WW1: The English drop cigarettes and leaflets on the Ottoman lines telling them to surrender and they'll be treated well. Intel comes back that they laughed at surrendering but loved the cigarettes. The English do it again, but this time they soak the cigarettes in enough opium to sedate all of Skid Row. Then they wait a few hours and just kind of waltz across the Ottoman lines because they're all just staring at clouds and shit.
@@thatfedexguy8764 Yep. It's tied for my favorite bluff in history with that Chinese general who sat alone on a wall with the city gates open playing a flute when the enemy came so they thought it was a trap and just left. It probably edges it out slight because of the thought of them being all doped up and not caring that they're being overran. www.cracked.com/article_18811_5-real-macgyvers-who-won-battles-with-improvised-weapons.html
The Seal in Black Tactics like these only really work once. People are too paranoid for this to work and it might technically be a work crime (I’m not sure). There was that time where the Persians conquered Egypt by bring cats and holy animals with them to invoke the wrath of their gods if they actually attacked them. One Khan had put himself in a coffin to get into Rome and conquer the city but he came out and conquered the wrong city. We will never get to have madlad moves like this again. We can drop a satellite on a foreign leader, though.
Gurkhas are crazy? There's a story that one time a Gurkha regiment was asked to go on a mission that required them to be dropped from an aircraft behind enemy lines. They agreed to go, but gave a number of weird conditions regarding the speed the plane would be going and stipulated that they be dropped off in marshland. Eventually, it was worked out that the Gurkhas didn't realise that parachutes were a thing. Keep in mind that they were still willing to jump out of the plane. They just wanted it to be flying relatively slowly and over soft terrain.
That’s not how the story goes, the point of the joke was that they weren’t told they would be jumping out with parachutes. Not that they didn’t know about parachutes...
@@TheDeathOmen I don't know about you, but - as someone who knows parachutes are a thing - I would assume that anyone asking me to jump out of a plane would be including a parachute as part of the deal.
Other fun facts, British army still have a Gurkha Régiment but they many time asked them to: "Cease beheading the ennemy" because it was quite hard to explain to public opinion that some solfier had a tendency to chop the head of the ennemies Soldier XD
Honestly hearing about that absolute mad lad Caesar's war stories makes my day. "Alright boys let's wrap this up, build the wall" "Okay it's finished. Wait, there's another army coming, they'll surround us!" *"A N O T H E R W A L L"*
Caesar: * builds a wall around Verci * You're surrounded, Vercingetorix! Look around! Verci: * calls allies to surround Caesar * NO, _YOU_ LOOK AROUND! Caesar: * builds another wall around them * *NO, **_YOU_** LOOK AROUND.*
Lesson learned on how to take down a rival business: Send a mass email to all of their workers about how to fake sick to get out of work. Sit back and watch their operation crumple.
@@andrewwymore6759 think of it this way this is like hundreds of people throughout thousands of years and we're just like cool but these are the innovators War for mankind
Caroleans They'd walk (not charge, walk) in complete silence towards their enemies while feigning immortality by quickly moving troops around to fill slots where someone fell. By the time that they arrived close enough (so that they could "look the enemy in the eyes") theyd Fire, with much more reliable accuracy than the enemies who fired their muskets at a much longer range. Seeing their friends fall at the hands of this creepy troupe of what seemed like immortals often freaked them out enough to cause their armies to be disolved and easily picked apart in their disorganized retreat.
Not just this, but they would literally charge at them after firing and brutally melee. They even once attacked through a snowstorm. See the whites in their eyes Caroleans are marching on
I heard a quote along the lines of "amateurs think of tactics, professionals think of logistics" doesnt matter how good a general you are, if your troops are starving you're fucked.
Many of these great generals were raised from a young age to lead men and armies. Most of them came from very well-off families of the upper-class and these things were expected of them. Hannibal Barca's father was a famous general as well so he had firsthand experience learning how to lead armies. Things are different now. But yeah, some people just have the personality and mind for it. Even compare to their contemporaries who had similar upbringings, these were great generals.
During the Siege of Constantinople, the Ottomans were having trouble breaking through the main walls. On top of that, access to the city by the Golden Horn was restricted by a giant chain at the mouth of the harbor. So, to gain access to the harbor and accelerate the siege, Mehmed II had his ships transported brought on land, transported over the mountains on the peninsula opposite the Constantinople harbor, around the great chain, and right into the harbor, thus allowing him to land troops into the city itself. In the Battle of Vaslui, the Ottomans went to crush their rebellious vassal, Stefan of Moldova, who had been raiding another Ottoman vassal, the Kingdom of Wallachia. During the battle, the much larger Ottoman army marched into a foggy, marshy valley. Suddenly, they heard Moldovan war drums in the distance. Thinking they were the Moldovan troops, the Ottomans rapidly advanced into the valley and formed up to face the Moldovans. However, this was a trap, as the real Moldovan army had actually taken positions to the opposite end of the valley from their war drums, right behind the Ottoman troops. As the Ottomans moved in, the Moldovans suddenly attacked them in the rear and to their flanks, completely surrounding and destroying the Ottoman army as it fled the field. In the Battle of Zama, Hannibal charged the Romans with his war elephants. Traditionally, the Roman form of battle had been to have three solid lines, made up of the relatively raw Hastati at the front, the more experienced and better armed Principes in the second line, and the elite, extremely well armed Triarii at the rear. This order of battle was extremely susceptible to the elephants. So this time, Scipio Africanus ordered his troops to form channels between their lines for the elephants to pass through. The elephants, wanting to avoid people, successfully ran into these empty channels, where they were then surrounded by the Roman soldiers, who used this opportunity to hurl their javelins at the elephants, thus killing them. During the battle of Kalka River, Subutai, who was Genghis Khan's top general, faced off against a coalition of Kipchak tribes and Rus princes. The army substantially outnumbered Subutai, so he instead opted to retreat, with the Rus-Kipchak coalition hot on his heels. As his men retreated, they left behind horses, loot and slaves, slowing down the pursuing Rus and Kipchaks who stayed to pick up the loot. After 9 days of pursuit, the separate armies started to break apart from one another with substantial distance between the different princes and tribes. At this point, Subutai turned his army around and counterattacked the now slowing Kipchaks. First, his army overwhelmed the Kipchak forces, and then kept charging, crashing into the armies of the different princes. As the Kipchaks and Rus were preoccupied with picking up the Mongol loot, they didn't have time to form into ranks, thus allowing the Mongols to quickly scatter and destroy them. The last Rus army, led by Mtislav of Kiev, seeing their allied scattered, formed a defensive position on a hill with their baggage train wagons as fortifications, to serve as a beacon for the retreating troops. But Subutai surrounded Mtislav's position, and rained arrows down for three horrible days. The Mongols deliberately left an opening in their encirclment for their enemy to escape, which Mtislav took advantage of. But this was another trap. As the Kievans were running, they were too disorganized to stop the Mongols from running them down and killing them in the field. They say after the battle, Subutai and Jebe and the other Mongol generals of the expedition feasted on a great platform that was placed on the captured Rus princes, with the Rus crushed beneath them, while other Rus princes were locked into chests while still alive or rolled up into carpets.
Don't forget how Vlad the impaler ordered the enemy gate guards to open the gate at Giurgiu. He then killed the guards and ordered the army in. Easy life.
The best thing about the Mongol's tactic is overtime, their enemies realised that they aren't actually retreating and just baiting them into the offense. So the Mongol simply retreat for a longer and longer time so the enemy keep thinking okay perhaps now they are actually retreating
Alexander is probably one of the most famous examples. Being outnumbered horrendously, facing one of the biggest armies ever assembled in the ancient world, made up of the best forces the persian king could assemble, he countered the scythe chariots by opening gaps, held the enemy infantry with his pikemen, a unit that was never used until his father invented the sarissa (long pike) and even managed to fight of the elephants. But that's not how he won the battle. He won the battle by riding at the forefront of his cavalry he had drilled to perfection. The entire unit could turn on a dime. So he used this, punched through the enemy cavalry flank and instead of pursuing them or attacking the back of the infantry fighting, this absolute madman charges the persian king, sitting at the center of this army. Essentially, one stray arrow, one line of spearmen, anything could have stopped this charge. But the king, most likely afraid of the momentum Alexander's massive balls carried with them when they would come crashing into him, fled the field, and the Macedonians wiped the persian army out. Best thing about that? He had used that exact tactic before, with the same result. So it wasn't new, it could have easily been prevented but the madman just went "well it worked the first time.." and basically conquered all of Asia up until India and died undefeated after basically partying and fighting his way from greece to india and almost back again. That man is one of the absolute legends in history.
@Romano Coombs I can only remember one ambush, which was his first battle against Darius in (can't be bothered to google the place), could you remind me of the other? But Alexander won that battle regardless. The Persians never defeated Alexander, there were several uprisings that led to complications with Alexander but he defeated them all. There was also the time Alexander was heavily injured near the start of the war, but his army won that battle regardless of his own injuries. Dunno about this Nubian queen, but Alexander turned towards Asia because of the Persian Empire, and because he wanted his men to see the river at the end of the world that the Greeks claimed was to the far east, after he'd conquered all of Persia. After finishing his campaign into India, he was planning to circumnavigate all of Africa, though he died, either of food poisoning or poison poisoning. I don't disagree, but I'm not sure why you're mentioning the 'pupil smashers', other than you liking Nubia. No shade at the Persian kings, they held together an empire that lasted far longer than Alexander's, and he even adopted many of their governing methods in his own lifetime, but Alexander the Great was as big of a madlad as you can get in ancient history.
@Romano Coombs what are you talking about mate? There is no evidence of Alexander being defeated by a Nubian queen, there is hardly any mention of him going near Nubian territories. When was Alexander defeated "once near their home territory"? The best mercenary archers were the Cretans and Indian Longbowmen, very rarely were Nubians used and when so, they were not widely mentioned for their apparent proficiency like the Rhodians, Cretans and Baleric Islanders were
@@deskouk1773 Every so often you come across a guy making wild-ass claims about 'insert minor nation here'. I saw one say Hawaii invented the dreadnought and had 40 of them in their Navy and that the US stole the plans.
@Romano Coombs archery range would be a tactical advantage, not a strategic one. a strategic advantage would be controlling all of the farmland of the nation you are defending at elevated terrain. because all the food is in your pocket, the entire war would be affected by the advantage and entire war strategy would need to change. an individual weapon performing well or any specific device would only be tactical, unless it was so effective it ended the war or was used to dominate every engagement. (nuclear bomb)
@Regular Slime nope the Mongols as annoying as it is too say it were probably the greatest army ever. The only thing stopped them ruling the world was the great Khan's deaths, especially Genghis khan.
@Regular Slime To be fair, that's a viable ancient war tactic. Parthian shot is a thing, referring to firing arrow volleys while retreating after getting just far enough in range to pull it off. It lowered enemy morale, would be a heavy people tax for any angsty generals who wanted to countercharge, etc. etc. while being a relatively safe tactic if set up right regarding nearby terrain and manpower. Archery calvary was pretty overpowered back in the day, right next to swiss pike formations, as the swiss drilled their men so hard the dudes could sprint and rotate at the same time while for the most part maintaining phalnax formation.
And they were humble enough to listen to scholars and wise men after taking the civilised cities! I bet that, combined with sheer practicality, gave them a strategic edge.
+Winson Zhu Next to just standing there and taking it with shields and armor until they eventually ran our of arrows, I never quite understood a bother viable counter to such a strategy. Any ideas?
7:09 An army of samurai tried to trap a group of ninjas in their own fortress with a siege. It didn't work, because the samurai forgot that their enemies were LITERAL FUÇKING NINJAS.
@@MaClunkey that has to be fake. Ninjas were spies not warriors, and totally not a faction. I mean there was no such a thing like a ninja fortress, that sounds like a shabby film
Armor99. Ninjas werent just spies, they were used for assassination as well, not just espionage. Thats why they had used concealed weapons like Kama (Farming Scythes) because they would quite literally hide in plain sight and/or be a sneaky snake
One amazing tactic is Vlad the Impaler’s(The Dracula himself) night raid. He and 35,000 men or something like that ambushed a camp of 100,000 to kill the Ottoman sultan during the Wallachian Ottoman wars . They would disguise themselves as Ottoman soldiers and would cause mass confusion among the camp. Unfortunately for Vlad, the sultan survived, but the Ottomans suffered heavy casualties and were forced to withdraw.
As a Romanian, I can confirm the story. The Ottoman army was movung towards the Wallachian capital, Târgoviște. Before the night attack, Vlad used a lot of phycological warfare tactics afainst the Turks ever since they crossed the Danube: setting traps and ambushes in order to harass the advancing columns, poisoning water and destroying any food source the Ottomans could use and even showing like in a grotesque spectacle a large number of executed people (usually criminals or captured soldiers) via placing them on a long wooden stick ended with a spike (what's even worse about that execution device is that it was supposed to offer you a slow, agonising death). Combine all these elements with the night attack, and the Turks became completely fed up with that, so the decided to abandon the campaign.
Siege of antioch when some guy planted a spear tip then pretended to have a vision about the lance of Longinus (the actual spear tip that pierced the side of Jesus Christ) being buried underneath the floor of the Chapel. So the half starved, hallucinating crusader forces charged out of the fortified city in a glorified berserker frenzy and drove off the Turks in a miracle that allowed the first crusade to continue to jerusalem.
Viking king, Ragnar (rumours having actually been his son Bjorn) pretended to convert to Christianity on his “deathbed” asked the king of Paris for a proper Christian burial, got his wish and was taken to the cathedral in a coffin to bust out and take hostages (kings daughter I believe) then walk to the gates to open them for the vikings to get into Paris
As Asatru we very much enjoy our history, Bjorn Ironsides was Attacking what he thought was "Rome" but was indeed just the town of Luni (Which was well defended in the first place because of constant Saracen invasions), Which he wasnt able to take, so he acted deathly ill, and asked for a deathbed confession (He wanted to "Convert") from the local bishop. the bishop allowed him in with a small honor guard, in which he lept from the stretcher he was on and with his group of men fought to the gates to open them for the rest of his army. only afterwards realizing he was not actually invading Rome, and hearing about the defenses Rome actually had decided to pack up his army and go home... Some of us call him a Viking hero, but personally i think he was a drunk dumbass. and the dumb younger brother of the family. Ivar the Boneless on the otherhand. he was a cool dude.
