Roman Army vs. Medieval Army

[Verbose]

Remember Hannibal? He slaughtered the Romans, in several battles and still, he lost. Because the Romans could field another army as soon as one fell in battle.

The Roman army was composed of professionals, most had decades of military experience.

Not if we are talking pre-Marius republic army (though experience they might have had, granted, considering the amount of warfare Rome engaged in and expected its plebeian citizens to put up with). The Romans butchered at Cannae were citizen-soldiers after all, not professionals. And that was a big reason Rome soon fielded a new army. Had they been full professionals, that would have been it. I mean, Hannibal's army was the professional one when compare to the Romans of the day.

A Medieval Army, had a small section of elite knights, who trained from youth to be a warrior (not bad), but, the majority of a Medieval Army was composed of peasant soldiers. Most of whom had no combat experience, armor or a decent weapon.

Well, that does depend entirely. There certainly were professional mercenary troops in western Europe beginning in the 12th c. Otoh the iconic kind of feudal heavy cavlary we have come to expect only really spread with feudalism, which did depend largely on the French kingdom extending its reach from the heartland of feudalism in northern France, England and the German Rhineland.

In fact 12th c. Italy seems to have led the way in the professionalisation of warfare. A lot of the mercenary bands on the HYW would in fact seem to have had parallels prior in Italy, in the struggle, often military, between the Papacy and the Hohenstaufen emperors, which of course ended with the Papacy calling in the French Angevin empire to give the Hohenstaufens the chop, incidentaly also leading to an extension of French-style feudalism to southern Italy.

Northern Italy with its city-states were a different order entirely. I doubt the local great powers like Venice kept itself woth sub-par forces in general, though in their case power was mostly maritime. Otoh the land-based great power was Milan, and Milan was capable of fielding a citizen-soldiery of something like 30.000 men. It even became a Medieval saying, "The were as numerous as the host of Milan", i.e. they came in numbers beyond measure. And incidentally the citizen-soldiery of Milan did smash various Imperial knightly armies time after another. Considering the warlike stance of Milan as the leader of the "Lombard League", these men also had a lot of combat experience.

 

[Elta]

Milan, Crossbows - The great equalizer.

 

[RalofTyr]

There are some exceptions, but we have to average out the two armies. For it's possible to pick a time when the Roman army was weak and a Medieval Army was strong and slant the results.


Actually, in truth, any Medieval Army after 1350 would totally defeat the Romans. All it would take is a plague victim to cough on the Romans, and they would drop like flies. The Medieval Army, having already lost all those with weak immune systems to the plague, wouldn't loose as many and therefore win.

 

[Yeekim]

A Medieval Army, had a small section of elite knights, who trained from youth to be a warrior (not bad), but, the majority of a Medieval Army was composed of peasant soldiers. Most of whom had no combat experience, armor or a decent weapon.

Not only that, but the medieval army would often be little more than a dirty patchwork: lord, his vassals and their retinues. Firstly, there would likely be rivalries, if not outright hatred between these vassals. And secondly, even those soldiers who were "professionals" - i.e. possessed good equipment and individual fighting skills, would've hardly had a chance to train together on a larger scale than their own "company". Cohesion of such medieval army could be close to zero - as opposed to professional, post-Marius Roman legion, composed of men who literally had years upon years of experience and training to act together as one single unit.

Feudalism was ill suited to support large professional armies...

 

[Dachs]

There are some exceptions, but we have to average out the two armies. For it's possible to pick a time when the Roman army was weak and a Medieval Army was strong and slant the results.

Technological comparison pl0x?

Actually, in truth, any Medieval Army after 1350 would totally defeat the Romans. All it would take is a plague victim to cough on the Romans, and they would drop like flies. The Medieval Army, having already lost all those with weak immune systems to the plague, wouldn't loose as many and therefore win.

There are plenty of times the Romans had terribad plagues, too. The Aurelian plague and the plague of Iustinianus were both devastating events.

