To battle effectively battle Drow humans would need...

[kylefiredemon]

Personally, I'm going to say is when we invented the landmine.

[Torrin]

^History of Landmines

[Raziel]

But golems are a rarity. We don't need to look further than at the Conquest of Machike side story. First see how that fire sorceress got turned into a pin cushion by simple arrows/bolts. Then imagine what would have happened to Quain's army, if there was a single primitive gatling machine gun with well-trained crew on the wall of Machike... Ouchie.

There are more smaller and quicker golums though like the one that attacked the demon messenger in the Sharen fortress, there are also summons and nether summons that could decimate the enemy line.

Hmm, I think any summon would be really weak against firearms. They aren't particularily damageproof, they're just reasonably strong, obey without hesitation, are kinda expendable, and especially the ones in the soul gems are very easy to transport. Sort of like the stream of bullets from an automatic firearm, really

Also the "lighter, quicker" new generation golems would also be vulnerable to smaller caliber guns and smaller explosives. Since invention of practical firearms, this hasn't really worked out for humans, we've needed to go down to the grunt + max 20-30 kilograms combat load, able to crouch and crawl, or alternatively up the armour until it can withstand anything grunts can throw at it at least from the front (from the first dedicated long-barreled large-caliber AT-rifles with AP rounds, to the current state of the art (which does not necessarily mean the best) guided fire-and-forget tandem HEAT warhead AT missiles).

The more ethril ones can cause a major distraction while the heave hitters go in for the take down. Pluse after all we have seen that my cousin clan the Balvhakara have at there disposal well... Humans don't stand a chance!

[Mott]

totally possible for technology to just develop in a completely different manner.

This.

As for your question:

1760- double barreled shotgun.
1784- Shrapnel shell is invented.
1853- Rifles replace muskets entirely.
1880- First Boer War. Soldiers no longer shoot in lines. Snipers kill 10 times their number at Majuba hill.

Colonial tech takes this. WW1 would be stupidly overpowered.

Hrm, I personally would separate 17th and 18th, maybe even early and late 18th, since on Earth, the advancements were very significant. Rifling alone changed much of the battlefield.

Of course even with superior tech you can still loose with poor logistics and poor tactics. A good case study on this for those inclined to search it out would be the first Anglo-Zulu war. The Brits had superior tech, but a super slow supply line which limited movement. The commander of the British forces set up a base camp and then split his forces to scout. The camp was not set to military standard defenses and reports that the Zulus were nearby were ignored. The Zulus drew the scouting units away from the main camp, which was over run. (See The Battle of Islandlwana) The Brits received heavy losses, including the loss of all supplies and munitions as well as the transports. The other two columns were forced to retreat resulting in a British defeat.

Relating to the subject of the post, if the Drow show a similar arrogance and air of superiority, they could find themselves facing the same kind of defeat at the hands of humans. If the humans gain superior tech but lag behind in logistics and tactics, they could find themselves victim to more mobile forces like the Highland Raiders.

[QuakeIV]

Bear in mind that you are referring to the british who have basically proven their incompetence in most modern conflicts.

[Argron]

Knowledge among elves seems to be more widespread, with every noble not only knowing how to read, write, and use mana, but also a firm grasp on science and in some cases engineering. Merchants and some commoners likely have some knowledge too. They have engineering-focused noble houses.
They already have powerful figures asking for equality, which would mean inevitably mean even more widespread knowledge resulting in further technological advancement.
It's most likely the elves will advance way faster than humans, not slower, and by the time humans have muskets elves have mana powered airplanes... heck, they already have submarines, tanks and power armor.

On the topic though, muskets would do nothing against golems or that crab power armor, and shielding would be effective in big battles, if I remember correctly, even a single personal shield deflected a dwarf cannonball, a the most powerful elves would be able to cover whole armies from returning enemy fire, allowing elven armies to outshoot, or golems to assault artillery lines unopposed.
Guerrilla warfare is similar, not only drow are experts at this, with basicly all the clan fighting being skirmishes, but also they have ninjas, and acoording to daydream, some of their scout could even turn mostly invisible.
WWI technology is another matter, not only because of far powerful weapons, but also because it would mean humans have the corresponding civil use technology, which would result in larger population and industrial output, quite simply current elves would not only be out technologicked, but also outproduced by far.

[Whispering shadows]

So I guess with the hermiones (im certain I spelled that wrong) entering the scene I guess this topic is once more relavent?
If that so then eat your hearts out dwarves
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha#section_6

[blackshade10]

So I guess with the hermiones (im certain I spelled that wrong) entering the scene I guess this topic is once more relavent?
If that so then eat your hearts out dwarves
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha#section_6

Mythbusters.


