First let's talk about a machinegun. Maybe it would be best to keep it light, and portable - the M249 SAW for example. You'd come equipped w/ several spare barrels (they're pretty small), a cleaning kit, lots of lubricant (CLP), and a whole H3LL of a lot of ammo (say, a truckload). Use a crew of donkeys to pull it all on a cart... whatever.

Plus, add some good modern body armor - naturally. OK, so what military / audacious / otherwise impossible feats could you accomplish? I mean, maybe add a good full-coverage helmet & mask (watch out for slings & rocks), plus some kind of armored umbrella (arrows), you could just about take out the whole Persian army, right? You could just about rout Alexander, single-handedly.

Or, let's get a bit heavier here, and take a modern MBT (main battle tank) back a few thousand years (along w/ complimentary refuel & ammo truck which never goes empty of course). What then? You could just stroll in and take out Babylon - just blast down the wall with some HE rounds and then move into the palace, or cruise over to ancient Egypt and totally take out the whole empire. You'd be unstoppable!

I dunno... I was thinking of starting a scenario in Civ where I start with ONE modern armor in 4000 BC, and see how much damage I could do... but yeah, IRL (or any good mod) spearmen don't take out tanks... so no puns there, please.

Anyway... the possibilities are endless. If we ever get a time machine up and running, what would you do? You could stop the barbarian invasion of Rome! What would happen then?

no, unless everybody back then was really stupid, they weren't too stupid. if you were just one guy, eventually, you'll get run over by a whole mass of them, or, a relatively intelligent general would figure out a way to beat the crap outta you.

never underestimate those with less technology!

:)

^ agreed. you have to sleep sometime. and you are not immune to poison. or assassins posing as hot women. or spies infiltrating your army sent to assassinate you.

the way i see it, you have to play upon peoples gullibility and play yourself off as a god. use a lighter to produce flame, and they'll all be bowing down. challenge their greatest warriors to combat unarmed (they dont know a machine gun is a weapon), and kill them with ease. etc....

once you have people worshipping you, then no one will dare try to kill you.

and why not make it interesting? take away the body armor. now its a lot harder to succeed. any stray arrow can take you out.

With a modern rifle I could win any battle that has happened in history, given enough ammunition.
Body armour etc. is less important. It doesn't even need to be a machine gun: a semi-automatic would be better, given that ammunition would be a problem.

2,000 rounds would be plenty. Arrows have a much shorter range than a rifle: if I saw some archers coming, I'd mow them down.
Given how much I know I'd accelerate the progress of technology at whatever time I arrived. I'd want people to speak my language, however, so 1066 is probably a bit early, although that'd be the best one.
How much do 2,000 rounds weigh?

Given how much I know I'd accelerate the progress of technology at whatever time I arrived.
Frankly I doubt it.:)

But then again I have no idea of what you know, or how much though you've out into this.

Probably best not to answer this, and go off topic.

(Sets off, contemplating strting a thread about "Useful skills of your present day person for making a living in the Roman era.")

Never underestimate the power of sheer weight of numbers.

what if...
i nuked the romans?

and remember, the leaders/generals in question facing you are an important factor. as long as they're intelligent enough, at the worst, they'll just interpret your amazing weapon as a gift from some random god, and they'll find a counter for it.

one machine gunner against Genghis Khan of the Mongols probably isn't so fun.

Never underestimate the power of sheer weight of numbers.
Wasn't that roughly the logic behind the Battle of the Somme? Where millions of Allied troops armed with contemporary weaponry were annihilated by German gunners? How well do you think a phalanx would do in those circumstances, exactly? :rolleyes:

Yes, but we're talking about one gunner, not an army of them.

With a modern rifle I could win any battle that has happened in history, given enough ammunition.
Body armour etc. is less important. It doesn't even need to be a machine gun: a semi-automatic would be better, given that ammunition would be a problem.

2,000 rounds would be plenty. Arrows have a much shorter range than a rifle: if I saw some archers coming, I'd mow them down.
Given how much I know I'd accelerate the progress of technology at whatever time I arrived. I'd want people to speak my language, however, so 1066 is probably a bit early, although that'd be the best one.
How much do 2,000 rounds weigh?

I would love to put you to the test.

