Murphy's Laws of Combat Trivia Quiz

Answer: Germanicus

Germanicus Julius Caesar, aka Germanicus, received the agnomen Germanicus when it was posthumously awarded to his father for his victories in Germania. He would follow in his father's footsteps and gain great fame fighting in Germania.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest involved the Roman legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX led by Publius Quinctilius Varus against Arminius of the Cherusci. As the legions travelled, they found the track narrow and muddy. This along with a violent storm made the going very difficult. The legions were not marching in combat formation, had civilians interspersed in their ranks, did not send out reconnaissance parties, and let the order of march stretch out far too long. Arminius took advantage of all these factors and attacked. The weather played a particularly important role, law number one, because the rain made the Roman bows useless because the sinew became slack when wet and it further weighed down their shields as they became soaked. Initially, the legions escaped but by the next day all had been destroyed. These legions were never again reconstituted by the Romans.

From 14-16 CE, Germanicus conducted numerous successful operations against the Germanic tribes, including the recovery of two of three Aquilae lost by the legions in 9 CE.

Answer: The Three Kingdoms

The hint refers to the 1999 movie "Three Kings" starring the actors and would hopefully lead to the correct answer, the Three Kingdoms. The Three Kingdoms was a period in Chinese history between the Han Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty.

Cao Cao had successfully seized the naval base at Jiangling on the Yangtze River in an attempt to reconstitute the Han Dynasty. There he placed his invasion force of infantry and cavalry on ships and moored the ships together to keep the men from getting seasick. Liu Bei and Sun Quan's general Huang Gai sent a letter to Cao Cao saying he was surrendering. He brought his ships towards Cao Cao's unsuspecting forces and then set them ablaze so they turned into fire ships. The unmanned ships were then allowed to drift into Cao Cao's ships and set them on fire. The ruse worked, law number two in action, and Cao Cao's navy suffered heavy casualties as did the infantry and cavalry on them. Cao Cao's retreat with his surviving men was just as disastrous and gave the victory to Liu Bei and Sun Quan. The Han Dynasty would never be resurrected.

Answer: Asparukh or Asparuh

Asparukh or Asparuh looks very similar to asparagus to me hence the clue. Simeon I would be highly unlikely since he would have to have been over 200 years old to have founded the empire and won this battle. Kubrat or Kurt founded Old Great Bulgaria in 632 CE. Nikephoros I or Nicephorus I could either refer to an Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople or a Byzantine emperor.

The First Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantines had been rivals since the founding of the Empire in 681 and been involved in many wars. By the time of Simeon I, the peace that had been established by his father was about to end. The Battle of Achelous was the culmination of the trouble between Simeon and the Byzantines. In the battle, Simeon left his middle weak and contrated his forces in both wings. As the middle gave way to the Byzantine attack, the Byzantine formations lost cohesion and began to break apart as they chased the Bulgarians. At this point, Simeon sprung his trap and unleashed his hidden cavalry from the wing. The confused Byzantines were easily routed, proving the validity of law number three.

Answer: Mongol Invasion

Three of the invasions came from the west, only one came from the east and where the sun rises - the Mongol Invasion.

In 1236 CE, Batu Khan led the Mongol Hordes invaded Bulgaria. It took a year to wipe out any resistance. In 1237, Batu Khan invaded Russia, destroying Ryazan, Kolomna and Moscow among 14 other Russian cities. By 1242 they had attacked and subdued most of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and invaded Poland and Hungary. The Mongol destruction of Kievan Rus allowed for the rise of the Russian Empire centered around Moscow.

All three of the other invasions suffered the same fate basically by the Russians using the same tactics, scorched earth as they retreated leaving the invaders with no means of supply. The coming of winter with no supplies made keeping the armies in the field all the more difficult. Some historians have begun to contend that Napoleon had problems well before the Russian winter set in. Even if true, certainly the weather would have made these problems more pronounced and clearly it affected all three campaigns. For these armies law number four proved painfully true.

Answer: The Trooper

In the US in many states the state police are called state troopers or troopers. Although Iron Maiden's song "The Trooper" was originally released in 1983, its subsequent re-release live on the album "Death on the Road" in 2005 had far greater chart success.

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote his poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" after reading an account of the battle. The charge took place during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. Although the gallantry and bravery of the men of the Light Brigade have been celebrated ever since they made their charge, the action was a suicide mission and the result of imprecise orders. According to "The Victorians at War, 1815-1914: An Encyclopedia of British Military History", French Marshal Pierre Bosquet, who was present at the time on the battlefield, said of the charge, "It is magnificent, but it is not war. It is madness." Seeing this charge as the height of gallantry and military acumen had serious ramifications. In "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence", Norman Dixon asserts that the charge and the blind obedience to orders, no matter how insane, damaged the reputation of the British military for the next 80 years.

