Fix Fictional Battle Tactical Errors (Spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

You are in command of a force in fiction that really ought to win (probably villainous). How do you take advantage of the dumbass stunt the good guys pull to sieze the day for your side?

The genesis for this thread was when I saw The Two Towers tonight, specifically the battle of Helm’s Deep.

I was totally enthralled by the whole sequence, until the very end, when the Riders of Rohan come riding in. Downhill. Into a mass of pikemen. I took a class once on early modern combat tactics, and that just killed the whole scene for me. Pikemen, or the equivalent, master cavalry even on even footing, and the Riders were way outnumbered!

If I were the general of the Orcish forces, even if the first line got killed by a combination of surprise/Gandalf shining bright lights, I’d sacrifice the rest of the first rank while falling back and have the troops form squares of pikemen protecting the troops with the arbalests. I’d then be able to kill as many light cavalry as cared to come over the hill, sealing the fate of Gondor in the process.

2

I had the same reaction when they charged down the hill. “Oho, pikes! Eomer and company are screwed!”

But then the sun came over the ridge. Even Saruman’s Uruk-hai don’t like sunlight, and Gandalf made it worse by making himself all glowy white. Orc discipline was never very hot – they’re always squabbling and disobeying orders and when they do win its always by sheer numbers. Basically the charge totally shattered their morale, they forgot what limited training they had and the mopping up was cake.

Now maybe someone can explain how a group of Elven archers on foot made the march from Lothlorien to Helm’s Deep in four days when it took Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli three days to cover half that distance running day and night.

Or how Faramir got to west Osgiliath from the borders of Mordor when east Osgiliath was occupied by orcs. How did he cross the river Anduin?

3

The OP question is pretty intriguing. I don’t think it’s too much of a hijack to role-play. You are in command of the orc armies at Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith. How do you win the battle?

Helm’s Deep: Siege, not assault. You trap the Roharrim at Helms Deep (like in the book) with half your army. Send the other 5000 on a foray into Edoras, et al. When the good guys hear about your pillage and plunder, they’ll have to attack the numerically superior 5000 orcs at an extreme disadvantage. Send the other 5000 back as a reserve to finish off the now-exposed Roharrim.

Then again, it never does to leave Huorns out of the equation.

Pelennor Fields: Frontal assault wouldn’t work with the Gondor army in a strong fortification (like in the book). But I also don’t think a prolonged siege would work, with all the unexpected reinforcements from Rohan and the South. You’d need to draw them out of the city with a feint and then bring on your main force. Hopefully, the battle would be over by the time the others arrived (Rohan, Aragorn).

These are toughies, since it would be hard to anticipate the timely arrival of the reinforcements. Saruman had no way of knowing about the Huorns, nor could Sauron anticipate the Rohirrim or Aragorn’s Pelargir sortie.

Could you have won it?

4

Very simple: The three heroes didn’t run from Lothlorien to Helm’s deep. They took the boats downstream and then had to run back to the Northwest. The Elves had a shorter distance to travel.

With difficulty. But he was leading a scout force. He slipped past the watching orcs.

5

arisu the Classics geek watching Helms deep for the first time:

“Huh, the Uruk-Hai are using a tortoise formation. I wonder where they learned Roman legionary tactics …”

:: pause ::

“Their left flank is exposed.”

(Cue a thousand arrows taking advantage of the fact that Uruk-Hai don’t know the meaning of the word “flank”.)

(Cue arisu hanging her head in shame when she realized she immediately thinks of things in terms of Roman legionary tactics and says things like “Their left flank is exposed”. Aloud. In a movie theater.)

6

Yep, add me to the list. My actual thought was along the lines of “They’re charging into a pikewall? That’s gonna hurt.”

Then, the sun pops over the ridge and the Roharrim are suddenly attacking out of the sun. Plus, Gandalf does his white light trick. The orcs are dazzled by the light and disoriented enough to make them lose formation for a moment, which is all the Roharrim needed.

A bit of a stretch but I’ll accept it within the framework of how Middle Earth works.

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Smiling Bandit already mentioned that the elves had less distance to travel. Also, if I remember the run of the Three Hunters properly, Legolas never really needed to stop and rest, but Gimli and Aragorn did. Legolas was the one who would egg the other two on, wanting them to keep going, afaid they would fall too far behind the orcs. So maybe elves are better suited to covering long distances on foot without rest.

8

The whole Helm’s Deep defense seemed ill-conceived. Where was the boiling oil? The raining-death-upon-their-heads, since initial plans obviously wouldn’t have had Elvish archers in them? Some, you know, rocks? And when the first wall fails, why didn’t they immediately fall back to the next one? Why on earth were they fighting in the field? And who built those crappy gates anyway?

