Way back when I made a quick little promo video for 'redcoats fighting a dragon' but it was just to promote a poster design I commissioned. It was only a few minutes long, it didn't actually go into anything beyond a little story.
By the Napoleonic era, the technology for submersibles and undersea mines existed. The real test is whether standard artillery of the time could puncture a cephalopod creature's carapace.
How long do you think it would take some bright spark to combine one of those new-fangled pocket watches, a flintlock mechanism, and a carefully sealed cask of powder into the world's first depth bomb?
Considering the fact that Neptune surrendered his Empire of the sea to Britain in 1805, I'm guessing it means that the kraken is now part of the Royal Navy
“The dragon has a limited amount of fire it can breathe in a day, so after grounding it, I sent wave after wave of my own men at it until it became exhausted. Then I personally shot it with a cannon.” (Twirls impeccably waxed mustache)
@@BrandonF Use lancers as bait... As in the lancers would attack the hatchlings, the grenadiers and sappers would destroy the eggs, and the hussars would lure the angry reptile into a full battery of quicklime shot and bursting shot.
There is a book series that explores the ideas of Dragons in the Napoleonic wars, being employed as an air force. Naomi Novik’s “Temeraire” series. I like to describe it as Master and Commander meets How To Train Your Dragon. It delves quite well into the geopolitical consequences as well as the Napoleonic wars themselves, but centres on the main character, a Royal Navy Captain roped into service with the British Aerial Corps. Dragons are employed almost as ships, with crews of riflemen shooting from them as they provide mobile firepower. Different “weight classes” and not all dragons being capable of breathing fire leads to, as on the sea, strengths and weaknesses between each type, but also each nation’s particular dragon species. Typically, forts, ships and armies equip themselves with “pepper guns”, skyward facing cannons that fire a special kind of canister shot at an overhead dragon. The third book, “Black Powder War”, depicts the French invasion of Prussia, and gives a pretty good account of what a Birds Eye view of Napoleonic Warfare may have looked like, with dragons of course.
There’s two things I think people forget about it: #1. Humans, ever since prehistory, has been super creative at taking down megafauna. Making Mammoths fall into pitfall traps, making bison shove each other off cliffs, whale hunting, creating certain spears to be thrown from a farther distance have all existed, We have been able to hunt larger animals that are so much heavier and more deadlier than us. Plus, humans tend to fear large predators and unfortunately typically try to wipe them out to defend livestock or out of fear (just look at how European colonialists practically wiped out the gray wolf and grizzly bear populations from their native ranges when arriving in North America). Dragons, if they existed, would probably be wiped out over centuries and go extinct before the Napoleonic Wars due to the fact they would be viewed as the ultimate pest or enemy. #2. People often forget about how deadly Napleonic weaponry was. Just look at the effects that grapeshot has on the body… a dragon’s wings would be absolutely shredded.
I don't think we would fight them. Probably, we would kill all of their natural prey and make nesting impossible. We're clever, but a flying fire breathing sentient monster is probably beyond what we can handle until the late 19th century.
We can take down megafauna due to our teamwork, a military is a large body of organized cooperative units, that alone could wipe out an entire ecosystem.
Volley fire would end dragons. Dragoon pistols would kite dragons endlessly while being relatively cheap to train and equip Unless the dragons have magical metal skin
The scary thing about fire is the way it affects people in enclosed spaces like bunkers, forts and basements. It's counterintuitive, but inside is where you want to avoid being when a dragon is attacking.
In the book 'The Origin of War' by Arther Ferrill, it ends with the hypothetical question of Alexander the Great fighting Waterloo. It compares the usage of skirmishers, cavalry and heavy infantry. Now that's what I'd like to see.
Temeraire series does exactly this. One of the main themes is the dragons realizing they are militarily important enough that the British Empire would lose to Napoleon if they just refused to fight. They used this to demand political representation and rights, such as actually being paid a wage.