Wasn't that roughly the logic behind the Battle of the Somme? Where millions of Allied troops armed with contemporary weaponry were annihilated by German gunners? How well do you think a phalanx would do in those circumstances, exactly? :rolleyes:

That was two armies of roughly equal size. We're talking a guy and 50,000 troops with arrows and spears.

How much do 2,000 rounds weigh?

The gun weighs only 6.88 kg (15.16 lb) empty / 10.02 kg (22.08 lb) loaded. You're going to have belts of 5.56mm ball ammunition. Each belt contains 200 rounds, which are connected via lightweight mechanical links which separate/disintegrate upon each round being fired, and are ejected along with the shell casings. The belt is neatly contained in a magazine canister which slots in underneath the weapon, and the process of changing magazines and getting a new belt fed into the firing chamber is a really quick process. Also in my experience, the M249 is extremely reliable, I don't recall ever seeing one jam. You can fire the entire belt on full auto, nonstop - and then another one, etc.... and the gun never misses a beat (and it's pretty cool to see at night, btw). I didn't realize it originated in Belgium until I started looking it up for this thread... but that figures, since it would seem the Belgians have had a penchant / talent for quality arms manufacturing for a long time.

Anyway, so you're going to have a bunch of magazines which look like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/200111418531M249withM15A2BFA.jpg/250px-200111418531M249withM15A2BFA.jpg
Each -again- containing a 200-rd belt. The weight is about 6 lbs (roughly 1/2 that for kg conversion) per unit.

So, 2k rounds would be about 60 lbs (again ~1/2 that for kg). So, it's no big deal. And again I emphasize there's really no need for an assistant gunner. You can easily slot a new magazine into place, flip up the chamber's lid and feed in a new belt, slap the lid back down, pull the lever to bring the first round into firing position - all in a few seconds, and you're back in business.

Every now and then you're going to need to change barrels (probably by then you'e taken out most of the ancient opponent's army), which is an incredibly fast process. You basically just twist the barrel a bit by grasping that handle you see there sticking out from the side, and pull it off. Then you put the cool barrel on there, twist it into position, it'll click into place, and that's it.

I dunno... I think if you just go prone, they'll never really see you well enough to hit you from a distance with arrows or *cough* sling'd rocks, and you can just WAX anybody that gets close enough. The maximum effective range for an 'area target' (i.e. a formation of ancient enemy troops) is ~1 kilometer. Maybe take a couple hundred meters off that, for an individual target (such as a man on horse). But you're going to be spraying so much lead, you're absolutely bound to hit something.

And frankly, it only gets easier, they closer they get to you. So, by all means - 'charge my position'. Nobody's gonna get close enough to hit me w/ an axe, or something like that. Plus, this isn't the Battle of the Somme, with thousands upon tens thousands of Brits going over the top. Back in ancient times, the numbers of men in a given engagement/battle were much smaller, so it's not like you'd be so easily overwhelmed. A just a few belts would probably do the trick. Plus they were slow and clumsy, and unimaginitive in their attacks - and certainly not trained to deal with a machinegunner.

What are they gonna do? Catapult Greek Fire at me? Can they do that outside of 1 kilometer? ;)

That was two armies of roughly equal size. We're talking a guy and 50,000 troops with arrows and spears.

50,000 troops? In ancient times? How did I get myself into that position? What did I do, send a letter to Xerxes saying, "meet me on the plain at high noon on the 18th of next month, with all your best legions!" ?

C'mon now... just because I'm taking on an ancient empire single-handedly, doesn't mean I'm going about it via the most stubborn approach available. ;)

What are they gonna do? Catapult Greek Fire at me? Can they do that outside of 1 kilometer?

No, what they're going to do is they're going to rethink, strategize, and overcome ya. You can't shoot in four directions, i "think".

400 horsemen charging at you in groups from all directions ideally from cover, they'll cover the ground swiftly and whilst taking losses, mob you and put your head on a spike.

400 horsemen charging at you in groups from all directions ideally from cover, they'll cover the ground swiftly and whilst taking losses, mob you and put your head on a spike.

The lead horsemen will easily be waxed by machinegun fire at close range. The bodies (man & horse) will litter the field. Very quickly after the intial wave of attacks - which will have a high probability of failure, I'll find a nice, large dead horse to use as cover, and build a nest by piling a few human bodies around it as well. The purpose of this is to prevent any riders from being able to maneuver their horses in range to strike a killer blow, plus I'll be able to take cover from their archery, if applicable.

