the reason you couldnt abandon the deeping wall was because it was protecting the entrance to the caves where the noncombatants (women and children) were
I didn't realize until this breakdown, but the book version makes so much more sense. Helms Deep was made by the Numenoreans/early Gondorians when they still owned the territory. Tolkien didn't give to much detail on the fortress, but it would have been better designed. The setup in the books makes much more sense. The Rohirrim garrison for the westfold were already in open field combat with Isengard's army. Theoden had more men in his initial force in Edoras (a couple thousand i think), and he was going to reinforce the Rohirrim who were already engaged. However, on the way, he gets the news that the line broke and his western forces scattered, with a decent portion falling back to Helms Deep. He now realizes the numbers and momentum of the battle aren't in his favor and decides to meet up with the forces at Helms Deep, and his forces barely make it there in time, being harassed by the warg riders as they start to arrive at the fortress, and the Isengard army close behind them. Ironically, this is where the design of Helms deep and the deepening wall pays off, as he is able to keep his horses behind the wall and not be overcrowded in the main keep. When Gandalf rescues them, what he actually did was round up the previously routed western forces and reorganize them with some other levies to attack Isengard's forces from the rear, giving an opportunity for the Rohirrim in the fortress to mount up and launch an attack, trapping the evil forces between to small armies, like a pincer movement. To be fair Peter Jackson's version is much more dramatic and climatic, but Tolkien's made more sense.
Tolkien's placement of Helms Deep is also more sensible at the head of the valley rather than at the back with a dyke blocking direct assault against the deeping wall and hornburg.
@@timesthree5757 Nope, they absolutely were not. There is actually a decent article on Wikipedia on the battle. For starters Eomer and his men were at the battle from the start. It was a guy named Erkenbrand and his footsoldiers who Gandalf went to find. And no elves were involved. And some more but that should be enough to puncture that silly statement.
Oh everybody is so upset about women and kids dying in battle... But when the boat starts sinking it's all "WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST" Make up your minds.
If you havent read the books.. The Lothlorien elves were never involved in the battle. This was a Jackson addition. King Theoden rode out from Edoras with about 1000 soldiers (including Eomer) Helms deep already had about 1000 men at arms garrisoned. The Rohan defense wasnt so helpless.
The weapons which the Uruk-hai had were essentially the Tercio style which the Spanish had. Long pikes and crossbows to keep cavalry away while using x-bows to keep horse archers away with armour piercing xbows. Saruman designed them specifically to counter the Rohirrim
@@FirstLast-wk3kcbecause he attacked a fort with what was designed as a field army not a siege army as Saruman assumed that the rohirrim would have the balls to face him on the open field or to just do nothing as wormtoung was doing his thing
@@JosephGilles-z3hGandalf coming back really screwed over Sarumans plans. Without that hed probably have won without much hindrance, till Treebeard realizes what he did tho
Saruman designed that army to besiege and take the forts/towns of Rohan. Having part of the army wield pikes for field battles would make sense, but he absolutely knew the army would need to fight in sieges as well
@@FirstLast-wk3kc Gandalf basically made the charge possible using his light power, the Uruk-Hai also where not fully prepared for the charge either and had Théoden's force already in their mist. The Formation basically just crumbled when hit hard.
5:50 That is a common misconception. Horse archers are not the best ancient soldiers. The reason the Romans got defeated at Carrhae is the leader of the Roman army did not hire auxiliary archers or slingers. After Carrhae the Romans went on a punitive expedition against the Parthians with a properly equipped army and completely defeated the cavalry force that tried to do a repeat of the previous battle. Given that the uruk hai are shown to have crossbows it would be difficult for the horse archers to operate in any way other than as a screening harassing force. Definitely still useful but not battle winning. 8:30 Because Tolkien was a chad he actually understood war and battles. In the book the Rohirrim did have earthworks. They also used scouts. Even if you can't stomach reading the whole trilogy its worth reading the battles. Tolkien's strategies are significantly better than what Peter Jackson wrote.
I mean, historically, mounted horse archers were an extraordinary threat to pretty much every ancient society on earth, and they continued to be an extreme problem until the usage of firearms became widespread. I'm not familiar with the details of how that Roman expedition went off the top of my head, so I can't speak to what happened there, but typically the best way most ancient societies found to deal with mounted archers was to... Hire opposing mounted archers to chase them down. Your typical ancient army just is NOT equipped to deal with mounted archers. Bringing your own slingers/archers who are on foot only really works if you're able to create a tactical environment where the mounted archers are pinned in place somehow, which is extremely difficult to do in almost every case. You provided one example of a mounted army being destroyed by a dismounted one, but in the larger sample size of military history, VERY few societies developed an effective method of dealing with mounted troops like that. The reason why societies that developed a military culture of mounted units of that sort were never more successful across the world is generally linked to the cultures that spawned them, not their efficacy in battle. Most often they were nomadic tribal societies, and thus lacked the ability to persecute large scale war with things like complex logistics, seiges, and locking down captured territory.
@@TheGoIsWin21 That's not true. At least not in battle. I provided a counter example to the example given that is far from the only example. Barbarian armies were a threat to empires not because they were more powerful but because they were more mobile. Free societies with armed populations are not vulnerable to such barbarian armies. When the Mongols invaded Hungary they had great success but as they left they divided their amies in three one of the armies went through the frontier where the peasants were armed. The Mongols were almost completely destroyed. The Huns were very successful at raiding roman territory but when their hubris got to them they met the Romans at the catalaunian fields and they were beaten. The Comanche almost depopulated the Mexicans from Texas. They weren't as successful against the US settlers who had a culture of the local militia. A disciplined infantry army that has ranged troops will almost always defeat a cavalry force if they meet them in an even battle. The disaster battles that people think of when they champion the horse archer are almost always a failure of command. Either the infantry isn't supported by ranged troops or the infantry tries to pursue the cavalry and is separated from the formation. Can you think of one example of a battle that was straight up won by a outnumbered cavalry force against a properly equipped infantry.
@@michaelnewswanger2409 you essentially just said everything I said but in a different way. They couldn't really conquer and hold territory or do more than raiding, but in open field nobody could really do anything with them. In tactical theory, "not losing" is as important as "winning" and nobody could figure out how to force a mobile cavalry force to lose. They could just keep peppering you and run away. A disciplined infantry force with ranged troops could defeat an undisciplined mounted force, but against a disciplined mounted force they're stuck in, at best, a stalemate. You keep throwing around leadership as a quality for the infantry in this situation, but that is true on all sides and is totally unrelated from the discussion on quality/type of troops.
@@TheGoIsWin21 no I didn't say the same thing. Raiding and battle are different things. In a battle against a properly equipped infantry army cavalry gets destroyed with very few exceptions. The example given in the video was a battle not a campaign, it was also defending your territory not raiding the enemy. Because of that I pointed out that horse archers wouldn't accomplish much. Leadership is more important for infantry because the infantry gains it's advantage from cohesion. The cavalry can operate in smaller groups central leadership is not as important. In the ancient world disciplined infantry supported by ranged troops (usually slingers) will defeat pure cavalry basically every time. Cavalry becomes dangerous when used in combined arms. Cavalry increased in power exponentially when infantry fixed the enemy force.
@@michaelnewswanger2409 nothing you said here is explicitly wrong, it's just irrelevant. You started all this off by stating that the reputation mounted archers have is undeserved, and that they're not actually that good, when the fact is that, until the invention of firearms, no military on earth came up with a way to effectively deal with a force that utilized mobile cavalry archers, even if it was the entire army. The Chinese decided it was easier to build a wall that's visible from SPACE than it was to deal with them. The Romans were able to come back and root out the Scythians because of A) Roman ability to project power, and B)The Scythians had cities and farms and other stationary positions of strategic importance. The point being made in the video, and the point you seem to be arguing against, is that in a straight up 1v1 scenario with all other variables being the same, horse archers were an absolute nightmare to deal with and almost impossible to defeat in a straight up fight, which is something that is not really debated by any historians I've ever encountered. It was just simply the nature of the available military technology. You point out that combined arms were more capable of dealing with them, but that's not what anybody was talking about. If you're an infantry man and a Scythian horse archer is trying to kill you, you're probably going to die. The only way to avoid that is to find ways to keep that Scythian away from you (which most societies did, either politically, with bribes, or by destroying Scythia if you're the Romans). In many, many cases, mounted archers of history were tribal nomads, who couldn't conquer a city very well, and therefore building walls and paying some bribes was enough to keep them bothering other people. But MOST armies throughout MOST of history, when facing a force like that, with lethal intent, were only able to chase them off. You even said in a previous comment, they were a threat to empires because of their mobility, not their power. How on earth is mobility not in your arithmetic to judge how powerful something is? The wehrmacht managed to conquer half of Europe using mobility to extraordinary effect.
At first I thought this was some other channel using a Admin clip that I wasn’t aware of as a meme. I was pleasantly surprised to settle in for a half hour of Admin needing out over LotR while I’m trying to stay awake at work.
Helms Deep is Gondorian built. It’s basically a fortified watchtower for peasants. Not a true fortress for a siege against the most technologically advanced military in the setting.
@@codysing1223 Umm, no he didn't. In the books the only thing that is said is that the Uruk-Hai crept into the culvert and "lit the fire of Orthanc" there. It's never clarified what "the fire of Orthanc" is but it's clearly something the troops on the ground did after the culvert had been blocked up by the Rohirrim.
