The Perfect Medieval Siege Tactic

Attacking a castle was a difficult task for any army; but attacking forces came up with a multitude of ways to bring down castle defences and attack those within.

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Credit:
Simple History Creator: Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)
Video Directors: Anthony Barrett, Denis Blinov
Script: Tash Martell
Script Review: Denis Blinov
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Simple History Channel Manager: James Dowse

[cannonball]

Guye Fawkes: "Bring the torch closer to see if there is gunpowder in this barrel"

[Marinealver]

What can the defender do against mining?

Countermining! Dig a tunnel but dig it deeper and then seal it off.
When the miners tunnel over the unstable ground it will cause a cave in.

[corymorimacori]

“Kings, queens, dragons, dwarves, horses, fortresses, magic and swords!” JRR Tolkien

[pierluigiadreani]

The war in the alps during ww1 was maybe one of the pinnacle of this. Austrians and Italians digging tunnel in the hard mountains and placing giant mines to Blow up part of the mountains where the enemy was stationing.

Nightmare fuel

[Fidd-mcsz]

A "petard" was a high-angle extremely short-barrelled primitive muzzle-loaded howitzer, which fired a large explosive cannon-ball into castles or towns as a siege weapon. The expression "hoist by his own petard", meaning to be undone by one's own device, plan or scheme, used in one of Shakespeare play's, and coined by him, literally describes someone flung into the air by his own weapon (the petard). Another form of petard, the "Petard mortar", which fired a huge 80lb bomb, fitted in Churchill AVRE tanks some 90m, was used to destroy houses and concrete bunkers during WW2! It filled the same role as the Sturmtiger, but was a more practical weapon, as it could carry many more rounds, although had less much less range.

[youngmasterzhi]

Sappers: Nothing is beneath them, but they’re always beneath you!

[soggywafl]

This is the first video game sponsor that I think I am actually going to try! And thanks for the great video, as usual!

[Gocever]

My most sincere congratulations Simple History, well done. I never heard of such a tactic in the Middle Ages before but now i do, thank you. Fun fact: today the word today sapping is used to refer to combat engineers which is very similar to the sapping of the middle ages.

[DeeperSoul]

Nothing beaten the most sneaky one that "Sailing the ships from land" yet in history.

[dubenforcer]

Surprised he didn’t mention the Battle of the Crater from the American Civil War

[Harikejn]

At the battle of Epra (9:30), there is rumor that Erwin Rommel was there. During that time he was a captain.
Also digging tunnels was also done during the WWII, when the POW's were escaping from the prisons from the occupiers.
There is a rumor that movie Great Escape was dedicated to one truth story when only three POW's managed to escape.
Similar escape was also during the WWII, but in Yugoslavia. The couple of the Yugoslav immigrants were arrested by the occupiers and they were held in city Sremska Mitrovica (now Serbia). And they also did decide to dig tunnel, and they managed to dig tunnel, and they escaped. When they escaped, they went to Fruška Gora, (a mountain near city of Novi Sad), and after that they joined the resistance.
Believe it or not during the Roman Empire Sremska Mitrovica was called Sirmium.

[MrPhantomPC]

That game you got as a sponsor looks sick. Their advertising department knew what audience to hit.

[davidburke]

There has been use of tunneling in the war in ukraine sometimes making their own or finding old post and pre ww2 soviet tunnel systems

[midhunmanu]

Thank you Simple History for making such great videos .

[TheDesertFox]

Interesting concept I had forgotten and didn't realize the extent of its use. would be fascinating to see it used in modern conflicts.

[thewafflegamer]

fun fact: the biggest usage of this tactic led to the biggest explosion in history prior to the first nuclear bombs.

[MalevolentBite]

So this is why Army Sappers symbol is a red castle / tower

[TheBeingX]

Great Video. I even saw the Tactic being used in the Anime Youjo Senki. To great effect

[mickeyadaptus]

Would've been cool to bring up the 80 years war as an example, that had alot of siege battles where sapping was required.

[barbiquearea]

Besides moats and castles built around large bodies of water. I imagine trying to sap a castle that is built on very high ground (such as at the top of a mountain) must have been especially challenging. I don't know of any accounts where a mountain fortress fell to sapping.