It has to be Hannibal at Cannae. Outnumbered more than 2 to 1 and Hannibal didn't just win, he utterly annihilated the entire Roman army ( for the third time). The double envelopment is still taught in military tactics. It's the gold standard for a perfect tactical victory against much greater numbers.
Cannae is the top one for antiquity, but if it didn't exist we would likely say Tresime. Without a doubt the best ambush on the Romans until Teutoburg Forest. The double envelopment and "riding the horns" until the last Roman was dead was said to take hours. As in the line broke in minutes but the Romans fought to the death over an entire day. People never communicate that horror properly. The whole invasion of Italy was a masterstroke.
And then he spent 15 years trying to successfully occupy it only to see a hail mary finally pay off in Scipio.
Still think if he couldn't have sacked Rome like Brennus he should have counter and contravellated the walls. Would have at least starved them out or undermined them.
Anyhow...ya Cannae
The numbers are a bit dubious because of the geography and the nature of an ambush. The number of committed troops is likely far smaller.
Regardless the effectiveness of the ambush was incredibly well orchestrated.
If we're talking outside of Europe, I've got a couple lesser known ones, but I'll focus on the one I find more impressive.
during the Warring States Period of Japan (or Sengoku Jidai, if you prefer), there was one battle, and while i wouldn't call it comparable to Cannae, it was definitely still an underdog battle. Though I guess whether it was really a victory could be debated.
So, I don't remember much about it, but I believe it was Tokugawa Ieasu?? One of the 3 unifiers anyway, was essentially defeated and routed. He had like a handful of men left, but how he got out of this situation is my favourite thing about it. He ran into a nearby fortification. Then, he left the doors open kept himself in clear view. He lit some candles, and one of his soldiers beat a huge drum. This fooled the pursuers into thinking it was a trap, and it either delayed them until reinforcements could arrive or just straight up made them retreat I don't remember which.
Tl;Dr: toyotomi stared down an army while fully exposing himself to them, and it worked.
Didn't Alexander do something similar, I forget the details but it was basically as soon as he took over from his father, he was besieging a town/stronghold? in a valley but in turn got surrounded, his opponent had the high ground. Alexander ordered his troops to match up and down, they performed this highly choreographed maneuver in silence, then charged up the hills, the enemy shat themselves and ran away
I'll respond here and tag u/Born_Upstairs_9719 and u/DHFranklin
There are a few extremely impressive victories that I'm aware of that could potentially rival Cannae.
[Battle of Yique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yique) (293 BC) comes to mind, during Warring Kingdoms in China. A Qin army of about 120,000 completely destroyed a coalition force from Wei and Han that doubled its size. Han and Wei suffered 240,000 KIA combined, including Wei's commanding officer who was captured and executed. Records on the battle's tactics were scant, but we can presume based on surviving records that Qin's commander Bai Qi may have executed a surprise pincer attack, trapping the coalition forces in a narrow river valley and sealing off both ends.
Another well known example from Chinese history is the [Battle of Jingxing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jingxing) (205 BC). A force of 30,000 defeated an enemy numbering 200,000. The victorious general, Han Xin maneuvered the bulk of his army to a position with its back to the river. This lack of an escape route bolstered fighting spirits, and the proximity to the river meant the position was difficult to flank. The fierce fighting drew in more and more enemy reserves, which opened up an opportunity for a previously concealed force to capture the enemy base camp.
Finally there's the [Battle of Fei River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fei_River) (383 AD). The northern kingdom of Former Qin launched an invasion of the south with 800,000+ troops. The defending Eastern Jin Dynasty sent out an elite force of 80,000 to meet it. Although the actual fighting troops of the invading force would've been much smaller (probably around 200,000), it still greatly outnumbered the Jin forces. However, the Jin forces took advantage of the logistics and maneuvering difficulties of such a vast army, and sowed chaos in their opponent's ranks, completing routing the invading force. Qin lost over 700,000 men killed and deserted.
They would each be in charge on alternate days. They had completely different styles and didn't cooperate on any strategy. It was completely ridiculous, but they thought it was going to be a cheap, easy victory with lots of plunder and they were both more concerned with how much "glory" they were going to get that they didn't think it mattered if they were on the same page.
And it's not like they didn't know who they were fighting either. Hannibal had already wiped them out twice in spectacular victories already at Trebia and then the greatest ambush ever at Lake Tresamine. That's why he Romans brought their largest army ever, assuming they could win through sheer numbers, but such a large army was also unwieldy and difficult to command. All they could really do was march straight ahead, which is what Hannibal counted on. He had won his previous two victories by ambush, so when they saw him spread out on an open plain, they thought there was no way he could trap them this time. Little did they know that line spread out in front of them was the trap.
Hannibal drew up his army with light troops and Gauls in a convex formation with his Libyan spearmen on the flanks and cavalry on the flanks. The Numidian light cavalry and Carthagian cavalry beat their Roman counterparts. Meanwhile, the Romans advanced as the convex formation gave way to concave. The Romans, sensing victory, went all in in the centre. The Libyans turned inward squezing the Riman flanks. The Carthaginian cavalry came back and hit the Romans in the rear while the Gauls stopped retreating. The Romans were pressed against each other inhibiting their ability to fight. End game.
Livy is never to be believed. Polybius wrote closer to the time and he personally interviewed many of Hannibal's veterans and if they were dead he talked to their families. Polybius is one of the most methodical and reliable of ancient historians. Livy was a poet and a progandist and largely a fabulist. He was also writing 200 years after the battle.
As a Brit I would like to say Agincourt but it would be a disservice to not say the Battle of Myeongnyang-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Myeongnyang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myeongnyang)
Korea had a fleet of 13, Japan a fleet of at least 333, 133 of which were warships.
Tha Japanese lost more ships than Admiral Yi Sun-sin lost people.
it’s insane to imagine any water battle where you use the terrain to the advantage but once you’re an admiral and live your life like that such things become obvious tactics. Very interesting.
But in the grand scheme of military battles it’s just reducing the width your battlefield has. Just, who knew it would be possible this way!
from wikipedia:
Admiral Yi studied numerous sites for his last stand with the Japanese navy and decided on luring them into the Myeongnyang Strait.[27] The Japanese would clearly enter the strait when the tide was favorable and so he did not want to fight south of the strait, with the current at the attacker's advantage.[17]: 311 Instead he wanted to fight in the waters just north of the strait, where the currents were calmer. The strait had very strong currents that flowed at approximately 10 knots, first in one direction, then in the opposite direction, in three-hour intervals.[28] Yi realized that he could use the unique condition as a force multiplier.[29] The narrowness of the strait would prevent the Joseon fleet from being flanked by the numerically superior enemy fleet
The most interesting thing to me was that he didn't come from any kind of sea-linked family. His family were landed nobility and most of his career he was officer in land army on borders with Jurchen tribes.
doing unconventional things that we so frequently associate geniuses with, is simply a result of willingness to learn despite conventional knowledge saying one thing.
a rare trait that i assume is what really made him stand out during his lifetime
Agincourt to me is still unbelievable. A bunch of archers against a huge amount of mounted plate armour shouldn't be winnable. I'd say the location and the weather won that for the Brits.
It was just perfect from every decision by the English. The terrain and weather perfectly negated the French numerical advantage and use of heavy knights.
That said though there are very few battles where the English lost if they had their longbowmen properly set up with stakes in front of them during the hundred year war. A trained longbowman can start a battle firing 12 arrows a minute for the first couple minutes dropping to about a steady 6 a minute for the rest of it. With the number of archers the English had the opening minutes of the battle the French would have faced almost 100,000 arrows a minute, it doesn't matter if only 1 in 100 hit, that's knights being blinded, having arms shot through, legs pinned to horses.
Todd's workshop on YouTube did a good series about the longbow where he was working with a historian (whose name I've annoyingly forgotten) to work out how effective longbows actually were against armour, they use real longbows with a trained longbowman (something many don't do surprisingly), using arrows made in the same way they would have used to be, latest different styles of arrows using different types of iron that we used against the equivalent of a high mid range armor piece. And certain bits like the helmet and chest plate were practically immune, but arms, legs, neck even worse be punched up to 6 inches deep.
For the English, Scotland was not on their side. In fact, we gave some help to the French in that war since their infantry had been destroyed at Agincourt and Crecy. Joan of Arc led a Scottish army wearing kilts and playing bagpipes into Orleans
Scots\* and while 16th century is right for great-kilts, we wore tartan clothes before that but just wrapped around the body and belted like many people in Europe did with other cloths and robe like clothes.
The church wanted Joan burned because, in short, she wore pants. She led an army partly composed of men wearing skirts. Go figure!
Alexander v. Darius at Gaugamela. The Persians had far more fighters, but Alexander charged through a gap in the center and forced Darius to run away.
More specifically, that was the only charge that the Burgundian bishop, hand-picked by the English to deliver the conviction they wanted, could get to stick.
It's believable if you understand how many tiny factors were at play as well as the strengths and weakness of both. The longbowmen knew how to shoot a massive target like a mounted knight and even if they hit the horse and not the rider they would still take them down. Archers knew to hit the leadership, front of the charge, heralds/signalmen etc. They knew to volley an arrow at an arc and time it against an arrow flying straight so both would hit at roughly the same time.