So, I agree to an extent. I definitely don't think it is "bad." But there were still some very cheap improvements that could have been made along the many years it has been around. Higher crenelations and a drawbridge would have made a big difference. Just the crenelations probably would have reduced the effectiveness of the crossbows by 50%. There definitely should have been a second set of gates inside the hornburg at the entrances to the plaza. Crenelations on the inside edge of the hornburg walls would have made it possible to fire down on the orcs when they broke through the (now first) gate safe from return fire. On the other hand, murder holes would have been prohibitively expensive to incorporate after the fact but should have been there from the initial construction. A very expensive improvement would be to extend the deeping wall forward around the front of the keep for another layer of walls. And finally, if the entrance to the caves is not in the back of the hornburg (it is behind the deeping wall in the books) then it absolutely should be. Collapse or fortify with a sally gate the current entrance and dig another. I don't think the drainage hole is a viable critique considering it is basically impossible to exploit without the use of gunpowder which didn't exist before this battle.
Don't abandon the wall. You lose all flanking fire on any troops advancing up the causeway and you can only fit so many archers in the hornburg. Plus it's the main defense to the glittering caves in the book and also the only thing blocking enemies from rushing the deep valley into southern Rohan. Trench defense in depth is what is needed here. Dig multiple trench lines leading up to the fortress. At least 7 feet deep, if not more, to make climbing out of them as hard as possible and just wide enough to stop a siege engine from traversing it. fill them with sharpened wooden stakes or flammable pitch. Let the enemy fall upon the spikes or burn them as they advance. Slowing their advance and thinning their numbers as much as possible before they reach the wall is the key. If the ground is too hard to dig, then your only other option is to create obstacles and barricades. At least that way you can slow the enemy advance and pick them off with arrows before they reach you. Theoden made the right call. If he stayed at Edoras, the Uruk army would surround it and easily breach it's wooden defenses. Gandalf arriving with Eomer behind the Uruks is what broke Saruman's army. The biggest game changer was Fangorn forest. The Ents took care of the routing remaining Uruks, stopping any chance of them regrouping. Another advantage that Edoras could not provide. Lastly, given the Uruk's formation of pikes and crossbows, it would have been suicidal to meet them in the field as a cavalry force. Eomer did what he had to, he rode all over the neighboring provinces, defeating any raiding wild-men and Uruks, freeing up all the able riders, who were otherwise engaged with defending their homes and arrived in the nick of time to flank the Uruk army while they were already engaged and out of proper anti-cavalry formation. The light of dawn from the east blinded the few Uruk pikemen that were able to scramble into a rear-guard, Allowing Eomer's force to break through and sealed the fate of Saruman's ambitions.
The book version of the battle featured the exact defense-in-depth you are describing with outer perimeter ditch-and-stake earthworks encircling Helm's Deep. The relief army that arrived under Erkenbrand was mostly heavy infantry, regrouping after retreating from the battle at the Ford of Isen, and well situated to be the Anvil to the Hammer of Theoden and Eomer's (who was there the whole time) charge out from the fortress. Other fun facts, the Deeping Wall has a very specific utility in that it protects the actual mountain gorge of Helm's Deep, for which the fortress complex is named, which provides a fortified open area large enough to camp several thousand cavalry troops with a lot of natural shelter from the weather. Given that Helm's Deep overlooks the main road thru Rohan, and is situated to project force onto the the Ford of Isen and the approach to Edoras, anyone invading Rohan basically has to siege it or be subject to unending harassment and surprise cavalry attacks. Edoras and the other major settlements of Rohan have their own closer fallback fortresses that their people can evacuate to, Theoden was on his way to join the battle at the Fords when he got word that Saruman had outflanked his border forces by speed-building a bridge upstream (the only strategic move Saruman made in the entire war that actually worked) and that they no longer had a chokepoint to hold or a solid body of infantry to join up with.
One important thing to consider that you forgot about is that this isn't some rabble of mindless orcs, these are Uruk-hai, who have thick armor and broad shields, so unless the horse archers of the Rohirrim have S+ accuracy to be able to hit the gaps in their armor while riding on horse back, the whole mounted archer harassment thing falls apart.
You don’t need S tier accuracy. If you shoot 100 arrows at a tight group of 100 guys someone is gonna get hit. Fatal? Maybe? Maybe not. Anyways the whole point isn’t for them to kill the whole army, it’s to slow them down and pick off whomever they can.
@@Shrouded_reaper Once again not going for the kills. Just trying to wound a few guys and try to slow the entire force down. The slower the force the longer Theoden has to prepare.
the gatehouse and the lack of a divide between the gate itself and the bridge are the biggest weaknesses of the Helmes Deep. As for the opening in the wall, take away the black powder, what in that setting, could honestly breach that wall and its heavy stone? Black powder was unknown to the people of Middle earth. Yes the cover for the defenders could be taller but keeping in mind the angle of attack, the defenders have decent cover, at least to their shoulders. I believe had the wall not been breached, they would of held for a decent time
I disagree about the wall. It serves as a place to position archers like we see. This maximizes the amount of fire the defenders can unleash. There's simply not enough room in the hornberg itself to maximize the output of arrowfire. Also, like we see in the film, the wall archers can shoot from the side getting around the large shields of the walkway Uruks marching towards the gate. Helms Deep is designed for cross sectional fire for the defenders. Plus because there's nothing of real significance for Helms Deep behind the wall, IF the defenders have to pull back into the keep, they lose nothing and you get that 2nd death funnel you mentioned.
@@Highdog_Hobbies in the books that where it is but that doesn't seem to be the case in the movie. They also didn't get elven archers in the book either, the books and movies are quite different. I would argue that the movie strongly suggests it is behind the keep.
@brettpalmer1770 yea Ur 100% right the movies do suggest that as the only time we hear about them is when they are trapped inside the keep. So yea it defs suggests that's there location in the movie.
@brettpalmer1770 one thing I always found weird is u would assume the cave entrance is fairly small if it's accessed from the keep. Couldn't the entire of the defenders (once trapped into the keep) just fallen back and held the smaller chock points at the cave (the pikes and crossbow would be useless at such close range combat giving the advantage to bowmen and sword/axemen). As we never see the entrance tho it could be a stupid point to make haha
@@Highdog_Hobbies its a valid one, but also logical to think that theres just too many orcs to hold for long enough in the caves the arrows dont have gravity to help punch trough the orcs heavy armor.
@@CertifiedSunset his early criticisms were about the ineffectiveness of the structure as if the Rohirrim built it. However, we all know that the Isen River was the western border of Gondor. Anglarond (Helm’s Deep) and Angrenost (Isengard) were built by the Dunedain of Gondor, and manned by them. They gave up Anglarond when the Rohirrim were gifted Calenardhon centuries later. The manning of Isengard dwindled over time with intermarrying with Dunlendings and battles with Rohan until it was completely taken over by Rohan and given to Saruman in the late 3rd age.
@@CertifiedSunsetWell apparently the OP had a different idea but the main thing missed is Helms Deep is guarding a massive cave complex and has mountain trails leading out of it. This allowed the fort to hold thousands of people and supplies to sustain them for months.
@@suciojay1604 Well that doesn't really answer any of the criticisms though. Regardless of who built it the fortress is poorly designed as it doesn't protect anything of value and can be easily starved out by a small army holding the exits of the valley. Maybe if it had some massive roadways inside the mountain, where soldiers and supplies could be transferred from one side to the other the existence of the hornburg might make some sense.
@ you don’t know it either apparently. It was never a fortress like Angrenost. Never supposed to house armies and defend anything long term. It was just a watchtower for small forces to use. The Robirrim made it a fortress for that purpose.
Can’t wait to see you hit a million subscribers man. You’re making it happen and it’s awesome to see. Please keep posting, no where to go but up. I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
and gandalf had to go because a wizard is never late and he literally rode the fastest horse in middle earth by a country mile the Meras were the elves of horses only rode by the kings of rohan
Don't forget that Tolkien was a survivor of WWI and had fought in the battle of the Somme. The last thing he would have considered would be to trap his heroes in a series of trenches facing an overwhelming force.
@@BUREAUFILES Yes, we are finding that out from Ukraine. But the trenches Tolkien had experience were a nightmare. lso, remember that the Rohan riders had just arrived at Helms Deep and were quickly attacked by Saruman's orcs. They had no time to dig a really efficient system of trenches.
He survived the war because of trenches. As someone once said the 2nd worst place in the world during ww1 was a trench. The worst place was being caught outside of the trench.
I’m 100% for this new channel. Shadiversity has a full hour and a half battle autopsy of Helm’s Deep for any other fellow Numenorian rangers wanting to dive even deeper into this topic.
@@The64Comet A politically conservative Mormon will always have haters. As a politically conservative member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints myself, I kinda ignore them, lol.
@@josepetersen7112 its more his attacking of other youtubers who never attacked him and getting mad at his daughter for liking princess peach in the mario movie
My own inner pet peavery coming out here. Theoden called it “The Deeping Wall”. The repeated utterances of the “Deepening” wall ARE KILLING ME. Aaaahhh!
well in the books theres another wall and trench were the fought the uruk hai before the assault on the deepening wall, hama captain of theodens guard does a last stand there.
@@alexTorres-cs7co totally irrelevant to what Jay is saying. The big wall the elves stand on in the movie is called the Deeping Wall, not the Deepening Wall.
@@DragonessLuzige lol i was talking about the books and also, in the books has a reason, since in the movies the palisade and trench arent present, like the elves that arent on the books. Also basically both things mean the same in my language so your just being pedantic on grammatics, so in simple terms, go insert the biggest object you could find in your lower esfinter, enjoy.