M Ralte Gurkhas aren’t a fucking tribe you shithead. Gurkhas are Nepali people. Gurkha aren’t Chinese, Burmese looking people. They are indo aryan and kirati. Stop saying that Gurkha are a tribe and never relate them with other northeast tribe. Gurkha are Nepali
@@dionakgamer7769 Woah, chill! What is making you so angry? I'm missing some context so I don't really understand the situation very well, but you seem to have overreacted to what could easily be a simple mistake or poor choice of words.
@@festethephule7553 Dude, people think Gurkhas are northeast Indian People. M Rathle(dumbs shithead) thinks Gurkha is northeast Indian tribe and they are related to other burmese trible like khasi. Im so tired of hearing that gurkha are mostly burmese/filipino loking guys, some of them are indo aryan too. Gurkha was created and was ruled by indo aryan people. Gurkha has nothing to do with north east india
@@dionakgamer7769 But again, for all we know it could've been a simple mistake. It's certainly not worth calling him a "shithead." Furthermore, this M Rathle guy did say "we," implying that he is, if not a Gurkha himself, at least closely related to Gurkhas, giving his opinion more credence. Also, how people look is more or less subjective. I'm getting rather sizable gatekeeping vibes from you, I gotta say.
You forgot building a fort next to the enemy fort during the night and the enemy didn't even realize there was a fort right next to theirs until it was completely built😂😂😂
Why didn't anybody bring up Mad Jack Churchill the dude carried bagpipes a longbow and a broadsword into World War II, and captured an occupied City with less than half the Manpower I having them surround the city and scream
can't remember the dude's name but a Canadian dude with a rifle basically caused the surrender of an entire French town occupied by the Germans in WW2 as well.
@@innocuousmerchant8766 his name is tom major you can just type battle of zwolle if you want to learn about him and i believe simple history made a video about him
2084 history class: “Who here can tell me how Area 51 was invaded successfully?” Student: “The raiders out witted the military personnel with the agility gained from their Naruto running causing them to go faster than their bullets.” Historians: “Yes.”
Strangely, nearly all surrounded forces were defeated. Perhaps because they were shot at from every angle, and could not see what happened in their back ?
About Admiral Yi, that's not all. When Yi died, he had been personally beating the war drum to spur his men on. His sons were serving under him and as he died he told his sons that the drum had to keep going. So his sons wore his armor, beating the drum and issuing orders to the fleet just like Yi would have, too make sure that no one realized he was dead. After the battle, one of the commanders came to the flag ship to congratulate Yi on his victory, and fell to his knees in tears when he found out that Yi was dead. Extra Credits has a whole series on him, and I highly recommend it.
This list is going to be filled with exploits by Subutai Baatur From his very first battle as a commander to his greatest achievement of commanding three different armies in three different battles more than 1000 kilometers away from each other in a span of two days, the dude shaped what WW2 would be 700 years beforehand Edit: Only two mentions of the Mongols Damn
Subutai had to end his campaign in europe because of the death of Ögedei. Yet even on the way home he casually beat the army of Byzantium. +10 ponts for daredevilry. Coming from a land that was historically known for being the "end of the orient" (as neither the ottomans nor the magyars managed it to go past us, granted, we always needed some allies for help) the mongols fascinate me. Oddly enough the europeans called them "tartars" which is ironic, as the actual tartars were one of the first ones that got conquered by the mongols. If Ögedei lived just a little bit longer the mongols would've conquered the "end of the orient" with ease and already in the 1240s, opening the gate to central and western europe. And looking at the strict, yet progressive policies inside the mongol empire it only would've benefitted europe, at least the ones that were smart enough to not oppose the mongols. It may be wasted time, but i often try to imagine what the world would have become if suddenly the struggles of the mediveal feuds and meaningless wars were ended, at least for some decades, by a kind of "Pax Mongolica". The technological and cultural exchange that would've happened between europe, persia and china. The progress that could've been made. If only they would've got a stable succession policy...
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 If only! I can only imagine if Subutai made it to France what a young Napoleon Bonaparte would have read and adopted into his strategies and campaigns. As far as we know, Napoleon never studied the Mongols however he came up with a very Mongol reform to his armies. If Napoleon had studied Subutai I feel as though he would have cut through Russia splitting his 600,000 strong army into four and commanding each of them much like the Mongols did except now with Cannons and muskets
@@RacinZilla003 Napoleon did. He had a Northern army to secure his flank and threaten St Petersbourg, a southern Army to seize Minsk, and a main army in two columns to separate, fix and turn the two main russian armies. But contrary to the Mongols, he could not move much faster than the Russians, his communication were erratic due to the numerous cossacks, and his main commanders were not as independent and efficient as the Mongols one. He missed his chance to cut and capture a large part of Russian army at Smolensk, by one day.. The forest and marshy lands on both sides had him going straight to Borodino to win a bloody, undecisive victory. Then he was stuck deep in ennemy territory, like Charles XII before him or Hitler after.
The Battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartans made their stand against an Army of 100-150,000 Persians for two days... unlike the movies there is actually some thousands of them including some other Greek Soldiers.. the Battle could've lasted longer or at some point might've routed the Persian Army if not for the betrayal of Ephialtes, so King Leonidas sent the bulk of his Army home and he and 300 men were left to defend against the Persians, their sacrifice was later avenged in the Battle of Platea where the Spartans led a victory upon the seemingly unending waves of Persians. Edit: the Guy who deviced this plan was actually Themistokles who defended Greece from the sea against the Persian Armada in the Battle of Artemisium
6000 hoplites and skirmishers from various Greek city states.. And modern estimates of the Persian army were far less than that. Probably around 50.000. Considering the logistical constraint.
@@howmuchbeforechamp They can't sustain millions today and you think they did it back then? How fucking stupid can you be. Also the Spartans weren't alone. There were 7.000 Greeks and probably not all of them bought because it was so narrow. The persians probably were 100.000.
No ancient army could (or had a reason to) field 100k soldiers Herodotus greatly inflated the numbers of persians to make the greek victory look bad ass
That's kinda time consuming idk if it's really true if they could build a good wall like that so fast. But I've heard more crazier shit like zhuge Liang instead of walling up he actually opened the main gate to the city he was defending and played a string instrument and ordered his men to hide and sing cheerful songs while he plays out in the open. The enemy general was bewildered why he would left himself defenseless out in the open. The enemy general knew that he outnumbered zhuge's men 10/3 but he got into his head and thought that he was luring him into a trap , scared he might lose the battle the enemy general ordered his army to back off and retreat.
@@maosama3695 well i m late but i can assure you Romans builded 2 walls When they builded theire camp they surrounded It with a Wall and watchtowers They usually build Camp in One day Thats how fast they was They basically builded a small Castel in One day and they usually had with them a wooden pole for every soldier
The Mongolians did also have one interesting - and terrifying - war tactic as a part of their siegecraft. When they were to take a city, they would place a tent nearby the city, outside of their own camp. On the first day of the siege, the tent would be white. If the city surrendered on that day, every single person in the city would be let to live. If the city would not surrender on the first day, on the second day the white tent would be replaced by a red tent. Now, if the city surrendered on that day, all the women and children could keep their lives but all the men would be killed. If the city still decided no to surrender, a black tent would be put on the third day. From now on, should the city fall, every single life in the the city would be taken. Men, women and children would all be slaughtered. Usually it never came to that as the Mongolians really earned their reputation as the most terrifying army in the world and most cities surrendered to the white tent.
The battle of marathon is one of my favorites because the Athenian defenders were outnumbered 3 to 1(or so i think) and just like Scipio in this video, Miltiades, the athenian general had his weak soldiers in the middle, while strong ones on the sides. Now heres where it gets crazy. The attacking force, Persia, had some of the best archers during the time, so Miltiades had to use the infamous Phallanx formation. Now the average hoplite would carry around 5 kg(? Idk correct me if im wrong) and thats heavy by itself, so keep that in mind. In order to reduce the casualties, the mad lad Miltiades ordered his men to cover the distance from them and the archers. That means the hoplites had to fucking hold the Phallanx, while running. Imagine youre a persian archer, just getting off the boats which u had been on for weeks or months, just to be suprised by the fact that the Greecian defenders are running at you with a formation, known to be almost impregnable? Thats some scary shit. In the end the Athenians delivered a crippling blow to the persians, which was the strongest empire in the world at the time.
The persians got completely fucked by 300 dudes. They were not powerful. Then again, those dudes were spartans so they was a different breed of fucking crazy
Don't base your historical knowledge on the movie 300 lol. There were around 800 Thespians there too, making it at least 1000 men. Also, they didn't "completely destroy" the Persians. These badasses held a bottleneck for as long as they could, delaying the Persians until the rest of the Greeks could be ready. The Persians were the most powerful empire in the world then, but their tactics in Marathon (and especially Salamis) led them to failure because of gross overconfidence on the part of Xerxes and him never listening to his generals
@@Azgalon there were 300 spartans along with 7000 or so soldiers from other states , mostly volunteers If there were really only 300 you could litterarly have walked pver them with a froce of 2 or 3 thousand just by walking over your dead
I am not an expert on hoplite kit, but 5 kg isn't a significant amount to carry. It only works out to about 11 pounds. My everyday clothes are nearly that heavy, and unless I'm mistaken, hoplites carried spears and shields (easily more than 5 kg on their own), on top whatever armor they may have had.
Well those are some excellent tactics. As a Greek I am going to offer them free hude wooden horses as a gift to anyone that we cant conquer and say "have a good day"
Love him or hate him, Caesar was a genius strategist. In Caesar's civil war, Caesar wanted to cross his army from Italy to Balkan. However, the Adriatic Sea was well guarded by Pompeian navy, and worse, Caesar only have enough ship to carry half of his men in one crossing. So, he hatched a genius plan: Simply cross the sea. So here's the background. The Pompeian navy weren't really guarding the crossing because they thought it was winter. Nobody was sane enough to cross the Adriatic Sea in winter at that time, so the navy were just docking at the port. But Caesar knew better. The Roman calendar at the time wasn't being updated for ~8 years, due to Rome's head priest governing and leading the war in Gaul. Caesar was Rome's head priest and he knew the calendar was outdated, and the Pompeian thought it was winter when it was actually autumn. Autumn crossing was bad, but not winter bad. So he stuffed his best men on the ships and simply cross the sea.
The battle of Modder river, of the Boer war from 1899 to 1902. So for context, by 1899 of the Boer war, Boers (or Afrikaans as their also called) were besieging 4 British points in two fronts, the western and eastern theatre. In the western theatre, Boer fighters surrounded a round that leads to the diamond mining town of Kimberly. By late 1899, British reinforcements came to aid the besieged British, and one of the British generals, who were commanding the reinforcements was General Lord Methuen. Whom he was tasked at reliving the siege of Kimberly. Methuen was successful, in doing this, the Boers were fortified hills, so Methuen used his artillery and bombarded the hills, then followed by a scary bayonet charge. The Boers would retreat to a different set of hills but were again pushed back by Methuen. So to counter this problem, one of the Boer generals, of Kimberly, General Koos Del a Rey, offered a tactic to his superior general, Piet Cronji. Instead of staying and fortifying the hills like before, at Modder river they would instead dig trench’s right beside the hills, and to only attack once the British were close. The trick was, was to make the British artillery useless, and to exploit and take great advantage of Boer rifles and marksmen ship. The Boers were armed with German Mauser rifles along with smoke less ammunition, and Boer fighters were known to be better Marksman then British soldiers as Boer culture revolved around hunting game for sport and to feed their family’s. The plan almost worked, as the British were having a hard killing Boer fighters, and taking their position and Boer fighters, blasting away British troops, killing a bunch of men. However, Methuen fired his artillery and in a lucky shot of some sort, hit the Boer trench’s, and Del a Rey was shot in the arm, and his 19 year old son Adriaan, mortally wounded. Out of a panic, Cronji ordered Del a Rey to retreat allowing Muethen to take Modder river. The next battle however, Koos used the same tactic and this time it worked, repelling Methuens advance.
An interesting story I saw on the history channel once: Vlad the Impaler is mostly remembered for his cruelty but he was also pretty smart. As you can imagine, this is dangerous combination. Vlad invoked the ire of the Ottoman ruler Mehmed II by refusing to pay the tax the Ottoman's demanded from non Muslim nations and killed the tax collectors the Ottoman empire had sent. He also attacked cities in the Ottoman empire that was close to his border, just for good measure. The sultan put up 90,000 soldiers to retaliate while Vlad had 20,000 soldiers, most of them peasants. As the sultan's army grew closer to the Wallachian capitol, Vlad had his people burn everything and flee, leaving nothing for the invading army to take. He also had his soldiers carry out guerilla warfare from the woods of Wallachia. Finally, when the sultans army made it to the capitol, Vlad had his army attack in the night, killing a few people before fleeing back to the city. When morning came, the sultan marched his army into the capitol and found it unguarded. The gate was open and there was no resistance to their entrance. At least, no one alive. In preparation for the sultan's arrival, Vlad had thousands of dead bodies impaled and placed all around the capitol. Bodies upon bodies all held up on stakes, silently guarding the city. This was Vlad's forest of corpses. The sultan was apparently so impressed by Vlad's ability to pull this off that he turned his army around and marched home. The sultan did end up winning in the end by helping Vlad's younger brother overthrow him but it still doesn't change the fact that Vlad turned an entire army around by making a literal forest of corpses.
During WW2, a Gurkha showed an officer (or general) how they get rid of sentries: he snuck up behind a German, stabbed him in the kidney, then cut off his head with the kukri knife. Those Afghans (2:00) probably never saw who killed them.
