The Way We War

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I dunno- I think I can imagine Dwarves making and deploying curved plastic housings packed with C-4 and shrapnel, detonatable either by remote command or tripwire.......

[davem]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I dunno- I think I can imagine Dwarves making and deploying curved plastic housings packed with C-4 and shrapnel, detonatable either by remote command or tripwire.......

Ha! I thought you'd read all of HoM-e. The Dwarves' use of anti-personel mines against Moria Orcs was an idea Tolkien was playing with in a late '60's re-write of LotR. Of course, the 'plastic housings' were to be made of 'imperishable crystal' & the tripwire made from single strands of Elven hair. The idea was that Gimli's request for a single hair from Galadriel's head was to provide said wire, which would have been set in the crystal housing of the mine & hopefully would have been strong enough to be retrieved & reused. An alternate idea involved his shaving Legolas' head one night to obtain a large stock of said tripwire material. Obtaining the explosive would have been more difficult - Gandalf would have been a possible source of gunpowder (Gimli would have offered him a contract to supply 'fireworks' for the Lonely Mountain's Durin's Day Hop in the hope that Gandalf wouldn't realise their true intention - in this version G. would have had serious debt problems after a late night gambling session with some drunken Elves & been left with a price on his head & Glorfindel on his tail for the cash).

The whole idea, sadly, fell by the wayside....

[Pitchwife]

Hobbit Height, once more

UT, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields, Appendix on Númenórean Linear Measures:

The remarks [on the stature of Hobbits] in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings are unnecessarily vague and complicated, owing to the inclusion of references to survivals of the race in later times; but as far as The Lord of the Rings is concerned they boil down to this: the Hobbits of the Shire were in height between three and four feet, never less and seldom more.

[Kuruharan]

Another link.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

I dunno- I think I can imagine Dwarves making and deploying curved plastic housings packed with C-4 and shrapnel, detonatable either by remote command or tripwire.......

I find myself reminded of this.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Who cares what Dwarves used, they were such tanks it didn't MATTER! I mean am I the only person who thinks the 500 dwarves armed to the teeth with the finest weapons available in the world would cut through the soppy Laketowners and the wimpy Wood-Elves like butter? 13 dwarves alone cut through to Bolg's bodyguard after all... Haha .

Anyway, to contribute to the Roman debate, Roman warfare was designed for Men and would not suit Dwarves. It was designed to simply be as efficient as possible on a grand scale. They didn't have the finest weapons or armour available but these items were mass produced and protected the most important parts of the body. Tactics were to minimise casualties and maximise kills but tactics were very generalised. However the Roman machine's best attribute (in my opinion) was the logistical system including road building, and scouting/camping tactics. This is what really gave the Romans the edge, their efficient administration overall.

However with Dwarves it's different. The dwarves have a small and slowly growing population. Dwarven warriors are specialist troops covered in fine armour and weapons instead of mass produced mediocrity (obviously if the battle is lost the enemy gets all the armour and weapons). They can't exactly afford to fight wars of attrition with a few battles lost. So the axe is designed to take out the enemy with one stroke and win battles relatively quickly.

And dwarves were really freakin' tough. So I think they could take some beating under chainmail that would usually damage organs. Not to mention deal with a scratch from a sword which would make advantage of the lack of Dwarven shield. So axe = awesome dwarf weapon.

As for whether or not dwarves could shoot bows, bit of a stupid question. French knights didn't just learn how to ride with lances and English longbowmen didn't just learn how to draw back a bow. A lot of the time they would have to adapt for the circumstances.

Swords - too short and can't pierce armour or cut through tendons that well. They were designed for slashing at necks and torsos (dwarves are too short) or stabbing (dwarves have not got long enough reach). Also swords are all metal, while an axe is half wood. An axe saves precious dwarven metals.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Originally posted by Kuruharan

The axe is not exactly a handy weapon for fighting people taller than you are as you expose yourself even more when you make your stroke.

I think a better way would have been if the dwarves fought more along the lines of the Roman legionaries whose fighting style was made to order (literally) for short people fighting taller ones.

This is semi-off topic, but that's one bit in PJ's FOTR prologue
that seemed absurd, the elves using very long scythe-type
weapons. It looks impressive but after one swipe they'd be
helpless to attack. Far better in such an orc melee charge would
be legionairre tactics and use of the gladius and a small shield.

