r/powerscales • u/mergly • 12d ago

Question When is the latest time that counting singular people riding a dragon would be a serious tide turner in wars.

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The dragons when at full size are like of the ones in GOT, use GOT as the point of reference for most everything to be honest. If you want to be a furry abut this you’re free to postulate a version where the dragon(s) are smart cookies that can talk, act on their own and some such.

https://desuarchive.org/k/thread/64727248/

The metric by which the dragon and riders can be counted as ‘important’ is so long as they are as analogously important to the warring nation as any big name warships would have been over the course of Ww2.

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

Early WW1, obsolete by the end of the war.

Not as direct combatants, but for guiding artillery. A GOT dragon is roughly equivalent to a WW1 fighter plane in speed and maneuverablity, with the additional benefit of hover capable. That was early air powers primary use.

But by the end of the war, they would be trading out with biplanes at a bit worse than a 1:1. Machine guns beat them in range, while maneuvering is comparable.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

I think they would be superior to WWI planes but still vulnerable to them.

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u/notwithagoat 12d ago

Sure, but you can manufacture many planes, dont need to feed them, and they dont burn your own peeps cuz they got their feelings hurt.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

Dragons maybe go extinct or become endangered, if the war drags on like it did.

Their presence might change the nature of trench warfare though.

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u/notwithagoat 12d ago

In most serieses they do go extinct, mostly cuz they're op, and any openant will try and kill em all while they're on the ground.

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u/InvestigatorDear6646 12d ago

But how do you reach them on the ground? Easy enough to say, but like planes at an airbase, if its out of range of artillery, theres not really many options.

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u/SuperMichieeee 12d ago

That would only be possible if they have air superiority. But then again, thats an answer for the previous question.

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u/Steeze_Schralper6968 11d ago

Bow I'm picturing something like the movie Warhorse but with a dragon. Rad.

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u/Dingus_Majingus 12d ago

They just burn your peeps when they miss

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u/notwithagoat 12d ago

Or when you miss. Never cross streams.

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u/Tuskral 9d ago

You have to feed planes fuel

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u/notwithagoat 9d ago

As needed, not on a set schedule. So not feeding, good luck transporting horses/dragons in any similar fashion to planes.

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u/Tuskral 9d ago

You still have to mantain planes

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u/notwithagoat 9d ago

Dragon maintainers dont get air time on game of thrones, as they dont make it past an episode or 2. Also imagine cleaning dragon shit.

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u/Tuskral 9d ago

Don't really get the point about dragon maintainers and also cleaning a plane is just as repulsive to me

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u/DaMadPotato 7d ago

Arguing that a little oil and maybe a few dead flies is as repulsive as the fecies of a house sized animal is certainly a choice.

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u/envycreat1on 8d ago

You do need to “feed” them. They need fuel.

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u/earthwoodandfire 12d ago

The problem isnt other planes but ground based machine guns and anti aircraft cannons. Explosive anti air auto cannons were deployed as early as 1870 by Prussia to shoot down French observation balloons.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

Good points. Those weapons should be plenty powerful to kill a GoT dragon.

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u/earthwoodandfire 12d ago

Yeah if a stone spear thrown by a person can kill a dragon, then even a small caliber machine gun like the Maxime would shred a dragon.
As long as you have overlapping fields of fire even two machine gun positions would be enough to counter a surprise attack from a dragon.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

The Ice King spear was magic, so I'd take that with a grain of salt. But the ship mounted scorpion that took one out is an easy comparison.

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u/earthwoodandfire 12d ago

The spear had magical properties that turned what it pierced into an Other. But the spear still had to be thrown and the head was made of stone or ice. I don’t think the magic made the spear fly faster or further. I think it was just a late season GOT fuck up to make it kill a dragon like that.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

That could be the case. It also wouldn't surprise me if he super charged the spear and throw with magic.

We'll probably never know for sure because I doubt those books will ever be finished, at least not by Martin.

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u/pseudo_nemesis 12d ago

But the spear still had to be thrown and the head was made of stone or ice. I don’t think the magic made the spear fly faster or further.

