Castle Warfare Expert Rates 8 Fortress Defenses In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider 

When you finish the ditch make a second ditch

They need to bring ditch dude back for a 3rd episode!

Literally just here for the ditches

"Just use rocks. They cost you nothing, you throw them at people and they get hurt. It's great."

When he said that they wouldn't dig a ditch as it was already on a hill. Hands are getting thrown my friends...

He did forget about the rocks though. They cost you nothing they take no preparation… You just throw them at people and they get hurt. It’s great.

@@generalerica4123 He said the rock thing at the GoT part

my man

Previous expert said that very same thing.

@@doomrider7 welcome to the joke

Them coconuts!

I doubt he’s even heard of Python.

I can't believe he evaluates Monty Python, but not The Messenger, Joan of Arc. Now THAT was an epic battle.

There's more accuracy to that movie than a lot of people initially assume (Terry Jones was a medieval historian, and I've heard from several medieval historians that some aspects are pretty accurate because of what Jones knew).

In the disc commentary Cleese points out that people’s teeth back then weren’t always as bad-looking - they didn’t have nearly as much sugared foodstuffs or refined sugar like we have today. Scurvy was a factor but not everyone walked around with rotted or missing teeth.

All problems with the defences of Minas Tirith can ve explained by numenorean engeniering

@@tomsmith247genuinely what i was thinking XD

It's true. Aragorn is my uncle.

csmith1@ really? Me to

” why wouldn’t you just build on top of the cliff?” “ because they’re numenoreans, they are infamously hubristic”

ah! somone who also watches SortedFOOD

Vinland saga comes to the rescue though. 10/10 anime.

immagine if in lord of the ring the humans actualy stopped for 1 second, and started digging like dwarfs. it would be called " lord of the ditch " now .

@@unknow11712 oh damn. You should have told osgileath before they got overrun. At least they got the memo at minus morghul and the moot so I guess it's just Gondor being silly.

@@MrKaiyooo Dammit Denethor you incompetent excuse of a Steward.

Bump this comment.

Great suggestion!

bump

Yes, 100%

Yeah, like they showed the siege in LotR return of the king, I'm sure they could have used the siege in LotR Two Towers and give maybe a 6.

Those in the end are your ratings for the movie

Wish he did kingdom of heaven!

We need a video with the two of them together! Would be great to see what they agree/disagree on.

The master has thouth him well

There is only one Lord of the ditch, and he does not share showel

@@Cool231 nah. Original ditch guy is all you need. This ditch guy is half as charismatic

"Why aren't they digging ditches?"

yeah, i was expecting a 10/10 on monty python

Lol

And that wasn't a market in the courtyard, it was a reception for the family of the singing prince's betrothed.

Let's be honest: he didn't like the coconuts.

As the clip was taken largely out of context, I wonder if this guy approved that fifty quid ever got you a descent castle defender. Should've covered the final scene and how common was it to have a castle charge interrupted by the cops.

the Rise of Ottomans: Siege of Constantinople did that just fine. Then again that’s straight up the events of what went down.

Padmavat did it best showing months of time passing and was getting gradually weak

Not how it happens in Monty Python though

@@DrownInLysergic It's exactly how it happens in the Holy Grail :D

@@ramflight it is true because there are modern policemen who arrest lancelot later.

@@askthepizzaguy it's why I love this absurdist comedy and will always find it funny :D

He's totally covered even if civilization fails and we go back to the middle ages. Now that's career security, folks

My irony-detector doesnt give me a precise feedback on your comment ... You know that that you cant just get a certificat for things like this? ... there is no such thing as a "certified castle expert"

@@antoniousai1989 But he called the trebuchet, a catapult

@@deathslayer3492 A trebuchet is a specific type of catapult. Catapult is the generic set of war engines that throw things at people. Trebuchets can be torsion activated (called mangonel) or counterweight activated, like the one in the Lord of the Rings. An Onager is a type of Roman catapult that has a bucket at the end, instead of a sling and it is what we most visually associate with the term catapult.

When he mentioned the ditch it warmed my heart 🤣

It really shows accurately what would happen if a psychopath attacked a medieval castle during a wedding celebration. Like a school shooting in Arthurian times. 9/10.

