Clarification, the Emu had no "Empire" they had a "Socialist Collectivist Goverment" of noble elder woman. The didn't fight for any Empirer, they fought for the blessed game trails.
Cynical Socratic there's almost no evidence that any Ancient Celtic tribes actually fought naked. The only evidence of it is in Roman accounts, which should be taken with as much salt as they allegedly poured onto Carthage. Plus, for just one counterexample, Pictish stone carvings clearly depict themselves wearing some kind of cloth armour into battle.
Medieval armies are Feudal, and the Roman army was a standing Professional force. Feudal armies were mostly small and varied considerably in quality. The only advantage a Feudal army had in that time was armor.
I disagree, calling a knight, trained for all his life to war, not a proffesional soldier is rather mistake. Also english longbowmen were training for years and were hired not only by english nobles, but by Burgundy and Spain too. Also I doubt that every roman soldier in their army was so proffesional.
Correct me if im wrong, but only wealthy knights had full plate armor. A roman army wouldnt be facing swarms if fully armored foes. Most of the medieval soldiers were far less protected and would be vulnerable to roman weapons.
@@KuDastardly far less protected but still as well protected if not better protected than a Roman Legionary. Coat of Plates, Brigandines... Maille... Gambesons
That's what I was thinking of, I mean I'm not so well educated in medieval equipment but I was always under the impression that the fully armoured knights were a commanding minority, just the nobles in charge basically, and pretty much the rest were pretty lightly armoured
@@neoyuls Depends on when and where, but "lightly armored" wouldn't generally be accurate in the Late Middle Ages. The "average" soldier would at a minimum be wearing mail over a gambeson (as stated by undertaker, and that's by no means easy to penetrate using the weapons the typical legionnaire would have been equipped with) and would usually have some other form of better protection.
The agincourt army wasn’t virgin it was made up of troops who were veterans the muster roll shows that and British people trained from children to use the longbow
Erin Ackerman Not if I learn Latin, travel back in time to Classical Rome and introduce plated armor to the masses. First thing I’m doing when someone invents the time machine.
Oh Also Romans fielded armies of up to 60,000 frequently so i imagine if no them out-manning them they would simply out-number them like the huns themselves did. >>>Lmao
Largest medieval armies were perhaps 25 thousand strong, at Agincourt french managed to field 21 thousand. I can't recall any instances where larger armies were fielded. Romans consistently fielded armies 2 and 3 times larger than that, due to their superb logistic system. The technological gap is not as big as one might think, considering romans would 2-3 times more numerous than the medieval army. Last point, Roman Empire lasted well into the gunpowder age, or we simply chose to ignore the Eastern half ?
We’re referring to Imperial legions. Made up of legionaries. That means Marian reform legions, from the 100s BC through Caesar to Augustus to Trajan and to Marcus Aurelius. It was Diocletian who restructured it again to better fit the defensive scheme of the late Roman Empire.
Haha, no. Western European armies were generally small, yes, but if you take a look at the East and some of the other continents they managed to field HUGE armies. Almost every army was as large as 20k, or even more. And Roman armies were that big because they were an *Empire.* If you look at Republics at any part of Europe such as Venice and Novgorod, they fielded large armies! They even had some form of standing army which was raised in peacetime, contrary to the popular 'no standing armies' myth. The Roman Empire in the medieval age (also known as the Byzantine Empire, which is a modern term) fielded equally large armie, just like the Sassanids, at least while their power was still strong. *Numbers were not even required anymore.* So it is simply untrue that antiquity's armies were larger all the time. And numbers do not win fights either. Much of the Roman technology is outdated by the Late Middle Ages, as shields were hardly used anymore, especially at that size. A polearm would screw it, even levied soldiers used polearms by then. Western Europe had literally been abandoned by the Romans so it is no surprise that they fielded smaller armies, but attempts at making larger and centralized armies were made. The Holy Roman Empire and Charlemagne's Frankish Empire are examples.
Black Army of Hungary, professional mercenary standing army (deployment in 1487, at Schottwien, Lower Austria): 28 000 soldiers: 20 000 infantry (heavy, light, crossbowmen's, archers, hand-gunners, arquebusiers, etc.), 8 000 cavalry (heavy, like men-at-arms, and light, like hussars, etc.), artillery (bombards, light field guns, etc.), war wagons, river fleet, etc...
Not really, longbows were pretty average when the French werent sending their genoese crossbowmen forward through a marsh without their pavises (Azincourt). Or letting the crossbows under the rain with hair-made crossbow strings (Crecy). The longbowmen eventually got steamrolled by the French vanguard under La Hire at the battle of Patay. Longbows are way overestimated in the english speaking world, they were not meta changing, which is why most armies continued using the crossbow. However what changed the meta in the 100 Years war is well, the arrival and mastery of black powder. What changed as well was the overpowering of foedal lord centered armies and a move towards professional armies that eventually lead to the centralization of european states.