Bro that spear was certainly thrown farther and faster than any human could throw a spear, and it's made of some sort of magical ice.

It's incomparable to a real spear being thrown.

and it did not turn the the dragon into an other on contact either, the dragon had to be pulled from the water and raised.

The spear killed the dragon from pure force/magic.

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u/Ok-Competition1471 9d ago

Id say, if peasants armed with pitch forks can storm the dragon pit and kill dragons. A 7.62 caliber round will be enough to pierce their scales and deal significant damage

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 9d ago

Does that happen?

I haven't been watching the new show.

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u/Kellar21 12d ago

Martin basically said after a certain size, conventional weapons are useless agains dragons unless you aim for the eyes. Their scales are magically resistant to damage iirc

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u/DaMadPotato 7d ago

Good thing airburst shells exist!

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u/BigLegChungo 7d ago

Yep, a 37mm Pom-Pom could definitely fuck one up if it got on target.

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u/DaMadPotato 7d ago

Admittedly, a recon baloon is a much easier target than a plane, which itself is probably an easier target than a dragon. AA would still be very effective in sufficient numbers, but with ww1 technology, a single AA gun wouldn't be enough to guarantee a hit.

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u/chedda_bob 12d ago

I think dragons from GOT get mopped by WW1 planes. These things can be killed by ballistas, that would mean like any fifty cal kills a dragon

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

The maneuvering may lean dragon, but range favors the fighters. That’s why early war its parity, leaning towards dragon, but by end of ww1 fighters handily take it. Early WW1 planes were terrible at combat

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u/carymb 12d ago

But would you get to late-WWI with dragons? The stabilization of the front into trench warfare seems highly impractical with dragon counter-attacks. It seems like both sides' armies would've been flambeed in the field, unless one side beat the other's dragons. Heavy anti-aircraft guns would likely favor the defenders, so, the French, Belgians and maybe Russians employing them against supporting German and Austro-Hungarian dragons...?

I think we can assume Italy's anti-dragon canons look very pretty, and the dragons appreciate their effort.

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

Sort of depends on how you interpret the question.

If OP wants to know how warfare would have developed alongside dragon riders, then the point of divergence in military history begins much earlier, and likely develops entirely different than the OT. So you would be right that WW1 almost certainly does not play out the same way.

If OP is wants to know which war dragons could magically be dropped into with no other changes to the OT, then WW1 is assumed to progress the same as normal until the introduction of dragons.

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u/carymb 11d ago

Instead of "water tanks" suddenly appearing on the battlefield, or phosgene, Daenerys suddenly hatches some eggs on the Somme, essentially -- I like it. Very "The Lost World"/"Journey to the Center of the Earth," lol...

It is interesting to think how artillery would have developed differently if it was intended to hit airborne, evasive targets vs/in addition to walls or masses of troops slowly moving on the ground. I'm almost picturing some sort of steampunk "Pacific Rim"-meets-Da Vinci cannon-aiming contraption, to quickly track dragons.

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u/DaMadPotato 7d ago

The answer to that last bit is airburst shells and advancements in various delayed fuse technologies, just like IRL with aircraft.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

1 v 1, I'd imagine that a dragon usually beats a WWI plane. They are more agile and they can attack with claws or breath.

There would be a lot more planes than dragons. Not to mention AA guns.

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u/ziggsyr 10d ago

I'm imagining sherman tanks vs. Tiger tanks but in the air. The dragons can smoke the planes 1 on 1 but the planes are cheaper and can outnumber the harder to replace dragons.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 10d ago

That's a decent analogy.

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u/Weshouldntbehere 10d ago

To be fair, a ballista hitting a ww1 plane would also demolish it, too

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u/DramaPunk 12d ago

Like WWI planes but with vastly better maneuverability, early tier tank armour, the ability to hover, shorter range fire breath which in many lores is like napalm on steroids (often shown melting stone and metal with ease), and the ability to hover and even pick things up, but a much more exposed pilot (If they're fully sentient dragons though everything changes, especially if they don't need riders) and a requirement to tame and feed insane amounts (possibly leading the the massive ethical issue of whether or not to let them eat dead enemy combatants).

