Thread replies: 18
Thread images: 5
Thread images: 5
What's the point of castles? Can't you just go around them?
>>
>>1653354
Has no changed since the last thread.
>>
>>1653360
Why do you assume everyone lurks as much as you?
>>
>leaving pockets of fortified enemy strongholds between your supply line and armies
HURRDURRR. Castles were the thing in medieval Europe, at least in England and the Anglo-Saxon states. There's a reason why building them without the kings permit was illegal and why feudal lords were so powerful. If you had a castle = you had so much leverage over your feudal lord (because rebellion is so much easier) Before siege craft became advanced enough you essentially had to starve the castle out, which is a logistical nightmare
>>
>fortified structure that is nearly impervious to assault even from a force 5 times larger than the defending garrison that can last for months if not years based on food reserves stored internally generally built along roads, bridges, or important and/or restricted movement areas
Attack a castle. Spend 5 months waiting for them to run out of food.
Don't attack a castle. Run out of food in 5 months due to said castle raiding your supply lines trying to get to you via the only bridge within 50 miles
>>
Castles are the reason the mongols couldn't conquer europe.
>>
>>1653541
the mongols employed expert siege engineers.
Tribal succession is what saved europe.
>>
File: really.jpg (115KB, 435x435px) Image search:
[Google]
115KB, 435x435px
>>1653384
>at least in England and the Anglo-Saxon states
Castle culture came from France and was brought to England by the Normans you derp.
>>
File: 1425281842957.jpg (228KB, 679x913px) Image search:
[Google]
228KB, 679x913px
>leave castle alone
>people sometimes come out and do indirect harm to you (steal food and shit, tie up men who are left to watch them, etc.)
>the allies of the people in the castle have a reason to carry on resisting
>stick around outside castle
>wait a few months for the buggers inside to get hungry and surrender
Alternatively:
>own a castle and an army
>pitched battle is a risky prospect: if your force is thrown against theirs and defeated, the better part of it is probably gonna be destroyed
>instead hole up in a high place with walls and food stocks because it's less scary
>hope you have friends on the outside or food enough to last slightly longer than theirs
>if the enemy is forced for some reason to attempt an assault, you can do them a lot of direct harm
>>
>>1653554
Mongols could never conquer Europeans under any circumstance
>>
>>1653554
>the mongols employed expert siege engineers.
Most of the large European castles were simply impregnable prior to gunpowder. European fortification engineering was on a completely different level to that of China. No amount of engineering expertise can get an army into a castle stood upon a single enormous rock, whose walls are too thick for siege engines to reliably penetrate.
Remember that they tried to invade Hungary (not a particularly rich or heavily fortified kingdom) with an army almost of a similar scale to the one Genghis Khan used to attack China, and failed so disastrously that their entire force was wiped out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Mongol_invasion_of_Hungary
From the section on the first invasion (the one supposedly called off after Ogedai's death):
>However, stone castles had significantly better fortunes; none of the few Hungarian stone castles fell, even those deep behind the Mongol lines. When the Mongols tried to use their siege engines on the stone walls of the Croatian Fortress of Klis, they did absolutely no damage, and were repelled with heavy casualties.[7] A similar thing happened when they attempted to capture the citadel of Esztergom, despite having overwhelming numerical superiority and 30 siege machines which they had just used to reduce the wooden towers of the city.[8]
Imagine what would have happened in a place like the HRE, where every single town had extensive fortifications, and there were immense and well maintained castles every few dozen miles. No steppe horde was ever realistically going to threaten medieval central Europe.
>>
>>1653562
What is motte and bailey, faggot.
>>
>>1653354
>guys with the castle send out raiding parties to mess around with your supply lines and generally fuck your shit over while you fart about in the useless fields
>>
>>1653354
castles weren't just built at random areas, they were defensive positions placed along major choke points to defend larger cities, or be defensive keeps inside the major cities.
but castle walls, if built right, could be near invincible barriers guarding major cities, then fell out of favor when gunpowder rendered castle fortifications completely useless.
>>
>>1653354
The castelation of Europe has a couple of points really.
>Relocation of Wealth: This is one has a lot to do with the vikings, which is why so many castles popped up in france. Castles give the local serfdom somewhere to run to when vikings sailed up their rivers. Castles can also store a great deal of their goods. The idea is that a large portion of goods can be protected from raiding while the villages in which the peasants lived could be comparatively poor. This gives raiders very little payout, and less incentive to attack poor villages. This also means that an enemy army has to go after harder targets to make their campaigns profitable. There wasn't a complex economic motivation behind it, but the principle was simple enough.
>Nullifies Cavalry: Cavalry can't besiege shit. You can't charge it, and it never runs away. A big stone keep to hole up in allows one to wait out the local raiding party. This is partly why Poland and Hungary did so well against the hunnic, mongol, and other turkic forces.
>Personal Power: This wasn't an immediate consequence, but the aristocracy in particular came to recognize the ability castles granted them to defy the authority of the king. This means they had more leverage to assert their wills over the king. This ended up creating a whole new problem for the monarch, who came to deal with endemic local warfare as a matter of course.
>Impermeable to Certain Equipment: Until the invention of gunpowder cannons, no castle was ever brought down by artillery. None. No walls down from catapults or trebuchets. Ever. Granted, this means that artillery took on a different role, but unlike towns, often more weakly defended, castle walls couldn't be broken by projectile siege engines. Controlling the types of methods a besieger could use by limiting them allowed for increased tactical planning.
>>
How common were artillery pieces on castle walls? (so say a catapult placed on the walls)
>>
Why couldn't the Romans into castles?
They seemed to have the architectural prowess for it did they not?
>>
>>1655588
A rare curiosity at best. Catapults aren't very accurate, and really inaccurate from that angle. Also the ammunition is a concern. Those rocks were better used in chutes above portcullises and gates, to be dropped directly on top of the enemy. Catapults on the walls are more the product of the Lord of The Rings films than anything else. For practicality's sake, most castle defenses are short ranged, like archers, stone droppers, slingers, or cauldrons full of boiling water with sand mixed in (boiling oil is a hollywood convention), or greek fire, if certain byzantine claims are to be believed.
>>1655607
I'm not entirely certain, but I think in part it was probably an ego thing. Romans were more suited to city planning, and just built up their towns. Also the Roman battle tactics are less suited to defense and are much more offensive. Castles are big expenditures of time, and require a lot of quarrying materials, the Roman manipular armies were much more mobile, and this is reflected in their camp-forts. The exception is Hadrian's Wall, but even that had forts and outposts on it. Also the Roman method of siegecraft would have rendered castles useless, since they just built wooden forts around an area they wanted to take.
Thread posts: 18
Thread images: 5
Thread images: 5