It'd be a real duck & cover situation, with me firing desperately from all angles... but it could be done. Still, though - the idea is to prevent this situation from materializing in the first place.

I'm talking about taking a SMART approach... to taking over the (for example Egyptian) empire. You could literally go straight to the Pharaoh and then call the shots from there (no pun intended).

I'm speaking from experience when I say that eventually the RNG Gods will grow tired of your antics which will promptly result in :spear:

What's the aim here? You can't survive on your own without food or anything, and its not a pleasant life. Use it to intimidate others into giving you power and you will soon have more enemies than you can use. And you have to sleep eventually.

What's the aim here? You can't survive on your own without food or anything, and its not a pleasant life. Use it to intimidate others into giving you power and you will soon have more enemies than you can use. And you have to sleep eventually.

agreed.

and, to add, because ancient people are more, er, for lack of better wording, superstitious, they could even think you're some kind of demon or devil or evil wizard or something, which will make them even more determined t odestroy you.

1 Man Armed with a Machine-Gun vs. (Oh, lets say) 10,000 Carthaginians led by the Father of Strategists himself, Hannibal.

You can fight, but really, you wont last long, even if it wasn't by a great general like him. You have to sleep sometime. They sleep in shifts, always have fresh men available. A Machine Gun, unlike a bow and arrow, is one loud S-O-B... You can have the element of surprise to start with but once that gun goes off every soldier in a 5 mile radius will be able to find you.

Very simple. Enter some ancient town, have the populace all come and see, shoot their leaders and declare "I am the lord your god and you shall have no other gods before me". That's enough to get you a lifetime of luxury.

Position a machinegun in a defensive position on an ancient battlefield and you obviously have a battlewinning superweapon.

To get to that position you're still going to need a bit of an army around you.

There also has to be a point to fight you. Somehow you have to become part and parcel of that society. So, one would need to find the likeliest warlord around to offer one's services.

The ability to massacre people has to serve some point. To really reap the benefits of it, it has to be inserted in a big and complex society — say Rome. Otherwise one might perhaps set oneself up rulling a village therough fear. But that's not very grand in most epochs of history. Besides, taking a machinegun to peasants won't leave many alive, which defeats the point of having people work for you. And the first time you go to sleep, they're likely to stove your head in. Or burn the cottage you've barricaded yourself in. To make that machinegun work for you, there would have to be at least a small group.

It would actually be necessary to insert yourself and the gun in a society and its politics. If it's somewhere as complex as Rome, you would still need a "Patronus". Without one, if you let your guard down, with a weapon like that, you'll end up with a dagger between your ribs at first opportunity. Come to think of it, even with a Potronus you're going to need him to set up a protective perimeter to keep his political rivals from rubbing you out.

If it was all as simple as plopping the man and the gun down on a battlefield there would be no problem, but in order to actually enjoy some benefits from that position, you have to actually interact with people, and then things quickly get very complex.

Very simple. Enter some ancient town, have the populace all come and see, shoot their leaders and declare "I am the lord your god and you shall have no other gods before me". That's enough to get you a lifetime of luxury.
Which they would think daft, sine you're clearly a man, even if you've got an amazing weapon.

Or maybe it would work on the Romans. Never on the Greeks though.;)

400 horsemen charging at you in groups from all directions ideally from cover, they'll cover the ground swiftly and whilst taking losses, mob you and put your head on a spike.

You know, a civ unit doesn't consist of a single person... For this to be a real-life tank vs. spear, you would need more than one person in both sides. And if you have something like 30 people with machine guns under your command, the enemies stand no chance!! Heck, even 4 people is enough, just to have turns for staying awake.

That being said, I do believe that if the adversaries had a whole army and enough time for planning, in the end you would definitely be defeated. Don't underestimate human intelligence, though they did not have technology, they had plenty of intelligent minds. But I also think that with such an unfair advantage you could win enough battles to ensure your victory.

For some times and places, the premise of this thread works sort of OK. One man, machinegun or no, is too little though.

