Valiant Last Stands?

greyfox5 · May 2003

If you guys know anything about "valiant" and brave last stands, in a game or real life, I would be happy. I am doing a report on this subject, and all I can think about is the last stand the two snipers made in Somalia.

A last stand is described as a lightly fortified postion gaurded by a small ammount of soldiers, under attack by a huge ammount of enemy force. The soldiers know they will die, but will never surrender, or stop fighting, untill they, or the enemy, are dead.

(ps. 1930-2003 dates)

Arcadius · May 2003

There's always the Alamo. It's one of the more famous last stands. There's also Custard's Last Stand, but that was more of his troops getting surrounded and having no escape and no alternative but to fight to the last.

Brave_Ulysses · May 2003

Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid.

littlewild · May 2003

World War II - Solomon Islands.
Vietnam War - Hamburger Hill.

MrPink · May 2003

This is not nearly 100% accurate, but about 3 weeks ago my teacher was talking about a last stand in Iraq. Supposedly there was a small squad of US men holding down a bridge who hadn't slept for 4 days or something and were low on ammo. Ahead of them they saw a shitload of Iraqi tanks coming their way. They recieved orders to hold the bridge and not leave it, and that backup would come by nightfall or something (it was early morning at the time). They held it off for awhile, but the Iraqi cavalry went elsewhere and US tanks etc. came quicker than expected to rescue them.

Marik_Steele · May 2003

Within the past year I read a book called "SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam."
It's literally filled with last stands. We're talking about the absolute best in military personnell of the time, [edit]or even if they're not the best, the stories are still not too shabby[/I] and they did some pretty crazy stuff. Calling in napalm airstrikes on their own coordinates just because they were surrounded was a regular thing; after dropping every bit of ordinance he had, one such airstrike pilot even opened his top hatch, flew in slow&low, banked at a 45 degree angle and fired off his clip of pistol ammo at the North Vietnamese below. Then there's one story about a medic who took over half a dozen AK47 rounds and a bayonet to the arm and <i>still</i> kept carrying a fellow soldier to the evac helicopter. Then there's the story about the defense of a bunker on the Ho Chi Minh trail. There's plenty more where that came from, some with (and some without) happy endings.

Borrow it from a library and skim through it. You WILL find plenty. I've included the link to Amazon.com for it so you know what it looks like and you can read the sample pages given.<a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451195086/ref=lib_rd_ss/103-4496774-4162202?v=glance&s=books&vi=slide-show#reader-link' target='_blank'>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...how#reader-link</a>

Brave_Ulysses · May 2003

Never read it - I've read too many SAS books by real professionals who dismiss a lot of that book as made-up nonsense. But yeah - Britain's SBS & SAS: rest of this planet has NOTHING on them!

Dread · May 2003

I think the whole Iraq war was a last stand for Saddams armies <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Dubers · May 2003

The Jacobyte army at the battle of Culloden. It was the last battle of the Scottish civil war and the Jacobyte army was rediculously outnumbered and outgunned. They fought to the death and lost. The remaining Jacobytes were then hunted down and executed. It was the last battle ever to be fought on British soil.

Have a look on the web for the backround if you are interested.

Narfwak · May 2003

Go watch Tears of the Sun. Best last stand EVAR.

Smoke_Nova · May 2003

We all seem to have forgotten the ULTIMATE last stand:

The Spartans and The Persians in early B.C..

The Persians outnumbered (heavily) the Spartans...yet the Spartans won. Now if that's not a last stand, what is?

Cereal_KillR · May 2003

That reminds me of the myth where there was this hero (Jason?) who was alone, his right arm missing, guarding a small bridge against a whole army and he won. My theory is that the army didn't include archers and the bridge was too small for more than 1 person in width.

NumbersNotFound · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SmokeNova @ May 11 2003, 03:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> We all seem to have forgotten the ULTIMATE last stand:

The Spartans and The Persians in early B.C..

The Persians outnumbered (heavily) the Spartans...yet the Spartans won. Now if that's not a last stand, what is?  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
The Spartans won? From what i heard it was like 1 million persians, and 300 spartans... they held at the pass of thermopolie until a snitch told the persians an alternate route. Still, the spartans held them off, and fought to their last, sending Xerxes and his last soldier back home.

tseepra · May 2003

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'> Since I am a Tolkien geek, I'll say that Helms Deep was on heck of a last stand.

10,000 uruk-hai soldiers heavily armed, against roughly 1000 men, most of which were poorly armed farmers.

X_Stickman · May 2003

there was a kind of last stand made in a battle forever ago involving greeks or sommat. Two ship fleets, one of them was tiny, and the other was huge. the tiny one turned a ran, led the bigger on into a sort of cove thing, then turned around and rammed them to death.

Stakhanov · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (greyfox555 @ May 11 2003, 06:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> If you guys know anything about "valiant" and brave last stands, in a game or real life...  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
ahem... both RPGs , FPS and RTS tend to create last stands situations. No need to tell stories of the Subspace Fortress or JPers / HA welders hidden in vents , killing lots of skulks before being munched (and sometimes firing at a hive...)
Marines have individual last stands when their team mates have just been killed and they charge fades with knifes , or the like...

When playing Thief (or Thievery) , after being spotted by lots of guard , and cornered , you still have the option of slashing them before you die , though you don't have the slightest chance to win.

There are lots of "survivor" players in StarCraft (including me) who manage to stay alive and never stop sending zergling/marines/whatever at the irritated ennemies.

of course , in the case of games "bravery" is irrelevant , players just survive for fun (to make the game last longer)

Cereal_KillR · May 2003

Well "bravery" can make you win a game you know. Subspace isn't quite a last stand, as it is really hard to get, and as a hive prevents them from getting Onoi and 3rd hive weaponry. It is totally possible to repulse the aliens into one hive and win.

Last Stands usually involve hiding in, for example, N corridor, the Red Room (yeah you might have a hive but no RTs there...) Where you barely have any chance of doing anything <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Wheeee · May 2003

There are a lot of last stands in the Bible, although usually bravery had nothing to do with them, since God had to bail them out -_-;;

Dr_Shaggy · May 2003

Attacking enemy forces that are in their "last stand" pretty much goes against the teachings of Sun Tzu (from what i can remember of the book). Never attack an enemy with nothing to lose, they'll fight to the finish and all that. Always give them a way out (or something they believe to be a way out). But no one listens to Sun Tzu do they? Now we have all these great last stand stories to read.

Arcadius · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (404NotFound @ May 11 2003, 03:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SmokeNova @ May 11 2003, 03:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> We all seem to have forgotten the ULTIMATE last stand:

The Spartans and The Persians in early B.C..

The Persians outnumbered (heavily) the Spartans...yet the Spartans won. Now if that's not a last stand, what is? </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
The Spartans won? From what i heard it was like 1 million persians, and 300 spartans... they held at the pass of thermopolie until a snitch told the persians an alternate route. Still, the spartans held them off, and fought to their last, sending Xerxes and his last soldier back home.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
You could argue both won, since the Spartans were just there to buy time for the rest of Greece to organize and raise an army. They bought the time Greece needed but were wiped out in the process.

BadKarma · May 2003

Recent paintball game. Me and a chum were up against 6 other guys. They had us in a bunker. We kept at em until we ran out of balls, then we just shot air at them. Then they got wise to us and casually came up and shot us. Good fun.

pardzh · May 2003

Iwo Jima?

A last stand for the Japanese maybe? I dunno...

Valiant Last Stands?

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