How much damage could you do in ancient times with a modern weapon?

[Lotus49]

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?

 

[cybrxkhan]

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!

 

[fishjie]

^ 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.

 

[Brighteye]

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?

 

[Verbose]

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.")

 

[Tee Kay]

Never underestimate the power of sheer weight of numbers.

 

[philippe]

what if...
i nuked the romans?

 

[cybrxkhan]

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.

 

[Traitorfish]

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?

 

[bob bobato]

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

 

[TrailblazingScot]

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.

 

[Tee Kay]

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?

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

 

[Lotus49]

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:

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?

 

[Lotus49]

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.

 

[cybrxkhan]

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".

 

[TrailblazingScot]

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.

 

[Lotus49]

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).

 

[aluka]

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

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

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.

 

[cybrxkhan]

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.