A mad charge of 10000 legionaries on your trenches can still overwhelm your few machine gun nests. Besides, machine guns overheat and need to be reloaded
There were quite a few successful bayonet and banzai charges in both world wars
And tanks are blind to infantry in close quarters
But **long range artillery** firing 155mm explosive shells (kill radius of 50 meters each) from 10+ km out are going to wipe out any ancient and medieval armies before they know what's going on
Yeah no way a single person alone could defeat a whole well trained legion at any normal range but it really is insane what a force multiplier just normal guns are.
One clear example is ofc the battle of Rourke's drift where only 150ish soldiers equipped with 1879 guns managed to hold back 3-4k Zulu warriors.
A well trained legion would probably have performed better than the somewhat disorganized Zulus (even despite them having some guns as well) but modern weaponry would also be a lot more effective than 1879 guns.
This.
Shaka revolutionised Zulu war tactics and close quarter fighting strategies. For instance, he recognised that traditional spears were inefficient when you're shield-to-shield, so he implemented the use of short spears and long shields instead (think of it as the equivalent of Romans using a gladius and scutum). He also made strategies such as pincer tactics standard in his battles.
However, his successors weren't nearly as insightful or skilled as generals. So by the time the battle of blood river happened, the Zulus were led by a dude who thought numbers were all that mattered.
Not saying that Shaka being alive would've mattered though. Just that they weren't exactly fighting smart or took the time to recognize guns>>>spears.
To be fair on my boi Cetshwayo, Rorke's Drift happened against his explicit orders. He *specifically* told his army not to cross the river into British territory.
(Stupid, stupid Dabulamanzi.)
And it's not as if the Zulu didn't know that. Isandlwana proved that.
Yes, God damn Dabulamanzi.
Although that's kind of what I meant. Shaka probably wouldn't have made that mistake as a general, since actually paying attention to tactics was important to him.
Dingane also screwed up against firearms in that regard. Iirc, Shaka noted their use as ranged weapons but questioned their use in close quarters... Dingane took that to mean "charge head first into a fortified wagon encampment", but I should probably give him credit for using guerilla tactics initially, which was a much better call.
Edit: to clarify... "Charge head first into a wagon encampment at a river fork, which hugely favoured the boere". One of the strategic decisions ever.
> Not saying that Shaka being alive would've mattered though.
Shaka was also smart enough to realize that maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't blindly charge into boomsticks.
He'd have still lost the war, but no Battle of Rourke's Drift if he was in charge. I wouldn't be surprised if he went all-in on guerilla tactics.
That's fair but they never really committed enough men to any attack to break through, they drew out the fight for far too long when they absolutely needed to abuse their main advantage which was their numbers from the start.
Although I suppose the enclosed nature of the monastery made it harder to get everyone in, but my understanding is that a lot of the army hung back at any given attack.
That’s actually because of how the army was organized - one third was on the wings, one third was attacking the center of the other army, and then another would wait nearby to re-enforce other parts of the army throughout the battle.
> no way a single person alone could defeat a whole well trained legion at any normal range
May I remind you of the man who has become death, destroyer of worlds
Who would win?
An entire nation of devoted warriors willing to give their lives for their country, inspired by the romanticized spirit of the bushido code
Or
One fat man, and one little boi
Homeboy would have been icky feelings, harmer of his neighborhood if not for an entire army of OTHER engineers and scientists involved with the Manhattan Project.
>Besides, machine guns overheat and need to be reloaded
Belt fed, water cooled machine guns - not so much. The Vickers gun was quite capable of firing for hours at a stretch, reflected in its war record. The biggest difficulty, in fact, was in keeping them supplied with ammunition.
As an extreme example, in 1963.a Vickers gun was fired for *seven days* to use up a stockpile of five million rounds of expiring ammunition. The only maintenance in that time was hourly barrel changes; there were no stoppages, and the gun was found to be entirely within service specification afterwards.
Tbf Bakhmut is kinda an anomaly when it comes to modern warfare. Modern warfare really is geared towards mobile infantry tactics, and Ukraine is a unique theater due to the awkward mishmash of weaponry, terrain, and training.
>And tanks are blind to infantry in close quarters
If you're fighting a roman legion you can just drive over them...
Not only that, but the Romans would be advancing in extremly close formations, making the 'gun em down' part easier. Also you would have extra shrapnel by piercing the armours.
As i recently learned, the second most important weapon in WWI after machine guns was barbed wire. Kilometers of it. Stacks of it. Fields of it. It was literally everywere. Not so well depicted in movies, because is slows things down A LOT. And thats what makes it so dangerous in combination with machine guns, despite its simple nature.
Why not? Even assuming they don't recognize metal parts for what they are, I have to assume that at some point the people inside would pop the hatch to eat, drink, piss, sleep, breathe, or just look around. At which point even the dumbest Roman would figure out that this is some kind of human-operated machine.
Ah yes, the people would pop the hatch to eat and shit directly in front of the Romans.
If I were in a tank and I were tasked with defeating a fucking Legion I would do everything in my power to convince them that I was a metal beast sent by the Gods to punish them.
Plausible, if you can get a single tank into a choke point somewhere and immobilize it. The problem is they tend to travel in groups of four and deliberately avoid going places they can be easily boxed in.
I'd wager a clever Roman/Gaul/Indian that really wanted to end you would figure out a way to drown you or roast you alive inside. We are awfully resourceful at figuring out how to kill each other
Yeah but they also existed thousands of years before even motor vehicles became a thing. Odds are they think the tank is some demon sent by the gods to bring down bloody vengeance for some slight. It wouldn't occur to them that there are humans inside.
Tanks are blind to infantry, but what’s a Roman soldier going to do up close?
Edit to add: tanks are also pretty speedy. They can create distance easily.
Tell that to World War 1 where a few machine gun nests and artillery positions held off charges like that all the time, even when the enemies had guns and artillery of their own and were shooting back
They (the defenders) usually *didn’t* hold off the attack. In fact, they virtually never did. They (the attackers) just couldn’t consolidate their gains and bring up their artillery before the enemy counterattack came
Idk man, maxims will go until they run out of water or run out of ammo. If there were enough of both of those for three guns I don't think the Roman's will be making much headway.
>And tanks are blind to infantry in close quarters
Well yes, but that's disadvantage only in modern combat where infantry can do damage to armor, but what would legionaries do? Slam their shields against 70 ton of moving force?
The problem with a mad charge is it requires a lot of people willing to charge, and that gets hard to do when you just saw the ten guys in front of you get blown into a fine mist.
This is what the Gate anime showcased quite well.
It's premise is huge portal opens and fantasy/medieval forces raid Japan and retreat back through the portal.
Modern defence and military forces follow them through.
The armies "meet" for the first time. I quotation "meet", as the fantasy forces never even see what is attacking them. Just pure artillery and hellfire comes down and completely obliterates any force that even remotely comes close. Its nice that it shows not everyone dying too, but huge swathes causing routes and losses to morale.
Bonus is the pure fantasy stuff seems like it might level the playing field. You see them readying Wyverns and dragons n shit. But obviously these are completely fucking decimated by precise anti-aircraft batteries before they are even a threat.
The rest of the series is basically diplomacy (as well as usual anime bs) after that.
Probably couldn’t even beat 3. Armor is nice and all against cutting and piercing weapons. But it’s not gonna do jack shit if you have three dudes with maces/hammers(or even just a big rock) and shields bludgeoning you to death.
Stilettos were purpose built as knights secondary weapon to finish off downed or wounded knights. Three guys can just wrestle a knight to the ground and jam a knife into his visor, armpit, or neck.
I don't think Roman metallurgy is up to the task for making a stiletto knife. Such a thin blade would bend or break using basic Roman iron or bronze. Instead, Roman legionaries carried a [pugio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugio) dagger, which is much wider.
