Counterfactuals: Turtledoving Tolkein

So, one of the favorite pursuits of gun geeks, military geeks, and just... geeks in general; is thought games around counterfactuals and alternate history.

Today, someone on a non-gun forum I frequent posted the following counterfactual:

"So, I was watching the 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King'; it got to the Siege of Minas Tirith, and it got me to thinking what battles (historical or fictional), might have been completely changed (and how) with one current Dillon Aero minigun, and enough ammunition to run it for however long it took"

A'right... I can dig it, let's play...


The first thing is, Harry turtledove has written this same basic scenario into the civil war. In fact, so did a couple dozen other writers; so much so that it's pretty much it's own alternate history subgenre.

Mary Gentle did it with the novel "Grunts!" (which itself was a pretty great satire of Tolkienesque fantasy conventions, and Tolkien himself), giving Orcs the military equipment and knowledge of modern US Marines (and you should read it, it's a great book. I just wish she'd continued it as a series as was originally planned).

Then there's the various "time travelers take modern knowledge to medieval/rennaisance europe" novels/series. There's literally dozens of them.

The Grantville/Assiti shards series is probably the best of these; though I have a great fondness for the Conrad Stargaard series.

Then there's S.M. Stirlings "emberverse" series; half of which features folks from modern nantucket (including the coast guard vessel Eagle, and its crew) sent back to the bronze age (the other half of the series is set from the late 1990s to the late 2020s, in a world where all high energy interactions and energy storage are damped to uselessness; effectively reverting to medieval technology levels).

Mostly these things are mental masturbation exercises for engineers, sociology geeks, and history (particularly military history) geeks...

...and there's nothing wrong with that.

They're great fun, and they use this conceit to explore human nature in unusual situations, and unusual ways. That's the entire point of speculative fiction.

BUT...

When you actually wargame these things out, if you know what you're doing as regards military effectiveness etc... you find that equipment makes FAR less difference than training, conditioning, discipline, and tactics.

A professional soldier, in a professional army; is a professional soldier, no matter what their gear is, no matter what time they are from.

If you gave a cohort of Roman legionaires the equipment of a modern light infantry battalion, some basic training in how to use it (and in modern infantry tactics), and a little time to practice with their new gear and new tactics; they would still be among the best infantry in the world, and would likely have the same effectiveness as any modern light infantry.

Why?

Discipline, conditioning, and training.

When a man is worth his salt, the rest is just a matter of training.

... I'm sorry, it was just too perfect not to...

Now... To get down to specifics, let's talk about the inspiration for the question, the siege of Minas Tirith...

Not to say the power of a minigun (and adequate ammo for it) wouldn't be useful; it certainly would...

...But terrain and tactics are a far more significant factor here, than firepower.

The Pelennor fields are far too large a field of fire to be covered to significant effect with a single weapon, no matter how powerful; particularly given the long exposure of the Othram.

However, just covering the great gate... Well, oliphaunts are very big targets, and they clearly feel pain just like any other angry.

Also, the Witch King may not be vulnerable to bullets; but miniguns tend to be pretty effective at anti-aircraft fire, and since they'er not immune to big freakin axes... I'm pretty sure fell beasts are NOT invulnerable to large volumes of lead at high velocity.

...And hell.. if we put a woman and a hobbit on the controls, who knows, perhaps the prophecy of Glorfindel could have been fulfilled by a couple hundred rounds of 7.62 nato.

With a single properly manned and supplied minigun, well placed to defend the great gate; there would probably not have been no breaking of the gate... and a pretty frikking gigantic pile of massed bodies and brass in front of it.

Now... if we could get a bunch of miniguns out to the Rammas Echor, and particularly to the causeway forts; with interlocking fields of fire...

Well, there wouldn't have been a siege of Minas Tirith... there would have been the "bloody massacre at Pelennor fields".

Of course, where the armies of the west could REALLY have used a single minigun to great effect, would have been at Helms Deep (battle of the Hornburg).

It's only 440 yards (2 furlongs) of open field from the bend of the deeping comb to Helms dike; and another 440 yards (2 furlongs) of open field from Helms dike, to the Deeping wall...

880 yards of open field, just 880 yards wide, with a big dike in the middle (The 2 furlong measurements are in the text. Theoden says the dike "must be a mile wide at least; but the actual descriptions of it in the text, and the accounts of the battle, make it to be a maximum of 1/2 mile, and probably less)...

It takes a long time for 10,000 Orcs to cross 880 yards of open field, with a 10 yard high, 20 yard thick obstacle in the middle for them to pile up behind... and just a 10 yard wide gap to funnel through...

Legolas didn't need a hundred of the Mirkwood... what he really needed was ONE  of the Dillon Aero...

At 2,000 rounds per minute (low rate, to keep the barrels from heating up as badly... and short bursts), it doesn't take very long at all to saturate that kind of field of fire.

No storming of the ramp, no ramming of the gates, no breaching of the deeping wall... Just a whole bunch of brass, and dead Uruk Hai.

So... here's MY countrefactual for y'all to play with...

Arm the 300 Spartans (along with the 400 Thebans, 700 Thespians, 900 Helots, and assorted other peloponesians. Figure 1200 shooters, and 3,000 or so tail) with the small arms and individual combat equipment of a modern light infantry brigade (a reasonable force equivalence I think).... Including light crew served weapons ( mortars, grenade launchers, and GPMGs); but no organic artillery or air.

Give the Spartans enough time to train up to proficiency with their arms and equipment, and enough train to support 10 full battle loads per fighting man (Appx 2,400 rounds per shooter. Helots are loggies only, not shooters), plus adequate rations, and medical supplies for 10% major casualty force depletion.

