Most Lopsided Victory in History?

[alphamale]

In the Battle of Blood river, the Zulus lost 3000 men and the Voortrekkers (outnumbered up to 40 to 1) none.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blood_River

[Jesus Christ]

First day of the Somme. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme#The_first_day_on_the_Somme)
55000 british losses, to some 8000 german. That's frickin disparity, especially after the largest artillery bombardment in the history of man.

The Battle of Crecy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy) is also a contender. That's a huge disparity, especially when there was only slight technological edge (compared to the massive one in Blood River).

[Godwhacker]

Agincourt was pretty lopsided, although the accounts of the dead are often regarded as highly inaccurate, especially those by one William Shakepeare.

The English had roughly 5000 archers and 900 men-at-arms and the French between 20-30,000, many knights on horseback.

A brief summary in the form of an equation: Archers - heavy armed knights on horses + mud = slaughter

After the battle, the English lost about 100, the French, around 5-10,000, plus a few thousand prisoners (about half the French nobility).

[Stephen Maturin]

. . . Battle of Blood river . . .

Yeah, that one probably wins the prize. Honorable mention goes to the Battle of Tsushima, in which the Japanese navy virtually wiped out the Russian Baltic fleet at the cost of a few torpedo boats.

[Paul H.]

How about the war against Iraq, 1991 to 2001.

"We", the USA-led trade-block, via sanctions, managed to kill (according to the
UN) 500 000 Iraqi woman and children due to lack of food and medical supplies.

I don't think killing those enemies cost us a single man?

Five hundred thousand.

[The Lone Ranger]

Though it's not on the same scale as others, the Battle of Midway was a pretty lopsided victory for the Americans.

The Japanese had a much larger force and much more experienced commanders and aviators. The Americans won due to a combination of shrewdness (they had partially broken Japanese codes, and correctly guessed where the Japanese fleet would be) and incredibly good luck (the Japanese spotter plane that would have spotted the American fleet was delayed in its launch; another Japanese plane did spot the American fleet, but because of radio troubles, couldn't report its location). At the end, the Japanese lost four front-line carriers and most of their experienced naval aviators. The Americans lost one carrier, but gained dominance over the Pacific. Never again were the Japanese able to launch a significant naval offensive, and so their eventual defeat was rendered inevitable at Midway.

Cheers,

Michael

[TomJoe]

A brief summary in the form of an equation: Archers - heavy armed knights on horses + mud = slaughter

After the battle, the English lost about 100, the French, around 5-10,000, plus a few thousand prisoners (about half the French nobility).

I watched a Discovery show I believe that showed that the archers themselves, with their bows, probably did not do as much damage as was earlier perceived. Rather, the English men at arms, who were not wearing armor (as they were not knights) and the archers once they were done shooting their arrows ... slaughtered the noblemen French. The terrain led to a bottleneck of French, so when the earliest ones got stuck in the mud, the rest simply wound up walking over them and getting cluttered as well. Throwing them into chaos before they probably even got within hand to hand range. In addition, the English men-at-arms and archers, those of the lower classes, were not versed in feudal war (ie: look for the coat-of-arms of rich knights, engage, subdue, take prisoner, ransom them later) and just preferred to kill their enemy. The French, not expecting this, with the addition of all the mud ... viola, lots of dead French nobility.

[The Lone Ranger]

A brief summary in the form of an equation: Archers - heavy armed knights on horses + mud = slaughter

After the battle, the English lost about 100, the French, around 5-10,000, plus a few thousand prisoners (about half the French nobility).

I watched a Discovery show I believe that showed that the archers themselves, with their bows, probably did not do as much damage as was earlier perceived. Rather, the English men at arms, who were not wearing armor (as they were not knights) and the archers once they were done shooting their arrows ... slaughtered the noblemen French. The terrain led to a bottleneck of French, so when the earliest ones got stuck in the mud, the rest simply wound up walking over them and getting cluttered as well. Throwing them into chaos before they probably even got within hand to hand range. In addition, the English men-at-arms and archers, those of the lower classes, were not versed in feudal war (ie: look for the coat-of-arms of rich knights, engage, subdue, take prisoner, ransom them later) and just preferred to kill their enemy. The French, not expecting this, with the addition of all the mud ... viola, lots of dead French nobility.

