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skasion posted:Did they? Romans totally had artillery and I’m pretty sure it was brought on campaign rather than built at the point of action. Granted they were mostly wood instead of mostly metal, but anything capable of launching a one-talent projectile without breaking itself to twigs has to be pretty drat heavy. Roman artillery could very likely be disassembled and moved in parts, while a cannon is mainly one really heavy part.
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Oct 19, 2019 20:42
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HEY GUNS posted:a similar figure is quoted in Parker, Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road. late 16th/17th century armies were pretty disorganized in many ways. this is not a crack roman legion marching at a pace that someone else enforces over excellent roman roads. If someone did try to enforce such a pace (absent a pressing emergency like the relief of comrades in a battle) they would probably be told to gently caress off, and within certain parameters the people saying that would be within their legal rights to do it Thank you for the source, I was actually thinking of shooting you a message since this was up your alley! I'll concede the point.
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Oct 19, 2019 20:49
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Telsa Cola posted:Thank you for the source, I was actually thinking of shooting you a message since this was up your alley! I'll concede the point. they move real fast some times but i think those are special units, a pressing situation, or a single campaign where everyone's highly motivated
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Oct 19, 2019 20:52
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skasion posted:Did they? Romans totally had artillery and I’m pretty sure it was brought on campaign rather than built at the point of action. Granted they were mostly wood instead of mostly metal, but anything capable of launching a one-talent projectile without breaking itself to twigs has to be pretty drat heavy. Ballistae were probably transported disassembled, but this is one of those things we don't really know. The only one we have any good evidence for is the carroballista, which we have reliefs of being transported fully assembled on carts. Unclear whether this was used mobile or just brought and placed on the ground, I like the mobile interpretation. Carroballistae weren't very big and fired bolts for attacking infantry, the huge ballistae for sieges were almost certainly assembled on site just because of how big they are. But I'd guess they were like the parts for field camps, they'd be initially built at an arms factory then taken apart for transport in the baggage train, not made with scavenged local materials.
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Oct 19, 2019 21:08
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skasion posted:Did they? Romans totally had artillery and I’m pretty sure it was brought on campaign rather than built at the point of action. Granted they were mostly wood instead of mostly metal, but anything capable of launching a one-talent projectile without breaking itself to twigs has to be pretty drat heavy. point. I don't know enough to feel informed on that subject but I wonder if Roman armies really needed the big siege weapons in places like Gaul or Britain where they're going to mostly be up against light palisades. If you're in Greece or you know you're going to siege Jerusalem then you'd want to take along the big guns, but otherwise you might be able to getaway with leaving them behind.
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Oct 19, 2019 21:16
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I actually did 8 miles on Wednesday! 6.5 miles was the actual hike, while the rest was walking in town (it's Mackinac Island so no cars). I was carrying an MRE disassembled in my pockets, a 1-quart canteen, a pocket knife, and a flask full of bourbon. Obviously not a combat load, but also not just running around in shorts and a T-shirt. The route consisted of paved roads, gravel roads, simple trails of gravel and stones, and dirt trails that had just been kept clean of brush. The 6.5 mile hike took about 2 hours, including stops, so without stopping to rest and eat I could have made far faster time. Obviously the paved roads are the best, and walking on a paved asphalt road or cement sidewalk is so much better than a rough trail it's not even comparable. It also lets you pay much less attention to where you're walking, as there's little chance of you running into uneven patches, rocks, or tree roots. But just a simple layer of stones or gravel over a dirt trail mitigates the chance of flooding. What I noticed was that inclines mattered the most, even short ones. Some parts of the trails had inclines of 30 degrees or more, which can exhaust you exponentially faster even when not burdened by anything but a coat; two miles of walking on flat ground was nothing compared to traveling 1 block up a steep hill. Moving through rough but flat terrain is a lot faster than trying to deal with hills and would probably matter more than how paved the surface is, unless you're riding an animal.
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Oct 19, 2019 22:45
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The most interesting thing to me about this conversation is that it shows how much the ability to evaluate the capacities of roads and paths against the size and speed of the column is a critical attribute for a commander. Like if you screw this up you could have dudes marching in the dark and not getting a chance to sleep.