It seems the guy doesn't know Monty Python.

@@IntyMichael Indeed. Very disturbing. His credibility is shot. What kind of castle warfare expert doesn't geek out over Holy Grail?

I've watched it three times and STILL don't know what's going on lol

@@katieheys8564 the scene or the whole movie?

TBH grades don't mean a good movie. The other expert praised the accuracy of the battle in Alexander, but admitted that the rest of the film is bad.

the two movies he gave a 1 are the best ones though lol

I think that this is a good critic for lying down and avoiding

It’s about time…so many experts say how bad and ridiculous a scene is and then give it 7/10

I feel like he been overly harsh to compensate for a lack of knowledge. he never really went into details or tryed to understand and more like throw some simple personal opinions around

LOL. Good point. You win the interwebz for the week

😂😂😂😂

It was his house. He had to defend it.

"House is Baroque but the tactics used are surely Medieval, 3/10"

My home is my castle. So I agree.

Is it really warfare if it's just one guy though? :P

@@Shade01982ahah fair. he's a one guy army who storm effectively a castle whereas Arthur fail twice against the French and cant stop a police patrol

they missed troyan badger from the same movie, and cow launch

Ok, my mind is officially and irrecoverably boggled. This guy is a castle and siege expert, and he actually covered a Monty Python scene? I'm guessing he hasn't actually seen the whole movie.

And he's gay I give you Castle Anthrax. The spanking and the oral sex. Been looking for that castle my entire life 😂

They need to bring him back for a part 2 for this scene too!

It is potentially the closest thing to undermining I've seen in a major Hollywood film, though I'd love to be proved wrong

As much as I love those movies. The fortress of Helm's Deep is utter rubbish from a design point of view. Shadiversity has done an interesting video about it.

GROND GROND GROND

​@@kylewilliams8114 There's at least 2 american civil war movies that cover a siege where they tunneled under the walls of a fort and blew the wall up.

Yes. We need to get these guys together! 😁 I'd listen to them talk about ditches for hours.

It can be a whole 12 hours and I'd still watch it

However long, I'd click on it sooner than you can say "Where is your ditch?!"

Oh yes! I’d watch all of them for hours - and I’m a girl!

@@Pflaumensuess Same!!! 🙏

Yeah, there's also a cool medieval historian on history hit channel. Really engaging and funny.

Jesus Christ died for your sins please repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand 6637834577635499684

@@Kamila_Koziol gonna tease us like this and not send a link!? :(

God! My spine is trying to escape from my skeleton just thinking about that episode.

What season? You know there is only 7 right?

He also called the catapults

@@matthewstone7706 Trebuchets are catapults. A catapult is any kind of large pre-gunpowder machine that lobs something at an target including trebs, sprigalds, ballistas, onagers and mangonels.

@@EmperorSigismund I think we can all agree that a trebuchet is a little more specific than just saying catapult yes?

Pull the other one! Where do they get coconuts in Scotland?

@@Uppernorwood976 At the shop selling discount horses

@@Uppernorwood976 Swallows bring it there

@@koveristvan5500 An African or European swallow?

@@Uppernorwood976 They're brought by Swedish mööse caravans.

Yeah, I was about to say. If you watch a little further you see the dude next to Stannis get dropped by a rock and you see the Baratheon force rise their shields to protect themselves. And then they pull up the ladders.

This bugged me. I was like dude cmon literally 1 more second you’d probably be more informed on the situation and the way he was talking he’s never seen GOT

@@leviwisuri8255 There's just no way you make it out of life alive as a "Castle Warfare Expert" and not view the Seige of King's Landing. He's probably talked with colleagues and laymen a ridiculous amount about this particular episode or anything battle related. Gotta make that degree relevant.

@@Nosliw837 the way he talked he hasn’t seen the episode. I’m 100% sure of it he was wondering why that group busted through the door after, like he just doesn’t kno

And then you have... the battle of Winterfell. The stupidest keep defense tactics in the history of TV.

That or "He got caught up in his idiom".

Honestly, I don't think he has seen that movie before. And that's ... wow.

He did throw in a thatched roof cottages reference, or so I choose to believe, earlier.

