Roshar vs Scadrial

[asterion137]

koloss are not "easy to kill". they survive coins through the head and arrows to the chest unless there are massive numbers of said projectiles, which means they will probably survive pike blows. The larger koloss have an effective range of 12 feet and wield massive 50 pouns swords. They will tear through shardplate in a few blows and outrange the shardbearer by 5 feet so they will get the first shot. Koloss are effective soldiers who can butcher armies 4 times their size or more (500koloss kill 2000 of Cett's soldiers while outnumbered and blindsided). Plus, these koloss will be supported by soothers and rioters trying to rout the enemy and mistborn and inquisitors as reserves

[asterion137]

I'd say the defenders of luthadel fought pretty darn well too. They did everything possible and had 2 years of combat training. They shored up the gates, used massed archer fire to thin the koloss ranks and didnt retreat until forced. The koloss had no commamders and no ranged support and won with ease

[Voidus]

Again, theoretically this sounds good, but it doesn't hold up to the text. Elend, with no Allomancy, tackles and kills a (small) Koloss using a glass dagger.

Yes, Koloss are tough, tougher than humans. Stronger too. That doesn't mean they're THAT much stronger - 4 spikes does not mean 4 times as strong. It does mean 4 times as twisted. Remember, those spikes aren't just changing the Koloss's abilities, they're also changing the Koloss's behaviour and physical shape. 

And again Voidus, I must disagree with you. Having good training and equipment makes ALL the difference, with the right circumstances and leadership. Look at Rorkesdrift, or the battle of Thermopylae. Look at the battle of Salsu, or at Alexander the Great's conquests. Leadership, equipment, training and discipline (and luck, of course!) make a seriously incredible difference. Not to be underestimated. 

A well equipped, well led force with good discipline, coordination, experience and morale can CRUSH a force of much greater size, and has done so many times throughout history (the battle of Yarmouk is another great example). 

 

Of course Koloss are exceptions to many of these rules. But not completely so. And I would posit that a Greco-Macedonian phalanx would be an almost ideal counter to charging Koloss (especially if backed by good heavy archers and heavy infantry). This seems to be what Alethi tactics and equipment (pre-shattered plains, where Phalanxes are made all but useless due to the terrain) most strongly echo, with shields, longspears/shortspears in mixed formation, careful stepping, covering the person beside you with your shield and all those other things. 

Hrmm, actually a Spanish Tercio would likely be even better (pikes to hold them back, swords to charge in where they're weak/plug gaps, heavy arquebusier to kill the Koloss, especially the big ones who wouldn't drop to a pike in the chest).

But that's beside the point. 

This is my main point: Koloss are incredible warriors, but are terrible soldiers. If you get the distinction: they have great personal abilities, but poor discipline and coordination. 

Generally, I'd back 1 warrior (like a teutonic axeman, or another such ancient champion) against 2 soldiers (like roman legionaries, or Macadonion pezhetairoi). I'd back 3 warriors against 5 soldiers and so on. However, once you got to larger battles, 200+ vs 200+, suddenly the coordination and discipline of professional soldiers starts to really make a difference, until you get to battles where 5,000 professionals will crush 20-30,000 warriors, (who are often excellent 1v1 fighters!). 

Koloss break some of the rules, it's true. They're bigger and stronger. They don't feel fear.

But they don't have ANY armour, which makes them actually fairly easy to kill (at least the smaller ones) when compared to fighting troops with breastplates or full plate armour. And they have NO conception for tactics, discipline, or combat organization. No concept of supporting their allies, or of how to fight together with a friend to overwhelm an enemy. 

 

 

Yes, Koloss are terrifying, effective, and would make a vast difference. But they're not THAT effective. They're not the be-all and end-all of warfare. They have weaknesses, and can be defeated. Look at how effective the townsfolk at the start of HOA are when fighting Koloss, simply because they did something that surprised the Koloss (charging instead of cowering)! Don't overestimate Koloss, or underestimate professional soldiery!

Actually 4x spikes does mean 4x strength, each spike has stolen the physical strength from 1 person, minor loss due to hemalurgic decay but that's not going to be that noticeable.

Again, I'm not undermining the effect of training, but there's simply no way to compare those events because what they encountered was exactly what they trained for, you can't train for Koloss if you don't even know what Koloss are. Alethi armies are well trained at fighting other humans and Parshendi, they are not well trained at fighting Koloss, and the skills are not necessarily transferable.

The reach that Koloss have renders spears all but useless, that's my point, you can train for how to deal with an attack by heavy infantry but there is no infantry like a Koloss until you've fought an actual Koloss.

Yes Koloss can be killed, they're not undefeatable. But having an army of 300,000 of them is very difficult to beat without having a far larger army opposing them.

My point exactly, the townsfolk are led by someone who does have experience fighting Koloss, so they can be said to have a tactical advantage. Rosharans have no such experience nor any reason to think it would work. Sure they're superior in fighting other swordsman and spearmen, but a Koloss is neither. 

[Erunion]

Actually 4x spikes does mean 4x strength, each spike has stolen the physical strength from 1 person, minor loss due to hemalurgic decay but that's not going to be that noticeable.

Again, I'm not undermining the effect of training, but there's simply no way to compare those events because what they encountered was exactly what they trained for, you can't train for Koloss if you don't even know what Koloss are. Alethi armies are well trained at fighting other humans and Parshendi, they are not well trained at fighting Koloss, and the skills are not necessarily transferable.

The reach that Koloss have renders spears all but useless, that's my point, you can train for how to deal with an attack by heavy infantry but there is no infantry like a Koloss until you've fought an actual Koloss.

Yes Koloss can be killed, they're not undefeatable. But having an army of 300,000 of them is very difficult to beat without having a far larger army opposing them.

My point exactly, the townsfolk are led by someone who does have experience fighting Koloss, so they can be said to have a tactical advantage. Rosharans have no such experience nor any reason to think it would work. Sure they're superior in fighting other swordsman and spearmen, but a Koloss is neither. 

 

Mostly agreed. Go back to my first post in this thread (the massive 2000 word procrastination marathon) and you'll see I'm making the same point! The best way for the final empire to win is to rush the Rosharans with Koloss (supported by soothers/rioters/inquisitors) before the Rosharans know what's up. Convince them to engage in a massive field battle, then crush them using the Koloss. 

My argument was that if they weren't able to pull that off for whatever reason (wouldn't commit to a battle, underestimate the opposition and send the Koloss in unsupported/etc), the Rosharan's training/leadership/experience would allow them to quickly adapt to the situation, and they would fight a longer campaign where their superior supply lines (soulcasters), superior medicine (wisdom of the heralds), and superior strategy (Dalinar/Gavilar/years of campaigning) would pay off. 

Remember, armies march on their stomachs, and more wars were won by disease/infection than by decisive field engagements. (I'm assuming neither force has a genetic disadvantage to the local microbes, simply that normal infection/etc. would take it's toll). 

Long story short? The Scadrians have a huge short-term advantage if they can unleash all their Koloss at once with proper support. 

The Rosharans have a few long term advantages, and the experience/training that grants tactical flexibility, so they'll grow increasingly effective as the war progresses until they have the advantage. So Scadrial will win the war if it's short, and have the best chance to do so, but Roshar will win the war if they can make it long. 

At least until the Lord Ruler swings by, in which case they'd need a Heraldic hit squad to have a firestarters chance in the Forest of Hell...

Edited April 11, 2016 by Erunion

[Voidus]

A Koloss army can eat dirt if they need to, they need even less of a supply line than Alethi do. Plus they can replenish their numbers, Alethi can't.

