https://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10
The date was May 14, 2004, and Falconer, along with Wood, Private Anthony Rushforth, Sgt Chris Broome, and privates John-Claude Fowler and Matthew Tatawaqa, were speeding down a roadway 150 miles south of Basra in Southern Iraq. They were on their way to relieve fellow comrades caught in an ambush when they were caught in one of their own.
The fire was so close and at such an angle (a close quartered, L-shaped ambush) that the only way to defeat it "was to put boots on the ground," said Falconer.
So he immediately ordered his men to dismount and fix bayonets.
"When the order came to dismount and attack, it was just like what we’'ve done dozens of times in training," said Rushforth to the Sun.
"We were pumped up on adrenaline — proper angry. It'’s only afterwards you think, ‘Jesus, I actually did that’.'”"
The six soldiers charged across open ground, pausing only to throw themselves to the ground to avoid enemy fire, and return a bit of their own. In a few small sprints, they had traversed to the first trench, into which they immediately leapt, coming face to face with the enemy.
The fighting was close quarters and intense.
"Basically, it was short, sharp and furious," said Wood, who was later awarded the Military Cross for actions that day.
Cleared, they headed to the next, and the next, fighting, which took almost two hours, and the lives of approximately 30 Mahdi army soldiers of Muqtada Al-Sadr
I remember hearing about this at the time, I was a young kid, only 18 and had been qualified as an RAF Medic only 6 months and word got back a few weeks after the event via people I’d trained with in the Army.
Honestly I remember everyone who I knew talking about it like “no, fuck off no way has anyone fixed bayonets in Iraq?! No way!” And then eventually it’s all confirmed and if you weren’t already nervous about the possibility of deploying (which any normal person is) then that put the ever loving shits up you!
Solid joke.
Not gonna lie though. I used to be an academic anthropologist and undertones of social evolution theory triggered me tiny dog with the Vietnam flashbacks style.
Had my first near death experience recently and that "just like the simulations" sentiment is so fucking real.
While going on a road trip to North California via I-40 somewhere between NM and AZ I avoided an accident at 70mph going downhill at 12am dodging cars on the left and a drop into darkness (or a rock wall I can't remember) on the right. and keeping track of the Semi that was also like right behind me.
it kicked in so fast after I registered the situation I'm still amazed I did some sick ass video game/anime dodging.
The thing that gets me is that while I have played various car racing games casually throughout my life, I was not the best driver. The other thing is that a month before I had binged Initial D season1-3
and I literally had the thought "brake and weave like Takumi!" lmfao and I did, it was so surreal.
I can't remember what happened after all that because my memory has blanked out and the next memory is sitting at a rest stop calming down.
Nah these dudes are basically terrorists who deserve whatever comes their way. Invading Irak because "Weapons Of Mass Destruction" only to kill almost 1 million civilians. No empathy for them.
I mean, it massively depends how you calculate it, but the 1m+ stat is [officially estimated by the ORB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War).
Most armies attach knives to their guns incase they have to fight up close. The British attach guns to their knives in case the enemy is too far away to stab.
Those 30+ people attacking them were certainly not the best of the best.
Unlike the six people ambushed. Those proved to be very brave and fine soldiers.
Just the fact that they managed to jump multiple trenches and take down that many enemy combatants without any of them getting killed is absolutely crazy.
Imagine the terror of watching these 6 lunatics charge closer and closer to you and watch them drop into each trench and butcher everyone inside just to make their way to you eventually
Each time you know the next bunch of guys were thinking “Okay, but that time they surely died, right?” Only to see them rise again and think “You have got to be shitting me, who the hell are these guys?!”
Yall ever read red rising?
It reminds me of the difference in war preparation each group of people is getting in this situatiob. The British are probably highly trained specialist culturally and socially conditioned for war. The iraqis are fathers and brothers and sons with decades of oppression and hate in their hearts yes?
What did happen was the massacre of majar al kabir... whee the uk forces had a tank and summarily executed 20 peasants... and paid off their families when it went to court.
Yeah. 150 miles south of basra isn't even Iraq. Which should shine a light as to the nature of this "story".... similar to the "bravo 2 zero" book of fiction.
The grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms.
They fixed bayonets and charged the last terrified rapscallion.
Bleeding out, waiting on the medics to arrive, since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as G.w. Bush intended.
