If There Is One Battle You Could Have Witnessed What Would It Be ?

originally posted by: TheSpanishArcher
The Battle of the Bastards.

But yeah, I'd probably go with Gettysburg. That third day would have been wild.

Pickett’s charge. A few seconds before noon. But Meade had already dispatched his cannon to cover cemetery hill.

San Jacinto, 45 minutes of ambush during the siesta that resulted in the capture of Santa Ana, the “Napoleon of the West.”

Midway.

The US Marines taking Algiers ( the shores of Tripoli ) in their first military engagement?

The battle of Charrae, when the Parthians pretended to flee the battlefield, but actually surrounded the Roman army, and wiped out two entire legions, to a man?

Or the battle of the Horns of Hattin, when Saladin took possession of the last fragment of the True Cross, and the crusaders lost Outremer, the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem?

Or Waterloo

The siege of Vienna

Probably for me it would be Cunaxa, when the 10,000 Greek mercenaries beat Ardashir / Artaxerxes II of Persia, but lost their employer Cyrus on the field of battle. And performed a fighting retreat of a thousand miles, the Anabasis

Hands down for a slaughter it's the charge of the lightning brigade.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

It’s “light brigade”. As in light cavalry.

Most of the really big bloodbaths are frontal assaults, like that one. “The Art of War” states that it comes from attacking your enemy’s strength, instead of his weakness. The thing is, every once in a blue moon ( Omaha Beach) it succeeds.

a reply to: Graysen

Oops, yes that's right, I just remember Custer the rest is fragmented.

I'm not a war buff, I am astounded though at the amount of young men willing to sacrifice their lives in such battles for a cause unknown to them.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Previous generations were willing to live or die for an idea.

Ideas like liberty, justice, honor and salvation were what made life worth living.

This generation thinks what makes life worth living is avocado toast and gender fluidity, apparently.

The problem is that there are so many different ways in which a battle can be interesting, for different reasons, so anyone who knows the battles of history would be hard-pressed to fix a choice on one alone.

An Englishman might want to be with the "thin red line, tipped with steel" at Balaclava, or with Churchill at the Brtiish army's last cavalry charge at Omdurman. Perhaps an American student of history would opt for being one of the aides attending the historic conversation in Appomatox Court House.

There are the battles with historic signnificance- Harold at Hastings, Drake hovering round the edge of the Armada, Cromwell's charge at Marston Moor, Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, the French flagship exploding at Nelson's Battle of the Nile.

Surely there is a particular interest when the battle contains some kind of turnaround. The Athenian fleet caught relaxing on the beach at Aegospotami after a long day waiting for the Spartans to come out of their own port, and the Spartans suddenly sweeping in behind them. The Flemish peasants standing together with their pikes and holding off the French armed cavalry at Courtrai. Napoleon's disaster at the battle of Leipzig, when a nervous corporal blew up a crucial bridge before a large chunk of his army had finished passing over it.

In some cases, it would be interesting to be at an obscurely known battle in order to discover what happened. If you were present at the final battle of Boadicea, you would find out where it was. Or the classic clan battle held in Perth in the king of Scotland's presence, between two bands of selected champions. It would be worth being there just to sort out the different clan traditions about which clans were there and what the actual outcome was.

Decisions, decisions.

So many.
I'd narrow it down to the battle of Platea, just to see what 10000 Spartans look like charging the enemy, and the siege of Hereford during the civil war because it's my home town.

a reply to: Graysen

Ahem, smashed avo.

Guitarist Bob Kulick has passed,

www.usatoday.com...

The Orionid & Ophiuchan wars as it would be interesting to see the different influences back then and their technology.

a reply to: alldaylong

a reply to: alldaylong

The battle that changed the course of English history , Hastings 1066.

Stalingrad

But there is so many battles to have witnessed and I'm probably too much of a wimp to stomach it for more than a few glances but just for the sheer ferocious scale of the battle and the equipment / numbers involved Stalingrad

Maybe non of the battles. It's horrible really losing a human life to conflict

a reply to: gortex

I have often wondered if there may have been a different outcome at Hastings.

Three weeks earlier, The English fought off a Viking invasion at Stamford Bridge Yorkshire. Battle weary, they then had to march 300 miles south to meet The Normans.

Meanwhile The Normans had been camped up for two weeks awaiting The English arrival.

Battle Of Stamford Bridge 25th September 1066.

The English victory came at great cost, as Harold's army was left in a battered and weakened state.[28]

en.wikipedia.org...

Battle Of Hastings 14th October 1066.

en.wikipedia.org...

Ooooh, The Battle of Vienna, the largest cavalry charge in history against the Ottomans, lead by the famed Winged Hussars. It is said that the wind blowing through their wings made a terrifying whistling sound. That would have been something to experience!

Fall of Constantinople

The Conquest of the city took place on 29 May 1453, the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun on 6 April 1453.

a reply to: timewarpedbrain7

Yeah sure, excellent choice and know exactly where you are coming from with that one The fall of Constantinople is one of the great game changers in our modern Abrahamic world and the effects live with us today. To experience the end of Roman military power, yeah that's up there with the best of them

originally posted by: alldaylong

originally posted by: Tulpa
a reply to: alldaylong

Can't think of a specific battle as such but I've always wondered what it would have been like to see some Viking Berserkers in action.

I'd have to be watching from a safe distance, obviously.

You may have chosen The Battle Of Stamford Bridge c1066.

English Army taking on The Vikings. The Vikings lost 8,000 of it's 9,000 strength. That would have been a bloody day.

Well, 1066 sure sounds like a safe distance!

Can I also choose the battle of Los Angeles?

Not strictly a very two sided affair but I'd love to know what they were really firing at there.

Washington's retreat from Long Island would be second. One of the greatest retreats in history and while it was a bitter defeat, outnumbered 2:1 he kept his forces intact

#1 The Battle of Trenton: Washington crosses the Delaware and defeats the Hessians. Turning point of the revolution

But If I could Winter at Valley Forge with the Continental Army that would be my overwhelming choice

a reply to: FredT

How about running around with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys?

a reply to: Tulpa

Oh that is just awesome............. The Battle of LA Totally amazing recorded incident something defo on the cards there wityh the spaceships

Going with UFOs and battles then another one, well Alexanders army was attempting to cross the river to engage Indian military at the time so a sort pre battle, but his sighting of the flying shields would be an interesting one along the smilar lines as above