Imagine what Imperial Legion Soldiers would look like in 21st

if rome never fell the west would be a primitive backwater like china was during the industrial revolution because the imperial structure was inimical to technological progress

>>3200067
They certainly wouldn't wear silly armour.

>>3200067
Why do you think they'd look anything like ancient legionaries? Do modern soldiers look like medieval knights?

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Something like this?

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>>3201849
Or this.

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It's not like they were ever very different looking from their contemporaries. Hypothetical Roman soldiers would look much the same as any other modern soldier.

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>>3201873
>Hypothetical Roman soldiers would look much the same as any other modern soldier.

Hey bro, did you know that if Western Rome kept going, literally no single western nation you know and cherish would exist today?
Claims like "oh, they would look like US Army or whatever" are completely preposterous.

>>3201884
By the 460s the western Roman Empire was basically just Italy and a little bit of Gaul.

>>3201902
and they would have no way to survive if they didn't retain their heyday (pre-117AD) hegemony and actually increased it, not lose it

>>3201851
That's just a ceremonial uniform.

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Who else daydreams about how would ancient civilizations be like today or in the future if they carried on with their development uninterruptedly? Imagine Roman, Egyptian and Babylonian space ships competing for supremacy in space.

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>>3201884
Here's a bunch of Chinese Soldiers, from a civillization that has existed in one shape of form for all of its existence. Do they remind you of the Tang? No? Then why do you expect Rome to wear garish red or whatever? In the end, you're going to wear what works, not what makes some random autists willy hard.

>>3201884
How is this relevant to how the soldiers would look?

Armies are about function, modern armies are so similar because they're using tried and true designs that are fucntional. The only time they could allow themselves aesthethic pursue was between the time armor became obsolete and the invention of Kevlar.

>>3201914
:(

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Roman military stuff was ever-changing and adapting. Really, what came after the western empire's fall was nothing but a continuation of the Roman equipment of the era.

For example, there's a clear evolutionary line from the Spatha to the medieval arming sword and beyond.

>>3201914
>Do they remind you of the Tang?
no, they remind me of US army circa 1991, US Army, army of a country which wouldn't exist today, army which developed a template for modern general infantry by fighting wars between nations that wouldn't exist today.
>>3201914
>>3201919

And you call yourself a fucking history board?

>>3201948
The standard infantry helmet is based off the German helmets from WW1 and 2.
The nations fighting would be different, the lessons learned would be the same. You can argue somethings would be different but it's impossible for us to know why or how.

>>3201948
So you think that if Rome didn't fall, modern warfare and by extension modern uniforms wouldn't exist? That's outright worrying my dude.

>>3200067
Like modern soldiers, they'd just be organized in legions.

>>3201962
Aren't some armies organized into legions anyways?

>>3201962
>>3201992

yeah. we call them divisions. self contained units of varying types used for various roles.

you'd have mechanised legions, tank legions, infantry legions.

i guess air force units would be wings and squadrons, taken from cavalry terminology like much air force terminology is now.

only difference is that roman army units would pretend to have that contiguous history from the bronze age, just like european units (exceot the krauts for reasons of legal liability) pretend that their professional army units have contiguity from whatever scratch-formed militia their historic leaders assembled to fight the robber barons next door or whatever, as if modern armies have not been reformed and reformed and reformed a bajillion times according to whatever doctrine serves at a given time.

see: british army regiments and their "histories" after various reorganisations.

>>3201962
The Roman army wasn't even organised in legions by the 4th century, what makes you think they'd go back to it in the 21st?

>>3201961
Yes
Even if it is, it would be vastly different than what we now have

>>3202053
Assuming nationalism and the rennasaince are a thing, then that.

>>3202055
No, it wouldn't. You still need camo, you still want to move light, you still want to have the most powerful weapons you can get for reasonably cheap, you still want to protect as much of yourself as possible without overloading yourself and becoming too expensive.

etc, etc, etc. Concepts like the tank might have arised even earlier in a more stable society like Rome.

>>3202076
But there's nothing more Roman about the legions than the comitatenses or palatini or tagmata. They wouldn't just arbitrarily return to an obsolete unit of organisation that they hadn't used for 1700 years. It'd be like if the modern British army started painting their faces blue.

