[Dolorous Menhir]

Sounds to me like you've got some anti-Dujek bias going on here. What else was he supposed to do? He didn't have a factory to make "caltrops," he didn't have an unlimited supply of Moranth munitions or time to train his troops in alternative techniques.

He had an objective and a limited time-frame, and he did the best he could. Almost every toss of the coin went against him in that fight - Whiskeyjack died, the Imass didn't attack, his troops had to face superior foes alone. Dujek was assaulting an enemy-held urban area with inferior troops and limited firepower. They simply had to take losses and there was nothing he could do about it.

[rlfcl]

rpg's! why oh why didn't dujek arm and train rpg squads in anti-undead lizard tactics? the fool!

[Onos]

I see some of your points, BUT. Dujek was following Laseens orders. A better question would be why he does that... BUT once he did his hands were tied.

He needed to beat brood to Corel. This allowed him little room to wiggle. Similar analogy again comes from Hannibal. He spent 18 odd years fighting in italy and never lost a single battle. But when Scipio invaded north africa Hannibal was called back to carthage to fight at the battle of zama. He fought without his veterans, and not on a field of battle of his chosing, and was defeated. This was not a battle of Dujek's choosing. Dujek was on a suicide mission, and it was intentional.

And finally he WAS trying to spare some of his soldiers, by springing the trap on his half of the army. The malazan army fouled the trenches and broke many companies, killed X hunters and destroyed parts of the city. After that i believe the rest of the certainly human army would have lost a lot of its fight. And if only human aspects had been present i dont think the beklites could have totally defeated him in a short time spam.

[Cause]

Onrack the breakable;150489 said:

I'm still saying that a competently led host of Bhockrala or Ewoks would've put up a more creditable fight than Onearms Host. There's no way around that Abyss.

Most of your points Abyss are based on refuting my #1 caltrop idea. We can go on and on, but lets just say Gruntle was not made of steel and not designed specifically to immobilize/slow KCCM. Despite all that, Gruntle did a good job slowing down the KCCM. The real problem with that method is getting people willing to perform as the designated "Gruntle".

What about something like a portable Ewok operated flying tree trunk, like some types of rams. No KCCM would survive that once immobilized. There are more ways than simple mundane caltrops to immobilize KCCM. That was just an example.

These ideas strike me as ridiculous. Have you seen Imass fight. They lose arms and keep going. They lose legs they keep going. They lose half their head it means nothing. Why would stepping on a sharp point stopp a kell hunter. They are undead. They are made living and mobile by magic not by dessicated msucles or tendons that are left to them and they feel no pain. Caltrops would be as nothing to them.

As for flying ewok rams in trees great idea, but its entirely unfeasable. You would need time, a forest and most importantly an army of stormtrooper/redshirts to walk into the forest blind like morons.

[Monoch Ochem]

The trouble I see is not so much the KCCM but the series of UNEXPECTED events that unfolded.

1. The vultures were, as yet, unknown. Until QB engaged them, they were secret. Crow said that those things were anything BUT birds. That was the first shock. They were seriously mauled.

2. Itkovian.... bless him but DAMN HIM! SOOOOOOOO many lives could have been saved. The Imass and the Ay were supposed to have eliminated the KCCM. Had he not intervened with his DAMNED altruistic benevolence, we would have seen some great stuff. Barring Monok Ochem, we've never read accounts of the Bonecasters letting rip and lets face it, some of them are serious kickass...3 gave Gethol a good shake-up and dared him to call out Hood to challenge them. Not to mention, the other Imass. In fact, they knew that Pannion was Jaghut and they wouldn't have stopped there regardless of what they said. They'd have fought the whole damn war for everyone to get to Pannion....the upshot of course, would have been that the Burn solution that followed would not have occurred and the warrens would be in serious trouble.

3. Kallor.... I need not say more....but: despite his damage to Korlat, the death of Whiskeyjack broke the army before it lost. After his death, everything else was undertaken with a fatalistic resignation. Gruntle's legion threw themselves against the K'ell hunters in a fury with no regards for their lives. The Grey Swords were doing the noble end thing and the Andii? Well, barring Korlat they'd been pretty much resigned to whatever fate awaited them and when Whiskeyjack kicked the bucket Korlat herself gave up on life.

