SRNissen/SrN Travel01

Travelling in style, a short discussion on the subject of the speed of armies

There are a number of things to consider.

1) How large is this group of travellers? 2) Why are they travelling? 3) How are they travelling?

1] HOW LARGE IS THE GROUP OF TRAVELLERS?

I mostly include this because armies are notoriously slow compared to single travellers. 1 traveller is faster than 2, who are faster than 3, who are faster than... Remember, you can never travel faster than the slowest man.

2] WHY ARE THEY TRAVELLING?

Warrior-culture scouts with information vital to the war effort, mounted on horses and with additional remounts can do up towards 50 miles per day, many days in a row. Some native americans could do 100 by riding their horse as fast as possible until it died (after about 50 miles) and then doing one-and-a-half marathon afterwards for the next 50 miles. This is a warrior-scout in the very best of health, and he's going to need almost a week of rest afterwards. Oh, and he's not doing this "many days in a row," he does this once, then rests a week, then he doesn't do it again for at least another week.

To contrast this, a party of nobles on a recreational hunt, sitting in two Howdahs on a couple of elephants will be lucky to get 10 miles a day.

3] HOW ARE THEY TRAVELLING

Over short distances, horses beat everything else. Over long distances in a desert, camels are good. Never ride elephants if speed is important. Interestingly, if you need to go very far indeed, your own two bare feet are probably the fastest way to get there, unless you have several horses you can use for remounts. Horses are very fast, but their endurance is crap compared to humans. Over longer distances, it's a lot more efficient to simply walk, especially if you're used to travelling.

Some examples:

1 traveller on his own two feet, with normal human stamina and endurance can get about 30 miles/day if carrying a backpack that isn't filled with a lot of extra crap. (A travellers pack isn't as heavy as the ones they use in the military, where they have to cart around extra ammunition and all kinds of stuff like entrenching tools and spare parts for the squad machinegun. If the traveller has a weapon of some sort, he'll probably stash it in his pack, or mount it on the pack, so it doesn't keep hitting his leg.

2-3 travellers: 29 miles 4-6 travellers: 26 miles 7-10 travellers: 23 miles 11+ travellers, all in good health can probably get 20 miles/day. They all cart around their own baggage, and they're not carrying heavy trade goods.

Armies are slower. They have to worry about this pesky thing called "logistics," which is basically a way of saying that you cannot carry enough food with you for any extended marches, and you're slowed by the carts with siege equipment and so on and so forth. There are generally three sources of trouble with armies like this. a) Low morale or discipline. If your army doesn't care for the battle it's marching towards, it's gonna walk slower, that's just how it works. b) Logistics. If you're moving through an area where you can rely on local food, you're faster than if you have to cart it all with you. If you're not bringing siege equipment, you're faster than if you do. c) Decadent officers. Don't laugh, it's a real problem. Some countries used to be warrior cultures, but aren't any longer. Their generals are all politically appointed nobles, who naturally think they're great generals because of their high birth, but since they're used to living in the lap of opulence, they have huge tents and lots of servants, and they have extra logistics to carry luxury food (Or, at least better food than the rest of the army gets).

If you have all three problems, you get armies that get only 5 miles/day on the good days. If you have highly dedicated soldiers with an expert officer corps who forage while they move, they can get almost as far as ordinary travellers. If speed is important, they can get even faster. Some sources claim that Julius Cesar once got his soldiers almost 70 miles in one day. While this is, in fact, not true (it's a good story that got better in the telling), it still shows that there were people out there, with military backgrounds who, instead of saying "bullshit," responded with "Well he was an excellent general."

The fastest you can expect an army to move, with no logistics and good discipline among both soldiers and officers, is about 35 miles if they're willing to leave men behind, and, importantly, if they only have to march one day. If they have to march longer, they can still get 35 miles on the first day, but it will hurt their overall performance for the rest of the march. A very good army with unfortunate logistics will probably get 15-20 miles, the same for a bad army with very good logistics. An army of averages will get you 10-15 miles. An army that's just bad all over (Conscripted troops with too little food, lazy noble officers, siege- or other heavy equipment) will get you 5-10 miles, or even as low as 1-5 miles through bad terrain (mountains or equivalent)

Trade caravans have some of the same basic qualities armies have: The discipline of both workers and caravan masters, and the amount of food they have to carry. You can use trade goods instead of siege equipment. While they don't march faster because there's an important battle coming up, they might just do so if there's an important market and the workers are promised bonuses if they get there on time.

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