"Least interesting major battle" Topic

Rules are simple. The battle must have "killed" a lot of people and is "famous " yet you have absolutely no interest in finding anything out anything about it.

To me there are tons of Napoleonic battles that do not interest me in the least. I suppose Waterloo is kind of interesting. I guess Austerlitz is important.
But for me the winner is Aspern Essling. Did I spell it right? Do I care?
I have heard of it , but I don't even know fought in it or when. French, right ?
So that's my nominee.

If you want to play nominate some bloody battle you have no plans to know anything about. Any period.

Any of the massive Eastern Front battles between the Soviets and the Axis. To keep to the spirit of the rules, let's say…Second Battle of Kharkov. Or maybe Kursk. Or Operation Bagration. Whatever.

Yes, I know WWII was largely fought and won on the Eastern Front and I'm sure there are scads of interesting things that happened in these battles, but (no pun intended) they leave me cold.

For the purpose of limiting entrants to one battle per post, I will select … eenie meenie miney moe … Operation Bagration from your more than impressive list. You killed more people in just one of those than I did.
At least I think you did. That would require me to look up AE, and I can't be bothered.

And if you swallow the fiction that Winston and the OFM are two different people, let me nominate Malplaquet. It took me a few minutes to Google it to get the proper spelling. I hope that did not break Winston's rules.

Agincourt.

EXCELLENT choice! All the outraged types will be chiming in in … hours?

I have no such battle. Even arcane ones beckon to me. The only restraint at all is that the book shelves in my apartment are groaning. I am trying to keep my purchases down to Kindle books. I keep postponing another culling of lesser books to make room.

Pavia I think it was in the 16 the century in Italy, but I'm not sure.

Hey, esoteric is my middle name. Allow me to regale you with tales from the Third Mahratta and Pindari Wars…

My thing with the Eastern Front is, once your smallest maneuver element is the Army, and your main focus is the Front/Army Group (of which each side has half a dozen or more), you've lost me.

Now, were we to enlarge upon famous and important battles that, in terms of tactics or general narrative, aren't really that interesting, I could go to town. But I won't, because I know how much the OFM appreciates a well-herded clowder of cats.

Anything SYW in Europe- Liegnitz for instance

The debacles suffered by the Romans at the hands of Hannibal – lake Trebia for instance

Almost any battle on land. On the face of it, fighting on land is a bad idea; after all, that's where most people live.

Ron

Aren't all battles like football games, one side wins, the other side loses and some poor smuck has to clean up the mess. I vote Battle of Sekigahara.

If we're going for sacrilege, let's bring the big guns to bear…Battle of Chickamauga.

Anything without gunpowder.

Any battle that took place in India or China. Unless there were tanks. But not very interested even then.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

To qualify you must name something. You have heard of that battle but can't be bothered to find out anything about it.

As above, anything from the SYW, let's pick one at random.. Rossbach. Was that even in the SYW?

Mukden

Never heard of it? You have lots of company – but it was one of the largest battles in the world pre-WWI; 620,000 troops involved

I'd say anything in South America because I have so little interest in any wars there I can't even name any battles post conquistador.

World War I battles in general. I'll pick Verdun.

The list is too long to pick out any particular one.

Iīm with Mike, Asian battles between Asian armies donīt interest me. To follow the rules, I will name that one in China in 1948, I think it is Huihui or something like that. It sounds like meal M8 on the menu of my local Chinese restaurant.

But regardless, I have heard it was really important.

I nominate San Jacinto: 20 minutes long, completely one-sided. The only rival would be, I suppose, the action against the Sultan of Zanzibar in the late C19.

I can't think of one, actually. I know I am not as interested in Ocaņa as I am in Eylau, but that doesn't mean I have not interest whatsoever in the former. Problem is that once I read about a battle, I become interested in it regardless of my previous ignorance.

Jutland.

That doesn't count Jeff. You already know most of what there is to know about San Jacinto.

Aspern-Essling's anything but uninteresting – a completely unique situation which breaks all the usual rules of the period.
(And it scores highly for a lightweight like myself in that you can get a good understanding of it very easily by grasping just a couple of key points.)

Sekigahara's a great choice.
I get that it was huge – really, I do. But I can't shake the idea that it made no difference apart from which particular bunch of autocrats were top of the heap. Add in the difficult-to-keep-track of dynastic stuff, off-table politics and changing sides, and my enthusiasm wanes.
(And this someone who does game the period!)

Yorktown

Vicksburg

Just about all sieges.

I have a whole scenario book on Chickamauga. Just played the battle recently. Union won. They win half the time.

