The army waits for the enemy forces
to come over the hill. They’re ready for anything...but are they ready for cats? How did cats help defeat an army? Why did
the British arm their navy with hammers to take out U-Boats? These are some of the most
insane military tactics that actually worked. It was the battle of Arsuf in the Third Crusade,
and the Christian forces of Richard the Lionheart faced the Muslim army of Saladin - who outnumbered
them three to one. King Richard knew he was facing a losing battle - so he chose to wait. Forming a
defensive perimeter by a river, he let Saladin’s army shoot at them from afar until Saladin assumed
the Crusaders weren’t moving. He ordered his men to move to a better position - and as soon as
they moved, Richard ordered his men into action, taking the Muslim forces by surprise
through the power of patience. Sometimes, high-tech warfare
requires a low-tech solution. During World War II, the fields of Europe
were littered with explosive mines. One wrong step could kill a soldier
and wound everyone around him. But the soldiers found a unique way to survive -
getting up-close and personal. Instead of walking, they would crawl on the ground and use a tool
to dig into the ground at a thirty-degree angle. Because the land mines were triggered on the top,
digging into them from the side would let them be removed safely, and these “prodders” helped
soldiers escape the war with life and limb intact. And sometimes, nature lends a helping hand. Rule number one of warfare - you never invade
Russia in the winter! The Teutonic Knights, a powerful German brigade representing the
Catholic forces of the Crusades, were at war with the Russian Orthodox forces on their home
turf. The Crusaders brought modern armor and battle horses - but that worked against them when
they reached Lake Peipus. While the Russians could easily retreat over the lake, it couldn’t hold the
weight of the armored Crusaders. While stories of the ice breaking under the Crusaders were a Soviet
film embellishment, the unfriendly terrain gave the Russians enough time to fend off the Crusaders
with their archers and send them into retreat. When you’re outgunned, you use everything you can. It was 1914, and Germany had changed the
face of warfare forever. Their Unterseeboots, better known as the U-Boats, were
turning the waters into a killing field. These submerged boats were impossible to
detect and a single U-Boat sunk over a dozen British ships including massive
cruisers. As the situation worsened, the British scrambled to find a solution, but
the German ships were hard to sink. The brass noticed that they had one weakness - they needed
their periscope to find a target before firing. Take out the periscope,
take out the U-Boat’s power. While many crazy solutions were proposed,
including training birds or sea lions to attack the periscope or spraying it with paint,
ultimately a low-tech solution was proposed. Soldiers would be put on small patrol
boats with one job - look out for periscopes popping up to the surface,
and guide the boat over to them. Then, slip a bag on the periscope, and hit it
with a hammer quickly! If done right, the U-boat will be neutralized and the
soldier can get away. No one knows how many U-Boats the hammer corps managed to
knock out before depth charges were invented. It wasn’t the only time the
low-tech option saved the day. When you think of fearsome wartime vehicles,
you probably don’t think of bicycles. But in 1942, the British learned the hard way.
The British colony of Singapore was one of the most valuable ports in Asia, and now it had come
under attack by the Japanese. The war in Europe meant many troops had been sent home,
and only a smaller group of Commonwealth soldiers remained to fend off the invasion.
But they were confident - they thought the Japanese ground troops wouldn’t be able
to handle Singapore’s rough terrain. Not on foot, they wouldn’t
- but they weren’t on foot. The Japanese soldiers came across the territory
on bicycles, which gave them a massive advantage. Not only could they move much faster over
tricky terrain, but they could strap their provisions to the back of the bikes and
not have to carry them in their gear. While much of Singapore didn’t have roads for
larger vehicles, the Japanese bicycle infantry could make their way over ramshackle bridges with
ease. The Japanese forces that invaded were far larger than the British expected, and soon the
Japanese and their bicycles had taken Singapore. If you need an edge on your enemy,
you can always distract them. In the year 623, what would one day be
China was divided between warring kingdoms. The Tuyuhun Kingdom had invaded
the territory of the Tang Dynasty, and the Tuyuhan had come with a massive battalion
of archers. When they got to the higher ground, General Ch’ai Shao of the Tang almost
found his army wiped out. They retreated, but the General knew he needed to get his
Cavalry into position to attack. He needed a way to distract the Tuyuhan - and there was
one thing needed in almost any military camp. Time to send in the ladies. A pair of women from Ch’ai Shao’s camp were
sent to meet the Tuyuhan, along with a musician. When they arrived, the women began dancing to the
music, performing an appealing routine that led the soldiers to immediately drop what they were
doing and watch them. While the women danced, the Tang General moved his men into position
and launched an attack on the Tuyuhan camp, wiping them out. This could have been
avoided if the Tuyuhan asked where the random dance troupe came from - but they
probably weren’t thinking with their heads. For one of the most unlikely military tactics,
you have to go all the way back to Roman times. It was the Gallic Wars, as Julius Caesar sought
to consolidate his empire in what would one day be France. A Gallic revolt in the town of Alesia
in 52 BCE had led Rome to send 60,000 Legionnaires to the battle - but they were outnumbered. The
Gallic tribes were putting up a fight against the mighty Roman army, and soon word reached Caesar
that a much larger relief force was coming to assist the Gauls. It seemed like he would have to
retreat and take a shocking loss for the Empire. But Caesar had other plans. His army built two walls - one surrounding the
Gauls in Alesia and keeping them from escaping, and another one surrounding the Romans to keep
