Militairy Tactics

[Stone Drake]

Let's list all base militairy tactics, besiege-methods, assault-tactics in battle or in general, the use of battledwarves, elvencavalery? Or just humans?
At the end of The Hobbit is a large battle with Dwarves, Elves, Wolfriders... with some certain tactics.
Also on other places in LotR, the book or the movie are great battles being fought.
Ofcourse these tactics do not have to come from LotR. From other books, movies... Anything you can think off, post it here.
Plz do not forget to number them correctly.


:( :battle:

1) High terrain, allways battle on the high terrain.

2) Knowledge of your enemy. His strengh and weaknesses.

3) Knowledge of the terrain. Swamp? Forest? Plains? Rocks?...

4) Allways leave a way open for the enemy to flee, unless you want to see how a man fights when he has nothing to lose. Make sure to scatter them, though, never let them strategically retreat.

5) Cavalery vs Archers: Archers are vurnable for cavalery, but if the terrain is not good for horsemen, the cavalery is just an easy target. They probably won't even reach the bowman.

[Stone Drake]

2 days... no reply... 5 times read, me included...
:elfeek: Seems like this is réally getting a popular topic.pfbbt
:duh: Ok, just leave it then. mecry

You can delete this thread, as I have seen threads are not sorted by last post.

[Daughter of Gondor]

6) Technology. If you have better weapons and know how to use them then you stand a better chance.

[Stone Drake]

Haa, here's one lol :p 'Bout time pfbbt
I found 3 more:

7) Attack on places where the enemy does not expect you, from an unexpected direction, on an unexpected moment.

8) Defend yourself on a place where your enemy doesn't expect you and when he believes you'll retreat.

9) Surprise is the key to victory. Speed is the key to surprise. To the warrior, speed means life.

[Daughter of Gondor]

10) Fear- Strike fear into the heart of the enemy and the fight is half won, for they have lost their courage (or at least some of it) This tactic is commonly used by bad guys and evil masterminds, usually doesn't work as well with experienced warriors.

[Celebriel_Esgaledhel]

bait the enemy into some sort of canyon, bowl, etc. and and troops advance on either side, and the bait at one end with reinforcements, and close in on them after from the one open side, crushing them like a hammer and anvil. (then, maybe, call for air support if this doesn't work! Tomcats would do fine, or maybe a Super-Hornet....lol)

-from your future female air ace

[Daughter of Gondor]

12) Desire- if you have more to loose, you will fight harder One man fighting for his homeland is equal to ten hired soldiers That is why bad guys commonly have a LOT of people to fight with.

[Stone Drake]

13) Mercenaries to increase the ranks with experienced soldiers. They cost a lot, so they should be recruited only during an assault campaign. The sooner they die, the less they cost. And if you don't use them just as expendable pieces of meat, they can do a lot of damage.

14) Use small raiding parties to maraud enemy villages and burn fields of grain in enemy territory to weaken the enemy. Just one problem left: if you were planning to conquer the territory, there won't be much of it left by the time you get it. All damage you do to that land, will later have to be restored by you.

[Daughter of Gondor]

14) Quality over quanity- its the Long Patrol's motto for a reason. Good men that know what their doing can beet the s*** out of unskilled people employed and deployed within a week. This works for good as well as against. The enemy could have hired soldiers, but they know what their doing, where-as at Helm's Deep, most of the fighting force were satblehands, common boys, and old geasers that didn't have much strength left anyway. :rolleyes:

[Stone Drake]

16) Siegematerial and fortification defences: long ladders, siegetowers, catapults or even chains to pull down entire walls. I wonder why there were no defences on Helm's Deep at all, while it was said to be a stronghold that was never taken while men were defending it. No catapults, no boiling pitch,... nothing. The attacking Uruk-Hai however were pretty well prepared to besiege such a stronghold. The explosive powder did do well...

