How exactly do you beat a Roman Legion in the field? I ask because,

>>32088489
>>>>>>/his/

>>32088489
When in doubt zergrush the fuck out of them. The Romans can not have a proper shield wall when there are lots of bodies piled on top of them.

>>32088489
If my history serves me right, they didn't change or adapt to anything until they had to. So, their competency and hubris was paid for with blood

I seem to recall them having a problem with nomadic horse archers.

(You know, like about every other army out there.)

>>32088603
Depends. They could push the Parthians around pretty good, and the Saccanids that came after.

The "secret" to Roman success was stiff discipline, merit based leadership (well, mostly), impeccable logistics, and near endless manpower.

>>32088489
a disastrous military loss usually spelled trouble on the home front too back then. Rome was stable enough to absorb that sort of thing and come back next season rather than having a big purge and civil war every time a foreign conflict went awry.

>I don't know if this just a characteristic of ancient historians who felt the need to embellish to make the wars they were writing about to make them seem more epic, but it is curious.

I'm going with this. The Roman were making minor scrapes seem like Cannae on steroids, it goes back to that Mediterrean idea embodied in things like the lapiths vs centaurs myth, where you haven't proven you're a badass until you face an enemy who kicks your ass initially before you turn the tables on him.

>>32088489
>1. The Romans encounter a new enemy. That enemy slaughters them on an epic scale

>3. The Romans win in a subsequent battle, this time lopsidedly slaughtering the enemy on a massive scale

This is a very common thread throughout ancient warfare. Either you fight to a draw and have an orderly retreat with few casualties, or one side routes and gets slaughtered.

They lost entire legions only 4 times in their history.

>The Teutoburg Forest
>Judeo-Roman wars
>Cannae
>Carrhae

>>32088531
or lure them into a forest
they are nothing without combined arms and tight formations

if a century is only 80 people how many is a legion ?

>>32089524
Uhhhh no. Crassus lost at least 2, the Kimbry and Teutons took several, Lord knows how many were lost during the Punic wars...

>>32089818
I was referring to 100% complete losses of a legion.

>>32089934
Again, Kimbry and the Teutons took several legions.

>>32088489
That's because Rome was one of the first empires to have institutionalized warfare. Yes the roman legions often fought adversaries that severely outnumbered them or have considerable technological advantages, but often than not Rome's enemies couldn't replace the loss of manpower or equipment as fast the Romans could produce fresh legions with standardized equipment, training and good discipline.

The Han Dynasty might have better troop mobilization and industrial output though.

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>>32088489
>[Janus] also has a temple at Rome with double doors, which they call the gates of war; for the temple always stands open in time of war, but is closed when peace has come. The latter was a difficult matter, and it rarely happened, since the realm was always engaged in some war, as its increasing size brought it into collision with the barbarous nations which encompassed it round about. But in the time of Augustus it was closed, after he had overthrown Mark Antony; and before that, when Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius were consuls, it was closed a short time; then war broke out again at once, and it was opened.

Rome existed for over 1100 years, and that's from the foundation of the city to the fall of the Western Empire. If you look at its history, they have an alarming number of defeats and victories, but the victories outnumber the defeats by quite a margin. The truth of the matter is they didn't loose alarmingly often, they just fought so much war that the numbers are rather high. Also, even their defeats were sometimes victories.

>lose to Pyrrhus of Epirus twice in battle
>win the war and make massive territorial gains in southern Italy
>Rome's face when

>>32088489
>How exactly do you beat a Roman Legion in the field?


In open fields? Horse archers with light bows with high rate of fire. also horse spearmen who open the shield wall up and demoralize the troops.

>>32088489
>1. The Romans encounter a new enemy. That enemy slaughters them on an epic scale
This wasn't actually common at all.


>A new commander arrives and institutes some new tactics or employs new equipment
They used the exact same tactics in almost every single battle they fought, win or lose.

Two lines instead of three was genuinely one of the biggest changes they saw until the late legions.

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>>32089994
when you die knowing your actions turned the tide

Romans would literally just throw bodies at the enemy until they lost.

They didn't give a shit about man power because they could just get more men from whatever territories they had I mean fuckin' hell look at what Hannibal did with some vagabond mercenaries and gauls and when one guy wanted to change his tactics in trying to outmaneuver him by trying to kill his supply line without directly engaging them all of Rome had a shitfit.

