What impact would flying mounts have on a non-magical medieval-style world?

[Bagpuss]

On the other side, this is yet another advantage of the flying mounts. With no magic, it would be easy to slip a few of these mounts out of a besieged city at night to bring back food. Water was generally kept in wells or cisterns. They could bring in enough food to keep the garrison going.

A small garrison maybe, but I don't think you appriciate just how much food and water a city would go through in a matter of days. They would need serious heavy lifting methods to support anything other than a small garrison, balloons perhaps might work, water particulary is very heavy.

 

[Endur]

Not Mounts

My recommendation is to solve the weight burden by having the flying empire not use mounts.

Instead, have intelligent flyers as the enemy. i.e. Gargoyles, Winged Elves, Giant Intelligent Eagles, etc. Some flying race where the enemy has the wings.

Then the weight issue of carrying a rider is eliminated.

With regards to flyers and missile fire, I agree that, all other things being equal, a land army is likely to have superior numbers to a flying army, so the missile fire won't inflict lots of casualties on the land army. But the simple matter of not being able to retaliate against the flying army will cause a drop of morale on the land army, and unless the troops are unusually loyal, the land army will head to cover, even if ordered not to.

 

[mmadsen]

If you are flying that high, you aren't hitting crap if they disperse.

How high do you think "that high" is? A longbow can only launch an arrow a few hundred yards (horizontally); I doubt it could shoot straight up more than 200 yards. The aerial cavalry doesn't have to fly high enough to avoid WWII-era ack-ack; it only has to fly a few hundred yards up -- and that height adds to the energy of any missiles shot down.

As I discussed above quite extensively, you need to be able to concentrate arrow fire for it to be miltarily effective.

You need to be able to concentrate arrow fire to win a decisive battle. You can be militarily effective without winning a big, set-piece battle.

The mongol archers wouldn't have been decisive either against a competent foe.

Hoooh, boy...

The more like a skirmish your battle resembles, the more favored the mongol raider is.

I DO think the air cav as supreme geurilla raiders is the killer app though. There is no real effective defence against that in the long term. The only defence is a good and fast offence to that sort of strategy - or more of the same right back at 'em (rival air forces).

That's the point. They can hit any non-hardened target at will, and they can attack with little threat from below. If they have a flying base, then they don't have to fear a ground-based attack at all.

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

We have such a kingdom in our "game world"

We have over the years in different campaigns introduced several kingdoms that have a dozen or so beast rider/scouts. They are very expensive to keep and dangerous if one gets out and hunts on its own, We usually will use Griffons or hippogriffs, for humans and giant eagles or the like with elves. Most kingdoms that have beast riders must pay them handsomely several hundreds a month per. Or if evil lord = they have enslaved them by holding family hostage or threatening to destroy home community if they dont serve x amount of time a year etc.

If you are trying to introduce a kingdom of a lot of beast riders they will be the envy of any that know of them and must safeguard against....besides the dirt armies will no doubt have a plan to fight them tactically speaking, ballists , long bow archers with far shot what ever.....a couple of good shots down comes birdy!

Thats why we use them for scouts, they just dont serve as a realistic good tactical threat providing your enemy is expecting them........just scouts.

ThornCrest

 

[NewJeffCTHome]

How high do you think "that high" is? A longbow can only launch an arrow a few hundred yards (horizontally); I doubt it could shoot straight up more than 200 yards. The aerial cavalry doesn't have to fly high enough to avoid WWII-era ack-ack; it only has to fly a few hundred yards up -- and that height adds to the energy of any missiles shot down.

You need to be able to concentrate arrow fire to win a decisive battle. You can be militarily effective without winning a big, set-piece battle.

Hoooh, boy...

That's the point. They can hit any non-hardened target at will, and they can attack with little threat from below. If they have a flying base, then they don't have to fear a ground-based attack at all.

First off, like I said earlier, if the leaders on the ground are halfway competent, they will likely have at least some limited air defenses already prepared. According to the original poster, the sky kingdom has already dealt with the ground folks and was on a friendly basis with them until a greedy new king came along. Now, the ground folks are probably a bit in awe of the sky kingdom, but any competent military leader will say, "well, they are nice to us now, but what about tomorrow?" and at least covertly prepare defenses against a possible aerial attack.

Firing an arrow from horseback takes a lot of practice and is still generally a lot harder than firing an arrow from on foot. In a strictly missile battle, 100 archers on foot will usually win out against 100 horse mounted archers, as long as the bows and arrows are equal and the 100 foot guys are not novices fighting against veterans of the Russian steppes. Firing arrows from a flying mount adds a whole extra level to the difficulty - firing straight down - as somebody mentioned above - involves leaning out over the horses wing or leaning back over the horses wing. Or, it involves the pegasus or eagle being flying straight up or straight down. Not exactly an easy shot.

The mass phalanx of pikes that Alexander the Great used (I did not see the movie...) was partly designed to deflect incoming arrows with the way they held their pikes. Now, if they know a possible air attack is coming, they maybe wear armor that protects their heads and shoulders and allow that their pikes will prevent the pegasi from physically engaging them.

Back to the original post - I don't believe he said anything about archers on pegasi. They specifically said knights in shining armor mounted on pegasi charging land based troops. If the pegasi were merely a part of the sky kingdoms army, then they can be used to great effect, assuming the sky kingdom can get their foot soldiers down onto the ground.