Bloodiest Battle Ever .

Like the title says .What is the bloodiest battle you can think off in three categories .The bloodiest siege in history .The bloodiest naval battle .And the bloodiest battle that involved armies fighting away from cities .
I want to know for a TL idea of mine that has a huge couple of battles and want to have accurate info .
 
The bloodiest siege in history: Leningrad Siege, 1941-44. Total losses amounted to about 3.6 million, 4+ million if you include German Losses.

Naval : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_naval_battle_in_history

Bloodiest Battle (according to your definition): Battle of Kursk. It involved 2.8 million men from both Germany and the USSR, 8,000 tanks, 25,000 + big guns, 5000 aircraft. It fits in to your description for it was mainly an encirclement operation, not a street-to-street (city) fighting.
 
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Angrybird

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Siege:

Baghdad 1258, Stalingrad 1942/43 - Berlin 1945 - Leningrad 1941-1944

Battles:

Battle of Changping, Battle of the Somme, The battles on the Eastern Front in WW2
 
Sea Battle?

Battle of the Atlantic

September 3, 1939 – May 8, 1945
(5 years, 8 months and 5 days)

Allied losses

36,200 sailors killed
36,000 merchant seamen killed
3,500 merchant vessels
175 warships
741 RAF Coastal Command Aircraft lost in Anti-Submarine Sorties

Axis losses

~30,000 sailors killed
783 submarines
 
For a one day battle how about Towton 1461, somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000. Or about 1% of the total population. I know it pre 1900 but hey.
 
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Are we talking about absolute or relative numbers? I mean, obviously WW2 battles will be on top of any such list because it involved fully mobilised major industrial powers.

But look at some ancient battle where entities massed most of their manpower for single fight and you get absolute size that would be seen as small battle in WW2 conmtext but was major effort for those entities.

Add to that the fact that there are many interpretations on when battle actually begun and ended and who exactlly took part in it.

Take for example Normandy landings. OK, they've begun on 6. June but when did they end and when next phase begun? At midnight? When they were dug in? When they've broken out of beachead?

What about Battle of Britain? It never ended in sense that one side would say "well, it's over" Battle for Moscow? When did it start? With Typhoon? When did it end? When Soviet counter offensive stopped?

It was easier in old days when armies marched on the battlefield, sloged it out and when one army quit it was clear and battle ended.
 

Sior

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Elphinstone's_Army

The 1842 Kabul Retreat (or Massacre of Elphinstone's Army) took place during the First Anglo-Afghan War. Following an uprising in Kabul, Major General Sir William Elphinstone negotiated an agreement with Wazir Akbar Khan, one of the sons of the Afghan Emir Dost Mohammad Barakzai, by which his army was to withdraw to the British garrison at Jalalabad, more than 90 miles (140 km) away. As the army and its numerous dependents and camp-followers began its march, it came under attack from Afghan tribesmen. Many of the column died of exposure, frostbite or starvation or were killed during the fighting.[2]
The Afghans launched numerous attacks against the column as it made slow progress through the winter snows of the Hindu Kush. In total the British army lost 4,500 troops, along with about 12,000 civilians: the latter comprising both the families of Indian and British soldiers, plus workmen, servants and other Indian camp-followers. The final stand was made just outside a village called Gandamak on 13 January.[3]
Out of more than 16,000 people from the column commanded by Elphinstone, only one European (Assistant Surgeon William Brydon) and a few Indian sepoys reached Jalalabad. A few dozen British prisoners and civilian hostages were later released.[4] Many of the British and Indians died of exposure, frostbite or starvation or were killed during the fighting.[5] Around 2,000 of the Indians, many of whom were maimed by frostbite, survived and returned to Kabul to exist by begging or to be sold into slavery.[6] Some at least returned to India after another British invasion of Kabul several months later, but others remained behind in Afghanistan.[7]
In 2013, a writer for The Economist called the retreat "the worst British military disaster until the fall of Singapore exactly a century later."[8]
 
I will accept battles from antiquity and the middle ages ,as well as modern battles from the civil war and world wars .
So which battles stand out to you from all of history for the casualties suffered .Kursk was a good one .Battle of the Atlantic never even occured to me .And some of the other ones were good to .
By the way where does the siege of Constantinople in 1453 compare to other sieges ?
 
