The Best Armies that never Fought with Each Other

Rex Romanum

Banned
Inspired by "Wellington vs Alexander the Great" thread, in here we can compare two historical armies and predict the result if these two armies fought with each other...

As for me, I'd like to see a battle between:
1. Macedonian army under Alexander the Great and Roman army under Julius Caesar
2. Macedonian army under Alexander the Great and Carthaginian army under Hannibal

Both would be hard-fought battles for Alex, but IMO he will be able to win...
(because of his superior cavalry in the first battle, and because of his superior infantry in the second one)
 

tallwingedgoat

Watch "Clash of the Generals" on Youtube where Sir Peter de la Billiere played Hannibal and General Chuck Horner played Alexander. They gamed the Battle of Cannae where the Romans were replaced with Alexander's army at Issus. Hannibal won in this contest.

Obviously this is not definitive. But the show makes the interesting observation that Alexander never faced an army as disciplined as the Romans, who Hannibal repeatedly defeated. Most of the time Alexander used his offensive flaire to shock his enemies who then cracked under pressure. Hannibal's forces would be far more steadfast as demonstrated at Cannae.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The French army under Napoleon and the Russian army under Survorov.

The Confederate army under Lee and the Union army under Thomas.
 

Faeelin

Banned
The Red Army of Trotsky was a joke, surely? (At least in 1920). Russia couldnt' support an army as well equiopped adn supplied as the BEF was.
 

stevep

Awilla the Hun said:
1914 BEF vs Trotsky's Red Army
Click to expand...

Difficult not to see that as a massacre unless the Red Army is able to use guerilla warfare possibly, or possibly has several times the numbers. You have a very well trained and pretty well equipped formal army against a rag-tag collection of militias. [It partly depends on the date of the Red Army force as they would have gained experience and probably equipment as time went on].

The other factor of course is the background of the battle. The terrain, supply situatuion and intention of each army. Even so in a straight battle I would say the BEF has too much fire-power and experience for the Red Army to stand much chance.

Steve
 

Cambyses

tallwingedgoat said:
Watch "Clash of the Generals" on Youtube where Sir Peter de la Billiere played Hannibal and General Chuck Horner played Alexander. They gamed the Battle of Cannae where the Romans were replaced with Alexander's army at Issus. Hannibal won in this contest.

Obviously this is not definitive. But the show makes the interesting observation that Alexander never faced an army as disciplined as the Romans, who Hannibal repeatedly defeated. Most of the time Alexander used his offensive flaire to shock his enemies who then cracked under pressure. Hannibal's forces would be far more steadfast as demonstrated at Cannae.
Click to expand...

Agreed, and I doubt Alexander would beat Caesar either. Roman armies were very, very good at dismantling the Macedonian Phalanx.
 

DaleCoz

1) The Spanish or French armies of the 1500s to early 1600s against an army of comparable size from China or Japan.
2) Romans under Caesar against the Aztecs.
3) Israelis of 1956 versus the Germans of maybe early 1943.
4) For that matter, the Germans of early 1941 versus the Germans of mid-1943.
5) The US of June 1944 versus the Soviets of the same time.
6) Japanese versus Germans, early 1941
7) Just for grins: Iroquois of the mid-1600s versus Cortes and his conquistadors.
 

jlckansas

The US Army of 1865 vs. any contemporary army of the time. Was the largest collection of battle trained troops, not just trained army. With experienced leaders in command at this time after getting rid of most if not all of the underperforming political commanders.
 
9 Fanged Hummingbird

9 Fanged Hummingbird

jlckansas said:
The US Army of 1865 vs. any contemporary army of the time. Was the largest collection of battle trained troops, not just trained army. With experienced leaders in command at this time after getting rid of most if not all of the underperforming political commanders.
Click to expand...
On that note, US Army of 1865 combined with a CS Army of around the same time versus a British Army of 1865. Not sure if it counts, but it would be fun. I once read a quote from a Confederate soldier saying that Southern infantry was the best in the war and Yankee artillery was likewise unparalleled, and that an army of the two combined would be unbeatable. I'd have liked to see that put to the test against the British Empire.
 

Deleted member 6086

2010 Swiss army versus Libyan army (Gadaffi fulfilles his promise of going to war with switzerland over the minaret controversy).
 

Prem_Rack

Hresvelgr said:
On that note, US Army of 1865 combined with a CS Army of around the same time versus a British Army of 1865. Not sure if it counts, but it would be fun. I once read a quote from a Confederate soldier saying that Southern infantry was the best in the war and Yankee artillery was likewise unparalleled, and that an army of the two combined would be unbeatable. I'd have liked to see that put to the test against the British Empire.
Click to expand...

