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Worst battle to be in for a soldier?

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  • #31
    Any American Civil War soldier simply because medical care was about as advanced as well, nothing.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by brian00
      Advancing on machine gun nests with fixed bayonets after years of living in diseased flooded trenchs filled with rats and various other parasites

      Total dead on both sides = 1 million
      Well,

      Surrounded, facing 300,000 Persians including tens of thousands of Immortals, and many thousands of Archers, 300 Spartans fought from dusk to dawn in continuous hand to hand combat for 3 days straight, so effective were they at hacking and rending their enemy, they were eventually shot down like dogs to the last man by Persian archers.

      Total casualties: 100%

      And seriously, life in the trenches, while hell, would be nothing comparing to the pains and hardships of the life of a Spartan warrior.(In my opinion)

      NOTE: "The number of Xerxes army is legendary because Herodotus claimed that the Persian army totaled around 3,400,000 soldiers and service non-combatants (Stecchini 5). Historians have guessed as small as 25,000 and as large as over a million since then. The exact number is unknown, but according to research, the force of the Persian army is estimated around 200,000 soldiers."
      http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...ermopylae.aspx

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      • #33
        Originally posted by M21Sniper
        Well,

        Surrounded, facing 300,000 Persians including tens of thousands of Immortals, and many thousands of Archers, 300 Spartans fought from dusk to dawn in continuous hand to hand combat for 3 days straight, so effective were they at hacking and rending their enemy, they were eventually shot down like dogs to the last man by Persian archers.

        Total casualties: 100%

        And seriously, life in the trenches, while hell, would be nothing comparing to the pains and hardships of the life of a Spartan warrior.(In my opinion)

        NOTE: "The number of Xerxes army is legendary because Herodotus claimed that the Persian army totaled around 3,400,000 soldiers and service non-combatants (Stecchini 5). Historians have guessed as small as 25,000 and as large as over a million since then. The exact number is unknown, but according to research, the force of the Persian army is estimated around 200,000 soldiers."
        http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com...ermopylae.aspx
        I went to Thermopyle last year (Jan) and while I am not an expert from what I could see terrain played a big role in that.
        "Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

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        • #34
          When you're Genghis Khan's opponent.

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          • #35
            Originally posted by tttcomrader

            Being a Polish soldier in WWII who oppose the Communist would be quite rough. You pretty much lose the war on both side, and you don't have a home after the war. I wouldn't want to be a Pole in the Warsaw Uprising.
            Same thing with the Jewish Ghetto uprising. No help from anybody, not even the Polish undergound. They held out for months against SS, tanks and artillery until they leveled the ghetto, building by building, and even then they continued fighting in the sewers.

            Another pretty hopeless battle was the battle of the Bar-Lev Line in the Yom Kippur War.

            The Israelis had constructed a massive line of fortifications along the canal called the Bar Lev Line, which they considered impregnable. The heart of these defences were massive sand banks with a series of 43 manned installations. The Israelis had calculated that blasting through the sand barriers would take several hours, however the Egyptians solved this problem by using pressurized water to quickly erode the hills. The Israeli's back-up plan had been to redirect the nearby oil pipeline into the canal and set it alight. However, the night before Egyptian saboteurs had managed to disable the pipeline. In the initial attack only 200 Egyptians lost their lives. It was the first Arab victory over the Israelis in a generation

            The Egyptians were able to easily overrun the Bar Lev Line due to the element of surprise and overwhelming material superiority. To deal with the massive earthen ramparts the Egyptians used hoses attached to dredging pumps in the canal to pump out powerful jets of water; this enabled them to create 81 breaches in the line and remove three million cubic metres of packed dirt on the first day of the war.

            Of the 441 men in the sixteen forts on the Bar-Lev line at the start of the War, 126 were killed, and 161 captured. Only Budapest, in the extreme North near the mediterranean city of Port Said, would hold out for the duration of the war, while all the rest would be overrun. (The Yom Kippur War, Rabinovich, 351)

            According to the historian Rabinovich, strategically, the Bar-Lev line was a blunder — too lightly manned to be an effective defensive line and too heavily manned to be an expendable tripwire. Moreover, some say the idea of the line was counter-intuitive to the strengths of Israeli battle tactics which in their core relied on agile mobile forces moving rapidly through the battlefield rather than utilizing a heavy reliance on fixed defenses.
            Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

            Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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            • #36
              I think that being German in Stalingrad after the trap was closed was really bad thing.... especially for SS units. They knew that they will not going to be prisonned.... they knew that there is not a single chance to break through 200km in a minus 30 and only chance for survival is to escape with the few aircraft landing rarelly on the remaining snowy airfields which were bombed by Soviet artillery. The food ration reduced to just 30grams of bread and no heating except for comrades in the cold winter trenches.

              AND IT WAS VERY COLD IN STALINGRAD THEN. Soldiers were missing their fingers if kept them long out of the pocket not even on the trigger. They see their comrades lying helpless in the airfield tents waiting for a slim chance to be evacuated.... any small wound in the minus 30 meant gangrena and death. AND ABSOLUTE ABSENCE OF HOPE..... they keep on fighting but it was clear that they can not win nor even delay advance of Soviet troops.

              And that was just two month since when they were on top of situation pushing Soviet 52nd army from its last 400 meter strip before Volga and shooting to the boats bringing them supplies. Few weeks earlier in tough Stalingrad battle pushed to the edge of the soild before the river Soviet soldiers knew perfectly what they were fighting for motherland .... but Germans trapped in Stalingrad being doomed could not have even this luxury.... They knew that they were abandoned by their motherland deep in Eurasian continent and that Hitler betraded them for nothing.

