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In my world, there exists giant eagles kind of similar to the ones in LOTR. These eagles are large enough to ride and are domesticated.

As a result, people have been using this giant eagles in warfare. First, they have been used as scouts. Later on they were used as transports. One day, somebody got the idea of collecting a huge number of rocks and dropping them from the eagles. This was similar to Lazy Dog Bombs used in WW2. The eagles fly 1 mile up in the sky at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour.

Pertinent Information:
These giant eagles can carry up to 500 kilograms of weight, can fly for up to 6 hours at a full load, are as durable as a warhorse, and are as rare as elephants.

The enemies are standard late medieval Western Europeans fighting in the open plains. Typical enemy forces comprise lightly armored pikemen/archers and heavily armored knights. No other species.

Question:
Would it be feasible for a country with late medieval-era technology to make a lot of kinetic projectiles, such as flechettes, for use as an effective weapon against contemporary militaries?

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    $\begingroup$ Useful is entirely dependent upon context. Who are they fighting, what are their capabilities, what strategic, operational, and tactical outcomes are both forces expecting to achieve. In addition to not providing essential context to answer this question in an objective manner, you also have additional questions in the body of your post. We have a strict 1question per post policy. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Aug 4, 2022 at 17:07
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    $\begingroup$ Also, the lifting capacity of the eagles is important. "Big enough to ride" is fine, but "big enough to ride and also possessed of an enormous cargo capacity" generally requires engines. $\endgroup$
    – jdunlop
    Aug 4, 2022 at 17:44
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    $\begingroup$ @Gillgamesh --- It is understandable and reasonable as written --- but as written is not a WB question. As written, it's already been answered by the OP with the cited WP article! At best, this query has worldbuilding potential; at worst, it's a let's me google that for you waste of time because oh gee you already googled it. $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Aug 4, 2022 at 20:25
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    $\begingroup$ No idea why this was closed it's easy to answer. Yes, these eagles would still be useful even today $\endgroup$
    – Kilisi
    Aug 5, 2022 at 1:49
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    $\begingroup$ @elemtilas Considering edit version #3. How can this question be answered? Which country? Exactly which year? Was the country shown how to make the bomb and we're simply asking if it can only be manufactured at that tech level? Is ITM_Coder asking for permission to use the idea? Or, worse, is he/she asking if the idea is believable? Is it possible to remove the "effective" qualifier since that's 100% story-based? Is the bird carrying one 500# bomb or 25 20# bombs or something else? What does "a lot" mean? ITM... What, exactly and specifically is the problem? $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Aug 6, 2022 at 3:06

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Before heavy industry, iron was too valuable and expensive to be used to create thousands of flechettes to airdrop on an enemy. Besides, they would have to be hand forged. When demolishing houses, people would recover the forged nails, because they were that expensive.

So. What did medieval people drop on enemies from above? They didn't have eagles, but they did have fortifications, and anyone trying to attack them with a ladder would receive:

  • Heavy rocks
  • Boiling water
  • Superheated sand

The common denominator for all these is that they're very cheap, so you can store and drop a lot of it. Sand can be heated way above 100°C without boiling, and it gets inside the armor. Receiving a bucket of sand at 500-800°C must be a most unpleasing experience.

Then, the more expensive stuff:

Really expensive stuff, like petrol, sulfur, oil, etc, was not actually used much.

Hot stuff does not apply in your case: if the eagle flies high enough to be safe from archers, anything dropped would cool on the way down. So I see two options:

  • Chemical weapons

The flying beast carries a bag of chemicals, most likely quicklime since it was widely available at the time and not that expensive. The rider opens it by pulling a rope and undoing a knot, and it is dispersed in a cloud of blinding death over the enemies.

  • Incendiary

Your enemies sleep at night, probably in a camp, and tents are quite flammable. You would need a barrel of flammable liquid, and a device to ignite it as it comes out. Note the commonly available oils at the time, vegetable oil and animal fat, are not flammable unless they're boiling. Then you can have a rain of flammable liquid. This can also be used to attack cities or fortifications.

Firebombs are also a possibility, but these need a means of ignition, which would be tricky. A man riding a flying beast would have little success with a lighter, because of the wind.

All of these are extremely dangerous for the beast and the rider, of course.

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  • $\begingroup$ How do you heat water or sand up there? Do you make a campfire on the eagle? $\endgroup$ Aug 6, 2022 at 12:31
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    $\begingroup$ You don't, that's why I said it wouldn't apply $\endgroup$
    – bobflux
    Aug 6, 2022 at 18:54
  • $\begingroup$ +1, but might be worth saying explicitly why it doesn't apply, that even if the boiling water / heated sand was lifted from a forward base only a mile or so from the battlefield that it would cool very rapidly to be only mildly warm if dropped from a height sufficient to make the rare / valuable eagle safe from anti-air-archery. $\endgroup$ Aug 8, 2022 at 2:33

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