"Battles you would like to see" Topic

If you could pick some of your favorite battles to travel back to and witness them with your own eyes, but you remained invisible and could not be killed, which would they be?
My first picks would be Little Bighorn and the Alamo to find out what actually happened in both battles. Also Waterloo, Gettysburg, Teutoburg Forest, Wabash, Trenton, and Quebec would be other must sees as well.

Alesia

Leuthen
Well several so I could ar last have the truth about them.

Hastings

Definitely Hastings.

I'll go with Hastings. A critical battle, with some interesting questions to answer: feigned retreat versus rout; how the 2-handed axe worked in shield wall; shield patterns and colours. But small enough that you might be able to experience much of it – as opposed to, say, Waterloo and Wellington's comment that no one person could experience the whole battle (hey, I spent several hours there without any intervening smoke and noise and still didn't get to Hougoumont).

Boudicca/Boudicea's final battle.

Anything from the ECW, or any other 17thC pike & shot battle, so we could see how they actually did it.

The Alamo

Hood vs Bismarck or Jutland

Cowpens
Guilford Court House
Cowpens
Just about any AWI battle so I can see what uniforms and flags everyone had.

Waterloo
Mons
Antietam
Gettysburg
Borodino
Alesia

Can I bring a digital camera?

Mount Badon is another mystery battle that would be interesting to eyewitness.

Bosworth is always first pick. No other battle so recent and important we know so little about. Little Big Horn and Alamo just for curiosity. Then maybe Auldearn. I think I know what happened, but I'd like to be sure. Maybe one early Montrose just to sort out the "highland charge" vs "regular pike & shot unit" business.
Hmm. Marston Moor and Naseby to get some nice uniform photos and check the pike:shot ratios?

Really none. I don't think I would want to be that near the mass of death & destruction. I worked all my life as a nurse putting people back together health wise. That said I do enjoy reading about battles & other aspects of history but I never loose sight of the human cost.

cannae

Zama or Illipa so I could see how the romans really fought.
Kadesh, how engaged was Rameses.
Trafalgar just for the spectacle.
Leuthen to see Frederick on his A game
Austerlitz to see Napoleon on his A game
Waterloo to see how near a run thing it was.

Hastings. I want to see how accurate I am…………

Blenheim

Manzikert.

I'll stick with the Battle of the Network Stars circa 1982.

It's an interesting academic question but in reality I would have no more interest than I have in going down and "checking out" the killing floor of my local slaughterhouse.

Now the liberation of Brussels in 1944, London on VE Day or San Francisco on VJ day would be a thing to see.

I am with Zulupaul… not sure I would really like to watch a real battle up close, even if I am invulnerable to harm.

And yet I am really curious about how pre-Modern battles were really fought. Particularly, how Roman armies actually deployed for battle.

Hmmm! First Manassas and a bit of whispering to the Stone wall that Washington is open…what would history be like since 1860 in that time line?

Like others, I don't really care to watch men die. However, I'd love to have a closeup look at Pearl Harbor at 7:54a on December 7th, as long as I can check out just as the first bomb falls.

Iwo Jima.

I've walked the fields about a dozen times, climbed from the invasion beaches up Suribachi, the Ampitheater, the Meat Grinder, the Command Bunker, the airfields, Motoyama and Airfield #3, up to Kitano Point, in some of the caves around Airfield #1, etc…

What those Marines did is amazing to me, I still can't grasp how they took that island. If I could see any battle, it would be that one.

Here are some buddies and I in 1998, atop Suribachi, looking down on the invasion beaches.

V/R,
Jack

My first pick would be Granicus. I don't think that the Persians were really that bad at deployment, and so the prevailing idea is more Alexandrian mythology than reality. Second would probably be Bosworth.

1. Granicus
2. Bosworth
3. Mount Baden

Everyone is saying Bosworth but that just sounds so boring! I'd much rather watch Towton unfold. My first pick would be Mons Graupis. I'm very interested to see how the Romans operated and how controlled and organized they really were. Also interested in seeing the Caledonians and their customs before the battle.

