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The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

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Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#61

Post by thaumasiotes »

dreen wrote: post #54
fmoronzirfas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think orcs eating orcs only happens in the movies. In the books orcs don’t do that. What he missed is orcs eating human flesh

Interesting, although the books indeed don't mention it I don't think it's entirely out of the question. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_(Middle-earth) > Tolkien indicates that Orcs are "always hungry".[24] Orcs eat all manner of flesh, including men and horses, and there are frequent hints of cannibalism among Orcs. Grishnákh, leader of the Mordor Orcs, accuses Saruman's Uruks of eating Orc-flesh, which they…

> Grishnákh, leader of the Mordor Orcs, accuses Saruman's Uruks of eating Orc-flesh, which they angrily deny.

As you note, this is good evidence that cannibalism is not practiced by the orcs.

> In Cirith Ungol, Gorbag suggests that Frodo (recently poisoned by Shelob) should "go in the pot"; Shagrat indicates that Gorbag could be "for the pot" for making such a suggestion.

This isn't good evidence; the insult is suggested by the context.

> Shagrat threatens to eat a disobedient orc

Without some sort of context, this is good evidence that cannibalism is practiced.

> and after killing Gorbag he licks his blood from the blade.

But this isn't; blood licking is not unknown among humans either. (To be fair, neither is cannibalism, but they read pretty differently.)

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#62

Post by [deleted] »

jacobush wrote: post #18
_Microft wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds a bit like things rendering Enterprise's transporters inoperative just when beaming up the away-team would have been the easiest solution. Oh, and to make it less obvious, you better announce a few minutes earlier that a plasma storm is forming in the upper atmosphere.

Or my favorite order never heard on the bridge of Enterprise "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" . Fine, often it would go against the ethos of what they are trying to do. But sometimes, they could have beamed home the away team and proceeded to rain fiery death from above with photon torpedoes or whatever.

[deleted]

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#63

Post by LaMarseillaise »

dragontamer wrote: post #55
Waterluvian wrote: post #26

"Let’s be clear on this point: ancient and medieval warfare was mostly about sieges." I also learned years ago that when medieval battles actually happened, the goal was to rout the enemy, not actually fight them and kill each other. I find these points illuminating because it reminds me that people back in the day were not primitive idiots. There was a very sensible logic to how they waged war. Ultimately, everyone…

Mass killings of troops certainly happened: Hannibal's famous "Battle of Cannae" actually destroyed an entire Roman Legion (70,000 killed, 10,000 captured out of ~80,000 troops). They were just very rare. Another point: After losing so many troops in a singular battle, the Romans changed their tactics. Instead of grouping their entire army as a massive 80,000-man strong Phalanx, they split up their armies into smalle…

Minor correction:

A Legion numbered 3000-6000 combat troops around the time of Cannae. The Romans had mobilized additional forces for this battle, and this included an increase in the number of legions as well as the size of some. It is probably more accurate to say that about eight legions (Romans and allies) were destroyed.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#64

Post by thanhhaimai »

dragontamer wrote: post #55
Waterluvian wrote: post #26

"Let’s be clear on this point: ancient and medieval warfare was mostly about sieges." I also learned years ago that when medieval battles actually happened, the goal was to rout the enemy, not actually fight them and kill each other. I find these points illuminating because it reminds me that people back in the day were not primitive idiots. There was a very sensible logic to how they waged war. Ultimately, everyone…

Mass killings of troops certainly happened: Hannibal's famous "Battle of Cannae" actually destroyed an entire Roman Legion (70,000 killed, 10,000 captured out of ~80,000 troops). They were just very rare. Another point: After losing so many troops in a singular battle, the Romans changed their tactics. Instead of grouping their entire army as a massive 80,000-man strong Phalanx, they split up their armies into smalle…

Another noteworthy battle of annihilation is the Battle of Bach Dang River: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B%E1%BA%A1ch_%C4%9...

Fun fact: the South East Asia was safe guarded from the Mongolian invasion because they was stopped 3 times at Vietnam. The Mongolian had heavy casualties from all 3 of the grand campaigns, despite overwhelming number and was forced to retreat.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#65

Post by TeMPOraL »

HankB99 wrote: post #31
krapp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have phasers with enough power to boil the oceans of a planet, and torpedoes that can travel faster than light. Yet every conflict takes place at extremely close proximity, often on the same plane, as if they were ships in the age of sail. They have force fields with a critical flaw (harmonic resonance means any energy weapon using the same frequency as the shields can just shoot right through them) but whenever…

I've always been a bit disappointed in the weapons available far into the future. I tried watching one series and the opening scene involved good guys shooting at bad guys and hiding behind boulders and such. It just looked so much like the conflict sequence in High Noon. I couldn't watch further. And they still suffered from the "good guy bullets" vs. "bad guy bullets" phenomenon. A good guy can run unscathed (or wi…

> Do Phasors ever miss?

