Battles of the late Third Age

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

[T]hey were probably some of the old people of Isengard who had lived there for generations. (Kuru)

I agree. As I recall the inhabitants of Isengard by the time it went under Saruman's stewardship had much Dunlendish blood.

[Saurreg]

I for one tend to think of the phalanx contigent as a unit of Dunlendings specially organized, equiped and trained to repel cavalry.

If memory serves (it seldom does now), the Dunlending has had contact with the Rohirrim and relationships between both people were a wee bit hostile. Thus if Saruman needed a human look in his army, the Dunlendings would be the best candidates. Or that was needed for the walled up tide of bad feelings to flow was a little push and Saruman could have done that. As Erkenbrand explained to the captives at the foot of Helmsdeep, they were misled by Saruman and I dare say it was due to their prolonged bias and hatred to the horse-tamers.

As for the equipment and tactics, both could have been bestowed upon by Saruman or not. Stephen Dando-Collins stated in his book Caesar's Legion" that when the Helvetii attacked, they made use of the Greek phalanx. A classic case of monkey see, monkey do. The dunlendings could also have done so, either from the memories of some elders who had seen phalanx in action or have heard stories of how moving pikes mowed down everything before it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the longer the pike, the lesser chance a horseman can get to you and that if every pikemen cluster together and point their pike tips in the same direction and advance, the chances of sucess are much higher for say a lone naked fanatic with an axe.

That said, I will not discount the fact Saruman might have his orcs round up a motley crue and have them taken to him. He'll look at the bunch, stroke his beard and say,

"Alright then! You see those big sticks laying on the ground there? Yes, those. Now I want every single one of you to pick up a stick. No! Not those twigs at your feet! I meant THOSE sticks over there! Yes, good... Now I want you to form a rectangle, sixteen a column and ten per row. What's that Michael? You don't know what's a rectangle? Billy? You're confused between the difference columns and rows. Yer Valars... (Barks a curt command to a group of uruks chatting around the water dispenser, taps foot impatiently) Now that is what I want. Now do as the Uruks just did. No Paul, you don't need to go growling and beating your chest, just go line up! Ok! You are now in a rectangle. No Jason! You don't go around giving hi-fives and handshakes, we're not over yet! Now I want the first four rows to point the sharpened ends of your big sticks forwards. What's that Billy? You still... Nevermind! The first four rows start with Andy and ends with Mac! You see that Billy? That's the first four rows! Now the rest of you tilt your sticks a little forward. Yes good. What's that Mac? You cannot point your stick forward because you'll impale the man before you and you don't want to impale him because you're a nice guy! Ok, just hold your stick over his shoulder. There! Now I want all of you to walk slowly towards that uruk over there. Nice and slow! Don't run Andy! WALK! Yes! Yes! Good... Now when you see those big bad strawheads and their horses, this is what you do. You pick up your big stick, form a rectangle and walk towards the strawheads together. Understand? Capisch? Good! Any questions? What's that Jason? Yes, you can go congratulate yourselves now!"

[Rumil]

Eomer’s Battle

Our next battle, Eomer’s destruction of the Uruk-Hai, is in fact not much more than a skirmish, but gives us the opportunity to see the tactics of the Uruks and Rohirrim at a closer level.

Then with a great cry the Riders charged from the East; the red light gleamed on mail and spear

The precursors to this battle were the skirmishes at Sarn Gebir on the 23rd February 3019 and at Parth Galen on the 26th of February, where the Fellowship was broken. At Parth Galen we are shown a mixed company of ordinary orcs and Uruk-Hai, the Uruk-Hai belonging to Saruman, the orcs to Sauron and Moria. Boromir managed to slay about 20, Legolas and Gimli ‘many’. With the three hunters in hot pursuit the orcs set off across Rohan, though stopping briefly for an altercation between Ugluk and Gishnakh where another 5 were killed. They managed to outrun their pursuers. Interestingly, Legolas says

There is some will that lends speed to our foes and sets an unseen barrier before us

Evidence of Saruman’s ‘magic’?

Eventually Eomer’s eored of Rohirrim encountered them on the plains and managed to overtake and surround them just before they reached Fangorn forest.

The orcish forces consisted of Saruman’s Uruk-Hai under Ugluk, with Lugdush maybe second in command. They carried short broad bladed swords, yew bows with long-shafted arrows, shields with the white hand device, chainmail and helms with an ‘S’ rune. The orcs of the eye were led by Grishnakh, they were generally short and stocky in comparison with the Uruk-Hai. Additionally there was a contingent of Moria orcs who were smaller than both the groups above and were not happy operating in daylight. The orcs had bows with black feathered arrows, shields and scimitars and may have been armoured. There were also some ‘Snaga’ scouts armed with bows. Darts are mentioned, this may indicate javelins or alternatively war-darts, maybe similar to the Late Roman martiobarbuli. In total there were around 200 orcs remaining by the time of the battle. Previously there were around 100 Moria orcs, 80 Uruk-Hai and 40 Mordor orcs and a few snaga scouts. In addition, of course, Merry and Pippin!

