What if: US marines vs Roman legions

[Elok]

Given that the target is a mass of men, wouldn't you be better off not aiming? Time spent aiming is time not spent releasing an arrow--which is almost guaranteed to hit something, regardless--and drawing another. Careful aim sounds like it would impede rate of fire to minimal benefit.

[kentonio]

Given that the target is a mass of men, wouldn't you be better off not aiming? Time spent aiming is time not spent releasing an arrow--which is almost guaranteed to hit something, regardless--and drawing another. Careful aim sounds like it would impede rate of fire to minimal benefit.

Dunno, but I'd imagine that an extra seconds aim would equate to a lot less wasted arrows in the long run.

[Elok]

I'd rather waste arrows than waste chances to incapacitate more enemies. Also, WRT the time it took to train a man, I was under the impression that most of that was due to difficulties in handling the bow, especially the longbow with its insanely high draw weight. Supposedly archaeologists can recognize the corpse of a longbowman by the bone "spurs" their arms developed from years of extreme stress put on them. Consider that the crossbow was considered attractive for the same reason as the musket. It wasn't a question of being easier to aim, it was only that a crossbow uses mechanical means to achieve the same tension, and therefore you don't need to have arms like Bruce Lee's to draw it and maintain control over it while aiming (or not aiming, as the case may be).

[kentonio]

I'd rather waste arrows than waste chances to incapacitate more enemies. Also, WRT the time it took to train a man, I was under the impression that most of that was due to difficulties in handling the bow, especially the longbow with its insanely high draw weight. Supposedly archaeologists can recognize the corpse of a longbowman by the bone "spurs" their arms developed from years of extreme stress put on them. Consider that the crossbow was considered attractive for the same reason as the musket. It wasn't a question of being easier to aim, it was only that a crossbow uses mechanical means to achieve the same tension, and therefore you don't need to have arms like Bruce Lee's to draw it and maintain control over it while aiming (or not aiming, as the case may be).

Exactly, but how did they develop those arms? Years of practise of shooting a bow. I'd have to assume that those years of practice are going to result in a pretty fine bowman at the end of it.

[Elok]

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be taking the time to aim for one particular man in a clot of massed enemies. They can save that for when they're poaching deer.

[MikeH]

I just tend to think we underestimate the accuracy of archery. They'd have learnt to shoot by hunting in many cases, and you don't hunt by flipping off arrows in the general direction of an animal.

In English case they learnt by going to compulsory longbow training.

[MikeH]

Also bear in mind that one of the reasons why muskets became so popular is because you don't need nearly as much training to point and fire a musket as you do to learn to be a decent bowman.

But because of the strength training not accuracy training. The "fire at a mass of men" technique didn't change.

[kentonio]

In English case they learnt by going to compulsory longbow training.

Later edicts were brought in to encourage people to train on them, but that was after they had already been proved a hugely valuable weapon.

[Tupac Shakur]

Roman resistance will be limited to professional soldiers; everyone else is just trading one set of tyrants for another (in their view); they won't care either way.

Rome was not a tyranny for many of its subjects, especially in Italy.

[Al B. Sure!]

Romans weren't even archers. They thought it beneath Roman citizens. They acquired Syrians and Cretans to be sagittarii and I'm not sure they played a significant role in Roman tactics. They were skirmishers who wore down the enemy before they approached the legions. Their purpose was to put as many arrows down range as possible before withdrawing.

[kentonio]

Romans weren't even archers. They thought it beneath Roman citizens. They acquired Syrians and Cretans to be sagittarii and I'm not sure they played a significant role in Roman tactics. They were skirmishers who wore down the enemy before they approached the legions. Their purpose was to put as many arrows down range as possible before withdrawing.

I've always wondered how true that actually is. Archers were hugely important throughout history, and an army that didn't make good use of them would presumably be putting itself at a significant disadvantage. It could just be that because the archers were often mercenary, they didn't get quite the aclaim in historical accounts as they deserved.

[Al B. Sure!]

Archers weren't hugely important to Alexander or to the Romans, though.

Yes, the Romans fought enemies that were archer-based, but putting their legions into a testudo formation meant that unless their opponents behaved like the Parthians at Carrhae (charging them with cavalry when they formed a testudo), the Romans were safe from arrows.

[kentonio]

Testudo has real limitations too though, not least that it makes you slow as hell. We know the Romans used archers, so they must have recognized the potential.

[Al B. Sure!]

But they barely used them, using them as skirmishers, not a mainstay of their military like some Eastern powers did, nor did Romans serve as archers; they imported archers from Syria and Crete.

[Al B. Sure!]

What if the Marines drop in a few decades earlier and the Republican legions have no archers?