:smack: Totally missed that “on the battlefield” part on first read. Mia cupla.
But cut me a break on that 3-5 day thing and with me and everything vanishing and all ---------- it still is something I may have to run around my brain a while. I like reading all the “alternative history” sci-fy stories when I come across them cheap and I don’t recall anyone doing one quite like that.
Everyone is talking about firepower, and given the OP, that makes sense.
But to really change a battle, I’d bring a big box of walkie-talkies back to a Civil War battle of your choosing. Simple ones, single frequency, narrow band FM, about 3W of VHF. Easy to use, no learning curve.
Distribute to the artillery. After the first 2 or 3 rounds, they couldn’t see because of the smoke. But if they had a coupla spotters with a clear view calling in corrections, they could do better.
Maybe a command net, to allow coordination of artillery, infantry, and calvary. Maybe just a message net, with radio nodes interfacing with runners, as opposed to just runners.
Imagine Gettysburg with just 2 - Meade and a pair of eyes on Little Round Top.
The possibilities are endless.
Mehmed :).
This would probably be my choice for “surefire history-altering event” and the first thing I thought of. Preserve Harold and his loyal brothers( Gyrth and Leofwine ), decimate the Norman leadership and their allies. Easy enough to accomplish and the impact I think would be fascinating.
But staying in the British isles, the battle of Lincoln is another interesting one. Kill William Marshal( senior at least, junior if possible ), Ranulf de Blondeville, and Falkes de Breauté and you largely gut the English royalist party. Not nearly as easy to accomplish as at Hastings because the fighting was much more scattered and partially urban, but a good sniper might be able to do it if they moved quickly - at the very least get Marshal and Breauté . Richard Marshal( perhaps ) and Hubert de Burgh would still be impediments, but the way would be open for Prince Louis to take control. Then we get the interesting possibility of an England rules from France, at least for a generation or three.
Alternatively if taking out all those other figures would be too difficult, just assassinate Hubert de Burgh during the first siege of Dover. The failure to take Dover Castle led directly to the loss at Lincoln above and the following coup de grace of Hubert’s victory at the naval battle of Dover. He alone might have been the linchpin to the war.
It’d be easy enough at the battle of Manassas, there’s a statue of Jackson where he supposedly earned his Stonewall nickname, I’ve been there many times. Plus, I’ve seen photos of Jackson and Bobby Lee, so I could pick them off with a modern sniper rifle. When all else fails, shoot the guy on a horse behind the men marching and who’s wearing a fancy hat. I particularly like the idea of sniping with night-vision goggles. You could do some incredible damage to morale if every morning they had to appoint new officers because someone was sniping the officers’ mess hall the night before.
I’m thinking of taking out King Richard and all his accompanying retinue* just before* they meet and murder Wat Tyler at Smithfields. Does that count as a “battle” for the purposes of the OP?
I’d probably just take as many assault rifles with grenade launchers as I can carry, as well as the most arrow-proof body armour I can get hold of.
Probably wouldn’t help Tyler’s cause much - John of Gaunt would have almost certainly retained control of the government and squashed the revolt. But interestingly it might have averted the War of the Roses. Gaunt was a loyalist through and through and probably would have backed his 7 or 8-year old nephew Roger Mortimer as king. That would allow Gaunt to dominate yet another minority and he didn’t die until 1399 - long enough to see Roger on the throne at the age of majority.
Hmph. How are you guys expecting to influence English history when I’ve already assassinated Alexander the Great in 334 BC?
When Darius XVII conquers some remote islands off the coast of Europe as a footnote to the incorporation of the European mainland into the Greater Persian Empire, thus resulting in a golden age of peace and prosperity for the next 2000 years, where’s your John of Gaunt now? I mean, then.
I have serious doubts that with simply the death of Alexander the Great in 334 (presumably right at the start of his Persian campaigns…I obviously missed your post) it would have lead to a Persian empire that not only finally consolidated Greece but managed to sweep across Europe all the way to the British Isles. Rome had consolidated, what? Half of Italy itself by this time?
Not saying it wouldn’t have had a large impact on history, but I don’t think it would have been THAT large. Though I admit it probably trumps my own thought about Hastings and William/Harold.
He’s be Youhanna of (New)Parsa of course :p.
Here’s an odd-ball one: take some machine guns to the “Dogger Banks” incident of 1904, and provide them to the Russian navy. The Russian sailors, still being paranoid and incompetent, manage to kill even more British fishermen (who they had mistaken as Japanese naval forces (!)) than they did in real life, and WWI kicks off a decade early, with Britain and Japan allied against Russia. The Russian revolution is completely different, our WWI is forestalled, and 20th century history is completely upended.
I don’t have the requested answer, but I do think that I would take a slightly different approach to the problem. There are many battles where critical intelligence would have clearly made a difference in the outcome. I think I would concentrate on taking clothing and objects that would help convince the appropriate commander(s) that (1) I could be trusted and (2) that I had actual knowledge of the enemy plans and movements. Of course, that might mean convincing them that I’m divine, omniscient, from the future, a defector from the enemy, or whatever, depending on the battle, era, and circumstances. I’m not sure there’s any advantage to showing up with a briefcase nuke.
This is a great idea, and I think it’d be my approach. Given enough time to prepare, I’d see about making some very simple crystal radios along with some walkie-talkies and some detailed battle plans for a crucial early Civil War battle and a history of reconstruction and Jim Crow. I’d do my damnedest to get a meeting with Union leadership and ask them to divvy my supplies up:
-A crystal radio to go to an egghead in logistics who could use the remaining time to try to reverse-engineer it.
-Walkie-talkies to leadership to use how they best see fit (the spotter idea is excellent)
-The battle plans to leadership to help them anticipate and counter Confederate strategy.
-The histories to leadership to convince them that Confederate leadership needs to be annihilated, not allowed to re-enter public life and bring the South back to white supremacy after the war. (This one may not be allowed).
No way I’m gonna be effective with weapons; I can barely throw a baseball straight. But with a bit of research, I can try to change the course of AMerican history, for better or worse.
Easier would be to win the Battle for Florida, 2000, by briefly kidnapping the proponents of the infamous Butterfly Ballot just before whatever meeting where Palm Beach County chose their ballot format.
Given the rules I’m not sure you can count on being dropped near enough to the leadership to be able to get to them and make your case, and you certainly wouldn’t have enough time to reverse-engineer radios - you might not arrive until the fighting has already started!
And for most battles I think it would be hard to convince anybody that your radios are worth distributing before the spears start flying - presuming there’s time to distribute them at all.