"Firsts and Lasts - why is it so hard to determine these? " Topic

Maybe its just me, but I am amazed at how difficult it is to agree on the last time / first time something happened in military history.
The old 'when did the British last wear scarlet?' question comes up every few months. Omdurman is often described as being 'the last time British cavalry charged' – which is clearly untrue when you start reading about the Boer War and even the First World War. I have also see arguments on which was the first jet fighter – the Me262 or the Meteor. I'm sure some of the great minds of TMP can come up with a few more.

Why is it so hard for people to agree on these things, when they 'should' be objective statements of fact, not opinions?

Is it simply different interpretations? (eg. 'x was the last 'big' battle where 'all' the troops wore red, whereas at y, only a few wore red and the rest were in khaki')

Or is national pride involved? (eg. our plane got into service before their plane if you define this as being 'in service with 20 squadrons')

> Is it simply different interpretations? (eg. 'x was the last 'big' battle

That is usually the problem, "big" has no definitive answer. Add to that the misinformation out there and it just gets worse.

Its because the simple question usually comes from a perspective which includes a bunch of assumptions and the people listening have different assumptions.

A bit like people thinking that double click on an icon means 'open this' in Windows – when it means 'open this in this software of version X, or maybe if you told me earlier something else that reads it' – which for most purposes means the same thing but often enough to catch you means something falls over.

Same thing for the readers – they just use a different metric for the assumptions.

I kind of agree with the OP. Sports keeps better records.

On the same line, what is "the largest tank battle in history"?

Kursk obviously John :-) hah

Really?
See Time magazine during the 1967 Arab Israeli War, CNN et al during the Gulf wars… et cetera

Pre 1990
largest tank battle – Kursk
largest armoured battle – Sinai '73
but were they a group of battles or just one…….

Part of the problem with uniforms comes from paintings, incorrect recollections, a hint in a gov't document that is open to interpretation, a memoir in which things were transposed, etc., all of which conflict with "the truth."

If you include Indian cavalry as 'British', the last charge was in 1944, when elements of the 3rd Gwalior Lancers and Jodhpur Lancers charged Japanese troops in order to break into the 'Admin Box' position in Burma.

79thPA

Interesting point on incorrect recollections. Let's be honest, every soldier wants to be able to say he fought in the last battle when x occurred, or served in the first campaign where y was used… so maybe this 'self-promotion' adds to the confusion.

And historians do the same – my book covers the first modern war or the last war between gentlemen, or it foreshadows the dark humor of the War of Jenkins Ear. What's the first "modern" war? Depends on what you call modern, dunnit?

Incidentally, there's no such thing as objective in the sense you mean, so there's that as well.

And stats are killing sports. What did Mr. Sports do today? Tune in to fine out.

For the first time in league history, a left handed warbler scored twenty-two goals while playing right half-guard, for a team that had at least 11 road games, in a 19 day stretch.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a …"

Well,Bob,this is his fourth at-bat at 3:01 on a Friday with one puffy cloud in the Southwest at 1500 feet and a Sun angle of 57' with an ambient temperature of 62'. He has hit a homerun in those exact conditions. Last time was in 2000 against the same team! I smell another homerun, Tom!

The last time the bird logo team played the cow logo team was 1987. Birds won on a last second score in a game for the ages. Of course, none of the players on the bird logo team playing tonight had even been born yet. and the old vet on the cow logo team was 8, and a huge fan of the flaming ball logo team. But based on history I think the bird logo team has the edge.

In 1948, Howdy Doody had 48 freckles. One for each U.S. state.

The british still wear scarlet to this day.

R.Mark Davies…was n't aware of this action; where would I find out more?
Incidentally, My wife's Commonwealth Burma army has benefited greatly from many posts you've made here, so many thanks.

E.C. — there are useful stats, and then there are RBIs.

And, honestly, it's what keeps me following the game when my team is 8-24, and can't get their new TV station on the air.

UFB, I wish I knew! It's only mentioned very fleetingly in various accounts. It doesn't help that both regiments were 'Indian States Forces' – i.e. belonging to Maharajas' private armies rather than the Indian Army proper, so the Indian Army probably had little interest in recording much about the incident. The Horsed Wing of the 3rd Gwalior Lancers was also credited with detecting the Japanese advance on Cox's Bazaar during Operation Ha-Go.