Could you dig a tunnel to a moat to draw the water out?

Not without being barraged by missiles I assume.

Sure you're just going to have arrows shot at you the entire time and will only succeed in making the walls taller

>>1306746
>>1306748
what is a tunnel

>>1306755
Something that requires a certain amount of engineering expertise which may be lacking in a typical medieval military detachment.

>>1306746
>>1306748
Two people and counting that don't know what the word "tunnel" means.

To answer your question, sapping was a time-honored tradition, but it was nonetheless inadvisable to do it directly into the moat since all that water would drain directly into the screaming faces of the diggers themselves. Moats were in part there to stop sapping with that exact principle.

>>1306755
A tunnel is relatively long and narrow; the length is often much greater than twice the diameter, although similar shorter excavations can be constructed, such as cross passages between tunnels.

The definition of what constitutes a tunnel can vary widely from source to source. For example, the definition of a road tunnel in the United Kingdom is defined as "a subsurface highway structure enclosed for a length of 150 metres (490 ft) or more." In the United States, the NFPA definition of a tunnel is "An underground structure with a design length greater than 23 m (75 ft) and a diameter greater than 1,800 millimetres (5.9 ft)

>>1306736

Not going to be too helpful. Then you now have a steep ditch surrounding the castle, at the bottom of which is stinking, rapidly decaying slime.

>>1306766

You do know they had mines and tunnels in the middle ages, right? And that digging a mine under a castle wall, then deliberately collapsing it, is one of the main ways of bringing down a wall?

Impractical. You would have to dig a separate reservoir to drain the water into, and it would have to be deeper than the moat. Then you would have to dig the tunnel itself. Easier then to build portable bridges to traverse the moat with.

>>1306736
Okay, fellas, who wants to dig underground until you hit water and then run like hell and hope it doesn't flood and kill you all?
And then, what would you do with a drained moat? It's still a massive, muddy depression before the fortifications. Sure, you can have more men on the charge, but , at most, you could transport ladders up the slopes

The moat itself was design to stop saps, since it would flood the tunnels of any sappers. The main way to defeat a moat during a siege was to literally fill it in. They would use barriers as protection from missiles while they did such.

>>1307145
>Okay, fellas, who wants to dig underground until you hit water and then run like hell and hope it doesn't flood and kill you all?

kek'd

first thing that came to mind as well. OP's plan was doomed from conception

>>1306776
>>1307145
>>1307183

>all that water would drain directly into the screaming faces of the diggers themselves.

Huh? Couldn't some feudal lord just tell some peasants that they had to do it or all of their families would get raped and butchered?

Draw the water out where? You want to dig a tunnel to the ocean?

>>1307334
This isn't Game of Thrones, strategists aren't mindlessly cruel for no reason.

>>1307453
I was pretty cruel to your mum last night

>>1306766

>Something that requires a certain amount of engineering expertise which may be lacking in a typical medieval military detachment.

Actually tunneling sappers were pretty common in medieval sieges.

>>1307334
If he doesn't mind half his army deserting, sure.

>>1307453

But that wouldn't be mindless.

>>1307484

>So we will get killed by falling stones and arrows? Oh cool, it isn't- wait what? We will die by drowning? Oh sorry, then me and my buddies are out.

>>1307752
They're being "payed" for getting killed by falling stones and arrows.

It's like whores agreeing to be pissed on the face but you hit them when they're not into that and they chimp out.

>>1306736

Historically, the moat wouldn't have been filled with water anyway. That only happened once castles became useless for defense and became residential.

>>1307334

What man would fight for someone who would make that command? Military commanders aren't the most benevolent of people but there needs to be some amount of troop morale and trust in leadership to get shit done.

>>1307752

There's a certain idea of honor that people held in being slain in battle. Drowning is for bitch boys. Drowning is also a really shitty way to die.

I get a feeling some anons don't understand construction. it's not hard to dig a big hole with a hundred men or something. connecting it is also not some kind of an impossibility or death sentence.

that said I have no clue how a moat is built in the first place, where the water comes from or if draining it will help anything.

>>1307779
Bullshit. Stop trying to promote baseless contrarianism.

The water meant that undermining the walls because almost impossible unless you want to drown, underground.