If Scadrians send nothing but an unsupervised Koloss army? Yeah they'd probably lose eventually, but all they need is one Inquisitor to supervise and they'd be effective in the long term too.

[Erunion]

A Koloss army can eat dirt if they need to, they need even less of a supply line than Alethi do. Plus they can replenish their numbers, Alethi can't.

If Scadrians send nothing but an unsupervised Koloss army? Yeah they'd probably lose eventually, but all they need is one Inquisitor to supervise and they'd be effective in the long term too.

 

I completely agree on the Koloss surviving by scavenging - where I disagree is that the Koloss will be LESS effective as the war goes on (if the war goes on!), as they are able to be countered, and the Rosharans would (assuming they survived long enough!) learn how. 

[Voidus]

I completely agree on the Koloss surviving by scavenging - where I disagree is that the Koloss will be LESS effective as the war goes on (if the war goes on!), as they are able to be countered, and the Rosharans would (assuming they survived long enough!) learn how. 

The only known successful strategy fails completely if the Koloss are actually led by someone semi-intelligent.

[Erunion]

The only known successful strategy fails completely if the Koloss are actually led by someone semi-intelligent.

 

The early charge, yah? 

As a classic armchair general, I have a dozen idea of how I'd tactically handle Koloss, but those are all theories. I think it could be done. I think the Rosharans could do it and could figure it out. But I could be wrong!

[Jimmy]

My money goes to Roshar in this one.

 

"I'd rather fight against an army of lions led by a sheep, than an army of sheep led by a lion." - Someone who knew what they were talking about. 

 

Scadrial spent too long pacified under TLR. Without constant training and experience in fighting these skills atrophy. Badly. Horribly. Humorously even. On the other hand, veterans who know what they're doing will butcher anything they're thrown against. Look up the 3rd Battalion in Maryang San and Kapyong during the Korean war for a timely example. Goes to show what veterans with a plan can do against a far stronger enemy. 

 

I think its easy to get distracted by massive numbers and maths, especially when we're talking about hundreds of thousands. You simply cannot have that many anythings involved in a single battle. Roshar would be cheering if Scadrial even tried. 

 

The Greeks, then the Romans, dominated the ancient world through discipline and formations. Hoplites fought as a tight unit. It doesn't matter how strong a koloss is, they can't use their weapons effectively if they're standing close to one another. They'd hit each other with each swing. But a tight formation of disciplined men? Each can use his weapon perfectly. Koloss are as strong as four men? A hoplite is as strong as thirty men and they take up the same space, with thirty sharp pointy things to the koloss' one. 

 

Now apply that to large scale warfare. Koloss are straightforward and simple. They'd charge and continue charging until the enemy was dead. I cannot stress enough how stupid it is to charge blindly like that. The Romans found that out the hard way at Canae. 

 

The Alethi stood up to freaking lightning being thrown at them and I'm pretty sure they hadn't trained for that. That's about as close to fearless as it gets. 

[Voidus]

My money goes to Roshar in this one.

 

"I'd rather fight against an army of lions led by a sheep, than an army of sheep led by a lion." - Someone who knew what they were talking about. 

 

Scadrial spent too long pacified under TLR. Without constant training and experience in fighting these skills atrophy. Badly. Horribly. Humorously even. On the other hand, veterans who know what they're doing will butcher anything they're thrown against. Look up the 3rd Battalion in Maryang San and Kapyong during the Korean war for a timely example. Goes to show what veterans with a plan can do against a far stronger enemy. 

 

I think its easy to get distracted by massive numbers and maths, especially when we're talking about hundreds of thousands. You simply cannot have that many anythings involved in a single battle. Roshar would be cheering if Scadrial even tried. 

 

The Greeks, then the Romans, dominated the ancient world through discipline and formations. Hoplites fought as a tight unit. It doesn't matter how strong a koloss is, they can't use their weapons effectively if they're standing close to one another. They'd hit each other with each swing. But a tight formation of disciplined men? Each can use his weapon perfectly. Koloss are as strong as four men? A hoplite is as strong as thirty men and they take up the same space, with thirty sharp pointy things to the koloss' one. 

 

Now apply that to large scale warfare. Koloss are straightforward and simple. They'd charge and continue charging until the enemy was dead. I cannot stress enough how stupid it is to charge blindly like that. The Romans found that out the hard way at Canae. 

 

The Alethi stood up to freaking lightning being thrown at them and I'm pretty sure they hadn't trained for that. That's about as close to fearless as it gets. 

They do have a standing, trained army, while the population as a whole is not as used to war as TLR is they're not inexperienced with it.

Thirty hoplites are as strong as thirty men, sure, but those aren't the numbers we're talking about. And clustering in a tight formation is a great tactic against other infantry. Against a giant with far superior strength and reach? It's suicide.

Romans weren't 7 feet tall monsters with hardened skin, giant swords and the strength of five men. We've seen something equivalent to Koloss on Roshar already, Shardbearers. And they absolutely destroy regular troops, cause most of them to break formation and generally are most successful when they do exactly that, lead the charge and go straight at the enemy.

[Pathfinder]

Hrmm, I agree with you guys on principle, but disagree on scale. As Clubs points out before dying, the effectiveness of Koloss against the forces of Luthadel isn't because Koloss are great (they are terrifyingly effective, but not as good as all that), but because of how terrible Luthadel's army was. We see this also in Straff's posturing, how utterly ineffective the defenders are against his skirmish.

 

I am confident that a force of 20,000 Alethi veterans from the shattered plains, men who'd fought Parshendi, and who are much better trained/equipped than the defenders of Luthadel, would have held the walls against 20,000 raging Koloss. 

 

Two more points - 1, I doubt Koloss, even 13 foot tall ones, would be as effective against plate as a shardblade is. Shardblades are magic, and seem to be uniquely effective against plate (consistently shattering in two blows to the same section). 

A storming chasmfiend isn't nearly as effective at breaking plate as a shardblade is, despite being literally the size of a large building (see when the chasmfiend knocks Elhokar aside/etc with a full on blow - his plate only cracked, it didn't shatter, and that was seen as surprising and turned out to be because his plate had been drained of stormlight).

2 - Koloss skin is clearly not nearly as effective as real armour, as is shown when Elend takes down the Koloss in the warcamp 1v1. They ARE hard to kill, but that's because of innate toughness (and redundant internal organs? At least, resistance to organ failure for sure).

Let's not fall into the trap of the School of Arrorgance - overstating our positions in order to prove your point! Your points are mostly correct: Koloss are the single greatest advantage of TFE over Roshar. But they're not absolutely overpowered.  

Edit: The Lord Ruler, on the other hand, IS stupidly overpowered. The only way to kill him is to take him by surprise and separate his metalminds form his body, otherwise he'll just compound himself out of trouble...

Koloss aren't just slow and bumbling. They are strong but also far faster than their size lets on. So blow for blow, they equal the speed and strength of a shardbearer. Stomlight and pewter users are faster than shardbearers and by extension koloss. That is why there seems to be the misnomer on the speed of a koloss. Shardbearers and koloss are faster than normal people, but slower than stormlight and pewter burners. 

 

Again, theoretically this sounds good, but it doesn't hold up to the text. Elend, with no Allomancy, tackles and kills a (small) Koloss using a glass dagger.

Yes, Koloss are tough, tougher than humans. Stronger too. That doesn't mean they're THAT much stronger - 4 spikes does not mean 4 times as strong. It does mean 4 times as twisted. Remember, those spikes aren't just changing the Koloss's abilities, they're also changing the Koloss's behaviour and physical shape. 