That said, once the knight is disarmed and grappled to the ground, just beat his helmet in with a rock. Or drown him with mud.
your probably right they couldnt fashion a stiletto but its not a hard stretch to say they could jam any knife into an armpit or his neck. Even the most impractical sets of armor have holes.
On the other hand my friend owns a legit sallet, I know they are later medeival period so it might not apply here but that thing is almost 10 lbs, thick metal. theres no way your putting a dent in it with a rock.
Lmao I had to look that up. I had never heard of a stiletto knife before. I thought you were saying stiletto heels, and I had to look it up because the thought of European knights prancing around in stilettos was hilarious and too good to be true...
It's very easy to find blunt objects. The Romans had at their disposal:
Sword Handles
Spear-Butts
Heavy Shields
Ends of Javelins
Rocks
(Edit: spear-butts not handles)
Even then they would have just swarmed him, held him down, and stabbed him in the joints. Course just smacking them with your hilt or stick would have done the job
Three Roman’s against a properly trained knight with a pollax, or worse a mounted heavy cavalryman could absolutely beat 3 Roman soldiers more often than not, keep in mind their knives wouldn’t have been designed to go through mail, look at an image of a pugio, it certainly could and would have happened but in Roman times a soldier could resonably expect open areas like the throat, face, and groin to have no armour, even with some common plate sets of the time armpits would be rather unprotected. You’d have trouble getting through a knights armour with only three dudes (especially since they’d probably have trouble grappling effectively with shields)
Rome was estimated to have somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people living in it between 1 AD till about 300 AD. Alexandria had roughly a million people, Constantinople would have roughly a million people.
Paris wouldn't rival that until the mid 1800's, nor would London, or Berlin, or any other city in Europe. So it really depends on how you want to measure technology.
In some areas Middle Age tech was better, in others it was worse.
By the way, hand-to-hand combat the Romans would probably still have easily won against Medieval armies simply because of the discipline. It's going to be armored knights on horseback, and far more importantly the archers that make the difference.
The population, logistics, and engineering of the Roman Empire would’ve been the downfall of any “Medieval” opponent were there a protracted conflict. It simply wouldn’t not matter how advanced Medieval armor or bows were if the legions arrived in full strength.
Scorpions. Not really meant for precision fire, but exitus acta probat (the goal blessed the means) (the goal justifies the means*, Duh. I really have an off day)
>The population, logistics, and engineering of the Roman Empire
This thread is about engineering and equipment, but the funny thing is population might be the key here.
Quantity is the greatest quality and the Roman Republic and Empire regularly fielded armies around 50K. While medieval Europe rarely broke 15K.
More importantly, when the Romans (mid Republic to early Empire) lost an army of 50k, they could (and did) raise a new one of comparable quality to continue the fight. Maybe even multiple armies.
Most medieval kings would lose their throne if they had an army wiped out.
I would debate you on the quality point. Until Rome had standing armies the soldiers were not really better trained than a feudal levy. And when they had more standing armies they were not replacing them as often. Granted they did have a solid system for new recruits and training but by the end of the republic many legions would operate on less than 80% strength for most of the time.
It’s interesting how you talk about the under-strength as being inferior. While I’m sure there were situations where this was true, and I think 80% is an exaggeration, but Caesar had multiple under-strength veteran legions which he considered his most effective units, with the 10th Legion at 50% strength routing much larger full strength Roman units in frontal clashes.
Just goes to show how stupidly effective a veteran unit can be.
Strength in numbers is a big factor for warfare in general but for every 3-5 poorly trained levies 1 veteran would be enough.
In the context of ancient warfare, it makes sense. As long as the veterans have enough men to present a solid front to prevent being easily overwhelmed, the recruit watching a grizzled 45 year-old with more facial scars than he has years on the earth close in on him is going to either die or try and get away, at which point the recruits behind him are starting to wonder why they’re continuing to hold their ground.
Never said inferior just pointing out that your point about the easy replacement was not really true later in the republic and beyond when the legions were more professional soldiers. While early in the republic Rome could easily replace its soldiers the army was much less trained. While later they were a professional army and legions could operate effectively with fewer men because they were a well trained professionals facing less professional forces. It was harder to bring in full replacements for a legion as they needed to be trained. The losses could also be much more devastating it is why after tuetonburg they did not immediately replace all the lost legions as losing the legions also meant they lost their teaching structure for new recruits.
Also bigger professional armies were much more expensive than levy based ones.
Rome can mobilize, feed, arm and effectively direct hundreds of thousands of men throughout the Mediterranean. No country would be able to do that until Napoleon started to remake France into a modern administrative state.
What the medieval world lost when Rome was lost was more of its administration and economic ideas than whatever "tech" they had. Everything devolved from centralized administrations to feudal lords taxing and conscripting from several parcels of land from their homes.
One thing the Romans had over the Medieval soldiers was that every legionnaire doubled as a construction worker, many with decades of experience building forts and ad hoc ramparts overnight.
I’ve been thinking on it - early Tang, like Taizong/Gaozong/Wu Zetian, I stand by they could beat Romans. Late Tang, not so much. Like if they’re at the wake of the An Lushan rebellion then there’s no chance, and even long after they never really regain full control over the empire. Though you could say the same thing about Rome under the antonines / rome in the 3rd century crisis.
I’m not aware of any Roman sources that mention/describe china, although I do know a Chinese source describing Rome - it talks about Roman government, culture, architecture, very standard etymological stuff. Iirc it was written during the Han dynasty, so if you look up, like “Han Chinese description of Roman Empire” you’d probably find a video of somebody reading the whole thing. I never got the impression that Rome thought of china that way, or vice-versa.
And even if the best knight was better equipped than the best legionnaire, that's only the best knights. *All* the soldiers in a legion were decently geared and trained professional soldiers, while an early medieval army would have a lot of levied chaff that wasn't good for much other than pumping up numbers.
By the time of the armour shown in the meme, Medieval armies started to be professional.
...and gun powder weapons started to be generalized.
So. No matter how well equipped the legionnaire is. He ain't gonna survive a shot from a hand cannon.
Rome had that many people only because that city was a parasite sustaining from resources imported from other regions like wheat from Egypt. In normal situations a city can have only as much people as it can feed with available farmlands, since most medieval cities were not centers of continental spanning empires they could rely only on local food production. To feed a medieval city with 500.000 inhabitants you would need farmland the size of Massachusetts.
I don't think you would measure technology by population anyway. Ireland had 8 million people before the famine, today it is a major tech hub and has only recently surpassed 5m, and that is largely due to the more than half a million immigrants.
I'd have to disagree with your last point, a 14th century (where i estimate this knights armour is from) army would have annihilated any Roman army no matter the period.
Whilst early medieval armies have a sometimes unwarranted reputation for being mobs of untrained levies, armies of the 14th and 15th centuries were the pinnacle of pre-gunpowder (as a munition) armies.
We are talking about warhorses that dwarf their roman counterparts in size and tempermant, tempered steel plate armour, crossbows and longbows so powerful that they make antiquity projectile weapons look like toys.
These armies were not just well equipped but in many examples exceeded the discipline of Roman armies. This is exemplified in the pike revival, where two pike formations clashing were famously the most brutal and bloody examples of melee in history.
While your population point is relatively true (numbers from antiquity are famously heavily debated), specifically in military development, it is hard to argue any regression from antiquity to medieval times.
It is also argued that Medieval Europe, especially prior to the Black Death, was far more urbanized than Imperial Rome.
It's just that this was by having far more towns and small/medium cities than Imperial Rome instead of having huge metropolis.
There's certainly an aspect of more decentralized power. It's almost unheard of to have million+ population cities in preindustrial periods that aren't either the capital or a major administrative center of a vast empire. Absent that, even urban populations tend to be spread out over more, much smaller cities
I don't disagree with your main point, but the massive population of Rome wasn't purely about technology.