So, in the battle in the books, there were trenches. There was a trench and rampart system called Helms Dike, which was in stretched across the valley that is the Deeping-coomb, and the defenders utilized a small force to garrison it to basically slow down the enemy. When it was overrun, the defenders fled back to Helms Deep proper. Once there, Saruman's army tried to attack the Hornburg directly and ignored the Deeping Wall initially, but when that plan was foiled by Aragorn and Eomer (who was in the battle with them, not absent like in the movie), they then attacked the Deeping Wall with hundreds of ladders. Eventually, they bombed it just like in the movie, and began to pour in. The problem with your method of abandoning the Deeping Wall is that there isn't nothing behind there. The Deeping Wall and the area behind it leads to a cave system called the Glittering Cave that connects back to the Hornburg, so they had to hold it in order to hold the keep. It was also where those who couldn't fight were hiding, so if they lost it, it would be very bad. The defenders retreated into the Glittering Cave once the wall was breached, and sallied forth once Gandalf collected Erkenbrand and an extra thousand foot soldiers to flank Saruman's army. Also, my boy Haldir was done dirty at Helms Deep. He never died there. Gamling did, who was one of Theoden's personal guards.
To be honest, the battle was over as soon as the Uruks attacked Helms Deep with a frontal assault. Its a fortress with one way in and one way out. All they had to do was secure the valley so no help or supplies could come in, and they could have literally chilled until Theoden and all the Rohaian people die of starvation.
Rohan's army was around six thousand, possibly more (this is how many they bring to Minas Tirith in ROTK). Theoden could not muster them within sufficient time, but if Saruman's army besieged Helm's Deep, the Rohirrim could bring quite a lot of reinforcements. The Uruk-Hai might actually be the ones to starve, unable to forage or bring supplies from Isengard without being harassed by Éomer (movie) or Erkenbrand (book). What's worse, Saruman is on the clock regarding Sauron. Sauron was already aware that Saruman betrayed him and tried to take the Ring for himself. If his army took Minas Tirith and came marching down to Rohan, he'd smash Saruman's forces (Sauron's army was at least ten times bigger) and replace him with one of his servants. The only way Saruman could keep his head on his shoulders is taking over Rohan before that and entrenching himself.
@@Nethan2000Sure the Rohirrim could have harassed the Uruks, but I don't think they would be able to pose any real threat to the Uruks. The Uruks were heavily outfitted with long pikes, which historically is very bad for heavy cavalry like the Rohirrim. The mountains provide excellent cover against the mounted archers taking away their ability to maneuver around the Uruks. The real trick comes after everyone in Helms Deep has died. How then do the Uruks escape or rout the rest of the Rohirrim? Once the fighting moves to the open fields, the Uruks are done for (or at the very least take extremely heavy losses). Either way, everyone in Helms Deep is done for.
There was an exit through the caves, where do you think all the civilians were when the attack was happening, if the Uruks dug in for a long siege or tried to wait them out, the civilians would have escaped regardless.
Her: He's probably thinking about other women AR/MO/BF: Man it really grinds my gears that Helm Hammerhand made such a poorly designed structure and Theoden defended it so disadvantageously
@@Firefrab just bad design in both movies and books gimli complains that its human work and not very good, and thats why he offers the dwarfs to improve the defensive capabilities of the foretres after the war.
The women and children were in the caves behind the deepening wall, literally Rohan’s most valuable resource. Theoden couldn’t just abandon the wall or he would condemn Rohan extinction
Knowing that your audience is watching this while eating or taking a shit is a testament of how well you know your audience sir. Respect where respect is due. I can do nothing else but subscribe.
To be fair the elves weren’t there in the books. It was Theoden with about 1000+ men, the men he brought with him and the garrison already there. They were just regrouping there before going out to fight and ended up in battle but the movies reframed it as Theoden avoiding battle
Five days from Gandalk leaving Edoras till he pitches as Helm's Deep with the Rohirrim. "Look to my coming on the 5th day. At dawm look to the East". Elves to Helm's Deep? Galadriel has the mirror "things that are, things that where, and something that has not yet come to pass". Paraphrasing with the quotes.
@@Mr.happycamaro it would have been 500 movie Legolases basically. The movies turn Legolas into basically a superhero and the Lothlorien battalion kinda look like amateurs compared to him, but in the books he was a pretty ordinary elf as far as age and skills go (even if he was a prince of a minor kingdom). Elves used to fight Balrogs in the First Age, not run away from them, for example. Though if the movie was lore-accurate then the elves wouldn't have shown up in Helm's Deep because they never learned teleportation lol
Very interesting video and I'm glad you clarified that you were focusing on the films as the terrain itself is quite different in the books (such as helms dike). The one point I would make is that the Deeping walls primary function was to protect the entrance to the glittering caves where the woman and children were hiding. Abandoning the wall will condemn them all to death. Indeed in the books, when the wall falls, the fellowship retreat to the caves and not the keep.
12:37 Also remember the elves are very lightweight beings. Very nimble and quick on their feet. And, kinda of like what you said, they're a much smaller force, and a much lighter-equipped force. Even without 1000+ years of practice in mobility, speed is absolutely their advantage.
There are some good ideas here but the deepening wall is a necessary defensive position for the Glittering Caves. The way I would mitigate it is with the trenches and that grate. Fill the grate up with rubble, but allowes enough room for the water to pass through. And dig a trench, ideally with spikes if possible, but not required, and let that fill in to a moat. Take the dug out material to the hornburg to build redoubts within the keep, and destroy the bridge to the Hornburg gate after. You still have access to the deepening from within the hornburg, the moat would reduce the efficacy of ladders to reach the deepening wall. If time was had, one could also take some of the trench material and create sand bags to increase the height of the machicolations on the wall, increasing cover for the elf archers. It really depends on how much time you had to prepare. But at the very least, I would plug up that culvert so nothing could get in under the wall!
If we’re going by the Peter Jackson setup of helms deep, if you abandon the deeping wall, you’re also giving up two additional points of entry into the hornburg. They’re basically just doorways but they’re much less fortified than the main gate
Not to mention that the Deeping wall is there to provide cover fire for the bridge leading up to the Hornburg, as it allows the archers to hit approaching shield formations in their flanks when they try to bring up battering rams.
Bro Ive been seeing clips of you everywhere. You used to be a cop that wore short shorts on reno 911. I also love your cameos on administrative results. Sad to hear the balaclava guy got hospitalized by the managerial outcomes dude but admin has a great friend in you for holding it down for him til he recovers. You real for that. Love the content.
"Look to my coming at the dawn of the third day" - Gandalf arrives about 48-60 hours after they split up, which is about when Edoras fell. In the movie, at least, that works out to one night of Uruk Hai storming the walls. I think it's about that in the books too - Edoras is a good ways from Helm's deep - something on the order of 50-60 miles, which...you're making pretty good time if you manage that before the dawn of the third day of your journey.
As much as i approve of the idea of trench digging, he had a small, mostly untrained, low morale force. Digging the trenches might help in the coming battles, but with the lack of time it was desirable to save their strength and endurance for the coming fight.
There is 1 advantage to taking the deep wall for the Urk's, theres a stair case access to the Hornberg, its narrow, probably single file but it's secured with what looked like a gate little better than a interior door, it could probably be held a good while by a small number of guys in shield wall with archer support, but given the Urk's physical advantage, Beserker units and constant stream of fresh numbers, even elves on that shield wall won't hold forever and once breached Saurons forces stream in. That gate needs a way of being addressed if abbandoning the deeping wall which I generally agree is a good move
@@spiritualdilemma1364They did a mixture of both. Scenes with Bilbo were blue screened so as they could have the height difference but they also had scenes with Gandalf on set so he could interact with scenery
@@MrDemonz101I’m late but this isn’t true for LOTR. It is for the Hobbit, but there was very little CGI for Lord of the Rings. The special features edition of LOTR shows how they created the forced perspective shots that made him seem so much taller
I always thought of the deeping wall as just a distraction. It's meant to pull the enemy that way, so if they do breach, you have a wide open court yard as a kill box for archers from the Hornburg. If the enemy chooses to avoid it, you can safely redirect troops to the main keep, and keep a small contingency hidden away there should they breach the main gate.
Hearing someone say "The tower sucks" in reference to the Horn of Helm Hammerhand truly breaks my heart. The effect it has on the Isengard forces morale is the biggest forgotten X-factor in this battle.
So much more could of been done in form of defense, like wheres the emplacements? Counter infantry designs are nonexistent. Super easily accessible walls with no way for one part to cover the other. And its not like they even had to account for a full 360 degree field of fire, they literally had a natrual point of entry that they could of put a ton more focus into turning into a killzone. Seems like whoever decided to build a defensive structure had zero forethought on what to actually do in terms of defending. If it wasnt for the whole plot armor of having so many main characters there it woulda been a bloodbath. Still think its badass to watch again and again though. That old monkey brain see big battle and go all serotonin mode
Yep. Wall at the entry to the pass, tall with big crenellations, ditto with a wall on the rise the Gandalf comes down. Fantastically easy to defend although I suppose explosives put an end to castle based warfare but still.
Born too late to see General Patton plan his rescue of the 101st Airborne. Born just in time to see Administrative Results plan his defense of Helms Deep.
I love that in the battle of Middle earth games defending the hornburg was kinda my way to go (even with elven archers). By the way I definetely dont think that Theoden has seen many battles in his days, therefore he might not have much experience in war, especially few in sieges. Trenches while very useful are also a quite heavy hinderence for cavalry, so a cavalry focused nation might not even consider that. Anyways I love the details, very nice video, might just look around what else this channel has in store ^^
8:05 Kinda looks like it happens within the day but earlier in the movie, Gandalf explicitly says "look for me on the fifth day." Seems like the enemy arrives on day 4 as the battle all happens within the one night and Gandalf shows up the next morning, so in theory, they had ~3.5 days to prep.
