#4438777 - 09/13/18 06:17 PM
Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
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PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
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Pro-Consul of Florida
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Miami, FL USA
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I've been doing quite a bit of reading on military history recently and I've come across some famous battles where the much smaller army managed to win the battle out of a sheer superiority in tactics and leadership.
Here are five that I've recently read about:
1. Battle of Chancellorsville 1863
winner: Confederacy
Union army size: 133,000 Confederate army size: 60,000
2. Battle of Fredericksburg 1862
winner: Confederacy
Union army size: 122,000 Confederate army size: 78,000
3. Battle of Austerlitz 1805
winner: France
Austrian and Russian combined army size: 95,000 French army size: 65,000
4. Battle of Leuthen 1757
winner: Prussia
Austrian army size: 66,000 Prussian army size: 33,000
5. Battle of Crecy 1346
winner: England
English army size: 14,000 French army size: 30,000
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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#4438789 - 09/13/18 07:31 PM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Dec 1999
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EAF331 MadDog
XBL: LanceHawkins
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Oslo, Norway
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Battle of Aquae Sextiae (Roman Republic, 101 B.C) Teutonic army: about 120,000 warriors Gaius Marius' legions: 40,000 legionaries
Roman victory.
followed by: Battle of Vercellae (ROman Republic, 101 BC) Cimbri army: about 200,000 Roman army: 52,300
Roman victory.
Battle of Alesia (Gaul, 52 BC) Julius Caesar: 75,000 troops Gauls: 328,000 troops
Roman victory
Battle of Pharsalus (Greece, 48 BC) Julius Caesar: 34,000 troops Pompey: 57,000 troops
Caesar won.
Battle of Gaugamela (Persian Empire, 331 BC) Alexander the Great: 47,000 Darius III: 1,000,000
Greek victory.
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#4438792 - 09/13/18 07:34 PM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Apr 2015
Posts: 13,879
F4UDash4
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SC
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I've been doing quite a bit of reading on military history recently and I've come across some famous battles where the much smaller army managed to win the battle out of a sheer superiority in tactics and leadership.
Here are five that I've recently read about:
1. Battle of Chancellorsville 1863
winner: Confederacy
Union army size: 133,000 Confederate army size: 60,000
2. Battle of Fredericksburg 1862
winner: Confederacy
Union army size: 122,000 Confederate army size: 78,000
Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were a formidable pair.
"In the vast library of socialist books, there’s not a single volume on how to create wealth, only how to take and “redistribute” it.” - David Horowitz
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#4438828 - 09/13/18 09:53 PM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 2,763
BD-123
Old Scroat
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Old Scroat
Senior Member
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Posts: 2,763
Naunton Beauchamp Worcestershi...
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Beat me to it Khai! Could be said about the Battle for Malta too, both due to the tactical genius Keith Park!
Agincourt; St. Crispin's Day 1415, numbers vary but at least 4 to 1 advantage to the French
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#4438833 - 09/13/18 10:09 PM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 3,354
Lieste
Senior Member
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Senior Member
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More reasonable numbers for Agincourt are around 8000-9000 English, roughly 1:3 men at arms and longbowmen, and around 12,000-14,000 french and allied troops, roughly 2:1 or slightly more ~5:2? men at arms to crossbowmen or archers.
An overly large French vanguard (around 50-60 % of the total engaged the whole English force, and was defeated decisively in detail, the main battle and rearguard saw little or no action.
The actual fighting thus was closer to 1:1 or even a slight English advantage. It is also notable that the fighting started with an advance from the English army from it's defence of the early morning, catching the French somewhat out of position, and most of the (small number of) Cavalry supposed to be arrayed on the French wings doesn't appear to have been present.
(Research by Anne Curry, and not read in her original form, but summarised in an interesting 'chronological' history of the campaign "1415 Henry's Year of Glory. The Bodley Head 2009, Ian Mortimer).
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#4438844 - 09/13/18 10:46 PM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 519
Roudou
Member
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Member
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Posts: 519
French countryside
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Hundred Years War... Sorry but I need to make french Kingdom army on a par with English one. Battle of Saint-Omer 1340 winner: France France: 3,000 English and Flemmish: 10,000 to 16,000 Battle of Poitiers 1356 winner: England England: 6,000 France: 11,000 Battle of Patay 1429 winner: France France: 1,500 English: 5,000 Battle of Formigny 1450 winner: France France: 4,500 to 5,000 England: 5,000 (english sources) - 7,000 (french sources) Interestingly, english sources said par on strentgh.... But french and english sources agreed on the amount of english casualties, something between 4,000 and 6,000. It is hard to believe that some english units didn't succeed to escape the battle.
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#4438850 - 09/13/18 11:43 PM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: May 2001
Posts: 1,196
Chef
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Member
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North Carolina
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Battle of Auerstedt 1806
French - 27,000 under Marshall Davout. 4,350 KWM. Prussians - 53,000 under Hohenlohe. 18,000 KWM plus 115 guns taken.
The road less traveled is filled with fewer needy people.
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#4438855 - 09/14/18 12:00 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 7,444
Mad Max
survivor
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survivor
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Posts: 7,444
NSW, Australia
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Couldn't resist posting this:
AT Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away;
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!”
