#fantasy-tactics — Public Fediverse posts

Warfare in Rings of Power Season 1

As in everything else, Rings of Power have chosen to go for brainless “epicness” in their depiction of warfare as well. Not many good things can be said about this “epic” TV show, and warfare in it is no exception.

Episode 1

First scene shows giant eagles fighting the Nazguls’ flying steeds – except these steeds are apparently supposed to be dragons, given the scene takes place in the First Age and one of eagles crashes while being burned to crisp (aquilla de flambe).

All of this happens atop the massive melee. As is so frequent in movies – but not in Tolkien – battle lines and formations are apparently completely unknown. Elves and Orcs are mixed randomly in a massive mosh pit covering the entire battlefield, fighting in nearly complete darkness with random fires and explosions added for effect. Fires from what and explosions from what? It is not stated, but it must be filmmakers’ brains going pop.

There is a reason why armies never fought this way. Premodern armies – all the way until the 17th or even 18th century on occasion – relied on close, cold steel action to achieve decision. Ranged weapons – longbows, crossbows, even early muskets – served primarily to disorder the enemy and demoralize them before the charge that would seal the deal with close combat. And to win the close engagement, army had to maintain formation. Anybody who fell out of formation would quickly die.

Presumably after one such battle, Galadriel is shown taking a helmet and placing it on a pile. Now, pile appears to be a cone some 20 helmets tall and 45 helmets across. (More precise measurement gives helmet as 28 px near the middle of the pile, cone as 520 px tall and 1200 px wide, or 18,5 and 43). Thus the eyeball estimate gives volume of the pile as being some 10 600 helmets, while latter gives it as being 8 955 helmets large. One way or another, this is a large number of casualties. For comparison, French lost 6 000 men at Agincourt, and Croatians some 5 000 – 7 000 at Krbava – both battles being considered disasters. Galadriel is thus correct to say that Morgoth would only be defeated after “much sorrow”.

I will be leaving overviews of armor and weapons for separate articles. Next we see that Galadriel is a terrible commander and leader. During her excursion onto icy mountain top, she ignores the state her men are in. When an ice troll starts murdering them she is away from the main group, and even when she manages to stand back she just spends several seconds standing there like an idiot before easily dispatching the troll – meaning she could have saved at least a couple of her men (specifically, she arrives at 15:45 and only starts acting at 16:03. Troll is disabled by 16:20 and killed at 16:31). Yet she gets no proper rebuke.

Later on, we see a watchtower near a village. We don’t know why that village is significant, why the watchtower is there. Just that it is there, and it is an excuse to violate canon again and have elves and humans interact on a regular basis. And again I will ignore armor – which is good, because the armor worn by elven rangers is atrocious.

And that is it for the episode one.

Episode 2

Not much to say here, except that a village in dangerous environment would definitely have some sort of village guard, not just a single “Elf” ranger.

Episode 5

We see orc informing his commander – another one of fakeout Saurons – that “the tunnel is complete”. We do not know what kind of tunnel, but soon we cut to the so-called-Elf (Arondir) and his “girlfriend” adressing a crowd which would look at home anywhere except the pseudo-medieval setting. They are dirty and unkempt in a way no self-respecting peasant would have ever allowed himself to be. And worse, those two are trying to convince the crowd to fight against the orcs – in reality, untrained civilians against trained soldiers never ends well for the civilians.

Orc commander is apparently trying to convince them to abandon a seemingly strategically placed tower and swear fealty to him. The Girlfriend decides to try and convince the peasants to stay and fight by throwing some badly thought out references to Lord of the Rings, but naturally, they do not seem convinced. Eventually however most of them agree to fight – except for one old man, seemingly the only one with a brain in the whole scene, who correctly points out that if the villagers stand and fight, they will die. And as said – he is entirely correct. These are clearly just normal villagers. They do not have the training, mentality or cohesion of soldiers. They will not know how to march and countermarch, nor will they be able to maintain shield wall under pressure, much less react should said shield wall get outflanked. In fact, many of them would realistically break at the first sight of the enemy.

Now historically, village and especially urban militias were a thing – and much like here, they were purely defensive formations. But these consisted of men rich enough to afford spear, shield, helmet and at least some sort of armor – quilted gambeson at the very least, and mail if at all possible. And that was rich indeed. Yet all the peasants seen in the scene look poor, ragged and worn down even compared to actual medieval peasants. Their overall situation seems closer to that of a land slave than of a serf, much less a free peasant.

The only one who seems to have a brain in the scene is the old guy Waldreg who declares that all of this is stupid and that they can only die if they fight against the orcs. And he is absolutely correct. Again, these are all unarmed, untrained peasants who do not have either a tradition of trained military (be it a local militia or a class of warrior nobility), weapons and armor to outfit one even if they did have trained men, nor the fortifications to at least try and reduce the disparity.

