[Aptorian]

Ooohh military discussions *rubbs hands*

I can't really remember anything of the top of my head about the malazan command structure, so I think I'll have to look things up. This could turn into a very nice thread

I always thought that the Malazan army was loosely based on the Roman legions formations. It seems that there usually was around 4000-5000 soldiers in the 9th army, which seemed to be the standard old type of "legion" before the Empire startet to bleed soldiers. The roman legion would in peace times get way down to around 4000 or less in a legion while during war conscription could bolster the army and get it up to around 5500-6000+

Squads of perhaps 6-10 soldiers with a Sergant in command. Around 6-8 squads under a captain in a century. Lets say 80 soldiers under a captain like in the roman imperial legions early days. 6 Centuries to make a Cohort making it around 480 men per cohort, leaded by a fist. Finally 10 cohorts to make a legion lead by the High Fist or Adjunct. Note that "the first cohort", the favorites were normally of double size. Taking the total to 5280 men.

I think it's roughly organized this way, though probably with more captains and fewer fists, that's my impression of The Adjuncts army anyway. Also there might be other factors like the malazans structuring their groups in different ways, a higher number of lightarmoured and with consideration for thre also being squads or cadres of mages.

You should put this in the Q&A thread, grayfrog.

Also has anyone thought of the The Bridgeburnes being "The emperors favorites" sounds a lot like Cesar and his Legio X?

[Danforth]

I like alot of your ideas Apt, I had also always imagined the Malazans being loosely based on the Roman military, if only for the ties of being an expansionist empire and having the right sort of technology for that peroid.

Though I feel it is usually a Fist who has cntrol of an army like Coltaine and the seventh in DHG and a High Fist would be in control of a continent or a campaign ie. Dujek on Genabackis or Pormqual on Seven Cities.

I don't really know where Sub-Fists come into this though, maybe they are more leaders of a newly captured town like a captain promoted to being the governer of a city.

I always held the belief that the Bridgeburners were more like a company of soldiers (maybe hundreds or a couple of thousand) who could be attached to any force in order to carry out a special mission, but Erikson is not exactly clear on the detials, hence the discussion. But it does make Fiddler & co seem a bit more special for saying they are the only ones left out of hundreds of elite troops.

[GardenGnome]

By Pale there's around 1500 Bridgeburners in the unit, but most of them died under pale - only the 30-odd or so survived. Atleast, I seem to recall that number from GotM...

Apt: How about saying a luitenant for the 6-8 squads, and then a captain, then fist, then high fist? With some reworking of the numbers, it should work out nicely. We don't really have an numbe for a "standard" size Malazan army, do we? Dujek's one is reduced after 20 years on Genabackis, while Tavore's is allways refered to as undermanned - allthough that could be because of the high number of raw recruits.

Also, is it just my imagination, or is there like a rule for 1 high fist, 3 fists? Tavore's army, Dassem's army in NoK, and, if I recall correctly, there were 3 fists in Dujek's army when they are on 7C in BH.

[Danforth]

I don't remember that there were 1500 Bridgeburners just before Pale, I always thought there was alot less.

[GardenGnome]

GotM, page 104: "There would be nothing to mark the graves of thirteen hundred Bridgeburners, though." So, ok, I was 200 off...

By this time they were heavily undermanned, after, as the OP says, being put in every nasty situation the Empress could find.

[Aptorian]

GardenGnome;121830 said:

By Pale there's around 1500 Bridgeburners in the unit, but most of them died under pale - only the 30-odd or so survived. Atleast, I seem to recall that number from GotM...

Danforth;121884 said:

I don't remember that there were 1500 Bridgeburners just before Pale, I always thought there was alot less.

page 58 GotM: Sorry to Tattersail:
A young Woman's voice spoke directly behind Tattersail. "We numbered fourteen hundred this morning, Sorceress."

Add an aditional, what? 30 or 70? I don't remember the exact number left behind.

GardenGnome;121830 said:

Apt: How about saying a luitenant for the 6-8 squads, and then a captain, then fist, then high fist? With some reworking of the numbers, it should work out nicely. We don't really have an numbe for a "standard" size Malazan army, do we? Dujek's one is reduced after 20 years on Genabackis, while Tavore's is allways refered to as undermanned - allthough that could be because of the high number of raw recruits.

I think you're right only it should be captain, then liutenant and of course High Fists are leaders of more than one army. I was merely giving a "very" ruff outlining of the roman legion, The Malazan army probably has some very different ways of dealing out commands but in a rough scetch it fits.