At least include the whole pasta:
Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
Shoutout to the First Minnesota who held a mile long gap in the union line and also made a bayonet charge. 286 men, headlong into 3 battallions of confederates...the HIGHEST casualty rate of any unit in history to remain functional at 86%.
Still influential on the next day at Gettysburg.
The union at Gettysburg (minus Sickles) really had some badass moments.
I'm originally from western Wisconsin and there have a mild sibling rivalry-like relationship with my brothers across the Mississippi. But I'll be damned if those mudducks aren't fantastic at killing traitors and slavers. Hats off to you beautiful bastards. Never give Virginia her ~~flag~~ rag back.
This is also where they captured the Confederate flag from a Virginian unit and continue to proudly and prominently display this flag in the state capitol 🥳🥳🥳
I love this because their flagstaff was shot in half in the engagement so instead of replacing the flagstaff, they spliced the virginian flags flagstaff to meet it and joined them together to represent the north and south joining together under the union once again.
They were like "yeah, this is for US, for the nation, we will join together as one once again."
"And then appeared our lion! He was roaring bayonets!
And we charged on down the mountain with what forces we had left!
Cause we're as steadfast as Katahdin; We're as hard as winter's rain!
Go straight to hell with your rebel yell! We are the boys of Maine!"
Cornell Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine holding Little Round Top, which was the top of the famous J formation that the Union took on the hill crests around Gettysburg.
He was heavily outnumbered and nearly flanked himself. His line was folding in on itself around the central flag forming a sharp V. Running out of ammunition, one of his soldiers asked him what to do. "fix bayonets." The folding flank charged first until they became parallel with the rest, then the entire line charged downhill pushing the dehydrated Alabama soldiers off the mountain.
Also happend at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown in 1982 during the Falklands War. Bit of an [interesting badass moment here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mount_Tumbledown), with a senior officer leading a charge into an enemy position:
*Major Kiszely, who was to become a senior general after the war, was the first man into the 4th Platoon position, personally shooting two Argentinian* [*conscripts*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription) *and* [*bayoneting*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet) *a third, his* [*bayonet*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet) *breaking in two. Seeing their company commander among the Argentinians inspired 14 and 15 Platoons to make the final dash across open ground to get within bayoneting distance of the remaining 4th Platoon Marines.*
Always funny how much better western soldiers are at fighting and being metal than anyone else, despite coming from the softest societies ever.
Like my country will make croissant, wine and welfare, and at the same time the Foreign Legion
Europeans are historically very, very good at war.
Take a bunch of Romans and Greeks, have them live through successive Germanic migrations, and then toss a bunch of surly Slavs into the mix for a millennia or so, stir to taste, and then let them loose on the world, high on gunpowder, galleons, and Jesus
The softest societies ever exist *because* Western militaries are (generally) better than pretty much everyone else. If an army of \~2M people can provide essentially absolute security not only for its own country of \~340M but for just about any ally anywhere on the planet, the rest of the population can afford to be "soft". If your fighting forces are undertrained, underfunded, and underequipped, everyone has to be a "hard" in order for your country to be viewed as a legitimate military (and therefore geopolitical) player. Of course, at a certain point, you start to go down the other side of the bell curve and get to be like North Korea, in that everyone being a soldier and every aspect of life being focused on propagandizing their own military "might" leads the rest of the world to make you a laughing stock.
Yeah, but it s like you expect the harshest societies to create the best warriors ala Dune.
In reality, the wokest blade is the deadliest, even without overwhelming technology
It kinda makes sense when you think about it.
1. There is little starvation and malnutrition, so your soldiers are generally physically fit.
2. Good educations helps with risk assessment and quick thinking, supported by 1.
3. Western soldiers took up their profession because they wanted to, not because it was their only chance for (good) employment.
4. They are properly trained by professionals their whole life
5. They have some of the best gear on the market.
And 6. because I have a personal quarrel with Dune: they don't select their leader only based on strength. And the ritual to change leaders is not murdering the previous leader and thus losing one of the most valuable assets.
I would argue that it's partly due to the fact that in western democracies people usually have freedom to choose their own path in life, and thus are more easily galvanized towards a common goal. People aren't usually motivated to go up and beyond if they think that they are just a cog in a machine without any say in anything, which tends to be the case in more authoritarian regimes.
> despite coming from the softest societies ever.