I think that's probably true. After all, the longbow had been in use for centuries before Agincourt. Even good chainmail with padding would stop most arrows from a longbow, and good plate armor rendered its wearer all but immune to even steel-tipped crossbow bolts and arrows from longbows, as has been shown with modern tests. Heck, good plate armor stopped bullets from most early guns.

The notion that armored men were so vulnerable has a lot more to do with movies than reality.

But armor isn't much good if you can't move effectively. I think Agincourt was such a lopsided victory because the English archers slaughtered those French warriors who had little or no armor, the French chivalry got bogged down in the mud and immobilized, and the English didn't "play fair" like the French expected them to.


The Age of Chivalry didn't end because the longbow or crossbow were particularly effective against good armor. Rather, it was a matter of economics. It took years of time and lots of money to train and equip a knight. Similarly, it took years to master the longbow. The invention of the crossbow (and later, of early firearms) was revolutionary because any peasant could be taught to use a crossbow or musket almost immediately and then sicced on the enemy. This made it far cheaper and easier to equip and maintain armies. For the cost of one knight or longbow archer, you could easily equip a dozen peasants with crossbows or muskets -- and when there wasn't a war to fight, you didn't have to pay for their upkeep, because they'd simply go back to tilling the fields.

Cheers,

Michael

[alphamale]

How about the war against Iraq, 1991 to 2001.

"We", the USA-led trade-block, via sanctions, managed to kill (according to the
UN) 500 000 Iraqi woman and children due to lack of food and medical supplies.

I don't think killing those enemies cost us a single man?

Five hundred thousand.

"We", my ass. The oil for food program was plundered by U.N. bureaucrats, Kofi Annan's son and his aides, and Saddam and his lackeys.

[alphamale]

the Japanese spotter plane that would have spotted the American fleet was delayed in its launch;

Why was it delayed? Bad luck?

[The Lone Ranger]

Why was it delayed? Bad luck?

In a sense, I suppose, it could be chalked up to nothing more than luck. The catapult on the cruiser Tone failed, and so that search plane didn't get into the air until half an hour too late. Had that plane launched on time, it would have located the American fleet at least 30 minutes earlier, and with their superior firepower, the Japanese would surely have annihilated the American carriers.

Admiral Yamamoto's goal was to crush the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Midway, forcing the Americans to sue for peace and cede the Pacific Basin to Japan. Yamamoto knew perfectly well that Japan couldn't actually hope to successfully invade the U.S. mainland, and that was never his goal, but had the Japanese won the Battle of Midway, the Pacific War would have turned out very differently indeed.


The Tone's search plane actually did locate the American fleet, but too late. It would almost certainly have been better for the Japanese if it hadn't. (Another Japanese search plane located the American fleet earlier, but had radio problems, and so couldn't report its location.)

Japanese planes were just returning from a strike on Midway Island, and the Japanese were working on the assumption that no U.S. carriers were in the area. Had the Tone's search plane launched on time, it would have reported the U.S. ships' presence, and those planes would have been launched against the American ships. Instead, since none of the other search planes had reported contacting any American ships, the Japanese commander assumed no enemy warships were in the area, and ordered the planes rearmed with contact bombs for a repeat strike on Midway.

Just then, as luck would have it, the Tone's scout reported sighting the American carriers. Since the Japanese then knew that American warships were in the area, they halted the rearming of the planes and had the crews remove the contact bombs and rearm the planes with torpedoes, to attack the American ships. They'd have been better off to have left the bombs on the planes and launch them as scheduled.

At that time, by sheer coincidence, dive-bombers from the carriers Enterprise and Hornet broke through cloud cover to find themselves right over the Japanese carriers -- with bombs and torpedoes scattered all over the decks and virtually no fighters flying cover. (The dive-bombers had gotten separated from the torpedo bombers and their fighter escorts, and had been given erroneous directions to the Japanese fleet. But the Japanese had changed course since initially contacted, and so it was literally dumb luck that the Enterprise's and Hornet's dive-bombers blundered into them.) Bombs were far less effective against surface vessels than were torpedoes, but because of all the explosives and fully-fueled aircraft sitting on their decks, the Japanese carriers were sitting ducks. In just a few minutes, the American dive-bombers sank three of the carriers (later air strikes sank the fourth) and broke the backbone of the Japanese Navy.


