Why Siege Towers are Wrong - History and Evolution DOCUMENTARY

The depiction of siege towers as massed, glorified troop elevators in most modern media is completely a-historic. In this video let's reveal the true history of the Siege Tower. Check out The Great Courses Plus to learn about daily life in the past: ow.ly/DWyz30rsjSX
In this video we explore the history of siege warfare and in particular the siege tower. This begins with our earliest civilizations in the Fertile Crescent. It is here in ancient Mesopotamia that people like the Assyrians began to experiment with new siege technology such as the siege tower. We look specifically at the best example of Assyrian Warfare and the Assyrian army with the Siege of Lachish. From here, siege technology would spread to nearby Egypt and across the Mediterranean. The Greeks picked it up and helped push the technology forward with great application in the campaigns of Alexander the Great. The Roman Army then adopted the Siege Tower and worked to perfect its application. We then finally turn to the use of the Siege Tower in the middle ages. Along the way we cover lots of specific examples like The Siege of Alesia, The Siege of Jerusalem, the Siege of Masada and much more.
#History
#Documentary

[@Sharnoy1]

They are not pushed by mountain trolls?!?

[@Eldarion-kd6rr]

They were, but then some guy had the idea to shot at the trolls instead of the towers

[@astahfirula]

@@Eldarion-kd6rr Yes, in hindsight, that was actually quite a big weakness of early towers. They tried to fix it by giving the trolls shields, but then they couldn't push the towers, then they tried putting them inside the tower, but then they couldn't fit anything else inside...messy times those were.

[@tyree9055]

I'm pretty sure that to the people inside of the city, the ones moving the siege towers were most definitely trolls, no matter what they looked like! 😄

[@Shadowhunterbg]

Most likely they did. Trolls do exist, we saw how the persians deployed them alongside orcs at the battle of Thermopylae in 300. It's a historical movie!

[@masterbuilder0018]

Impossible.

[@GoingOffTopical]

Glad I can finally blame the siege towers for my awful results on total war and not my terrible strategic decisions

[@BICfootball92]

This hit me in the feels....

[@cannonf_odder3041]

Fcking relatable mate

[@diegoivan685]

Use ladders!

[@chubbymoth5810]

In total war, ladders are by far the most useful siege weapon as they are indestructible and fast moving. Small tip,.. let half your ladders lay on the ground at setup time and see how the defenders react to that. You can pick the ladders up after starting the battle.

[@dabarq2306]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH I died from this comment....

[@spiderknight9893]

I learned from totalwar that in Japan they didn’t need siege towers cause everyone was a ninja and could just climb walls.

[@walangchahangyelingden8252]

Like Mulan?

[@linnlock7958]

Nah they used ladders

[@williammorozov3468]

racist jk AHAHAHHA

[@walangchahangyelingden8252]

@@williammorozov3468 Blame the game I guess.

[@williammorozov3468]

@@walangchahangyelingden8252 Creative Assembly and Saga gahahah

[@matthewsandifer2673]

Catapulting dead bodies over the walls is still a favorite.

[@headgames3115]

If you're referring to the Mongols doing that, that is likely Italian propaganda. If I remember correctly, the only account claiming they launched plague victims was written 200 or so years after the supposed event.

[@Riftrender]

Shad discussed this a few days ago. He dismissed it as not used that often since it would piss off your own side, likely to backfire and get your own army diseased, and it would make reconciliation difficult.

[@vincentmalasawmkimajongte7489]

@@headgames3115 Bodies of cattle were still supposedly shot into fortresses.

[@silentdrew7636]

@@Riftrender was that back when he mainly covered topics he actually understood? His Pride has gotten the better of him over the years to the point where his new stuff is unwatchable.

[@headgames3115]

@@vincentmalasawmkimajongte7489 What a waste of potential food for your soldiers...

[@countravid3768]

Honestly who needs towers when you have siege ramps

[@maxfieldstanton5411]

Handicap accessible.

[@TimHornerWOP]

@@maxfieldstanton5411 Romans - > the original social justice *warriors*

[@umjackd]

I'd love to see these implemented in a Total War game one day. Or real sapping too.

[@manatarms7652]

Who needs siege towers when you have Isaac Brock

[@countravid3768]

@@manatarms7652 I'm a simple man I see someone who knows 1812 history, I click like.

[@brandanberg1716]

I like to imagine that in every tower taking a wall, is a witcher that is about to be acused of killing a king.

[@JacopoSkydweller]

Not many towers used, not many Witchers left... "Hm."

[@alaric_3015]

aww i miss Witcher 2

[@paulovascon]

R.I.P King Foltest F

[@alaric_3015]

@@paulovascon F

[@JacopoSkydweller]

@@paulovascon F for Foltest, F for Temeria. (Either under the Black Ones or under Radovid the shitern).

[@outboundprojectworkshop1270]

They be tryna use siege towers like AT-ATs

[@nohbuddy1]

To destroy the shield generator?

[@eyesofstatic9641]

Haha! I'm imagining that view through those binos the rebel is holding with a siege tower slowly rolling out of the snow

[@lorddaquanofhouserastafari4177]

MORE

[@loods2215]

@@lorddaquanofhouserastafari4177 MOREEEE

[@drbungholebob993]

@@loods2215 MOAR!

[@darthplagueis13]

To be fair, it makes more sense for the towers of antiquity to make breaches because the walls back then weren't quite what they were in the high medieval period. It's one thing to breach through a construction of bricks, wood and clay, but a completely different story to do so when it's 4 meters of solid stone. There's a reason why they very much started focusing on battering down the gate later on and that's because battering down the walls under battle conditions became increasingly impossible (well... Until they started figuring out cannons, that is). So at least as far as the portrayal of high medieval siege towers is concerned, the issue is mostly when they are just immediately being charged at the walls and spammed en masse. Using a bridge after the walls were cleared just makes sense.

[@issuma8223]

They battered the doors, not the walls.

[@connorhill6520]

@@issuma8223 the video deliberately states that a bronze age tower was utilized to batter the walls

[@istoppedcaring6209]

​@@issuma8223 no they did, mesopotamien citties were constructed out of mud-straw bricks most of the time after all (they constaantly rebuilt things because of this to, but it was stil better than the alternatives in terms of cost effectiveness so yeah those walls could be battered down, medieval walls were not 4 metres thick, generally they were pretty thin, thinner than what people imagine them as early modern walls were a different story, those were absolutely massive but those were not suited to siegetowers or even canons, they were generally low, sloped and they were generally made of earth, though stone examples do exist, the famous star fortresses are the best way to show this,

[@issuma8223]

@@istoppedcaring6209 Thanks--

[@edi9892]

Similarly, often a single cannon decided the siege and it would have been too costly to blow up the entire castle... Only at the time of star forts and battleships, they blew budgets like crazy with hundreds of guns firing for days, if not weeks...