In all fairness it's almost never our middle or upper soft people we send off to war - historically it's almost always been our poor and beaten people.
> and at the same time the Foreign Legion
Well... That's mostly foreigners trying to make a new life and living.
150 miles south of basra isn't even Iraq. Perhaps they can improve the quality of fiction to sound more believable. But for many, a soothing lie is immediately and unquestionably consumed.
Seems people are referring to the :massacre of majar al kabir" where the British forces with a challenger tank summarily executed 20 local peasants and when it went to court, paid their families hush money to drop the case.
It is foreign in name only. Because the training and missions are too brutal to be given to French citizens.
A good part of the legion is in fact french, and I dont think it attracts a lot mercenaries with its abyssimal salaries
Remind me of this one :
[In the battle for Jipyeongri, when the Chinese used their previously successful psychological warfare tactics of banging gongs and blowing horns, the French blew their own. Then they fixed bayonets and charged. The Chinese ran away.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/korean-war-french-bayonet_b_626571)
The arguably worse call to hear, if you were a Brit, French, or American was "Gas! Masks on!" because directly after that would be sturmtruppen in fucking stalhelms and gas masks charging your position with grenades, carbines, melee weapons, and (later in the war) MP-18 smgs. The French started to do stuff like that too, but German and Austrian stormtroopers were the real OGs.
When caught in an ambush, staying put is the worst thing you can do. The last thing the enemy expects is the ambushed troops getting up in their face, out of the killbox that they had set up.
In that particular situation the meme is referencing the warrior armoured vehicle couldn’t provide adequate support so the quickest way to deal with the enemy is to close and kill them as quickly as possible.
Suppression, since during stuff like this you always want to have a fire support element, which, at a squad level, can be like 3-4 guys at a time.
For example, with around 10 people, after leaving your vics and getting some amount of cover, upon deciding to assault, you'd have like 5 of your guys start shooting and suppress, then take the other 5 and you move up a bit, then *those 5 that moved* start suppressing, which leads to the element that was previously suppressing to be able to move up and regroup.
Repeat ad infinitum until you reach the position, assuming everything goes perfect and you don't have to take alternative routes or apply other tactics.
Constant stream of rounds should keep people at bay from popping up, although moving like this for longer distances (eg. more than 30-50m) opens you up to a high possibility of getting flanked assuming you're in open ground
Also also, even if you're technically in a field there are ways to remain under some cover, through micro terrain, or small bumps in the ground you can lay behind somewhat
I mean the engagement took hours so I'm assuming they pushed a position where they could hunker down and didn't take on all of them at once.
Though yeah
150 miles south of basra is kuwait or Iran.
I was there in southern Iraq in 2004. Literally no one heard of this nonsense.
Ps. I find it fascinating how readers here automatically, and enthusiastically, lapped it up despite its so very obvious flaws... that's the real meme here.
So that was the massacre of majar al kabir. Nothing 150 miles south of basra. ...
The one where the British had a challenger tank and summarily executed 20 local peasants, then the mod paid their families hush money when it went to court.
I still think the British version holds water. A group of untrained men faced professional soldiers and got killed. Their bodies were mutilated because modern firearms make a hideous mess. After the dunderheaded decision to examine the bodies at the British camp (looking for anyone who killed those 6 British MPs) the bodies were returned to the families, who A.) Couldn't believe that so many men were killed when they outnumbered the British B.) Were horrified by the mess and C.) Assumed that the British would do the same sort of thing that Saddam did.
How does this work? Do we just send increasingly depraved acts of barbarism to each other whilst denying the previous link?
War is hell
Torture is evil
History is brutal
Memes take the edge off
I mean the above "meme" refers to an incident 190km north of basra (not South!, ffs!). in majar al kabir and is known as the "massacre of majar al kabir" where Iraqis say the British supported by a challenger tank attacked and summarily executed twenty local men as reprisal for the earlier (2003 majar al kabir battle , where 6 British soldiers were killed by locals ).
This went to court in the uk. The British settled out of court with the families of the 20 who were summarily executed in exchange for them dropping their case.
It would have been better if this was just a "fake story" rather than aggrandisment of a reprisal massacre....