And again Voidus, I must disagree with you. Having good training and equipment makes ALL the difference, with the right circumstances and leadership. Look at Rorkesdrift, or the battle of Thermopylae. Look at the battle of Salsu, or at Alexander the Great's conquests. Leadership, equipment, training and discipline (and luck, of course!) make a seriously incredible difference. Not to be underestimated. 

A well equipped, well led force with good discipline, coordination, experience and morale can CRUSH a force of much greater size, and has done so many times throughout history (the battle of Yarmouk is another great example). 

 

Of course Koloss are exceptions to many of these rules. But not completely so. And I would posit that a Greco-Macedonian phalanx would be an almost ideal counter to charging Koloss (especially if backed by good heavy archers and heavy infantry). This seems to be what Alethi tactics and equipment (pre-shattered plains, where Phalanxes are made all but useless due to the terrain) most strongly echo, with shields, longspears/shortspears in mixed formation, careful stepping, covering the person beside you with your shield and all those other things. 

Hrmm, actually a Spanish Tercio would likely be even better (pikes to hold them back, swords to charge in where they're weak/plug gaps, heavy arquebusier to kill the Koloss, especially the big ones who wouldn't drop to a pike in the chest).

But that's beside the point. 

This is my main point: Koloss are incredible warriors, but are terrible soldiers. If you get the distinction: they have great personal abilities, but poor discipline and coordination. 

Generally, I'd back 1 warrior (like a teutonic axeman, or another such ancient champion) against 2 soldiers (like roman legionaries, or Macadonion pezhetairoi). I'd back 3 warriors against 5 soldiers and so on. However, once you got to larger battles, 200+ vs 200+, suddenly the coordination and discipline of professional soldiers starts to really make a difference, until you get to battles where 5,000 professionals will crush 20-30,000 warriors, (who are often excellent 1v1 fighters!). 

Koloss break some of the rules, it's true. They're bigger and stronger. They don't feel fear.

But they don't have ANY armour, which makes them actually fairly easy to kill (at least the smaller ones) when compared to fighting troops with breastplates or full plate armour. And they have NO conception for tactics, discipline, or combat organization. No concept of supporting their allies, or of how to fight together with a friend to overwhelm an enemy. 

 

 

Yes, Koloss are terrifying, effective, and would make a vast difference. But they're not THAT effective. They're not the be-all and end-all of warfare. They have weaknesses, and can be defeated. Look at how effective the townsfolk at the start of HOA are when fighting Koloss, simply because they did something that surprised the Koloss (charging instead of cowering)! Don't overestimate Koloss, or underestimate professional soldiery!

The koloss Elend killed was taken unawares so that is not a good illustration of their ability or power. A tineye sniper can take a shardbearer unawares and drop him in one shot. Does that mean anyone can drop a shardbearer?

 

I got lost in all the war threads (if somebody knows the correct one please relocate this post) but there was something about duralumin Push on Shardblades and discussion whether it would or wouldn't throw Coinshot back.

Vin duralumin Pushing on her earring (small and light) was thrown back into the wall. Now I know that Pushing on Shardblade would be harder, but at the same time it's way more massive and it's held with quite a strength.

I never said the pusher with duralumin wouldn't be pushed back. I stated it wouldn't necessarily need pewter depending on what is being pushed on to survive said push. I then referenced 3 scenes where Vin used duralumin to push or pull without using pewter to survive said push or pull. As was also brought up in that thread is you cannot effectively wield a weapon, using an iron grip with it the entire time. Otherwise you would only be capable of short over hand chops, and seriously hamper your own speed and defense. Finally you would not be able to see when the pusher intended to push on said blade to brace yourself as there is no visible manifestation to others regarding pushes and pulls. 

 

Mostly agreed. Go back to my first post in this thread (the massive 2000 word procrastination marathon) and you'll see I'm making the same point! The best way for the final empire to win is to rush the Rosharans with Koloss (supported by soothers/rioters/inquisitors) before the Rosharans know what's up. Convince them to engage in a massive field battle, then crush them using the Koloss. 

My argument was that if they weren't able to pull that off for whatever reason (wouldn't commit to a battle, underestimate the opposition and send the Koloss in unsupported/etc), the Rosharan's training/leadership/experience would allow them to quickly adapt to the situation, and they would fight a longer campaign where their superior supply lines (soulcasters), superior medicine (wisdom of the heralds), and superior strategy (Dalinar/Gavilar/years of campaigning) would pay off. 

Remember, armies march on their stomachs, and more wars were won by disease/infection than by decisive field engagements. (I'm assuming neither force has a genetic disadvantage to the local microbes, simply that normal infection/etc. would take it's toll). 

Long story short? The Scadrians have a huge short-term advantage if they can unleash all their Koloss at once with proper support. 

The Rosharans have a few long term advantages, and the experience/training that grants tactical flexibility, so they'll grow increasingly effective as the war progresses until they have the advantage. So Scadrial will win the war if it's short, and have the best chance to do so, but Roshar will win the war if they can make it long. 

At least until the Lord Ruler swings by, in which case they'd need a Heraldic hit squad to have a firestarters chance in the Forest of Hell...

So your argument for why Rosharian soldiers would destroy koloss is because there is a chance the koloss would be sent in without any leadership or support? If the Rosharians get to have competent leaders then so does Scadrial. Also for soldiers so trained and veterans, they are trained and veterans for chasm warfare. Take World War 2 era trench warfare fighters and put them into Vietnam and see how they fare against Vietcong guerilla warfare. Take Vietcogn guerilla warfare and have then fight Soviet Russa on their soil. Trained soliders are great, when they are trained for the environment they fight in, in the style of warfare required, with the level of technology employed. Train archers all you want. If I show up with a tank, I will still win. Not saying Scadrial will have the higher level of technology. I am just illustrating the point more regarding what kind of training these soldiers have matters. 

[Erunion]

Disagree with you there Pathfinder. Comments are in red.

 

Koloss aren't just slow and bumbling. They are strong but also far faster than their size lets on. So blow for blow, they equal the speed and strength of a shardbearer. Stomlight and pewter users are faster than shardbearers and by extension koloss. That is why there seems to be the misnomer on the speed of a koloss. Shardbearers and koloss are faster than normal people, but slower than stormlight and pewter burners. 

 

As far as we can tell, Koloss are faster than they 'should' be, but it's never said they're faster than regular people, AFAIK. They ARE faster than they should be when wielding those massive swords, but that's because wielding massive swords like that is stupid if you're not as strong as a Koloss. 

 

The koloss Elend killed was taken unawares so that is not a good illustration of their ability or power. A tineye sniper can take a shardbearer unawares and drop him in one shot. Does that mean anyone can drop a shardbearer?

 

My point was that they COULD be beaten, and we've seen them beaten, and that it's not that hard. They weren't taken unawares BTW, they were surprised because a smaller foe was charging a bigger one. That confused them. They were also not fully raging yet, so not at full strength. 

 

I never said the pusher with duralumin wouldn't be pushed back. I stated it wouldn't necessarily need pewter depending on what is being pushed on to survive said push. I then referenced 3 scenes where Vin used duralumin to push or pull without using pewter to survive said push or pull. As was also brought up in that thread is you cannot effectively wield a weapon, using an iron grip with it the entire time. Otherwise you would only be capable of short over hand chops, and seriously hamper your own speed and defense. Finally you would not be able to see when the pusher intended to push on said blade to brace yourself as there is no visible manifestation to others regarding pushes and pulls. 

