31 of the Most Fascinating War Tactics Throughout History

‘Inflatable tanks’
31 of the Most Fascinating War Tactics Throughout History

There’s more to war than just taking opposing forces and throwing them at each other until one side emerges victorious via sheer resources. If you want evidence that it’s a little more than “I’ve got more guys than you,” look at Ukraine currently. Tactics and smarts play a role along with firepower.

Sometimes, it’s traditional tactics, like holding fortified positions, fighting on familiar ground and so on. Other times, it’s more creative. Especially when you don’t have the greatest odds, sometimes your only hope is to get a little wild with your warfare. Historians on Reddit listed some of the most curious and interesting tactics that humanity’s seen used to secure military victory, and the best are collected below.

Timparty 10y ago The UK air dropped matchbooks into enemy lines which contained instructions on how a soldier could fake illnesses to get sent home. Once the Nazi leaders caught wind of this, they stopped sending their troops home who claimed to have said illnesses. Not only did this get healthy enemy troops sent home, it eventually ended with genuinely ill troops being sent back into combat spreading real disease amongst their ranks.
LuxDeorum 10y ago Harold hardrada pretended to die when injured during a siege. Then he had his men ask for permission to bury their leader inside the wall. The city capitulated so long as they didn't bring weapons inside. Thus Harold climbed into a coffin in full armor, was carried through the gates and when the time was right, burst out of his own coffin, fight his way back to the gates, open them and take the city.
Verteros1 10y ago The capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder might be one of the most ridiculous and effective attacks of all time. A large number of Dutch warships were docked at Den Helder during a particularly cold winter. Rather suddenly the dock froze over and the ships were trapped. A French cavalry regiment saw this and decided that they would charge the ships, they wrapped cloth around the hooves of the horses to soften their blow against the ice and charged the Dutch as they slept. They took every ship with no casualties. This is the only
codertom 10y ago Edited 10y ago In one of the most twisted head breaking intimidation tactics of all time King Goujian of Yue (496bc-465bc) got a reputation for facing down the opposing army and having the entire front line of his own army kill themselves to freak the opposition out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Goujian o f Yue I like to believe the way I first heard it - that he used criminals sentenced to die, and that they decapitated themselves. But these two details may actually be a translation error in the original historical account - the proposed alternative is that they were soldiers who were willing to
Freefight . 10y ago Flooding your own land, so that enemy's can't push forward. The Netherlands has done it for hundreds of years, until ww 2.
panzerkampfwagen 10y ago In New Guinea the Australian commander at Gona I believe it was decided when attacking a Japanese fortified position to tell the troops that the artillery would cease 1 minute earlier than he actually planned it. This would be so his troops would reach the Japanese defensive position with ONE MINUTE LEFT in the artillery barrage. His reasoning was that the friendly artillery would cause fewer casualties among his forces than the Japanese would if given a chance to get back in position. One of the officers actually leading the attack came to the same conclusion and
GhostalMedia . 10y ago . Edited 10y ago I've always been fond of inflatable tanks. They're brilliant and silly at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank
Wicket_Warrick 10y ago Project Fugo was a weird one. During WWII Japan launched 6000+ paper balloons attached to incendiary bombs, in hopes that they would float across a Pacific airstream and catch American forests on fire. Quite a few made it here (they found one in Canada in 2014), but they didn't do a lot of damage. And it was kept very hush hush by the U.S. government so almost no one heard about it, except a few hundred people in the Pacific Northwest who spotted the mysterious jellyfish in the sky slowly floating by.
perringoldeye . 10y ago Always found Operation Mincemeat to be a pretty ballsy move. Allies planted a corpse to throw off Axis from discovering the real landing sites for the Italian invasion.
perringoldeye . 10y ago Genghis Khan was pretty devious. My favourite was lighting extra campfires to make his armies seem much larger.
Another interesting warfare tactic was, unlike many armies of the day, avoiding killing civilians in the countryside and allowing them to, instead, stream toward the capital cities of their enemies as refugees. The refugees would sow panic in the populations of the cities and further strain resources, making taking the cities a much easier task. Honestly, you could put down pretty much everything the Mongol armies every did on here.
pepsisong2 10y ago One interesting tactic employed by the Russians in the early stages of WWII was the idea of Parasite fighters. Basically, smaller fighter aircraft have limited range due to small fuel tanks. Solution? Have a bigger aircraft carry them there. The Zveno-SPB was a ТВ-3 Heavy Bomber modified to carry 2 I-16 light fighter aircraft. Arming both fighters with 2x250kg bombs, and having them dive bomb enemy bridges and factories. This had many advantages, such as: Allowing the fighters to carry a heavier load than they could take off with under normal conditions Allowed the fighters to go
allie-the-cat 10y ago The Romans lit pigs on fire to scare Hannibal's elephants. On the other hand, Hannibal had the balls to march across the alps with fucking elephants. Ballsy all around.