It compares them to slaves several times, and it’s actually a quite good comparison. While the dragons aren’t subjected to brutal punishments, they are treated as animals despite being highly intelligent. If one of them is unable to fight, they are simply left in a breeding ground where they are forced to mate with each other and otherwise left alone with nothing to do. Temeraire even experiences this in the fifth book, and it’s shown to be awful for him. And the British system is shown to be one of the better non-free systems; Russia are even worse, to the point of starving dragons who refuse to breed (it’s arguably institutional rape, whereas at least the British dragons can refuse).
I guess I have three problems with this plan. One: It goes against doctrine, which may force an army to rewrite its playbook on the fly. That's risky as hell. Two: The dragon has the initative throughout most of the fight. It can withdraw at any time after wasting most of batteries, heal up, and come back when you're in camp. Three: The bait is pretty much unguarded once the Forlorn Hope withdraw. What's to stop the dragon absconding with the bait once the batteries are toast? Also, great video. Love the empirical angle and studiousness. Well done!
I remember in the Temeraire books, they use “pepper guns” to fend off dragons. They have cannons specially designed to aim upward and fire charges filled with irritating chemicals that explode like flak rounds. The cloud of “pepper” is too irritating for dragons to risk flying through without becoming temporarily blind and distracted. Which might not sound like much, but it degrades their fighting ability and makes them very vulnerable to further gunfire, or being pounced on by an enemy dragon
You need to read the TEMERAIRE series. It is honestly one of the most well done portrayer’s of historical fantasy when it comes to this topic. It’s effectively the Napoleonic wars with the addition of dragons. And I cannot recommend that enough. The series is made by Naomi Novik and the first book is called his Majesty’s dragon.
Hah, this reminds me of an RPG scenario I ran in which an 18th century army was tasked with confronting a "Superman" style [near invulnerable] superhero. The superhuman was lured into a trap that included huge artillery batteries, sapping tunnels, mines, and things like that.
This reminds of a custom battle I did in Shogun 2 where I got Portuguese tercios vs Katana heros which are just people who are really skilled and famed with Katan, they died instantly
If we're talking a LotR Smaug-level dragon, there's no contest. A dragon in that era is essentially a super weapon. Fast, can fly, fire breathing, its dragon scales are essentially steel plating, very intelligent, extremely strong. I actually think most men would simply shit their pants and run away from it. Once they see entire swathes of ranks being incinerated within seconds, moral is absolutely gone
Hey, if a single arrow to an exposed bit of flesh can take down Smaug, I'm sure that the Household Division could make it happen! Just so long as there's some kind of old-timey, very English, poetic way of making it happen!
@@BrandonF 100.000 muskets, even only a fraction at once, would arguably be a lot of battering for even dragonscales to endure for long, even if there's no exposed flesh.
@@widewan7585 A lucky hit on part of the supporting structure for the wings would be an instant shoot-down, absolutely. Luck is the problem with that, of course since unlike standard musketry, you can't just throw twenty thousand cannonballs at the problem and hope one rolls 'Bard' :p
@@BrandonF Well a giant ballista bolt from some sort of fantasy mega skorpion. The problem would be hitting it. I am just thinking of how hard it was for even WW2 AA to hit aircraft at all. Doing the same with a napoleonic cannon is going to be a challenge.
That's eight average-sized adult T-Rexes lined up nose-to-tail. An Airbus A380 is just 73m. I think even an army who marched against enemy grapeshot without flinching would take one look at that thing incinerating and eating men and collectively shit itself and flee.
I think you underestimate how quickly a dragon's wings would lose their lift capacity given a few holes in the membrane. Musket balls may not do much damage in small numbers, but anything larger caliber is a different story. And since it wouldn't be able to fly on one wing alone, all it would take (in my baseless opinion) is a couple high caliber cannon rounds, or even a single well-placed chain shot if it made contact at the ideal angle, on a single wing to effectively ground a dragon.