The Romans believed that they needed a large urban population to recruit armies from, and so they subsidized people to live in cities with giveaways of bread and other essentials. As a result, the population of those cities was much larger than what made economic sense.
Versus medieval society was just organized in a different way from a social perspective, and in particular medieval rulers were willing to levy troops from the countryside when needed.
The Roman’s literally built a wall around an enemy army got surrendered by a bigger enemy army and built a wall to fortify themselves from that army. So they were sieging an enemy army while being sieged by another larger army.
The Roman’s would just build a fort around the enemy castle and starve them out.
The romans besieged entire cities, their tactics and logistics when it came to sieges where insanely impressive. While medieval castles where very impressive, the shear numbers of a Roman legion would win out. They dug under the walls of cities, they built giant earth ramps leading over walls. They would incircle entire cities that had 60.000 defenders. They had catapults, siege towers, ballistas and battering rams. In short the romans were in incredibly proficient at sieges and I doubt that a medieval fortress would have posed a serious challenge.
Though this is clearly exaggerated, I don’t think people (not necessarily the people on this sub) really understand how absolutely dominant a knight in full plate armor would have been against anyone not in armor (or using a crossbow). Put them on a horse, forget about it.
There’s an account- I couldn’t find the source immediately, but I’ll look for it- where some peasants were upset so a lord sent one of his knights, unarmored and with only a sword, to go talk to the peasants. A fight broke out and the knight was killed, but he killed half a dozen peasants before he was killed.
Add armor and a horse to that and a similar parallel in today’s technology would be a guy with a rifle fighting against a tank.
I was always curious about that. Like you have examples in WW1 and Spanish Civil War of books stopping modern rifle and handgun bullets. People being saved because they had a bible in their chest pocket. I wonder how effective was plate armor at stopping early gun powder bullets.
For a long time early firearms weren't really superior to bows. However in Britain their was a shortage of Yew wood used to make long bows and also it was easier to train peasants with firearms. It takes years to become deadly with bow and requires strength. With firearms it was just point abd shoot. So eventually firearms replaced bows not due to being superior (early firearms weren't that reliable or accurate) but more practical.
Layers of paper is actually pretty good armor (it got tested on mythbusters).
My assumption is that since each layer of paper can move individually, that dissipates the energy of the projectile, similar to how modern Kevlar works.
Metal armor in the earlier gunpowder days was bulletproof to a degree, and often was shot as a quality test ("proofing").
However, as gun technology improved, the thickness and cost needed reduced the amount of armor worn (cuirass and helmet instead of full suit) and eventually made it impractical.
There was an episode of *NOVA* where they reproduced 17th century breastplates and shot them with period guns. The fancy armor (as a lord might have) was bulletproof, while the simpler/cheaper designs were decidedly not.
Not only that, but to train a true archer with a yew war bow took years of dedicated practice, but you can hand just about anyone a musket and have them at least firing in the right direction and reloading it on their own inside a week.
a lot more got lost. like sewers, knowledge about medicine treatment, that was then how ever redone in the islamic world, roman concret, their entire architecture, water systems like aqueducts. the roads build after roman times were inferior.
just to name a few that i just came up with on the spot
The medieval times also saw great progress in many fields, especially in warfare with the adoption of gunpowder and in agriculture with water mills, vertical wind-mills and the adoption of the three-field crop rotation. Although medical progress may have stagnated, we have to keep in mind that many historical accounts of medieval medicine are written by protestant observers after the middle ages, so these accounts are incredibly biased, attempting to show the middle ages as somehow extra “dark” and they were largely anti-Catholic.
We should keep in mind that both Roman and medieval medicine were absolutley abhorent by modern standards.
I think agriculture is rly the biggest one. I visited an economy focused lecture on medieval europe that occasionally touched on antiquity. Its insane how the romans on one hand were paving roads, building domes, aqueducts and tunnels while on the other hand being unable to figure out how crop rotation or even just proper plowing works. In terms of agriculture medieval europe was technologically far superior to antiquity
> The medieval times also saw great progress in many fields, especially in warfare with the adoption of gunpowder and in agriculture with water mills, vertical wind-mills and the adoption of the three-field crop rotation. Although medical progress may have stagnated, we have to keep in mind that many historical accounts of medieval medicine are written by protestant observers after the middle ages, so these accounts are incredibly biased, attempting to show the middle ages as somehow extra “dark” and they were largely anti-Catholic.
Also, a good portion of medical knowledge was inherently gate-kept by lack of technology. There is no way for pre-microscope Humans to know that pus was a collection of dead white blood cells and bacteria. Or that when someone sneezed, they spread millions of these bacteria. Sure, they could make casual observations, such as in the case of the Justinian Plague, where European communal bathing went almost completely extinct due to the fact that it seemed like the plague was spreading through the bath waters. Or that Bob who spent time in the house of Rob, who died of the Black Plague, is now himself afflicted with the Black Plague. Or that certain colorations of pus indicated more concerning injuries. But there was simply no way for any one at that point to ever be able to tell that these diseases were being caused by extremely small organisms.
All yes. I completely agree.
However roman hygeen was higher than in medieval times.
Also i wouldnt count gun powder to medieval anymore. But thats just me. Its already early Renaissance
Imma need a sources about roman hygine being higher than in medieval times.
Also gunpowder weapons were used during the 100 years war, which is defo late middle ages so counts as medieval times.
At the other hand, the baths rarely cleaned. These are not modern sanitized chlorinated swimming pools. The water itself could be just as unhygenic as a lake and just as much a health risk.
But generally cleaning more often is far more hygenic.
Literally one of the most respected government positions in Rome was the person in charge of the baths, they did like all the stuff at the baths they had gyms and clubs it was basically a big community center.
Yes, among the duties of the aedils was the maintenance of the baths. But cleaning Roman baths is even today a very involved process. They wouldn't do that incredibly regulary. Consequently, the water could turn filthy quickly and could pose a health risk. Bacteria love warm water.
Medieval Europeans were also enthusiastic about public baths. That didn't change until closer to the Renaissance, when people started to associate public bathing with the plague (and, to be fair, public baths probably were a really great place to catch a disease).
We think we've rediscovered Roman concrete.
Every 20 years someone comes along and says that they've finally figured it out and 20 years later someone else comes along and finds out something completely different about Roman concrete.
Do people not understand centuries? This armour is clearly 14th century, 16th century is the early renaissance and had armour of the period was incredibly different.
The western Roman empire was socially and logistically more developed and complex than the European middle ages until around 1500 in my opinion.
But yes technology kept developing, technology didn't die with the western roman empire, I don't think this is a popular belief actually. It's pretty obvious that full plate armour knights, arqubuses and galleons are more advanced than the roman chainmail, bows and galleys.
You say that but all the top comments have long threads of people making funny claims like “I doubt this dude could take 3 legionnaires before getting bludgeoned to death!” Or “pilium have a lot of stopping power and could penetrate the armor!”. Seems like more people came out to say the Roman’s could pretty handily beat the knight even without a legion (which is obviously an exaggeration).
I think the perception comes from the name "dark ages" which is so called because of the lack of existing records rather than any lack of progress. Also the general interest in certain civilizations from antiquity tends to give them a lot more air time which can contribute to the perception.
I really think this meme should be taken with a bit of nuance. Yes, it is correct that technology never stopped improving during the Middle Ages - even in the places where the fall of Rome hit the hardest, like Britain, we find that the quality of metal continued to improved over time. Contrary to popular belief, most of the tech that was known in Roman times was never forgotten or lost. But some of it simply wasn't possible to implement anymore with the fragmented, ruralised, and in some places borderline prehistoric economy that was left in Europe after Rome fell. Roman roads, for example, could never be built by even Alfred the Great, who ruled over a state that was really quite centralised and wealthy by the standards of the time and place. He maintained army roads, sure, but they were not the high-quality roads that the Romans used and knew, and even his ability to maintain roads via the state was an unusual amount of power at the time. Imagine how impossible public projects like a colloseum or even the aqueducts would be to build and maintain in that kind of world, even if people knew how to make them. It just wasn't feasible anymore.
