How would you have defended Helm's Deep /lit/ From the

I daydream about this battle almost every night, though in my version I leave Helm's Deep to rescue an isolated town which most believe to have been slaughtered already. I arrive there, rescue 200 people (50 men of fighting age and the rest citizens of Rohan) and then ride as fast as possible towards Helm's Deep. On the way we are ambushed in a forest by a company of Orcs. I and a small group of riders chase them away while the other wagons and horses ride on. Then we witness at a distance a group of Wargs raiding a group of people crossing an open plain. Rather than look after ourselves, I decide to go and help however I can and tell the others to ride on to Helm's Deep. I then ask who will ride with me and nobody replies, but as I ride away I am joined by around 25 men who help me in killing the Wargs and helping the group, who turn out to have left Helm's Deep after thinking they could make it on their own to a safer land. I return to Helms' Deep having been wounded by an arrow in my left shoulder, and people cheer as they see the group safe and also an additional 100 men altogether to defend their walls. I am weary and feverish after being wounded, and after a brief talk with Legolas and Gimli I am escorted to the field hospital, on the second floor of the main building Helm's Deep. On my way there I hear someone calling my name and it is Arwen, who sneaked away from Rivendale with the 300 Elves dispatched to assist with the defence of Helm's Deep. At first I am angry that she did that considering how likely it is that we will all be slaughtered here by a force of 10,000 Uruk-Hai, but then I soften and she nurses my wounds and we spend the afternoon before the battle talking and laughing and kissing. Before the battle we share a long embrace as thunder and the drums of the enemy are heard in the distance and their torches appear through the darkness. I bid her to go to the caves and look after the women and children there, and to escape as soon as the enemy has reached the entrance.

>>8861186
Those numbers are completely wrong. There were no Elves at the Battle of the Hornburg, there were Rohirrim, and you fail to consider the forces of Erkenbrand or that of the Huorns. That's what the fort was called btw, the Hornburg, Helms Deep is the valley it is located in.

>>8861186
By not allowing it to become a siege.
You fight a protracted insurgency in the countryside and destroy their supply lines making it impossible to mount a coherent offensive.
10:1 isn't a bad ratio for an insurgency, but it's impossible to win in a siege since most sieges have a 5:2 ratio of casualties for the attacker.

>>8861192
more Rohirrim*

In my version the enemy still detonate the explosives but the battle from then on is more detailed than in the movie, where there's simply a flash-forward to the part where the Uruk-Hai are trying to kill the final survivors within the main hall where Legolas and Theoden etc then ride out. The elves who charge the Uruk-Hai pikemen retreat and take up positions up on the outermost wall of the keep. Those still battling on the walls are told to retreat, which means around 70 men and elves retreat to the outermost wall. Before the battle I organize for horses to pull large boulders (fallen from the surrounding clifftops) along the causeway to slow the enemy's assault upon the gateway. The gate is eventually broken through but the piles of dead Uruk-Hai make it difficult for the huge army to make their way along the narrow passages of the castle. Within the inner most wall, in the area outside the entrance to the hall and the caves, a number of wagons have been overturned and now form a final barricade behind which a thick line of men and elves fire continuously into the enemy, while others on the wall surrounding them fire down also before they are told to retreat and fight hand-to-hand. We then fight there on the steps as dawn approaches and are finally beaten back inside. I receive a pike wound in my side and am still weak from my previous injury. I instruct one of Theoden's men to tell the women and children to escape via the secret passageway, and for Theoden's personal guard and Theoden himself to escort them. They refuse but a number of untrained peasant fighters agree to escort them and try their best to hold off the inevitable packs of Uruk-Hai and Wargs sent to chase them and slaughter them. Theoden, Gimli, Legolas, Theoden's guard and I prepare for one final charge to help distract the Uruk-Hai for as long as possible, and we charge out (like in the movie) and thanks due to the narrow passages most of us make it to the main gate (a few peasant riders and most of Theoden's armed guard are slain) and as we begin riding down the causeway Gandalf appears and chases the Uruk-Hai away. I ask Eomer to catch the escaping women and children and tell them the battle is won. I am at that point too weak to do so myself and collapse from my horse.

>>8861192
In the movie there were Elves. And as for non-Uruk Hai units, in the movie it was just Uruk-Hai (although orcs were known to ride Wargs immediately preceding it, and in my version the Wargs taunt those defending the wall the day before by riding up to it and striking the wall with their swords, but the men and elves don't fire as they want to watch their ammo). The movie version of the battle is far more aesthetic in my opinion, and essentially depicts a zombie race war of sorts similar to the Alamo or Zulu. In the book the Uruk-Hai are less physically imposing and they also chant things in English, which humanized them to an extent and makes it memorable. Also Huorns and Dunledings are both irrelevant to the main aspect of the battle in my opinion.

>>8861197
The thing is that Rohan is not equipped to deal with any sort of war where they are not the attackers due to the fact that that their settlements are poorly fortified and scattered around their land making any collective defence difficult. Also the retreat to Helm's Deep was rather sudden, which explains why so few men were able to be mustered to defend the Hornburg. Also the threat from Rohan's enemies was two-fold. While the Rohirim could easily have defended themselves against the Dunledings it would then be the Uruk-Hai who would be free to march to Edoras, sacking the capital and making it even more difficult for any organized defence to be mustered. We see in Lord of the Rings 3 how difficult it is to summon Rohirrim from all corners of the land and how long it takes to gather them in one location, and faced with the threat of such a large invading force it makes sense for them to seek refuge in one of Rohan's most well-defended castles while awaiting reinforcements led by Eomer and Gandalf.

>>8861225
>From the novel The Lord of the Rings 2: The Two Towers.

>In the movie there were Elves.

no words

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>>8861186
>Helm's Deep
>elves