Freaking sieges, how do they work

So part of the backstory of the main characters of this story I'm thinking up is that they separately participated in a pivotal/climactic battle/siege in the Capital before disappearing into obscurity. The setting is a medieval Japan analogue, no magic/spirit stuff, and firearms have not yet been used in the war yet. The problem is, I have no idea how attackers and defenders go about besieging and getting besieged. I've just started doing some Googling about and reading on the details of sieges in Japan.

Some details on the scenario: - The city is big, with three main gates; the fourth side of the castle is bordered by natural geography (haven't made up my mind on whether it'd be a huge mountain or a cliff in the sea). The final assault will occur simultaneously on the three gates. - One general failed to make it to the city in time, thus providing an advantage to one side. I'm putting him as a Capital ally for now. - The siege has been going on for roughly a month. - There's an outer wall and an inner wall. The capital falls only a few days after the outer wall is breached.

Basically I just need to make the entire scenario occur naturally, without anyone juggling Idiot Balls.

Thanks in advance, duders.

Sieges are actually pretty simple but very time consuming. Simplest tactic is to starve out the people inside the castle, but castles are built for sieges, so they tend to have a lot of food stuffed away just in case and it can take months, sometimes years for that to happen. Since Japanese didn't use Siege machines much, this is the primary tactic. They didn't try to breach walls at all really, and it was considered honorable to the Japanese for the people under siege to ride out to fight outside the walls occasionally.

edited 18th Dec '11 8:01:10 PM by NoirGrimoir

Is this supposed to be a historical fiction setting, or is it a Fantasy Counterpart Culture?

Fantasy counterpart.

So basically, as long as I avoid Hollywood Tactics I'm good? What other pitfalls should I avoid?

Probably the best thing you could do is find an actual battle from history and basically just copy/adapt it, more or less.

You really have two options.

A: Sit outside and wait for them to surrender. This is actually often quite elaborate, involving the construction of your own defensive works to contain any breakout attempt. It's also often quite long, and as armies on campaign of the era didn't have much in the way of logistics and sanitary knowledge was nonexistent, there was a decent chance that your army would collapse first.

B: Attempt to storm the walls. Difficult and costly, and given the lack of discipline in armies of the period quite rare. Most of the time infantry did not even reach the walls in an attempt. This is Japan, of course, so if you have an excess of Samurai equivalents and you tell them to take that wall or don't come back alive, they might manage it. The problem is a well-constructed castle is among the most effective force multipliers ever devised.

And because this is Japan, and they mostly built castles out of wood, there is one other option: set it on fire.

You're forgetting:

C: Sneak some undercover operatives inside the besieged town/building and have them engage in sabotage.

Everybody likes the sound of that one. It makes a good story and a good gameplay mechanic.

But the number of historical successes it has to its credit is miniscule if there are any. I can't think of one at all.

You can fudge historical accuracy if it gets in the way of telling a good story, though. Only 1% of 1% will actually have the trivia knowledge and wankiness to actually give a shit. That's the thing with fiction, you can stretch the boundaries of what is possible, and provided it does not seem out of place (Willing Suspension of Disbelief) then people will accept it and the story would be better because of it.

Possibly.

But then there's that idiot ball thing he mentioned and for it to work there'd need to be one in play. That's why it never worked in reality; a defended castle during a siege is going to have the walls manned well enough at all hours that getting up them unseen is very unlikely, and once you're inside the gatehouses will also be fully manned at all hours. To do otherwise would be exceptionally stupid.

And rationing demands the guarding of food and water stores as well.

And then we're back to giving somebody the idiot ball to make it work.

Fiction is not reality, but good fiction works with realistic premises regarding human behavior.

Like I said, just fudge the info; manipulate the scenario so that the watchtower is understaffed or there is a distraction to tend to or what have you. Have a million-to-one plan succeed in a way that does not seem cheap. Fiction is malleable to the point where people start to call bullshit, provided you don't stretch things too far, you can have heroics and what have you. That's the thing, realism wank is not good escapist writing (Which is what I am assuming the OP is writing) because, in reality, siege warfare is more about rationing and living in squalor than it is about shit happening.

C has happened a few times, it just doesn't happen very often. Some of the stories of when they did happen for real are pretty awesome though.

edited 19th Dec '11 1:23:12 AM by NoirGrimoir

Thanks for the inputs so far, peeps!

So if I get this correctly, C makes things exciting and entertaining, but leaves some form of fudge factor that has to be pretty believable for the audience to not face palm in disgust. In real life, this has been rarely implemented or successful?

