OK. Working out the logistics of troops trying to get to a certain location in time. How far is a "day's ride"? Simple Googling tells me that it can be 30-50 miles, depending on speed. 30 miles travelling normally, 50 if rushing. I have troops that are a 2 days ride away from their home base. (They are west of base) The enemy is "no more than a day's ride" away from the home base. (north of base) Given that a typical day's ride is approx 30 miles, it would be logical that the riders are 60 miles west of home base. Location picked for the battle would be less than the day's ride, bc they would want to get there BEFORE the enemy, so let's say the battle location is 20 miles north from home base. So to travel from their location to the battle location would be about 80 miles. (have to travel east then north) My riders are on all different kinds of beasts. They're mythological, so I'll compare them to the closest real animal when it comes to speeds. Bears can travel up to 30 mph. Sabertooth tigers 25-30 mph. Wolves max out at 40 mph. Greyhounds 45 mph, mastiffs 15-25 mph. Horses up to 55 mph. Help me figure this out. Given that they have 80 miles to travel, and don't want to be worn out and exhausted when they arrive to a battle, and they don't want to separate but travel together, about how long would it be reasonable for them to get there? (lol this sounds like one of those math word problems)
The first thing is that "top speed" doesn't actually matter here According to Lucky Pony: A well-conditioned horse can easily maintain a gallop for a mile to a mile and a half. At two to two and a half miles most horses will feel fatigued. Lighter built horses (Arabians and Thoroughbreds) can maintain a gallop over longer distances than heavier horses (Draft or Quarter Horse type), and horses with longer strides can travel longer distances with less effort. A horse is built to cover many miles in one day, but not at a gallop. A horse can cover more ground, faster, if kept consistently at a trot. While a horse may be exhausted after a three-mile gallop, that same horse could trot, with a few walk breaks, 15 miles without extraordinary strain. Most people assume the Pony Express riders galloped their entire route. In fact, the speed of a pony express rider averages out to 10 miles per hour- meaning they spent most of their time alternating between a trot (about 8-9 mph) and a canter (12-13mph). The Pony Express riders switched to fresh horses every 10-15 miles. Warriors on campaign can't switch out fresh horses 10 times a day, so they'll be spending more time trotting and walking than cantering, and you might be looking at an average speed of closer to 6-7 mph. However, this being fantasy gives plenty of opportunity for fudging Cheetahs have the greatest top speed of any land animal (most can hit 60 mph, some can hit 75), but embarrassingly weak stamina (they can only hold top speed for 250 meters / 850 feet / 0.15 miles), and humans are the opposite: even the fastest human can only hit 27 mph for a few seconds, but we can run slower than that essentially forever. There are very few animals in the natural world that can run a marathon distance (26.2 miles) faster than a human can (Alaskan sled dogs, camels, ostriches, pronghorn antelopes), and there's only one animal that's better than us at running 1000 miles (the Alaskan sled dog). Which I wouldn't really count as "natural" because it was specifically bred by humans for generations to make them incredible distance-runners (Another thing that makes comparisons between humans and sled dogs difficult is that we're designed to cool off in the heat, but sled dogs are designed to stay warm in the cold, meaning we're not going to be running together lest one suffer an environmental disadvantage) In your fantasy world, how does your army coordinate travel between the beasts that have high speed, but low stamina, and the beasts that have the opposite? Which of your beasts have the strongest combinations of both?
So, first things first; what are we talking about? A man can travel a league in one hour (a league was actually define as the distance a person could realistically walk, at average pace, within an hour. Roughly equals to 3 miles/5km). Hence, if we assume that a man must rest for 8 hours, make his bed, cook, do chores, make camp and other duties including rest and pauses. he can probably be expected to walk for 6-7 hours within a single day at most, which would mean that he could be expected to walk about 30-35km per day (25 miles). This keep tracks with Harold Godwinson's march, which provides a good idea of an army's marching rate. His march was noted as being suprisingly fast and he had to march his army from the battle of Stanford bridge to what would become the battle of Hastings. His march from London to Hastings was done at an average of about 30 km per day. It was noted that this rate of march was not overtly taxing for the men, which seems to imply that it was a readily possible to do at such a pace. However, he had done a good stretched with an army from london to Stanford, a 320 km hike, in less than a week. 320/7 = 45, which would be about 9 hours of marching per day for people on foot. Remember that an army only marches at the speed of it's slowest member. If you have hand drawn carriages (for feed for your animals, for example) going through forest, then you'd be lucky to get 40 km per day. Similarly, remember that you need to rest. There has been occasions in history were generals or people forced marched an army through the night to get someplace crucial quickly, but that is often very tiring and is generally not favourable as your men will need rest. Furthermore, there is a type of horse whose gaite is lateral, similar to the camel, and the advantage of that is they their ankles/knees do not get sore as they don't suffer as much impact upon the ground as our horses do nowadays. It is a matter of debate whether or not these horses were more popular for marching, which is possible and likely. A modern day descent of such horses includes the icelandic pony (i believe that's the name). As Simpson said, it's not so much the speed of the animal, but the endurance of it. How long can it keep going? I'm afraid I no nothing of the endurance of bears or the likes. But wolves can travels hundreds of kilometers with ease and they can migrate vaste distances quickly and regularly do so. Even their own territory is quite vaste considering the size and speed of the animal. This implies that wolves have a very high degree of endurance. Furthermore, I do not know your