Load of bollocks eh WLD? Take a look at what happened at the following seiges during the Napoleonic War in Spain:

Cuidad Rodrigo (7th to 20th January, 1812):
On January 8, the Light Division stormed and took the Grand Teson redoubt and began digging positions for the breaching batteries. The Santa Cruz Convent was stormed on January 13 and the San Francisco Convent fell on January 14. The batteries, which opened fire on January 14, included twenty-three 24-lb and four 18-lb siege cannon. In five days, they fired over 9,500 rounds and opened two effective breaches. Wellington ordered an assault for the night of January 19.

Major-General Thomas Picton's 3rd Division was ordered to storm the greater breach on the northwest while Robert Craufurd's Light Division was sent against the lesser breach on the north. Diversionary attacks by Denis Pack's Portuguese brigade would probe the defences at the San Pelayo Gate on the east and across the Agueda River on the south. All told, Wellington planned to use 10,700 men in his assault.

Launched at 7 pm, the assault was completely successful. There were two cannons embedded in the wall of the greater breach that caused the most casualties in the storming. The 88th Connaught Rangers Regiment took one of the guns while the 45th Nottinghamshire Regiment took the other. Allied losses in the siege were 195 killed and 916 wounded, although amongst the dead were Major-Generals Henry MacKinnon and Robert Craufurd. The victory was somewhat marred when the British rank and file thoroughly sacked the city, despite the efforts of their officers to stop them.

Badajoz (March 16-April 6, 1812):
An Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington, besieged Badajoz, Spain and forced the surrender of the French garrison. The siege was one of the bloodiest in the Napoleonic Wars and was considered a costly victory by the British, with some 3,000 Allied soldiers killed in a few short hours of intense fighting as the siege drew to an end (2,000 men died in under two hours attempting to carry the main breach a space about 6m x 5m), and as many as 4,000 allied Spanish civilians, including many women and children, massacred by the allied troops after the battle.

San Sebastian (8th to 31st August 1813):
The British engineers emplaced their breaching batteries by 26 August. By late on 30 August, two breaches were blasted in the walls by 15 heavy cannon firing from the south and 42 from the east. The main breach was made near the southeast corner and a smaller one on the east side. Graham ordered an assault for the following day.

Because the attack had to be made as the tide fell, it was scheduled for 11:00 am on 31 August. The 5th Division made the assault from the south on the main breach. The soldiers dashed across the 180 yards from the trenches to the foot of the breach with little loss, but then the French opened a terrific fire. Again and again the men of the 5th Division rushed up the rubble-strewn breach, but they were cut down in swaths.

The French had built an inner wall that stopped the redcoats and killed hundreds. Graham committed 750 volunteers from the 1st, 4th and Light Divisions, but they were unable to beat down the French defenders. A Portuguese brigade splashed across the Urumea and attacked the eastern breach, but their drive also stalled. After two hours, the assault was a costly failure. The survivors hugged the ground to avoid the searing fire.

Graham and his artillery commander, Alexander Dickson fired on the inner wall, despite risk of killing many British soldiers who lay so close under the barrier. When the British heavy guns first fired over their heads, the survivors of the attack began to panic. But, when the smoke cleared, they noticed that the big guns had wrecked most of the inner wall. With a yell, they charged, reached the top of the breach and spilled into the city. The French resisted in deadly house to house combat until nightfall. Rey then pulled his 1,200 survivors into the castle on Monte Urgull, where he held out until 5 September before asking for terms. He formally surrendered on 8 September.

Meanwhile, the British rank and file ran completely amok, pillaging and burning the city even though the population was anti-French. Order was not restored for five days, by which time only a handful of buildings survived. The rest of the city burned to the ground.

This tragedy is remembered every year on August 31 with an extensive candlelit ceremony.