famous battles?

Question

Who knows a famous battle or two where the winning side was greatly outnumbered but still ended up winning the battle?

Answer 1

Battle of Guagamela- Alexander 40-50,000 men, Persians-200,000
Battle of Cannae- Hannibal-40,000 Romans-80,000
Battle of Carhae- Parthians-10,000 Romans-30,000
Battle of the Bulge
Just to name a few.

Answer 2

The Battle of Agincourt - The English against the French. Heavily outnumbered - some historians say English were outnumbered by the French 3 to 1.

But it was the use of the Longbowman and the geography of the battlefield that allowed the English to win the day.

Another famous battle was at Canae in 216 BC where the Carthaginian army under Hannibal decisively defeated a much superior Roman army under Paullus and Varro.
While Rome and her allies led an army of about 86,000-87,000 men, the Carthaginians had an army of 40,000 heavy infantry, 6,000 light infantry, 8,000 cavalry.

Of course there are modern day equivalents.

Answer 3

The Swiss have won some battles although outnumbered...

The first is the Morgarten Battle, where the Austrians were twice as much numerous (if not more) compared to the Swiss.

The second is the Battle of Laupen, again the swiss where outnumbered by two to one and underequipped but managed to win nevertheless.

And last... The Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs, where 1'500 Swiss pikemen stopped 20'000 (including cavalry) French troops. The swiss were killed to the last man, but the french suffered 4'000 dead and were forced to retreat.

Enjoy the reading...

Further swiss battles can be found on wikipedia at the last link I provided, should you be interested. So that you can see the swiss did not win every battle...

(BTW, I am Swiss, but not biased, only providing facts backed up with data and links)

Answer 4

The Battle of Agincourt where the French outnumbered the British and the British won thanks to weather and Geography.

Gaugmela: Alexander the Great beats what was the largest army in the world and did it Way outnumbered

The Battle of Alesia, Caesar Vs Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix had a bigger army but lost to Caesar's Brilliant Mind.

The Battle of Britain

The Battle of the Bulge: in the Bastogne Pocket.

The Battle of Guadulcanal: Japanese need to stop running INTO the Machine guns.

Also the British in the Zulu Wars. Thank you Gatling Guns for overwelming firepower.

Answer 5

Hey Doc,

I think the best example was the Battle of Agincourt fought on St Crispin's Day (25 October) 1415. The English were outnumberred six to one; but at the end, 450 English died, while French casualties were approximately 8,000.

Answer 6

The Battle of Blood River

Answer 7

Most Famous- D-Day Most important in terms of American History - A toss up between The Battle of Point Pleasant(Some feel this is the first in the American Revolution others feel this was one the last battles of Lord Dunmores War) or the Battles of Lexington and Concord(Popularily considered the first battle in the American Revolution)

Answer 8

There are some... and very famous ones...

Watch the movies 300; Alexander and read about the Cartagen general Hanibal... they faced enemies much larger than their forces...

I think the battle of the plains of Gaugmela was the greatest one... 40 thousand greaks angainst 200 thousand Persians and the Greaks won!!!
Pretty impressive, isn't it?!

Answer 9

The best one i know was the 3rd Battle of Kharkov in 1943, the II SS Panzer Corp under Paul Hausser beat a Red Army 7 times its size. ...

Answer 10

The Battle of Britain was a prelude to the German invasion of Great Britain which after just four months had to be abandoned because of the dedication, courage and tenacity of those 2,936 pilots, who, against a formidable and experienced foe and against all odds, fought only for success.