Battle of pelusium was where Persians used cats as sheilds against the Egyptians because Egyptians believed cats were sacred and would never harm them. And so 7000 Persians rushed the 50000 Egyptians and the Egyptians didn't want to harm the animals and surrendered their positions. The Persians won. I'm especially proud of this as I am Persian
Surprised Mehmed's capture of Constantinople wasn't on here. Byzantines: "It's too bad your ships can't go underwater or fly to get past our big ass chain that everyone thought was stupid but actually is super effective (now who's laughing). Guess you'll have to just carry them." Mehmed: "No problem." Byzantines: "That's what I- wait what?"
That one time where Britain decided to fire like a million artillery shells at German trenches for a week only to get shitstomped by all the Germans that they thought they killed. oof
@@bullethead1953 And we didn't exactly get shitstomped, we ended up winning the battle after several days... It's just the very definition of the term 'Pyrrhic victory'.
@@Neion8 Nah hes talking about the first assault on the Somme. The battle of the Somme lasted over 4 months by the way not just several days. Anyway, on the first main assault on german positions, the British and French (mostly the British) tried to assault the german after bombing them like crazy and got pushed back with around 200 000 casualties while the german barely had 20 000 casualties, it was a massive failure. On the second assault, the brought in the South african and Australian corps and it was more even but they still didn't get anywhere. On the third assault they brought in the Canadian corps who took the two main german trenches that they had been trying to capture for over four months in a week, inflicting 5 times the casualties to the enemy that they suffered even though the german were in a defensive position. Thats how the Canadian fearsome reputation amongst german soldiers began and the reason why german desertion rates quadrupled in both World War when they knew they were up against Canadians. There were also a lot of skirmishes between the three main assaults though.
The Vietnamese use the same tactic in all three Mongol invasion of Vietnam So basically: 1) let the mongol take capital with minimum resistance (the capital was completely abandoned including food or anything that could substance the enemies) 2) begin guerilla raids on the mongol supply convoy or patrols 3) Wait the the tropical weather or heat to wear down the mongols ( The mongols are use to cold climate not tropical climate) 4) when the time is come began a full on assault on the weakened Mongols 5) laying ambushes on potential retreating routes to weaken them more 6) repeat if there is another Mongol invasion By the way all of these I think was plan by one guy He was Tran Hung Dao (for more information please check on Badassofweek.com) Basically he leading the Vietnamese army throughout all 3 invasion, he was a total badass and a Vietnam national hero ( he was worship like a god after he dead)
@@yukitakaoni007 I was referring to 'Han Chinese' as an ethnic identity, not the Han Dynasty (hence my lack of the term 'Dynasty'), because it was period which transcended multiple dynasties.
I got six more: *Hannibal* Hannibal was surrounded by Romans, but instead of fighting the enemy, he set up camp at night and ordered his men to tie bundles of hay to the horns of oxen that were grazing nearby. Hannibal then ordered his men to light the hay on fire, the oxen were startled and stampeded towards the Romans. The Romans figured this was a Carthaginian surprise charge with elephants and countered with their own charge, meanwhile, Hannibal and his men slipped away. Come dawn, the Romans realized they slaughtered a herd of oxen and let the Carthaginians escape. Hannibal (again) used a pretty cool strategy of psychological warfare that involved scorched earth tactics but sparing plots of land belonging to Rome’s “political enemies” - unpopular consuls and the like, Fabius in particular - so that the Romans thought these people were secretly allying with Hannibal. He also spared many Roman witnesses so that they would go back to Rome and sow havoc (it worked). Hannibal (this guy was incredible) fought against Africanus’ dad at a river sometime before he crossed the Alps with fucking elephants. So Africanus’ dad made a wall on the river out of ships. Hannibal charged the wall alongside his men (they felt encouraged to fight if their general was besides them) but what the Romans didn’t know was that Hannibal secretly dispatched his Iberian horsemen around the wall earlier that night, and while the two armies fought it out in a makeshift water-siege, a contingent of horsemen smashed into the Roman rear - playing hammer to the Roman wall’s anvil. *Rollo* Can’t remember if this was Rollo or Ragnar, but one of them hung a full contingent of Frankish warriors in perfect formation, in full view of the Frankish king. Big flex. Rollo, sometime in his career of rampaging through France, fought himself into a corner. Rollo’s forces and the Franks were at a stalemate - they had been fighting all day until nightfall, so they kind of called it a truce. Rollo retreated to a prairie with a river at his back - come the next day, the Franks (that were now surrounding him against the river) would receive reinforcements that would allow them to break the stalemate. Rollo knew this, so he ordered his men to go to nearby farms and slaughter the livestock, this would cut the Franks’ food supply, but it did something else too: the next day, the Frankish force was facing a wall of slaughtered livestock, behind it, Rollo and his men. The Franks did a cavalry charge, as they normally did and as Rollo predicted, but the horses refused to charge through the wall. As the horses recoiled, Rollo ordered the main body of his men to secretly retreat and ford the river, because he knew he was outnumbered and would die if they fought: this was all a ploy to stage a retreat. He had his archers picking off horsemen and shit, but something else he did to stall was smear animal blood and gore all over his and his men’s shields and formed a shield wall behind the livestock wall to further scare the horses and nullifying the Franks’ arrow volleys. By the time the wall of butchered animals was breached, Rollo and his men were long gone, the horsemen could not chase them through the river which was too deep for horses to cross. The Franks continuously offered “Danegeld” (a bribe, basically) to send Rollo and his men away, but they continuously refused, being a thorn on their side for decades; eventually the Franks got creative and offered land instead, Rollo accepted, and now we have Normandy. Rollo’s descendants, the Normans, went on to conquer England, serve in the Byzantine Varangian Guard, in the Crusades, establish a duchy in Sicily, etc. *Olga* This woman was a fucking monster. She locked her suitors in a bathhouse and burned it (and subsequently, them) alive, then buried her suitors’ angry relatives alive afterwards, she was also fond of making human effigies after battles. In her usual routine of sieging cities, one city was particularly stubborn, so she offered to go away in exchange for three birds (I don’t know the specific number or breed) from each household. Later that night, she had tinder attached to the talons of each bird, had them set on fire, and released; panicked, they flew back to their nests which were in the households, and basically the city was razed to the ground with no casualties.
Me: has no one ever mentioned about the tactics used in the Chinese history, like how zhu ge liang tricked the enemy commander into donating free arrows to them
@@Stricken-Zero There's a lot of politics and power-grabbing behind the full story but here's the quick version: Zhu ge Liang was commanded to deliver 100,000 arrows to the army in 10 days. Being adept in meteorology and other sciences that I can't name, he knew that there would be a large inpenetrable fog in 3 days so he promised to deliver in 3 days. For the first 2 days he did nothing (well, publically), and everyone was very confused. In fact, he was building fake men and boats made of straw in secret. On the third day, Zhu ge liang released the straw boats with fake straw soldiers standing on them, with a few real soldiers hiding in the cabins. While the fake fleet approached the enemy shore, the enemy general Cao cao could not see what was approaching due to the fog. He knew that Zhu ge liang was a very clever person and is a very suspicious person himself, and ordered his soldiers to unleash arrow barrages upon the boats he thought were real. After taking a lot of arrows on the straw boats and having no people hurt, Zhu ge liang retreated while ordering his soldiers to shout "Thank you for the free arrows commander Cao". Zhu ge liang apparently got around 150,000 arrows that day.
@@zoujonathan6172 Cao Cao wasn't the leader of the Wei Kingdom per se during his lifetime. It was his son, Cao Wei, who founded the Wei kingdom. I understand what you meant. Just clarified the fact.
There is this one battle between the Sui Dynasty of China and Goguryeo Dynasty of Korea. The Chinese had more than 1 million men while the Koreans had 300,000. What the Koreans did was pure genius. As the Chinese host was unknowingly marching across a dammed river by the Koreans to meet the Koreans. The Korean general ordered the rocks damming the river to be removed. The Chinese were drowned, confused and scattered. Then the Koreans moved in to route them and finish them off. 90% of the Chinese Army lost their men while the Koreans lost less than 1%. That victory was vital to the fall of the Sui Dynasty in China. TLDR : Korea: Quality China: Quantity
Woojiniee 2001 That was after a prolonged scorched-earth campaign, to be fair. Feeding an army that size strains the logistics of the invading force, and the Sui army was much weakened by the time the Battle of Salsu happened (which was the battle that involved the dam trap)
@@X.Y.Z.07 It is. Look it up. China always had used its numerical superiority in wars and had always had large armied due to its huge population. And wars in antiquity were always won by number and tactics. Numbers of combatants lowered throught the years because more advanced weapons were relied more on than footsoldiers.
@@SeoWoojin55 well, ancient historian figures should be taken with a grain of salt (or sometimes a barrel).. I just based it roughly on the logistic system during the Han dynasty.. An Army of 10.281 men required 27.363 hu of grain and 308 hu if salt, in which it was transported using a convoy of 1.500 carts pulled by oxens.. 1 hu roughly equal to 19,968 litres.. So a soldier on average (In optimal condition) required 51.9 litres of grain and 0.6 litres of salt per month to sustain themselves.. Now imagine to times that by 100x... I doubt it was possible back then.. Number of soldiers were most of the time inflated by ancient historian.. Even during the battle of Red Clifd where it said that Cao Cao had 1 million men army, modern estimates figure were only arround less than 100.000 combatants (The number would increase if you included non-combatants and sailors.) The transport of ration could be helped tremendously should it is possible to transport it by sea. However, seeing how the Korean dominated the sea arround the peninsula during that period of time, I doubt the Chinese would be able to do so.
Ok, how did no one post this one. A Chinese general named Cao Cao had to defend a fortress with very few guards against an army of thousands led by Lu Bu. Knowing he would be annihilated if they were to engage in combat, Cao Cao had all the gates left wide open, about ten or so guards in the fortress, while Cao Cao himself sat down playing a lute. Lu Bu immediately thought this was a trap, that Cao Cao's troops were waiting in the surrounding forest, so he ordered his troops to retreat. He then tried again to take the town, but Cao Cao did actually put his troops in the forest this time, and managed to fight off Lu Bu's forces.
The war tactic described at 9:10 has actually been converted into a movie and it is a must watch . Movie name - The Admiral: Roaring Currents 2014 and it has been described by our friend here very precisely.
Not quite on topic, but an amusing thing is that Gengis Khan tried to attack Constantinople three times. The first two times, he was unable to get through both walls and into the city. Then he heard that an earthquake had collapsed them both and rushed to attack the city. When he got there, he found that they had not only completely repaired the walls, they had actually built a *third*. He didn't even bother, just turned around and left.
Just a note on 5:40, artillery barrages were super useless on killing people, it’s only the fear that made people get pinned down. It’s said that you only need artillery enough to kill 5% of the army to reduce an armies effectiveness to 50%, since the barrage required to do so is so much most people would rather surrender
Those dam busters had to be spun up as well so they could skip on the water, they were shaped like barrels. Lancaster bombers were the only bombers that carried them to my knowledge.
It was a naval battle. Kotaro sent a burning ship towards Hanzo's fleet, knowing that his ships were loaded with gun powder. Hanzo couldn't maneuver to avoid Kotaro's ship in time, so he told his men to jump. But the sea was covered in oil, which was then lit when Kotaro's ship crashed against Hattori's.
Here’s a quick version of some of the many other great war tactics. -1100s BC, Trojan War: Greek alliance famously uses a giant wooden horse to trick and destroy Troy. -480 BC, Battle of Thermopylae: King Leonidas I and the 300 Spartans famously defend against Persia. -47 BC, Battle of Alexandria: Julius Caesar burns the ports of Alexandria (and the library sadly) to effectively bottleneck Ptolemy’s army. -1297, Battle of Stirling Bridge: William Wallace on the frontlines bottlenecks the English army. -1314, Battle of Bannockburn: Robert the Bruce tricks and destroys English, having hidden his cavalry behind the large hills. -1805, Battle of Austerlitz: Napoleon masterfully destroys a massive enemy coalition. -1865, American Civil War (late): Union General Sheridan cuts a path across Confederate land far behind the frontlines, effectively cutting supply lines and distracting enemy troops. -1917, World War I (late): The Germans when retreating would kill cows, burn crops and cut down trees so the Allies couldn’t use them. -1939, Conquest of Poland; Heinz Guderian puts to the test the Blitzkrieg, where their fast tanks are a separate force from the infantry rather than support. It demolishes all outlying resistance, allowing the infantry to surround and besiege forts and cities. -1941: Russia did against Hitler exactly what they did against Napoleon 129 years earlier. -1944, Battle of Normandy: Future US president Eisenhower uses inflatable boats and fake paratroopers to make the Germans think the allies would attack in and around Belgium. -2010s: Nations today refuse to wage all out war against the US, using economic warfare (China) or exhaust the American people’s willingness to fight as seen with the Vietnam War. Similarly, the terrorist organization Hamas often uses human shields for their missiles, forcing Israel to choose between their own people and the innocents of Palestine, making Israel look evil and loose international support (dick move, but a smart one).
For Leonida's defense it wasn't just him and the guard, they had quite a few ships and various forces from other city-states. Still, the fact they were able to fight forces THAT much outnumbering them is legendary
Henry Morgan at Maracaibo. He needed ladders to climb up the city walls. But setting up the ladders was too dangerous because the defenders were constantly firing their muskets at Morgan's men. So he raided a monastery, captured nuns and sent them with his men to set up the ladders and they were forced to climb first, so that the defenders didn't dare to shoot or push them down.
Some vikings were besieging an Italian city, but struggling with the high walls. The viking leader fell ill, and made a public show of converting to Christianity. A few days later he died. The other vikings told the city defenders they would head home, but that their leader's dying wish had been to be buried in the cities cathedral. The cityfolk allowed a few unarmed vikings to bear their leader's coffin into the city. The leader promptly jumped out (very much alive) and revealed the weapons hiding inside the coffin. The vikings fought their way back to gates, opened them, and the city was sacked. The vikings, thinking they had just sacked Rome itself, returned home laden with treasury. With only a small hiccup when they had to fight Moors using Greek Fire.
