Thread: Military Strategy
Smaug made an epic mistake, he took land and became a lord. Yet he did not gather Goblins and other fell beasts to do his bidding. When Glaurung the father of Dragons took Nargathrond, it was because he massed a great host of orcs when he held the Teiglin. So in not gathering the Goblins from the North that clashed in The Batlle of Five Armies, he was asking to be attacked.
When Gandalf sent Thorin & Co. to take back The Lonely Mountain from Smaug he went to southern Mirkwood, to Dol-Guldur, and drove out Sauron. This effectively drove back The Dark Lord and took out a Lieutenant/Lord of his armies, in one blow, both without brute force. The quests required handpicked Dwarves an exceptional Hobbit , the Istari (lacking the Blue Wizards) and allies along the way (Eagles, Beorn..). Equivalent to current day special forces.
Smaug made an epic mistake, he took land and became a lord. Yet he did not gather Goblins and other fell beasts to do his bidding. When Glaurung the father of Dragons took Nargathrond, it was because he massed a great host of orcs when he held the Teiglin. So in not gathering the Goblins from the North that clashed in The Batlle of Five Armies, he was asking to be attacked.
An army needs feeding too and I am not sure where they would be able to obtain that unless they were constantly supplied. The distance between Gundabad and the other strongholds in the Misty Mountains and the Lonely Mountain would probably be difficult to carry out due to the vigilance of the Eagles, Beorn and the Men of the lake whom I would guess still maintain a force sufficient to defend themselves.
Food would be harder to come by from Goblin and Orc allies, yes. Nain in the Iron Hills had to have trade or farms to supply his kingdom. This (if I was Smaug or Sauron) I would hit and take first, helping cut off resistance weapon and armor hoard. The supply lines from the Wood Elves and Dale could be plundered, from the river. Yet that would spark both Kingdoms (Dale being almost a shadow of its former self, almost does not count as a "Kingdom" in the days of The Hobbit) and as seen in The Hobbit both Kingdoms are a force to be reckoned with. Mirkwood could supply wood for fires, that could melt the ore from Ered Mithrin (Grey Mountains) and The Iron Hills. Nain made the Journey by foot within three/four days (The Hobbit 2 two pages before chapter sixteen and the first page of chaper sixteen). The Elf/Dwarf animosity before Bilbo used the Arkenstone in a sly way for peace between the three parties (Dale, Mirkwood, Lonely Mountain) could have sealed the fate of Nain with no hope of help from any near by kingdoms. The strongest of course, Elven. The spiders in Mirkwood point more to Shelob maybe being in the woods with or near Sauron... leaving Mirkwood open to an "inside job".
it is a good thing it is not me people would have to depend on for proper and precise and successful strategy to win over all the evils in Middle-Earth. I feel weak kneed when I think of all the orcs and urikai , all the wild men and etc. that use such cunning and rage and violence to attack all the innocent. shiver. I would always be afraid of thinking I knew how to anticipate them and then after winning a battle, look over and see to my despair another army ten times bigger heading our way. Best leave it to those who know what to do.
Excellent thread topic.
I don't think orcs would have much trouble gathering supplies for a decent sized garrison force. However it wouldn't really even be necessary. I'm sure HAD Smaug gathered such forces, the minority of it would be orcs. In that region it would probably mostly be spider's and wargs, who I'm sure know how to fend for themselves.
There is some epic strategy going on in the Battle of Five Armies. The humans/elves/dwarves united and used a time-tested and classic "choke point" approach, hoping to gain the advantage with vastly inferior numbers. Unfortunately, Bolg was a bit of a commander himself, and set up his forces in waves (never send in all your forces at once!), a very smart battle tactic. The second wave also had the advantage of a downhill battle. Not to mention the impact this would have on troop morale.
Fortunately, the deus ex machina is alive and well in Middle Earth and the Eagles came in from the sky for an air assault, sealing the deal for the good guys. Really if you look into a lot of Tolkien battles, pretty much every major battle in LOTR, you'll see the orcs often times come in with a superior strategy; not only organization wise, but they came prepared with numbers. It's only those last minute saves that would win the day for the good guys.
Also Shelob definitely wasn't in Mirkwood with Sauron. If that were the case then not even the eagles would have been able to save the day. Though it's not at all unlikely many of the spiders in Mirkwood were offspring of Shelob.
