PKA Debates the WORST Wars in History to Fight In

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]It's pretty crazy that people used to get bayoneted, you know? Like you go out there, shoot your musket, they're getting close, time to bust out the bayonet. Like I'm pretty glad we don't live in those times anymore. Oh, that would have been horrible. And then if you get like stabbed by it, the doctors are like, "Nothing we can do. Do you want us to shoot you in the head or do you want to a 2-month, you know, adventure with gangrene?" What's the Is that worse? Like Obviously, muskets and bayonets are pretty awful way to conduct war. No fun.

[00:00:28]But what we got now with drones just taunting you before they drop their munitions or >> last bayonet charge was?

[00:00:36]Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to guess it's more recent than you'd think. Korea. Was it like Poland in World War II? What?

[00:00:46]>> Afghanistan. Okay. Did a legit bayonet charge against the Taliban in Afghanistan?

[00:00:52]And I've heard uh like US Marines talk about talk about they're pinned down in a hole somewhere taking fire and the order was given out "Fix bayonets." He's like, "I've only been in country 3 months at this point.

[00:01:04]>> [laughter] >> I don't know if this is going to if this I haven't fixed my bayonet since basic.

[00:01:10]Here we go.

[00:01:12]>> [laughter] >> Well, I also hate to tell you I stopped bringing my bayonet. We haven't been using it.

[00:01:17]You're like just running ahead without one hoping you don't get in trouble.

[00:01:21]>> [laughter] >> I got a Leatherman and some duct tape.

[00:01:24]Best I can do. Oh, that would be terrible.

[00:01:26]>> are any deer, we got this.

[00:01:28]>> [laughter] >> No, you're >> I feel like by the by the time you're affixing a bayonet, you're already in dire straits. Like things haven't gone as well as they could have already.

[00:01:37]Yeah.

[00:01:37]>> Otherwise, you'd be using the bullet part of the gun.

[00:01:40]>> Yeah. I don't know which war is worse to be in. I used to always say World War I because of the all that new technology was there and nobody was prepped for it. Like the the sword had advanced and the shield had been left behind, as it were. You know, you had you had mustard gas and chlorine gas. You had barbed wire. You had the flamethrowers. you had tanks, and you had belt-fed machine guns, and we were still fighting the way that we had been fighting 50 years before. The generals were these old-school guys who were like, "Ah, just throw more men at it, chap. That'll do the trick. And the the Jerries won't count on that." And they just just just kept firing their gun for an extra 2 minutes, and everybody died. They'd lose like 50,000 men in a week, [ __ ] like that.

[00:02:22]World War I and then you get the trench foot. You get like trench foot, your feet are rotting off, you're in that hole living with rats and [ __ ] and piss.

[00:02:29]I mean, it has to be World War I. It's the worst.

[00:02:30]>> World War I in the trenches.

[00:02:31]>> I had like you get like the notice from your sergeant you're going over the top into mines and machine guns.

[00:02:38]And then like it's like, "Okay, well, here we go." And then everyone just gets wiped. Like legitimately everyone dies.

[00:02:43]And they had they had examples where like sometimes if the the army like, "We're not doing it." Or or like they're like a certain squad would be like, "I'm not going out." And then what they would do is they'd draw names to kill one of them like next time you go over the top, or we're going to keep killing you. Yeah, they'd execute for cowardice. World War I stuff. That's that's old-school.

[00:02:59]That's uh the that was the practice of decimation.

[00:03:03]>> [clears throat] >> Well, that's when you kill 1 out of 10 of an army. Yeah, that's what I'm saying it comes from is like uh after a failed battle or something if there was a shameful regiment in the you know, Roman military, they would eat like draw stones or something, and then the other nine or the other 18 or whatever the math breaks out to would have to beat the other guys to death in their own unit.

[00:03:25]Really? Yeah. Yeah, it was like, you know, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

[00:03:32]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, it was rough. So like we have to qualify it with modern war because any of those ancient wars would have been a [ __ ] nightmare. True.

[00:03:39]>> Like you you're like you like get hit by an arrow in an area that won't even kill you that quickly, and then you go to the doctor, and it's a guy wearing a [ __ ] Halloween outfit like what waving sage at you >> [laughter] >> like chanting. It's like, "Oh my god, I'm going to die.

[00:03:52]>> humors are terrible.

[00:03:54]>> [laughter] >> We must bleed him. Just like George how George Washington died. George Washington could have lived for years longer, but he was just he was a believer of leeches. He was like >> throat. I need more leeches. They weren't just using leeches, they were cutting him. They were bloodletting.

[00:04:09]They were they took like pints out of him. But and they they bled him to death.

[00:04:15]Vietnam was pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah, that's a shitty one, too. Just being out in the jungle. There's a hot take.

[00:04:22]>> [laughter] >> Well, if we're comparing wars, like like I think that World War II, especially in the European theater it wasn't that bad compared to like the Somme and World War I or even maybe some of those Pacific Islands or you know, during World War II. And certainly like dude, this thing in Ukraine right now, the morale hit it must be to like imagine you're as fit as you can be, you're as well-trained as you can be.

