Talk:Siege/Archive 1

Archive 1

Gallery?

In the image titled "Roman Siegecraft and Works" there's an object called a "Gallery". I can't find any information on this object. It's not mentioned on Wikipedia. While admittedly it's hard doing a search for "gallery" even specifying Roman or siege or any combination brings up too many pages of galleries of photos. So I asked ChatGPT and based on my description it suggested it might be a "galleria" or "gallerus" which sounded similar in description:

"This was a type of covered walkway that the Romans sometimes built as part of their siege works. The purpose of the Galleria was to protect Roman soldiers from enemy arrows and other projectiles while they approached the walls of a fortress or city. The Galleria was usually made of wood and was often supported by columns or posts. It could be built up to the walls of a fortress or city and used as a base" 

But then I asked if it had wheels:

"The Galleria, or covered walkway, was not typically on wheels. Instead, it was usually constructed as a stationary structure that could be moved forward or backward by the soldiers as they advanced or retreated from a besieged city or fortress. However, it's possible that some variations of the Galleria may have been designed to be movable"

I tried searching galleria and gallerus, which eliminates the common use of gallery problem, but still found no sources on it. So I told chatGPT there's nothing I can find on any of this and it replied:

"It's possible that the term "gallery" in the context of Roman siege engines may not be a common or widely used term. After conducting some further research, it seems that there is limited information available on a specific Roman siege engine referred to as a "gallery." The term "galleria" or "gallerus" is also not a common term used in the context of Roman siege engines."

While ChatGPT is known for "hallucinations" this doesn't seem to be one, usually when ChatGPT makes something up, if you call it out, it corrects itself, but chatgpt didn't back down it just admitted there doesn't seem to be much information on it. So anyone know anything more about this gallery, possibly galleria/gallerus?

Side note this reminds me that people didn't figure out "vomitorium" meant "exit" not "place to puke after engorging" until a few years ago, when people speak Latin fluently to this day. Or randomly I was reading about crawfish species yesterday and noted taxonomic documentation of a common species in Oregon and California hasn't been updated since 1959 according to a paper I was reading. Like, we really have some low hanging fruit for people who want to specialize and add to the public knowledge of science, history, language, etc. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/purging-the-myth-of-the-vomitorium/

J1DW (talk) 00:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Koenigstein

Castle in eastern germany, used as a prison, possibly never taken by seige? local tourist guides cant be trusted does anyone have a souce for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.108.200.89 (talk) 10:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Grammar

"It was not until the Napoleonic era when dynamic striking columns forced armies into the field and the ever increasing use of, ever more powerful, cannon reduced the value of fortifications." Is that a sentence? What are those commas doing there?

I've done my best to fix it. I can't find any mention of "dynamic striking columns" anywhere except in articles derived from this one, so I've removed that bit; it was making the sentence far too cumbersome.

There's a notation of Macedonian "stone throwers"; is this a reference to slingers (infantry with slings), or a form of siege weapon I've never heard of? Also, I deleted "hordes" in connection to Mongols; the term derives from ordu, the standard military unit--the Mongols were usually outnumbered.... Trekphiler 02:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Can anybody translate De Re aedificatoria? My Latin's too rusty...(On Fortification?) Trekphiler 03:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

Is 'seige' a legitimate alternate spelling for siege?

Sign your posts. No, it isn't. The word is spelled "siege". Anything else is incorrect. --Canonblack 20:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Force

I took the link to Force (law) off because it seemed to confuse the issue rather than to help understanding. The legal concept as written in Wikipedia so far has only limited relation to the military use of the word "force". Rossami 22:27 20 May 2003 (UTC)

I was thinking...

