Seige Warfare

[5freemen]

I want to write a paper about the parlous state of the UK pensions industry (I know, wrong site , but stick with me). I want to use an analogy of an industry under seige. I've heard that a tactic of beseigers was to tunnel undeground to the foundations of the castle, remove the foundation stones and replace with wooden supports. Once sufficient stones had been removed, the beseigers could then set fire to the wooden support and the walls would come tumbling down. Right up until the final moments, the defenders would be blissfully unaware of any impending danger.

I think this is exactly the position with the UK pensions industry, except the fires have already been lit. OK, so you're not interested in this, but can you give me some famous examples of when this tactic was used successfully? When was it first used and when was the last time? Also, any anecdotes which would brighten up a rather dull subject would be appreciated. Finally, if the defenders suspected this was going on, what ways did they devise to thwart the beseigers? Any responses on this specifically, or especially if you are able to develop the analogy into a new direction would be greatly appreciated.

[kaktus]

It is called sapping, there is something about it here (wikipedia) and I googled it and these might be more useful  sapping and sapping

 

Good luck 

[Quizmonster]

It did not exactly involve tunnels and fire, but you might mention how Joshua in the Bible managed to besiege the city and eventually destroy the walls of Jericho by constant loud blowing of ram's-horn trumpets!
A mention of Hamlet's phrase: "the enginer hoist by his own petar" (Shakespeare's spelling) might also prove useful.

[sddsddean]

King John did this to Rochester Castle in 1215. Go about halfway down the page for the start of the second seige(just after the picture of the cathedral). They brought down one of the four square towers, but this was subsequently re built as a round tower(see 6th picture down) http://www.castles-abbeys.co.uk/Rochester-Castle.html

[Peter Pedant]

also called mines and countermines

You would dig trenches to get to the bottom of the walls having negotiated the glacis. [steep ditchy thing]

One of the ways aroudn this is ----is to sally forth and counterattack the mining works

---raid the trenches.....

anyway good luck, the pension crisis is too important to spend too much=time on ancient warfare

Oh all the above was done in Vienna in 1683 when the Turks attacked V at the Melksturm - this sector of the city is also where beethoven pasqualihaus is, and also where harry lime is first spotted in the shadows.....

[Peter Pedant]

oh I have googled that site.

Khe sanh may have been mined but the big thing were the cu chi tunnels. The Americans basically built a base on top of them and could never quite get rid of 'gooks' in the compound. - that is poking their heads out of manholes and shooting said yanks within the compound.....

Funnily enough there, they trained dogs - yes dogs to sniff out the said gg. This may have been on dietary differences between the Viet Minh and the Yanks (no burgers for a start) - and yeah funnily enough, Froissy de Froissart (or whatever his name was, fella who wrote on the crusades) said that the Muslims during the crusades used dogs to smell out Christians. Later historians thought that if this worked then it might be on Christians smelling of pork and not of garlic.....

not sure how you get these details in an essay on pensions......

[acw]

I don't think it's boring at all.  I want to be a pensions lawyer when I grow up (i.e, NOW, but I have to wait until Sept 07 to start my training contract). 

I'm really interested to know who you feel has lit the fires? 

Perhaps I should briefly cover my back and explain that I want to go into pensions for a lot of well informed reasons, and last week spent 2 hours with two top pensions lawyers in London so I know the job is for me.  However, I don't actually know much about the finer points pensions law itself or exact details of the current problem (although of course I understand that there is one HELL of a problem!). 

I'm just interested in your analogy and hearing some more details about it.  I hope you don't mind me asking! :-)

[jno]

PP, I believe the Vietnamese managed to distract the American running dogs either by irritating them with pepper, or by confusing them by washing themselves and their clothes with US soap. (Sorry, 5freemen, a bit off topic.)

[LordyGeordie]

In the film of Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers the fortress of Helms Deep (i think that's the name) is breached by a big troll planting gunpowder beneath a small tunnel under the walls and then blowing it up, thus bringing the walls down

The orc army then comes on charging through and it looks like all is lost until Gandalf arrives in the east on the third day with the riders of rohan to relieve the siege.

Not sure how you can tie that in with pensions. Gandalf was pretty old though.

[Solarjunkie]

Didn't Fred Dibner use that technique to demolish old chimneys?