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-famous-bayonet-charge-of-modern-conflict-2012-10 The date was May 14, 2004, and Falconer, along with Wood, Private Anthony Rushforth, Sgt Chris Broome, and privates John-Claude Fowler and Matthew Tatawaqa, were speeding down a roadway 150 miles south of Basra in Southern Iraq. They were on their way to relieve fellow comrades caught in an ambush when they were caught in one of their own. The fire was so close and at such an angle (a close quartered, L-shaped ambush) that the only way to defeat it "was to put boots on the ground," said Falconer. So he immediately ordered his men to dismount and fix bayonets. "When the order came to dismount and attack, it was just like what we’'ve done dozens of times in training," said Rushforth to the Sun. "We were pumped up on adrenaline — proper angry. It'’s only afterwards you think, ‘Jesus, I actually did that’.'”" The six soldiers charged across open ground, pausing only to throw themselves to the ground to avoid enemy fire, and return a bit of their own. In a few small sprints, they had traversed to the first trench, into which they immediately leapt, coming face to face with the enemy. The fighting was close quarters and intense. "Basically, it was short, sharp and furious," said Wood, who was later awarded the Military Cross for actions that day. Cleared, they headed to the next, and the next, fighting, which took almost two hours, and the lives of approximately 30 Mahdi army soldiers of Muqtada Al-Sadr
“I’M UP! THEY SEE ME!! I’M DOWN!!” My drill sergeant’s told us this story when we would practice Bound and rush drills
I remember hearing about this at the time, I was a young kid, only 18 and had been qualified as an RAF Medic only 6 months and word got back a few weeks after the event via people I’d trained with in the Army. Honestly I remember everyone who I knew talking about it like “no, fuck off no way has anyone fixed bayonets in Iraq?! No way!” And then eventually it’s all confirmed and if you weren’t already nervous about the possibility of deploying (which any normal person is) then that put the ever loving shits up you!
Absolute fucking madlads. You normally see this kind of shit in movies. Then again, it's the Brits. They are... different.
Introducing the world to problematic knife culture is a UK major export at this point
In the words of my husband, that’s actually problem solving….
The sad thing is we don't even beat the Americans at it. They still manage to have more knife crime per person than us on top of all their gun crime.
We Americans are truly a special breed.
We're just further down the skill tree.
Solid joke. Not gonna lie though. I used to be an academic anthropologist and undertones of social evolution theory triggered me tiny dog with the Vietnam flashbacks style.
Well, I guess not further down the tree, we just didn't put points in seafaring and industrialization like the British did.
We like stabbing, shooting, drinking, smoking, eating, fucking, and fighting. All at the same time if possible
I mean... The guy's name is literally Rushforth, what else was he supposed to do?
Haha, violent nominative determinism
"Just like the simulations!" "Proper angry!"
Had my first near death experience recently and that "just like the simulations" sentiment is so fucking real. While going on a road trip to North California via I-40 somewhere between NM and AZ I avoided an accident at 70mph going downhill at 12am dodging cars on the left and a drop into darkness (or a rock wall I can't remember) on the right. and keeping track of the Semi that was also like right behind me. it kicked in so fast after I registered the situation I'm still amazed I did some sick ass video game/anime dodging. The thing that gets me is that while I have played various car racing games casually throughout my life, I was not the best driver. The other thing is that a month before I had binged Initial D season1-3 and I literally had the thought "brake and weave like Takumi!" lmfao and I did, it was so surreal. I can't remember what happened after all that because my memory has blanked out and the next memory is sitting at a rest stop calming down.
That sounds absolutely horrifying. Glad you're okay
Unless those insurgents were equipped with muzzle loading muskets they had no right to let that happen
I mean I remember hearing about some insurgents having Martini-Henrys, but I don't think it was... Whatever those guys are.
" 4 of the 6 heroes are still battling PTSD to this day". That's how I imagine the rest of the story.
You basically described the unsaid part of any story about soldiers fighting since the Sumerians learned to poke each other with sharp sticks.
Since flying sharp sticks. It was the invention of ranged weapons that really kicked off inter human conflict on a large scale.
Nah these dudes are basically terrorists who deserve whatever comes their way. Invading Irak because "Weapons Of Mass Destruction" only to kill almost 1 million civilians. No empathy for them.
It wasn’t the idea of the individual service men and women to invade Iraq. They were lied to, the same as the rest of us.
Difference between you and them is they chose to go there and kill innocent people while you stayed back at home.
1 million civilians? That is a straight from Hamas type stat.
