The defenses set up around most Japanese castles were so sturdy that the vast majority of them were never even tested in battle. By building such ingenious and deadly structures as those described in this section, castle designers ensured that any attacker would be discouraged from trying to break these defenses. The most common form of castle warfare was in fact the seige, where the attacking army would try to starve those inside the castle. In the rare cases that castles were put under direct attack, the defenders almost always emerged victorious.
Of course, before the days of automation and robotics, these defensive structures were meaningless without soldiers to man them. With the combination of a guard of well-trained warriors and a solid network of buildings, a castle's defenses could stop virtually any attack. Follow the links below to learn about these structures and soldiers: