
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part V: Ladders Are Chaos - danso
https://acoup.blog/2020/05/28/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-v-ladders-are-chaos/
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lfnoise
"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."

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quantummkv
I think it was typo in the article. It would be physically impossible to have
a wide range of firing angles if the interior part was narrow.

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jfoucher
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](https://postimg.cc/ykwFjD62)

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gwd
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.

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MattyRad
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...](https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/) 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

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danso
Yes! FWIW, at least one from that series was highly discussed on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663852)

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jordanbeiber
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.

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sopooneo
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".

~~~
ordu
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._

[1] [http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/24](http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/24)

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dddddaviddddd
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.

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_bxg1
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

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chx
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.

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valarauko
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.

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siquick
Are there any video games which simulate sieges like the one at Helms Deep -
Kind of like Command and Conquer for sieges?

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polytely
I think your best bet would be the Total War series.

[https://youtu.be/QvlSB9_NGTQ?t=521](https://youtu.be/QvlSB9_NGTQ?t=521)

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throwanem
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.

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hansthehorse
The series on Sparta here is worth reading.

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belval
I can second this, the Sparta articles are one of the finest debunking of a
pop culture myth that I have ever encountered.

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lorthemar
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.

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Dumblydorr
He buried the lead here. Why title it ladders and not mention them for pages?