In terms of bloodiest naval battles - just raw casualties - 20th century naval battles really aren't in the running (though the naval casualties from the entire wars are another story), despite featuring far more firepower and tonnage.

The top three contenders are probably Lepanto, Red Cliffs, and Cape Ecnomus. Galley warfare was guaranteed to spill lots and lots of blood.
 
I agree that Galleys battling where by their nature very bloody .But what about some of the battles between the Anglo-Dutch ?How did they stack up in terms of casualties compared to Galley Warfare .
 
For pre-1900 Cannae is one of the best candidates, between 43,000 and 70,000 Romans killed in one day depending on the sources you take. Considering Canada lost around 56,000 dead in WW 1, that is a pretty shocking number.
 
I agree that Galleys battling where by their nature very bloody .But what about some of the battles between the Anglo-Dutch ?How did they stack up in terms of casualties compared to Galley Warfare .

I don't think any of those battles exceeded a few thousand casualties.

Even Trafalgar didn't exceed 14,000. And that's over twice as many as in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which is remarkable, if you think about it. But then, most of the ships in either fleet weren't really engaged in the fighting.
 
In terms of land battles... basically throw a dart at any battle on WW2s Eastern Front big enough to get it's own wiki page and chances are your looking at a battle with a body count at least as big as the most bloody battles on WW2s Western Front. You could also look at some of the battles in WW1 (on both fronts) which had body counts that easily ran into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
 

CalBear

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I will accept battles from antiquity and the middle ages ,as well as modern battles from the civil war and world wars .
So which battles stand out to you from all of history for the casualties suffered .Kursk was a good one .Battle of the Atlantic never even occured to me .And some of the other ones were good to .
By the way where does the siege of Constantinople in 1453 compare to other sieges ?

Constantinople was too small to even get a blip.

Siege would be Leningrad in a walk, followed by Stalingrad and Berlin, although the Mongol siege of Baghdad deserve a mention.

Battle would be the Tumu Crisis. Two days, 200,000 KIA. August 31-September 1, 1449. Killed more people than BOTH nuclear strikes.

Decent runner-up is the Battle of Sekigahara that established the Tokuwawa Shogunate. 60,000 KIA in around 10 hours. October 21, 1600.

Anytime you are looking for HUGE casualty numbers in land battles you need to start and finish in Asia, mainly China (the 3 Kingdoms War (220-280 CE) is second only to WW II in total deaths, unlike WW II, It was all done by hand to hand combat, 35 MILLION people killed with swords, sticks and spears). Next is the Eastern Front in WW II.

Naval is tougher to nail down.

Salamis could hit 100K. September 480 BCE

Red Cliffs (208 CE) had close to a million men engaged, but no specific count of casualties was ever made, but 100K+ isn't an unreasonable guess.

Best you can do in modern times is probably the engagements that make up Leyte Gulf, combined KIA are around 15,000. Jutland's butcher's bill ran around 9,000.
 
Constantinople was too small to even get a blip.

Siege would be Leningrad in a walk, followed by Stalingrad and Berlin, although the Mongol siege of Baghdad deserve a mention.

Battle would be the Tumu Crisis. Two days, 200,000 KIA. August 31-September 1, 1449. Killed more people than BOTH nuclear strikes.

Decent runner-up is the Battle of Sekigahara that established the Tokuwawa Shogunate. 60,000 KIA in around 10 hours. October 21, 1600.

Anytime you are looking for HUGE casualty numbers in land battles you need to start and finish in Asia, mainly China (the 3 Kingdoms War (220-280 CE) is second only to WW II in total deaths, unlike WW II, It was all done by hand to hand combat, 35 MILLION people killed with swords, sticks and spears). Next is the Eastern Front in WW II.

Naval is tougher to nail down.

Salamis could hit 100K. September 480 BCE

Red Cliffs (208 CE) had close to a million men engaged, but no specific count of casualties was ever made, but 100K+ isn't an unreasonable guess.

Best you can do in modern times is probably the engagements that make up Leyte Gulf, combined KIA are around 15,000. Jutland's butcher's bill ran around 9,000.

Rape of Nanking - 300,000 plus KIA mostly Civilians murdered after the city capitulated
 
35 MILLION people killed with swords, sticks and spears

Crazy right ?How long was the three kingdoms war ?35 million with pre-gunpowder weapons .The Chinese must have been commited .
The title was meant to quote the last post .Guess I have not figured out the site completely yet .
 
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