Ah yes sorry the Pavises thing was at Crecy, although Genoese crossbowmen did suffer the humidity problem at Azincourt too. What allowed the english to massacre french nobility was the professional army discipline which the nobility lacked and which lead to the tactical blunders that we know. That was the game changer. If longbows had been 100% game changing mainland armies would have adopted them. Most did not. Which means, the time and cost of training simply wasnt worth it. For they were far less efficient than those two battles would lead you to believe. As for French archery, it was definitely not the best. And never did I even suggest that. But it existed, as the Franc-archers proved at the battle of Castillon but that's beyond the point because I never even mentionned French archery. Concerning firearms. It's well known that it's the mastery of canons (as well as heavy cavalery) that won the French the War. And once again, never said "the french did it first" just that they did it better at least at the end. In 1453 in castillon, it's the mastery of cannons and firearms that won the day. And lead to the English losing the war and every single piece of territory they had on the mainland but the fortress of Calais.
Crafts are not secret things if they are wanted. They do not stay secret long. And the mounted composite bow in Asia spread far and wide and so did the greek phalanx. But how would massive longbow contribute to the fall of the mounted heavily armored knight. While it is unable to do much but to kill a horse if said horse is not armored. That makes little sense if any. As for Henry VI, he was certainly no master tactician, but the very same could be said of the French kings of the beginning of the war. Not to mention the decades of political instability and the arrival of the black death in 1348.
Yes I do question the efficiency of Longbows against armored target. Especially well heavily armored knights with properly manufactured armor. It's well known that at Agincourt it wasnt the longbows that killed the knights. However they did fuck up the horses. Big time. However it's worth mentionning that the French won big battle applying old cavalery charges, but in order. And eventually wiped the floor with Talbot and his archers, despite his being said to be the best general of the King. As a French, thank god for La Hire and his mastery of the vanguard cavalery charge. He did a lot for us not being english rn.
We apparently, do not know the same facts. From what I read they couldnt... En effet l'invasion en 1066 était la première incursion Franque sur le territoire anglo-saxon, et quelle incursion. Quand à l'hexagone Anglais ou non, pour le coup, aucun moyen de le savoir. Que se serait il passé si les territoires continentaux de l'Angleterre était restés en sa possession pendant la centralisation de pouvoir de la période moderne. Impossible à deviner. Les anglo-saxons par contre aurait eu du mal à lutter contre les gaulois sachant que l'Anglo-saxon n'apparait qu'au 8e siècle pour désigner les saxons isolés en grande bretagne.
@@caualongshanks Spartans were not a particularly disciplined force. Their notoriety is in comparison to the rest of the greeks who were, well, sort of your stereotypical barbarian horde of dudes charging vaguely in the right direction while the spartans developed the secret mastery of... marching to music in basic formation. The romans, macedonians, certainly prussians, and most medieval armies were better disciplined than the spartans. It isn't that the spartans were great, it's that the people they were fighting were very bad.
@@EAfirstlast a joke man do you understand it? R/woooosh. Also i was talking about them training from 7 years old. Romans as i know did not train since they were 7 years old. Also also dont ruin memes and joke its just not cool :(
Romans managed to face the attack by elephants and to win the battle ... note that their success against elephants was based mostly on their discipline, military skills of soldiers and commanders, a smart tactics used, their ability to eliminate the elephant attack was not based on some advanced weapon tehnology ... thus I believe they would find a way to face the heavy cavalry
If there was a simple way to effectively stop heavy cavalry it would not have been so effective during the medieval ages. Elephants never wore armour fighting the Romans ontop of this it doesn't take much to make an elephant rampage a few javelins or arrows and elephants were known to lose all control. Now you're on about horse's they're generally flighty but have been trained to be disciplined and wore armour to protect from such things, much faster smaller target and more devestating charge. There's a reason why heavy cavalry were always so prevalent up until gunpowder (and to a degree after) however elephants were much less common despite still being around.
Even after several hundred years the Romans failed to find an effective counter against heavy cavalry of the east, who had far worse equipment than the late medieval knights. They could win against them now and then, but not consistently, and instead they would adopt the very same type of equipment and tactics.
Well there is a difference between elephants are different from horses Keep if mind that this is around Agincourt so .... Plate barding for the horse is not yet common
Something like this scenario happened when the roman armies went up against Parthia. The Parthian Cataphract is much like a late era medieval knight, and caused them all kinds of hell. There were stories about these armoured horseman shattering roman 'testudo' formations.
@@chalcedonycoral1943 ACTUALLY the enemy would spam arrows at the Roman soldiers which couldn't penetrate the legion armor but penetrated unprotected limbs causing them to fall! The now injured Roman legions were now vunerable to a heavy Calvary charge! They would repeat this strategy and kill 20,000 legions while only losing 28 catraphats!
@Mary Dominguez: if seems you are speaking of Battle of Carrhae. Ya, Romans had their asses handled to them there. But I'm more interested in wherever Roman heavy infantry would stand against charge of heavy calvary. What happened near Carrhae was not exactly clean experiment in that regard. Calvary charge only took place after Romans were softened up enough by mounted archers. Organization and supply lines of Partians allowed them to forget about limit of arrows a mounted archer could carry in their quivers to a certain degree - bundles of new arrows were shipped regularly; Romans didn't have any good cards to lay on table in ranged combat between the armies (later, this battle led Roman military to invest in sagittariorums if they were going against Parthians); and if Romans formed testudo, heavy calvary of Parthians passed by to say hi and open them up a bit and left; then mounted archers continued their shots into holes of damaged formation. But in this case heavy calvary was crushing into opponent who was already quite injured, exhausted and demoralized. I'm not sure if that's indicative case...