GardenGnome;121830 said:

Also, is it just my imagination, or is there like a rule for 1 high fist, 3 fists? Tavore's army, Dassem's army in NoK, and, if I recall correctly, there were 3 fists in Dujek's army when they are on 7C in BH.

I think Tavores army is special, since it consists of many seperate armies put together in a patchy army under the Adjunct, who in this case is acting like a kind of High Fist.

[GardenGnome]

Then I guess Dujek's and Dassem's were special too... They all had 3 fists, then 1 high-fist (or, rather, first sword of the empire, adjunct of the empress and high fist...). Mind you, I'm not too certain on Dujek's army, but I seem to recall 3 fists being sick/dead in BH.

However, back in Wiskeyjack's story of the creation of the Bridgeburners, as told by him to Anomander Rake, I got the impression they were just like 200 soldiers - I have to dig into the book again, I guess...

Heh, this puts the whole idea of ascended BB into an entirely new light - giving soldiers dieing off, and new ones being recruited, the ascended BB group could easily be 10 000 men (assuming the BB were around 4 000 in their prime) - unless it only included those alive at the time the Tanno Song went off. But I doubt that, as there was this dead Captain suddenly appearing in HoC, saying something like "Eyes forward, soldier" to Kalam, when he sneaks into Sha'ik's camp.

[Aptorian]

GardenGnome;121895 said:

Then I guess Dujek's and Dassem's were special too... They all had 3 fists, then 1 high-fist (or, rather, first sword of the empire, adjunct of the empress and high fist...). Mind you, I'm not too certain on Dujek's army, but I seem to recall 3 fists being sick/dead in BH.

However, back in Wiskeyjack's story of the creation of the Bridgeburners, as told by him to Anomander Rake, I got the impression they were just like 200 soldiers - I have to dig into the book again, I guess...

Heh, this puts the whole idea of ascended BB into an entirely new light - giving soldiers dieing off, and new ones being recruited, the ascended BB group could easily be 10 000 men (assuming the BB were around 4 000 in their prime) - unless it only included those alive at the time the Tanno Song went off. But I doubt that, as there was this dead Captain suddenly appearing in HoC, saying something like "Eyes forward, soldier" to Kalam, when he sneaks into Sha'ik's camp.

Yes it's pretty confusing who sits at the top of the command structure. But again Dassem and Dujek (Actually WJ in the start) were both Commanders leading a large scale invasion of a continent. With them they had many armies, why not 3 making their full strength while landing or when supplied around 12000-15000. In roman times that would have been a HUGE army, The roman emperors could mostly only dream of financing and using such a force.

About Dujek having been in a prolonged war witch was wearing him down on Genebackis. He got new recruits every year from Quon, 7C, etc. There were at least 2 armies at Pale, the leftovers after the fumble were made into Dujeks 9th.

[GardenGnome]

Apt;121894 said:

I think you're right only it should be captain, then liutenant and of course High Fists are leaders of more than one army. I was merely giving a "very" ruff outlining of the roman legion, The Malazan army probably has some very different ways of dealing out commands but in a rough scetch it fits.

Sorry, I thought "army" as in a bunch of soldiers, not in the Malazan military term - 2nd army, 3rd army etc. A fist commands an army, and then the high fist commands the armies who are under the same campaign/march/whatever, seems to be my impression.
Oh, captain outranks lieutenant - both in our world and in Wu: Lieutenant Ranal was assigned under captain Keneb (before Keneb became a fist and Ranal got blown up...)

Actually, scrap what I said about fists commanding an army - the fourteenth has 4 different fists in it, and the same case can be said for the seventh. It seems a fist commands a legion, judging from HoC, page 279.

Anyway, let's see, what units do we know of? And can we be certain that all the units are actual military units, and not just a "name", such as when the BB are an undernamed division, could it be that (for example) division is not an actual military unit in the Malazan Army?

We seem to have:
Army (several armies can operate together, as seen in the Genabackis campaign)
Legion (three legions make out the 14th army, I seem to recall 3 legions in the 7th aswell - am I getting too focused on the number 3 here?)
Company (so far, it has been based off HoC, but from here I'm more uncertain...)
Regiment? (we have something called a regiment - for example the Ashok regiment, with dear captain Kindley)
Squad?
Soldiers

Soldiers are arranged in squads, with 1 sergeant and 1 (or 2?) corporals. In HoC, I seem to remember lieutenant Ranal being in command of all the three squads that would later make up the Bonehunters. Argh, three! Then we have a captain above the lieutenant, and then a fist? Are there any majors or colonels about?

