Today and fav battle scenes

Was on uk tv today, i only caught it from the half way point or so,but god what a great film this is.
Rod steiger was awesome as napoleon,as was chris plummer as wellington,both gave a great performence in my humble opinion.
What i loved as a history buff,was how they in those days had to use real troops to make the battle,and not like now where this would no doubt be done in mass cgi.
When cgi began to get pretty good,i was really looking foward to seeing some epic war films,but to my mind few have been done that well.
I loved LOTR,and though obviously not historical,the mass battles in them where very good.But on the flip side i hated troy and alexander.
Ok maybe hate is to strong a word,i have both films,but just felt the cgi,did not look very good at all,it to my eye looks very fake.
What i loved about the old pre cgi epics,is you get the impression that because they had to use lots of guys,lots more work has gone into the battle parts.
My all time fav war scenes are,Zulu,zulu dawn,gettysburg,warterloo,fall of the roman empire,gladiator(but only the first battle),the alamo(both),braveheart.
Christ and plenty more,but mainly the older films,i feel that someone will one day soon make a real old fashioned epic,but have the cgi that for once works and looks right,and not swamp the film,and make it seem a bit plastic and fake.
I have real high hopes for the 300,that could be great,but i have afeeling it will be on the same level as alexander and troy,good but flawed.
By the way watching waterloo today,the battle still is truly awesome to see,the mass cav charge against the british squares is still stunning looking,i bet though plenty of poor horses died in that bit.
I also noticed some funny bits,when the camera got close in to the action,and thats what i have always liked about using real extras,how some of them will no matter what do things that the director and crew may not notice then.
The attack on hougemount,you can clearly see,french soldiers getting over the wall,and being helped up by the british guys,obviously stuff like that was missed but always cracks me up.
Also when some guys are shot,you see them fall,then begin to look around them,i guess they are meant to be wounded,but you can see them clearly watching what is happening around them.
And some of the hand to hand fighting in the background,is being done at a half arsed pace,which always looks funny.
But anyway im not taking the mick,these are small things,that are hard to pick up unless you watch the film dozens of times,like i have.Also most of the guys where russian soldiers,not actors so must be hard keeping thousands of guys in check.