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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chilibean" data-source="post: 141214" data-attributes="member: 2220">Debris removal becomes a much more serious problem the further you tunnel.  As for hammering through a mile of solid stone in a year, he would probably have died a dozen times due to cave ins before half the year was up unless he built sturdy bracing as he went.  Not to mention the crew of 5 he would probably need for debris removal.Tunneling under a castle wall is more difficult than you might think.  When it rains and fills with water you're SOL for quite a while unless you bucket it out.  Debris removal is very slow and tedious (probably just as hard as breaking out the stone once you have a distance to move it).  And in the real world, you didn't have smokeless non-oxygen consuming light sources like in D&D.  Even if you cover the entrance, ground water will be a big problem in many areas.  Plus you had to start a long way off or else they would realize what you were doing and work to counter it.  That means you have a much longer dig, with much greater a debris removal problem, and a much bigger ventilation & lighting problem.Plus, there is a such thing as DEFENDERS in most seiges.  They can always countertunner, then flood you out, smoke you out, fight you out, etc... and fill it back up.As for the hammers breaking very often, that is (of course) just a bunch of bunk for the most part.  However, medieval masons at a quarry did have blacksmiths on hand to keep sharpening their soft iron chisels.  I can't remember off hand, but it was something like 1 blacksmith for every 20-30 masons (I think the proper term is hewer instead of mason for those at a quarry, but that is unimportant here).  Also, they used hatchets and axes for rough shaping the stones as well.  Obviously while working, axes slowly become hammers as they get duller and duller.  But they don't break normally.</blockquote>

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