As for numbers, your guess is a good as mine. The squads in Tavore's army seems much smaller than in Dujek's army, but that could just be random chance that we saw big squads in Dujek's, and small in Tavore's - there are bigger and smaller squads around. Or maybe I just imagined that difference...

About division - In BH, Keneb, Tene Baralta, Temul and Blistig are all listed as "division commanders" in the Dramatis Personae. I being to suspect that division is not an actual military unit, but to say that they command a part of the whole, so to say.

[Aptorian]

@ Gardengnome

Good recap of the armies.

Of the top of my head I can't find any flaws but I haven't really had time to look either

[GardenGnome]

Oh, I tremble in fear
Well, this was a bit of fun...

Now, given the Dramatis Personae in HoC, the soldiers are listed as (for example):
Marines of the 9th Company, 8th Legion
list of names, starting with Lieutenant Ranal and down - non higher

Annoyingly, the list is arranged according to type of soldier, not after squads. However, this seems (to me) to suggest that a regiment is not part of the military chain of units for an army. I propose that regiments, such as the Ashok regiment, is a smaller military unit, not bound to an army. This would distinguish between mobile armies (where the fourteenth was once described as the last mobile army of the Empire, after the defection of Dujek), and standing occupying forces.

We know from HoC intro (heh, strange how much I refer to this book - it's the worst of the series) that the Ashok regiment was stationed in northern Genabackis. This could have been as part of Dujek's invading army, but I get the feeling that the regiment is the occupying force - not directly tied to the army. Anyone know any specific dates for when that part of Genabackis was occupied? I somehow doubt it, but we can hope :-
Anyway, the Ashok regiment was then moved to 7C, for whatever reason, and later join the Fourteenth. Once in the 14th, they stopped being Ashok regiment formally, but as the unit had made a name for itself, they were still recognized as an informal unit, so to speak.

Or maybe not. This is wild speculation. But I like the idea of regiments being separate from mobile armies, as I can't think of a single reference other regiments than the Ashok regiment...

[Aptorian]

The Ashok regiment had just arrived in the town port that Karsa and co tore up in the start of HoC. So 3-4+ years before the 7C rebellion.

I think the seperation in groups are a produkt of Dassem's "smart thinking soldiers" idea. By having them each everyone find their nieche and then redistributing them to small squads, you get hundreds of small very capable groups that can think individually and solve complex problems with out assistance. Sappers, mages, scouts, "slice and dice" people, Heavy armoured, etc.

[Imperial Historian]

Ok some info for your pleasure, most of which is taken from page 300 of HoC mmpb...

Tavore's army has squad's consisting of 6 men, Fiddler comments that that leaves the squad one man under strength, so a squad has a seargeant, a corporal and 5 soldiers... in marine squads, which we see the most of there is usually one mage and at least one sapper (sometimes 2) among those soldiers and from what i've seen an assasin/scout type.

Leiutenant Ranal commands 3 squads of marines.

A company consists of 3 squads of marines, 3 squads of heavy infantry and 18 squads of regular infantry.

A company is under the command of a captain.

9 companies are listed as making up a legion, commanded by a fist.

The 3 legions make up the 14th army commanded by a high fist.

I think in normal circumstances each legion would have consisted of 10 companies, with one company consisting of cavalry, but since Tavore's army is understocked on cavalry I can't tell.

And i'd agree that a regiment is probably a standing garrison force of variable size, rather than a specific unit.

Make of that what you will...

[Aptorian]

So a quick calculation gets tavore's army during HoC to:

A Lieutenant commands 126 men
A Captain commands 732 men
A Fist commands 6588 men
The High Fist of the 14th would command 19764

Tavore commanded around 20.000 soldiers then, give or take some horsewarriors and her own cavalry. I hope they have a very capable commandcenter because that grouping sounds messed up. But that's ok I guess since the squads seem capable of working on their own mostly.

[Imperial Historian]

Ranal commands 3 squads, thats 21 men, but i get the impression that Ranal as a junior lieutenant holds a small commission of just the marines, certainly Paran seemed to consider his commision in the bridgeburners of a simmilar size to be small.

I seem to remember there are 4 leiutenants under each captain, presumably 1 each for marines and heavies, and 2 for the regulars but i cant remember where i read that... or even if i did.

[Aptorian]

Imperial Historian;121981 said:

... or even if i did.

Coming from the Imperial Historian... Pure gold

Is this the man who works the Malaz Encyclopedia...

[GardenGnome]

Bah! All my work, for nothing!

Great work, IH .-)