Era-adjusted yes, but metallurgical advances and more developed polearms mean that 14th century men-at-arms would carve through a Principate-era legion
Brainlet take. Late Republican-Early Emperial legions crush 14th cent armies seven days a week. Constant drilling, constant exercise, constantly living with the other legionaires, all gave the legions of the era a level of cohesion, discipline, and skill not to be seen until the professional militaries of the 17th&18th cent. Not to mention that Late Republican - Early Emperial Roman commanders had far more experience commanding huge armies on long campaigns over vast distances against other huge armies. The 14th century knights& soldiers who barely ever drill together bet btfo'd. Their meritless commanders get out-strategied. >but muh plate armor >but muh polearms
Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
If we're talking army vs army, obviously the Roman logistical system was far superior but there's no area the Romans are stronger in. A pilum will do fuck all to 14th century plate armour, meanwhile crossbows or longbows would go through any Roman armour like it's not there, and from far longer ranges. A windlass crossbow bolt would probably go right through a scutum and right into the legionary. The only area where a Principate Roman army might match a later Medieval one is with slingers. The cavalry battle is so lopsided it's not even worth considering, a Medieval army will have >much bigger+faster horses >better protection >stirrups >heavy, long lances
There's a reason the Roman Army adapted to the threat posed by heavy cavalry in the 3rd+4th century, and the game had totally moved on again by the 14th century.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
except those javelins are short ranged as fuck next to the crossbows and longbows of the men at arms supporting troops and the 14th or 15th century infantry werent exactly undisciplined mobs, holding formation was something they were also used to.
Field artillery was a meme until the gunpowder era. In any case the scorpion was a big crew served bastard of a thing but because it's a torsion design it barely matches the heaviest windlass crossbows in terms of potential energy
>A windlass crossbow bolt would probably go right through a scutum and right into the legionary.
Doubt that. It could maybe hurt the arm if it was pressed against the shield but the arrow would get stuck midway into the shield
>Doubt that. It could maybe hurt the arm if it was pressed against the shield but the arrow would get stuck midway into the shield
Arbalests had an equivalent draw weight of 4-500kg and would have a good chance of penetrating even the best 15th-16th century plate armour backed with several layers of padding. Roman armour was extremely flimsy by comparison, as were their shields.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
except those javelins are short ranged as fuck next to the crossbows and longbows of the men at arms supporting troops and the 14th or 15th century infantry werent exactly undisciplined mobs, holding formation was something they were also used to.
>Constant drilling, constant exercise, constantly living with the other legionaires
So like 14th century men-at-arms, who also have far superior equipment and supporting arms.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
Except for the part where it allows you to carve straight through that like a chainsaw through a roast turkey.
https://i.imgur.com/InXvpDT.jpg
[...]
You were saying?
We were saying that medieval heavy cavalry is going to tear straight through everything in a pricipate-era roman army like an 18-wheeler hitting an errant child deer. Including these inaccurate, slow-firing, short-ranged bolt throwers.
During the renaissance a couple of kingdoms sought to emulate Rome's glory by also emulating their infantry doctrines, notably Spain and some Italian states had Roman styled infantry corps.
However at the onset of the Italian wars these formations proved to be hopelessly obsolete when facing off against French gendarmes. Thrown pila/javelins were not nearly enough to stop a heavily armored cavalry charge from hitting home. Their usecase was further limited by the fact that they rarely managed to get the upper hand against the infantry employed by the French at the time, the Swiss pikemen. After a few costly defeats people quickly stopped trying to emulate the Romans on the battlefield.
Combined arms with halberds and other more mobile formation types to support the main blocks. The Swiss pike tactics were quite a bit more sophisticated than those of antiquity.
Swiss pikes is also a bit of a misnomer, usually it's a mish-mash of different polearms, not just very long pikes (although those are usually the most iconic).
Better armour, better weapons, better formations, better tactics. Also the romans didnt really beat a proper phalanx of Alexander with hypaspist, cavalry, and toxote support, they beat shitty degenerated pike spam.
Macedonias deployed in a wide line. A phalanx, just with a different primary arm. Swiss deployed in boxes or deep columns. Harder to flank, much better at punching through lines, very, very fast, and they're better armed. Better sidearms, better armor in the front ranks, and they have organic support with halberd and crossbows - occasionally guns- in the formation.
A flanked phalanx is essentially helpless. Swiss were not.
Also, when phalangnites DID adopt square formations, the Romans couldn't touch them. Had to resort to panicking the seluicids own elephants to break up the formations.
NTA, but I don't see analogs to the crossbows/firearms embedded in the formation he mentioned.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Well the Macedonians didn't embed ranged units into their phalanx but they did use plently of supporting troops behind and to the sides of it
1 month ago
Anonymous
https://i.imgur.com/q3uLEkh.jpg
Well the Macedonians didn't embed ranged units into their phalanx but they did use plently of supporting troops behind and to the sides of it
I'm curious and looking into this as well. Immediate observations: >a swiss "pike block" isn't actually all pikes. two-handed axes, swords, and shorter swingable polearms are mixed in providing flexibility >swiss pike blocks were trained to respond to drum signals and could be used more aggressively than earlier long-spear formations
Since you seem familiar with sarissa phalanxes, what might have resulted from lacking these two features, if they did indeed lack them?
1 month ago
Anonymous
[...]
[...]
I should add: >and could be used more aggressively than earlier long-spear formations
This quote isn't mine and doesn't specify which long-spear formations they were supposedly better than. I'd love to know how macedonian signaling worked.
I honestly have no idea, I think they used horns and flags for battlefield orders.
It hurts to say but you would get a conclusive answer if you asked in the subreddit r/askhistorians
1 month ago
Anonymous
Is this a mod to make the units more varied in color?
1 month ago
Anonymous
It's the DEI mod, the definitive and continually supported mod which is basically just Rome 3 at this point. Total overhaul, not meant for smoothbrains either.
