Interesting facts of military history

"Napoleonic artillery consisted of horse artillery, which was generally light and mobile field artillery and siege guns, which were generally too heavy and slow to be much use on the battlefield. The main weapons were cannons (firing canister or round shot) and howitzers (which fired on a high trajectory, normally using exploding shells). The British also introduced Congreve Rockets by the end of this period."
Artillery, Napoleonic

 

"Swiss mercenaries were notable for their service in foreign armies, especially the armies of the Kings of France, throughout the Early Modern period of European history, from the Later Middle Ages into the Age of the European Enlightenment. Their service as mercenaries was at its apogee during the Renaissance, when their proven battlefield capabilities made them sought-after mercenary troops.
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, Swiss mercenaries are called "Switzers"."
Swiss mercenaries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"Part of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s the Tanker War attracted much international interest and some US intervention. With Iran blocking Iraqi exports of oil via the Shatt-al-Arab waterway the war against Iran was turning against the Iraqis. Syria closed Iraq's pipeline to the Mediterranean and it looked like economics would straggle the Iraqi war effort. Despite the unpopularity of Iraqs government the other Arab states feared the fundamentalism of Iran much more and came to Iraqs rescue. Jordan opened Aqaba to Iraqi imports (mainly weapons) and new pipelines were constructed across the desert to the Red Sea and to Turkey. Iraqi exports went through Kuwait also and the Arab states also directly funded Iraq to the sum of about $60 billion."
Tanker War 1984-1988

 

"The Battle of An Lộc was a major battle of the Vietnam War that lasted for 66 days and culminated in a decisive victory for South Vietnam. In many ways, the struggle for An Lộc in 1972 was an important battle of the war, as South Vietnamese forces halted the North Vietnamese advance towards Saigon.
The victory, however, was not complete, as Route 13 still was not open. The 18th ARVN division was moved in to replace the exhausted 5th Division. The 18th would spread out from An Loc and push the NVA back and the area stabilized. The fighting at An Lộc demonstrated the continued ARVN dependence on American air power and American advisors. For the NVA, it demonstrated their logistical constraints. They had to pause after each attack and bring up more supplies."
Battle of An L

 

List by death toll of ships sunk by submarines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Hundred Regiments Offensive

By the Chinese communist Eighth Route Army in July 1940, deeply shocked the Imperial Japanese Army. The 8th Route Army was held in low esteem by the IJA, but more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers were killed by sporadic battles.

From : Japanese Intelligence in WW2 by Ken Kotani

Hundred Regiments Offensive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When General Yasuji Okamura took command of the North China Area Army in the summer, the new approach was "Three All" meaning "kill all, burn all, and destroy all" in those areas containing Anti-Japanese forces.

 

First recorded fatal military balloon crash was 22/6/1907 at Debrecen, Austria-Hungary. Two French and one Austrian officers were killed as well as ten peasants on the ground.
List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft before 1925 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

First US military fatality in an aircrash was First Lieutenant T. Selfridge, US Signal Corps, who was killed on 17/9/1908 while a passenger in an aircraft flown by Orville Wright-
Thomas Etholen Selfridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"In the English Civil Wars (1642-51) disease caused more deaths than combat. There are no accurate figures for these periods, and it is not possible to give a precise overall figure for those killed in battle, as opposed to those who died from disease, or even from a natural decline in population.
These estimates indicate that England suffered a 3.7% loss of population, Scotland a loss of 6%, while Ireland suffered a loss of 41% of its population. Putting these numbers into the context of other catastrophes helps to understand the devastation to Ireland in particular. The Great Hunger of 1845–1852 resulted in a loss of 16% of the population, while during the Second World War the population of the Soviet Union fell by 16%."
English Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The Iran-Iraq war saw the only confirmed air-to-air helicopter battles in history with the Iraqi Mi-24 Hinds flying against Iranian AH-1J SeaCobras (supplied by the United States before the Iranian revolution) on many separate occasions."
[2.0] Hind In Foreign Service / Hind Upgrades / Mi-28 Havoc

 

"The largest continguous land empire was the 13th century Mongolian Empire, covering over 24 million km² at its peak, with an estimated population of over 100 million people. Modern estimates suggest that as many as 30 million people died during the Mongol conquests."
Mongol Empire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Thanks to Belasar for mentioning this in a completely unrelated thread.
"The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between the United States and the British Empire over the boundary between the US and British North America. The territory in dispute was the San Juan Islands, which lie between Vancouver Island and the North American mainland. The Pig War, so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig, is also called the Pig Episode, the Pig and Potato War, the San Juan Boundary Dispute or the Northwestern Boundary Dispute. The pig was the only casualty of the war, making the dispute otherwise bloodless."
Pig War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"We will hold out until our last bullet is spent. Could do with some whiskey".
Radio report by Pat Quinlan, Commander, A Company, 35[SUP]th[/SUP] BN of the Irish Army. On duty with UN forces in the Congo to protect civilians. They were being attacked by 3-5,000 Kantangese Rebels in Jadotville, Sep 1961. They held out for 6 days and, as far as I know, didn’t get any whiskey. They inflicted up to 300 KIA and 1,000 wounded to the rebels and suffered no men killed and 7 wounded. This action could rank with Roarks Drift as far as I’m concerned.