 

[RalofTyr]

Not only that, but the medieval army would often be little more than a dirty patchwork: lord, his vassals and their retinues. Firstly, there would likely be rivalries, if not outright hatred between these vassals. And secondly, even those soldiers who were "professionals" - i.e. possessed good equipment and individual fighting skills, would've hardly had a chance to train together on a larger scale than their own "company". Cohesion of such medieval army could be close to zero - as opposed to professional, post-Marius Roman legion, composed of men who literally had years upon years of experience and training to act together as one single unit.

Romans also had such rivalries, but they were less likely to indulge them. It really depends on the leadership. Can a leader keep those rivalries in check?

Feudalism was ill suited to support large professional armies...

True, but look at Japan.

There are plenty of times the Romans had terribad plagues, too. The Aurelian plague and the plague of Iustinianus were both devastating events.

Yes, but never the Plague of the 1340's. A plague that they had no defense to that whipped out half the population. The Romans, being a thousand years behind in the human immune system, wouldn't have stood a chance. Probably, the common medieval cold could have done just as bad.

 

[Sharwood]

There's evidence that Bubonic Plague reached Europe before the Middle Ages - I happen to disagree iwth such evidence, but it's there - and the primary reason so many Europeans died of it was their shocking lack of sanitation, hygiene, etc. No respectable Roman would live in such a manner.

 

[Yeekim]

There's evidence that Bubonic Plague reached Europe before the Middle Ages - I happen to disagree iwth such evidence, but it's there - and the primary reason so many Europeans died of it was their shocking lack of sanitation, hygiene, etc. No respectable Roman would live in such a manner.

The Plague of Iustinianus was most likely bubonic plague.
Also, if you do not know the mechanism how plague spreads, as neither party did, good sanitation per se will not save you. Pneumonic form may spread through inhalation of droplets, no matter how clean and flea-free you are...

EDIT: Apparently, the Black Death itself may not have been bubonic....

Spoiler :

Many modern researchers have argued that the disease was more likely to have been viral (that is, not bubonic plague), pointing to the absence of rats from some parts of Europe that were badly affected and to the conviction of people at the time that the disease was spread by direct human contact. According to the accounts of the time the black death was extremely virulent, unlike the 19th and early 20th century bubonic plague. Samuel K. Cohn has made a comprehensive attempt to rebut the bubonic plague theory.[18] In the Encyclopedia of Population, he points to five major weaknesses in this theory:

* very different transmission speeds — the Black Death was reported to have spread 385 km in 91 days in 664, compared to 12-15 km a year for the modern Bubonic Plague, with the assistance of trains and cars
* difficulties with the attempt to explain the rapid spread of the Black Death by arguing that it was spread by the rare pneumonic form of the disease — in fact this form killed less than 0.3% of the infected population in its worst outbreak (Manchuria in 1911)
* different seasonality — the modern plague can only be sustained at temperatures between 50 and 78 °F (10 and 26 °C) and requires high humidity, while the Black Death occurred even in Norway in the middle of the winter and in the Mediterranean in the middle of hot dry summers
* very different death rates — in several places (including Florence in 1348) over 75% of the population appears to have died; in contrast the highest mortality for the modern Bubonic Plague was 3% in Mumbai in 1903
* the cycles and trends of infection were very different between the diseases — humans did not develop resistance to the modern disease, but resistance to the Black Death rose sharply, so that eventually it became mainly a childhood disease

We most likely will never know.

 

[Sharwood]

The Plague of Iustinianus was most likely bubonic plague.
Also, if you do not know the mechanism how plague spreads, as neither party did, good sanitation per se will not save you. Pneumonic form may spread through inhalation of droplets, no matter how clean and flea-free you are...

EDIT: Apparently, the Black Death itself may not have been bubonic....

We most likely will never know.

Actually, your edit is what I was referring to. The Black Death shared symptoms of Bubonic plague, but it spread completely differently. It was likely related.

Sanitation and hygiene certainly help in combatting disease, even if you don't know what causes it. It wouldn't stop the disease from spreading, by any means, but it would certainly slow it down and lessen kill-rates.

 

[Aegis]

Remember Hannibal? He slaughtered the Romans, in several battles and still, he lost. Because the Romans could field another army as soon as one fell in battle.

