What if: US marines vs Roman legions

[Aeson]

I should point out that most ancient civilizations understood crop rotation (and/or were forced into it) to some extent. Mono-culture agriculture was for the most part a rather modern development brought on by mechanization, easily applied fertilization, refrigeration, and fast transportation.

[Tupac Shakur]

You do realize there is no "making" required, right?

For engines designed to burn diesel fuel, the viscosity of vegetable oil must be lowered to allow for proper atomization of the fuel, otherwise incomplete combustion and carbon build up will ultimately damage the engine. Many enthusiasts refer to vegetable oil used as fuel as waste vegetable oil (WVO) if it is oil that was discarded from a restaurant or straight vegetable oil (SVO) or pure plant oil (PPO) to distinguish it from biodiesel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_fuel

And that's with modern vegetable oil; god only knows how impure Roman-era olive oil was.

Note that we're not even addressing the inherent ridiculousness involved in the idea of Marines producing enough olive oil to keep their gaz-guzzling equipment running for any length of time.

Are your posts actual attempts to be serious or is this just a continued excuse to bash the Marine Corps?

I'm one of the few serious people posting in this thread with all the ***** who think Marines are some sort of supermen rather than normal, not that bright members of modern American society.

[pchang]

ultimately is far different from immediately

[Al B. Sure!]

It doesn't matter what the aptitude of a random average 0311 Lance Corporal is when the MEU has a full complement of officers, medical staff, and engineers.

[Tupac Shakur]

The officers, medical staff, and engineers also don't know ****. You're qualified to be an officer on paper, for god's sake.

[BlackCat]

Al, what equipment does a MEU have considering engieers and maintence ?

[giblets]

No, no, no. No.

We do not want another reality TV show. No.

Another reality TV show that you would be forced to watch while tied to a chair and hit and the face with the butt of a rifle every time you tried to fall asleep? Awesome

[N35t0r]

The first diesel cycle engine burned coconut & peanut oils

[Tupac Shakur]

Great. Rome had neither coconuts nor peanuts, and US Marines don't have the first diesel cycle engine in their vehicles.

[Af Ra Kam]

Dude, the Romans didn't even have Arabic numerals, something we are all familiar with from kindergarten! Our knowledge base is vastly superior.



Who needs advanced tools? Even the most basic medieval-level machines would be unknown to the Romans but easily constructed by the Marines. The Romans had no knowledge of windmills, for freaking sakes! Agriculture? Even just basic things like crop rotation and fertilization would exceed the knowledge the Romans had. Medicine? You are aware that a MEU comes with corpsmen and doctors, right? As for the infantry, even the most basic military first aid and knowledge of germ theory would give them a huge advantage.

Wrong. Ancient Af Ra Ka (kemet) which the ROmans and Greeks learned from had advanced technologies, the origin of the atlantis 'myth'. Many of the technologies have not yet been rediscovered.

[Provost Harrison]

This.

[The Mad Monk]

We should drop off 2000 marines on an island all by themselves and see what happens...

I think that has happened multiple times, especially during WWII.

[The Mad Monk]

Now we're pretending that dumb**** jarheads can make biodiesel from olive oil?

What pretend? All you have to do is strain out any solids, and you're done.

[The Mad Monk]

Great. Rome had neither coconuts nor peanuts, and US Marines don't have the first diesel cycle engine in their vehicles.

They don't need it. He was saying that diesel engines could do this from the beginning.

[The Mad Monk]

I know Liguria has the nearest easily available coal deposits (considering neither quality or quantity, we just need enough for a decent bootstrap), anybody know where the nearest easily accessible oil deposits are? Libya probably doesn't count, they won't have the proper drilling equipment for a long time.