Best War Tactics in History | People Stories #421

▶ Fresh AskReddit Stories: What was the most interesting war tactic ever performed in history? 🔥 2nd channel with exclusive Reddit stories!

[rayanderson]

1:26 "This is the only instance of a cavalry charge against a naval fleet."
Me: *Struggling to load a horse onto a rowboat* "We'll see about that!"

[davidcorreia]

In Stephen Ambrose citizen soldier there is a cool story. Towards the end of WW2 a new Capt joined a platoon that surrounded a town occupied by German soliders. While the Sargent was explaining the battle plans for the morning attack the Captain nodded and then proceeded to walk into the town alone. Knocked on the first door and asked to see the German commanding officer. Nobody on the American side knew WTF he was doing. A short while the later the German commander and American Captain call all their troops to attention in the center of town where the Germans surrendered. At first nobody knew what was going on and both American AND German troops started to surrender to each other. The German commander called his troops to order and then said "we are surrendering to the Americans" both sides were like ohhhh, ok. So not a single shot was fired that day and the town was captured.

[undead]

The battle of Cannae is a fascinating example of tactics proving superior to brute force.

The simplified version is there was a battle between Carthage and Rome where Rome not only had superior numbers, but better armed and trained soldiers. By all accounts, Carthage should have been spanked in this battle. Instead, Hannibal, the general of the Carthage Army, arranged his troops in a horseshoe pattern where the Roman Solders attacked what would be the bottom of the horseshoe. The Carthage soldiers slowly retreated, which caused the Roman Soldiers to be slowly enveloped on all sides by Carthage soldiers. Hannibal sent in his cavalry to block off the top so no one could escape and pikemen on the sides and just slaughtered the Romans, as they weren't used to fighting people on their sides.

Hannibal effectively turned what should have been an easy win for Rome into a crushing defeat for them. He was basically the only guy that the Romans genuinely feared because of how insanely smart he was in military strategy.

[alexandergray]

Caesar's siege of Alesia is one of the most famous and ballsy moves in history. After he learned his enemies were inside the city, he built a wall to surround it and starve out the soldiers inside. But messengers slipped pass the romans before the walls were finished and fearing of fighting against another army he told his men to built an outside wall . He has won against an army 3 times the size of his, ending the gallic wars

[kingjoerd]

The Mongols use of the feigned retreat is probably one of the best and most effective tactics ever used.

[josephquicke]

During sieges in medieval times digging tunnels under your enemies walls and keeps then lighting fires under them was a common tactic. Some generals also took the liberty of adding pig fat to fires which would drive half starved and tired soldiers crazy

[redram]

Riding camels into battle is called “camelry”. No, this isn’t an April fools joke.

[roadbone]

Chinese general Zhugo Liang defeating a 350, 000 man army with 100 men, that makes him, in my mind, probably the greatest general of a time.

[Mechknight]

It's a small one, but during the Iraq war, an Australian battalion was sent to clear a group of insurgents from a cement plant on the outskirts of Bagdhad. The commander instructed his translator to say the following through a loudspeaker:
"We'll give you five minutes to surrender. If you come out unarmed with your hands up, you won't be harmed. After five minutes, we will be coming in after you." The Australian officer had called in a favour with a USAF pilot. "Break the sound barrier as close to above the plant as you can." When a plane breaks the sound barrier, a very loud sonic boom happens. He was expecting it might make a few of them give up without a fight. They all came out with their hands above their heads, without the Aussies firing a single shot

[dgrmn]

During the Battle of Tedorigawa in the Warring States Era of Japan, Oda Nobunaga with 50, 000 men faced off against Uesugi Kenshin's 30, 000 in the Tedori River.
Oda initially planned on bombarding Uesugi with cannons from one side of the hill. Uesugi struck first however and led a sorty across the river before retreating. This lured the majority of the Oda forces across the shallow river and when they did, Uesugi ordered the river's floodgates to open. Drowning most of the attacking force while trapping a few hundred on his side of the river to be slaughtered. This was enough for Oda to retreat, resulting in a victory for Uesugi.

[Comicsluvr]

Not sure of the names but in feudal Japan a large bunch of raiders was traveling around, attacking villages and robbing them. One village heard the raiders were coming and went to meet them at a water crossing nearby. Tactical sense dictated that they fight with the river in front of them to slow the raiders down. Instead, they crossed the river and fought with it at their back. The villagers won and the raiders left. When asked why they fought that way the villagers said that if the river was in front of them, they might run. With the river at their back, they had to win the fight or die.