[@untruelie2640]

Since you showed a picture of the third "The Lord of the Rings" movie, it should be pointed out that J.R.R. Tolkien depicted the siege towers in the original book as support units, not as a way for the enemy troops to get on top of the walls of Minas Tirith. They are primarily used for the diversion and as a way to probe the strength of the defenders. The main attack on the city (which is eventually successful) concentrates on the weakest point of the fortifications - the gate - using a giant battering ram. Tolkien had been in the British Army during WW1 [x] , so he probably knew more about this matter than other authors. Edit: Yes, Tolkien wasn't a historian, I changed it.

[@vincentmalasawmkimajongte7489]

Tolkien continues to surprise me.

[@vincentmalasawmkimajongte7489]

@Csősz Máté being a Linguist he must have been exposed to the histories of the culture that he's studying and how they came to be, which might have made him delve a bit deeper into their history.

[@sztallone415]

@Csősz Máté and serving in WW1 doesn't make anybody suddenly an expert on ancient warfare

[@untruelie2640]

@Csősz Máté Yes, he wasn't a historian by profession. (He was a professor for Old English language and literature at Oxford University), but he was also interested in the history of England. Anyway, the military aspects described in his works (logistical issuses, movement in formations, troop morale, siege warfare, strategy and battlefield tactics, army organization) are quite accurate. As I said, he had fought in WW1 and his depiction of (fictional pseudo-medieval) warfare is much more authentic than what other authors have written in this field.

[@DemagogueBibleStudy]

Yeah there’s a great military history blog out there that break downs the differences between the books and the films and how they both measure up to real life. One key insight is that Tolkien writes his battles mainly as struggles of morale. Orcs never get inside Minas Tirith in the books, but when they break the gate it feels like they’ve already won.

[@ashina2146]

Siege Tower in AoE2 then: *Just a moveable tower that shoot arrow* Siege Tower in AoE2 now: *Leeroy jenkins troops over the wall, and has incredible speed when fully garrisoned* and yet the first one is much more historically accurate and very useful.

[@diegoivan685]

The thing is, AoEII is not historically accurate in most things

[@mullerpotgieter]

@@diegoivan685 Pfft. Next you'll be telling me Mayans never had crossbows or that Spanish citizens weren't unstoppable monsters

[@Tareltonlives]

AoM got them right.

[@timnor4803]

LLLeeeeEeeRrooooooyyyyyyy JennnnKkinS!!!!

[@shadowdeslaar]

@@mullerpotgieter Mayans had crossbows?

[@costinpatru5450]

I too, often, stay awake at night, thinking of siege towers.

[@danmoore4503]

Same, I'm getting really suspicious of my Amish neighbors and I wonder what will happen when they turn warlike.

[@horseshit1503]

@@danmoore4503their goals are beyond our understanding

[@michaelfranciotti3900]

As one does.

[@crusader1997]

@@danmoore4503 My Amish neighbours have already brought my house under siege with a trebuchet

[@shakazulu301]

You are a man of the highest quality.

[@bo_392]

"So you got a big expensive stone castle, eh?" _Rapidly constructs 2+ fire-proof mobile wooden castles._ "Who has the high ground now?"

[@acealinka489]

You are a bold one.

[@bry756]

Encounters second layer of walls "Hmm, we'll be here a while"

[@anor_naur]

One of the reason siege towers are depicted storming castle walls in pop culture is that in video games and movies battles tend to go a lot quicker. While sieges in real history lasted months at a time, in pop culture they are usually over in a few days. I suppose movie directors/game designers don’t want to bore their viewers/players with drawn out, methodical sieges and thus sacrifice realism for entertainment.

[@saphiriathebluedragonknight375]

A siege back then would be an entire movie at least.

[@anthonyhargis6855]

Ahh, someone posting the truth. Siege towers equated with the maxim; He who holds the high ground. Archers stationed on the ground could never clear the battlements. So bring on the siege tower.

[@aaronmontgomery2055]

well minus nukes.

[@anthonyhargis6855]

@@aaronmontgomery2055 ROFLMAO

[@edi9892]

That won't work if the battlements have roofs...

[@zoushaomenohu]

"Hah, now *I* have the high ground on my walls, Obi-Wan!" "Then I will use my siege towers to make an even HIGHER high ground for my archers while punching holes in your high ground! It's over, Anakin!" (This has been a very forced metaphor.)

[@anthonyhargis6855]

@@edi9892 Roofed battlements are another Hollywood trope. Only towers were ever actually roofed, in later periods. The term "battlement" refers to the raised section of the wall of the castle, which "contained" the crenels -- which archers shot through -- and merlons -- which archers hid behind. Incidentally, the merlons were not waist high -- another trope -- they reached well above the archers head. And the "parapet" was the section of the wall upon which the soldiers stood and walked.

[@theprussianmink]

Being able to use siege towers to suppress the enemy on the walls in Total War would be a lot more interesting than the way they are actually used in the games.

[@DeepCFisher]

You pretty much do that in rome total war. The large siege towers have bolt throwers in the top

[@joevenespineli6389]

@@DeepCFisher Eventually. In the earlier versions they do not fire missiles.

[@Supadubya]

@@joevenespineli6389 they do in Rome 1. Just in Medieval 2 they apparently nerfed siege towers by reducing their ranged capabilities (vs. Rome 1) AND making them easier to burn...

[@joevenespineli6389]

@@Supadubya Really? Cause I found the siege towers in Rome 1 easier to burn than in Medieval II, probably due to the archers not firing in an arch above the damn things.

[@scintillam_dei]

@@Supadubya At least Medieval 2 Total War was more geographically accurate especially by putting Mesoamerica in the correct place.

[@olorin7611]

You raise several great points with this. However, almost all the fiction examples you used showed a fusion of late medieval technology (Concentric Castles and trebuchets) with the scale of the Roman Empire of antiquity. I wonder if siege towers would have been used differently if that fusion of scale and technology had happened in the real world.

[@strategossable1366]

tl;dr: siege towers were a combination of ancient tanks, artillery bunkers, and troop carriers

[@ronagoodwell2709]

"Mechanized" armor.

[@evershumor1302]

Moviemakers: Soooo, it did happen...

[@walangchahangyelingden8252]

😑

[@greygamervideo]

Very difficult to present a siege in a movie, they just focus on the main assault.

[@mustafakeles5172]

@@greygamervideo ikr they made a whole season on Netflix dedicated to the siege of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conquerer, fitting a whole season of information into a short movie will be futile in relaying all that happened

[@parokki]

Not gonna lie, from the way you started I was expecting the verdict to be much harsher. Something more like "it wasn't actually possible to move such a large structure and siege towers were built in place" or "they never exited in the first place and it's just another example of Hollywood messing with our brains" instead of "there usually weren't that many in any given siege". Great video though and I definitely learned a lot.