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Oct 19, 2019 23:20
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CommonShore posted:The most interesting thing to me about this conversation is that it shows how much the ability to evaluate the capacities of roads and paths against the size and speed of the column is a critical attribute for a commander. Like if you screw this up you could have dudes marching in the dark and not getting a chance to sleep.
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Oct 19, 2019 23:39
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Yeah, from the fact that most wars are fought where people already live with significant amounts of commerce going back and forth all over the place, usually armies don't need to totally blaze new trails. Although if you can blaze new trails in tactically significant scenarios, then it can be the crazy new trick, but if it doesn't work out, then you've spent a lot of time and labor and maybe lives walking through a swamp or over the mountains or hacking up a jungle or some poo poo. But going back to bronze age people moving mass distances, weren't there a lot of nomadic peoples going around at the time? Would it be that irregular for one to go that far as opposed to just having one or two circular annual routes? How much risk is involved in a group traveling a long distance to a place where they don't really know what local plants are edible?
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Oct 20, 2019 00:03
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 https://twitter.com/shutupmikeginn/status/1175937605382230016?s=21
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Oct 20, 2019 00:04
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ahahahahahahaha this is the new shamrock, paint an icon of some saint holding a bottle and pointing to it
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Oct 20, 2019 00:05
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CommonShore posted:The most interesting thing to me about this conversation is that it shows how much the ability to evaluate the capacities of roads and paths against the size and speed of the column is a critical attribute for a commander. Like if you screw this up you could have dudes marching in the dark and not getting a chance to sleep.
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Oct 20, 2019 00:07
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That was supposed to be in cspam but it works here
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Oct 20, 2019 00:08
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euphronius posted:That was supposed to be in cspam but it works here
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Oct 20, 2019 00:10
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Triune god issues are a big part of Roman history
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Oct 20, 2019 00:14
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CommonShore posted:The most interesting thing to me about this conversation is that it shows how much the ability to evaluate the capacities of roads and paths against the size and speed of the column is a critical attribute for a commander. Like if you screw this up you could have dudes marching in the dark and not getting a chance to sleep. Especially because a map probably won’t show all that. My hike started with a very steep hill to get to the trailhead. That short hill had me exhausted by the time I reached the top, despite later hiking over 2 miles in one go along gentler ground with little care. There was no way to tell which paths were dirt, gravel, or paved apart from trying to guess by line thickness and there was no height map to tell what led up or down. I knew that any route going uphill would tire me out faster and tried to guess the island geography to avoid it. That being said, if you have flat terrain and even simple roads I can easily see a trained, fit soldier making 10 miles a day if I can do 6.5 in only two hours. At least for the Romans, another concern would be having time and daylight at the end of the march to fortify a camp instead of just dropping tents and falling asleep where you stop.
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Oct 20, 2019 00:32
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chitoryu12 posted:That being said, if you have flat terrain and even simple roads I can easily see a trained, fit soldier making 10 miles a day if I can do 6.5 in only two hours. At least for the Romans, another concern would be having time and daylight at the end of the march to fortify a camp instead of just dropping tents and falling asleep where you stop. This is part of why the standard Roman marching pace was five daylight hours. A lot of how Caesar was able to move so fast is he was just gently caress it, we're marching 16 hours today, I don't want to hear complaints.
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Oct 20, 2019 00:35
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I assume his ability to be personally close with his troops was integral to getting them to not tell him to gently caress off with that
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Oct 20, 2019 00:38
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Presumably, yeah. Making soldiers who don't like you very much do an 80 mile march probably wasn't great for a general's long term health.
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Oct 20, 2019 00:39
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chitoryu12 posted:Especially because a map probably won’t show all that. My hike started with a very steep hill to get to the trailhead. That short hill had me exhausted by the time I reached the top, despite later hiking over 2 miles in one go along gentler ground with little care. There was no way to tell which paths were dirt, gravel, or paved apart from trying to guess by line thickness and there was no height map to tell what led up or down. I knew that any route going uphill would tire me out faster and tried to guess the island geography to avoid it. One of the things we got drilled into us when we were taught how to survey was to note the width and type of road/trail running through our survey area because it's helpful in about a million different ways.
