Helm's deep and other battle's massacre

[Civfan333]

I've often wondered how people badly outnumbered in fortresses and such would have held if they had like two stationary machine guns but unlimited ammo. Would they win? I think so. Please vote and comment. Get on with then. The numbers are like 500 against 100,000.

I think they'd take heavy losses.

 

[Harbringer]

All it would take is two focused barages of arrows and theyre screwed. They would loose bad.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I've often wondered how people badly outnumbered in fortresses and such would have held if they had like two stationary machine guns but unlimited ammo. Would they win? I think so. Please vote and comment. Get on with then. The numbers are like 500 against 100,000.

I think they'd take heavy losses.

Read up on some of the French Foreign Legion's fantastic sieges. We're talking like 40 machine-gun armed Legionaries against 8,000 Berber cavalry.

 

[Shadylookin]

All it would take is two focused barages of arrows and theyre screwed. They would loose bad.

guns have a slightly longer range than arrows

though it wasn't a defensive effort 600 Spaniards basically took over all of central and south america because they had guns and they weren't even as good as machine guns.

 

[Aramazd]

though it wasn't a defensive effort 600 Spaniards basically took over all of central and south america because they had guns and they weren't even as good as machine guns.

They didn't do it by themselves though.

 

[bhsup]

Read up on how Dan Daly won his first Congressional Medal of Honor.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

guns have a slightly longer range than arrows

though it wasn't a defensive effort 600 Spaniards basically took over all of central and south america because they had guns and they weren't even as good as machine guns.

They also had iron armor, horses and barbaric allies.

 

[Brighteye]

Two machine guns with unlimited ammunition could destroy any army up to and including the Napoleonic era.
Losses would be minimal.
The only way the opposing army might win is if the machine guns truly were immobile and they got a lucky hit with a cannon or mortar.
But since machine guns can actually fire bullets for over a mile, you could probably just kill off the artillerymen too.

 

[El_Machinae]

Helm's Deep would have gone MUCH better if the archers had fired more.

If an old guy can hit an ork in the throat, and the orks are packed in tight, then it's time to loose the arrows. I mean, geez the elves had used a small portion of their arrows before they got into hand-to-hand

 

[Mulholland]

They also had iron armor, horses and barbaric allies.

As I just read in the book "guns germs and steel" germs were the most crucial in defeating the heathens. They advanced further and faster than invading armies decimating entire civilizations in their wake.

On topic: I think the machine guns would work to a point but would eventually overheat and fail, leaving an opportunity during which they could be destroyed. If we're talking about the army of Orcs storming Helms Deep here we have to realize that they are relentless.

 

[El_Machinae]

If the orks got in too close, too, you'd lose effectiveness (in a time/kill sense). With a steep angle, you have less chance of a mistargeted bullet hitting someone else.

But across the flat plain, you could just spit into their ranks at will. Each bullet would have a high chance of hitting someone.

 

[Speedo]

In the Helm's Deep scenario with completely fictional fire-forever machine guns I think the defenders would easily win. If the MG was a particularly fearsome one (say MG42), it would probably only take a few minutes before the attackers were huddled behind cover, hardly willing to move.

IRL though, there's almost no way you could stock enough barrels and ammo to survive that kind of siege. Not to mention that in the fighting itself you'd be slowly overwhelmed as your ROF is slowed by changing out barrels and reloading.

 

[Verbose]

This has been done already, very successfully too.

It's the standard late 19th c. European colonial warfare tactic:

Equip a "flying column" with as much firepower as possible, march it off into hostile territory and the the enemy come to you in a defensive position. Auto-fire wasn't even required. Repeating rifles was almost always more than sufficient. Machineguns just made it that much easier.

1898 Battle of Omdurman, all (infantry) casualties of the Anglo-Egyptian army sustained after action, as they walked across the "battlefield", or maybe rather "massacre patch". No Sudanese warrior came withing 300 yards of the Anglo-Egyptian line of fire. 750 western casualties for 25.000 Sudanese.