 

So your argument for why Rosharian soldiers would destroy koloss is because there is a chance the koloss would be sent in without any leadership or support? If the Rosharians get to have competent leaders then so does Scadrial. Also for soldiers so trained and veterans, they are trained and veterans for chasm warfare. Take World War 2 era trench warfare fighters and put them into Vietnam and see how they fare against Vietcong guerilla warfare. Take Vietcogn guerilla warfare and have then fight Soviet Russa on their soil. Trained soliders are great, when they are trained for the environment they fight in, in the style of warfare required, with the level of technology employed. Train archers all you want. If I show up with a tank, I will still win. Not saying Scadrial will have the higher level of technology. I am just illustrating the point more regarding what kind of training these soldiers have matters. 

 

No, that's not my argument. Not in the slightest. I detailed a scenario where TFE adapts their tactics, designs them for killing the Rosharans, and then does so effectively.

Then I detailed a scenario where they use their standard tactics - Send in the Koloss, wait for them to finish up, then come in and clean up the mess once they're done. TLR doesn't normally send mistings/mistborn/Inquisitors to deal with armies. He doesn't need to. He sends the Koloss, then his regulars to clean up afterwards. 

Secondly, the Rosharans aren't 'trained for chasm warfare'. They've only been fighting in the Chasms for 5 years. Before that, they fought for thousands of years in regular warfare, on normal battlefields. In fact, in WOK Dalinar specifically mentions how the Alethi had trouble fighting the Parshendi in the chasms until they adjusted their tactics to Chasm warfare.
 

While I completely understand your point on 'environment', A: it doesn't really apply, and B: What would you rather have in the jungles of Vietcong, WWI era trench fighters with combat experience, or late Napoleonic era conscripts with minimal combat experience or training whatsoever?

 

Finally, you say that Scadrial would have equivalent leadership to Roshar. 

This is nonsensical. Scadrial doesn't have any military leaders. Roshar is full of trained, experienced generals who've spent their whole lives at war, or preparing for war. Scadrials best equivalent is Clubs! A guy with moderate combat experience, who himself says that he's under-qualified and complains about how Scadrial spent too much time at peace and isn't ready for war, who doesn't really want to fight, and would rather be a carpenter!
Scadrial just doesn't have the depth of leadership and experience that Roshar does, not in the slightest. The only person on Scadrial with real large-scale combat experience is the Lord Ruler, and if he gets involved his combat experience is the least relevant of his abilities. 

 

 

EDIT: I hope I didn't offend, I get very invested in this kind of topic, but I'm not angry at all or dislike you or anything of that nature! I just like debating 

Edited April 11, 2016 by Erunion

[Voidus]

Of course Koloss can be beaten, just not in those odds in an actual war. Yes you can surprise one of the smaller ones and kill them with only a little more risk than if you'd attacked anyone else, but you can't really apply that tactic to an entire army too easily, and even if you could, it at best puts them at 1-1 odds against the Alethi so they'd still lose almost their entire army just to the Koloss.

That's the standard tactic for minor rebellions, not full on wars. In fact the closest to a major battle instantly brought out Inquisitors followed by TLR himself.

Depends how you define military leadership, they're less experienced at open warfare and sieges, but far and away superior in diplomacy, guerilla tactics and assassination.

[Pathfinder]

Disagree with you there Pathfinder. Comments are in red.

 

 

 

EDIT: I hope I didn't offend, I get very invested in this kind of topic, but I'm not angry at all or dislike you or anything of that nature! I just like debating 

I will provide quotes regarding all three of your points. Give me like a half an hour or so. 

[Pathfinder]

 

As far as we can tell, Koloss are faster than they 'should' be, but it's never said they're faster than regular people, AFAIK. They ARE faster than they should be when wielding those massive swords, but that's because wielding massive swords like that is stupid if you're not as strong as a Koloss.

 

Well of Ascension page 229

"No" the koloss snapped, grabbing the pack with an inhumanly quick swipe of the arm.

 

Well of Ascension page 278

Five hundred koloss killed two thousand men, Elend thought. And Jaste's force contains twenty thousand of the beasts. Lord Ruler....

 

My point was that they COULD be beaten, and we've seen them beaten, and that it's not that hard. They weren't taken unawares BTW, they were surprised because a smaller foe was charging a bigger one. That confused them. They were also not fully raging yet, so not at full strength.

 

Well of Ascension page 558

This is Stupid, he thought. For some reason, that didn't stop him from choosing the smallest koloss in the group, taking a deep breath, and attacking. The rest of the koloss paused to watch. The creature Elend had chosen spun - but in the wrong direction. It turned to face its companion koloss, the one nearest to it in size, as Elend tackled it, ramming the knife into its back. Even at five feet with a small build, the koloss was incredibly strong. It tossed Elend off, bellowing in pain. Elend however, managed to keep hold of his dagger. Can't let it get out that sword, he thought, scrambling to his feet and ramming his knife into the creature's thigh. the koloss dropped again, punching at Elend with one arm, fingers reaching for its sword with the other. Elend took the punch to the chest, and fell back to the sooty ground. He groaned, gasping. 

 

I could write the rest of the scene, but this post is already going to be long, but if you request, I will type up the rest in another post. Point is, even though it is the smallest of its kind, it is still formidable. It is only because Elend surprises and wounds it deeply twice that it is even remotely weak enough to give him a chance. We have seen shardbearers beaten. They are beaten easily enough that they have to have an honor guard with them anytime they go into battle. No one is untouchable. 

 

No, that's not my argument. Not in the slightest. I detailed a scenario where TFE adapts their tactics, designs them for killing the Rosharans, and then does so effectively.

Then I detailed a scenario where they use their standard tactics - Send in the Koloss, wait for them to finish up, then come in and clean up the mess once they're done. TLR doesn't normally send mistings/mistborn/Inquisitors to deal with armies. He doesn't need to. He sends the Koloss, then his regulars to clean up afterwards. 

Secondly, the Rosharans aren't 'trained for chasm warfare'. They've only been fighting in the Chasms for 5 years. Before that, they fought for thousands of years in regular warfare, on normal battlefields. In fact, in WOK Dalinar specifically mentions how the Alethi had trouble fighting the Parshendi in the chasms until they adjusted their tactics to Chasm warfare.
 

While I completely understand your point on 'environment', A: it doesn't really apply, and B: What would you rather have in the jungles of Vietcong, WWI era trench fighters with combat experience, or late Napoleonic era conscripts with minimal combat experience or training whatsoever?

 

Finally, you say that Scadrial would have equivalent leadership to Roshar. 

This is nonsensical. Scadrial doesn't have any military leaders. Roshar is full of trained, experienced generals who've spent their whole lives at war, or preparing for war. Scadrials best equivalent is Clubs! A guy with moderate combat experience, who himself says that he's under-qualified and complains about how Scadrial spent too much time at peace and isn't ready for war, who doesn't really want to fight, and would rather be a carpenter!
Scadrial just doesn't have the depth of leadership and experience that Roshar does, not in the slightest. The only person on Scadrial with real large-scale combat experience is the Lord Ruler, and if he gets involved his combat experience is the least relevant of his abilities. 