Go easy on Dujek. His one arm was tied behind his back half the time. It's Whiskeyjack who I'm pissed off with...damned ass kept refusing Mallet's healing touch. How blee'n irresponsible is that???? Why would ANY commander worth his salt take that sort of risk? I know they said it was Hood but unless Hood was exercising some pretty decent Mockra, I don't absolve Whiskeyjack of his carelessness. He and Tayschrenn could have dispatched Kallor.

[Abyss]

@Onrack - we can agree to disagree on the caltrops point (heehee, see what i did there?), and tho i don't see how you thought 'all' my response was addressing that, i would rep you for the Ewok comment if i didn't have to spread some around first.

@Illy - yeah, i got that, and i agree, tho' trust wasn't running high amongst the armies at that point, and Silverfox had told WJ and Dujek she would deal with the lizards, and in fact the Imass had told Brukhalian, and thereby Itkovian, the same thing. And they had done so - the KC at Coral were an unknown reserve at that point, which the Imass and Ay still would have dealt with, but for Togg being pissed at Silverfox and withdrawing the Ay, and Itkovian distracting the Imass.

But ultimately yeah, i agree WJ and Dujek should have thought to put a wee bit more thought into the whole undead lizards and chaos strafing condors problems.

- Abyss, yub yub.

[tiam]

Dolorous Menhir;150494 said:

Sounds to me like you've got some anti-Dujek bias going on here. What else was he supposed to do? He didn't have a factory to make "caltrops," he didn't have an unlimited supply of Moranth munitions or time to train his troops in alternative techniques.

He had an objective and a limited time-frame, and he did the best he could. Almost every toss of the coin went against him in that fight - Whiskeyjack died, the Imass didn't attack, his troops had to face superior foes alone. Dujek was assaulting an enemy-held urban area with inferior troops and limited firepower. They simply had to take losses and there was nothing he could do about it.

I agree theres some anti Dujek feelings.

If the Kell hunters werent there and the condors werent there would dujek have won? Like him and Wj said they are a mortal army who fight mortal opponents. would they have won? History of dujek and also results from the fight outside Capustan say yes they would have won. Kell hunters were above their heads and they did the best they could. Its all well and good going ' yes they could have had catapults ready or caltrops (seriosly caltrops?) but they never and that simply wasnt dujeks fault in the time offered to him. He made do with what he had at the time. It was the 'superpowers' job to get rid of all the undead lizards and condors. What defence could there possibly be against 1000 Kell hunters when you outnumber them by around 4 to 1? Even the Andii, fully prepared with more magic than Dujek, could ony just win with those odds and that was because of dragon support.

Dujek was completely outgunned. Also for your sword against tank thoughts. I agree build tank traps etc but you simply couldnt do it with the time available.

[Onrack the breakable]

I was using that example of Corel as a single example. Possibly slightly poor example because it was exceptional in many many ways. Undead KCCM who had never been faced before (although they did know they were going to have to fight them). That even reinforces my point about competent leadership. Competent leaders have contigency plans. They don't just blunder in. Incompetent leaders do as Dujek and fight the current battle using outdated tactics and strategies.

I was mentioning mundane solutions and tactics not even touching on the magical side of things. Don't armys have blacksmiths and armorers that could make caltrops? But looking at it from a magical perspective its even worse in most ways. Even squalid squad mages acting in concert should be able to take out KCCM one at a time if instead of attempting diffuse area effect fireball type spells attacked with concentrated, cutting torch focus spells, or rapid freeze/heat shatter spells focused on the comparatively fragile limb joints.

It seems in the Malazan books, each mage just does their own thing with no coherence to their efforts, no strategy, ect. Like the generals they just strut around.

In ragards to the KCCM, the best comparison would be with modern armor like tanks. They have been throughout history used in similar ways with eventual similar counters. Armor has the function of protection but it must protect a relatively large area. Rocket Propelled Grenade specific anti armor weapons are then developed that can be carried by a single soldier, that torches a penciltip size hole thru which the plasma lances and/or uranium type (very heavy metal) penetrator penetrates. This has happened up to and including the modern "supertank" American M1 Abrams tank- if recent reports are accurate.

