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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Why did the Germans spare Allied troops trapped at Dunkirk?
I haven't seen the movie but know enough of the story to understand that Allied troops had fallen back to Dunkirk for evacuation but were trapped there until transport came.
I also understand that ...
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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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Under which conditions does the losing party actively commemorate a battle?
I am trying to understand under which conditions battles are predominantly remembered and commemorated by the losing party (who acknowledge their defeat), not the victors. This is not who gets to ...
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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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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, ...
- 411
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Why did trench warfare accept deadlocks?
As someone who has never studied military history or strategy I find it very hard to understand how and why both sides got locked into relatively short lines of heavily defended trench warfare with ...
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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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Did the Celts really go into battle naked?
Yes, this of-repeated tale was reported by the Romans all the time, but it sounds a lot like rumor. Stuff the victors write about their former enemies, "they were so stupid, they went into battle ...
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Are there famous battles that took place on ice?
As my favorite ice hockey team became the champion of Poland today, I was reminded of the famous Battle of the Ice that took place in 1242. During the fights, forces of Alexander Nevsky managed to ...
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Has any medieval army ever fought 3 or more distinct battles on the same day?
In the fantasy fiction A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of thrones, during Robert's Rebellion, three battles were fought in the same day, in the same place.
There where particular conditions that lead to ...
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Why did few French and no Dutch pilots (but many Poles and Czechs) take part in the Battle of Britain?
Among the non-British pilots, at least 141 were Polish, 84 Czech and 28 Belgian, but only 13 were French and none were Dutch, Norwegian or Danish.
The reasons why there were many Polish, Czech and ...
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English monarchs on the battlefield
It seems that in English 'older times' it was expected for the King or monarch to lead the armies in battle.
My research suggests that this was the case in the 12th century in the civil war between ...
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Are the "bone fields" of the Stalingrad encircled battlefields real?
In this podcast by Dan Carlin's Hardcore history show, Dan mentions that there are areas inside of the Stalingrad pocket where human remains are openly visible above ground, exposed to the weather. ...
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How did ancient armies keep the route of supplies to their battlefield?
How did ancient armies like the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, or even in later times, the Arabs and Mongols keep the route of supplies going to support their armies marching through the vast ...
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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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