Vicksburg as a battle? Hell yes its boring! As a campaign? Different story. I really don't have any battles per say, mainly because I try to model what makes the action interesting to me.

That said, One I don't want to do is Surigao Strait. Sorry but seeing two old battleships get blown to hell by radar equipped, more modern opponents, and destroyers,and PT boats is a bit like see two old ladies getting gang-raped by four dirty old men, a couple of young punks, and a horde of dwarves and midgets. Sorry not fun.

Tom, Tom, Tom.
You obviously know something about Surigao Strait. That disqualifies you.
The point of this exercise is that there is a battle you can't be bothered to know anything about.

Ditto, you are not allowed to criticize someone else's choice simply because it is interesting to YOU. Prejudices are beyond reproach and may not be questioned.
Same with you, Norman.

Anything from the Renaissance through the ECW. Pike blocks? Bleh! So disinterested I can't even name a sample battle. Wait, a Monty Python song about Cromwell comes to mind… Marston Moor, in 1644…

YouTube link

Were there battles fought in the famous War of the Austrian Succession? Must have been. After all it was a war. Fontenoy perhaps?

And then there are all those battles that sound like Wagnerian Dwarfs with too many umlauts. Koeniggratz ?

Whoah, there… I've looked at Sekigahara just enough to realise that (A) there's a lot to it, and (B) I can't be bothered with it…

But knowing that much is enough to disqualify it as my choice?

It's a fiendish Catch-22!

Anything from the Arab-Israeli Wars. I'll say "The Bar-Lev Line" because it's the only thing I can recall at the moment.

Anything from the Roman Civil Wars; can't even think of one by name right now, but have played them as games and they are even more boring than hoplite shoving matches.

I nominate San Jacinto: 20 minutes long, completely one-sided.

Jeff,

I'll see your San Jacinto and raise the Alamo. John Wayne died. Big deal.

LT

Does it have to be real? In college I was deluged with the important "facts" about the Massacre at Kitty-Mer … something about the Goa'uld attacking the Wookies, so Starbuck and Apollo ran in to help and won some kind of award. Personally, I was never that interested in Babylon-5.

Borodino

Operation Bagration for me. One of my friends can't stop going on about it, but to me its just noise. It doesn't help that he and another friend can't make their minds up as to how it should be pronounced

"bag -rash – on"

"bag – ray shon"

"toe -mar – toe"

"toe – may – toe"

Personally I'd I just call the whole thing off

Bag. Rat. Ion.
Easy peasy.

All you need to know ..?

The "Battle of the Gulf of Naples" which took place on 5 June 1284 in front of Castellammare during the wars of the Sicilian Vespers.
The naval battle was fought between the forces of the Aragonese – Sicilians under Ruggiero di Lauria (Roger of Lauria) and the Angevins of Naples under Carlo of Napoli (Charles of Naples).
20 galleys of the Aragonese – Sicilians fought against the Angevin's 28 galleys (half from Naples, half French). The French galleys were all captured and Carlo the second of Anjou (also known as "lo Zoppo" – the Lame) was captured.

DOES NOT COUNT!!!!!
You know something about the battle!
Re-read the premise.
1) You have heard if it.
2) You must have no interest in learning ANYTHING about the battle.
Clearly you fail at 2.

I guess mine don't count either because I know a lot about Vicksburg and Yorktown.

I guess any battle during the Carlist Wars. Any battle in South America. The problem is I don't know enough about them to know any of the battles. But I am so uninterested I won't bother to learn about any of the battles and they are certainly not famous. A sort of "catch 22."

Almost all famous battles I have some interest in. Sieges are usually boring. The Sieges of Metz and Paris during the FPW are boring. But I love playing the FPW so I know a lot about those Sieges. Paris Commune, relief attempts etc.

I think some of us are listing famous battles that do not make good games. Which is not what you are asking. then again some of the battles listed are so obscure that no one wants to game them. But they are not famous. Need to re-think this poll.

Any battle in South America.

May we put you down for Arica? It was fought during the War of the Pacific, between…umm…Chile and Peru? I know it happened because it was a scenario in Age of Rifles. It may have involved a desert.

Sieges are usually boring.

Tactically, yes. To game, sure. But sieges make for great narratives full of Human Drama, which is why movies about battles usually suck, while movies about sieges are mostly great. I blame Homer.

Marathon

I think some Greeks and Persians fought there and some guy ran a long way home to give the results. Or was that the movie 300? I forget…and don't care.

Am I limited to only one battle from any period, or can I name more Ancients battles I don't give a hoot about?