Sauron's Armies

[Boromir88]

The army sieging Minas Tirith as Macalaure references to is Karen Wynn Fonstads' Atlas of Middle-earth. Where she approximates this number of 45,000, I think she breaks it down to:

18,000 Haradrim
7,000 Variags from Khand
20,000 Orcs

Fonstad did not have access to the Letters of JRR Tolkien so there are some mistakes in it. However, it is one of the best Tolkien guides (if you're looking for a guide to the books) that is out there, and is highly recommended. Fonstad never just doesn't make up stuff, she's got textual support for it. I know where she came up with the 18,000 Haradrim, but I do not have the Atlas available and am still trying to figure out where the other 2 numbers come from. But as far as the Haradrim force on Pelennor fields, 18,000 seems to be a good approximation:

And if the Rohirrim at there onset were thrice outnumbered by the Haradrim alone, soon their case became worse, for new strength came now streaming to the field out of Osgiliath.~Battle of Pelennor Fields

Theoden says he has '6,000' spears, thrice that amount, there's where the 18,000 Haradrim come from. Again this is just an approximation (even with the quote from the book...'if'), but I think it's a reliable one. I've never seen Fonstad's numbers disputed, as she always has a reasoning for them.

As far as those at the Morannon, the only clue I know of is that it would be greater than the force sent to siege Minas Tirith, because we are told that Sauron still hadn't sent his 'main army.' The 10 times as many as the force Aragorn sent out with seems reasonable.

Now in the movies, I've heard 250,000 were on the Pelennor Fields, and I can believe that seeing as it's a Jackson movie. The Morannon, as Mansun says did not seem to be very many, 10-20 thousand or so.

[alatar]

Note that the Lords of Gondor state that the army that Aragorn leads to assault the Black Gate (~7000) is but a shadow of its former glory, where these 7000 would be merely the vanguard.

How many were present when Sauron lost his Ring? And just a thought: how many were present when Thangorodrim was thrown down?

[Kuruharan]

I believe there was an army once with 250,000 soldiers - not sure but may have been Norman/Viking perhaps?

Not Norman or Viking, no. Their armies never were anything like that big.

In the age of armor and sword armies were small because of a few necessities. A) Populations were not large enough to support armies hundreds of thousands strong. B) An army that size could not be fed. It could not bring enough food along with it to feed itself over a campaign (even assuming that it would be able to gather that much food) and it could not live off the land for any amount of time before it would starve.

[Boromir88]

Another note on Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth. She remarks that 45,000 is 'a very conservative estimate'.

We know where the 18,000 Haradrim number came from, the other two numbers she gives as a rough estimate.

The 20,000 (which is the host from Minas Morgul and Barad-dur) number she refers to this:

'greater than any army that had issued "from that vale since the days of Isildur's might;... and yet it was but one and not the greatest of the hosts that Mordor now sent forth."

And she roughly gages that this was the greatest host to march out since Isildur's might, would be about 20,000.

And then the 7,000 is more of a filler, to make up the reserves that Gothmog threw into the fight. It is those who came from Rhun and Khand, and acts more as a filler. We know that the force sent to siege Gondor was not Sauron's greatest yet. It seems as if say she had lowered the Morgul/Barad-dur host to say 15,000 than the number of Gothmog's reserves would have been upped to 12,000. As she had deemed roughly a 4:1 ratio between the Free People's force and Sauron's force.

So, because she calls this a 'very conservative estimate', and that she really is unsure about the force Easterlings and the force from Khand that Gothmog threw into the battle, personally I would up the number to about 50-60,000.

How do you think Sauron's armies would fare with today's world of soldiers, e.g. US army?

[ninja91]

Mansun... we have machine guns and nukes. We probably would not have one casualty... they would just be mowed down with bullets. Oh yeah, and shells. And mines. And bombs.

Originally Posted by ninja91

Mansun... we have machine guns and nukes. We probably would not have one casualty... they would just be mowed down with bullets. Oh yeah, and shells. And mines. And bombs.

I was referring more towards numbers.

[ninja91]

If you are talking about numbers, then I think that Sauron's armies definitely have the edge then.