First things first: This is not a thread about the "Muggles vs. Wizards" argument. That debate is fruitless, pointless, and basically amounts to pure conjecture at best. We have no real way to compare the two, so please do not bring that discussion in here.

What I would like to discuss is how Wizards and other magical creatures (as portrayed in the Harry Potter canon) would make war on each other. I'm something of a wargamer and I like analyzing the strategic situations.

My initial thoughts are thus:

-Wizards are extremely versatile- they can basically bend the battlefield to their whims between Apparation, Portkeys, Imperio, and Transfiguration. However they have some pretty severe limitations as well. As far as I can tell, Transfiguration takes a comparatively long time. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing the average wizard can pull off in 30 seconds. Apparation can easily screw up. Portkeys require preparation. They also have a host of targeted, line of sight spells that can do tons of horrifying things to their target. Imperio requires concentration and line of sight to cast.

-What they don't appear to have is an easy way to deal with masses of guys. Likewise, the biggest limitation is that an individual wizard is only capable of casting one spell at a time, and since each spell would appear to take around 15 seconds to cast if you go by the movies, this is a pretty key limitation.

-Apparently you can bind powerful protections to blood. I would assume this is why there is a 'blood supremacist' faction among wizards, since it would logically follow that these protections are passed down and can even be strengthened by good breeding. Likewise, bad breeding could in fact weaken the protections. Perhaps you can bind other things to blood as well, like specific spells or change how certain potions affect you.

My conclusions:

-Wizards are kind of glass cannons on the battlefield. Given how much time it takes to train a wizard to functionality, it means that exposing them to battle is more of a desperation tactic than something they would do willingly. However, when they do take the field, they would need to stick together in a sort of Phalanx. An individual wizard is an easy target; thirty or so wizards all standing together would probably be able to decimate an entire army, given enough time and proper leadership.

-Not that many wizards are good at combat magic. Sure, Dumbledore with the Elder Wand could do some serious damage, and Voldemort is basically immortal. Both are exceptions, rather than the rule. One of the Weasley twins mentioned that there are a surprising number of wizards who can't cast a good shield charm, which along with Finite Incantatem and Vanishing is pretty much the foundation of Wizarding combat, from my perspective. Basically, Dueling strategy is about how you deal with those three charms, more than anything else. I seriously doubt that there are more than 200 trained combatants in the entirety of Wizarding Britain.

-The best way available for Wizards to fight wars seems to be by using enchanted objects. Wizards can apparently make indestructible items. Seems like kind of an obvious move to make an army of golems out of said material, and go to town. Hell, even just normal statues coupled with Reparo charms would rip apart most magical creatures (except Giants, Basilisks, and Dragons). It would be relatively ineffective against other Wizards, since they could just Finite the animation charms and reanimate them under their control, but I don't really see anything the other races have that could match that. I assume that's why Hogwarts has all of those suits of armor and why Hogwarts is actually important politically.

-Wizard vs Wizard would logically be a game of cat and mouse. It would be about how you split up your opponent's wizard base so that they become easy targets for your controlled creatures, dragons, basilisks, or giants for
preference. Inferius hordes would also work if you have some way to stop fire from appearing. Perhaps removing their eyes and enchanting them with Flame Freezing charms would work as well.

-Blood Magic (since there doesn't appear to be a better name for it) seems to be ridiculously powerful, if you go by canon. It's probably the key to breaking open Wizarding wars. If you can bind some sort of magic to blood that can beat one of the few worthwhile targeted curses (Avada Kedavra), it suggests you can put some serious protections and possibly even some crazy offensive options into an inherited bio-magical package.

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These are just my initial thoughts, and I think that my ideas could use some refining. I'm not the biggest canon buff out there, so if anyone spots anything I missed, please point it out.

 

I agree with Sesc, but to take it further...

Mundane wars over territory were about controlling resources. For the wizarding world, the people are the resources and only a few locations are hardened enough to be valued. A wizarding war is mostly a war of assassination and hostage-taking. It hearkens to the family conflicts in Renaissance Italy, where prominent duels and melees became the 'massacres' that prompted retribution. After all, a running combat between two dozen people (six of which were students) is referred to as the Battle of the Department of Mysteries.

What may have made Voldemort such a frightening opponent was his tendency to escalate conflicts from a handful on each side to include a dozen or more trained wizards for even a simple assault.

This makes Hogwarts an unusually valuable target for a 'mere' school. It has probably the most extensive library of knowledge in northern Europe and for ten months a year protects and educates the children of prominent families. It's situated next to a diverse magical ecosystem that houses many rare creatures that have been chased from most 'civilized' areas of the world. It's also one of the few places with sufficient protections to defend against an onslaught of giants or rampaging centaurs.

 

And like so many simple answers, it's misleading.

There is some method of stopping Apparation at least, since you can't apparate in Hogwarts. It doesn't seem that different from contemporary Parachute tactics. Brooms are not terribly different from modern aircraft. The Floo network isn't that hard to deal with. Portkeys are the big question mark, really, but there seems to be some sort of limitation on creation, targeting, and timing.

