Old Warfare Facts

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I am going to try and give a fact about old time warfare as often as I can just to see if people are interested, I will keep posting even if you guys do not give feedback but I would like to know if these are interesting so please let me know. I would also like to say that all my info is coming from books I read, not me making it up.
The poll is just for fun no real relevance to the subjects.

 

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The Scythians were among the first people to ride on horses for military terms in that they taught other armies how to ride the horses and how to use them for war, what we now know as cavalry came from it, nomads at that time were the ones that taught armies not just scythians but they were among the first. The way they used cavalry originally was riding on the horses back with a bow and arrow shooting down the enemies, later they used javelins, spears, and swords to fight which were just as effective.

 

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A spear called the "Sarissa" was 7 meters long or 23 feet, mostly used by the Macedonians it was also made by them. They were mostly used by the men or infantry involved in the formation called a "Phalanx" . A Phalanx is where the soldiers go right next to eachother with shields not allowing any enemy to get in and using these long spears they took out enemy cavalry and infantry from far away.

 

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The battle of Cape Ecnomus in 256 BCE was among the largest naval battles in history, it involved 680 ships and 286,000 men (estimation from historians). The battle was fought between Romans and Carthagnians.

 

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150,000 men took part in the battle of Ispos in 301 BCE. The Antigonids had 80,000 men and the alliance against them 70,000 men.

 

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Alexander the Great's empire was 5.4 million square kilometers (2,100,000 square miles)
The Roman empire was 6.5 million square kilometers (2.5 million square miles)

 

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The battle of Issus in 333 BCE was a battle between Alexander the Great and the Persian king Darius III. The Persians had 110,000 men and Alexander had 35,000 men, Because of Alexander's superior fighting style and formations he won. The Persians lost (allegedly) 50,000 men and the Macedonians (Alexander's army) lost only 450 men. Alexander was a brave king and commander, in this battle as well as all his others, he rode at the front on a horse with the cavalry.

 

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In the battle of Changping in 260 BCE, 450,000 Zhao soldiers died in the battle, this came from ancient Chinese sources.

 

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11 Roman emperors were assassinated in half a century, 235 to 284 CE

 

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22 percent of the earth's surface was under Mongol rule at the height of their empire.

 

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130,000 legionaries took part in the army of Augustus, they also had an equal number of Auxiliaries giving them 260,000 men. Auxiliaries were non citizens of Rome fighting along side them, all legionaries had to be Roman citizens to be part of a legion.

 

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at one point 100% of males went to the Spartan's army (no not halo Spartans, the historical people Spartans). their training lasted 13 years, they were allowed to stay with their mother for 7 years then they were forced to join the armies training. Only those that were thought fit to be in the army were allowed to live, if the officer found the child would not make it through training, they would leave the child outside to die. Every year the boys were flogged in front of an altar until they fainted, the one to withstand the longest was the winner (all the adults watched this as if it were a show). They would also spend one year living rough, which is where the boy has only a knife/sword and clothing, which he then is required to survive with the remaining year. Once they were 20 they went to live in a barracks.

 

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The number of ships (supposedly the amount) made by Kublai Khan for a specific fight was 5,000

 

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20,000 Ottomans were killed in the field at the battle of Zenta in 1697, and another 10,000 were killed in the river trying to escape the battle

 

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Thee first submarine made was shape like an grenade with a flat top and bottom but the rest like an egg, it was made of wood and had a metal top with a round window in it. It also had two propellers one on the side to make it go forward and one on top to make it go down or up (I think only down at this time). This vehicle was only big enough to fit one man and was made by "David Bushnell", he called this device the Turtle. Although I am sure that there were more designs of this device before David's, his was the first to be used in combat. Its only way of attacking is a metal screw device the is similar looking to a cork screw (except a little bit longer) and was used to drill a whole in the bottom of a ship to make it sink. This idea did not always work and had a very limited rate of success if any rate of success. It was first used in 1776 against a British ship in a New York harbor.

 

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In the British Civil Wars (1639-51) there were 900,000 casualties. It is believed that a third of the Irish population died or was exiled in these wars.

 

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A British woman named Hannah Snell disguised herself as a man and joined the Royal Marines, this let here fight in numerous foreign battles and she was wounded 12 times in her time with the military. She lived from 1732-92 and she is not the only notable woman soldier, there has been a decent amount of woman who's fighting or leadership helped their nation win some battles.

 

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One of the longest wars in history is the "Hundred Years War" which was between the English and the French over the French throne and the French territory. This war lasted 116 years (1337-1453

 

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One of if not the longest boat using a sail was the Chinese "War junks". Some of these ships were reported to have been 121m long (400ft) and weighing around 1,968 tons and they had canons all along it.

 

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More than 3 million troops fought on the Western Front between July and November of 1916. These months had around 1 million casualties and was the largest battle of World War I, it was one of the bloodiest battles of all time. This took place at Somme.