1 month ago
Anonymous
There's 30 pages of results in the workshop for DEI. What's the actual base mod?
1 month ago
Anonymous
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=362473569
You also need part 2 and 3, which are available in the sidebar.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Thanks.
1 month ago
Anonymous
No prob. If you have questions the discord is extremely active by the devs and also vet players, they will answer you promptly.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I'm still holding out hope that Ancient Empires for Attila will be able to match DEI one day because I really don't want to have to buy Rome 2.
That said, DEI looks absolutely amazing and everything in it is very well researched.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Ancient Empires
God it's been almost a decade I completely forgot about that shit
1 month ago
Anonymous
Probably for the best. It's in a weird state right now where pikes and mounted archers shred everything in their path and nothing else is worth a damn. I think someone on the team died or something like that, but I've also heard that it's still being worked on so who knows.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The phalanx had absolutely no answer to faster troops standing off and shooting at it, and was incapable of defending itself if people actually got past the pikes or otherwise disrupted it.
Basically, the things that happened when the Romans wiped out the hellenic field armies and rendered the phalanx extinct are what occurs.
1 month ago
Anonymous
https://i.imgur.com/q3uLEkh.jpg
Well the Macedonians didn't embed ranged units into their phalanx but they did use plently of supporting troops behind and to the sides of it
[...]
I'm curious and looking into this as well. Immediate observations: >a swiss "pike block" isn't actually all pikes. two-handed axes, swords, and shorter swingable polearms are mixed in providing flexibility >swiss pike blocks were trained to respond to drum signals and could be used more aggressively than earlier long-spear formations
Since you seem familiar with sarissa phalanxes, what might have resulted from lacking these two features, if they did indeed lack them?
I should add: >and could be used more aggressively than earlier long-spear formations
This quote isn't mine and doesn't specify which long-spear formations they were supposedly better than. I'd love to know how macedonian signaling worked.
1 month ago
Anonymous
https://i.imgur.com/M99OG0K.jpg
[...]
I honestly have no idea, I think they used horns and flags for battlefield orders.
It hurts to say but you would get a conclusive answer if you asked in the subreddit r/askhistorians
We used messengers right up until the standardisation of radio
1 month ago
Anonymous
No, because the actual formation is a broad line of those stretching across the field. The swiss, on the other hand, didn't do that.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Which is interesting due to how susceptible a deep formation is to cannon
1 month ago
Anonymous
Battle of Grandson. I agree. I'd have expected the artillery to contribute more.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Yes,but it's not vulnerable at all if it moves very, very fucking fast and rolls over whatever is guarding said cannon. Burgundy died in large part because the swiss were just too fast, and their infantry not able to pin them.
There's a logic to it, if you've ever moved as part of a broad line, it sucks, you're constantly forced to change pace and yell at retards for lagging behind or getting too fast. Columns are easier, as long as the guy up front doesn't sprint, and the guy at the rear isn't stupid, you can pretty much jog a whole formation over rough ground and it'll stay intact.
The reverse of this is Marignano, where they absolutely did get pinned and shot/charged to fuck.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Can't believe they were charged by cav so many times
You would think the 1 thing they were good against above all else was cav
1 month ago
Anonymous
Columns are worse anon, you don't dress the line at all, you're absolutely forced to go at the pace of the slowest or open up a gap
Yeah, acting in unison and throwing javelins doesn't FUCKING matter when the other guy isn't reliably harmed by javelins, absolutely will not be harmed by your sword, can reliably defeat your armor, and has a lighter kit despite all this. Plate armor is an absolute cheat code, and you cannot understand it until you've worn harness and been able to compare it other gear.
Roman plate armor is not comparable to medieval European plate. It is inferior in literally ever way. Nor is a shield comparable - it is outright worse. Heavy, easier to defeat, more fatiguing, and relies on the user to make good choices.
Roman plate armor is not comparable to medieval European plate. It is inferior in literally ever way. Nor is a shield comparable - it is outright worse. Heavy, easier to defeat, more fatiguing, and relies on the user to make good choices.
I can feel how sweaty and fat you are just by reading these posts
Not to mention Rome would see that plate armor, and they'd see those pike formations, and you can bet they'd be making use of that technology themselves before long in some capacity, and adapting it in unexpected ways to suit their own strengths.
No, those are dragoons. Or mounted infantry, but I'm a final fantasy fag (FFF)
The difference being one fights on horseback, and the other gets to the battlefield on horse back, then fights on foot.
Whoops, wrong battle.
Also: >Finally win through sheer weight of numbers >2-3% of your empire's population is gone from just one war with a tiny desert kingdom.
>Massively larger empire is eventually able to drown a hastily scraped together revolt in numbers, only having two legions completely destroyed and another almost so.
Still worse losses than whole centuries of German wars.
And that's not when the Hebrews actually had a professional standing army like pic related (numbers are obviously inflated, but Egypt still lost a war despite being the premier power at the time).
1 month ago
Anonymous
because many of the israelites were good partners with the romans, and the radical israelites killed them, rome was not expecting the israelites to chimp out like that
1 month ago
Anonymous
>drown a hastily scraped together revolt in numbers
120k vs. 400k isn't "drowning in numbers"
1 month ago
Anonymous
https://i.imgur.com/9qVlz6d.png
Roman historians, Dio, Eusebius, etc.
And this wasn't all the wars, just the Kitos autism.
https://i.imgur.com/Tf4xQE8.png
Whoops, wrong battle.
Also: >Finally win through sheer weight of numbers >2-3% of your empire's population is gone from just one war with a tiny desert kingdom.
https://i.imgur.com/r7x7nwi.png
>Best infantry >Routed by israeli militia
kek
Look I know the IDF just got humiliated by a bunch of ragheads with homemade bottle rockets, but please don't take your cope out on us.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Post aftermath showing one (1) armored vehicles destroyed by bottle rockets.