There is a beautiful one from Sun Tsu's Art of War: "Note the following anecdote of Sun Pin, a descendent of Sun Wu: In 341 B.C., the Ch`i State being at war with Wei, sent T`ien Chi and Sun Pin against the general P`ang Chuan, who happened to be a deadly personal enemy of the latter. Sun Pin said: "The Ch`i State has a reputation for cowardice, and therefore our adversary despises us. Let us turn this circumstance to account." Accordingly, when the army had crossed the border into Wei territory, he gave orders to show 100,000 fires on the first night, 50,000 on the next, and the night after only 20,000. P`ang Chuan pursued them hotly, saying to himself: "I knew these men of Ch`i were cowards: their numbers have already fallen away by more than half." In his retreat, Sun Pin came to a narrow defile, with he calculated that his pursuers would reach after dark. Here he had a tree stripped of its bark, and inscribed upon it the words: "Under this tree shall P`ang Chuan die." Then, as night began to fall, he placed a strong body of archers in ambush near by, with orders to shoot directly they saw a light. Later on, P`ang Chuan arrived at the spot, and noticing the tree, struck a light in order to read what was written on it. His body was immediately riddled by a volley of arrows, and his whole army thrown into confusion." TLDR: Sun Tsu's Art of War is full of genius tactics - read it.
It's a viable tactic. One of the reasons France fell so quick in WW2 is that during the retreat, troops left fuel, weapons and food, behind, allowing the Nazis to push forward beyond their supply lines. Russia was initially retreating, but they were pretty good and leaving nothing behind.
There's one more I picked up in the decameron. 2 kings were at war. Both armies were consisting, mostly, of archers. One of them decided to give his archers bows with very shallow strings and matching arrows. After fireing their arrows the archers picked up the ones their enemies launched at them. The enemy archers couldnt fire back but his archers could because any arrow would match their fine strings.
Blackbeard vs the British navy. Pirate: Sir we're surrounded, what do we do. Blackbeard: Welp lighting shit on fire always works for me so let's light our ship on fire and just ram the blockade. Pirate: Okay I follow your logic while the ship is on fire we escape on a small boat right? Blackbeard: Oh I didn't think about that! Yeah let's do that.
One of my favorite tactics was the Battle of Empel in the mid 1500’s. A Spanish tercio force was trapped on a large island in the middle of a river in the Netherlands waiting for an opportunity to cross but the Dutch arrived and surrounded the Spanish. While digging trenches, the Spanish found a buried image of the Immaculate Conception. Since it was winter, there was a very particular cold night on such a level that the river froze. The Spanish took the opportunity at night and crossed the river. The following morning, the Dutch awoke noticing that they were now surrounded by the Spanish and surrendered. This is how the Immaculate Conception became the patron saint of the Spanish army.
Roman Army Order 37: Dig a large, wide, and deep trench and fill it with oil. Leave only one entry point and fill it with troops in a tight shield wall formation. When the enemy gets close, light the oil.
What about Nelson at Trafalgar? Nelson basically changed how Naval combat was thought. He split up the combined French and Spanish fleet and absolutely demolished them. Correct me if I’m wrong
Re: Trafalga, to be specific what Nelson did is that he divided his fleet into two columns and deliberately let the enemy cross his T (normally a very BAD idea).....so he could use his better-trained crew and faster ships to slice the enemy fleet in two places to destroy them piecemeal. It worked. Yi’s no less of a naval genius though; unlike Nelson he had a major firepower advantage in all his battles, but that’s more than compensated for by the fact he was dealing with enemy fleets that could sail faster than his own ships (albeit at the cost of agility), and could have simply evaded him. But he still managed to force naval engagements via good tactics (feigned retreats being common, as well as relay attacks) and racked up an insane number of victories.
@@rusdanibudiwicaksono1879 To be honest, both are just geniuses and I'm not going to push Lord Yi down because what he pulled off was pretty insane. All I'm saying is, that Nelson at Trafalgar is a pretty good honourable mention, bearing in mind the insane odds he faced at Trafalgar. Yes he had better crews but as Bk Jeong says, he was sailing INTO the enemy fleet, a tactic at the time which was basically suicide
Here is my bag of bad ideas, hope you enjoy... or not? 1. Put milk before cereal 2. A fork inside a toaster 3. Hoping EA will make a good game nowadays 4. Lay siege to a ninja fortress. (really guys?)
2:34 1) Scipio didn’t attack first. Hannibal charged with his elephants. Scipio lined up his legions in rows and columns, but had the first row offset to the rest of the rows, creating the apperance that the legions were deployed in checkered formation, as was Roman doctrine. War horns were blown at the elephants, which scared some of them off. Upon the arrival of the elephant charge, scipio ordered the front row to line back up in columns with the rest of the rows. The elephants, instead of charging into the legions, took the path of least resistance and charged between the legions. The elephants were surrounded and subsequently killed. 2) while both sides had Iberian mercenaries, it was not Roman legions who charged into the Iberian wings of the carthaginians. Mainly because you usually put your CAVALRY at the wings, and charging the Carthaginian wings of Iberian CAVALRY mercenaries with foot soldiers is an incredibly stupid idea. Instead, it was the Roman’s Numidian Cavalry mercenaries who charged the carthaginian’s Iberian cavalry. The numidians, although being being North African tribesmen, had some of the best cavalry in the ancient mediterranean. The Numidian cavalry crushed the Iberian cavalry and chased them off, leaving infantry on infantry. The fighting between the lines ensued, and while the Carthaginians fought with a mostly mercenary army, Hannibal’s army was an exception, since his men were well trained and had deep respect and loyalty for both him and his money. Hannibal would have won that infantry engagement if the Numidians came back and charged the Carthaginian infantry line from the rear mid-combat, which broke the Carthaginian line and ultimately caused Hannibal’s defeat. The issue with early Roman legions is that, once the hastati, principe, and triarii soldiers were mostly made of young, first time conscripts who, once served with a general only once in campaign, they were allowed to retire permanently from the military when the general dismissed his army, and only a handful volunteered to return to the military. So while the early Roman armies were numerous, they were often filled with soldiers who lacked experience (with the exception of scipio’s legionaries, who lost their Roman citizenship after suffering a military defeat before the second Punic wars, and were fighting to gain their citizenship back. Although they still had less experience than Hannibal’s men, they had experience nonetheless and therefore were the exception). The Carthaginians usually hired mercenaries since they were more skilled with sea battles than land battles. Even though mercenaries usually aren’t as loyal as troops born within the nation they serve (with the exception of Hannibal’s army), they tended to have lots of military experience. This lead to the Marian reforms of the Roman army, which established the first ever standing army of the Roman republic.
They forgot to mention that when he died admiral yi was banging on a wardrum so to keep up the morale someone impersonated him for the rest of the battle and kept on banging the drum.
1:16 i have thought about that for 5 minutes and can confidently say that there gauls on the outside would've won if they just burned the wooden wall, you know since Spartans would've cooked inside, lay archers on high points trained on exit points, small armored militias on either side, by the time they would've reacted half there army would be struggling to breathe.
Unfortunately Roman walls were not of wood. They were of earth, the romans digged a ditch, and used the earth to make an embankment .Then they used the poles they carried to complete the embankment with a fence. So no chance to put that on fire with arrows - not mentioning that bowmen and string artillery behind Roman walls were way more effective than Gallish bowmen in the open.
How about that time where Hussites consisting of about 300 untrained peasants (led by about dozen mercenaries) equiped only with farming tools utterly destroyed 2000 strong army of heavily armored, trained and equiped knights on horses? Or that time where some crazy bois in 15th century who while defending city from enemy army got betrayed by some people in that city, so now they were stuck outside of closed gates, with no support from walls (with detachment of enemies swiftly moving inside that cite from different side to man those walls) and with twice as big army in front of them. At which point the defending army decided to "screw this, I am going home", loaded everyone on carts, put cannons on those carts too and simply did first ever Drive-by attack straight through entire enemy army with minimal loses while still dealing tons of damage to sieging army.
A blind french lord from the 100 year war went into battle tied to his men with ropes to avoid getring lost on the battlefield. Didn't turn out well. Also, at the battle of Azincourt, the french noblemen tried to charge at the English troops up a muddy hill.
WW1: The English drop cigarettes and leaflets on the Ottoman lines telling them to surrender and they'll be treated well. Intel comes back that they laughed at surrendering but loved the cigarettes.
The English do it again, but this time they soak the cigarettes in enough opium to sedate all of Skid Row. Then they wait a few hours and just kind of waltz across the Ottoman lines because they're all just staring at clouds and shit.
@@thatfedexguy8764 Yep. It's tied for my favorite bluff in history with that Chinese general who sat alone on a wall with the city gates open playing a flute when the enemy came so they thought it was a trap and just left. It probably edges it out slight because of the thought of them being all doped up and not caring that they're being overran.
www.cracked.com/article_18811_5-real-macgyvers-who-won-battles-with-improvised-weapons.html
This is amazing! Why don’t we use this more often?! Lol
@@TheSealinBlack Cause war crimes and the Tale of Sima Yi could have been a myth (guy playing flute)
The Seal in Black
Tactics like these only really work once. People are too paranoid for this to work and it might technically be a work crime (I’m not sure).
There was that time where the Persians conquered Egypt by bring cats and holy animals with them to invoke the wrath of their gods if they actually attacked them. One Khan had put himself in a coffin to get into Rome and conquer the city but he came out and conquered the wrong city. We will never get to have madlad moves like this again.
We can drop a satellite on a foreign leader, though.
Gotta love history man😂
Gurkhas are crazy?
There's a story that one time a Gurkha regiment was asked to go on a mission that required them to be dropped from an aircraft behind enemy lines. They agreed to go, but gave a number of weird conditions regarding the speed the plane would be going and stipulated that they be dropped off in marshland.
Eventually, it was worked out that the Gurkhas didn't realise that parachutes were a thing.
Keep in mind that they were still willing to jump out of the plane. They just wanted it to be flying relatively slowly and over soft terrain.
But... Why? I mean i saw some crazy shit but this is just like having fucking orc army that got recently met with technology.
That’s not how the story goes, the point of the joke was that they weren’t told they would be jumping out with parachutes. Not that they didn’t know about parachutes...
@@TheDeathOmen
I don't know about you, but - as someone who knows parachutes are a thing - I would assume that anyone asking me to jump out of a plane would be including a parachute as part of the deal.
Gods, that is something.
Other fun facts, British army still have a Gurkha Régiment but they many time asked them to: "Cease beheading the ennemy" because it was quite hard to explain to public opinion that some solfier had a tendency to chop the head of the ennemies Soldier XD
Honestly hearing about that absolute mad lad Caesar's war stories makes my day.
"Alright boys let's wrap this up, build the wall"
"Okay it's finished. Wait, there's another army coming, they'll surround us!"
*"A N O T H E R W A L L"*
God king trump approves
Handsome Jack The OG Trump
Make rome great again
he also joked to his kidnappers that he would crucify them.
he ended up doing exactly that later.
moefag Another good documentary is Kings and General's Caesar in Gaul video
Caesar: * builds a wall around Verci * You're surrounded, Vercingetorix! Look around!
Verci: * calls allies to surround Caesar * NO, _YOU_ LOOK AROUND!
Caesar: * builds another wall around them * *NO, **_YOU_** LOOK AROUND.*
ROFL! 🤣 😂 😅
Caesar is a fucking madlad all around
The ultimate "no u" power move irl
yo wtf put the mask back on * lightly smacks you on the cheek *
*NO.* NONE OF THAT. *SHAME* ON YOU.
yo wtf put the mask back on
Hitler also hated Christians, this makes no sense.
Guys take notes we are gonna need it for area 51
Send the vegetables first as a distraction then if they shoot we let Chuck Norris solo them for minimal losses
Dead meme.. Thats a no for me
What do you mean dead? The event hasn't happened yet. The memes just got popular.
Write that down! Write that down!
@@kenny3179 you mean zero losses right?
So you're telling me this voiceover man can pronounce "Vercingetorix" but can't say "Facebook"? 😲
I respect that man's priorities
Fazzabuk
Vercengetorix is as famous as pie in the historical world and he is used quite often for analogies and such
@@g-ratedhistory8233 Facebook is more known than Vercengetorix
@@superbeavers7645
*Vercengetorix wants to know your location*
Lesson learned on how to take down a rival business:
Send a mass email to all of their workers about how to fake sick to get out of work. Sit back and watch their operation crumple.
Actually that's not a bad idea, it might work lol
Danifoxer This thread is better than Sun Tsu’s Art of War.
@@andrewwymore6759 think of it this way this is like hundreds of people throughout thousands of years and we're just like cool but these are the innovators War for mankind
OMG and use your doctors to write them falsified sick notes!!!!
And then the cops find you because you've been charged with corporate sabotage...
Caroleans
They'd walk (not charge, walk) in complete silence towards their enemies while feigning immortality by quickly moving troops around to fill slots where someone fell. By the time that they arrived close enough (so that they could "look the enemy in the eyes") theyd Fire, with much more reliable accuracy than the enemies who fired their muskets at a much longer range. Seeing their friends fall at the hands of this creepy troupe of what seemed like immortals often freaked them out enough to cause their armies to be disolved and easily picked apart in their disorganized retreat.
Not just this, but they would literally charge at them after firing and brutally melee. They even once attacked through a snowstorm.
See the whites in their eyes
Caroleans are marching on
See the Caroleans standing tall, all for one and one for all!
@@ea.fitz216 Put their lives in God's hands for their kingdon and fatherland
bitch that's just necrons
@@ea.fitz216 r/expectedsabaton
while im watching this I realize...
I dont have the brains for leading an army
To be fair we aren't raised to fight like that anymore.
@@pilkington5658 Thankfully that's what the National War College and other similar institutions are there to rectify.
I heard a quote along the lines of "amateurs think of tactics, professionals think of logistics" doesnt matter how good a general you are, if your troops are starving you're fucked.