I never was suggesting some technological solution that did not match the Malazan's technology like actual Rocket Propelled Grenades. If you are armed with swords, have everyone get out their entrenching tools (small shoves) and dig a big f___ing hole. Tank goes into hole. (Even if tank is smart enough to avoid the hole its got to slow down to find a way around- of course KCCM can jump like superman too but perhaps the undead can't fly so well) Swordsmen toss in molotov cocktails (flasks of flammable oil) whatever. Or the Ewok's Big Fornicating Rocks or Big Flying Treetrunks. All primitive and common seige equipment. Admittedly Dujecks host was relying on moranth munitions in that capacity so they had no standard seige equipment. But they dam sure had shovels and flammables, and big rocks?

The more I read these Malazan books, the more it seems there is little real stragegy or much planning at all. Alot of strutting around and bullshatting. No one tells any anything because the ideas are so stupid (like Quick Bens) the whole army would walk off in disgust and take up fishing or something. The Black Company books were like this, but at least they usually had some decent planning and tactics where at least the command knew what was going on. Even David Eddings books have more tactics and stragegy than what we've seen so far.

The exception being Tavore. There was planning beyond just "charge in and die gloriously and stupidly".

I was thinking Lostara was another possible stratagist (as opposed to skulker/conniver/bullshatter) but it seems she may wind up more as an aide to Tavore. Ruthan Guud and Madan Tul Rada are the only other officers mentioned besides Kindly and Sort but we know nothing about them and haven't seen either give a single order so far.

[fan_83]

onrack : kindly explain to me where will the army get the tons of metal and time needed to make teh caltrops?
where will they get the flammable materials?
when did they have time to build trenches when they are assaulting an enemy stronghold on a time limit?

most of your ideas are good but they are tactics that should be employed by the defenders with time limit and resources...

onearm and host are all the attackers, they don;t have the time nor the resources to gather the necessary materials or the tools to build trenches and traps

the mage are all squad level mage... none of them are powerful enough to singe the hide of a single undead kell.. not to mention that to work in concert would require them to gather in a bunch which would be great condor fodder

you seem to think that onearm has the miraculous time and resources available to do such thing will on a force march and without a full complement of mages..

with the man and materials he has, he has done wonders by destroying the pannion trenches line and taking out the walls of the cities and creating chaos for the sake of broods army..

one arms host has nothing that can stand against the kell and condors combined

has onearm took the time to spread the caltrops and dig the pits, the condors would have turned his army into kebabs and that includeds tay and qb..

tays is powerful .. but not powerful enough to go up against 10+ condors simultaneously,,

had onearm not send in suicide troops to foul up the condors, all of his and broods army would have been dead before rake could have arrived..

you seem to think that onearm is sitting in a comfortable chair and clicking on his army with somesort of foresight and foreknowledge..

no plan that onearm could have made could have taken into account of the overwhelming power that is the condors which has not been factored into account.,

not to mention that the kells were suppose to be tne imass job.. which was assigned..

on a side note: wtf is a couple of caltrop going to do undead? i mean that is just giving the kell more weapon when they jump and stomp on the mortal troops..

burning them in piits might work if you have pits deep enough and flammable materials enough..

great ewok catapult is absolutely ridiculous: the undead kell would have turned it into woodchips after the first few volleys..


you also seems to have forgotten the extremely fast reaction time of the kell which is supreme, where 30 plus specially trained extremely tough heavy infantry got chopped up by a single kell within seconds with teh cost of a single undead arm..

the saying of the rahl says it best, steel against steel and magic against magic..

onearms host is not equipped to deal with the undead kell at all..

almost nothing onearm could do would have been effective against the undead without significant losses

[Dolorous Menhir]

You're really got it in for Dujek, don't you Onrack?

I'm not seeing how the military tactics used in this series are so awful. We've already discussed why the Host got whipped at Coral - they were horrendously outmatched. That didn't happen because Dujek was a bad general, and I don't see why you insist that is so.

What about all the other great military leaders in the books? Tavore, Dassem Ultor, Coltaine.

[Imperial Historian]

Dujek's strategy when you look at it isn't that bad, here's the info he has...

1. The pannion's will almost certainly lay a trap. The pannion seer is expecting the allies to arrive in X amount of time. If dujek and a small force get there before X amount of time, he'll catch the Pannion Seer cold-cocked and disrupt the trap. so far so good gambit pays off and dujek has sprung the trap which may well have decimated the allied armies.

