Note on terminology: by “professional” here I mean “people whose job is fighting”. It does not mean that it is necessarily their only job or that they are under arms 365/y, but rather, that they are trained and organized military force. Example of part-time professionals would be US Army Reserve or US National Guard for modern-day forces, or else Byzantine themata. “Professionals” as “troops whose only job is fighting” is what I consider to be specifically “standing troops” or “full-time professionals” – such as US Army regulars today or Byzantine tagmata during 8^th to 11^th centuries. Thus it should not be assumed that there is binary setup of “full-time professional” vs “peasants with pitchforks”. These are merely extremes of organization, but significant variation is possible between those two end states, with differing advantages and disadvantages.

Looking at real life, it is almost certain that most of Westerosi soldiers…