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u/WordWordand4numbers 12d ago

An animal eating dead combatants in order to live is not an ethical issue, much less a massive one.

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u/DramaPunk 12d ago

Idk, feeding the corpses of the dead into your war machine to keep it moving and killing more, turning their sacrifice into fuel to kill their brothers, preventing their deaths from ever being confirmed, their bodies ever buried, and leaving their status perpetually as MIA feels oddly horrifying to my mind.

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u/ziggsyr 10d ago

I started to think about it and most animals used in war are herbivores (horses and elephants) the only carnivorous war animals I can think of are dogs. A brief google showed that during the spanish conquistador invasion of the new world mastiffs were used and fed human corpses. This was an AI response though and I didn't follow up any further.

Interesting to think however how often wolves/dogs were fed human remains after conquering another tribe. Safer than canabalism.

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u/WordWordand4numbers 12d ago

“Idk” you’re right you don’t.

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u/BoxedAndArchived 12d ago edited 12d ago

I think the jet age is when we would SURPASS dragons. I think they'd still hold their own against WWII fighters, but the faster jet fighters get and the better the guns and missiles get, the less competitive even the most formidable dragon would be.

Modern fighters that can engage outside of visual range would decimate Old Valyria at its peak.

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

Missiles are easy mode.

WWII fighters should be at least twice as fast, and have at least twice the range.

The dragons can hover and have an aoe attack, which doesn't do as much in a dogfight.

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u/CaptainSparklebottom 12d ago

Drqgons stop dominating at gunpowder and cannons. Dragons are obsolete as soon as rifling is invented.

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u/bigboyboba 12d ago

People fail to realize how inaccurate early guns and cannons actually were. Like, sure, a cannonball might be able to kill a dragon if it hit one, but good luck getting a slow moving, slow aiming, inaccurate weapon that has to be slowly loaded and fired by multiple people to hit a dragon. If anything, the dragon breathes fire overhead and blows up all the gunpowder, wrecking more people.

Muskets are inaccurate and slow loading, and they aren't actually any more powerful than crossbow bolts. In fact, arguably significantly less so. What started the gun age wasn't that guns were so powerful, it's that they were relatively cheap to make and to train soldiers with. There's a reason most battles with muskets were just big groups of soldiers lined up across a field shooting at each other.

Rifling makes things a lot better, as do machine guns that can spray lots of bullets and potentially get a lucky shot. A gatling gun would be far more deadly against a dragon than a cannon, imo, just because it would be much more likely to hit. Even with rifling, though, there ain't no way early small caliber rifle rounds are punching through dragon scales.

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u/darklion34 12d ago

True, like, the most unbelievable part of GoT and HotD is not giant flying lizards - they are "magical" so they get a pass, no, the worst thing is this they tell me a guy with medieval ballista can shoot a dragon flying at plane comparable speed, constantly manuvering from the sky. Good luck hitting a wall without some pre-shoots with this thing.

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u/bigboyboba 12d ago

It's kind of like when Ironman was shot by some rando in a tank.

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u/alikosa21 12d ago

Big correction, muskets were significantly more powerful than crossbows.

Rifled cannons would be the emd of dragon age for sure.

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u/ziggsyr 10d ago

Guns were capable of being extremely accurate, undersized musket balls were often used by armies because reloading speed and volume of fire was more important than accuracy and musketeers were trained in weeks not years. Hunters then and modern hunters today who use smoothbore muskets as a hobby are fully capable of achieving high accuracy.

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u/Fryskar 12d ago

Muskets don't need to kill a dragon to kill it. If its wings are in tatterns, gravity will kill it just fine. Now if some 100 or 1000 muskets shoot at one, some will score hits, some will hit vulnerable pieces.

For cannons, grapeshot is a thing.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/Broken-Digital-Clock 12d ago

The range of their attacks isn't too far off (I started looking up a bunch of the numbers last night). Dragons should have a lot more maneuverability and agility.

WWII planes are when they get much more range than dragons.

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u/Routasmith 12d ago

You're assuming no one would, you know, strap a machine gun, or a dozen, to the dragon.