2. Whiskeyjack and the malazans meet up with the allies, tell them dujeks plan and to get the hell over to corel so we can take the pannion seer by surprise. Assuming that this army decided to move they could catch the seer by surprise and avoid casualties due to digging in/preparations which he would inevitably make. but the allies decide not to come, now we know dujek and whiskeyjack were surprised by this, clearly they were working on the assumption that the allies would have come, a collection of some of the finest military minds in the world who the malazans feel great respect for, why on earth wouldn't they come... this is probably the biggest mistake they made not telling the allies before hand, but in the malazan military a commander is expected to act on his own initiative, not by a council of command, so it's a reasonable action to take in the malaz frame of mind... still a mistake but not a killer.

3. The t'lan imass have promised to take out the k'ell hunters, promised, whenever discussions on the k'ell come up, silverfox says leave em to me, so preparations against the k'ell would not be at the top of the priority list, as the t'lan always come through, against a massively overpowered force such as the undead k'ell hunters there's very little that can be done, and relying on the imass who lets be clear on this have NEVER EVER FAILED to come through for the malazans is a fairly sound assumption, they are an undead killing machine, utterly reliable, there's no way anyone could have predicted iktovian.

So in my mind the assumptions that the t'lan imass and the allies would come through, and that the best way to deal with the pannion was to take him by suprise are not particularly bad, in fact they seem to make sense to me...

Then lets look at the situation when the allies fail, the help dujek is counting on fails to show up... thats a major blow, so what can he do.. stay in the open?, if he'd done that the k'ell hunters would have slaughtered him, in an open field the malazans are clearly no match for them, the only mages of any capability he has are QB and tays, the sorry state of the malaz mage corps can clearly be seen in the feeble crop in the BB's, his allies iwth all the magical power have spectacularly failed to show up, so his best bet is to get inside the actual city and cause as many casualties as possible, as his soldiers will have more chance against the k'ell inside the city, than outside, as close quarters will make it harder for them to fight.

The loss of tays, whiskeyjack, the direct interference of oppon, the loss of the imass and ay, toss in the surprise of the almost all powerful condors and you get a very ugly picture, the succession of disasters were so immense I don't think anyone could have done much better... I mean when all comes down to it... they won, they were utterly outclassed for large parts of the time, but they won, and dujek was partially responsible for the masterstroke which won it for them... he sent paran and QB after the condors, the pannion and the matron and ultimately that turned the tide, along with the timely arrival of Rake, but after the succession of disasters he suffered he deserved some luck.

[Onos]

Caltrops are not easy things to make. Increadibly effective... but you need hundreds of them just for a small area. And then they need to be a surprise, once you know they are there.... you dont go there.

As for commanders, you saying Coltaine didnt put some thought into his battles?? If his plans werent planning, then then i guess Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Frederick the great were just hack and slash commanders too. And also throughout history there are many crappy commanders. The majority i would say. Most people just dont have what 'it' takes. Others due to 'fate' just never had a chance to use their skills.

Unlimited time and unlimited resources even i could have won the Corel battle.

[Cause]

I find what you are saying ridiculous. One your discussing tactics not strategy. No one in history is famous for being a famed tactician. Its not important. Alexander the great conquered half the world, great he was still using the same tactics as every other macedonian or greek. Napolean conquered europe but his tactics were anything but revolutionary.

Onrack the breakable;150928 said:

I was using that example of Corel as a single example. Possibly slightly poor example because it was exceptional in many many ways. Undead KCCM who had never been faced before (although they did know they were going to have to fight them). That even reinforces my point about competent leadership. Competent leaders have contigency plans. They don't just blunder in. Incompetent leaders do as Dujek and fight the current battle using outdated tactics and strategies.

No ones ever fought a battle and come up with revolutionary tactics in five minutes. It takes time. First you have to realise the old ones dont work. This means losing. Than you need to realise whats changed, why its not working than change. No one aproached WW1 with the right tactics cause no one knew what it would be like till they were fighting it.

Quote

I was mentioning mundane solutions and tactics not even touching on the magical side of things. Don't armys have blacksmiths and armorers that could make caltrops? But looking at it from a magical perspective its even worse in most ways. Even squalid squad mages acting in concert should be able to take out KCCM one at a time if instead of attempting diffuse area effect fireball type spells attacked with concentrated, cutting torch focus spells, or rapid freeze/heat shatter spells focused on the comparatively fragile limb joints.

