[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Did I say differently? What I do say is that in accounts I have read siege engine have universally been more used by the attackers than the defenders. You distort what other people say and miscall it a refutation.

Same with what I've read. Fortified cities main defense was its walls. It kept unwanted people out, because if they didn't have the ability to break through the defense (the wall) then there really was no threat to the city. Of course, the attackers could find other ways to hurt the city (cut off supplies, starve them out..etc) but this takes far more time, resources, and costs, and the army could be well out of range of anything that might be fired deadly from the city's walls. It brings in other factors that the attackers might not be luxurious to having.

Large siege engines are offensive weapons, designed for the purpose of breaking through a fortified city's main defense (the wall). It does not do much good for the city to place siege engines on its walls if the walls themselves are not strong enough to keep attackers out. Anyway, point is, siege engines were often built on the spot, and could easily be greater than any siege equipment placed on a city's walls for defense. Since, the main purpose of the siege engine was offensive, and to break down walls. A city did not need to break down walls, it just needed to be fortified enough to keep attackers out.

(And now moving back towards the more specific discussion regarding the siege of Minas Tirith).

Minas Tirith's first wall, was in fact indomitable. TheAzn, you may not like this magical explanation in the books, but that's how it was and there is no way around it. Minas Tirith was a foritified city and its primary defense was the impregnable first wall:

At first men laughed and did not greatly fear such devices. For the main wall of the City was of great height and marvellous thickness, built ere the power and craft of Numenor waned in exile; and its outward face was like to the Tower of Orthanc, hard and dark and smooth, unconquerable by steel or fire, unbreakable except by some convulsion that would rend the very earth on which it stood.~Siege of Gondor

At first the defenders laugh, because again, the primary purpose of siege engines is to break through the city's walls. The defenders of Minas Tirith are confident that their wall is indomitable. You may say their pride here shows "sub-human intelligence," but the fact remains if Sauron's army can't break through Minas Tirith's primary defense (the indomitable wall) then Sauron's large army parked out of range is not going to be much threat, unless Sauron's plans were to starve them out (which was not Sauron's plans).

However, Sauron recognizing the strength of Minas Tirith is in it's outer wall, does not waste time or resources trying to break through it (which was the reason the defenders "At first laughed," believing Sauron had built these large catapults to bring down their wall):

But the engines did not waste shot upon the indomitable wall...As soon as the great catapults were set, with many yells and the creaking of rope and winch, they began to throw missiles marvellously high, so that they passed right above the battlement and fell thudding within the first circle of the City; and many of them by some secret art burst into flame as they came toppling down.
Soon there was great peril of fire behind the wall, and all who could be spared were busy quelling the flames that sprang up in many places. Then among the greater casts there fell another hail, less ruinous but more horrible~ibid

Trust me, by the time Sauron is flinging in fire bombs and decapitated heads the defenders are no longer laughing. Some need to be spared to put out the fires, and most others are fleeing at the horror and despair Sauron has just unleashed in a psychological warfare. Despite this, the fact still remains, if Sauron can't break through the City's primary defense, this psychological warfare is ultimately fruitless. And what is needed to break through the gate? A massive battering ram and an added bit of power from The Witch-King.

As others have argued, the reasons presented in the text for Sauron's army being out of range of Minas Tirith's siege equipment are logical and consistent, within the text. Orcs delighted in building machines and playing with wheels, especially machines that could be implemented for nefarious purposes. Saruman was said to have a "mind of wheels and metal." Saruman was a Maia of Aule, as was Sauron, they were both great craftsman. Maybe you don't think in siege equipment the men of Minas Tirith should have been outmatched by orcs and Sauron, but in LOTR, that's how the story is presented. That is how the story is also consistently explained. So, in my opinion, no plothole exists.