Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Some time back I read a series of articles from a professor with a PhD. in military history comparing the Siege of Minas Tirith and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to real-world military history and theory and then compared and contrasted it with the books. This past week, I've discovered since then he's also written a follow-up series doing the same to the Battle of Helm's Deep. These articles may be old to some but I thought they were fascinating in their depth and wanted to link them on the forum for discussion. The author really gets into the nitty-gritty of military theory and operations and I learned quite a bit. From classical antiquity to World War 2, it was interesting to read about the parallels to Middle-earth. It's also pretty fun to see the contrast to what the Professor wrote. Spoiler alert - for the most part, Tolkien got it right. Jackson did not.

Also, I had never considered it until I read these articles but Saruman is dumber than a box of rocks.

Anyway, I'm linking them below if anyone has an evening to spare.

The Siege of Gondor -

The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics
The Siege of Gondor, Part II: These Beacons are Liiiiiiit
The Siege of Gondor, Part III: Having Fun Storming the City
The Siege of Gondor, Part IV: The Cavalry Arrives
The Siege of Gondor, Part V: Just Flailing About Flails
The Siege of Gondor: Part VI: Black Sails and Gleaming Banners

Helm's Deep -

The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part I: Bargaining for Goods at Helm’s Gate
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part II: Total Warg
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part III: The Host of Saruman
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part IV: Men of Rohan
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part V: Ladders are Chaos
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VI: Is This a Good Sword?
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VII: Hanging by a Thread
The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VIII: The Mind of Saruman

And as a fun little add-on (and more directly relevant to our kit-based forum) here is a review of the kit of the Gondorian infantry -

Gondor Heavy Infantry Kit Review

I also "read" these a while back, as the YouTube channel A Great Divorce has recorded audio versions of these and a number of other blog posts.

Oh, that's super cool! I had no idea it existed. Thank you for sharing!