@@chalcedonycoral1943 A shield wall can defeat light Calvary but heavy Calvary is a b I t ch to fight as the shield wall will only stop the charge of heavy Calvary and be at a stalemate!
I'd say King Matthias I's professional mercenary standing Black Army (1462-1493) could handle many roman armies! ;) :) Heavy infantry, light infantry, heavy cavalry, light cavalry, archers, crossbowmen, gunners, war wagons, etc.
@@alalalala57 The first standing army in Europe was the "Compagnie d'ordonnance" which was created by Charles VII of France in 1439. Yes, the standing army was not a ordinary thing, but from the mid 15th century, slowly replaced the levies and militias . Other good example was the "condottieri " system in Italy. In the Late Middle Ages, medieval warfare slowly falling, and the professional troops, like the mercenaries were much more important. The medieval armies, especially the late medieval armies used mercenaries as much as possible.
@@kristofantal8801 Nope! There were 'standing armies' before then. From the household guards to all-out assembled forces of men, like this one from the Slavic parts of Europe that numbered a thousand and accompanied their lord, can't remember its name but it was in the earlier part of the Middle Ages. A 'standing army' is vague here, remember that.
The one with bigger numbers and better logistics will win all the time. I'd personally put my money on Rome. I have never read about a kingdom taking as many massive losses after losses as Rome at the hands of Hannibal and still be able to make new tactics and field new armies. So here's my bet- maybe the medieval army will win first time, then second, maybe even for third time, but we all know who has the last win.
For the sake of the argument I think we should treat any battles as being fairly even numbers and on neutral ground. Same thing with the quality of equipment. Lots of times X vs X answers are well this warrior or army would win because they're in a time period or location where they have better steel. No, first of all, it won't make that much of a difference. A simple iron sword can fuck someone up just as easily as a legendary enchanted plus 10 Vorpal sword of Destruction. The determining factors should be on training, tactics, and how they USE the equipment they have and not on who has the better quality gear or is able to throw a lot more guys at their enemy.
Legion vs Crusaders would be an interesting video. Ave Imperator vs Ave Maria. Or heck, another interesting video would be Romans vs Jommsvikings. Wait, no Jommsvikings vs Nahuatl Jaguar Warriors
Pathfinder Savant See the Fourth Crusade and Nicaean-Latin wars. They didn't stop being Romans because some dude with a point hat decided he liked the Germans better 😁
MICHAEL GOLD the holy roman empire was a "thing" during the crusades, I was referring to crusaders vs the older roman legion from around the 1st century
I doubt the french would have underestimated the romans. From what I've heard romans would telegraph their disipline and organization, one because it was so ingrained that they couldn't help but do so, but also I'm sure it intimidated and demoralized the enemy. If romans suddenly stepped through time, if the french didn't know they stepped through time, I doubt they would look on them as primitive or weak.
I disagree with him anyone, I'm not sure his description of agincourt is accurate nor that the Romans could pull off what the English did. Apparently the English got hold of the French's battle plans. The English nullified the French Cavalry even before the battle had started and had also countered their battle plan, forcing them to abandon their plan and to dismount. They forced the French to advance. The French apparently charged straight for the English man at arms, not their archers (apparently smaller numbers of Cavalry tried to flank the archers but were ineffective.). They were pelted with arrows as they crossed the several hundred metre gap between them. Apparently as the English archers were situated at the flanks they continued to be pelted with arrows as they were fighting the English man at arms. It's said that the French were too bunched up to allow them to use their weapons effectively. I don't see the Romans executing this same plan or having the same favourable circumstances against that same army. They didn't have longbowmen for a start. They'd never faced French heavy Cavalry with lances, they didn't know French tactics and did not have their plans for the battle. It's unlikely if they did that they would have known how to counter them anyway. They did not have fully armoured man at arms like the English did to hold off dismounted French knights assuming they managed to nullify their tactics and their Cavalry charge forcing them to approach dismounted. The Romans didn't have anything to nullify or deter the Italian crossbowmen. There's no reason the French man at arms would reach Roman lines 'exhausted' like they did at Agincourt even if they used the same tactics. There's no reason they'd bunch up like they did at Agincourt. Assuming the French used identical tactics, it'd just be a battle of two infantry forces and it's hard to argue the Romans had superior infantry to the highly experienced and fully armoured French knights, man at arms and experienced soldiers that were at Agincourt. The Romans would need to win in a very different way than the English did. Not to mention the circumstances surrounding the battle that in this case would not be replicated. How are the Romans getting their pick on where and when they fight?
