How could the Nazgul take Minas Morgul?

[CaptainofDespair]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I’ve also had another thought. Earlier CaptainofDespair mentioned that the Witch-king would be in the mood for a violent and quick victory. His later behavior at Minas Tirith gives some indication of what he liked to do in war. Yet this is exactly the sort of thing that did not happen. It was a loooong drawn out process.

But we must remember, at Minas Tirith the Wiki had essentially all of Sauron's power at his finger-tips. Since Sauron is still rebuilding out of Dol-Guldur (if my memory is correct), it makes sense that the Lord of the Nine would not have such powerful resources at his command. While he would love to just break the gate and kill everything inside as he had done at Fornost, he did not have the siege machinery capable of crushing such fortifications quickly, hence the siege.

I would also like to bring up a semi-new point against the idea of a haunting/guerilla campaign: that guerilla warfare does not win wars, or even sieges, by itself. We see this throughout history, from Napoleon in Iberia to Vietnam. Guerilla forces are guerillas because they do not have resources or manpower to deal with a larger threat. While they may control the countryside (as with Vietnam) through terror, it cannot be used to take cities (there are exceptions I suppose, but even then the besiegers are aided by more conventional means).

With Vietnam, Saigon did not fall until the US left, which allowed the conventional North Vietnamese army to march in unopposed. With Napoleon, his forces held numerous cities, while the Spanish and British pestered the French in the countryside, moving from hot spot to hot spot. Eventually, more conventional British and Spanish troops were deployed to reconquer Iberia. While the guerillas played a major role, they cannot lay siege without conventional assistance.

If the Nazgul and a small force were using guerilla warfare, at some point a larger conventional army would have to be used to actually take Minas Ithil.

And while I do not outright dismiss the potential for guerilla tactics to be used in some way in conjunction with conventional means, I do not think using it as the reasoning for Tolkien's use of 'siege' is correct.

When do we actually see the forces of the Enemy using such tactics in instances of warfare that are more than just skirmishing? And what types usually do this? The Haradrim would seem to be most in-line with this tactic, while Easterlings and Orcs seem to be more of the backbone infantry types of a traditional army. I cannot see the Nazgul being able to deploy these troops, especially in a desolate land such as Mordor, in such a fashion. It seems to go against the very way the Enemy fights in every other major confrontation.