Mine is San Jacinto, and I know of historians that agree.

In April 1836, the Alamo had fallen, Sam Houston and the Army were harried across much of the territory in what is know as the campaign of Goliad. It 20 minutes that turned completely around.

Santa Ana had about 120-1500 veteran troops, depending on who is counting. Houston had 700-900 irregulars. In the morning of 21 April, Houston positioned his men in a good defensive posture. He then polled his men to determine whther they wished to defend or attack. They had been strongly in favor of using the terrain for defense. Houston overruled them. In mid afternoon, at around the time of siesta, the Texans charged screaming out of the brush. Santa Ana's Mexican army had not bothered to post sentries. In less than 20 minutes the camp was over run, with many soldiers being awakened by fighting.

In the field, the Mexican Army was actually very competent. In a chaotic melee, they fell apart. Most simply ran, and when they discovered Houston had blown the bridge, over half the force surrendered. The next day Santa Ana was captured, dressed as a common private. Casualties ran about 600 dead and 700 captured to 9 dead and 50 injured. The official site said this of the aftermath.

As a result of the Battle of San Jacinto, almost a third of what is now the United States of America changed ownership. http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/The_Battle/April_21st_1836/

J

Well as far as what I consider "small" battles, I guess my personal favorite would be Liegnitz in 1241, but that still involved about 55,000 men. I don't have a fetish for any battles on the tiny scale of San Jacinto...

I don't know the names of any specific battles fought but I love the campaign of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's German and African troops in East Africa.

@SteveThompson: I think I understand what you mean: battle of Tanga (IIRC the most known). :) Nice choice

Mine is the so-called "battle without tears", fought near Eutresis (place not exactly recognized), in Arcadia (centre of Peloponnesos) in 367 BC.
Briefly: Spartans - under king Agesilaos' son Archidamos - defeated Arcadians (allied with Thebans) with NO casualties (that's why "tearless"...) !!!
That's what Xenophon report, and Spartans celebrated this event so much, 'cause they had a terrible demographic problem (-> every casualty was a problem).
Not a big or decisive battle, just interesting (for me).
Little note: In these campaigns Spartans had unusual allies: a Gallic cavalry corp, sended by Dionysios tyrant of Syrakosai (Siracusa, in Sicilia,Italy :D)

I don't have a fetish for any battles on the tiny scale of San Jacinto...

A fetish for battles? Seriously, that's scary.

Rorke's Drift. Practically no strategic relevance whatsoever, but what a story.

My favourite small battle is Tanga, 1914. Like Steve mentioned before Lettow- Vorbeck was able to beat British and Indian troops. He had only 800 poorly equipped men while the British had 8000 fully armed soldiers. At the end of the battle 68 Germans were dead as well as 2.000 Brits... (800- 1000 killed, ~1200 missing in the swamps= dead) and the invasion was repelled.

Adler

Small defined as compared to it's contemporaries, or small numerically compared to the whole of history?

Anyway Some of mine would be:

Auerstadt: Davout soundly thrashes an enemy force that outnumbers him more than 2:1 and drives them from the field at the end of the day. Less than 100,000 in total were involved, small for the period compared to many others. Davout's greatest achievement and a battle that deserves more attention that it often recieves.

Eben Emael: 85 men (planned, less reached it in reality) against a fortress held by over 1000 Belgian soldiers. They disabled or silenced most of the forts multiple heavy guns and suceeded in maintaining their position until ground troops arrived whereupon the fort surrendered. Hmm... sounds like an article in the making :mischief:

Pegasus Bridge: A classic coup-de-main assault on the vital bridge that suceeded in taking control of it and holding it until relieved, beating back counter attacks from tanks and ships. :eek:

The defy (?) of Barletta: 13 italians knights (believing to Spanish army) defeated in multiple duels 13 French knights (who adfirmed that Italians were bad warrior and only able to traison....).
The context: war between Spain and French, on South-Italian front, AD 1503.

@adler17: I was sure of your puntual intervention about Tanga... :goodjob:

Hastings was pretty small, only 20,000 men involved overall. ;) But no, I'd probably have to go with... Ehm...

None, really. Small battles don't quite capture the imagination as large ones do.

[QUOTE=privatehudson]Small defined as compared to it's contemporaries, or small numerically compared to the whole of history?

Anyway Some of mine would be:

Auerstadt: Davout soundly thrashes an enemy force that outnumbers him more than 2:1 and drives them from the field at the end of the day. Less than 100,000 in total were involved, small for the period compared to many others. Davout's greatest achievement and a battle that deserves more attention that it often recieves.[QUOTE]

I completely concur.

After the Russian Civil war, the white goverment in excile, of Baron Ungern Sternburg trying to capture Mongolia from the Chinese garrison...