Was the British Army of the era really anything to speak off?
 

Paul Spring

Parma's Spanish-funded* army in the Netherlands vs. Hideyoshi's army from around the same time. The best European army of the period vs. a well-led and disciplined Japanese force that has assimilated lots of European weapons and tactics with its own traditions.

Parma's army vs. an Ottoman force of similar size from the same time - the best western European army of the time vs. western Europe's greatest "outside" enemy.

Ottoman army of late 16th century vs. Hideyoshi's army - two non-western forces with good discipline and a nice mix of firearms and edged weapons, infantry and cavalry.

Alexander the Great's army vs. Qin dynasty Chinese army of the same size. Alexander and his army are good, but Chinese troops armed with crossbows might give them a serious new problem.

Roman army of circa 100 CE vs. Han Chinese army of the same size from the same time. I think that the Romans would tend to be superior in close infantry, the Chinese in cavalry and missile weapons, though the Romans had lots of auxiliaries who were pretty good cavalry and archers, so they would probably do best if they had lots of auxiliaries to support the legions.

USA or CSA force vs. British and/or other European forces in 1863 or 1864 - could this resolve the endless debates about how good the militaries of both sides of the US Civil War were compared to the European militaries?;)

* I say "Spanish-funded" because while it fought for and was funded by the King of Spain, soldiers from Spain were probably only a minority of the rank and file - the majority were from the Low Countries, western Germany, or Italy.
 

robertp6165

Cambyses The Mad said:
Agreed, and I doubt Alexander would beat Caesar either. Roman armies were very, very good at dismantling the Macedonian Phalanx.
Click to expand...

Well, they were very, very good at dismantling the Macedonian phalanx as put forth by Macedon at the end of it's time as a great power. They had a very hard time against Pyrrhus of Epirus. And it should be pointed out that the phalanx as used by Alexander was significantly different from the one put forth by Perseus two centuries later.

The Macedonian phalanx itself was armed with shorter pikes (it is thought about 15 feet long instead of 21 feet, as was the case later on) which meant the phalanx maneuvered more easily and could change face more rapidly. While the Roman Legion overall was a more flexible tactical formation, it never faced a phalanx like the one devised by Philip II and used so effectively by Alexander.

Roman cavalry generally sucked throughout most of the Republican period. Caesar would have had access to foreign auxilliary cavalry such as the Celts and the Iberians which would make up part of that deficiency, but not all of it. The Macedonian cavalry under Alexander was at the top of its form, and would have been a strong factor in favor of Alexander's success.

Granted that Caesar was a great general, and he might well have proved equal to the challenge of taking on Alexander. But my money's on Alex.
 

Awilla the Hun

Huh? It took all of Trotsky's energy to organise a peasant conscript army held together by savage discipline. The 1914 BEF could shoot so fast that the Germans thought we had machine-guns. Hardly a contest at all.
Click to expand...

To make up, the Red Army (lets say 1922, picking a year more or less at random) probably outnumbered our heroic BEF by quite a bit, and also had some of WWI's new innovations, such as tanks and aircraft (only a handful of these, though-I really don't know how many though). Oh, and the First Cavalry Army. And armoured trains.

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Armored-Units-of-the-Russian-Civil-War_9781841765457/
 

Rex Romanum

Banned
robertp6165 said:
While the Roman Legion overall was a more flexible tactical formation, it never faced a phalanx like the one devised by Philip II and used so effectively by Alexander.
Click to expand...

This. All of the whole misconception of "Roman legions will easily kick Macedonian phalanxes' asses" thing was caused by Perseus' and Andriscus' incompetences during Third and Fourth Macedonian wars respectively, and also by Livy's propaganda in his work, Ab Urbe Condita.
And about Hannibal vs Alex, I'm still thinking that it was the poor Roman cavalry that make Hannibal was able to doing pretty well against them. Afterall, Hannibal couldn't win if their enemy's cavalry outmatched him, like what have been demonstrated at Zama. And I think Alex's cavalry was stronger, more numerous, and more disiplined than that of Scipio's at Zama, so...
 

DaleCoz

Incas versus Aztecs, both from 1517.

1940 Germans versus 1914 French (Yeah, the Germans would win, but would they do it as quickly as they did historically in 1940?)

Three 1940 French DLMs (sort of light armored divisions) acting as a unit, against a comparable number of 1940 German Panzer divisions.

1940 Germans against 1940 Soviets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top