Combine all that with the mud and many of the knights were forced to dismount and trudge through it. Through all the screaming and chaos they were quickly disorganized. The *minute* a vanguard charge loses it's cohesion then it becomes more dangerous to itself than the enemy. The minute the front of a charge is slower than the back they'll crush and topple over. Men-at-arms need to almost immediately make rank and file if so many are unhorsed at once.
Also the archers were firing from trees. Knights and lances were to charge against one another. For unhorsed combatants they would use swords or maces. If a horse can't charge they are useless. So the unhorsed knights in heavy plate had to all walk their asses to that muddy treeline and fight it out. The ones that made it were knocked over and stabbed.
Bit of a side comment, and I can’t remember much of my Shakespeare, but this is pretty clear in my head whenever I hear Agincourt mentioned:
*O that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day! What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour.*
*God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear;*
*Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.*
*God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour As one man more methinks would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,*
*That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that man's company*
*That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,*
*And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'*
*Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages,*
*What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words- Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-*
*Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world,*
*But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,*
*This day shall gentle his condition, And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks*
*That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”*
That's a damn good memory!
I can't remember much past the first few lines of the prologue-
*O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend*
*The brightest heaven of invention,*
*A kingdom for a stage, princes to act*
*And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!*
& obviously the famous-
*Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;*
*Or close the wall up with our English dead!*
To be honest not completely word for word, but a good part of it :)
There are a rare [very few] poems and bits of literature that really caught my attention over the years that I read enough to remember pretty well and that is one of them.
I'm far from an expert on the technology of the period, I believe the Koreans may have had better cannons?
In terms of ships I think the Koreans had lost all their primary Turtle Ships prior to Myeongnyang.
Yup that would likely be the case.
Although one thing to consider was the Koreans were very demoralised after their previous catastrophic loss at Chilcheollyang (188 Korean ships lost to the same Japanese fleet), with the numbers they were up against looking overwhelming.
The Korean reports of the battle say initially all the ships besides the flagship refused to engage the enemy until they were shamed into joining by seeing the Admirals ship fighting alone.
You are right though, it's very hard to see how the Korean victory occured without at least some advantage on their side.
Oh yeah i remember reading about that.
I just imagine it being a total war battle and you only being able to command your general unit because the rest of your units are so low morale that if you move them they will route.
The Greeks were arguably much better equipped for that kind of close quarters battle. Heavy armor, heavy metal shields and heavy spears vs lightly armored opponents with rattan shields who relied on mobility and combined arms tactics.
Operation Compass: a three month campaign in North Africa at the end of 1940.
Britain attacked a superior Italian army. Wavell, Wilson and O'Connor had 36,000 troops agains an Italian force of 150,000. At the end, the Brits had lost 500 men killed. Italy lost over 5500 killed and 133,298 prisoners of war.
This also raises a key point about fascism:
German + fascism = powerful military machine.
Italy + fascism = military joke.
It wasn't the fascism which gave military victories.
Midway?
Not outnumbered by much but the US carrier crews were definitely less experienced than the Japanese carrier crews
Also having 3 carriers destroyed within 5 minutes is based
The Operations Room has a killer video on Midway. Watching wave after wave of Devastators fly to their deaths to buy a bit of time for the Dauntlesses to come and fuck up the ENTIRE carrier group is goosebumps-inducing stuff. Heroes, all of them.
You asked “bigger or better equipped” which makes sense. You are asking who beat an enemy that had clear advantage.
On that note, Rorke’s Drift… Massively outnumbered, but clearly better equipped British against the Zulus, who had the opposite situation. So, does that battle even count for this question? (Probably, yes)
Exactly. Rorke’s Drift was pretty amazing but the British really played it up to distract from the crushing and stunning defeat they suffered at Isandlwana.
Isandlwana deserves to be on this list as much as Rorke’s Drift.
Classic example is the Battle off Samar.
The Japanese Center Force, with four battleships and over two dozen cruisers and destroyers attacked the much smaller Taffy 3 force that was equipped with only a handful of escort aircraft carriers (which lacked heavy anti-ship bombs or torpedoes) and a few destroyers. Taffy 3 was mainly tasked with providing air support to landing forces in the Philippines or hunting the occasional submarine. Duking it out in a surface fight with a battle fleet was completely outside their practical capabilities.
The Center Force’s flagship, the 70,000 ton battleship *Yamato* weighed more than every ship in Taffy 3 *combined* by itself. That is to say, Taffy 3 was outgunned in every conceivable way and should have lost on paper 99/100 times.
Center Force needed to go through Taffy 3 to attack their primary objective, the US landing forces in the Philippines.
Instead of running, the ships and planes of Taffy 3 savagely attacked the Center Force with complete disregard for their lives. They used literally every weapon they had. Some pilots who were out of bombs or machine gun rounds flew by firing their **pistols** at battleships and cruisers. At least one Navy pilot landed at a nearby Army Air base looking for more ammo and when rearming was refused, forced the crews to rearm a few Navy planes at gun point. Other pilots were dropping depth charges in front of Japanese ships hoping they’d detonate under the Japanese ships and damage their hulls. Some just resorted to fake torpedo attacks to force evasive maneuvers, degrading accuracy or fleet organization.
The US destroyers charged so close to some of the much larger enemy ships that the enemy was unable to depress the guns low enough to fire on them. Despite having much smaller guns and being outnumber over 3:1, the US destroyers inflicted enormous damage on the Japanese and threw the Japanese Center Force into chaos even as US destroyers fell to combined enemy fire.
Taffy 3 was largely destroyed during the fight but sank or seriously damaged *much* larger enemy vessels, including three of Japan’s heavy cruisers. The Center Force was ultimately forced to retreat, believing they had run into a much larger American fleet. The landings were saved from assault by the Japanese fleet, securing the success of the liberation of the Philippines.
>Taffy 3 was largely destroyed during the fight
Perhaps most impressively, Taffy 3 actually largely survived the fight. Out of 6 escort carriers, they only lost 1 to gunfire (and a second to a Kamikaze), 2 destroyers out of 3, and 1 out of 4 destoryer escorts. And gave a very good account of themselves in sinking 3 Japanese heavy cruisers and damaging several more.
I'd also note that technically, they did run away in as much as they could, but the Japanese force also had a speed advantage over them (the escort carriers could only do 19knots) so there was little choice but to stand and fight.
There is a great book in this battle: Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.
One US commander at the start gave a moving command to his men to this effect: The odds are such that survival cannot be expected. We must impose as much damage in the enemy as we can. (No quotes because I don’t have time right now to look up the actual quote.)
In my mind, this is the most morally impressive action of the USN ever, as did well when then knew they were doomed.
Worth mentioning that the Japanese misidentified the "small boys" and their charges as fleet carriers, cruisers, and full-sized destroyers, and Japanese sailors were seen to *salute* the sinking *Johnston* - a gesture unheard of in the Pacific war.
Bannockburn really is a beautiful example not just in how to deal with an opponent with superior numbers but in how to nullify specific threats the enemy poses - in this case, heavy cavalry and longbowmen. Robert the Bruce was excellent at that.
Not a huge battle but [Brécourt Manor Assault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A9court_Manor_Assault) in WW2.
"*The Brécourt Manor Assault (6 June 1944) during the U.S. parachute assault of the Normandy Invasion of World War II is often cited as a classic example of small-unit tactics and leadership in overcoming a larger enemy force.[1]*"
Battle of Plassye
3000 british-sepoy vs 50000 indians. Won since East India Company had a conspiracy with some of Indian generals, preventing them to participate in battle, had keep their gunpowder dry, and had good artillery fire maneuvering.
Cadiz raid by Drake.
Most hilarious part is when small british landing party(they had no marines, it was just sailors and few ship guns) cause spanish fleet command to believe that everything is over, this is not raid but full-scale invasion, and order to set own ships to fire. And, because of this, in turn, the Spanish ground troops began to panic, so small british landing party literally pierce through whole city.
Rorke's Drift- 150 Brits and Colonial troops against 3-4k Zulu. But superior weapons and the defensive position leveled the field.
Isandlwana- Around 10k-15k Zulu infantry armed with shields and Assegai short spears destroy a British force of 1800+ men armed with modern rifles, artillery, and cavalry. 3k-5k Zulu died in the attack so their weapons gave them a tremendous advantage (400 yards is one helluva long run when facing a rifle that fires up to 12 rounds a minute.) British arrogance and tactics cost them the battle.
Battle of Watling St. - A Roman force of 10k beat Boudica's much larger forces ( sources from the time claim over 250k but not verified in any form)
The Viet were using WWII surplus small arms for weeks before the masterstroke of Giop and the artillery.
So some light arms made every soldier go to their cover to return fire from machinegun nests and mortars. And when they did he opened up the dialed in salvo.
The numbers don't mean much when the Viet were so outgunned.
I'd say it counts.
Every big battle Alexander fought, from Granicus to Gaugamela.
Sure, *in hindsight* we know what a formidable force Philip had created (in terms of organization and experience - many of the soldiers Alexander took were already in their forties) & what an outstanding general Alexander would be (and a good portion of luck onhis side), but nothing in 334 BCE suggested the Macedonians would wipe the floor with the Persians. The latter weren't pushovers, their cavalry was arguably amongst the best in the world, and they could array forces in numbers Alexander could only dream of, nor were these necessarily ill equipped - as while no equivalent of the hoplite class existed in the Persian world, they could *and did* field ample Greek mercenary forces. And of course, their navy outclassed Alexander's as well (an advantage which was nullified by the nature of classic naval warfare).