Make it a group and it might not even take a machinegun. I figure the Norman d'Hautevilles set themselves up as rulers of the kingdom of Sicily in the late 11th c. by bigger horses, better armour, better tactics, and being utterly ruthless in exploiting these advantages, making them the single strongest group around, able to beat Arabs, Langobards and Byzantines alike into submission. A machinegun is just an exotic step-up from that kind of situation.

again, you have to sleep sometime. and you are not immune to poison. etc.

another thing, i thought of, you are not immune to simple traps either. the generals would wise up and refuse to fight you in large open terrain where you could mow their troops down. they would only fight in terrain such as forests or mountains, where they could set up various traps.

you are not immune to nets, pits, ropes, etc....

That was two armies of roughly equal size. We're talking a guy and 50,000 troops with arrows and spears.
No it wasn't- the number of German machine guns was a fraction of the number of attacking British troops. And those were relatively thinly spread troops moving out of a heavily defended line across short distance of broken ground and armed with rifles, grenades, etc, not an ancient army marching towards you across flat ground in a line.
I mean, it's quite possible that, if they managed to keep up the attack for long enough, they would overwhelm you, but you have to wonder how many of those 50,000 troops were left.

of course, then agiain, if you're fighting some crazy enraged super-homeland defenders like the Vietnamese (:p), you probably don't stand a chance.

:p

The Germans benefited from both tactics refined over the course of the war, and at least some semblance of a supply line.

I would try to kill as many people as possible before they find about me. So not much damage. One guy can't kill thousands of people.

The Germans benefited from both tactics refined over the course of the war, and at least some semblance of a supply line.
Granted, but it doesn't take any of that for a single machine gun to take out several hundred, if not thousand troops, particularly if they do him a favour by lining up in nice little blocks and marching forward quite slowly.
Don't get me wrong, a single machine gunner taking on any army single handedly would be overwhelmed sooner or later- assuming the enemy moral held- but he'd take a hell of a toll on his opponents first. Anyone taking on the machine gunner would have a large chunk of their army obliterated for no material gain, the military equivalent of slicing your hand off to get rid of a hangnail. "Pyrrhic victory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory)", y'know?

of course, facing the greatest generals of history, such as Caesar, half the people from the Three Kingdoms, and Genghis Khan, they're not stupid enough to march in slowly once they know your "godly" powers.

then again, if you're facing a really pathetic general, yeah, you could win pretty easy, but we can't assume all generals who aren't known in history as "the greatest generals in history" are all pathetic.

oh yeah, another factor:

how good you are with the gun. ;)

Of course, machine guns aren't that easy to use.

Also, bear in mind the high probability that most of the enemy troops will panic once they see what is happening and run off.

Come to think of, there's already a movie based around this concept, G.I.Samurai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Samurai). It's about a unit of the Japanese SDF who get transported back to the Sengoku Jidai period who get trapped in the 1500s (for some reason) and fight Takeda Shingen. They get their asses kicked...

Another factor is how good the soldiers are.

^Alexander the Great said:

"I fear an army of sheep led by a lion more than an army of lions led by a sheep."

;)

Lets think a little bigger

Lets think that a GREEK platoon of 40 tanks that get transported just right outside Constantinople in 1453.....

They would stand in a distance and begin shelling the Turks, panic would begin as division after division of Janissaries and Sipahis die and catch on fire. The soldiers would begin to rout and run away and a massive and uncoorodinated evacuation would proceed and people would get crushed fighting to get the hell out of there. Then the Greek and Latin defenders stare in total confused joy.

OR

Imagine if 20 modern English Jet planes equipped with bombs, missles and Napalm find themselves in the Hundreds Years War...

Lets think a little bigger

Lets think that a GREEK platoon of 40 tanks that get transported just right outside Constantinople in 1453.....

They would stand in a distance and begin shelling the Turks, panic would begin as division after division of Janissaries and Sipahis die and catch on fire. The soldiers would begin to rout and run away and a massive and uncoorodinated evacuation would proceed and people would get crushed fighting to get the hell out of there. Then the Greek and Latin defenders stare in total confused joy.

OR

Imagine if 20 modern English Jet planes equipped with bombs, missles and Napalm find themselves in the Hundreds Years War...

Well, you would have to assume that the jet pilots were English and not Scottish, or Northern Irish, because if some were, those might just turn back and unleash their loads on London and English military forces.

Lets think that a GREEK platoon of 40 tanks that get transported just right outside Constantinople in 1453.....

