My biggest pet peeve with this series- sieges

[Crevek]

Winterfell fell to the Ironborne because 30 ironborn who slipped over the double curtain walls(IIRC) were a more formidable force than the couple dozen people who weren't fit to take back Torrhen's Square.

Without the Onion Knight Storm's End would have fallen in the rebellion.

Some places aren't able to be taken by assault in Westeros. But they can fall.

[Light a wight tonight]

What the hell? 500 men? Against thousands? They could have stormed it in a day, then happily marched to the Trident. Unconvinced? Take up some old war video game and line up 500 men v. say 10,000, you'll see the difference in scale immediately. The idea that 500 men could hold against a sizeable army is hilarious, they'd get swarmed in an afternoon.

You're seriously claiming that we should take video games as the criterion for judging siege warfare?

[Bittertea]

A man at the top of a wall is worth ten below it. And Storm's End has some tall walls. So the Tyrell host would have lost a lot of its troops if they tried to take Storm's End by force. They should have left a token force at Storm's End to maintain the siege and then took the rest of the host to the Trident. Thankfully for the Rebels, they were lacking brain cells.

If I recall correctly, Theon wanted Asha and her men to support him at Winterfell, he knew he couldn't hold it, and when Asha left him he had to resort to a rather idiotic situation with hostages (he couldn't kill her or else he'd have no leverage left) and then the Boltons attacked...

The Wall has magic.

[Dire-Lion]

Sieges are pretty common since the main point of an attack is to take the castle/ city, not the pile of rubble that was a castle/city. Considering the enormous cost of time and money that it took to build a castle only in extremely rare circumstances would people actually want to completely destroy a castle.

[Badjokessoldhere]

You're seriously claiming that we should take video games as the criterion for judging siege warfare?

No, not at all- it just gives you good reference to see the difference in size. 500 men grouped together looks quite small. I don't mean actually playing, just seeing how they look.

[Lord Reaver]

Castles were built specifically so that few men could defend against many. It is their sole reason for existing. A garrison was somewhere around 100 men for a normal castle, some times much smaller, around 20 or 30 men.

Kenilworth castle is to my knowledge the biggest siege in english history, consisting of a garrison of about 1000 men defending against the entire royal army during the second Baron's war. Successfully.

It is not a simple matter of sending thousands of men to their death. Most castles were taken either by treachery, or simply by waiting them out. On some occasions by sapping. Only with the advent of gunpowder did taking castles by storm become the norm rather than the exception.

[Lord Egeman]

Alright, let's begin.

SIEGE METHODS

There are two types a siege can proceed. If a commander believes his forces and sources insufficient, he may choose to camp outside the castle and cut all means of transportation in and out of the city and let them starve and yield(Mace Tyrell at Storm's End, Renly Baratheon at Bitterbridge, Jaime Lannister at Riverrun). However, if the sources are considered sufficient, then the commander might decide to storm the castle with the armies and siege equipment(Stannis Baratheon at King's Landing, Jon Connington at the Stoney Sept and Griffin's Roost.)

Siege Equipments: For the siege, you would need siege equipments, and these are battering rams, trebuchets and catapults, scaling ladders and siege towers. However, their usefulness vary from siege to siege and their availability depends on the environment.

STORM'S END

Storm's End legend: Durran the First Storm King wages war against the Storm Gods when they ruin his wedding with their daughter Elenei. He builds six castles which are brought down each time. In the seventh time, he is helped by the Children of the Forest or Brandon the Builder. The Children of the Forest help seems more plausible since they used magic and Melisandre's magic cannot get past the walls.

Storm's End Features: The castle has a huge and wide tower in the center, which contains the barracks, feast hall, granary, armory and Lord's chambers. The tower is much higher than the walls, which are hundred feet high. The walls are forty feet wide in its thinnest part and eighty feet at the thickest part. If the castle is decided to be stormed, the scaling ladders would be very useless due to the height of the walls, and the siege towers would take a lot of time to build up to that height. Trebuchets and catapults would be useless due to both height and width of the walls, since rocks cannot be used to neither breach the walls, or rain rocks inside. The only option would be using a battering ram, which could be taken out by using boiling oil or projectiles. I think this is the reason to call it "Storm's End"; it cannot be taken by storming.

WINTERFELL

According to legend, it was built by Brandon the Builder with some help of the giants.the castle spans a large area and contains two walls. The outer wall is the smaller, made of granite and it has water between the two walls except the points of gateways. If the castle was decided to be starved out, it would take lots and lots of time due to the glass gardens. If it was stormed, the water between the two walls would make only the use of a battering ram possible, which can be easily taken out.

I can keep going, but I don't want to.

[Badjokessoldhere]

Final argument- there's one of me and like a dozen of you, and I'm getting slaughtered! See, there's no way I could hold out in a siege.

I understand all your points; I forget how tough it must have been.

[Howling Mad]

The strength of the castle is based on having the proper number of men to garrison the castle. Winterfell was easily taken because it lacked the men to stand the walls.