The man was insane, he thought he was the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, and that God would make sure he won...

He attacked the capital, Urga, with about 2000 men, to the Chinese's 10,0000 with machine guns.
He was obviously crushed, and about 400 survivors retreated into the hills. He was still convinced he would take the city, so instead of retreating and trying to recruit reinforcements, he had a small group of his men (about 160), attacked the prison, where the Chinese were keeping an important Buddhist Holyman prisoner...They rescued him, and now greatly increased his men's moral, and more men in the city and surrounding villages, now joined his cause...He now had up to about 900 men, still not nearly enough. He did the old trick of surrounding the city, and making camp fires up on the hills, to make it look like they had thousands more men. About half the Chinese, most who didn't want to be in Mongolia anyways ran away, leaving only a small number to fight.

The city was taken, and the Baron's mixed bag forces of Russians, Cossacks, Mongols and Kazakhs took the city. What followed was a 2 week massacre. Practically every women in the city was raped, banks and stores were looted, only coins were left, paper money was burned. Jews, Communist, Chinese and their families in the city were all killed in various gruesome means. One story says that a baker, suspected of having Communist ties, came to his shop, to find his 4 year old son, breaded and baking in his oven.

Things like this became normal in Mongolia for the next few years, until Soviet "liberation".

Long Tan, Vietnam.

I think it was 1968, an Australian company was ambushed by several NVA battalions, held them off and inflicted severe casualties on a much superior foe.

Small defined as compared to it's contemporaries, or small numerically compared to the whole of history?

Anyway Some of mine would be:

Auerstadt: Davout soundly thrashes an enemy force that outnumbers him more than 2:1 and drives them from the field at the end of the day. Less than 100,000 in total were involved, small for the period compared to many others. Davout's greatest achievement and a battle that deserves more attention that it often recieves.

Eben Emael: 85 men (planned, less reached it in reality) against a fortress held by over 1000 Belgian soldiers. They disabled or silenced most of the forts multiple heavy guns and suceeded in maintaining their position until ground troops arrived whereupon the fort surrendered. Hmm... sounds like an article in the making :mischief:

Pegasus Bridge: A classic coup-de-main assault on the vital bridge that suceeded in taking control of it and holding it until relieved, beating back counter attacks from tanks and ships. :eek:

Good ones p h ! :goodjob: I got to have my Arnhem Bridge battle too! ;)

Good point, Arnhem Bridge has fascinated me since the day I visited the city well over 10 years ago :)

Oh darn! How did I forget Eben Emael? Hmmm, I read that it was 78, not 85, but still a fantastic battle! The "world's strongest fortress" - the Belgians didn't even have it up to full strength! Maybe if they had more men, it would have been different...

Can anyone give me an exact date on the Battle of Tanga? I'm making a private chronology of everything in history and it's always better to have a day or month than a year....

Oh darn! How did I forget Eben Emael? Hmmm, I read that it was 78, not 85, but still a fantastic battle!

Kinds of depends on the source you use I think, some for example don't include Glider pilots in the number and some do. Some include those who arrived late due to glider problems, some don't. Creates confusion as to the actual number at the end of the day. I think the figure that actually made the initial assault was 55!

The "world's strongest fortress" - the Belgians didn't even have it up to full strength! Maybe if they had more men, it would have been different...

I tend to think not. The Belgians were stunned by the glider attack and had no idea what to do about it, and Witzig's men achieved their objectives so quickly that no amount of additional Belgians would have affected the issue. It may have had an affect on the survival chances of Granite's men after the initial period, but their principle objectives would have been done anyway.

Co-incidentally, this is the topic of my next FJ article :D

"Mine is San Jacinto"

I agree, it was the Texas equivalent to Washington's victory at Trenton, only it added 1/3 of the present United States in an 180 degree reversal of the war in a mere 20 minutes!

Can anyone give me an exact date on the Battle of Tanga? I'm making a private chronology of everything in history and it's always better to have a day or month than a year....
British turned on the coast outside Tanga on Nov. 2 1914. The fighting took plave on Nov. 4-5.
Adler17 has an article somewhere. :goodjob:

The Battle of San Pascual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Pascual) seeing as that it is near my home. Also, it is one of the few victories for Mexico in the war, a war I did not think was right :p

who mentioned Arnhem? i see pegasus not arnhem. Pegasus bridge was in the East of the D-day beaches secured by a small group of british paras armed with stens brens and piats only destroyed a tank scared an entire armoured battalion away with 1 piat shot (lucky buggers :D) and then sank a gunship the other with it turned and fled or hit a sandbank i dont remember which. And so a small group of men captured and held 2 bridges against all odds securing the British and canadian Gold Sword and Juno beaches and probably the american beaches as well. That i agree with :)

other than that possibly the siege of Tobruk if it counts allthough it may be considerd big due to the number of germans involved.