All I'm saying.

Mythbusters.

[Jiharn]

So I guess with the hermiones (im certain I spelled that wrong) entering the scene I guess this topic is once more relavent?
If that so then eat your hearts out dwarves
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwacha#section_6

Huh, that's interesting. It's intriguing to look at the paths along which different societies developed technologically. Asian countries created artillery that rapidly fired multiple mini-rockets, and European countries created artillery that fired...just a big piece of metal. If I had to guess, the cause of that difference probably stems from the difference in the relative importance of fortifications in warfare. [generalization] Europeans needed to deal with lots of big stone walls to win, and instead East Asians needed to deal more with just lots of people to win.[/generalization]
Following that logic, the Hermionnes probably don't have a "need" to develop anti-mass-infantry weapons like the Hwacha. Judging by that picture of their assaulting a castle, their normal artillery requirement would be for anti-fortification. Firearms, too, were initially utilized en masse against formations, iirc, thanks to their relative inaccuracy. Might be useful against Halme armies, but drow forces generally seem to fight more scattered and individually. So probably the only ways Hermionnes might use gundpowder against drow would be in ambush against an already dense force or against golems (which may be comparable in durability to fortifications).

...
This is usually the point where Mek comes in with some historical information to invalidate some of my logic.

[Whispering shadows]

I was tha humors this is how I would deal with the drow.

Golems:
1) try heavy artillery i.e. trebuchet's, ballistae, onengers (catapults).
2) create camouflaged pit traps.

Drow mana shields:
1) keep up constant missile fire do that they are forced to keep their shields up at all times thus tiring them out.
2) lure troops into traps (pits of burning oil, punji sticks, that sort of stuff) thus attacking them indirectly makeing the point of Sheilds moot.

The drow themselves:
1) Swarm them with superior numbers and/or tire them out with constant raids.
2) never fight at night or go chaseing after them if they retreat.
3) never enter forests, always stay on open fields so that their surprise raiding parties are less likely to get the drop on me

If defending city against them:
1) place archers on walls and when they start to take walls let then capture both them and the gate house. Once they do so and open main gate for their army I have my previusly concealed units on the wall retake the gatehouse and close the gates on drow as they go through thus dividing their forces. Once that's done I have all my units gang rush the drow on the inside while men on the walls man the artillery on the walls and pummel them while they packed together. (will elaborate more on this plan later)

If takeing the fight to them in caves:
1) Make judicious use of willing local guides
2) repeatedly collapse tunnels along trade routes this starving the drow (why should I care? If I'm a human I don't live fucking underground!)
3) find and hold the sources of water, poisening what I can't hold.

If facing highland raiders:
1) make judicious use of horse archers (to harass them), light calvery (bait) and spearmen (defence)
2) use caltrops to hurt the unprotected feet of the dire wolves
3) never engage them in hand to hand combat of I can avoid it

Again this is how, as a kid who plays Rome total war, would handle the drow as an enemy. And yeah I know that they would likely fight me with rapid ambush raids and sneak attacks that's why I stick to the fields. If it ever came to a gurilla war i would make mich heavier useage of traps and missile troops. Also notice I have nothing to deal with mana attacks because I can think of no way to block or lessen their effects other then giving my men wet cloths to tie around themselves to help with fire attacks. I would of course like to think that I would be a match for them taticly but more then likely I would loose but hey you never know maybe I could win!

[Argron]

It would/will be pretty one sided, as long as the elves can muster a minimal critical force, you can't beat 100.000 middle ages soldiers with just 100 guys in power armor. There's a reason they beat everything the underworld had to offer, including the highly advanced dwarfs, who excelled fighting in the dark and knew the terrain.

Drow see ok during the day with very little adaptation, yet they completely rule the night, while humans suck; they could engage in battle and it would be like day for them. Not only extremely useful for raiding, ambushing, ... but even worse in full scale battles.

For raiding and skirmishers... well, pretty much all drow armed training is focused on skirmishes and fighting with as little honor as possible, so they are already masters at it.