They would stand in a distance and begin shelling the Turks, panic would begin as division after division of Janissaries and Sipahis die and catch on fire. The soldiers would begin to rout and run away and a massive and uncoorodinated evacuation would proceed and people would get crushed fighting to get the hell out of there. Then the Greek and Latin defenders stare in total confused joy.

afterwards, Emperor Constantine XI declares the future Greeks angels, and, using them, beat the crap out of Mehmet II, destroys the Ottomans, reclaims the Roman Empire, and the "Eastern Romans" fight with the Persians, Mughals, and Ming Dynasty for control of the entire world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay, well, the original topic was only if one guy went back. if one tank went back to the Seige of Constantinople... ack, depends on the skill of the driver and how brave those janissaries are and how smart Mehmet really was.

afterwards, Emperor Constantine XI declares the future Greeks angels, and, using them, beat the crap out of Mehmet II, destroys the Ottomans, reclaims the Roman Empire, and the "Eastern Romans" fight with the Persians, Mughals, and Ming Dynasty for control of the entire world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay, well, the original topic was only if one guy went back. if one tank went back to the Seige of Constantinople... ack, depends on the skill of the driver and how brave those janissaries are and how smart Mehmet really was.

Well first of all you need about 4-5 guys to man a tank. And it somebody has access to a tank, they will probaly know how to use it. Now if one tank was there, it would probaly cost enough damage to make Memhet lose.

We have a tank fully equip with shells and bombs and whatever. What do the turks have? Really Primitive Cannons, swords, axes, arrows and Horses.

Arrows would dent hitting the metal, the soldiers would be too afraid to attack it. Even if they did, how much can a sword do damage to a tank before they get ran over by it? Heck, just driving a tank or an armoured truck through the army is enough to cause the entire army to run away in fear of the "metal monster that deflects everything." The only think strong enough to cost any damage are the cannons and that is if the tank stays stationary long enough for the cannon to blow it up. So one tank in 1453 for 12hrs means thousands of dead turks.

Eventually, it runs out of gas and the Turks come back.

It would ruin causality, tanks would never be invented, so they could never have been sent back and so nothing would have changed because time travel is impossible :D

The best modern weapon would be a biological agent. Ideally one that spreads between people for a long period of time before striking and killing its victims. If chosen well, the death toll could be massive and continuous taking out much human life and stopping the destruction of the environment :D

Let's assume that 106 soldiers and 62 horsemen, we can call them Spaniards, got transported to Peru in 1532, they would totally destroyed an 80,000 people civilization.

Wait a minute... I think that already happened.:rolleyes:

Is that a civilization or a small town?

I'd pretend to be a God, wipe out their next door neighbor and live a life of debauchery.

Hot women and the occasional ass kicking over the border, where do I sign?

You realize that you can be surrounded, and if you're in a defensable position, they'll just leave you, and whenever you have to leave you're little place, they'll get ya! Of course modern weapons pwn ancient armies, the point is, they didnt have those weapons back then, and we can't go back in time! Nukes, however, may be different, assuming you can launch them.

Depends which weapon we have in mind. But pretty generally there would be a lot of dead ancients.

Come to think of, there's already a movie based around this concept, G.I.Samurai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Samurai). It's about a unit of the Japanese SDF who get transported back to the Sengoku Jidai period who get trapped in the 1500s (for some reason) and fight Takeda Shingen. They get their asses kicked...

Technically, the terminator series is like that... lone warrior sent back into time, with an advantage over those already there....

Any way, Imagine you were sent back to the early egyptian empire, with nothing... what would you be able to invent that would help the poeple out and have you praised as a god? keep in mind that this has to be stuff you can invent. (so no cars, unless you happen to know how to build one, as well as refine the materials and resources...)