1944 Amour commander of Grupp North

The famous count strachwitz
Took hes four panzers and infiltrated the russian rear. he had guessed the russian advance route correctly. They accounted for a hunread and five russsian tanks and afterwards succesfully made hes way back to german lines

4 vs 105

Thank you Verbose! And Tobruk would be another good one, maybe not small but also not really big...

I don´t have made an article about Tanga yet, but I will do it later. Perhaps in the next few weeks.

Adler

1944 Amour commander of Grupp North

The famous count strachwitz
Took hes four panzers and infiltrated the russian rear. he had guessed the russian advance route correctly. They accounted for a hunread and five russsian tanks and afterwards succesfully made hes way back to german lines

4 vs 105

I've never heard this :confused: , could you write up some more information
and descriptions :scan: . I really like these types of tactical situations :cool: .

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/gen11.htm

A small biography of him. Although this attack is not mentioned there.

Adler

From another site :)

In an effort to recapture the Latvian port near Riga, Strachwitz took a small force of ten Tiger tanks and fifteen half-tracks full of Panzergrenadiers in a large loop around Tuccum. Surprising an entire battalion of T-34s in the town, all lined up neatly, he availed himself of the gunnery officer of the battleship Lutzow and had the big 11" guns destroy many of the Russian tanks. Strachwitz and his men finished off the rest, used the captured enemy fuel and supplies from a Russian supply area.

From there he took a small force, headed north surprised a Soviet armored Corps by getting behind it. He positioned his four Tiger tanks well and watched as the Russian tanks rolled onward. This was a favorite tactic of the Tiger tank commanders. When the time was right, the Panzer Graf had his tanks open fire. It created havoc among the Russian tanks. They thought they were being fired on from the front and did not realize the shells were coming from their flanks. Soon dozens of Russian tanks were left twisted smoking hulks. The Russian commander, with more Germans at the front of his column, thought he was surrounded by a much larger force and surrendered his entire corps. Leaving some infantry and halftracks to control the situation, Strachwitz continued on his war odyssey, reaching Riga, entering the town and capturing it. A group of high ranking German officers later entered the city, noticed the Panzer Graf sitting atop the turret of his Tiger and shouted, "Nice going, Lieutenant!" Strachwitz wore no rank badges in combat. Laughing, Strachwitz answered them, "You're not talking to a lieutenant. I'm only a general".

I am ready with Tanga:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=2434136#post2434136

Adler

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/gen11.htm

A small biography of him. Although this attack is not mentioned there.

Adler

Diamonds & Gold :eek: . Thanks for the link, maybe he should be called the
'Panzer :king: '. Love that tactical stuff :goodjob: .

Diamonds & Gold :eek: . Thanks for the link, maybe he should be called the
'Panzer :king: '. Love that tactical stuff :goodjob: .

He only even fought on the eastern front. Thats why hes virtually unknown, But Iam certain he archieved more kills then Whitterman.

My other favorate is of how a M81 scout car (37mm) took out a Panther with a front on shot. The shell hit under the turret and deflected into the thin top amour penetrating. You can imagine the surprise of the panther Tank crew. :D

IIRC this was during the battle of the Bludge.

He only even fought on the eastern front. Thats why hes virtually unknown, But Iam certain he archieved more kills then Whitterman.

My other favorate is of how a M81 scout car (37mm) took out a Panther with a front on shot. The shell hit under the turret and deflected into the thin top amour penetrating.
What surprise. They would have been dead before they realized there was an attack in progress.

In defense of my starting point, San Jacinto was enormously important in political terms because it gave the United States access to the Pacific Ocean through friendly territory. Some have speculated that the Alamo deprived Texas of a minor empire. Some of the very cream of the families of Texas died in the attack, in addition to better known names like Crocket and Austin. In effect the next generation was somewhat headless.

Politically speaking there was no large inducement to joining the United States. Had Texas remained an independant republic, then the ensuing period chaos in Mexico and of the American Civil War would have likely left Texas as a land bridge between the oceans. Add the natural resources and native resourcefulness, and Texas would become a significant power. Of Course another war of conquest with Mexico would be inevitable. The question would be, who would conquer whom?

J

I liked a battle between princes of Zagan,, brothers John and Balthasar. John won and sent entire Balthasar's army back to his brother - completely naked.

I am ready with Tanga:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=2434136#post2434136

Adler
Ooops! I was quite sure I had read one written by you.:blush:
Must've been a substantial post mentioneing it.

Well, consider the article as one on popular demand. :goodjob: