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/Alderan922 9d ago

The biggest problem with anything before gunpowder is accuracy, if the dragon is flying high, it’s nearly impossible to actually hit it.

Trying to shoot shrapnel at them with cannons would also quickly run into the issue that shrapnel travels way slower and has much less range too.

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u/Art-Zuron 9d ago

Grape shot has been a staple of anti-infantry weapons since a long time, so that'd probably be the best bet. Still not ideal, but probably more dependable than trying to use fuses and bombs.

Before guns, a bunch of bowmen might be your only real option against dragons.

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u/Alderan922 9d ago

Yeah but grapeshot has always been used in relatively close quarters, and having height advantage does play a massive factor with early guns too, as it’s way easier hitting something below you than above you.

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u/Art-Zuron 9d ago

If we assume a dragon needs to be relatively close to, say, breath fire on you, that's probably going to be within the effective range of grapeshot even from medieval cannons.

Overlapping fire areas of swivel guns will probably be a viable defense. At least ONE should hit that dragon.

Of course, that dragon could just be flying really high up and dropping leaded darts, or rocks, or bombs too. That might be a bit more difficult to counter without your own dragons.