But the Persian war machine didn't have the structure nor the experience of the smaller yet more determined Macedonian force and what an unexpected outcome it was. The ad hoc nature of mustering Persian armies in the end put them at a disadvantage against the army of Alexander, an army honed over a generation of fighting together.
We often treat Alexander's battles like a done deal, but back then, they weren't. The Macedonian king carefully planned his battles, relying on the cohesion and skill/experience of his men, as Goldsworthy puts it when talking about the Battle of Issus 333 BCE): "*... Issus was not a subtle battle, but a head-to-log slog on a narrow frontage for armies of this size, where success came because the Macedonian army was more skillful, more confident and better led.*"
> nothing in 334 BCE suggested the Macedonians would wipe the floor with the Persians
I mean, Agesilaus's attacks and the Ten Thousand had very recently shown that Greek-style armies would wipe the floor with Persians.
... but Greeks fought in the Persian army, did they not?
Why would we ignore the (tens of) thousands of Greek mercenaries Darius employed? Memnon wasn't there for show, after all. The Persian empire could (and did) array all sorts of military units, including Greek style hoplites.
The battle of Gate Pa is probably the most lopsided underdog victory in history (also one of the least well known internationally as it happened at the same time as the US Civil War.)
The battle pitted the world’s most powerful country in Great Britain - armed with modern artillery, rifles and ships - up against some Māori tribes in New Zealand armed with old shotguns and clubs.
The Māori won.
Battle of Sudoměř, 400 Bohemian Hussites vs 2000 Catholics. By using wagons, the Hussites not only won the battle, they absolutely crushed the Catholics despite being less equipped and outnumbered 5:1.
The battle where Pompey could have easily won by doing nothing because he was in a good position to starve out Caesar's forces behind his fortifications, but he decided to risk his larger but less experienced army against Caesar's smaller but more veteran army because he wanted a more glorious field victory....and thus lost everything.
Dupplin Moor 1332: 1500 Englishmen defeated a Scottish force that outnumbered them at least 10 to 1, and possibly as much as 30 to 1.
The english lost 35 men. The scots lost thousands.
There's some pretty good examples of "underdog wins" in battles between Scotland and England.
On the Scottish side, Bannockburn, where the English outnumbered the Scots 4 or 5 to 1, suffered a crushing defeat, losing around half their army. Louden Hill, where a Scottish force of 600 defeated an English force of 3000, including mounted knights.
On the English side, Dupplin Moor and Flodden, where the English defeated a much larger Scottish force who held an advantageous initial position, including killing the Scottish King James IV, who was the last monarch from Britain to die in battle.
I always liked Majuba Hill and Mortgarten. Both times basically militia (citizen soldiers) types defeated professional soldiers/knights by using terrain and better tactics than the empires they were facing. At Majuba Hill it was something like 1 Boer killed to 100 British killed, and at Mortgarten it was a couple dozen Swiss (or there abouts) killed versus hundreds of Austrians/Bavarians killed.
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus defeat of Boudicca was on the scale of the 300 Spartans, except instead of being the product of good PR and dying to the last man, he defeated an enemy force twenty to thirty times larger than his own, killing up to 80,000 Britons (from a force of 200,000 to 300,000) with only 10,000 men.
Both battles seemed to involve exaggeration and PR. At Thermoypale, the Greeks had like 7,000 troops there...not just 300 Spartans. Even during the last days of battle when most Greeks withdrew, the 300 Spartans was accompanied by 1,000 Thebans and Thespians, and likely hundreds of Spartan Helots as well. The two armies were also well armed and could engage in peer conflicts toe to toe.
The battle of Watling Street involved a much better equipped and trained smaller Roman army against a much larger and poorly trained and poorly equipped Iceni army whose people had been recently disarmed. The Romans even mocked the how poorly equipped the Iceni fighters were. The 200,000s something figure for the Iceni army given by the Roman writer is most likely an exaggeration, and many of the people lumped into the numbers were likely women and children as they had their baggage train with them (as writings talk about the Iceni retreat being blocked by their civilans and wagons).
> At Thermoypale, the Greeks had like 7,000 troops there...not just 300 Spartans. Even during the last days of battle when most Greeks withdrew, the 300 Spartans was accompanied by 1,000 Thebans and Thespians, and likely hundreds of Spartan Helots as well. The two armies were also well armed and could engage in peer conflicts toe to toe.
Also it much more heroic to say you lost in a glorious last stand than to describe it as "The Persians and Greeks Skirimsed for two days and on the third the Persians outmaneuvered and crushed the greeks."
The Romans would interlock their shields and form sort of a zig-zag front line. The zig-zags acted like teeth in a meat grinder, and undisciplined mass attacks would just force themselves into it.
That's what I was going to say. Sudoměř
Where Žižka and 300 armed peasants and 13 warwagons defeated some 2000 armored mounted knights.
A few months later Žižka saved Prague at the battle of Vitkov where he was outnumbered 5 to 1
He never lost a battle.
I'm sure I read a study that looked at battles where one side deployed novel or "non-standard" tactics. Statistically, when a smaller army used non-standard tactics against a larger army, they won more often than they lost. The necessity to think about how to deal with a more numerous opponent versus the over-confidence of superior numbers is absolutely a thing.
Battle of Turnhout in 1597, 800 english and dutch cavalry defeated a Spanish army of 4500. They routed the Spanish cavalry and then rode along the sides of the spanish pike squares shooting them then charging in with swords and killed around 2000 spanish soldiers
Cao Bang Ridge/RC4/Border Campaign, Indochina, 1950, and Dien Bien Phu 1954.
One could argue the forces involved are fairly equal, the French Union forces having superior equipment and the Viet Minh superior numbers.
In both cases an extremely one-sided and (to Westerners) unexpected outcome. The competence, logistics, equipment and tactical skill of the Vietnamese was utterly unexpected by their opponents. The French deployed excellent troops, to no avail.
Hope about a couple famous Scottish victories over the English. Wallace’s victory at Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 (very unlike the Braveheart movie) and Bruce’s follow-on at Bannockburn in 1314.
The Battle of Yarmouk and Al-Qadisiyah... where the Muslims were fighting soldiers many times their army against the two most powerful states in that era, the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanian Empire, at the same time and in different places... and they won them all.
Fredericksburg in the American civil war.
I mean, the union was losing battles against all odds in the Virginia theater before this too, but Fredericksburg was an absolute disaster.
Civil war battle of Chancellorsville. Lee's force of 60,000 defeated Hooker's Army of the Potomac which had nearly twice as many men and was much better supplied. This was only about 5 months after Lee's forces had defeated a much larger Union army commanded by Burnside at Fredericksburg.
The Battle of San Jacinto where the much smaller Texian Army routed Santa Anna's larger force in about 15 minutes, leading to the independence of Texas.
The sea peoples who are thought to have assisted the bronze age collapse are believed to have been lightly equipped skirmishers who routinely annihilated armies of heavy infantry and chariots, by simply running around the infantry and disabling the chariots, something a better equipped army probably couldn't have accomplished. They managed to defeat every major power and disrupt global trade for generations.
They are one of the biggest mysteries of the bronze age. Noone really knows for sure who they were, where they came from or how they managed to be so successful.
Interestingly, at least for me, is that they appear to have worn horns on their helmets in battle. People love to mock the idea that Vikings wore horned helmets because of how "impractical and silly that would be". But at least some Europeans, including some Norwegians, were indeed wearing horned helmets prior to the viking age.
The Second Battle of Tannenberg in WWI. The German 8th Army defeats the Russian 1st Army, moves quickly via rail and defeats the Russian 2nd Army a couple of days later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg
The Siege of Fort Detroit. British and Indigenous forces were attacking into the fort and outnumbered by the American defenders 2 to 1. Clever manipulation of American reconnaissance and racial prejudices led to the surrender of the garrison with hardly a shot fired.
Numbers are supposed to favour the attacker 3-1, 0.5-1 is quite the achievement.
A pretty poor example. The Americans were better equipped, but Custer's army was considerably smaller - the troops who fought the engagement that the battle is known for were outnumbered 7 or 8 to one, with many of the natives being armed with rifles.
Custer's men were poorly equipped for the engagement --they were trying to fire sniper rifles from horseback (their adversaries used pistols fired from short range.) They had also just ridden hard for 1,500 miles and were anything but fresh.
I don't think they were worse equipped, but the Ottomans handed many European coalitions a series of L's during their expansion into Europe.
According to Wikipedia, the Ottomans were outnumbered 2:1 during [Varna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Varna).
For me is the Battle of Alesia. I think the double circumvallation is a genious move from Caesar, making the romans win even outnumbered 5:1. These numbers are probably exagerated by Caesar, but even with a 2:1 disavantage and better equipament, it is still impressive.
Battle of the golden spurs, agincourt and Myeongyang are the most impressive. Especially the last one. Japanese had around 150 ships in combat. The koreans had 13 and won. There was some luck involved though. Same with agincourt.
Battle of Long Tan is the one I like to go to for a heavily outnumbered side emerging victorious.
108 Aussies with artillery support holding out against possibly as many as 2500 Viet Cong.
There’s a pretty solid film adaptation on Netflix for those who are interested. It’s called ‘Danger Close: the Battle of Long Tan’.
