Remember, Denethor relied on the Palantir for intelligence instead of a spy network, and the Palantir had been compromised and was giving him false information and making him crazy. It's also made clear in the book (and less so in the film) that Denethor had been relying on his vassals to send armies and weapons to defend Minas Tirith, and they only sent token aid because they were afraid their home territories were about to be invaded. The book also mentioned that Gandalf had been warning Denethor about a huge war being on the way for decades, and Denethor hadn't listened, and that Minas Tirith was depopulated, with many houses standing empty, it didn't have a big local fighting force available, so the lack of help from the provinces was disastrous. Basically, Denethor was a whole anthill short of a picnic at that point, so he hadn't made anything like the preparations he could have, or should have.
And yeah, that's one of the odd things about Middle-Earth, the lack of technological advancement. Tolkien has a professor of Early English and an expert on the historical period we call the Dark Ages, he set the technological level there because that's what he knew. And showed that humans had been far more technologically advanced in the past, as had been the case in the Dark Ages... but he had the change happening over thousands of years rather than hundreds.
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