Most Notorious Military Blunders

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Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

I love reading accounts of the first few months of WWI, where they actually stood in lines and shot at eachother with bolt action rifles. Not muskets. Bolt Action Rifles! That takes balls of industrial-grade steel.

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If you can find a copy, John Keegan published a photo in his book Face of Battle that was absolutely chilling. It was "in combat" photo, taken from the front, of a Russian infantry unit charging. They were in reasonably neatly dressed lines with no more than a meter between soldiers -- charging bolt action rifles and machine guns over mostly open ground.

Keegan went on to argue that, given the number of troops crammed onto the Somme battlefield during the opening assault in 1916, numerous British regiments would have presented nearly as dense a target (albeit not in dressed lines and following a massive artillery barrage).

None can question their bravery, in that you are completely correct.

I think Vercingetorix made a big mistake when he didn't burn Avaricum. Should he have done that, the Romans under Caesar might have been in a really bad position with no food.

I carefully scanned this thread for it, and lo and behold no one has mentioned it yet. Reindeer cavalry.

A Scandinavian Army, either the Danes or the Norwegians did some testing to see if reindeer could be trained to be cavalry. Tragically, reindeer are more skittish than horses and thus prove to be unreliable mounts. The sounds of guns and cannon sending them into a frenzy. The riders did find the reindeer to be quite dangerous to ride too, and the research was abandoned.

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Originally Posted by Tsar Alexsandr

I carefully scanned this thread for it, and lo and behold no one has mentioned it yet. Reindeer cavalry.

A Scandinavian Army, either the Danes or the Norwegians did some testing to see if reindeer could be trained to be cavalry. Tragically, reindeer are more skittish than horses and thus prove to be unreliable mounts. The sounds of guns and cannon sending them into a frenzy. The riders did find the reindeer to be quite dangerous to ride too, and the research was abandoned.

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I doub it qualifies as a truly "notorious" blunder, but THANK YOU for a very funny image or two in my mind.

It is indeed a funny image isn't it. Well lucky them they did extensive testing before anyone made the folly of actually trying to field the skittish cavalry.

Onto a blunder that was used however, the Spanish cannons of the Spanish Armada. Made of inferior material and poorly designed often exploded after about two volleys or so. (But then the whole Spanish Armada in total is a sort of notorious blunder.) With the ships loaded with marine soldiers for an invasion and the sailors and gunners of lackluster quality. The ships too big to hit the little British ships, and so on.

Reindeer cavalry? Just when you think life couldn't get any goofier.

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Originally Posted by Brandy Blue

Reindeer cavalry? Just when you think life couldn't get any goofier.

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You're welcome! Yeah it was a rather silly idea. They always had a shortage of horse. Lo an behold a wild deer was not the answer to their cavalry woes... :laugh4: