What is the greatest military battle on air, sea or land? Trafalgar, Thermopolie or one les well known?

Question

What would you say is the greatest single historical battle?

Answer 1

I'll have to go out on a limb here and say the Battle of Britain. This was following Dunkirk when Britain was under threat of invasion and standing alone as the entirety of Europe had been conquered. The Royal Air Force was grossly outnumbered by the German Luftwaffe and still managed to win the battle that lasted several months. Had they lost and Germany controlled all of Europe, would they still have attacked Russia with Operation Barbarossa? Would they have concentrated with Japan at taking out America? The main reason they lost the war was bad decisions in fighting two fronts simultaneously. If Britain were conquered, many of us might be speaking German right now.

Answer 2

By default 'greatest' means 'largest', because those are the ones with the most ramifications.
The largest land battle in history was the Battle of Stalingrad, '42-'43. It lasted well over a year, destroyed a couple of army groups on both sides, killed over 2 million, and wounded God knows how many. D-Day was small compared to this.
The largest sea battle was another battle of WWII, but it wasn't Midway, it was the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in, I believe, April of '45. What remained of the Japanese fleet was smashed. This was a much larger battle than Midway, which was important as a turning point. After Leyte Gulf the bulk of the Japanese army was stranded in China, the navy was history, and the air force was in shreds.

Answer 3

The correct answer depends on your definition of greatest...

In my opinion the greatest sea battle was the battle of Midway. It turned the tide of the Pacific campaign and effectively neutralized the Japanese navy's hold on the Pacific.

The greatest land battle was the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War, but there are other Civil War battles that were as significant. Gettysburg stands out in that it marked the Confederacy's high water mark, and spelled their eventual doom due to the tragic mistakes of Lee on the battle's third day.

The greatest air battle...easily the 1940 battle of Britain in WW2...an outnumbered, outgunned RAF held and pushed a superior Luftwaffe force back across the English Channel.

Answer 4

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest where the Roman legions were wiped out by the Germanic tribes and ended Roman thrusts into the Germanic areas. If the Romans had won the Germans would have been Romanized so the fall of the Roman Empire would have had to come from some other area. Possible the Roman Empire would have lasted much longer changing all history that came after.

Answer 5

Let's see the candidates:

Cro Magnon vs. Neanderthal:affected us for all eternity

Yorktown

Stalingrad

The Spanish Armada

battle of Marathon

Battle of Midway

battle of Thermopylae: 250,000 to 7000

Battle for Hue in 1968 during the Tet Offensive.

Leipzeg, Napolianic wars

Battle of Chalons (451 AD): stopped Atilla

Moscow 1941

Antietam (as opposed to Gettysburg)

Chosin Campaign 1950

Bttle of Britain:Never was so much owed by so many to so few

Battle of la Marne: stopped the German invasion

Cajamarca,Spanish Conquest of Peru, 1532

Waterloo,Napoleonic Wars, 1815

Cannae 216 BC

Vienna, Austria-Ottoman Wars, 1529

Hastings, Norman Conquest of England, 1066

kursk....the largest tank battle ever.

Battle of Tours:Had Europe lost, most the world would be muslim and vastly different than it would be today.



The one i almost picked best was:

Kharkov. I liked Manstein's skillful counter offensive and Paul Hausser's master work on the tactical level. The II. SS Panzer Korps along with supporting elements beat off a Soviet force that out numbered them 7 to 1 and retook the city.



and then there's:

Atomic Bombing of Japan



My pick is:

The United States dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to hasten the end of World War II in the Pacific. Although it would be the first, and to date the only, actual use of such weapons of "mass destruction," the mushroom clouds have hung over every military and political policy since then.



And the human population has stared into the dark abyss of global suicide since those dreadful days in August '45..



Greatest military victory....hmmmm, i don't like the term 'great' for nuclear war, and aerial bombardment of citizens was pretty barbaric, but the consequences were pretty monumental...i guess war IS hell.

Answer 6

grew to become into halfway a sea conflict, or an air one? grew to become into the atlantic even a conflict? grew to become into Hiroshima? The differences blurred markedly in this era, and stay so on the instant. in spite of the incontrovertible fact that; the main considered necessary battles of WW2 - chronologically - have been Fall Gelb (France 1940) Britain Moscow 1941 Pearl Harbor halfway Guadalcanal El Alamein Stalingrad Kursk D-Day/Falaise Bagration Kohima Leyte Berlin Iwo Jima

Answer 7

Not knowing the definition for greatest, I am going to suggest that the Battle of Hastings is perhaps the single most significant battle in history to affect Western Europe and perhaps the world.

Imagine that William the Conqueror is defeated and Harald retains his control of a Saxon England. Imagine the future of Europe and huge swaths of the world if England remains a more or less Germanic nation.

A single arrow...arcing over a Saxon shield wall...pierces a single human eye and sets the world down a path that we continue on to this day.

So for me The Battle of Hastings must be the choice, not for its size, the casulties, but for the world altering course it applied to human history.

Answer 8

D-day June 6, 1944

It was a sea, air and land battle.
Actually multiple battles but i would say the Omaha beach battle was the worst (best)

Answer 9

I'd have to say, for sheer military brilliance, the German Blitzkrieg of 1939

Think about it. Armoured warfare, mechanised infantry and co-ordinated artillery smashed the Allied Franco-British armies in under 3 weeks. Paris falls to the Nazi invaders, Germany has minimal casualties. The Allied defeat is absolute.

Answer 10

Turning point in ancient history-Thermapolae
Turning point in Classical history-Trasimene (Rome&Hannibal)
Turning point in middle ages-Siege of Prague the stopping point of the Islamic advance into Europe
Turning point of modern period-Napoleans retreat from Moscow-Waterloo and Trafalgar wouldn't have mattered if he took it.
Turning point of 20th century-The BAttle Of Kursk-the pivotal turning point in WWII where Germany's successes declined. They had all but one before that.
My money's on Thermapolae