Nah just lead a army on the western front in WWI. Throwing bodies at the problem until it stops or until you run out of bodies was the meta.
Many of these great generals were raised from a young age to lead men and armies. Most of them came from very well-off families of the upper-class and these things were expected of them. Hannibal Barca's father was a famous general as well so he had firsthand experience learning how to lead armies. Things are different now. But yeah, some people just have the personality and mind for it. Even compare to their contemporaries who had similar upbringings, these were great generals.
During the Siege of Constantinople, the Ottomans were having trouble breaking through the main walls. On top of that, access to the city by the Golden Horn was restricted by a giant chain at the mouth of the harbor. So, to gain access to the harbor and accelerate the siege, Mehmed II had his ships transported brought on land, transported over the mountains on the peninsula opposite the Constantinople harbor, around the great chain, and right into the harbor, thus allowing him to land troops into the city itself.
In the Battle of Vaslui, the Ottomans went to crush their rebellious vassal, Stefan of Moldova, who had been raiding another Ottoman vassal, the Kingdom of Wallachia. During the battle, the much larger Ottoman army marched into a foggy, marshy valley. Suddenly, they heard Moldovan war drums in the distance. Thinking they were the Moldovan troops, the Ottomans rapidly advanced into the valley and formed up to face the Moldovans. However, this was a trap, as the real Moldovan army had actually taken positions to the opposite end of the valley from their war drums, right behind the Ottoman troops. As the Ottomans moved in, the Moldovans suddenly attacked them in the rear and to their flanks, completely surrounding and destroying the Ottoman army as it fled the field.
In the Battle of Zama, Hannibal charged the Romans with his war elephants. Traditionally, the Roman form of battle had been to have three solid lines, made up of the relatively raw Hastati at the front, the more experienced and better armed Principes in the second line, and the elite, extremely well armed Triarii at the rear. This order of battle was extremely susceptible to the elephants. So this time, Scipio Africanus ordered his troops to form channels between their lines for the elephants to pass through. The elephants, wanting to avoid people, successfully ran into these empty channels, where they were then surrounded by the Roman soldiers, who used this opportunity to hurl their javelins at the elephants, thus killing them.
During the battle of Kalka River, Subutai, who was Genghis Khan's top general, faced off against a coalition of Kipchak tribes and Rus princes. The army substantially outnumbered Subutai, so he instead opted to retreat, with the Rus-Kipchak coalition hot on his heels. As his men retreated, they left behind horses, loot and slaves, slowing down the pursuing Rus and Kipchaks who stayed to pick up the loot. After 9 days of pursuit, the separate armies started to break apart from one another with substantial distance between the different princes and tribes. At this point, Subutai turned his army around and counterattacked the now slowing Kipchaks. First, his army overwhelmed the Kipchak forces, and then kept charging, crashing into the armies of the different princes. As the Kipchaks and Rus were preoccupied with picking up the Mongol loot, they didn't have time to form into ranks, thus allowing the Mongols to quickly scatter and destroy them. The last Rus army, led by Mtislav of Kiev, seeing their allied scattered, formed a defensive position on a hill with their baggage train wagons as fortifications, to serve as a beacon for the retreating troops. But Subutai surrounded Mtislav's position, and rained arrows down for three horrible days. The Mongols deliberately left an opening in their encirclment for their enemy to escape, which Mtislav took advantage of. But this was another trap. As the Kievans were running, they were too disorganized to stop the Mongols from running them down and killing them in the field. They say after the battle, Subutai and Jebe and the other Mongol generals of the expedition feasted on a great platform that was placed on the captured Rus princes, with the Rus crushed beneath them, while other Rus princes were locked into chests while still alive or rolled up into carpets.
Yo this is good stuff! You ras al ghul or something?
Wokstar Eugene oversimplified did a video I think
Don't forget how Vlad the impaler ordered the enemy gate guards to open the gate at Giurgiu. He then killed the guards and ordered the army in. Easy life.
That first tactic shows up in the game Ryse:Son of Rome and in Vikings if I recall correctly
The best thing about the Mongol's tactic is overtime, their enemies realised that they aren't actually retreating and just baiting them into the offense. So the Mongol simply retreat for a longer and longer time so the enemy keep thinking okay perhaps now they are actually retreating
Alexander is probably one of the most famous examples.
Being outnumbered horrendously, facing one of the biggest armies ever assembled in the ancient world, made up of the best forces the persian king could assemble, he countered the scythe chariots by opening gaps, held the enemy infantry with his pikemen, a unit that was never used until his father invented the sarissa (long pike) and even managed to fight of the elephants.
But that's not how he won the battle. He won the battle by riding at the forefront of his cavalry he had drilled to perfection. The entire unit could turn on a dime. So he used this, punched through the enemy cavalry flank and instead of pursuing them or attacking the back of the infantry fighting, this absolute madman charges the persian king, sitting at the center of this army.
Essentially, one stray arrow, one line of spearmen, anything could have stopped this charge. But the king, most likely afraid of the momentum Alexander's massive balls carried with them when they would come crashing into him, fled the field, and the Macedonians wiped the persian army out.
Best thing about that? He had used that exact tactic before, with the same result. So it wasn't new, it could have easily been prevented but the madman just went "well it worked the first time.." and basically conquered all of Asia up until India and died undefeated after basically partying and fighting his way from greece to india and almost back again.
That man is one of the absolute legends in history.
@Romano Coombs I can only remember one ambush, which was his first battle against Darius in (can't be bothered to google the place), could you remind me of the other? But Alexander won that battle regardless. The Persians never defeated Alexander, there were several uprisings that led to complications with Alexander but he defeated them all. There was also the time Alexander was heavily injured near the start of the war, but his army won that battle regardless of his own injuries. Dunno about this Nubian queen, but Alexander turned towards Asia because of the Persian Empire, and because he wanted his men to see the river at the end of the world that the Greeks claimed was to the far east, after he'd conquered all of Persia. After finishing his campaign into India, he was planning to circumnavigate all of Africa, though he died, either of food poisoning or poison poisoning.
I don't disagree, but I'm not sure why you're mentioning the 'pupil smashers', other than you liking Nubia. No shade at the Persian kings, they held together an empire that lasted far longer than Alexander's, and he even adopted many of their governing methods in his own lifetime, but Alexander the Great was as big of a madlad as you can get in ancient history.
@Romano Coombs what are you talking about mate? There is no evidence of Alexander being defeated by a Nubian queen, there is hardly any mention of him going near Nubian territories.
When was Alexander defeated "once near their home territory"?
The best mercenary archers were the Cretans and Indian Longbowmen, very rarely were Nubians used and when so, they were not widely mentioned for their apparent proficiency like the Rhodians, Cretans and Baleric Islanders were
@@deskouk1773 Every so often you come across a guy making wild-ass claims about 'insert minor nation here'. I saw one say Hawaii invented the dreadnought and had 40 of them in their Navy and that the US stole the plans.
@@starwarssith54 haha thanks for the laugh :D
@Romano Coombs archery range would be a tactical advantage, not a strategic one. a strategic advantage would be controlling all of the farmland of the nation you are defending at elevated terrain. because all the food is in your pocket, the entire war would be affected by the advantage and entire war strategy would need to change. an individual weapon performing well or any specific device would only be tactical, unless it was so effective it ended the war or was used to dominate every engagement. (nuclear bomb)
He's right. YOu could put down nearly everything the Mongols ever did on there. They were insane genius's.
@Regular Slime nope the Mongols as annoying as it is too say it were probably the greatest army ever. The only thing stopped them ruling the world was the great Khan's deaths, especially Genghis khan.
@Regular Slime To be fair, that's a viable ancient war tactic. Parthian shot is a thing, referring to firing arrow volleys while retreating after getting just far enough in range to pull it off. It lowered enemy morale, would be a heavy people tax for any angsty generals who wanted to countercharge, etc. etc. while being a relatively safe tactic if set up right regarding nearby terrain and manpower. Archery calvary was pretty overpowered back in the day, right next to swiss pike formations, as the swiss drilled their men so hard the dudes could sprint and rotate at the same time while for the most part maintaining phalnax formation.
Would agree with this
And they were humble enough to listen to scholars and wise men after taking the civilised cities! I bet that, combined with sheer practicality, gave them a strategic edge.
+Winson Zhu
Next to just standing there and taking it with shields and armor until they eventually ran our of arrows, I never quite understood a bother viable counter to such a strategy. Any ideas?
Watching this to get ready for the Area 51 raid.
Under:rated
Deppresion:cured
Catch:someofthem
Lebron:james
Hotel:trivago
someone is actually gonna do it and get shot smdh
@@jebrooks hows that a smh lol smh
I was gonna say that😂
frogmanjordan and who they will shoot is Matt from Wii sports and then the soldiers will shit their pants.
Everything will go according to plan.
7:09
An army of samurai tried to trap a group of ninjas in their own fortress with a siege.
It didn't work, because the samurai forgot that their enemies were LITERAL FUÇKING NINJAS.
ROFL! 🤣 😂 😅
Anyone got a source for this battle? Can't seem to find it.
@@MaClunkey that has to be fake. Ninjas were spies not warriors, and totally not a faction. I mean there was no such a thing like a ninja fortress, that sounds like a shabby film
Armor99. Ninjas werent just spies, they were used for assassination as well, not just espionage. Thats why they had used concealed weapons like Kama (Farming Scythes) because they would quite literally hide in plain sight and/or be a sneaky snake
@@arm0ur_099 it was a village, and that story is true. throughout years people just change the stories
Here's a little lesson in trickery 🎶 this is going down in history 🎵
One amazing tactic is Vlad the Impaler’s(The Dracula himself) night raid. He and 35,000 men or something like that ambushed a camp of 100,000 to kill the Ottoman sultan during the Wallachian Ottoman wars . They would disguise themselves as Ottoman soldiers and would cause mass confusion among the camp. Unfortunately for Vlad, the sultan survived, but the Ottomans suffered heavy casualties and were forced to withdraw.
Vlad was a mad lad. He apparently killed up to 100000 men. Patriotism 100
As a Romanian, I can confirm the story. The Ottoman army was movung towards the Wallachian capital, Târgoviște. Before the night attack, Vlad used a lot of phycological warfare tactics afainst the Turks ever since they crossed the Danube: setting traps and ambushes in order to harass the advancing columns, poisoning water and destroying any food source the Ottomans could use and even showing like in a grotesque spectacle a large number of executed people (usually criminals or captured soldiers) via placing them on a long wooden stick ended with a spike (what's even worse about that execution device is that it was supposed to offer you a slow, agonising death). Combine all these elements with the night attack, and the Turks became completely fed up with that, so the decided to abandon the campaign.
Vlad was in his own category of madlads. He was a madvlad... 👀
True
Yeah but then the Archbishop HAD to burn his wife at the stake...
None of these can compare to the genius tactics of the emu armies during the Great Emu War
Ah, a man of culture, I see.
Aren't those those big flightless birds?
Carl Young yes. If you do a quick Google search for The Great Emu War, you will not be disappointed.
Australians: "we need more gun trucks to perform a pincer manuvuer on the north side..."
Emus: "RUN FAST EAT GRASS"
As a Australian I can agree with this
That asterix reference brought a smile to my face
Vagkws I love that comic.
It’s the best
*Obelix wants to know your wild boar's position* 🐗
NO OBELIX! YOU CANNOT DRINK THE MAGIC POTION!
... there is not a single day in my family without quoting asterix movies .... or comics
Starting off by everyone throwing their grenades across the map
Siege of antioch when some guy planted a spear tip then pretended to have a vision about the lance of Longinus (the actual spear tip that pierced the side of Jesus Christ) being buried underneath the floor of the Chapel. So the half starved, hallucinating crusader forces charged out of the fortified city in a glorified berserker frenzy and drove off the Turks in a miracle that allowed the first crusade to continue to jerusalem.
Two words: Trojan Horse
The OG military genius move
^^
@RetroSupporter93
ROFL! 🤣 😂 😅
Likely fictional
@RetroSupporter93 Oh god.
Viking king, Ragnar (rumours having actually been his son Bjorn) pretended to convert to Christianity on his “deathbed” asked the king of Paris for a proper Christian burial, got his wish and was taken to the cathedral in a coffin to bust out and take hostages (kings daughter I believe) then walk to the gates to open them for the vikings to get into Paris
Actually that was his son Bjorn, and it was in Italy, not France. The TV show at this point is not historically accurate.
As Asatru we very much enjoy our history, Bjorn Ironsides was Attacking what he thought was "Rome" but was indeed just the town of Luni (Which was well defended in the first place because of constant Saracen invasions), Which he wasnt able to take, so he acted deathly ill, and asked for a deathbed confession (He wanted to "Convert") from the local bishop. the bishop allowed him in with a small honor guard, in which he lept from the stretcher he was on and with his group of men fought to the gates to open them for the rest of his army. only afterwards realizing he was not actually invading Rome, and hearing about the defenses Rome actually had decided to pack up his army and go home...
Some of us call him a Viking hero, but personally i think he was a drunk dumbass. and the dumb younger brother of the family. Ivar the Boneless on the otherhand. he was a cool dude.
@@daltonkellebrew2236 still not Bjørn though, it was Harald Hardrada who did that.
Fkin Gurkhas. Damn that was funny, disturbing but funny
Gurkhas are bad ass. And loyal to the end.
M Ralte
Gurkhas aren’t a fucking tribe you shithead. Gurkhas are Nepali people. Gurkha aren’t Chinese, Burmese looking people. They are indo aryan and kirati. Stop saying that Gurkha are a tribe and never relate them with other northeast tribe. Gurkha are Nepali
@@dionakgamer7769
Woah, chill! What is making you so angry? I'm missing some context so I don't really understand the situation very well, but you seem to have overreacted to what could easily be a simple mistake or poor choice of words.
@@festethephule7553
Dude, people think Gurkhas are northeast Indian People. M Rathle(dumbs shithead) thinks Gurkha is northeast Indian tribe and they are related to other burmese trible like khasi. Im so tired of hearing that gurkha are mostly burmese/filipino loking guys, some of them are indo aryan too. Gurkha was created and was ruled by indo aryan people.
