Direwolf18 wrote:Caught up with the thread. Couple of things, first are we even sure the Harchong army was even being issued pikes? I was under the impression their army was a lot like their navy, mostly unarmed...
A quick search of eBooks says yes they did have pikes -- or at least that's how they are organized; Pikes, Arbalest, Bow and Cavalry
Like A Mighty Army
eARC (rtf) page 64 wrote:“They really do have close to two million infantry and cavalry, as nearly as I can tell,” the Treasurer continued. “That’s based on reports from my own transportation personnel and the number of rations they’re devouring. But I’ve got my own people looking at their manufactory records now—the real records—and I’ll be astonished if they’ve got as many as eighty thousand rifles to arm them … and fifteen or twenty thousand of those are in the hands of their Military Police, not combat units. And whether Zhaspahr wants to hear it or not, their officers are barely competent, at best.”
Maigwair looked like a man who’d just been shot, and Duchairn shrugged.
“Unless you want to simply use them as human shields to soak up the heretics’ fire so our own troops can get close enough to engage the enemy, we’ve got to improve their quality before we commit them to action. And let’s be honest here. Given the way Harchongese serfs are treated back home, expecting them to have anything like your regiments’ discipline is totally unrealistic. If you add that to the sort of casualties they’re likely to take, you’ve got a guaranteed recipe for troops who’re going to be almost as destructive to Mother Church’s loyal sons and daughters—especially her daughters—as to the heretics.”
The two vicars’ eyes met across the table, and Duchairn shrugged.
“Since we can’t move them up and feed them anyway, this is our one opportunity to give them the training—and the discipline—that might actually make them effective soldiers and not Shan-wei’s own scourge upon the Faithful as well as the apostate. I’ll come up with the food, the lumber and nails and tools to build their barracks, and some way to provide them with at least some rifles instead of arbalests, bows, and pikes. I’ve got some ideas on that subject, but I guarantee you their senior officers are going to shriek like dying dragons when they hear what I have in mind, and you don’t even want to think about what the Border States’re going to have to say about it! Shan-wei—I think this time I may manage to piss everybody off, and I know Zhaspahr’s not going to like it. But they lied to him, too, this time. I think he’s probably going to be … determined enough to back me on this if you and I can convince him it’ll work. But if I can come up with the weapons for them, you have to come up with the officers to train them, because without that, we might as well just drop any rifles we can give them into Hsing-wu’s Passage, instead. And, frankly, you need to find a way to put Army of God officers into their battalions when they move up. You’ve got to, Allayn, and you know it.”
.
.
.
Answers! I got lots of answers!
(Now if I could just find the right questions.)