I dont think he knew what the movie was honestly

Jesus Christ died for your sins please repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand 6637834577635499684

Pre gun powder it was very difficult to use projectiles to knock a hole in a wall. They were often hurled over them to try to harass and injure the defenders.

Problem is almost all of the films probably paid someone who was knowledgeable about the subject, the writers/director just ignore them

@@harlequingnoll5 Yeah this happens all the time in pretty much every department when making a historical inspired film or show, especially when it comes to the costuming department.

@@harlequingnoll5 Cose often the facts wont be as exciting as flaming balls and giant war-machines.

Bring back the ditch guy for Ep.3

What usually happens is they do get advice from an expert, but that advice is balanced against artistic vision, practicality, the story, and what looks good on screen. Realism is rarely the primary concern for filmmakers.

yeah, because siege warfare was super boring. you would be seen from afar and everyone would be ready. No surprises, no excitement. unless you get in via a wooden horse.

To be fair, all these gentlemen are forgetting that armies tried to avoid getting into prolonged sieges. And for a number of reasons. A) Armies did not have logistics like we do today. Back then, these armies relied on what provisions they could take (none of them nonperishable), and whatever they could forage. We also see this up until the 20th Century when food preservatives become a more widely industrialized means of logistics for food production (which is why WW1 and WW2 are such long drawn out conflicts with IMMENSE armies numbering in the millions across vast swaths of operational areas and even separate, individual fronts). This also pertains to wood and to water as well. Eventually, an army at this stage of warfare is going to run out of their own provisions and will need to rely on the land around them to survive, which means taking the local populace's crops and hunting for local game. B) All armies, excepting the Roman Army of their time for many various reasons, were made up of a small core of dedicated troops, like knights and squires and the like, then a slightly larger retinue of men at arms and trained infantry, then a majority of the army is conscripts called to the fight or volunteers with the promise of decent pay and three hot meals a day. But even then, these conscripts and volunteers are predominantly the peasantry, so campaigns need to be short and reach their goals within a timely manner, before the winter sets in. Most of these peasants come from their respective small townships and those townships rely heavily on the skills and skillsets of the farmers and laborers that make it thrive. Being gone for even a year can be disastrous for crop yield and trade for a town if a significant number of the working aged men are gone on campaign for their Lord or King. Which is why, for example, the Hundred Years War is not 100 years of continuous warfare, but periods of inactivity broken by spring and summer time campaigns. C) Which leads to a siege. A siege relies heavily on the surrounding terrain. Battering rams, siege towers, catapults and trebuchets need locally sourced wood for the engineers to build. You need clean water and local food to forage for the army besieging the fortified location. And you need the means to ensure that you can properly prevent illness from spreading through the encampment. D) More importantly, most sieges are a waiting game. These armies don't have fresh troops waiting to come into the fight. What any Lord or King has brought, is what he has to work with. To lay siege is often just a prolonged game of waiting to see who runs out of provisions first. And whether or not an allied estate with sufficient force can come to the aid of the besieged city (like the Siege of Vienna, and the arrival of the Winged Hussars turning the tide of the battle at the last moment). So to portray a genuine siege of a fortified settlement or city, is often a several month, to even several year, endeavor. But that Lord or King has to be absolutely confident that they properly encircled the place, ensured no messengers can break through the picket lines to give news of the siege to allied forces, and have sufficient supplies to ensure the siege can be maintained without fear of going hungry themselves, while starving out the defenders. Most castles and fortified locations fell because they ran out of food and surrendered the city rather than starve. There are notable instances that often pop out where a fortified location is besieged and assaulted (because that's more exciting than hearing about a 2 year siege that ended because the defenders had run out of food), but few of them end up actually falling to the besieging force. And the cost of taking said location is often heavy for the toll, because often a location taken by force will also see its women and children and the elderly get caught up in the violence (we often see this with cultural enemies, like that of the Crusaders and the Jihadists). And equally so with regards to the attackers (3 to 1 odds necessary to take any defensive position), because the defenders aren't just protecting a wall. They're protecting the people within, many, if not all, of these men having families within said walls. And considering Sun Tzu's the Art of War, a fighting force put into a position where there is no escape, knowing they will die, will fight like animals to survive and throw back the besieging force.

