Board Thread:TV Show Discussion/@comment-1031724-20170726043227/@comment-28895263-20170730033609

I feel a long post coming on…

The intelligence failure on Yara’s part, and on the part of the entire Targaryen alliance, is enormous. Yara knew that Euron was out there, somewhere. Reconnaissance may be a duty that’s beneath a queen, but Daenerys is the only dragon pilot in the alliance. (Maybe they can recruit a warg or two, with birds, via Jon.)  No recon, and Yara sailed without any idea where Euron might be.

Good intelligence (turncoats?) told Euron the time and general direction of Yara’s departure. Once they got close enough, they would have been able to see the deck lanterns on Yara’s ships. Closer still; those lanterns would have made good aiming marks for Euron’s ballistae. Those lanterns are a good example of bad operational security. More on that later.

''First: Ser Jamie is right about the Ironborn. They are a small people, who are only good at stealing what they cannot build or grow. Euron could not have built a thousand ship navy; he hadn’t the wood or linen, or the men to steal enough to build those ships. Nor could the Iron Islands provide the crew for a fleet of warships that size. (N.B.: The U.S. Navy currently has about 430 ships.)''

''We have either dramatic license on the part of G.R.R.M. / HBO, or puffery and exaggeration on Euron’s part. I’ll go with the latter.''

The Ironborn are a small people: pirates and thugs. Racketeers; organized crime lords. Their ships, weapons and tactics are good for attacking fishing boats, unarmed merchant ships, and undefended shore villages. (Their limited and temporary success in the North was due to the North’s defenders' absence during the war.)  Picture pirates in small motor launches taking on merchant shipping off the coast of Somalia, and you’ve got the Ironborn. Yara’s Ironborn, anyway: good for attacking civilians, not so good fighting even a small professional navy.

Euron has learned what it takes to win against an adversary who can fight back. Silence, and at least some of his other ships, have rams and boarding ramps. His ships have powerful ballistae. He’s built his fleet to take on an armed adversary. He approached Yara’s well-lit fleet with no lights of his own. That's good OpSec. He had good intelligence.

The size of his fleet is puffery; his victory was due to the weakness of his opponent  Had Yara known that Euron was in Blackwater Bay, or taken the simple precaution of running a dark convoy, Euron might never have found her. Yara was still thinking like a pirate; Euron has learned how to think like an Admiral. Madman, or not.