Meanwhile, since the dastardly surprise attack (during which Hamas took 1:1 losses versus armed civilians), it's been 27:10,000 losses lol.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The israelites were completely annihilated, with the few survivors either being uprooted and enslaved or force to flee to far away lands. It was 100% a Roman victory, and the only reason for the high casualty rates were due to the underequipped unprepared local garrisons.
Whoops, wrong battle.
Also: >Finally win through sheer weight of numbers >2-3% of your empire's population is gone from just one war with a tiny desert kingdom.
You’ve never heard of mounted infantry? Move fast and far with horses, and fight on foot. Bonus if you’re heavy infantry, cause it’s the horse carrying all that heavy armor and equipment. Pretty usefull if you have a large empire, so you can move your best troops around to extinguish various fires. Even the Romans did it.
>Gaul
They won in Gaul. 33.3% of Gaul's population definitely lost though.
I'm curious as to who you think the Huns are and when they were around. You obviously don't know who they actually are, but I want to know what you think they are.
Badass horse archer motherfuckers that were like I AM THE CURSE OF GOD, killing all these chumps in Asia and the Middle east and coming into Europe like, who's next? Sparing the workers and craftsmen but killing all the politicians and bankers and shit, man ... wait, oh shit that's the mongols isn't it?
Yeah uhh to answer your question anon, I think the Huns were the Mongols.
>Mongols are overrated for the same reason Alexander is. Both only fought retards.
Sar calm down sir. Bharat #1 defeat Alexandar send him back home yes yes you right.
I'd say they had the best army. Individually, perhaps not the best infantry. But comparing individual infantrymen to each other is asinine. The point is that together, Roman infantry and their auxiliaries defeated anything the world threw at them (eventually)
20000 men Roman armies with ease were moving 30 kms a day through mountain passes as part of training. Also it's a 800 year time spam. Really the only thing that stayed the same with Romans 4/5 ratio. 4 on support one in combat. When romes army were in their prime they'd have their 6 foot, 230 lb elite up front going against 5'5 random enemy soldiers while the normal 5'6 Romans were supporting the elites.
Everything is more less anecdotal but a common battle theme was it would be like NFL linebackers who a dozen years of combat training and spears something's swords would be fighting off men the size of preteen girls. Their enemies would think oh it's a 1 vs 1 without realizing it was just 1/5 of the Army, think their god would give them strength, try to engage then be murdered or enslaved.
Prime Rome was fighting constant wars most people kind of forgot or don't care about. Constantly A dozen "wars going on" with 2-5% of Roman men of fighting age In them. Prime time only had 20 million max and on average of useable people 10 million max. Then an army of 20,000 makes you go oh shit. That would be be like 600,000 Americans and Rome would have around 200,000 professional soldiers. Prime rome popped up 3 times in my opinion and only lasted combined 200 out of 800 years.
Tldr there was no Pax Romana
The Roman army's strength came from its logistics and discipline, not the strength and size of its soldiers. For example, around the time of Julius Caesar, a the first line of soldiers would fight for a few minutes, then fall back to the rear of the formation so they could rest while the next line entered the fray, and so on. Instead of breaking formation to wildly slash at the enemy with their swords, the Romans were trained to make quick thrusts with their gladii, often aiming for the legs. Their fighting style relied on extreme discipline and organization, and proved effective against Celts and Germans who were actually taller than the Romans in many cases
>the first line of soldiers would fight for a few minutes, then fall back to the rear of the formation so they could rest while the next line entered the fray
get out of here with your History Channel homosexualry
the description is ambiguous and written by a mong who wasn't a soldier, a fucking armchair consul nerd hick in fact. the idea of legionaries at the front going to the rear of the line is impractical given the press of battle described by other historians, and contradicts the principle of the acies triplex and cohort organisation. so the best interpretation we have is that Livy was probably trying to describe a system of what modern armies call "relief in place", by which an exhausted unit is replaced by a fresh unit in a systematic manner without presenting a weakness to the enemy.
>the first line of soldiers would fight for a few minutes, then fall back to the rear of the formation so they could rest while the next line entered the fray
get out of here with your History Channel homosexualry
It's unironically true though
Roman tactics did not prove effective against Germans and modern historians have a more realistic view than Total War Rome.
Anyone who accepts SLAM's bullshit at face value instantly outs himself as an utter mong. So you're ignored.
1 month ago
Anonymous
NTA who slam and qrd
1 month ago
Anonymous
Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall was a US Army officer and historian. He claimed that only 10-20% of infantrymen actually fired their weapons at the enemy in combat, and claimed that improved Army training solved this problem. This claim has been taken up by many people and applied to various theories, such as that video about how the Roman Army may have fought.
Reality is that Marshall pulled most of his writings out of his ass. Although he was in a position, as top brass, to interview many US Army soldiers, he made few notes and basically went off his impression and memory of the interviews, which were often very wrong. Certainly this statistic is completely indefensible.
The Romans won most of their battles against the Germans until the final days of the empire. Everyone knows about the early defeats in the Cimbrian War and Teutoberg because they were the only majot losses the Principate suffered
>When romes army were in their prime they'd have their 6 foot, 230 lb elite up front going against 5'5 random enemy soldiers while the normal 5'6 Romans were supporting the elites.
Anon, those 6 foot Chad's weren't actual Romans. The only time that was true was in the late empire when Germanics joined up as roman writers consistently mention them being notably taller throughout the centuries.
Romans were grain-fed manlets.
>Romans were grain-fed manlets.
They ate a lot of fish. They also ate a lot of game, beef, and mutton. Pork was also widely-eaten, because they put on flesh easily and aren't picky in diet. And there's actually archaeological evidence of chicken battery and egg farming in Roman times.
"A lot"
Not by modern standards, they actually did eat a shit ton of grain (and lots of peas/lentils/beans), anon. Also eating some other food won't change that.
Again, Romans WERE grainfed manlets. That is not disputed.