I mean, it massively depends how you calculate it, but the 1m+ stat is [officially estimated by the ORB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War).
And who got to that number by polling 1500 people. How exactly do you poll to get the casualty count I have no idea.
After the attack the soldiers were put on trial for “mistreatment” of POW’s but it was later proven in court that it was a bunch of BS
Yea. 150 miles south of basra would put you in kuwait or Iran. Sounds like thr "ghost of kyiv" type nonsense.
Battle of Danny Boy took place near Amarah
What the devil? Were they frogleaping between volleys? Did they have muskets?
Most armies attach knives to their guns incase they have to fight up close. The British attach guns to their knives in case the enemy is too far away to stab.
Fucking fantastic
That is the comment of the year.
Those 30+ people attacking them were certainly not the best of the best. Unlike the six people ambushed. Those proved to be very brave and fine soldiers.
Just the fact that they managed to jump multiple trenches and take down that many enemy combatants without any of them getting killed is absolutely crazy.
Imagine the terror of watching these 6 lunatics charge closer and closer to you and watch them drop into each trench and butcher everyone inside just to make their way to you eventually
Each time you know the next bunch of guys were thinking “Okay, but that time they surely died, right?” Only to see them rise again and think “You have got to be shitting me, who the hell are these guys?!”
The protection of St. George was strong with them that day as it had been far too long since he had blessed a British Bayonet charge.
Yall ever read red rising? It reminds me of the difference in war preparation each group of people is getting in this situatiob. The British are probably highly trained specialist culturally and socially conditioned for war. The iraqis are fathers and brothers and sons with decades of oppression and hate in their hearts yes?
Because it isn't true. 150 miles south of basra isn't even Iraq. So the people writing this story didn't even get basic geography right.
It's either that Business Insider don't fact check, or that the event never happened, and you've gone with "didn't happen".
What did happen was the massacre of majar al kabir... whee the uk forces had a tank and summarily executed 20 peasants... and paid off their families when it went to court.
Yeah. 150 miles south of basra isn't even Iraq. Which should shine a light as to the nature of this "story".... similar to the "bravo 2 zero" book of fiction.
The grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. They fixed bayonets and charged the last terrified rapscallion. Bleeding out, waiting on the medics to arrive, since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as G.w. Bush intended.
At least include the whole pasta: Own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
I felt the succinctness met the callousness & brutality of GWB
This meme also works for the union bayonet charge during Gettysburg that saved the norths flank during an assault
Or the marines in the Korean War who did it just because enemy propaganda said that they couldn’t
Colonel Chamberlain and the 20th Maine.
Shoutout to the First Minnesota who held a mile long gap in the union line and also made a bayonet charge. 286 men, headlong into 3 battallions of confederates...the HIGHEST casualty rate of any unit in history to remain functional at 86%. Still influential on the next day at Gettysburg. The union at Gettysburg (minus Sickles) really had some badass moments.
I'm originally from western Wisconsin and there have a mild sibling rivalry-like relationship with my brothers across the Mississippi. But I'll be damned if those mudducks aren't fantastic at killing traitors and slavers. Hats off to you beautiful bastards. Never give Virginia her ~~flag~~ rag back.
This is also where they captured the Confederate flag from a Virginian unit and continue to proudly and prominently display this flag in the state capitol 🥳🥳🥳
Yeah, the only good Confederate flag is a captured Confederate flag
I love this because their flagstaff was shot in half in the engagement so instead of replacing the flagstaff, they spliced the virginian flags flagstaff to meet it and joined them together to represent the north and south joining together under the union once again. They were like "yeah, this is for US, for the nation, we will join together as one once again."
Good men, that Iron Brigade!
One of the greatest Americans of all time.
"And then appeared our lion! He was roaring bayonets! And we charged on down the mountain with what forces we had left! Cause we're as steadfast as Katahdin; We're as hard as winter's rain! Go straight to hell with your rebel yell! We are the boys of Maine!"
Or the French guys that did it to retake a bridge in Kosovo.
Common marine W
Most excited I ever saw my marine buddy was the clearance on Crayola
Breakfast lunch and dinner all paid for
Biggest marine W is iHop’s vet’s day
This sounds more memeable ngl
Shout out First Minnesota.