>>3202055

>hmm. these new rifles are pretty accurate. maybe we should stop wearing red and change to brown, or dun coloured mottled patterns like hunters use.
>MUH LEE-JUNNS
>if we armour up a truck and put a machine gun or a small cannon in a turnable turret on the top, we'll have a useful, mobile means of fire support for our troops
>MUH LEE-JUNNS
>hmm, the barbaroi have dug a series of trenches in their frontlines, supported by artillery and machine guns, and we're losing too many men trying to overrrun them. Maybe we ought to see if we can build a self propelled machine that has a lot of weapons, armour and which can traverse over the top of these trenches without falling into them or getting stuck
>MUH LEE-JUNS

yeah nah.

>>3202106
Analyzing why or how people do irrational things like that is hard. I have no idea why we think of the Roman legions as their most iconic thing even in our timeline, Caesar?

If that's the case I could see the cult of the emperor growing stronger with time.

>>3202120
The idea of actual competent Rome going into WW1 makes my dick hard.

Captcha: post romano

>>3202120
red wasn't roman army color scheme you popculture fed fuck

>>3202055
Indeed, it's unthinkable for Romans to stop hitting thing with swords in large formations.

>>3202142

in this timeline i'm imagining italians, iberians, greeks (and maybe pied noir versions of same from north africa as well as colonials from south america) suffering a million isonzos, and inventing all sorts of crazy mediocre art movements with manifestos and such.

...before collapsing into civil war between fascists and communists, and eventually splitting into a red empire and black empire because neither side can overcome the other and each side can retain control of far flung or easily defensible bits of empire.

>>3202150

>he thinks asterix isn't a historic document drawn at the time by the roman satirists udertius and gosicinnius

pleb

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Important question:

Roman military dress, equipment, tactics and organisation in the 4th century were completely alien from what they had been in the 1st century

Yet when these speculative discussions pop up everyone acts like the Roman dress, equipment, tactics and organisation of the 1st century would've been perfectly preserved even 2000 years later

Why?

>>3202256
Because most people here are aesthethics over function, since we've grown up learning about these civilizations from videogames that had to turn them into characters.

>>3202256
perfectly preserved?
never said that
have a huge chance to be completely different to what we have now?
absolutely

>>3202265
No, it doesn't have a huge chance to be completely different. At most it has a good chance of being a slightly different looking thing serving the same functions.

>>3202155
Lets say the Roman develop gun, cannon, etc on their own, whats makes you so sure that their model would look closer the modern ones which was derived from British/French/German model, instead of lets say, Greek fire or even Chinese proto cannon?
not saying it wouldn't exist, but it could take a whole different form
>>3202170
How are you sure Fascism and Communism would born under Roman rule?

>>3202297
Cannons weren't made the way they were to be nice, cannons are made to be functional. Cannons have the shape they have because otherwise they wouldn't work as cannons.
If you want to add extra metal and shit and make it heavier and more expensive just for it to look fancy then fine, but that definitely wasn't the way the Romans did things.

If you make a thing that doesn't have the parts of a cannon, then it doesn't work like a cannon and it isn't a cannon. If it looks and functions like Greek fire then it is greek fire or a flamethrower.

Why the fuck is this thread ignoring the Byzantines so hard. There's your modern Roman Empire until the 15th century.

>>3202297
They did have Greek fire flamethrowers. They used cannons too. They weren't massively different from the cannons used in the middle east or the balkans

>>3202342
OP or whatever other anon is implying that the non-existance of Spain, France, England and Germany would make a significant difference in the development and looks of military technology. So byzantium I guess isn't really relevant.

>>3201913
Aside the pyramid this looks nothing like an egyptian aesthetic.

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>>3202342
>They used cannons too.
I thought 1453 was one of the first uses of cannons on the European subcontinent. Educate me

>>3202055
Retard.

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>>3201884
>>3201948
>>3202055
This, assuming they would reach the exact same conclusion as us is as stupid as seeing diversity of lifeforms on earth and presuming that aliens (if it even exist) to have an appearance of just slightly demented form of human, there's just too many possibilities
>>3202356
Of course, even they eventually discover the same thing the appliance and use of it may differ, steam engine was discovered way before industrial revolution, yet only after it the use became dominant, the same apply to many other things

>>3202356
I doubt it would be much different aside from the Kingdom of Italy still being the Western Roman Empire, by the end the western empire didn't have much territory left.

>>3200067

Pretty much exactly like modern Italian soldiers. The romans were at the end of the day a practical people who would have put combat effectiveness as the top priority.

