Quote:
Originally Posted by Boaz 
Egg, what do you think about medieval siege operations in the mountains, medieval winter amphibious assaults, and dragon air superiority? |
Yer right of course Boaz. There are three ways to take a fortress like the one we describe, both here and Masada (good reading that).....Treachery, Blockade and Dragons. There is no way traditional siege implements could be used. historically catapaults, scorpions, mangonels, trebuchet, scaling towers, even rams were built on site with existing timber. There really isnt much access to that in the pass leading up to the Vale. The manpower expended in porting that large of objects would be prohibitive.
I think we've discussed before that if dragons are susceptible in any way to arrows and large ballistae then forcing the dragon to make strafing runs within a mountain pass would be a good way to reduce the beasts mobility while you took shots. Of course it would be a slaughter house (or BBQ) for your own troops while this happened.
Winter amphibous landing isnt going to happen. A forced landing on a manned position requires calm waters because youre asking armored men to cross from one ship to another in choppy waters, across narrow planks,
in heavy armor that would kill them. You cant arm up on your beachhead because the enemy will be pressing you. You cant land each ship because you would have to move them out to get the next one in while being attacked...so you land as many as you can....then you lash the next ships in line to that one, then the next in line to that one....etc etc. Choppy water is both risky and prohibitive.
I dont remember which of the Feist books had the siege of Krondor but that was a decent chapter about landing on a beachhead. Once you get past the magic used to obliterate the outer defenses part....it should apply. Actually that entire series with Erik and Roo was good from a martial standpoint. He did his homework....the training, camp-building every night, the promotion of NCOs, the retreating defensive action....all were pretty much text book from a modern standpoint.