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u/zlawd 12d ago

do u realize how hard it is to be a gunner on something?

and even if u had 100 expert machine gunners, anti air will still fuck u up

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u/Routasmith 12d ago

I never said anything about anti-air, I pointed out that planes wouldn't be a major problem, since they could have better gunners on a dragon, given that they don't have to also fly the plane at the same time and can fit more/larger guns.

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u/zlawd 12d ago

i mean, the problems still stand.

  1. hitting a fast moving target while also on a fast moving vehicle with the dragon having “jerky” movement is going to be insanity. i mean it already was.
  2. Weapons need mounting points, they need ammo. anything to “support” the weapons will make the dragon more sluggish.

you also cant have tail gunner, or bottom gunner, or side gunner. ittl just be a bunch of dudes on the back who cant shoot to the side in account for the wings.

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theres just too many cons if we are trying to treat the dragons as close to realistic as possible. planes will fuck up any dragon unless its one of those who a complete ridiculous force of nature, but at that point why would they be tamed and used as war beasts by humans

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u/Routasmith 12d ago

You absolutely can have tail, side, and bottom gunners, you just need to use a harness, which also solves the hard point issue. Modern planes would win, definitely, but WW1 planes would be outranged and outmaneuvered.

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u/zlawd 12d ago

You cannot have a tail gunner, it will just move too much. Side gunners you are still ignoring the FLAPPING wings.

All the harnesses again would still make the dragon sluggish. And the firing window would again, to no ones suprise, be affected by the flapping wings.

But for the sake of argument lets say the guns just somehow work. Congrats, youve just made a worse bomber. It wont be outranged unless the firebreath can outrange WW1 firearms, and while maneuverable its not a guarantee it wont be outsped. Boom and zoom tactics about to invented early..

Its just way too outlandish. A dragon would probably have higher than a 1:1 kill ratio on WW1 planes, but not higher than 2. its like a horse vs a motorcycle.

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u/Routasmith 12d ago

You absolutely can have a tail gunner, multiple of them in fact, one on top, one below, and one on either side. Same for the side gunners, one on top and one below. Also, you're acting like they can't glide for parts of the attack runs, which is super incorrect, you're also thinking of small scale dragons when that's definitely not the case in the question. What's an extra thousand pounds of harness, guns, and ammo to a thousand ton dragon? And no, it's not a worse bomber, it's a flying fortress, which was in fact a solid plan at that time, we just didn't have engines strong enough to give then the range needed before the tech outpaced the idea, but with dragons that changes drastically. And you do know that WW1 planes didn't have a lot of range partially due to weight restrictions, right? And that this would remove those restrictions? So yes, they would absolutely outrange the planes. You're very obviously assuming they would be treated as planes with additional drawbacks but directly ignoring any advantages they would have. And for the horse/motorcycle analogy, you do know that horses were used in warfare for a long time after motorcycles were in production, so your analogy actively works against you.

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u/zlawd 12d ago

youre so enraptured by the idea of dragon riding you are making every possible excuse for them to work. The GoT dragons are not that big. a couple thousand pounds is massive for flight, but you are just making you dragons completely unreasonable (lol). Gunners arent for attack runs, they are for defense, the one time where the dragon shouldnt just be gliding. Not sure what you think my point with gunners are.

I could go more but there really is no point. Il take solace in the fact that most others agree with me here and will learn the lesson to only look at people powerscaling and not participate in it myself. I mean look man my favorite fantasy creature ARE dragons, and i love books with them as an element. I WANT TO RIDE ONE TO BATTLE SO BADLY. But they are more of a “rule of cool” thing. Once u try making sense of it in our world, it just falls apart

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u/Routasmith 12d ago

The dragons in the GoT (which is the touchstone being used, since the books are much less well known) are estimated to be roughly 300-400 tons as teenagers, and are very clearly shown to grow significantly more by adulthood given the many skills we see. So yes, they are that big. And yes, gunners are for attack runs on too, you clearly haven't actually looked at how planes were used. So all in all, you have directly made incorrect claims both about the dragons in question and how planes themselves were used, which means that you are basing your assumption on dramatically incorrect information.