>>3202389
Nigga the problem here is that there aren't 20 ways of making a functional proper cannon, there is only 1 way. So you either make it that way, or don't make it at all.

Assuming the history of the far East stays relatively the same these things are going to reach Europe just as they did in our timeline.

>>3201849
They wouldn't use a uniform based on a suit though they might use camos
They wouldn't wear badges unless the cultural use of it somehow happen later
same thing applied to the berets

>>3201849
Why do they look like Pakis?

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Probably

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>>3202413
He was retarded for not posting proper combat uniform.

Chances are they would look close to this, since these uniforms, as much as some people might like it, are really a mess and just exist to be a functional piece of kit designed to keep you alive as much as possible.

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>>3202389
>presuming that aliens (if it even exist) to have an appearance of just slightly demented form of human
We can easily assume that they'd be humanoid, though. You don't manipulate tools if you don't have thumbs or walk on two legs, your eyes will be pointed forwards, you will have a head and a neck, and assumably at least four limbs, two for manipulating and two for walking, etc etc etc. People who think that aliens might as well be sentient gasses or something are retarded, and reminds me of the people who think that Romans will be walking around in their 1st century outfit, two thousand years later.

>>3202413
True, but those are form, not function, and these are purely ceremonial. You think all the nations in the world use very similar combat gear because of some sort of cultural imperialism?

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>>3202427
I'ma keep posting concepts

Tell me when I hit modern Roman Empire

>>3202413

>They wouldn't wear badges

Why the fuck not. Do you think the Classical Romans were some sort of hipster collective that would have shunned useful innovations because "muh authenticity." If you went back in time and showed a roman general a gun, he wouldn't be like "oh I'm not using that, it's not honorable" he'd more likely say something like "yeah get me like 100,000 more of these and I'll give you a shitload of money plus a percentage of the loot from future conquests."

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>>3202448

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>>3202453

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>>3202457

>>3202448
>>3202453
>>3202457
what about something contemporary instead of futuristic things that we know nothing about?

>>3202439
>You don't manipulate tools
Do they have to be able to manipulate tool to be an alien?

>>3202451
Badges don't need to exists in the form they do necesarily. It is definitely feasable that the way to identify units could vary, since that's entirely down to cultural preference.

As much as OP is a bit naive, we shouldn't forget that most armies from smaller nations do things by copying bigger armies from bigger nations, and that does play a big part on the homogenity of things like ceremonial uniforms.

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>>3202403
>Nigga the problem here is that there aren't 20 ways of making a functional proper cannon

I want you to stick your head in a fucking blender and turn it on right now
this is artillery in countries which fucking BORDER each other

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>>3202457
>>3202462
Alright Ill take a look at the archive then

>>3202464
No, I think he's mistaken "alien life" with "intelligente, civilization building" alien life.

>>3202464
I find it hard to believe how a sentient leopard seal is going to build and operate a spear or a club, even less so a modern spaceship that could travel from their home to ours.

>>3202470
And they function the exact same way, the biggest difference is that one has some metal plating on it, enough for you to think it's an entirely different concept.

>>3202470
Both are big long tubes with a mechanism to propell a projectile from the back of said tube. The main difference between the 2 is the shape of the mechanism that propells the projectile, and maybe the dimensions of the tube, that can be adjusted depending on the use that is required of it. The further back in time you go the least parts you have and the least things you have that can look different.

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>>3202471
All i can find is this

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>>3202482
Airships are a bit too alt history ay

>>3202471
If Romans became really autistic at some point like we did I guess I could see them wearing capes or some sort of decorative thing in their helmets. Probably only for celebrations tho.

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>>3202486
Fun fact

We could have airships in planets like Venus, where the atmosphere is composed of gases denser than oxygen.

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>>3202491
If they lasted this long and controlled the world and probably had the most flashy, shiny and yet useless Praetorian Guard ever

>>3202500
Yeah, but there's so much sulfuric acid all your shit would dissolve.

>>3202508
Yeah you can't have your cake and eat it in real life.

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>>3202506
Modern Rome right? Two thousand years of constant stability and presumably technological evolution/

>>3202518
I think soldiers would rather die than having to put that on every time they gotta go on patrol.

>>3202506
>Praetorian Guard
See this is the kind of thing that bothers me when talking about speculative history

Not you specifically anon because you're just having fun but more broadly people taking stuff that Rome had abandoned and for some reason thinking that it would survive into the far future. Rome had already abandoned the Praetorian Guard and replaced them with superior forces, a futuristic Rome definitely wouldn't have them.