mrcchapman 10y ago This is a tactic the Gurkhas used in Afghanistan (in the recent conflict there). If they were to attack a Taliban outpost, they'd sneak ahead and kill the outer perimeter guards. Then they'd cut off the guards' heads, and reattach them with sticks. When the guard change happened, the new guards would tap their friends on the shoulder and crap themselves as their friends' heads would fall off. Generally they didn't put up a fight after that - meaning the Gurkhas avoided having to do an assault that could cost lives. Gurkhas are crazy. Awesome, but crazy.
frachris87 . 10y ago The Celts are said to have got into combat on a few occasions completely naked. It's freaky enough to face off against a large army of big, screaming men decked out in armour, waving swords. But it'd totally fuck with your eyes/brain if they're totally buck-ass nude.
Ferare 10y ago I like the Finnish defence against Sovjet. By using snow shoes and skis, they outmanuevered the large, immobile battalions for years and constantly cut off supply lines. Finland was small and nowhere near the military might of the mighty Sovjets, but killed 15 enemies for every fallen and delayed their advancement for years. Knowing the environment, and being dressed for the occation really helped.
fromtheport 10y ago . Edited 10y ago That Chinese dude who psyched out an opposing General by opening the gates to his town and sat there playing a flute.
-eDgAR- S 10y ago Edited 10y ago Persian leader Cambyses II used cats to defeat an Egyptian army. Не had his soldiers paint cats on their shields and brought hundreds of cats and other animals that the Egyptians held sacred to the front lines. The Egyptians refused to fight the cat army and were easily defeated because of it.
brouwjon 10y ago In feudal Japan, an army of samurai once laid siege to a ninja fortress for several months. Sieges take long as shit because, unlike in movies, it usually boils down to the attackers camping outside of the castle until the people inside starve to death. However, the ninjas actually sneaked out of their fortress early on in the siege. A small number of them stayed behind, loaded with a ton of provisions that would last awhile, and made it look like the fortress was full of activity. The main group of ninjas, hiding in the forests nearby,
 10y ago One of the reasons the plague was spread to Europe was because of a battle where the Mongols were trying to conquer this city called Caffa. Their troops were dying due to the plague so they launched the bodies into the city using catapults. I find this interesting because it is one of the first accounts of biological warfare.
bananaBombst3r 10y ago Edited 10y ago A lot of Retreat, burn the big city, surprise turnaround in winter that our army can handle, but the enemies' army can't kind of Russian wars. Take The Patriotic War of 1812. General Kutuzov is so badass, he burns down Moscow to ashes, then wrecks Napoleons army in the winter and goes for them up to fucking Paris. His balls must have been made of steel, damn
hunter15991 10y ago Edited 10y ago It's a lot more bland than the other answers here, but the ideas of Daniel Morgan at Cowpens are fascinatingly simple. Не took into account the terrain, the morale of his various soldiers, and the British leader's pure cockiness, setting up a strategy where his weak troops would be in front, fall back over a hill, hold the ground with another group for a while, fall back over a 2nd hill, and then have the elite troops in the rear crush the tired British. George Washington's second cousin was on the field that day,
dutchguy94 10y ago Even though this will probably not be the most interesting war tactic in most people's eyes, I must say that the D-Day invasion was one of the most interesting war tactics. The way they managed to deceive the Germans in to thinking it was a fake invasion and the way they managed to logistically pull it off was astounding. Instead of going for a major port they just built a massive floating dock instead. If you were to go to Normandie now you can still see some of the massive dock segments and you will be amazed
immatellyouwhat 10y ago Edited 10y ago William T. Sherman was a union general in the Civil War. His tactic was to never actually go to battle. He'd show up a day early outside his enemy's camp and burn down there supplies and steal their artillery. They'd have to surrender right away. TL; DR: Encroachment, offsides, 1st and freedom. Edit: seems I got a few details wrong, hey it's been 10 years since I wrote that essay.
part-time-unicorn . 10y ago I've always been a fan of Russia's tendency to just retreat into Sibera whenever a European nation tries to invade them.
Caralife 10y ago If I remember correctly, the Romans used to hold mirrors up at their opponents who didn't know what they were. This made the enemies think that they were fighting some kind of magic army, thus scaring them.
 10y ago Blitzkrieg doctrine. It completely swept Europe off of its feet. Air formations overhead, bombers and ground attack aircraft destroying enemy armor and key target points, and then ground forces steamrolling through the fields removing any remaining opposition. It was fast, deadly, effective, and it staggered most of Europe within the first stage of WWII.
Barkingpanther . 10y ago The Maginot Line was a complete failure, but is still kinda cool.
 10y ago  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle camoufla ge) It was designed to cause the enemy to misjudge the distance to their target. There's lots of color photos too online
Roebuck527 . 10y ago In one of the World Wars a bunch if Germans, I think, were holed up on a great hill to be holed up on. The allies couldn't approach from any direction, so they dug under it and blew it up with so much explosives some nearby trenches snapped shut on the people inside.
TheLouTennant 10y ago During WWII, the Nazis had weapons factories being powered by hydroelectric plants upriver. England tried to bomb the dams, but couldn't get a direct hit. They couldn't use torpedoes, because the dams had anti-bomb netting. Their engineers designed bouncing bombs that would skip on the water and over the nets before exploding. It was mostly a success, the dams broke and flooded the factories downstream.

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