[Finrod Felagund]

17) Superior tactics: Greeks at Marathon, Stonewall Jackson, R.E.Lee, German Blitz, Patton, Alexander the Great,
18) Guts: willingness to do what's not expected and dangerous
19) superior tecnology and training: Gulf War

[Khamul]

20. Cheat / Lie. Like when Earnur was challenged by the Witch King to face him in battle, and Earnur never returned. I suspect an ambush or foul play. But the Witch King won, didnt he? :grin:

[Alatar]

21.The Element of victory lies in the precise planning and co-ordination of an assualt/defencse the more you plan the better the out come shall be for you

[Stone Drake]

Rivers or mountain passes to hold up the enemy. If it's known terrain, the enemy will fall into every ambush you set. That's the advantage Dutch troops had against the Spanish, or the Vietnamese vs the Americans.

[Gil Galad]

Khamul, all the ringwraiths attacked Earnur
22. if your the weaker force and your on friendly teritory, don't rush into battle ( like harold did at hastings, his army had already fought of an attack from the swedes who had a claim to the throne, but instead of letting his men rest he marched them hard to the south of the country to fight again, even tho it was the normans that needed a quick victory), let them travel and harrass there supply lines (saladin attacking richards lines during the cursades)and attempt to draw out small numbers of them into ambushes and weaken there force (sitting bull outside fort, dam im not sure)

[Celebriel_Esgaledhel]

stone drake, you know much 'bout the Vietnam war? I'm a HUGE war buff, and my specialty is Vietnam-era to present day. I'd love to chat with you 'bout it sometime, maybe...

Cuio mae,
~Celebriel

[Gil Galad]

im actually more of a fan of medievil type battles they were more honest and that sort of thing , u no , u wud have to be rite up beside ur enemy (most of the time) to kill him and i like that , the honour of close quarter combat

[Fangorn]

23. Chokepoints
If there's a difficult spot for enemies to get through, defend it with all your might. Exampled might be like the bridge of Khazad Dum, in Moria. They are only able to pass one at a time. Use some projectile weapons while they pass by and they would get slaughtered.

In reply to the siege weapons one. That is one of the most needed things in any sort of siege. the thing they really screwed up on in RotK was the lack of siege weapons in the Siege of Gondor. I'd expect an army as big as mordor, harad, khand, rhun, and umbar to bring a bit more than the Grond and a catapult.

[Kazaera]

24. Use the appropriate weapons for the appropriate situation. Spears are not extremely useful close-combat weapons, certainly not when storming a castle. They are, however, *excellent* for holding off a cavalry charge - the horses will get run through before they get *near* the spear-wielders.


Yes, the Helm's Deep scene annoyed me. How did you tell?

[Gil Galad]

u wud need very heavy spears to ward of calvery charges especaially heavy calvery and some spears are quite useful in close combat

25. have versatile tactics , which can be easily chaged if ur oponents change theres, i.e if ur marching in a straight line against footsoldiers but then they send calvery against you, dont keep marching, make a "box" or cresent and get them caught in the middle

[Stone Drake]

Heheh, this thread is still alive :naughty: I haven't been on the forum for ages. But aye.. I don't know thAt much about military tactics.. but I know a little about ancient warfare. When fire weapons were first invented, everything changed a lot, of course.

26. Fire. Burn forests and/or crops to slow down your enemy. If you move away from your territory for tactical reasons, never leave anything for the enemy. Burn the crops and farms, destroy all villages and, if it's the enemy's territory which you captured, kill everything and everyone on it.

[Alatar]

27. Archers/Riflemen, a good seasond group can devastate divisions of men

a nice thread you got here tooo Stone Drake:thumbs: i am enjoying it

[Gil Galad]

killing everyone is a bit over the top Stonedrake, but the sorched earth policy can be very effective, like when Edward De Bruce Invaded Ireland and dispossed teh English rulers he burned most of the Agricultural ground near Dublin b4 seiging it. and when Napoleon invaded Russia and captured Moscow,the russians burned half the city and Napoloean had to retreat b4 winter set in too heavy

[Alatar]

but in can be a bad tactic if say you burn all your Agricultural land but plan on retakeing it, and you dont have much supplies in the first place, kinda leaves you screwed ay.

