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Orc supply logistics is eased somewhat by the ability of the Orc armies to eat the defeated and if required, each other. In the latter case the strong orcs eat
by tobyhede 7y ago
Orc supply logistics is eased somewhat by the ability of the Orc armies to eat the defeated and if required, each other. In the latter case the strong orcs eat the weak, preserving the elite and veteran parts of the army. There is a strong hierarchy within the various Orc subtypes, and an argument could be made that the Orc army marches as its own supply.
- perlgeek 7y agoI don't think the book mentions any green, fertile farmland in Mordor, nor do the movies show any. So even if the Orc-eats-Orc or Orc-eats-Man "supply" might work for a short campaign, the biomass must come from somewhere, initially.
- tobyhede 7y agoBook explicitly mentions slave farms in the East. But yes, cannibalism and human forage is not sustainable, but might stretch a 10 day supply to 15.
- zipwitch 7y agoI think it's great slave farms in Southern Mordor, around the inland sea of Nurnen. http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/n/nurn.php http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/n/nurn.php (There may also have been farms in the East that I'm not remembering. The East was definitely under Sauron's thumb, although perhaps not so firmly as he would have liked.)
- andrewl 7y agoIn the chapter The Land of Shadow in The Return of the King the narrator says: "Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves. Here in the northward regions were the mines and forges, and the musterings of long-planned war; and here the Dark Power, moving its armies like pieces on the board was gathering them together."