I'de try to convince them I was a God, and pull the whole Goa'uld thing:)

If you are really into this thing:

Assuming you can bring all the present day necessary weapons to the past (nukes, biological weapons, tanks, aircrafts, computers, and other stuffs), you can as well become a god. Obviously you dont confront people at first and you send out biological weapons to the masses. Maybe wait a month, you then disguise yourself as a saint and can "cure" the people with the infected diseases and people will support you. Then you spread more diseases out for many times and each time you spread rumors that this is a sign of bad leadership. You cure the people again and again of different diseases and then claim to be the divine ruler appointed by the god. The people would mostly support you, but eventually the real ruler and his army will hunt you down. You run away and hide while spread more diseases and rumors. Wait like a year (hey you can speed up the time machine eh?) and come back and claim the throne. Drop a nuke in a distance place to stir up superstitions. You should be able to recruit/bribe people easily. You should have an army now and you again spread diseases to the enemy army only, while providing vaccines to your own. Be lenient and allow enemy defections and heal them and you should win and control the people's hearts in no time (speed up the time machine if not fast enough.)

For people who claim that you cant fight against good generals, well, assasinate them first yourself. And to ward off against assasinations, install secret cameras every place in your residence/or have loyal bodyguards. To fight against poison, simply be cautious yourself (you can pretty much avoid poison from ingestion, gas mask at emergency, etc).

Yes, you can change the past and live like a god if you try (for this hypothetical scenario).

You'd have close to zero military impact, but if you were clever you could have massive political impact, just as the Spanish did in Peru. But all of that would depend on being able to attach yourself to an existing power. You couldn't do anything alone.

Again, never underestimate our ancestors. They built our world, after all. :)

if you want another fictionalized version of it try the Island in the Sea of Time series. not judging it's merit here, just throwing another name into the hat.

Can you say nukealer? (How Bush says it)

In all seriousness, I would use sniper rifles, fighter jets, and artillery.

I mean, 'thunder of the gods', 'chariots of the gods', and 'the divine arrow' could be ancient names for them. ;)

Until you run out of jet fuel.

well even if you d have a machine gun in an open field they could always usew a barrage of catapults

Until you run out of jet fuel.
Maybe a giant, solar-powered rail-gun? I'm guessing by the time we invent time travel, one of those should be easy. ;)

If you are really into this thing:

Assuming you can bring all the present day necessary weapons to the past (nukes, biological weapons, tanks, aircrafts, computers, and other stuffs), you can as well become a god. Obviously you dont confront people at first and you send out biological weapons to the masses. Maybe wait a month, you then disguise yourself as a saint and can "cure" the people with the infected diseases and people will support you. Then you spread more diseases out for many times and each time you spread rumors that this is a sign of bad leadership. You cure the people again and again of different diseases and then claim to be the divine ruler appointed by the god. The people would mostly support you, but eventually the real ruler and his army will hunt you down. You run away and hide while spread more diseases and rumors. Wait like a year (hey you can speed up the time machine eh?) and come back and claim the throne. Drop a nuke in a distance place to stir up superstitions. You should be able to recruit/bribe people easily. You should have an army now and you again spread diseases to the enemy army only, while providing vaccines to your own. Be lenient and allow enemy defections and heal them and you should win and control the people's hearts in no time (speed up the time machine if not fast enough.)

For people who claim that you cant fight against good generals, well, assasinate them first yourself. And to ward off against assasinations, install secret cameras every place in your residence/or have loyal bodyguards. To fight against poison, simply be cautious yourself (you can pretty much avoid poison from ingestion, gas mask at emergency, etc).

Yes, you can change the past and live like a god if you try (for this hypothetical scenario).
But really interesting stuff would occur when you, as presumed godhead, came up against the social expectations on you from your subjects.

Either you fight these, which is akin to turning a supertanker, only worse, since it's an entire society you're up against and the inertia is tremendous. Or you accept the way of least resistance and then it is you who end up behaving as they expect you should. Everyone involved will be changed by the experience of course, but you the modern individual is a gonner, even if you rely on modern technology.

The whole "Go back in time and be recognised as a god due to scientific/technological superiority" is actually the exact same pipe-dream as the 19th c. "Negro-king" fantasy, i.e. find some backward savages and set yourself up as king/god.

And this never happened. The "savages" always turned out to be a damn sight to "modern" and clever to fall for stuff like that. And their technology was usually a damn sight lower than that of the Romans, Greeks etc.

Those historical exceptions there — when a westerner WAS recognised as the leader of a native religious movement, considered to be imbued with divine power and all, they either didn't know or didn't quite realise what was going on and kept trying to convert his followers to Christianity. Which was to be expected. In order to be recognised as divine by a society, you have to fulfill their expectations of what that means, not your own.

