Why didn’t I think of it!

Valley of Tears – October 9-10, 1973. Avigdor Kahalani’s 77 Regiment of the 7th Armoured Brigade, North Israel.

Turned back a force of 1200 Syrian armored vehicles. By the end, the Syrians, with Russian night-vision equipment the Israelis didn’t have, stormed the Israelis at night. The Israelis ended up in close combat – in tanks at extreme close range. Their superior mobility allowed them to hit the Syrian tanks in their vulnerable rears AFTER the Syrians had broken through the lines.

On the last day, the Israelis had six tanks left, and the Syrians were about to wipe them out – but 15 more Israeli tanks roared onto the battlefield. The Syrians assumed they were the first of many reinforcements and withdrew, but in fact they had been repaired behind the lines and were being brought back into service by volunteered and injured soldiers.

At that moment, those men were the last line of defense in Northern Israel, and the Syrian miscalculation may have actually saved Israel.

That’s the way the story was told to me, anyway. Make a great movie! Close Tank Combat!

Merovign on March 13, 2007 at 9:20 PM

The fall of Constantinople! 7000 vs. 100000.
Malta – 6000 vs 48000.

Plataea was a tremendous greek victory, and the Spartans put their full force into effect there, but it was such an overwhelming victory that it seemed almost anticlimactic. Historians doubt the numbers again, but the “dramatic” numbers were 110,000 Greeks vs. 300000 Persians. 159 Greeks were killed, 257,000 Persians.

Like I said, those are the “dramatic” numbers. Some say over a thousand Greeks perished, or there were less than 100,000 Persians, but the most consistent (if not always most accurate) reports trend toward larger Persian numbers.

The Persian survivors were set up by Alexander as they fled and nearly all were killed, pretty much ending Persia’s interest in Greece.

Part of Persia’s problem was – lightly armored, fast moving troops with light bows are GREAT in Persia and India against peasants and farmers.

But against heavily-armored Hoplites in any numbers, they’re like water over stone. It’s like small arms against tanks, the Persians had massive numbers, but not massive enough.

I’m probably over-emphasizing Spartans here, Athenians, Thespians, Corinthians, and many, many others fought and kicked enormous amounts of ass at Plataea.

Merovign on March 13, 2007 at 9:46 PM