Muh 40:1!!!!!!!

    by PaladinWij

    21 Comments

    1. Clearly, the reason why the Gigachad defenders of Fort McKillBox were able to defend themselves while outnumbered 2000000:1 is because they were Gigachads of infinite martial prowess. Definitely not the fact that they possessed a tool that was expressly designed to allow small forces to resist larger ones. Nope.

    2. Femto-Griffith on

      Well, there’s a reason why most of the time, attackers needed at least 2:1 often times 3:1 or higher numerical advantages to beat defenders in castles or other such fortifications.

    3. What makes it so amazing is that fortifications in Wizna weren’t finished. It was barely functional at best.

    4. I mean it’s still testimony to the effectiveness of the fortifications, and therefore impressive. Wars are usually won through superior logistics and planning, not individual moments of bravery.

    5. thehollisterman on

      What you’re overlooking is that for a lot of those moments that are glorified. The defense was built for 5:1 or even 10:1 odds. Not the 40:1 that the story may be famous for

    6. Dig a big ditch to channel the enemy into a tight space, and rain arrows down on them. If they’re really dumb, they’ll charge right into the ditch and crush each other.

    7. FourFunnelFanatic on

      r/HistoryMemes users try not to be smartasses and belittle people’s sacrifices for 5 seconds challenge (impossible). Especially when they are flat out wrong; not only were the fortifications at Wizna not designed to hold out for that long against those odds (which was actually greater than 40:1), it wasn’t even complete yet. Like, not even close. Only 16 of the 60 planned bunkers were ready by September of 1939. And of those, only six were heavy reinforced concrete bunkers; the next two were lighter bunkers and the other eight were just adhoc machine gun nests made from sandbags and soil. I don’t know what bullshit you’re trying to spin here, but try not to be so blatantly incorrect next time.

    8. Tahir bin al-Husayn once took 4-5k troops to a place and started preparing to defend it but when the army of 40k got there instead of using the city he ordered his army out to fight on the fields. He believed the people of the city would turn on his army and so he couldnt stay in the city. He won the battle as the troops ran after the commander was killed, and Tahir followed from iran to iraq to begin his campaign. he battled 8-10 times as many troops and then followed into their lands to make war. where he faced another army much larger than his and he defeated them too without using defensive fortifications. the second army he beat is one of the best stories on how an army was defeated in all of history its insane

    9. orderofGreenZombies on

      “Designed to” is the key phrase there. Lots of things were designed to do “x” that ultimately failed to even come close to doing “x.”

    10. Fortifications were designed to stall or defeat larger forces – up to a point. While attackers needed a numerical advantage (3:1, 6:1, etc; it depends on many factors), fortifications weren’t cheat codes. If, according to general consensus, a fourfold superior force was needed at a given time, but a castle was defended against a twentyfold superior force, that was still fucking crazy.

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