[Elmo]

Doesn't Bard mention something about Dwarves not being suited for battle out of their caves? Maybe that was just taunting but it was certainly what the dwarves were to! So I don't think have beaten the Elves and Men so easily as you say Sixth Wizard. but I'd imagine an axe on a dwarf would be a lethal weapon swinging upwards. They're just the right height to attack umm more delicate areas of the body.

[Kuruharan]

13 dwarves alone cut through to Bolg's bodyguard after all... Haha

What?

Roman warfare was designed for Men and would not suit Dwarves.

Roman tactics were designed in large measure to allow smaller physically weaker chaps form up behind nice large shields that are easy to hide behind and let the often larger enemy waste his time and energy whacking away at the shield and then suddenly punching out with shield and sword to knock over an enemy and to stab with the sword to deliver a disabling wound. Note that it was not necessary to kill the opponent, only disable them because writhing critically wounded people make a very effective barrier given enough additions to the pile.

The stabbing part is key because it is a lot easier to kill or seriously wound with a stab than it is with a slash and stabs expose much less of the body.

This style of warfare answers to the requirements and needs of the dwarves rather well in a number of respects. First of all there is the size issue. Secondly there is…

The dwarves have a small and slowly growing population.

…which this particular style works rather well for in minimizing casualties, especially in light of the fact that the dwarves would almost always be rather outnumbered.

stabbing (dwarves have not got long enough reach)

Hence the punching out with the shield to knock the foe off balance.

Also swords are all metal, while an axe is half wood. An axe saves precious dwarven metals.

I rather imagine wood was a scarcer material for them than metal.

Doesn't Bard mention something about Dwarves not being suited for battle out of their caves?

Not sure Bard had a whole lot of practical experience with them.

I'd imagine an axe on a dwarf would be a lethal weapon swinging upwards.

That wouldn’t be a very handy way to swing.

[The Sixth Wizard]

The thirteen Dwarves who cut through to Bolg's guard were the Thorin's company.

Thorin and his companions then charged out to join the battle, covered from head to toe in the finest armour and weapons contained in the treasure hoard of Erebor. Thorin advanced through the Goblins' ranks all the way up to the gigantic Goblins that formed the bodyguard of Bolg, who he could not get past. He was outflanked and surrounded, and was forced to form his troops into a great circle.

Taken from Wikipedia, as I don't have the book on hand. But I suppose it is accurate.

[Kuruharan]

Taken from Wikipedia, as I don't have the book on hand. But I suppose it is accurate.

Not a statement to fill one with confidence.

Down heedless of all order (aside...hmmm, ponder the implications of that for a moment those who think the dwarves favored a berzerker style of combat) rushed all the dwarves of Dain to his help. Down too came many of the Lake-men, for Bard could not restrain them; and out upon the other side came many of the spearmen of the elves.

-The Clouds Burst

Thorin and Company didn't cut their way through to Bolg's bodyguard all by themselves.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

As to bows:

I'm not sure how any Dwarven bow would be a "long" bow However, I can see the possibility that Dwarves could still be very effective archers, assuming that they accepted the years of training and practice required.

With a simple or "self" bow, both its power and its draw-weight are direct functions of its length. The classic English longbow, which was fitted to the archer by matching the length of his outstretched arms, managed (probably as a result of trial and error) to come up with the most efficient possible configuration for a simple bow, one where at full draw the bowstring makes essentially a right angle. This maximises the power available for a given draw-weight, which in English examples was as heavy as a trained man could manage.

It's certainly possible to get equal power from a shorter bow using composite construction- but the tradeoff is that, since the bow is shorter and therefore provides less leverage at the tips, the draw weight for a given power is considerably heavier; or, looking at it from a different point of view, since a short composite bow on the Asian pattern can still have a draw no heavier than a man can handle its effective power is less. In other words, a shorter bow is simply less efficient, no matter how clever its construction.

Having said all that, though, these are Dwarves- which means they might well be able to handle a draw far heavier than the 180-200 lb-f a strong man can master, and thus potentially equal a longbow's power in a dwarf-sized weapon.


Still, it seems to me that the Dwarven love of devices would have attracted them rather to the crossbow- which also doesn't require the training and practice (archery ranges underground????). Moreover, one would expect Dwarves to be able to handle hook-and-stirrup cocking of much heavier crossbows than human examples, and thus avoid the rate-of-fire penalty of the various crank systems.