>>32088531
Wow, I'm sure none of those barbarians ever tried that ever.

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>>32089558
>>32088531
>roman army
>shield wall
>tight formations

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You don't.

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>>32090779
what you gonad do about it nigga
>inb4 ballista in the middle of a forest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_defence

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>>32090813
>a couole of anecdotic formations used in extremely specific situations defines the fighting style of one of the most flexible armies in history

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>>32090975
>testudo
>the only form of the shield wall used by Romans
Take your tumblr image, cancerous memes and go.

>>32090975
never the less they are not much known for skirmish or flexibility
best they get is chariots in that regard and perhaps javelin or plumbata if you want to get pedantic

the main strength is logistics and discipline

>>32090987
wow there's like four different formations

>>32091011
Wow, it's like a shield wall is a wall formed out of shields. Are you being serious right now?

>>32091015
wedge square circle line

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>>32089986
This.

The Roman military had good tactics and strategy, but so did previous and competing empires and armies. What they excelled at was logistics, allowing them to learn from mistakes and come back for more.

Any woadfaced shepherd can get lucky and btfo a legion or two, the better question is: how does one defeat the next half dozen?

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>>32091003
Dude, they were very flexible. Maniples were a big deal, and onwards, their heavy infantry remained flexible and mobile. Besides logistics and discipline, their heavy infantry were nothing to sneeze at. Look at the Carthaginians. They were specifically trying to avoid directly confronting them early on; it took hiring a mercenary Spartan general to reorganize them into something that could fight the legions.

>>32089524

Arausio was the worst defeat in Roman history

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>>32090037
>In open fields? Horse archers with light bows with high rate of fire. also horse spearmen who open the shield wall up and demoralize the troops.

that only worked once

then Rome got it's own light missile cavalry in the form of numidian and african auxilias and a good use of terrain.

later on, they would have their own superheavy cavalry drawn from the anatolian region.

>>32090683

don't simplify things like that, the Fabian strategy was hated by Romans because Hannibal was razing the fuck out of Italy and straining Rome's already shaky relationship with many of it's italian asociated cities(Samnites straight up defected to Hannibal because Samnites were cunts), if Hannibal had actually managed to make any more Italic cities flip sides he would have had all the manpower he needed to siege Rome instead of fucking around for years until his brother got killed and Scipio rekt him back.

in a sense, Cannae had a positive side that was proving to the rest of the Italians that Hannibal was a fucking monster.

>>32090813

you misunderstand, Romans just didn't fight in shield walls in open fields. They used loose, staggered formations with about 5 feet apart between legionaries, they were skilled at 1vs1 fights and simply stepped back to let the fresh troops keep up the pressure when they got tired.

the testudo formation was also only ever used in sieges because it's fucking retarded to use it while facing cavalry. It's a movie meme.

>>32089472
This, although a decisive battle sometimes didn't end in complete slaughter if the victor was sufficiently exhausted and/or lacked sufficient light infantry/cavalry to run down the losers, who also had an avenue of escape. Intra-Greek warfare was often like this as their armies had limited cavalry and it is fucking hard to chase anyone while humping a heavy shield and armor.

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>>32091414

Greek warfare was initially just downright ritual in nature. The combat would be staged and planned for carefully and only last as long as the first line broke, with no pursuit thereafter. It was only meant to settle dispute between polis and not project and secure ambitions beyond this, however the introduction of foreign invasions to the Hellenic world changed that over time.

This was also why the original Phalanxes were so rigid, exposed and hard to adapt for a culture living a mountainous region.

Alexander's army owed it's success to it's diversity in troops, consisting of Macedonian phalanxes, lighter sword infantry, cretan archers, heavy companion cavalry and all sorts of situational, specific support troops, his campagins are a rather early example of what would become 'combined arms'.

the failure of his successors to employ the same solutions to the shortcomings of the phalanx spelled doom to hellenic warfare once it faced Rome.

This thread got me wondering what italy would of done in both world wars if rome never fell. Or space Nazis managed to ressurect the greatest generals and Emperor.

I want a gladius themed carcano now.