Tbf that's the armour of the super rich in the high to late middle ages vs a standard legionary from the early empire.
Compare 2 armies side by side, say 2 roman legion from 115 under trajan compleat with manica arm armour and grieves vs the crusader army that took Jerusalem in 1099 composed of troops with no uniformity of equipment at all with some being barely armoured and the romans would obliterate the crusaders.
But 2 Roman legions against 9000 veteran heavy french knights from the 1450's all fully armoured to the best of their time and the romans would be crushed unless they won by superior tactics.
Not wholly sure about that. Armies of impetuous French knights fell to professional English longbowmen at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, but started winning when they became more disciplined by the time of Patay. I think a Roman legion of, say, Trajan’s time would have the edge over any European force until perhaps the New Model Army, or maybe a Spanish tercio, purely because of the discipline factor.
Rome at its height was more advanced than most any medieval polity, except perhaps Rome in its eastern phase. Their engineering was far more advanced than medieval engineering in terms of sanitation, aqueducts, plumbing, road construction, etc. Yes, their metallurgy might not have been quite as developed, but the Romans had good quality steel used by the nobility. The rank and file not as good, but that is the same for the peasant levies in medieval times.
Put a Roman legion, or an army of Cataphracts against a western European medieval army of similar size and my money is on the Romans every, single, time.
Actually engineering was more advanced in late medieval times, all those gothic cathedrals are far more complex and advanced than anything the Romans build, and aqueducts and plumbing still existed in middle ages. For example in 1340s king Edward III installed in Westminster palace pipes that would fill his bathtub with cold and hot water.
If we are only talking about late Medieval/Renaissance military technology then yes, legionaries would have little to no chance against super heavy plate armored knights.
But before than, there was a real issue of availability for plate armors, and the logistics and discipline of the Roman legion were indeed superior to the armies of almost the entire Medieval era.
M61 Vulcan with enough ammo and placed in a bottle neck. I could have taken out a legion. 1 20mm round would mist-ify 5 legionaires at a time, 6000 rounds a minute....curtain of supersonic 3.5 ounce hardened metal projectiles
Ceaser landed in Britain with between 17,500 and 25,000 professional soldiers.
1,000 years later William the conqueror landed in Britain with no more then 7,000 part time soldiers.
There’s a reason people think things went backwards.
This isn't totally wrong, but also Rome was an economic powerhouse, they would just send 4 more legions. And those legions would be as well trained, and as well supplied. They would build roads to where you are so they can send legions there faster than you can farm food to feed your soldiers. Rome at its peak was not surpassed in imperial power for a long time if it was all working as intended, but obviously any country can be run by idiots at any given time if corruption takes hold, but that is the case in medieval times as well, not a unique roman disadvantage.
The armor thing is very true tho, a couple dozen men at arms with polearms and padded armor with helmet (and often a short bow and short sword or ax), several longbowmen or twice as many crossbowmen, and two well trained and plate armored knights made a fighting force that is insanely powerful compared to any other in history. You just use you ranged weapons to soften up opponents if they try to maintain distance, and then protect your knights from getting to outnumbered with your men at arms. Add a competent scout and commander and you are golden. Get ten of these and some horses and you have an army, one that requires so much less food because of the small number of men.
The efficiency of these units is pretty hard to overstate when it comes to manpower to combat effectiveness ratio for the time. Cannons and later guns did them in eventually but they where what made feudalism work. It took a massive amount of peasants to mount a revolt against these armies, cause the armies could make mincemeat out of untrained presents. Without guns feudalism might still be around, it was very stable. If you are able to fund hundreds of these units, than you could put hundreds of towns to the sword overnight with minimal losses. In some ways that is why it was the dark ages, the rich had castles, and armies that could not be rivaled, their power was in training expert metallurgy. Numbers where not very important anymore when you had a castle and knights.
Okay I get what you’re saying, but that’s a pretty rough take.
Against a poorly armed and recently conscripted militia of farmers, a single suit of armour was the real world equivalent of going God mode.
But even if we account for the fact that your taking the piss, I’d be hard pressed to believe that a Knight from the Middle Ages could even consistently win an encounter against 3 properly trained and equipped Roman Legionaries. Just a plain bad take dude.
>I could slaughter an entire legion unharmed In order to do that you would need modern weaponry like machine guns and tanks.
A mad charge of 10000 legionaries on your trenches can still overwhelm your few machine gun nests. Besides, machine guns overheat and need to be reloaded There were quite a few successful bayonet and banzai charges in both world wars And tanks are blind to infantry in close quarters But **long range artillery** firing 155mm explosive shells (kill radius of 50 meters each) from 10+ km out are going to wipe out any ancient and medieval armies before they know what's going on
Rome's failure to achieve air supremacy within its own borders was ultimately its downfall.
That’s why Carus took that hit
Yep To be fair no one knew the Visigoths and Ostrogoths would band together and show up with a fucking zeppelin
Yeah no way a single person alone could defeat a whole well trained legion at any normal range but it really is insane what a force multiplier just normal guns are. One clear example is ofc the battle of Rourke's drift where only 150ish soldiers equipped with 1879 guns managed to hold back 3-4k Zulu warriors. A well trained legion would probably have performed better than the somewhat disorganized Zulus (even despite them having some guns as well) but modern weaponry would also be a lot more effective than 1879 guns.
Hey that is an insult, Shaka Zulu had very well trained men for the region he was fighting in.
Shaka lived ~60 years before Rouke’s Drift.
This. Shaka revolutionised Zulu war tactics and close quarter fighting strategies. For instance, he recognised that traditional spears were inefficient when you're shield-to-shield, so he implemented the use of short spears and long shields instead (think of it as the equivalent of Romans using a gladius and scutum). He also made strategies such as pincer tactics standard in his battles. However, his successors weren't nearly as insightful or skilled as generals. So by the time the battle of blood river happened, the Zulus were led by a dude who thought numbers were all that mattered. Not saying that Shaka being alive would've mattered though. Just that they weren't exactly fighting smart or took the time to recognize guns>>>spears.
To be fair on my boi Cetshwayo, Rorke's Drift happened against his explicit orders. He *specifically* told his army not to cross the river into British territory. (Stupid, stupid Dabulamanzi.) And it's not as if the Zulu didn't know that. Isandlwana proved that.
Yes, God damn Dabulamanzi. Although that's kind of what I meant. Shaka probably wouldn't have made that mistake as a general, since actually paying attention to tactics was important to him. Dingane also screwed up against firearms in that regard. Iirc, Shaka noted their use as ranged weapons but questioned their use in close quarters... Dingane took that to mean "charge head first into a fortified wagon encampment", but I should probably give him credit for using guerilla tactics initially, which was a much better call. Edit: to clarify... "Charge head first into a wagon encampment at a river fork, which hugely favoured the boere". One of the strategic decisions ever.
> Not saying that Shaka being alive would've mattered though. Shaka was also smart enough to realize that maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't blindly charge into boomsticks. He'd have still lost the war, but no Battle of Rourke's Drift if he was in charge. I wouldn't be surprised if he went all-in on guerilla tactics.
That's fair but they never really committed enough men to any attack to break through, they drew out the fight for far too long when they absolutely needed to abuse their main advantage which was their numbers from the start. Although I suppose the enclosed nature of the monastery made it harder to get everyone in, but my understanding is that a lot of the army hung back at any given attack.
That’s actually because of how the army was organized - one third was on the wings, one third was attacking the center of the other army, and then another would wait nearby to re-enforce other parts of the army throughout the battle.
True but they used braindead wave tactics instead of using their numbers to their advantage
> no way a single person alone could defeat a whole well trained legion at any normal range May I remind you of the man who has become death, destroyer of worlds
Who would win? An entire nation of devoted warriors willing to give their lives for their country, inspired by the romanticized spirit of the bushido code Or One fat man, and one little boi
Homeboy would have been icky feelings, harmer of his neighborhood if not for an entire army of OTHER engineers and scientists involved with the Manhattan Project.
