Desired scans : Black Powder supplements Rank and File supplements Harpoon 3 & 4 supplements Hail Caesar! Late Antiquity to Early Medieval Army List Force on Force supplements Hind Commander At Close Quarters War and Conquest Germany Strikes! Bolt Action: Empire in Flames
Jonathan Moore
20th of June in military history:
451 – Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius' battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory. 1620 – The Battle of Höchst in the Thirty Years' War. 1631 – The Sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates. 1685 – Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater. 1862 – Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister of Romania, is assassinated. 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China. 1940 – World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France. 1941 – The United States Army Air Corps is deprecated to being the American training and logistics section of what is known until 1947 as the United States Army Air Forces. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". 1944 – Continuation War: The Soviet Union demands an unconditional surrender from Finland during the beginning of partially successful Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive. The Finnish government refuses. 1963 – The so-called "red telephone" link is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis. 1979 – ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
Jeremiah Barnes
It is 1,565 years since the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (or Fields), also called the Battle of Châlons or the Battle of Maurica. It was fought between a coalition led by the Roman general Flavius Aetius and the Visigothic king Theodoric I, against the Huns and their vassals commanded by their king Attila. It was one of the last major military operations of the Western Roman Empire, although Germanic federates composed the majority of the coalition army. The battle was strategically inconclusive: the Romans stopped the Huns' attempt to establish vassals in Roman Gaul, and installed Merovech as king of the Franks. However, the Huns successfully looted and pillaged much of Gaul and crippled the military capacity of the Romans and Visigoths.
In the years preceding 450, Roman control over Gaul and its other outlying provinces had grown weak. That year, Honoria, the sister of Emperor Valentinian III, offered her hand in marriage to Attila with the promise that she would deliver half the Western Roman Empire as her dowry. Long a thorn in her brother's side, Honoria had earlier been married to Senator Herculanus in an effort to minimize her scheming.
Accepting Honoria's offer, Attila demanded that Valentinian deliver her to him. This was promptly refused and Attila began preparing for war. His planning was also encouraged by the Vandal king Gaiseric who wished to wage war on the Visigoths. Marching across the Rhine in early 451, Attila was joined by the Gepids and Ostrogoths. Through the first parts of the campaign, Attila's men sacked town after town including Strasbourg, Metz, Cologne, Amiens, and Reims. As they approached Aurelianum (Orleans), the city's inhabitants closed the gates forcing Attila to lay siege. In northern Italy, Magister militum Flavius Aetius began mustering forces to resist Attila's advance.
Isaac Perez
Moving into southern Gaul, Aetius found himself with a small force consisting primarily of auxiliaries. Seeking aid from Theodoric I, king of the Visigoths, he was initially rebuffed. Turning to Avitus, a powerful local magnate, Aetius finally was able to find assistance. Working with Avitus, Aetius succeeded in convincing Theodoric to join the cause as well as several other local tribes. Moving north, Aetius sought to intercept Attila near Aurelianum.
Word of Aetius' approach reached Attila as his men were breaching the city's walls. Forced to abandon the attack or be trapped in the city, Attila began retreating northeast in search of favorable terrain to make a stand. Reaching the Catalaunian Fields, he halted, turned, and prepared to give battle. On June 19, as the Romans approached, a group of Attila's Gepids fought a large skirmish with some of Aetius' Franks. Despite foreboding predictions from his seers, Attila gave the order to form for battle the next day. Moving from their fortified camp, they marched towards a ridge that crossed the fields.
There are no conclusive assessments of each armies' strength; with estimates ranging from 30-50,000 on each side.
Playing for time, Attila did not give the order to advance until late in the day with the goal of allowing his men to retreat after nightfall if defeated. Pressing forward they moved up the right side of the ridge with the Huns in the center and the Gepids and Ostrogoths on the right and left respectively. Aetius' men climbed the left slope of the ridge with his Romans on the left, the Alans in the center, and Theodoric's Visigoths on the right. With the armies in place, the Huns advanced to take the top of the ridge. Moving quickly, Aetius' men reached the crest first. Taking the top of the ridge, they repulsed Attila's assault and sent his men reeling back in disorder. Seeing an opportunity, Theodoric's Visigoths surged forward attacking the retreating Hunnic forces.
Joseph Bennett
As he struggled to reorganize his men, Attila's own household unit was attacked forcing him to fall back to his fortified camp. Pursuing, Aetius' men compelled the rest of the Hunnic forces to follow their leader, though Theodoric was killed in the fighting. With Theodoric dead, his son, Thorismund, assumed command of the Visigoths. With nightfall the fighting ended.
The next day, Attila prepared for the expected Roman attack. In the Roman camp, Thorismund advocated assaulting the Huns, but was dissuaded by Aetius. Realizing that Attila had been defeated and his advance stopped, Aetius began to assess the situation. He knew that if the Huns were destroyed, that the Visigoths would likely end their alliance with Rome and would become a threat. To prevent this, he suggested that Thorismund immediately return to the Visigoth capital at Tolosa to claim his father's throne. Thorismund agreed and departed with his men. Aetius used similar tactics to dismiss his other Frankish allies before withdrawing with his Roman troops. Initially believing the Roman withdrawal to be a ruse, Attila waited several days before retreating back across the Rhine.
Like many battles in this time period, precise casualties are not known. Primary sources immediately note the battle for being exceptionally bloody. Prosper Tiro of Aquitaine states that the battle was a mass slaughter, writing immediately afterwards others state or indicate the casualties were extreme.
The philosopher Damascius stated that the fighting was so severe "that no one survived except only the leaders on either side and a few followers: but the ghosts of those who fell continued the struggle for three whole days and nights as violently as if they had been alive; the clash of their arms was clearly audible". A further reason for the reputation of this battle is that it was the first major battle since the death of Constantine I where a predominantly Christian force faced a predominantly pagan opponent.
Noah Jenkins
>For, if we may believe our elders, a brook flowing between low banks through the plain was greatly increased by blood of the slain. It was not flooded by showers, as brooks usually rise, but was swollen by a strange stream and turned into a torrent by the increase of blood. Those whose wounds drove them to slake their parching thirst drank water mingled in gore. In their wretched plight they were forced to drink what they thought was the blood they had poured from their own wounds.
While historians will never entirely agree on the details (they're not even sure where it was fought), this battle is one of the biggest and bloodiest of its era, and begs to be reproduced on the tabletop. The relative balance of forces means either side could pursue a more comprehensive victory than the historical result, and there are plenty of colorful units and troop types.
Why cant I have world war 2 games set 1500 years ago, my friend keeps getting mad when I state the campaign is in 500 AD but apparently thats a no go but its my gaem so why not
Samuel Hill
wtf?
Jace Adams
> 1940 – World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France.