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Oct 20, 2019 01:19
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I'm a backpacker, on backcountry trails the general speed is 3mph with it dropping to .5 mph on rough trails like Isle Royale where the trails are not hard but the amount of roots and stones means you have to be careful to not sprain an ankle. 80 miles in a day seems real suspect, even really good backpackers under load cannot do that. Look at the speed records for the Appalachian Trail. Those guys are maniacs and avg around 45-50 miles a day. Doing it once might happen but even in a legion most guys would just plain not be able to do that.
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Oct 20, 2019 01:39
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WoodrowSkillson posted:80 miles in a day seems real suspect, even really good backpackers under load cannot do that. Look at the speed records for the Appalachian Trail. Those guys are maniacs and avg around 45-50 miles a day. Doing it once might happen but even in a legion most guys would just plain not be able to do that. It's specifically one instance, to meet the Helvetii at Lake Geneva. At the standard four mile an hour pace that's 20 hours of marching a day for eight days (no need to build camps since it's almost entirely within Roman territory), then Caesar used diplomacy to tie the Helvetii up for two weeks while the army recovered and the stragglers arrived and regrouped. What I would guess is the army was marching around the clock in sections, and Caesar and the vanguard of the legions arrived at Lake Geneva in the eight days in enough force to start negotiations, while the army finished arriving over the next few days and recovering. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Oct 20, 2019 |
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Oct 20, 2019 01:53
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So, I just got back from a holiday to Iran, and I can recommend it highly. If you have even the slightest interest in ancient history, you owe it to yourself to see Persepolis. And with the current sanctions hitting the local tourist industry hard, now's a perfect time to go if you want to beat the crowds. I was amused to note that none of the signs anywhere in the country referred to Alexander as 'the Great', and more than a few instead referred to him as 'the Destroyer'. Anyway, I've realized my knowledge of the Achaemenids is somewhat lacking, outside of their conflicts with the Greeks. What are the good sources on them and the rest of pre-Islamic Persian history?
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Oct 20, 2019 05:32
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CommonShore posted:The most interesting thing to me about this conversation is that it shows how much the ability to evaluate the capacities of roads and paths against the size and speed of the column is a critical attribute for a commander. Like if you screw this up you could have dudes marching in the dark and not getting a chance to sleep. Alexander the Great:  I don't get it, why NOT march through the Gedrosian Desert on our way back to Susa? It'll save so much time!
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Oct 20, 2019 06:29
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Squalid posted:Alexander the Great: Or he did it intentionally to punish his army for forcing him to turn back in India.
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Oct 20, 2019 12:52
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WoodrowSkillson posted:I'm a backpacker, on backcountry trails the general speed is 3mph with it dropping to .5 mph on rough trails like Isle Royale where the trails are not hard but the amount of roots and stones means you have to be careful to not sprain an ankle. A big difference here is that trail hikers, even going for speed records, are stopping with enough gas in the tank to wake up again tomorrow and repeat. You can push yourself a lot harder if you're able to stop and recuperate in the days after. It sounds like Caesar was taking the calculated risk of pushing fresh troops to the limit and ending up with at least part of his army ineffective. I doubt he could achieve the same thing with an army that had already been on the march in hostile country. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Oct 20, 2019 |
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Oct 20, 2019 14:45
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chitoryu12 posted:Especially because a map probably won’t show all that. My hike started with a very steep hill to get to the trailhead. That short hill had me exhausted by the time I reached the top, despite later hiking over 2 miles in one go along gentler ground with little care. There was no way to tell which paths were dirt, gravel, or paved apart from trying to guess by line thickness and there was no height map to tell what led up or down. I knew that any route going uphill would tire me out faster and tried to guess the island geography to avoid it. Now add a baggage train etc.