Amazing, isn't it, to think that the failure of a single catapult had such momentous consequences?

Cheers,

Michael

[alphamale]

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost,
For want of the horse, the rider was lost,
For want of the rider, the battle was lost,
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost

Incidentally, I met George Gay, the the torpedo bomber from the U.S.S. Hornet who was shot down in the middle of the japanese fleet, as depicted in the 1970's film Midway, at an early 1990s airshow.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-g/g-gay.htm

I asked him if events about him were as depicted in the movie. He said "Pretty much."

[BDS]

In the Battle of Cannae, the Romans lost about 40,000 killed; the Cartheginians a couple of thousand.


A couple of Alexander the Great's victories are also in contention. By the way, strangely, since the world's population has grown so much, Cannae and two of Alexander's battles are also in contention for "most battle fatalities in a single day". They may not quite equal Hiroshima (or some other bombings) -- but that wasn't really a battle. The Somme, which was mentioned earlier, doesn't equal the battles of antiquity -- the 55,000 number that Jesus mentions is "casualties" rather than "deaths" (I believe about 17,000 Brits were killed). I believe about 25,000 died at Borodino (80,000 casualties), which is the most single-day deaths of a relatively modern battle.

By the way, I don't know how trustworthy the Alexander stats are, but I tend to trust the Battle of Cannae statistics because we get them from the losers, and because the Romans liked statistics.

[Jesus Christ]

The Battle of Marathon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon) lists 6400 Persians dead vs 192 Atheninas, a ration of 25% of the total army to about 2%.

The Battle of Thermopylae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae) deserves mention as well. The sheer losses inflicted, with by so few soldiers (on the second day, only 900 stood against an army of hundreds of thousands) is almost unparalled. The Persians "won" but they were delayed a week, and took heavy casualties even amongst their legendary Immortals. Two of Xerxes' brothers were slain.

[Jesus Christ]

Battle of Salamis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis) as well. The vastly larger Persian fleet was alll but anhiliated by the Greeks; Xerxes lost most of his army there.

[alphamale]

I read somewhere that Xerxes sat to watch the battle of salamis on a cliff above the straits. (When you go to athens now, you can see a formation known as Xerxes' chair.) According to Herodotus, Xerxes fled back across the Bosporus after the battle. Themistocles is supposed to have sent Xerxes a message saying that he had been allowed to escape "due to my respect for your high office." :D

[Abacus]

October 7, 1916

Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland College 222-0 in the most lopsided football game in history.

[godfry n. glad]

Another lopsided victory was at Carrhae in 53 BCE.

The Romans had some 35-36,000 troops under the command of Crassus, one of the triumvirate that included Ceasar and Pompey. They met a force of some 10,000 Parthian warriors.

Net result: 20,000 Roman soldiers killed and 10,000 captured. Only some 5,000 Romans, under the command of Cassius, managed to escape. The captured Romans were sent into servitude in Sogdiana (the area around the Aral Sea in central Asia). I've not seen any figures on how many casualties the Parthians sustained.

A sidenote is that at this battle, it is reputed that the Romans saw silk for the first time...in the Parthian banners.

Augustus would negotiate a ransom with the Parthian shah for the seven legion standards over thirty years later.

[California Tanker]

If my memory of the Guinness Book of Records isn't too shaky, (If anyone happens to have it handy, look up 'shortest war'), it was UK vs Zanzibar or some other such TPLAC back last century. A Royal Navy gunboat happened to be in harbour while the local (British-supported, I guess) ruler was overthrown. As an encore, they decided to declare war on the UK. Optomistic move. The gunboat shelled the palace for a half-hour or so and the revolutionaries surrendered. The re-instated government refunded the British the cost of the ammunition used.

I don't think anyone can beat the 4,000 to nil score of the original post. The 1991 eviction of Iraq from Kuwait probably stands as the most lopsided war, as opposed to battle.

An honorable mention, on 'moral grounds' as opposed to simple numbers, is the Egytian crossing of the Suez in 1973. They achieved what most 'competent' armies considered to be impossible by crossing the canal in only a few hours, and then holding the position against all Israeli counter-attacks with fairly minimal casualties. Only when the politicians overruled the military several days later and instructed them to move forward into the Sinai were the Israelis able to achieve any success.