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>>32091504
>This thread got me wondering what italy would of done in both world wars if rome never fell.

it wouldn't have happened.

first, it depends in what state does Rome survive:

if the third century crisis doesn't happen and the pests and civil wars don't decimate the legions, then they manage to push the northern border past the Rhine and hold all of Britain, and eventually take all of the mesopotamian region. By the time of the hun invasions and germanic migrations Rome can focus all it's strength on fighting it back. Germanic and Slavic culture are non-existant or extinct forever. The Arab conquests are repelled and Islam never comes to be, instead, Christian in-fighting characterizes the world. European culture is monolithic and stagnant, much like China. There's no need to contest the silk road, so American expeditions don't occur.

if It subsists as the rump state it was when it was divided in west and east(good fucking luck), we basically see the Byzantines and an Italian-only west rome fighting tooth and nail for survival from all the Germanic fucking shits, perhaps the division between both would be undone and we would see what amounts to the Byzantine empire during the years after Justinian took Italy. We'll assume no goth nor arab nor spaniard nor frank fucks with Italy for a while and the eventual hordes of turks killing off the eastern side don't spell death for them, you got an unified Rome instead of independent Italian states so there's no Renaissance with trade, art and science boom due to the lack of infighting and independent enterprise, the world takes an extra hundred couple years to advance technologically so that empires as big as the British can happen and the Illustration and cultural revolutions happen, so no Free America or Unified Germany.

if it subsists as a small state composed of the city and peoples of Rome it's irrelevant because Ravenna was the capital of the empire long before shit was over. It would be nice though.

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>>32091582

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>>32091504

What do you call a setting where the Roman Empire never fell?

AntiquityPunk?

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>>32091609

nothing wrong with a bit of speculative fiction, but it's frustrating when people come up with stuff like "what if Rome still existed in WW1-WW2" in a not joking way and then get pissy when you go ahead and think about it well.

anyway, you'd see fascist Italy but not so shitty and short lived, probably.

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just take them into some woods and ambush them. Romans are pussy faggots, they'll get beaten when they're not in an open field and they're fighting in a forest against brave men.

>>32088489

Use proper cavalry.

Simple as.

Get a full army of Sarmatian Horsemen and couple them with a competent enough infantry element and the Romans are fucked.

>>32092420
>Use proper cavalry.

Like the Gaul, Thracian or Asian Alae or the Cataphractii?

god I wish the "muh romans can't inot cavalry" meme would die.

>>32088603
Friendly reminder that the Romans defeated the Huns.

>>32091682
Sauce? That design is cool as fuck.

Use a trebuchet to launch a 90kg projectile over 300m

>>32091682
Byzantium.

>>32093616
That's a funny way of spelling Goths.

>>32092420
Proper cavalry cannot exist without stirups

>>32088489
Gibbon sums it up as Rome's "Iron Will," which is pretty apt of a description. Punic and Hellenic cultures couldn't really wrap their heads around it- both Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians expected surrenders several times in their wars, but they never came. Another Roman army would be destroyed, but the Romans would just recruit another one.

Let's think about Rome's national heroes- almost all of them die horribly or only come in to save the nation after a massive crisis. And then the Romans get a revenge hate boner and completely obliterate their foes.

Of course, that's also trying to sum up over a millenia of history. The armies of the early Republic are not the armies of Caesar nor are they the armies of Aurelian or Constantine. Each adapted to what was needed at the time.

And remember, the Roman Army was still the most effective fighting force in Europe until it was effectively destroyed at Manzikert.

The romans were frankly pretty average at fighting.

But they were very good at coughing up new armies to make up for the lost ones. So as long as they could keep fighting far enough from home to have the time to raise new armies, things worked out pretty well for them.

Meanwhile their enemies seldom had any such strategic reserve, at all. And with a crushing defeat leaving little chance for the Roman chroniclers to count enemy losses, they may have underestimated the toll taken on the enemy by that first battle.

>How exactly do you beat a Roman Legion in the field?

Use a Fabian strategy in a place that's far away from their nearest permanent holdings/supply bases in combination with political adroit political maneuvering to ensure that none of your allies screws up the endeavor by deciding to defect and become a Roman client king.

If you hold out for long enough, you are guaranteed to win due to the treachery and reversals of fortune that characterize the career of important politicians and generals in Rome. Even if the commander pursuing a campaign against your country is extremely talented, he will invariably end up either falling from grace, assassinated by his rivals, or leading a coup himself if you stall for long enough. When a new regime comes in, that's when you make peace and use the time you've gained to prepare for the next time the Romans start to get aggressive.

See: Parthia

Alternatively, have cavalry. Lots of cavalry. The Roman infantry was solid until the very last days of the empire, but the non-infantry were very often spotty due to reliance on hereditary noblemen and foreign mercenaries for those roles.

