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Originally Posted by Elmo
Trench warfare is used by the orcs in the Battles of the Fords of Isen, a pincer is used in the Nirnaeth with Maedhros and Fingon and reinforced when all looked lost is used in a million battes, Helm's Deep, Pelennor, Celebrant...
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Nice one on the Trench Warfare. It often scares me just how much resemblance there is between Pelennor and the fields of Northern France and Belgium during WWI.
Pelennor aint just a big park, it was a living landscape:
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And so in this place and that, by burned homestead or barn, upon hillock or mound, under wall or on field, still they gathered and rallied and fought until the day wore away.
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Bit different to the landscape drawn up in the films eh?
Then there are the trenches 'themselves' of course, filled with fire to confuse the Gondorians and block any attacks/hide activity of Sauron's forces. And they seem to be filled with some kind of fuel, a portable and incendiary one - oil?
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Busy as ants hurrying orcs were digging, digging lines of deep trenches in a huge ring, just out of bowshot from the walls; and as the trenches were made each was filled with fire, though how it was kindled or fed, by art or devilry, none could see.
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And incendiaries or flamethrowers (Flammenwerthers):
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It was no brigand or orc-chieftain that ordered the assault upon the Lord of Mordor's greatest foe. A power and mind of malice guided it. As soon as the great catapults were set, with many yells and the creaking of rope and winch, they began to throw missiles marvellously high, so that they passed right above the battlement and fell thudding within the first circle of the City; and many of them by some secret art burst into flame as they came toppling down.
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TNT - as used in WWI by the men who would dig trenches underneath enemy lines and set up explosives (as seen in Birdsong):
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"But the Orcs have brought a devilry from Orthanc," said Aragorn. "They have a blasting fire, and with it they took the Wall. If they cannot come in the caves, they may seal up those that are inside. But now we must turn all our thought to our own defence."
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Mostly though, it's the full scale horror of mechanised war on an unprecedented scale that reminds me of WWI.