[@MrBanjooo]

Man I was so afraid this guy was about to tell me siege towers never existed lmao

[@KalonOrdona2]

Soo I learned that siege towers aren't depicted wrong, they just used to be used differently before walls became thicker, and they were expensive to make -- easier to make one ram for the gate. But then with moats the trebuchet took over. So, siege towers aren't wrong. The further in fantasy you go, the higher and stronger the walls get, so the more likely they'd use siege towers to get over the walls, rather than try to bring the walls down. Unless they have magic artillery, in which case we're into magic-as-technology and it's time for star forts and bunkers. I mean, heck, the historical pictures in the video very often depict people walking off the towers and onto the walls, exactly what we think of as siege towers. Main takeaway seems to be, again, just that they were expensive to make and not likely to be rushed right up to the wall as step 1. Fantasy siege towers take peak siege tower and extrapolate into imagination, not loop back into early siege towers battering mudbrick walls.

[@evandaire1449]

Yeah. Honestly I could see the siege of minas tirith going damn near exactly as it did. That siege had been planned for centuries. They had a monumental army. They had the time and resources to build them. So why not make like 100 siege towers? Honestly bum rushing the walls when you have like 200k orcs isn’t a bad strategy. Certainly beats trying to feed 200k orcs over a long campaign.

[@DemagogueBibleStudy]

@@evandaire1449 In the siege of Minas Tirith the towers are explicitly a distraction. Going through the gate is just a much better way to take a castle than going over the walls.

[@witchhunter6755]

Just use normal ladder, and also don't use rock in your catapult, use dead donkey to disrespect the enemy

[@thecobaltemperor]

Ladders can only have a few people going up at a time and offer no protection

[@witchhunter6755]

@@thecobaltemperor but it's way cheeper, and I have loads o donkeys to get rid of

[@drewinsur7321]

@@thecobaltemperor but you can build loads if them, like hundreds. And you can build wide tower like ladders too

[@TheDragonfriday]

No, just throw poop at them. Enough poop would make the enemy leave there base win win

[@witchhunter6755]

@@TheDragonfriday I don't have enough poop, only donkey

[@Suppiluliuma_1]

Next video:The Byzantine Army Equipment from Komnenos dynasty.Please

[@helderferreira5106]

In the siege of the city of Lisbon, king Afonso Henriques used 1 siege tower and it was small.

[@andrpaulino]

Imediatamente oq me veio a cabeça. Represent

[@PedroReiis]

bem, a antepenultima imagem é do cerco de lisboa. E assim que chegou à muralha a cidade rendeu-se, nem chegou a ser "usada".

[@alexmag342]

@@PedroReiis a torre ardeu parcialmente, os soldados mouros fizeram um ataque para destruir a torre que apanhou o exercito de surpresa e conseguiram danificar a torre, e chegou a ser usada, a torre chegou as muralhas e durante um dia ouve um empasse entre os crusados e os mouros nas muralhas, mas renderam se no dia seguinte pois ja nao tinham comida

[@PedroReiis]

@@alexmag342 daí as aspas no "usada".. "apercebendo-se de que as pontes da torre móvel - afastada das muralhas uns escassos metro e meio - começavam a descer para permitir a passagem dos cruzados, sinal de que o assalto estava iminente, os sitiados, sem qualquer forma de o evitar, baixam as armas e decidem solicitar um período de tréguas até ao dia seguinte, para que pudessem discutir as condições da rendição" in "A conquista de Lisboa (1147)", in MARTINS, Miguel Gomes, De Ourique a Aljubarrota - A guerra na idade média, Esfera dos Livros, Lisboa, 2011, p. 97. Provavelmente depois terão discutido entre eles que já não tinham condições para seguir com a defesa da cidade devido, especialmente, à falta de comida, mas foi esta chegada da torre que terá causado medo de um assalto directo e, consequentemente, a rendição. Logo, aquilo que é em parte o objetivo da torre, o de transportar soldados do chão para o topo da muralha, basicamente não aconteceu, devido, mais uma vez, ao medo de um confronto directo.

[@justasingledoor5178]

Why is everyone here speaking funny Spanish

[@jatzi1526]

You mentioned multiple times that towers were used to send troops onto walls in the different eras so I question your 3rd point. Maybe youre right but I'm not sure you defended the claim well enough, you seemed to contradict yourself there a few times. Otherwise awesome video!

[@raphaelpowis3819]

agreed, that third point seems strange.

[@DemagogueBibleStudy]

He’s not saying it never happened, just that it wasn’t their primary use.

[@raphaelpowis3819]

@@DemagogueBibleStudy yeah, but i think he presented more examples where it was used to sent soldiers onto walls than to breach them. also, i think that through history we have many more records of that than siege towers being used to breach the walls (but i don't have any sources on that tbh, i migth be wrong)

[@chimponkoman]

@@raphaelpowis3819 I think the point was that they weren't used to rush the walls and bridge it. They would have been used statically for days if not weeks to clear the walls of defenders first, and then slowly pushed up to breach or let men onto the walls.

[@GeorgeMonet]

@@chimponkoman I think more likely the towers would have been used to let men onto the walls at the first opportunity to do so. But getting the siege tower to the wall was not as easy as simply pushing it forward 600 meters. That is why it would take weeks for the tower to reach the walls. Plus the ground was often uneven. Forts would be built on hills or along rivers. Or forts might have a moat or a series of moats. Those would take weeks to build up enough earthen works to cross. That's why it would take weeks to advance the tower to the walls.

[@chocodoco4855]

7:31 LOL, those greeks are assaulting a medieval castle with roman equipment. I know it because I have that set, it's from a russian miniature company, Zvezda. Italeri also sold a similar set with the same castle, but crusader themed, and without the siege weapons.

[@akostorma3930]

Ah yes, a man of culture

[@Abcd-hr9ot]

Where did u buy the set

[@chocodoco4855]

@@Abcd-hr9ot It was back in 2004, on a brick and mortar store.

[@relight6931]

Zvezda is Serbian gun company, not Russian. Didn't know they make miniatures as well..

[@chocodoco4855]

@@relight6931 LOL, Zvezda just means "star", there are a bunch of things called Zvezda, and I'm pretty sure russian Zvezda manufactures toys and scale models. From their website: "Zvezda LLC is a worldwide leading manufacturer of plastic kits in scale and board games, established in 1990 in Russia".

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

I’ll soften it up with cannons if y’all like.

[@DomWeasel]

Because that worked out so well for you at the Siege of Acre...

