Shooting At Dragons

Published August 8, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

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One of the hosts mentioned that it seemed a bit far-fetched to be shooting at dragons with a ballista…

I am kind of surprised ballistas haven’t been seen yet in Game of Thrones. They are a natural progression for this genre of military technology. Granted, this is a particularly well designed, well balanced, ballista… but whatever. It seemed very believable to me. It would be my answer for… “What the heck do you use to combat dragons!?!”
Shooting at dragons with a ballista. I spent 9 years in the US Army …on tanks. Today’s “ballistae”, if you will. I.e., A heavy direct-fire weapon system. Some of the most fun I had in the military was when we were engaged by attack helicopters in mock combat (think: very sophisticated laser tag). These things were fast and extremely dangerous. They could cause heavy damage, but… we could, and did, engage with them and shoot them down during our training. Loads of people said that we couldn’t be effective (especially the helicopter pilots) until we started taking them out. Fighter jets were way too fast for us to track and shoot, but not helicopters. They were fast, but not fast enough to hit them with our “bolt” (a tank sabot round is an 18″ rod). The scenes in this episode reminded me precisely of that time in my life. Utterly believable. Imagine later in the show if they have 4 or 5 of these weapons. The importance of seeing the ballista come out during this battle is that they are no longer a mystery and Daenerys will now be ready for and expecting them.
Flying low. I am sure the producers had the dragon come in low simply for dramatic effect. But… tactically, this makes a lot of sense as well. A low flying dragon causes more damage because people lose track of where it is and can’t react as easily and take defensive action. This also enhances that other weapon: Terror — as in “Dear god, where’s the fucking dragon!?!”

Personally, I loved this episode. My wife and I were on the edges of our seats for much of it. Littlefinger is creepily terrifying. Jon had a tremendous, and pragmatic, speech in his advice to Deanerys… and it worked the politics of that inner circle. The writers found a way to show the importance of the coming northern threat that seemed believable. Arya is a total badass, and leaves you wondering if Bran is not the only one who has lost their identity. Sansa (my wife and I used to call the show “The Poor Sansa Show”) has really developed so much depth of character. Bran … how lucky are the casting folks for selecting someone at such a young age that can now project such other-worldiness? What a coup! And the battle scene was spectacular, both on the ground and in the air.

Thanks for the podcast. Good stuff. -Todd

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