Similarly, the recapture of the Falklands in 1982 was also considered by many competent authorities to have been an 'impossible task,' which the British went ahead and did anyway.

NTM

[ms_ann_thrope]

Welcome to the FF, California Tanker. :tiphat:

[alphamale]

Tanker - have you been to Iraq or going? You use Abrams tanks? Where are you stationed in CA?

[California Tanker]

Been there, did my year, got the T-shirt. (Literally)

I'm a Guardsman, San Bernadino-based battalion.

NTM

[alphamale]

Been there, did my year, got the T-shirt. (Literally)

I'm a Guardsman, San Bernadino-based battalion.

NTM

Do you think the TV news coverage of Iraq gives an accurate picture of the situation over there?

[California Tanker]

Isn't that a question for the news/politics forum?

NTM

[mountain_hare]

What about the Roman Suetonius' victory over the forces of Boudica? 10,000 Roman soldiers defeated 230,000 British rebels. 400 Roman dead to 80,000 British rebels dead.

QUITE impressive.

[Paul H.]

Looks like my example wins, hands-down.

500 000 of our enemies, for nil cost to us.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Looks like my example wins, hands-down.

500 000 of our enemies, for nil cost to us.I wouldn't characterize the Iraqis who suffered and died as a result of US-led sanctions as "our enemies," nor would I describe it as a "victory." :sadcheer: But you were just making a joke, right? To peeve alphamale? (who is no longer on this forum)

My vote for most lopsided victory in history is the US hockey team taking the gold at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. :hockey:

[California Tanker]

Not the Dream Team at basketball in the Olympics a few years back? That was a foregone conclusions before it even started.

NTM

[ms_ann_thrope]

No, no, no. The Dream Team was made up of professional basketball players... woulda been pretty sorry if they HADN'T won all those gold medals (although the team was totally pwned in 2004). The 'Miracle on Ice' involved amateur and college hockey players besting the juggernaut that was the USSR hockey team. It was a total long shot. Much more satisfying.

[Dingfod]

Yes, it was much more satisfying, but not a lopsided victory, the subject of this thread.

[ms_ann_thrope]

The OP was about a battle where fewer than 500 Boers defended themselves against up to 20,000 Zulus and killed 3,000 of them, with no loss of life on the Boer side. I fail to see how the Miracle on Ice isn't somewhat analagous...?
:whup: :hockey:

[Dingfod]

If they had won by beating the Russians 12 to nothing, I'd agree with you.

[ms_ann_thrope]

Stop trying to minimize the amazingness of that day at Lake Placid, you pinko! :fftongue:

[Dingfod]

I was amazed... and lost money on that game.



Just kidding, I was a flag waving oilfield trash redneck in Oklahoma at that time.

[Clutch Munny]

Some of the early battles of the Eastern front in WWII have to be contenders here. The Germans were taking hundreds of thousands of prisoners for the cost of the gasoline it took to drive around them.

[Clutch Munny]

And Lake Placid was not lop-sided. It was a classic example of how a weaker team increases its odds against a stronger team: play tight defense, try to keep the game close, and hope for good goaltending and a late lucky break.

In fact the Russians were not unambiguously a juggernaut at that moment, and the Americans were not a ragtag bunch of amateurs. That's mythologizing at work. In the round-robin the Russians had to come from behind to beat both Canada and Finland; some of their superstars, while still awesomely skilled, were slowing down a bit as the number of games played piled up. The USA team had several players poised to be great NHL stars, including Dave Christian, Ken Morrow and Neal Broten; they had just crushed Czechoslovakia.

They played it tight and got their lucky break. Several, in fact, the biggest of which was a contested goal at the end of the first period, when another future-NHLer, Mark Johnson, banged in a puck after the Russians had stopped skating, thinking the period was over. After a long delay, the officials ruled that the goal counted. (How would that decision have been spun had it gone in favour of the Russians at an Olympics held in Russia? one wonders.) In a fit of pique, Russian tyrant-coach Victor Tikhonov pulled the world's greatest goalie, Vlad Tretiak, and went with his second-stringer for the rest of the game -- huge break number two.

It was a big win, a hard-fought win, and a surprising one, but not a miracle. It only seemed like one to much of the US public because hockey suddenly appeared on their radar with the victory, and the USSR was so strong at the sport over the longer term.