 

As Voidus said, that was to put down little rebellions. The Lord Ruler already ruled the world. He didn't need a fully organized and outfitted army to put down rebellions. If they get uppity, just send the koloss to wipe them out, and replenish their own forces with spikes. Now contrast it with Elend, Vin, and the Inquisitors. Vin and Elend used them coupled with soldiers, because they were actually doing a military campaign. Also the koloss are fully controlled. Once control is gained, it is not a constant struggle to maintain. They do exactly as ordered. Jastes controlled them via wooden coins, and not soothing. So how they acted during the siege, is the ole rts trick of point and click. Send your armies enmass and they will overwhelm the foe. Given all the advantages Luthadel had, and all the things stacked against the koloss, they still broke through solid fortifications, and overwhelmed the city. The only thing that stopped it, was Vin showing up, and soothing them to gain control. If she hadn't learned how to do that, even she would have been worn out and killed. So it took the Alethi years to adjust to chasm warfare, and your saying they can switch back easily overnight? After five years of it? In the jungles of Vietnam I would put my money on the Vietcong. Just like in Siberia I would put my money on the Russians. There is a reason we all learned from Napolean and Hitler, to never attack Russian in the winter. You can have career veteran soldiers and if they aren't trained how to survive in the desert, they are going to roast and die before they even fire a shot. My comment was your assumption on how Scadrial tactics would be used. So the heads of Straff's, Cett's, and the Garrison's armies wouldn't be skilled commanders? They certainly seem to be able to organize an army, and utilize it rather well from what we have seen. But according to you, Clubs, an ex-solder is the only military commander with any experience on Scadrial? 

 

edit: also those are just quotes from the Well of Ascension. I am sure I could find much more in Hero of Ages if need be. 

 

edit 2: you are also jumping back and forth with the time periods. So Scadrial is during the original Mistborn series, but Dalinar and Galivar are still around, when it is 300 years earlier long before they were born?

Edited April 11, 2016 by Pathfinder

[Oversleep]

So it took the Alethi years to adjust to chasm warfare, and your saying they can switch back easily overnight? After five years of it?

Of course. It took Alethi years not to adjust to another kind of warfare, but to actually develop a whole set of new tactics for new environment. Switching back won't be any problem.

My comment was your assumption on how Scadrial tactics would be used. So the heads of Straff's, Cett's, and the Garrison's armies wouldn't be skilled commanders? They certainly seem to be able to organize an army, and utilize it rather well from what we have seen.

Organization of the army was done by obligators. If heads of the armies can't even properly organize their armies, you know you're stormed.

But according to you, Clubs, an ex-solder is the only military commander with any experience on Scadrial? 

Not the only one, but he's in upper part of the commanders. And he's not quite good. Fast forward 300 years of peace ahead. It's gonna be even worse. No skaa riots to suppress, no uprisings at the borders of the Empire. Nothing. As far as Scadrial go, even their farming technology is outdated.

[Pathfinder]

Really? Because it is so simple to re-outfit your troops? Because the commanders totally had the forethought to store and save all the equipment they used prior to changing to chasm warfare? Not only that but maintained them in working order? Also easy to re-train the recruits that arrived at the shattered plains in the last 5 years that were trained only in chasm warfare to get them to go back to the "old" style of fighting.

 

There is again flipflopping. He made it sound like Clubs is the only trained military commander. So answer me who led Straff's Cett's and the Garrison's army? Staff's commander in the Well of Ascension didn't have any face tattoos nor shaved head. Was he an obligator incognito? Not to mention if we are discussion in the mistborn era, then that means the highprinces are still fractured states all fighting with each other. How would they unite to fight Scadrial? Dalinar and Galivar weren't even born yet. I am not saying one side or the other will win, but if people are going to make points, then reference the book so they can be ensured accuracy. 

 

Ah I see now where the confusion is coming in. This thread is in regards to era 1 mistborn, which is 300 years prior to the Stormlight archive we know. This is also prior to the Elendel basin so there isn't that "300 hundred years of peace and just hanging around on your buts". 

[Oversleep]

It's not like you have to change uniforms, equipment and weapons to switch back from chasm warfare, as you call it. The biggest change was in the formations, as you have to cross bridges and whatnot.

Recruits are first going through many years on the battlefield in Alethkar and only then sent to Shattered Plains.

Oh, and if you're really going to argue it would be hard for Rosharans to change back to the style of fighting they used like 5 years ago and spent many generations at war and they have legacy of war experience... then it is borderline impossible for Scadrial to even raise an army in the first place. Sorry, but no double standards please.

Again, Scadrial armies were of course led by commanders, noone is arguing against that. I'm just saying they had very little experience and skill. Let my rephrase what I wrote last time: If to properly organize your army you have to use bureaucrats, then where is your chain of command? You should have been using officers. Where are they?

As for the confusion on the time period, I am not sure about it either.

[asterion137]

Again, Scadrial armies were of course led by commanders, noone is arguing against that. I'm just saying they had very little experience and skill. Let my rephrase what I wrote last time: If to properly organize your army you have to use bureaucrats, then where is your chain of command? You should have been using officers. Where are they?

As for the confusion on the time period, I am not sure about it either.

The obligators were involved because Straff was incompetent. Elend's army is organized enough in HoA to efficiently set up camp and set up a defensive perimeter quickly, and the only obligators Elend uses are scholars and scribes. Yes, the Scadrian soldiers are relatively inexperienced, but at least they don't act like the soldiers in WoK, who are supposed to be using some kind of phalanx and break formation before reaching the enemy.

 

Of course Koloss are exceptions to many of these rules. But not completely so. And I would posit that a Greco-Macedonian phalanx would be an almost ideal counter to charging Koloss (especially if backed by good heavy archers and heavy infantry). This seems to be what Alethi tactics and equipment (pre-shattered plains, where Phalanxes are made all but useless due to the terrain) most strongly echo, with shields, longspears/shortspears in mixed formation, careful stepping, covering the person beside you with your shield and all those other things...

Koloss break some of the rules, it's true. They're bigger and stronger. They don't feel fear.

But they don't have ANY armour, which makes them actually fairly easy to kill (at least the smaller ones) when compared to fighting troops with breastplates or full plate armour. And they have NO conception for tactics, discipline, or combat organization. No concept of supporting their allies, or of how to fight together with a friend to overwhelm an enemy.

-Erunion (how do you quote something from another page properly?)

The Alethi army uses short spears, probably only 4 to 5 feet in length, so the koloss will still reach them easily. Also, the thick, slippery, skin of the koloss will make it hard for the spearmen to stab them, since the spear will usually catch on the skin and slide to one side or the other. Archers are useless against koloss:

 

Sazed could see the koloss running straight through hailstorms of arrows. Some of the smaller ones appeared to fall dead or wounded, but most continued to charge.

~Well of Ascension, chapter 51

Coins shot out like angry insects, cutting through blue flesh. The creatures didn't drop as easily as humans would have, but the attack got their attention.

~Well of Ascension, chapter 53

So the same coin attack that killed forty armored soldiers at Cett's keep "gets the attention" of koloss. And "hailstorms of arrows" does little to koloss except for killing a few of the smaller ones.

I think koloss will be just as effective against Roshar as they are against Scadrial

[Knight Oblivion]

Let's make this an even playing field: the armies of Roshar and the armies of Scadrial are somehow fighting over a third world (so no highstorms, and no ash or mists).

TLR sends his full armies with a few inquisitors and Mistborn. Lots of allomancers join the fray for money and power (but no Feruchemists, as they are hiding).

TLR is OP, and getting lazy in his old age, so he stays home to ensure the stability of his empire and to watch the Well of Ascension.

The peoples of Roshar, seeing a chance at mutual advantage, put together a vast coalition expeditionary force under Alethi leadership. However, there are no radiants yet - just proto-radiants. All the shardbearers of Roshar go. 

The Heralds are in hiding, and choose to remain so. No Chasmfiends, whitespines or other terrifying creatures are tamed and sent to battle. 

 

NUMBERS: 

Scadrial:

There are around 300k Koloss during HOA, so we'll assume that that's how many they have here. 

There are roughly 20 inquisitors. We'll assume that they send 15, as that seems reasonable (the other 5 would be back home doing their duties)

Cett and Yomen between them raised some 100,000 in one dominance. Let's assume TLR can do the same in every dominance, and so he sends 500k footsoldiers.

