Using campfire to estimate army size...

zornhau · Nov 3, 2011

Hi folks - this is really bugging me, because I swear I've read about this somewhere (and yes I have googled, and looked at Vegetius), so I'd be grateful for any help with the following:

Is there a rule of the thumb for estimating the size of a pre-modern by counting its campfires?

My hero is counting Huns, but I'll settle for Mongols, Napoleonic era or anything plausible....

(Help?)

thothguard51 · Nov 3, 2011

No hard fast rule. Some Armies even had more camp fires than men and some armies limited their fires so the enemy could not tell how many men they had.

Generally there are fires for the cooks, fires for the blacksmiths and then fire from individual soldiers trying to keep warm. Could be a couple of guys sharing a fire or ten. From a distance you can not tell.

Using campfire to estimate army size...

zornhau

Swordsman

thothguard51

A Gentleman of a refined age...