Most important Russian battles

On the 5th November 1854 a  smaller British and (yes) French army beat off an assault by the Russians at Inkerman in the Crimea. It was known as “The  Soldier’s Battle” as men fought small engagements due to poor visibility in dense fog.
The Russians had massed 32000 men on the Allied flank and headed for the 2700 man 2nd Division, commanded today by the aggressive Pennefather. Instead of falling back in the face of superior numbers, he advanced. The British had their rifles to thank this day as they took a terrible toll on the musket armed Russian Infantry, who were hemmed in by the valley’s bottle neck shape. The British 2nd Division pushed the Russians back onto their reinforcements and should have been routed by the Russians’ numbers, but the fog and the British Light Division saved them. Three successive Russian commanders were killed in this engagement.
The Russians other 15000 men approached and assailed the Sandbag Battery, but they were routed by 300 British defenders vaulting the wall, blunting the lead Battalions, who were then attacked in the flank. More Russian attacks ensured the Battery exchanged hands several times.
The British 4th Division was not as lucky. Arriving on the field, its flanking move was itself flanked and its commander, Cathcart, killed. This enabled the Russians to advance, but not for long. They were soon driven off by French units arriving from their camps and made no more headway.
The battle was lost and they had to withdraw.
This was the last time the Russians tried to defeat the Allied troops in the field. Despite this reverse, however, the Russian attack had seriously stalled the Allies from capturing Sevastopol. They had to instead, spend one harsh winter on the heights overlooking the city, before it fell in September of 1855.
The British suffered 2573 casualties, the French 1800 and the Russians 11959.

July 16th 1212: the important battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, in Andalucia,  was fought and won by the Christian armies of Spain and Portugal. It was also Pope Innocent III’s fourth Crusade( 2 had been to the Holy Land and the other against the Albigensian heretics). It was a great feat to get the warring and jealous kings of Aragon, Navarre and Portugal to fight alongside Castille, but it was very necessary. The Moors had been on the Iberian Peninsula since the Arab chief Tarik crossed at what is now Gibraltar, in 711AD.
The battle did not see the eviction of the Moors from Spain, but it was the beginning of Spanish resurgence, which would culminate  with Ferdinand and Isabella’s capture of their last stronghold, that of Granada in 1492.
Never again did Europe have to fear from Muslim invasion from this direction.
The next wave would come from the East and towards Constantinople and then Vienna.

@frimmel:

They can’t let the shuttle go uncovered but were they to do any other sort of story the newscasters might be required to learn something about science. And since most Americans don’t really know anything about science anyway you get pablum.

Could be this.

But I think more it has to do with slow news day (i.e. the filler possibility), or my best reason - a writing device to catch the reader’s attention and relate to it.

Space news isn’t exciting anymore, it seems.  Not everyone is an astronaut or interested in the technicalities of the mission or launch.  Put something about Free Bird in the title and it sparks some interest.

Looking at the article only a few sentences even talk about the song.  The rest is about the astronauts and mission.

@Amon:

@cyan:

@Petrucci08:

The indian Sepoy mutiny of 1857.

…. and if you stretched it enough i suppose you could call the reformation a civil war in the church  :-D

they forgot a lot of them without haveing to strech. like all the english civil wars and the glorious revolution. and they forgot the war where more americans died than any other war. (also happens to be the second modern war) the Civil War. (what a creative name) Does the Hungarian Revolution count as one and all the other minor communist revolts. Does Italian Renuifaction count as a civil war. because it just this one dude going around and forcing others to join the great italian cause. but someone said something about Greece. they did have a civil war right after world war I i think.

Greece had its civil war after WWII

the communists tried to seize power

the USA and UK backed up anticommunist forces which eventually win

very important event was closing the borders of Yugoslavia and Albania to Greece, that how Greek communists found themselves trapped
-it happened after the Tito-Stalin split

and the Greek communists were i think ideologicaly connected to Soviets

yeah i think that happened after both wars. first the brits and the french were dividing up Turkey and the Russians and Americans created the coldwar.

@Imperious:

Yes the key to do that would have been to invade the Soviet eastern territories before they were transfered. The reality of a japanese “northern” solution was often discounded due to the huge defeat they faced in the border clash with the Soviets in 1939. Its hard to go against experience. My feeling is Stalin could have  ignored or buffered this huge area with a few troops playing for time until a decisive outcome could have been obtained against Germany. The japanese didnt posess enough troops at any point to even push even 500 miles into Soviet Territory. They had to commit too many in China in a war that could not have been decided for even another 10 years. Remember they fought them since 1931 with no decisive result.
The key was to keep bagging Stalins armies using proven tactics. But with the strategic outlook of true mobile army having the ability to retreat and reform for counterattacks once the Soviet offensive lost steam. This elastic approach was what Manstein favored, while Hitler kept his old WW1 ideas intact. Hitler allowing his generals to fight the war would have brought victory. That along with the extra month of time.

Yeah, that was the other thing.

He acquired all of Europe through a mobile army, then hunkered down in the worst place in the world at the worst time.

Mussolini made the trains run on time. The rest of that made no sence… sorry.

No, it is an energy weapon.  Even the targetting system of the Phalanx is not THAT good.  And if there IS a targetting system that will fit on a tank that IS that good, then the Phalanx would be turned into a single-shot weapon TOMORROW :-)

I’m not going to bother arguing right now, just keep listing cool battles as I think of them. That being said, siege of Constantinople, 1453! :wink: