New answers tagged warfare
1
The other issue is that because disease was not fully understood, the efficacy of this maneuver would be mixed at best. Sure, if you send plague victims over the wall, that could give the people inside of the city the plague. However, the belief at the time was that disease was caused by bad smells, and so a dead, decaying horse would have been believed to ...
1
The most obvious aspect I can think of is Uncle Sam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_sam
...Uncle Sam didn't get a standard appearance until the well-known "recruitment" image of Uncle Sam was created by James Montgomery Flagg (inspired by a British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose). It was this image more than any other ...
2
1) They weren't actually aiming. With a few notable exceptions, archers were not the cream of the army - they were rabble not considered worthy of even the infantry. They couldn't be trusted to tell their right foot from their left, and fletchers and goose quills cost money - can't waste that practicing. The officers told the archers what direction to face ...
5
When there is a continuous fire, the enemy can adjust their distance, placement of shields and attention. It is not impossible to avoid singular arrows.
On the other hand, synchronous firing has the advantage that
The enemy could be allowed to approach at the dangerous distance. Without continuous stream of arrows the enemy cannot properly assess the ...
1
How can you discount the "2 tanks vs. 1 million spearmen" and still take into account Rorke's Drift? A breech-loaded rifle is a very massive technological improvement over a spear, regardless of whether or not you're in favorable terrain (which the missionary station can HARDLY be counted as one)
In anycase, most of Britain's battles fit into your ...
4
This is kind of a tough question because to some degree the side which wins a battle is kind of by definition the "stronger" side. That being said, a couple examples from the American Civil War:
Chancellorsville: Probably the best example of the bunch. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had a force of around 60,000 opposing a Union force led by "Fighting ...
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The Battle of Strasbourg when the Roman army of Julian the Apostate fought the Alamanni in 357 AD. Outnumbered 2-1 the Roman army nevertheless routed their opposing army with minimal losses.
Also most of Belisarius' battles were fought against vastly larger forces.
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There are two episodes from WW2 in Russia come to mind.
Panfilov's Twenty-Eight Guardsmen
This is an episode every school kid from former Soviet Union studied in history course. The story is that 28 soldiers were able to withstand the attack of German tanks of Panzer Division while destroying many tanks and a lot of infantry. Almost all of them perished. ...
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Taking this to mean numerical inferiority and restricting to cases where the weaker side won, these are the biggest disparities I can find.
The easiest way to win while significantly outnumbered is to defend a strong fortress in a siege, as shown in Eger where 2100 to 2300 Hungarian defenders held out against an Ottoman force with 35000 to 40000 men.
In ...
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Salamis, Tigranocertae, Pharsalus.
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A prime example would be the Siege of Malta by the Ottomans in 1565. The Ottomans outnumbered the defenders 5 to 1, according to the numbers given by Francisco Balbi di Correggio, but did not succeed in conquering the island.
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One more reason, not mentioned by other answers, is that if a group shoots at once, it is easier to correct fire in case of miss. This is difficult for each archer to control where his arrow lands, but it is easy for their commander to say "100 yards shorter".
Firing on command also gives a control to the officer what they do and that they are not thinking ...
2
According to www.napolun.com the European fleet strengths, in terms of Ships of the Line (1st to 3rd rates), in 1808-1809 (shortly after Trafalgar) were:
Great Britain: 113
Spain: 45
France: 45
Russia: 34
Denmark: 21
Also according to that website, in 1805 the Great Britain (presumably including state owned trade ships etc) had a ...
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While I can't comment on the changing of ones underwear being regulation/recorded in manuals etc. If you visit the Imperial War Museum or the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard much of this kind of thing is covered.
On any wooden warship the internal bulkheads were designed to be taken down and stowed in the bilge or the hold (including the captains cabin and ...
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