Worst Military Loss in History

[SonicKoala]

Yeah, look at the death toll sparky.

And yet america still lost...

death toll =/= points. war is judged through which side ultimately wins the conflict, who captures the most resources, who ends with more than they started with. the Vietcong won that war, their side now controls Vietnam.

How much of Vietnam does the side that america backed control, sparky?

The "victory" in Vietnam for the Vietnamese was a fantastic example of a phyrric victory - sure, the Vietnamese "won" (technically), but their country had been completely destroyed by the constant bombing raids by the Americans. They lost well over a million people, and thousands of acres of farm land was rendered useless by the use of agent orange. Not to mention the enduring legacy of the "bombies" (unexploded landmines) that fell in parts of Vietnam and Laos which remain a problem to this very day. The Vietnamese were the true losers of the Vietnam war.

 

[HerrBobo]

Anzacs landing at Turkey during WW1, I think it was.

Gallipoli, You're thinking of Gallipoli.
Fun fact: The mastermind behind the Gallipoli invasion was Winston Churchil, lord of the admiralty. He would later become the prime minister of Britain.

Indeed!

Almost cost him his career too! He had to do major rebuilding between the wars. Even then he still fucked up; when he was Lord of the Treasury in the 1930's he put Britian back on the gold standerd which really hurt the economy.


Also, I'd have to say the Battle of Rorke's Drift; 4,000-5,000 Zulus attacked, 140 Brits (though they were heavily entrenched) Result, 20 dead Brittish, 500 dead Zulus. 11 VC's awarded.

 

[corporate_gamer]

Oh i see, you turning a historical discussion into a fight. are you irish by any chance?

I am too, you're outnumbered boyo.

Yeah fair enough. But to be honest you can really rank ireland with the Afghans. Those boys have thrown down through-out history and continually won.

True, they have had more continuous battle success. But the end will be the same, both countries independent due to sheer bloody minded stubbornness.

Come on. Its not quite the same, the irish war of independance came after the first world war and was met by apathy on the part of the British public. You might as well list every country that was ever in the british empire(or any empire really) as winning their indepedence through 'sheer bloody minded stubbornness.'

There are just no objective comparisons between the two countries histories.

 

[LegendaryMan]

Thermopylae THIS IS SPARTA!

No way, the Spartans had a geographic advantage so immense that they could have held out there forever if they had more reinforcements. They could have put a halt to the Persain invasions right there if they held out longer, more important (and humiliating) would have been Salamis where Greece's miniscule fleet layed waste to most of Persia's.

I meant a loss for the Persians. and yes salamis was epic too. Thermopylae has repeated itself with Wizna.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivgCD31iKyg&feature=player_embedded

But that's the thing, Thermopylae was a heroic last stand and all, but the Spartans still lost. The point I was trying to make was that if Sparta had held it instead of sending off most of their troops they could have put a complete stop to Persia's advance. The Spartans we're much better trained and in the tight canyons the Persains numbers we're meaningless. Being so far from home and supplies and having his campaign stagnate at Thermopylae meant that sooner or late the sheer economics of it would have forced Xerxes to give up and go home. Sparta's inability to hold such a strategically advantagous chokepoint is in my mind a glaring military failure.

Oh jesus did you researched what you are talking about.

They didnt fail to protect thermopyle,they did a pretty good job and could have stop the persians but they got backstabed by a traitor.A Man by the name of ephialtis revealed to the
Persians a small path where they could go and souround the Greeks.
It wasnt the inability to defend the spot,as i said they where doing a pretty good job,but they couldnt stop a traitor behind enemy lines from revealing a way to kill them.

 

[Puzzles]

The winter war, for sure. The Russians got their asses handed to them.

 

[Trivun]

All that can be said, really, is what do you think was the worst military loss? And I don't mean a war, I mean a battle, like the Battle of Little Bighorn, for example. It can be both modern or historical.

Edit: Wait, wait, this happened in another thread. Give a reason please, in the last one where I asked a question like this people were put on probation for just naming the person (It was about historical figures).

Spoiler: Badass Statistics

Finland kicked ASS! Glad I wasn't a Russki in WW2...

