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Originally Posted by Sauron the White

That assumption is convenient and contrary to how I read the story. Laketown brings in lots of goods by boat. They have dock areas which would be suitable for any such landing.

These docks received floating barrels and surely some boats, but ships? It's a lake, not a sea port. Regardless, I'm not sure how comfortable Smaug would be landing on something of unproven girth so near the water.

You discount the idea of landing on roofs - something which I do not, even if it is just to help him slow down and hop off.

Could he land on a stick roof thatched with straw? I'm not sure of the structures of Laketown, nor know the weight of Smaug to perform an adequate experiment.

We do know that Smaug rarely ran great distances, and so don't have to discuss worm glycogen levels...

If Laketown is that crowded with small structures that there is no place to land, how would Smaug get around the town while on the ground anyways?

People were responding in fear, plus if he could get into the city on the ground, he may have had more opportunity to eat them than just cook them.

What purpose would there be for him to actually walk across that bridge?

Again, why destroy the bridge? To stop Smaug? How does that stop him? What it does do is cut off the quickest route of escape of the town residents and that does not seem very bright.

There may have been some gold that he might not have minded adding to his horde. Plus at what distance can dragon eyes bemuse people? What if he walked to the town end of the bridge, hypnotized some survivors and made them marry their siblings?

If you knew that that was a possibility, surely you'd throw down your bridge, just to be safe ("Better cooked that hooked!).

Why does a creature who can fly and attack from the air need with a land bridge? It simply makes no sense that I can see.

You're just not trying hard enough.

I agree that if a land based army was marching on your town, then you may want to cut yourself off from them in that fashion. But the attack was clearly by air and the people of Laketown knew that he was coming by air.

Again, they may have been just responding in haste to an attack of which they knew little, little of what form it would eventually take.