Full scale battles on equal footing would be massacres in favor of the drow, they have long range superiority thanks to shields (they can block enemy ranged attacks with shields, or even lower them, shoot volley, raise the shields again), golem ranged attacks, bazookas, and dwarf weapon designs if they need to minimize the usage of mana. They could easily destroy every precise human siege weapon from out of range.
In close combat there's just no comparison, their heavy infantry is better armored than anything humans have, and then there's power armor, the Sarghress small golem designs (designed to stop super heavy cavalry), war golems which can kill anything unopposed(and are immune to balistae, and good luck hitting a movile wargolem with an onager, let alone a trebuchet... if it completely destroyes or immobilizes the thing at all), human sized golems, warrior summons, ...
And of course there's all the nasty cavalry they have: the weakest, the kyorl, are highly disciplined and motivated heavy cavalry, able to cut through foot troops like cheese. Sarghress cavalry would eat enemy cavalry and troops for breakfast. And dragon cavalry... I will just censor the description, too much gore.
There's also the psychological factors, humans already fear the drow, for good reason, and those were just raiding parties. When they face a whole army they would piss in their pants. Then they would see the big monsters (golems), the giant wolfs and dragons, the half spider warriors, the nagas, the warriors made of stone (summons) or iron (raiders, power armor, ...), all the while tornadoes or fire rains on them... I doubt the most disciplined force wouldn't break before reaching CC. I mean, those things would be scary as hell for us, and we got all this technology and crazy weapons, for guys armed with substandard swords and armor it would be like hell on earth just appeared before them.

And of course, Quain plundered the surface and she didn't have even a tiny portion of what a joint drow army could throw at people.



I could see humans winning some, and even fighting guerrilla wars with success (not like the drow would think twice about killing whole villages or even cities if they were supporting rebels), as a species we are adaptable and resourceful by nature after all, but unless extremely lucky, or drows being commanded by extremely incompetent generals (unlikely, as drow nobles don't live long if they are incompetent), it would end pretty fast.
Mana deprivation works against drow, of course, not only ages them (but 400 year old drows seem able to travel for periods of time in the raiders...) but also makes their mana use more taxing. Which shouldn't be a problem if it is taken into account (more people or cores to power golems, more summoners and casters to throw the same number of spells at the enemy, etc).
Also, Hermiones may be stronger and more disciplined than humans, and likely very numerous, but they have little experience in fighting organized drow so the shock would be bigger for them, they don't know the terrain, the people are as afraid of them as of the drow, and their forces come from much farther away than drow, so whatever reinforcements or supplies they may need from home would take ages to reach them.

[Jiharn]

The way things are going right now, that "minimal critical force" is a sizable "if".

The drow would be absolutely masterful at raiding and guerilla warfare, though. A very high level of individual skill, and no loss of ability during night, means small parties can bypass enemy patrols or armies to strike critical locations. Trying to protect everything at the same time with sufficient force would require a much larger army that I've been led to believe possible for the Hermionnes to field.

Full scale battles on equal footing...won't happen, though. Two armies of equal size would result in a drow victory, agreed. But in all likelihood, the drow would not field that many troops without a politically unified home front and an awareness of the threat posed by the Hermionnes. Complicating matters is logistics: the Underworld is a good distance away and in a different environment, complicating attempts to move truly large bodies of troops and the food and ammunition for them. Small units can often forage for their own food on an extended campaign, but sizable armies have often needed to do that on a large scale in an enemy's own territory if out of reach of their own. Additionally, I've raised the subject before about the difficulty of deploying war golems up top like that. Compared to above ground, the Underworld is practically weatherless and uniform and environment. Golems would be subject to a good deal more wear-and-tear and restricted movement in suitably uneven ground without roads. So any open battle (that is, not a raid or skirmish or such) would have lopsided numbers in favor of the Hermionnes. I'm not disputing the effectiveness of drow martial abilities, but rather the likelihood of mustering that "critical force".

Quain has had a lot of success on the surface before, yes, but I'd like to point out the factions she steamrolled are also being steamrolled by the Hermionnes. Nor have we seen them really engage each other. It's entirely possible that, although the Herms may have little experienced in fighting organized drow, the same may be said of drow fighting such organized and driven humans. The psychological effect might also not be as strong against them, given their apparent zeal and hatred against all things elven; anger tends to be a notable way to overrule fear (even Machiavelli thought so!).

One last thing to consider is that the drow have vulnerable points, too, in a strategic sense. The food, supplies, ammunition, and such in the supply train would need to be protected, lest its loss cripple their army. And given the number disparity, they probably would need to dispatch a high number of their troops to guard it or just keep the whole army around it (which limits marching speed somewhat). Another vulnerability: the colonies. Unless the drow have sufficient forces, they would be forced to commit sufficient troops necessary to check one Hermionne army while a second Hermionne army could move elsewhere and hit colonies without seriously being molested. Losing a few good-sized colonies would probably have a pretty notable effect on the drow food supplies back home.

Do I mean that the drow won't win? No. Just that there are genuine possible threats to a long-term victory, and that the drow won't have an "instant win" button, or possibly even just a plain "win" button, if they don't give the necessary attention and effort to those threats in time.