Yes, if your can hit a fast moving flying target with a half ton tube of metal you need to point by hand. And you are assuming that a musket round would pierce the skin when shot upwards. But actually the worst part, is fear, trained soldiers shat their pants and ran for the hills from the trembling of the ground under a unit of horses, a dragon tho? It makes you feel like a rabbit staring at a gigantic eagle, people panicked mid combat, forgetting to shoot before reloading again fighting men, imagine fighting something so large, the sound of wings like war drums in the distance growing in strength into a cannonade that can suddenly go silent. Impossibly fast, but worse, intelligent. Imagine the burning hell, people running scared, veterans trying desperately to land a shot, and amidst the smoke you hear it taunting you, laughing, gleeful in the slaughter. Who wouldn’t run?
Right, grounding a dragon is key. The one time my party was able to take one down in D&D was through concentrated ice spells to the wings. I think some canister or grape aimed in the general direction would help a lot in making them drop from the sky.
I recommend the excellent Temeraire series. 9 Books with all kinds of conventional and unconventional warfare in it featuring dragons in the Napoleonic era. The books also have a great emphasis on supply chains, something that a lot of fiction just leaves out. Good stuff.
Enjoyed this thought provoking discussion. In 1981 the Napoleonic players and Fantasy players pondered over a battle between a Napoleonic army and a wizard. But closer to topic there is a account of a more American Revolutionary army group fighting a dragon sort of monster but at least not fire armed, the Jersey Devil. Would if possibly ground the Dragon it would be trying to get away and would let loose on it horse artillery, think Napoleonic Artillery would do great damage to a Dragon
"How effective is a Panzerfaust against a Troll, Heinz" is a tractics/D&D scenario that appeared in the early Dragon magazines, back in the late 70's IIRC.
Actually Napoleon's brother ( Joseph Bonaparte) actually was part of a battle that shot the devil with a cannon shot - after facing Joseph, the beast was never seen in those parts.
@@Bothrops_Asper_89 that is where Napoleon's bother was at the time, with Decatur. So you would have two "hero's" - an American patriot and a French one fighting the dragon.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik is basically dragons being used in the Napoleonic wars. Counter tactics depend greatly on the size/weight category of the dragon in question. Pepper guns (Upward facing cannons/mortars filled with irritants to damage the dragon's enhanced senses) are effective on all sizes but lack any lethal effect. ( One could theoretically load it with grapeshot of a higher than normal caliber) Line infantry is more or less ineffective when facing dragons above lightweight due to scale thickness and the amount of muscle behind it. (Wings excluded of course) Categories as follows from smallest to largest, Ultra-light/courier (Normally only big enough for a single rider) Lightweight (1 captain + a handful of crew) Medium weight,this one has some subclasses (1 captain + around a dozen crew or more depending on body shape) Heavyweight ( More or less the size of a frigate with a crew to match,The dragon the series is named for is named after HMS Temeraire and in the final book is around the size of said ship.) Musket fire is only lethal to the first two outside of weakspot hits. Other than that the standard tactic for line infantry is to fire every musket in the line at the wings or at the same limb. When developing tactics in this kind of scenario one has to consider the dragon's level of intelligence. In Temeraire, dragons are just as intelligent as humans and can talk and strategize. But there is one major weakness, European dragons are very overprotective of their captain. Capture the captian and the dragon will do what ever you tell it to,but do not kill the captain unless you can kill the dragon in short order as dragons tend to frenzy when the captain dies in battle. Overall the dragons are generally perceived like living ships that can fly,capture is preferable to destruction. This leads to a crazy tactic of flying directly above another dragon and dropping soldiers directly onto the back of the dragon below, this is called out as crazy in the series yet is done. After all once you are on the enemy dragon you have no way off unless you capture the captain and the crew is generally well armed and trained against such attacks as they also act as bodyguards to the captain. Most dragons also lack a breath attack,some can spit venom and some spray acid, firebreath is very rare but very valuable. Some dragon species also have natural night vision while others lack it.