[conon394]

Badjokessoldhere

It also the case that a lot of the castles in question look like relics of magic which means not only are they exceptionally tall and wide (walls) but more stable than you would think and so can have heavy artillery on them. That means the defender has the range advantage by far. That could happen in the Real World as well but it was extremely expensive.

[no_payne_no_gain]

Has gravity pledged fealty to him?

This makes me really happy. :drunk:

On a serious note, I should like to add that there is a certain hipocrasy in Martin's warfare.

I'll start with Storm's End:

• During RR, Stannis holds it against the Reach with 500 men. This garrison can't have been much larger though, because they would have all starved. Davos smuggles them onions and they eat shoe leather. The siege is eventually broken by Ned.
  
• In COK, Stannis later ends up taking Storm's End, but does not storm the walls, engage in single combat, or try to starve Penrose's garrison out. He just uses shadow babies.
  
• In FFC, Mace Tyrell is sent to take Storm's End again, and he opts to wait outside the walls again. Whether or not his siege stops after Loras gets hurt, I can't remember.
  

Somehow, there does seems to be an inconsistency. Or maybe Mace Tyrell is as big an oaf as Olenna Tyrell insists he is.

[Swiftraven]

In the first book the Lannisters take a lot of the strongholds and castles in the Riverlands quite easily before turning their attention to Riverrun.

[C0bR]

Tyrell's Siege of SE was pretty half assed, because basically sitting the war out was a win/win situation for them. If they were really hard pressed to take it, they would have.

[Squire Dalbridge]

Finally, in Arianne's WOW chapter, we learn that Aegon has taken Storm's End by force, and IIRC, didn't suffer many losses.

I haven't read the chapter. Are You sure Aegon has taken it, perhaps someone is just claiming so?

To the OP: You forgot the 'impregnable' Eyrie, and Moat Cailin, which 'cannot be taken from the south'...

[The Mother of The Others]

You forgot Casterly Rock which has never been taken. But even then it's not "soo" many. If ten castles in Westeros, larger than Europe, were so strong that were described as "untakeable " I dont think that would be unrealistic.

It helps greatly to explain why the same families have remained in power seemingly forever. It's been a static aristocracy for the most part, a land of great upheaval but also great stability, which sounds odd until you add in these ultra-castles as the source of stability for the ruling families who can always retreat back to their bolthole to weather the storm if they suffer a reversal out in the field.

For the majority of the 8000 years, there can't have been as much up-jumping of new lords as Cersei is currently doing, right? I mean, that'd be crazy. I think that's part of Cersei's incompetence. She's just appointing people to important historical posts all willy-nilly, which undermines the entire stability of the land. So the reason Martin focussed in on the war of five kings is because this era is an exception to the rule: this is a rare time when great changes are possible (the rise of Baelish, for example), because usually the land is much more static and unchanging?????

[grand old duke of stark]

Sieges were a major factor in mediaeval warfare, in fact in warfare period. The besieging forces settled in for the long haul to force or starve the enemy (sadly, often including civilians) out. Things got quicker once cannons, bombs, etc could destroy the fortifications. Probably the greatest siege in modern times with the siege of Leningrad. So it's realistic for GRRM to use them.

As was said already in this thread, GRRM's sieges don't last long enough to be realistic. Well, yes, but there is a practical reason. Who has the patience to read about a prolonged, drawn-out siege? And who needs another 50 pages in any of the books?

[Grimbold]

You mentioned some of the most notable and important castles of the story.....soooo?

[no_payne_no_gain]

I haven't read the chapter. Are You sure Aegon has taken it, perhaps someone is just claiming so?

I recommend that you do read it; it was good. I re-read it today, and found that I am mistaken... whoops. :blushing: Aegon had taken that whole area, but not Storm's End itself. my bad

[NorthRemembers10]

I totally agree and think that a lot of attention is put on seiges and how castles are untakeable. I think it would be cool if we had another battle like we had at the battle of Blackwater Bay.

[Blackfish Tully]

All right then, granted, I don't mean they're easy. I just find it a bit exaggerated.

I totally get that siege assaults are incredibly bloody and violent and difficult, but it just seems a tad too much to me. The Blackwater on the TV series seemed a pretty good depiction of a siege battle, and the numbers (especially after the Wildfire) were not as slanted as in the Storm's End situation.

Kings Landing is not a good example compared to the great castles of Westeroes. Kings Landing was built to be the capital city of the Seven Kingdoms and while it has walls to protect it they are much smaller then the other castles we are talking about and the eight gates make protecting the city much more difficult then Storms End , Winterfell, Riverrun etc..

Taking one of the great castles by attacking them would result in a horrific loss of lives and any lord would be foolish to throw away the lives of so many of his knights and soldiers when it is much easier to starve the castle out. We have already seen many bannermen betray their lords in ASOIAF and if these lords start commanding their bannermen to attack castles with 100 foot walls then we would see more bannermen decide that they are better off serving some other lord.