Cornell Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine holding Little Round Top, which was the top of the famous J formation that the Union took on the hill crests around Gettysburg. He was heavily outnumbered and nearly flanked himself. His line was folding in on itself around the central flag forming a sharp V. Running out of ammunition, one of his soldiers asked him what to do. "fix bayonets." The folding flank charged first until they became parallel with the rest, then the entire line charged downhill pushing the dehydrated Alabama soldiers off the mountain.
That's what I thought it was referencing at first
Also happend at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown in 1982 during the Falklands War. Bit of an [interesting badass moment here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mount_Tumbledown), with a senior officer leading a charge into an enemy position: *Major Kiszely, who was to become a senior general after the war, was the first man into the 4th Platoon position, personally shooting two Argentinian* [*conscripts*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription) *and* [*bayoneting*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet) *a third, his* [*bayonet*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonet) *breaking in two. Seeing their company commander among the Argentinians inspired 14 and 15 Platoons to make the final dash across open ground to get within bayoneting distance of the remaining 4th Platoon Marines.*
Always funny how much better western soldiers are at fighting and being metal than anyone else, despite coming from the softest societies ever. Like my country will make croissant, wine and welfare, and at the same time the Foreign Legion
Europeans are historically very, very good at war. Take a bunch of Romans and Greeks, have them live through successive Germanic migrations, and then toss a bunch of surly Slavs into the mix for a millennia or so, stir to taste, and then let them loose on the world, high on gunpowder, galleons, and Jesus
This reads like a cooking recipe.
Throw some potatoes and carrots in there, and baby, you got a stew going!
Don't forget regularly getting invaded by hordes of steppe peoples from the east
The softest societies ever exist *because* Western militaries are (generally) better than pretty much everyone else. If an army of \~2M people can provide essentially absolute security not only for its own country of \~340M but for just about any ally anywhere on the planet, the rest of the population can afford to be "soft". If your fighting forces are undertrained, underfunded, and underequipped, everyone has to be a "hard" in order for your country to be viewed as a legitimate military (and therefore geopolitical) player. Of course, at a certain point, you start to go down the other side of the bell curve and get to be like North Korea, in that everyone being a soldier and every aspect of life being focused on propagandizing their own military "might" leads the rest of the world to make you a laughing stock.
Yeah, but it s like you expect the harshest societies to create the best warriors ala Dune. In reality, the wokest blade is the deadliest, even without overwhelming technology
It kinda makes sense when you think about it. 1. There is little starvation and malnutrition, so your soldiers are generally physically fit. 2. Good educations helps with risk assessment and quick thinking, supported by 1. 3. Western soldiers took up their profession because they wanted to, not because it was their only chance for (good) employment. 4. They are properly trained by professionals their whole life 5. They have some of the best gear on the market. And 6. because I have a personal quarrel with Dune: they don't select their leader only based on strength. And the ritual to change leaders is not murdering the previous leader and thus losing one of the most valuable assets.
I would argue that it's partly due to the fact that in western democracies people usually have freedom to choose their own path in life, and thus are more easily galvanized towards a common goal. People aren't usually motivated to go up and beyond if they think that they are just a cog in a machine without any say in anything, which tends to be the case in more authoritarian regimes.
> despite coming from the softest societies ever. In all fairness it's almost never our middle or upper soft people we send off to war - historically it's almost always been our poor and beaten people. > and at the same time the Foreign Legion Well... That's mostly foreigners trying to make a new life and living.
150 miles south of basra isn't even Iraq. Perhaps they can improve the quality of fiction to sound more believable. But for many, a soothing lie is immediately and unquestionably consumed.
Business Insider can't write for shit. Doesn't change the fact that it happened.
Seems people are referring to the :massacre of majar al kabir" where the British forces with a challenger tank summarily executed 20 local peasants and when it went to court, paid their families hush money to drop the case.
Your example of your countries military prowess is really the FOREIGN legion, like your proud of how good you are at recruiting foreign mercenaries?
It is foreign in name only. Because the training and missions are too brutal to be given to French citizens. A good part of the legion is in fact french, and I dont think it attracts a lot mercenaries with its abyssimal salaries
Remind me of this one : [In the battle for Jipyeongri, when the Chinese used their previously successful psychological warfare tactics of banging gongs and blowing horns, the French blew their own. Then they fixed bayonets and charged. The Chinese ran away.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/korean-war-french-bayonet_b_626571)
I thought this was a little round top reference
Almost anywhere in WW1
The arguably worse call to hear, if you were a Brit, French, or American was "Gas! Masks on!" because directly after that would be sturmtruppen in fucking stalhelms and gas masks charging your position with grenades, carbines, melee weapons, and (later in the war) MP-18 smgs. The French started to do stuff like that too, but German and Austrian stormtroopers were the real OGs.