medieval warfare was also very much stategic, often armys would not engage but just tease the opponent, basicly with the goal of the opponents armys funds drying up , on this level there would probably a lot of movement warfare. to besieging towns, military defences had changed very much since antiquity even smaller towns had formidable defenses, with trained townmilitias, and artillery placements, and i doubt roman testudo formation would protect much from wallguns(wallbüchsen) and such toys.
joe martin oh sorry I didnt mean skirts, that long ass tunic is practically a dress. Makes sense considering: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome
Imo the medieval armies are often underestimated in their professionalism. The Burgundian medieval army before the wars against the Swiss was a very highly organized machine. Would they stake up to Romans? Well, we compare two 500-1000 year long periods, the Romans were a citizen army in the beginning, a good professional force at their peak and a ragtag mix pretty indistinguishable from any other contemporary army in the end. So which do we choose? Do the Romans fight the Anglo Saxon Fyrd? They'd be used to that. Fighting a 15th century French army? They'd not be used to that. Against the army of a knightly Order like the Hospitaler or Templar or Teutonic knights? In a similar vein: Republican army. Semi professional but large manpower pools. Imperial army: High professionalism, but the loss of several legions could cause the collapse of an entire theatre for a decade before replacements could be trained and put together. Overall knights, man at arms and medieval infantry in general was used to fight heavily armored opponents so facing the Romans would not be somethin unusual. In actuality the Romans would stack up not so well in equipments to an average heavy infantry guy from the medieval period (if you didn't have the equipment which would be some kind of armor and weapon to fight armored opponents, you weren't used as heavy infantry) In reverse, the cavalry tactics of the Middle Ages had not been around at the times of the Romans. The closest would be Parthian and Sassanid cataphract charges which the Romans did not like at all and weren't superior to. But heavy shock charges... not someting done like that in antiquity
This last bit is the most important here, I'd say. How do the kataphraktoi rate against knights? Factoring in the legions' effectiveness against the former, you can make a guess on the outcome.
The legions time and time again bested the Parthians. They just couldn’t hold on to the territory. Trajan basically wiped them out in his conquest of Mesopotamia. He wanted to push through to India like Alexander the Great, but knew Rome couldn’t hold that much land.
@@maddocpax788 Cataphracts were still around in the Middle Ages, so we can assume that they were still terrifying, but with the rise of knights their fearsome reputation against armies from Asia was dwindling. They were very widespread, but knights would most likely surpass them due to having longer lances, arguably better armour, etc.
@Super Cartoon Universe You forget that there were many good figures in the Middle Ages as well, and this only applied to *Western* Europe, which was lost to the Romans, who continued to strive but with more Greek culture due to no longer having Italia. Charlemagne, Henry V, Saladin (who raised an even larger cavalry army than the Parthians' one at Carrhae), Richard the Lionheart, etc.
I think it would really depend a lot on the commanders/generals. As a Czech my favourite example are Hussite wars, where Jan Žižka turned mostly peasants with a little bit of training, improvised weapons (and some modern weapons) into a force that could face much larger numbers of crusaders because of the superior tactics and perfect use of the available terrain and tools. Also a huge factor is the morale of the units. The knights were mostly nobility, the Romans were professional soldiers. The Romans were generally more effective fighting in formation imho because of their superior discipline. 1v1 I think medieval soldier would have much higher chance.
Why isn't the Roman siege crossbow or the fact Roman soldiers can build full defensive camps everytime they make camp so if they had even 1hr knowing they'd be attacked by a force like a late medieval forces they could build light defenses to make their forces more effective
The medieval soldiers would be able to build trebuchets to bombard the fort given enough time. If they'd have a greater advantage in range they'd have a big advantage. I personally feel the Romans would need to be very aggressive to achieve victory.
Classy Fett The Romans damn sure were aggressive, they conquered the entire Mediterainian area. Africa, and the mid east as far as Baghdad today. And theRoman empire lasted over 1000 years. No one else ever came close.
Bob Martin I dont think they would of stomped them on account of the armor but Im pretty dang sure romans would come out on top because they just simply put have the skills too be flexible in face of whatever comes at them
@@jonajo9757 no dude. War bows were 100lbs minimum and averaged at 150lbs some were up to 200lbs... The reason the English were so known for their longbows is because archery was a passtime and they often started as kids, which is why they were so good at using bigger stronger bows
Bows with same draw weight exist during ancient times. What made longbow good is their range which is 300meters. But romans would likely counter them with slings.
It seems most of the videos I've seen and articles I've read making this comparison don't take into consideration the composition of the armies. All the legions of the early Empire were made entirely of professional soldiers and were well-equipped by the state. Most medieval armies were at least partially reliant on peasant levies. Armies like those at Agincourt weren't, but raise a different question. Due to their logistical capabilities and a variety of other factors, the average Roman army of the early Empire would absolutley dwarf the average medieval army. Just a little food for thought. I really liked this video and would love to see more like it.