              When battle was over for those Germans who survived battle the hell was not over..... Out of 93,000 German soldiers prisonned in Stalingrad by February 2nd only 35,000 did survive through March 1943.... as they were too weak due to hunger but had to walk hundred killometers from Stalingrad by foot in winter to their camps. The roads by which they marched were covered with frozen corps. Of those who survived most of them were prisoned in mid January..... as even few more days of hunger and cold meant difference between death and life.

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              • #37
                There were no SS units in Stalingrad.
                "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

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                • #38
                  In my opinion none of the Ancient Battles can hardly compare to the modern battles, just because of the mode of warfare. An as renowned as the Spartans are at the Battle of Thermopyle they didnt have to contend with rifles, snipers, machine guns, bombs, mortars etc.

                  Stalingrad was a hell-hole, as was Guadalcanal and the Somme (and Pearl Harbor if you can imagine the helpless and surprised Americans) I believe it would have to be a WWII battle and probably one on the Pacific Front simply because of the tenacity and fanaticism of the Japanese. So Guadalcanal ranks high to first on my list, with a couple other pacific battle up there as well

                  Just a thought...the hardest battle and soldier would have ever had to fight would have been the Invasion of Japan....that would have been Stalingrad, the Somme, Borodino and a few others x2.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by sparten
                    I went to Thermopyle last year (Jan) and while I am not an expert from what I could see terrain played a big role in that.
                    Terrain had a huge role. In fact, it was only the betrayal of the Spartans by a local sheppard that caused the Spartans to be defeated to begin with.

                    PS: I'm jealous.

                    Did you take any pix of the memorial?

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by bigross86
                      According to the historian Rabinovich, strategically, the Bar-Lev line was a blunder — too lightly manned to be an effective defensive line and too heavily manned to be an expendable tripwire. Moreover, some say the idea of the line was counter-intuitive to the strengths of Israeli battle tactics which in their core relied on agile mobile forces moving rapidly through the battlefield rather than utilizing a heavy reliance on fixed defenses.
                      It was just another variation on the maginot line.

                      Static defenses suck, it doesn't matter what name they go by. ;)

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                      • #41
                        Originally posted by M21Sniper
                        Terrain had a huge role. In fact, it was only the betrayal of the Spartans by a local sheppard that caused the Spartans to be defeated to begin with.

                        PS: I'm jealous.

                        Did you take any pix of the memorial?
                        IIRC isn't the terrain much broader now than it was at the time due to the ongoing geothermal activity?
                        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                        Leibniz

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                        • #42
                          Originally posted by jdb777
                          In my opinion none of the Ancient Battles can hardly compare to the modern battles, just because of the mode of warfare. An as renowned as the Spartans are at the Battle of Thermopyle they didnt have to contend with rifles, snipers, machine guns, bombs, mortars etc.
                          No, they hacked each other to pieces in a mad-frenzied press of humanity.

                          Like men.

                          To me, fighting from a foxhole while shells explode all around is not comparable to being covered head to toe in blood, surrounded and pressed against on all sides by other men covered head to toe in blood, some friends, some foes. Being run down and crushed asunder by horsemen, impaled by spear or arrow or bolt. Being crushed under massive hurled rocks or torched by greek fire.

                          Almost all the killing done within breathing distance, by blade and bludgeon. Skulls crushing, limbs being severed, heads rolling, guts spilling from bellies, blood covered steel glinting in the sunlight.....

                          No, i don't think it gets any worse than that.

                          Some modern fights may very be as bad.......but worse?

                          Not in my opinion.

                          I do give Stalingrad one thing.

                          COLD.

                          Cold has to make any battle soooooooooooooo much worse.

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by parihaka
                            IIRC isn't the terrain much broader now than it was at the time due to the ongoing geothermal activity?
                            I really don't know.

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by M21Sniper
                              No, they hacked each other to pieces in a mad-frenzied press of humanity.

                              Like men.

                              To me, fighting from a foxhole while shells explode all around is not comparable to being covered head to toe in blood, surrounded and pressed against on all sides by other men covered head to toe in blood, some friends, some foes. Being run down and crushed asunder by horsemen, impaled by spear or arrow or bolt. Being crushed under massive hurled rocks or torched by greek fire.

                              Almost all the killing done within breathing distance, by blade and bludgeon. Skulls crushing, limbs being severed, heads rolling, guts spilling from bellies, blood covered steel glinting in the sunlight.....

                              No, i don't think it gets any worse than that.

                              Some modern fights may very be as bad.......but worse?

                              Not in my opinion.

                              I do give Stalingrad one thing.

                              COLD.

                              Cold has to make any battle soooooooooooooo much worse.

                              I agree,

                              I think dying by gunshot wound or shrapnel is very unpleasant, but seeing your enemy hack you to death is worse

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                              • #45
                                Originally posted by M21Sniper
                                Terrain had a huge role. In fact, it was only the betrayal of the Spartans by a local sheppard that caused the Spartans to be defeated to begin with.

                                PS: I'm jealous.

                                Did you take any pix of the memorial?
                                Yes I did. Will post as soon as I get a new scanner (the last one died in a power surge). I refuse to go digital, 35mm is a lot better!.

                                The main guide their was ex Greek army, he told us that

                                1) The main lesson of Thermopyle is not bravery great as that was, but smart use of the terrain.

                                2) How many the Persians were engaged at any given time? He says the best estimate he could make was about 8~10,000. So they were never really outnumbered when it came to the fighting.
                                "Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

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