[@LKS1ClanCoD]

@@DomWeasel That siege failed due to a lack of heavy artillery, not despite of it. The French heavy ordnance was transported by sea, and captured by the British Navy before they could be delivered to the besiegers. Even so, the French still managed to eventually breach the outer wall with their field guns after a prolonged effort, but upon discovering an improvised, secondary layer of defenses ultimately gave up on their ambitions, as they could neither afford the risk (nor perhaps bear the embarrassment) of haplessly lingering outside the city for another few weeks, trying to extend the first breach and the go on to create another one in the secondary defenses, when the Ottomans had not only sent out a field army to lift the siege already (which was effectively destroyed in the Battle of Mount Tambor, though), but in attempting to force a breakthrough by assault, the French had also taken a huge number of casualties which they could only afford less by the day, the longer the British Navy commanded the Mediterranean, and refusing any and all reinforcements or support to reach the Army of Egypt.

[@aceofspadesguy4913]

Tbf, you could argue that in some pop culture depictions the number of siege towers is still scaled to the size of the armies accurately. Minas Tirith, for example, is much larger than anything of antiquity, and Sauron’s army numbers in the hundreds of thousands. That siege, along with most fantasy battles, dwarfs most real life battles.

[@barbiquearea]

The Assyrian siege tower is how I envision tanks to look like in the Flintstones.

[@KapiteinKrentebol]

What strikes me most about popular depiction of sieges is that they seem to think they were 10 minute affairs.

[@DinnerForkTongue]

My thoughts as well. These things weighed _literal tons,_ and had to be dragged by sheer manpower during combat while they were being shot at and pelted incessantly. I could buy the LotR ones because they were pushed by trolls, but otherwise? Nah.

[@serhan6157]

It would be great if you can make a video about the wall heights throughout the ages. It's very hard to imagine these walls without knowing their approximate height. Troy, for example, described as a town with huge walls, but it's not clear how huge it was or how accountable the sources were.

[@jean-lucgenereau4617]

Troy had walls up to 8 meters high and 5 meters thick. We don't have to rely on ancient sources for this one, we have the archeological site.

[@serhan6157]

​@@jean-lucgenereau4617 Do we really? First, that depends on which Troy Archeological site we are talking about I think. Second, it's also not clear whether they are city walls or citadel walls for some archaeologist. Hate to refer Wikipedia but I don't have any source under my belt at the moment so "The second run of excavations, under Korfmann, revealed that the walls of the first run were not the entire suite of walls for the city, and only partially represent the citadel." and "..five meters thick and at least eight meters high - and over that a mudbrick superstructure several meters high...," which totals to about 15 metres (49 ft) for the citadel walls at about the time of the Trojan War." Which talks about the Citadel walls - not the surrounding city walls. And that makes you think if the Citadel/main location was 15 meters high, what was the height of city walls. I know Invicta supports his videos with evidence, that's why It would be better to have a video about fortifications and walls in antiquity and medieval ages.

[@tegrin853]

It was so obvious, Obi-Wan had told us all along. The towers were there to achieve HIGH GROUND.

[@GeorgeEstregan828]

All those siege weapons are nothing compared to a giant wooden horse. Hehe

[@randomperson4198]

The trojan hipity hopity the castle is my property

[@alexandreboureau6175]

Actually, I read an interesting theory that the trojan horse was only a battering ram, but the pop culture of the time (the poems were written after the Greek "Dark age" ) turned it into a giant subterfuge.

[@PA1606X]

@@alexandreboureau6175 I have read that as well, there is also a theory that it was an earthquake as the horse was sacred to Poisodon who was god of earthquakes as well as the sea.

[@IAsimov]

While Siege Towers in AoE II: DE are glorified ladders as you mention, I find it ironic how the strategy of a tower rush in multiplayer is closer to the historical use of actual siege towers in history. They're big things that need to be build quickly on the spot to suppress a position or break down a fortress, and given their cost, it can be a risky strategy.

[@vp3236]

Damn, so talented those guys who were in every battle taking good quality pictures with their nokias 👌

[@papst7377]

And the battery is still half full

[@Mihalkoff]

Didn`t expect clickbate on this channel (( First you say that towers "in most modern media is COMPLETELY a-historic", then you say that they were NOT ONLY FOR deploying soldiers, MOSTLY for some other perposes, and pictures that you show are not THAT different from modern understanding. And yeah - guys from first crusade would have much to say about this video.

[@scintillam_dei]

At least they don't put sexual innuendos in preview pictures like some youtubers greedy for profit.

[@CarrotConsumer]

@@scintillam_dei I would be impressed if he made that work in a video about siege towers.

[@jonathoncreech3186]

Are siege towers in movies realistic? Not in the slightest Does it look cool, though? You bet your ass it does

[@Knoloaify]

Dunno, I think a scene showing people shooting ballistas, scorpions and other siege weaponry from a tower overlooking the walls and filled with archers would be absolutely insane. I can already see the scene where they hurriedly load their weapons, then open the trapdoors and shoot at the people on the wall in one murderous volley as they try to take cover behind the crenellations as the soldiers on top of the tower use that opportunity to pick them off with bows and throwing weapons. Hell, you could even have a badass scene where the plucky heroes sally out of the castle in order to take down the tower, and you get to watch them fighting desperately as they ascend the siege tower.

[@artoruvidal2793]

They're kinda realistic for medieval warfare

[@Sofus.]

Would also like to hear about siege castles. Where entire castles, were created for the purpose of besieging another castle. A good example is Trutz Eltz, which was erected for the siege of the famous castles Eltz.

[@mullerpotgieter]

That is fucking awesome. People erect raid bases in Rust to spawn from and rearm while sieging proper bases. History repeats itself I guess

[@richi7494]

@@mullerpotgieter Back then when rust was about killing Zombies

[@mullerpotgieter]

@@richi7494 Rust had zombies? Base sieging is still done on pvp servers

[@richi7494]

@@mullerpotgieter sure in his early days, Rust was quite a different game, before it got zombiebears and was finally changed into the Rust we know today (give or take a few changes later)

[@mullerpotgieter]

@@richi7494 Neat. Good thing they went in their own direction

[@pyronite59]

“If ye shall not honorably meet upon the field of battlement, then I shall build weapons of siege, to lay the battle upon thee.”

[@temujinkhagan5308]

Mongols-“having never used cities” Also mongols-*ravages cities without towers or ladders*

[@tyyu1166]

Actually they learned to use towers and ladders from the Chinese engineers

[@sosig6445]

@@tyyu1166 they also use trebuchets

[@W1se0ldg33zer]

The Mongols didn't attack Baghdad at first. They spent a day or two building a wall around the city walls, piled up mounds of bricks and rubble and set their siege machines on top of the piles behind their wall. That's how skilled they were with siege warfare -- could build an entire wall around a large city in a couple of days.

[@temujinkhagan5308]

@@sosig6445 nah only catapults and The first gunpowder weapon

[@temujinkhagan5308]

@@W1se0ldg33zer they have a thing called mongol discipline, if one fails, the whole team does, teamwork makes the dream work forcefully

[@Nodnarbero]

0 views? How outrageous!