Well, the weakness of roman is their inability to switch rapidly of tactics against a changing enemies. One time I don't remember what battle, they lost because thier enemy's was alternating between mounted archers and heavy infantry units , and the legions could not face the threat as effectively and ended up losing. So if Roman attack crossbowman and foot soldiers, flank them with mounted crossbowman and handgunners and shock cavalry to defeat them
In this time period, peasant levies weren't very common, and when they did occur, it was usually to provide porters or pioneers or any other form of basic manual labor as opposed to fighting men. There were of course people called up to fight, but they were not peasants. They were people of some substance who were required by the government to provide armed men as according to their means. Thus, a wealthy man, and I do not mean a noble per se, would be required to provide so many knights and other armed and armored men. However, he might instead pay scutage, which is basically instead of sending men to fulfill his feudal obligations, the vassal sends money, with which the king will hire mercenaries. This was incredibly common by the late middle ages, so much so that one could make an argument that a majority of fighting men were professionals and not merely part time, and certainly not levies.
EvilTwinn yet the medieval army would still be vastly out numbered and outsupplied and in a protracted conflict, the Romans actually had reasobably competent medical staff to deal with injuries and disease while the medieval army didn't.
I didn't argue about any of that, Lorgar. A highly centralized state drawing on the resources of an entire empire is way more capable of fielding a large army than anything we'd see through the middle ages. I agree with that. What I am arguing against is the continued notion that the armies of the 13th to 16th centuries relied in any substantial way on so called "peasant levies"
The Romans throwing weapon was ment to stick into shields and make them really difficult to wield right before everyone closed in melee and thus disrupt the enemy shield wall. Also it might not kill the knight but if would probably seriously upset a few horses. The standard of discipline and training across the board on the Roman side would be higher, only the more elite forces like knights would be comparable.
that's why usualy you would not charge just head on into heavy infantry also spears were not unknown in the middleages, but this changes again si horsearmor is in play i think it was more common later but i doubt pilum would make a great impact
@Super Universe exactly mate. If we are choosing hand picked frontier legionnaires they will massacre any medieval army in a hand to hand combat. European knights lost a lot battles against professional armies like ottomans or mongols.
Romans would win ultimately because they were a Professional Force with the backing of a large State. They were better trained, disciplined and possessed more sophisticated command and control . Medieval armies were small and inconsistent in quality and generally only had a handful of well trained and experienced men.
Also, the Romans would have a *huge* manpower advantage. At Agincourt, the English only had about 6k-9k men, and the French are estimated from anywhere around 12k to 36k. Even if the French had 36k, the Romans could, feasibly, field double that number. Against the English, the Romans would likely outnumber them 4:1, if not by even more. Furthermore, we have to take into consideration that medieval armies relied heavily on mercenaries, and the Romans were fabulously wealthy. They could likely buy some heavy cavalry, crossbowmen, and whatnot, in order to make up for their technological deficiencies. If the Romans had a competent commander, such as Trajan, Pompey, Caesar, Odaenathus, Belisarius, Scipio Africanus etc., at the helm, I'm certain they could pull off a win against any medieval opponent.
It has been proven in history that even if the Romans had a bad commander in charge, they might still win just because of the training and discipline they had. The Roman legions of the late republic and early empire were arguably the best trained and disciplined army in history. They trained and marched daily just to stay in practice. As for the manpower thing. While the Romans could deploy more troops, in practice they usually did not as they did have a large empire to defend as well. Still a classic legion would have around 5000 men plus irregulars, artillery, and cavalry to support it. Their artillery (particularly the bolt and stone throwers used as anti-personnel weapons) would have been very effective against heavy cavalry (knights). These weapons had range and a legion would have between 30 to 40 of them. A knights charge would be telegraphed by the knights getting into formation and trotting out for a charge. As soon as they were within range, concentrated fire from all over the line of the Romans would pour into the knights line of charge. And some of these weapons would have been mounted on wagons with traversable platforms, allowing fast deployment to a critical area and quick changes in direction of fire as needed. (Yes, the Romans built the first tank).
The Illuminazi. Exactly. Just look at the Finns vs. the Russians during the Winter War. The Gurkha's against just about anybody anytime. I believe it was Robert Rogers of Rogers' Rangers that said, "I can do more with 100 men, yes even with 10 men, who obey orders than I can with a 1000 that do not."
@@davidtherwhanger6795 Bad example. The fins lost eventually. Ghurkas would never be able to wage a full scale war considering that they're a special operations force and not conventional infantry. That's like comparing the entirety of the US military to Navy SEALs.
I think that despite the fact that in many points Roman Army is superior, the advantage for the medieval army is massive. Heavy cavalry charges were such a decisive factor, that they would in most cases (as Metatron said under some conditions Romans could try to nullify this threat with positioning, etc.) just break roman formations and cause panic. Polish winged lancers are the best example of how decisive the heavy/shock cavalry was until late 17th century.
The winged hussars had pistols. At the siege of Vienna they also had cannons.Sobiesli was quite the commander in that battle. He was also 70 years old.
I think I know what you are getting at, but pistols and cannon support was not what made winged hussars so devastating - it was the changes with their lances. Pistols where to be used after the charge when the hussars where retreating to resupply with new lances and renew the charge. Anyway medieval cavalry had no pistols and was equally devastating at its time :). My feeling is also that while fairly praising Roman training and discipline, people are generally underestimating the professionalism of the medieval knights and standing forces (archers, crossbowmen, etc.)