But because all smart people in this show are evil and all good characters are dumb as bricks, he first starts making racist comments against the elves and then eventually turns out to be Sauron’s spy. This is indicated when he proposes bowing to the enemy – which would also be stupid. In reality, the only good course of action in this situation will have been to try and escape to the nearest forest or a mountain and attempt to evade the orcs.

Scene also shows that “elf”‘s breastplate is an actual wood as it is cracked along the length in a way wood generally does. This is just insane.

In Numenor, we learn that Numenor had decided to send five ships and 500 men to aid Halbrand’s people. This is a ridiculously small number for the general scale of Second Age wars, though since it appears Sauron is not yet moving in force, this may be sufficient. But this only shifts the problem – Sauron had began to “move in force” centuries, millenia before the reign of Ar-Pharazon. Any help Numenor sends should number in thousands or tens of thousands, not hundreds.

Galadriel then sees Numenorean recruits training, and being a local Mary Sue, she just has to show them how fighting is really done. Soon later we get a scene at the port, where Numenorean ships start exploding – almost as if someone had sabotaged 18th century ships of the line. But why would they explode like that? Was it gasoline in these barrels?

Back at the village, the villagers are still preparing for a fight with a lot of unnecessary, empty and boring dialogue. We also get a better look at fortifications – that tower does not look stable.

Meanwhile in Numenor, we see house guard on a parade. At least I hope it is the house guard: few dozen men barely qualify for a decent brigand band, much less an army. Scene itself is basically a brainless copy-paste of Faramir leaving to attack Osgilliath in Return of the King, except opposite in mood. Soldiers eventually embark on ships – between the size of the ship and their number (three ships), it is difficult to imagine total size of troops carried on the ships being above 50 – 150 at most.

That is less than a single company of Gondor during time of its waning. And this is supposed to be Numenor at its height. Even at a drop of a hat, Numenor should have been able to send some thousands of men onto expedition. Fully mobilized, Numenor’s army should have numbered in hundreds of thousands. Moreover, in the canon, Numenor of the Ar-Pharazon had extensive colonies in Middle Earth, and was at war with Sauron, so Galadriel should not have had to travel to Numenor to get help to begin with.

Episode 6

Back in Middle Earth, the Orcs are on the offensive.

They are approaching with no scouts, no advance guard, across a narrow chokepoint (the bridge), no archer or artillery support, and with their commander at the head of the unit. A unit of archers or even peasants with rocks hidden in the fort guarding the end of the bridge would easily turn this amateurish march into a bloody disaster. This being the fort where peasants were holed up to begin with, such a scenario is their second-best option following the “hide in the mountains” one.

So naturally, that is exactly what our heroes don’t do.

Instead, our dumb Elven friend hides in the fort, and starts sniping the orcs before making an escape.

After this, he uses fire arrow to burn down the ropes and bring the tower down. Which in itself leads to several questions: namely, what an idiot had built the tower reliant on ropes to stand, and how could a single fire arrow burn down the ropes that were strong enough to hold that tower upright for God knows how long?

But that is not the end of stupidity.

We see that our bunch of ragtag peasants fully expects that at least some orcs will have survived this trap. And to prepare for the attack, they decide to move to the village. Village, which as we will see has no fortifications at all.

Then we learn that “it is full day’s sail into the mountains, and from there, another day’s ride into the vale”.

It appears that river sailing distance is approximately twice the distance they expect to ride. Later we see men are mounted. Now, sailing speed of a ship upriver may have been anywhere between 30 and 90 kilometers per day, depending on the wind and length of day. Thus sailing distance may have been anywhere between 30 to 90 kilometers.

Going by sailing distance, overland distance will have been 15 to 45 kilometers. Yet cavalry can travel some 4,8 – 5 kilometers per hour at walk (Napoleon’s guidelines). Thus a day’s ride will have been 51 kilometers at eight hours per day. But we later see that Numenorean cavalry is galloping to battle, indicating significant haste. This means that cavalry was doing a forced march, which could be significantly faster. When Basil II marched to Aleppo in 995 AD, his 40 000 soldiers covered 1 200 kilometers in 16 days, or 75 kilometers per day. This was over a very rough terrain and in difficult conditions, and army far larger than the Numenorean force here.

Conclusion of all of this is that – unsurprisingly – the showmakers got distances wrong. Namely, sailing distance should have been far shorter: 15 – 45 kilometers, as opposed to overland distance of 50 – 75 kilometers. Yet map shows the opposite. While this sort of pedantic nitpicking may not be noticed by average viewer, it is crucial for a coherent story.

