Jesus christ, you're like a broken record of shitty internet history who reads an article from Cracked.com and thinks you know it all.

If you had a fucking clue about the Peloponnesian War (at least get that name right if you want to appear as knowledgeable) you'd know your hyperbolic bullshit is completely wrong. Persia influenced the war, they did not win it, the Spartans did. While at one moment you're criticizing the Spartans from having allies, you're completely ignoring that the Delian League was MASSIVELY larger than the Peloponnesian league, that Athens, because of its maritime arm, was hugely richer than Sparta, who did not even have real currency.

And a shitload happened in that generation after the Peloponnesian War. Many of the allies of the Spartans turned on them; not surprising since the war itself was not a war between Sparta and Athens, but between massive leagues of city states that were allied together but essentially under the control of those two super powers. Athens fucking lost the war. Ie., if your dumb shit B Squad crap made any sense in the world, it would be Athens, not Sparta, the winner. Even severely weakened after a generation long war with the Delian League Sparta still flounced the Corinthinian League numerous times before finally losing at Leuctra.

And as I've mentioned in other threads, a primary reason for Sparta's decline had nothing at all to do with battle or the bullshit your read on cracked.com, but of birth rates and population and other social problems. The Spartiate population, through attrition in warfare, natural disasters, disease, long campaigns away from home (nobody is knocking boots when Spartan troops spend years away campaigning on the other side of Greece), and land ownership/mortgage issues back home, which caused a MASSIVE undermining of Spartan land and naval power. It simply could no longer feed the level of quality troops into battle in the same manner as it had done before, while at the same time dealing with enterprising new commanders like Pelopidas and Epaminondas. So when they started losing battles and most of the troops in them, they could not replace them. For fear of uprisings back in Sparta, they could not simply reinforce failure the same way the Corithinians could, who had been less affected by the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans overextended and paid for it.

Modern USSOF and other western equivalents

So the Spartans couldn't do much on their own. They were overrated. Which is pretty much what I said to begin with.

Granted I was more laconic though.

Predators! !!!!!!!

Except you weren't.

Well my opinion on the matter is it always boils down to training and actual experience will determine how well a unit will perform when it really "counts".

I vote for the USS Yorktown CV-5. Damaged badly at Coral Sea, good damage control saved her, got her back to Pearl, 2 days of repairs (including a dry docking) it time to sortie for Midway. Hit again by 3 bombs at Midway, Damage control and Engineering had her back underway and launching planes in 2 hours before she was hit again but this time mortally.

From wiki: " While the ship recovered from the damage inflicted by the dive-bombing attack, her speed dropped to 6 knots (7 mph; 11 km/h); and then at 14:40, about 20 minutes after the bomb hit that had shut down most of the boilers, Yorktown slowed to a stop, dead in the water.

At about 15:40, Yorktown prepared to get underway; and, at 15:50, thanks to the black gang in No. 1 Fireroom having kept the auxiliaries operating to clear the stack gas from the other firerooms and bleeding steam from No. 1 to the other boilers to jump-start them, Chief Engineer Delaney reported to Captain Buckmaster that the ship's engineers were ready to make 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h) or better. It was a remarkable feat of damage control, one seldom equalled in the entire war."

On a personal badass level?

My vote is for Lieutenant-Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill (Mad Jack), DSO & Bar, MC & Bar (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996), was a British Army officer who fought throughout the Second World War armed with a longbow, bagpipes, and a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword.

Accomplishments and badassery are to much to list, read more at wiki: Crazy Badass

Ouch that was a beatdown.

Anyone remember these books? Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File

If I was a billionaire I'd be.... a billionaire.

Operational: Mongols, easy answer.  
Tactical: Modern SF.  Training, provisions, and attention like no small unit has seen before.

"The War of Northern Aggression"

Anytime I see these words, I immediately know that there is absolutely no saving you from your brainwashed revisionist history based on the Myth of the Lost Cause.