>define this in height units please so we know where you stand
No need because we can go by their own relative standards and they describe Germanics as notably taller them throughout the centuries without fail. >Yet not as little as was once thought either
As you once thought, maybe.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Why are you terminally averse to putting a number to your claim?
Would 5'8" be manlet to you?
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Would 5'8" be manlet to you? >Watch as he recoils! "I've been found out!"
>fish
Fish consumption was a relatively elite thing. Shellfish that could be extracted from shallow waters and freshwater fish were a bit more common but deep sea fishing wasn't really possible with the ships available at the time. The average pleb diet was heavily grain based just because it was the only way to feed that many people with the period technology
>The average pleb diet was heavily grain based just because it was the only way to feed that many people with the period technology
It's not difficult to get people up to 100g of protein a day, and with abundant calories that is enough to build good fighting troops
>Fish consumption was a relatively elite thing
The reason we don't know much about Roman fish consumption is that fish bones don't survive thousands of years in rubbish heaps. However we can surmise from their geography and massive investment in garum production that they ate A LOT of fish. Historically - and even today, even in poor countries - fish makes up as much as 50% or more of protein consumption of coastal communities.
The Med is full of fish.
>The reason we don't know much about Roman fish consumption is that fish bones don't survive thousands of years in rubbish heaps.
They do, look at the fish bone assemblages from elite Medieval sites such as Lyminge in Kent.
There's also isotopic analysis showing relatively limited fish consumption outside of elite contexts in Syracuse here:
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/opar-2022-0300/html?lang=en
1 month ago
Anonymous
In general fishbones decompose quicker than say beef bones. We may only have found the ones that somehow survived.
Perhaps those researchers found a community of Syracusan vegetarians, anon. Note that there was also a conHispanicuous lack of animal proteins in general. The authors of that paper took pains to give several possible reasons for their findings.
On the other hand, there is ample evidence of Roman consumption of fish by rich and poor alike >The investigations carried out at the coastal town of Herculaneum in the cardo V sewer have shown how rich in seafood the diet of those who lived in that street was (Rowan 2014; Nicholson et al. this volume). Since the buildings along that street were a combination of commercial and different types of residential premises, comprising also non-elite dwellings, the Herculaneum sewer data indicate consumption of fresh seafood across social strata. Coastal location would have meant a higher availability of fresh fish, and this was probably true particularly in the case of port towns.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11457-018-9195-1
1 month ago
Anonymous
In Herculaneum, which is a port town situated in the Bay of Naples, which is an ideal case for littoral-water fishing. Cities like Herculaneum aren't representative of most of the Roman population
1 month ago
Anonymous
Idk man, garum is known to have been extremely popular and common across the social strata and that's a fish based sauce
Just melee infantry? Probably, yes. The advancements in calvary and archery would mean better armies overall in the mid to late middle ages and beyond. But just in terms of h2h infantry? I wouldn't be surprised if a Legion beats 12th century men at arms even with there pikemen.
No. They didn't even have the best infantry for their entire existence. Around the time of Caesar and the Pax Romana, yeah, but eventually everyone else was starting to evolve militarily and heavy infantry weren't cock of the block anymore.
Most of Rome's strengths were in it's logistics and it's easily replenishable pool of manpower, which is really fucking impressive since, after they fell, nobody would actually have the capability to maintain a standing army until the industrial revolution. Of course, THAT, and the Marian Reformation in general, also ended up creating more problems in the long run than they solved and significantly contributed to the empire's collapse.
>after they fell, nobody would actually have the capability to maintain a standing army
by the early modern period most of the major european states had at least small standing armies, not large ones and they would recruit heavily in wartime, but the core of the army would be the regulars of the various standing armies.
No, as that would include the high middle-ages. A roman legionary wont do anything to a platemail armoured english knight with a polearm. Their armour and weapons are iron, the knight has carbon-steel. The javelins do nothing, the shields are vulnerable to crossbows, the formations wont hold against a couched lance charge, they cant counter a pike formation backed by men-at-arms, they have no answer to longbowmen and crossbowmen, they have no polearms or maces or picks or properly sized swords, their armour is very poor too. Put a legionary against a man-at-arms and he's going to have his head smashed in with a halberd. The romans got annihilated by heavy cavalry historically, so they're not the best infantry if they cant hold up to the most common battlefield threat of the middle ages.
This. Maybe 20% of the threads on that board actually discuss EVENTS that occurred in the past, the rest is pseudointellectual fart huffing and haploautism
Anon, considering the length of the period you're talking about that's retarded to say.
Also height requirements don't mean Romans were tall just that their manlet society had short and taller people too.
Infantry specifically? Not necessarily. What makes Rome stand out, and what allowed them to punch above their weight against larger neighbors in the republican era was a flexible military doctrine. They would adopt different organizational styles from enemies around them and improve upon them, abandoning tactics and formations when it no longer served them. like the transition from phalanx to manipular to cohort formations. Also their willingness to recruit and equip troops from a more open manpower pool meant that even if they suffered crushing defeats, they could recruit and equip a new force much faster than their contemporaries. Even much later during the dominate, while the late Roman army is regarded as lower in quality compared to the republic/principate, the complete restructuring of their military organization was because the earlier policy of having most of their army camped on the frontier no longer worked
No, late med men at arms in full harness.
Professionals, many were nobles with a lifetime of training, and all ahd the finest melee equipment ever made.
Era-adjusted yes, but metallurgical advances and more developed polearms mean that 14th century men-at-arms would carve through a Principate-era legion
Brainlet take. Late Republican-Early Emperial legions crush 14th cent armies seven days a week. Constant drilling, constant exercise, constantly living with the other legionaires, all gave the legions of the era a level of cohesion, discipline, and skill not to be seen until the professional militaries of the 17th&18th cent. Not to mention that Late Republican - Early Emperial Roman commanders had far more experience commanding huge armies on long campaigns over vast distances against other huge armies. The 14th century knights& soldiers who barely ever drill together bet btfo'd. Their meritless commanders get out-strategied.