Really, they would still need to hold ground as long as they had something to protect. Likewise, they do have the Fidelis Charm, at the very least. They can also make something Unplottable, whatever that means. Also, Blood protections may count for something in preventing attacks like what you're thinking of.

-edit- There's also the Taboo spell to consider.

However, there were Goblin Wars and Giant Wars at least. The notion of war is hardly new to Wizards. My read of the situation is that Wizards have ruled the roost for so long that a lot of their old war strategies were lost to time. I don't think you actually need that many wizards to have a war- especially if they swell their forces by way of servitors or constructs.

Wizards don't appear to have a lot of ways to deal with huge numbers of enemies, even weak ones, other than Fiendfyre, conjured fire, and running the hell away.

I disagree with you here- it depends on how well they can protect their various cannon fodder, and how quickly they can produce them. If they can ward their grunt units (Inferi, magical creatures, constructs, conjured animals, whatever) to be protected from the few crowd control spells that wizards use, then it does become closer to Muggle wars. If they can churn out thousands of fodder units a day, then it does mirror Muggle wars again. Classic case of Quality vs. Quantity.

I don't see why Wizards are the only thing that can kill Wizards.

What was described in the books was one coup after another, not a war.

-edit-

@ Wordhammer: Good point about the Wizards themselves as the resources fought over. There are other magical resources though: potions ingredients, artifacts, knowledge... etc. etc.

 

I'm pretty sure it starts when the other guy's "father hears of this!", but it gets a little fuzzy after that.

Nice, insightful, posts by Sesc and wordhammer.

We've had cola wars, the Late Night (talk show) wars, and the war on drugs... but they're hardly what the average muggle thinks of as a real war (though the last one has the potential to be, if the authorities really stepped things up).

Wizards can call things wars all they want, but without going AU, there simply aren't enough of them in any area at a given time to have more than what we would probably think of as skirmishes.

Fighting giants, while probably a daunting task for your average witch or wizard, would also be done in very small numbers. The goblins... we never really hear how many of them there are, but I think people assume there are a lot more of them than we ever see, because they have tunnels.

Tunnels = hordes in the minds of many.

 

That's the sense I got from canon, anyway; nonjon said it best. :shrugs:

I probably should have explained my premise more effectively; I have a bad habit of forgetting to write out half of the thoughts in my head. :facepalm

Yes, I'm quite aware of the absence of a wizarding military. Yes, I am aware that Inferi are created with dark magic and Giants are big, dumb, brutes that are resistant to magic. Yes, given the numbers of wizards, any direct conflict between only wizards is going to be a glorified scuffle. Yes, anything conjectured will not be canon, and this will be conjecture at best (and thus AU).

My question is this:

Given what data we have of magic, population, and the logistics of the Magical world from canon, what extrapolated ways are available for the Wizarding World to support, generate, and fight a protracted, large-scale conflict that sort of resembles the concept I, as an average muggle, have of War?

I was hoping to provoke some discussion of the possibilities.

Instead, everyone who's posted so far has told me why it cannot work. It's a little disappointing really.

 

Well, it would be accurate to say that I'm extrapolating from canon. Obviously, if I end up using some of the ideas in a story, it will be a massive AU. However, I would like to keep the discussion as grounded in canon magic as possible; I'm looking to brainstorm the most logical ways magic could be used in a large scale (for the Wizarding World, of course) confrontation between magic users. That means Apparation, Portkeys, Floo, and Brooms are all still live options. It just changes the dynamic I was originally expecting.

Ugh. Yeah, I read that and I hated it- I found the writing to be ponderous, the dialogue wooden, and every character to be utterly unlikable. I couldn't make it passed chapter 2. In some ways, it was so bad it inspired me to do one better.

And this isn't the thread to discuss it. That was literally the first sentence of this thread.

For the record though- it's obvious who would win that one: Reptilians.

:awesome

------More Random Thoughts on How to Wage War With Magic-----​

-Portkeys as weapons. There doesn't appear to be any sort of ward in canon that stops Portkey use, so turning an Erumpant Horn or similarly explosive item into a Portkey targeted at your opponent's base seems like a pretty solid option.

-How are the more instant forms of travel targeted? I think that with Apparation, you need to have a clear picture of where you want to end up in your head (although I would appreciate a real canonista to correct me if I'm wrong) which isn't a huge limitation- just pass around the memory with a Pensieve or rip it out of somebody's head with legilimency. It kind of reminds me of 2-d Island Hopping, except much more extreme, in that combat would be less about front lines and more about specific key locations.

 

Where the hell are you getting all those bodies from?


This does make me curious as to how the magical side of WWII was fought. Was it small unit, small scale fights in back alleys and magic-only areas or was it more in line with toothpicks idea of a constructs and wizard "armies" since it was nation vs nation instead of what we saw in HP, which is simply a civil war?

 

Large scale, medieval style warfare, like two armies facing each other in an open field, in HP would be pretty redundant. One wizard working on their own is capable of doing a shitload of damage, with time to prepare. If their army is standing their in nice large ranks just point a dragon in their direction and they'll be pretty fucked.

