ES - siege offense strategy

[Richard Threlkeld]

I have a few thoughts on taking the fort.

The various siege weapons which lobbed things in a high arc were almost
totally ineffective. The enemy split his forces into a group close to the
walls (too close to hit with these) and reserve forces at the back of the
"fort" (too far for most of them). Those rocks and bolts that did get to the
back could be seen and avoided easily. This deliver style only works if you
can (1) reach the reserve forces and (2) send enough of them at once that
they cannot easily keep track of them all and avoid them.

The bolts that were sent in low just over the fort wall did fairly well
(though they could not hit those against the wall). They were particularly
effective when the reserve troops began to move up. They could not see them
in time to move.

I would propose we put some low firing weapons on the sally port side of the
fort where they can fire effectively into the reserve troops. This will
probably bring out an attack from the sally port and possibly by the archer
in the corner tower. We would need to provide either direct support by
shield men or have a group near the corner tower who could move to attack
the sallying force. This would accomplish several purposes. (1) It would
kill many of the reserve forces with little risk to our fighters. (2) It
would force them to move the reserve forces into a much tighter group in the
far back corner which would make the lobbing weapons more effective and make
it harder for them to reinforce when we breach. (3) If they sally, it would
take fighters off other areas. (4) If they sally, it would put their
fighters at significantly more risk than when they were in the fort. In
fact, if we could take out the archer in the corner tower, we might be able
to sneak a group outside the wall near the sally port to catch them as they
attempt to leave.

We need to investigate some method of sending multiple arrows, bolts, and
rocks into the enemy with one firing. The concept is the same as in
tournament fighting. Even I can block nearly any one-shot. It is the series
of five or six blows which are very difficult to block. Multiple shots into
a group will make it difficult to note all the incoming threats and move to
avoid them all simultaneously.

I envision some sort of "cartridge" which can be preloaded with, say 25-50
arrows or 10-15 bolts or 20 rocks. The cartridge would be seated into the
weapon and some pins inserted to ensure alignment. Then some kind of plate
or assembly would either slam into the cartridge or move the cartridge to
slam into a stop. In either case, the contents would be propelled and the
cartridge could then be removed for reloading while a full one was put in
place. This would be devastating!

Finally, I agree with Lord Llew about suppressing fire when we are using the
ramps. a few archers (or maybe one or more of the cartridge weapons) could
keep the area in front of the window clear of spearmen allowing us to enter
and build a shield wall without the carnage we experienced this year. The
archers would have to be protected from the enemy archers and siege weapons
inside the fort, but even if they only survive until we get 10-15 fighters
in a wall inside the fort, it will make the difference between taking the
fort or not.

Caelin on Andrede
It was fun, but it would have been more fun to survive the
entry into the fort a bit longer.

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