Battle

Unpleasantness that occurs when the armed forces of two opposing sides come into contact.

Requires to be at least a battalion and/or a couple of dozen tanks on one/both sides otherwise its just a Firefight, Skirmish, neighbourhood turf rumble or throwing out time down the local Sticky Carpet.

Exception: Any street fight involving German and English soccer fans will be called THE BATTLE OF XXXXX in The Sun the next day.

Historical notes:

• A battle is a medieval manoeuvre unit consisting of approximately 1/3 of your troops. Ye olde commande and controle not being up to much in the middle ages ... you had a Left Wing, a Right Wing and a centre. Anything more than that was considered a bit gay.

• By amazing coincidence the Battle of Hastings was actually fought at Battle, a village 10km north west of Hastings. So technically William the Bastard won the Battle of Battle ... but that sounded a bit wanky.

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