I would alter the idea of trenches for a similar but less labor intensive option that would probably work better. The downside of a trench is that once the Uruk have arrived at a regular full trench, they can then use the trenches as cover for their crossbowmen. It reminds me of the trenchworks used in the early modern period to siege star fortresses such as in the siege of Crete. Instead, I would recommend just blotting the landscape with irregular and small 6-12 inch holes. Make the landscape look like the aftermath of cluster munitions. An Uruk with a broken or even just sprained ankle is just as much out of the fight as one shot with an arrow to the knee.
Was watching the Unsubscribed episode and saw this mentioned so had to check it out. Was not disappointed. The think the Carrhae battle was a good example and think would be even better as the Orks weren’t nearly as disciplined as a Roman legion. They were picked apart so a much less disciplined infantry would probably break under Calvary pressure.
If I don't have a lot of time, I'd use whatever stones are available to put on the bridge to make it difficult for a battering ram to even arrive. And put on a least hard wood on top of the walls for better protection - those walls don't even cover their belly, let alone protect their head. You want your archers to fire, get in cover, reload, fire again. I would also setup a second defensive line behind the gate house and at least have a certain amount of elves stationed there - they are used to fast firing with their bow, which would be needed when the gate breaches. They are also excellent swords man and have the best armour available in Middle-Earth out of Mithril. The Rohirim were easily defeated at the gate, since they only wear leather armour - a single crossbow shot and they were dead. I would also put elven archers over the gate house since it's the most important point to protect - all elves were on the deeping wall. They need less time to reload and can kill more Orks in the same time like a human.
WAIT waitasec... So this is actually... your _third_ channel? WTF man! What's the second? Two notes to add: Yes I insta subbed once I was done squinting my eyes trying to make sure it was you _"pa-pa-pa'ing"_ the LOTR score. Last but not least: I'm still hurting from that flasher you sent there in the middle of everything... _"...released 23 years ago..."_ - Still loved it, wouldn't have been you otherwise! Congrats on this new project, you're drawing crowds from everywhere!👍🏼😁
Yall missed a crucial factor. The mountains surrounding the keep should have about 40 units on each side. With nothing more than large wooden levers to dislodge boulders and send them crashing down on the massed army. These boulders would cause massive casualties could dislodge and destroy siege engins ladders and panic the orogs on each flank. Other than that you nailed it with protecting the keep. However it was the women and children in the village behind the deepwall that theodin was trying to protect even though many died and others had to flee into caves and hide...
I always believed that just a few mounted machine guns would have done the trick. The fortress had been there for a long time and nobody thought of installing any. Major plot hole.
more lore accurate (and a very very very very common mistake in any movie: that fortress has been there for generations, i dont care who built it, i dont care how many men you had stationed. DIG A F*CKING DITCH. stockpile wooden spikes to put in those ditches when needed. collect stones (they are cheap, dont deteriorate with age...) and then, all your peacetime garrison of ~50 men has to do is maintain that ditch. its something that has been done so often in military history, but almost NEVER in movies. eg kingdom of heavens. these guys look out from the walls of jerusalem, and i dont see a single ditch. dafuq? in actual history, jersualem at that time had not one, not two but three ditches XD ditches are the cheapest fortification you can build, and all they need is a bit of monthly maintainance.
If i remember correctly, in the book, there were already Rohan civilians and a major part of the army in the Hornburg. King Theodon and the rest of the army are outside at night and are about to be surrounded by orcs and they're funnelled into Helm's Deep. And that's how the siege begins.
Recently Andy serkis read for the audiobooks of Lord of the rings and I’d definitely recommend those for a first time listen. His skill of doing different voices is very good to enhance it a bit
The trek to Helm’s Deep and then the battle last 5 days. Gandalf told Aragorn to hold out for 5 days. So from the time Gandalf leaves to the time he comes back is 5 days
8:33 thats a great idea, exhaust your force even before the enemy showed up. 9:40 you have no idea the enemy is going to attack on that position. Why would they, its a massive wall higher than any standard ladder can assault. If anything they would walk up that ridge which honestly should have been destroyed. 14:21 Abondoning the deeping wall pretty much means you surrender the fortress. Based on the movie and the tie in game. There are 3 entrances to the main hall which also cuts off your gate defense exactly like they did in the movie. Plus you give the Uruk-hai back their greatest advantage, the use of pikemen which as we see in the battle at the gate. They trade favourly with Rohan troops at the gate even knocking out Theoden and elvish troops at the deeping wall.
First video of yours I've come across. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this! I'd love to see you cover the Siege of Minas Tirith or Osgiliath! You got yourself a new subscriber :D
That distinctive Arizona-Bijan accent, reminds me of a gone but not forgotten masked man of mystery. - keep up the good work Aaron, diversifying yourself and covering other hobbies and topics shall garner favorable Outcomes, Administratively.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Main qualification: Playing lot of Total war.
My man.
Peace through power.
@TealWolf26 Remember my child: One vision, One purpose
As a man who has also played a lot of Total War games I not only enjoyed his statement but completely trust his judgement 😂
@@martind5653 In the name of Kane! /salute
Can relate 😂
the reason you couldnt abandon the deeping wall was because it was protecting the entrance to the caves where the noncombatants (women and children) were
I was looking to see if someone had made this comment 😂 on of Gimli's finest moment in the book!
@@jamiefurnell85I thought the cave entrance was connected to the inner keep/throne room?
In the movie yes otherwise in the book it's outside I think@@calaz4054
@@calaz4054 They don't really cover it in the movies and it implies it is for the movies whereas in the book it's not.
Just don’t put em there, eh?
I didn't realize until this breakdown, but the book version makes so much more sense.
Helms Deep was made by the Numenoreans/early Gondorians when they still owned the territory. Tolkien didn't give to much detail on the fortress, but it would have been better designed.
The setup in the books makes much more sense. The Rohirrim garrison for the westfold were already in open field combat with Isengard's army. Theoden had more men in his initial force in Edoras (a couple thousand i think), and he was going to reinforce the Rohirrim who were already engaged. However, on the way, he gets the news that the line broke and his western forces scattered, with a decent portion falling back to Helms Deep. He now realizes the numbers and momentum of the battle aren't in his favor and decides to meet up with the forces at Helms Deep, and his forces barely make it there in time, being harassed by the warg riders as they start to arrive at the fortress, and the Isengard army close behind them. Ironically, this is where the design of Helms deep and the deepening wall pays off, as he is able to keep his horses behind the wall and not be overcrowded in the main keep.
When Gandalf rescues them, what he actually did was round up the previously routed western forces and reorganize them with some other levies to attack Isengard's forces from the rear, giving an opportunity for the Rohirrim in the fortress to mount up and launch an attack, trapping the evil forces between to small armies, like a pincer movement.
To be fair Peter Jackson's version is much more dramatic and climatic, but Tolkien's made more sense.
Tolkien's placement of Helms Deep is also more sensible at the head of the valley rather than at the back with a dyke blocking direct assault against the deeping wall and hornburg.
As someone who has never reqd the books, this sounds like some actual tactics. Definitely much better than the movie.
@@Gaenzdad93 because tolkien loved history adn he was ww1 vet as well
That's funny cause the book and the movie were the same.
@@timesthree5757 Nope, they absolutely were not. There is actually a decent article on Wikipedia on the battle. For starters Eomer and his men were at the battle from the start. It was a guy named Erkenbrand and his footsoldiers who Gandalf went to find. And no elves were involved. And some more but that should be enough to puncture that silly statement.
Admin: We’re abandoning the Deeping Wall!
Women and children in the caves: 😨
Oh everybody is so upset about women and kids dying in battle...
But when the boat starts sinking it's all "WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST"
Make up your minds.
Caves are behind the keep in the movie
@@davidbilich1708 Both scenarios are protecting the women and children wtf are you on about?
@@razma20001 women and children should always be first...
@@davidbilich1708 yeah thats what i meant it didnt sound like you meant that tho
This guy kinda looks like Managerial Outcomes
And surprisingly the Managerial outcomes guy looks just like the Administrative Results guy 🤔
Back in my day, we called him executive outcomes
Conspiracy theory...
I think you mean administrative results
@@BadKarma1218should make a third channel called executive solutions
If you havent read the books..
The Lothlorien elves were never involved in the battle. This was a Jackson addition.
King Theoden rode out from Edoras with about 1000 soldiers (including Eomer)
Helms deep already had about 1000 men at arms garrisoned. The Rohan defense wasnt so helpless.
And have more walls
Everyone also forgets Helm’s Dyke which had defenders on it, and kept the Uruk-Hai at bay for the fortress to have more time.
Plus these guys in movie were sent by Elrond. They were Rivendell archers :)
@@krystofdavid1117 They were absolutely from Lothlorien wym????????????
@@krystofdavid1117 Nah Elrond convinced Galadriel to help out Rohan but thats movie only
I’m pretty sure you can access the glittering caves behind the deeping wall. So it’s possibly not the best idea to leave it undefended.
This is what happens when you watch the movie and don't read the books.
@@scipio4043 take this as a commentary on the movie then, he did say at the beginning that he's not versed in the lore and books
@@op_14-s2x Agreed! That's exactly what it is.
Because you can
@@op_14-s2x technically this is the case for the movies too, its just the scenes clarifying it were deleted.