My fantasy worldbuilding pet project has this exact scenario in one of its time periods, and before I watch the video to get your thoughts I want to comment on what I thought about it: Gunpowder technology seriously weakened the military signifiance of Dragons and, while they certainly didn't immediately become obsolete, it signified the start of a long and humiliating decline. Ordinary ground-based men and women had tactics to defeat Dragons before but they were always risky and extremely bloody, taking massive losses to just kill one single Dragon. Firearms and cannon changed that. The main advantage was in how fast a bullet moves, making it far easier to target the wings. A single hit won't do much, but an entire regiment's worth of muskets hitting a Dragon's wings will shred them to pieces and disable their flight. Once grounded, their massive bodies would be trivially easy targets for artillery, which could punch through the scales even at long range. Of course, a lucky shot from artillery could also take out a Dragon in one hit without having to ground it, but this was rare as cannon obviously have a hard time tracking a flying target. The Dragons weren't idle and developed their tactics to try and counter gunpowder weapons. They learnt to never fly directly at an artillery position - instead zig-zagging and flying perpendicularly to it - and were forced to perform risky dive-bomb manoeuvres, closing up their wings to rapidly dive and present a smaller target and only opening them up at the last possible moment. A few Dragons cocked this up and face-planted into the target they were trying to attack, which in fairness also did pretty catastrophic damage. Many Dragons stopped trying to use their natural strength and fire-breath completely, and instead exploited their flying ability, going higher than the effective range of a musket and dropping heavy stuff onto their target. As the Dragons in my world are intelligent, and they were just one element in a war that was really primarily between humans, they also got humans to make large grenades, incendiary bombs and huge ceramic jars full of metal shards that they would drop onto the enemy. This was actually where they proved most powerful, and it was only by essentially abandoning what made them Dragons and becoming fantasy bomber planes that they remained militarily relevant, as there was very little a Napoleonic-era (or, in my case, slightly beyond Napoleonic) army could do about this.
Should the dragons also just burn everything they can? Not only they could attack with the smoke as their cover if the humans were anywhere near something that burns the dragons could just make huge fires, burning every town field and forest
@@taistelusammakko5088 Evil, monstrous or animalistic dragons whose objective genuinely is "kill all humans" (or non-dragon creatures, in a fantasy setting with non-human intelligent species) would possibly do this so long as it's not in the area they source their food from. Dragons need to eat too, and those fields, forests and human farmers with their livestock provide a food supply that the dragons themselves need. It goes without saying that you don't win the war if you burn your means of survival to ash. Without them, the dragons have to rely on hunting and gathering, which is far less secure as a food source and can only support a tiny population. If the dragon is intelligent enough to recognise it, it will want humans as subjects or slaves, not corpses. With my dragons, they have specific political objectives they're trying to achieve (again, they're participants in a war that is primarily between humans, it's not a pure dragons vs humans situation) and destroying the lands of non-dragons doesn't lead to victory in any way - their aim isn't to slaughter, it's to conquer. They'd not just be destroying their food source, they'd also be destroying their reputation, as their non-dragon allies will turn on them very fast if they see them indiscriminately burning, and it's likely nobody would ever trust them again. In a world where the military power of dragons is quickly declining and they can only maintain relevancy by utilising non-dragon allies, this cannot be allowed to happen.
The Bull Dragon from A Reign of Fire does something similar. It learns to ambush at night and takes down a heavily armed force by doing hit and run attacks, strafing and circling while breathing fire.
Obligatory recommendation for the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The Napoleonic Wars, but with Dragons, its a fun read; nine books long, but it reads very fast.
The book series Temeraire is exactly this! An absolutely fantastic couple of books that also cover the politics and societal aspects of dragons. Highest recommendation for them!
The mythical dragon is tamed, like a living airship, manned like a galleon with Napoleonic troops on its back to repel boarders who seek to take control of the dragon. That's the idea behind Naomi Novik's Temeraire book series. A great idea for a ttrpg.
Because advancement of human weaponry and tactics in napoleonic era will definitely take down traditional medieval fantasy dragons, it might make more sense dragons will also evolve to industrial fantasy dragons where they can fire cannons instead of just fire, keeping up with the times you know?
@@muhammadfaqihalazhar8443 Interesting, looks like the dragons isn't evolving at all, rather they're extinct and now being replaced by man made steam-powered dragon that fires cannons
For the anecdote, there's also the Chaos Cyber-Dracolich of Destruction, also nicknamed "El Bourrinador " or with its scientific name "Draco Grosbillis Terminus". -Asp Explorer.