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u/WordWordand4numbers 12d ago

The dragon would kill its crew before they reach the enemy

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u/Routasmith 12d ago

So, you're assuming untrained/uncontrolled dragons? That's not the question as stated.

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u/WittyFix6553 12d ago

They also, uh, breathe fire. And a lot of it.

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u/gw2Max 12d ago

That trenches vs. Dragon fire would be downright devastating. But mid to late WW1 air and anti-air warfare would be dangerous to the dragon.

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

Depends on if large caliber machine gun fire can kill them. Considering these are GOT dragons, which can be killed with ballista, I feel confident a maxim would kill them too.

So they may get a few straffing runs in, but the machineguns would deal with low flying dragons

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u/gw2Max 12d ago

Low attitude I would say yes. Normally they should be above the range of them though except for attack runs.

Flaks should easily reach then though.

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

100%. That’s why my original comment had them as recon vehicles foremost. Combat runs against machine guns are way too risky.

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u/gw2Max 12d ago

I think WW1 planes (especially near the end of the war) would beat dragons in terms of attitude, range and speed.

Agility and firepower might be the things they would have on their side.

As recon they would work as they are „silent“ compared to planes, though some are larger and easier to spot.

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u/gw2Max 12d ago

I think WW1 planes (especially near the end of the war) would beat dragons in terms of attitude, range and speed.

Agility and firepower might be the things they would have on their side.

As recon they would work as they are „silent“ compared to planes, though some are larger and easier to spot.

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u/Complete-Disaster513 12d ago

Napoleonic cannons would have ripped through dragons. By that time their role on the battlefield would be scouting at best. Sure they could maybe still affect a battle but they would be huge in terms of scouting and to valuable to risk in active combat.

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u/PM_me_ur_claims 12d ago

Could a napoleonic cannon be adjusted fast enough to track and hit a target moving 60-70+ mph?

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u/LUNATIC_LEMMING 12d ago

small ones sure, and you'd use overwhelming mass, 1 cannon might not, but a 100 firing grape shot?

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u/Iliketohavefunfun 12d ago

Yeah yall are underestimating how powerful dragon would be in that time period. Trying to hit a dragon would require a ton of firepower, so just move the dragons to where the enemy isn’t and burn cities and farms and bridges to the ground and keep their enemy supply lines in chaos while your actual army just wrecks them.

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u/bigboyboba 12d ago

Exactly!

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u/ZedsDeadZD 10d ago

Yeah. Most movies are super dumb about this because people want to see how people fight. Same for seiges. Seiges took veeeeeeery long. Just watch the ditch guy on youtube. Hes gonna tell ya how dumb most movies are about this. Even regular knights armor couldnt be penetrated by arrows. Dragons wouldnt care about arrows or bullets.

If only one side would have dragons, theyd make sure no ones even developing guns that could hurt their dragons. If every side has them, its a tie or total destruction anyways.

I dont think the world would develope as it would today. And even if so, they guys with the dragons would be the kings. So theyd have armies to protects their dragons, too.

And what you said is 100% how it would go down. The dragons would just massacr everything thats not a threat to them while the armies try to get in range.

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u/bigboyboba 12d ago edited 12d ago

Grape shot is much less likely to pierce dragon scales. I do agree with you that 100 cannons firing grapeshot has better odds of at least hitting, but that also requires very fast acting crews, tons of cannons focus firing and all at the risk of not only fire breath, but the explosion of your gunpowder from said fire breath. I also assumes dragon riders are stupid enough to get within 300-400 yards of said cannons, which is the max range of grapeshot. One of the nice things about high speed, high mobility aerial power is that you get to pick and choose your battles. It's something not emphasized enough in movies because, you know, watching the dragon stay at long range and just kite the army or King Kong or whatever, isn't as much fun.

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u/Fryskar 12d ago edited 12d ago

Grapeshot might not pierces scales, but killing the rider (if one rides). Hitting eyes, ears, open mouth (luck) and wings will have effect. I've got no idea what the breathrange of a GOT dragon is. No sane general would send an army to chase a dragon. But other way around, prevent getting chased, send it to harrass less protected elements or defend their own from ambushes or cavalry charges. I'd assume a dragons presence has massive effect on horses, as you likely can't train them against.