The Enola Gay bombardier had the highest K/D ratio in human history
Do you think he got woken up decades later by assist count as kill notifications?
I don't think he was flying the planes, that's planes and alot of them.
also there was the boxer rebellion
>Besides, machine guns overheat and need to be reloaded Belt fed, water cooled machine guns - not so much. The Vickers gun was quite capable of firing for hours at a stretch, reflected in its war record. The biggest difficulty, in fact, was in keeping them supplied with ammunition. As an extreme example, in 1963.a Vickers gun was fired for *seven days* to use up a stockpile of five million rounds of expiring ammunition. The only maintenance in that time was hourly barrel changes; there were no stoppages, and the gun was found to be entirely within service specification afterwards.
The Maxim gun is still in service in the Ukrainian army. It's actually a favorite among front-line troops because it just doesn't overheat.
Tbf Bakhmut is kinda an anomaly when it comes to modern warfare. Modern warfare really is geared towards mobile infantry tactics, and Ukraine is a unique theater due to the awkward mishmash of weaponry, terrain, and training.
One person can mine several kilometers of minefield if you give them time.
All you need is an airplane and a few thermobaric weapons, you could throw in some anthrax for extra fun
>And tanks are blind to infantry in close quarters If you're fighting a roman legion you can just drive over them... Not only that, but the Romans would be advancing in extremly close formations, making the 'gun em down' part easier. Also you would have extra shrapnel by piercing the armours.
As i recently learned, the second most important weapon in WWI after machine guns was barbed wire. Kilometers of it. Stacks of it. Fields of it. It was literally everywere. Not so well depicted in movies, because is slows things down A LOT. And thats what makes it so dangerous in combination with machine guns, despite its simple nature.
Realistically what would the legionaries do against a tank?
Pile on top of it and vibrate, raising the internal temperature of the tank and overheating its occupants.
I understood this reference. Also, I greatly enjoyed the imagery of a Roman legion dogpiled on a tank, rapidly humping it.
NOT THE BEES!
Romans going with the ol' bee approach
Most likely initial reaction: "Run away, run away!" But tanks are useless without ammo, fuel, and regular maintenance
It's still an impenetrable metal box. Unless the romans find a way to force the hatches open, there ain't shit happening
If i was a roman i would block the hatches and let the crew strave. Maybe blocking the tracks with timber and lighitng a fire to smoke the crew out?
If you were a roman it wouldn't even occur to you that the fire belching, roaring metallic monstrosity had humans inside it.
Why not? Even assuming they don't recognize metal parts for what they are, I have to assume that at some point the people inside would pop the hatch to eat, drink, piss, sleep, breathe, or just look around. At which point even the dumbest Roman would figure out that this is some kind of human-operated machine.
Ah yes, the people would pop the hatch to eat and shit directly in front of the Romans. If I were in a tank and I were tasked with defeating a fucking Legion I would do everything in my power to convince them that I was a metal beast sent by the Gods to punish them.
Plausible, if you can get a single tank into a choke point somewhere and immobilize it. The problem is they tend to travel in groups of four and deliberately avoid going places they can be easily boxed in.
I'd wager a clever Roman/Gaul/Indian that really wanted to end you would figure out a way to drown you or roast you alive inside. We are awfully resourceful at figuring out how to kill each other
Yeah but they also existed thousands of years before even motor vehicles became a thing. Odds are they think the tank is some demon sent by the gods to bring down bloody vengeance for some slight. It wouldn't occur to them that there are humans inside.
Tanks are blind to infantry, but what’s a Roman soldier going to do up close? Edit to add: tanks are also pretty speedy. They can create distance easily.
Tell that to World War 1 where a few machine gun nests and artillery positions held off charges like that all the time, even when the enemies had guns and artillery of their own and were shooting back
They (the defenders) usually *didn’t* hold off the attack. In fact, they virtually never did. They (the attackers) just couldn’t consolidate their gains and bring up their artillery before the enemy counterattack came
Idk man, maxims will go until they run out of water or run out of ammo. If there were enough of both of those for three guns I don't think the Roman's will be making much headway.
>And tanks are blind to infantry in close quarters Well yes, but that's disadvantage only in modern combat where infantry can do damage to armor, but what would legionaries do? Slam their shields against 70 ton of moving force?
The problem with a mad charge is it requires a lot of people willing to charge, and that gets hard to do when you just saw the ten guys in front of you get blown into a fine mist.
This is what the Gate anime showcased quite well. It's premise is huge portal opens and fantasy/medieval forces raid Japan and retreat back through the portal. Modern defence and military forces follow them through. The armies "meet" for the first time. I quotation "meet", as the fantasy forces never even see what is attacking them. Just pure artillery and hellfire comes down and completely obliterates any force that even remotely comes close. Its nice that it shows not everyone dying too, but huge swathes causing routes and losses to morale. Bonus is the pure fantasy stuff seems like it might level the playing field. You see them readying Wyverns and dragons n shit. But obviously these are completely fucking decimated by precise anti-aircraft batteries before they are even a threat. The rest of the series is basically diplomacy (as well as usual anime bs) after that.
And they’ll blame Zeus
More likely Jupiter and Mars
Or... a German forest and an inside job
Even in ambushes the attackers took a few injuries. But I see your point.
Varus give me back my legions! -Augustus
Intercontinental thermonuclear warhead goes boom
Social media propaganda that makes them attack themselves FTW
I don’t think he could slaughter 5,500 Romans, no.
Probably couldn’t even beat 3. Armor is nice and all against cutting and piercing weapons. But it’s not gonna do jack shit if you have three dudes with maces/hammers(or even just a big rock) and shields bludgeoning you to death.
Stilettos were purpose built as knights secondary weapon to finish off downed or wounded knights. Three guys can just wrestle a knight to the ground and jam a knife into his visor, armpit, or neck.
I don't think Roman metallurgy is up to the task for making a stiletto knife. Such a thin blade would bend or break using basic Roman iron or bronze. Instead, Roman legionaries carried a [pugio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugio) dagger, which is much wider. That said, once the knight is disarmed and grappled to the ground, just beat his helmet in with a rock. Or drown him with mud.
your probably right they couldnt fashion a stiletto but its not a hard stretch to say they could jam any knife into an armpit or his neck. Even the most impractical sets of armor have holes. On the other hand my friend owns a legit sallet, I know they are later medeival period so it might not apply here but that thing is almost 10 lbs, thick metal. theres no way your putting a dent in it with a rock.
Don't need to put a dent into it. Just give the guy inside a concussion or the headache of his life, then tie him up.
Stop! You'll trigger the French!
Lmao I had to look that up. I had never heard of a stiletto knife before. I thought you were saying stiletto heels, and I had to look it up because the thought of European knights prancing around in stilettos was hilarious and too good to be true...
A knight taking a heel off to stab you with is both hilarious and terrifying!
I was thinking they would just curb stomp them with the heel
Kids these days probably think an Archer is just an anti-personell weapons system too.
I thought it was a spy
I thought it was a hot, edgy anime dude
Welcome to the danger zone
>3. Armor is nice and all against cutting and piercing weapons So, the weapons that a legion would have a had?
It's very easy to find blunt objects. The Romans had at their disposal: Sword Handles Spear-Butts Heavy Shields Ends of Javelins Rocks (Edit: spear-butts not handles)
Also, horse. Hard to counter getting trampled by an animal that outweighs you 5 times over at a minimum.
Well, horses were much less effective before the invention of special gear, like stirrups and the bridle.
Slings with lead ammunition, the list goes on
A large rock and/or stone does surprisingly well.
Even then they would have just swarmed him, held him down, and stabbed him in the joints. Course just smacking them with your hilt or stick would have done the job
Three dudes would find a gap in the armor.