[@JetConvoy]

I feel like some channels like this get so caught up in correcting “misconceptions” or movies that they lose sight of what they’re teaching. I mean most movies are depicting medieval sieges, they most assuredly did NOT use siege towers to batter down castle walls, that’s ridiculous. You must be talking about antiquity. And it seems to me what you’re saying siege towers aren’t used for is exactly what they were used for, seems like it’s only a question of scale/amount of siege towers used. Good video otherwise.

[@georgem7965]

Probably the biggest problem with a movable siege tower is moving the bloody thing. Often, the ground is rough or muddy or uphill to the point where you can't move it. Any motive power, people or animals, have to be sheltered from projectile fire of the besieged. So, only X amount of motive force can be exerted which is often less than is needed. Also, unless you are conducting a siege in a wooded area (N. Europe) where are you going to get enough wood to build it? All in all, only occasionally is a siege tower practical or effective.

[@seanbrown207]

"breach rather than bridge" and the video ironically ends by stating that siege towers were sometimes used to get troops over the top of walls with bridges by the early-mid Medieval period in European warfare.

[@Nickname-hier-einfuegen]

For a relatively short period of time, compared to the overall history of siege towers. And even then only a small amount of troops would go on the wall via the tower. Most would still use ladders. A siege tower mass assault never happened and even a singular siege tower deploying troops over the wall is a tiny footnote, an exception, not the rule.

[@ivanlagrossemoule]

@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen Yes but people have to be pedantic. It doesn't matter that the general idea of the video is correct and that filmmakers love their siege towers a bit too much, this video sort of contradicted itself.

[@seanbrown207]

@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen Agreed. I understand the video's argument. The argument of the video was just not very well-worded and worded in a self-contradictory way. Applying more nuance, logical precision, and verbal judo with its words would have made the video less convoluted and reinforced its factual content. As a matter of fact, yes, siege towers were *mostly* used as support throughout history. That wasn't, however, their only use by the end of their existence.

[@seanbrown207]

@@ivanlagrossemoule That's my basic implication with my comment. The video was basically correct in what it tried to communicate. It just said it in a self-contradictory way (which makes for a poorly constructed argument).

[@seneca983]

@@gomahklawm4446 "Comparing antiquity and the medieval period is dumb." Why is it dumb? Isn't it interesting to compare the periods and see how they differed (in siege towers and other things)?

[@robbleeker4777]

People just need to remember that Siege Towers had to be build locally, with resources that were locally available. I am pretty sure that one Siege Tower would take a tremendous effort to build (time and resourcing the timber), so yes....It would be hard to imagine (for me) that an attacking force would go to lengths of building more than one, or even two, Siege Towers.

[@matteoaievola8643]

Can you destroy the siege towers with catapults and Ballistas?

[@macedonianfighter6987]

With larger than usual catapults,yes. With balistas,unless you use modified flamable bolts,probably not

[@matteoaievola8643]

@@macedonianfighter6987, and if the Ballista shot at the wheels or other weak spots? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[@redclayscholar620]

Go with a trebuchet over a catapult. The English War Wolf at the seige of Stirling Castle comes to mind.

[@yuenhai]

I thought the main purpose of a siege tower is to give the attackers a higher vantage point from which they could rain projectiles down on the defenders, thereby clearing the defenders from one section of the wall, allowing their own ground troops to move in on that section of the wall relatively unmolested and start breaching and scaling operations

[@theworld6710]

I really love these videos and your tactics videos. You should do something about how the bad guys could have won large battles. Like how the White Walkers could have won against your proposed battle plan or how the traitors could have won Shiganshina in Attack On Titan.

[@zidanetribal2343]

Awesome, whenever I used Assyria in Civilization 5 their Siege Tower is a beast! Taking capital one at a time until someone build a counter unit, but usually it works for a couple of turns!

[@alex_zetsu]

Seems like pop culture is closer than the video title implies. Just remove some siege towers, stuff a scorpia on them, and have only 1/3 of them make the attempt to bridge the walls and you've got a plausible Roman assault. Heck, in many video games, Scorpia _were_ on them. It was even a cut feature of Total War Rome II (the AI's melee troops would just sit on the walls and die or just abandon the walls, which would throw a wrench into game balance)

[@Ackalan]

In RTW 1, this was a feature if the city you sieged had Epic Walls, the tower had limited arrows though but could cause havoc among the defenders if not deployed straight away.

[@joelhall3820]

You would have to build each tower to match each section of the wall exactly. Fluctuation in terrain could mean your tower would be too tall or too short to effectively deploy a bridge. That fact alone is a deterrence to building mass numbers of them as troop elevators. Much better to just build one taller than the walls and stuff it with artillery

[@MajoraZ]

Something interesting not many people know about is the Mesoamericans may have had siege towers: There's a mural in the Maya city of Chichen Itza (linked below) which some researchers have interpreted as being a Siege Tower. Beyond the possibility itself being neat, it's also interesting because traditional sieges aren't something you see that often in Mesoamerican warfare. Mesoamerican civilizations had almost unprecedented logistical constraints on them due to not having draft animals and beasts of burden to aid in transportation and manual labor, as well as being in an often extreme tropical climate: Long distance military campaigns were limited by the fact that armies relied on porters to carry supplies and equipment, who, unlike mules or other draft animals, could not simply graze and therefore had to also carry their own supplies, raising logistical costs and putting an almost hard limit on the time an army could be out on a campaign before returning home or to an allied city to rest and restock. Furthermore, many parts of Mesoamerica had to have seasonal campaigns due to the climate: Central Mesoamerican civilizations like the Aztec (and perhaps West Mexican civilizations or those to the east like the Maya, though I am unsure of this) had to do their campaigns in the winter, and be back in the summer to work farms, being yet another reason why long campaigns and sieges weren't really much of a thing. As a result, permanent fortifications and walls really aren't that common in Mesoamerica either. You occasionally see palisades , usually built for the occasion, and we have accounts of breeching such defensives in Aztec chronciles and annals, but they're the exception, not the norm... ...however, where you see them the most is with the Maya, especially (though not exclusively, recent research shows they were more widespread earlier on in Maya history then previously thought) towards the end of the Classical Period, where you saw an increase in militarization and total warfare with cities being razed and sacked (though, again, recent research shows this happened earlier too). Chichen Itza was in the Northern Maya area, outside of the areas in the Central and Southern Yucatan Penisula where the majority of the instability and impacts of the Classical Maya Collapse mostly occurred in, but it first became a major political and population center in that time period and into the early Postclassic. So if that mural were to show a siege tower, the time period (though somewhat less so the geography) would make sense. Of course, it could also be something else, there's not a ton of literature on the mural, it seems. Color image of the mural: external-preview.redd.it/3n_ucW_b5dbxAmn19u5OpiSih-yqhQhTa7jHiTW9_sE.jpg?auto=webp&s=99a138a767bf1dc3efb08900756a90cb1ae6c18e

[@GeorgeMonet]

Most medieval armies had the exact same constraints. Just because draft animals existed does not mean that armies relied on draft animals to move supplies for the entire army. Often the soldiers themselves had to provide and transport their own supplies. And many medieval soldiers were also farmers who had to be back on their farms.