[BDS]

I've played hockey both with and against Mark Johnson.

Johnson's youth hockey teammate from Madison, Wisconson was an even bigger star than Johnson at the Lake Placid Olympics. His name: Eric Heiden.

[BDS]

Another hockey story:

Years after the Olympics, Mike Ramsey and Slava Fetisov were teammates on the Detroit Red Wings. Both were pushing 40. Some wet-behind-the-ears young rookie was sucking up to Fetisov.

"So, what have you won?" asked the Rookie. "About 12 World Championship and Olympic Gold medals?"

Ramsey chimed in. "Make that eleven golds and one silver."

By the way, I don't buy the notion that the Soviets were weak. They had totally dominated the 1979 World championships, and had young talent like Krutov and Makarov pushing established stars like Kharmalov and Tretiak. And, of course, they had Fetisov -- perhaps the second most talented defensemen ever.

[Noesis]

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 -- 12 Americans kill 80,000 Japanese civilians.

[Clutch Munny]

In fact the Russians were not unambiguously a juggernaut at that moment, and the Americans were not a ragtag bunch of amateurs. That's mythologizing at work. In the round-robin the Russians had to come from behind to beat both Canada and Finland; some of their superstars, while still awesomely skilled, were slowing down a bit as the number of games played piled up. ...

By the way, I don't buy the notion that the Soviets were weak. They had totally dominated the 1979 World championships, and had young talent like Krutov and Makarov pushing established stars like Kharmalov and Tretiak. And, of course, they had Fetisov -- perhaps the second most talented defensemen ever.

Like clockwork.

I really, really, just don't get it.

Am I now supposed to say, "By the way, I don't buy your notion that the Soviets were the strongest team in the history of sports in 1987"?

[BDS]

Here's some evidence to support the notion that the Soviets WERE a juggernaut (as unambiguously as possible for a team that won only silver in 1980): with the exception of the '80 Olympics, the Soviets won every World Championship from '78 - '83. The Czechs, led by the Stasny brothers, won in "76 and '77, and won again in '85. The five consecutive WC Gold Medals the Soviets won represents the second longest winning streak, eclipsed only by the Soviet streak from '63 - '71.

In addition, the Soviets won the Canada Cup in 1981, facing the top pros from Canada and other countries. This was their only Canada Cup victory, in five tries.

Geez, Clutch. It sounds to me like they were on the top of their game. What do you need to consider a team "unambiguously a juggernaut"? Would the Soviet have qualified had they beaten the U.S.?

This was one of the greatest Soviet teams ever -- both in terms of talent and in terms of results.

By the way, why act so defensive? You say, "The Soviets were not unambiguously a juggernaut at that moment". Why get all hoighty toighty over it?
Of course they lost, so they were not unambiguously a juggernaut "at that moment". I'll admit it, if you want to split hairs about who's right and who's wrong.

If, on the other hand, you want to talk about hockey, instead of who is right and who is wrong in the hair splitting contest, I'm your man.

[Noesis]

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 -- 12 Americans kill 80,000 Japanese civilians.

Could somebody tell me why I did or didn't win the award for figuring out the most lopsided victory in history?

-Noesis

[D. Scarlatti]

Because the OP was banned, having lost the most lopsided battle in history: alphamale vs. livius and vm.

[Clutch Munny]

In the 1980 Olympics -- not just the game they lost versus the US -- the Sovs were not the juggernaut that the mythology makes them out to be.

I'm not talking about 1978. Nor 1979. Nor 1981. Nor 1973. Nor 1987. Those teams, changing year-by-year, were also brilliant, but that's not what I was talking about -- not even the 1980 pre-tournament "friendlies". (In which USSR thumped the Americans -- significantly, by giving their younger players more ice time.) So it's irrelevant -- a strawman, surprise, surprise -- to focus on any of these.

I'm pointing out that in the round robin the Russians did not, for example, steamroll what should have been a relatively weak Finnish team at the 1980 Olympics. Nor did they demolish the Canadian amateurs in the round robin of the 1980 Olympics. In both games they showed signs of vulnerability. In both games they fell behind through some lacklustre play. In both games they needed to come from behind in order to win.