world, but it's unlikely to have an army composed entirely of ridden animals. Not impossible, as the mongols had almost entirely horse/cavalry armies. However, horses cost a lot and mongol horses were unique in that they were fairly low upkeep due to the fact that they did not need to eat on a regular basis. Furthermore, their nomadic lifestyle would make sure that only the more fit of horses would survive and be bred due to the simply requirements of such a lifestyle. Just something that you may want to keep in mind. To give you an idea, I believe each mongol soldier needed to have at least 5 mounts at his disposal, probably for the requirements of switching horses when needed. They probably also had a few battle-specific mounts which are trained differently to be more aggressive, less responsive to pain and more likely to charge (horses are unlikely to charge at massed formations without proper training -- just like most horses freak out in the city because of all the noise and stimuli.... They are herd animals, not predators so they are more inclined to "flee" than "fight" in the fight or flight response). Humans are actually very slow and very weak creatures in terms of our relative size. We're actually very poor survivalist on our physical bodies alone. We do not have claws, large canines or a massive bite ability to defend ourselves. We're not covered in fur to protect from the cold or otherwise. However, we are very good at endurance (when in good shape). There are some people, including a mexican tribe i forgot the name off, whose method of hunting simply invovled chasing your prey to exhaustion over dozens of kilometres. All in all, it depends on your fantasy creatures and their ability to march and their speed whilst marching. Furthermore, as I said, an army only marches as per it's slowest member lest you want to be divided up and defeated (divide an conquer, anyone?). In response to the Pony Express by Simpson, a better example (given the situation) is the Yam. A messanger/relay system used by the mongols, especially ganghis khan. A rider could be expected to travel 200 to 300 km per day
The Apaches'? The tribe that fought the USA army, led by Germino? Do these animals/beasts have any advantages? Do they only need to eat once a week for example? Take camels - my understanding is that they can store water inside themselves so they fill up on water when they can and then they don't need another drink for days and days. In the movie, "Lord of the Rings" there's a character that runs ahead of dire wolves (?) on a shed pulled by hares....realistic? No. But mythological means you can play around with this. Have fun!
Understanding that these are stand-in analogues for creatures of a more mythological bent, if whatever the bear stands for is actually bear-like, this is your strongest bottle-neck. Bears are plantigrade quadrupeds, and while they can certainly move at a good clip when needs be, they are not remotely capable of keeping that up for any kind of long haul. They were one of the large extant creatures with vaguely similar morphology that I researched when trying to decide how far a diprotodon (Pleistocene rhino-sized wombat) can honestly be asked to travel in a day. Bears rarely range more than about 25 miles in a day (40 km). That's the top end of their normal, bear living a bear-life, daily expectation. All the other creatures you mention are animals who are - to one rather variable degree or another - more dedicated runners than bears. That's all I have to add. Bears = slow.
I don't have any knowledge, really, about military movements but I've done extensive research on both cattle drives and emigrant travel in the Old West of the USA. While neither of these had lighting speed as the object, other than not wanting to loiter or get caught by seasonal change or bad weather, they did want to make steady progress. In the case of the cattle drives, the drovers changed horses fairly often during the day. The spare horses were left in the care of wranglers who rode herd on the spare horses. Horses have to stop and feed and water fairly often, so they didn't get ridden all day long without rest. Lots of the progress depended on the terrain as well. Terrain with rivers, mountains, swamps, woodland all meant delay. And of course the drovers were driving cattle, and they didn't want the cattle run to the point that they lost weight. So progress was slow. According to this source, a normal drive on a well-known 'trail' made between 15 and 25 miles per day, but 25 was the upper limit, as it over-taxed the cattle and caused them to lose weight. https://www.agclassroom.org/me/matrix/lessonplan_print.cfm?lpid=268 In the case of the emigrants going west, oxen were the slowest, but also the most dependable and the strongest. They were able to graze on just about anything enroute, and didn't get tired out as fast as horses did. So for endurance, the ox beat the horse every time. Mules were kinda in the middle. They had more stamina than horses, but were not as easy to handle either. Sometimes emigrant trains made 30 miles a day, sometimes as few as only 3 or 4, depending on terrain and what happened along the way. Another big factor that would impact on travel speed would be the availability of food. On the cattle drives, the chuck wagon provided a hearty breakfast for the drovers, then packed up and went up the trail ahead of the herd, so the cook could get set up and get dinner ready for the hungry cowboys when they finally caught up and got the cattle settled for the night. The chuck wagon carried most of the supplies, augmented occasionally by game or by a stopover in some town along the way. Food wasn't really an issue for the men on these drives, as the planning was pretty efficient. These were, after all, experienced men under the command of a seasoned trail boss, on an established route ...which many of them had traveled more than once. The emigrant trains had food problems, usually either because of poor planning or disasters which befell the emigrants along the way. They were NOT experienced, often followed leaders who screwed up, and often were poorly equipped for the journey. So food was an issue—and water even more so. An army would carry some supplies, of course. But often they depended on finding food enroute ...either by buying it, hunting it or commandeering it. However, an army that was half-starved or dehydrated wouldn't be much good for battle, so food and water for man and beast would have been a huge concern for commanders. Familiarity or unfamiliarity with the route would also have an effect.
