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Top 10 Armies In World History!

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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Top 10 Armies In World History!
    Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 13:32
Are we comparing time periods or?
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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 14:35
Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri

Originally posted by Mountain Man

The Spartans, who held off the Persians at Thermopylae, probably deserve to be among the top contenders as well.
 
Of course an army which can just hold off the Persian army deserve to be among them!


At odds of 300 against tens of thousands...yes...they do.
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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 14:36
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

Are we comparing time periods or?


The title of the thread says Top 10 Armies in World History...that means all of the armies ever fielded since wars began.

So...yes...we would have to be comparing all time periods to get the ten best.
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 15:37
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

First of all we don't know if try were Scythians, Second its a supposed victory from the Persians the evidence is flimsy at best. Where is the evidence for the defeat of an Indian army?
 
You probably know that an inscription of Darius the Great has been discovered in the north of Modern Romania where ancient Scythians lived: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27688 the famous Greek historian Herodotus has also talked about Persian rule over both Scythians and Indians, for example about Indians, he says: "The Indians made up the twentieth satrapy of the Persian empire. These are more in number than any nation of which we know, and they paid a greater tribute than any other province, namely three hundred and sixty talents of gold dust." (Histories of Herodotus: 3.94)
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 16:13
Originally posted by Mountain Man

At odds of 300 against tens of thousands...yes...they do.
 
Even a mosquito can bother a king, those poor Spartans were all killed, they were probably happy that they could cause an insignificant interruption in the advance of the great Persian army.
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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 16:25
You would of course know this was not India correct? Tose were the outlying lands not India. What Scythians were conquered? They defeated the Persians and retreated from them but any decisive field battle? And direct sources please?
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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 16:26
Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri

Originally posted by Mountain Man

At odds of 300 against tens of thousands...yes...they do.

 

Even a mosquito can bother a king, those poor Spartans were all killed, they were probably happy that they could cause an insignificant interruption in the advance of the great Persian army.


Thry bought time and damaged the Persian army besides boosting morale. Their mission was accomplished plus some.
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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 17:19
"Go, tell the Spartans,
Thou who passeth by,
That here in accordance with their orders,
We lie."

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  Quote Ruslan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Sep-2012 at 20:12
Originally posted by red clay

Your forgetting or ignoring, the 500 Nations.  No mention of any of the Historic pre contact American Armies?  Aztec, Inca, remember those folks?



yes Tamerlane was included in Mongols Army(13th - 16th Century)

:)


Edited by Ruslan - 12-Sep-2012 at 20:15
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 01:53
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

You would of course know this was not India correct? Tose were the outlying lands not India. What Scythians were conquered? They defeated the Persians and retreated from them but any decisive field battle? And direct sources please?
 
Of course not modern India but actual India which was located in the north of Indian subcontinent, as you know the Indian civilization arose in the Indus River Valley in modern Pakistan and most of modern India was uncivilized for a long time, and about Scythians, they lived in a vast region from the Central Asia to the Eastern Europe, in the seventh century BC they had even occupied a large part of the west Asia, inculding the northwestern part of modern Iran, Medians and then Cyrus the Great defeated them in several battles and they had to retreat to their original lands, afterwards Darius the Great attacked them in the Central Asia, Caucasus and the Eastern Europe and pushed them far from the Persian empire.
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 02:04
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

Thry bought time and damaged the Persian army besides boosting morale. Their mission was accomplished plus some.
 
Persian army was never damaged, they easily continued their way after passing these Spartans who were considered as highwaymen and then captured Athens with no problem, burnt it and came back to Persia successfully.
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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 08:47
Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri

Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

Thry bought time and damaged the Persian army besides boosting morale. Their mission was accomplished plus some.

 

Persian army was never damaged, they easily continued their way after passing these Spartans who were considered as highwaymen and then captured Athens with no problem, burnt it and came back to Persia successfully.


Yet they took 3 days and lost 20,000 men to highwaymen? Athens was abandoned........
They lost at Salamis so there logistics were destroyed. Then Mardonius was defeated at Platea. Hardly as simple as you put it. At least be a little less biased.
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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 10:12
Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri

Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

You would of course know this was not India correct? Tose were the outlying lands not India. What Scythians were conquered? They defeated the Persians and retreated from them but any decisive field battle? And direct sources please?

 

Of course not modern India but actual India which was located in the north of Indian subcontinent, as you know the Indian civilization arose in the Indus River Valley in modern Pakistan and most of modern India was uncivilized for a long time, and about Scythians, they lived in a vast region from the Central Asia to the Eastern Europe, in the seventh century BC they had even occupied a large part of the west Asia, inculding the northwestern part of modern Iran, Medians and then Cyrus the Great defeated them in several battles and they had to retreat to their original lands, afterwards Darius the Great attacked them in the Central Asia, Caucasus and the Eastern Europe and pushed them far from the Persian empire.


