Which war mentioned in historic times was the most brutal ever?

[Timsup2nothin]

Interesting thread. A lot of equating number of deaths to level of brutality, which is one way to go about it. I'd look at how they die though.

Something from the age of musketry.

Before that casualties generally had a limb hacked off or a big bite taken by some sort of bladed weapon. Bleed out fast, lose consciousness even faster. Not bad, though far better to win than lose of course.

Beyond muskets eventually projectiles reach velocities where their penetrating power tends to make the damage reach internal organs where the blood supplied to that organ leads once again to a fairly quick bleed out.

Ah, but the humble musket ball...often lodged in the muscle because it doesn't have enough penetrating power to really bring about a mortal injury...except for the fact that battlefields are notoriously filthy places. So you get a huge fraction of the combatants disabled but surviving the battle, only to die slow agonizing deaths by infection. Pass.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Interesting thread. A lot of equating number of deaths to level of brutality, which is one way to go about it. I'd look at how they die though.

Something from the age of musketry.

Before that casualties generally had a limb hacked off or a big bite taken by some sort of bladed weapon. Bleed out fast, lose consciousness even faster. Not bad, though far better to win than lose of course.

Beyond muskets eventually projectiles reach velocities where their penetrating power tends to make the damage reach internal organs where the blood supplied to that organ leads once again to a fairly quick bleed out.

Ah, but the humble musket ball...often lodged in the muscle because it doesn't have enough penetrating power to really bring about a mortal injury...except for the fact that battlefields are notoriously filthy places. So you get a huge fraction of the combatants disabled but surviving the battle, only to die slow agonizing deaths by infection. Pass.

Interesting, every 15 years or so the equivalent of a city the size of Seattle is wiped out; in most cases, the people are either burned, mutilated or gassed to death.

Talking about road accidents of course, not war!

Only some things that cause nasty deaths make people care. Maybe this tells us about the psychology of war in years gone by?

 

[daft]

how many died in Rwanda?
Yess, the Russian Revolution, don't most Russian wars total millions of deaths in their aftermath, or is a human life that cheap in Russia? Feel for China, looks as though they had it even worse.
Heard about Paraguay, but must read more into it.
How many deaths in all the ancient Greece vs Persia wars?
Terrifying yet fascinating stuff, yet I do not need to know details on how the civilians were slaughtered, way too gory.