Anyway, I'd have to say Napoleon's campaign in Russia. He conquered almost all of Europe save for Russia and Britain, and proceeded to attack Russia near the end of his campaigns. In winter. Any European commander through the ages will tell you that a Russian winter is suicide for an attacking army, doing so would be like saying 'Screw you God, I want to kill myself and my troops". Anyway, he had a choice and instead of the smart option, which would be attacking Britain then moving into Russia in summer, Napoleon (with his famoux complex) decided he had something to prove and went into Russia. He never made it to Moscow and half his troops died in the freezing conditions. Needless to say, Napoleon returned home with a battered army and ended up being defeated by the British and their allies, leading to his first exile.

Though Napoleon does get points for his sheer badassness. He escaped exile, raised ANOTHER army, then proceeded to carry on as if nothing had happened. Would have succeeded too if he'd won at Waterloo. Sadly for him, one of his generals was eating his breakfast in an inn several miles away, didn't realise the battle had started, and so the reinforcements Napoleon was counting on never showed up. Which led to his second, permanent exile.

 

[cordeos]

i know we are talking about battles, but the War of the Triple Alliance between Paraguay on one side and Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay on the other. It lasted six years and Paraguay ended up losing 25% of its territory and around 60% of its total population.

 

[Brannigan1]

wasnt that the one where one Finnish sniper killed a whole Russian squadron? he actually ran out of ammo and had to resort to his sidearm to carry on killing them.

 

[Agema]

For a really painful loss, you'd not only have to lose the battle, but the ramifications of losing should be catastrophic too. For instance, the Romans got a beating at Cannae, but it hardly lost them the war.

Plenty of defeats have eventually ruined a nation; some have single-handedly destroyed a nation pretty much immediately, but in terms of sheer ruin it's hard to beat the Battle of Baghdad in the 13th century. The Mongols beat the Caliphate of Baghdad, then sacked Baghdad and massacred the civilians, leaving it a smoking ruin that wasn't rebuilt for several centuries. Casualties (civilian and military) range anywhere from 100,000 to a staggering 1 million - incredibly high for the time.

 

[Dancingman]

For us Americans, I'd say our two horrendously failed attempts to invade Canada, seriously, Canada defeated us in a war, sadness.

Seriously?
Several hundred drunk Irishmen took over part of Canada during the Civil War.
American Colonists took over Montreal before the Revolution.

I don't count the French and Indian War because we had the British both helping and commanding us, thank you William Pitt, no thanks to you Mr. Arnold.

 

[Unknower]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suomussalmi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_road

Okay, cutting Finland in half looks like a good idea when looking at a map but the "army has to march in kilometres-long column on poor narrow roads in the middle of nowhere" -part should have rang some alarm bells in the Soviet headquarters.

 

[Mojocat]

Viet Nam--we got our asses kicked, had to scurry out of there and dump billions of dollars worth of planes,Hueys,jeeps,Viet Namese allies-- into the Gulf of Tonkin. As a nation we never recovered. Johnson and Nixon screwed the pooch.

 

[Mojocat]

Well, mateys, let me clue you in a Pyrrhic Victory is.Its when you win Battles overwhelmingly,inflict heavy casualties,but take unsustainable expenses and human losses and eventually lose the war because you are demoralized and thoroughly whupped. Doesn't that describe what happened to the United States in Viet Nam?
The North Vietnamese won the war ,they united their country, they kicked out a corrupt American backed Catholic regime in South Viet Nam. Today, we have full relations with Viet Nam, and are building factories and buying cheap products. does that sound like the Viet Namese lost? Lets face it ,they were tougher,fighting for their homeland, and able to survive our napalm,our dropping more bombs than we did in WW2,our defoliation ,our internment camps, our Rock and Roll ,etc.
Our misguided excursions in Afghanistan and Iraq will have the same results. Our casualties are less because we largey stick to our bases and bribe warlords to do our bidding.In the end we will effect no lasting change, and once again bankrutped and disallusioned we will leave a muddle, and return to a collapsing nation.

 

[Rooster893]

Little Bighorn