A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This is the second part of our [your guess is as good as mine] part series looking at the Siege of Eregion from the second season of Amazon's Rings of Power. Last week, we saw how the logistics of this sequence absolutely do not work: Adar's army has to cover an absurd amount of territory … Continue reading Collections: The Siege of Eregion, Part II: What Siege Camp?
This is the final part of a five part (I, II, III, IV, V) series covering some of the basics of fortification, all the way from ancient city walls to modern anti-access/area denial systems. Last week, we looked at the changes which gunpowder-based weaponry enforced on fortification design in Europe, leading to the emergence of … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part V: The Age of Industrial Firepower
This is the fourth part of a five part (I, II, III, IV, V) series covering some of the basics of fortification, from city walls to field fortifications, from the ancient world to the modern period. Last week, we set out an overview of fortifications in medieval Europe, with particular focus on the strategic role … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part IV: French Guns and Italian Lines
This is the third part of a five part (I, II, III, IV, V) series covering some of the basics of fortifications, from city walls to field fortifications, from the ancient world through to the modern period. Last week, we used the Romans as an example to see how the needs of a given fortification … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part III: Castling
This is the second part of a five part (I, II, III, IV, V) series covering some of the basics of fortifications, from city walls to field fortifications, from the ancient world through the modern period. Last time, we looked as the ancient besieger's playbook (both the motives and options for taking walled cities) through … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part II: Romans Playing Cards
This is the first part of a planned five-part series (I, II, III, IV, V) covering some of the basics of fortifications, from city walls to castles and field fortifications! We are going to discuss what fortifications were for and how their design changed in response both to different strategic and operational conditions and also … Continue reading Collections: Fortification, Part I: The Besieger’s Playbook
This is the fifth part of a series taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm’s Deep (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of the same name. In our last two parts, we looked at the organization of the … Continue reading Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part V: Ladders are Chaos
This is the long-awaited first part of a series (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII) taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm's Deep from both J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson's 2002 film of the same name. We're going to discuss how historically plausible each sequence of events … Continue reading Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part I: Bargaining for Goods at Helm’s Gate