i know a defend,but they were all dead...
x2 and they had little to no hope of rescue. The Zulu's stopped attacking not because backup arrived, but because of too may losses. And especially because the british soldiers were annhialated in a previous more even battle!Originally Posted by callous
Out of the choices given I voted for Roarke's Drift. 139 British soldiers defeated the 5,000 Zulus, all on thier own.
Termophylae hands down.
you could make a case for the charge of the 1st Minnesota at the Battle of *****sburg. General ******* needed 5 minutes to get troops on Cemetary Ridge, in the center of the Union line. The only unit there was the 1st Minnesota regiment. He told the commander to get the colors of the oncoming confederate brigade. 262 Minnesotans charged into in one Reb brigade, sent them reeling, then crashed into another one before being decimated. A captain and 47 survivors came back to *******, but they had bought him 10 minutes, enough to plug the line and get ready for the oncoming confederates.
There have undoubtedly been many, many desperate and courageous actions in the last 8000 years of organized warfare. I doubt many of them ever get mentioned in any history book - nevertheless, I raise a salute to every soldier who believed in his cause or in his comrades enough to die for them.
Thanks for sharing many amazing stories of heroism I've never heard of, and here's my contribution. Some years back I studied Russo-Finnish Continuation War, ie. the Second World War. One story caught my attention:
During massive Russian offensive in summer 1944, as the Finnish lines reeled back in full retreat and Stalin was determined to make Finland a Soviet state, many old soldiers who had been released from active duty during relatively quiet years of 42-43 were hastily recalled as replacements to stem the Red tide. One such reservist company, mostly made up of local farmers and tradesmen in their forties and fifties and poorly equipped with anything else than their small arms, was deployed on a small hill overlooking a major river in the Karelian Isthmus, direct route from Leningrad to Finland. As the Russian advance was faster than anticipated, their hill quickly became hotly contested as it overlooked the remaining Finnish bridgehead on the eastern bank.
As the Red Army bombarded the hill with everything it had and an assault was imminent, the men - husbands all, fathers most - decided that come hell or high water, they would not retreat one inch from their ancestral lands.
Two days later, two crack Russian divisions, attacking with great courage several times in a day, had been unable to dislodge the defenders. On the second nightfall, all their ammunition spent, eight wounded men braved the river and returned to Finnish lines to tell the tale. They were all that was left from a company of over 120 men.
That price had been enough to buy two invaluable days for their comrades-in-arms.
Finland was never occupied.
I have forgotten details and probably there are several errors in the story, but nevertheless, I wish that (heaven forbid) were I in a equally difficult situation, I would have as much courage as these men had.
Still, for historical significance and for pure "stuff of legends"-factor, my vote goes to Thermopylae. Although have to agree that level 27 in Beach Head is a bit tricky too.
Another battle we missed out on was the Seige of Fort Drumm.
It was a Fort on the entrance to Manilla Bay and was armed with 4 14inch guns and was dubbed "The Concrete Battleship" because of the way it was built. It did actually look like a warship.
Anyway it had a garrison of 120 men and at the time of the surrender of Corrigdor (spelling) it still had a vast quantity of men, ammunition, food and water to sustain itself for a very long time.
Unfortunatly it dident happen since the Forts commander surrended incase of reprisals against the POW's who had already surrended in Bataan and Corrigor.
If you have ever seen a photo of it. The Japs would of had an extremely hard time in taking it. And bombing it into sumbission was out of the question do to the shear thickness of the concrete. Seaborne assault would of been hard since the enemy would of had to scale vertical concrete walls to get on top and enemy boats would of had a hard time of it due to the 14"inch guns which were in battleship turrets but with thicker armour.
One could make an argument for a multitude of decisive defensive engagements (Chamberlain & the 20th Maine at the Little Round Top comes to mind, but is that a battle within a battle?) of the battles listed in the poll, I vote for Thermopylae for two reasons. First, the battle was decisive. The stand of the 300 Spartans (& their Greek compatriots about 8000-10000 combined forces) against nearly 275,000 - 300,000 Persians (and their armies) allowed both a sense nationalism to form a Greek alliance that would defeat Xerxes, and supplied a valuable delaying action for the forces to be mustered. So even though the Spartans, et al, are destroyed to a man (save those Leonidus sent away on the last day), they are a major contributing factor for the battle to come.