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Oct 20, 2019 15:12
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Power Khan posted:Now add a baggage train etc. have you ever taken a road trip with your parents? you know how the simplest, tiny things become a massive ordeal? multiply that by a hundred thousand
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Oct 20, 2019 16:24
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HEY GUNS posted:have you ever taken a road trip with your
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Oct 20, 2019 18:59
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*edit nvm
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Oct 20, 2019 21:03
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HEY GUNS posted:a similar figure is quoted in Parker, Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road. late 16th/17th century armies were pretty disorganized in many ways. this is not a crack roman legion marching at a pace that someone else enforces over excellent roman roads. If someone did try to enforce such a pace (absent a pressing emergency like the relief of comrades in a battle) they would probably be told to gently caress off, and within certain parameters the people saying that would be within their legal rights to do it Armies in the English Civil War move a lot faster, but then they are probably smaller, more familiar with the terrain, and have local supporters who will help them logistically. For example George Monck gets his army from Coldstream to London in one month flat, which google maps gives that as 336 miles using modern roads. And that is usually described as a particularly slow and deliberate advance, because Monck wanted to have plausible deniability if he faced organised opposition.
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Oct 20, 2019 21:17
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Just how expensive is it to keep a chain of forts stocked with supplies, so your army can make breackneck speed across your empire if you need it to?
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Oct 21, 2019 02:42
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Whoever said that feeding your army on the march is the real trick is so right, and that's where the Romans had everybody licked. Frederick the Great is supposed to have said, “an Army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly.” And so the saying goes, 'Amateurs talk about tactics. Professionals talk about logistics.'
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Oct 21, 2019 04:17
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Mr Enderby posted:Armies in the English Civil War move a lot faster, but then they are probably smaller, more familiar with the terrain, and have local supporters who will help them logistically.
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Oct 21, 2019 04:52
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I knew they advanced quickly but christ, I didn't realize it was that fast. Doing that in Korea of all places is incredible. Busan to Seoul doesn't give you any real water routes either, that's all marching.
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Oct 21, 2019 05:21
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Yeah, I don't know why there's such a dramatic difference in speed between the Japanese armies of the Sengoku period and contemporary European and Chinese armies, but they can assemble and march incredibly quickly, with cavalry basically confined to generals and high-ranking retainers. These are pretty much entirely infantry armies.
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Oct 21, 2019 05:50
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Kato Kiyomasa's castle in Korea was down the road from my apartment, I wish more of it survived. It's just the hill that the central keep was on with a few stones preserved in a park. That's the central hill. Not much, but it's reasonably steep and the tallest thing around. The castle itself spread out to the river.  From the top. Decent view of the Taehwa valley.  At least it isn't entirely gone.
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Oct 21, 2019 06:01
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Marching, and probably leaving a lot of guys who dropped dead along the way
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Oct 21, 2019 06:04
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WoodrowSkillson posted:I'm a backpacker, on backcountry trails the general speed is 3mph with it dropping to .5 mph on rough trails like Isle Royale where the trails are not hard but the amount of roots and stones means you have to be careful to not sprain an ankle. I have no idea how reliable accounts of really fast marches under Caesar are, but I notice some obvious issues with the comparison you are making. First if someone can hike the Appalachian trial with an average pace of 50 miles/day, there were presumably many days when they were going much faster. That's just how averages work. Secondly, we should expect someone to be able to maintain a faster pace over just one or a couple days than what they could do consistently day after day for months, just as we should expect someone to be able to run a sprint faster with a faster pace than a marathon. Thirdly, The Appalachian trial by design follows a difficult route over mountains with steep slopes and lots of up and downs. Someone just interested in going as fast as possible would be able to take a comparatively flat and level path and hence would have an easier time. Looking at ultramarathon runners, we have records of men who ran over 100 miles in 12 hours, and 188 miles in 24. Women's records are nearly the same. Now they would have it a lot easier than a soldier hauling all his gear, but its clear 80 miles in a day is not outside the realm of possibility.
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Oct 21, 2019 06:05
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I think a major factor is whether the mud comes up to your knees or only to your ankles.
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Oct 21, 2019 06:14
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