At least make an attempt to recognize real facts about the American Civil War - not re-written sugar-coated history by a bitter, defeated people with a lost identity...

Christ...

With a sword or spear and shield, only, David's mighty men, hands down

<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: " helvetica="" neue",="" verdana,="" helvetica,="" arial,="" sans-serif;="" line-height:="" 1.1;="" color:="" rgb(0,="" 0,="" 0);="" margin-top:="" 20px;="" margin-bottom:="" 10px;="" font-size:="" 1.55em;"="">David's mighty men
</h3>

Links and paste are really not functional

Hello pot...meet kettle.

Elijah

Incinerating 100+ people sent to arrest him (that was one cripsy "Thin Baal Line")
Killing 400+ false prophets with hands / handheld weapons
Hiking for 40+ days into the wilderness, as a picture of Jesus's 40 day fast

This is my choice.  Has any other unit in modern history seen such continuous high intensity action?

That's almost as compelling as Gandalf defeating the Balrog. It was quite a battle but in the end Gandalf prevailed.

The bombardiers of the Enola Gay and Bockscar.

Kind of hard to arguing with ending a world war.

Im not buying this at all.  Sounds like SJW crap, plus some errors and mistakes.

Mongols for what they conquered with what they had.

This guy was pretty ruthless

Roman Phalanx

see
also look up the Brits in WWII for the birth of the modern Special Forces, they were very much badass

Delta.

Only one who’s seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion

The fictional "Unsullied" from the George Martin books had to have been based on the Spartans. (except the Greeks got to retain their genitals)

How about one of his descendants...  Sir Christopher Lee.

Seems like it Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File
Attached File

I read all the posts......Mongols win.

The 1968 Philadelphia Flyers.

Thanks, man.  Good stuff.

I see what you did there ... good word play

No Roman Centurion?

OP would need to break it down by time periods, comparing a Greek Hoplite to a German SS soldier is a poor comparison.
Different times,different weapons,tactics etc.

Poll fail

They're at SHOT Show with a backpack on.

Chuck Norris met Roy Benavidez, they shook hands as they made eye contact.  After 19 1/2 hours, as a show of respect, Chuck blinked.

@cavgunner

The term "badass" is very, very general.

Some of the ones cited here, like the Mongols and Romans, were highly effective because they had superior numbers, superior tactics, superior training, fought as organized units and sometimes had superior weapons such as the composite bow of the Mongols. That doesn't necessarily mean the individual fighter was a true badass.

When I think of a true badass warrior it has to be from the ages where face to face fighting with edged weapons was the norm, especially those in smaller group actions where the individual warrior could make a big difference.  Among those who fit in that group would be the various Viking tribes, the Germanic tribes (Furor Teutonicus) going against each other and the Romans in Europe and the Celts (Gauls in what is modern day France) of Europe.  These were truly fierce individual warriors. There are many others who fit this type description as well.

In the age of firearms there also many of worthy note, including:

The Confederate Soldier:
Although my family fought on the other side, the Confederate soldier was always outnumbered, had fewer cannons, fewer ships, fewer railroads, fewer arms producers, poorly supplied and equipped and fewer factories to manufacturer basic supplies and equipment.  At the beginning of the war, it is likely any trained military person who looked at overall capability of both sides would have predicted a quick victory for the Union. Yet the courage and tenacity of the individual Confederate soldier, along with mostly excellent Confederate leadership, fought for four years against always bad odds and at times overwhelming odds.

The German Soldier in World War 2:
Especially after the beginning of the Eastern Front and the Normandy invasion the German soldier was fighting a losing war, but fought with great courage and skill. Their cities and factories were bombed to rubble. The civilian population was slaughtered by the thousands with relentless Allied high explosive and fire bombing.  They often did not even know if their families were alive or dead. Yet they fought hard right into the center of Berlin against the vast Soviet army.  And unlike the Confederacy, the German soldier was continuously undermined by the stupidity of the Little Corporal Hitler, who made bad mistake after bad mistake in spite of good advice from the German General Staff.