Answer: Battle of Longewala

Protracted is another way to say long which would hopefully lead to the Battle of 'Long'ewala.

The Battle of the Alamo is famous in the Texas War for Independence because it galvanized the Texans into a population that would not stop until victorious. The Battle of Little Big Horn is famous as the greatest victory by Native Americans in the Plains Indian Wars but it was a Pyrrhic victory. The Battle of Thermopylae is famous as the stand of the 300 Spartans who died buying time for the rest of Greece to prepare for the Persian invasion.

The Battle of Longewala took place during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The Indian force numbered only 120 soldiers. Arrayed against them were 2,800 Pakistanis with 65 tanks and 138 other vehicles. The Indian forces held out throughout the night of Dec. 4th and in the morning the Indian Air Force came to their aid. The Pakistanis lost 36 tanks and 100 other vehicles.

Law number six would surely apply to all of these battles.

Answer: Battle of Tsushima

A large sea wave is a tsunami which looks like Tsushima. The Battle of Tsushima was part of the larger Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The Russian Second Pacific Squadron was trying to make it to Vladivostok without running into the Japanese. They took a risky route that went through the Tsushima Strait and were spotted by Japanese patrol boats.

The Japanese set out to intercept the Russians before they could reach their destination. Although the Russians struck first, the Japanese fire was more accurate and more damaging.

The battle was a lopsided victory in favor of the Japanese who lost no battleships but sank seven of the eight Russian battleships. The Japanese victory has been described as the most decisive naval victory since Trafalgar. Perhaps the Russians did not understand law number seven.

Answer: Poor execution by the Airborne troops

The hint is a reference to the 101st Airborne's shoulder insignia, the Screaming Eagle. There were many reasons Monty's bold plan failed but the performance of the Airborne was not one of them.

Operation Market Garden was a plan almost doomed to failure from the outset. Although the objective was worthy, too many things had to go right for the plan to succeed. Any one of these things going wrong could and most likely would jeopardize the whole operation. The idea of the plan was to grab several bridges over several rivers so that British armored units could move quickly through the Netherlands and seize a crossing on the Rhine River. The closest crossings would be grabbed by the US 82nd Airborne Division, the next by the US 101st Airborne Division, and the furtherest by the British 1st Airborne Division and the Polish 1st Airborne Brigade. The Airborne units performed admirably but poor drop zone selection made their task almost impossible. The British armor did not move as speedily as necessary and the Germans were able to blow one of the early bridges, further delaying their progress. There was only one road leading north and holding it open for supplies became a huge undertaking for the Allies. On top of this, the Germans were resting far more units of greater combat capacity in the area than had been anticipated. Any one of these things would have probably doomed the plan but all of them added up to an operational failure. Although the Allies gained crossings over several rivers, the objective of crossing the Rhine was not achieved and must be considered a major failure when the amount of men and material consumed by the operation is considered.

Answer: Yitzhak Rabin

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March and of this group only Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Rabin was the head of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) at the time of the war and much of the credit for the success was given to him. The Israelis believed that the Arabs were planning an attack, so instead of waiting for it to happen, they launched a preemptive attack, catching the Arabs completely by surprise. On the morning of June 5, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched an attack on the Eyptian Air Force and almost completely destroyed it before they knew what was happening. That afternoon the IAF attacked the Air Forces of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.

By the end of day one, the IAF had effectively neutralized all of the Arab Air Forces.

The Israeli ground forces had similar results, capturing the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Penisula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. By the end of the six days Israel had captured enough territory to increase its size by 300 percent. Rabin chose the name the Six-Day War because it was the least extravagant while reminding him of the six days of creation. Clearly the Arabs did not heed law number nine.

Answer: Battle of Mogadishu

The Battle of Mogadishu, or the Day of the Rangers, was a battle that transpired on Oct. 3 and 4, 1993 and was part of Operation Gothic Serpent. The American forces included, Army Ranger teams, Delta Force members, some Navy SEALs, and some air elements.

The goal was to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid. In all about 160 US military members faced off against 2,000 to 4,000 Somali militia and civilians. The mission failed because the military was not given what it requested to carry out the mission and was still ordered to go ahead.

The failure resulted in a public relations nightmare for the Clinton administration. It would seem the civilian members of the defense department forgot law number ten.