I once played in a DnD campaign in a pseudo-Napoleonic setting. Unfortunately due to scheduling issues the campaign died too early for us to get to any dragons, but I really enjoyed the combination of fantasy and long-18th century-style aesthetics and technology. I wish more fantasy would explore settings inspired by historical periods outside the middle ages (and to a lesser extent the Victorian Era, which seems to be the only other historical period fantasy settings draw from, probably owing to steampunk), it's such a breath of fresh air with how standard medieval-esque settings are to the genre lol
Bravo! I've seen the topic brought up before, but usually it just devolved into arguments over 'is dragon bulletproof'. In contrast, this is very well thought through and what I'd consider an excellent guide to handling the absolute worst case scenario: The Smaugs or Ancalagons of the world which admittedly are the sort of beast you would bother mobilising an entire field army for. The last stage with the use of cavalry is straight out of the Silmarilion, where Fingon leads a company of horse to defeat Glaurung, and indeed probably would have been a better solution to that which Fingon employed as his arm's length mounted archery allowed the young Glaurung to run away. As I said though, this is probably the worst case, a fire drake at the peak of its powers. Let us not waste time sending the army against a swamp dragon hailing from the Discworld (the poor thing would probably self-destruct should a single man rush it with a bayonet), but I may as well weigh in on the two other kinds of dragon native to Arda for the sake of completionism, as that is a setting I am very familiar with. Most dragons there aren't Smaug or Ancalagon, but rather Glaurungs or Scathas. That is to say, worms and cold drakes: Wingless worms like Glaurung would essentially allow skipping the initial steps intended to ground the beast, and would make large, lumbering (when adult) targets which a horse could easily outrun, and probably an infantryman with a little luck on his side. We see an adult Glaurung defeated in open battle by Dwarven infantry, whose armour and shields are able to withstand his fire. His claws and teeth not so much, and the victory comes at great cost. This gives a good benchmark for the sort of opposition the cavalry might be facing when applying the final stage of the video's doctrine, and quite possibly the horsemen would lose less than expected due to their mobility against the massive opponent. Against a wingless but still fire breathing dragon, it may be best to forego the strongpoints and instead move immediately to a battle of manoeuvre to take advantage of that critical weakness, potentially doing away with the infantry entirely as they may serve simply to inflate the losses suffered. As for the Scatha model of cold drake, these dragons can fly but have no fire breath (nor any ice breath, as some assume from the name). As such, the dragon would be limited to melee attacks where an infantry square might prove a substantial opponent, as it would have to expose its underbelly on any sweeping pass (assuming stamina is not a concern for flight and the dragon is not so stupid or proud as to try to brawl), where massed volleys could be aimed at close range into the joints, groin or head with good expectations of accuracy so long as the men are not panicking overmuch. Which they quite possibly might be if a dragon is swooping at them. It might be expected that the strongpoints at the beginning of the battleplan would work very well here as the dragon would have to manually tear into them, buying enough time that the men inside could escape or else might be able to use their swivel guns or else jam a musket's barrel directly into a gap in the scales and fire, dealing lethal damage. This would take a degree of heroism, though I'm not entirely sure if it would cross the line for the scenario as similarly brave deeds are rare but far from unknown against tanks in later years. Otherwise as before, the tactics following through should the forlorn hope fail would remain effective and be easier to perform without fire in the mix, though there would be no static moment of fire breathing to exploit for aim.
This is exactly up my alley. I'm actually working on my own TTRPG set in a world inspired by the long 18th century with supernatural elements, though the tone is more one of high adventure than cosmic horror. Can't wait to give Archterica a look!
This reminds me of the Roman Legion vs Marine platoon themes from Binkov's battleground videos on this Fanciful yet fun. I like the referce to the US version of Godzilla in the late 1990's.
