Wine and Siege Warfare. They go together well.

[gridlore]

• My day in a nutshell.


• What really sucks is I went to Lodi for nothing. A poorly-written Return order meant that I went after something another office was retrieving already.


• At least I got to drive through Lodi's wine country. Very pretty this time of year.


• Which reminds me, I need to grab a bottle of Earthquake.. something


• Been rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Helm's Deep always makes me scream. You do not build a long, straight ramp up to your gate! You put a 90° turn or two in there to prevent the enemy from bringing up a battering ram. You also build a section that you can raise.


• And what idiot built a drain that large when you have freaking caves you could run the drain water into?


• I do like the orc Olympic torch bearer.


• Of course, the Rohirrim generally fail as warriors. You have an army marching towards you, largely foot mobile. Send out cavalry raids to harass them. Ride to within bowshot, loose a flight, ride away. Do this multiple times over the course of a couple of days. You won't cause many casualties, but you will degrade efficiency and slow their march.


• But then Théoden King seems to be a bit of a prat in all things.


• Maybe it's time to reread the books again. It's been 20 years.


• Wow, Wikisurfing is addictive. Look away from the LotR pages, Doug.


• Let's go Giants!

Comments

[eleri.livejournal.com]

I should get a bottle of that to bring back for my parents. Hmm... that would involve shipping, or not just having a carry on. Hmm.

[crankyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

and charging DOWN a STEEP (looks 45+ degrees above the horizontal) slope?

much as I am obsessed by cavalry, I cringe every time I see that scene. keep expecting the horses to roll down rather than charge.

much perfer the scene in Return of the King where the Rohirrim smack the Orc army in the side.

course, really like the gathering of the Cossacks in Taras Bulba.

[isomeme.livejournal.com]

Helm's Deep was clearly never intended as a serious fortification. It's a show fort some ancestor of Theoden's tossed together as a summer home. They mention in the movie (and in the book, as I recall) that it's held off small bands of marauding orcs before...and that's all. Semi-nomadic horse cultures don't tend to be big on fixed fortifications; they should (as you say) be using their mobility against the attackers.

Were I in Theoden's position, I'd melt into the high country and wait the situation out, raiding as opportunities permitted. Kind of a Che-oden strategy. :)

[crankyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

problem was that Theoden had retreated to Helm's Deep with mostly non combatants. Most of his forces were already in the field, from which Gandalf gathered.

The field forces were also focused on threats from Mordor. Isengard blind sided them since, prior to that, there had been NO orcs (or Uruk Hai) at Isengard.

Kind of like finding out that Fort Hood was being run by the Russians.

[isomeme.livejournal.com]

That was certainly a big part of his problem, but like all commanders in wartime, he had a rich variety of problems available to him. :)

[john-appel.livejournal.com]

And, lest we forget, Tolkien was hardly a master of military science.

Sometimes we just need to reinforce the disbelief suspenders and go along for the ride. :)

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I do.

It would have been a very different story if the Rohirrim had been based on the Mongols and not, from what I could tell, the Vikings.

[crankyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

hmmm - more Magyar or Hun than Viking.

maybe Cossack.