It's amazing what motivation can do.

[GhostBear]

Ancient Persians defeated the Ancient Egyptians with cats.

[patrickjones]

Although its not my absolute favourite topic, D-Day was easily the most intricate War Plan ever conceived. They literally thought of absolutely everything, Its almost comical how complex it was, and it was pulled off near-enough perfectly. It truly was a work of sheer Genius.

[adrianfrift]

I have an interesting one, the vet Co gs use if tunnel systems, these conditions enable them to pop out of anywhere, stay hidden from heavy us bombing, this also meant the us had to send men down to clear them out, these tunnel rats where often killed by enemy troops or enemy traps

[Volcarion]

Important correction for the war of 1812 fact at @21:50
It was Tehcumseh that had his men March around the camp, duck into the woods, sprint round to the other side, and then resume marching. This was because it was known that the American general in Fort Detroit was afraid of the indigenous people.

Brock commanded the British forces, Tehcumseh the indigenous confederation. It is important to remember that the two were allies, not subjects and rulers

[bsgfan]

Battle of Agincourt

35, 000 French cavalry and knights were steamrolled by 8, 000 English, most of whom were archers. Since the English knew they couldn’t last against the French in open combat, they used terrain and the weather (it had recently rained) to make a slaughtering choke point and forced the French to come to them. They positioned their sparse knights in the center behind a massive mud field and placed their archers on the elevated flanks behind barriers. Since the English were on the edge of the forest, the mounted French cavalry couldn’t flank them, basically removing their biggest advantage and forcing them to charge head on. Once the French attacked, the archers decimated the charging cavalry. If they survived, the French knights had to run through thick mud in plate armor and high humidity. The few that made it to the English lines were too exhausted or suffering from heat stroke to be any threat. By the end of the battle it was 600 English deaths compared to 6, 000 dead and 2, 200 captured French soldiers.

[katyg]

Basic version: In Sierra Leone, the rebels the west side boyz kidnapped some royal Irish rangers and held them at a camp basically in a swamp. They figured a rescue would be made at some point, the only logical place for rescue troops to land would be a nearby airstrip. The west side boyz placed most of their troops around this airstrip/solid ground intending an ambush. The sas/paras who mounted the rescue realised this and said fuck it and jumped into the swamp instead, basically bypassing the majority of the enemy. By the time they realised the hostages were free. It was incredibly dangerous jumping into a swamp that they had no idea how deep it was in full kit. They fully expected to lose a significant number of troops in the rescue but did it anyway. Luckily the swamp wasn’t as deep as everyone thought and they were able to, eventually, wade through it, fighting as they went.

[jamesdunn]

Alexander's tactics at Gaugamela. His entire battle plan was inspired from start to finish and featured several tactics that had never been seen before. He refused the left flank of his infantry to hold the Persian Cavalry in place which was unheard of in ancient warfare up to that point. He then strung out the remainder of the Persian forces by riding away from his infantry with his Companion Cavalry, parallel to the front. As the Persians extended their line to match Alexander's movement, they failed to notice the thousands of peltasts that were running alongside Alexander's cavalry, hidden by the dust raised by the trotting horses. As soon as the Persian line had thinned enough, Alexander then turned his cavalry and charged directly at the Persian center. The peltasts came running out of the dust and peppered the Persian front with javelins, arrows, and sling stones throwing them in to confusion. They were unable to respond to Alexander's attack and he broke the center of the Persian line and almost captured Darius himself. The Persians, whose forces numbered around 100, 000 by best estimates, were completely crushed and routed by Alexander's 47, 000. Regardless of whatever else might be said about him, he was a genius when it came to battlefield tactics.

[Luci_the_Demon]

Using ballasts on a ship to gain range was an actual tactic used by the USS Texas on D-day. Due to using this, it could increase the range of its main guns by a lot while still safely remaining out of enemy range

[timmaas]

1. We (The Dutch) flooded parts of our country on a water level too deep for people but too low for small boats. This meant that any army forces had trouble pushing forward. This tactic didnt work since the second world war cause they started using paratroopers, wich is light armed infantry transported and dropped by planes.

2. We also defeated the British naval fleet around 1700-1800 on the river the Theems (if i recall correctly) by making use of Marines and lighting the british ships on fire. We were 1 of the first countries succesfully using Marines in combat.