorb that shock. Even assuming explosive fire using a film dragon, that thick soil could help a lot- I'm thinking the reversed slope at Waterloo as well.
Another video suggestion: swivel guns and wall guns, and small 1-4 lb cannons and how important they were.
Would Dragoons be a good idea for bait? Perhaps some Chasseurs a cheval? However, they'd have to use the old style dismounted infantry role rather than the Napoleonic use as swordsmen.
Yeah, my first thought in this scenario was grape and canister, like the old Pom Poms.
Googling antiair tactics brought me to the 1870 Ballonabwehrkanone, used by the Prussians to snipe French observation balloons.
It's hard to judge given the unknown of the dragon's speed and armor. In the Hobbit films, Smaug covered a fair clip- 20 miles in about 5 minutes. Now, it's hard to estimate the power of that ballista, and compare it to both musketry and cannon. I'm assuming the field guns are far more powerful but I'm wondering if a .60-80 caliber ball would do much.
David Weber wrote the Hell’s Gate books which has some cool dragon vrs steam engine fights. Still waiting for him to finish it though.
if you like gimmicky alt-history/ahistoric scenarios such as this, if you haven't already, consider reading The Red Baron VS Mothman, really entertaining story
As much as I love Dungeons and Dragons, I do wish there is more early modern and Napoleonic fantasy RPGs. Although bows and polearms are cool, so are muskets and cannons, with star fortresses and redoubts, these were the successors to castles. It would also be more awesome to see more maritime based adventures, with ships-of-the-line and frigates, and to see all of this tech versus magic square against each other, moreover, I do like the hypotheticals of gunpowder units versus dragons and monsters, by the way, Osprey Games of Osprey Publishing known for military books, actually has some RPGs, including medieval fantasy, I recommend Frostgrave.
Great video! This was a very fun listen.
I am wondering though, could the artillery elevate their barrels enough to shoot at an aerial target?
Blücher would have ordered his Prussian Line Infantry to Attack with fixed bayonetts....and pray for any kind of Success and of course curse Bernadotte loudly for never reaching the Battlefield with the Dragon in time...But beside this you really present a wonderful and convincing scenario
As a warhammer fantasy player, i play my empire as a gunline and cannons make short work of dragons
How did we go from him to talking about how a loading maneuver in sharpe is stupid to him saying “hey, let’s shove a dragon in the middle of Borodino or something.”
Either way, I want more of this.
This reminds me of the Roman Legion vs Marine platoon themes from Binkov's battleground videos on this Fanciful yet fun.
I like the referce to the US version of Godzilla in the late 1990's.
this is funny because this is actually a totally real part of my DnD campaign.
I want a movie. I NEED IT!!
The mythical dragon is tamed, like a living airship, manned like a galleon with Napoleonic troops on its back to repel boarders who seek to take control of the dragon. That's the idea behind Naomi Novik's Temeraire book series. A great idea for a ttrpg.
Great video! I just wanna know:
Why would the dragon only use it's firebreath when the cavalry came to fight it? It would spin around, strike with it's mighty tail and claws, crush the cavalry close to it with it's gargantuan body and smear it's scales with the blood of unfortunate steeds and foolish soldiers alike. Allowing no space for the cavalry to find weakness in it's hide and granting it victory.
My homebrew TTRPG actually works with Napoleonic Tactics because I was also getting bored of fantasy being mostly medieval.
As someone who's worldbuilding a Byzantium Dragon faction, Dragons wouldn't stand in front of a cannon or a musket line. You know what they would do? Airdrop and ravage the supply lines. They're basically living Helicopters.
The book series Temeraire is exactly this! An absolutely fantastic couple of books that also cover the politics and societal aspects of dragons. Highest recommendation for them!
I would love for you to cover more sillier concepts like this. such as how would different fantasy races, ala elves, dwarves, gnomes, fight in 18th century and napoleonic warfare compared to historical humans. How might say a low level dnd wizard or cleric integrate into such armies.
Well, I have to say Brandon, I came for the novelty of the video but stayed (ironically) for the sponsorship. Archeteria seems interesting.
Video idea: what if a nonbending napoleonic era army was placed in the avatar the last airbender world and got tasked in defending the Earth kingdom against the Fire nation and counter attacking them. How well would they do that without the help of avatar, assuming that the Fire nation tactics mostly just rely on direct attacks and industrial might?
