"What gave the Roman Army its edge?" Topic

Aristocratic competition, logistics and demographics.

It was the 4th series of BLACKADDER by the way. Hence 'Blackadder goes Forth' It was a pune, or play on words.

Arrogance, stubbornness, lust for power, pragmatism, and a nifty military system.

Combination of a militristic state combined with a well developed logistics chain and defence industry (although even this couldn't have supported the Hollywood version of "identically equipped legionnaires").

But they had a rigid training manual, they had a supply base that could keep them equipped with everything from hob nail sandals to stone built fortifications. And they built roads as they went along.

And – when you consider what they carried when on campaign, how far they were expected to march in a day with that load, the overnight campas they were required to build and on top of all this still be capable of acting as a fighting unit it has to be said that they must have been as tough as old boot leather.

The aqueducts (clean water), hospitals, paved roads, hobnail boots, catapults, seige engines, baggage trains, training and more training, the gladius, the "tortoise", bloody minded emperors, bloody minded generals, armor, helmets, flexible battle plans, bloody minded centurions, very nice forts, excellent organization, taxation, agricultural know-how, the Mediterranean fleets, wine, lentals, olive oil, bathes, paid soldiers, citizen soldiers, and a weird willingness to kill and die and march for the Senate and People of Rome. What everyone said before.

Ruthlessness.

DM

The Fabricae?

Strikes me mass production of full arms & armour was budget chunk equivalent to aircraft carriers & jet fighters & MBTs today

All good Ancient outfits had decent military systems and were fairly well organised, so that doesn't expalin it. Key factors were:

Early Republic – Numbers. As Pyrrhus, Hannibal et al found out, beat one legion and onther one popped up.

Late Republic/Early Empire – largely amateur tribal opponents. Except for Parthia (who beat them) most of the opposition was untrained, disunited tribal nations.

Later Empire – The enemy was both numerous and competent, and they were Decling? Ah no, it was Climate Change….

link

I saw a documentary about ancient Rome where one of the 'experts' said that Rome's appraoch to dealing with a nation or people causing problems was to hit it with a hammer; if that didn't work they'd go get a bigger hammer. This struck a chord with me.

"single factor"? Was it Simon Cowell then….?

I imagine this gave the Roman army a bit of an edge:
link

Old men always willing to send the young men to their death regardless.

They never knew when they had lost by common standards of the period! At least they didn't accept the fact.

Training, and they kept there noses to the grind stone. At least I assume that's how they kept there swords sharp

Amongst their weaponry were such diverse elements as; fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pontifex Maximus.

Python has the answers to all questions. Nobody expects the Spanish-er- gladius.

In a word Attitude – You ****** with the Romans and the Romans ****** with you!

So, what's my word limit for this?

….eerrrrr……. they wrote the History.

Drill.

Drill, training, logistics (agriculture), and that attitude of, "we will finish this no matter how long it takes", all amounts to PROFESSIONAL, i.e. regular army vs. a world of tribes, kingdoms and states that did not provide for the same military structure of regular professionals. But in the field the Romans could be beat and often were. They seem to have won more than 50% of the time, which was enough to psych out their enemies. But even if a Roman army lost a battle, there would always be more Roman armies to avenge that loss. A siege meant a Roman victory because they would not quit until the siege was finished. I can't think of any exceptions to this….

Dedicated Professionalism. A long-term, 20 year career of full time training and service is the functionality of a professional army. Many folks forget that 'green' legions often performed poorly, while 'blooded' or veteran legions were the terror of the enemies of the empire.

Discipline coupled with maneuvering speed on the battlefield.
Weaselhoffen.

"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."

Hi

I remember all those battles where whole movements of german nations or celtic nations crossing the alps were outnumbered by the 4 legions that faced them.

Rocky

Studded boots.

A second vote for logistics.

Its Blacksmiths.

Sheer bloody-mindedness, at certain crucial points in their history. Both Pyrrhus and Hannibal knocked up victories that would have won the war in most Hellenistic conflicts, but the bastards simply refused to give in.