Romans didn't have the medieval stirrup and saddle (nor the destrier horses) that allowed for heavy shock cavalry. They also wouldn't stand a chance against gunpowder and cannon.
@@tauempire1793 The topic is "Late medieval army", gunpowder was not rare in the late middle ages. It was well established by the end of the 14th century. E.g. Joan of Arc was known for her effective use of cannons.
they could lure away parts of the roman, army and cursh them in a cavalry charge or infantry ambush, also roman army trains could be very long and this made them vulnerable like at teutoburger forrest. so if the romans fail to deploy in formation, they are very bad off
Good videos, thanks for the work. My two cents: A skilled Roman general could detect through skirmishes the differences in equipment and tactics. That would enable that, in a first clash, even though I do think they would lose the first combat, the discipline and skill of a fully professional army would allow them to survive the battle, minimize casualties, and even stand their ground until they could retire. The shock of the battle could wear them off a bit, but they would have gained the insight of witnessing the deployment and usage of late Medieval forces, regardless of the country. The core of heavier infantry(mercenaries, dismounted knights and serjeants) would be a formidable foe, and they would know it. But they would also recognize the lightly armed, undisciplined and barely trained militias, levies and lighter infantry making the bulk of the opposing force. They would recognize the danger of the crossbow(after all, they had technology alike), and would plan accordingly. They would recognize too the dangers of longbowmen, and guess that, with crossbowmen and longbowmen, the key is to close in quickly, and to minimize casualties on the way, to keep unit cohesion before the attack. The major shock would come from a full charge from heavy cavalry. The technology associated and the tactic itself would be a surprise and cause for concern. They would guess that stopping it with stakes, as they had done during sieges, was their best chance. If they had the time and the possibility, they would undoubtedly adopt the tech or hire mercenaries that used the tech, while they trained their own heavy cavalry (like they did in Late Imperial times). In short, we would see the changes Late Imperial administration and Byzantine administration did in the next centuries, but condensed in a campaign. The pilum would remain, for use against lighter infantry and missile troops, and the hasta would make a comeback, with Gladius and spathas as backup weapons, with scutums forming shield walls. Lamellar arm protections, and greaves would become more widespread, if not mandatory, and heat treated steel would be adopted for armor. New adaptations of existing tactics would arise, and heavy shock cavalry would be used. Since deployment would be more important than ever, skirmishers, mounted and not, would be required, to allow the commanders to probe the opposing force, harass them(given how weak medieval logistics were), finding a suitable battlefield, and enticing them to it. Centurions would be paramount, training and drilling the new tactics and keeping unit cohesion. Centurions would also mark the difference between a standard medieval army and a Roman army. A small unit officer, experienced, learned, respected and known by its men, unlike the bigger units, which lacked the equivalent for the most part, of most medieval armies. Granted, they weren't mobs, but not until maybe the free companies or the religious orders' armies, such level of training and professionalism was reached again in the West. I see the Roman army evolving into a Middle Byzantine kind of army, but with better heavy cavalry...
@David Gwin And yet according to wikepidia the romans at the battle of philippi were able to field between 120000 and 200000 soldiers (with at least 30.000 cavalry) while at agincourt there likely were less than 30.000 men overall. Under Augustus the roman army is believed to have even exceeded the 300000 mark.
wouldnt the romans generally field more warriors then a medieval armor too? i must research this but it seems like roman armies were massive and medieval armies generally not.
Generally, simply because the territory held by medieval kings was smaller. I mean, the WHOLE roman empire (which included all of what is France today) against just the kingdom of France which is half occupied by England hardly seems fair. Imagine if we had a battle between the armies of the Roman Empire against the armies of all the countries that used to be part of the roman empire except in the 1400s, combined. Suddenly the odds don't seem as good for the Romans, don't they.
Socio Philosopher No. I think you would need to take the republic at its strongest then drop 1400s France in the middle of their empire. Rome wins. France could last a long time with the heavy cavalry...but against the full might of rome...it could be a hundred year war.
The ability to muster men and resources is THE reason a faction wins its wars. A quick look at the USA's steel out put and population is enough to conclude that the germans stood no chance in WW2.
Actually not. A roman legion consisted of 3000 - 6000 warriors and in Agincourt there were between 6000 to 9000 english/welsh and 14000 to 36000 french. Of course, those were exceptionally large armies for the time and if we wanted to be fair we could give the romans two legions to get them to about 10-12k troops. "the one with the larger army" doesn't necessarily win as the english/welsh have proven but I think in this case the romans would probably be outnumbered. We don't really know how well the romans do when vastly outnumbered. According to Caesar they were in the battle of Alesia but later estimates suggest that he was just overstating the gallic numbers considerably because the battle with the ensuing maneuvres wouldn't really make sense unless there were 2 simularily sized armies facing off against each other.
aha thanks for the information, looks like i misled myself on this. When i see a roman army in my imagination i always assumed there woul be 6-20k troops in a roman army wen going to war against a major foe. Now that i read the comments i see that i need to rethink this.