I imagine it would be more like modern urban warfare, small skirmishes between small numbers of combatants, from ambush positions and whatnot. Since you might only get one good shot in you would look to catch them by surprise and lure them into traps.

I think that the best tactics would be to have small teams where everyone has a job. For example, one guy makes a shield another guy attacks them, etc...

There was a magical WW2? I thought that was just fanon.

 

Never argue about this subject with Taure in person. It's rage-inducing.

 

Ohhh lawd...

I think this is largely in part because Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in 1945. Then there's the could Albus have gone through all of Gellert's followers alone at 65 or so. If not then you have Aurors, maybe Unspeakables and perhaps Healers to add into the mix. All of this behind-the-scenes conflict somewhere in Germany, in the middle of WWII. Gah... does anyone else see the logistical nightmare of this conflict while Mundane Soldiers are running around?

 

Step 1. Go to Africa, South East Asia, or South America.
Step 2. Don't trip over all the corpses in the mass graves every five feet.

Or accept my statement for what it was: hyperbole.

Also, Inferi are not the only fodder available to Wizards. Conjured animals, animated statues/armor, and Imperius-controlled creatures of various stripes are all canon examples of what could be used as cannon fodder.

What we saw in Harry Potter was basically the edge of a conspiracy turned into a rapid fire series of coups- nothing remotely resembling warfare until the end of book 7 during the Battle of Hogwarts.

That said, I imagine that if wizards were involved with the nations' armies at all in WWII, it wasn't in direct combat. There are just too many things happening in modern warfare at once for a Wizard to be significanty more effective than a squad of soldiers armed with submachine guns and a bazooka. Plus there just aren't enough Wizards to make
risking them on the line worth it. Wizards are best suited for dealing with the intelligence community- Legilimency, Veritaeserum, Imperius, AK, Disillusionment Charm, Polyjuice, and a plethora of other spells are a spy's wet dream.

@ Ashaya: I imagine it's like trying to argue evolution with a catholic apologist.

 

This is weird to me, it reminds me of a scifi writer who uses extremely fast FTL travel and then have everyone fight a war with conventional battlelines.

I think forcing wizards into any sort of large-scale conflict is going to mostly be limited to siege battles. Think Medieval: Total War instead of RTW. The problem, of course is pinning down your enemy which promises to be near impossible.

The Fidelius charm is a ridiculously useful form of protection. If you got rid of it or declared that it was extremely difficult, /then/ perhaps some sort of battle could take place. If you could locate and pin your enemy down then perhaps a conventional battle could take place, with wizards staying back and letting their constructs do the fighting for them (which is how I've always pictured Wizard-to-Wizard combat) ultimately the battle would probably be determined by the mental skill of the fighter; whoever can outwit his opponent wins. Although it could pretty much run indefinitely if both sides are well enough off.


Or if you were going AU you could say fuck it, have the wizards as pseudo-feudal lords fighting with scores of Muggle troops.

I'm really interested to see where Taure stands on this though. Unfortunately, despite his name being invoked in every canon thread I rarely see him anymore.

 

Here's the other side of what I was trying to say but didn't really think on. Lol. Put a Muggle-Born witch or wizard in the OSS or MI5 and you got one Hell of an Interrogation specialist or all round great spy. XD

 

That would be a hell of a character: A muggleborn wizard who came out of the Hitler Youth.

 

A conflict like this would be the equivalent of of Stalingrad. Lots of small fighting everywhere, some major plans of advance/defense but in reality there are just some strong points and the area in between is shared between the soldiers of the different armies.

In canon we see no evidence that inferi is easy to create, certainly not in "thousands per day". Giants are pretty few and far between. Centaurs keep to themselves and would be no real struggle.

If there were 200.000 trained wizards in magical Britain we could perhaps see some sort of conventional fight but if you want to make that assumption true the entire canon world falls apart. Even if you had that many it would still be like Stalingrad btw since wizards would hardly engage in trench warfare.

The problem is that canon was not created for this sort of thinking and thereby it becomes redundant to think in these patterns. SO MANY THINGS are broken in canon that we simply can't theorize on this level without 50% of the known factors being thrown out the window.

 

Sounds about right.

And there aren't many centaurs either. We actually don't know how Inferi are made, but I wouldn't guess they're overly difficult to make. That said, they don't actually need to be made in the thousands or anything. Hell- get ten wizards to make to make 10 Inferi each day, and you'll have a slavering horde of the undead within a month.

The kind of thinking that says wizards don't have enough numbers by themselves to have a war? No-ones arguing about that. Going from canon, the only way there would be enough wizards to have a real pitched battle, let alone a war, is if the entire magical population of Europe decided to cockslap the entire magical population of Asia in the face.

My entire premise is that they would figure out ways to extend their numbers through constructs and fodder. Area denial is still important because it makes large swaths of terrain hostile to attack by Apparation or Portkey- it's just significantly harder. Basically think of the fodder units as a lot like semi-intelligent land mines; they exist to make sure the enemy doesn't want to attack that point because there's no way they've got enough wizards to deal with it.

Not so much as broken as not described.