They miss, and they miss a lot. Firefights in Star Trek look mostly like firefights everywhere else - beams and bolts flying through the air, and every now and then someone gets hit.

One interesting aspect is that TNG-era phasers used by protagonists don't even look like practical weapons. I read somewhere that this was intentional design decision - Starfleet was supposed to be about peace and exploration, so they didn't want the protagonists carrying something recognizable as a gun. Star Trek back-tracked a bit from that later on, with introduction of phaser rifles that look not unlike something you could really see on a battlefield of the future. But back to the TNG phasers - because they're shaped more like a flat flashlight than a gun, they really must be tough to aim. I mean, try taking a laser pointer and hitting something a couple meters away from you with the first click of the button. It's hard. In my headcanon, phasers must run some sophisticated auto-targeting systems - otherwise, the feats of accuracy seen on the screen would be impossible.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#66

Post by gwd »

dragontamer wrote: post #55
Waterluvian wrote: post #26

"Let’s be clear on this point: ancient and medieval warfare was mostly about sieges." I also learned years ago that when medieval battles actually happened, the goal was to rout the enemy, not actually fight them and kill each other. I find these points illuminating because it reminds me that people back in the day were not primitive idiots. There was a very sensible logic to how they waged war. Ultimately, everyone…

Mass killings of troops certainly happened: Hannibal's famous "Battle of Cannae" actually destroyed an entire Roman Legion (70,000 killed, 10,000 captured out of ~80,000 troops). They were just very rare. Another point: After losing so many troops in a singular battle, the Romans changed their tactics. Instead of grouping their entire army as a massive 80,000-man strong Phalanx, they split up their armies into smalle…

To be clear, the key word in the quote above is medieval. He specifically says large battles were far more common in the ancient world:

> Pitched battles were far more common in the ancient world (think Persia, Macedon, Rome, etc) – this is a product of the larger size and greater organizational capabilities of those armies.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#67

Post by lostlogin »

me_me_me wrote: post #6
nephrite wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying wraiths lack firepower, so they provide no real air support. Just fast transportation/communication.

Strafing runs in WW2 were almost completely ineffective but all infantry were reporting huge morale loss when they were happening.

saiya-jin notes that this might be true of attacks on infantry but on vehicles and trains the attacks were very very effective. In particular the German army was reduced to moving by night only in Normandy and the railroads were heavily targeted. Things came to a head in the battle of The Falaise Pocket with artillery and the airforces working together and the descriptions of the aftermath are truely horrific.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#68

Post by _Microft »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #65
HankB99 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been a bit disappointed in the weapons available far into the future. I tried watching one series and the opening scene involved good guys shooting at bad guys and hiding behind boulders and such. It just looked so much like the conflict sequence in High Noon. I couldn't watch further. And they still suffered from the "good guy bullets" vs. "bad guy bullets" phenomenon. A good guy can run unscathed (or wi…

> Do Phasors ever miss? They miss, and they miss a lot. Firefights in Star Trek look mostly like firefights everywhere else - beams and bolts flying through the air, and every now and then someone gets hit. One interesting aspect is that TNG-era phasers used by protagonists don't even look like practical weapons. I read somewhere that this was intentional design decision - Starfleet was supposed to be about peace and…

Hand-held Phasers were also so small to show the power of the technology of the 24th century. Gene Roddenberry insisted indeed that they should not look like a pistol.

Source: Star Trek Design, by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#69

Post by gerikson »

arethuza wrote: post #14
dreen wrote: post #10

It seems the author also missed the fact orcs are perfectly alright with cannibalism, which further alleviates the supply problem, perhaps even to the point of not requiring the supplies at all (a few thousand orcs eaten along the way wont make much difference). I doubt this has much precedent in history.

It does remind slightly me of Amundsen's approach on his south pole expedition of killing dogs and feeding them to the men and the other dogs. Lord Curzon was rather rude to him about it.

The British ideal of the noble defeat being better than the pragmatic victory is rather strange.
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