Since the "Temeraire" Series by Naomi Novik revolves around a Napoleonic War with dragons being employed by the various sides i would be interested in your thoughts on the series in regards to its portrayal of the period, assuming you are aware of it. Especially what your thoughts on the tactics employed by the dragonriders are (dropping grenades on infantry, airlifting artillery to strategic positions, etc.)
Reading suggestion... in French (I doubt it has ever been translated): one of my all-time favorite books is *Les Soldats de la Mer* by Yves and Ada Rémy. It's a great collection of horror/sci-fi stories set in a very, very Napoleonic-inspired world, with most characters being related to warfare in one way or another. It's an absolute masterpiece, which should be way more famous than it is.
Here's a quote: - Qu'est-ce que vous avez aujourd'hui , mon garçon ? Je ne vous ai jamais connu si agressif. - Je suis las, général. Trop de batailles. Trop de shakos dans les fossés, trop de talpacks sur les eaux des marais, trop de casques dans les champs, trop de bonnets ensanglantés, et des toques et des casquettes et des képis et des chevaux morts et des équipages ruinés. La guerre est triste. - La guerre est belle. - La guerre est triste. - Silence, mon garçon ! Je suis un petit bonhomme graisseux et probablement assez dégoûtant. Je suis habillé comme un paltoquet et vous qui avez l'élégance d'un épouvantail, n'en manquez certes pas à mes côtés, mais je connais la beauté des bataillons en marche, la grandeur d'un escadron qui charge, l'incomparable, le vertigineux décor de la guerre. - Je connais aussi les quatre armées qu'elle laisse sur ses champs de bataille, une armée de morts, une armée de pleureuses, une armée de bandits et une armée de pauvres.
Love this, you should do more of this, maybe Napoleonic Tactics vs Warhammer fantasy or Napoleonic Tactics vs a Modern army (I know that one would be silly one but it would be a interesting hypothetical)
Punt guns, mounted at an angle, pre-loaded and positioned in their dozens to guard all angles of approach, while wall guns with high angle mounts and removable breech blocks provide extra coverage with a flexible high rate of fire as well as modified Congreve rockets designed to explode in the air filled with shrapnel.
As much as I love Dungeons and Dragons, I do wish there is more early modern and Napoleonic fantasy RPGs. Although bows and polearms are cool, so are muskets and cannons, with star fortresses and redoubts, these were the successors to castles. It would also be more awesome to see more maritime based adventures, with ships-of-the-line and frigates, and to see all of this tech versus magic square against each other, moreover, I do like the hypotheticals of gunpowder units versus dragons and monsters, by the way, Osprey Games of Osprey Publishing known for military books, actually has some RPGs, including medieval fantasy, I recommend Frostgrave.
There are just so many variables in the design of the dragon to make a definite conclusion. If one goes with Dragons who have a lightning attack instead of fire Humans lose the range advantage. If Dragons are smart like humans or even smarter they can out think humans. If Dragons have Minions, Servants, their own States with plenty of Humans serving them they can field their own armies etc. Still a great topic to discuss. Love it.
I've always enjoyed your content in the utmost of solitudes. Today, you have provided me with a prime excuse to share your channel with my entire DND group! I shall use this as a prime excuse to justify why it would be at least possible for a Victorian gentleman and a enterprising gunslinger to take on a smaller dragon all by themselves. After all, what grapeshot and flintlock rifles do well, a maxim and a scoped lever action shall do superbly! The DM is...less inclined to share my optimism. And has stated that the cost of gunpowder alone shall drive the duo to bankruptcy.
As an author working on earlymodern period fantasy stories, by the gods thank you for making this! There is very little content for the space I'm working with
I agree this battle will play more like naval engagemen than ground one. 1; Cripple the dragons' wings (naval guns were designed to shot opwards to destroy sails). 2; Finnish him with heavy artillery. Lot depends on if this is one time freak occurence or dradons are common to attack settlements.
They could develop a type of Napoleonic flak rounds for the various cannon and mortars. Explosive shells with the fuses cut to certain lengths (depending on the cannon/mortar's arc) so that they detonate at certain altitudes. And you'd need to make new carriages/mounts for the pieces so you can raise/lower them to more extreme angles.
