How strong is Kings Landing (Red Keep) ?

[Voramir Glover]

I was just thinking about the defensive strength of the castles. Storm's End is obviously the strongest. Followed by Casterlyrock.

But how strong is the capital Kings Landing? Stannis seemed to take the city easiliy, if there weren't the wildfire and Tywin Lannister/Tyrells attacking from behind. By way of comparison, Dragonstone was taken by the Lannister with many losses (~5.000 men + injury of Loras Tyrell) altough there was only a small garrison inside. That is why I'm thinking that the power of Kings Landing is only symbolic, not militarily.

Opinions?

[A Bastard Snow]

Well Maegors holdfast is what you would have to take.And you either scale the walls avoiding the spikes or...well that's it.As once the drawbridge is up there is no way in save the hidden tunnels

[zammey12]

I've always believed it could hold against in-city riots, but with a large attack it may not hold.

[Nihlus]

Stannis's attack was very well planned, conducted by some of the world's best soldiers, and was launched by both land and sea. It's not really a typical example. KL, as a fortified settlement, seems to be pretty strong, like medieval Constantinople. It has huge stone walls lined with scorpions and ballistias, a river guarding it, and a strong citadel in the Red Keep, as described above. It's not a castle, of course, it's a walled city. But in that capacity it is pretty impressive.

Tyrion thought the walls would let him hold off an attack from Renly for several days (Renly didn't have a navy), and the idea of assaulting the city by land alone was unthinkable to Stannis, to the point that he waited a couple days for his fleet to catch up with his army (he could have taken it without a fleet, like Renly could havr, though with grievous losses). Actually, has the city ever been seized by force of arms, rather than inside betrayal?

The big problem is that the garrison is small. 2,000 gold cloaks and a few hundred household guards for a city of 500,000? I mean yeah, that's the peacetime garrison, but even with a few months of preparation, Tyrion couldn't gather more than 8,000 men to defend the whole city. Not counting the ~1,000 marines on the ships, or the few hundred guys operating the ballistias. At least they're well-equipped and have a strong fleet...

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Rather lousy. It's a city. Cities are always (comparatively) easy to capture, being optimized for living in it and trade, not for defense.

The Red Keep and in the end Maegor's Holdfast are the true test. And apparently not very good, as seen by the Sack of Kings Landing and the Mountain, Lorch and their men taking it in mere minutes. The problem is probably the enclosure by the city.

[falcotron]

Actually, has the city ever been seized by force of arms, rather than inside betrayal?

Well, it's only been attacked three times, so there's a bit of a small sample size. But I think the evidence implies that it isn't that hard to take.

In fact, it seems like the best you can hope for against a sustained attacker is to hold out for a day or so while hoping for allied forces to attack the attackers from the rear. Alicent thought that was the only way she could win, and when the gold cloaks prevented her from summoning her allies, she lost in under a day. Tyrion, even with all of his brilliant tricks, was clearly going to lose in a single day if Tywin and the Tyrells hadn't shown up at the last second.

As for Tywin's victory: I'm assuming the reason Pycelle opened the gates for him was to give him a solo (and relatively bloodless) victory, because if he hadn't done so, Robert would have successfully sacked a short while later, leaving Tywin as just a minor (and late-joining) part of the win instead of the deciding factor.

Finally, as someone (Stannis?) points out in-story, there are seven gates, and you only have to break one and the battle is as good as over. Once the blacks were in the city, it didn't matter how well the Hightowers held the River Gate, because they were attacked from both sides, and the city fell later that day. Sandor and Tyrion seemed sure that once Stannis broke through the Mud Gate (as he was about to), there wasn't much of a battle left.

As for Maegor's Holdfast, I don't think anyone expected to survive a major siege there. Alicent clearly didn't think that was worth attempting. Gregor and Amory were able to scale the walls. To sit out mob violence like the storming of the Dragonpit, it's more than sufficient, but against an army encamped inside the Red Keep, I doubt it would stand very long.