The weapons which the Uruk-hai had were essentially the Tercio style which the Spanish had. Long pikes and crossbows to keep cavalry away while using x-bows to keep horse archers away with armour piercing xbows. Saruman designed them specifically to counter the Rohirrim
Didn't save them tho)
@@FirstLast-wk3kcbecause he attacked a fort with what was designed as a field army not a siege army as Saruman assumed that the rohirrim would have the balls to face him on the open field or to just do nothing as wormtoung was doing his thing
@@JosephGilles-z3hGandalf coming back really screwed over Sarumans plans. Without that hed probably have won without much hindrance, till Treebeard realizes what he did tho
Saruman designed that army to besiege and take the forts/towns of Rohan. Having part of the army wield pikes for field battles would make sense, but he absolutely knew the army would need to fight in sieges as well
@@FirstLast-wk3kc Gandalf basically made the charge possible using his light power, the Uruk-Hai also where not fully prepared for the charge either and had Théoden's force already in their mist. The Formation basically just crumbled when hit hard.
5:50 That is a common misconception. Horse archers are not the best ancient soldiers. The reason the Romans got defeated at Carrhae is the leader of the Roman army did not hire auxiliary archers or slingers. After Carrhae the Romans went on a punitive expedition against the Parthians with a properly equipped army and completely defeated the cavalry force that tried to do a repeat of the previous battle.
Given that the uruk hai are shown to have crossbows it would be difficult for the horse archers to operate in any way other than as a screening harassing force. Definitely still useful but not battle winning.
8:30 Because Tolkien was a chad he actually understood war and battles. In the book the Rohirrim did have earthworks. They also used scouts. Even if you can't stomach reading the whole trilogy its worth reading the battles. Tolkien's strategies are significantly better than what Peter Jackson wrote.
I mean, historically, mounted horse archers were an extraordinary threat to pretty much every ancient society on earth, and they continued to be an extreme problem until the usage of firearms became widespread.
I'm not familiar with the details of how that Roman expedition went off the top of my head, so I can't speak to what happened there, but typically the best way most ancient societies found to deal with mounted archers was to... Hire opposing mounted archers to chase them down.
Your typical ancient army just is NOT equipped to deal with mounted archers. Bringing your own slingers/archers who are on foot only really works if you're able to create a tactical environment where the mounted archers are pinned in place somehow, which is extremely difficult to do in almost every case.
You provided one example of a mounted army being destroyed by a dismounted one, but in the larger sample size of military history, VERY few societies developed an effective method of dealing with mounted troops like that.
The reason why societies that developed a military culture of mounted units of that sort were never more successful across the world is generally linked to the cultures that spawned them, not their efficacy in battle. Most often they were nomadic tribal societies, and thus lacked the ability to persecute large scale war with things like complex logistics, seiges, and locking down captured territory.
@@TheGoIsWin21 That's not true. At least not in battle. I provided a counter example to the example given that is far from the only example.
Barbarian armies were a threat to empires not because they were more powerful but because they were more mobile.
Free societies with armed populations are not vulnerable to such barbarian armies.
When the Mongols invaded Hungary they had great success but as they left they divided their amies in three one of the armies went through the frontier where the peasants were armed. The Mongols were almost completely destroyed.
The Huns were very successful at raiding roman territory but when their hubris got to them they met the Romans at the catalaunian fields and they were beaten.
The Comanche almost depopulated the Mexicans from Texas. They weren't as successful against the US settlers who had a culture of the local militia.
A disciplined infantry army that has ranged troops will almost always defeat a cavalry force if they meet them in an even battle. The disaster battles that people think of when they champion the horse archer are almost always a failure of command. Either the infantry isn't supported by ranged troops or the infantry tries to pursue the cavalry and is separated from the formation.
Can you think of one example of a battle that was straight up won by a outnumbered cavalry force against a properly equipped infantry.
@@michaelnewswanger2409 you essentially just said everything I said but in a different way.
They couldn't really conquer and hold territory or do more than raiding, but in open field nobody could really do anything with them. In tactical theory, "not losing" is as important as "winning" and nobody could figure out how to force a mobile cavalry force to lose. They could just keep peppering you and run away. A disciplined infantry force with ranged troops could defeat an undisciplined mounted force, but against a disciplined mounted force they're stuck in, at best, a stalemate. You keep throwing around leadership as a quality for the infantry in this situation, but that is true on all sides and is totally unrelated from the discussion on quality/type of troops.
@@TheGoIsWin21 no I didn't say the same thing. Raiding and battle are different things. In a battle against a properly equipped infantry army cavalry gets destroyed with very few exceptions. The example given in the video was a battle not a campaign, it was also defending your territory not raiding the enemy.
Because of that I pointed out that horse archers wouldn't accomplish much.
Leadership is more important for infantry because the infantry gains it's advantage from cohesion. The cavalry can operate in smaller groups central leadership is not as important. In the ancient world disciplined infantry supported by ranged troops (usually slingers) will defeat pure cavalry basically every time.
Cavalry becomes dangerous when used in combined arms. Cavalry increased in power exponentially when infantry fixed the enemy force.
@@michaelnewswanger2409 nothing you said here is explicitly wrong, it's just irrelevant. You started all this off by stating that the reputation mounted archers have is undeserved, and that they're not actually that good, when the fact is that, until the invention of firearms, no military on earth came up with a way to effectively deal with a force that utilized mobile cavalry archers, even if it was the entire army. The Chinese decided it was easier to build a wall that's visible from SPACE than it was to deal with them.
The Romans were able to come back and root out the Scythians because of A) Roman ability to project power, and B)The Scythians had cities and farms and other stationary positions of strategic importance. The point being made in the video, and the point you seem to be arguing against, is that in a straight up 1v1 scenario with all other variables being the same, horse archers were an absolute nightmare to deal with and almost impossible to defeat in a straight up fight, which is something that is not really debated by any historians I've ever encountered. It was just simply the nature of the available military technology.
You point out that combined arms were more capable of dealing with them, but that's not what anybody was talking about. If you're an infantry man and a Scythian horse archer is trying to kill you, you're probably going to die. The only way to avoid that is to find ways to keep that Scythian away from you (which most societies did, either politically, with bribes, or by destroying Scythia if you're the Romans).
In many, many cases, mounted archers of history were tribal nomads, who couldn't conquer a city very well, and therefore building walls and paying some bribes was enough to keep them bothering other people. But MOST armies throughout MOST of history, when facing a force like that, with lethal intent, were only able to chase them off.
You even said in a previous comment, they were a threat to empires because of their mobility, not their power. How on earth is mobility not in your arithmetic to judge how powerful something is? The wehrmacht managed to conquer half of Europe using mobility to extraordinary effect.
At first I thought this was some other channel using a Admin clip that I wasn’t aware of as a meme. I was pleasantly surprised to settle in for a half hour of Admin needing out over LotR while I’m trying to stay awake at work.
Helms Deep is Gondorian built. It’s basically a fortified watchtower for peasants. Not a true fortress for a siege against the most technologically advanced military in the setting.
Well, in the books Saruman's army isnt that incredibly technologically advanced besides supposedly having gunpowder.
In the Books there was no need, Saruman himself destroyed the wall from Isengard with magic.@@MrRenanHappy
@@codysing1223 Umm, no he didn't. In the books the only thing that is said is that the Uruk-Hai crept into the culvert and "lit the fire of Orthanc" there. It's never clarified what "the fire of Orthanc" is but it's clearly something the troops on the ground did after the culvert had been blocked up by the Rohirrim.
So, I agree to an extent. I definitely don't think it is "bad." But there were still some very cheap improvements that could have been made along the many years it has been around. Higher crenelations and a drawbridge would have made a big difference. Just the crenelations probably would have reduced the effectiveness of the crossbows by 50%. There definitely should have been a second set of gates inside the hornburg at the entrances to the plaza. Crenelations on the inside edge of the hornburg walls would have made it possible to fire down on the orcs when they broke through the (now first) gate safe from return fire.
On the other hand, murder holes would have been prohibitively expensive to incorporate after the fact but should have been there from the initial construction. A very expensive improvement would be to extend the deeping wall forward around the front of the keep for another layer of walls. And finally, if the entrance to the caves is not in the back of the hornburg (it is behind the deeping wall in the books) then it absolutely should be. Collapse or fortify with a sally gate the current entrance and dig another.
I don't think the drainage hole is a viable critique considering it is basically impossible to exploit without the use of gunpowder which didn't exist before this battle.
@@dashsocur Its definitely some form of magical bomb though, even if it doesn't look like he can mass produce them, he still does have them.
I'm actually eating my beer and drinking my food right now
How work?
@@Coalislandmutt freeze beer blend food
Nice
I’m on the toilet
Its kind of a moot point. With the consumption of beer, you’re gonna pee outa the spout and the chute.
“Many hours of total war” 😂 I know exactly how you feel
Theoden was constantly grappling with feelings of being the "Lesser Son of greater Sires". I believe that's the quote from the book.
Don't abandon the wall. You lose all flanking fire on any troops advancing up the causeway and you can only fit so many archers in the hornburg. Plus it's the main defense to the glittering caves in the book and also the only thing blocking enemies from rushing the deep valley into southern Rohan.
Trench defense in depth is what is needed here. Dig multiple trench lines leading up to the fortress. At least 7 feet deep, if not more, to make climbing out of them as hard as possible and just wide enough to stop a siege engine from traversing it. fill them with sharpened wooden stakes or flammable pitch. Let the enemy fall upon the spikes or burn them as they advance. Slowing their advance and thinning their numbers as much as possible before they reach the wall is the key.
If the ground is too hard to dig, then your only other option is to create obstacles and barricades. At least that way you can slow the enemy advance and pick them off with arrows before they reach you.
