Battle of the Burning Plains IV

No addendum this time, I did reread for the Nth time the description but the only new thing I noticed was that Murtagh was outfitted with plate armor and that some hundred (rather than several hundred) Kull took part.

Critique of the battle

I am not here to malicously criticise Paolini for the battle, which I feel has been overdone in the Internet. I am here to criticise the generals of the battle for their conduct. Of course they are Paolini's creation, so it might read as a critique of him.
For commenting I will rely on my memory and the books on tactics and strategy I have read. Most significantly I'll rely on my recollection of byzantine emperor Leo the Wise's book Tactics. It is a military manual written probably by him during his reign (Leo was a good scholar but a bad general, the nickname Wise is ironic) and describes how the byzantine war machine worked. It is one of the many examples why the Byzantine Empire was NOT a medieval state, since it treated war as a very serious business and had plans ready at any time to face its enemies, something that western states of the time did not.
Leo the Wise analyses how different armies of his time fight (Arab armies, Western armies, blond i.e. Slavic armies, Turkic armies) and suggests the proper tactics to defeat them. His general suggestions are that the army should be placed in two line, if possible three, and have reinforcement to plug breaches the enemy causes or to take advantage of the situation and that the main attack should come from the flank where enemies are always more vulnerable. On to the battle now:

Generally the level of the Varden/Surdan army is superior to that of the imperial army. Though Nasuada makes mistakes, her counterpart makes far greater. While it is excusable for Nassuada to array her army in a single line due to massive numerical superiority, for the imperial army this is downright criminal. A second line would have left forces ready to attack the Varden from the side or even the back, Orrin's cavalry from the flank and would have ensured victory, especially considering that the numerical superiority allowed the imperials to do so and there were no major land abnormalities in the Plains of which we are told. The battle took the form of a battle in restricted territory, like at Thermopylae or Isus, which it did not need to. Some other critique:

1 Why did Nassuada did not send her army to attack during the night? If the attack coincided with the poisons of Angela, the confusion would have been such the imperial army could have disintegrated At least the attack took place soon after the poisons took their toll

2 Why did Nassuada send her army to the enemy encampment instead of having them come to her? Perhaps it was simply impossible

3 Why didn't Orrin's cavalry attack from the back to cause double envelopment, as in the battle of Cannae or the battle of Marathon, perhaps in a wedge like Achilles did in the last battle of the Iliad where he breaches the Trojan line and traps half the Trojan Army between the Acheans and the river, mercilessly killing them. Perhaps they were too few

4 When the Surdans reach their fortifications, were they manned, by archers perhaps? We are not told

A comment I have to add is that the imperial army was definitely well trained. Considering they withstood 7 dragon attacks without fleeing, and how fearsome would be a creature that had not been seen in decades by people much simpler than those of today, it is perhaps safe to assume that Galbatorix and Shruikan trained them themselves to withstand such an attack. More commentary will come at a later day