[@kingjimmycraftofcalderonia2017]

As a Rome Total War player, so true about the part with the few siege towers. I normally build 2-4 siege towers since that normally take around 1-2 turns. I don’t like to waste too much time waiting for building sieges during a siege, so I limit myself with 1-2 turns just so I could build as I needed while trying to advance towards the settlement. Great video!

[@thescholarlychronicler1805]

I did always find the depictions in books of poliorcetics engines fascinating looking, and a little weird with the weapons in them. Being suppression, and wall destroyer platforms, that at least makes the Alliance Siege Towers in World of Warcraft realistic then, particularly in the trailer for Battle for Azeroth.

[@jasonpratt5126]

As I recall, the siege tower from which the Rhodes Colossus was eventually built, followed suit: despite being super tall and easily able to throw a bridge over the wall, its main purpose was to bash a hole in the wall with a massive sharp battering ram.

[@Szycha8412]

In "Kingdom of haven" there was not only a lot of siege towers but also "fast shooting catapults" that was able to shoot hundreds of fire-exploding balls :)

[@mostafamohy8494]

and they were unstable to the degree of using a ballista to tip four of them over

[@BigWillyG1000]

Flaming missiles would have some accuracy. This is the Mideast and they did use what they called naptha or we'd call petroleum in weapons as an incendiary. Thing is impact would be more like a Molotov cocktail.

[@lolmanmagee2785]

so they where more like early tanks rather than troop bridges? cool

[@terraflow__bryanburdo4547]

A Churchill Crocodile would be handy for sure.

[@TheLacedaemonian300]

Great video! If Olive Stone put all of his effort into only telling the story of the Siege of Tyre, Alexander would have been a better movie IMHO. A series on the Roman - Jewish Wars are long overdue. What an amazing story that is, and so few people outside of historians and history lovers even know about it. Same goes for Masada, it could be included in said hypothetical series. This channel has great videos on the topics in case anyone was wondering.

[@Egalia_1]

I always knew that the depiction of siege towers in media was incorrect, but I didn’t know *why.* Thank you for finally answering that question

[@scintillam_dei]

What they should do a video on is how absurd it is for people to depict the original Italians as looking the same racially as the barbarians of the north whom the Romans and Greeks remarked at for being so different (red-haired, yellow-haired, taller, blue-eyed, green-eyed).

[@chainmbl4257]

kingdom of heaven was basically brave heart level historically inaccurate

[@yanchoho]

Still a badass movie tho

[@chainmbl4257]

@@yanchoho yes I agree the visuals were great along with some actors portraying some characters but historically wise it's not so great

[@scintillam_dei]

@@yanchoho Thank God in Spanish the term babass doesn't exist. English is so.... messed up.

[@thedoruk6324]

Invicta calmly *roasts* historical human development as well as the entire Saurons Leagues from the Lotr or middle earth

[@houndofculann1793]

Then again, Sauron's army using the towers as they do kind of makes sense since he's not going to run out of troops. So several giant, hard to get rid of access bridges to the walls makes it easier to overwhelm the defenders with numbers

[@paulusillyriusiudathaddaio2530]

Just realise that the ram was giant wolf's head. Grond crawled on. Almost forgot to say that it was empowerd by dark magic spells casted by undead-wraith-witch-king to cause even more damage. Taking note of all of that, tens siege towers aren't as crazy as you would think. Grond crawled on.

[@Watcher-in-the-Dark]

Fantasy can get away with it much easier because the increased resources, troops and maybe even mystical elements are far more likely to aid in the construction and use of siege engines. When you have a endless pool of men to use like in the case of LOTR, especially having massive trolls and the like. Making large siege engines becomes easy.

[@Sorain1]

@@Watcher-in-the-Dark That's one of the more intresting things to consider in fantasy warfare. Sure, Trolls make hauling a massive tower (or set their of) more practical... but stone to mud spells make such seige engines death traps. (Assuming the defender wards their walls deep enough it's not practical to just undermine them.) There's always so many interesting implications to fictional settings worth considering. Actually one of the better books on the subject was the D&D 3.5 book 'Heroes of Battle', because it had to consider such a broad swath of generalized fanatasy elements and really did go into 'historical warfare of comperable technology was like X. Here is how/why fantasy element Y changes that.' Giants throwing boulders are far more mobile then trebuchets for example, and the ultimate nightmare of castle builders is a teleporting strike squad appearing in your gate room made up of hired adventurers. (Considering that even a low level D&D fighter is a threat to professional soldiers by the score, you can picture the problem of dislodging a few from your own gate room before they open it.)

[@Watcher-in-the-Dark]

@@Sorain1 Exactly, the difference in fantasy to historical is beyond insane. Even the most minor things in combat are completely different when it involves monsters and magic. The way you approach warfare is the most different. In terms of LOTR magic was pretty rare however. It was never really used in warfare on a grand scale, it was incredibly situational. Like having Gandalf at the siege really made no major difference besides his presence itself maybe. So in LOTR it was a perfect blend of historical warfare with fantasy monsters. Humans struggles against them and almost would always lose without some sort of external aid. Mass armies of Orcs and Uruk with Troll support and having almost endless manpower to use to make siege engines makes them virtually unbeatable traditionally.

[@TurtleChad1]

Approved by a turtle

[@cegesh1459]

Yay! Our true hero. Your search for knowledge is a real inspiration.

[@rubz1390]

Doesn't seem like a big difference to me. Pop culture - 10 towers, reality - 1 bigass tower. Ofcourse you can't show the tower being pushed over the course of days in a movie, no-one would watch that.

[@neurofiedyamato8763]

a whole row of towers vs 1 tower seems like a huge difference to me. Pop culture also like to send in the towers like they charge infantry. Support means staying back and launching arrows.

[@soidz4569]

Learning more about these beasts of war, I now *need* to know this: how did they move them? These are not machines that could be easily moved around like you see in media. I would love to learn the oddities that came with such an effort.

[@paulusillyriusiudathaddaio2530]

Same here, it would be great to be able to be on some kind of "spectator mode" and just take notes of all such things

[@russiannavy1108]

They should all be built on site

[@justasingledoor5178]

Moved by oxen, or pushed by the men if conditions are favorable. They had wheels, y’know.