Theoden made the right call. If he stayed at Edoras, the Uruk army would surround it and easily breach it's wooden defenses. Gandalf arriving with Eomer behind the Uruks is what broke Saruman's army. The biggest game changer was Fangorn forest. The Ents took care of the routing remaining Uruks, stopping any chance of them regrouping. Another advantage that Edoras could not provide.
Lastly, given the Uruk's formation of pikes and crossbows, it would have been suicidal to meet them in the field as a cavalry force. Eomer did what he had to, he rode all over the neighboring provinces, defeating any raiding wild-men and Uruks, freeing up all the able riders, who were otherwise engaged with defending their homes and arrived in the nick of time to flank the Uruk army while they were already engaged and out of proper anti-cavalry formation. The light of dawn from the east blinded the few Uruk pikemen that were able to scramble into a rear-guard, Allowing Eomer's force to break through and sealed the fate of Saruman's ambitions.
The book version of the battle featured the exact defense-in-depth you are describing with outer perimeter ditch-and-stake earthworks encircling Helm's Deep. The relief army that arrived under Erkenbrand was mostly heavy infantry, regrouping after retreating from the battle at the Ford of Isen, and well situated to be the Anvil to the Hammer of Theoden and Eomer's (who was there the whole time) charge out from the fortress.
Other fun facts, the Deeping Wall has a very specific utility in that it protects the actual mountain gorge of Helm's Deep, for which the fortress complex is named, which provides a fortified open area large enough to camp several thousand cavalry troops with a lot of natural shelter from the weather. Given that Helm's Deep overlooks the main road thru Rohan, and is situated to project force onto the the Ford of Isen and the approach to Edoras, anyone invading Rohan basically has to siege it or be subject to unending harassment and surprise cavalry attacks. Edoras and the other major settlements of Rohan have their own closer fallback fortresses that their people can evacuate to, Theoden was on his way to join the battle at the Fords when he got word that Saruman had outflanked his border forces by speed-building a bridge upstream (the only strategic move Saruman made in the entire war that actually worked) and that they no longer had a chokepoint to hold or a solid body of infantry to join up with.
Nobody let him know about 😅 Amazon's Rings of Power, he would have a heart attack with the battle "tactics" in that shit show 😂
The quicker that abomination is forgotten and cancelled the better.
Yea no kidding😂😂😂😂
From what I've heard they make Winterfell look like a work of strategic genius.
One important thing to consider that you forgot about is that this isn't some rabble of mindless orcs, these are Uruk-hai, who have thick armor and broad shields, so unless the horse archers of the Rohirrim have S+ accuracy to be able to hit the gaps in their armor while riding on horse back, the whole mounted archer harassment thing falls apart.
You don’t need S tier accuracy. If you shoot 100 arrows at a tight group of 100 guys someone is gonna get hit. Fatal? Maybe? Maybe not. Anyways the whole point isn’t for them to kill the whole army, it’s to slow them down and pick off whomever they can.
@@irishgovna2995 Arrows are limited, firing them at heavy armoured troops is not a great idea.
@@Shrouded_reaper Once again not going for the kills. Just trying to wound a few guys and try to slow the entire force down. The slower the force the longer Theoden has to prepare.
Arrows go right through armor like cardboard in the movies, sooo..
This isn't correct, in the books the majority of the army is orcs and dunlending. Uruk hai were more of an elite battalion in the army
Boromir returns as Sharpe, battle won
Cue up the guitar Sharpe's theme! 🤘
Now that's soldiering.
Saruman ye bastard
For England, Aragorn? Wait, wrong franchise
Not without Harper, no, it is not.
the gatehouse and the lack of a divide between the gate itself and the bridge are the biggest weaknesses of the Helmes Deep. As for the opening in the wall, take away the black powder, what in that setting, could honestly breach that wall and its heavy stone? Black powder was unknown to the people of Middle earth. Yes the cover for the defenders could be taller but keeping in mind the angle of attack, the defenders have decent cover, at least to their shoulders. I believe had the wall not been breached, they would of held for a decent time
I disagree about the wall.
It serves as a place to position archers like we see. This maximizes the amount of fire the defenders can unleash. There's simply not enough room in the hornberg itself to maximize the output of arrowfire. Also, like we see in the film, the wall archers can shoot from the side getting around the large shields of the walkway Uruks marching towards the gate.
Helms Deep is designed for cross sectional fire for the defenders. Plus because there's nothing of real significance for Helms Deep behind the wall, IF the defenders have to pull back into the keep, they lose nothing and you get that 2nd death funnel you mentioned.
the entrance to the caves is behind the wall tho not in the keep, so u would be giving up all ur civilians
@@Highdog_Hobbies in the books that where it is but that doesn't seem to be the case in the movie. They also didn't get elven archers in the book either, the books and movies are quite different. I would argue that the movie strongly suggests it is behind the keep.
@brettpalmer1770 yea Ur 100% right the movies do suggest that as the only time we hear about them is when they are trapped inside the keep. So yea it defs suggests that's there location in the movie.
@brettpalmer1770 one thing I always found weird is u would assume the cave entrance is fairly small if it's accessed from the keep. Couldn't the entire of the defenders (once trapped into the keep) just fallen back and held the smaller chock points at the cave (the pikes and crossbow would be useless at such close range combat giving the advantage to bowmen and sword/axemen). As we never see the entrance tho it could be a stupid point to make haha
@@Highdog_Hobbies its a valid one, but also logical to think that theres just too many orcs to hold for long enough in the caves the arrows dont have gravity to help punch trough the orcs heavy armor.
This guy wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know the lore. His early criticisms are answered by knowing the history of Anglarond.
Care to fill us in? I'm curious to know.
@@CertifiedSunset his early criticisms were about the ineffectiveness of the structure as if the Rohirrim built it. However, we all know that the Isen River was the western border of Gondor. Anglarond (Helm’s Deep) and Angrenost (Isengard) were built by the Dunedain of Gondor, and manned by them. They gave up Anglarond when the Rohirrim were gifted Calenardhon centuries later. The manning of Isengard dwindled over time with intermarrying with Dunlendings and battles with Rohan until it was completely taken over by Rohan and given to Saruman in the late 3rd age.
@@CertifiedSunsetWell apparently the OP had a different idea but the main thing missed is Helms Deep is guarding a massive cave complex and has mountain trails leading out of it. This allowed the fort to hold thousands of people and supplies to sustain them for months.
@@suciojay1604 Well that doesn't really answer any of the criticisms though. Regardless of who built it the fortress is poorly designed as it doesn't protect anything of value and can be easily starved out by a small army holding the exits of the valley.
Maybe if it had some massive roadways inside the mountain, where soldiers and supplies could be transferred from one side to the other the existence of the hornburg might make some sense.
@ you don’t know it either apparently. It was never a fortress like Angrenost. Never supposed to house armies and defend anything long term. It was just a watchtower for small forces to use. The Robirrim made it a fortress for that purpose.
How did he know I was on the toilet eating while watching this?
Hah, another Palantir user we found 😳
Why would u eat at the toilet 😮
You were live streaming it
0:20 GENERAL KENOBI!!!!
You are a bold one.
Can’t wait to see you hit a million subscribers man. You’re making it happen and it’s awesome to see. Please keep posting, no where to go but up. I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
“First light on the fifth day, look to the east”
It was five days from Edoras to the hornburg victory
and gandalf had to go because a wizard is never late and he literally rode the fastest horse in middle earth by a country mile the Meras were the elves of horses only rode by the kings of rohan
A two week old Uruk-Hai: "First time?"
A 70 year old Eorlinga: "Yeah"
Don't forget that Tolkien was a survivor of WWI and had fought in the battle of the Somme. The last thing he would have considered would be to trap his heroes in a series of trenches facing an overwhelming force.
Trenches work
@@BUREAUFILES Yes, we are finding that out from Ukraine. But the trenches Tolkien had experience were a nightmare. lso, remember that the Rohan riders had just arrived at Helms Deep and were quickly attacked by Saruman's orcs. They had no time to dig a really efficient system of trenches.
@@BUREAUFILES sources?
@@felip390ukraine
He survived the war because of trenches. As someone once said the 2nd worst place in the world during ww1 was a trench. The worst place was being caught outside of the trench.
I’m 100% for this new channel. Shadiversity has a full hour and a half battle autopsy of Helm’s Deep for any other fellow Numenorian rangers wanting to dive even deeper into this topic.
Australian Mormon
@@The64Comet ...and?
@@The64Comet A politically conservative Mormon will always have haters.
As a politically conservative member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints myself, I kinda ignore them, lol.
@@josepetersen7112 I think it's not just his conservatism. It's the obsession with AI art and weirdness with women.
@@josepetersen7112 its more his attacking of other youtubers who never attacked him and getting mad at his daughter for liking princess peach in the mario movie
Man this guy really seems to be administering some pretty good results
My own inner pet peavery coming out here. Theoden called it “The Deeping Wall”. The repeated utterances of the “Deepening” wall ARE KILLING ME. Aaaahhh!
well in the books theres another wall and trench were the fought the uruk hai before the assault on the deepening wall, hama captain of theodens guard does a last stand there.
@@alexTorres-cs7co totally irrelevant to what Jay is saying. The big wall the elves stand on in the movie is called the Deeping Wall, not the Deepening Wall.
literally came here looking for this, omg it was like nails in my brain
@@DragonessLuzige lol i was talking about the books and also, in the books has a reason, since in the movies the palisade and trench arent present, like the elves that arent on the books.