American Fighting Man regardless of the war:
From the Revolutionary War to our current involvement in the Mid-East, the individual American military man has always come through with distinction regardless of the odds. Leadership has been up and down at times, especially the civilian leadership  (here's looking at you George Bush and Obama) but the individual Marine, Soldier and Navy fighting man has always delivered. And in Vietnam, which was my own war, they had to do it in spite of a lying and hostile American media.

There are many tribes, peoples, nations and individual military units throughout the word which have produced excellent fighting forces or fierce and skilled individual warriors.

Humans have always been good a killing each other. For various reasons, some societies have been more successful at war and for certain times in history but, none could claim that they produced the "Most Badass" warriors in history. That would be just a myth.

Bottom line is that there is no such thing as "Most Badass" warrior and anyone who thinks so is simply wrong.

My opinion.

I thought all the Japanese accounts of the decision to end the war was based on the Soviet Union invading and ending the chances of a conditional surrender that didn't involve American occupation of the mainland.

This.

Not only are they bigger, stronger, better trained and more well armed than their historical counterparts but they can also call in air strikes and artillery.

The individual roman legionary was not a bad ass per say. They dominated the ancient world with logistics and organized tactics that their barbarian adversaries had no equal to.

The toothless,henna bearded pederasts of Afghanistan. The Spartans,Mongols,Confederates,Normans, Landsknechts and Landsers all quit,these bastards will still be resisting getting dragged into the 12th century 200 years from now. They are the cockroaches of warfare.

Not every centurion was a warrior at heart, but most were, it pretty much came with the job. Polybius said they were chosen to be steadfast and not because of bravery, but Caesar's accounts, and many others, describe the bravest of the brave, men so competitive for advancement, awards, and name recognition that they took nearly suicidal risks to win acclaim. Necessary too, centurion appointment was fiercely competitive, promotion to higher centurion rank even more so. Not only was it conditional on social class (it was hard to rise up the ranks from common soldier to chief centurion, Primus pilus), but nepotism played a large part in the sense that Roman society was based on patron-client relationships, with patrons helping their clients achieve rank in all manners. But above all else, advancement into the Roman centurionate also required evidence of personal courage above and beyond that of a normal soldier.

Romans were nothing like the bureaucratic US military today with its ridiculously fucked up award system. The Roman senior officers, tribunes, praefects, legates, imperator, did not sit idly on their horses lounging from the far rear of the battlefield like HBO's Rome shows, nothing at all like Napoleon commanding massive armies fighting independent actions over a large battlefield across the entirety of a day. A Roman battle typically lasted about 45 minutes in length, start to finish. The officers would call the men to arms in camp with trumpets, march them out of the camp and into battle lines, give them speeches, decide on battle, march them forward against the enemy. Once the clash begun, the officer's leadership job of the grander scheme ended, they could only control then what was right in front of them. As such they would commonly ride directly behind the front line (Romans typically deployed in multiple battle lines of infantry). Often these leaders fought on foot with the troops, or fought with the cavalry on horseback, but in the leading ranks. Partly because they too required recognition for zealous bravery for advancement politically, but also because a large part of their job was to lead from the front, by example. More so a common chief description of the senior leader's job in combat wasn't actually leadership, it was to spot courage (to later reward it) and to spot cowardice (to later punish it). What this left is a system where personal bravery even at the lower ranks was very much more recognized than it is in any modern times, with senior officers who would actually see it, whose job was to recognize it with awards handed out immediately after the close of the battle. The Romans FIRMLY understood the carrot and the stick, they knew what ticked in the heart of a true warrior, and everlasting glory is one of them, and awards play a large part in motivating men to fight harder and with more risk to themselves. As Napoleon said "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon" it was equally true with the Romans, especially its centurions, who would risk all to impress a general to gain bracelets, torques, ornamental disks, crowns, etc.

Came here to post about this badass West Virginian.