[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Daniel Keep]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> It's like if you gave the Spartan Leonidas a Henry repeating rifle -
>> he still would have lost at Thermopylae. But there is little doubt
>> that one Henry repeating rifle is worth a hundred spear-chucking
>> wicker-armored immortals.
> 
> Sometimes I run these crazy calculations: how much modern firepower
> would be just enough to turn the odds in a classic battle? At
> Thermopilae, I think two Vickers with enough ammo would have been just
> about enough. Also at the Lord of the Rings 2 night castle defense, one
> machine gun would have sufficed (better protection and fewer assailants).
> 
> 
> Andrei

You mean the battle of Helm's Deep?  I think you'd need more than one
machine gun.  If the wall had held and the orcs had been forced to come
up the front ramp, then it might have been enough... but the bomb
Saruman gave them took out the wall meaning that you'd have two streams
of Orcs coming at you.

I reckon a machine gun covering the main entrance and perhaps some
razorwire and flamethrowers inside the wall from the breech.  That'll
learn 'em.

  -- Daniel