Also basically both things mean the same in my language so your just being pedantic on grammatics, so in simple terms, go insert the biggest object you could find in your lower esfinter, enjoy.
@@alexTorres-cs7co yes helms dyke it also had a garrison of 1000 men at arms as well
Always happy to support new and upcoming youtubers!
So, in the battle in the books, there were trenches. There was a trench and rampart system called Helms Dike, which was in stretched across the valley that is the Deeping-coomb, and the defenders utilized a small force to garrison it to basically slow down the enemy. When it was overrun, the defenders fled back to Helms Deep proper. Once there, Saruman's army tried to attack the Hornburg directly and ignored the Deeping Wall initially, but when that plan was foiled by Aragorn and Eomer (who was in the battle with them, not absent like in the movie), they then attacked the Deeping Wall with hundreds of ladders. Eventually, they bombed it just like in the movie, and began to pour in.
The problem with your method of abandoning the Deeping Wall is that there isn't nothing behind there. The Deeping Wall and the area behind it leads to a cave system called the Glittering Cave that connects back to the Hornburg, so they had to hold it in order to hold the keep. It was also where those who couldn't fight were hiding, so if they lost it, it would be very bad. The defenders retreated into the Glittering Cave once the wall was breached, and sallied forth once Gandalf collected Erkenbrand and an extra thousand foot soldiers to flank Saruman's army.
Also, my boy Haldir was done dirty at Helms Deep. He never died there. Gamling did, who was one of Theoden's personal guards.
I have no idea what you were talking about but I watched the whole thing 🫡
To be honest, the battle was over as soon as the Uruks attacked Helms Deep with a frontal assault. Its a fortress with one way in and one way out. All they had to do was secure the valley so no help or supplies could come in, and they could have literally chilled until Theoden and all the Rohaian people die of starvation.
Rohan's army was around six thousand, possibly more (this is how many they bring to Minas Tirith in ROTK). Theoden could not muster them within sufficient time, but if Saruman's army besieged Helm's Deep, the Rohirrim could bring quite a lot of reinforcements. The Uruk-Hai might actually be the ones to starve, unable to forage or bring supplies from Isengard without being harassed by Éomer (movie) or Erkenbrand (book).
What's worse, Saruman is on the clock regarding Sauron. Sauron was already aware that Saruman betrayed him and tried to take the Ring for himself. If his army took Minas Tirith and came marching down to Rohan, he'd smash Saruman's forces (Sauron's army was at least ten times bigger) and replace him with one of his servants. The only way Saruman could keep his head on his shoulders is taking over Rohan before that and entrenching himself.
no
@@Nethan2000Sure the Rohirrim could have harassed the Uruks, but I don't think they would be able to pose any real threat to the Uruks. The Uruks were heavily outfitted with long pikes, which historically is very bad for heavy cavalry like the Rohirrim. The mountains provide excellent cover against the mounted archers taking away their ability to maneuver around the Uruks.
The real trick comes after everyone in Helms Deep has died. How then do the Uruks escape or rout the rest of the Rohirrim? Once the fighting moves to the open fields, the Uruks are done for (or at the very least take extremely heavy losses). Either way, everyone in Helms Deep is done for.
@@HerpMcDerp89 You're missing one small detail. The frigging Fangorn forest came to the Helm's Deep to say "hi" to Uruks.
There was an exit through the caves, where do you think all the civilians were when the attack was happening, if the Uruks dug in for a long siege or tried to wait them out, the civilians would have escaped regardless.
Her: He's probably thinking about other women
AR/MO/BF: Man it really grinds my gears that Helm Hammerhand made such a poorly designed structure and Theoden defended it so disadvantageously
Helm didn't build It. The Fortress was Made by Gondor
@@JasperSchuttelhofer dwarves i'm pretty sure, hence the low walls, narrow passages and dark stone constructions.
@@Firefrab just bad design in both movies and books gimli complains that its human work and not very good, and thats why he offers the dwarfs to improve the defensive capabilities of the foretres after the war.
I love the retreat scene where they forgot to cgi in the arrows and a couple archers are firing air down on the enemies.
I love that you made a video about this. This is such a good example of a dude being a bro and I'm just here for it brother.
The women and children were in the caves behind the deepening wall, literally Rohan’s most valuable resource. Theoden couldn’t just abandon the wall or he would condemn Rohan extinction
Move them.
@@ryn-kx5tv probably wasn’t time.
@@ryn-kx5tv Where?
So what is this the third channel? My man has too many ideas. LOTR GOAT
Knowing that your audience is watching this while eating or taking a shit is a testament of how well you know your audience sir. Respect where respect is due. I can do nothing else but subscribe.
You are my favorite gun UA-camr, but I've also loved your non gun content. So this will be fun.
To be fair the elves weren’t there in the books. It was Theoden with about 1000+ men, the men he brought with him and the garrison already there. They were just regrouping there before going out to fight and ended up in battle but the movies reframed it as Theoden avoiding battle
This isn't a book breakdown
Five days from Gandalk leaving Edoras till he pitches as Helm's Deep with the Rohirrim. "Look to my coming on the 5th day. At dawm look to the East". Elves to Helm's Deep? Galadriel has the mirror "things that are, things that where, and something that has not yet come to pass". Paraphrasing with the quotes.
Jump channels all you want, you cannot hide, bru
If there had been 500 lore-accurate Elves present at the battle of Helms Deep, the Uruk-Hai would be dead.
Whats lore accurate please explain
@@Mr.happycamaro I guess: one arrow one kill. Uruks would not stood a chance.
@@Mr.happycamaro they scare the living shit out of Nazgul let alone orks
@@Mr.happycamaro Some of those elves probably have been in the First Age so yeah
@@Mr.happycamaro it would have been 500 movie Legolases basically.
The movies turn Legolas into basically a superhero and the Lothlorien battalion kinda look like amateurs compared to him, but in the books he was a pretty ordinary elf as far as age and skills go (even if he was a prince of a minor kingdom). Elves used to fight Balrogs in the First Age, not run away from them, for example.
Though if the movie was lore-accurate then the elves wouldn't have shown up in Helm's Deep because they never learned teleportation lol
I know this channel only has a few videos but I love it. Appreciate all of your content and hard work admin.
08:20 “look to my coming at the first light of the fifth day”
I was just about to write this
Very interesting video and I'm glad you clarified that you were focusing on the films as the terrain itself is quite different in the books (such as helms dike). The one point I would make is that the Deeping walls primary function was to protect the entrance to the glittering caves where the woman and children were hiding. Abandoning the wall will condemn them all to death. Indeed in the books, when the wall falls, the fellowship retreat to the caves and not the keep.
12:37
Also remember the elves are very lightweight beings. Very nimble and quick on their feet.
And, kinda of like what you said, they're a much smaller force, and a much lighter-equipped force.
Even without 1000+ years of practice in mobility, speed is absolutely their advantage.
Galadriel has her mirror, that can look into the future. She saw the shit show on the way and send them is my guess.
There are some good ideas here but the deepening wall is a necessary defensive position for the Glittering Caves. The way I would mitigate it is with the trenches and that grate. Fill the grate up with rubble, but allowes enough room for the water to pass through. And dig a trench, ideally with spikes if possible, but not required, and let that fill in to a moat. Take the dug out material to the hornburg to build redoubts within the keep, and destroy the bridge to the Hornburg gate after. You still have access to the deepening from within the hornburg, the moat would reduce the efficacy of ladders to reach the deepening wall. If time was had, one could also take some of the trench material and create sand bags to increase the height of the machicolations on the wall, increasing cover for the elf archers. It really depends on how much time you had to prepare. But at the very least, I would plug up that culvert so nothing could get in under the wall!
If i had 10,000 Uruks, I would get cocky too.
If we’re going by the Peter Jackson setup of helms deep, if you abandon the deeping wall, you’re also giving up two additional points of entry into the hornburg. They’re basically just doorways but they’re much less fortified than the main gate
Not to mention that the Deeping wall is there to provide cover fire for the bridge leading up to the Hornburg, as it allows the archers to hit approaching shield formations in their flanks when they try to bring up battering rams.
You should have a talk with Gary from Nerdrotic about LOTR.
Bro Ive been seeing clips of you everywhere. You used to be a cop that wore short shorts on reno 911. I also love your cameos on administrative results. Sad to hear the balaclava guy got hospitalized by the managerial outcomes dude but admin has a great friend in you for holding it down for him til he recovers. You real for that. Love the content.
Fun fact, the kid with the "good sword" was a young Admin
What made his sword so good compared to all the Other Swords?
"Look to my coming at the dawn of the third day" - Gandalf arrives about 48-60 hours after they split up, which is about when Edoras fell. In the movie, at least, that works out to one night of Uruk Hai storming the walls. I think it's about that in the books too - Edoras is a good ways from Helm's deep - something on the order of 50-60 miles, which...you're making pretty good time if you manage that before the dawn of the third day of your journey.
As much as i approve of the idea of trench digging, he had a small, mostly untrained, low morale force.
Digging the trenches might help in the coming battles, but with the lack of time it was desirable to save their strength and endurance for the coming fight.
The worst part is, the forces was made up of the very old to the very young basically, they had little to no strength to build even a Stick fence.