>but muh plate armor
>but muh polearms
Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
If we're talking army vs army, obviously the Roman logistical system was far superior but there's no area the Romans are stronger in. A pilum will do fuck all to 14th century plate armour, meanwhile crossbows or longbows would go through any Roman armour like it's not there, and from far longer ranges. A windlass crossbow bolt would probably go right through a scutum and right into the legionary. The only area where a Principate Roman army might match a later Medieval one is with slingers. The cavalry battle is so lopsided it's not even worth considering, a Medieval army will have
>much bigger+faster horses
>better protection
>stirrups
>heavy, long lances
There's a reason the Roman Army adapted to the threat posed by heavy cavalry in the 3rd+4th century, and the game had totally moved on again by the 14th century.
You were saying?
Field artillery was a meme until the gunpowder era. In any case the scorpion was a big crew served bastard of a thing but because it's a torsion design it barely matches the heaviest windlass crossbows in terms of potential energy
Yeah, it was such a "meme" that it was used extensively.
And was never decisive. It's inaccurate and worse in almost every way than having a competent corps of slingers
This is not going to do shit to an entire heavy cavalry charge by the cream of the crop the 14th century can produce.
> loading that thing mustve taken ages
>A windlass crossbow bolt would probably go right through a scutum and right into the legionary.
Doubt that. It could maybe hurt the arm if it was pressed against the shield but the arrow would get stuck midway into the shield
>Doubt that. It could maybe hurt the arm if it was pressed against the shield but the arrow would get stuck midway into the shield
Arbalests had an equivalent draw weight of 4-500kg and would have a good chance of penetrating even the best 15th-16th century plate armour backed with several layers of padding. Roman armour was extremely flimsy by comparison, as were their shields.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
except those javelins are short ranged as fuck next to the crossbows and longbows of the men at arms supporting troops and the 14th or 15th century infantry werent exactly undisciplined mobs, holding formation was something they were also used to.
>Constant drilling, constant exercise, constantly living with the other legionaires
So like 14th century men-at-arms, who also have far superior equipment and supporting arms.
>Lterally does not matter against a wall of legionaries all acting in unison and raining javelins down on you.
Except for the part where it allows you to carve straight through that like a chainsaw through a roast turkey.
We were saying that medieval heavy cavalry is going to tear straight through everything in a pricipate-era roman army like an 18-wheeler hitting an errant child deer. Including these inaccurate, slow-firing, short-ranged bolt throwers.
During the renaissance a couple of kingdoms sought to emulate Rome's glory by also emulating their infantry doctrines, notably Spain and some Italian states had Roman styled infantry corps.
However at the onset of the Italian wars these formations proved to be hopelessly obsolete when facing off against French gendarmes. Thrown pila/javelins were not nearly enough to stop a heavily armored cavalry charge from hitting home. Their usecase was further limited by the fact that they rarely managed to get the upper hand against the infantry employed by the French at the time, the Swiss pikemen. After a few costly defeats people quickly stopped trying to emulate the Romans on the battlefield.
>swiss pikemen
Why could Romans defeat macedonian pikemen but "Romans" couldn't defeat swiss pikemen?
The swiss had a better pike and were somehow even gayer than the greeks
Combined arms with halberds and other more mobile formation types to support the main blocks. The Swiss pike tactics were quite a bit more sophisticated than those of antiquity.
Swiss pikes is also a bit of a misnomer, usually it's a mish-mash of different polearms, not just very long pikes (although those are usually the most iconic).
Better armour, better weapons, better formations, better tactics. Also the romans didnt really beat a proper phalanx of Alexander with hypaspist, cavalry, and toxote support, they beat shitty degenerated pike spam.
Macedonias deployed in a wide line. A phalanx, just with a different primary arm. Swiss deployed in boxes or deep columns. Harder to flank, much better at punching through lines, very, very fast, and they're better armed. Better sidearms, better armor in the front ranks, and they have organic support with halberd and crossbows - occasionally guns- in the formation.
A flanked phalanx is essentially helpless. Swiss were not.
Also, when phalangnites DID adopt square formations, the Romans couldn't touch them. Had to resort to panicking the seluicids own elephants to break up the formations.
Is this not considered a deep formation?
NTA, but I don't see analogs to the crossbows/firearms embedded in the formation he mentioned.
Well the Macedonians didn't embed ranged units into their phalanx but they did use plently of supporting troops behind and to the sides of it
I'm curious and looking into this as well. Immediate observations:
>a swiss "pike block" isn't actually all pikes. two-handed axes, swords, and shorter swingable polearms are mixed in providing flexibility
>swiss pike blocks were trained to respond to drum signals and could be used more aggressively than earlier long-spear formations
Since you seem familiar with sarissa phalanxes, what might have resulted from lacking these two features, if they did indeed lack them?
I honestly have no idea, I think they used horns and flags for battlefield orders.
It hurts to say but you would get a conclusive answer if you asked in the subreddit r/askhistorians
Is this a mod to make the units more varied in color?
It's the DEI mod, the definitive and continually supported mod which is basically just Rome 3 at this point. Total overhaul, not meant for smoothbrains either.
There's 30 pages of results in the workshop for DEI. What's the actual base mod?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=362473569
You also need part 2 and 3, which are available in the sidebar.
Thanks.
No prob. If you have questions the discord is extremely active by the devs and also vet players, they will answer you promptly.
I'm still holding out hope that Ancient Empires for Attila will be able to match DEI one day because I really don't want to have to buy Rome 2.
That said, DEI looks absolutely amazing and everything in it is very well researched.
>Ancient Empires
God it's been almost a decade I completely forgot about that shit
Probably for the best. It's in a weird state right now where pikes and mounted archers shred everything in their path and nothing else is worth a damn. I think someone on the team died or something like that, but I've also heard that it's still being worked on so who knows.