>>3202525
What i'm wondering is wether there would even be such an appreciation for greco-roman culture in a world where it never went away.

Like, how can you have romantiboos in a world where Rome has remained a constant and changing thing and never fully went away?

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>>3202491
Those kind of stuff really depends on cultural continuation, I could imagine pic related for example painted with something more 'Roman'
If they survive the Romans would replace the entire western Europe as the cultural hegemony of the world, you could argue that they would some put some useless things to their ceremonial costumes but its not that much different than us wearing ties

>>3200067
>>3200067
The same way modern soldiers do now? The fuck kind of stupid question is this?

Did you think Roman soldiers looked the same throughout the entirety of the existence of the Roman state? The basic gear and dress of the roman soldier changed with the times you dunce.

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>>3202523
Yea. But like were talking about the Roman Empire here. We gotta show up the barbarians with our flashy shit

>>3202525
Well speculative fiction is literally what it is. We could speculate a future where the Praetorian Guard was revived, as some sort of power grab by a senator for example.

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Eh probably the same as other modern soldiers. Byzantine soldiers generally looked like typical eastern soldiers from the time with some of their own unique flair.

>>3200067
Assuming the same technology, probably like any other western army. Assuming an entirely different history, it is impossible to guess.

>>3202536
>>3202541
Actually this could make this thread very interesting.

Because Rome never fully collapsing has huge cultural implications that we could hardly predict. Technology would be the same but society would surely be completely different.

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>>3202560
>Technology would be the same

why does this keep getting posted?

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>>3202541
>>3202560
More emphasis on familial ties to power?

Acceptance of casual paganism maybe.


I am out of concepts so here is my last picture. Rule Brittania

>>3202569
Because it would be. It maybe wouldn't be invented at exactly the same time or by the same people but it definitely would be invented. Chances are that even earlier assuming Rome gets it's shit together enough to last 2000 years united.

>>3202572
Depending on when this amazing rift in history happens, it could be hard for paganism to have a chance. I don't see how aristocrats could lose power, even over time desu. Since they basically made everything in their power to prevent it.

>>3202579
Well the way it was said, it seemed like they/you meant that technology now would be the same in a Roman society now

>>3202634
IMO it could only be at the same level or higher. A lot of things like computers were predicted and conceptualized centuries before they were constructed.
The steam engine exists since ancient Greece, it just took a long ass time for someone to take a look at it and go "huh, this could be used to like make things", part of which was the extreme poverty of Europe during the middle ages due to piss poor management that might have been avoided in this fantastical way.

>>3202569
>>3202569

Because it is true. Why do you think the Romans would halt all technological progress?

>>3202604

>I don't see how aristocrats could lose power, even over time desu.

Same way they did in real life. Eventually, there will be an industrial revolution, and entrepreneurs and business magnates will dwarf the aristocrats in terms of influence and power, and the aristocrats can't do anything about it except screech "but muh noble blood" as they fade into irrelevance.

>>3202672
>Why do you think the Romans would halt all technological progress?
I don't
I just acknowledge that insane amount of modern weapons was specifically developed for wars that wouldn't be even fought with Rome around could be something completely different.

>>3202762
>specifically developed for wars
Not for any wars in specific. They were developed to kill things better, in different situations, yes, but not to counter any particular national doctrine.

>>3201957
>The standard infantry helmet is based off the German helmets from WW1 and 2.
It really isn't. The stahlhelm was a fairly suboptimal steel helmet, while modern helmets are designed with the properties of ballistic composites in mind. Any resemblance is superficial.

>>3203024
It was the most effective of it's time, and it was the one most countries looked at when designing helmets leading into WW2.

>>3201851
This is gay even for Greeks.

>>3203036
That's a much less grand claim than the original statement.

>>3203059
Well, I might have worded it wrong. "most modern infantry helmets are evolutions of the German helmets from WW1'.

>>3203076
That's exactly what I responded to here
>>3203024

>>3202297

because capital + industrialisation leads to unequal industrial societies and a reaction in favour of collective ownership and equality (i.e. communism).

capitalism + industrialisation + socialist agitation preaching internationalism leads to a counter reaction in favour of tribalism, traditionalism, and rejection of equality and socialist internationalism (the various strands of authoritarianism collectively referred to as fascism).

china was an ancient empire split in exactly the same way by authoritarian nationalism and communism, and it remains split to this day.