Someone who was regarded as divine, but didn't know, would seem to have been Captain Cook. If Marshall Sahlins is correct, he paid with his life for not knowing the prescribed annual cycle of comings and goings the godhead he was identified with. Since he didn't keep to the time-table, he was obvioulsy "false", so the Hawaians killed him.

The one who never really got it was the Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vacca, who in the 1540's escaped slavery in the North American southeast, and became the leader of a religious revival among the natives along the northen shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
He tried to convert his followers to Christianity. They listened politely to this weird man at the centre of their new religion, and then made him heal them all the livealong day. In his account of the experience he specifically mentions how fatiguing his duties as a healer was. He was a very good observer, but as modern anthropologists have concluded, while he was capable of describing his situation, he had no clue as to what kind of situation he was the centre of attention of. (Or possibly he simply couldn't admit any of it to his Christian readership back in Spain. But he does come across as utterly clueless.)

Frankly I doubt it.:)

But then again I have no idea of what you know, or how much though you've out into this.

Probably best not to answer this, and go off topic.

(Sets off, contemplating strting a thread about "Useful skills of your present day person for making a living in the Roman era.")
I did say any battle from history, and I meant to clarify that as Napoleonic or before.

I would love to put you to the test.It wouldn't be that hard. 30Kg of ammunition is 2,000 rounds. I wouldn't want a machine gun: just a semi-automatic. And then I'd just wander up to the battle and shoot 2,000 men from the side I wanted to lose. That's enough to sway almost any battle. There may have been some where it wouldn't be enough, but if we add in morale and running away, as well as the opposing side, I think I could change the result of any one battle in history.
Maybe 2,000 rounds is too little and I should have 3,000. That's 45kg, which is still light enough for one man, although getting heavy.

The 'savages' always turned out to be a damn sight too 'modern' and clever to fall for stuff like that.
Just join one side and make it win. Don't set yourselves up as another side.

Some pretty funny ideas being thrown around here which is cool :) though some people seem to be trying to hard to prove a point that can't be proven.


While this isn't a weapon, it would still cause mass carnage.... I'd bring back a MONSTER TRUCK!! Wouldn't even need to mount guns on it, just drive around runnin everyone over.


hahah, ok but seriously I'm suprised not many people have brought up or commented about Brighteye's rifle idea. While the body count wont be as high as an automatic weapon or some kind of explosive. A sniper running around in ancient times picking off key targets without being detected would be far more devestating.

While this isn't a weapon, it would still cause mass carnage.... I'd bring back a MONSTER TRUCK!! Wouldn't even need to mount guns on it, just drive around runnin everyone over.
"I say, Ramatootses, what is that peculiar creature coming towards us?"
"I'm not sure, Tootmopsis, but it looks some sort of giant red hippo on log rollers..."
"A giant red hippo? Are you serious? Really, Ramatootses, you have the most ridiculous imagina-"
SPLAT

Good times. :lol:

(And yes, I live under the delusion that all Egyptian names include "toot" at some point".)

Alright, what about sea power...? Again keeping numbers to a minimum (say, we only have one small modern vessel), how much damage could we do to an ancient empire in a war?

Our humble weapon shall be... the frigate USS Vandegrift (FFG-48)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Uss_vandergif.jpg/740px-Uss_vandergif.jpg

Let's say we're fighting a Mediterranean power, such as Greece, Rome, Carthage or Egypt for example. We could pretty much establish total maritime superiority, and setup an impenetrable blockade! Eventually they would have to yield to our demands (at which point, we send in 'the negotiator', our crack shot w/ the light machinegun) to sue for peace.

I think our objective should be... to capture the entire island of Sicily (heck throw in Malta as well) from the Roman Empire at it's peak. Man we'd be a thorn in their side, and there's nothing they could do about it... all with just one ship! "Mare Nostrum" they call it. Bah. We could fix that. Put a nice rebel island right in the heart of their sphere of influence. Right at their... foot (so to speak). :mischief:

We'd be unstoppable, don't you think? Their whole fleet could attack, and we'd just waste 'em. We would then control all sea lanes, and therefore the vast, VAST majority of trade.

Yeah I think this would be better than the machinegun alone...

would a light-sabre be considered cheating? -.-

would a light-sabre be considered cheating? -.-

C'mon man, I was being serious. :mischief: