Quote:
Originally Posted by zraver
I dissagree, Rome sacked the parthian capitol several times and took Armenia and mesopotamia form them. The manipulative legion was not a loose formation, although it was flexible. While the gladius was the real killing tool of the romans, it was not the only tool. The Legions had a large number of slingers an archers as well as cavalry, javlainers, and engineers. in one repsect the Mongols were like the Romans. They borrowed technology without batting an eye. the Gladius or Gladius Hispania came from Gual, the slingers from Greece, they used composite bows and adpated the cavalry tactics of the Huns and other proto-turkish tribes. The Pilum could also due duty as a pike, and onc einside the legiosn formation the gladius/scutum combo would be like a glock and bowie knife vs a bolt action 30-06 in close quaters fight.
Vs a Hungarian force Rome would have smashed the kights into peices. Heavy cavalry is a short ranged shock weapon fit only for use inside of a combined arms formation. Roman legions could out march any cavalry force in the world expcet the mongols, and could run knights to ground and set up seiges, where Rome almost never lost.
The heavy cavalry faield agaist the Muslims, failed agaist the Mongols and later faield agaisnt the infantry. Its rise to prominance was due more to the politcal nature of Europe than any military advantage....
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I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then, as we're not likely to see any Hungarian 'knights' vs. Roman legion battles in the foreseeable future.
The Roman manipular formation was 'looser' than a phalanx formation for example - a sort of 'checker board' formation with intentional 'gaps' that provided great flexibility of maneuver (far more than a phalanx for example). My understanding of the 'pilum' is that it was not suitable for use as a 'pike'. It was shorter for one thing, and intended to be thrown. It also had an extended iron 'spearhead' that was intended to 'bend' once it had penetrated an opponent's armour or shield, thereby encumbering him but not being reusable by the opponent. Once the legionare had thrown his pilum he would close in with the shortsword. It was not my intention to state that Rome was unable to ever defeat any contemporary foe with cavalry, but they did in fact have more difficulty with them than they did against predominately infantry foes. Further, the Hungarian knights of almost an entire millenium later would have been far ahead of Rome, or Roman contemporaries, in terms of equipment - whether that's swords, shields, lances, stirrups or fortifications and siege engines. I do not believe that any advantage in Roman 'organization' would have been sufficient to overcome that.