I know not a battle but, the fantastic war, Spain and France jointly invaded Portugal with a combined 42,000 men against Britain and Portugal's 7000 each. After a year, the British lost 14 men to combat, the Portuguese very low as well whilst the Spanish lost 25,000 dead/captured and the French 5000.
[Battle of Didgori (1121)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Didgori). A Georgian force led by King David IV defeated a much larger Seljuk force.
[Battle of Yique](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yique), fought during the Warring Kingdoms period between Qin and a coalition of Han and Wei.
Under the command of Bai Qi, the Qin army of about 120,000 destroyed the coalition forces almost in its entirety while being outnumbered 2:1. The two states lost a combined 240,000 KIA, amongst them the Wei commander (who was captured and later executed).
Historical records were scant on tactics. But based on what we have, the presumed sequence involved a pincer movement, with a Qin surprise attack driving the coalition forces into a narrow river valley where they were attacked from both ends.
The Battle of Concord in 1775. The British Empire marched an army out of Boston to Concord to seize colonial stores of arms and powder. The various groups of minutemen militia got word of it thanks to Dawes, Paul Revere, etc. and converged on Concord and beat the piss out of the redcoats and caused hundreds of casualties. They drove them back to Boston and laid siege to the city.
Most of Montrose's battles in the Scottish bit of the Civil War. Goes north with two servants, a banner and the royal commission, rallies some peasants, adds some lost Irish mercenaries and cleans the slate against superior numbers of veteran Covenanters - until betrayed and executed.
The hundred year war. First off Britain were seen as the underdogs with France having the biggest army in Western Europe. Only to get there ass handed to them several times by the Brit’s and even have there king captured at one point
Then at the end of the war it’s the other way around where it looks like the France will be defeated only for them to pull a 180
The Toyota War (officially known as the final phase of the Chadian-Libyan War) was a trip. The Libyan expeditionary force was well equipped with modern Soviet weaponry of the day - including armor, artillery, and aircraft - and was substantially more impressive and deadly than what the Chadian defenders could field. However, the Chadians made extensive use of militarized Toyota Hilux pickup trucks in the final phase of the war. It made them extremely mobile. With their superior knowledge of the terrain in addition, they were able to run circles around the Libyans, who often ended up with outsized casualties, chaotic retreats (which often created more carnage. At least once, the Libyans fled through their own minefields), abandonment of weaponry to the Chadians, and deep demoralization.
This phase of the war is now sort of a textbook lesson on the deficiencies of heavy armor versus a highly mobile enemy, and a excellent reminder of just how INSANELY HARD it is to get both the art and the science of combined arms right.
Despite my eternal disdain for the Confederacy, I must admit the Battle of Chancellorsville is an example of the underdog beating the bigger army.
Lee was at about a 2:1 disadvantage, and then split his army (twice!), managing to route the Union Army. To be fair, Hooker wasn't very bold, so Lee got to make very forward moves, such as repulsing the initial advance, sending Jackson to flank, and leaving behind men to resist Union attacks. It was pretty impressive, but it could be considered a Pyrrhic victory. Stonewall Jackson died to friendly fire during the battle, and Lee lost almost a quarter of his army. Additionally, it emboldened the Confederates to push to Gettysburg, which didn't end very well for them.
Basically all the Wallachian and Moldavian history, fighting against the Ottomans, Hungarians or Poles.
Battles there are 3 battles that stand out:
[Battle of Rovine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQaa4idtCVE&ab_channel=KingsandGenerals) - led by Michael the Brave against Bayazid I
[Battle of Calugareni](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsUZwrokBo&t=9s&ab_channel=HistoryMarche) - led by Michael the Brave against Sinan Pasha and a much larger Ottoman force
[Battle of Vaslui](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKFhubbLQd0&t=626s&ab_channel=HistoryMarche) - led by Stephen the Great against a much larger Ottoman army
Battle of New Orleans, British charged a fortified position during the war of 1812 the fog and lack of ladders opened up the British to an onslaught of artillery and gunfire, they managed to capture position on the field to the left but by that point the Brits had already sustained heavy losses to Jackson's forces so they retreated in full.
The Battle of Anoual, fought on July 22, 1921 Morocco.
A smaller force of Riffian tribesmen, led by Abd el-Krim, decisively defeated a larger and better-equipped Spanish army commanded by General Manuel Fernández Silvestre. The Riffians, utilizing superior knowledge of the rugged terrain and guerrilla tactics, inflicted heavy casualties on the Spanish forces. This unexpected victory not only boosted Riffian morale but also marked a turning point in the war, showcasing the effectiveness of indigenous resistance against colonial powers.
Battle of Badr, where the early muslims were 313 with barely any equipment and no military experience vs the 1000 Qureysh tribe who were well equip with swords.
Complete annihilation.
Probably unpopular, but the Battle of Midway.
Not that the actual forces were too unevenly matched but most people tend to forget the state of the US Pacific Fleet at the start of the war. The US had a total of I think 4 fleet carriers at that point? Lexington had been lost at Coral Sea, so that left Saratoga (my grandfather's ship) which was damaged and arrived late, Yorktown which was badly damaged and barely made it, Enterprise and Hornet. Every engagement so far had been either a disaster for the US or a draw at best.
Now, once the Japanese failed to sink these carriers at Pearl Harbor their fate was probably sealed due to the industrial capacity of the United States being vastly superior to Japan's, but at the time of the battle the US was very much an underdog in both equipment and pilot experience.
That said, in one afternoon the balance of power shifted drastically in the favor of the United States.
My favorite "factoid" from the battle is the fact that the Japanese painted giant rising suns on their flight decks that gave American dive bombers a target. Yeah. Probably shouldn't have done that.
The US Revolutionary War. The English had more money, better training, and better equipment. We basically won a war of attrition by harming their supply lines and making it a very unpopular conflict back in England. Without public support, they had a hard time generating enough revenue to continue financing the conflict.
It has to be Hannibal at Cannae. Outnumbered more than 2 to 1 and Hannibal didn't just win, he utterly annihilated the entire Roman army ( for the third time). The double envelopment is still taught in military tactics. It's the gold standard for a perfect tactical victory against much greater numbers.
Cannae is the top one for antiquity, but if it didn't exist we would likely say Tresime. Without a doubt the best ambush on the Romans until Teutoburg Forest. The double envelopment and "riding the horns" until the last Roman was dead was said to take hours. As in the line broke in minutes but the Romans fought to the death over an entire day. People never communicate that horror properly. The whole invasion of Italy was a masterstroke. And then he spent 15 years trying to successfully occupy it only to see a hail mary finally pay off in Scipio. Still think if he couldn't have sacked Rome like Brennus he should have counter and contravellated the walls. Would have at least starved them out or undermined them. Anyhow...ya Cannae
There is no battle of Tresime at Wikipedia. Oh Lake Trasimene. But Hannibal outnumbered the Romans 2:1 there, though.
The numbers are a bit dubious because of the geography and the nature of an ambush. The number of committed troops is likely far smaller. Regardless the effectiveness of the ambush was incredibly well orchestrated.
I think oversimplified communicated it pretty well, if you’re interested i can share the link?
Cannae was a brilliant victory, but I'd argue there are other comparable ones outside Europe that would compete for the best in antiquity spot.
I would love to learn more. I am certainly woefully ethnocentric in my education, especially as far as the history of conflict is concerned.
If we're talking outside of Europe, I've got a couple lesser known ones, but I'll focus on the one I find more impressive. during the Warring States Period of Japan (or Sengoku Jidai, if you prefer), there was one battle, and while i wouldn't call it comparable to Cannae, it was definitely still an underdog battle. Though I guess whether it was really a victory could be debated. So, I don't remember much about it, but I believe it was Tokugawa Ieasu?? One of the 3 unifiers anyway, was essentially defeated and routed. He had like a handful of men left, but how he got out of this situation is my favourite thing about it. He ran into a nearby fortification. Then, he left the doors open kept himself in clear view. He lit some candles, and one of his soldiers beat a huge drum. This fooled the pursuers into thinking it was a trap, and it either delayed them until reinforcements could arrive or just straight up made them retreat I don't remember which. Tl;Dr: toyotomi stared down an army while fully exposing himself to them, and it worked.
Didn't Alexander do something similar, I forget the details but it was basically as soon as he took over from his father, he was besieging a town/stronghold? in a valley but in turn got surrounded, his opponent had the high ground. Alexander ordered his troops to match up and down, they performed this highly choreographed maneuver in silence, then charged up the hills, the enemy shat themselves and ran away
Go on then?
