"The slits are wider facing outward to allow a wider range of firing angles and narrow on the inside to protect the archers." That's exactly the opposite of any castle I've ever seen. That would funnel arrows into the castle. See "Arrowslit" in Wikipedia: "The interior walls behind an arrow loop are often cut away at an oblique angle so that the archer has a wide field of view and field of fire."
Not sure if this is relevant or not, but I'm pretty sure the equivalents designs for cannons (e.g. on the walls of Fort George in Scotland) are as described and are widest on the outward part.
Sure, but those usually have a gun shield protecting the gun crew & it is done due to the gun barrel being long & the gun being heavy, so it is better to mount it on a single point, instead to jave it traverse on a curve (which is not a problem for an archer).
Not that the apertures are stepped instead of smooth - I guess the avoid the funneling effect mentioned above, possibly changing a near miss to deflection and hit on the gun shield. Should not happen if the steps get in the way.
Apparently not [0]. IANA cannon expert but I think in the 18th C their biggest threat would have been from cavalry rather than sharpshooting infantry or precision fire from other cannon.
I had to sketch it, but it looks like the angle of view only depends on the angles of the wall, not where the narrow part is...
https://postimg.cc/ykwFjD62
Right, but the problem with having the narrow part on the inside is that any arrow that hits within the "cone" will be "funneled" right into the defender; whereas what you want is for attackers' arrows to hit only if they manage to get just the right place.
The wording is slightly unclear, but I can't imagine anyone this well-versed in medieval warfare wouldn't know that arrow slits would be wider inside than outside.
Huh. It looks like you are right. The narrow inside don't actually impede the view of the defender that much. But keeping the narrow part on the outside does provide some extra defense.
Instead of starting with the Helm's Deep series, I would recommend starting with the Siege of Gondor series, which was written earlier and is a little easier to follow IMO https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondo... It's an excellent mix of fiction, history, tactics (operations!), pop culture, and filmography. It's probably one of the best things I've ever read
Just watched the LOTR movies again last week and my wife and I complained specifically about how unrealistic, or simply bad, the attack on Helms Deep seemed.
For starters, that this article pops up just days after our discussion blew my mind.
The analysis really brings to light the depth of Tolkien.
What could easily be chalked up to a standard large scale mindless action-movie (or book - even if the book is more nuanced) event is actually purposefully showing Sarumans arrogance, as well as ignorance.
Finally, this qoute made me think of a few enterprise software projects I’ve had to deal with as well:
> This is, I must say, a common mistake of amateurs – to propose extremely complex battle plans which could win the day on a computer or in an armchair discussion, but which are so complex that actually implementing them in the fog of war is nearly impossible.
There must be some formal and rigorous way to argue against such crazy complex plans. Because I've seen my share as well, almost universally disastrous.
Perhaps they are optimizing for the "best possible" outcome rather than the "most likely" outcome? And I feel like that could be illustrated with a probability distribution. There would be bulge above "bad" on the horizontal and just the thinnest tail poking rightwards towards "great".
If a plan depends on a huge number of things going just the right way, there is a high probability of something going not as desired.
Intelligent officers could find a way around some of deviations from the plan, but they might not, because they lack a complete picture of the battle, because they might be not intelligent enough to devise a creative solution at the time, and because there a limits to the possible.
The more ways plan could go wrong, the more probability it would go wrong. The more deviations from the plan, the less probability than officers will be able to overcome them.
And one more thing: at war there is an enemy who will do anything to make life of your troops more difficult. Disrupting communications, disinformation, unexpected attacs and troops placement... there are a lot of ways, so even there is just one prerequisite for a plan to work, there is a good deal of a probability than it would go wrong.
In HPMoR[1] Yudkowski mocked complex plans, and proposed a rule:
> That was when Father had told Draco about the Rule of Three, which was that any plot which required more than three different things to happen would never work in real life.
> Father had further explained that since only a fool would attempt a plot that was as complicated as possible, the real limit was two.
I've really enjoyed this blog -- it's changed the way that I envision the past. I particularly enjoyed the lonely city series of articles where the author emphasizes how pre-modern agricultural economies used land, and that the vast majority of people and activity were tied closely to agriculture.
Extremely entertaining. You might expect this kind of write-up to be dry (and it is, to be fair, incredibly long), but the author has a snappy sense of humor and an engaging style
Let's start with the most jarring aspect of the movie Helm's Deep scene: the elves! So said Elrond in the Council:
> Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged. And ever since that day the race of Numenor has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened."
Haldir:
> we dwell now in the heart of the forest, and do not willingly have dealings with any other folk.
It is indeed perhaps the biggest fault of the otherwise excellent movies. Replacing Glorfindel with Arwen didn't bother me at all, for example.
True, and this is emblematic of the changes in the Two Towers that easily made it the worst of the series for me. Though, I can empathize with why some of these changes were made.
The text of the Two Towers as it exists on the page has practically no elves in it. We are shown wanton destruction of the Westfold and the immense suffering in Rohan, yet we must buy they will soon ride to the aid of Gondor. The Battle of Helm's Deep is pitched as an existential fight for Rohan, and to have the Elves sit this one out would likely come across as extremely self-centered to modern audiences. Whatever the Elder Folk may have suffered in the past, they are the most organized and best equipped in Middle Earth. To have them sit out the destruction of Rohan in their literal Ivory towers would probably alienate audiences.
Worth mentioning that Bret Devereaux, author of the piece (and blog) under discussion here, has some salt in other articles for the Total War series' effect on his students' perception of how ancient and medieval battles worked. Fun if you're into that sort of thing, but not to be taken overly seriously, is the impression I've gathered.
All I can think about when reading this stuff is playing LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 on Xbox back in the day[0]! Still my favorite RTS game, though I haven’t played in years.
Sure enough, Helms Deep was one of my favorite battlefields. It was fun to give myself the defensive advantage, but also fun to give it to my (computer) opponent for a healthy challenge. I’ll never forget the value of Elvish archers on the walls.
It's a really old game by now, but I still sometimes play Medieval Total War 2. The siege battles are a lot of fun but perhaps a bit too easy. I hope the game gets a sequel someday.
Now I have to watch the trilogy :) I probably know all the dialogues by heart now but still, it will be a good exercise to study the battles rather than just watching them. I always thought that the assault was poorly planned blindly charging the wall, the berserker etc. But I never thought of it as a strategical mistake. Rather I thought it was more about the characteristics of the Uruk. Fearless horde of savages charging without any fear.