...that perhaps Siege warfare is a better title for this article? (article-to-be)✏ Sverdrup 19:45, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No - the guidelines say to use the most common, non-ambigious name. This name is both non-ambigious (uniquely identifying) and by far the most common. →Raul654 19:47, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

Berlin Blockade

Does the Berlin Blockade count as a siege? David Thrale 20:41, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No - a blockade is not a siege. →Raul654 20:41, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

(Although blockading is one element of a seige) →Raul654 20:42, Jun 27, 2004 (UTC)

raul654 is wrong, the berlin blockade can be called, and was a siege. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.100.78 (talk) 16:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Vietnam

"But just 14 years later, advances in air power allowed the United States to overcome the siege and defeat the Vietcong." I am very unsure about this - a specific battle is not mentioned, and as far as I know the US pulled out of vietnam. However I don't know enough of the details to edit this bit. Mat-C 01:45, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, a specific battle is mentioned - Khe Sahn. The Americans at Khe Sahn were victorious, while the French (in almost exactly the same circumstances 14 years earlier) were not. →Raul654 01:59, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

PS - I have now clarified this. →Raul654 02:00, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

List of sieges

I propose a pruning of the list of famous sieges, and putting the rest in List of Sieges. [[User:Sverdrup|✏ SverdrupSverdrup]] 22:24, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If the article hits the 32 kb mark, *maybe* then (depending on how much it exceeds it). Until then, I think we can safely leave those in. →Raul654 22:26, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

It's only that I don't like long lists in articles, it'd look better if we just listed 5 famous sieges. [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 20:16, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree - given the burgeoning length of the list, it would be better to create a separate list page with a link from here. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:56, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And I have moved them to List of sieges - feel free to complain here or in Talk:List of sieges. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:40, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea. Rich Farmbrough 23:53, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Siege warfare

I think the article as it reads may be misleading in its emphasis. If I understand correctly, the primary weapons of early seige warfare weren't things like battering rams, catapaults, or siege engines. Most early sieges were just waiting games, where the weapons were starvation, disease, and thirst. The besieging army had the option of retreat, and could draw on whatever local resources were available by pillaging. On the other hand, camp living made them vulnerable to disease. The defenders had shelter and usually a large stock of supplies. Whoever broke first lost. Can anyone confirm this impression? Isomorphic 05:35, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes - to quoth the article "Until the invention of gunpowder-based weapons (and the resulting higher-velocity projectiles), the balance of power and logistics definitely favored the defender." →Raul654 05:43, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

It was certainly true of the early modern period, and I have updated the article to make that important point explicit. I also thought it had been somewhat glossed over previously.

Peregrine981 23:20, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Anybody think the description of siege warfare on the trench warfare page should be deleted or moved here? It seems out of place there... Trekphiler 02:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I agee with Isomorhpics ideas about the article emphasizing the wrong thing. The characteristics of a siege are the static situation, attrition and negotiation (one of the most common outcomes of a siege is that the attacker takes the town or castle and the garrison is allowed to leave once a condition has been met, such as a breach in the walls or 40 days without relief). The way the article is written now, it misrepresents the typical siege. -Sensemaker

yes, it should be deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.100.78 (talk) 16:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Edits made by 172.182.159.228

I can't see what the edits made by 172.182.159.228 have to do with sieges. The term "virtual information siege" gives me 0 google hits, so it's not a very well spread term.. --Conti|✉ 14:37, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

They're irrelavant and unsupport - dulely removed. →Raul654 15:35, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

It is just unbelievable how something which is really creative can be removed based on "0 google hits". Start thinking into the future rather than solely describing what happend in the past will open new horizons. How can the term "virtual information siege" be discussed and pushed back by an individual with obviously no understanding anything of future conflicts and modern technology? Irrelevant? Not understood! Sorry.

Sorry, these ideas may well be good but Wikipedia has a no original research policy. As an encyclopedia, our job is to catalogue existing, widely accepted knowledge, not to spread new ideas. --Shibboleth 04:23, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sieges in the modern era

The end of this section seems a bit misleading; it gives the impression that the battle in Vietnam is the last real siege - however, it assumes that at least one combatant member in the modern era have access to sophisticated weaponry, especially heavy air power. For example, modern wars lacking heavy air power (in Afghanistan during the warlord era, the Balkans, Africa) definitely have battles that mimic siege-like characteristics.--Confuzion 08:11, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would have thought the Berlin blockade should be included, the siege of West Berlin by the Soviets. Zoney 11:13, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As I said on this talk page on June 27, the last time this question was asked (look up) - a blockade is by itself is not a seige. →Raul654 11:25, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

again, i claim that Raul654 is wrong and that the berlin blockade was a siege —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.100.78 (talk) 16:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Defenders agree to surrender when no relief comes in a certain time ?