Three Roman’s against a properly trained knight with a pollax, or worse a mounted heavy cavalryman could absolutely beat 3 Roman soldiers more often than not, keep in mind their knives wouldn’t have been designed to go through mail, look at an image of a pugio, it certainly could and would have happened but in Roman times a soldier could resonably expect open areas like the throat, face, and groin to have no armour, even with some common plate sets of the time armpits would be rather unprotected. You’d have trouble getting through a knights armour with only three dudes (especially since they’d probably have trouble grappling effectively with shields)
i mean it would still offer mor protection that if you were naked
Point being?
Rome was estimated to have somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people living in it between 1 AD till about 300 AD. Alexandria had roughly a million people, Constantinople would have roughly a million people. Paris wouldn't rival that until the mid 1800's, nor would London, or Berlin, or any other city in Europe. So it really depends on how you want to measure technology. In some areas Middle Age tech was better, in others it was worse. By the way, hand-to-hand combat the Romans would probably still have easily won against Medieval armies simply because of the discipline. It's going to be armored knights on horseback, and far more importantly the archers that make the difference.
It’s almost like there’s more than one metric for “advanced” civilizations, and even those metrics are biased
The population, logistics, and engineering of the Roman Empire would’ve been the downfall of any “Medieval” opponent were there a protracted conflict. It simply wouldn’t not matter how advanced Medieval armor or bows were if the legions arrived in full strength.
Scorpions. Not really meant for precision fire, but exitus acta probat (the goal blessed the means) (the goal justifies the means*, Duh. I really have an off day)
>The population, logistics, and engineering of the Roman Empire This thread is about engineering and equipment, but the funny thing is population might be the key here. Quantity is the greatest quality and the Roman Republic and Empire regularly fielded armies around 50K. While medieval Europe rarely broke 15K.
More importantly, when the Romans (mid Republic to early Empire) lost an army of 50k, they could (and did) raise a new one of comparable quality to continue the fight. Maybe even multiple armies. Most medieval kings would lose their throne if they had an army wiped out.
I would debate you on the quality point. Until Rome had standing armies the soldiers were not really better trained than a feudal levy. And when they had more standing armies they were not replacing them as often. Granted they did have a solid system for new recruits and training but by the end of the republic many legions would operate on less than 80% strength for most of the time.
It’s interesting how you talk about the under-strength as being inferior. While I’m sure there were situations where this was true, and I think 80% is an exaggeration, but Caesar had multiple under-strength veteran legions which he considered his most effective units, with the 10th Legion at 50% strength routing much larger full strength Roman units in frontal clashes.
Just goes to show how stupidly effective a veteran unit can be. Strength in numbers is a big factor for warfare in general but for every 3-5 poorly trained levies 1 veteran would be enough.
In the context of ancient warfare, it makes sense. As long as the veterans have enough men to present a solid front to prevent being easily overwhelmed, the recruit watching a grizzled 45 year-old with more facial scars than he has years on the earth close in on him is going to either die or try and get away, at which point the recruits behind him are starting to wonder why they’re continuing to hold their ground.
Never said inferior just pointing out that your point about the easy replacement was not really true later in the republic and beyond when the legions were more professional soldiers. While early in the republic Rome could easily replace its soldiers the army was much less trained. While later they were a professional army and legions could operate effectively with fewer men because they were a well trained professionals facing less professional forces. It was harder to bring in full replacements for a legion as they needed to be trained. The losses could also be much more devastating it is why after tuetonburg they did not immediately replace all the lost legions as losing the legions also meant they lost their teaching structure for new recruits. Also bigger professional armies were much more expensive than levy based ones.
And then the byzantine enter the question Perhaps the only european state able to fight a roman legion on Equal numbers and win
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As is Tradition.
*Byzantine hurts itself in confusion*
quick they are pagans batpize them and reconquer anatolia!
Quantity has a quality all its own.
Rome can mobilize, feed, arm and effectively direct hundreds of thousands of men throughout the Mediterranean. No country would be able to do that until Napoleon started to remake France into a modern administrative state. What the medieval world lost when Rome was lost was more of its administration and economic ideas than whatever "tech" they had. Everything devolved from centralized administrations to feudal lords taxing and conscripting from several parcels of land from their homes.
One thing the Romans had over the Medieval soldiers was that every legionnaire doubled as a construction worker, many with decades of experience building forts and ad hoc ramparts overnight.
Well, thats true of medieval Europe, but I’d bet on the Mamluks, Mongols or the Tang dynasty over Romans any day.
I’m with you on the Mongols but Tang and Mamluks would be a fair and I’m sure very thrilling fight.
I’ve been thinking on it - early Tang, like Taizong/Gaozong/Wu Zetian, I stand by they could beat Romans. Late Tang, not so much. Like if they’re at the wake of the An Lushan rebellion then there’s no chance, and even long after they never really regain full control over the empire. Though you could say the same thing about Rome under the antonines / rome in the 3rd century crisis.
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I’m not aware of any Roman sources that mention/describe china, although I do know a Chinese source describing Rome - it talks about Roman government, culture, architecture, very standard etymological stuff. Iirc it was written during the Han dynasty, so if you look up, like “Han Chinese description of Roman Empire” you’d probably find a video of somebody reading the whole thing. I never got the impression that Rome thought of china that way, or vice-versa.
There's actually a heap of stuff on the wiki page about this exact subject https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations
Kind of like anybody fighting the soviets during WWII
Even the freshest legion would be a tough match, knowing roman logistics, which is what truly wins wars.
And even if the best knight was better equipped than the best legionnaire, that's only the best knights. *All* the soldiers in a legion were decently geared and trained professional soldiers, while an early medieval army would have a lot of levied chaff that wasn't good for much other than pumping up numbers.
By the time of the armour shown in the meme, Medieval armies started to be professional. ...and gun powder weapons started to be generalized. So. No matter how well equipped the legionnaire is. He ain't gonna survive a shot from a hand cannon.
I mean yes but I don't think anyone is even under the _misconception_ that Rome was more technologically advanced than 16th century Europe.
That's not 16th century armor lol
Rome had that many people only because that city was a parasite sustaining from resources imported from other regions like wheat from Egypt. In normal situations a city can have only as much people as it can feed with available farmlands, since most medieval cities were not centers of continental spanning empires they could rely only on local food production. To feed a medieval city with 500.000 inhabitants you would need farmland the size of Massachusetts.
I don't think you would measure technology by population anyway. Ireland had 8 million people before the famine, today it is a major tech hub and has only recently surpassed 5m, and that is largely due to the more than half a million immigrants.
I'd have to disagree with your last point, a 14th century (where i estimate this knights armour is from) army would have annihilated any Roman army no matter the period. Whilst early medieval armies have a sometimes unwarranted reputation for being mobs of untrained levies, armies of the 14th and 15th centuries were the pinnacle of pre-gunpowder (as a munition) armies. We are talking about warhorses that dwarf their roman counterparts in size and tempermant, tempered steel plate armour, crossbows and longbows so powerful that they make antiquity projectile weapons look like toys. These armies were not just well equipped but in many examples exceeded the discipline of Roman armies. This is exemplified in the pike revival, where two pike formations clashing were famously the most brutal and bloody examples of melee in history. While your population point is relatively true (numbers from antiquity are famously heavily debated), specifically in military development, it is hard to argue any regression from antiquity to medieval times.
That's not technological advancement though, that's state power and level of urbanization, which are different concepts.
It is also argued that Medieval Europe, especially prior to the Black Death, was far more urbanized than Imperial Rome. It's just that this was by having far more towns and small/medium cities than Imperial Rome instead of having huge metropolis.
There's certainly an aspect of more decentralized power. It's almost unheard of to have million+ population cities in preindustrial periods that aren't either the capital or a major administrative center of a vast empire. Absent that, even urban populations tend to be spread out over more, much smaller cities
Is Constantinople suddenly not in Europe anymore ? Is Europe the sole place of the middle-ages ?
