Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
The Mumakil seem to have been about as useful as real-world war elephants: not very. Their advantage was that they frightened horses and so neutralised cavalry, but they proved almost impossible to persuade or goad to trample and crush formed infantry, and eventually were relegated to mobile but vulnerable archery platforms- but ones with an unpleasant tendency to go berserk and then indeed crush and trample everyone, friend and foe alike.
|
The wolf-riders used by Saruman seem to have fulfilled the same function with more efficiency and greater numbers. Showy and awe-inspiring though they were, the műmakil were indeed noticeably ineffective in the glimpses given the reader. Maybe they were better suited for the lands of their origin.