4.2 Episode 11: Attila the Hun vs. Alexander the Great

[Hollywood1340]

We needed to see army on army action there. That's what made ATH and ATG the legends they are. Kendall's pretty cool though.

 

[tellner]

That one is no contest at all. Not even a little. Central Asian mounted archers pretty much ruled the battlefield from the days of the "Parthian Shot" right up until the age of widespread firearms. Everyone who came up against them adopted a lot of their armament and tactics from the Arabs to the Poles. To a large extent the Cossacks were "counter-Tatars".

English longbow fanbois can stop mewling right now. They never came up against the Horde, and the arguably greater range of the English bow comes up short against the mobility of horse nomad cavalry.

Against the phalanx? Ugly.

Of course, Attila and Alexander were tactical geniuses. After the first battle both would have started adopting and adapting.

 

[tellner]

I have to add that there's only one indisputable case of heavy infantry beating the horse nomads. A combined force of Muslims and Christians managed to choose their ground and trap them. Otherwise? The Turks, Persians, Arabs, Kurds, Poles, Magyars and more all came to realize to their sorrow that the Mongols and their Hunnish cousins really were better.

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

The Roman's that Atilla and his men defeated were a pail comparisson to the armies that marched with Scipio or Caesar, the Huns were not the partheans.

Alexander would have crushed Atilla.

 

[Shotokan_Tiger_2020]

I was rather disappointed in this episode.

When it got to fighting one-on-one, Attila was a wimp.

Alexander knew Pankration whereas they made no mention of how the Hun himself know of fighting without a weapon.

Attila was scrambling for his sword while Alexander had a good grip on him. Attila got his sword and cut down Alexander.

 

[isshinryuronin]

The Roman's that Atilla and his men defeated were a pail comparisson to the armies that marched with Scipio or Caesar, the Huns were not the partheans.

Alexander would have crushed Atilla.

I fully agree with the first statement. By 400 A.D. the Roman Empire was in steep decline. The previous "Pax Romana" era meant no more major wars and the military got soft. A larger proportion of the army were from outside the Roman core, the Empire being stretched over most all of Europe, losing border security, and the lack of a major enemy allowed hostilities to be turned inward.

Much military science and training methodology degraded over the centuries, with "bunkai" being forgotten or mutated to the point where the "application" was ineffective, very similar to what happened to TMA's kata. The Empire was easy pickings for Attila's hoards who had the aggressive "conqueror" mentality Rome had not had for a few centuries.

As for Alexander crushing Attila, I'm not sure. Mounted archers are hard to catch with heavy cavalry, much less infantry. They could have decimated the Greek army, bleeding it with a thousand cuts. Alexander's best chance would have been to fight on ground that nullified Attila's mobility. Only at CQC range would Alexander's army have a substantial advantage.