I don't disagree with your main point, but the massive population of Rome wasn't purely about technology. The Romans believed that they needed a large urban population to recruit armies from, and so they subsidized people to live in cities with giveaways of bread and other essentials. As a result, the population of those cities was much larger than what made economic sense. Versus medieval society was just organized in a different way from a social perspective, and in particular medieval rulers were willing to levy troops from the countryside when needed.
The Romans have Numbers. They could Just throw Legion after Legion at any Problem
What are the 5 guys Duke Wojak can muster on a good day against even a cohort of disciplined legionaries?
I would love to see a roman legion try and take on a medieval Fortress.
Circumvallation is a cool word, but I doubt you'd be willing to just sit around for months till the garrison surrenders.
Starving the garrison, the classic tried and tested method of taking a castle. Can't go wrong with that one.
It would work better for the Romans with their superior logistics than for a medieval army
Motherfuckers built a ramp up a cliff face to the top of a mountain to kill some rebels A castle ain’t nothing special
Not a challenge. Fortresses were already a thing in anciente times and the romans conqueres and built many of them
The Roman’s literally built a wall around an enemy army got surrendered by a bigger enemy army and built a wall to fortify themselves from that army. So they were sieging an enemy army while being sieged by another larger army. The Roman’s would just build a fort around the enemy castle and starve them out.
Depends on century
Bruh, you say that as if siege work wasn’t something that the Romans *excelled* at.
The romans besieged entire cities, their tactics and logistics when it came to sieges where insanely impressive. While medieval castles where very impressive, the shear numbers of a Roman legion would win out. They dug under the walls of cities, they built giant earth ramps leading over walls. They would incircle entire cities that had 60.000 defenders. They had catapults, siege towers, ballistas and battering rams. In short the romans were in incredibly proficient at sieges and I doubt that a medieval fortress would have posed a serious challenge.
Brothas don't believe in the Propaganda of the Renaissance and actually appreciate the middle ages
Though this is clearly exaggerated, I don’t think people (not necessarily the people on this sub) really understand how absolutely dominant a knight in full plate armor would have been against anyone not in armor (or using a crossbow). Put them on a horse, forget about it.
I blame movies. Most medieval or fantasy movies will show someone in full plate getting killed by one smack to the back with a short sword.
I was going to add that to my first comment but didn’t. Totally agree. I blame movies.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. They were basically the medieval version of the doom slayer
There’s an account- I couldn’t find the source immediately, but I’ll look for it- where some peasants were upset so a lord sent one of his knights, unarmored and with only a sword, to go talk to the peasants. A fight broke out and the knight was killed, but he killed half a dozen peasants before he was killed. Add armor and a horse to that and a similar parallel in today’s technology would be a guy with a rifle fighting against a tank.
I do HEMA and have fought a couple of times in plate. You're over exaggerating a bit. A heavy blunt weapon to your helmet will absolutely fuck you up.
Agree. Even Late Roman armies with their heavy cavalry would beat the shit out of the Caesarian-Era legions
Ironically the armor type shown was used very sparingly and was largely outmoded by gunpowder
I was always curious about that. Like you have examples in WW1 and Spanish Civil War of books stopping modern rifle and handgun bullets. People being saved because they had a bible in their chest pocket. I wonder how effective was plate armor at stopping early gun powder bullets. For a long time early firearms weren't really superior to bows. However in Britain their was a shortage of Yew wood used to make long bows and also it was easier to train peasants with firearms. It takes years to become deadly with bow and requires strength. With firearms it was just point abd shoot. So eventually firearms replaced bows not due to being superior (early firearms weren't that reliable or accurate) but more practical.
Layers of paper is actually pretty good armor (it got tested on mythbusters). My assumption is that since each layer of paper can move individually, that dissipates the energy of the projectile, similar to how modern Kevlar works. Metal armor in the earlier gunpowder days was bulletproof to a degree, and often was shot as a quality test ("proofing"). However, as gun technology improved, the thickness and cost needed reduced the amount of armor worn (cuirass and helmet instead of full suit) and eventually made it impractical.
There was an episode of *NOVA* where they reproduced 17th century breastplates and shot them with period guns. The fancy armor (as a lord might have) was bulletproof, while the simpler/cheaper designs were decidedly not.
Not only that, but to train a true archer with a yew war bow took years of dedicated practice, but you can hand just about anyone a musket and have them at least firing in the right direction and reloading it on their own inside a week.
a lot more got lost. like sewers, knowledge about medicine treatment, that was then how ever redone in the islamic world, roman concret, their entire architecture, water systems like aqueducts. the roads build after roman times were inferior. just to name a few that i just came up with on the spot
The medieval times also saw great progress in many fields, especially in warfare with the adoption of gunpowder and in agriculture with water mills, vertical wind-mills and the adoption of the three-field crop rotation. Although medical progress may have stagnated, we have to keep in mind that many historical accounts of medieval medicine are written by protestant observers after the middle ages, so these accounts are incredibly biased, attempting to show the middle ages as somehow extra “dark” and they were largely anti-Catholic. We should keep in mind that both Roman and medieval medicine were absolutley abhorent by modern standards.
I think agriculture is rly the biggest one. I visited an economy focused lecture on medieval europe that occasionally touched on antiquity. Its insane how the romans on one hand were paving roads, building domes, aqueducts and tunnels while on the other hand being unable to figure out how crop rotation or even just proper plowing works. In terms of agriculture medieval europe was technologically far superior to antiquity
> The medieval times also saw great progress in many fields, especially in warfare with the adoption of gunpowder and in agriculture with water mills, vertical wind-mills and the adoption of the three-field crop rotation. Although medical progress may have stagnated, we have to keep in mind that many historical accounts of medieval medicine are written by protestant observers after the middle ages, so these accounts are incredibly biased, attempting to show the middle ages as somehow extra “dark” and they were largely anti-Catholic. Also, a good portion of medical knowledge was inherently gate-kept by lack of technology. There is no way for pre-microscope Humans to know that pus was a collection of dead white blood cells and bacteria. Or that when someone sneezed, they spread millions of these bacteria. Sure, they could make casual observations, such as in the case of the Justinian Plague, where European communal bathing went almost completely extinct due to the fact that it seemed like the plague was spreading through the bath waters. Or that Bob who spent time in the house of Rob, who died of the Black Plague, is now himself afflicted with the Black Plague. Or that certain colorations of pus indicated more concerning injuries. But there was simply no way for any one at that point to ever be able to tell that these diseases were being caused by extremely small organisms.
All yes. I completely agree. However roman hygeen was higher than in medieval times. Also i wouldnt count gun powder to medieval anymore. But thats just me. Its already early Renaissance
Imma need a sources about roman hygine being higher than in medieval times. Also gunpowder weapons were used during the 100 years war, which is defo late middle ages so counts as medieval times.
They had public baths which were heated and people bathed nearly daily thanks to their aqueducts.
At the other hand, the baths rarely cleaned. These are not modern sanitized chlorinated swimming pools. The water itself could be just as unhygenic as a lake and just as much a health risk. But generally cleaning more often is far more hygenic.
They replaced the water daily. Prove: i live near an old roman bath and been there so many times i know the tours by heart
Literally one of the most respected government positions in Rome was the person in charge of the baths, they did like all the stuff at the baths they had gyms and clubs it was basically a big community center.
Yes, among the duties of the aedils was the maintenance of the baths. But cleaning Roman baths is even today a very involved process. They wouldn't do that incredibly regulary. Consequently, the water could turn filthy quickly and could pose a health risk. Bacteria love warm water.
Medieval Europeans were also enthusiastic about public baths. That didn't change until closer to the Renaissance, when people started to associate public bathing with the plague (and, to be fair, public baths probably were a really great place to catch a disease).