John Wayne's character in the movie The Green Berets, Colonel Mike Kirby, was based on U.S. Army (later Major) Lauri Tomi. He is known as the soldier who fought under three flags: Finnish, German (when he fought the Soviets in WWII. and the American (where he was known as "Larry Thorne"). He originally was a Finnish Army captain who led an infantry company in the Finnish Winter and Continuation Wars. He emigrated to the United States in the late 1940s, and in 1954 joined the U.S. Army. In November 1963 he joined the Special Forces unit A-734 in South Vietnam and fought in the Mekong Delta. He disappeared during a mission on 18 October 1965 and was reported MIA (Missing In Action). Posthumously promoted to Major, his remains were found in 1999 and formally identified in 2003. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, section 60, tombstone 8136, on 26 June 2003.

Edgar Allen Poe was a US Army NCO (some accounts credit him as being a Sgt Major of Artillery) prior to his discharge to attend West Point.

The great and famous Hunk papa Sioux War Leader Crazy Horse (the same Crazy Horse that defeated Custer) was also a US Army Sgt.
Four months before his death he enlisted in the Army as a scout and was awarded the rank of Sgt.
This item is found in an excellent book, Fort Robinson and the American West (Nebraska Press, 1999) by
Thomas R. Buecker, curator of the Nebraska State Historical Society’s Fort Robinson Museum. Other books that corroborate this fact are the two volumes of the Interviews of Eli S. Ricker (Nebraska, 2005), and the most outstanding account of the warrior chief’s life, Crazy Horse, a Lakota Life, by Kingsley M. Bray (Oklahoma Press, 2006).

16 July 1863, the steam Frigate USS Wyoming engaged several rebel Japanese vessels in the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in Japan. Cpt McDougal sank two Japanese ships and damaged another.

During the same period of actions William Seeley, an American serving as an ordinary seaman with the RN in 1864 received the VC for actions during the battle for the Shimonoseki Straits in Japan. The first American to receive the VC.

The United States expedition to Korea or Shinmiyangyo or simply the Korean Expedition of 1871 was the first American military action in Korea. It took place predominantly on and around the Korean island of Ganghwa. The reason for the presence of the American naval force in Korea was to support an American diplomatic delegation sent to establish trade and political relations with the peninsular nation, to ascertain the fate of the General Sherman merchant ship, and to establish a treaty assuring aid for shipwrecked sailors. When Korean shore batteries attacked two American warships on June 1, 1871, a punitive was launched ten days later after the commanding American admiral failed to receive an official apology from the Koreans. The isolationist nature of the Joseon Dynasty government and the assertiveness of the Americans led to a misunderstanding between the two parties that changed a diplomatic expedition into an armed conflict. On June 10, about 650 Americans landed and captured several forts, killing over 200 Korean troops with a loss of only three dead. Korea continued to refuse to negotiate with the United States until 1882.

The Battle of Sugar Point was fought on October 5, 1898 between the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] U.S. Infantry and members of the Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians in a failed attempt to apprehend Pillager Ojibwe Bugonaygeshig ("Old Bug" or "Hole-In-The-Day"), as the result of a dispute with Indian Service officials on the Leech Lake Reservation in Cass County, Minn.
Often erroneously referred to as "the last Indian Uprising in the United States", the engagement is also the first battle to be fought in the NW U.S. since the Winnebago War in 1827. It is considered to be the last battle fought between Native Americans and the U.S. Army.
As a result of this action the last Medal of Honor issued during the Indian Wars was awarded to Private Oscar Burkard of the 3rd US Infantry Regiment. Six soldiers were killed in the engagement and only one Indian, who was an Indian Policeman mistakenly killed by a US soldier.

During the Boxer Rebellion in China a small Japanese force of one officer and 24 sailors commanded by Col. Shiba (defending the Foreign Compound in Peking) distinguished itself in several ways. It had the almost unique distinction of suffering greater than 100 percent casualties. This was possible because a great many of the Japanese troops were wounded, entered into the casualty lists, then returned to the line of battle only to be wounded once more and again entered in the casualty lists.