Huh... This is *incredibly relevant* to all of my novel writing. Thank you?
The dragon would have to be a stupid beast for it to make contact with exactly the troops that the army wants it to.
I'm working on a flintlock fantasy D&D setting. This is incredibly useful for me specifically.
"More than a flamethrower" but also "some napalm like substance." Guess what WW2 flamethrowers were shooting.
They were shooting dragon magic !
I came here to mention naomi novic. Temaraire saga. Wonderful series.
Temeraire: His Majesty's Dragon.
Funny enough, I'm current worldbuilding some monsters for a fantasy story in a revolutionary wars analog era, so this will be helpful for the lads on the field slaying beasts beyond their compreension.
One question: wouldn't howitzers be more appropriate for the job rather than canister and chain shot? Imo the higher angle would give it better "anti-air" capacities. It would also be devastating if a shell exploded too close to the dragon
Im saying we have a X sided shape (doesn't matter how many sides: less you have the more vulnerable you will be but the quicker you will kill the dragon) and at each of the corners of this shape you have a battery that is pre-sighted at estimated dragon high above all the other batteries. Then between them, on the lines, are zig-zaged infantry (not straight lines or the dragon can just get them all in one burst of fire). These will fire at the dragon as it travels between the batteries, slowing it down. I personaly think artillery would be sufficient to pierce and wound the dragon so you would want to wound it and then hope bleeding hurts it. If it becomes downed from its wounds, then all the batteris can simply just point at where the dragon is. As the dragon will presumably be either at a battery or between 2 batteries it will be easy to have a pre-sighted table for greater accuracy for these locations aswell.
I think that your plan works better if you presume that artillery will be insufficient to kill it alone. If we presume it is sufficient, as well as having time to prepare, I think the method above would be very effective.
I knew I needed to like and watch this thak you brandon old bean
I would say don't send cavalry at a downed dragon. Especially not if it's a wyvern style dragon that isn't all that nimble on the ground. Stay back and pound it with heavy cannons until you hit something vital. Ideally from well beyond the range where it can actually attack. Don't waste men and material doing the final charge with small arms when it's now a large slow ship-like target that can be taken out with artillery.
"Fuck it. I'm bored."
I see two problems
A) Dragons are highly intelligent and wise, and thus would have tactics of its own. Because of this, Dragons are also almost always powerful spellcasters, as well as having their own innate magic.
B) Striking a dragon's wing, while probably painful, is ultimately useless, as dragon wings aren't large enough to support the dragon's weight, implying that their innate magic is powering their flight, and the wings are either a supplement to their actual method of flight (magic), or entirely ornamental. (Or maybe they just find big wings attractive, and thus they evolved out of sexual selection.)
You would really enjoy the Anime “Gate”.😊
😂❤😂 Now I want how a napoleonic or victorian air balloon squadron would fight a dragon .. .
No, WW1 fighters.
Or WW2 aircraft.
(Or modern aircraft).
I think it also matters a Lot if the dragon is an out of context problem. A dragon just shows up, every one is panicked. Dragons are a known thing, they probably have there own specialized anti dragon weapons.
I ran a world of darkness based campaign in revolutionary France with the party fighting a aristocratic werewolf, good fun.
I agree this battle will play more like naval engagemen than ground one.
1; Cripple the dragons' wings (naval guns were designed to shot opwards to destroy sails).
2; Finnish him with heavy artillery.
Lot depends on if this is one time freak occurence or dradons are common to attack settlements.
I think tactical fuckery should be more advantageous. It can be done with that technology base, it'll require thinking outside of the box.
I think cavalry would make better bait as smaller groups of cavalry under the command of junior officers could be more dynamic. I think the worst infantry should be used in the buildings as they're all going to die anyways while the light infantry and riflemen would be better at dealing a lot of damage. Also some cavalry should be dispatched to ensure that the soldier don't attempt to flee, As this battle will be extra chaotic and far more soldiers may attempt to flee.
If you guys read Naomi Novik's Temeraire series you would know how this would end.
Where all my "Temeraire" fans at?
Here! 🥰
Brandon's just flexing the time he and his buddies took down a dragon from Game of Thrones. In all honestly, I totally want to read Napoleonic soldiers versus fantasy beasts, any good recommendations anyone?
one of my favorite Napoleonic games takes place in a zombie apocalypse 💀