What if? Roman Army vs. USMC MEU

[astralis]

z,

pre-Columbian Mezzoamerican population densities were much higher, not lower

this was true if you're talking 1300-1400 CE, not 33 BCE.

33 BCE most of north america was hunter-gatherer, with isolated segments of the most primitive agriculture. mesoamerica had the beginnings of mayan civilization, but they were 300 years or so away from their big-city period.

[Mihais]

1979-The battle was easy.What was hard was convincing the quartermaster to break the ammo boxes without proper authorization

C'mon guys,if you graduated highschool you have lots of skills.One of them would be knowledge of the way the world looks like and where general resources are located.Drawing more accurate maps than anything existing at the time and selling them to the highest bidder can make you a wealthy man quickly. Money gives you power(and a few nice slave girls ) .Or you could go to any barbarian king and make him a wind powered sawmill .You'll give him instant access to lots of good timber to make his house and instant rock star status as a base for your rise.And the slave girls,of course.

[1979]

all you need do is kill the bulk of the Praetorian guard, do unspeakable things to whatever Emperor happens to be in power at the time in front of the Senate, then work your way through the Senate in the same manner until they agree that 'yes, you're the very chaps to take over' and hey presto, the Empire is yours.
That's when it gets tricky....

sounds like a plan :wors:

[astralis]

BR,

History is nice, but once a couple shells take out a couple phalanxes, even the dumbest general will realize that it's just not worth it... Tactics develop in warfare, if they don't, you lose.

well, romans didn't use phalanxes...

the issue with pre-gunpowder warfare, or even early gunpowder warfare, is that it depends on MASS. swords and bows in isolation just don't work the way guns do.

you take away mass, it becomes easy for the enemy to go in and take away food. then your entire community starves to death, or more likely, the leaders get murdered if they're too obstinate and the population surrenders, provided you aren't too harsh.

having the romans go guerilla takes away their main strength, which is discipline and tactical flexibility/superiority in applying mass.

in this scenario if your one goal was to take rome, that could very easily be done. if your goal is to actually survive, then the question becomes, why do you want to take rome in the first place. the locals aren't going to accept you as rulers, you'd be much better off carving off a huge chunk of largely empty land up north.

[Mihais]

A
That's when it gets tricky....

You'll wake up one morning quite dead from poison,stabbing,suffocation etc...

[YellowFever]

Agreed. You don't need to meet the Roman Empire in battle, you don't need to sack Rome, all you need do is kill the bulk of the Praetorian guard, do unspeakable things to whatever Emperor happens to be in power at the time in front of the Senate, then work your way through the Senate in the same manner until they agree that 'yes, you're the very chaps to take over' and hey presto, the Empire is yours.
That's when it gets tricky....

sounds like a plan :wors:

Did you expect anything less from the evil Kiwi?

[1979]

You'll wake up one morning quite dead from poison,stabbing,suffocation etc...

Yep but the barbarians could do it too .

[Mihais]

Negative.I'll be the reincarnation of Zamolxes. And I can be quite a nice if the wine is of good quality(won't mention the slave girls again,or you'll suspect I have problems with my GF).

[Stitch]

Negative.I'll be the reincarnation of Zamolxes. And I can be quite a nice if the wine is of good quality(won't mention the slave girls again,or you'll suspect I have problems with my GF).

Yeah, what is it with you and those slave girls?

[bigross86]

I don't know, slave girls do have a certain appeal to them...

[Mihais]

Ohh ,just a proof of my godlike status in this case.

[YellowFever]

ohh ,just a proof of my perv like and lonely tendencies in this case.

fify. ;)

[Mihais]

Some on this board really have too few deadly foes .

[zraver]

´The Man who came early´ by Poul Andersen, short story about a US military policeman in Iceland who gets transported 1000 years back, to viking era. he finds his .45 and skills are not so impressive to natives as he thinks
generation.feedbooks.com/book/3339.pdf

There was a short story years ago along similar lines, except Vikings. They got attacked and his new Viking buddies saw the hammer shaped object in his hand, heard a clap of thunder and saw an enemy fall dead.... again and again....

[zraver]

Must've posted that just after you did.

I like zravers idea about beaching the LHA/LHD when supplies get low, and cannibalizing the hulk; makes sense. Does the LHA/LHD have any lifeboats or other small vessels onboard (LCAC/LCM/LCU's?) that could still be used AFTER the ship is beached?

Not when supplies get low... right the F away in a location where the resources exist to be built up.

That hull is the single biggest chunk of high grade steel (by millions of times) that is still workable any where on Planet Earth. The steel in the militry vehicles is either too small or too thick to be readily worked.

Now bronze and brass are common.... its two years in and a cobbled together M1A1BC (brass cannon) sits atop a hill- the thermal system is long dead, but the primary sight is still good. The old 120mm has been cut down and the breach replaced with one of brass using a screw system- effectively a breech loading rifled black powder cannon. The coax is gone, as is the loaders m240, but the TC now uses a recreated Hotchkiss 37mm revolving cannon. Its sister and the only other M1 still running sits on another hill. identical excpet the commanders weapon there is a 54 caliber Gatling gun. Between them stretch the regiments of the the kingdom of Belleuawood, mostly Roman deserters, locals, barbarians and liberated slaves. They are led by most of the 50 or so surviving and loyal marine combatants. Behind them just a few miles away was the sea and the city of Lejune.

The number had been higher a few months ago but one of the time traveling marines turned mercenaries started hunting his former fellows. His carefully hoarded ammunition and an M21 sniper rifle had quickly cost the unit its best field commanders and lead to a string of defeats as the Roman's began to adapt. Killing him had been hard.

Killing what he and others revealed was proving impossible. The Romans now had modern firearms salvaged from the dead, and modern ammunition- not much but used selectively by either specially trained Romans or more turn coat marines. Meanwhile the MEU was running out of ammunition and the technology to cut rifle barrels for blackpower rifles had so far eluded them. An early effort to move all firearms to a firepower support role and retrain riflemen in the arts of ancient war had failed miserably. The early attempts had been to create spear and axmen, and when the officers got shot down the former riflemen had gotten slaughtered. Not in a big battle, but in ambush after ambush. A flurry of shots would ring out, the leaders and fire support teams would go down and Roman's would come boiling up out of the ground wearing gillie suits.

Numbers had been replaced, and marines no longer pretended to be housecarls, but the damage was done. now holding the marines under siege was an army several times larger, it no longer bunched up, it used camouflage, commando raids and had its own fire support teams....