Quote Originally Posted by Franconicus
A good gerneral is rarely outnumbered.
That's not really true... Alexander fought armies many times his size. Miltides repelled the Persians at Marathon and then marched back to Athens to repel the Persian Fleet. Hannibal at Cannae won a battle outnumbered 2 to 1 by enveloping the superior Roman force.

More modern examples:

Robert E. Lee even divided his forces in the face of superior numbers.
There were the American invasions of Iraq.

Outnumbering an opponent causes alot of a problems too. Only so many troops can be fighting at a certain time. That's why envloping works. A smaller organized force engages an equal amount of enemies at any given time at the perimeter of the enemy mass, thus everyone at the center are jsut standing there doing nothing.

There're alot of factors influencing battle, numbers isn't everything.