Gurkha has nothing to do with north east india
@@dionakgamer7769
But again, for all we know it could've been a simple mistake. It's certainly not worth calling him a "shithead."
Furthermore, this M Rathle guy did say "we," implying that he is, if not a Gurkha himself, at least closely related to Gurkhas, giving his opinion more credence.
Also, how people look is more or less subjective. I'm getting rather sizable gatekeeping vibes from you, I gotta say.
"Anything Nobuanga did."
...50%, Set it on fire.
25% Shoot it.
25%...Daring ambush.
...Sometimes all three.
You forgot building a fort next to the enemy fort during the night and the enemy didn't even realize there was a fort right next to theirs until it was completely built😂😂😂
Why didn't anybody bring up Mad Jack Churchill the dude carried bagpipes a longbow and a broadsword into World War II, and captured an occupied City with less than half the Manpower I having them surround the city and scream
can't remember the dude's name but a Canadian dude with a rifle basically caused the surrender of an entire French town occupied by the Germans in WW2 as well.
@@innocuousmerchant8766 it would be impressive... sadly we're talking about the French who are quite skilled in the art of..... surrender....
@@bobspizzeria1276 But the town was occupied by German forces. So it's still impressive.
Its about army tactics not single soldiers. One soldier makes hardly any difference in large battles.
@@innocuousmerchant8766 his name is tom major you can just type battle of zwolle if you want to learn about him and i believe simple history made a video about him
2084 history class: “Who here can tell me how Area 51 was invaded successfully?”
Student: “The raiders out witted the military personnel with the agility gained from their Naruto running causing them to go faster than their bullets.”
Historians: “Yes.”
Okay buddy.
crazy potato Oh cool, this comment actually got traction. Too bad the raid was unsuccessful.
@@sungodra1226 Luckily nobody was dumb enough to actually go through with it.
@crazy potato Luckily?
@@sungodra1226 Yes.
1:54 reminds me of something I once heard.
“It’s easier to fight if you are surrounded, because then everyone around you is your enemy.”
If you are surrounded it means you can shot at the enemy from every angle
Strangely, nearly all surrounded forces were defeated. Perhaps because they were shot at from every angle, and could not see what happened in their back ?
@@gengis737 the 101st airborne disagrees.
”As long as I have breath, Korea still has a navy” might possibly be one of the coolest sentences ever uttered.
10:20
That guy is forgetting the part where some of Yi's relatives dawn his armor and command the fleet to make it seem like he is still alive
About Admiral Yi, that's not all. When Yi died, he had been personally beating the war drum to spur his men on. His sons were serving under him and as he died he told his sons that the drum had to keep going. So his sons wore his armor, beating the drum and issuing orders to the fleet just like Yi would have, too make sure that no one realized he was dead. After the battle, one of the commanders came to the flag ship to congratulate Yi on his victory, and fell to his knees in tears when he found out that Yi was dead.
Extra Credits has a whole series on him, and I highly recommend it.
This list is going to be filled with exploits by Subutai Baatur
From his very first battle as a commander to his greatest achievement of commanding three different armies in three different battles more than 1000 kilometers away from each other in a span of two days, the dude shaped what WW2 would be 700 years beforehand
Edit: Only two mentions of the Mongols
Damn
Subutai had to end his campaign in europe because of the death of Ögedei. Yet even on the way home he casually beat the army of Byzantium. +10 ponts for daredevilry.
Coming from a land that was historically known for being the "end of the orient" (as neither the ottomans nor the magyars managed it to go past us, granted, we always needed some allies for help) the mongols fascinate me. Oddly enough the europeans called them "tartars" which is ironic, as the actual tartars were one of the first ones that got conquered by the mongols.
If Ögedei lived just a little bit longer the mongols would've conquered the "end of the orient" with ease and already in the 1240s, opening the gate to central and western europe. And looking at the strict, yet progressive policies inside the mongol empire it only would've benefitted europe, at least the ones that were smart enough to not oppose the mongols. It may be wasted time, but i often try to imagine what the world would have become if suddenly the struggles of the mediveal feuds and meaningless wars were ended, at least for some decades, by a kind of "Pax Mongolica". The technological and cultural exchange that would've happened between europe, persia and china. The progress that could've been made. If only they would've got a stable succession policy...
@@valentinmitterbauer4196 If only!
I can only imagine if Subutai made it to France what a young Napoleon Bonaparte would have read and adopted into his strategies and campaigns.
As far as we know, Napoleon never studied the Mongols however he came up with a very Mongol reform to his armies. If Napoleon had studied Subutai I feel as though he would have cut through Russia splitting his 600,000 strong army into four and commanding each of them much like the Mongols did except now with Cannons and muskets
@@RacinZilla003 Napoleon did. He had a Northern army to secure his flank and threaten St Petersbourg, a southern Army to seize Minsk, and a main army in two columns to separate, fix and turn the two main russian armies.
But contrary to the Mongols, he could not move much faster than the Russians, his communication were erratic due to the numerous cossacks, and his main commanders were not as independent and efficient as the Mongols one. He missed his chance to cut and capture a large part of Russian army at Smolensk, by one day.. The forest and marshy lands on both sides had him going straight to Borodino to win a bloody, undecisive victory. Then he was stuck deep in ennemy territory, like Charles XII before him or Hitler after.
The Battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartans made their stand against an Army of 100-150,000 Persians for two days... unlike the movies there is actually some thousands of them including some other Greek Soldiers.. the Battle could've lasted longer or at some point might've routed the Persian Army if not for the betrayal of Ephialtes, so King Leonidas sent the bulk of his Army home and he and 300 men were left to defend against the Persians, their sacrifice was later avenged in the Battle of Platea where the Spartans led a victory upon the seemingly unending waves of Persians.
Edit: the Guy who deviced this plan was actually Themistokles who defended Greece from the sea against the Persian Armada in the Battle of Artemisium
6000 hoplites and skirmishers from various Greek city states.. And modern estimates of the Persian army were far less than that. Probably around 50.000. Considering the logistical constraint.
@@X.Y.Z.07 Actually lowest estimates are around 100.000 to 150.000 persians
@@dutchpool7035 6000 to 100000 might as well have been millions
@@howmuchbeforechamp They can't sustain millions today and you think they did it back then? How fucking stupid can you be. Also the Spartans weren't alone. There were 7.000 Greeks and probably not all of them bought because it was so narrow. The persians probably were 100.000.
No ancient army could (or had a reason to) field 100k soldiers
Herodotus greatly inflated the numbers of persians to make the greek victory look bad ass
The Romans tactics was basically:
*M O R E W A L L S ! !*
That's kinda time consuming idk if it's really true if they could build a good wall like that so fast.
But I've heard more crazier shit like zhuge Liang instead of walling up he actually opened the main gate to the city he was defending and played a string instrument and ordered his men to hide and sing cheerful songs while he plays out in the open. The enemy general was bewildered why he would left himself defenseless out in the open. The enemy general knew that he outnumbered zhuge's men 10/3 but he got into his head and thought that he was luring him into a trap , scared he might lose the battle the enemy general ordered his army to back off and retreat.
@@maosama3695 well i m late but i can assure you
Romans builded 2 walls
When they builded theire camp they surrounded It with a Wall and watchtowers
They usually build Camp in One day
Thats how fast they was
They basically builded a small Castel in One day and they usually had with them a wooden pole for every soldier
@@davideb.4290 And at evening they could celebrate with some pole dancing ? Sorry, could not resist.
@@gengis737 ahahahah
That was truly funny lol
The pole was used to build the wall
no it’s heavy infantry some cavalry
Sun tzu say: "go to bed with itchy butt, wake up with stinky finger!"
The Mongolians did also have one interesting - and terrifying - war tactic as a part of their siegecraft. When they were to take a city, they would place a tent nearby the city, outside of their own camp.
On the first day of the siege, the tent would be white. If the city surrendered on that day, every single person in the city would be let to live.
If the city would not surrender on the first day, on the second day the white tent would be replaced by a red tent. Now, if the city surrendered on that day, all the women and children could keep their lives but all the men would be killed.
If the city still decided no to surrender, a black tent would be put on the third day. From now on, should the city fall, every single life in the the city would be taken. Men, women and children would all be slaughtered.
Usually it never came to that as the Mongolians really earned their reputation as the most terrifying army in the world and most cities surrendered to the white tent.
The battle of marathon is one of my favorites because the Athenian defenders were outnumbered 3 to 1(or so i think) and just like Scipio in this video, Miltiades, the athenian general had his weak soldiers in the middle, while strong ones on the sides. Now heres where it gets crazy. The attacking force, Persia, had some of the best archers during the time, so Miltiades had to use the infamous Phallanx formation. Now the average hoplite would carry around 5 kg(? Idk correct me if im wrong) and thats heavy by itself, so keep that in mind. In order to reduce the casualties, the mad lad Miltiades ordered his men to cover the distance from them and the archers. That means the hoplites had to fucking hold the Phallanx, while running. Imagine youre a persian archer, just getting off the boats which u had been on for weeks or months, just to be suprised by the fact that the Greecian defenders are running at you with a formation, known to be almost impregnable? Thats some scary shit. In the end the Athenians delivered a crippling blow to the persians, which was the strongest empire in the world at the time.
The persians got completely fucked by 300 dudes. They were not powerful. Then again, those dudes were spartans so they was a different breed of fucking crazy
Don't base your historical knowledge on the movie 300 lol. There were around 800 Thespians there too, making it at least 1000 men. Also, they didn't "completely destroy" the Persians. These badasses held a bottleneck for as long as they could, delaying the Persians until the rest of the Greeks could be ready. The Persians were the most powerful empire in the world then, but their tactics in Marathon (and especially Salamis) led them to failure because of gross overconfidence on the part of Xerxes and him never listening to his generals
I guess that's why it's called a marathon.
@@Azgalon there were 300 spartans along with 7000 or so soldiers from other states , mostly volunteers
If there were really only 300 you could litterarly have walked pver them with a froce of 2 or 3 thousand just by walking over your dead
I am not an expert on hoplite kit, but 5 kg isn't a significant amount to carry. It only works out to about 11 pounds.
My everyday clothes are nearly that heavy, and unless I'm mistaken, hoplites carried spears and shields (easily more than 5 kg on their own), on top whatever armor they may have had.
Ok, the sending home Nazi’s one was pretty clever NGL
Well those are some excellent tactics. As a Greek I am going to offer them free hude wooden horses as a gift to anyone that we cant conquer and say "have a good day"
“Let’s attack during the winter so the Soviet’s can’t see us”
Love him or hate him, Caesar was a genius strategist. In Caesar's civil war, Caesar wanted to cross his army from Italy to Balkan. However, the Adriatic Sea was well guarded by Pompeian navy, and worse, Caesar only have enough ship to carry half of his men in one crossing. So, he hatched a genius plan: Simply cross the sea.
So here's the background. The Pompeian navy weren't really guarding the crossing because they thought it was winter. Nobody was sane enough to cross the Adriatic Sea in winter at that time, so the navy were just docking at the port. But Caesar knew better. The Roman calendar at the time wasn't being updated for ~8 years, due to Rome's head priest governing and leading the war in Gaul. Caesar was Rome's head priest and he knew the calendar was outdated, and the Pompeian thought it was winter when it was actually autumn. Autumn crossing was bad, but not winter bad. So he stuffed his best men on the ships and simply cross the sea.
Alright let’s do this. Lerooooyyyy Jennnkinssss!
ROFL! 🤣 😂 😅
Humanity's greatest hero!
Michael Magee I was looking for this comment, glad I wasn’t disappointed
The battle of Modder river, of the Boer war from 1899 to 1902.
So for context, by 1899 of the Boer war, Boers (or Afrikaans as their also called) were besieging 4 British points in two fronts, the western and eastern theatre. In the western theatre, Boer fighters surrounded a round that leads to the diamond mining town of Kimberly.
By late 1899, British reinforcements came to aid the besieged British, and one of the British generals, who were commanding the reinforcements was General Lord Methuen. Whom he was tasked at reliving the siege of Kimberly. Methuen was successful, in doing this, the Boers were fortified hills, so Methuen used his artillery and bombarded the hills, then followed by a scary bayonet charge. The Boers would retreat to a different set of hills but were again pushed back by Methuen. So to counter this problem, one of the Boer generals, of Kimberly, General Koos Del a Rey, offered a tactic to his superior general, Piet Cronji. Instead of staying and fortifying the hills like before, at Modder river they would instead dig trench’s right beside the hills, and to only attack once the British were close. The trick was, was to make the British artillery useless, and to exploit and take great advantage of Boer rifles and marksmen ship. The Boers were armed with German Mauser rifles along with smoke less ammunition, and Boer fighters were known to be better Marksman then British soldiers as Boer culture revolved around hunting game for sport and to feed their family’s. The plan almost worked, as the British were having a hard killing Boer fighters, and taking their position and Boer fighters, blasting away British troops, killing a bunch of men. However, Methuen fired his artillery and in a lucky shot of some sort, hit the Boer trench’s, and Del a Rey was shot in the arm, and his 19 year old son Adriaan, mortally wounded. Out of a panic, Cronji ordered Del a Rey to retreat allowing Muethen to take Modder river. The next battle however, Koos used the same tactic and this time it worked, repelling Methuens advance.