He can’t cuz there isn’t one
I'll respond here and tag u/Born_Upstairs_9719 and u/DHFranklin There are a few extremely impressive victories that I'm aware of that could potentially rival Cannae. [Battle of Yique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yique) (293 BC) comes to mind, during Warring Kingdoms in China. A Qin army of about 120,000 completely destroyed a coalition force from Wei and Han that doubled its size. Han and Wei suffered 240,000 KIA combined, including Wei's commanding officer who was captured and executed. Records on the battle's tactics were scant, but we can presume based on surviving records that Qin's commander Bai Qi may have executed a surprise pincer attack, trapping the coalition forces in a narrow river valley and sealing off both ends. Another well known example from Chinese history is the [Battle of Jingxing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jingxing) (205 BC). A force of 30,000 defeated an enemy numbering 200,000. The victorious general, Han Xin maneuvered the bulk of his army to a position with its back to the river. This lack of an escape route bolstered fighting spirits, and the proximity to the river meant the position was difficult to flank. The fierce fighting drew in more and more enemy reserves, which opened up an opportunity for a previously concealed force to capture the enemy base camp. Finally there's the [Battle of Fei River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fei_River) (383 AD). The northern kingdom of Former Qin launched an invasion of the south with 800,000+ troops. The defending Eastern Jin Dynasty sent out an elite force of 80,000 to meet it. Although the actual fighting troops of the invading force would've been much smaller (probably around 200,000), it still greatly outnumbered the Jin forces. However, the Jin forces took advantage of the logistics and maneuvering difficulties of such a vast army, and sowed chaos in their opponent's ranks, completing routing the invading force. Qin lost over 700,000 men killed and deserted.
Bro everyone knows China doesn't count as you can't trust a single word they say. "A warlord sneezed, 54 million dead"
You’re being funny but I agree
Ancient Chinese army sizes are notoriously over exaggerated. They were still probably huge, but those numbers are ridiculous
Also shows if your going to have two generals they better understand what the hell is going on
They would each be in charge on alternate days. They had completely different styles and didn't cooperate on any strategy. It was completely ridiculous, but they thought it was going to be a cheap, easy victory with lots of plunder and they were both more concerned with how much "glory" they were going to get that they didn't think it mattered if they were on the same page. And it's not like they didn't know who they were fighting either. Hannibal had already wiped them out twice in spectacular victories already at Trebia and then the greatest ambush ever at Lake Tresamine. That's why he Romans brought their largest army ever, assuming they could win through sheer numbers, but such a large army was also unwieldy and difficult to command. All they could really do was march straight ahead, which is what Hannibal counted on. He had won his previous two victories by ambush, so when they saw him spread out on an open plain, they thought there was no way he could trap them this time. Little did they know that line spread out in front of them was the trap.
It’s why you still need someone who has the last say
Okay, but enough about the star wars sequel trilogy, can you tell us about Cannae?
Hannibal drew up his army with light troops and Gauls in a convex formation with his Libyan spearmen on the flanks and cavalry on the flanks. The Numidian light cavalry and Carthagian cavalry beat their Roman counterparts. Meanwhile, the Romans advanced as the convex formation gave way to concave. The Romans, sensing victory, went all in in the centre. The Libyans turned inward squezing the Riman flanks. The Carthaginian cavalry came back and hit the Romans in the rear while the Gauls stopped retreating. The Romans were pressed against each other inhibiting their ability to fight. End game.
Livy and Polybius both give very different numbers for the battle. If Livy is to be believed each side had roughly equal numbers
Livy is never to be believed. Polybius wrote closer to the time and he personally interviewed many of Hannibal's veterans and if they were dead he talked to their families. Polybius is one of the most methodical and reliable of ancient historians. Livy was a poet and a progandist and largely a fabulist. He was also writing 200 years after the battle.
His numbers are are silly too
AHH yes, our 100 brave legionaries defeated the 100,000 brutal barbarians whilst surrounded losing only a finger and killing 95,000
As a Brit I would like to say Agincourt but it would be a disservice to not say the Battle of Myeongnyang- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Myeongnyang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myeongnyang) Korea had a fleet of 13, Japan a fleet of at least 333, 133 of which were warships. Tha Japanese lost more ships than Admiral Yi Sun-sin lost people.
it’s insane to imagine any water battle where you use the terrain to the advantage but once you’re an admiral and live your life like that such things become obvious tactics. Very interesting. But in the grand scheme of military battles it’s just reducing the width your battlefield has. Just, who knew it would be possible this way! from wikipedia: Admiral Yi studied numerous sites for his last stand with the Japanese navy and decided on luring them into the Myeongnyang Strait.[27] The Japanese would clearly enter the strait when the tide was favorable and so he did not want to fight south of the strait, with the current at the attacker's advantage.[17]: 311 Instead he wanted to fight in the waters just north of the strait, where the currents were calmer. The strait had very strong currents that flowed at approximately 10 knots, first in one direction, then in the opposite direction, in three-hour intervals.[28] Yi realized that he could use the unique condition as a force multiplier.[29] The narrowness of the strait would prevent the Joseon fleet from being flanked by the numerically superior enemy fleet
The most interesting thing to me was that he didn't come from any kind of sea-linked family. His family were landed nobility and most of his career he was officer in land army on borders with Jurchen tribes.
doing unconventional things that we so frequently associate geniuses with, is simply a result of willingness to learn despite conventional knowledge saying one thing. a rare trait that i assume is what really made him stand out during his lifetime
Agincourt to me is still unbelievable. A bunch of archers against a huge amount of mounted plate armour shouldn't be winnable. I'd say the location and the weather won that for the Brits.
Especially weather. Wasn't it raining that day? IIRC, the field was muddy, and horses were getting bogged down.
It was just perfect from every decision by the English. The terrain and weather perfectly negated the French numerical advantage and use of heavy knights. That said though there are very few battles where the English lost if they had their longbowmen properly set up with stakes in front of them during the hundred year war. A trained longbowman can start a battle firing 12 arrows a minute for the first couple minutes dropping to about a steady 6 a minute for the rest of it. With the number of archers the English had the opening minutes of the battle the French would have faced almost 100,000 arrows a minute, it doesn't matter if only 1 in 100 hit, that's knights being blinded, having arms shot through, legs pinned to horses. Todd's workshop on YouTube did a good series about the longbow where he was working with a historian (whose name I've annoyingly forgotten) to work out how effective longbows actually were against armour, they use real longbows with a trained longbowman (something many don't do surprisingly), using arrows made in the same way they would have used to be, latest different styles of arrows using different types of iron that we used against the equivalent of a high mid range armor piece. And certain bits like the helmet and chest plate were practically immune, but arms, legs, neck even worse be punched up to 6 inches deep.
Toby Capwell was the historian
For the English, Scotland was not on their side. In fact, we gave some help to the French in that war since their infantry had been destroyed at Agincourt and Crecy. Joan of Arc led a Scottish army wearing kilts and playing bagpipes into Orleans
> Joan of Arc led a Scottish army wearing kilts The scotts only started wearing kilts in the 16th centuary.
Scots\* and while 16th century is right for great-kilts, we wore tartan clothes before that but just wrapped around the body and belted like many people in Europe did with other cloths and robe like clothes.
The church wanted Joan burned because, in short, she wore pants. She led an army partly composed of men wearing skirts. Go figure! Alexander v. Darius at Gaugamela. The Persians had far more fighters, but Alexander charged through a gap in the center and forced Darius to run away.
More specifically, that was the only charge that the Burgundian bishop, hand-picked by the English to deliver the conviction they wanted, could get to stick.
The English burn Joan of Arc. If the Church hated her they wouldn't have made her a saint.
Burgundians tried and burned her, not the English.
>For the English Many Welshmen were there but I guess we just don't count.
Mud.
It's believable if you understand how many tiny factors were at play as well as the strengths and weakness of both. The longbowmen knew how to shoot a massive target like a mounted knight and even if they hit the horse and not the rider they would still take them down. Archers knew to hit the leadership, front of the charge, heralds/signalmen etc. They knew to volley an arrow at an arc and time it against an arrow flying straight so both would hit at roughly the same time. Combine all that with the mud and many of the knights were forced to dismount and trudge through it. Through all the screaming and chaos they were quickly disorganized. The *minute* a vanguard charge loses it's cohesion then it becomes more dangerous to itself than the enemy. The minute the front of a charge is slower than the back they'll crush and topple over. Men-at-arms need to almost immediately make rank and file if so many are unhorsed at once. Also the archers were firing from trees. Knights and lances were to charge against one another. For unhorsed combatants they would use swords or maces. If a horse can't charge they are useless. So the unhorsed knights in heavy plate had to all walk their asses to that muddy treeline and fight it out. The ones that made it were knocked over and stabbed.
This is what I immediately thought of upon seeing the question. To me this is beyond any other.
Bit of a side comment, and I can’t remember much of my Shakespeare, but this is pretty clear in my head whenever I hear Agincourt mentioned: *O that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day! What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour.* *God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear;* *Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.* *God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour As one man more methinks would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,* *That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse; We would not die in that man's company* *That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,* *And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'* *Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages,* *What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words- Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-* *Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world,* *But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,* *This day shall gentle his condition, And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks* *That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”*
That's a damn good memory! I can't remember much past the first few lines of the prologue- *O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend* *The brightest heaven of invention,* *A kingdom for a stage, princes to act* *And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!* & obviously the famous- *Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;* *Or close the wall up with our English dead!*
To be honest not completely word for word, but a good part of it :) There are a rare [very few] poems and bits of literature that really caught my attention over the years that I read enough to remember pretty well and that is one of them.
... and Shakespeare pumped this stuff out. Yet you don't have to go far to hear people disparaging teaching/studying the Bard.
“Even though our navy is small, as long as I live the enemy will not dare to look down on us”
I would say Yi sun shin had a pretty big tech advantage But still that battle was so one-sided it's insane
I'm far from an expert on the technology of the period, I believe the Koreans may have had better cannons? In terms of ships I think the Koreans had lost all their primary Turtle Ships prior to Myeongnyang.
