| Yesthatphil | 23 Mar 2015 3:54 a.m. PST |
Strange how it has boiled down to a set of choices 1939 and more recent. Does that mean people feel we have entered a new era of extreme asymmetry in warfare since the mid 20th Cent.? Or that we have much more information so can more easily call it for recent years? Or does 'post war' just dominate the chatter … Phil |
| Who asked this joker | 23 Mar 2015 5:10 a.m. PST |
Dunno Phil. It's hard to top Grenada. 10,000 vs about 1200. Just 19 killed on the American side. Only 3 during the actual invasion operation. Thermopylae comes to mind for even more extreme odds but then again, the Spartans fought until they ran out of men. So, probably not lopsided on the actual battle account! |
Frederick  | 23 Mar 2015 5:32 a.m. PST |
Most lopsided would have to be Grenada – 7300 well trained, elite and well equipped US troops supported by the biggest Navy in the world versus 1500 poorly motivated locals and 800 or so Cubans Good question about post 1939 but one thing is that with the ability of modern weapons conflicts go from aymetric to unreal pretty quickly |
| Pictors Studio | 23 Mar 2015 5:58 a.m. PST |
I think that the Anglo-Zanzibarian War is more lopsided than Grenada. You have a war between five modern (at the time) naval ships and less than a dozen artillery pieces. The war lasted 38 minutes with 1 British soldier wounded and 500 Zanzibarians killed or wounded. A casualty ratio of 1:500. In Grenada the US led forces took 135 casualties vs. 1,125 for the Cubans and co. So a ratio of less than 1:10. |
| Terrement | 23 Mar 2015 7:22 a.m. PST |
Can't just use body count as the sole metric. US vs. Seminoles With the Seminoles undefeated, and unbeatable, the US found they could not win. US declared the war over but never signed a peace treaty. Who else has held out so many decades against the same sort of powerful nation and at the end, is still not defeated? |
| Jakar Nilson | 23 Mar 2015 7:31 a.m. PST |
Yeah, Anglo-Zanzibar War was definitely the choice. |
| Pictors Studio | 23 Mar 2015 8:38 a.m. PST |
"Can't just use body count as the sole metric." Certainly not. The fact that the Anglo-Zanzibarian War lasted for all of 38 minutes seems to indicate that it was also pretty lopsided. |
 Flashman14 | 23 Mar 2015 12:02 p.m. PST |
Apart from declarations by Congress, was the invasion of Grenada even a war? |
| Buff Orpington | 23 Mar 2015 12:04 p.m. PST |
Anglo Zanzibar for me too. |
 enfant perdus | 23 Mar 2015 12:13 p.m. PST |
Yeah, Anglo-Zanzibar War was definitely the choice. Agreed. There are clearly different definitions of "lopsided" in play, but as Pictors point out, that conflict hits all the criteria. Grenada is probably the next logical choice, or perhaps the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. I'm mystified by the inclusion of Poland '39. The Poles had a large and powerful military and put up a considerable fight. Not nearly as lopsided as Denmark in 1940, or the Low Countries. |
| Pictors Studio | 23 Mar 2015 12:25 p.m. PST |
I thought Poland might have been included because they had to fight both Russia and Germany. I still don't think it was close to the most lopsided in history but it was pretty tough for them. |
 optional field | 29 Mar 2015 4:37 p.m. PST |
Yeah, Anglo-Zanzibar War was definitely the choice.
Beyond that, the British required the Zanzibaris pay for the cost of the RN's ammunition used in the conflict! |
journeys to and from the Australian national convention - and tells us what he thinks of panicking tank hordes and flat terrain!