>>1307805
>it's not hard to dig a big hole with a hundred men or something. connecting it is also not some kind of an impossibility or death sentence.
Well its the task of doing this while being shot at. Anyone can knock a castle down in peacetime, its not so easy when they shoot back. Siege engines actually have to get very close to be properly effective, plenty closer enough to be under counter fire, which is why they built palisades in front of the engines.

>>1308014
OP is talking about a tunnel ie. underground

it seems to me either the aquifer prevents it entirely or the last bit is the only part that's any more dangerous than any other tunnel.

if it's just a canal which is probably simpler then you build a light structure to block arrows and dig under it

>>1307752
Depending on the time period and place, medieval armies had mercenaries as a sizable portion of their force, because professional soldiers are always very expensive and hard to come by.

Mercenaries are paid to kill the enemy of the lord that hired them, but the lord must also provide them with some basic necessities to wage war. Mercenaries generally brought their own weapons and armor, but were provided shelter, food, and water.

A mercenary is just doing a dangerous job. He has lower morale since he doesn't really gain any benefit from his lord winning aside from his payment. He's more prone to deserting when he realizes the odds are not in his favor. He's also more prone to switch sides because in a practical sense, the death of the enemy lord is the loss of a potential client for him. The longer a conflict prolongs, the more money he can make.

Do you see why this type of guy wouldn't exactly be willing to dig a suicidal hole for his fuckheaded filed commander?

>>1308057
>The longer a conflict prolongs, the more money he can make.
was that really how merc contracts worked? I've heard something about loot being a considerable part of it, and also losers probably did not always pay their mercs.

>Do you see why this type of guy wouldn't exactly be willing to dig a suicidal hole for his fuckheaded filed commander?
I believe the usual way to do this kind of thing is to find some people, find/make up an excuse to hate them and tell them they either get to do the dangerous thing or be executed for their offense. or just pay some brave dudes.

>>1307334
thank god you will never be put in charge of anything

>>1307752
if you try to sap a moat you will certainly die, and this haphazard disregard for lives will label the commander as a crazy amoral tyrant that nobody with a brain will loyally serve

if you assault a wall being assailed by rocks and arrows you have a chance of living, and you have the possibility of distinguishing yourself and allowing yourself to become famous in your lands and well-rewarded with the loot of yoru enemies, not to mention that dying in battle was seem with some glory.

this isn't hard to understand.

>>1307752

There's a hell of a difference between maybe being randomly shot while besieging the walls or trying to storm and opening, and probably drowning in a cramped, pitch black hole.

>>1306736
You'd probably be better off just creating a "river" (i.e. like a tunnel but open-topped) and that's assuming the defenders are fortified in the castle, unwilling to come out and fight and don't have much in the way of long-range weaponry (archers, catapults, ballista, etc). Digging a "true" tunnel would be safer if they have such weapons, obviously, but there's the problem where the people digging the tunnel are likely to drown when actually reaches the moat. So it might be wiser to stop the tunnel just short of the moat, and place a bunch of explosives with a time fuse long enough for the tunnel diggers to escape.

File: medieval-combat-sappers.jpg (99KB, 619x632px) Image search: [Google]

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>>1306748
>>1306746
>>1306766
Are you guys actually retarded?

>>1308117
There's always looting as an incentive

When the mudslimes invaded Constantinople, Mehmed II allowed his troops three days to loot everything. After three days, everything found belonged to Mehmet.

You can always force prisoners to dig for you, but they won't exactly do a good job.

>>1309418
You mean like powder kegs?

Wouldn't a powder keg have been hella expensive ~1400?

How expensive was gunpowder back then?

>>1306736
caerlaverock castle in case anyone's wondering

>>1306736
Probably, enjoy crawling in a muddy ditch while the defenders fire arrows and pour hot oil on you though.

File: pol_does_engineering.png (406KB, 1000x1000px) Image search: [Google]

406KB, 1000x1000px

For everyone saying you'd die sapping the moat whilst digging the tunnel, you're retarded.
I've devised a contraption on pic related that will allow you to sap the tunnel whilst escaping unscathed.
You attach the device to your back whilst in the tunnel, then destroy the final part of the tunnel that's about to be flooded.
As the water comes through, your activate your A.U.S.C.H.W.I.T.Z and your device will shield you from the oncoming water.
Since you're curled up in your comfy ball, the water will just push you out of the tunnel in your comfy ball.

>>1309418
or you can just connect them at water level if you're really so sure it would immediately drown you