I'm not so sure medieval armies would be overconfident in an encounter with an imperial roman army. Ancient Rome was the stuff of legends, and at least the military leaders would have studied the battles of antiquity, understood the importance of organization and discipline and been painfully aware that their own forces were nowhere near as organized and disciplined as a Roman legion. Facing an army that your teachers always told you was a pinnacle of military might that the world hasn't seen anything even close since, is a very daunting prospect. But then: A medieval battle commander would have studied Roman tactics and would therefore have an idea what to expect, where an Imperial Roman battle commander would have no clue what to expect from a medieval army. I suspect they would greatly underestimate the threat medieval ranged weapons pose to them. And since the Roman didn't know stirrups, they'd also underestimate the power of medieval cavalry
MrAranton did you watch the video? That's why he said England would probably win but the French army at agincourt was lead by arrogant, competitive and selfish nobles that historically made incredibly stupid strategic decisions. Slamming your heavy cavalry straight into the enemy is not exactly a sophisticated tactic and that's literally all the French were prepared to do at that point in their military history, Romans would probably camp behind mud just like the English did and basically laugh at how useless full plate is when it's cooking you alive and full of mud.
You can't just assume that the French would approach a Roman army exactly the way they approached the English at Azincourt. When the French faced the English, the faced what they believed to be a rag-tag band of peasants. Had these French encoutered a Roman army there's no way they would have mistaken them for a rag-tag band of peasants. And when people take their opponent seriously their decisions tend to be a lot smarter than when they're not taking their opponent seriously.
Even the most capable and educated military commanders have to make do with what's at their disposal. Ancient tactics in general and roman tactics in particular relied on well-trained, highly disciplined infantry that medieval commanders simply didn't have. They a mix of highly trained chivalry of varying discipline, well-trained mercenary of varying loyalty and barely trained peasants. A head cavalry charge is mostly a scare-tactic, and usually a quite effective one. A formation of knights in armour on horses charging towards you is a terrifying sight to behold, and it's not unreasonable to expect a line of typical medieval infantry to break up and run before the forces even clash into each other. But seeing a roman army, knowing that those are the most disciplined and professional the world has ever seen up to that point in history just might give a medivial commander pause and cause them to re-think their tactics. Whether they'd be able to actually implement their adaptaded tactic with the personnel they have is a different story; but to assume they wouldn't even try to adapt their tactics to the foe they face?
Well, late medieval French armies cannot be described only by the battle of Azincourt. They were overconfident in that particular instance, but not all of them.
Romans fought to conquer. It wasn't a sport to them. It was a fight meant to be won. Late era knights fought for glory, people would literally come out of near by towns to watch them. War was different entirely in medieval times. It was more good sport than serious war. Romans left the sport to the gladiators, and the war to the front line.
Agree, it seems that medieval warfare emphasized more on glories and equipments whereas the Romans emphasized more on the tactics, and battle formations. The late wins in my opinion simply because its useless to own a superior weapon but not knowing how to use it. French vs. England was the perfect example for this case.
Romans where the first war machine and had some honor, the english and french where all panzies they had to fake their glory because they would loose most of their wars and had no honor for their fellow soldiers who they would abandon in retreat
I think the Roman Imperial army, from say Trajan's time would be a class above the late medieval army. The regimented discipline of military life, the training, the esprit d' corps or pride in one's unit, the organization, logistics, the equipment. On the whole, the legion would be much better armored as well. I think the only advantage that the medieval soldier has would be that some of the soldiers would be heavily armored, and also their heavy cavalry, which the legion has experience with against the Eastern Empires. I'd give the edge to the legion in any battle honestly.
stuka80 Late-medieval armies were made out of heavily armoured mercenaries and fully armored knights, and even the lower class soliders would have used partial plate and mail.
The imperial Inquisition of course firearms will change the game completely. im talking about pre gunpowder medieval armies say around 1300s. at this era, id say its 50/50. but early or mid era id give the edge to the legions.
The imperial Inquisition i'm not so certine that early blavkpowder fire srms would have had any real effect at all right up intill the invention of the plug bayonet early guns were largly ineffective (cannon had there place knocking down fortifications) they were inacurate compared to crossbows and bows and due to that inaccuracy had relitivly short effective ranges. No late middle age firearms are more of an expensive curiously at this point.
The discipline and organization of post Marian Reform Roman Armies were on an entirely different level in respect to what could be seen in medieval, even late medieval, times. In medieval times there was someone whose job was to fight. The Romans already industrialised warfare. Their ability in building fortification and field traps out of nothing was unparalleled. Their literacy level was unparalleled. Middle age armies (and that''s the case of Agincourt) were often led from the front. This way the commander couldn't even see what was happening more than few steps away, let alone react to unforeseen situations. The Roman chain of command was miles ahead anything seen in Europe until the 30 Years war. Every Roman officer was very likely to have read treaties on strategy and tactic (those written by Pyrrhus of Epirus were available and popular in Roman time). The medieval army's commander to be able to read was not a given.
