Misc > The Sage's Guild - Historical Discussion

Sieges with attackers having lesser men?

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Allegro:
I know it sounds stupid and you may ask "Then why would defenders hide behind walls if enemy had lesser men?" but history is vast and i wonder if this happened. So yes, does anyone know something like this?

Merentha:
I think the number that I've heard bandied about is 2:1 odds for a reasonable chance of success storming a well-defended castle, but I cannot recall where that number came from at all.

Offhand, no, I can't think of anything, sorry. 

Aethelred:
I don't know, but I can think of a few reasons why it probably didn't happen.

First of all, castles can't garrison as many men as can attack them. And like you said, normally you only retreat to the castle if you're outnumbered and outmatched. It's not pleasant to be besieged, you risk death from starvation and diseases and lots of other discomforts, so retreat to the castle if you knew it was going to be attacked wouldn't be an option if you thought you had a chance of winning an open battle - and if you don't think you have a chance, it's normally because you're totally outnumbered. And also, since you're talking about castle besieging, it would probably only occur if there was an army with a determined strategic objective, since you don't want to bother attacking a castle unless you have to, and those kind of armies would be serious armies and by their nature would almost undoubtedly outnumber the castle defenders.

I can't imagine it happening, but I guess it's not totally impossible. There have probably been more occasions when fortified towns have been taken by smaller forces, but that's a different story.

Iguana-on-a-stick:
Caesar claimed he did just that at Alesia. He had an army of perhaps some 40.000 men, besieging 80.000 Gauls. (plus civilians) And he was in turn besieged by a relief force he claimed was 8000 cavalry and 250.000 foot.

It seems a mite hard to credit, all in all. Given the notorious inaccuracies of the numbers of armies, the propaganda purposes of the work... I don't know if the Gauls actually outnumbered their besiegers.

Allegro:
Actually i believe Spaniards may have done this on several occasions during the conquest of America, they had a very little force compared to natives. And i know that USA marines have succesfully stormed some Korean forts in situations like 10:1 with the help of their superior firearms technology in 19th century.

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