I read that about a siege of the Stirling castle in the prelude of the Battle of Bannockburn in its wiki article. And it is also said there, that "similar agreements were a normal part of medieval war". I am no expert in this area. I just find it an interesting point that I don't see mentioned anywhere in the Siege article (though I may have missed it). I think that if it was really a common practice, it could be mentioned in the article. —Marvin ^talk 22:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes it was common see for example Siege of Harfleur --Philip Baird Shearer 20:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, this fact needs to be added. "Common practice" is perhaps to say to much, but some sort of agreement between besiegers and besieged was common. It's highly understandable if you think about it for a moment. An assault against a desperate enemy was something the besieger typically tried to avoid. He could expect heavy casualties from desperate resistance and could usually not expect to control his troops so well that a plunder and pillage can be avoided. A pillaged city or castle is worth a lot less than a reasonably intact one. Plunder will also weigh down your troops and may cause your troops to leave or desert ("hey -I've got some serious dole now, time to quit and go home while I'm ahead"). The besieged were of course not particularly interested in being assaulted and possibly plundered either. Therefore both parties had very good incentives to come up with some sort of an agreement. (So good that some kings like Charles XI of Sweden felt they needed to execute garrison commanders who they felt had given up too easily to save their own skin "pour encourager les autres".) They could both threaten with all-out assault or desperate "to the last man" defense to get a good agreement but usually, it did not come to that. Typical agreement were that the garrison were allowed to leave with their plunder and weapons once a certain condition had been met such as 40 days without relief or a breach in the walls. -Sensemaker

advent of mobile warfare

With the advent of mobile warfare, one single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was. While sieges do still occur, they are not as common as they once were due to changes in modes of battle, principally the ease by which huge volumes of destructive power can be directed onto a static target.

I would be most interested to see the source for this. A because is the siege of Leningrad modern or old? If modern then during the Second Word War there were hundreds of such sieges, so they are still common. If not modern then what modern armed forces have (without using nukes) 49,000 tubes of artillery to use in a siege which is the number of artillery tubes the Soviets employed at the start of the Battle of Berlin (to attack a city already bombed until the rubble bounced). To come slightly more up to date what about the urban warfare during the First Chechen War and the Battle for Grozny. Unless someone can cite a source for the above I think it should be removed. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it's well accepted that modern modes of mechanized transportation have changed the nature of warfare. The Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg was but the start of this type of warfare.

And nuclear weapons cannot be ignored as a major game-changer in siege warfare. Nuclear weapons are both highly mobile and extremely powerful, and there is essentially no defense against them except sheer mass. Certainly, no terrestrial material can withstand vaporization at the center of a nuclear explosion, which is why structures that need to be defended are now buried under many meters of earth.

Given the power and mobility of nuclear weapons, it should be mentioned that siege warfare is essentially obsolete, since no city or country can be adequately defended against unrestricted nuclear warfare. Only in cases of police action, either within a state, or "police action" as applied by a much more powerful state against a weaker one, where total destruction is not desired, does siege "warfare" still occur. I would argue that such a situation is not really warfare anymore, since the aggressor is clearly not under existential threat and is not willing to apply all-means-necessary to achieve control. The recent U.S. conquest of Iraq occurred faster than most people can be starved to death in a war of attrition, so it should be clear that siege warfare isn't even part of modern military strategy anymore. Only after major military action was complete and U.S. strategy switched from invasion to policing did siege situations such as Fallujah occur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.88.158.233 (talk) 11:26, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Recent sieges

I have added {{examplefarm}} "This section may contain poor or irrelevant examples." If the examples are relevant then wrap them up in text and explain what it is that they exemplify that has not been already described in the article. --PBS (talk) 10:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Alleged lack of sieges during the English Civil War

I removed a large part of the “mobile warfare” section because I considered it to be inaccurate.

• The main source was Daniel Defoe's "Memoirs of a Cavalier". Defoe was born between 1659 - 1661 and therefore was not alive during the English Civil War which ended 1651 (including the Third English Civil War)
• There have been a number of notable sieges during the English Civil War. Just a few examples:

Basing_House
Wallingford_Castle
Siege_of_Pembroke
etc.