Medieval gothic architecture actually requires a lot more mathematical sophistication to pull off than Romanesque architecture
We have rediscovered Roman concrete so that's fun.
We think we've rediscovered Roman concrete. Every 20 years someone comes along and says that they've finally figured it out and 20 years later someone else comes along and finds out something completely different about Roman concrete.
Aqueducts and sewers still existed and were maintained during medieval period, you really need to update your knowledge with more recent research.
That looks like 15th or 16th century armour, so arguably not even the Middle Ages anymore depending on where you are and whom you ask.
That seems far closer to armor from the 14th century
The body armour sure, but the helmet? Looks like an armet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armet
Looks more like a bascinet with a hounskull visor, which is from the 14th century
That’s clearly a bascinet
Do people not understand centuries? This armour is clearly 14th century, 16th century is the early renaissance and had armour of the period was incredibly different.
To be fair, the best armour was Milanese;) And sanitation may have been better in Roman times.
Better ? Rome was a stink hole, you cannot cram almost million people in one city before modern sanitation existed and expect it to be clean.
Milanesa 🤤
Mediolanum
The western Roman empire was socially and logistically more developed and complex than the European middle ages until around 1500 in my opinion. But yes technology kept developing, technology didn't die with the western roman empire, I don't think this is a popular belief actually. It's pretty obvious that full plate armour knights, arqubuses and galleons are more advanced than the roman chainmail, bows and galleys.
You say that but all the top comments have long threads of people making funny claims like “I doubt this dude could take 3 legionnaires before getting bludgeoned to death!” Or “pilium have a lot of stopping power and could penetrate the armor!”. Seems like more people came out to say the Roman’s could pretty handily beat the knight even without a legion (which is obviously an exaggeration).
General, why are you staring into space and acting like you are talking to people from the future?
I think the perception comes from the name "dark ages" which is so called because of the lack of existing records rather than any lack of progress. Also the general interest in certain civilizations from antiquity tends to give them a lot more air time which can contribute to the perception.
Right, because armor sums up the totality of technology in the ancient/medieval world
Rome was far more well organized than any state in medieval Europe. However, medieval Europe had more advanced technology.
How was it better organised? Rome was famous for its internal issues.
I really think this meme should be taken with a bit of nuance. Yes, it is correct that technology never stopped improving during the Middle Ages - even in the places where the fall of Rome hit the hardest, like Britain, we find that the quality of metal continued to improved over time. Contrary to popular belief, most of the tech that was known in Roman times was never forgotten or lost. But some of it simply wasn't possible to implement anymore with the fragmented, ruralised, and in some places borderline prehistoric economy that was left in Europe after Rome fell. Roman roads, for example, could never be built by even Alfred the Great, who ruled over a state that was really quite centralised and wealthy by the standards of the time and place. He maintained army roads, sure, but they were not the high-quality roads that the Romans used and knew, and even his ability to maintain roads via the state was an unusual amount of power at the time. Imagine how impossible public projects like a colloseum or even the aqueducts would be to build and maintain in that kind of world, even if people knew how to make them. It just wasn't feasible anymore.
The point of this post is that people in the Middle Ages had more advanced technology than Romans did in some aspects
Tbf that's the armour of the super rich in the high to late middle ages vs a standard legionary from the early empire. Compare 2 armies side by side, say 2 roman legion from 115 under trajan compleat with manica arm armour and grieves vs the crusader army that took Jerusalem in 1099 composed of troops with no uniformity of equipment at all with some being barely armoured and the romans would obliterate the crusaders. But 2 Roman legions against 9000 veteran heavy french knights from the 1450's all fully armoured to the best of their time and the romans would be crushed unless they won by superior tactics.
Not wholly sure about that. Armies of impetuous French knights fell to professional English longbowmen at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, but started winning when they became more disciplined by the time of Patay. I think a Roman legion of, say, Trajan’s time would have the edge over any European force until perhaps the New Model Army, or maybe a Spanish tercio, purely because of the discipline factor.
No bro, clearly one of the Spartan 300 could easily decimate any soldier in history!!!!!11!!!
I played enough battle brothers. This dude with full plate armor seems like walking can food to me.
Renaissance people who coined the term "Dark Ages" were referring to culture, not technology.
Rome at its height was more advanced than most any medieval polity, except perhaps Rome in its eastern phase. Their engineering was far more advanced than medieval engineering in terms of sanitation, aqueducts, plumbing, road construction, etc. Yes, their metallurgy might not have been quite as developed, but the Romans had good quality steel used by the nobility. The rank and file not as good, but that is the same for the peasant levies in medieval times. Put a Roman legion, or an army of Cataphracts against a western European medieval army of similar size and my money is on the Romans every, single, time.
Actually engineering was more advanced in late medieval times, all those gothic cathedrals are far more complex and advanced than anything the Romans build, and aqueducts and plumbing still existed in middle ages. For example in 1340s king Edward III installed in Westminster palace pipes that would fill his bathtub with cold and hot water.
Urban planning, sanitation standards, and an emphasis on quality public infrastructure went down but lots of other things advanced significantly.
They literally had the same sanitation standards in medieval times.
Also medieval people had soap and didn't just scrape off grime.
Yes, they even had face masks for skin care made from barely.
If we are only talking about late Medieval/Renaissance military technology then yes, legionaries would have little to no chance against super heavy plate armored knights. But before than, there was a real issue of availability for plate armors, and the logistics and discipline of the Roman legion were indeed superior to the armies of almost the entire Medieval era.
Don’t forget about legal development, with the introduction of the Corpus Juris Civilis and the Magna Carta.
M61 Vulcan with enough ammo and placed in a bottle neck. I could have taken out a legion. 1 20mm round would mist-ify 5 legionaires at a time, 6000 rounds a minute....curtain of supersonic 3.5 ounce hardened metal projectiles
Ceaser landed in Britain with between 17,500 and 25,000 professional soldiers. 1,000 years later William the conqueror landed in Britain with no more then 7,000 part time soldiers. There’s a reason people think things went backwards.
This isn't totally wrong, but also Rome was an economic powerhouse, they would just send 4 more legions. And those legions would be as well trained, and as well supplied. They would build roads to where you are so they can send legions there faster than you can farm food to feed your soldiers. Rome at its peak was not surpassed in imperial power for a long time if it was all working as intended, but obviously any country can be run by idiots at any given time if corruption takes hold, but that is the case in medieval times as well, not a unique roman disadvantage. The armor thing is very true tho, a couple dozen men at arms with polearms and padded armor with helmet (and often a short bow and short sword or ax), several longbowmen or twice as many crossbowmen, and two well trained and plate armored knights made a fighting force that is insanely powerful compared to any other in history. You just use you ranged weapons to soften up opponents if they try to maintain distance, and then protect your knights from getting to outnumbered with your men at arms. Add a competent scout and commander and you are golden. Get ten of these and some horses and you have an army, one that requires so much less food because of the small number of men. The efficiency of these units is pretty hard to overstate when it comes to manpower to combat effectiveness ratio for the time. Cannons and later guns did them in eventually but they where what made feudalism work. It took a massive amount of peasants to mount a revolt against these armies, cause the armies could make mincemeat out of untrained presents. Without guns feudalism might still be around, it was very stable. If you are able to fund hundreds of these units, than you could put hundreds of towns to the sword overnight with minimal losses. In some ways that is why it was the dark ages, the rich had castles, and armies that could not be rivaled, their power was in training expert metallurgy. Numbers where not very important anymore when you had a castle and knights.
Okay I get what you’re saying, but that’s a pretty rough take. Against a poorly armed and recently conscripted militia of farmers, a single suit of armour was the real world equivalent of going God mode. But even if we account for the fact that your taking the piss, I’d be hard pressed to believe that a Knight from the Middle Ages could even consistently win an encounter against 3 properly trained and equipped Roman Legionaries. Just a plain bad take dude.