1905-1906, the Maji-maji Rebellion, German East Africa, between 100 and 200 dead Europeans for up to 150.000 natives killed. Good use of machineguns there.

 

[Kozmos]

1898 Battle of Omdurman, all (infantry) casualties of the Anglo-Egyptian army sustained after action, as they walked across the "battlefield", or maybe rather "massacre patch". No Sudanese warrior came withing 300 yards of the Anglo-Egyptian line of fire. 750 western casualties for 25.000 Sudanese.

1905-1906, the Maji-maji Rebellion, German East Africa, between 100 and 200 dead Europeans for up to 150.000 natives killed. Good use of machineguns there.

Those were the days innit? You truly felt like a one man army back then heh.

 

[Masquerouge]

IRL though, there's almost no way you could stock enough barrels and ammo to survive that kind of siege. Not to mention that in the fighting itself you'd be slowly overwhelmed as your ROF is slowed by changing out barrels and reloading.

Agreed. 500,000 people... you would need, what, 1 million bullets if you're impossibly lucky?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

This has been done already, very successfully too.

It's the standard late 19th c. European colonial warfare tactic:

Equip a "flying column" with as much firepower as possible, march it off into hostile territory and the the enemy come to you in a defensive position. Auto-fire wasn't even required. Repeating rifles was almost always more than sufficient. Machineguns just made it that much easier.

1898 Battle of Omdurman, all (infantry) casualties of the Anglo-Egyptian army sustained after action, as they walked across the "battlefield", or maybe rather "massacre patch". No Sudanese warrior came withing 300 yards of the Anglo-Egyptian line of fire. 750 western casualties for 25.000 Sudanese.

1905-1906, the Maji-maji Rebellion, German East Africa, between 100 and 200 dead Europeans for up to 150.000 natives killed. Good use of machineguns there.

I remember a disucssion about this in the WH Forum. The Africans had mastered hand-to-hand combat, and whenever the Europeans got involved in close combat, they lost horribly.

Agreed. 500,000 people... you would need, what, 1 million bullets if you're impossibly lucky?

If you want to kill every last one of them, yes. But you just need to kill enough for their assault to no longer become sustainable, or to rout them, whichever comes first.

 

[Verbose]

Agreed. 500,000 people... you would need, what, 1 million bullets if you're impossibly lucky?

Or, if the besieger had ANY sense, they'd simply never come into range of those machineguns. They wouldn't need half a million troops to effectively besiege so few men, holed up somewhere like Helm's Deep.

If they for some reason couldn't simply wait out the garrisson, they would mine. Machineguns are great against frontal assaults, not so good against undermining.

 

[Verbose]

I remember a disucssion about this in the WH Forum. The Africans had mastered hand-to-hand combat, and whenever the Europeans got involved in close combat, they lost horribly.

Yeah, most of the western casualties at Omdurman coming from a misguided cavalry action Winston Churchill took part in.

According to him, he lived because he had injured his should a couple of week earlier, so he couldn't wield a sabre. Instead he carried a heavy Mauser pistol. His sword-swinging companions to their dismay realised that the Sudanese cavalry knew every trick of horse-soldiering they did, and then some. They had a very bad experience. Young Winston simply plugged anyone in a breast-plate coming into what looked like sword-range and got out of it allright.

 

[Masquerouge]

Yeah, most of the western casualties at Omdurman coming from a misguided cavalry action Winston Churchill took part in.

According to him, he lived because he had injured his should a couple of week earlier, so he couldn't wield a sabre. Instead he carried a heavy Mauser pistol. His sword-swinging companions to their dismay realised that the Sudanese cavalry knew every trick of horse-soldiering they did, and then some. They had a very bad experience. Young Winston simply plugged anyone in a breast-plate coming into what looked like sword-range and got out of it allright.

That's awesome! Reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iORmi46dowo

 

[JerichoHill]

What about the real-life GI Joe of the battle of guadalcanal?