How much planning can your general do? Could he have sat down at some point and said, "If THIS happens and we need to return to THAT place, what do we need?" Because if he does something like this, he could set up some caches of food and supplies in the area. He could have a fort somewhere and a garrison of troops stationed there. What about scouts who could make contact with the natives and trade with them for supplies and food? Information? Oh, and with regards to bears, they tend to sleep hibernate for about 4 to 5 months a year. Better make sure your animals don't have similar habits....
I cheat. Whenever I have distance my MC needs to cross, I go to the terrain I want on Google Maps, map the distance I want them to travel, set the thingy to "walk" and then get the "how long it will take them to get from A-Z." But then again, thats just 1 MC. I'd imagine a troop of people would be walking much slower....
This is from my notes: On a good road and with no baggage train, march rate can be up to 40 kilometers per day, but such a rate is exhausting and causes high attrition. Up to 50 kilometers per day can be achieved with an all-mounted force, but only for two days or so. Small units can move more rapidly – infantry could march up to 50 kilometers per day in forced march, and cavalry 65 – 80 kilometers per day. Army in enemy territory often has to forage, again reducing marching speed to 20 kilometers per day or less. These marching speeds are similar for other armies as well, though nomads may achieve 130 – 165 kilometers a day. News carried by courier travel at rate of about 100 kilometers per day, albeit urgent messages may travel up to 380 kilometers per day (20 km/h). Normal day's ride (a civilian measure) is 50 – 65 km on flat ground, and 40 – 50 km on hilly terrain. Army of nomads can move up to 100 kilometers per day.
There are a lot of complicating factors. What terrain are they traveling over? There's a lot of difference between a narrow, windy forest track and a straight stone road, or between a dry dirt road and the same road after the spring rains. Is there artillery to drag through the mud? Are there many camp followers? The fletcher's or armorer's wagons will certainly be slower than the rest of the army. If the need is great enough, the fighting elements could go on ahead to secure a good defensive position.
BTW, I'm not a serious gamer but judging by how seriously some people take their role playing of Dungeons & Dragons games, I can almost guarantee you that this question has been addressed in one (or several) of their forums. Check.... https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Movement#content As an example. I can guarantee you that they will have a formula for how fast *anything* moves - any type of ship/boat, draft animal, any race in the game including those that fly and/or swim, and probably also any type of farm animal like if the farm family needs to evacuate ahead of a rampaging horde of orcs. The game can be fun but really.....some people take it way, way too seriously.
Have only skimmed the above so I apologize if I'm repeating things, but in the 1880s the French Foreign Legion in Africa used "Mounted Companies" of infantry. These were not cavalry companies. Long story short, one mule can carry two men's gear and one of the men and walks at about the same speed as a man. This provided the infantry the ability to move faster (don't have to carry their own gear) and arrive fresher (half the time is spent riding a mule, the other half walking unencumbered) than regular leg soldiers would. So there are some possible numbers for you. ETA: Shit, sorry, source: http://foreignlegion.info/units/foreign-legion-mounted-companies/
How much stamina do your beasts have? You can quite reasonably ride a horse for 8 hours a day, but it will need time to rest and feed. Other animals may have less endurance - although a big cat or wolf can run at speed, it can't keep that up for any length of time. EDIT: Wreybies already covered this.
It greatly depends on army organization, logistics and available infrastructure. You would be surprised how fast an army can get (even a pre-modern one) under the right conditions. Here I want to mention that your initial 30-50 miles a day assumption is how much Napoleon's armies marched /on foot/ and /between battles/. On long marches with resting days included they averaged 25 miles a day. The Prussian campaign saw his army march 600km (370 miles) in 8 days; and steamroll Prussia in 19 days (thus making his defeat of Prussia faster than the defeat of Poland in WW2). A description of the army from the 1805 campaign from a French-Bavarian officer: "Ulm taken and negligently occupied, the army of Bonaparte, the victorious army, was disbanded, and appeared to me no longer anything but an army in rout; but in rout in advance instead of retreat. This torrent took the direction of Vienna, and henceforth there was nothing but an 'arrive qui peut' by roads full and encumbered. Our German corps alone marched like regular troops."