[@nihaxwehraweeb5550]

@@justasingledoor5178 now I'm just imagining a seige tower rolling downhill and the engineers chasing after it

[@Sorain1]

Enough coordinated muscle power and the simple force multiplier of wheels/rollers can do wonders friend.

[@iainlovejoy2135]

In the medieval examples they do seem to have been used as bridges, he difference to the movie version being that they were used at a distance to clear the battlements first rather than immediately being shoved against the walls.

[@whiskeysour1179]

"Evolutionary arms race" Because "arms race" isn't redundant, so we have to make it redundant.

[@Rynewulf]

Arms race simply implies a race to gather weapons: evolutionary arms race implies a race to gather *new* weapons. Not redundant at all, you can have an arms race of who can get more spears, and an evolutionary one of turning those spears into pikes or lances

[@whiskeysour1179]

@@Rynewulf arms race /ˈärmz ˌrās/ noun a competition between nations for superiority in the development and accumulation of weapons, especially between the US and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. "an escalation of the arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact"

[@TheOpalHammer]

@@Rynewulf evolutionary arms race was first used to refer to biological evolution as a way of simply explaining natural selection.

[@-Zevin-]

I love your videos so I hope you take this as constructive criticism. There is a serious problem of "historical" videos neglecting east Asia as if it didn't exist at all, at at least painting the picture in peoples minds they were technologically primitive and not worth mentioning, which couldn't be further from the truth. Let's just take China for example From -Liang, Jieming (2006), , Singapore, Republic of Singapore: Leong Kit Meng "Mobile siege towers have been used in China since the 6th century BC. They were often called overlook carts, assault carts, or some combination of the two. A typical mobile siege tower was five stories tall mounted on axles with two wheels on each side. The tower was pushed forward by men on the lowest story or pulled by horses and oxen. The king of Wu mentioned it in a passage comparing land armies to the navy. These days in training we use the (same) tactics of land armies for the best effect. Thus big wing ships correspond to the army's heavy chariots, small wing ships to their light chariots, stomach strikers to battering rams, castled ships to mobile assault towers and bridge ships to the light cavalry. - King of Wu (514 - 496 BC)" The Chinese also used observation towers or cranes, not exactly a typical siege tower but more like a crane or tower that raised a general high above the battle field to examine the terrain, troops and strategize. A different but interesting use of a tower.

[@HistoryOfRevolutions]

Fun fact: The Chinese Philospher Mozi ( 墨翟 ) was a specialist in defensive warfare. His criteria of just war was so stringent as to permit only defensive war, rendering offensive, punitive war nearly impossible to justify.

[@aronlisy6108]

"As advanced technologies like trebuchetes and gunpowder made their way into medival arsenal. This provided more efficient way to take fortification than building massive siege tower." And how would that exactly worked? Use of siege artilery is in my opinion way more distorted than use of siege towers. You don't simply destroy walls with trebuchetes and guns. They were mainly used to suppress, distract and deplete morale. Even if you make hole into wall, which is really hard, you just cannot simply walk into the city or castle like in Age of Empires. :D There would be large pile of stones almost imposible to climb, while still archers firing onto your head. And by the way destroy the walls with guns and trebuchetes is almost impossible since they are not very accurate and takes so long time to load.

[@MrMattzerofire]

Its not an "evolutionary arms race" its just an arms race.

[@Rynewulf]

Arms race simply implies a race to gather weapons: evolutionary arms race implies a race to gather *new* weapons. Not redundant at all, you can have an arms race of who can get more spears, and an evolutionary one of turning those spears into pikes or lances

[@samcroswell2386]

If you are correcting someone's language at least make sure you know what you are talking about.

[@mjameshenry]

In this very video you provide several examples of siege towers being used as bridging platforms for directly assaulting walls. So why are you so upset when popular culture depicts siege towers being used as bridging platforms for directly assaulting walls? Even if direct assaults from siege towers were rare, it is absolutely correct for movies and games to imply that they did happen. Also, you can't really fault works of entertainment for wanting to showcase the most dramatic aspects of medieval warfare. The audience is there for the drama. There are definitely ways in which movies and games get it wrong, but your criticism needs to be more nuanced. When you imply that movies and games are completely wrong (in your final analysis you said they did 0 out of 3 things correctly), you undercut your own credibility.

[@tabletopgeneralsde310]

Sounds good to me, very good points. Thanks for the video.

[@JimIBobIJones]

Apologies in advance for the wall of text and the critical post but what a load of bull! Quite a few primary sources (in the form of medieval art) suggests that at least for the medieval period, modern media has got it pretty close to how they were used. Interesting that you should mention the siege of Jerusalem, as contemporary depictions of that siege show the towers being used exactly in the way you suggest they weren't used - i.e. to send troops over the walls and battlements. These depictions remain consistent well into the high medieval period. The crusader army of the first crusade by the time of the siege were also desperately short of supplies and exceptionally badly resourced for a medieval army. This is something that all primary sources agree on - in fact, the Fulk of Charters expressly refers to the shortage of wood for siege engines. Muslim sources also suggest that the siege towers were the only siege engines utilised by the Crusaders in the siege. Their choice to go with siege towers over other engines given their limited resources actually provides evidence against your thesis. More damning to your argument is the account of Ibn al-Qalanisi, which confirms that the siege tower was used to transport troops onto the walls of Jerusalem: "having set up the tower against the city they brought it forward to the wall ... [the Crusaders] climbed up the tower, and gained a footing on the city wall" By the 13th Century, siege towers used to transport men - "wheeled belfries" - became common in European siege craft. These were a distinct and separate form of "siege tower" from those used to house other siege engines. Sources on the Cathar Crusades refer to both types being used in sieges. The argument that medieval armies lacked the capacity of the Romans to deploy significant siege craft also lacks merit. Again using the siege of Jerusalem as an example the Egyptians, a more organized force with better supply lines and logistics, utilised 40 siege engines when besieging the city only 3 years prior to the crusader siege. Many European armies were also known to make extensive use of siege engines, a good example being Edward Longshanks who was famous for his large collection of siege craft - the jewel of which was the terrifying "Warwolf". What the sources actually suggest that there were many types of siege engines that could be referred to as "siege towers" that were utilised in different ways throughout history - including how they are commonly depicted in modern media. The fact that some were used in the way you describe does not mean that others weren't also used to transport troops up to walls and battlements. As with the medieval period, your depiction of the classical period also cherry-picks sources and neglects those that do not conform with your argument. Arguably the best primary source for classical siegecraft (poliorcetica, the collection of classic texts of siegecraft) state that whilst siege towers were indeed more of a "last resort", their depiction conforms with the modern depiction of transporting troops onto the walls.

[@Fenniks-]

Demetrios Poliorketes is our guy for this subject

[@dingbum8618]

Yes. And by the way... He only became king of Macedon 10 years after the siege of Rhodes. So calling him Demetrios of Macedon was slightly out of place here. Unsubscribed.