The phalanx had absolutely no answer to faster troops standing off and shooting at it, and was incapable of defending itself if people actually got past the pikes or otherwise disrupted it.
Basically, the things that happened when the Romans wiped out the hellenic field armies and rendered the phalanx extinct are what occurs.
I should add:
>and could be used more aggressively than earlier long-spear formations
This quote isn't mine and doesn't specify which long-spear formations they were supposedly better than. I'd love to know how macedonian signaling worked.
We used messengers right up until the standardisation of radio
No, because the actual formation is a broad line of those stretching across the field. The swiss, on the other hand, didn't do that.
Which is interesting due to how susceptible a deep formation is to cannon
Battle of Grandson. I agree. I'd have expected the artillery to contribute more.
Yes,but it's not vulnerable at all if it moves very, very fucking fast and rolls over whatever is guarding said cannon. Burgundy died in large part because the swiss were just too fast, and their infantry not able to pin them.
There's a logic to it, if you've ever moved as part of a broad line, it sucks, you're constantly forced to change pace and yell at retards for lagging behind or getting too fast. Columns are easier, as long as the guy up front doesn't sprint, and the guy at the rear isn't stupid, you can pretty much jog a whole formation over rough ground and it'll stay intact.
The reverse of this is Marignano, where they absolutely did get pinned and shot/charged to fuck.
Can't believe they were charged by cav so many times
You would think the 1 thing they were good against above all else was cav
Columns are worse anon, you don't dress the line at all, you're absolutely forced to go at the pace of the slowest or open up a gap
Yeah, acting in unison and throwing javelins doesn't FUCKING matter when the other guy isn't reliably harmed by javelins, absolutely will not be harmed by your sword, can reliably defeat your armor, and has a lighter kit despite all this. Plate armor is an absolute cheat code, and you cannot understand it until you've worn harness and been able to compare it other gear.
Kid, please relax
Romans also had plate armor (lorica segmentata) and also large shields
Roman plate armor is not comparable to medieval European plate. It is inferior in literally ever way. Nor is a shield comparable - it is outright worse. Heavy, easier to defeat, more fatiguing, and relies on the user to make good choices.
I can feel how sweaty and fat you are just by reading these posts
Not to mention Rome would see that plate armor, and they'd see those pike formations, and you can bet they'd be making use of that technology themselves before long in some capacity, and adapting it in unexpected ways to suit their own strengths.
can a javelin even penetrate plate 14th-15th Century medieval plate?
The Huns had vastly superior infantry. They put them on horses so they could move faster and not get fatigued.
>put them on horses
Makes it cavalry dont it?
>he doesn't know about mounted infantry
If the horses walk it's infantry, if the horses run it's complicated
IIRC, Forrest used horses to move infantry, but they dismounted to fight. Maybe that's what the cavalry poster was insinuating.
There's a name for that, 'Dragoons'.
No, those are dragoons. Or mounted infantry, but I'm a final fantasy fag (FFF)
The difference being one fights on horseback, and the other gets to the battlefield on horse back, then fights on foot.
Why'd they lose tho
Against whom?
Romans and Germs in Gaul
>Gaul
They won in Gaul. 33.3% of Gaul's population definitely lost though.
>Invade Gaul
>Retreat
>Invade Italy
>Retreat
>Atilla dies and your empire falls apart
>Strategic Hun Victory
>30 000 horses eaten
>Best infantry
>Routed by israeli militia
kek
Whoops, wrong battle.
Also:
>Finally win through sheer weight of numbers
>2-3% of your empire's population is gone from just one war with a tiny desert kingdom.
>Followed by picrel
>Massively larger empire is eventually able to drown a hastily scraped together revolt in numbers, only having two legions completely destroyed and another almost so.
Still worse losses than whole centuries of German wars.
And that's not when the Hebrews actually had a professional standing army like pic related (numbers are obviously inflated, but Egypt still lost a war despite being the premier power at the time).
because many of the israelites were good partners with the romans, and the radical israelites killed them, rome was not expecting the israelites to chimp out like that
>drown a hastily scraped together revolt in numbers
120k vs. 400k isn't "drowning in numbers"
Look I know the IDF just got humiliated by a bunch of ragheads with homemade bottle rockets, but please don't take your cope out on us.
Post aftermath showing one (1) armored vehicles destroyed by bottle rockets.
Meanwhile, since the dastardly surprise attack (during which Hamas took 1:1 losses versus armed civilians), it's been 27:10,000 losses lol.
The israelites were completely annihilated, with the few survivors either being uprooted and enslaved or force to flee to far away lands. It was 100% a Roman victory, and the only reason for the high casualty rates were due to the underequipped unprepared local garrisons.
Do you want a spoiler for what happened next?
The entire Roman Empire began worshipping the israeli God?
Flawless cultural victory.
>the israeli God?
israelites rejected Christ and always have
>2-3% of your empire's population is gone from just one war
Uh-huh
I hope this is bait
Where are you getting the 2-3% figure?
Roman historians, Dio, Eusebius, etc.
And this wasn't all the wars, just the Kitos autism.
You’ve never heard of mounted infantry? Move fast and far with horses, and fight on foot. Bonus if you’re heavy infantry, cause it’s the horse carrying all that heavy armor and equipment. Pretty usefull if you have a large empire, so you can move your best troops around to extinguish various fires. Even the Romans did it.
I'm curious as to who you think the Huns are and when they were around. You obviously don't know who they actually are, but I want to know what you think they are.
Badass horse archer motherfuckers that were like I AM THE CURSE OF GOD, killing all these chumps in Asia and the Middle east and coming into Europe like, who's next? Sparing the workers and craftsmen but killing all the politicians and bankers and shit, man ... wait, oh shit that's the mongols isn't it?
Yeah uhh to answer your question anon, I think the Huns were the Mongols.
>coming into Europe like, who's next?
And then what happened, anon?
