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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« on: October 01, 2010, 09:31:23 AM »
To answer part of your question, keep in mind that Wood is not something that's readily available on the Shattered Plains. Most of it is Soulcast, which leaves me with no other conclusion than that is is an extremely dense type of wood since they're likely casting it from readily available Stone. From this we can also conclude that they don't have anything resembling pitch, and it's unlikely they have a source of Oil either.
Now comes the fun part. Take a wooden match. Light it. Hold it against a piece of Oak. Or even a common 2x4 of any kind. How much of it would you expect to ignite? I can tell you that unlike what you see in movies, real wood (or even Soulcast wood) isn't made from 6 parts gasoline and 3 parts gunpowder. It doesn't just ignite and get all explodey.
On top of the fact that wood (especially large, dense pieces of wood as would be necessary to hold the weight of an entire mobile army including Cavalry) is difficult to ignite in the first place, you have to consider the arrows themselves. They're thin bits of wood, out of necessity they can't carry too heavy of a payload before the whole idea becomes pointless. Ever try shooting an arrow with an incredibly heavy payload on front? It doesn't work. There's a reason real arrowheads aren't giant metal monstrosities.
So, we've got this thin piece of wood, and out of necessity a rather small flaming object stuck to it. Now, we have an additional problem. What happens to fire when you add lots of oxygen? Such as you might get when it's flying through the air! It burns hotter. Guess what happens to that arrow then? It burns up and becomes weak and breaks on impact if it even makes it there and generally becomes useless. Have you ever tried building a fire in the woods? Or even in a wood stove? There's a reason you don't use just a few very tiny sticks. Like wood matches, they burn out relatively fast and even if you do have large chunks of wood, it's just scorched and not really in danger of igniting. In Historical battles, you couldn't use a very strong bow to launch a flaming arrow because swift flight would actually put it out entirely. Which means the Parshendi would have to HAVE these special bows AND be relatively close AND have some manner of fuel. This means they have to stay closer and face devastating volleys from the Alethi archers who can likely shoot from a much greater distance.
So, if you add all of these together. Large, incredibly dense pieces of wood. Relatively small (if numerous) flaming bits stuck to arrows. Lots of air to burn up the limited fuel they already have. Lack of pitch or oil. Physics, even in a world of magic. It's just not a feasible means of accomplishing any kind of worthwhile end result. The Parshendi can accomplish pretty much the same thing just by focus firing the Bridgemen who sustain incredibly heavy losses anyway.
Also, like someone already said. Historically flaming arrows were so effective against wooden structures because an incredibly huge amount of pitch was used back in the day to seal cracks etc. It wasn't the wood itself that was flammable, it was the tar that was used as a waterproofing agent that helped everything burn so nicely.
Now comes the fun part. Take a wooden match. Light it. Hold it against a piece of Oak. Or even a common 2x4 of any kind. How much of it would you expect to ignite? I can tell you that unlike what you see in movies, real wood (or even Soulcast wood) isn't made from 6 parts gasoline and 3 parts gunpowder. It doesn't just ignite and get all explodey.
On top of the fact that wood (especially large, dense pieces of wood as would be necessary to hold the weight of an entire mobile army including Cavalry) is difficult to ignite in the first place, you have to consider the arrows themselves. They're thin bits of wood, out of necessity they can't carry too heavy of a payload before the whole idea becomes pointless. Ever try shooting an arrow with an incredibly heavy payload on front? It doesn't work. There's a reason real arrowheads aren't giant metal monstrosities.
So, we've got this thin piece of wood, and out of necessity a rather small flaming object stuck to it. Now, we have an additional problem. What happens to fire when you add lots of oxygen? Such as you might get when it's flying through the air! It burns hotter. Guess what happens to that arrow then? It burns up and becomes weak and breaks on impact if it even makes it there and generally becomes useless. Have you ever tried building a fire in the woods? Or even in a wood stove? There's a reason you don't use just a few very tiny sticks. Like wood matches, they burn out relatively fast and even if you do have large chunks of wood, it's just scorched and not really in danger of igniting. In Historical battles, you couldn't use a very strong bow to launch a flaming arrow because swift flight would actually put it out entirely. Which means the Parshendi would have to HAVE these special bows AND be relatively close AND have some manner of fuel. This means they have to stay closer and face devastating volleys from the Alethi archers who can likely shoot from a much greater distance.
So, if you add all of these together. Large, incredibly dense pieces of wood. Relatively small (if numerous) flaming bits stuck to arrows. Lots of air to burn up the limited fuel they already have. Lack of pitch or oil. Physics, even in a world of magic. It's just not a feasible means of accomplishing any kind of worthwhile end result. The Parshendi can accomplish pretty much the same thing just by focus firing the Bridgemen who sustain incredibly heavy losses anyway.
Also, like someone already said. Historically flaming arrows were so effective against wooden structures because an incredibly huge amount of pitch was used back in the day to seal cracks etc. It wasn't the wood itself that was flammable, it was the tar that was used as a waterproofing agent that helped everything burn so nicely.