They were still a great team -- as I said. But the US victory against them was not mind-boggling; the Americans were not nameless part-timers and the USSR had courted disaster with other teams in the same tourney.

[California Tanker]

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 -- 12 Americans kill 80,000 Japanese civilians.

Could somebody tell me why I did or didn't win the award for figuring out the most lopsided victory in history?

-Noesis

I'm not sure that that event can really be described as a battle. It was a strategic target made as part of a strategic campaign, on the national level. As such, it probably best fits in as contributed by part of the overall war, where you then have to balance out the overall losses on both sides over four years.

NTM

[BDS]

We can only determine how great that Soviet team was by looking at how well it played. Clutch may not be "talking about" 1979, or 1981, but any reasonable person who wanted to assess the quality of the Soviet team would take results from those years into account.

Clutch is correct in saying that IF the Soviets played badly against the Finns and the Canadians, perhaps they were not such a juggernaut (at the moment they played the U.S.) after all.

However, to suggest that no weight whatsoever should be placed on results from preceding years or later years (or other tournaments in the same year) makes no sense. If the exact same players win touranment after tournament, that adds credence to the notion that they are a juggernaut even if their results in one tournament are less impressive (as, in fact, was the case in the 1980 Olympics, when they won only the silver). Both sets of data address the question of whether the team is a great team or not. The more facts we look at, the better we are at assessing the quality of the team, and the quality of the U.S. upset.

By the way, although the Soviets "only" beat Canada 6-4 and Finland 4-2 in the group stage, they thrashed Bronze Medalist Sweden 9-2 in the final stage -- in a game that could have won them the Gold Medal if the U.S. lost to or tied Finland (as was entirely possible). 9-2 over Sweden (who tied the U.S. in the tournament) looks like a juggernaut performance to me.

(For those who don't remember, the U.S. victory over The Soviet Union did not win them the gold medal. They still had to play Finland, who could easily have beaten them, and who, in fact, led the game after two periods. Since they had already tied Sweden, they would have lost the gold if they lost to or tied Finland, and the Soviets beat Sweden, as, indeed, they did. If the U.S. had tied Finland, they would have had the same number of points as the Soviets (4), but would have lost on goal differential.)

[BDS]

One more point: What does "not unambiguously a juggernaut at that moment" mean?

If a team is in the process of winning a game 27-1, at the moment the other team scores its lone goal are we accurate in stating -- "the winning team was not a juggernaut at that moment."? It seems to me that the quality of the team (which we can assess by results from preceding years and anteceding years, as well as from recent results) is what determines whether it is a "juggernaut" or not. At any one "moment" (whether that moment be the instant of an allowed goal, or the slightly longer "moment" of one game, or two games, or even three games) the results may suggest otherwise, but the quality of the team does not change from moment to moment, although the results sometimes do.

Even great teams occasionally lose. It defies common sense to suggest that every time they lose they are qualitatively a worse team than when they win -- especially when they comprise the same players and coaches. So although Clutch may not be "talking about" anything but that Olympic tournament (indeed,ignoring the result against Sweden and talking only about the first round robin round), anyone who wants to assess the quality of the Soviet team that the U.S. beat in a fair and reasonable manner would be.

[Noesis]

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945 -- 12 Americans kill 80,000 Japanese civilians.

Could somebody tell me why I did or didn't win the award for figuring out the most lopsided victory in history?

-Noesis

I'm not sure that that event can really be described as a battle. It was a strategic target made as part of a strategic campaign, on the national level. As such, it probably best fits in as contributed by part of the overall war, where you then have to balance out the overall losses on both sides over four years.

NTM

But weren't most of the aforementioned battles someone's "strategic target made as part of a strategic campaign." And what do you mean by "national level?"

Hmmmm... Not sure I buy your argument. But I'm open to the idea that it's not a "battle." I just don't know specifically why it's not a battle.

[Noesis]

:party:

This is my own little party for winning the thread. Woohoo!

[Clutch Munny]

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/greek/winged_victory.jpg.html

You find a more lopsided victory, you let me know.

[Noesis]

And Clutch Munny brings on the funny!

:bow:

[Paul H.]

Well, no, I wasn't joking.

We killed 500 000 Iraqi women and childen - over ten years - via trade sanctions.

We did it on purpose.

That's a great victory over our enemies because it did not cost us a single casualty.