Mongols are overrated for the same reason Alexander is. Both only fought retards.
>Mongols are overrated for the same reason Alexander is. Both only fought retards.
Sar calm down sir. Bharat #1 defeat Alexandar send him back home yes yes you right.
if they were the best where are they now?
I'd say they had the best army. Individually, perhaps not the best infantry. But comparing individual infantrymen to each other is asinine. The point is that together, Roman infantry and their auxiliaries defeated anything the world threw at them (eventually)
They had the best logistics and reserves.
Define 'best'.
most goodest
20000 men Roman armies with ease were moving 30 kms a day through mountain passes as part of training. Also it's a 800 year time spam. Really the only thing that stayed the same with Romans 4/5 ratio. 4 on support one in combat. When romes army were in their prime they'd have their 6 foot, 230 lb elite up front going against 5'5 random enemy soldiers while the normal 5'6 Romans were supporting the elites.
Everything is more less anecdotal but a common battle theme was it would be like NFL linebackers who a dozen years of combat training and spears something's swords would be fighting off men the size of preteen girls. Their enemies would think oh it's a 1 vs 1 without realizing it was just 1/5 of the Army, think their god would give them strength, try to engage then be murdered or enslaved.
Prime Rome was fighting constant wars most people kind of forgot or don't care about. Constantly A dozen "wars going on" with 2-5% of Roman men of fighting age In them. Prime time only had 20 million max and on average of useable people 10 million max. Then an army of 20,000 makes you go oh shit. That would be be like 600,000 Americans and Rome would have around 200,000 professional soldiers. Prime rome popped up 3 times in my opinion and only lasted combined 200 out of 800 years.
Tldr there was no Pax Romana
The Roman army's strength came from its logistics and discipline, not the strength and size of its soldiers. For example, around the time of Julius Caesar, a the first line of soldiers would fight for a few minutes, then fall back to the rear of the formation so they could rest while the next line entered the fray, and so on. Instead of breaking formation to wildly slash at the enemy with their swords, the Romans were trained to make quick thrusts with their gladii, often aiming for the legs. Their fighting style relied on extreme discipline and organization, and proved effective against Celts and Germans who were actually taller than the Romans in many cases
>the first line of soldiers would fight for a few minutes, then fall back to the rear of the formation so they could rest while the next line entered the fray
get out of here with your History Channel homosexualry
It's unironically true though
At best it's debatable
the description is ambiguous and written by a mong who wasn't a soldier, a fucking armchair consul nerd hick in fact. the idea of legionaries at the front going to the rear of the line is impractical given the press of battle described by other historians, and contradicts the principle of the acies triplex and cohort organisation. so the best interpretation we have is that Livy was probably trying to describe a system of what modern armies call "relief in place", by which an exhausted unit is replaced by a fresh unit in a systematic manner without presenting a weakness to the enemy.
Roman tactics did not prove effective against Germans and modern historians have a more realistic view than Total War Rome.
?feature=shared
Opinion instantly discarded.
It was far more culturally acceptable to kill Barbarians in the Roman Times than it ever was in the WW1 Barbarian times. So you're wrong.
Anyone who accepts SLAM's bullshit at face value instantly outs himself as an utter mong. So you're ignored.
NTA who slam and qrd
Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall was a US Army officer and historian. He claimed that only 10-20% of infantrymen actually fired their weapons at the enemy in combat, and claimed that improved Army training solved this problem. This claim has been taken up by many people and applied to various theories, such as that video about how the Roman Army may have fought.
Reality is that Marshall pulled most of his writings out of his ass. Although he was in a position, as top brass, to interview many US Army soldiers, he made few notes and basically went off his impression and memory of the interviews, which were often very wrong. Certainly this statistic is completely indefensible.
what was wrong with him
That bothered me too but the rest ofthe video is fine,stop being a nagger.
The Romans won most of their battles against the Germans until the final days of the empire. Everyone knows about the early defeats in the Cimbrian War and Teutoberg because they were the only majot losses the Principate suffered
>When romes army were in their prime they'd have their 6 foot, 230 lb elite up front going against 5'5 random enemy soldiers while the normal 5'6 Romans were supporting the elites.
Anon, those 6 foot Chad's weren't actual Romans. The only time that was true was in the late empire when Germanics joined up as roman writers consistently mention them being notably taller throughout the centuries.
Romans were grain-fed manlets.
>Romans were grain-fed manlets.
They ate a lot of fish. They also ate a lot of game, beef, and mutton. Pork was also widely-eaten, because they put on flesh easily and aren't picky in diet. And there's actually archaeological evidence of chicken battery and egg farming in Roman times.
"A lot"
Not by modern standards, they actually did eat a shit ton of grain (and lots of peas/lentils/beans), anon. Also eating some other food won't change that.
Again, Romans WERE grainfed manlets. That is not disputed.
>manlets
First, define this in height units please so we know where you stand
>Not by modern standards
Yet not as little as was once thought either
>manlets
4 feet
>define this in height units please so we know where you stand
No need because we can go by their own relative standards and they describe Germanics as notably taller them throughout the centuries without fail.
>Yet not as little as was once thought either
As you once thought, maybe.
Why are you terminally averse to putting a number to your claim?
Would 5'8" be manlet to you?
>Would 5'8" be manlet to you?
>Watch as he recoils! "I've been found out!"