But i think it can be a very effective form of warfare

[Gil Galad]

yeh u have to make sure you wont be needing the land yourself. its prob best to remove as much food as possible before you go burning and sorching the land

[Finrod Felagund]

Choosing the battle ground.
Just watched it on History Channel
An army of a 7000 +/- Spartans and other Greeks held an army of 200,000 Persians up for several days at Thermopolae allowing the civilians in Athens enough time to flee. The Spartans inflicted huge numbers of casualties because the Persians could only bring a few of thier men into the fight at once and the well trained Spartans cut them to pieces

[Gil Galad]

wait was that not the 700 spartans story, yeh it was there were only 700 of them they were the royal gaurd of the prince. the Spartan government didnt want to defend that path so they threw a big party so that none of the soldiers could go(the soldiers wanted to defend all greece not just sparta) . but the prince went with his personal gaurd and held up the Persians.


they even withstood the Immortals, the elite of the Persian army, they had never before been defeated in combat

[Hobbit]

I think Finrod is right about the number of spartans Gil. I've heard the same story of Thermopolae with only 300 spartans and way more then 200 000 persians. Becouse the story is only told by greek historians and becouse greek historians were quite objective (they tried to make the spartans look even greater and stronger then they already were) the numbers of soldiers on each side are probably quite of the mark.

28. try to cut your enemy's supplylines. Especially when your facing a big army it's quite usefull to make sure they can't get backup and food. The enemies will be weakened by the lack of food and their moral will be decreased.

29. think of ways to use the enemies' weapons against them: when the romans invaded greece the greek warriors used warelephants, but the romans came up with a way to turn the charging elephants. The result was that the elephants crushed the greek lines in stead of the roman lines, making it easier for the romans to win the battles.

[Ereinion]

30. Ask Heavens for help. In one of the battles in the Old Testament a leader of the Sons of Israel asked God to stop the sun in the middle of the sky so that he could see better and keep persuing his enemies.

[Steve the Great]

31. Fortfy your defence lines (or build strongholds) and you are able to repulse your enemy or block his movments in spite of the fact that he has much larger army than you.

There are many historical examples that a small group of soldiers with a well-thought-out defence strategy (and well-fortified defence lines) has beaten off the attack of a large army:
- in Helm's Deep, of course :grin:
- lots of the medieval fortresses was defended by a few dozens of soldiers
- the trench-war in World War I
- in World War II: a good combination of artillery, various armor piercing weapons and infantry in good position could hold the lines against large armoured troops.

However, this works only if the armies are in the same technology level (in contrast with e.g. Gulf War I).

[Steve the Great]

Oh, and some other ideas: :)
32. Use complementary military units in order to break the enemy's resistance and/or take care of your troops as far as possible:
- archers, artillery can cover the forging ahed of infatry
- infantry units escorted tanks (e.g. in WW II) in order to take care each other.

33. Use your weapons creatively. Sometimes it doesn't matter when you use the equipment according to your own rules :naughty:
- Erwin Rommel had used the 88mm anti-aircraft guns as anti-tank weapons In WW II , and this weapon became one of the most feared ones
- In medieval sieges defenders had to use special "weapons" because of the numerous siege-ladders and enemies coming up on them. They poured boiling hot liquid (water, pitch even soup lol) into their neck.

[Gil Galad]

also, they used to catapult dead animals into fotresses to spread deasease inside and weaken the defences

[Eomund]

34. Not to charge at Pikemen....very bad combition...(pikemen vs. Cavalry....)

35. Overrun/trample. Vavalry trample the enemy infanry or your infantry run (much more than enemies) run over them...

[Merrisil]

but in can be a bad tactic if say you burn all your Agricultural land but plan on retakeing it, and you dont have much supplies in the first place, kinda leaves you screwed ay.

Actually burning the land does not mean that it wont be able to support agriculture in the future. In fact it certian cultures used to do this a form of fertilization. It does mean that you won't be able to plant crops there for a a season or two though.

This is how the Russians kept the Nazis at bay during the second world war.

36. Attack with the sun at your backs.

[Phenomenon04]

Rely on Strong objects for protection, so mainly, stay out of LONG range. So you can't be "Snyped like crazy" by bows and arrows, boulders, etc..

And learn your SWORD!!!! Good Thread

[Eomund]

and all of this can be done in Stronghold Crusader...