An interesting story I saw on the history channel once:
Vlad the Impaler is mostly remembered for his cruelty but he was also pretty smart. As you can imagine, this is dangerous combination. Vlad invoked the ire of the Ottoman ruler Mehmed II by refusing to pay the tax the Ottoman's demanded from non Muslim nations and killed the tax collectors the Ottoman empire had sent. He also attacked cities in the Ottoman empire that was close to his border, just for good measure. The sultan put up 90,000 soldiers to retaliate while Vlad had 20,000 soldiers, most of them peasants. As the sultan's army grew closer to the Wallachian capitol, Vlad had his people burn everything and flee, leaving nothing for the invading army to take. He also had his soldiers carry out guerilla warfare from the woods of Wallachia. Finally, when the sultans army made it to the capitol, Vlad had his army attack in the night, killing a few people before fleeing back to the city. When morning came, the sultan marched his army into the capitol and found it unguarded. The gate was open and there was no resistance to their entrance. At least, no one alive. In preparation for the sultan's arrival, Vlad had thousands of dead bodies impaled and placed all around the capitol. Bodies upon bodies all held up on stakes, silently guarding the city. This was Vlad's forest of corpses. The sultan was apparently so impressed by Vlad's ability to pull this off that he turned his army around and marched home. The sultan did end up winning in the end by helping Vlad's younger brother overthrow him but it still doesn't change the fact that Vlad turned an entire army around by making a literal forest of corpses.
Caesar build a 36 mile wall to avoid combat, the enemy saw and build too and Caesar was in a wall building race to eventually win... what a guy
Commander Lenin II of the Area 51 raid reporting in, i am documenting myself on war tactics
Cool.
During WW2, a Gurkha showed an officer (or general) how they get rid of sentries: he snuck up behind a German, stabbed him in the kidney, then cut off his head with the kukri knife. Those Afghans (2:00) probably never saw who killed them.
1) Most Alexander the Great’s battles
2) Cannas
Cannae?
Cat power! Engage!
Egypt - “Oh come on, that is not fair 😥”
Battle of pelusium was where Persians used cats as sheilds against the Egyptians because Egyptians believed cats were sacred and would never harm them. And so 7000 Persians rushed the 50000 Egyptians and the Egyptians didn't want to harm the animals and surrendered their positions. The Persians won. I'm especially proud of this as I am Persian
Surprised Mehmed's capture of Constantinople wasn't on here.
Byzantines: "It's too bad your ships can't go underwater or fly to get past our big ass chain that everyone thought was stupid but actually is super effective (now who's laughing). Guess you'll have to just carry them."
Mehmed: "No problem."
Byzantines: "That's what I- wait what?"
That one time where Britain decided to fire like a million artillery shells at German trenches for a week only to get shitstomped by all the Germans that they thought they killed.
oof
The somme
@@bullethead1953 And we didn't exactly get shitstomped, we ended up winning the battle after several days... It's just the very definition of the term 'Pyrrhic victory'.
@@Neion8 Nah hes talking about the first assault on the Somme. The battle of the Somme lasted over 4 months by the way not just several days. Anyway, on the first main assault on german positions, the British and French (mostly the British) tried to assault the german after bombing them like crazy and got pushed back with around 200 000 casualties while the german barely had 20 000 casualties, it was a massive failure. On the second assault, the brought in the South african and Australian corps and it was more even but they still didn't get anywhere. On the third assault they brought in the Canadian corps who took the two main german trenches that they had been trying to capture for over four months in a week, inflicting 5 times the casualties to the enemy that they suffered even though the german were in a defensive position. Thats how the Canadian fearsome reputation amongst german soldiers began and the reason why german desertion rates quadrupled in both World War when they knew they were up against Canadians. There were also a lot of skirmishes between the three main assaults though.
Ah, the battle of the Somme, that time so many fucking guns were fired at once that the people in London was hearing the artillery barrages
@@giantWario You mean, Canadian won the battle of the Somme ? No, Germans did.
All of these pale in comparison to the secret Joestar technique.
🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️
*NIGERUNDAYO*
There are many, such as:
Jojo's Bizzare Adventure Opening 3
NIGERUNDAYO SMOKEY
etc.
I'm a Arizona Ranger. I finally found you.
They say the russians have great skill in this technique
The Vietnamese use the same tactic in all three Mongol invasion of Vietnam
So basically:
1) let the mongol take capital with minimum resistance (the capital was completely abandoned including food or anything that could substance the enemies)
2) begin guerilla raids on the mongol supply convoy or patrols
3) Wait the the tropical weather or heat to wear down the mongols ( The mongols are use to cold climate not tropical climate)
4) when the time is come began a full on assault on the weakened Mongols
5) laying ambushes on potential retreating routes to weaken them more
6) repeat if there is another Mongol invasion
By the way all of these I think was plan by one guy
He was Tran Hung Dao (for more information please check on Badassofweek.com)
Basically he leading the Vietnamese army throughout all 3 invasion, he was a total badass and a Vietnam national hero ( he was worship like a god after he dead)
Vietnam. The country you can't win a war against
@@pewpew9711 Han Chinese dominated Vietnam for nearly a thousand years.
Sophia Dalke Han wasn’t last more than thousand years. It was later transferred to Wu who controlled, then it transferred again and again until 938.
Pew PewPew Pew unless u r the Chinese or the French
@@yukitakaoni007 I was referring to 'Han Chinese' as an ethnic identity, not the Han Dynasty (hence my lack of the term 'Dynasty'), because it was period which transcended multiple dynasties.
I got six more:
*Hannibal*
Hannibal was surrounded by Romans, but instead of fighting the enemy, he set up camp at night and ordered his men to tie bundles of hay to the horns of oxen that were grazing nearby. Hannibal then ordered his men to light the hay on fire, the oxen were startled and stampeded towards the Romans. The Romans figured this was a Carthaginian surprise charge with elephants and countered with their own charge, meanwhile, Hannibal and his men slipped away. Come dawn, the Romans realized they slaughtered a herd of oxen and let the Carthaginians escape.
Hannibal (again) used a pretty cool strategy of psychological warfare that involved scorched earth tactics but sparing plots of land belonging to Rome’s “political enemies” - unpopular consuls and the like, Fabius in particular - so that the Romans thought these people were secretly allying with Hannibal. He also spared many Roman witnesses so that they would go back to Rome and sow havoc (it worked).
Hannibal (this guy was incredible) fought against Africanus’ dad at a river sometime before he crossed the Alps with fucking elephants. So Africanus’ dad made a wall on the river out of ships. Hannibal charged the wall alongside his men (they felt encouraged to fight if their general was besides them) but what the Romans didn’t know was that Hannibal secretly dispatched his Iberian horsemen around the wall earlier that night, and while the two armies fought it out in a makeshift water-siege, a contingent of horsemen smashed into the Roman rear - playing hammer to the Roman wall’s anvil.
*Rollo*
Can’t remember if this was Rollo or Ragnar, but one of them hung a full contingent of Frankish warriors in perfect formation, in full view of the Frankish king. Big flex.
Rollo, sometime in his career of rampaging through France, fought himself into a corner. Rollo’s forces and the Franks were at a stalemate - they had been fighting all day until nightfall, so they kind of called it a truce. Rollo retreated to a prairie with a river at his back - come the next day, the Franks (that were now surrounding him against the river) would receive reinforcements that would allow them to break the stalemate. Rollo knew this, so he ordered his men to go to nearby farms and slaughter the livestock, this would cut the Franks’ food supply, but it did something else too: the next day, the Frankish force was facing a wall of slaughtered livestock, behind it, Rollo and his men. The Franks did a cavalry charge, as they normally did and as Rollo predicted, but the horses refused to charge through the wall. As the horses recoiled, Rollo ordered the main body of his men to secretly retreat and ford the river, because he knew he was outnumbered and would die if they fought: this was all a ploy to stage a retreat. He had his archers picking off horsemen and shit, but something else he did to stall was smear animal blood and gore all over his and his men’s shields and formed a shield wall behind the livestock wall to further scare the horses and nullifying the Franks’ arrow volleys. By the time the wall of butchered animals was breached, Rollo and his men were long gone, the horsemen could not chase them through the river which was too deep for horses to cross. The Franks continuously offered “Danegeld” (a bribe, basically) to send Rollo and his men away, but they continuously refused, being a thorn on their side for decades; eventually the Franks got creative and offered land instead, Rollo accepted, and now we have Normandy. Rollo’s descendants, the Normans, went on to conquer England, serve in the Byzantine Varangian Guard, in the Crusades, establish a duchy in Sicily, etc.
*Olga*
This woman was a fucking monster. She locked her suitors in a bathhouse and burned it (and subsequently, them) alive, then buried her suitors’ angry relatives alive afterwards, she was also fond of making human effigies after battles. In her usual routine of sieging cities, one city was particularly stubborn, so she offered to go away in exchange for three birds (I don’t know the specific number or breed) from each household. Later that night, she had tinder attached to the talons of each bird, had them set on fire, and released; panicked, they flew back to their nests which were in the households, and basically the city was razed to the ground with no casualties.
6:28 That is probably the most funniest thing I've seen in a war
Lol that’s nice
Me: has no one ever mentioned about the tactics used in the Chinese history, like how zhu ge liang tricked the enemy commander into donating free arrows to them
Kuroyukikaze Kanade more info on that pls
@@Stricken-Zero There's a lot of politics and power-grabbing behind the full story but here's the quick version: Zhu ge Liang was commanded to deliver 100,000 arrows to the army in 10 days. Being adept in meteorology and other sciences that I can't name, he knew that there would be a large inpenetrable fog in 3 days so he promised to deliver in 3 days. For the first 2 days he did nothing (well, publically), and everyone was very confused. In fact, he was building fake men and boats made of straw in secret. On the third day, Zhu ge liang released the straw boats with fake straw soldiers standing on them, with a few real soldiers hiding in the cabins. While the fake fleet approached the enemy shore, the enemy general Cao cao could not see what was approaching due to the fog. He knew that Zhu ge liang was a very clever person and is a very suspicious person himself, and ordered his soldiers to unleash arrow barrages upon the boats he thought were real. After taking a lot of arrows on the straw boats and having no people hurt, Zhu ge liang retreated while ordering his soldiers to shout "Thank you for the free arrows commander Cao". Zhu ge liang apparently got around 150,000 arrows that day.
Zou Jonathan so during the Three Kingdoms thing, right? I recognize the name Cao Cao
@@Stricken-Zero Yes, Cao cao was the leader of the Wei Kingdom. Zhu ge liang was the lead advisor to Liu Bei, the leader of the Shu Kingdom.
@@zoujonathan6172 Cao Cao wasn't the leader of the Wei Kingdom per se during his lifetime. It was his son, Cao Wei, who founded the Wei kingdom.
I understand what you meant. Just clarified the fact.
The time the Emperor said “Execute order 66.”
There is this one battle between the Sui Dynasty of China and Goguryeo Dynasty of Korea. The Chinese had more than 1 million men while the Koreans had 300,000. What the Koreans did was pure genius. As the Chinese host was unknowingly marching across a dammed river by the Koreans to meet the Koreans. The Korean general ordered the rocks damming the river to be removed. The Chinese were drowned, confused and scattered. Then the Koreans moved in to route them and finish them off. 90% of the Chinese Army lost their men while the Koreans lost less than 1%. That victory was vital to the fall of the Sui Dynasty in China.
TLDR : Korea: Quality China: Quantity
Woojiniee 2001
That was after a prolonged scorched-earth campaign, to be fair. Feeding an army that size strains the logistics of the invading force, and the Sui army was much weakened by the time the Battle of Salsu happened (which was the battle that involved the dam trap)
@@bkjeong4302 Still a good tactic nonetheless. The Sui army massively outnumbered the Goguryeo 3:1.
I doubt the number of combatants would be as high as 1 million..
@@X.Y.Z.07 It is. Look it up. China always had used its numerical superiority in wars and had always had large armied due to its huge population. And wars in antiquity were always won by number and tactics. Numbers of combatants lowered throught the years because more advanced weapons were relied more on than footsoldiers.
@@SeoWoojin55 well, ancient historian figures should be taken with a grain of salt (or sometimes a barrel).. I just based it roughly on the logistic system during the Han dynasty..
An Army of 10.281 men required 27.363 hu of grain and 308 hu if salt, in which it was transported using a convoy of 1.500 carts pulled by oxens.. 1 hu roughly equal to 19,968 litres.. So a soldier on average (In optimal condition) required 51.9 litres of grain and 0.6 litres of salt per month to sustain themselves..
Now imagine to times that by 100x... I doubt it was possible back then.. Number of soldiers were most of the time inflated by ancient historian.. Even during the battle of Red Clifd where it said that Cao Cao had 1 million men army, modern estimates figure were only arround less than 100.000 combatants (The number would increase if you included non-combatants and sailors.)
The transport of ration could be helped tremendously should it is possible to transport it by sea. However, seeing how the Korean dominated the sea arround the peninsula during that period of time, I doubt the Chinese would be able to do so.
Ok, how did no one post this one.
A Chinese general named Cao Cao had to defend a fortress with very few guards against an army of thousands led by Lu Bu. Knowing he would be annihilated if they were to engage in combat, Cao Cao had all the gates left wide open, about ten or so guards in the fortress, while Cao Cao himself sat down playing a lute. Lu Bu immediately thought this was a trap, that Cao Cao's troops were waiting in the surrounding forest, so he ordered his troops to retreat. He then tried again to take the town, but Cao Cao did actually put his troops in the forest this time, and managed to fight off Lu Bu's forces.
I thought this was Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi but I'm no history major.
Houyo it is lol
gotta say that the cavalry charging the ships was my favorite! :D
Only the geniuses use chickens in warfare
The war tactic described at 9:10 has actually been converted into a movie and it is a must watch . Movie name - The Admiral: Roaring Currents 2014 and it has been described by our friend here very precisely.
A guy that made 2 novels about spain being a asshole then get killed then turned the whole country to rebel to the spaniards.
(And yes im a filipino)
Jose Rizal?
@@imjustariceguy yeah, he is
*filipino instincts*
Jose rizal's top epic gamer moments
Kinda like Thomas Paine in American history
>Most ppl don’t like independence
>Paine: “It’s common sense y’all
>independence movement grows
Not quite on topic, but an amusing thing is that Gengis Khan tried to attack Constantinople three times. The first two times, he was unable to get through both walls and into the city. Then he heard that an earthquake had collapsed them both and rushed to attack the city. When he got there, he found that they had not only completely repaired the walls, they had actually built a *third*. He didn't even bother, just turned around and left.
LET'S USE THIS ON OUR MISSION OF STORMING AREA 51.