the larger forces from making their way in. This meant the Romans would fight a war
on two fronts, trapping themselves between two hostile armies - but the Roman army
didn’t become this powerful by accident. The dual siege went on for several weeks,
with the Romans outnumbered, but the Roman cavalry ultimately fended off both the enemy
forces and put an end to the revolt in Gaul. Of course, one of the best ways to
neutralize an enemy army is...laziness? Denis Sefton Delmer was an unlikely war
hero. A Jewish journalist from Britain but born in Berlin, he was interested
in the threat of Nazism from the start. He even became one of the few British journalists
to interview Hitler. But when war broke out, he took Britain’s side quickly and became one
of their secret weapons. He helped Britain create fake radio broadcasts filled with
lies that would confuse German soldiers, but one of his best ideas was a trick that
could help to depopulate the German army. And all it took was a trick
that every schoolboy knows. Delmer created pamphlets that contained
detailed instructions on how to fake an illness. Most countries had a draft during World
War II, and there was no shortage of young men who were desperate to avoid the
battlefield. The books and pamphlets even contained recipes that would make someone
temporarily sick but leave no ill effects, and were distributed around Germany much to the
anger of the Nazis - who put Delmer on a hit list. But he remained safe in Britain, and the German
army had more no-shows at roll call by the day. This next tactic combined unlikely
weapons with unlikely warriors. The Eastern Front in World War II was
the most brutal of the entire war, as the Russian army faced off against the
invading Nazis. The Germans were bringing modern bomber planes, and the Russians chose to oppose
them with - bi-planes? Not only were they using old-fashioned planes that only carried two bombs
each, but they were piloted by the Night Witches, a group of women who often only had four hours
of training before they took to the skies. The Germans no doubt thought
it would be an easy fight. It was - for the Night Witches. The Russians knew what they were doing, and they
took the superior German forces by surprise. The biplanes had wooden frames, making
it impossible for radar to detect them. The German planes might have been much
faster, but they weren’t built to decelerate, and that meant that it was tricky for them to
accurately hit the humble Russian biplanes. While the Soviets took the heaviest
casualties of any military during the war, the Night Witches and their biplanes became
some of the only Russian air forces to survive. But the most unexpected tool
to win wars is often animals. Timur came from powerful stock - he
was a descendant of Genghis Khan, and he followed in his ancestor’s footsteps by
weaving a trail of conquest across Asia. But his biggest challenge would be the capture of Delhi,
where he faced a powerful sultan with an army including 120 war elephants. These powerful
beasts could easily stomp an invading army, and Timur only had an army with load-carrying
camels. How could camels beat elephants? But Timur remembered something
about elephants - they scare easily. As the war elephants approached, Timur ordered
his men to dismount the camels and load them up with as much hay as would fit. He then lit
the hay on fire, and sent the terrified, burning camels running towards the elephants!
This startled the elephants, sending them running backward and trampling their own army. He had
sacrificed the camels, but the elephants were unharmed - and quickly tamed by Timur and his
men to lead them into the Sultan’s territory. But the flaming camels weren’t the only
animals afire to turn the tide of a battle. King Harald III of Norway began his
adulthood as a simple mercenary, and that was where he earned the name Harald the
Ruthless. While working for the Byzantine empire, he was sent to aid in the prolonged
siege of a Sicilian settlement. They were surrounded by impenetrable walls,
and while Harald had the superior army, he couldn’t afford to wait them out. He needed
a secret weapon - and one came from the sky. And soon, so would fire. Harald observed that birds frequently scavenged
in the fields but made their nests in the city and sent mercenaries to trap as many as they
could, and then carefully tied wood chips to their legs. Before releasing them, the wood chips
were set on fire, and the birds were then sent back to their nests - where they set hundreds
of fires around the city, creating chaos and allowing the Byzantine forces to sweep in and
conquer it. And hey, grilled birds for dinner. But one strange tactic involving
animals left them unharmed. It was the Battle of Pelusium in 525 BCE, and Cambyses II of Persia was facing off
against the superior Egyptian forces. And he had a secret weapon - cats. The fuzzy
felines were revered in Egyptian religion, with Pharaohs often being buried with their
most prized cats. That meant that the Egyptian army would treat them with kid gloves - and that’s
what Cambyses II was counting on when he invaded. The Egyptian army was about to get cat overload. The first step - paint cats on the shields
of the invading soldiers. Even destroying an image of a cat was considered taboo in Egyptian
culture. But the invading army went further and had a collection of hundreds of cats placed at
the front line of the Persians. Miraculously, it worked - despite how hard it is to get cats
to do anything. The Egyptians refused to harm the cats and retreated, and the Persians successfully
massacred the army and captured the Pharaoh. But one military tactic had the losers
wondering if the enemy had conquered death. Life in Viking times was harsh, and so it was no
surprise when a Viking Chief named Hastein died in his prime. His men took him to the city walls and
asked for passage to give him a Christian burial within the city - and the city proved they learned
nothing from the story of the Trojan horse. It was all a scam, and within the city walls
Hastein rose from his coffin and led his men in the pillaging of the city. There was just one
problem - Hastein thought he was sacking Rome, but his men had taken him to the city of Luna instead.
A for military tactics, D- for cartography. For more on military strategy, check out “What Is
Guerilla Warfare?”, or watch this video instead.
