Favorites in Military History

[sprior]

I'm going to throw in:

1. Jutland. What a ding-dong battle that could have been!
2. Solomons Campaign
3. Falklands '82
4. Market-Garden
5. Normandy
6. Trafalgar. That really was a ding-dong battle.

The most fascinating what/if has to be NATO/WP in Western Europe. wargame companies made a lot of money from that in 70's and 80's and I really enjoyed paying for them too. Now they are in my loft gathering dust... (of course I am glad it remains a what/if as I, along with most of Europe and possibly the world, wouldn't be here. Although I did meeet some tankers from the Royal Scots Dragoons who were just itching to have a crack at 3rd Shock Army.)

[Jonathan Pollard]

I found the Chinese Civil War of 1946-49 to be of such interest that I created a scenario for the first year of it using The Operational Art of War vol.1. It used to be available for download online but I did a search for it now and I could not find it anywhere. My interest was sparked by a boardgame on the subject which first appeared in The Wargamer magazine.

[ckammp]

deleted

[RedArgo]

Mostly because they were the first battles I learned about as a kid.

War of 1812 USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere - I liked the underdog here, even though Old Ironsides was actually bigger, the British certainly expected to win.

Battle of Midway - it had many plots. The code breaking, getting Yorktown back in to the fight after Coral Sea, the heroism of the torpedo bombers in their doomed attacks and the skill of the dive bomber pilots sinking the Japanese flattops.

[Lützow]

I'd like to see a game depicting Halbe pocket.

[JRodda]

Yes, the great battle of Midway was possibly one of the most decisive victories ever.  Has anyone seen the 'War and Remembrance' miniseries from the early 90's?  I actually thought they did a better job covering the battle of Midway than the 'Midway' movie did, although that movie wasn't bad.  "These American pilots sacrifice themselves like Samurai!!!" 

One interesting point that Herman Wouk made in both the miniseries and the book was that the real significance of the battle of Midway was that it allowed the US to continue it's 'Germany first' policy. 

Great quotes from the Midway sequence:

"The annals of history show no equal to the great battle of Midway.  Japan's dreams of empire were finished, though it would take three more bloody years and final atomic blast horror before they would admit this fact." 

"The quiet warrior Admiral Raymond Spruance would go on to command ever greater armadas, but like Nelson of Trafalgar, he would forever be known to history as Spruance of Midway."  [:)]

[GaryChildress]

Most fascinating battles to me are:

Operation Market Garden and Kursk

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

the outcome of the battle of britain was clear from the beginning. why?

-the germans had not a heavily armed strategic bomber. their medium bombers were designed for tactical operations in combination with their "panzerdivisionen".
and what good is a Heavy Bomber ?, for this battle the Heavy was not needed, it wasn't a planned, take out all of the factories battle, it was a tactical battle, to take over control of the skies, and the sea lanes, (without control of the skies, you control the sea, at least during the day), so the Army could move over and win the war

-the germans (espacialy göring) expected too much from the BF-110 and the combat over britain showed that it was no match for agile hurrican and spitfires.
but the reason it wasn't was the way it was forced to fight, it shouldn't of been a close escourt, once it was tied to the bombers, it was usless, on it's own, it did well

-the BF-109, the german frontline fighter, had a too small range to be effective in fighter sweep&escort missions. thats something i never understand: why did the luftwaffe not developed external fuel tanks for the BF-109? this single technological development would change the outcome of the entire battle since many many german fighters and pilots were lost on their way back home AFTER their mission. a BF-109 with 1/3 extented range would realy make a difference.

the RAF fighters had almost the same range limits, it was the design of the times, plus you have to understand the thinking of the times, a escourt fighter, will never be able to win a fight with a normal fighter, Portal was a strong believer in this, and why the English never went after a long range escourt fighter, the P-51 proved everybody wrong, and changed there minds of what could be done, the LW knew about drop tanks, they had already done there home work before the war, but, it was more buggled plans, silly plans, and not using what they had, the way it could be used, that hurt them, just giving them more fuel, and still going with the same plans, would of worked out the same way, I forget which LW General/or Pilot who said it, but the statement was, once they seen the P-47 flying sweeps in front of the Bombers, he knew the air war was over, the Yanks had learned how to protect there bombers, as long as they tried to fly with the bombers, the LW would always be able to hit them, and hit them HARD, I don't think the LW lost that many planes because they ran out of fuel, they lost planes because they had to break off, or were timid, because they knew they were getting close to bingo

-hitlers influence on startegy and tactic of the luftwaffe coupled with görings incompetence. switching from the RAF ground organization to london wa sa big mistake and cost the germans the possible victory. since hitlers (actualy it was mannsteins) plan to defeat france was succesfull, he viewed himself as a military genius and begunn to interfere more and more in the military operations of the wehrmacht instead of letting the experts doing the job.
for BoB, I think the lack of Intell, that meant anything was more importent then the meddling of the high Commnad, remember that Stumpff disagreed with the order, while Kesselring thought it was a good idea and what they should do

the biggest military achievement was imho the israeli counter attack to the arab surprise attack in the yom kippur war 1973. totaly surprised, outnumberd and more or less alone (US help came after several days and europe was already totaly anti-israeli and pro-arab and did not help the jews in their fight for existence) they stopped nearly 5000 modern russian tanks and hunderts of russian mig and suchois. that was a outstanding preformance of a western army against eastern hordes. the suez kanal crossing of sharons division and the surrounding of a entire arab army at sinai was something like the german "kesselschlachten" in the east front.

the biggest and most impressive anti-terror operation was the israli raid in entebe to free the jew hostages.

[sabre1]

Cannae,

Guagamela

Aleisa

Waterloo

Gettysburg

Battle of the River Plate (Love the Graff Spee)

Tobruk

Kursk

Battle of the Bulge

[Toby42]

I'm amazed that Rome survived Cannae, and the rest of the Hannibal battles!!

[Grymme]

Have to join in on this. This is more a list of campaigns/battles i find interesting at the moment. Interest is always moving in different directions.

Battle of Gaugamela 311BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaugamela

Battle of lake Trasimere 217BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_lake_trasimene

Battle of Breitenfield (1631)
The swedes beat the Habsburg war machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... eld_(1631)

Battle of Narva (1700)
8 500 swedes battle it out with approximatly 37 000 russians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Narva_(1700)

Battle of bridge of Arcole 1796
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... _of_Arcole

The dodecanese campaign (1943)
The germans are masters of improvized warfare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecanese_Campaign

Tet-offensive (1968)
Although a military loss for the NVA/FNL it was an organizational miracle (according to me).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_offensive

And pretty much everything the Boers did against the brits. (not that i have anything against brits..

[JRodda]

Another fascinating battle I just remembered was the German 1918 offensive (Operation Michael).  The Germans put the stosstruppen tactics developed on the Eastern Front to good affect, and threatened to burst the whole static Western Front wide open.  I suppose one could liken this battle the the Ardennes Offensive in that Germany was essentially playing its last card.  Michael, however, I think had a much greater chance of success than the Ardennes Offensive did.  As an aside, the only movie I know of that covered this battle (at least a little) was the very good WW1 aviation film 'The Blue Max'.  Also, I think by the time they did this film, actor James Mason was becoming typcast as a German Commander.  [;)]

BTW Treale, concerning Cannae, the Rome: Total War game had a good quote about Hannibal - "Hannibal knew how to win a victory, but not how to use one."  How true.