All of your videos are awesome, but this is your 2nd best ever (behind the Admin Results reveal video)! Very well done!
fuck, how is Admin such a dope dude? he's the nerdy himbo I aspire to be
There is 1 advantage to taking the deep wall for the Urk's, theres a stair case access to the Hornberg, its narrow, probably single file but it's secured with what looked like a gate little better than a interior door, it could probably be held a good while by a small number of guys in shield wall with archer support, but given the Urk's physical advantage, Beserker units and constant stream of fresh numbers, even elves on that shield wall won't hold forever and once breached Saurons forces stream in. That gate needs a way of being addressed if abbandoning the deeping wall which I generally agree is a good move
1:05 WAIT A MINUTE! SO HE DIDNT ACCIDENTALLY BUMP HIS HEAD AND THEY KEPT IT IN THE MOVIE BECAUSE IT WORKED? My entire life is a lie
No he definitely did. He bumped it on the doorway, not the lamp. This is filming a different scene
@ so why did they green screen this entire scene and not that one?
@@spiritualdilemma1364They did a mixture of both. Scenes with Bilbo were blue screened so as they could have the height difference but they also had scenes with Gandalf on set so he could interact with scenery
@@MrDemonz101 oh thank goodness. Thank you kind soul
@@MrDemonz101I’m late but this isn’t true for LOTR. It is for the Hobbit, but there was very little CGI for Lord of the Rings. The special features edition of LOTR shows how they created the forced perspective shots that made him seem so much taller
Really wasn't expecting this video in my feed to be Admin disguised as a nerd.
Mr.Admin when we get a tier list of your favorite war films?
I always thought of the deeping wall as just a distraction. It's meant to pull the enemy that way, so if they do breach, you have a wide open court yard as a kill box for archers from the Hornburg. If the enemy chooses to avoid it, you can safely redirect troops to the main keep, and keep a small contingency hidden away there should they breach the main gate.
Loving the tisum deep dive into this battle
Sir... y... you just tickled my tism far too hard!! DO IT AGAIN!! Loving the new content, Brother! Keep it up!
Hearing someone say "The tower sucks" in reference to the Horn of Helm Hammerhand truly breaks my heart. The effect it has on the Isengard forces morale is the biggest forgotten X-factor in this battle.
We have to thank Admins kid for this channel these are the things a man thinks about while spending family time.
So much more could of been done in form of defense, like wheres the emplacements? Counter infantry designs are nonexistent. Super easily accessible walls with no way for one part to cover the other. And its not like they even had to account for a full 360 degree field of fire, they literally had a natrual point of entry that they could of put a ton more focus into turning into a killzone. Seems like whoever decided to build a defensive structure had zero forethought on what to actually do in terms of defending. If it wasnt for the whole plot armor of having so many main characters there it woulda been a bloodbath. Still think its badass to watch again and again though. That old monkey brain see big battle and go all serotonin mode
Yep. Wall at the entry to the pass, tall with big crenellations, ditto with a wall on the rise the Gandalf comes down. Fantastically easy to defend although I suppose explosives put an end to castle based warfare but still.
Born too late to see General Patton plan his rescue of the 101st Airborne.
Born just in time to see Administrative Results plan his defense of Helms Deep.
Based
I'll take it
@@BUREAUFILES Would you consider making a video about how stannis baratheon could have won the siege at blackwaterbay ? Big Fan of you content.
@@Kheinmetall could make one about how ice fucks could've easily won, GoT could provide a lot of content lol
I love that in the battle of Middle earth games defending the hornburg was kinda my way to go (even with elven archers). By the way I definetely dont think that Theoden has seen many battles in his days, therefore he might not have much experience in war, especially few in sieges. Trenches while very useful are also a quite heavy hinderence for cavalry, so a cavalry focused nation might not even consider that.
Anyways I love the details, very nice video, might just look around what else this channel has in store ^^
Hello there
8:05 Kinda looks like it happens within the day but earlier in the movie, Gandalf explicitly says "look for me on the fifth day." Seems like the enemy arrives on day 4 as the battle all happens within the one night and Gandalf shows up the next morning, so in theory, they had ~3.5 days to prep.
This dude is why you don't give people a thesaurus for Christmas.
I would alter the idea of trenches for a similar but less labor intensive option that would probably work better. The downside of a trench is that once the Uruk have arrived at a regular full trench, they can then use the trenches as cover for their crossbowmen. It reminds me of the trenchworks used in the early modern period to siege star fortresses such as in the siege of Crete.
Instead, I would recommend just blotting the landscape with irregular and small 6-12 inch holes. Make the landscape look like the aftermath of cluster munitions. An Uruk with a broken or even just sprained ankle is just as much out of the fight as one shot with an arrow to the knee.
Just discovered this channel - These strategic "what if's?" from fictional universe's are awesome! keep it up man
How do you not have more subscribers? This was high quality
Was watching the Unsubscribed episode and saw this mentioned so had to check it out. Was not disappointed. The think the Carrhae battle was a good example and think would be even better as the Orks weren’t nearly as disciplined as a Roman legion. They were picked apart so a much less disciplined infantry would probably break under Calvary pressure.
If I don't have a lot of time, I'd use whatever stones are available to put on the bridge to make it difficult for a battering ram to even arrive. And put on a least hard wood on top of the walls for better protection - those walls don't even cover their belly, let alone protect their head. You want your archers to fire, get in cover, reload, fire again. I would also setup a second defensive line behind the gate house and at least have a certain amount of elves stationed there - they are used to fast firing with their bow, which would be needed when the gate breaches. They are also excellent swords man and have the best armour available in Middle-Earth out of Mithril. The Rohirim were easily defeated at the gate, since they only wear leather armour - a single crossbow shot and they were dead.
I would also put elven archers over the gate house since it's the most important point to protect - all elves were on the deeping wall. They need less time to reload and can kill more Orks in the same time like a human.
WAIT waitasec... So this is actually... your _third_ channel? WTF man! What's the second?
Two notes to add: Yes I insta subbed once I was done squinting my eyes trying to make sure it was you _"pa-pa-pa'ing"_ the LOTR score.
Last but not least: I'm still hurting from that flasher you sent there in the middle of everything... _"...released 23 years ago..."_ - Still loved it, wouldn't have been you otherwise! Congrats on this new project, you're drawing crowds from everywhere!👍🏼😁
Nah it's my new channel...good to have you my man
Yall missed a crucial factor. The mountains surrounding the keep should have about 40 units on each side. With nothing more than large wooden levers to dislodge boulders and send them crashing down on the massed army. These boulders would cause massive casualties could dislodge and destroy siege engins ladders and panic the orogs on each flank. Other than that you nailed it with protecting the keep. However it was the women and children in the village behind the deepwall that theodin was trying to protect even though many died and others had to flee into caves and hide...
Hi loving this
Some excellent break down you have there
Keep up with all the excellent content on all your channels 👍👍👍😁😁😁😁
This is the type of content I subscribed for.
I always believed that just a few mounted machine guns would have done the trick. The fortress had been there for a long time and nobody thought of installing any. Major plot hole.
more lore accurate (and a very very very very common mistake in any movie: that fortress has been there for generations, i dont care who built it, i dont care how many men you had stationed.
DIG A F*CKING DITCH.
stockpile wooden spikes to put in those ditches when needed.
collect stones (they are cheap, dont deteriorate with age...)
and then, all your peacetime garrison of ~50 men has to do is maintain that ditch.
its something that has been done so often in military history, but almost NEVER in movies.
eg kingdom of heavens. these guys look out from the walls of jerusalem, and i dont see a single ditch. dafuq? in actual history, jersualem at that time had not one, not two but three ditches XD
ditches are the cheapest fortification you can build, and all they need is a bit of monthly maintainance.
All you left out was sharks. Sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads.
Keep making more of these “what I would do” videos! Your channel is so good! 🏋🏻
Already love this channel, keep up the good work!
Your production quality of your video and edits is TOP TIER.
If i remember correctly, in the book, there were already Rohan civilians and a major part of the army in the Hornburg. King Theodon and the rest of the army are outside at night and are about to be surrounded by orcs and they're funnelled into Helm's Deep. And that's how the siege begins.
Recently Andy serkis read for the audiobooks of Lord of the rings and I’d definitely recommend those for a first time listen. His skill of doing different voices is very good to enhance it a bit
Pike formations made a huge comeback when muskets were first invented but weren’t mass produced for armies
Me waiting for the ATF to do a warrantless search of my house “IN MINECRAFT” while i play the uruk hai theme and holding a AT4 (pointed backwards)
He was on the side the uruk-hai at the end there 💀
Me, a gun guy, currently reading LOTR for the first time, am genuinely surprised to see my favorite gun tuber hiding in a lotr video
The trek to Helm’s Deep and then the battle last 5 days. Gandalf told Aragorn to hold out for 5 days. So from the time Gandalf leaves to the time he comes back is 5 days
8:33 thats a great idea, exhaust your force even before the enemy showed up.
9:40 you have no idea the enemy is going to attack on that position. Why would they, its a massive wall higher than any standard ladder can assault. If anything they would walk up that ridge which honestly should have been destroyed.
14:21 Abondoning the deeping wall pretty much means you surrender the fortress. Based on the movie and the tie in game. There are 3 entrances to the main hall which also cuts off your gate defense exactly like they did in the movie.
Plus you give the Uruk-hai back their greatest advantage, the use of pikemen which as we see in the battle at the gate. They trade favourly with Rohan troops at the gate even knocking out Theoden and elvish troops at the deeping wall.
Love a UA-camr that shouts out another content creator's work! Nice one mate. 👌Parry This does an excellent video.
First video of yours I've come across. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this! I'd love to see you cover the Siege of Minas Tirith or Osgiliath! You got yourself a new subscriber :D
That distinctive Arizona-Bijan accent, reminds me of a gone but not forgotten masked man of mystery.
- keep up the good work Aaron, diversifying yourself and covering other hobbies and topics shall garner favorable Outcomes, Administratively.