Secondly, as has been pointed out in a previous post, Thermopylae may be the pivotal battle that shaped the world. There are many historians that equate the stand at Thermopylae with saving the Western world. Imagine if Xerxes and the Persians had conquered Greece? The entire face of the world today would be different. So as far as a definitive, heard around the world battle, Thermopylae gets my vote.
Excactly, with the other battles you cant say any one of them did/would have shaped history the way Thermopylae did.
None of the above.
First Siege of Diu (India) (16th century)
Portuguese vs Turks
"The bullet that was a tooth
It is sometimes in chronicles written by foreigners that for some centuries have studied Portuguese History, that some interesting details are found.
A Dutch priest, Philippus Baldaeus, who accompanied the Dutch fleets that fought the Portuguese in the Indic Ocean, tells a most interesting story:
During the first Siege of Diu, a Portuguese soldier who was manning one of the bastions of the fortress that was being attacked by the Turks, found himself as the only survivor, having used all bullets but still having some gun powder for one more shot, and finding nothing else to charge his firearm with, decided to extract one of his own tooth and armed the weapon with it, firing against the enemy that was considering he was out of ammunitions.
"
http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/history.htm
Now try to imagine what would be like to be THAT desperate.
Painfull too.
'Maczuga', closing the 'Falaise pocket', 19-21 August, 1944
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...ic.php?t=35969
The Balance-sheet of this fearful confrontation:
The Poles, who went into this fight with eighty-seven Sherman tanks against all the remaining weaponry of the German Seventh army surrounded on the plain of Tournai ? Aubry ? St-Lambert, lost 325 dead, 16 of whom were officers, 1,002 wounded and 114 missing. Eleven tanks were destroyed.
The Germans had about 2,000 killed, 5,000 taken prisoner, including a general, six colonels and 80 officers. They left on the battlefield 55 tanks, of which 14 were Panthers and 6 Tigers, 44 guns and 152 armoured vehicles, 359 vehicles of all types were destroyed.
out of 86 officers only one was unscratched...Canadian liason officer
rest of them were more or les wounded or dead... intersting fact are that many Germans POW were Poles impresed to wermacht (you know in 1944 germans were short of men and impresed anyone whose same sounded even little German) many of those POWs were given option to fight in polish ranks and finished battle on polish side !!!. Also due to lack of ammo most soldiers finished fight with german weapons in hands...
Polish Armoured division served as a cap to closse pocket... all germans who retreeted had to move through it... there were 19 german divisions traped there... (joint British Canadian and US effort) Polish Div and especially 24 Lanciers Batalion (?) closed gab betwen pincers and sealed off remaining germans )many escaped before closing gap and many sliped away later but they left almost all heavy equipment...
what about Guam in the opening stages of the ww2? There were between 100-200 marines garrisoning the island that fought a ****ing japanese invasion force of about 5 or 6 thousand (could be wrong) to the death.
Or during the boxer rebellion when Gysgt Dan Daly held off over a hundred enemy attackers over 3 days pretty much by himself.
What about the british siege of Italian fort of Giarabub in WW2?
months under a complete siege.....[/img]
Anyone read SOG by John Plaster? I don't have the book anymore, but he described a hugely one sided battle. A recon team of about 14 men deliberately deployed on a hill, in enemy territory, and engaged a force of I think 2 battalions of NVA troops. That's nuts!
Roarkes drift definatly. The fact that they were just engineers makes it even more amazing. Also the falklands war. Dont forget the British turned out to crush the argentines out numbered 3 to 1 and mostly through use of ground troops. Dont forget the battle of New Orleans. I think it was like 12 americans killed while there were 7000 british killed. Or more recently in Basra when the british fixed bayonets and charged the insurgents.
Rofl lolmany German soldiers refused entering the ghetto at night (for fear of Jewish ghost
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