Monster combined arms

So teeg, a few ideas I've been working on, combined with the rage induced by the criminal under-utilization of Wun Wun in the Bastard Bowl (pic related, nobody can give a brother a log to use as a club?) has me wondering: How would a medieval general best integrate monstrous units, like giants, into an otherwise mundane army for use against another mundane army? Assume for the sake of some story conflict/player challenge that they're not invincible and can be killed/defended against by properly armed and prepared humans. If there are any books that cover this the same way that Prince of Nothing covered integrating magic users into conventional armies, I'd love to hear about it.

I was incredibly aggravated by wun-wun in that episode. It's clear that the producers wanted to make a thematic battle focused on hopelessness and formation but they'd already gone so far as to show wun-wun wielding an enormous bow in prior episodes. They sent the heroes' single greatest tactical asset to his death for throwaway pathos when they could have got the same value by a pan over slain townsfolk in the courtyard or lopping off the giant's hand or arm. The battle could have been turned with a quickly made oversized cuirass and some ship nails through the end of a sapling or ended outright with a pike sized arrow pinning ramsay to the three guys behind him before his first shot could fall.

inb4 he died in the books. I know, but if they're gonna make changes they shouldn't be fucking stupid.

OP here, he was pretty much killed by Danys dragons, because they were so goddamn epensive budget cuts had to be made. I'm pretty sure that if the creators had made a pitch to the producers that Wun Wun was a fan favorite and could be kept on until a later emotional death moment that made more sense.

That and having him there and armed pretty much ruins the Battle of the Bastards big despair moment because he could have broken that pike phalanx on top of the shock and awe factor of a creature out of legend turning up on the enemies side.

I suppose that makes point one "Give your fantastic units the best armor and weapons you can instead of just using them like pet T-rexes". Unless they're actually just dinosaurs, in which case they are now cavalry mounts.

Make enormous longbow and a shit load of arrows

Now give it to the giant.

Well done. Now you can rapid fire long range spears at people.

Only down side is there will be less horse salvage from opposite cavalry because this shit nails the rider to the horse to the ground.

On the positive side nothings says you are not fucking around like nailing the rider to the horse to the ground.

Can you imagine how badly a formation of Giant longbowmen would fuck up a heavy cavalry wedge? English longbowmen were bad enough, but that's pretty much having Ballista Infantry that can also wreck shit in cqc. The entire front rank would go down, some immovably impaled, and destroy the momentum of everyone behind them. Phalanxes, the other tactic of choice against barbarian hordes of the kind that would turn up to the murder day festivities with giants, would still be screwed by Giant archers or a squad of armed and armored Giants in melee opening up holes in the shield wall that the barbarians could exploit. It would do a lot to balance the scales between hick tribesmen and conquering empires in history.

Not necessarily, a skilled archer could pick riders right off their horses and send them flying, especially in the early battle when commanding nobles on the best horses are out in front and closer to you.

Yeah, having a few friendly giants on your side is the sort of thing that wins fights. The only saving grace would be that they'd be harder to arm and armor. Armor and arrows for a giant archer would probably be enough spears and shields for a few dozen men.

The question is what the counter would be, outside of more numbers and bettwe equipment.

Longbowmen with armor-piercing arrows and very disciplined pike formations, but that depends on whether the enemy commander is dumb enough to let his Giants fight your elite infantry unsupported. A disorganized horde? Your infantry beat theirs anyway, so you can concentrate against the most threatening units. If they use combined-arms tactics properly and protect their valuable Super-Heavy Infantry, you're going to have a hell of a time. It's like tanks: Tanks unsupported by infantry are in a bad place, which the Philippino cavalry demonstrated during WWII when they would lure Japanese tanks away from supporting infantry, have one rider draw machine-gun fire while the rest fired pistols and shoved grenades through vision slits and down hatches. It was one of the worst defeats of a mechanized force by a cavalry force ever.

Also you have to take into account the increased range.

Generals and kings who habitually direct the fighting from a relative safe distance from where they can see everything will suddenly find spears covered in burning pitch landing on or around them.

Against something the size of Wun-Wun properly armed and armoured there is little that will do anything of note save siege equipment.

