[Dragaera] Speculation on weapons and sorcery

[Howard Brazee]

On 6/26/2007 Ken Koester wrote:
>  There was a SciAm article about slings a decade or two ago.  As near
>  as
>  I can remember, slings had an advantage over ordinary bows:  they had
>  more range & more accuracy at range & didn't require as much
>  strength. 
>  But when compound bows & longbows appeared, slings became outclassed,
>  and the superior penetrating power of a metal-tipped arrow made itself
>  tell.  I can't tell from =Dragon= whether javelin shooters are compound
>  or not, though some sort of bow they almost surely seem to be.

Quite a bit of fantasy is written where compound bows are not to be 
expected, but slings were not thought of.

Another advantage of slings is that the (non magical) ammunition is 
cheap.  Think of _Braveheart_, when Longshanks decided to save on the 
expense of arrows.   Currently, Dragaeria is richer than that and more 
technologically advanced though.

But there are *lots* of possibilities with the use of magic with sling 
stones. 

>  It is not at all surprising to me that we do not see much in the way
>  of missile fire in =Dragon=; the battle story is told almost entirely
>  from the viewpoint of Cropper company, and mixing firepower and shock 
in a
>  combined arms sort of way in the Western ancient world was very rare
>  before the age of gunpowder (it might be possible to argue it was
>  rare until WWI or II, for that matter).  I don't think the Romans, for
>  example, ever added slingers or archers to a legion's TO&E; they
>  employed these--when they did at all--as auxillaries, generally
>  non-citizens, & usually on the wings of the battlefield formation.  A
>  legion might volley its javelins, but after that it was strictly the
>  gladius & shield & the effect of a disciplined mass of metal-encased
>  men moving irresistably across the battlefield.  (Cropper's company seems
>  to fight in more open order, but given that Dragaerans are a good 7 ft
>  tall, probably with swords to match, that is not unreasonable.)  In
>  any case, it is possible that Sethra has missile units elsewhere on the
>  battlefield that we never see.  Or perhaps Dragaerans simply don't
>  bother with them very much, although they do have them & do employ
>  them on occasion.

Arrows were expensive - but were used to defeat The 500.

It is possible that Dragaerans chose not to use missiles for cultural 
reasons - if so, they might be more pragmatic fighting Easterners.

I wonder how siege warfare and sea warfare are fought in Dragaera.