I had the thought that cannon could be loaded with the reverse of chain shot, that being a much smaller sphere of iron attached to many lengths of chain wound around it, each bearing a hook at the end. The idea is that, once fired, the sphere would occupy a much larger volume due to the chains unfurling in flight, with the hooks digging into and snagging upon the dragon (making sure they unfurl due to the chains might be unreliable). Once downed men upon horses could cast similar chains over the dragon and ride away radially to pin it.
Something I thought about a few days ago is how much I'd love for a game to be set somewhere like early 19th century France, with gameplay some what like a Zelda game. I think the period appropriate clothing, architecture and countryside would be a breath of fresh air for action adventure games. The Duellists comes to mind as inspiration for that.
the British toyed with this briefly to fight the French Balloon corps, but when the balloon corps was disbanded, so did the British attempt at AA guns.
@@bfastje en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Aerostatic_Corps as for the anti-aircraft? that was more from propaganda posters of the period thinking that old Napoleon was going to fly himself across the channel. The author of the poster suggested to mount small navel guns (very small ones) on batteries in order to stop an air-born invasion. The Admiralty just laughed at it and just published it as a way to ridicule the French and spur up recruitment into the navy to stop Napoleon.
There's a book series called the Temeraire series that is basically about the Napoleonic Era, but Dragons exist and basically act as the Air Force. It's by Naomi Novik and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves history, Master and Commander or Dragons.
If you all would like to see fantasy in the napoleonic era, it is YA but there’s a book series by the name of The Shadow Histories written by H. G. Parry. The first book is called A Declaration of The Rights of Magicians. It has amazing world-building and there may be some fantasy monsters helping Napoleon!
Glad to see I'm not the only madman who think of this warhammer-ish matches. Roman legions vs zombie hordes, medieval armies vs dragons, napoleonic reggiments vs giants...
Blücher would have ordered his Prussian Line Infantry to Attack with fixed bayonetts....and pray for any kind of Success and of course curse Bernadotte loudly for never reaching the Battlefield with the Dragon in time...But beside this you really present a wonderful and convincing scenario
Like you, I would also try to ground the dragon down, but then shoot it with a grand battery. I don't think the heaviest of scales can withstand a 12+ pounder shot. But I also miss the use of rocket artillery. That can potentially fire higher into the air. And, while mostly inaccurate, can be a distractor as well as causing some minor damage.
This scenario reminds me a lot of the British response to the Martians in the HG Wells 'War of the Worlds'. Infantry get torched, artillery has to be hidden and more or less gets one shot so they had better make it count.
grape shot and canister shot seems like the best option against a dragon. the large amount of projectiles creating a cone of denial in the air the dragon would have to avoid if it doesn't want its weak points to eventually be hit .
You could also in theory lure it into range of mortar fire. Mortars falling from above will without a doubt surprise it but get it into suicidal range, you can smack it from below at point blank range! The scales will be smashed for sure as well as bone.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik is a very relevant book series to this video. It’s dragons during the Napoleonic wars and is my second ever favorite series.
Setting up on the leeward side of a mountain range could help, as it would more or less mean that the dragon has to deal with constant downdrafts and turbulence. On the other hand, those areas tend to be quite dry and fire can spread easily, so maybe doing a controlled burn before hand.
Shockingly, this was uploaded as I write the game design document for a project where this could be a possibility. Funny coincidence ^^. I look forward to watching, I'm sure it will be a great video as always, Brandon! Keep up the great work.
Mortars/howitzers at maximum elevation (rear facing to approaching dragon to allow for firing delay) scattered among some tempting targets. Low flying dragon breathes fire all over them, firing explosive shells into it's own soft underbelly. Or just get Rifleman Plunkett to go all Bard the Archer on it's ass.
Creatures project things from their bodies at some surprising velocities when it is important. Sharks for instance have evolved to shoot their poo several metres through water. (as there is the concern that scent markers from their carnivorous diet, and minor internal injuries from constantly swallowing teeth may result in another shark biting them on the arse.)
