Say what you want about Shaka Zulu

Hannibal used fucking flanking. But he was black, too, so it's still good.

Large armies weren't a thing IN THAT REGION before Shaka Zulu.

"In 371 BC, the armies of Sparta and Thebes gave battle near the city of Leuctra, despite the superior numbers and fearful reputation of the Spartan army, the unbalanced Theban attack, with the Sacred Band of Thebes on the extreme left and in echelon formation disorganized the Spartan lines and spread confusion in its army. Before even the extreme Spartan right wing had entered the fray, the battle was lost for them. It was Epaminondas's greatest triumph and shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility.

"The Battle of Leuctra has become the archetypal example of a flanking attack since. It inspired the adoption of the echelon formation by the Macedonian armies of Philip II and Alexander the Great.

So he discovered something that the rest of the world knew about for several thousand years?

They were rather isolated and had never seen large scale battles. They had no experience with it, no one ever taught them about it and they had no need to learn about. Shaka Zulu was in a complete vacuum when he discovered and formalised flanking tactics.

Caesar used flanking at Pharsalus, successfully routing Pompeius's forces after THEIR attempt at a flanking maneuver failed.

But Gneaus and Gaius were just copying Shaka, obviously.

Why are you all taking this bait?

So, yeah, he "discovered" a tactic that had been in use for several thousand years across the world.

Not to take anything away from him as a military leader, but that is a long, long way from saying "he was THE ONE that created the concept of 'flanking' in military strategy." He was not, it was an old maneuver centuries before he was born.

If the fisherman is unskilled, the bait becomes a free feast.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. The assertion that he was THE ONE who discovered it is obviously moronic and OP is trying to bait way to hard.

I'm just saying, I don't think it's fair to compare him to people like Caesar or Alexander when they existed in a completely different context.

>armies over a thousand people in tight formation was pretty rare before Shaka came on the scene.

Can you stop posting fucking retarded bullshit you pulled out of your ass?

I'm not that educated on Zulu history but from what I understand, war among the Zulu tribes consisted mostly of a few hundreds of warriors with throwing spears and the whole process was seen as a more ceremonial way to settle disputes so flanking wasn't necessary to them. It was Shaka who introduced large scale battle tactics and unified the Zulu tribes.

That's at least my sparse understanding of how Zulu fought before Shaka, I probably got some things wrong.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Battle_cannae_destruction.png

wtf are you on about, flanking was already used 2500 years ago

If you want to limit the scope of a certain discussion, say only Zulu tribes, you have to clearly indicate this. our thread became a clusterfuck because you seem to imply that Shaka Zulu was the first one ever to come up with the idea of flanking.

I can't believe how many newfags are falling for a bait thread

Kill yourselves

This was fun to watch

This. Canne was a massive flanking maneuver

What do you think units like hussars, uhlans and chasseurs were for dickhead?

I literally downloaded that exact picture to post

That was by accident though.

Are you saying I didn't know how to flank the Austrians in the battle of Austerlitz?
This isn't ignorance, this is beyond ignorance.
This is.......artistic retardation, you literally have to think to say something that stupid

ITT: the white man trying again to take credit for a black man's idea

fuckin crackers

Is this another one of those "You can't sail to Sardinia" posts?