I'm with Basileus66 and Zulupaul. I don't want to see any battle. I don't want to see men killed and torn apart, suffering and dying in pain, calling out in agony and fear for their mothers, their wives, and for death to end their suffering. Certainly not for entertainment and even worse as "research" to critique war game rules. I think that would be morally reprehensible.

If I had the time machine I would however like to go back to the morning of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and stand with Constantine and see what he saw in the sky that morning, and hen Constantine could go off to fight his battle and I could ponder what I had seen. Or, even better I would like to listen to the carpenter from Nazareth speaking to the people from the mountain. But watch a battle-- no thanks.. To be a voyeur of human suffering-- no thanks.

Is there not misery enough in the world already for you?

No kidding, Otto.

Some office worker who sits in front of a computer screen all day and unwinds at night by pushing toy soldiers on a table, decides he would like to go back in time to watch Cannae, or Agincourt or Leuthen.

Seriously, he'd spend the battle off to the side puking his guts out at the carnage and horror he's witnessing.

There would be some many great things to see if time travel existed. As much as I enjoy military history, watching the horrific reality of combat would probably not be one of them.

By the way, I doubt Constantine saw anything that morning beyond a contrived means to solidify his absolute hold on power. But we could both go check that out and see who's right.

Actually, I don't sit in front of a computer screen all day, and I have very little interest in Cannae, Agincourt, and Leuthen.
The battles I would like to go back in time would watch would be Antietam, Gettysburg, Lundy's Lane, Waterloo, Little Bighorn, The Alamo, Monmouth, Wabash, and Omaha Beach. And I don't think I would puke my guts out with the possible exceptions of Omaha Beach and Little Bighorn, due to the horrific carnage of Omaha Beach and the mutilations at Little Bighorn. But the other battles were fought in the era before photography, so that is a main reason I would like to watch them. And see the uniforms both sides wore.

Protesting horror at actually seeing graphic destruction, is protesting too much, boys (and girls). Which of us refuses to sit through a graphically displayed "R" rated battle in the cinema? Nobody I know. These days, we feel as if we have cheapened the sacrifice of the originals if we don't subject ourselves to a virtual bloodbath. The latest one, for me, was Hacksaw Ridge, possibly the bloodiest battle on the big screen to date. To not "go through" a tenth part of what Desmond Doss experienced, because of personal standards (I won't see an R-rated picture; or, I won't support the glorification of violence, etc.), but allow a lesser experience, is just pontificating.

My suspicion is that every dyed in the wool wargamer has already seen and experience the real thing, countless times. That is why war and the study and fascination of it, will never go away. It's in our cells…………

My only request would be, "Can I turn the volume down?" I really don't want to damage my ears any further……….

Well Great War Ace. You've met one.

I refuse to go to "R" movies at all regardless if they have the rating for violence or other reasons, and do not watch television programs which would rate such a rating. It means of course I don't go to the movies much or watch much television.

I usually won't even watch PG movies or similar television shows.

Not a prude, not pontificating, I just don't care to see such awful things. If you do, then that's fine for you and I leave you to such scenes.

Waterloo. To answer timing questions

Don't forget your special glasses to see through the smoke when you're there.
And better take a helicopter too, so you can see the entire battle.

There is a reason why we are unsure how some battles unfolded … and it's not because back then they forgot to write it down.

Ah, the cries of a realist – in a thread proposing time travel…

But sadly, many battles were not widely written down. Now, if everyone at Waterloo had written their battle down, we could have years of fun arguing about different viewpoints.

Although I don't know if I'd want to see people die and be maimed for real, it would be cool to see the uniforms of different armies or the sizes, especially in battles fought before photography.
Marengo
Wagram
Leipzig
The Alamo
Buena Vista
Fetterman Fight
Little Bighorn
Rosebud
Brandywine
Sainte Foy
Antietam
Kursk

I'd love to see the original Battle Of Hook's Farm, fought by H.G. Wells and Jerome K. Jerome c.1912 with Britain'slead soldiers and spring toy guns, described in Little Wars.

Failing that, the battles fought by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osborne at Davos and described by the latter in Scribner's Magazine.

Or Brigadier Peter Young and Lieutenant-Colonel J.P.Lawford fighting Blasthof Bridge or Sittangbad with the Charge! rules.