Great ideas! For the gun emplacements I plan to abandon I would but a barrel of gunpowder in a box and fill the box with cannonballs and shot. At close range the dragon fire should ignite the powder barrels and send cannonballs in all directions. 🔥
Reminds me of my current d&d campaign. It is set in a fantasy world where it is the dawn of the steam age; there are paddle wheelers and steam sail hybrids sailing about; the nations use napoleonic tactics as my Mid-Atlantic US/ France/ Britain mixed nation has developed anti-dragon artillery (flak) to shoot down dragons. That or rockets. Also, dragon's are quite rare in my setting and the last dragon attack was over a century ago so a black dragon attack has come at a shock to the nation. I also borrowed *kome's winged fusiliers so having winged humanoids armed with rifles helps a lot.
Late to the video but I think we could make few improvements to the battle plan. For starters ROCKETS and lots of them. To massively increase our artillery park despite their inaccuracy. Quantity has quality of it's own. Secondly, mine those strong points and dug in batteries with fougases filled with everything you can find. For when inevitably the dragon will burn those stations. He's for a nasty surprise. Third, forget cavalry pistols and sabers. Give them bags of grenades and have them toss them at the grounded dragon. Could even have some string attached to increase range in slingshot style. Fourth exchange cavalry lances to that with detachable barbed tip with powder charge/grenade fixed to it. Detonated via a lanyard pulled while riding away. The nature of phosphorus and sulfur we know in matches was known from the later half of the XVII century. Friction detonator it is. Finish it of 40k cavalry/Attack on Titan style.
if you like gimmicky alt-history/ahistoric scenarios such as this, if you haven't already, consider reading The Red Baron VS Mothman, really entertaining story
19:10 As to the gunners here. You would want drilled crack gun teams for this roll. Part of the reason British ships did so well in this era is their experienced + well drilled gunnery .... I have heard / read a few stories about teams on ships that were very good shots. If the dragons movements could be observed+ an appropriate mimic could be created. Possibly something built above a ship... + Put in a harbor when their were waves about. This would allow crack gun teams to get a feel for their target. + If they had the exact ranges like they would in a seige... This would be quite interesting. As to further developments of weapons for anti dragon rolls. Air burst canister shot. ( Possibly made to better detonate if hit with dragon fire) Increased use of mortar's. Swivel guns with air burst abilities. A less possible event could be.... If the dragons were around long enough + a high enough volume of musket fire could drive them off. This situation could increase development funding for the mitrailleuse and or the puckle gun. Essentially early gattling guns. Realistic immediately no. If not that finding ways to increase the rate of fire against an areal target.... Mini versions of the crank for horizontal movement+ crank for vertical movement turrets could be made. ( Ww2 anti air gun carages... The dragons would need to be around quite a while for these to pop up) Though the anti air gun carages would not likely function wellfor anything bigger then a 6 pounder long gun equivalent.
23:25 If this was regular infantry I would agree. Lancers would be good but. The only really good case here would be light cavalry. Pistols + Haile Shotte peics,” ( Early shot guns) Used from a caraco type of formation to lure a fallen dragon in specific directions / drive it depending on circumstances. This would give the rides the best chance to avoid direct contact with the beast.... Allowing it to be brought to a point where the queen of the battle field could do her best work. Heavy cav in this specific instance would be best suited to keeping the surroundings clear by driving off any interlopers.
I see two problems A) Dragons are highly intelligent and wise, and thus would have tactics of its own. Because of this, Dragons are also almost always powerful spellcasters, as well as having their own innate magic. B) Striking a dragon's wing, while probably painful, is ultimately useless, as dragon wings aren't large enough to support the dragon's weight, implying that their innate magic is powering their flight, and the wings are either a supplement to their actual method of flight (magic), or entirely ornamental. (Or maybe they just find big wings attractive, and thus they evolved out of sexual selection.)
I feel that it would be the most effective to focus on completely demolishing the wings of the dragon while airborne, because with such a large body gravity definitely is gonna shatter all of the bones of the thing
