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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

#151

Post by stjohnswarts »

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…

People back then were just as smart as we are and tactics haven't changed a whole lot either, except where technology demands it. We just have much bigger toys to kill each other with.

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

#152

Post by bernawil »

gwd wrote: post #66
dragontamer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it kind of a useless distinction? I mean it's not like there are so many periods of pre-gunpowder history. We have ancient, medieval and that's it -you could add bronze age but we have so much less records-.

The whole "battles were rare, sieges where common" is a trope I believe some YouTubers started, but I don't think there's any solid pattern. Ancient armies pillaged the countryside to provoke encounters. Steppe peoples did pitched battles all the time because they didn't build walls. Medieval Europe may have had more sieges than battles because of religious homogeneity, but you can see how that model falls down soon in the thirty years war: if you don't engage the enemy they'll loot and pillage you to oblivion. Your people see how you are unable to protect them and desert you.

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

#153

Post by smallnamespace »

bernawil wrote: post #152
gwd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't it kind of a useless distinction? I mean it's not like there are so many periods of pre-gunpowder history. We have ancient, medieval and that's it -you could add bronze age but we have so much less records-. The whole "battles were rare, sieges where common" is a trope I believe some YouTubers started, but I don't think there's any solid pattern. Ancient armies pillaged the countryside to provoke encounters. St…

No, there is a very clear difference between warfare in the classical and medieval eras (in the West), and it dovetails with the collapse of large-scale political authority and the ability to muster large armies.

Another distinguishing factor is the widespread building of castles. During the classical era, fortifications were less useful because there were powerful states that could capture them anyway. But when even the nominal king or emperor had trouble mustering a force of fifty thousand men, the castle vs. the siege (and the raid) dominated most warfare. During the classical area many of those same places would have been sparsely populated, and certainly not well fortified.

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

#154

Post by ranger207 »

mcguire wrote: post #101

" Ideally, the solution to this problem is to split the army up. By moving in multiple columns and converging on the battlespace, you split one impossibly long column of troops into several more manageable ones. ... The larger problem is terrain – we’ve seen Ithilien in this film and the previous one: it is heavily forested, with few roads. What roads exist are overgrown and difficult to use. Worse yet, the primary r…

>I want the reference for that.

Another post [0] says that "The usual estimates for transit costs derive from Diocletian’s Price Edict, a late Roman law setting standard prices for things, including transport."

[0] https://acoup.blog/2019/07/19/the-lonely-city-part-ii-real-c...

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

#155

Post by gherkinnn »

barry-cotter wrote: post #134
gherkinnn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book “On Killing” does mention this. Killing seems to be a lot easier when done to a fleeing enemy. Something about running away makes one a juicy target.

S.L.A. Marshall was a fraud, and “On Killing” should be read with the knowledge it was written by a fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall Some veterans and historians have cast doubt on Marshall's research methods.[15] Professor Roger J. Spiller (Deputy Director of the Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College) argues in his 1988 article, "S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fi…

Even if, and there is good evidence to believe so, Slam was a fraud, I don’t see the core tenants of On Killing to be falsified:

- Most humans naturally don’t want to kill

- Getting soldiers to do so causes them serious trauma

The psychological model put forth in On Killing matches the Milgram Experiments. The specific elements being proximity and relation to both the authority and the target.

Modern armies have adapted their training to account for the proposed human reluctance to kill a fellow human and seem to have lowered that threshold effectively.

Further, other historians have found more evidence to support the notion that most soldiers did not partake in killing. These include muskets containing multiple balls, or staging a battle against a band of cloth, finding much higher accuracy than when firing at a real enemy.

Then again, the author claims that violence in media is partly at fault for our current woes. A notion that I believe has been disproven.

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

#156

Post by jacobush »

rpeden wrote: post #147
Freak_NL wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Trek: TNG made a teenage me wonder why starships encountering each other always appeared to have matched their orientations. Was there some kind of prearranged signal? A diplomatic code adhered to even by enemies? Just a general preference on all sides concerned preventing headaches and vague unheimlich feelings of discomfort? So many questions… If I was harassing the federation I would keep my ship at an awkwar…

I remember thinking the same thing. They did break the matching orientations in the final episode with the attack from below, which was fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=did164yEFx4&feature=youtu.be...

Now I understand why I felt that scene was so brutal!

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

#157

Post by mcguire »

gherkinnn wrote: post #155
barry-cotter wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S.L.A. Marshall was a fraud, and “On Killing” should be read with the knowledge it was written by a fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall Some veterans and historians have cast doubt on Marshall's research methods.[15] Professor Roger J. Spiller (Deputy Director of the Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College) argues in his 1988 article, "S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fi…

Even if, and there is good evidence to believe so, Slam was a fraud, I don’t see the core tenants of On Killing to be falsified: - Most humans naturally don’t want to kill - Getting soldiers to do so causes them serious trauma The psychological model put forth in On Killing matches the Milgram Experiments. The specific elements being proximity and relation to both the authority and the target. Modern armies have adap…

I once heard an interview with a soldier in Vietnam, who said something like, "we grew up with the Lone Ranger and then were told to do things the good guys wouldn't do."

The relationship between media and violence may not be direct, but I suspect it's there.

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

#158

Post by gerikson »

golergka wrote: post #76
gerikson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Almost any custom which seems strange when you take one encounter turns out to be perfectly reasonable when you take it in a context of repeated encounters with the same vis-a-vis. Having reputation for being noble, even in defeat, can have unique advantages.

Both Scott and Gordon died at arguably the peak of British global power. Such a power can afford to venerate losers.

In a previous time, when Britain's place in the world stage was not as assured, it could be less lenient to them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng

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

#159

Post by nickik »

smallnamespace wrote: post #153
bernawil wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it kind of a useless distinction? I mean it's not like there are so many periods of pre-gunpowder history. We have ancient, medieval and that's it -you could add bronze age but we have so much less records-. The whole "battles were rare, sieges where common" is a trope I believe some YouTubers started, but I don't think there's any solid pattern. Ancient armies pillaged the countryside to provoke encounters. St…

No, there is a very clear difference between warfare in the classical and medieval eras (in the West), and it dovetails with the collapse of large-scale political authority and the ability to muster large armies. Another distinguishing factor is the widespread building of castles. During the classical era, fortifications were less useful because there were powerful states that could capture them anyway. But when even…

Castles were less useful because you didn't need internal military structure to defend against the people from one province over. Roman cities for 100s of years didn't upgrade their city walls, even communities in Gaul stopped living in hill cities and so on.

Defensive structure really only made sense in specific border regions. There however large empires certainty did invest in such defenses. Border cities that were ready to be under siege and that could host an arriving army.

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

#160

Post by nickik »

gherkinnn wrote: post #132
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…

Few people enjoy facing a prickly Alexandrian phalanx. You’d have to more than whip me to run at one. To my knowledge, much was just shield bashing, posturing, and manoeuvring. It’s very hard to convince a group to close in on an enemy. Problem is, that would make for a very dull film. Logistics, waiting, posturing, passively starving out a city. No speeches, no charging sword aloft. The notion that we’re only margin…

If you read reports of how the Roman beat those armies, its pretty clear that their more dynamic troupes would actually directly engage the phalanx and break their lines.

That said, roman were the first in 100s years to achieve that, so its fair to say that most of the time you are right.

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