 

"Rubber Coating
Anechoic tiles are rubber-like tiles containing thousands of tiny voids, applied to the outer hulls of military ships and submarines. The technology of anechoic tiles was developed by Germany in the Second World War. After the war it was not used until the 1970s when the Soviet Union began coating its submarines in rubber tiles. Modern Russian tiles are about 4 inches thick, and apparently reduced the acoustic signature of submarines to 10% to 1% of its original strength. The US Navy began applying a similar coating to its submarines in 1988, and navies around the world quickly followed suit."
Anechoic tile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

British Secretary of State for War Field Marshall Herbert Horatio Kitchener 1850-1916, was possibly the highest-ranking soldier to die in action in WW1-
Who was the highest ranking officer killed in action during World War I?
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

At the Second Lateran Council in April 1139, Pope Innocent II banned the use of crossbows against Christians-
Second Council of the Lateran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The domino theory was a theory during the 1950s to 1980s, promoted at times by the government of the United States, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world."
Domino theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The Kaska (Georgian: ქასქები) (also Kaška, later Tabalian Kasku)[SUP][1][/SUP] were a loosely-affiliated Bronze Age non-Indo-European tribal people of mountainous PonticAnatolia, known from Hittite sources.[SUP][2][/SUP] They lived in the mountainous region between the core Hittite region in eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea, and are cited as the reason that the later Hittite empire never extended northward to that area.
The Kaska, probably originating from the eastern shore of the Propontis, may have displaced the speakers of the Palaic language from their home in Pala.
Early history
The Kaska first appear in the Hittite prayer inscriptions that date from the reign of Hantili II, c. 1450 BC, and make references to their movement into the ruins of the holy city of Nerik. During the reign of Hantili's son, Tudhaliya II (c. 1430 BC), "Tudhaliya's 3rd campaign was against the Kaskas." His successor Arnuwanda I composed a prayer for the gods to return Nerik to the empire; he also mentioned Kammama and Zalpuwa as cities which he claimed had been Hittite but which were now under the Kaskas. Arnuwanda attempted to mollify some of the Kaska tribes by means of tribute.
Some time between the reigns of Arnuwanda and Suppiluliuma I (about 1330 BCE), letters found in Maşat Höyük note that locusts ate the Kaskas' grain. The hungry Kaska were able to join withHayasa-Azzi and Isuwa to the east, as well as other enemies of the Hittites, and burn Hattusa, the Hittite capital, to the ground. It is probable that they also burned the Hittites' secondary capital Sapinuwa. Suppiliuma's grandson Hattusili III in the mid-13th century BC wrote of the time before Tudhaliya. He said that in those days the Kaska had "made Nenassa their frontier" and that their allies in Azzi-Hayasa had done the same to Samuha.
In the Amarna letters, Amenhotep III wrote to the Arzawan king Tarhunta-Radu that the "country Hattusa" was obliterated, and further asked for Arzawa to send him some of these Kaska people of whom he had heard. The Hittites also enlisted subject Kaska for their armies. When the Kaska were not raiding or serving as mercenaries, they raised pigs and wove linen, leaving scarcely any imprint on the permanent landscape.
Tudhaliya III and Suppiluliuma (c. 1375–1350 BC) set up their court in Samuha and invaded Azzi-Hayasa from there. The Kaska intervened, but Suppiluliuma defeated them; after Suppiluliuma had fully pacified the region, Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma were able to move on Hayasa and defeat it too, despite some devastating guerrilla tactics at their rear. Some twelve tribes of Kaska then united under Piyapili, but Piyapili was no match for Suppiluliuma. Eventually Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma returned Hattusa to the Hittites. But the Kaska continued to be a menace both inside and out. At one point they fielded 800 chariots.In the time of ailing Arnuwanda II (around 1323 BC), the Hittites worried that the Kaskas from Ishupitta within the kingdom to Kammama without might take advantage of the plague in Hatti. The veteran commander Hannutti moved to Ishupitta, but he died there. Ishupitta then seceded from Hatti, and Arnuwanda died too. Arnuwanda's brother and successor Mursili II recorded in his annals that he defeated this rebellion. Over the ongoing decades the Kaskans were also active in Durmitta and in Tipiya, by Mount Tarikarimu in the land of Ziharriya, and by Mount Asharpaya on the route to Pala; they rebelled and/or performed egregious banditry in each place. At first Mursili defeated each Kaska uprising piecemeal."
Kaskians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The Kaska (Georgian: ქასქები) (also Kaška, later Tabalian Kasku) were a loosely-affiliated Bronze Age non-Indo-European tribal people of mountainous Pontic Anatolia, known from Hittite sources. They lived in the mountainous region between the core Hittite region in eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea, and are cited as the reason that the later Hittite empire never extended northward to that area.