Doesn't Hannibal's downfall have more to do with the fact that he was unable to lay siege to Rome and there were uprisings at home, forcing him to turn his attention elsewhere?

 

[Elta]

Doesn't Hannibal's downfall have more to do with the fact that he was unable to lay siege to Rome and there were uprisings at home, forcing him to turn his attention elsewhere?

More than anything it was the fact that he had zero support from Carthrage. It was basically a man on a expedition with people he got to come along. (mostly by paying them, he was from a well to do family)

 

[Dachs]

Doesn't Hannibal's downfall have more to do with the fact that he was unable to lay siege to Rome and there were uprisings at home, forcing him to turn his attention elsewhere?

It had to do with his inability to coax Rome's socii to desert her en masse as he had assumed he could and his inability to gain any other meaningful allies to support him in Italy. Lack of support from home was part of it but I dunno how they could have reasonably done much more than they actually did, given the political problems Hannibal's family had.

 

[Hawkwood]

I haven't read the entire thread, but have anyone brought up the advances in metallurgy that happened during the middle ages? Because medieval army is from the late middle ages (such as the French or Burgundian Ordonnance companies), then it's going to have massively better steel.

EDIT: I've read the entire thread now, so I only have a few questions: Why on earth was Khaghan's posts ignored?

Spoiler :

The quality of forging used in the Middle Ages had dramatically increased over that of Antiquity. Methods of weapon and armor making also improved. Roman segmented plate was weak compared to the thirdteenth century plate armours, much less the full body plate of the 15th century. Forging technique in Europe during the high middle ages are vastly ahead. Not only were the materials of higher quality, techniques improved. Even without taking the findings of archaeometallurgy into account, the gladius had a shorter blade and lesser reach, and was obviously going to deliver a lighter blow than the weighty Saxon broadsword or the knight’s two-edged slashing sword, as modern tests have confirmed. No Roman armament at the time could stand up against the missile weapons of the medieveal period. In terms of penetrative power, the 700-800 grain arrow could pierce 3½ inches of oak at 100 yards, and 1 inch at 200 yards. The light steel bodkin had an average Vickers Hardness Number of 350 (a function of the test force divided by the surface area of the indent) and could punch straight through a Roman wrought iron Corbridge A or B lorica or Newstead lorica body armour of classical antiquity, both of which rated only about 100, and left the legs and arms unprotected. Consider that the top Hundred Years’ War armour plating had a Vickers Hardness Number of 140, and was itself usually defeated by a bodkin head striking at normal incidence at a range of 100 yards. This is not taking into account the even deadlier power of the steel arbalest. On the contrast, the strongest Roman bows were the Syrian composite bow which merely has a effective range of 220 yards and hardness less than 250. Such arrows would not have been able to even puncture the middle classed plate armour of the 14th century, indeed not even the backram jacket over mail armour of the crusades era.
And in terms of the science of siegecraft, the field of ballistics had seen notable advances in the intervening millennium and a half, with the appearance of many new types of siege engines such as counterweight trebuchet that could hurl large stones up to a ton over 1oo yards away compared to the vastly inferior torsion type Roman catapults which could hardly hurl much over 100 pounds of that same distance.

All this is not taking into account the adoptation of stirrup which added to the efficiency of cavalry shock as a coordinated unit which the Roman formation has never faced.

In contrast to popular believe, knights aren't undisciplined formationless hordes that charge without coordination or as a unit. On the contrast, knights know very well that keeping a formation during a charge is very important, of course, the chivalric attitude of feudalism still persist and certain knights would charge without order for glory, but thats rarely ever the case. Even though Roman discipline was more strict, the amount that the knight possess is already enough when coupled with vastly superior equippment and personnel training.

And to prove that armour did evolve during the middle ages (and that the longbow isn't such a big wonder weapon as it's made out to be), compare the famous Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415) with Verneuil (1424) and Patay (1429)

 

[Flying Pig]

Roman officers in a medieval army - there's a thought. That would beat either, since the Romans had advanced methods of waging war and in medieval times the soldiers were better. Medieval cavalry was also vastly superior to the Roman equivalents.