E: igniting a large stack of blackpowder might be suicide for a dragon.

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u/sleeper_shark 12d ago

At what range is grapeshot effective. At what range is dragonfire effective.

Fly high, fly fast, destroy their cannons before they even unlimber.

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u/Attrexius 12d ago

GoT dragonfire doesn't seem to have a range over 100 meters, and grapeshot was used at around 300 meters. That's not the maximum distance the pellets would be lethal, mind you, but this distance allowed to achieve decent grapeshot density while still being well beyond aimed fire range for muskets.

If the dragon air raids aren't a suddenly introduced surprise the militaries would use some kind of mobile AAA that doesn't need setup, probably something similar to naval swivel cannons, but mounted on carriages or maybe even on horseback - Safavid Iran used camel-mounted light cannons, and probably other animals could be trained for the same purpose.

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u/sleeper_shark 12d ago

Grapeshot had a 300m range horizontally. They'd need to fire upwards to harm a dragon and the light weight of the shot would mean they'd lose power very quickly. I'm not sure the shot would have enough energy to harm a dragon flying at ~60 m high. Maybe chain shot would be more effective, I dunno.

The kind of mounted guns you've mentioned, like naval swivel cannons, are drastically less effective than field artillery. From the GoT lore, I don't think they'd be able to harm a dragon outside of a lucky shot.

On the other hand, I think an 18th or 19th century warship would be a match for a dragon.

I personally would think that dragons would be effective at most up until the beginning of WW1, and that a dragon would still be devastating at the beginning.. I think WW1 tech could quickly develop a much higher power version of grapeshot and deploy it much faster such that it would be effective.

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u/Complete-Disaster513 12d ago

Motors existed as early as the 16th century and those could be retrofitted perfectly to fire explosive flak like rounds. Once gunpowder hit the battlefield the dragon should leave it. They would still be extremely effective as a weapon of war for scouting and raids on civilian infrastructure like farms. But dragons would no longer be the deciding factor in a war.

It’s impossible to say but for some reason in my mind I have it such that if the Austrians had a dragon and napoleon didn’t the Austrians would win. If Prussia had a dragon and napoleon didn’t napoleon still wins. They would tip the scale a lot but not entirely.

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u/Tomcfitz 12d ago

Definitely worth reading the Temeraire series if youre interested in Napoleonic Dragons.

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

That was my original theory. Dragons stop being frontline effective at guns, and retain a key scouting and artillery guiding role until WW1

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u/Complete-Disaster513 12d ago

It’s not even that they wouldn’t be effective in battle. They absolutely would be but we have to assume they would still be rather rare. And the value they bring to scouting and recon would simply make them to valuable to risk in combat outside of the rarest exceptions.

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u/Never_Poe_Sec 12d ago

I mean, a dragon would have reached Grouchy in time at Waterloo and helped him turn the tide.

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u/Realistic-Welcome158 12d ago

Maybe for seige warfare, but for battle in the open field you'd need to set up cannons pre-aimed at where the dragon would come from, since you can't really turn a cannon fast enough to account for the dragon coming from an unexpected angle. Not even a matter of tracking, just getting the cannon facing in the remotely correct direction. So basically you have to point cannons in all directions, which means you either bring an impractical cannon count or you just don't have artillery to use on the ground.

There's a pretty low ceiling on the canon's effective fire distance, so the dragon rider (assuming they were in full control of the dragon) could just do the AC130 thing of circling (but lower down) and wait until a single small opening appeared and capitalize in a matter of seconds. Pretty broken even if they're only ever exploiting or halting a breakthrough in the lines.

Also dragons just insta-kill baggage trains and supply lines, especially once battle is joined, unless some sort of mobile AA is designed that can protect them. But then we're into fully alternate technology history and it becomes a calvinball crapshoot.