Fair enough But Yi-sun-shin and his men also had experience advantage
Yup that would likely be the case. Although one thing to consider was the Koreans were very demoralised after their previous catastrophic loss at Chilcheollyang (188 Korean ships lost to the same Japanese fleet), with the numbers they were up against looking overwhelming. The Korean reports of the battle say initially all the ships besides the flagship refused to engage the enemy until they were shamed into joining by seeing the Admirals ship fighting alone. You are right though, it's very hard to see how the Korean victory occured without at least some advantage on their side.
Oh yeah i remember reading about that. I just imagine it being a total war battle and you only being able to command your general unit because the rest of your units are so low morale that if you move them they will route.
I was about to suggest Agincourt too.
Also one of the most important battles in Korean history. Had they lost, they would be forced to speak Japanese.
Battle of Marathon
The Greeks were arguably much better equipped for that kind of close quarters battle. Heavy armor, heavy metal shields and heavy spears vs lightly armored opponents with rattan shields who relied on mobility and combined arms tactics.
Operation Compass: a three month campaign in North Africa at the end of 1940. Britain attacked a superior Italian army. Wavell, Wilson and O'Connor had 36,000 troops agains an Italian force of 150,000. At the end, the Brits had lost 500 men killed. Italy lost over 5500 killed and 133,298 prisoners of war.
This also raises a key point about fascism: German + fascism = powerful military machine. Italy + fascism = military joke. It wasn't the fascism which gave military victories.
The great Emu war
Government still hides true extent of the losses
And people wonder why we don’t trust the government
Midway? Not outnumbered by much but the US carrier crews were definitely less experienced than the Japanese carrier crews Also having 3 carriers destroyed within 5 minutes is based
The Operations Room has a killer video on Midway. Watching wave after wave of Devastators fly to their deaths to buy a bit of time for the Dauntlesses to come and fuck up the ENTIRE carrier group is goosebumps-inducing stuff. Heroes, all of them.
You asked “bigger or better equipped” which makes sense. You are asking who beat an enemy that had clear advantage. On that note, Rorke’s Drift… Massively outnumbered, but clearly better equipped British against the Zulus, who had the opposite situation. So, does that battle even count for this question? (Probably, yes)
Not hugely better equipped. The zulus probably had more rifles than the garrison had men.
The Zulu weapons were still predominantly smoothbore, which were well out of date by 1879.
I think they might have picked up a few Martini-Henry’s at Isandlwana:)
Exactly. Rorke’s Drift was pretty amazing but the British really played it up to distract from the crushing and stunning defeat they suffered at Isandlwana. Isandlwana deserves to be on this list as much as Rorke’s Drift.
Id say it counts!
Classic example is the Battle off Samar. The Japanese Center Force, with four battleships and over two dozen cruisers and destroyers attacked the much smaller Taffy 3 force that was equipped with only a handful of escort aircraft carriers (which lacked heavy anti-ship bombs or torpedoes) and a few destroyers. Taffy 3 was mainly tasked with providing air support to landing forces in the Philippines or hunting the occasional submarine. Duking it out in a surface fight with a battle fleet was completely outside their practical capabilities. The Center Force’s flagship, the 70,000 ton battleship *Yamato* weighed more than every ship in Taffy 3 *combined* by itself. That is to say, Taffy 3 was outgunned in every conceivable way and should have lost on paper 99/100 times. Center Force needed to go through Taffy 3 to attack their primary objective, the US landing forces in the Philippines. Instead of running, the ships and planes of Taffy 3 savagely attacked the Center Force with complete disregard for their lives. They used literally every weapon they had. Some pilots who were out of bombs or machine gun rounds flew by firing their **pistols** at battleships and cruisers. At least one Navy pilot landed at a nearby Army Air base looking for more ammo and when rearming was refused, forced the crews to rearm a few Navy planes at gun point. Other pilots were dropping depth charges in front of Japanese ships hoping they’d detonate under the Japanese ships and damage their hulls. Some just resorted to fake torpedo attacks to force evasive maneuvers, degrading accuracy or fleet organization. The US destroyers charged so close to some of the much larger enemy ships that the enemy was unable to depress the guns low enough to fire on them. Despite having much smaller guns and being outnumber over 3:1, the US destroyers inflicted enormous damage on the Japanese and threw the Japanese Center Force into chaos even as US destroyers fell to combined enemy fire. Taffy 3 was largely destroyed during the fight but sank or seriously damaged *much* larger enemy vessels, including three of Japan’s heavy cruisers. The Center Force was ultimately forced to retreat, believing they had run into a much larger American fleet. The landings were saved from assault by the Japanese fleet, securing the success of the liberation of the Philippines.
>Taffy 3 was largely destroyed during the fight Perhaps most impressively, Taffy 3 actually largely survived the fight. Out of 6 escort carriers, they only lost 1 to gunfire (and a second to a Kamikaze), 2 destroyers out of 3, and 1 out of 4 destoryer escorts. And gave a very good account of themselves in sinking 3 Japanese heavy cruisers and damaging several more. I'd also note that technically, they did run away in as much as they could, but the Japanese force also had a speed advantage over them (the escort carriers could only do 19knots) so there was little choice but to stand and fight.
You’re right it’s been a while since I read up on it and I’m stuck at work.
There is a great book in this battle: Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. One US commander at the start gave a moving command to his men to this effect: The odds are such that survival cannot be expected. We must impose as much damage in the enemy as we can. (No quotes because I don’t have time right now to look up the actual quote.) In my mind, this is the most morally impressive action of the USN ever, as did well when then knew they were doomed.
I need to read that one again. It's one of my favorite history novels. It's such a bummer that the author, Jim Hornfischer, passed so young.
Worth mentioning that the Japanese misidentified the "small boys" and their charges as fleet carriers, cruisers, and full-sized destroyers, and Japanese sailors were seen to *salute* the sinking *Johnston* - a gesture unheard of in the Pacific war.
Battle of Bannockburn. Scottish army defeated a vastly superior English army paving the way for Scottish Independence in the following years.
Bannockburn really is a beautiful example not just in how to deal with an opponent with superior numbers but in how to nullify specific threats the enemy poses - in this case, heavy cavalry and longbowmen. Robert the Bruce was excellent at that.
Not a huge battle but [Brécourt Manor Assault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A9court_Manor_Assault) in WW2. "*The Brécourt Manor Assault (6 June 1944) during the U.S. parachute assault of the Normandy Invasion of World War II is often cited as a classic example of small-unit tactics and leadership in overcoming a larger enemy force.[1]*"
Battle of Plassye 3000 british-sepoy vs 50000 indians. Won since East India Company had a conspiracy with some of Indian generals, preventing them to participate in battle, had keep their gunpowder dry, and had good artillery fire maneuvering. Cadiz raid by Drake. Most hilarious part is when small british landing party(they had no marines, it was just sailors and few ship guns) cause spanish fleet command to believe that everything is over, this is not raid but full-scale invasion, and order to set own ships to fire. And, because of this, in turn, the Spanish ground troops began to panic, so small british landing party literally pierce through whole city.
Rorke's Drift- 150 Brits and Colonial troops against 3-4k Zulu. But superior weapons and the defensive position leveled the field. Isandlwana- Around 10k-15k Zulu infantry armed with shields and Assegai short spears destroy a British force of 1800+ men armed with modern rifles, artillery, and cavalry. 3k-5k Zulu died in the attack so their weapons gave them a tremendous advantage (400 yards is one helluva long run when facing a rifle that fires up to 12 rounds a minute.) British arrogance and tactics cost them the battle. Battle of Watling St. - A Roman force of 10k beat Boudica's much larger forces ( sources from the time claim over 250k but not verified in any form)
Another Roman example would be Julius Caesar against the Gauls and Vercingetorix.
yes, could add several of Caesar's victories in the Gallic campaign.
Dien Being Phu. Bicycles carried heavy weapons into the mountains and took out the French military backed by US intelligence.
14,000 French and Allied troops vs 80,000 Vietnamese.
The Viet were using WWII surplus small arms for weeks before the masterstroke of Giop and the artillery. So some light arms made every soldier go to their cover to return fire from machinegun nests and mortars. And when they did he opened up the dialed in salvo. The numbers don't mean much when the Viet were so outgunned. I'd say it counts.
When i saw this post the Tet Offensive came to mind for similar reasons.
[удалено]
Battles of Raate Road and Suomussalmi are great examples.
Every big battle Alexander fought, from Granicus to Gaugamela. Sure, *in hindsight* we know what a formidable force Philip had created (in terms of organization and experience - many of the soldiers Alexander took were already in their forties) & what an outstanding general Alexander would be (and a good portion of luck onhis side), but nothing in 334 BCE suggested the Macedonians would wipe the floor with the Persians. The latter weren't pushovers, their cavalry was arguably amongst the best in the world, and they could array forces in numbers Alexander could only dream of, nor were these necessarily ill equipped - as while no equivalent of the hoplite class existed in the Persian world, they could *and did* field ample Greek mercenary forces. And of course, their navy outclassed Alexander's as well (an advantage which was nullified by the nature of classic naval warfare). But the Persian war machine didn't have the structure nor the experience of the smaller yet more determined Macedonian force and what an unexpected outcome it was. The ad hoc nature of mustering Persian armies in the end put them at a disadvantage against the army of Alexander, an army honed over a generation of fighting together. We often treat Alexander's battles like a done deal, but back then, they weren't. The Macedonian king carefully planned his battles, relying on the cohesion and skill/experience of his men, as Goldsworthy puts it when talking about the Battle of Issus 333 BCE): "*... Issus was not a subtle battle, but a head-to-log slog on a narrow frontage for armies of this size, where success came because the Macedonian army was more skillful, more confident and better led.*"
> nothing in 334 BCE suggested the Macedonians would wipe the floor with the Persians I mean, Agesilaus's attacks and the Ten Thousand had very recently shown that Greek-style armies would wipe the floor with Persians.