At village, our elf gives a speech which essentially goes “our position gives us advantage, we will kick orc ass”. Except they had already given up the position which will have given them the most advantage. Even if tower itself was unstable, fort’s stone walls will have been a massive advantage against orcs with no siege weapons. Instead, peasants are now taking positions – on wooden roofs. One orc with a torch and half a brain, and elf’s entire plan goes up in flames.

Non-combatants are apparently to be barricated in houses. Houses with thatched roofs, and most of these in fact wooden. So why, again, did they abandon and destroy a perfectly good defensive position for a village?

Village, by the way, which offers no defensive advantages. This will be seen better later, but village is at the bottom of the valley, with only “defense” being a shallow stream – so shallow that it can be forded by a toddler, let alone by orcs.

Orcs get into the village and are hemmed in by burning wagons full of straw. Burning wagons, which were placed just underneath the thatch roofs. Genius.

Peasants with bows then appear on the top of magically-not-burning straw roofs and start picking off the orcs. Overall impression is that perhaps screenwriters were trying to recreate the final battles of Cleansing of the Shire, except there is no narrow road and houses are not dug into the hills, but are about as flammable as they could get. And the flimsy burning barrier had remained completely unguarded, meaning it was no surprise when the orcs simply kicked it down and escaped the “encirclement”.

Orcs attempt to break into the tavern but are attacked by a peasant mob. I will have to note that this is incredibly stupid: even if they are surprised, professional soldiers are a tough nut to crack. And here, peasants have no armor and no training, meaning that they will have been in an even worse position than many historical peasants.

This is then followed by Arondir falling off the roof and being manhandled by a huge orc. This is obviously a copy of Aragorn vs Lurtz sequence in Fellowship of the Ring, except that Arondir is no Aragorn and Orc here is no Lurtz. Neither of them have a weapon, because they were apparently too cool for daggers, where soldiers historically nearly always had a dagger or a knife as a backup. Arondir’s acrobatics do not help him, and pseudo-Lurtz manhandles him throughout the fight – yet never even tries to land a killing blow, because Gary Stu^1 needs to survive. Instead, the only thing pseudo-Lurtz-wannabe does is throw Arondir around for no reason for minutes, only going for a killing blow at the very end – just in time for Arondir to get saved by his “girlfriend”.

But they had won the battle, and now it is time for celebration, and for Arondir to get praised for his bravery.

Well, at least they are not praising his braindead tactics here.

Anyway, Arondir discovers that some of the attackers were in fact human – dead soldier’s blood is red, and so he unmasks them. More interesting is the fact that the fallen combatant is wearing a Corinthian helmet.

Such a blatant historical copy-paste was rarely seen in Lord of the Rings movies, yet armor in these movies was far better made and far more realistic than anything seen in the Rings of Power so far. Korinthian helmet not only makes no sense for orcs culturally, but it is also based heavily around hoplite mode of warfare – that is, standing in tight formations and stabbing the opponent right in front of you. For light infantry, which these orcs are, it is simply too heavy and too limiting in terms of vision and hearing. Which is the reason why even Greek light infantry never actually used it. Instead, they used helmets such as the Attic and Chalcidian helmets. Even hoplites eventually replaced the Corinthian helmet with much lighter and more open helmets such as the Phrygian and Chalcidian helmets.

This scene also leads to another plagiarism where Arondir recreates the conversation Legolas had had with the dying Warg troops commander in The Two Towers. And then peasants start dying from arrows from the dark. One would think a competent commander will have thought of that and warned men to stay in cover (such as it was) or at least away from the fires. As it is, it is merely another demonstration as to why using the fort will have been a better idea. Arandir’s peasant mob runs away into the tavern. Orcs surround it and bring the small battering ram.

But just in nick of the time, Numenorean cavalry arrives.

Except their arrival makes no sense. It is still deep night at the village, but the cavalry is riding with sunrise behind their backs. If we take Keszthely in Hungary, on this day, night would end at 03:56. Then we have Astronomical Twilight (3:56 – 4:40), Nautical Twilight (4:40 – 5:19), Civil Twilight (5:19 – 5:52) and Daylight starts at 5:52. Depending on exact time of the year, this transition from night into day can last anywhere from 1 hour 50 minutes to 2 hours 55 minutes. Since day is fairly bright, it is almost certain that cavalry is well over two daytime hours away – which enables us to calculate physical distance. At 40 degrees of latitude, each degree of meridian is 85 kilometers. Since there are 360 degrees in a circle, each degree would account for four minutes of daylight. Assuming anywhere from 2 to 3 hours of difference in daylight between Numenorean cavalry and the village would mean that the village is some 30 to 45 degrees away, translating to 2 550 to 3 825 kilometers in distance. This is a little bit further than a horse can gallop, especially in the timeline implied. Specifically, galloping horse, if well-trained, can cover around 3,2 kilometers before it gets fatigued. So distance is “only” a thousand times longer than a galloping horse can cover. But this isn’t all – we will have some more horsing around to look towards.