The Kaska, probably originating from the eastern shore of the Propontis, may have displaced the speakers of the Palaic language from their home in Pala.
Early history
The Kaska first appear in the Hittite prayer inscriptions that date from the reign of Hantili II, c. 1450 BC, and make references to their movement into the ruins of the holy city of Nerik. During the reign of Hantili's son, Tudhaliya II (c. 1430 BC), "Tudhaliya's 3rd campaign was against the Kaskas." His successor Arnuwanda I composed a prayer for the gods to return Nerik to the empire; he also mentioned Kammama and Zalpuwa as cities which he claimed had been Hittite but which were now under the Kaskas. Arnuwanda attempted to mollify some of the Kaska tribes by means of tribute.
Some time between the reigns of Arnuwanda and Suppiluliuma I (about 1330 BCE), letters found in Maşat Höyük note that locusts ate the Kaskas' grain. The hungry Kaska were able to join withHayasa-Azzi and Isuwa to the east, as well as other enemies of the Hittites, and burn Hattusa, the Hittite capital, to the ground. It is probable that they also burned the Hittites' secondary capital Sapinuwa. Suppiliuma's grandson Hattusili III in the mid-13th century BC wrote of the time before Tudhaliya. He said that in those days the Kaska had "made Nenassa their frontier" and that their allies in Azzi-Hayasa had done the same to Samuha.
In the Amarna letters, Amenhotep III wrote to the Arzawan king Tarhunta-Radu that the "country Hattusa" was obliterated, and further asked for Arzawa to send him some of these Kaska people of whom he had heard. The Hittites also enlisted subject Kaska for their armies. When the Kaska were not raiding or serving as mercenaries, they raised pigs and wove linen, leaving scarcely any imprint on the permanent landscape.
Tudhaliya III and Suppiluliuma (c. 1375–1350 BC) set up their court in Samuha and invaded Azzi-Hayasa from there. The Kaska intervened, but Suppiluliuma defeated them; after Suppiluliuma had fully pacified the region, Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma were able to move on Hayasa and defeat it too, despite some devastating guerrilla tactics at their rear. Some twelve tribes of Kaska then united under Piyapili, but Piyapili was no match for Suppiluliuma. Eventually Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma returned Hattusa to the Hittites. But the Kaska continued to be a menace both inside and out. At one point they fielded 800 chariots.In the time of ailing Arnuwanda II (around 1323 BC), the Hittites worried that the Kaskas from Ishupitta within the kingdom to Kammama without might take advantage of the plague in Hatti. The veteran commander Hannutti moved to Ishupitta, but he died there. Ishupitta then seceded from Hatti, and Arnuwanda died too. Arnuwanda's brother and successor Mursili II recorded in his annals that he defeated this rebellion. Over the ongoing decades the Kaskans were also active in Durmitta and in Tipiya, by Mount Tarikarimu in the land of Ziharriya, and by Mount Asharpaya on the route to Pala; they rebelled and/or performed egregious banditry in each place. At first Mursili defeated each Kaska uprising piecemeal."
Kaskians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"The Crusade of 1101 was a minor crusade of three separate movements, organized in 1100 and 1101 in the successful aftermath of the First Crusade. It is also called the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted due to the number of participants who joined this crusade after having turned back from the First Crusade. The Crusade of 1101 arose from a depletion of personnel suffered in battles with the Seljuq Turks in the First Crusade.
Calls for reinforcements from the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Pope Paschal II, successor to Pope Urban II (who died before learning of the outcome of the crusade that he had called), urged a new expedition. He especially urged those who had taken the crusade vow but had never departed, and those who had turned back while on the march. Some of these people were already scorned at home and faced enormous pressure to return to the east; Adela of Blois, wife of Stephen, Count of Blois, who had fled from the Siege of Antioch in 1098, was so ashamed of her husband that she would not permit him to stay at home. Some too were fleeing from the scorn that they were receiving at home, and as with all crusades, most were leaving oppressive poverty in search of a better life."
Crusade of 1101 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

View attachment 17464

FACTS?
Base to Shoulder: 150 feet
Right Arm: 340 feet
Widest part of arm holding torch: 12 1/2 feet
Right thumb: 35 feet
Thickest part of body: 29 feet
Left hand length: 30 feet
Face: 60 feet
Nose: 21 feet
Longest spike of head piece: 70 feet
Torch and flame combined: 980 feet
Number of men in flame of torch: 12,000
Number of men in torch: 2,800
Number of men in right arm: 1,200?
Number of men in body, head and balance of figure only: 2,000
TOTAL MEN: 18,000

I'm thinking this has already been posted somewhere. Believe that it should be seen again, absolutely amazing.
Doughboys in training, getting ready for the War to End All Wars.