If defending city against them:
1) place archers on walls and when they start to take walls let then capture both them and the gate house. Once they do so and open main gate for their army I have my previusly concealed units on the wall retake the gatehouse and close the gates on drow as they go through thus dividing their forces. Once that's done I have all my units gang rush the drow on the inside while men on the walls man the artillery on the walls and pummel them while they packed together. (will elaborate more on this plan later)

Er...that would mean your units engage the drow in a limited space, nullifying the advantage of their numbers, without the benefit of having organized defensive positions. If they can't beat off drow soldiers climbing up just a few at a time, how could they hope to beat a unit already in position and on guard at the gatehouse? How would you even have them concealed, anyways, in any way that would give an advantage in surprise?

[Whispering shadows]

Meh fighting on the walls would hinder the amount of troops I could bring to bear even more then fighting in the open square just inside the gate. As for concealing troops I could either have them stationed in towers a fair distance away or have false walls and other hideout places installed in the gatehouses. Normally I would let only the 1st few squads through the gate before closing it. Once I had the max manegeable number through I would close the gates and proceed to attack from all sides forcing the drow to bunch up where I could bring my artillery to bear. Once the 1st squads had been eliminated I would retreat further into the city and issue my men ranged weapons and proceed to turn it into a sniper hell hole (can't block something if you don't know it's coming). I would use wagons (some on fire) to block off roads and seperate individual units (I.e. roll them down hills). Oh and naturally I would set sections of the city on fire just to add to the confusion they would be suffering from. Basicly I'm going insurgent on them. This would naturally slow their advance down considerably. As for drow having no qualms about killing my civilians I would in turn have no qualms of being brutal in making examples of captive drow (wicker men, severed heads, impalement) I won't give all the details but lets just say I would do my best to turn the city into a living nightmare.

[Jiharn]

Well, I guess that's one way to save them the trouble of trying to destroy your city themselves.

[Argron]

@Jiharn: On golems topside: we assume full scale war, so clans working together, and a serious effort to get their full might on the surface. They could resurrect the elevator construction, reinforce the supply routes, improve said routes, etc.
Also, their golems are as all terrain as it gets, moving on legs, so they could have far better mobility than almost every early tank, although at the cost of speed (we have seen tracked golems too, though). Although weather could rust them or make them malfunction, I doubt it would be such a big deal, a lot of it's parts use mana, so those are less mobile parts that may malfunction. Yes, it will be harder than fighting on the underworld, and will take some time sending spare parts or new golems to the overworld, but it's hardly a titanic task when they plan for total war, considering the advantage they bring to a battlefield.

Ok, that's a fair point on fear. Would still crap my pants seeing a drow battleline marching against me.

Again that's fair, but the hermiones would suffer the same problems, they are so far away from home there's just no supply train for them, so they have to live from their conquered lands. For halmes, it's unclear which side they would favor, both hermiones and drow seem pretty alien for a regular human, so if the hermiones are dicks, it may make them the biggest threat for the populace, after all, for all their black legend, drow don't go around conquering whole nations, just sporadic raids and the odd razing of small towns.
It's also unclear just how many hermiones there are, they could be succesful because they are better warriors using better equipment and tactics, but be numerically inferior to the armies they conquer.

Agreed, it isn't granted they would win. But if you had to bet...

Meh fighting on the walls would hinder the amount of troops I could bring to bear even more then fighting in the open square just inside the gate. As for concealing troops I could either have them stationed in towers a fair distance away or have false walls and other hideout places installed in the gatehouses. Normally I would let only the 1st few squads through the gate before closing it. Once I had the max manegeable number through I would close the gates and proceed to attack from all sides forcing the drow to bunch up where I could bring my artillery to bear. Once the 1st squads had been eliminated I would retreat further into the city and issue my men ranged weapons and proceed to turn it into a sniper hell hole (can't block something if you don't know it's coming). I would use wagons (some on fire) to block off roads and seperate individual units (I.e. roll them down hills). Oh and naturally I would set sections of the city on fire just to add to the confusion they would be suffering from. Basicly I'm going insurgent on them. This would naturally slow their advance down considerably. As for drow having no qualms about killing my civilians I would in turn have no qualms of being brutal in making examples of captive drow (wicker men, severed heads, impalement) I won't give all the details but lets just say I would do my best to turn the city into a living nightmare.

Meh, it could happen, history is full of examples of weird traps or stratagems that won or lost battles.
Thing is, here we are talking about winning or losing a war, so such a trap, while it would work (although the purpose of walls is to stop and bleed the attacker), it might kill a few hundred or thousand troops of either side (both sides can use such tactic), but that's it, it would be a small battle won, but it is extremely unlikely it would affect the war.