He even kept a straight face lmao

@@Gurchen He said they were trying, which they werent, which makes me wonder if he even reaslied its a comedy.

@@dorianleakey To be fair to the guy, if he only saw this clip, he may have mistaken them for trying to make it look real. But if they really HAD tried, they would have succeeded. Terry Jones in particular, knew his stuff.

​@@dorianleakey The way nobody reacts to any of the killings should be a giveaway, surely.

@@mroldnewbie ikr

10/10 would still watch that discussion between this guy and the original ditch guy.

The "ditch guy" said on Twitter that he recommanded this expert to Insider.

"Ditch Daddy." Genius

I worked as a technical support at math conference. You should have heard those impossible-to-follow discussions

D I T C H D A D D Y

Indeed. This guy doesn't know how Bruce and his Lieutenants captured castles. Thomas Randolph took Edinburgh by scaling the rock with a dozen men. Might be Roxburgh where they slowly creeped up in tbe dark in disguise as cattle 🤭

Turns out that they're bad at building stuff I guess

Think it was more the artistic vision over-ruling the logic and reality. I've also been bugged by how it seems like an old 3D simulation, but alas.

Well it's technically not the wall, but a civilian house. The lower walls are the only ones said to be of "unbreakable dark stone", while the rest were white in the books.

@Ulfang999 Agreed, Minas Tirith is all about the last ride of the Rohirrim, which is still ridiculous in it's own right if one actually stops to think about it, but it's still awesome.

It's an extra shame, because the walls of Minas Tirith in the books were essentially indestructible, much like the walls of Orthanc. Minas Tirith was one of the few remaining Numenorean structures left, and those blokes were the guys that literally stormed the beaches of heaven, and God Himself stepped in and wiped them off the face of the earth for that transgression. They sure knew how to build stuff, though. But the movie made it crumble like a Jenga tower. The book stated that when the defenders of Minas Tirith saw the forces of Mordor building the siege engines, they "laughed and did not fear such devices". The problem was that those siege engines weren't for the walls--they threw incendiary munitions _over_ the walls and lit the entire first circle on fire, which was well portrayed in the movie (along with the severed heads, too). But the walls were essentially unbreakable, which was poorly represented.

Another note from the book, the first wall of Minas Tirith was actually supposed to be made of the same black stone the tower of Isengard was made from, which was unbreakable.

...the trebuchets and people running them aren't unbreakable. Behind the wall is better.

Yes, also missing the part where they use ladders to scale the walls...

Another thing is, he commented on the attacking force not being large enough. Due to budget restrictions on the show. Large scale battles were not a thing in the early seasons. Stannis had 30-40 thousand men at his command in this battle in the book

@@mattiasandersson8693 yeah, those scenes screamed: "we dont have enough money, pls refer to the book and your imagination lads!"

@@pbrgm they did pretty well anyway though. I prefer the early ones to the shitstorm that comes later

@@mattiasandersson8693 Also the fact that most of the attacking forces were decimated before reaching landfall, due to the bay being set alight and ships destroyed. The men who made it to the wall were actually survivors of the initial wave and there were supposed to be more.

It feels too nitpicky when he just gives them 1s or 3s because of a couple of things they got "wrong" when they movie was not aiming for historical realism.

@@tomasxfranco Last time I checked, the series is called "How Real Is It?" not "Did It Accomplish What It's Aiming For?"

He gives Minas Tirith a score of 1 which got 7 levels you got to conquer to take the castle. There is a bunch missing in all the reviews which we can't blame him for but it still makes it a bad video.

@John Doe historical realism/accuracy isn't the same as realism/verosimilitud. You should try to make things make sense in the context that they are in (verosimilitud), I'm not saying otherwise. He judged aspects of a fantasy world/story not on the merit in that world but with how well they fit historically in relation to some arbitrary point of our European history. Not to mention some of his points would have been addressed just by rolling the tape forward 10 seconds...

@@TheSparker96 Why does Minas Tirith having 7 levels of redundancy disprove his thesis on the realism of the defenses themselves? Now you just have 7 more layers of the same not realistic defenses.