>define this in height units
in ~2014, as a response to the existance of tinytrip, a consortium of the greatest PrepHole gathered to settle the issue. It was standardised so:
5'10 and under is Manlet
5'11 is King Manlet
6'0 is no longer a Manlet
>Romans were grain-fed manlets
I'm pretty sure they had eggs, cheese, fish, herbs, peas, roots, wine and oil from seed and fruit, and so forth
>fish
Fish consumption was a relatively elite thing. Shellfish that could be extracted from shallow waters and freshwater fish were a bit more common but deep sea fishing wasn't really possible with the ships available at the time. The average pleb diet was heavily grain based just because it was the only way to feed that many people with the period technology
>The average pleb diet was heavily grain based just because it was the only way to feed that many people with the period technology
It's not difficult to get people up to 100g of protein a day, and with abundant calories that is enough to build good fighting troops
>Fish consumption was a relatively elite thing
The reason we don't know much about Roman fish consumption is that fish bones don't survive thousands of years in rubbish heaps. However we can surmise from their geography and massive investment in garum production that they ate A LOT of fish. Historically - and even today, even in poor countries - fish makes up as much as 50% or more of protein consumption of coastal communities.
The Med is full of fish.
>The reason we don't know much about Roman fish consumption is that fish bones don't survive thousands of years in rubbish heaps.
They do, look at the fish bone assemblages from elite Medieval sites such as Lyminge in Kent.
There's also isotopic analysis showing relatively limited fish consumption outside of elite contexts in Syracuse here:
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/opar-2022-0300/html?lang=en
In general fishbones decompose quicker than say beef bones. We may only have found the ones that somehow survived.
Perhaps those researchers found a community of Syracusan vegetarians, anon. Note that there was also a conHispanicuous lack of animal proteins in general. The authors of that paper took pains to give several possible reasons for their findings.
On the other hand, there is ample evidence of Roman consumption of fish by rich and poor alike
>The investigations carried out at the coastal town of Herculaneum in the cardo V sewer have shown how rich in seafood the diet of those who lived in that street was (Rowan 2014; Nicholson et al. this volume). Since the buildings along that street were a combination of commercial and different types of residential premises, comprising also non-elite dwellings, the Herculaneum sewer data indicate consumption of fresh seafood across social strata. Coastal location would have meant a higher availability of fresh fish, and this was probably true particularly in the case of port towns.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11457-018-9195-1
In Herculaneum, which is a port town situated in the Bay of Naples, which is an ideal case for littoral-water fishing. Cities like Herculaneum aren't representative of most of the Roman population
Idk man, garum is known to have been extremely popular and common across the social strata and that's a fish based sauce
most of Italy is coastal yknow
Just melee infantry? Probably, yes. The advancements in calvary and archery would mean better armies overall in the mid to late middle ages and beyond. But just in terms of h2h infantry? I wouldn't be surprised if a Legion beats 12th century men at arms even with there pikemen.
civilization chuds fear the illiterate naked cavegrug chad
No. They didn't even have the best infantry for their entire existence. Around the time of Caesar and the Pax Romana, yeah, but eventually everyone else was starting to evolve militarily and heavy infantry weren't cock of the block anymore.
Most of Rome's strengths were in it's logistics and it's easily replenishable pool of manpower, which is really fucking impressive since, after they fell, nobody would actually have the capability to maintain a standing army until the industrial revolution. Of course, THAT, and the Marian Reformation in general, also ended up creating more problems in the long run than they solved and significantly contributed to the empire's collapse.
>after they fell, nobody would actually have the capability to maintain a standing army
by the early modern period most of the major european states had at least small standing armies, not large ones and they would recruit heavily in wartime, but the core of the army would be the regulars of the various standing armies.
the best infantry of all time were SPARTAAAAAAAAAANS!
>gets btfo by Macedonians cause their sticks are longer
They weren't even the best hoplites.
>the limp wristed pencil grip on some of these naggers
No, as that would include the high middle-ages. A roman legionary wont do anything to a platemail armoured english knight with a polearm. Their armour and weapons are iron, the knight has carbon-steel. The javelins do nothing, the shields are vulnerable to crossbows, the formations wont hold against a couched lance charge, they cant counter a pike formation backed by men-at-arms, they have no answer to longbowmen and crossbowmen, they have no polearms or maces or picks or properly sized swords, their armour is very poor too. Put a legionary against a man-at-arms and he's going to have his head smashed in with a halberd. The romans got annihilated by heavy cavalry historically, so they're not the best infantry if they cant hold up to the most common battlefield threat of the middle ages.
/k/ makes PrepHole worse by hosting all of these PrepHole related threads.
PrepHole is just pol-lite
it was always shit
Counterpoint: we get these threads because PrepHole is so shit.
PrepHole is perfectly capable of being a shithole on its own "merits"
The PrepHole mistake was to group philosophy with history, it opened the door to the schizos
Would haplo-autism could more towards history or philosophy?
This. Maybe 20% of the threads on that board actually discuss EVENTS that occurred in the past, the rest is pseudointellectual fart huffing and haploautism
God, I fucking love Elite Heavy Infantry.
Rome literally had a height requirement for recruits
Anon, considering the length of the period you're talking about that's retarded to say.
Also height requirements don't mean Romans were tall just that their manlet society had short and taller people too.
the Byzantines had a height requirement
Testudos are all well and good, but baleric slingers and field artillery is made them nasty.
Nah, I'd say the Greeks did till they begin screwing up. I'm still fascinated by Rome and specifically her cavalry
The best infantry is cavalry and no.
Infantry specifically? Not necessarily. What makes Rome stand out, and what allowed them to punch above their weight against larger neighbors in the republican era was a flexible military doctrine. They would adopt different organizational styles from enemies around them and improve upon them, abandoning tactics and formations when it no longer served them. like the transition from phalanx to manipular to cohort formations. Also their willingness to recruit and equip troops from a more open manpower pool meant that even if they suffered crushing defeats, they could recruit and equip a new force much faster than their contemporaries. Even much later during the dominate, while the late Roman army is regarded as lower in quality compared to the republic/principate, the complete restructuring of their military organization was because the earlier policy of having most of their army camped on the frontier no longer worked
Their superb organisation and logistics also.
>Post aftermath
>the eyebrow will be raised
>strategic regrouping
we need to formalise a list of thirdie copes
meant for
No, late med men at arms in full harness.
Professionals, many were nobles with a lifetime of training, and all ahd the finest melee equipment ever made.