[@QuantumHistorian]

Sorry, what are the difference again between siege towers in popular media and in history? I didn't quite get it from the 6 times you repeated it in 11 minutes. Can you include more repetition next time, rather than interesting examples like one of Caesar's siege where the Romans and the Gauls had a siege tower / counter tower building race?

[@captainprototype755]

AwwwwYiiiiiiis

[@-Raylight]

_One does not simply use siege towers to walk to the sieged castle_ Just build another wall behind the wall, crisis solved. Trust me I played AoE2 xD

[@danielkjm]

*But When does Pop Culture get history right? Never*

[@mondoseguendo6113]

Wait! What? 😮

[@magebro01]

First castle game I played was Stronghold. You can just keep firing diseased cows over the wall to kill everyone

[@Doping1234]

We need Lindybeige for a more emotional version of this video!

[@KageRyuu6]

As others have pointed out, your third point is not as solid as you hope it to be, as the overwhelming majority of modern depictions of siege towers only really cover the late medieval era when battering down walls was all but impossible, at least with a battering ram. Not to mention you cite far more sources where boarding bridges were used than tower rams.

[@fsdds1488]

As in East Asia, the siege towers usually serve as observation posts to track enemy movements and locate weakspots as well as providing platform for artillery observers, and are relatively small and mobile due to their observation role, actual wall breaching were carried out by either mining or heavy siege artillery.

[@seneca983]

Though I've heard that at least some of the battering rams on the early siege towers were upward-pointing and with a chisel-like head. Apparently, the idea was to just knock stones off the parapet for better access rather than to knock down the whole wall. Also, even a collapsed wall can still be a major obstacle so the tower might be needed to cross it.

[@damuvang1915]

All this time the siege towers were all wrong in the total war games. 😧

[@assurnasirpaliii6827]

And in some of them they were notoriously prone to glitching out on the walls too.

[@jamesharding3459]

Why use a tower to storm a wall when you can batter/undermine/blast it into un-existence? *This post made by the military engineers*

[@wongo1665]

These aren't "evolutionary" arms races, they're just regular arms races.

[@IAmBael]

When it comes to teaching, it's generally a good idea to approach a subject like a research project you're taking on together with the students (or viewers in this case), rather than directly attacking their beliefs from the get-go. In this video, you clearly state that the misconceptions in pop culture have been bugging you, and that this is you getting it off your chest, which comes across quite clearly as a bit of a rant. Seeing as these are misconeptions we've all been fed as the truth for our whole lives, it forces an involuntary defensive reaction, and I myself clicked this video with a sigh. I'd like to recommend a more humble approach to this type of video, posing it more like a question to be tackled, like "are siege towers accurately depicted?". This would allow viewers to question it along with you, rather than feeling like we're being told that we're wrong. I especially feel like this was worth pointing out since the differences shown between reality and fiction seem nitpicky at best. "Only one or a few towers were used at once" honestly feels like a given. It's not like we actually believe that sieges looked like Minas Tirith, or that they were over after 20 minutes of screen time. It just makes things more epic. Who wants to watch 20.000 guys sit around and wait for food to run out? Same goes for "they were first used in a support role". If the movie was 12 hours long, they'd have time to slowly move the tower closer whilst firing armaments from it, they just sort of skip ahead by just pushing it up to the wall. And then the last point, alright, so they typically had a battering ram too at the bottom. But that doesn't even look to be case in some of the historical images shown, so it's not exactly wrong per say that they allowed troops to get onto the walls then? Now I feel better having gotten that off of my chest. 😂

[@ferdinandv.c.2722]

Last time I was this early rome was still the capital

[@Lark88]

It seems like since ancient times, the side that can poke the most holes in something wins.

[@masterbuilder0018]

Ah yes LotR requires historical accuracy.

[@johnhammond4214]

Excellent video, too many people believe what they see from Hollywood

[@bryanm498]

In a fantasy setting, the exaggerated use of siege towers is even more bizarre. For most of the authors either do not have enough knowledge to write battles, or they need "plot armor" in order not to kill their protagonists and villains in three seconds of battle.

[@jlvfr]

Most fantasy writers take massive liberties with battle tactics and equipment. It gets to a point where it's just ridiculous (Game of Thrones...)

[@martiansoldier]

The idea of using towers as ramps to the walls must have been considered in ancient times, I assume it was often rejected because once on the wall attackers would fight defenders at a 1:1 ratio on the narrow walls, compared to an actual breach if taken and exploited and thus not employ their numerical superiority. Being only slightly better than ladders at getting troops onto a wall in that sense, yet much more expensive and also giving warning of the point of your attack and with the possibility that defenders would simply close off that section of wall if towered leaving the attackers stuck in an open killing ground it all seems reasonable that a breach was preferable. So why does it become more popular in later times before the treb and gunpowder when defences? Is it because like besiegers, defenders were less numerous and thus any foothold a serious problem to counter? Was it the bravado of soldiers, giving less care to concern for welfare? Or because the quality of attackers was often in such excess that 1:1 odds was still favourable to them? Or because defences where so refined as an art that ladders had become more costly in lives and less employable or successful? Or maybe because of a lack of engineering experties at the time compared to the ancient civilisations meaning less other possible options on the table? Thanks

[@cmLMolde]

Question: Were the "wrong" view of siege towers used to a greater extent in China?

[@1001HELL]

I will do nothing good with this information. I didn't say I wouldn't use it... Just nothing good.

[@daviddavis4885]

At 2:48, does that map really say “Ekallatum?” with a question mark next to it 😂 (I have no idea why I find this so funny)

[@dominicguye8058]

Scholars don't know exactly where it was.

[@WillySalami]

Ngl now my idea of Siege Towers is even cooler

[@Roadrun98]

Funny how you could completely negate an attack by seige towers by building a trench around the fort...

[@Sebastian_Gecko]

Funny how you could completely negate the defense of a trench by filling it in...

[@danblack7609]

Hey Invicta, I love your videos. I’m trying to make a late Romano-Brit/early Anglo Saxon kit and would love if you did a video on the time period. And if anyone in the comments knows when plumbata were last used in Britain it would be great!

[@lisaruhm6681]

hmm, so simplified siege towers were the predecessor of tanks?

[@mitchellhayward6492]

When I first started playing strategy games, I hadn't seen a lot of movies depicting sieges, so I just used siege towers as a mobile platform for archers and crossbowmen to cover troops on the ground. I would even bring them very close to the walls of enemy fortifications to clear out enemies on the battlements before sending troops in. It didn't even occur to me that siege towers could literally deploy a bridge to get troops over the walls - and even when I did figure it out, it felt like a less effective strategy. At least depending on the options I had to actually storm the castle.