I was seraching for a comment like this. I really love the Director's Cut, it's such an incredible movie and I was hoping for it to be mentioned in the video

Would have loved to hear his opinion of a French castle in England.

Taunting the enemy mercilessly, the pinnacle of psychological warfare.

The French broke a siege with nothing but livestock, despite initially being fooled by the Trojan Bunny. Then after securing the grail, they had only mud and insults to hurl and were again victorious.

Monty Python gets 0 just because King Arthur isn't a girl and Gawain doesn't shout EXCALIBUR GELATINE when setting your team on fire.

With the way Hollywood makes these kinds of movies you could just get some random dude to say they need to have a ditch, stop lighting arrows on fire, use ladders and throw stones plus some made up dates and most everyone watching the video wouldn't know that they were a fake.

Most movies are made with a team of consultants. Problem is reality interferes with drama, so it's a literal trope that directors ignore experts

I kind of like when the experts are brutally honest on the 'big picture' but still can give props to smaller details that are accurate in movies. In my opinion he could have been more generous without being sycophantic.

Rankings are almost never about the number, but the relation to the other numbers.

Actually he doesn’t. The battle at Rochester Castle was real and he flub it

Tolkien mentions there being no weapons in the city capable of disrupting the orcs building trenches.

Yup. Most Hollywood sieges are much too simplistic and short compared to reality. Mostly this is because people don't want to die. It is much more likely that you wont get killed by simply surrounding the castle and waiting until their food ran out than trying to storm the place.

@@chuckhoyle1211 Oh it makes complete sense. I don't know why so many people watch movies (not documentaries) and think they are somehow historically accurate! They are meant for entertainment value! I compare it to people thinking when a comedian tells a story that the entire story itself is true. Sure PARTS are true, PARTS may be accurate. Overall though it is created for entertainment value. Cheers!

The pulling the ladders up with the hocks fired from the blisters was a let down. It did look good in the movie but was never done in our history ever. instead of pulling ladders up they would use teams of horses/men to rip blocks of stone off the top of the walls. block by block until they breach the walls.

@@benmayne6159 Well to be fair Lord Of The Rings is not in this world. Magical rings of power, Godlike spiders, Elves, Balrogs and underground capital cities are also unheard of in our world.

@samuelloification yes it’s not set in this world, but in fantasy land. But as a tactic why don’t the defenders see them setting up these ladders 🪜 earlier and sabotage them??, what is holding the base of the ladders 🪜 from being pull against the wall when being pulled up. wood pegs and rope i guess, how do the defenders not see/hear them doing this? and just simply drop a man down on a rope to sabotage them.

@samuelloification It did look cool but to over think it i would have to include, 1: large army close to a castle 🏰 without the defenders knowing (magic fog of not seeing or hearing) 2: huge trees growing near a castle 🏰 that burns 🔥 lots of fire wood and required a huge amount of large wooden timber’s in its construction in the first place.

@samuelloification castle 🏰 siege tactics are the same in reality as in fantasy land(middle earth). For a fantasy movies the “lord of the rings trilogy” was quite good over all. yeh the trees in the movie could move, but they couldn’t walk. only the “tree men” could walk in the movies. If the trees in the movies could of walked, they would of all walked very far away for every castle 🏰 close to them and from anyone trying to chop them down…hahahahaha

Of all the films to pick from, why the heck did they pick that?

She turned me into a newt!

agreed, he obviously has not seen this movie, if he did he'd know there wasn't a "market" in the castle but that they were wedding preparations. how can he call himself an expert when he hasn't seen this movie?

@@lunatickgeo agreed

@@lunatickgeo If they had called a sparrow expert, it would be more useful.

thank god they don't make these videos just for you!