We don't know how many Allomancers there were in TFE era. However, I'd estimate that, assuming TLR advertises an opportunity for wealth and advancement, there will be a sizeable component of Mistings, and maybe 5-15 mistborn?

Total: 500k Skaa soldiers, 300k Koloss, 15 Inquistors, 10 Mistborn, and an uncertain number of Noble mistings. 

 

Roshar:

We know that the Alethi had an army of 100k deployed at all times on the shattered plains. Seeing how much fighting was going on at home, how they're surrounded by hostile kingdoms, we can assume the Alethi would be able to muster at least 50k more troops for an expedition.

We can assume from in text references that Jah Keved has a similar force, so another 150k. 

Jah Keved and Alethkar make up around a third of Roshar, but they are also the most militaristic nations by far. Thus 300k between them, and another 400k from the rest of Roshar seems reasonable.

There are around 100 shardbearers on Roshar at this time as well. 

 

MILITARY INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY:

 

Scadrial: 

TLR can get skaa to do whatever he wants in terms of raw labour. 

The final empire has canning, extremely useful for establishing a supply line.

Scadrian military technology, however, is purposefully suppressed and simplified. The Scadrians are not militaristic, nor military innovators. This is due to the intentional pacifying influence of TLR.

Scadrial has a decent number of horses.

Ranged:

Scadrial has simple bows, and that's about it. Possible they have composite bows, but seems unlikely. Why would they? Yomen has some trebuchets, so siege weapons are known. Longbows, crossbows, and etc all seem to have been suppressed.

Melee:

Basics. Spears, swords, hand axes. War staffs? Scadrial just doesn't seem to like weapons. You don't hear of any pikes, halberds, longswords, maces, anything. Shields don't appear to be widely deployed (only Hazekillers and a couple of soldiers in HOA are mentioned as having them.

Medical technology: 

Not terrible, but not great either. Sazed has historical knowledge of medicine, and likely there's some basic field surgery, but no mention is made of antiseptics, antibiotics or proper sterilization. 

 

 

Roshar: 

Soulcasters. Soulcasters. Soul flipping casters. I'm a history geek, particularly a history of war geek, and frankly, SOULCASTERS. Those things are so insanely useful it's not even funny. Roshar can fight wars almost without a supply line at all, with no risk of running out of ANYTHING. They have as much food, water, metal, leather, EVERYTHING as they need. THIS IS HUGE. HUGE. If you're not a war geek, you have no idea how much of an advantage this is. 

The only supply line Roshar needs is a line supplying them with fresh gemstones/stormlight. This is a far simpler supply line then anything in history ever. Running gemstones with stormlight to the front is so much easier than running a complete military train it's mind-boggling.

Horses, however, are rare on Roshar, and expensive. 

Ranged: 

While the Alethi aren't huge lovers of bows, they still have lots of seemingly excellent archers (especially that one highprince...). The Parshendi have composite bows, and the Alethi appear to have good bows of some different kinds. In Dalinars flashback that Brandon posted, there's an archer using what appears to be a heavy longbow. Some Rosharan cultures have a good mix of ranged weapons. 

Crossbows, however, do not seem to be used at all, AFAIK. Siege weapons are likely well known, but I can't remember them being explicitly mentioned.

Melee:

The Rosharans LOVE melee weapons and equipment. And they're good at it. They have everything, pikes, long spears, shortspears, halberds, short swords, long swords, maces, battleaxes. You name it, they got it. Furthermore, they also have good access to armour and shields: Alethi spearmen appear to be trained to fight in a manner similar to Grecian Hoplites, as well as later era Macedonian hoplite/pike mixed formations. 

Medical Technology: 

Wisdom of the Heralds indeed! Roshar has military medical surgery that's as good as what we had in WWII, if not better. Excellent antiseptics and a good understanding of infection and prevention of infection (if not the causes of infection), excellent sterilization practices. A large number of well trained and equipped field surgeons. 

 

MILITARY THEORY, TRAINING, EXPERIENCE AND LEADERSHIP:

 

Scadrial:

Not much, frankly. Scadrial has many things, but military experience, theory, and leadership on Scadrial SUCKS. Scadrial hasn't had a proper war in a millenium, and it shows. Military leadership is ineffectual at best. Military theory even worse. The Lord Ruler has done an excellent job of preventing real warfare, and real war experience, to affect his people. The most his armies do is crush the occasional rebellion, and that's usually done by letting the Koloss rampage. Well of Ascension really shows the absolute dearth of military leadership both on the platoon level, the battalion level, and the division level. The leaders and soldiers are completely unprepared for real war. 

With a core of troops from the old empire, and 'experienced' officers, the defenders of Luthadel are laughably undertrained after over a full year. 

The best armies of the Lord Ruler simply let the Koloss do 75% of the fighting. They never had to face a superior foe, or even an evenly matched fight. Likely they'd never been in a position where it seemed likely that they'd lose. The troops, even veterans like Clubs, haven't experienced real war. 

 

Roshar: 

Odium reigns. Which has had an interesting side-effect, Roshar is at war with itself ALL THE TIME. Large scale, small scale, everywhere in between scale. Roshar is filled with generals, captains, squadleaders. Thousands upon thousands of experienced Officers and NCO's, hardened veterans with battle training and excellent military theory. 

Roshar's armies are filled to the brim with highly trained, well prepared and well led veterans. At least half, if not more of their forces are disciplined troops who can follow orders, hold their ground, and have faced terrifying odds before. People who aren't at their first rodeo. 

With hardened, brilliant generals like Dalinar and Gavilar, the Rosharans know how to run a real campaign. 

 

MAGIC: 

 

Scadrial:

Tons of it. Scadrial would have thousands of mistings for sure. Pewterarms who can lead a charge, Coinshots and lurchers who can protect formations against arrows and set enemies off balance, rioters and soothers who can maintain the composure of their forces while weakening their enemies resolve, Tineyes who can scout and spy extremely well, and most crucially the Inquisitors/Mistborn; fighters who can dominate small battlefields on their own, especially when they have Atium (Atium would have to be used sparingly though - likely saved for when fighting Shardbearers. In an extended conflict, even the full cache, in the unlikely case TLR let it be tapped, would run out quickly; there's not a lot of Atium and it burns fast). 

Duralumin would be useful, but AFAIK, TLR had concealed it at this point. 

Kandra provide a huge advantage in information warfare: TLR would certainly infiltrate Roshars ranks. Poisoning food/water supplies wouldn't be terribly effective (because of Soulcasters), and it's unlikely that they'd be able to effectively counteract soulcasters/fabrials (they might be able to steal a few, but once they started to steal them, security would tighten up significantly). But the Rosharans would have no secrets, and could be effectively screwed with at a few key points in combat. 

 

Roshar:

Shardbearers. These guys are tanks, and their invested equipment is almost certainly immune to steelpushes and ironpulls. 

I'm not kidding when I call them Tanks: the tactics and opportunities they allow for are very much likely armoured warfare in WWI/WWII. They can pierce through enemy lines almost unmolested, shatter a hole allowing for the regulars to exploit the breach, hold a weakened position all on their own. Their uses in combat are manifold. 

Fabrials: instantaneous communication across the whole campaign is a fantastic advantage: again, something that wouldn't be seen on Earth until the first and second world wars. Navani's plethora of cool tools would be very helpful, but likely not game changing. 

Soulcasters are just, wow. Such useful, so soulcast, much supply line, very wow. 

 

CONCLUSIONS: 

 

Roshar has an incredibly advantage in military theory, experience and infrastructure. They're tactics, strategy, everything. Infinitely superior to Scadrials, due to their overwhelming weight of experience. Their battlefield leadership, and hardened soldiers, would make them far more efficient, flexible and effective a fighting force. Their military training, formations and equipment are all far superior to those we see on Scadrial. 