[00:04:47]You're a [ __ ] ace with a rifle, a machine gun, a mortar, you can do it all. You're the head guy. And then you just hear pop. And that's it. Some drone just with a fiber optic cable just flew 10 km and blew your ass up and you had.2 seconds warning of sound and then you exploded and there was nothing you could do about it. There were there's and there's no way to get back at that guy.

[00:05:11]He's 10 km away loading up his other drone. You know what I mean? Like When I first saw that, it was so horrifying to me because I Take World War II. I feel like being a good athlete, a smart soldier, etc. goes a long way towards keeping you alive and being good at killing people, right? Like it was it was an it was like combat.

[00:05:31]Now it seems like in Ukraine you die and it's not your fault. You know, you just you have to exist outside sometimes and you get spotted by a drone and they drop a a nade from 100 ft and you're cooked.

[00:05:45]And it's just like Go ahead. Sorry, I I tried to cut you off. Like World War II, Blitzkrieg was pretty brutal. I mean, it was like they just bombed everything with planes. Tons of people die without even knowing it was coming. Then tanks roll through and you just get slaughtered by tanks. And then they you'd have giant infantry behind that. But but then the war was already over. Like when they showed up, there wasn't even a fight. So, I don't know. World War II World War II actually was pretty brutal. Have you seen um Here's the thing. Like if you're going to die, right? If you're going to die, the drone way is not bad. It's not bad.

[00:06:18]It compared to I was going to say the bombing. I kind of didn't count on the on the bombing in World War II. That's really comparable to the drone warfare that we see now in terms of like You would just You went to work. You're making your ball bearings. And then suddenly the whole factory's gone. Like you didn't You're not even a bad soldier or bad whatever. You don't suck at what you did. You just get snapped off. Ah, another day at the London ball bearings factory.

[00:06:44]>> [laughter] >> Nothing will go wrong today.

[00:06:48]What's that siren?

[00:06:50]>> [laughter] >> Yeah. At least at least with back when they used to fight with swords, it was like, all right.

[00:06:56]Like if you're a really great swordsman, you're going to win some fights, you know? Exactly.

[00:07:01]>> Like maybe the wrong numbers, but like The skill gap was there. It like like like it kind of like relates to games in that way. Like like the current warfare doesn't seem very skillful. It seems like it's tech-based and position-based and then and and luck-based. Whereas I think the further you go back Yeah, a lot of RNG. Yeah.

[00:07:20]The further you go back, the less RNG though. Like that's why you have something like the Spartans holding the gap at Thermopylae for days against the a way bigger army. Well, it probably wasn't a million men, but it was 100,000 against 300, you know? And they're all just so much better armed, so much better prepared, and just so much better athletes.

[00:07:37]>> coordinated So much better looking.

[00:07:39]Yeah.

[00:07:40]Those are in the movie. Yes, way way more jacked. That goes without [laughter] saying. And they had trolls.

[00:07:47]Yeah, dude. That was the coolest thing about >> men wore mascara, just saying.

[00:07:51]>> [laughter] >> Some of them wore but you know, I'm going to throw stones at those guys?

[00:07:55]No.

[00:07:56]>> I said some. I was careful. They >> [laughter] >> saved Western democracy as we know it, okay? Let's let's let's give them their mascara.

[00:08:03]>> [laughter] >> Well, those were like the most battle obsessed people of all time against like slaves from the Persian Empire where Xerxes was like, "Oh, that didn't work.

[00:08:12]Just send like a bunch more of them in."

[00:08:14]They had to spice it up in the movie, which I loved, where it was just like video game mode where they had like they were beating different levels where it's like you beat the >> [laughter] >> you beat the lower tier infantry, can you beat the enormous rhinos? Can you beat [clears throat] the the elephant people? Can you beat these these magicians throwing weird Where did they get all the fonts? This is not even the right movie.

[00:08:36]>> [laughter] >> No, but like I was watching that being like I wouldn't have wasted those elephants like that. I certainly wouldn't let them walk that close to the edge.

[00:08:43]>> [laughter] >> That makes sense though because it's a and they explain it even the movie, you know, if you got that you've got the one survivor who was sent back by what's it Leonidas?

[00:08:54]He's like tell the story and he's like pumping it up a little bit, you know, he's clearly telling a campfire tale.

[00:09:00]"Ah, and then the rhinoceros >> [laughter] >> He's motivating an army. And I'm sure like the original story of the LT's, the guy who's like just that goblin who's like who isn't able to perform with the Spartans so he betrays them. I bet in like the original story if that was even a character, it's like and he had kind of a club foot but like >> [laughter] >> in in that they're just like the most ghastly, you know, one eye significantly larger than the other. Yeah, [laughter] dude, I love 300. When that came out I was it was one of my favorite movies when it came out. I was the right age. I bless the [ __ ] Either either either subscribe, donate, or get the [ __ ] out.