The Rohirrim consisted of Eomer’s Marshall’s eored of 120 cavalry. They rode grey horses with braided manes, carried tall ash spears with bright spearheads, painted shields and long swords and wore burnished mail coats, some carried bows and fired grey-fletched arrows. The riders themselves were tall with blond braided hair. Eomer wore a white horsetail crest and rode a horse called Firefoot.

The battlefield was around a hillock just three furlongs from the eaves of Fangorn, bounded on the East by the river Entwash.

The battle took place during the night of the 28th February and the morning of the 29th. After harassing the orcs with bowshot and surrounding them on the knoll, the Rohirrim settled in to degrade the morale of their opponents by small actions, sensibly waiting until morning to launch an all out attack. They cut off a group that tried to flee to the forest, shot some, infiltrated the camp to kill some more and lit watchfires in a ring around the knoll. Orc morale was distinctly shaky and rapidly became worse, though the Uruk-Hai were less impressed. At this point Grishnakh attempted to escape with Merry and Pippin but was swiftly spotted, shot and speared.

Ugluk was still hopeful, however, as he knew of another force of orcs under Mauhur waiting to support him in Fangorn. I’d guess that these were Uruk-hai but probably not very numerous, maybe 50-odd? Mauhur and his ‘lads’ may have been part of the missing Uruk battalion from the 1st Battle of Isen (see previous page), though Ugluk could not have been. Mauhur attacked, but Eomer sent a detachment which successfully dealt with the problem.

At dawn, with further degradation of orcish morale, the Rohirrim charged from the east (therefore with the sun in the eyes of the orcs), the riders singing and the horses neighing. The orcs responded by firing their remaining arrows, the Rohirrim passed up the knoll, wheeled, charged again and broke the orcs who were hunted down individually. Ugluk and a group of Uruk Hai formed a wedge and attempted to break through to the forest, at which Eomer dismounted and killed Ugluk in hand to hand combat. The orcs were utterly destroyed but the Rohirrim lost 12 horses and 15 men.

So ended the raid, and no news of it came ever back either to Mordor or to Isengard; but the smoke of the burning rose high to heaven and was seen by many watchful eyes

Some points which struck me included; the danger of a combined operation between Sauron and Saruman for either party if the ring had indeed been found; Saruman’s ‘magic’ coming into play; Eomer’s use of almost ‘guerilla warfare’ style tactics to damage orcish morale; the fact that Ugluk knew about Mauhur’s presence and the discipline of the Uruk Hai, who withstood 2 charges then tried a fighting withdrawal. Any comments on these?

Also, a link to the relevant chapter of Estelyn's fantasic Chapter-by-Chapter discussion

The Uruk-Hai

[Kuruharan]

First important point to note is that the Rohirrim were heavy enough to ride over a clustered body of troops, something not all horses or cavalry could be made to do, although the orcs may not have been "formed up" as such.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Several brief points:

1) Note how superior JRRT's Rohirrim tactics are to PJ's movie
(where they just charge in blindly--- and at night!), helped out, of
course by a lack of movie orcish sentries.

2) Given the highly effective strategy of Eomer's lads here, did Denethor later
have a point about how the Rohirrim might have been effective, en masse,
if they'd arrived before Minas Tirith was under siege?. Or would a 6,000+ heavy
cavalry force have been significantly less capable then Eomer's household professsionals? And if so, did Eomer act rashly and unwisely in committing them
against what he must have assumed was merely a raiding force of no great importance, and one that was fleeing Rohan [good grief, was Wormy correct in his critique of Eomer?]

[Kuruharan]

And if so, did Eomer act rashly and unwisely in committing them
against what he must have assumed was merely a raiding force of no great importance, and one that was fleeing Rohan

At the time it did not seem likely that they would ever have any other use.

And it was probably just the principle of the thing.

[Rumil]

Hi again,

Some interesting points here, on the Rohirrim charge up the knoll, I wonder if it was fairly rocky and scrubby, maybe allowing the cavalry to charge through rather than into the orcs in a dispersed manner rather than a mighty collision?

I'd reckon that Eomer was correct in attacking the orcs once he found them. A relatively easy victory would have encouraged the riders, whereas shying away from combat would definitely have been frowned upon by his contemporaries. However, I guess there's an argument that he should really have been leading additional reinforcements to the second battle of the Isen at this time. I'd imagine that one of Grima's priorities would have been to keep Eomer's and Theodred's forces from uniting if at all possible, therefore the Worm's insincere criticism may have reflected the fruition of his own plans!

Naturally the Marshal's Eored would have been picked troops and better equipped and trained than many of the Rohirrim, though HoME implies that the majority were at least adequately equipped. 'Nearly 10,000 fully equipped and provisioned riders' or similar.

On the pikemen, I find myself drawn to comparisons with medieval Scottish schiltrons. A relatively poorly financed infantry force having to deal with arrogant knights from a bordering country maybe?