Just a note on 5:40, artillery barrages were super useless on killing people, it’s only the fear that made people get pinned down. It’s said that you only need artillery enough to kill 5% of the army to reduce an armies effectiveness to 50%, since the barrage required to do so is so much most people would rather surrender
This Video: ***Exists***
Me, who watches Extra History: The Expert
Those dam busters had to be spun up as well so they could skip on the water, they were shaped like barrels. Lancaster bombers were the only bombers that carried them to my knowledge.
The tactic that Fuma Kotaro used against Hattori Hanzo.
What did kotaro do against the ninja boi.
@Regular Slime srsly
So it says according to legend they fought each other on a burning boat after hanzo was lured into a trap. Hanzo died but kotaro died not long after.
It was a naval battle. Kotaro sent a burning ship towards Hanzo's fleet, knowing that his ships were loaded with gun powder. Hanzo couldn't maneuver to avoid Kotaro's ship in time, so he told his men to jump. But the sea was covered in oil, which was then lit when Kotaro's ship crashed against Hattori's.
Here’s a quick version of some of the many other great war tactics.
-1100s BC, Trojan War: Greek alliance famously uses a giant wooden horse to trick and destroy Troy.
-480 BC, Battle of Thermopylae: King Leonidas I and the 300 Spartans famously defend against Persia.
-47 BC, Battle of Alexandria: Julius Caesar burns the ports of Alexandria (and the library sadly) to effectively bottleneck Ptolemy’s army.
-1297, Battle of Stirling Bridge: William Wallace on the frontlines bottlenecks the English army.
-1314, Battle of Bannockburn: Robert the Bruce tricks and destroys English, having hidden his cavalry behind the large hills.
-1805, Battle of Austerlitz: Napoleon masterfully destroys a massive enemy coalition.
-1865, American Civil War (late): Union General Sheridan cuts a path across Confederate land far behind the frontlines, effectively cutting supply lines and distracting enemy troops.
-1917, World War I (late): The Germans when retreating would kill cows, burn crops and cut down trees so the Allies couldn’t use them.
-1939, Conquest of Poland; Heinz Guderian puts to the test the Blitzkrieg, where their fast tanks are a separate force from the infantry rather than support. It demolishes all outlying resistance, allowing the infantry to surround and besiege forts and cities.
-1941: Russia did against Hitler exactly what they did against Napoleon 129 years earlier.
-1944, Battle of Normandy: Future US president Eisenhower uses inflatable boats and fake paratroopers to make the Germans think the allies would attack in and around Belgium.
-2010s: Nations today refuse to wage all out war against the US, using economic warfare (China) or exhaust the American people’s willingness to fight as seen with the Vietnam War. Similarly, the terrorist organization Hamas often uses human shields for their missiles, forcing Israel to choose between their own people and the innocents of Palestine, making Israel look evil and loose international support (dick move, but a smart one).
For Leonida's defense it wasn't just him and the guard, they had quite a few ships and various forces from other city-states. Still, the fact they were able to fight forces THAT much outnumbering them is legendary
Henry Morgan at Maracaibo. He needed ladders to climb up the city walls. But setting up the ladders was too dangerous because the defenders were constantly firing their muskets at Morgan's men. So he raided a monastery, captured nuns and sent them with his men to set up the ladders and they were forced to climb first, so that the defenders didn't dare to shoot or push them down.
that's a war crime.
@@VimyGlide Do you think he cared?
@@GoErikTheRed no, and that's the joke
Some vikings were besieging an Italian city, but struggling with the high walls. The viking leader fell ill, and made a public show of converting to Christianity. A few days later he died. The other vikings told the city defenders they would head home, but that their leader's dying wish had been to be buried in the cities cathedral. The cityfolk allowed a few unarmed vikings to bear their leader's coffin into the city. The leader promptly jumped out (very much alive) and revealed the weapons hiding inside the coffin. The vikings fought their way back to gates, opened them, and the city was sacked. The vikings, thinking they had just sacked Rome itself, returned home laden with treasury. With only a small hiccup when they had to fight Moors using Greek Fire.
There is a beautiful one from Sun Tsu's Art of War:
"Note the following anecdote of Sun Pin, a descendent of Sun Wu:
In 341 B.C., the Ch`i State being at war with Wei, sent T`ien Chi and Sun Pin against the general P`ang Chuan, who happened to be a deadly personal enemy of the latter. Sun Pin said:
"The Ch`i State has a reputation for cowardice, and therefore our adversary despises us. Let us turn this circumstance to account."
Accordingly, when the army had crossed the border into Wei territory, he gave orders to show 100,000 fires on the first night, 50,000 on the next, and the night after only 20,000.
P`ang Chuan pursued them hotly, saying to himself: "I knew these men of Ch`i were cowards: their numbers have already fallen away by more than half."
In his retreat, Sun Pin came to a narrow defile, with he calculated that his pursuers would reach after dark. Here he had a tree stripped of its bark, and inscribed upon it the words: "Under this tree shall P`ang Chuan die."
Then, as night began to fall, he placed a strong body of archers in ambush near by, with orders to shoot directly they saw a light.
Later on, P`ang Chuan arrived at the spot, and noticing the tree, struck a light in order to read what was written on it. His body was immediately riddled by a volley of arrows, and his whole army thrown into confusion."
TLDR: Sun Tsu's Art of War is full of genius tactics - read it.
Instructions unclear, Accidentally killed all Area 51 guards
Well scorched earth Is a good tactic If no other option is Goung to work
It's a viable tactic. One of the reasons France fell so quick in WW2 is that during the retreat, troops left fuel, weapons and food, behind, allowing the Nazis to push forward beyond their supply lines. Russia was initially retreating, but they were pretty good and leaving nothing behind.
@@Zaprozhan Also France could retreat only a few hundred kilometers, British retreated behind the Channel and Russians 1000 kilometers.
There's one more I picked up in the decameron. 2 kings were at war. Both armies were consisting, mostly, of archers. One of them decided to give his archers bows with very shallow strings and matching arrows. After fireing their arrows the archers picked up the ones their enemies launched at them. The enemy archers couldnt fire back but his archers could because any arrow would match their fine strings.
The text to voice program could pronounce Vercingetorix, but can't pronounce Facebook
Nikhil Wadhwa He didn't pronounce it right though, so technically he can't.
Blackbeard vs the British navy.
Pirate: Sir we're surrounded, what do we do.
Blackbeard: Welp lighting shit on fire always works for me so let's light our ship on fire and just ram the blockade.
Pirate: Okay I follow your logic while the ship is on fire we escape on a small boat right?
Blackbeard: Oh I didn't think about that! Yeah let's do that.
Thank you for posting this now we will find those aliens
One of my favorite tactics was the Battle of Empel in the mid 1500’s. A Spanish tercio force was trapped on a large island in the middle of a river in the Netherlands waiting for an opportunity to cross but the Dutch arrived and surrounded the Spanish. While digging trenches, the Spanish found a buried image of the Immaculate Conception. Since it was winter, there was a very particular cold night on such a level that the river froze. The Spanish took the opportunity at night and crossed the river. The following morning, the Dutch awoke noticing that they were now surrounded by the Spanish and surrendered. This is how the Immaculate Conception became the patron saint of the Spanish army.
Forming a perfect 256-man Macedonian phalanx.
@Duck Soup It's not hard. Just right click on the battle map where you want them to go. Double right click on the poor sods you want to charge.
Roman Army Order 37: Dig a large, wide, and deep trench and fill it with oil. Leave only one entry point and fill it with troops in a tight shield wall formation. When the enemy gets close, light the oil.
What about Nelson at Trafalgar?
Nelson basically changed how Naval combat was thought. He split up the combined French and Spanish fleet and absolutely demolished them.
Correct me if I’m wrong
You're not wrong, but Lord Yi never lost a ship. Like, _never._ it's hard to top that.
Re: Trafalga, to be specific what Nelson did is that he divided his fleet into two columns and deliberately let the enemy cross his T (normally a very BAD idea).....so he could use his better-trained crew and faster ships to slice the enemy fleet in two places to destroy them piecemeal. It worked.
Yi’s no less of a naval genius though; unlike Nelson he had a major firepower advantage in all his battles, but that’s more than compensated for by the fact he was dealing with enemy fleets that could sail faster than his own ships (albeit at the cost of agility), and could have simply evaded him. But he still managed to force naval engagements via good tactics (feigned retreats being common, as well as relay attacks) and racked up an insane number of victories.
@@rusdanibudiwicaksono1879 To be honest, both are just geniuses and I'm not going to push Lord Yi down because what he pulled off was pretty insane.
All I'm saying is, that Nelson at Trafalgar is a pretty good honourable mention, bearing in mind the insane odds he faced at Trafalgar. Yes he had better crews but as Bk Jeong says, he was sailing INTO the enemy fleet, a tactic at the time which was basically suicide
Charles Martel in the Battle Of Tours had a genius simple plan of burning the Caliphate's stuff then backstabbing them.
Here is my bag of bad ideas, hope you enjoy... or not?
1. Put milk before cereal
2. A fork inside a toaster
3. Hoping EA will make a good game nowadays
4. Lay siege to a ninja fortress. (really guys?)
Caesar: *_"I'm not trapped here with you, you're trapped here with ME!_*
12:00 "This is the only instance in history of a cavalry charge against a naval fleet."
You must not have played much Age of Empires
Note the "in history" part.
0:21 reference to Asterix And Obelix And I’m so fucking proud
2:34
1) Scipio didn’t attack first. Hannibal charged with his elephants. Scipio lined up his legions in rows and columns, but had the first row offset to the rest of the rows, creating the apperance that the legions were deployed in checkered formation, as was Roman doctrine. War horns were blown at the elephants, which scared some of them off. Upon the arrival of the elephant charge, scipio ordered the front row to line back up in columns with the rest of the rows. The elephants, instead of charging into the legions, took the path of least resistance and charged between the legions. The elephants were surrounded and subsequently killed.
2) while both sides had Iberian mercenaries, it was not Roman legions who charged into the Iberian wings of the carthaginians. Mainly because you usually put your CAVALRY at the wings, and charging the Carthaginian wings of Iberian CAVALRY mercenaries with foot soldiers is an incredibly stupid idea. Instead, it was the Roman’s Numidian Cavalry mercenaries who charged the carthaginian’s Iberian cavalry. The numidians, although being being North African tribesmen, had some of the best cavalry in the ancient mediterranean. The Numidian cavalry crushed the Iberian cavalry and chased them off, leaving infantry on infantry. The fighting between the lines ensued, and while the Carthaginians fought with a mostly mercenary army, Hannibal’s army was an exception, since his men were well trained and had deep respect and loyalty for both him and his money. Hannibal would have won that infantry engagement if the Numidians came back and charged the Carthaginian infantry line from the rear mid-combat, which broke the Carthaginian line and ultimately caused Hannibal’s defeat.
The issue with early Roman legions is that, once the hastati, principe, and triarii soldiers were mostly made of young, first time conscripts who, once served with a general only once in campaign, they were allowed to retire permanently from the military when the general dismissed his army, and only a handful volunteered to return to the military. So while the early Roman armies were numerous, they were often filled with soldiers who lacked experience (with the exception of scipio’s legionaries, who lost their Roman citizenship after suffering a military defeat before the second Punic wars, and were fighting to gain their citizenship back. Although they still had less experience than Hannibal’s men, they had experience nonetheless and therefore were the exception). The Carthaginians usually hired mercenaries since they were more skilled with sea battles than land battles. Even though mercenaries usually aren’t as loyal as troops born within the nation they serve (with the exception of Hannibal’s army), they tended to have lots of military experience. This lead to the Marian reforms of the Roman army, which established the first ever standing army of the Roman republic.
They forgot to mention that when he died admiral yi was banging on a wardrum so to keep up the morale someone impersonated him for the rest of the battle and kept on banging the drum.
Zhuge Liang, Nothing more
1:16 i have thought about that for 5 minutes and can confidently say that there gauls on the outside would've won if they just burned the wooden wall, you know since Spartans would've cooked inside, lay archers on high points trained on exit points, small armored militias on either side, by the time they would've reacted half there army would be struggling to breathe.
Unfortunately Roman walls were not of wood. They were of earth, the romans digged a ditch, and used the earth to make an embankment .Then they used the poles they carried to complete the embankment with a fence. So no chance to put that on fire with arrows - not mentioning that bowmen and string artillery behind Roman walls were way more effective than Gallish bowmen in the open.
Best War tactic:
Stopping my friend from running in front of enemy fire
Alexander nevsky leading the Teutonic order onto ice and cracking it underneath their feat, while his soldiers fought a steady retreat.
The tactic itself isn't 2000 iq level, but the execution of it was perfect.
Ceaser: “Siege... but on the inside”
How about that time where Hussites consisting of about 300 untrained peasants (led by about dozen mercenaries) equiped only with farming tools utterly destroyed 2000 strong army of heavily armored, trained and equiped knights on horses?
Or that time where some crazy bois in 15th century who while defending city from enemy army got betrayed by some people in that city, so now they were stuck outside of closed gates, with no support from walls (with detachment of enemies swiftly moving inside that cite from different side to man those walls) and with twice as big army in front of them. At which point the defending army decided to "screw this, I am going home", loaded everyone on carts, put cannons on those carts too and simply did first ever Drive-by attack straight through entire enemy army with minimal loses while still dealing tons of damage to sieging army.
Now we need the stupidest battle tactics.
A blind french lord from the 100 year war went into battle tied to his men with ropes to avoid getring lost on the battlefield. Didn't turn out well. Also, at the battle of Azincourt, the french noblemen tried to charge at the English troops up a muddy hill.
Fighting the russians in russia as winter approaches
#1 Do not pursue Lu Bu
Mehmed the II, the infamous Sultan of the Ottoman Empire known for conquering Constantinople, made ships go on land to seige Constantinople.
The one I still remember was the night attack of 1462, where Mehmed marched to Târgoviște into a forest of ottoman corpses.
tell us about it? never heard
Scipio's tactic is literally the same thing Hannibal did to the Romans at Cannae.