A post-action analysis of the Battle of Winterfell's GoT – through a dark glass

Midway through the last season of Game of thrones, we conducted an after-action analysis of the major military engagements that motivated the plot of the series in the two central episodes of the season – "The Queen's Justice", during which the allied forces against the Queen Cersei seriously stuck, and "The Spoils of War", during which Daenerys Targaryen, his dragons and his Dothraki Rapid Reaction Force rushed into the train of Lannister's army wagons and made them a macabre oven.

We are now halfway to the last season of the series and we are at a similar pivot point. The second episode of the season – "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" – exposed the rather awful strategic position of combined forces under the command of Daenerys Targaryen and his prefect, North Snow, his lover and probably his nephew, Jon Snow. And in the most recent episode – "The Long Night" – this situation has reached its peak and its conclusion in what could set the record for the smallest number of photons recorded in a film or video production of this length.

At the time of writing this, we were beaten to the punch by one of our favorite bloggers and military, Angry Staff Officer, a master of fictitious tactical interpretation, in his excellent but perhaps slightly erroneous analysis of our publication sister, Wired. This is definitely worth reading, and you should do it right away after reading this – unless you have not seen the episode and you are opposed to spoilers. In this case, come back and read them once you are ready.

Knowledge of the situation

Dany's Dothraki and Unsullied forces, Jon's North Army, the rest of the Night's Eve, the remnants of the Brotherhood without banners and a host of other well-endangered types are facing a extremely difficult strategic situation. The king of the night and his mega-army of the risen dead have outnumbered them; he can defy their air superiority with his own undead dragon and proven anti-aircraft spear; and instead of receiving reinforcements from Queen Cersei, a man in one hand, famous for pushing a child out the window and driving children with his sister.

At their command post in Winterfell, the assembled leaders looked into the dark situation and exposed their combat strategy: to stand up as best as possible while training the night king into a unique combat situation using the battle. raven warg / drone operator and cryptic intelligence provider Bran Stark. (this kid who was pushed out the window) as bait. Then, they get drunk most of the time and wait for the attack, until the advanced scouts report that the enemy is near. But, aside from his weak points, Dany's leadership has no awareness of the situation on the battlefield. It's like they had no sort of flying thing that could do reconnaissance or anything else.

Although the scouts gave a rough estimate of the composition of the force and the order of battle is fairly well known, there is virtually no operational image – and virtually no television image either, as the director of the Photography chose to present the first half of the episode primarily in various shades of black. As the battle approaches, priestess flame and general omen of the catastrophe, Melisandre walks around and provides an indispensable illumination – giving the Dothraki cavalry burning swords to swing. Meanwhile, non-combatants are withdrawn into the ultra-secure crypt, surrounded by dead who could be brought up by the king of the night. Nobody seems to think twice about it, not even the supposedly advised advisers of Dany, Tyrion and the spy-master Varys – but we've seen them break face before in the foresight department, so that's not it. not a shock.

Dany and Jon observe the mountain from a privileged point of view, waiting for their signal to provide air support. They can not see much. But someone ends up doing it, as the Dothraki say, the invisible line of White Walker.

Time for Leeroy Jenkins

There has been a lot of criticism on the Dothraki Cavalry charge. But we are here to say that critics should be focused on the lack of close air support. In "The Spoils of War", the Dothraki served as a "force of repair" to align the Lannister against massive air destructions. Here, the Dothraki literally illuminate the path that leads to the enemy. They only have an artillery stand in the form of catapulted torch balls.

If this illumination had been used, for example, for a timely dragon shot by Dany while Jon was flying an overhead air patrol over, Dothraki's sacrifice could have been greatly reduced. Instead, we can only see their burning swords extinguished by the advancing line, we do not know what.

The main failure of using Dothrakis as a shock force was that they ran into an enemy (literally) who could not be shocked. Hope that there is enough left to play a role in the next commitment.

The Dothraki charge was only another example of how Dany's support staff, totally devoid of imagination, faced new challenges. As the Dothraki return to Winterfell, we return to another major failure of our imagination: the defensive works around the castle, which are, to be honest, embarrassing, even from the medieval tactical point of view. Although the defenses were a bit rushed, it is hard to believe that no one remembered that the main body of the enemy was a relentless infantry, berserkers and undead. The outdoor defensive works of Winterfell were:

• A Line of Frieze Horses – Peaked Cavalry Fortifications Related to Tank Traps
• A trench filled with burning substance

That's all. No other engineering efforts have been made. No effort was made to use the Walkers moving mass against them, using stake walls or other defensive structures. There could have been concentric trenches. Nope. And the Unsullied and Dothraki and all the others on the ground before Winterfell retires through defenses, causing higher losses.

Of course, all this would have taken time and resources. But even a little more effort could have saved more time. Unfortunately, this part of tactical and strategic failure is often reflected in reality, when commanders embark on battles thinking that the enemy will only fight them by the rules that they already know .

Combination of arms … and legs

Command, control and communication are essential on the battlefield. But the king of the night essentially blurred Winterfell's efforts by creating a literal fog of war masking the battlefield with Winter himself. Davos Seaworth waves these burning sticks to signal Dany to flare the dragon trenches, but sees nothing across the lower deck. Fortunately (?), Mélisandre goes out and does her thing again, setting the trench on fire.

And then everyone stays there and looks at each other. All catapults are out of the walls and the trenches. All archers sit on their hands while the walkers stop in front of the wall of flames. Another opportunity to thin the ranks of the dead (easily restored).

Meanwhile, Dany and Jon get bogged down in an air-to-air clash with the king of the night, straddling his zombie, the dragon spewing over the blue fire. The king of the nights did not manage to master the use of air power: he could have ignored Jon and Dany and leveled Winterfell's walls with air strikes as he did with this other wall, but no. Clearly, he does not understand the air-to-air tactics and attempts an attack from below – only to find himself entangled in one of his targets. The king of the night and Jon both end without a dragon, their reptilian plane left to themselves.

But this is not an apparent problem for the king of the nights, who has psychic c3 on his henchmen and is able to raise all the dead around him as reinforcement. Dany tries to grill the king of the night with dragon fire, but it's super inefficient.

The King of the Night asks his dead troops to cross the fence on fire in a style reminiscent of the trench warfare of the First World War (or, like the angry officer, "to the Soviet") – in throwing their bodies like a bridge over the obstacle. So, the lines are not so static anymore. The masses were pierced in the World War Z style by the masses of White Walkers. As the battle rages between the walls, the king of the nights wanders through Winterfell with his squad of frozen brothers.

The plan … works?

Then there are a lot of deaths. Jon finds himself tied up by the fire of a zombie dragon. Dany is defended until death by Jorah Mormont after his dragon is weighed down by the White Walkers. Theon Greyjoy and a group of archers defend Bran until the end, before Theon is sent with his own spear by the king of the night. It looks like it's the end … until that Game of thronesArya Stark, ultimate operator of the Special War, arrives and ships the Night King with truly clean Valyrian steel dagger work. The king collapses and his servants collapse all. It's like a proton torpedo in the exhaust port. The end.

This is a huge cost victory – which greatly weakens Dany's fighting strength for the upcoming battle against Cersei's reinforcements and mercenary fleet. But this victory shows that the underlying strategy defined by the leaders was the right one, even if the execution left much to be desired.

In the end, we think that the Battle of Winterfell was held in the same way as most military conflicts. Success in combat is often based on determination, imagination and the ability to adapt and overcome situations in which soldiers have not trained. The enemy will not always conform to your tactical paradigm. And fortune favors the daring.

Image by HBO