One Thing That I Think Tolkien Did Wrong and Jackson Did Right

[TheAzn]

At first, I thought that the Movie Section would fit this topic better, but most of the information that I used came more from the book. This is my first post here and I apologize if I do anything wrong.

When I was reading the Return of the King, there was always one part that bothered me the most about the Siege of Gondor.

Siege of Gondor

Busy as ants hurrying Orcs were digging, digging lines of deep trenches in a huge ring, just out of bowshot from the walls; and as the trenches were made each was filled with fire, though how it was kindled or fed, by art or devilry, none could see. All day the labour went forward, while the men of Minas Tirith looked on, unable to hinder it. And as each length of trench was completed, they could see great wains approaching; and soon yet more companies of the enemy were swift setting up, each behind the cover of a trench, great engines for the casting of missiles. There were none upon the City walls large enough to reach so far or to stay the work.

Now let’s look at the map below:



As you can see, the furthest distance from Minas Tirith to Rammas Echor would have been about 10 miles. So there is indeed probably enough space for the 40,000 Mordorians (conservative estimate) to dig in without putting themselves within range of the Gondorians. The problem begins to arise when Mondorians advanced to attack Minas Tirith.

Before I continue on please appreciate my beautiful drawing below. The drawing is based on my accurate estimates in physics.:




The Gondorians did not lack any “great engines”; Professor Tolkien merely stated that they did not have one large enough to reach the trenches. The “great engines” of the Mordorians being safe behind the trenches is not what I have problem with. What does not make sense is when the Mordorians began advancing with their engines to shoot heads and fire bombs into the White City itself without the Gondorians apparently retaliating.

When a small artillery fights against a bigger artillery at equal ground level, the small artillery would of course have smaller range.
But when the small artillery is placed 100 to 200 to 500 to 800 feet above the bigger artillery, the bigger artillery should have been outranged by a very wide margin. That is, unless the Gondorian artilleries were very crappy, which is very un- Gondorian and does not make sense at all.

This is the part where I think Peter Jackson might be more correct than Professor Tolkien. In the movie, the Gondorians kept on destroying the Mordorian artilleries until most of the Gondorian artilleries have been destroyed by the flying Nazguls. With the Gondorian artilleries being incapacitated, it made sense that Grond can then be moved forward.