Were are the resources. weres the time to make these things. How do you attack the enmies stronghold and set up field of caltrops in his own terroritry? Ridiculous.

Can mages using warrens act in concert? Its never really been shown. Who knows what spells they can do. A mage with the warren of shadow is not casting freezing spells.

Quote

In ragards to the KCCM, the best comparison would be with modern armor like tanks. They have been throughout history used in similar ways with eventual similar counters. Armor has the function of protection but it must protect a relatively large area. Rocket Propelled Grenade specific anti armor weapons are then developed that can be carried by a single soldier, that torches a penciltip size hole thru which the plasma lances and/or uranium type (very heavy metal) penetrator penetrates. This has happened up to and including the modern "supertank" American M1 Abrams tank- if recent reports are accurate.

If you have swords and they have tanks. Their is only one real workable tactic. It is called SURRENDER. They are invunrable. They travel at a sustainable 50km and hour. they will dance around you and any trenches you dig. And yes a kccm is like a tank and a malazan marine with sword and crossbow is just like a malazan marine with sword and crossbow. Hes screwed.

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I never was suggesting some technological solution that did not match the Malazan's technology like actual Rocket Propelled Grenades. If you are armed with swords, have everyone get out their entrenching tools (small shoves) and dig a big f___ing hole. Tank goes into hole. (Even if tank is smart enough to avoid the hole its got to slow down to find a way around- of course KCCM can jump like superman too but perhaps the undead can't fly so well) Swordsmen toss in molotov cocktails (flasks of flammable oil) whatever. Or the Ewok's Big Fornicating Rocks or Big Flying Treetrunks. All primitive and common seige equipment. Admittedly Dujecks host was relying on moranth munitions in that capacity so they had no standard seige equipment. But they dam sure had shovels and flammables, and big rocks?

As I said the whole idea is ludicrous. Not to mention your rewriting the battle to suit your ideas. Malazans were on the offensive. They cant dig in and build defences. They are undead. they cant care less to be on fire. Bones dont burn. Their muscles and tendons don actually work. They dont have eyes but they still see remeber they are magical. Ewoks evrything is ridiculous. It wont work.t oo much time. too much enemy being moronic standing in right place right time.

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The more I read these Malazan books, the more it seems there is little real stragegy or much planning at all. Alot of strutting around and bullshatting. No one tells any anything because the ideas are so stupid (like Quick Bens) the whole army would walk off in disgust and take up fishing or something. The Black Company books were like this, but at least they usually had some decent planning and tactics where at least the command knew what was going on. Even David Eddings books have more tactics and stragegy than what we've seen so far.

Here I agree. I dont know why no one ever tells anyone anything.

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The exception being Tavore. There was planning beyond just "charge in and die gloriously and stupidly".

You villify dujek but glorify the women who led the debacle that was the second siege of yghatan?

[Kage-za]

One other thing to keep in mind was that the command structure of the army under Kellanved was purposefully decimated by Laseen, or at least in response to her taking the throne. The decline of the Malazan military due to a number of factors (purges, poorly planned campaigns, inroads by the nobility etc.) is one of the main themes throughout the books, and in a sense is the reason why famous troops like the Bridgeburners and Bonehunters can exist.
Because of the inversion of the command structure--except for Dujek--any of the people who should have been gradually promoted into positions of power within the marines had all been busted down to very low ranks, where they were likely to be killed off in regular fighting (which had continued for over 10 years on Genabackis). Among those were some of the 1370-odd Bridgeburners who were killed during the final stages of the seige of Pale. Dujek and Whiskeyjack did not necessarily make all the right decisions regarding Coral, but there was no one else in place to really help them make better ones. Moreover, there is a good possibility that Laseen wanted them to get killed, or at least Whiskeyjack, no matter what Tays said to the contrary.

As for contingency plans against the Kell, earlier skirmishes had showed that the T'lan Ai and Imass were the only weapon Dujek had to deal wih them. It would have been better not to depend on just one plan, but both Dujek and Whiskeyjack did not seem unaware that their other alternative was high casualties. If the contingency plan was as good as the first plan, it wouldn't be the contingency plan.