Therefore, Defoe's "Memoirs of a Cavalier" appears to offer more a reminiscent, emotional rather than a factual account.

HagenUK (talk) 08:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I have put the text back. It is sourced from 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article on the English Civil War. And while there were sieges during the Civil War, the tended to be tactical sieges rather than strategic ones. the armies of the main protagonists did not tend to go from one major siege to another, instead they tended to meet in the field take for example the Battle of Turnham Green, Battle of Marston Moor, or the Battle of Worcester in both cases the defenders could have chosen to remain in or around towns, but instead they chose to come out and fight.

In neither the Preston campaign in the Second English Civil War, and the Worcester Campaign of the Third English Civil War did the English sit if fortifications and allow themselves to be besieged, but instead engaged the enemy in pitched battles as soon as they could catch up with the Scots.

There is one notable exception which was the Royalist strategy in Ireland in 1649 where the Royalist/Confederate alliance hoped to defeat the New Model Army with strategically garrisoned towns and fortresses, but Cromwell went through them with ease. He explained his understanding of the strategic situation in a letter to the Speaker:

The officers and soldiers of this Garrison [of Drogheda] were the flower of their Army. And their great expectation was, that our attempting this place would put fair to ruin us: they being confident of the resolution of their men, and the advantage of the place. If we had divided our force into two quarters to have besieged the North Town and the South Town, we could not have had such a correspondency between the two parts of our Army, but that they might have chosen to have brought their Army, and have fought with which part 'of ours' they pleased,—and at the same time have made a sally with 2,000 men upon us, and have left their walls manned; they having in the Town the number hereafter specified, but some say near 4,000. (Cromwell letter to William Lenthall (17 September 1649))

His tactic to counter them was to move fast breach and storm Drogheda within days of arriving, and then by killing all the garrison of terrorise minor garrisons, so that they would either abandon their forts or surrender to him.

Now it can be argued quite forcefully that most of the inland cities and castles in England were not modern fortifications (unlike some on the coast and Berwick on the Scottish English frontier), so they could not withstand long sieges -- it had after all been over 150 years since the end of the last major internal war in England and the fortifications were out of date. (In the case of Worcester at the start of the Civil War, if only the Parliamentarians had known it and called the Royalists bluff, they could have ridden into Worcester because the city gates were so rotten they could not be barred!) This is of course true, and may explain why the sides in the war did not rely more on fortifications. But whatever the reasons, the English Civil War was decided with pitched battles and not siege warfare. -- PBS (talk) 09:59, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

cost of building

"However, the cost of building such vast modern fortifications was incredibly high, and was often too much for individual cities to undertake."

Perhaps, for example the cost of fortifying Berwick upon Tweed was prohibitive, but London was able to build modern fortifications in two months with the use of 20,000 citizens, and then to demolish them again just five years later (see Lines of Communication (London)). So the sentence needs sourcing and qualifying. -- PBS (talk) 10:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

London is hardly a good example as it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. I doubt there were many other places that could have mobilised 20,000 people. However, the claim does need to be sourced. Nev1 (talk) 11:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Ballista

The Ballista in the sense of just the actual siege weapon was not used to hurl arrows, javelins, or darts. it hurled stone balls or boulders. the Scorpio was the one that shot arrows. STOP RUNNING THE WEAPONS TOGETHER PEOPLE PLEASE... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.100.78 (talk) 16:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Division of armies into all-arms corps

A section of the Ledo Road

I think there is a problem with this paragraph:

In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, new techniques stressed the division of armies into all-arms corps that would march separately and only come together on the battlefield. The less concentrated army could now live off the country and move more rapidly over a larger number of roads.

I think it needs to be rewritten to remove an bias and it needs to be sourced. It has some truth, but it also carries a lot of implied falsehoods. The first is that armies had always travelled as an amorphous lump. Yet this is not true see for example the advance made by William of Orange from Torbay to London in 1688 was along several lines with his army split into mutually supporting lines of advance (map by Nottingham University).