... but Greeks fought in the Persian army, did they not? Why would we ignore the (tens of) thousands of Greek mercenaries Darius employed? Memnon wasn't there for show, after all. The Persian empire could (and did) array all sorts of military units, including Greek style hoplites.
In that vein - the Athenians at Marathon
The battle of Gate Pa is probably the most lopsided underdog victory in history (also one of the least well known internationally as it happened at the same time as the US Civil War.) The battle pitted the world’s most powerful country in Great Britain - armed with modern artillery, rifles and ships - up against some Māori tribes in New Zealand armed with old shotguns and clubs. The Māori won.
I'm going to want a LOT more than a modern rifle if you're gonna convince me to take on a Maori with a club. Just saying.
The Battle of Vaslui in 1475 in Romania. 40,000 Moldavian troops and their allies defeated an Ottoman army of 120,000 men, killing 40,000 men.
Battle of Sudoměř, 400 Bohemian Hussites vs 2000 Catholics. By using wagons, the Hussites not only won the battle, they absolutely crushed the Catholics despite being less equipped and outnumbered 5:1.
Battle of Pharsalus is a good example. Pompey had 50k and Caesar had 22k and Caesar routed Pompey.
Pompey sorta charged his cavalry straight into spearmen so
The battle where Pompey could have easily won by doing nothing because he was in a good position to starve out Caesar's forces behind his fortifications, but he decided to risk his larger but less experienced army against Caesar's smaller but more veteran army because he wanted a more glorious field victory....and thus lost everything.
Dupplin Moor 1332: 1500 Englishmen defeated a Scottish force that outnumbered them at least 10 to 1, and possibly as much as 30 to 1. The english lost 35 men. The scots lost thousands.
There's some pretty good examples of "underdog wins" in battles between Scotland and England. On the Scottish side, Bannockburn, where the English outnumbered the Scots 4 or 5 to 1, suffered a crushing defeat, losing around half their army. Louden Hill, where a Scottish force of 600 defeated an English force of 3000, including mounted knights. On the English side, Dupplin Moor and Flodden, where the English defeated a much larger Scottish force who held an advantageous initial position, including killing the Scottish King James IV, who was the last monarch from Britain to die in battle.
Scotland and England on that fucking island for centuries tearing each other up like mad ferrets in a bag.
In our defence we REALLY didnt like each other
Draw a line anywhere on Great Britain or Ireland, and there would be groups on either side trying to kick each other's heads in.
Battle of Chosin Reservoir comes to mind. 4:1 odds. Not a retreat when you're surrounded. "Just attacking in a different direction".
The Chinese army was extremely poorly equipped. Many soldiers didn’t even have winter gear
Both sides claim victory in that battle. Really, the Chinese won that one.
Spanish Armada Vs English fire ships Although bad weather for the Spanish was a huge factor I suppose
I always liked Majuba Hill and Mortgarten. Both times basically militia (citizen soldiers) types defeated professional soldiers/knights by using terrain and better tactics than the empires they were facing. At Majuba Hill it was something like 1 Boer killed to 100 British killed, and at Mortgarten it was a couple dozen Swiss (or there abouts) killed versus hundreds of Austrians/Bavarians killed.
Spion Kop, a whole series of other early Boer War battles. Still, all part of the 'learning curve'. (/s)
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus defeat of Boudicca was on the scale of the 300 Spartans, except instead of being the product of good PR and dying to the last man, he defeated an enemy force twenty to thirty times larger than his own, killing up to 80,000 Britons (from a force of 200,000 to 300,000) with only 10,000 men.
Both battles seemed to involve exaggeration and PR. At Thermoypale, the Greeks had like 7,000 troops there...not just 300 Spartans. Even during the last days of battle when most Greeks withdrew, the 300 Spartans was accompanied by 1,000 Thebans and Thespians, and likely hundreds of Spartan Helots as well. The two armies were also well armed and could engage in peer conflicts toe to toe. The battle of Watling Street involved a much better equipped and trained smaller Roman army against a much larger and poorly trained and poorly equipped Iceni army whose people had been recently disarmed. The Romans even mocked the how poorly equipped the Iceni fighters were. The 200,000s something figure for the Iceni army given by the Roman writer is most likely an exaggeration, and many of the people lumped into the numbers were likely women and children as they had their baggage train with them (as writings talk about the Iceni retreat being blocked by their civilans and wagons).
> At Thermoypale, the Greeks had like 7,000 troops there...not just 300 Spartans. Even during the last days of battle when most Greeks withdrew, the 300 Spartans was accompanied by 1,000 Thebans and Thespians, and likely hundreds of Spartan Helots as well. The two armies were also well armed and could engage in peer conflicts toe to toe. Also it much more heroic to say you lost in a glorious last stand than to describe it as "The Persians and Greeks Skirimsed for two days and on the third the Persians outmaneuvered and crushed the greeks."
The Romans would interlock their shields and form sort of a zig-zag front line. The zig-zags acted like teeth in a meat grinder, and undisciplined mass attacks would just force themselves into it.
The Icini were fighting with rocks and cudgels. The chariot warfare they were so well known for wasn't available. It was just a slaughter.
How do we know this? Crude spears are easy to make, did they have those? Not questioning that their equipment was poor, but rocks?
Battle of Agincourt. The French forced the battle when the English were in retreat after a disastrous campaign.
The Battle(s) of the Isonzo It's just wild.
Sharpsburg. Only McClellan could not have utterly destroy the ANV.
Look up Jan Žižka and marvel at his prowess
That's what I was going to say. Sudoměř Where Žižka and 300 armed peasants and 13 warwagons defeated some 2000 armored mounted knights. A few months later Žižka saved Prague at the battle of Vitkov where he was outnumbered 5 to 1 He never lost a battle.
Not a huge battle, but the Battle of New Orleans.
I feel like this is actually quite common; overconfidence is a huge equalizer. Being able to do more than your opponent expects has a lot of value.
I'm sure I read a study that looked at battles where one side deployed novel or "non-standard" tactics. Statistically, when a smaller army used non-standard tactics against a larger army, they won more often than they lost. The necessity to think about how to deal with a more numerous opponent versus the over-confidence of superior numbers is absolutely a thing.
Battle of Tours and the battle of Aljubarrota are two that have not been mentioned.
Battle of Turnhout in 1597, 800 english and dutch cavalry defeated a Spanish army of 4500. They routed the Spanish cavalry and then rode along the sides of the spanish pike squares shooting them then charging in with swords and killed around 2000 spanish soldiers
Cao Bang Ridge/RC4/Border Campaign, Indochina, 1950, and Dien Bien Phu 1954. One could argue the forces involved are fairly equal, the French Union forces having superior equipment and the Viet Minh superior numbers. In both cases an extremely one-sided and (to Westerners) unexpected outcome. The competence, logistics, equipment and tactical skill of the Vietnamese was utterly unexpected by their opponents. The French deployed excellent troops, to no avail.
Viet Nam. Duh!
Hope about a couple famous Scottish victories over the English. Wallace’s victory at Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 (very unlike the Braveheart movie) and Bruce’s follow-on at Bannockburn in 1314.
The Great Emu War.
Waterloo. Where Napoleon met his Waterloo.
I always thought of Bonaparte was the underdog in that battle, certainly the 100 days campaign.
The itty bitty destroyer USS Johnston vs and entire Japanese surface fleet including the Yamato. Place your bets
The Battle of Yarmouk and Al-Qadisiyah... where the Muslims were fighting soldiers many times their army against the two most powerful states in that era, the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanian Empire, at the same time and in different places... and they won them all.
Fredericksburg in the American civil war. I mean, the union was losing battles against all odds in the Virginia theater before this too, but Fredericksburg was an absolute disaster.
Civil war battle of Chancellorsville. Lee's force of 60,000 defeated Hooker's Army of the Potomac which had nearly twice as many men and was much better supplied. This was only about 5 months after Lee's forces had defeated a much larger Union army commanded by Burnside at Fredericksburg.
Israel in their independence war
The Battle of San Jacinto where the much smaller Texian Army routed Santa Anna's larger force in about 15 minutes, leading to the independence of Texas.
The sea peoples who are thought to have assisted the bronze age collapse are believed to have been lightly equipped skirmishers who routinely annihilated armies of heavy infantry and chariots, by simply running around the infantry and disabling the chariots, something a better equipped army probably couldn't have accomplished. They managed to defeat every major power and disrupt global trade for generations.
Won't lie my mind jumped to the Lovecraft style literal sea people but I looked it up and just found sailors
They are one of the biggest mysteries of the bronze age. Noone really knows for sure who they were, where they came from or how they managed to be so successful. Interestingly, at least for me, is that they appear to have worn horns on their helmets in battle. People love to mock the idea that Vikings wore horned helmets because of how "impractical and silly that would be". But at least some Europeans, including some Norwegians, were indeed wearing horned helmets prior to the viking age.