Battles that Indians and Scythians were defeated in?
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  Quote Toltec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 10:32
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri

Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

Thry bought time and damaged the Persian army besides boosting morale. Their mission was accomplished plus some.

 

Persian army was never damaged, they easily continued their way after passing these Spartans who were considered as highwaymen and then captured Athens with no problem, burnt it and came back to Persia successfully.


Yet they took 3 days and lost 20,000 men to highwaymen? Athens was abandoned........
They lost at Salamis so there logistics were destroyed. Then Mardonius was defeated at Platea. Hardly as simple as you put it. At least be a little less biased.

The info we have about Thermopolye comes from the "Father of Lies" Herodotus, so i wouldn't call your estimation of 20,000 dead exactly unbiased either.




Edited by Toltec - 13-Sep-2012 at 10:33
Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 11:22
At least my argument is source based.
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 12:06
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

Yet they took 3 days and lost 20,000 men to highwaymen? Athens was abandoned........
They lost at Salamis so there logistics were destroyed. Then Mardonius was defeated at Platea. Hardly as simple as you put it. At least be a little less biased.
 
In the modern times we also see that a muslim suicide bomber kills tens US soldiers, in the Middle ages Assassins also hid in the passages, like Thermopylae, and killed numerous people, those who can not fight face to face, either use these coward tactics or abandon their land and flee. The important point is that Xerxes wanted to capture and burn Athens and did it, what happened in the next years doesn't relate to it.
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  Quote Delenda est Roma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 12:12
How so? He burned an undefended city but had his navy and army crushed brutally. The Spartans and co held him up at a pass for quite a while and caused numerous casualties. They fought and died SOLDIERS. Dont even stoop to calling them highwaymen, robbers, or assasins. I could just as well call the Persians slaves and failures. But it wouldn't be accurate would it? Coward tactics really? Im disappointed that this is what you're stooping to. I also need a source on battles in which the Scythians or Indians were defeated by Persians.
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  Quote Toltec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 16:20
The Persians didn't invade Greece to attack Athens, they invaded to take Sparta. It's not even sure they burned Athens. They were completely unable to get to Sparta as the Istmus of Conrinth was fortified and they sat in Greece clueless of what to do next. They threw their navy away out of incompetence. Then the Greeks got lucky, there was a rebellion in Persia and Xerxes had to leave with the bulk of the army to quash it. 

For Persia it was a disaster, they failed in their objectives of taking Sparta and leaving some subject city states behind as well as losing a considerable part of their navy. For Greece it wasn't the great victory patriots would like us to believe. Thermopolye mattered little, the Persian army would most likely have won but left undefeated because of a rebellion back home, the two Greek victories, sea and land were rather superfluous.


Edited by Toltec - 13-Sep-2012 at 16:22
Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Sep-2012 at 16:23
Tamerlane?  What the devil does Tamerlane have to do with the Aztecs, the Mayans or the Incans, all of whom fielded large, well-trained armies?

I see a definite bias towards size as opposed to ability; however, size alone does not determine the effectiveness of an army.

How about the Greek army that took Troy?




Edited by Mountain Man - 13-Sep-2012 at 16:25
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Sep-2012 at 09:18
Originally posted by Delenda est Roma

How so? He burned an undefended city but had his navy and army crushed brutally. The Spartans and co held him up at a pass for quite a while and caused numerous casualties. They fought and died SOLDIERS. Dont even stoop to calling them highwaymen, robbers, or assasins. I could just as well call the Persians slaves and failures. But it wouldn't be accurate would it? Coward tactics really? Im disappointed that this is what you're stooping to. I also need a source on battles in which the Scythians or Indians were defeated by Persians.
 
I really don't know what you mean by source, there are some inscriptions of Darius the Great, Xerxes and other Persian kings from the same date when these things happened, what can be more reliable than them?! Other than them ancient Greek historians, like Herodotus, have also talked about these things, of course I don't deny that Persians also lost some battles but it was certainly insignificant in comparison with the number of battles that they won.
 
Anyway as we know Xerxes just wanted to burn Athens in revenge for what the Greeks did to Sardis, if you look at a map then you will see the distance between Persia in the south of Iran and Athens, it is clear that during this very risky military expedition, some soldiers are killed and some ships are sunk, of course Greeks didn't want their major city to be burnt but the point is that the Persian army was so powerful that they could never stop it, so some of them prefered to flee and some other ones committed a type of suicide!
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