>>32093938
A lot of this wasn't simply due to will though, the regions Rome ruled had an absurd amount of manpower available to them. In Italy alone they were able to muster ridiculously huge armies.

>>32091400
Makes me sad, segmentata was in use slightly before this form of armor?

>>32094137
That's Lorica Hamata, which was the first incarnation of mail. It entered service before the segmentata and sometimes was used alongside with it IIRC.

What made Rome unique was that they had citizenry and resources to draw from that were entirely lopsided. They could survive losing battles and even losing entire legions. Their enemies could not say the same because losing an army would spell catastrophe for smaller powers.

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>>32091582

Well covered.

I had in mind italy, greece, romania. and all the in-between being all that remained.

They could still lose Byzantium, and with any luck Egypt wouldn't implode or be a puppet state to the ragged Romans.

Tfw arabia never falls for the islam meme.

>>32093823

Tell that to the Sarmantians and Parthians.

>>32093360

>Gaul
Naked tree niggers
>Tharcian
Naked hill niggers


Besides some hit and miss campaigns around Persia the Roman Empire has not met full blown heavy cav and won.

Minor elements like Icenii chariots or Carthaginian Elephants where small parts of the armies of those factions. And even then as shown in many cases if the Romans don't have mercenary cavalry and the non roman leader is not retarded the Romans will lose or have one hell of a hard time.

>>32094137

Theres controversy over that due to the findings at the Kalkriese site

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>>32094524
I got a shit ton of Peter Connolly/Angus Mcbride Rome stuff so I'm just going to dump it all here.

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>>32094543

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>>32094558

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>>32094570

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>>32094576

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>>32094583

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>>32094602

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>>32094615

If you have a fetish for lorica segmentata, this is your thread.

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>>32094637

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>>32094649

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>>32094660
and heres the second part of the image

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>>32094660

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>>32094689

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>>32094701

>>32094109
tl;dr: Rome is America.

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>>32094415
>implying Rome can stop the moon god.

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>>32094722

>>32093984 see >>32091254

They were rock solid individually, but combined with discipline and some very good equipment for the time, were no laughing matter.

>>32089606
>A century is 80 soldiers and 20 servants/Squires
That makes 100

>>32088489
It's a combination of a simple analytical error (the Roman army accumulated errors over a millenium; adjusting for this, they rock), lions led by donkeys (Romans were sensitive to [and in decadent ages, prone to] bad leadership), and a classic conventional army having difficulty with irregular insugencies like the Parthians or Germans.
I notice you are not alarmed by the failure rate of various Greek or North African armies.

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Ideally don't fight them on their own terms. Romans loved open field, hated asymmetrical warfare.

They had no other real weaknesses when they were in their prime except for hubris.

If you have to, roll some heavy cavalry and hope to God hammer and anvil works.

>>32089524
Legio V Alaudae was wiped out in the battle of Tapae

>>32092368
This needs a spurdo.

>>32094730
>Loud
>Everything is bigger

Romans :
>Loud
>obnoxious
>considered as retarded rednecks by greeks
>which is why they considered greeks pussies and phaggots
>Always at war

>>32095630
>Gauls looking on in approval as a Roman legionary fires an MG42 over a scutum while being instructed by a Wehrmacht soldier

This needs to happen in Drifters.

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Just shoot the bastards.

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>>32088489
Hey.
Hey Rome
Hey Romans.
[spoiler]Competent Cavalry[/spoiler]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>32094466

>except for when they did, romans never fought cavalry

Return these goalposts to sender.

>>32097000

Since when does fought proper heavy cav = fought cav you illiterate fuck?

>>32088489
That's because the pattern was this:
>send a single legion into new area as recon-in-force
>find indigenous fighters
>piss off indigenous fighters
>holy shit there's a lot of indigenous fighters, far more than we estimated, get rekt
>come back with 10 legions
>numbers matter muhfugga

>>32097006
Elephants and a cataphracts are heavy cavalry. You cant say this doesnt count because they didnt square off against 4,000 armored elephants on grassy flatland like in your Rome Total War vidya game headcanon fan fiction.

>>32097063

200 Elephants in about 20 engagements doesn't compare to complements of 2000 to 20000 of heavily armored cataphracts

>>32088489
Roman Empire in two phrases
>fuck barbarians
>fuck, barbarians