Assume the maximum realistic (based on logistical limits) estimates of Xerxes armies at 300,000 (with poor rations) and the same requirement to hold the hot gates for at least three days, to allow the remainder of the Peloponesian armies to reach defensive postures.

This is pretty damn cool

Eragon - Don't go see this movie

No, seriously, don't. If you loved the book, you'll be seriously pissed off; if you haven't read the book, you'll be confused, bored, and irritated; if you read it and didn't like it, you'll be pissed off you wasted your time.

How in the hell did they screw this one up? The book is a total slam dunk of a movie...

Ok, for those who don't know, Eragon is a book written by, at the time 15 year old, Christopher Paolini, as a lark/ homeschooling assignment. Christopher is a huge SF/F (Science Fiction and Fantasy) fan, and taking what he'd read, and his own creative efforts, smashed it all together and wrote a book.

The book itself is a reasonably well written, quite simple retelling of the "hero with a thousand faces" story. The homages, references, language, geography etc... read like a combination of Tolkien, Brooks, Goodkind, Eddings, Jordan, and McCaffery; wrapped all together and written from the perspective of a 15 year old kid... which actually isn't all that bad if it's done well, which Eragon was.

This is literally the archetypal fantasy story where a boy is born to great (or terrible) origins, which are hidden from him, or disguised. He generally loses his parents and is sent off to live with others, to protect him, but sometimes his parents simply hide things from him. Eventually he accidentally finds a portion of his special powers or secret history, and as a result he is put into danger and must leave everyone he knows. Sometimes those people are killed, or put at great risk. On his quest he is guided by an old man, as his mentor, who usually has something to do with his secret past, and is frequently secretly related to him. This mentor teaches him more of his powers and duties. The boy initially rejects his responsibilities, then is forced to embrace them to protect that which he loves; at which point the mentor is killed. By this time, the boy has usually developed a love interest, an overriding quest, or both. The death of his mentor catalyzes him to complete his quest. He is sent across the wilderness to face hardship without his mentor, calling on the mentors valuable lessons, and grows into a man in the process; then, strong and powerful, the boy returns to complete his quest the end.

Every single human culture, across all time, has this story in some for or another; with minor variations. Jesus Christ himself is an archetypal hero in this mold.

It's also the most common single fantasy or science fiction story, one of the most common historical fiction stories, and there are literally thousands of books and movies with the same basic plot line and characters.

Anyway, as I was saying, Eragon is a basic hero with a thousand faces type story; 'cept with dragons. Dragons are always a big fantasy plus.

How can you screw this up? Hollywood has done this story a million times, they know how to do it?

Well, you give it to a hack screenwriter who doesn't read the book; and you have it directed by a CGI supervisor who's never directed a movie; then you edit it like a music video, or maybe a Saturday morning cartoon.

There was no plot, no story, no character development, no motivation... At any time, if you'd asked a character "Why are we doing this", his only response could have been "because the script said so".

They cut out or drastically cut down perhaps half the book, including several characters absolutely critical to the plot and the story... which is OK, because they weren't planning on having any plot or story anyway...

The dropped characters in with no warning, and no reasoning and pretty much said "Ok, here's your new love interest. Here's your new best friend. You don't know why you're doing this but I'm the directer and we need this for the next shot".

The movie had no internal logic or consistency, but I'm guessing they thought you wouldn't notice because they cut every shot and every scene down to a few seconds at most, interspersed with pretty scenery (I think about 30 of the movies 100 minutes are spent riding horses around Slovakias carpathian mountains), and shots of the dragon.

The CGI in this movie is excellent; which considering the movie was directed by the Visual Effects Supervisor for Industrial Light and Magic is no surprise, but it looks like they spent all of their time, and all of their budget on the dragon, rather than.. ohhh I don't know,telling a story maybe?

What was good about the movie? Jeremy Irons was good, with what little they gave him, the dragon was gorgeous, Sienna Guilorry would have been good if she had any lines (mostly she just sat there and looked pouty), what cinematography wasn't left on the cutting room floor was pretty good, and in general the visual effects were good.

Seriously, that's it. Everything else was a big steaming pile of dragon crap.

I actually thought this movies was worse than Dungeons and Dragons, my previous low water mark for a major theatrically released fantasy movie.

The worst part is though? With a little more time and effort, a better director, and about 45 minutes more (making the move 2 hours 30, which is just fine for epic fantasy), this could have been a GREAT movie. The bones were there in the movie, and the meat was in the book. They could have very easily not cut it for the attention span of a crack addled ferret, and added in those missing story elements which would have developed and motivated the characters. 45 minutes would have been all it took to actually tell the story and develop the plot. I can't understand why they had to cut it down to 104 minutes. Honestly, it looks to me in a lot of places, that they actually DID film some of those missing elements, but then cut them out later for some reason.

So close, but no, they spent all their time and money on the visual effects, and their attractive leads, and absolutely none on just telling a good story.

Go and pick up the book, it's a good light read, and it's really worth reading. The second volume in the trilogy (the third is coming out in 2007 or 2008), Eldest, is a lot better; considering the kid was 4 years older when he wrote it, and actually, you know, expected it to be a real book and all..

If by some chance you do go see the movie after reading the book; be sure not to take any guns with you, because you're going to want to shoot the screen, then find the writer and director, and shoot them both too...

...No, wait, shooting's too good for them... You want to make them watch the movie over and over and over again like Alex in "A Clockwork Orange" until the mere thought of the movie causes them physical pain... then lock them permanently in a room where it plays on an endless loop, until they slowly starve to death, like Fortunato in the Eragon Oubliette...

Or maybe that's just me... I really need to get out more.