Help
The Empress. And it was never a goal to kill off the Bridgeburners directly, as happened in Pale - they were put to digging caves by Tayschrenn, and he hoped they would be safe there once the magical onslaught began. In the end, almost the entire army got killed off anyway, during that one magical battle...
However, they did try to kill off Wiskeyjack - as Tayschrenn and Lorn discusses in GotM, anyone of the Old Guard would be loyal to the old Emperor, and thus consciously or unconsciously work against the Empress. However, Lorn told Tay to stay away from Dujek...
I'd say the Bridgeburners were close to a single army at their peak, but just guesstimates...
Rank and Hierarchy
#21
GardenGnome 
- Emperor
-
- Group: Malaz Regular
- Posts: 947
- Joined: 31-May 06
Posted 05 October 2006 - 05:15 PM
#22
GardenGnome
- Emperor
-
- Group: Malaz Regular
- Posts: 947
- Joined: 31-May 06
Posted 06 October 2006 - 11:26 AM
As for the last question about small squads: No idea, not being a military man myself (got a weak heart 
), but I allways found that rather odd. However, I suspect it's special to the marines, as they are built up by a lot of different types of soldiers, as Apt so aptly describes. Thus, they use small units to be able to quickly manouvre and do stuff. This build-up of the squads is by Fiddler credited to Kellanved, allthough that could be partly untrue - he said it to Iskaral Pust, after Pust asked who on earth created the sappers.
Could we link this to Dassem Ultor's military maxims? Every soldier to think for himself? Smaller units allow for more initiative and quicker response - then on the other hand, giving out orders to a lot of smaller squads takes a lot longer time than it does with larger squads.
Let us compare to other known armies - the Grey Swords (as presented in MoI, not the "new" Grey Swords) and the Crimson Guard.
In GotM, Brood sends the Sixth Blade to Darujhistan, to protect Crokus (the Coin Bearer) (GotM, page 676 bantam paperback for the meeting between the Blade, Lorn and Crokus). Now, do we have any idea how many these were? From the look in the book, I got the feel of small unit, no larger than, say, 15 soldiers. Also of note, again we have a military unit with mixed soldiers - mage, avowed? (corporal Blues - the swordsman who faced Lorn), and other soldiers. Another example is Iron Bars and his soldiers - he too has a mage, but how many soldiers were there? Also, here we have the possibility that the unit were reduced from their original numbers, during their hardships...
Then the Grey Swords. The names here gets me all confused, with Wings and Manes and whatnot. However, when Itkovian leads the patrol to the area around Capustan, how many soldiers did he go with? It was two units, I seem to recall, all ahorse. Maybe smaller military units is just the way to go, on Wu.
), but I allways found that rather odd. However, I suspect it's special to the marines, as they are built up by a lot of different types of soldiers, as Apt so aptly describes. Thus, they use small units to be able to quickly manouvre and do stuff. This build-up of the squads is by Fiddler credited to Kellanved, allthough that could be partly untrue - he said it to Iskaral Pust, after Pust asked who on earth created the sappers. Could we link this to Dassem Ultor's military maxims? Every soldier to think for himself? Smaller units allow for more initiative and quicker response - then on the other hand, giving out orders to a lot of smaller squads takes a lot longer time than it does with larger squads.
Let us compare to other known armies - the Grey Swords (as presented in MoI, not the "new" Grey Swords) and the Crimson Guard.
In GotM, Brood sends the Sixth Blade to Darujhistan, to protect Crokus (the Coin Bearer) (GotM, page 676 bantam paperback for the meeting between the Blade, Lorn and Crokus). Now, do we have any idea how many these were? From the look in the book, I got the feel of small unit, no larger than, say, 15 soldiers. Also of note, again we have a military unit with mixed soldiers - mage, avowed? (corporal Blues - the swordsman who faced Lorn), and other soldiers. Another example is Iron Bars and his soldiers - he too has a mage, but how many soldiers were there? Also, here we have the possibility that the unit were reduced from their original numbers, during their hardships...
Then the Grey Swords. The names here gets me all confused, with Wings and Manes and whatnot. However, when Itkovian leads the patrol to the area around Capustan, how many soldiers did he go with? It was two units, I seem to recall, all ahorse. Maybe smaller military units is just the way to go, on Wu.
