Defending Castles

Published July 28, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

It is true that Cersei should have sent a garrison to Dragonstone. A relatively small number of soldiers can easily defend a castle against a substantially larger army. King Edward 1st of England build 3 huge castles in North Wales to control the rebellious populace. Once built they did not require particular large garrisons at all and successfully defeated sieges by much larger armies. I’ve walked round all these castles and once you do it becomes obvious how effective they are if you are inside defending. Of course, the Welsh didn’t have dragons (except Merlin but that’s a different story) so the garrison would not have held out but it was a tactical error of Cersei and Jamie given the relatively small investment of men.

“Permanent garrisons of soldiers were established, 40 at Caernarfon, 30 at Conwy and 36 at Harlech, equipped with crossbows and armor.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_and_Town_Walls_of_King_Edward_in_Gwynedd

Cheers

Tariq

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