I can live with some small level of idiocy (isolated to the grunts) in exchange for the coolness factor. I could probably add some traitors in the walls that could help the infiltrators succeed.

So the scenario is currently: Rebel factions corners the remaining loyalists into the capital, followed by months-long siege. Loyalist general A fails to arrive to help the besieged, rebels take this is a chance, sends a plan into action by coercing their hidden allies inside to collaborate with an infiltration squad, manages to pry open one of the gates (with a Seemingly Believable decoy attack from the other Two Gates).

Point of contention now would be how to make the decoy attack Seemingly Believable. The defenders would be wary with a straight push through Gates 1 and 2... unless I layer it such that they _think_ that attacks on Gates 3 and 2 was the decoy and focus on Gate 1, then mistakenly realize (with sufficient deception from the enemy) that the real target was Gate 1.

There's always the "heave diseased goats over the walls and hope they catch plague" strategy.

I was thinking more along the lines of sneaking your covert agents in before the siege happens. Send them ahead far in advance of your main army and have them pose as harmless refugees looking for asylum inside the city/castle before the invading army arrives.

For some (sorta) Cs that actually worked,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Opis

And in general, Cracked has some more to look into http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-craziest-sieges-in-history/

edited 19th Dec '11 10:30:41 AM by RickGriffin

Yeah... you aren't going to get some kind of epic, climactic battle out of a siege unless the defenders do something really idiotic or the attackers bring something big and mean like cannons (as in the aforementioned Fall of Constantinople).

Usually, it's a lot of sitting about, perhaps with a potshot from a siege engine or two. Basically every movie with a castle attack ever gets this wrong, so...

I suppose you could try tunneling under them, but I bet most... well, this is Japan, so, hm. I'm more familiar with medieval European warfare than I am with the equivalent in Japan and Asia, unfortunately, but I assume they'd have also prepared as thoroughly as the Europeans did for things like that.

Really, it's just a waiting game. Nothing fancy.

Now, if you had magic or something, things might be different, but...

Edit: or, as noted, you can just go "character X was at the Siege of Y, and did Z and Z is really cool/horrible so now we all know about character X," and just not go into detail.

edited 19th Dec '11 10:33:47 AM by USAF713

For more unusual methods of siege warfare, here's an idea: if a besieged city is at the bottom of a valley or basin, the besieging army might be able, through carefully placed canals and river dams, to divert lots of water into the valley and flood the city. Or, if you want a little more Rule of Cool, they could get the water level up fairly high, but still a foot or so lower than the tops of the city walls. That way you could have the invaders attacking the city by boat and getting into a big battle when they clash with the city's defenders atop the walls.

Or maybe the besiegers have attacked a city/castle related to the besieging target, and generously offer to let the besieged city/castle collect their dead and give them a proper burial. Of course, among the many dead will be hidden a few well trained soldiers wearing the flesh of dead, and who can pass for corpses just long enough to get inside the city/castle and sneak away to perform sabotage.

edited 19th Dec '11 11:47:45 AM by RavenWilder

I somehow doubt that they specifically built castle walls to be watertight like that back then. Then again, they apparently had mock sea battles in the Colosseum, so who knows?

Though, if it's at a relatively low elevation, you could always just get big boulders and roll them down the hill at the thing...

Depends on how steep the valley is. And if the besieged folks learned what their enemies were trying to do, they might do some last-minute water proofing before the cascade of water comes down.

edited 19th Dec '11 11:47:12 AM by RavenWilder

If I were you I'd watched Japanese Jidaigeki period war movies, just to get an idea of what their warfare looks like.

edited 19th Dec '11 5:39:44 PM by NoirGrimoir

Would poisoning their water supply be a viable option? In such a case, I'd imagine it could increase the defenders' chances of taking desperate action, therefore making stuff happen. Of course, it's rendered moot if they keep water in storage; I'm not sure how feudal Japan handled its water supplies.

edited 24th Dec '11 8:13:55 AM by SpacemanStrife

That's certainly a viable option if you've got someone ninja enough to do it.

Keep in mind that the defenders might've though of that, though. If it's, say, a mountain fortress that uses a supply of running water (like a stream that runs through and become a river later), then they'll build the fortress so the steam runs out of there, thereby sending any poisons right out. Few lords would be so foolish as to build a fortress in such a way that its water supply is easily accessible, or can easily stagnate.

Why not borrow a few books on sieges and warfare from your local library?