@@Fattony6666 Yeah, I agree, I'm happy those fun videos are for everyone :)

totally agree with you. i aswell thought he was kinda harsh with his ratings and lacked "consideration about fantasy and cinematographic factors, which were included by other experts from this series" as you said it so well :)

I would say he knows more details about these things than me, yet teaches less than i would. He manages to name the castle they are recreating the capture of in outlaw king, without saying sneaking in was the exact tactic they used, he even says its a real tactic, without saying "and this is what the scots did in this war". Very odd. I suspect that with Ironclad he was commenting on scenes we didnt see, because his comment makes no sense, as both in real life and the film the castle wasnt taken through force, by undermining, though in the movie they burn live pigs as the combustable materials, which seems unlikely to work compared to their lard. His comment on Monty Python is baffling, its like he hasnt even realised he is watching a comedy, he thinks its trying to be historically accurate, he praises it or trying? Bonkers.

@@dorianleakey Yes, that's why I have impression there might be some issue with editing. Or even broader, what they tell him what they want, etc.

Yeah, i was waiting for "Kingdom of Heaven". It was one of the better ones, comparatively. "Joan Of Arc" also had some good siege stuff. A more realistic trebuchet for example.

I was also waiting for kingdom of heaven, helms deep would be good too!

Agreed. If actually assaulting a castle or other major fortification, it was common to need a 10:1 advantage. Extremely difficult to do successfully. Even if walls could be compromised, needing 3:1 was typical. Sieges of this era were usually about successfully isolating the place until hunger and disease overcame it.

@@TheFranchiseCA Azov-Steel needed like 100 russians to 1 human defender and they STILL couldn't breach it. Spent more firepower than Hiroshima bomb on that mill alone and our boys only surrendered to... Turkey.

@@TheFranchiseCA sieges of this era weren't about isolating the place until hunger or disease overcame it, they were about negotiating a the terms of surrender because the defenders know they're never winning this (unless they're just trying to stall long enough for an allied force to arrive) and the attackers know there is little point in destroying a perfectly good castle, when taking it without a fight is an option.

Another is Roel Konijnendijk (he has 2 reaction videos here in RU-vid). Fun to watch 😁

Apparently being a castle expert means you have to lose your sense of humor.

@@russellfrancis813 agree

Yup, this guy might have a cool title but really lacks in expertise in his field.

I've been to a lot of castles in Europe, and they were all made of stone. If anything, I've seen the other way around, with the other parts of stone and inner buildings partly of wood.

@@Shade01982 Have you seen a single motte and bailey castle? I guess not. It's the same with later castles. They're mostly gone. Basing your assumptions on what's left behind is called survivor bias. Just think about it: what's likely to be preserved to this day? A pitiful wooden castle and the crude and battlescarred sword of an absolute noname noble, or the stone castle of royalty and the sword that was used to knight people even after swords fell out of use? Don't forget that for every city there was pretty much a castle and yet most cities have no castle today. At times, it even hits really impressive castles such as Freiburg of which not a single stone remained. Even small countries had thousands of castles and today less than 10% are remaining as ruins. BTW: in German we say instead of filthy rich, rich as stone. It referred to the ability of the rich to build stone mansions and castles.

@edi What you're claiming is just conjecture. That style was only popular for what, 2 centuries maybe? Before stone already started to become more popular. What you're claiming would only be right if you used a very broad definition of castle and also included everything up to Roman forts...

The definition of castle includes wooden ones. Not to mention earthwork castles or combined wood/earth castles like gords or burgwalls (funny you castle experts didn't even mention them since they're literally the most common type of castle). Still, he wasn't just talking about castles but specifically the ones in these movies. None were wood so why would he talk about wood castles? You guys think you know more than the Ph.D. guy in the video and it makes me laugh. Dunning-Kruger on full display. He is rating movies for veracity not talking about medieval fortifications for five hours (which I'm sure he can do). If you've watched any of these vids you'd know that they keep them around 20 minutes or so. Most of these experts could probably go on for days but get cut and edited.

It feels like he hasn’t actually seen any of these shows/films. He just shits on everything and misses out on important fictional context

Nothing is perfect. Personally it was enjoyable but I would’ve changed some things.

Jesus Christ died for your sins please repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand 6637834577635499684

@@jack6126 no

They put this one the ditch's guy video

@@CaiusAureliusCotta who the heck is the ditch guy

@@joshberkin5567 An ancient warfare specialist this channel invited before. He got famous in the comments by his phrases about digging ditches and throw in rocks.

already exists basically. Legaleagle's channel