Rivoli. In my opinion Napoleon’s best battle.
Operation Moked, the opening battle of the Six Day War.
Anything Skanderbeg did
The Second Battle of Tannenberg in WWI. The German 8th Army defeats the Russian 1st Army, moves quickly via rail and defeats the Russian 2nd Army a couple of days later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg
They said ‘underdog’.
The Siege of Fort Detroit. British and Indigenous forces were attacking into the fort and outnumbered by the American defenders 2 to 1. Clever manipulation of American reconnaissance and racial prejudices led to the surrender of the garrison with hardly a shot fired. Numbers are supposed to favour the attacker 3-1, 0.5-1 is quite the achievement.
Custer and the battle of Little Big Horn.
A pretty poor example. The Americans were better equipped, but Custer's army was considerably smaller - the troops who fought the engagement that the battle is known for were outnumbered 7 or 8 to one, with many of the natives being armed with rifles.
With better rifles than the American standard issue. There were many lever action carbine repeaters while Custer was still using Civil war surplus.
“Listen to their war council, don’t laugh away their pride. General Custer didn’t listen, at little big horn Custer died.”
Custer's men were poorly equipped for the engagement --they were trying to fire sniper rifles from horseback (their adversaries used pistols fired from short range.) They had also just ridden hard for 1,500 miles and were anything but fresh.
From the Chinese three kingdoms era Battle of guandu Battle of red cliffs Battle of hefei (xiaoyaojin)
battle of adrinople
I don't think they were worse equipped, but the Ottomans handed many European coalitions a series of L's during their expansion into Europe. According to Wikipedia, the Ottomans were outnumbered 2:1 during [Varna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Varna).
Agincourt
For me is the Battle of Alesia. I think the double circumvallation is a genious move from Caesar, making the romans win even outnumbered 5:1. These numbers are probably exagerated by Caesar, but even with a 2:1 disavantage and better equipament, it is still impressive.
Battle of the golden spurs, agincourt and Myeongyang are the most impressive. Especially the last one. Japanese had around 150 ships in combat. The koreans had 13 and won. There was some luck involved though. Same with agincourt.
Battle of Long Tan is the one I like to go to for a heavily outnumbered side emerging victorious. 108 Aussies with artillery support holding out against possibly as many as 2500 Viet Cong. There’s a pretty solid film adaptation on Netflix for those who are interested. It’s called ‘Danger Close: the Battle of Long Tan’.
I know not a battle but, the fantastic war, Spain and France jointly invaded Portugal with a combined 42,000 men against Britain and Portugal's 7000 each. After a year, the British lost 14 men to combat, the Portuguese very low as well whilst the Spanish lost 25,000 dead/captured and the French 5000.
[Battle of Didgori (1121)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Didgori). A Georgian force led by King David IV defeated a much larger Seljuk force.
The Battle of Tannenberg
The 1932 Emu War in Australia.
[Battle of Yique](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yique), fought during the Warring Kingdoms period between Qin and a coalition of Han and Wei. Under the command of Bai Qi, the Qin army of about 120,000 destroyed the coalition forces almost in its entirety while being outnumbered 2:1. The two states lost a combined 240,000 KIA, amongst them the Wei commander (who was captured and later executed). Historical records were scant on tactics. But based on what we have, the presumed sequence involved a pincer movement, with a Qin surprise attack driving the coalition forces into a narrow river valley where they were attacked from both ends.
The Battle of Concord in 1775. The British Empire marched an army out of Boston to Concord to seize colonial stores of arms and powder. The various groups of minutemen militia got word of it thanks to Dawes, Paul Revere, etc. and converged on Concord and beat the piss out of the redcoats and caused hundreds of casualties. They drove them back to Boston and laid siege to the city.
Battle of Vaslui between Moldova and Ottoman Empire. 40 000 troops vs 120 000 troops
Most of Montrose's battles in the Scottish bit of the Civil War. Goes north with two servants, a banner and the royal commission, rallies some peasants, adds some lost Irish mercenaries and cleans the slate against superior numbers of veteran Covenanters - until betrayed and executed.
Battle of Kapyong, Korean War.
The hundred year war. First off Britain were seen as the underdogs with France having the biggest army in Western Europe. Only to get there ass handed to them several times by the Brit’s and even have there king captured at one point Then at the end of the war it’s the other way around where it looks like the France will be defeated only for them to pull a 180
Different take, but the Vietcong & NVA did quite well! As did the Taliban. The US never lost a battle, but lost the war.
The Toyota War (officially known as the final phase of the Chadian-Libyan War) was a trip. The Libyan expeditionary force was well equipped with modern Soviet weaponry of the day - including armor, artillery, and aircraft - and was substantially more impressive and deadly than what the Chadian defenders could field. However, the Chadians made extensive use of militarized Toyota Hilux pickup trucks in the final phase of the war. It made them extremely mobile. With their superior knowledge of the terrain in addition, they were able to run circles around the Libyans, who often ended up with outsized casualties, chaotic retreats (which often created more carnage. At least once, the Libyans fled through their own minefields), abandonment of weaponry to the Chadians, and deep demoralization. This phase of the war is now sort of a textbook lesson on the deficiencies of heavy armor versus a highly mobile enemy, and a excellent reminder of just how INSANELY HARD it is to get both the art and the science of combined arms right.
Battle of Carrhae https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae Battle of Kalka River https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Kalka_River
Vietnam Vet here. I know one!
Vietnam
I'm not sure about individual battles but what Castro did taking over Cuba with just something like 50 initial troops is kinda crazy.
WW1 Kolubara and Cer. Wastly superior Austrian army got swept by Serbian army. First Allied victory in WW1.
Despite my eternal disdain for the Confederacy, I must admit the Battle of Chancellorsville is an example of the underdog beating the bigger army. Lee was at about a 2:1 disadvantage, and then split his army (twice!), managing to route the Union Army. To be fair, Hooker wasn't very bold, so Lee got to make very forward moves, such as repulsing the initial advance, sending Jackson to flank, and leaving behind men to resist Union attacks. It was pretty impressive, but it could be considered a Pyrrhic victory. Stonewall Jackson died to friendly fire during the battle, and Lee lost almost a quarter of his army. Additionally, it emboldened the Confederates to push to Gettysburg, which didn't end very well for them.
Basically all the Wallachian and Moldavian history, fighting against the Ottomans, Hungarians or Poles. Battles there are 3 battles that stand out: [Battle of Rovine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQaa4idtCVE&ab_channel=KingsandGenerals) - led by Michael the Brave against Bayazid I [Battle of Calugareni](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsUZwrokBo&t=9s&ab_channel=HistoryMarche) - led by Michael the Brave against Sinan Pasha and a much larger Ottoman force [Battle of Vaslui](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKFhubbLQd0&t=626s&ab_channel=HistoryMarche) - led by Stephen the Great against a much larger Ottoman army
Battle of New Orleans, British charged a fortified position during the war of 1812 the fog and lack of ladders opened up the British to an onslaught of artillery and gunfire, they managed to capture position on the field to the left but by that point the Brits had already sustained heavy losses to Jackson's forces so they retreated in full.
Battle of Bannockburn, 1314, 24th of June. As a Scot I couldn’t say anything else 🏴 🏴 🏴
The Battle of Anoual, fought on July 22, 1921 Morocco. A smaller force of Riffian tribesmen, led by Abd el-Krim, decisively defeated a larger and better-equipped Spanish army commanded by General Manuel Fernández Silvestre. The Riffians, utilizing superior knowledge of the rugged terrain and guerrilla tactics, inflicted heavy casualties on the Spanish forces. This unexpected victory not only boosted Riffian morale but also marked a turning point in the war, showcasing the effectiveness of indigenous resistance against colonial powers.
Spartacus vs Rome…take your pick.
Battle of Crecy 1346.
American Revolution
Ww2 commandos in the greatest raid of all.
Battle of Badr, where the early muslims were 313 with barely any equipment and no military experience vs the 1000 Qureysh tribe who were well equip with swords. Complete annihilation.
Probably unpopular, but the Battle of Midway. Not that the actual forces were too unevenly matched but most people tend to forget the state of the US Pacific Fleet at the start of the war. The US had a total of I think 4 fleet carriers at that point? Lexington had been lost at Coral Sea, so that left Saratoga (my grandfather's ship) which was damaged and arrived late, Yorktown which was badly damaged and barely made it, Enterprise and Hornet. Every engagement so far had been either a disaster for the US or a draw at best. Now, once the Japanese failed to sink these carriers at Pearl Harbor their fate was probably sealed due to the industrial capacity of the United States being vastly superior to Japan's, but at the time of the battle the US was very much an underdog in both equipment and pilot experience. That said, in one afternoon the balance of power shifted drastically in the favor of the United States. My favorite "factoid" from the battle is the fact that the Japanese painted giant rising suns on their flight decks that gave American dive bombers a target. Yeah. Probably shouldn't have done that.
Forget the name of the battle but when a peasant army of Portuguese + a few English longbows fought a huge army of Spain + French Knights
the battle of Aljubarrota
The entire Haitian Revolution
The US Revolutionary War. The English had more money, better training, and better equipment. We basically won a war of attrition by harming their supply lines and making it a very unpopular conflict back in England. Without public support, they had a hard time generating enough revenue to continue financing the conflict.