ES - seige assault strategy

[Adam Harrison]

Between the field battles Friday, Airaklee, myself,
and a few others were chatting wiht The baron of the
Steppes.  He informed us that he was ver good at
making models.  Based on this it was suggested that we
buy some cheap plastic "toy soldier" type figures and
have him build a replica of the castle to that scale
for use in planning our assaults and defenses.

The video I have gives us a perfect view of the
trimarian defense and we could use it to see exactly
how their defense works, and how we can break it. 
>From what I have seen, they have a small number of
troops at the walls and gate, a few archers on ramps
back in about 20 ft, and all of their reserves are far
back in the castle(to avoid archery and seige engine
fire).  There's a gap of about 30 yards between their
troops.  We may be able to use this to our advantage
if we can take out their first wall of troops
quickly(within 45 seconds or so).  I know 45 seconds
sounds like a short amount of time, but it's really
quite long.  From the moment Iron Lance placed the
first of the two ramps, to the time that the Talons
were over the wall, was 2 minutes and thirty seconds. 
not included in that was the majority of the hold to
get Marmaduke off the field.  Most of us "strolled" up
the ramps and stayed at the top as sitting ducks
before hopping in(and half of us got picked off up
there).

Saturday afternoon, Aradon and I discussed ramps for
next year and he wants to build "down ramps" for the
other side.  the theory is, if we can push them back,
we can deploy a down ramp and we can RUN into the
castle instead of jumping into it.  This will allow a
greater number of troops to enter the castle faster
and will lessen injuries due to landing wrong.

How do we push them back?  Concentrated archery fire.
Anyone see "The Messenger"?  Sunday morning some of us
were discussing the practicality of building a weapon
like the one used in that movie(remember the one that
shot about a BaJillion arrows in one shot)  This
weapon could be mounted on a mobile platform that
includes:  the up ramp, a staging area(flat) with
enough room for at least 4 archers, possibly 6(and
room for the heavy fighters to charge across), the
down ramp,and the aforementioned seige device
designated "arrowgeddon" from here forth.

The problem Caelin and I were seeing is how to make an
arrowgeddon safe, in terms of how fast the arrows are
flying.  We also determined that it would have to be
modular, as in the box with the arrows would have to
be removable.  The theory is: take 4 boxes already
loaded with 50-100 arrows each.  And take about 300
arrows(or more) in reserve.  After the first box is
fired, it is removed and is being loaded when the
second is fired, then the third is loaded and fired. 
By the time the third is fired, the first should be
re-loaded and ready to go.  by having 4 boxes cycling,
the weapon should be able to continuously fire.

The Knight we were talking to also proposed that we
have Seige weapon discussion meetings at large events
throughout the year.  Raimond was there and quickly
agreed the first should be at Springfaire.  The
meetings would last no more than a half hour to an
hour.  Airaklee also proposed Seige weapon training or
tourneys at later events in the year(3 kings, Fall
melees, and spring melees come to mind).


About a month ago, I met a guy who's going to be
sellgin seige engines at Scarborough fair this year. 
He and I discussed my history in the SCA and my
history with SCA seige engines(at one time I has in
charge of desiging a trebuchet for my household in the
outlands).  He has asked me to help him design his
products.  In return, he would give me a nifty
discount on his products, or perhaps GIVE me one of
the prototypes or one of the finished products.  This
is all going to come together in the next month, so by
May, one way or another, I will have a seige engine
and access to others that are solidly constructed.  He
has a shop that I'm sure he would be willing to let us
use to build more seige engines.  His main product
would be Trebuchets, however I'm trying to convince
him to produce Ballistas too.  And I think he would
jump on the arrowgeddon idea too...


I agree with llew in that we need to construct a wall
that's EXACTLY like the castle at GW.  Our practices
need to include going over the wall, fighing at the
wall, fighting pinned to the wall, etc.  we need to
cover EVERY scenario that could happen around that
wall.  We need to start practicing with the wall in
September, if not sooner.  this will give us AMPLE
time to train for the wall.



Class is about to start so I have to stop this post
now.  I'll write more when I can get back to a
computer.


-Bjorn

PS: see what happens when engineering students join
the SCA!

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