Fiercest Battle in History

I'll review my choice. My new choice of the fiercest battle is the battle of the Nek, Gallipoli, 17th Feb 1915.

Absolute tragedy. 3 Regiments of Light Horse (approx 900) soldiers charged the Turkish trenches in an area smaller than 3 tennis courts. Although they were Light Horse soldiers they were fighting on foot like infantry. They charged in 4 lines, with bayonets fixed and no ammunition, repeat no ammo. The Brits were supposed to give artillery fire on the Turkish trenches till 4:30am when the Aussies charged, they stopped at 4:23, allowing the Turks to fill their trenches shoulder to shoulder with troops. They had more than 100 Maxim machine guns trained on an area less than 64m wide. After all was said and done, only 84 people came back off the battlefield (that is both wounded living and unharmed), only 2 officers out of 3 regiments lived. Most died as they climbed out of the trench, as the Turks were less than 50m away and were working their guns along the lip of the trench. After calculations based on reports from both the Allies and the Turks, and Turkish ammunition requisitions, it is estimated that each square meter of the "Nek" was hit with 5,000 rounds per minute, not including grenades, petrol bombs and shells. The soldiers of the 3rd, 8th and 10th Light Horse stood to, and went over the top to a death they knew awaited them, but not one hesitated, no one would leave their mate behind, or not run alongside him. What is more amazing was that the second, third and fourth waves saw the carnage, had their mates fall back into the trenches on top of them etc, and when the whistle blew for them they ran without hesitation, as I said, with no ammo, just a bayonet.

Out of the 900, only 5 soldiers made it to the Turkish parapet, and were killed as soon as they reached it, but not before they thrust a lance with the Light Horse colours on it into the parapet. These 5 soldiers included two ex-Scotch College boys, my old school.

Absolute decimation, complete and final. It may not have been a long running battle, it may not have included thousands of tanks, but for "ferocity" and "fierceness" in the true sense of the word, I don't think you can look past 900 young Australians running to their deaths under the turkish guns without their horses. It was sheer bloody murder.
 
most battles are bloody and fierce so theres too many to mention

stalingrad is up there, so is burma and the pacific campaign of WWII
 
AussieNick said:
I'll review my choice. My new choice of the fiercest battle is the battle of the Nek, Gallipoli, 17th Feb 1915.

Absolute tragedy. 3 Regiments of Light Horse (approx 900) soldiers charged the Turkish trenches in an area smaller than 3 tennis courts. Although they were Light Horse soldiers they were fighting on foot like infantry. They charged in 4 lines, with bayonets fixed and no ammunition, repeat no ammo. The Brits were supposed to give artillery fire on the Turkish trenches till 4:30am when the Aussies charged, they stopped at 4:23, allowing the Turks to fill their trenches shoulder to shoulder with troops. They had more than 100 Maxim machine guns trained on an area less than 64m wide. After all was said and done, only 84 people came back off the battlefield (that is both wounded living and unharmed), only 2 officers out of 3 regiments lived. Most died as they climbed out of the trench, as the Turks were less than 50m away and were working their guns along the lip of the trench. After calculations based on reports from both the Allies and the Turks, and Turkish ammunition requisitions, it is estimated that each square meter of the "Nek" was hit with 5,000 rounds per minute, not including grenades, petrol bombs and shells. The soldiers of the 3rd, 8th and 10th Light Horse stood to, and went over the top to a death they knew awaited them, but not one hesitated, no one would leave their mate behind, or not run alongside him. What is more amazing was that the second, third and fourth waves saw the carnage, had their mates fall back into the trenches on top of them etc, and when the whistle blew for them they ran without hesitation, as I said, with no ammo, just a bayonet.

Out of the 900, only 5 soldiers made it to the Turkish parapet, and were killed as soon as they reached it, but not before they thrust a lance with the Light Horse colours on it into the parapet. These 5 soldiers included two ex-Scotch College boys, my old school.

Absolute decimation, complete and final. It may not have been a long running battle, it may not have included thousands of tanks, but for "ferocity" and "fierceness" in the true sense of the word, I don't think you can look past 900 young Australians running to their deaths under the turkish guns without their horses. It was sheer bloody murder.

My Grandmother was a curator for the Borodino Museum in Moscow. From there I learned that if you want to go by those standards for "ferocity" as you have mentioned, then no battle is worse. Multiple such charges were made from both sides and the same result occured. So the fact that what you have stated occured many time during one day makes Borodino much more fierce. This is because after seeing a whole cavalry or infantry charge get destroyed, a soldier had to preform the same exact thing knowing that he was going to die.

Also for another Battle to be mentioned.... how about the Battle at the Brest Fortress. http://www.brest.by/ct/page3e.html . Read that to find out about real military ferocity.
 
ok, lemme get this straight:

firest battle means:

most deaths during a short time in a small area fought with a variety of weapons and the ground is basically red

ai, definetly stalingrad, where the volga was red
 
ok, lemme get this straight:

firest battle means:

most deaths during a short time in a small area fought with a variety of weapons and the ground is basically red

ai, definetly stalingrad, where the volga was red

That is your definition, and I don't agree with it at all. The most deaths, the longest time period, or the most "blood on the ground" doesn't make it the fiercest. Look up the meaning of "fierce".
 
really

then again, its anything.............you could range from 40AC to 2005...........either way historians would argue that battles 100's of years ago were worse than now. These days you got more inteland more weapons that are faster and cause death quicker, where as back then you didn't.

least now we have the equiptment to let us know when we are to be attacked.

100's of years ago they didn't, they went in blind.

So its a never ending story.......................there isn't a top choice and this thread will be argued to deathe over it lol
 
i guess democratically stalingrad wins in favor
more people chose it

and it is definetly the ficrest, followed by kursk, berlin, saipan and more
 
I am going to have to go with Battle of the Bulge. Very complex, more then a million total soldiers involved.

May not surpass Stalingrad, but I am surprised this one was over-looked.
 
Popeye said:
I am going to have to go with Battle of the Bulge. Very complex, more then a million total soldiers involved.

May not surpass Stalingrad, but I am surprised this one was over-looked.

Despite that, it didn't come close to the intensity of Stalingrad IMO. The battle failed as much because the Germans ran out of fuel as anything else.
 
Strongbow said:
Chinaman said:
up there as in the top 100

fierce also count causlties


stalingrad wins!

It wins.

Battle of Moscow comes second!!!!!!!!!!

No it doesn't. There wasn't really much of an urban battle for Moscow and the resulting battles for cities surrounding Moscow were not nearly on the same scale as Stalingrad.

I'd pick probably the Battle for Berlin being the next most intense.
 
maybe?

you may jump on me but for intellect I'd pick "Battle of Britain"

A few times we were drawn so tired and lacking, the germans just kept coming and our pilots were not resting etc.

I think it was fierce due to the fact it was all Dog fights but we managed to kick back and win.
 
I'm with Doppleganger on the Battle of Berlin being second. Russians lost something like half a million troops taking it. German losses are unknown but had to be very high as well. Very fierce house to house fighting as in Stalingrad.
 
My father fought at Iwo so I would love to agree with you, however, the Marines there were 1/20th the size force involved at Berlin just tallying the Russians. Both were very fierce no doubt, but Berlin earns second place in terms of quantity and we'll allow that quality was near abouts equal.
 
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