Scadrials magic advantage is huge. Mistborn and Inquisitors can both turn the tide of a smaller conflict, and are much more useful and flexible than a shardbearer. However, this is a conflict on a truly immense scale. Absolutely immense - 25 people can only do so much before succumbing to exhaustion (a great example of the best large scale use of allomancy in combat is Elend in HOA - he could only do so much, and that was with a constant supply of Atium!). By the same token, there aren't enough Shardbearers to be everywhere. Enough to be useful, but not enough to change the course of the battle. 

There are, however, lots of mistings. Rioters and soothers would likely make up for a good chunk of Scadrials morale disadvantage (inexperienced soldiers, especially before modern training, are FAR less more likely to break and run than veteran soldiers. Even with veterans, most battles ended in a rout, not a slaughter. Inexperienced forces tended to get routed AND slaughtered).

Coinshots and lurchers are helpful, but actually not that useful in a full-scale battle. Their offensive use of coins aren't really better than arrows or crossbow bolts. They'd certainly make a difference (especially in stopping arrows), but not that much of one. Thugs are super handy, and would definitely help shore up weak points. 

 

Koloss are interesting. They're big, no problems with infrastructure, hard to kill, and impossible to rout. They will make a significant difference. 

Roshar however has proper equipment, formations, tactics and leadership. Koloss function a bit like a mixture between heavy infantry and heavy cavalry - but they completely lack armour. What's the best way to stop a charge of heavy cavalry, OR of lightly armoured heavy infantry? A spearwall, or a pike wall. Roshar has both in spades: Spears and pikes would be extremely effective against Koloss, especially backed by archers who can shoot over their allies heads (as the most dangerous Koloss are tall!). 

 

Roshar's advantage in experience, training, equipment and infrastructure is HUGE. Absolutely huge. Those are the things that win real wars. 

However, Scadrial has a simply incredible advantage when it comes to magic (and Koloss!). 

 

 

What would likely happen? It would be a very, very even match. 

 

If the Scadrians were able to force major field conflicts early on, they'd likely win. A well-led rush of Koloss against troops who hadn't seen them before, backed by rioters, soothers and inquisitors, would have a good chance of breaking the Rosharan army right away. 

However, if Roshar was able to weather the initial conflicts against Koloss, they would likely win. 

 

Battles are won by experience, training and discipline (usually), and wars are won by infrastructure, medicine and food. Roshar has a huge advantage in those key fields. 

But Scadrial has Koloss. And Koloss don't follow normal rules. 

 

In the end, it would be very, very interesting. 

 

And make a ridiculously fun video game if done in the Total War series style: I can see it now! Total War: Cosmere. 

 

 

EDIT: Uhhh... Wow. I tend to geek out about these things. That's a long post. I'd be sorry, but it's just too interesting a topic for me! Cosmere AND military history? How can I resist!

 

 

TL;DR - Roshar has a huge advantage in military training and experience. Scadrial has a huge advantage in magic. It would be a very even fight.

 

I like your analysis but there are a few things that bug me and a few questions I'm curious to know.

 

Issues with your points:

 

Numbers: Going by your math of the Scadrian human numbers, you're saying there are 5 Dominances. There are actually 10 Dominances in the Final Empire. I assume you're forgetting the Crescent, Terris, Remote, and Farmost Dominances as well as the Southern Isles. It's okay since most of them are barely mentioned if at all. However, by your assumption that the Lord Ruler can raise 100k per Dominance, there should be 1 million Scadrian soldiers. However, I'd argue that the Terris Dominance wouldn't send troops due to their oppression and stewardship programs while the other outer Dominances probably have a much smaller population than the core five. The number would most likely be more than 500k foot soldiers for the Scadrians.

 

Communication: Now, you also bring up spanreeds as enabling a fantastic advantage of instantaneous communication. While I agree that it is an advantage, you don't seem to mention the disadvantages of them. Spanreeds can only function when both users are stationary which does add a limit to the instantaneous communications.

 

However, a bigger problem is that the Rosharan forces would be taken from the entire super continent. I'll ignore the fact that the Aimians appear to be hated by most people on Roshar. The main issue is that the people of Roshar are by no means similar to each other in both language and culture. You're going to have a great deal of problems communicating from the Alethi high command in your scenario and the troops of other polities. One of the biggest things would be the language barriers as there doesn't seem to be a set lingua franca amongst the inhabitants of Roshar. Even with spanreeds, the Alethi would probably need a much expanded system of multilingual,female runners to spread messages among the troops.

 

The other issue would be dealing with the many cultural quirks of their fellow nations. You'd have to essentially retrain the Reshi to have a different culture of warfare, deal with the overly bureaucratic Azish (who would probably require a stack of forms in triplicate to even act), deal with the lack of care for time the people native to the Purelake region seem to have, and more. It would be a logistical nightmare.

 

Of course, the Scadrians wouldn't have it too easy themselves since the nobility often bicker and have been known to war. However, Steel Inquistors and Obligators might be able to give a unified sense of command. The Final Empire is definitely more culturally homogenous than Roshar which should count in their favor.

 

 

Questions with commentary:

 

Gravity and Physiology: This is actually a fairly important issue with the setting of your analysis. What is the gravity of the third party planet that you base your analysis on? I'll start this off by saying that, based upon my reading of the novels, humans appear to be of similar average strength (relative to the gravity of their home planet), capability, and intelligence as standard humans in reality. Sure, there's some weird genetics going on with the Rosharans (such as inheritance of hair and eye color) but they seem to be similar to baseline real humanity.

 

Now the issue comes with the gravity of the combatants' home planets. We know from a WoB that Roshar has a gravitational force that is roughly 70% that of Earth. We also know, from a different WoB, that Scadrial is an analogue of Earth (pre- and post- Final Empire when it comes to flora and fauna). It is not an unreasonable assumption that Scadrial has a similar, if not the same, gravitational force as Earth. This is where the general strength portion of the Scadrian and Rosharan physiology comes into play. Rosharans are adapted to living in a lower gravity environment that Scadrians. This would put them at a distinct disadvantage regardless of whether the third-party planet has a gravitational force similar to, higher than, or lower than either Scadrial's or Roshar's.

 

Assuming it's one or the other, there would be different advantages to the Scadrians. If the third-party planet (which I'll call the battleworld because it sounds cool) is closer to Roshar's gravity then the Scadrians will have a strength and endurance advantage over the Rosharans since their muscles are adapted to work with a higher amount of gravitational stress upon them. It would require some moderate adjustments to get used to the lack of gravity. However, this advantage would be temporary as the Scadrian muscles and bone density would eventually atrophy to be of comparable strength with the Rosharans within a year at best. The counter to this would be increased physical training which would stress the Scadrian supply lines though I'd doubt Scadrians even up to The Bands of Mourning would know this. The situation is worse for the Rosharans if they're fighting in a world with Earth's gravitational force. Suddenly they have to deal with about 43% higher gravity which would make even breathing among their entire ranks difficult. I doubt that even shardplate would allow them to breath easier. The Rosharan forces would be essentially crippled as their physiology is not equipped to handle such an increase in inherent gravitational forces. They're not Feruchemists or Skimmers. Intense physical training would potentially help mitigate the effects of such a higher gravity, which would vastly hurt the Rosharan supply line as all their forces would essentially be body building, but I doubt that they could overcome it in general. Most of what this paragraph is about is based upon my knowledge of biology and the effects of microgravity environments on astronauts, but Rosharans are adapted to living in an environment no real human society has had to live through. 