Marlborough also split his army and marched in separate columns a century before Bonaparte. See for example the Battle of Blenheim#Strategy:

Meanwhile, on 22 June, Marlborough's forces linked up with Baden's Imperial forces at Launsheim. A distance of 250 miles (400 km) had been covered in five weeks. Thanks to a carefully planned time-table, the effects of wear and tear had been kept to a minimum. Captain Parker described the march discipline – "As we marched through the country of our Allies, commissars were appointed to furnish us with all manner of necessaries for man and horse … the soldiers had nothing to do but pitch their tents, boil kettles and lie down to rest."

It is well know that this speed was achieved by using several different columns (see Page 765 The New Cambridge modern history, Volume 1 by J. S. Bromley).

But it is not just a factor of organisation it is also factors such as the level of development of the country side and the terrain. An army can not divide and follow two routes that allow for mutual support if there is is no second road and speed also depends on whether an army is advancing over the Polish plane or the Swiss Alps. To take a more modern example the building of the Ledo Road through the jungle in northern Burma was not a quick advance.

Without a doubt the developments of the Napoleonic wars were profound but they had more to do with the management of far more men than anything else. A Napoleonic division had as many or more men in it than Henry V's entire army at Agincourt. The use of corps level units gave a flexibility that had previously been unknown (eg see how Bonaparte used different combinations of corps (wings) in his Waterloo campaign), but I do not think that this is explained by the first paragraph, which implies this organisational change was responsible for a reduction in siege warfare. -- PBS (talk) 20:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

What qualifies as a siege?

I'm not an expert, but I wonder if the definition of siege has been diluted by giving too many examples. To me, one key aspect of the original definition was "Sieges involve surrounding the target." Several of the modern examples -- like Casino or Stalingrad -- seem to ignore that factor. In both those cases, resupply by the defending force was certainly made difficult by the attacking force's artillery or air power, but in neither case were the defenders ever cut off from reinforcement or resupply, were they? And in both cases they could have retreated instead of surrendering? I think the category of siege is being extended to "prolonged fighting in one location."

If there's any sense to that, then Khe Sahn raises an different definitional question. Dien Bien Phu was definitely a siege (perhaps one of the few modern examples strictly meeting the definition; Corregidor and Singapore might be others), because it couldn't be reinforced, resupplied, or retreated from. But since Khe Sahn was reinforced and resupplied (and could have been retreated from) by air, maybe it's an example of a non-siege due to surrounding the enemy in only TWO dimensions no longer being adequate.

I notice that neither Corregidor nor Singapore are mentioned here or in the List of sieges article. I wonder why not; they seem to be classic examples. The defenders were surrounded, could not be resupplied or reinforced, and could not manage a general retreat (though individuals, such as MacArthur, could evacuate).

On the other hand maybe I'm putting too much importance on being surrounded, and any prolonged fighting in one place IS a siege, even if both sides can reinforce and resupply, and could retreat. In that case, does the definition need work? Do we need another name (classic siege, true siege, total siege, isolating siege) for the "invested" type of siege? Gms3591 (talk) 09:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

We rely on definitions derived from the highest quality current works. In this case I'd suggest relying upon academic military scientists. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

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Request for help

I want to make a small edit, but can't figure out where the "Edit" button is for the introductory section. Small change is as follows: add the word "contemporary" to the sentence "Leonardo da Vinci gained as much of his contemporary renown from the design of fortifications as from his artwork." Reason: Leonardo's current reputation is as a polymath and an artist, not as a designer of fortifications per se. That reputation existed primarily during his lifetime, which the word "contemporary" clarifies. But, as I say, I've never been able to figure out where the heck the edit button is for introductory sections. It's location, if indeed it exists at all, defies any kind of logic.Theonemacduff (talk) 21:11, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Large Unsourced Sections

Large Sections within this article are unsourced. Not only are they unsourced, but they contain vital claims about Sieging and it's history, such as the Section on Gunpowder. While I don't doubt that most of this information is correct, it's likely some of it is not. I have marked several sections as Unsourced, but if they remain so, I would propose removing a large portion of their text. 192.77.12.11 (talk) 06:59, 5 September 2022 (UTC)