Two Contenders come to mind.
The Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 where the Mongol Horde was defeated for the first time by mameluke cavalry and the first major battlefield use of primitive firearms.
The other Is Operation Ichi Go the Largest Japanese offensive in WW2:
The Japanese army understood by 1944 that unless China could be knocked out of the war and troops redeployed to fight America Japan could not win the war. The orders were to seek victory or death. At the height of the fighting many Chinese and Japanese Units ran out of ammunition and were forced to fight hand to hand.
The Operation was tactically a bloodbath in terms of casualties with over half a million soldiers killed; operationally successful in that most objectives were taken including the vital north-south railway linking Korea to Vietnam through China and a total strategic failure in that the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria cut the line in the North while US bombing destroyed the railway in south and central China. It Also fatally wounded the Chinese Nationalist Army paving the way for the later Communist takeover.
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