Oh, and the cinematography makes it clear that they are plagiarizing Theoden’s charge at Pelennor here (from Return of the King).

Anyway, as noted, it is still night at the village. Orcs break into the tavern, and take people hostage, capturing Arondir. Adar arrives to gloat and be evil for several minutes, acquiring the artefact in the process. Yet just as the day arrives, so does Numenorean cavalry.

According to C Jacquinot de Presle, cavalry unit at gallop can cover 600 meters in two minutes, translating to 18 kilometers per hour. Even if we are generous, night with twilight should not last longer than 15 hours. Considering this is likely a summer, it could have been as short as 8 hours or so. Thus even galloping mechanical horses would not be able to cover more than 270 kilometers during the entire night. When we first saw cavalry galoping with sun behind their backs, it was still deep night at the village. This means that in at most 12 hours of gallop, Numenorean cavalry had covered at least 2 550 kilometers, giving an average speed of 212,5 kilometers per hour. This is top speed of Alfa Romeo 156. If we assume 8 hours of night, this means 6 hours of gallop and speed of some 415 kilometers per hour – something achieved by Rimac Nevera. For comparison, Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress could reach 462 kilometers per hour.

These must be some seriously doped horses.

Anyway, cavalry arrives and orcs start killing people in the house. Naturally, our Gary Stu breaks free and starts killing the orcs, followed quickly by the villagers joining him in. Orcs rush outside to confront Numenorean cavalry but are mowed down by a chain. Second group of cavalry also enters the village in what is apparently a pincer attack.

I will have to note here how stupid the chain attack is. Firstly, it would easily lead to injury. Horses may not be able to maintain exact distance over rought ground – heavy cavalry could, would and did ride “knee to knee”, but this was done specifically for the purposes of charge. Second, chain is held in hands, which means that it would likely be ripped out of soldiers’ hands by the force of the impact. Even if it isn’t, possibility of a hand injury is significant, as is the likelyhood of soldier being ripped out of the saddle by impact. But most importantly, simply trampling the infantry with horses is a much safer and more effective approach, as it does not leave a gap, does not really risk an injury to the rider, and most importantly does not allow the enemy opportunity to strike at more vulnerable flank of horse or the rider as they are riding past.

Now notes on the battle. Village is very small – perhaps some hundred to two hundred (if we are very generous) meters across. Speed noted above of 18 kph translates to 5 meters per second. This means that two units should be meeting each other in around 20 seconds at most, but more likely around ten seconds. Yet it takes much longer than that.

And we also see that Numenoreans are terrible soldiers and cavalrymen. Swords were never a primary weapon, and especially not for cavalry. Yet most of Numenorean horsemen have only swords for their primary weapon. Historically, spears only disappeared from cavalry armament when they were replaced by firearms, and in such situation cavalry would indeed use swords (or rather, sabres) as a primary melee weapon. But for medieval shock cavalry, primary weapon were nearly always spears, though in few cases maces were used instead, in order to deal with heavily armored opponents (Byzantine cataphracts for example sometimes armed front rows with maces as a primary weapon). Swords were never a primary weapon. Worse, many of Numenorean cavalrymen get drawn into stationary duels with orcs instead of merely riding them over. Predictably, many get pulled out of their saddles. And so, engagement that should have been over in seconds (heavy cavalry does really, really well against a light infantry out of formation, and decently against infantry in general) stretches out for minutes.

Adar gets captured, entire thing literally blows up, and that’s it for the battle. As well as for the warfare, or whatever passes for warfare, in the Rings of Power.

Notes

1^ Some people define a Gary Stu or Mary Sue as a perfect character who can do anything. While most of Mary Sues do indeed fit this description, I feel that the description is incorrect. Rather, Mary Sue is a character who breaks the laws of the universe they exist in. Usually, said laws are broken in order to make the Sue inexplicably awesome, which is where the misconception originally stems from. But this is not necessarily so. In this case, both Arondir and Galadriel are Mary Sues, because they do things which ignore workings of the universe they inhabit – both the sociological and sheer physical realities. This fight is an excellent example, but far better example is Galadriel surviving pyroclastic flow during Mount Doom’s formation. Further, Galadriel is widely disliked, and rightfully so, yet the universe bends over backwards to make her ultimately correct.