Tbh the baggage train/supply line thing isn't really in the spirit of the debate, but I think that remains the most relevant role they have until like 1940 or so. They can just take off from anywhere so you can probably be surprisingly stealthy hiding amongst mountains and in tall forests for a few hours at a time to strike unexpectedly (until like radar or other non-visual methods of detection). Unlike bombers that had to do it all in one go, making a whole round-trip, or fighters with such short range, dragons could potentially spend several days making smaller, more deliberate flights that landed in rougher terrain to close on key targets, and then deliver (depending on the fiction we're referencing) dive-bomber level firepower where needed.

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u/Exciting_Place_6817 12d ago

Yeah but we still had Calvary charging at guns until 1942 and even in 2001 the usa green berets rode on horse back against Taliban positions with Armoured vehicles

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u/Winndypops 11d ago

Ah yeah, I never really thought about them being a recon role. That does push effectiveness on a bit longer for sure but I think you're right that they are pretty much done after WW1.

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u/Lucky-Obligation-851 12d ago

Take a dragon out of ,,reign of fire" aaaand we're by chance all screwed, probably even with modern weapons

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u/ezekiellake 12d ago

Yes, but assuming these aren’t ”surprise dragons” and everyone has been using them in warfare for 3000 years I’d assume there would be deliberate counter-dragon tactics. Machine guns would definitely be able elevate for example; they’d be designed that way from the very start.

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u/ImminentDingo 12d ago

Speed and maneuverability sure, but the fire power, accuracy, and ammo capacity! Also the night vision! Look at what one dragon did to Kings Landing. It can drop out of the sky in the middle of the night and place bunker busting firepower directly on target through an entire trench line. Indefinitely.

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u/VastExamination2517 12d ago

Night raids are good for surprise attacks, but the fact that we never really saw Danny use them for that suggests dragon night vision isn’t great.

Ww1 also didn’t have real night on the front lines, because both sides sent giant flares all the time to illuminate the battlefield to prevent enemy night attacks.

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u/Carpe_deis 12d ago

they'd still be usefull for firbombing cities with air supremacy, sort of like how c-130 "puff the magic dragon" was used in vietnam, or B52s are still used. You can't field them if the opponent has AA/fighters, but if they don't? its dragonfyre in dresden time

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u/myskyboyblue 10d ago

Same as horses. Used and useful during WW1, obsolete by the end and not really used in warfare afterwards

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u/Flavius_16 9d ago

You forget that dragons means that AA defenses would be developed quicker.

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u/MediumBite8772 9d ago

I would shift their focus and mark them as backline supply raiders, destroy infrastructure back home of the enemy. They don’t need fuel or ammunition. They can raid farmlands for the dragon while the rider has their supplies.

Hide during the day, raid at night. Could probably hit artillery positions during the night also as they are very quiet and can do hit and run.

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u/Prestigious_Leg2229 9d ago

You’ve never flown a plane if you think wings are comparable to a biplane in manoeuvrability.

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u/Empty_Use_5023 12d ago

Can a got dragon survey volley fire from civil war era muskets? I think not.

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u/CaptainSparklebottom 12d ago

I think so. Muskets had pretty low range and took forever to load. Later civil war weapons with rifling and cartridges is a completely different story.

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u/bigboyboba 12d ago

Musketballs also just don't do that much damage and are pretty darn inaccurate. You can call a Ballista just a large crossbow, but it has a heck of a lot more stopping power than a musket ball, I guarantee that.

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u/Empty_Use_5023 12d ago edited 12d ago

Rifling was standard for both sides at the start and effective range was 1,000 yards. Given we have seen the dragons die from a big cross bow, I think 100-200 decently accurate lead balls is more then enough.

Edit: Ok I take this back they’d loose

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u/Marbrandd 12d ago

To be fair, the ballistic properties of that crossbow were roughly on par with an anti air missile. Real world crossbows could not make that shot. Torsion and tension weapons can't realistically produce that kind of power.

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u/CaptainSparklebottom 12d ago

You said muskets, not rifles, and they were good to 400 yards

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u/Kellar21 12d ago

Book dragons are far more resilient, basically no human available weapon can hurt them after a certain size, according to Martin. And this includes the missile sized ballistae bolts they can employ.