 

Timeline: Okay, this will be less of a huge block of text. When in recent Rosharan history, with respect to the novels, are we talking about? Is it pre-War of Reckoning with Gavilar alive? I feel like an Alethkar with Gavilar commanding the High Prince's fear/respect and with the two strongest (Sadeas and Dalinar) loyal to him would have the best chance against the Scadrians. Anything else during WoK or WoR would have too fractious an Alethkar to be of use to have Alethi forces leading the Rosharan troops.

 

 

Anyways, with all that said, I really do respect and appreciate your analysis. Besides the omissions and errors mentioned, I feel like it is one of the most well thought out and fair analysis of a Scadrian-Rosharan war I've seen between this and the thread about Era 2 Scadrial vs. Roshar.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Knight Oblivion

[Erunion]

Thanks Knight Oblivion, and great points, especially on Gravity! 

[Jimmy]

 

So your argument for why Rosharian soldiers would destroy koloss is because there is a chance the koloss would be sent in without any leadership or support? If the Rosharians get to have competent leaders then so does Scadrial. Also for soldiers so trained and veterans, they are trained and veterans for chasm warfare. Take World War 2 era trench warfare fighters and put them into Vietnam and see how they fare against Vietcong guerilla warfare. Take Vietcogn guerilla warfare and have then fight Soviet Russa on their soil. Trained soliders are great, when they are trained for the environment they fight in, in the style of warfare required, with the level of technology employed. Train archers all you want. If I show up with a tank, I will still win. Not saying Scadrial will have the higher level of technology. I am just illustrating the point more regarding what kind of training these soldiers have matters. 

 

Koloss use 12 foot long swords, correct? To swing these things they'd need twelve feet of clearance on either side or they'd hit each other in a fight. I don't recall them ever half swording or having the brains to even consider it. Then when they did hit the shield wall that force is divided by the amount of shields it hit. So yes, they could hit very hard, but I don't think they're strong enough to rip apart a good shield wall. 

 

Using your example, World War Two soldiers fought in places like Kokoda and the Pacific and did very well there despite having trained for WW1 conditions. They also fought in trenches on the western front, bitter cold on the eastern front, the desert in places like Tobruk, urban war in France and Germany and guerrilla war in India and China. They'd have done better if they were trained for those environments, but the 2AIF went from the middle east to Papua New Guinea and routed the Japanese there without having been trained for either of those environments.

 

Back to the point though. Ahem. Concentration of force is more important than total numbers on the field. You can have all the hundreds of thousands you want but if they cannot fight together as a cohesive unit then numbers will always be against them. 

 

The main advantage Scadrial has is that huge number of koloss. Roshar can counter that quite effectively without having to adapt overly much. That brings it back to magic, which Scadrial has the advantage in so far. Give Roshar until the end of the first series and I think that'll be reversed though. Wind runners alone are disturbingly overpowered. Kaladin tanks an entire army without even really knowing what he was doing or how he was doing it. Granted he might be the main character and a bit OP because of that, but he's the only one we have to measure so far. 

[asterion137]

Koloss use 12 foot long swords, correct?The swords are 6 feet long.Their arms are 3.5-5 feet long.To swing these things they'd need twelve feet of clearance on either side or they'd hit each other in a fight. Yes they spread out and we've seen them do it in the past. If they hit each other every time they fought they wouldn't have been able to kill 2000 with 500 I don't recall them ever half swording or having the brains to even consider it. They don't need to.Then when they did hit the shield wall that force is divided by the amount of shields it hit. These are creatures that can uproot TREES. When they hit not enough is left of an ARMORED soldier to perform body counts. You realize the Parshendi were able to smash Roshar's shield walls, right?So yes, they could hit very hard, but I don't think they're strong enough to rip apart a good shield wall. Yes they can. Koloss strength>>>>Parshendi warpair strength

Using your example, World War Two soldiers fought in places like Kokoda and the Pacific and did very well there despite having trained for WW1 conditions. They also fought in trenches on the western front, bitter cold on the eastern front, the desert in places like Tobruk, urban war in France and Germany and guerrilla war in India and China. They'd have done better if they were trained for those environments, but the 2AIF went from the middle east to Papua New Guinea and routed the Japanese there without having been trained for either of those environments. You could say the same thing with koloss as the soldiers who had to adapt, except they won't have to adapt since the short spears Roshar uses won't be able to outrange their massive swords

Back to the point though. Ahem. Concentration of force is more important than total numbers on the field. You can have all the hundreds of thousands you want but if they cannot fight together as a cohesive unit then numbers will always be against them. Unless it's an army of 10-foot trolls who smash any formation you throw at them

The main advantage Scadrial has is that huge number of koloss. Roshar can counter that quite effectively without having to adapt overly much. Roshar's spears are 5 feet long (shortspears). Koloss have better reach and can break Roshar's shield walls. The warform Parshendi did it and they're not nearly as strong as koloss.That brings it back to magic, which Scadrial has the advantage in so far. Give Roshar until the end of the first series and I think that'll be reversed though. Wind runners alone are disturbingly overpowered. Kaladin tanks an entire army without even really knowing what he was doing or how he was doing it. A coin to the head will still kill himGranted he might be the main character and a bit OP because of that, but he's the only one we have to measure so far.

Edited April 12, 2016 by asterion137

[Argel]

Koloss use 12 foot long swords, correct? To swing these things they'd need twelve feet of clearance on either side or they'd hit each other in a fight. I don't recall them ever half swording or having the brains to even consider it. Then when they did hit the shield wall that force is divided by the amount of shields it hit. So yes, they could hit very hard, but I don't think they're strong enough to rip apart a good shield wall.

 

All Scadrial has to do is field a lurcher or two (or a mistborn to get in and out) and the wall breaks.

 

Though shield walls were never designed to deal with koloss with 12-foot swords, so I doubt it would hold. You also seem to be assuming the koloss would be immediately taken out. And if an entire first wave was, would the shield wall hold out against a second wave?? Shield walls tend to crumble quickly, so even one koloss breaking through might be enough. Sorry, but I do not see how a shield wall survives.

 

Edit: Ninja'd by asterion137!

Edited April 12, 2016 by Argel

[Erunion]

Some corrections: Rosharans do NOT exclusively use 5 foot long short spears. They have a whole variety of spears, some shorter, some longer, and some likely quite long. (They are confirmed to have 'shortspears' and 'longspears' in brigthlord Amarams army. Do we ever get confirmation that the short spears are ACTUALLY 4-5 foot long? Or merely that they're short in comparison to the long spears? I got the idea that the spears used were likely 5-7 foot standard spears and 9-12 foot long spears).

 

Secondly, the I generally pictured the Rosharans shield wall as not being a medieval shield wall, but as rather being a Grecian/Macedonian Phalanx, which is an entirely different beast. Phalanxes would generally maintain formation throughout entire battles. (Amaram's under-trained troops DON'T maintain formation, but that's because all the best troops/officers had already been shipped off to the front lines).

AFAIK Parshendi warpairs didn't 'break shieldwalls' - rather they jumped OVER the shield walls. Generally, the Parshendi and the terrain forced the Alethi to change tactics, not by overwhelming them but by changing the environment of the conflict, forcing them to respond in a different manner. 

 

Also, I actually don't think a coin to the head WOULD kill Kaladin, as long as he had enough stormlight... And that's assuming you can hit him, which is not something you can rely on (unless you have atium and maybe duralumin...).

 

 

Generally, against Koloss the Alethi have a HUGE advantage in concentration of force (not enough to negate Koloss completely. They're flipping powerful, but enough to make them FAR more effective than an equivalent Scadrian army).