Greatest improbably military victories?

I'll add...Vienna (1529) - Austrian forces (16,000 troops, 72 guns) repelled a siege force of 250,000 Ottoman troops. After the defeat, the Ottomans saw their immense power continuously erode over the next 5 centuries. God/Allah only knows what history would have been like had the Turks subdued Vienna and had the soft underbelly of fractured, backwards Western Europe in their sights.

Singapore, 1942 - Japanese forces (40,000 men) laid siege to UK forces (107,000 Aussies, Indians and Brits) set up in what should have been perfect defensive position ... except their fixed artillery pointed everywhere but at the direction from which the Japanese came. Despite Churchill telling them to fight to the last man, the poorly trained UK troops gave up after losing water pumps and running low on ammunition. Ironically, the Japanese were simultaneously running out of ammunition, but the latter kept up their initiative. And that was effectively the death knell of the British Empire.
 
Good call on Salamis. Without throwing politics in it, I would also say the Army and Marines action in Anbar to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is both an example of well executed counterinsurgency tactics and also fits the thread's title as being wholly unexpected (especially in '06 and early '07)
 
The story of Thermopylae has taken on mythic proportions that, like most myths, have some basis in fact, but which tend to overloook realities that lessen the magnitude of the heroism or misdirect where one should put his appreciation.

As pointed out here, it was a loss. It did nothing to protect Athens, which was consequently completely destroyed by the Persian Army, but which was evacuated, though the delay at Thermopylae didn't really affect that evacuation, as most citizens had already evacuated to the Peloponnesus.

The time bought by the defenders at Thermopylae allowed the Greeks to set up defenses to the entry of the Peloponnesus. Being unable to force passage in Corinth, the Persians looked to destroy the Athenian navy, but lost at Salamis. Fearing being trapped in Europe, the Persians pulled out most of their army. The remaining army was destroyed at Plataea the next year.

So, far from being a case of Sparta saving Athens, the real story of the Greco-Persian was the other way around. In fact, there is a story that the Oracle at Delphi prophecized that Sparta would have to sacrifice its king to save Sparta. The oracle didn't say a thing about saving Athens.

Other misperceptions:

300 Spartans. Well, 300 Spartan soldiers and 900 armor carriers.

And 700 Thespians, which was the entirety of the hoplites the Thespians could muster. That was probably the biggest self-sacrifice here.

And 400 Thebans (who either went against their city's pledge to join the Persians against Athens or were essentially being held hostage in the final battle).

Since their screw up led to the eventual encirclement of the Greeks and the invitation for the others to leave, I won't count the 1000 Phocians who were supposed to be protecting the heights and failed.
 
That's why I said "hoplites." The Thespians lost all their heavily armed troops at Thermopylae. They did come up with that 1,000+ lightly armed men the next year to join at Plataea.

By comparison, Sparta fielded 10,000 hoplites and 45,000 men at Plataea.
 
Macarthur thought that Halsey should've been relieved because of the Taffy deal.

Some HIstorians believe that Halsey was simply too big of a character (kill japs kill japs kill more japs) to relieve him...he was a hero to many folks back home.
 
The problem I have with coming up with examples is whether the incompetence of generals renders a victory improbable.

For example, was the victory by the Parthians with 9,000 horsed archers and 1,000 cataphracts over 35,000 Roman legionnaires, 4,000 cavalry, and 4,000 light infantry at Carrhae improbable? Well, yeah.

Was it improbable in light of all the ways in which Crassus was an idiot? Well, no.
 
I just saw a History channel episode on Hanibel, and they went into details on the battle of Cannae. I had forgotten how brutal that one was.
 
I guess it beats the alternative.
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WWI and how Sgt. York punked out the whole German Army
 
The more I think about this the more I think about pretty much every thing the Afrika Korps did up until El Alamein qualifies.

They had fewer troops, fewer guns, fewer tanks, lower quality tanks, a far worse supply situation, fewer reserves. And yet it still took the Quattara Depression, enemy command of the air, even more men/materiel reinforcements for the enemy, and an almost total lack of fuel and ammunition to stop them.

It's not the typical "improbable victory" where one side had fewer troops who compensated for the numbers by having much better training and being much better equipped.
 
Halsey's "miscommunications" was all in the fact that Halsey completely ignored a series of ominous warnings about Kurita's fleet. He could have sent a fleet of fast battleships with escorts or one or two of his carriers and still had plenty of power to knock out the enemy force he was chasing. It's one thing to make a mistake. It's another to refuse to take communications when all hell was about to break loose.
 
Right, but the assumption that the landing beach mattered more than anything else may be wrong. The Japanese navy was the single most important thing that had to be destroyed, and the carriers that Halsey was chasing were the most meaningful part of that. One could argue that the Marianas Turkey Shoot made the Jap carriers less of a threat, but the fact was that he acted in an effort to sink the remaining core of the Imperial Navy when they were at their weakest.

Had Halsey not turned around when he did, his command of the Third Fleet at Leyte Gulf would be ranked with Trafalgar in terms of naval accomplishments.
 
Pearl Harbor. To move what was close to your entire fleet across the Pacific, maintain a secret of such great magnitude and achieve such complete and total surprise, is a feat equaled only by the Normandy invasion in my opinion.
 
I recorded a few military.com segments on Rome, and one of them covered Julius Caesar and his victory over the Gauls at Alecia. This victory, and subsequent actions by Rome and Caesar in its aftermath, led to Caesar leading his army back to Rome and "crossing the Rubicon", triggering a civil war that led to Caesar becoming emperor of Rome. Thus world history was likely altered by his improbable victory.

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Rorke's Drift - Anglo-Zulu War (1879). 139 British soliders successfully held a mission against 4,000 zulus. 11 Victoria's Crosses awarded. Note that the same Zulu army had just slaughtered the main British force of 2,000 at Isandlwana.
 
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