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: “’Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, 5 And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?”
II
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I’ve ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore. 10 I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.”
III
So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land 15 Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below:
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, 20 To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
IV
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
“Shall we fight or shall we fly? 25 Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There’ll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.”
And Sir Richard said again: “We be all good Englishmen.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, 30 For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.”
V
Sir Richard spoke and he laugh’d, and we roar’d a hurrah and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen, 35 And the little Revenge ran on thro’ the long sea-lane between.
VI
Thousands of their soldiers look’d down from their decks and laugh’d,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay’d
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons, 40 And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay’d.
VII
And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud, 45 Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day.
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
VIII
But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went, 50 Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land. 55 IX
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. 60 For some were sunk and many were shatter’d and so could fight us no more—
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
X
For he said, “Fight on! fight on!”
Tho’ his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone, 65 With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,
And he said, “Fight on! fight on!”
XI
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea, 70 And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear’d that we still could sting,
So they watch’d what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we, 75 Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim’d for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent; 80 And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride:
“We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men! 85 And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die—does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!” 90 XII
And the gunner said, “Ay, ay,” but the seamen made reply:
“We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow.” 95 And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.
XIII
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: 100 “I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!”
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
XIV
And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true, 105 And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honor down into the deep.
And they mann’d the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew, 110 And away she sail’d with her loss and long’d for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin’d awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew, 115 Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.
"You'll never take me alive" said he, And his ghost may be heard if you pass by that billabong "Who'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me?"
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#4438861 - 09/14/18 12:34 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 10,113
KraziKanuK
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Veteran
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Ottawa Canada
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battle of Trafalgar
British: 33 ships (27 ships of the line + 6 others) France/Spain: 41 ships (Fr. 18 ships of the line + 8 others. Spn: 16 ships of the line)
What became of the 1000s killed in all these battles?
There was only 16 squadrons of RAF fighters that used 100 octane during the BoB. The Fw190A could not fly with the outer cannon removed. There was no Fw190A-8s flying with the JGs in 1945.
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#4438882 - 09/14/18 04:04 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 9,522
Wklink
Permanent Latrine Orderly
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Permanent Latrine Orderly
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 9,522
Olympia, Washington
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Second Battle of Sabine Pass.
September 8, 1863.
Union Forces: 5000 infantry soldiers, four gunboats and I guess 18 transports.
Confederate Forces: 50 infantry and 6 artillery pieces in a fort.
Confederate victory with over 200 Union casualties (killed, wounded or captured) and 2 gunboats sunk to no Confederate losses.
My Great Great Grandfather was a member of the Davis Guards, the Confederate forces that defended the fort.
The artist formerly known as SimHq Tom Cofield
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#4438884 - 09/14/18 04:19 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,271
Sluggish Controls
Member
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Member
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Posts: 2,271
Hong Kong
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The Finnish counterattack during the Winter War in late 1939 Battle of Tolvajarvi USSR: Full strength Division + Armour + Artillery Finland: 4,000 men Winner : Finland Cheers, Slug
"Major Burns isn't saying much of anything, Sir. I think he's formulating the answer..." - Radar - M*A*S*H
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#4438906 - 09/14/18 10:31 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: F4UDash4]
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,489
PanzerMeyer
Pro-Consul of Florida
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Pro-Consul of Florida
King Crimson - SimHQ's Top Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 121,489
Miami, FL USA
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Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were a formidable pair.
Absolutely. One of the best ever seen in the annals of military history.
Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 09/14/18 10:31 AM.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
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#4438907 - 09/14/18 10:35 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: PanzerMeyer]
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 10,113
KraziKanuK
Veteran
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Veteran
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Posts: 10,113
Ottawa Canada
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They were needed at Little Bighorn.
There was only 16 squadrons of RAF fighters that used 100 octane during the BoB. The Fw190A could not fly with the outer cannon removed. There was no Fw190A-8s flying with the JGs in 1945.
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#4438910 - 09/14/18 11:05 AM
Re: Famous battles where the much smaller army won!
[Re: Lieste]
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 3,586
kaa
Senior Member
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Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 3,586
France
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More reasonable numbers for Agincourt are around 8000-9000 English, roughly 1:3 men at arms and longbowmen, and around 12,000-14,000 french and allied troops, roughly 2:1 or slightly more ~5:2? men at arms to crossbowmen or archers.
An overly large French vanguard (around 50-60 % of the total engaged the whole English force, and was defeated decisively in detail, the main battle and rearguard saw little or no action.
The actual fighting thus was closer to 1:1 or even a slight English advantage. It is also notable that the fighting started with an advance from the English army from it's defence of the early morning, catching the French somewhat out of position, and most of the (small number of) Cavalry supposed to be arrayed on the French wings doesn't appear to have been present.
(Research by Anne Curry, and not read in her original form, but summarised in an interesting 'chronological' history of the campaign "1415 Henry's Year of Glory. The Bodley Head 2009, Ian Mortimer). Ah interesting point of view and explanation , thanks.
"Anyone can shoot you down if you don't see him coming but it takes a wonderfully good Hun to bag a Camel if you're expecting him." Tom Cundall.
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Exodus
by RedOneAlpha. 04/18/24 05:46 PM
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