[The Sixth Wizard]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

One last historical example:

Agincourt - Henry V's small English force armed with longbows (not crossbows) and pikes devastates Charles the Good's much larger army of infantrymen and heavy knights.

There are a few key similarities with the Battle of 5 Armies: the elves use weapons similar to those use by the English, and the dwarves are heavily armored, like the French knights. However, there are several important differences as well. The elven host was at least twice as large as Dain's army, and the dwarves had no horses, which only further emphasized their natural lack of height, speed, and reach.

Sure, the elves use bows, but these were composite bows, not longbows which were much more resilient. And there is another key difference. The English archers and Agincourt and Crecy were highly skilled warriors fighting in formation, used to killing in open ground at range. The elves are most proficient fighting in a forest, i.e at short range, and so their bows would be short range bows, and probably not armour piercing, because an orc or other enemy wearing armour in a forest is impractical.

As an additional note: a documentary showed that the arrows used at Agincourt could not pierce French steel armour. Imagine the armour of the dwarves! The English relied on masses of arrows and arrow showers, along with the muddy terrain and confusion, to kill the French, which was not a factor at the Lonely Mountain.

So the elves did not have the training of the English in how to fire even when one could not see the enemy, they did not have the same armour piercing bows, they could not fire effectively at very long range and probably didn't fire in a heavy formation. We can not relate them at all to the English longbowmen and their feat.


Now as for the high ground, Dwarves are the most renowned for steadfastness. Climbing a hill is not a problem for them, as you can imagine the kind of crevasses and huge number of stairs there were to deal with in their mines.


One last thing; I would imagine the lack of horses in the dwarven ranks to be a benefit. These could not be shot out from under the riders if they didn't exist. Their opponents could not have many warhorses either, as one lived in a forest, the other lived on water. In the end, their armour would negate the bows of the elves somewhat, their strong constitution would give them the upper hand in melee, and their only weakness, cavalry, was nonexistant.


Personally, I do actually think that the allies would just win. But it would be a very, very tough fight. The dwarves would stand, maybe to the last man. And if they broke through to the mountain (or even made a dash for the front gate, which was not on high ground I believe) and around half made it inside, I believe the Elves and Men would retreat.

EDIT:

No references in any Tolkien book regarding Dwarves making plate.

That surprises me, as a dwarf in plate was always my mental picture. Perhaps I could revise what I said about the Elves' bows not being able to pierce dwarven armour.