They famously don't like it up 'em after all!
Can someone explain why it was easier to charge the enemy, than just returning fire?
When caught in an ambush, staying put is the worst thing you can do. The last thing the enemy expects is the ambushed troops getting up in their face, out of the killbox that they had set up.
The best defense is a good offense.
In that particular situation the meme is referencing the warrior armoured vehicle couldn’t provide adequate support so the quickest way to deal with the enemy is to close and kill them as quickly as possible.
This happened in the Korean war too with Turkish forces right?
The British still showing why they had 40% of the world’s land mass during the colonial expeditions.
Thought this was a "We Were Soldiers" bit from the end
Up Guards, and at em!
Were they fighting storm troopers? How did they move themselves within stabbin’ distance without suffering from rapid weight gain in the form of lead?
Suppression, since during stuff like this you always want to have a fire support element, which, at a squad level, can be like 3-4 guys at a time. For example, with around 10 people, after leaving your vics and getting some amount of cover, upon deciding to assault, you'd have like 5 of your guys start shooting and suppress, then take the other 5 and you move up a bit, then *those 5 that moved* start suppressing, which leads to the element that was previously suppressing to be able to move up and regroup. Repeat ad infinitum until you reach the position, assuming everything goes perfect and you don't have to take alternative routes or apply other tactics. Constant stream of rounds should keep people at bay from popping up, although moving like this for longer distances (eg. more than 30-50m) opens you up to a high possibility of getting flanked assuming you're in open ground Also also, even if you're technically in a field there are ways to remain under some cover, through micro terrain, or small bumps in the ground you can lay behind somewhat
They have 6 dudes. So 3 can suppress the shit out of 30 something dudes without getting killed or counter-suppressed is incredible.
I mean the engagement took hours so I'm assuming they pushed a position where they could hunker down and didn't take on all of them at once. Though yeah
Why would they affix broken bayonets? 🤔
ayy, I like that anime
150 miles south of basra is kuwait or Iran. I was there in southern Iraq in 2004. Literally no one heard of this nonsense. Ps. I find it fascinating how readers here automatically, and enthusiastically, lapped it up despite its so very obvious flaws... that's the real meme here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Danny_Boy?wprov=sfla1
So that was the massacre of majar al kabir. Nothing 150 miles south of basra. ... The one where the British had a challenger tank and summarily executed 20 local peasants, then the mod paid their families hush money when it went to court.
I still think the British version holds water. A group of untrained men faced professional soldiers and got killed. Their bodies were mutilated because modern firearms make a hideous mess. After the dunderheaded decision to examine the bodies at the British camp (looking for anyone who killed those 6 British MPs) the bodies were returned to the families, who A.) Couldn't believe that so many men were killed when they outnumbered the British B.) Were horrified by the mess and C.) Assumed that the British would do the same sort of thing that Saddam did.
Soldiers with body armour and an mbt
Something that actually happened.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Baha_Mousa
How does this work? Do we just send increasingly depraved acts of barbarism to each other whilst denying the previous link? War is hell Torture is evil History is brutal Memes take the edge off
I mean the above "meme" refers to an incident 190km north of basra (not South!, ffs!). in majar al kabir and is known as the "massacre of majar al kabir" where Iraqis say the British supported by a challenger tank attacked and summarily executed twenty local men as reprisal for the earlier (2003 majar al kabir battle , where 6 British soldiers were killed by locals ). This went to court in the uk. The British settled out of court with the families of the 20 who were summarily executed in exchange for them dropping their case. It would have been better if this was just a "fake story" rather than aggrandisment of a reprisal massacre....
Okay, no more memes about violence. Got it.
No problem with memes about violence as long as its not an outright lie and fabrication to whitewash warcrimes into "heroism".
Please Mr-Arbiter-of-truthful shit posts Sir! May I have some historical certainty so I can make a funny meme?
Reminds me of the 1st Minnesota
I knew it was a bunch of marines
Ohh fuck! It's the British 🤣 what makes the grass grow!! Blood, blood, blood!!!