Have to resort to underhanded shit like poison and stabbing him in the neck as he sleeps.

You'd have dedicated units of human bowmen/crossbowmen with heavier weapons shooting projectiles with longer and larger tips, probably, so to inflict nasty wounds even to a giant target. The problem is, the giants would probably outrange you.
In melee, big pikes. Again, you have a problem of range since the giant may as well be carrying a giant-sized polearm and just fuck you over.

I do like this idea of using giants as bowmen as opposed to berserkers. Their superior strength would essentially make them more mobile ballistae.

The giant's weaknesses seem to lie in speed (or maybe agility, I should say), being a big target, and intelligence (maybe).

So best uses WOULD probably be as artillery or front-line units - heavily armored with huge shields and extremely long halberds or the like to clear out defending troops. Having them try to flank, or allowing them to get surrounded would be the worst ideas.

Giants as Longbowmen makes a lot of sense for multiple reasons. The first is that training a longbowman can take a lot of time regardless of size, so training a giant one is more efficient. It's also a lower risk role, and will typically need less metal for their weapons. It also has the bonus that during times of peace, giants will be great hunters, since they'll easily kill any animal in the woods in a single shot, and be able to haul them back to town. Giant sells the meat to the village to afford a more filling and diverse diet, village gets a bunch of meat and fur more efficiently.

Using them as frontlines seems like a bit of a waste, as they're more likely to get bogged down or surrounded. Breaking a formation of piles can be just as easy when you're longbowing harpoons.

Let's bear in mind that historical armies have used monstrous creatures before, in the form of elephants, either as shock cavalry or firing platforms.
I suspect that any fantasy deployment of something like giants would follow a similar course. They would be incredibly effective against inexperienced enemies who had never encountered them before. With growing experience however, they could very easily be countered, to the point that they might eventually become a liability to the army deploying them. A volley of javelins from a rapidly dispersing formation would probably put paid to any charge from a giant. Adding armour certainly helps, but ultimately a disciplined infantry unit, or a sufficiently mobile cavalry force will always have the upper hand.
In reality, elephants were usually used once the main battle was largely decided. Sources aren't clear, but they probably tended to be deployed against wavering positions to establish routs. Or just existed as a sign if an armies prestige and power. Giants or other large creatures could conceivably perform a similar role. Horses would also be terrified of them, so they might firm an effective anti-cavalry role , on breaking charges. As with all things big and slow, their problems begin to arise when facing light, mobile formations in loose order.

The idea of giants as artillary is a bit suspect though. What could a giant long bowman do that a trained scorpion crew couldn't? Wouldn't trained artillaryists be both more replaceable and more reliable that a massive dude and his bow?

There's actually not much evidence that even the most powerful warbows did any-fucking-thing to a fully armoured knight.
The typical example of the battle of Agincourt largely saw a shitload of armoured knights getting unhorsed in shitty terrain, and then taken prisoner in the ensuing melee, but not dying in droves to arrows.
What the english longbows probably did was kill horses, and outrange enemy skirmishers / archers, thus making them really fucking scary to go against for all the infantry that weren't equipped with full plates.

I'd imagine the Giant would have a better rate of fire or more force in their shots compared to a typical ballista. Having only one person needing to move it,to aim and fire also helps, since the giant can more easily turn around or strike moving targets.

And like you said, they are at big risk on the front line, so why put them there? Hold them in reserve to provide fire support, and enjoy cavalry being too scared to charge your archers with a giant nearby.

>What could a giant long bowman do that a trained scorpion crew couldn't?
Well, he'd be eminently more mobile, and probably much better at hitting moving targets, though he'd probably lack the constant reliability of a stable platform, resting on the ground.

So aside from the giant archer idea, how about having a giant throw really, really big rocks at people who get too close to shoot an arrow at?

I'd say that you'd be better off using a giant to disrupt infantry formations. It's far simpler to give him a sack of large rocks and have him fastball them into a pike formation than upsize a bow and arrows.

At that point, you've just traded the bow for a sling. It's probably about as effective though, if a bit easier on logistics.

So how would Giants work in other applications like defending from a siege or logistical work?

