Artillery on Walls?

[Silencer]

Hi,

I just noticed a nice screenie@gamespot: completion of a Citadel. Do you notice those very large towers, especially at the gates?
So, this brings me to my question, will it be possible to load artillery (catapults, mangonels, canons) on the towers like in real life?

thnx for any help!

[GeneralMikeIII]

IIRC, in M1TW, the later castles could be upgraded to include seige towers containing ballista, catapults, and in the late game even cannons. You didn't have to have seige weapons stationed in the province (in fact, if you did, they usually just put them inside the walls of the castle, but not on them. This was kinda nice though, because the high Angle of Fire of the catapults allowed you to lob rocks over the wall onto the besiegers as they approached and not have to worry about taking return fire, at least until the walls were breached). I assume it will be the same in M2, since I haven't heard anything to the contrary.

[alexrugr]

IIRC, in M1TW, the later castles could be upgraded to include seige towers containing ballista, catapults, and in the late game even cannons. You didn't have to have seige weapons stationed in the province (in fact, if you did, they usually just put them inside the walls of the castle, but not on them. This was kinda nice though, because the high Angle of Fire of the catapults allowed you to lob rocks over the wall onto the besiegers as they approached and not have to worry about taking return fire, at least until the walls were breached). I assume it will be the same in M2, since I haven't heard anything to the contrary.

But what about the cannons/culverins ?they have low tragectory fire and this makes them almost useless when you are besieged,they are to slow to fire and attacker will kill crews before they actualy can make any serius damage,also MTW2 uses engine simular to RTW and where catapults likely to hit your own walls than enemy on the other side.

[Silencer]

But what about the cannons/culverins ?they have low tragectory fire and this makes them almost useless when you are besieged,they are to slow to fire and attacker will kill crews before they actualy can make any serius damage,also MTW2 uses engine simular to RTW and where catapults likely to hit your own walls than enemy on the other side.

Indeed. that was what I was wondering too. The Tower are large enough to hold siege equipment and cannons. The Late 14e-15e century fortresses hold plenty of those.

[GeneralMikeIII]

Indeed. that was what I was wondering too. The Tower are large enough to hold siege equipment and cannons. The Late 14e-15e century fortresses hold plenty of those.

Right, like I was saying the defensive seige towers are built into the castle when it is constructed on the Campaign map. As a defender (of a seige), individual seige weapon units are almost useless in most situations because the trajectory is too flat to do anything other than destroy one's own walls or units. My main point was just that the siege weapons are automatically put into the towers, and they aren't needed as individual units. I never have seige weapons as garrison units.

[alexrugr]

Ok,let's forget about the towers how about walls,just like ordinary units in RTW?IT would be fun to see cannons falling from breached walls!!

[rory_20_uk]

I hope we get proper star shaped citadels possibly even with outer earth bastions to help protect against attacks.

[cutepuppy]

I hope we get proper star shaped citadels possibly even with outer earth bastions to help protect against attacks.

I don't think that kind of citadels appeared before 1530.

[highlanddave]

i copied this stuff about artillery and fortresses of the last period of the game from Atlas of World Military History edited by Richard Brooks:

The mobile siege train of bronze guns with which Charles VIII invaded Italy was more destructive than gigantic medieval bombards had been. Traditional masonry fortresses that had withstood years of siege fell in 1495 after a few hours bombardment. Renaissance Italians, however, were well equipped to respond to the challenge, with skills in map-making, surveying, and geometry acquired form the great architectural projects of the Quattrocento. Their military engineers designed a new lower style of artillery fortress protected by earth ramparts, capable of withstanding prolonged bombardment. The spread of the Trace Italienne across Europe can be seen as a litmus test of the progress of the military renaissance, but the new fortifications were more than symbols. Their scale and the problems they posed were themselves potent causes of military change.

Late 15th century artillery achieved a form unchanged until the Industrial Revolution. Breech-loading guns built up from iron hoops gave way to cast bronze muzzle-loaders of increased accuracy and power. Wheeled carriages replaced the bombard's immobile sledge, the piece ballanced on a pair of trunnions for easy elevation. Together wheels and trunnions enabled gunners to lay their pieces accurately for both line and range. Wheeled carriages could deploy directly from the line of march, and in emergencies move about the battlefield. However, the misuse of artillery at Bicocca and Pavia, where assaulting troops masked their own guns, obscured the offensive potential revealed at Ravenna and Marignano. Field armeis relied instead on the arquebus, supplemented from the 1520s by the musket, a mobile wall piece light enough for one man to carry. Heavier guns were confined to the defensive, where their embarrassing variety mattered less. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, inherited fifty different calibres, from 98-pounders downwards. Like every artillerist of the period, from Francis I of France to Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, he rationalized. The Spanish army of 1609 had 48-, 24-, 12-, and 6pr guns, calibres that would remain standard until the 1850s.

The essential component of the new fortifications was the bastion, a low broad gun platform whose flanking fire swept the ditch and curtain wall that connected separate bastions in a unified defensive trace. At first medieval town walls were hastily upgraded, earth piled against them from an expanded moat, their towers cut down into gun positions. Later, whole cities were refortified in the new style, earth ramparts revetted in brick to resist both rain and cannon balls. Elaborate outworks developed. Earth piled up beyond the ditch formed a glacis to reduce the vertical target presented by the ramparts. The first ravelin appeared in 1497: a free-standing triangular work used to defend gates, or placed in front of the curtain to thicken up the crossfire around the bastions. Sentinels patrolled a covered way along the outer edge of the ditch. The single skin of the medieval town wall had given way to a complex system of defence in depth, each layer swept by flanking fire.

Fortresses like Verona restored the strategic advantage to the defender. Formal siege techniques replaced Charles VIII's brisk bombardments. In 1522 Prosper Colonna revived the Roman practice of circumvallation and contravallation to isolate the besieged and secure the besiegers against relieving armies. Wise besiegers directed attacks aginst a bastion, rather than the curtain, which was swept by the deadliest flanking fire. Covered by artillery and sheltered by gabions, sappers zig-zagged forward in constant fear of sorties and enfilade fire, until close enough to dig a trench parallel to the covered way as the forming up area for an assault. If the attackers gained a foothold, the defenders could still seal off the compromised sector with improvised barricades.

Artillery fortresses encourage the growth of armies. Their bastions mounted numerous guns which kept besiegers at a distance, demanding more men to complete investments. Sieges consumed vast stores of guns and ammunition, and prolonged campaigns unseasonably. In 1552 men froze to death in the trenches before Metz. New fortifications frustrated hopes that Charles V's personal union of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire would unite Europe under the Hapsburgs. Charles V invaded Northern France in the 1540s, but fortresses built by expatriate Italian engineers barred his path. Charles V's failure to crush France ensured that Europe remained divided politically, the essential condition for the competitive innovation that drive the military renaissance.

[rory_20_uk]

I don't think that kind of citadels appeared before 1530.

But I feel that the game is based upon history, not rigidly tied to what happened. Perhaps due to the might of one empire gunpowder was much more prevalent from the 1450's, and forced changes earlier.

The article does raise some other good points: in the game there is no such things as sapping. You march towards the walls, and the remainder climb them - be it you moved there that go or have been outside for a decade.