Siege/Battle of Minas Tirith
 

Hi guys

I was wondering if anybody can give me some pointers on the size of the forces involved in the Siege of Minas Tirith?

Also, several of the maps online that I've been able to find seem a little contradictory, particularly with the vision portrayed in the movie, is there a definitive version?

Kind regards for any assistance!

Welcome to the Downs Bob. Now, the siege of Gondor was a pretty complex thing. I had to take out my copy of the "Atlas of Middle Earth" to get some figures for you, so here they are;

Mordor and Allies;

Angmar, Barad Dur, Gothmog, Minas Morgul - 20,000 (est)

Allies;
Haradrim, Near and far Harad, Rhun, Khand, Others - 25,000

Total Mordor Force - Minimum of 45,000

Hope that helpped.

Hookbill has given the Mordor forces, and through the account in Minas Tirith, we can get a guess at Gondor forces.

Forlong from Lossarnach- 200

Devorin from Ringlo Vale- 300

Duinhir's archers from Morthond- 500

Golasgil from Langstrand, Men from Lamedon, fisherfolk from Ethir- combined possibly 200.

Hirluin from Pennith Gelin- 300

Imrahil from Dol Amroth- 700.

Combined thats 2,200. But that doesn't include the men already in the city, that I don't know, these were just the captains from around Gondor bringing in their men.

Then Rohan came with 6,000 men.

Spot on Master Boromir. Give yourself a trophy!

Thank you very much!

After just watching the return of the king yesterday it looked more like hundreds of thousands - and I'm terribly embarrised to say I don't actually own a copy of the book :o (I have read it though, I promise!)

Well as stated above the forces of Mordor equalled about 45,000 and the forces of Gondor equalled about 11,250 (including other allies such as Rohan). But recently I just watched one of the special features on the EE of RotK and one of the animators said that 45,000 troops wasn't enough soldiers for the strategy they devised. Therefore they raised the number to 300,000 troops! That is why it looked so huge.

That is true King of the North, they increased the size of Sauron's forces. I remember reading an article about it before the movies came out. About Gondor facing 200,000 (that's the number I heard) people. I don't know the reasons behind it, maybe they wanted a mass number of troops so it would explain them getting to the 4th and 5th levels of Minas Tirith, because in the books 45,000 isn't enough to enter the first level. As, the forces are stopped dead in their tracks (but if it wasn't for Rohan they definately would have broken through the first level). 200,000 just seems like an extreme amount of numbers, I have no idea why they increased it that high.