I personally wouldn't want Giants on my side in a defensive siege. Their advantages matter a lot less when you can have as many stationary catapults and ballistae as you want, and their melee strength only matters once the walls are breached completely. Since they also eat a lot more than the average person, you're better off sending them outside at the first sign of an enemy army approaching to siege. Have them either kill as many of the enemy as possible, or send them into the woods and have them disrupt enemy supplies. They spook horses, so it'll be hard to chase them down, and they can be put yo use eating enemy supplies instead of yours.

Logistically, a Giant can easily carry as much as a wagon, which saves you the need for the horses, though they will be eating about as much. They'll also be great at felling trees and moving lumber. If you're near woods, they can make a fort as fast as you can make a fence.

Just pray the enemy didn't bring too many siege ladders. Have the giant pull them up with the wall acting as a fulcrum, and having your soldiers kill the few that get in.

The asset that a GoT Giant would have over a war-elephant would be intelligence and tool-using: A herd of elephants cannot be trained to form a shield-wall or use spears, halberds, or ranged weapons. An elephant becomes considerably more useful if they can stand upright, hold weapons, and obey and understand commands as well as even your dumbest infantrymen. The advantage over scorpions is that they're much more mobile, would likely have a higher rate of fire, and can fight in melee if shit goes wrong, where a Scorpion would quickly become just another wagon to protect.

Logistically they would be a huge boon in peacetime, especially if they were mammoth-herders like in ASoIaF. If you had supplies for them they could effectively hold a breach in the walls against a massive enemy force, provided they have shields.

>find a bunch of over sized rocks or boulders
>Wun Wun hurls them like shot puts or hammer toss
>throwing huge spears (think Braveheart) javelin style
>a huge log with shitty long swords hammered through one end
>a shirt lashed together with discarded buckler shields for armor
>a barn door for a shied which could then be dropped on a portion of the shield wall
>a pair of barn doors could be dual wielded for a wedge or plow maneuver

I can think of nothing more moral breaking for Ramsay than a huge spear, javelin or an arrow bolting through Karstark and his horse, pinning them both to the ground, not ten feet from Ramsay

>especially if they were mammoth-herders like in ASoIaF

did Skyrim blatantly rip that off or are mammoth-herding giants a thing?

I think Skrim ripped it off. ASOIAF was the only series I know of that did it, and those books have been out a LONG time. No complaints though, because it's awesome.

You would want some sort of armor, a large club, and as many anons are saying a giant bow.

Basically you open up at range and then use the club when in melee, which is basically inevitable

Giants should be supported by skirmisher and spear infantry, the same way tanks and APCS are, allowing them to fire and fall back under the shadow of the giant. Spear support in the front protects the skirmishers and prevents the Giants from being mobbed. The giant in turn uses his huge reach to wipe out anybody that gets tangled up with the spearman.

Although I can't remember the book it was in for the life of me at the moment, one other variant that I remember was a group of giants getting access to a quarry that among other things produced slate, right before a 'normal' pitched battle.

They then proceeded to throw three-foot sheets of sharp-edged stone like frisbees, and almost routed the entire enemy army by themselves when they cut down the pikemen trying to hold the enemy's center lines.

That sounds fucking awesome. Please do sauce us if you remember.

I'd say that the hardest part of getting a giant ready for battle is getting the materials needed for their equipment.

Under the best circumstances, the giant gets the best metal armor around the legs and head, and moderate protection against arrows everywhere else. However, if you're on a tight budget, tying spare shields and wooden planks together is a viable option (just make sure to soak it in water).

Weapons would be rather easy since with their strength, they don't really need a fine weapon to use unless they want to use bows or javelins like others previously mentioned.

Hell, if we're going straight ASoIaF, Mammoth hide would work well for a basic protective layer and an arrow-stopping shield, although wood would be better. For a weapon a halberd head made into a spear-point would do, with a stone-and-wood mace as a shorter-ranged backup. That's your minimal standard, after that you can equip the best melee fighters with better armor and the best shots with bows.

Longbows with bodkin points could penetrate plate at short range, fifty meters or less, and a few were killed this way at Agincourt once they got mired down. A towering ultra-sasquatch with the strength and weight sufficient to pick up humans one-handed and rip their arms and legs off is a very different matter.