One other byproduct of the collapse of the command structure is that the marines were excellent at fighting in squads. The tactics used at Y'ghatan were very sound (granted they were not drawn up by Dujek). Of course, the Malazans couldn't know that the rebels were going to attack suicidally.

[Kazz D'Avore]

several points spring to mind here
1. Caltrops are designed to slow down humans, not Kell Hunters. i dont think a Kell Hunter would even notice them.
2. Mages trying to take out the hunters one by one would either by toasted by the condors, or turned into paste by other hunters. These things are basically unstoppable by normal humans, thats why the T'Lan Imass were meant to be taking them out, as they were the only ones who could do it.
3. how on earth were they meant to dig pits? they were under attack from the air by the condors, and were on the offensive in enemy territory.

as for assumptions, the Imass had never failed before so it was perfectly reasonable to trust them.
Not to mention Kallors betrayal that took out Whiskyjack and Tayscrenn and making Korlat basically give up, therefore removing two powerful mages and a commander. And the Malazans did start using new tactics during the battle, the collapsing houses, but as Cause says no-one invents whole new strategies in an instant

[Shadow_God]

I got the impression that Dujek knew that his half of the army would suffer massive casualties - he considered this an acceptable cost, given the importance of defeating the Domin. Sacrificing a large portion of your troops in the service of greater strategic goals is cold blooded, perhaps, but hardly evidence of incompetence.

Also, I don't see how you can generalize that Malazan commanders are in general not tactically or strategically competent - that they are all "strutting around" and "bullshatting". We have not seen Greymane in action at all, or for that matter Dassem Ultor. Tavore, as you noted, is not incapable. Dujek's status is disputed - fine. Coltaine is (was), I would argue, not prone to either strutting about or bullshatting, and was a brilliant tactician, I think we can all agree. Nok seems competent, although we haven't seen any sea battles, so I suppose we can put him in with Greymane. So of the high commanders of the Malazan forces, three we cannot effectively judge, one is competent at last (Tavore), one is well above competent (Coltaine), and one may have made a series of critical mistakes during his last major battle. That puts him in with such luminous incompetents as Hannibal, Napoleon.
Of the lesser commanders, particularly those in Tavore's army - yeah, there aren't any who are the level of Coltaine, or of Tavore herself. Ditto for the seconds in Onearm's Host that we meet in TBH. No one is born a great tactician, or a great strategist, and if Erikson wrote every Malazan commander as such, I suppose we'd have just as many irritated posts about that.

[frank]

I think I have to repeat my unanswered question to you Onrack, WHAT WOULD YOU/A GREAT LEADER HAVE DONE IN ONEARMS PLACE? Step by step would be nice.
And do take into consideration things like time and resources this time.

Most of your tactics has been taken apart as unrealistic already and in real battles you get ONE shot. Like Onearm.

You do NOT tell your emperor that you refuse to carry out your orders because you're not 100% sure you got all the info pinned.

Onearms host was ONLY supposed to take out the mundane troops.

One of the reasons a lot of tactics against tanks can succed is that tanks are SLOW while Kell hunters are averything but.

I got lots of more mainly about time, resources, enemies standing in one place and joints, but it has been mentioned in previous posts.

Don't mean to sound to grumpy, but you're SO sure and even take objections as confirmation that you are right. (You must teach me that trick)

[Bl1nder]

This whole post is rather pointless. Lets face it, Dujek lost half his army not because he was a bad tactician, not because he had KMC to fight against, and not even because WJ died, it was all because he had to die and leave a broken army behaind him, which in its desperation should look up to a Bridgeburner (Paran) to lead them, and now Paran has his own army, all the other stuff about tactic and the lot is completley irrelevant

[wishbone]

I'll have a shot at answering the question on what a great military leader would have done in Dujek's place...

A great military leader would have looked at the troops he had at his command; (A little over half the regular force. 5-6K plus the Black Moranth)

Looked at the opposing force: (Cant remember the exact number but in the 10's of thousands at least.)

Whats the objective: The Seer

Could he accomplish his objective short of total annihaltion of his forces? (if that was an option): Probably not.

Therefore he should have pulled back and waited until he got reinforcements from Whiskeyjack & Brood...

But, we are talking about a book that needs to develop a story as well and in this case, I think the story required the army to be sacrificed - and so it was...