9

Its funny comparing the cavalry charge into orcish pikemen in TT to Braveheart with the British heavy cavalry charging into the Scottish pikemen. Totally opposite results. I too thought the charge was suicide, also they were charging down this steep ass slope on gravel (no idea how horses could handle that).

I also observed the vulnerable flank the orcs had when heading toward the gate. I was surprised though that the parapets didn’t have boiling oil/lead to dump on the orcs but instead were pelting them with fist-sized rocks. Anybody find it very humorous that a kid chucks a rock at an orc, conks him in the helmet and the orc gets knocked off? But the ‘torch bearer’ orc, wearing practically no armor whatsover, is able to withstand numerous arrows from Legolas.

Had I commanded the orcs, I would have had missle throwers (crossbowmen in the orcs case I believe) behind pavises shooting at the elven archers to cover the assault. Lots of orcs got mowed down by arrows before they got it in their heads to shoot back.

Also I was surprised they just used ladders, and not seige towers. But I suppose the orcs were rather strapped for time. Tactically, it seemed like they were trying to overrun helm’s deep by sheer force of numbers before any reinforcements could arrive.

I noticed they were attacking through a choke point, but besides missiles the defenders had not really exploted this advantage well. Notably water; its too bad they didn’t set up floodgates to just deluge that whole area and drown the orcs. Or cut the stones on either side to easily trigger rockslides. Its like your oppoent has to squeeze his way through a doggy door and all you’re doing is spitting on him :confused:

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I think the Elves’ range, being from well crafted bows and fired from well trained archers, would outreach the orcs’ crossbows. Thus, the orcs had to close the distance under a hail of arrows before they could return fire.

And regarding the Torchbearing orc - I think he was a special orc designed specifically for that purpose: endurance.

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I don’t have the book in front of me, but this is essentially correct. Tolkien’s words are something like this: 'Legolas did not sleep, but his mind wandered in the half-state between sleep and consciousness that are elvish dreams" or something like that.

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Well, since the OP is asking about Fictional Battles in general (not just LOTR), here’s one…

In Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace…

The Trade Federation would have won if they had just bothered to raise some shields around their landing bay, so that some silly kid flying a fighter wouldn’t accidentally fly into it, and then accidentally blow up the ship from inside. This also would have prevented such an attack from being made intentionally (supposing that any of the other Naboo pilots eventually thought of it).

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Wasn’t the Trade Federation launching and recovering fighters at the time? That’s why their shields were down.

While we’re on that subject, could the Rebels have won the Battle of Hoth? Did they want to win it? Did they actually win it? The point of the battle for them was to buy time so that they could relocate the base. Mission accomplished.

By the way, where did they relocate to? Did the Rebels just decide to have a permantently roaming base at that point? Why didn’t they just do that in the first place?

14

In order, yes, no, yes. Err, sort of.

Could they have?
Well, in the short term, certainly. If they’d attacked the Imperial troops with X-Wings (and whatever other fightercraft/armed vessels they had at hand) instead of the underpowered speeders which they “had difficulty adapting to the cold,” they could most likely have mopped up. At the very least, using the faster spacecraft would have let them approach the Imperial Walkers from a direction other than “right where all the damn guns are pointing” before the base was overrun. In addition, they could have started peppering the orbiting Star Destroyers with that mongo Ion Cannon right from the start, keeping them disabled, or forcing them to land troops even further away from the base. But then the fighters wouldn’t have been flight ready again in time to escort the evacuating troop transports, before enemy reinforcements arrived. They’d have been overrun on the ground by the next wave of Walkers and troops. The Imperials could have also simply moved their own fleet out of range of the cannon, and lay in wait further along the “evacuation route” from the planet, given the extra time. Flying past two disabled (or at least surprised) capital ships, with small, fast and fairly manuverable ships, is a lot easier than getting those same ships through a cloud of waiting enemy fighters, with properly deployed capital ships as support.

Did they want to?
In that sense, no. It was, as you stated, a delaying tactic, and not a serious attempt to hold the base. But, realistically, yes, they wanted to hold off the Imperials long enough to scoot out the back door.

Did they actually win?
Going by all this, yes. Of course, winning a battle isn’t quite the same as a successful withdrawal under fire, but they did achieve thier goals.

Far as I could tell, that’s it in a nutshell. They used the fleet (probably the flagship itself, up until the attack on the second Death Star) as the new base of operations. Somewhere near the planet Sullust, according to onscreen dialogue.

  1. A bunch of ships in orbit over an inhabited planet is easier to spot than a hidden, mostly underground base on an out of the way planet no one in his right mind would want to go to
  2. George Lucas isn’t much of a military tactician
  3. Dramatic License

You make the call.