>>3202265
>have a huge chance to be completely different to what we have now?
>absolutely


how? explain please which things could be different considering most of the gear and tactics used now are learned from centuries of experience world-wide that these Romans would have to have been there to learn.

if they hadn't fallen in 476 they'd develop cataphract spam and more mobile heavy infantry like their Byzantine brothers

if they had continued to exist past 1457 beyond that they'd need to be up to par with the Italian states of the era, they'd have full plate armor and crossbows(if they didn't keep their manuballistas all along), possibly even up there with the Spanish and go back to pikes.

if they kept up existing after Spain declined they would have had to survive Napoleon and their armies would fight similarly and have similar or equivalent gear. Romans with cannons and musket formations, and cavalry with sabers.

if they reached the 20th century they'd have machineguns, bolt action rifles, planes and tanks, just to even last during the war.

if they'd exist today after two world wars they would be a fully modern, mechanized, digitalized Italian army. Maybe with different names, maybe with some slightly different choices in gear, but i guarantee they'd be the same kind of asshole covered in camo and pouches with a tactical helmet you see everywhere.

>>3202434

man, the AR-70 is so aesthetic, i wish it was actually exported in numbers, i think it's among the best NATO rifles.

>>3202762
>I just acknowledge that insane amount of modern weapons was specifically developed for wars that wouldn't be even fought with Rome around

had Rome subsisted we would have seen them fight thousands of other, equivalent conflicts of equal significance.

>>3202120
Don't be retarded, Rome was always constantly adapting their military to fight new enemies.

>>3203578
>we would have seen them fight thousands of other, equivalent conflicts of equal significance.
with WHOM? Abbos?
Europe conquered the world because it was constantly at war with ITSELF. When they finally set out and started encountering other civilizations, they where like fucking Independence Day aliens to all of them.

>>3202762

There would still be civil wars. Also, why do you think that weapons are specifically designed for specific conflicts? Sure, sometimes that's exactly what happens, but even then, the end product usually isn't so overspecialized that it can't be adapted to other situations.

>>3203659
Persia, Russia, Northern Germanic realms, etc. And this is just assuming that they keep literally all of their holdings they had at their height, in the end it's more likely that it just ends up more or less just Italy, if at all.

>>3201851
why asparagus

>>3200067
Like modern soldiers assuming they didn't go full retard.

I think OP's post was well intended, but is really dumb.

We can all assume that their battle dress would be similar if not identical to what we have now, but there are other aspects of the military that evolve in ways that are largely non-practical, like the symbols they use, their ceremonial dress, ranks, stuff like that.

You can also extend that into civilian life, like what would their formalwear be like, what would be considered high cuisine, the fashion trends of a modern Rome, so on and so forth.

>>3200067
>Rome never falls
>Proceeds to conquer entire world
>No need to have an army anymore

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This is what a modern roman soldier would look like

Dunno why people think they'd have weird gothic/classical aesthetics.

>>3202150
Im admittedly ignorant on this, was it purple? red was the empire right?

>>3205793

Purple was reserved for the Praetorians.

>>3202508
At extreme altitudes (150km+ I think), Venus' atmosphere resembles Earth's and the acid is much less harmful.

>>3202150
What was it?
I'm legitimately curious

Voice command duh

>>3205807
and red comes from?

>>3202482
>that dab

>>3203265
>china was an ancient empire split in exactly the same way by authoritarian nationalism and communism
what do you mean here

>>3205890
White, in so far as they had a colour at all

>>3201829
This

>>3202476
There is a different barrel and loading mechsnism.
The calibre is everything to artillery, that anon's picture shows two very different artillery designs.

bulletproof vest
headgear
rifle

These are actual questions to everyone talking about the Romans advancing technology: what kind of scientific tradition did the Romans have, and how would the renaissance and enlightenment have played out, if at all?

well first of all, whiteboi, the black gods who founded Rome would still be walking around and you'd be our slaves while we help ourselves to your white bitches who throw themselves at us
it would be reminiscent of the galactic ebonoid empire that utilized melanin powered star gates to come to Earth and invent civilization

>>3208470
There were universities in Greece and probably the middle east and Italy back then. There probably wouldn't have been a renaissance because there was nothing to be reborn.

Chances are scientific development wouldn't have been slower than in our time.