Questions tagged [battle]
Questions related to an historical battle, being a single engagement or combat in warfare between two or more armed forces.
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Were trained crocodiles used as a weapon in the Battle of Saraighat?
There is a youtube video about The Ahom Kingdom. It generally sounds fairly well researched and makes only one obvious extraordinary claim. In describing the Battle of Saraighat (1671) the following ...
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How was Rome able to conscript and equip 400k soldiers during 2nd Punic War in a pre-industrial society?
I have counted legions and allied legions Rome conscripted during 16 years of Punic War. It's roughly 400k and could be even more.
Battle
Year
Result
Battle of Ticinus
218 BC
2,000 Roman casualties, ...
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Battle of Ulm: why did general Mack surrender to Napoleon instead of retreating to Ulm and wait for the Russian Army?
Was there something that made being besieged at these times inconceivable? I can imagine that a lack of provisions and/or logistics of keeping ~70 000 men in a city wouldn't make the situation ideal ...
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Was there a battle at "Wodziki" in October 1914?
A gravestone for Friedrich Adel Ferdinand Torsten Graf Posadowsky-Wehner, Freiherr v. Postelwitz, Kgl. Preuss Oberst und Kommandeur des (2 Oster.) Gren Rgt. 13 says
gefallen am 7 Okt. 1914
i Wodziki
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When did Athenian archers pepper Spartan hoplites with arrows for days on an island?
The heading is basically all I remember from school. The hoplites lacked mobility and were thus harassed for day by the lightly armored Athenian archers. Athenian victory.
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Did the Battle of Red Cliffs take place on the border between Cao Cao and Liu Bei's territories?
In the YouTube video Three Kingdoms - OverSimplified, we have this depiction of the Battle of Red Cliffs:
The video suggests the Battle of Red Cliffs (赤壁之战) takes place on the border between Cao Cao ...
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Why did armies meet on the battlefield, and how often did they? (medieval times) [closed]
A common criticism I hear of fiction set in medieval-esque worlds is that it makes no sense for the defending army to leave the fortifications in order to meet the attacking army on the battlefield. ...
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What was the Indian nobility's reaction to the construction of Veeranam Eri (வீராணம் ஏரி)?
Background Information
In the South of Medieval India, there was a wealthy and powerful empire called the Chola Empire.
In between the years 907-955 AD, the king (or Raja) Parantaka the First (...
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Did any army try speed volley fire by passing pre-loaded muskets to the front line? [duplicate]
Early 16th to 18th century muskets had 2 big disadvantages. Musketeers needed minimum 20-30 seconds to reload them and they were very inaccurate, because projectile (usually small lead ball) was much ...
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What is the reasoning behind these huge numbers for participants in the Battle of Grunwald 1410?
I was reading about the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War and I found this strange excerpt from current Wikispeedia, (which is based on an old Wikipedia ...
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Did a submarine ever torpedo and sink a destroyer? [closed]
The naval battle of U-405 versus USS Borie sank the Borie, but that was due to its own action of ramming U-405, which had a stronger hull to withstand depth pressures.
Did a submarine ever sink a ...
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How effectively did Romans rotate/relieve lines with the cohort system? [duplicate]
There is a similar question on Reddit and the original poster of the question uses a YouTube video to demonstrate the point. That video showcases a rotation of Roman infantry in a cohort.
According to ...
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How true is this observation concerning battle?
I came across a quote:
“One who risks his life in battle has the best chance of saving it; one who flees to save it is most likely to lose it” (Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, ed. E. Diehl2 1936-42.)
The ...
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How difficult was to escape from a naval battle after engaging into one during the Age of Sail?
So, I am designing a board game which includes pirates/imperial battles during the age of sail. While I have found a lot of information on the internet as well as books, papers and of course other ...
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Why were the Marines so badly outnumbered at the critical point at Guadalcanal?
Prior to the battle of Guadalcanal,, the Americans had landed 11,000 men on the island in August, 1942. This compares to the 5,000 or so men that the Japanese had on the island by the first week of ...
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What happened where in 1541? (Portuguese in the Horn of Africa)
Was trying to check the following description from the introduction to a board game:
In 1541, Portuguese soldiers [...] slipped into the port of Massawa
[and] join[ed] the Christian forces. At the ...
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Was the Kerensky Offensive doomed from the start?
I've been reading about Russia in the Great War during 1917, and what is quite surprising for me is the Kerensky Offensive. Primarily, what is surprising is that the army was in great material terms ...
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What pre-industrial battle used a tactic to split the enemy force in the middle in this way?
I remember watching a video on a pre-industrial battle (maybe even pre musket, but not sure) on a unique battle technique. Cavalry was involved, as well as slingshot and infantry. For some reason my ...
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Where can tactical maps for battles of the Mexican Revolution be accessed?
There are a bunch of resources on the Mexican revolution, but I've never seen an academical text that narrates the major battles in the struggle along with tactical maps.
Thus, I'm looking for a ...
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In the Battle of the Coral Sea, how could two Japanese scouts grossly mis-identify two American ships?
I've been reading the Wikipedia pages about the Pacific theatre in WW2; in the page describing the battle of the Coral Sea there is the following passage:
[...] the scout [from Shōkaku] confirmed ...
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Did the Roman testudo protect the sides of the formation?
I have seen several images like these, where the soldiers in testudo formation hold shields above their heads and to their sides as well.
The soldiers standing in the extreme left or right column of ...
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What is the technical term for a head on head battle?
I am writing an essay about how accurate the film "Braveheart" is. In the film Braveheart, the battle of Stirling Bridge is shown with the two armies facing each other. I would like to know what the ...
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Why did the Persian army lose the battle of Marathon? [closed]
Persian army was an absolutely massive army,and persian empire defeated famous empires such as babylon using it, you know that then Greece wasn't a united country and it was built from different city-...
user42335
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What was the significance of the BEF moving into the gap between German forces in First Battle of the Marne?
The German troops fighting in the Battle of the Marne were exhausted and their commanders seemed to communicate very little. After the Marne they retreated to the river Aisne and more or less began ...
user42241
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When was the first electrical intra-battlefield communication?
When was the first time a commander used, for example, the telegraph to communicate with and coordinate different parts of the same battlefield?
I know that the telegraph was used extensively for ...
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Why didn't the Chinese attack Hungnam during the evacuation?
The Hungnam evacuation was a notable event during the early years of the Korean War. Retreating to the port of Hungnam from the recent defeat at Chosin Reservoir, UN forces managed to evacuate about ...
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What was the aftermath of a battle in the Middle Ages? How did wounded soldiers proceed?
The Red Cross was founded by 1859 over these circumstances:
Until the middle of the 19th century, there were no organized and/or well-established army nursing systems for casualties and no safe and ...
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Which battle was the most lopsided result in terms of casualties?
I have recently read about two ancient battles that were won by a much smaller army and/or lead to very different casualties:
Defeat of Boudica - according to Roman accounts only 400 Romans died as ...
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Have two generals ever agreed to fight one on one to avoid a battle? [duplicate]
In fiction, there's a scene sometimes occur where 2 armies are facing each other in preparation for battle, but the leaders parlay and agree to fight one on one to determine the outcome with minimum ...
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Were the Japanese aware of Desmond Doss's actions?
I read about the amazing story of Desmond Doss and wonder if the Japanese at all aware, during the Battle of Okinawa of the extent of his actions at the time? I know a few individual Japanese would ...
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