I think you have to be super specific for a question like this. If army size in rome was accurate according to the roman records then simply overwhelming most every medeival army would be a probabibilty.
Ancient records are unreliable due to exaggerations. And by the way, *numbers do not win battles.* The medieval army also varies, some were tens of thousands strong and very well-funded. The real advantage of the Romans is that they are an Empire.
@@Max-ek3kf the question "could the force of the entire Roman Empire at it's peak defeat a random medieval kingdom" is not exactly the same as "Roman versus medieval army" though
This is a refreshing take on the THIS VS THAT type of video. Id love a few more comparing romans and medieval. If you could compare specific armies when it comes to outfit it would also be really cool, so the french cavalry of the houndred years war isnt lumped in with the english.
An interesting point is that no medieval state could afford the number of soldier recruited during the roman empire. That could be a good advantage for the roman army.
Medieval states have harvest to care, plague to fend and you can always hire mercenaries. Or medieval states could simply issue crusade to deal with most dangerous threat.
He means the Romans can play attrition game. But he also forget when the Byzantine suffer plague that rival black death during Justinian era, they have trouble with raising armies. Who win battle determined on who fuckup their own deployment the most. Someone who fuck their deployment will lose even against smaller weaker opponent who deploy properly.
It's specified that we're talking about a *legion,* not an entire invasion force sanctioned by Trajan to march through a time portal and conquer the Medieval world.
@Windows xD They didn't to my knowledge have pikes or pike tactics in antiquity comparable to late medieval. They also didn't have gunpowder or reliable, powerful, easy to reload crossbows used by well armoured men.
Very nice video Metatron. Keep it up. I would also like to acknowledge the fact that comparison like this is slightly ridiculous considering the fact, that Rome was present in first half of 15th century. Byzantines believed, in my opinion rightly, that they are in fact Romans and true predecessors of Rome in form that we think of when we hear or say the words: Roman Empire.
Metatron I know, i know. Just wanted to give my two words. I value your expertise highly. From what i recall you have degree in history, not me. Keep doing what you are doing, man. You run one of the channels that i keep in highest regard.
I don't think they can stand the charge of western knignts any better than the turks, and the turks often turned to firearms in their defense against heavy cavalry charge of this sort that's to say, perhaps 3 times more powerful than any ancient cataphract and alexander's companions. And let's not forget that even the black prince could field enough guns to outfox any ancient engineering technology, not to mention the army of charles the bold, so in terms of siege, i'd vote for a late medieval army like the one joan d'arc conquered in orleans. The romans were well trained according to ancient writers, then again they might not be any better than the combination of the ottoman yaya, janissary infantry, sipahis of timar and kapikulu armies.
Not sure what you meant by the knights being 3 times more powerful than the cataphracts or alexander's companions, how did you get that figure. The medieval knight actually was less armoured than a cataphract, and it was the knights speed, at least in a straight line, that made him powerful. Behind the front line of knights were a line of their squires, and behind that, a line of sargents. Once the knights had broken through the line, the lighter rear lines would play havock with the now scattering enemy lines. Cataphract were only rarely used, for example when then enemy had a lot of armoured infantry, whereas the knights where used in practically every battle they went to. Just as a side not, maybe I should have said 'men at arms' not knight.
The Romans would win so easily you underestimate them so bad. They would let the cavalry charge. Surround them. Kill the horses. Then surround the knights and easily overwhelm them by stabbing the neck and under the arms. At the height of the empire. Rome would outnumber any English army 4 to 1 with each legion having it's own commander. Able to flank on their own. With highly disciplined men who could strategize on their own. Without needing a general. I dont think you have any idea how much a minority highly trained Knights where. They would be so outnumbered it would be a joke. The strategic structure of the legion would destroy any Medieval army. Most of your Medieval army is Men at arms with shield and spears. Not trained well enough to go close quarters against a Gladius.
Talking about the Clash of Medieval Army vs. Roman Imperial Army, can we have a conceptual battle between the joined forced of the Romans and the late antiquity army vs. the Mongols?
About the Pilum, I agree that it might not be affective. But from some research, I came across that the pilum would be used to damage the opponents shield by getting it stuck in the shield, causing them to possibly drop their shield as they could not use it.
Yes, but full-plated knight losing a shield against roman would not be such a problem(especially considering that even if knight had shield it was because it gave him protection against anti-armor weapons... which roman doesn't have).
MacTire Tiogair then the Genoese crossbowmen would be way ahead of them by using a pavice: a giant shield one plants in the ground rather than carrying on one's arm. (I'm replying to your first comment).
MacTire Tiogair That was a very useful feature against the armies of their time. But consider the types of troops involved in the 100 years war: -heavy crossbowman: his shield is a huge pavise firmly planted on the ground, more like a one-man barricade. Pilum would be useless against it. -mounted knight: his armour protects him well enough against javelins, can do without a shield. -heavy infantry: straight up don't use shields, also protected by plate armour. -English longbowman: massive range advantage, if the Romans get close enough to use their pila they can just fall back and let other troops handle them.
The Romans would most likely beat the Army of Harold at Hastings. The Romans had far more flexible tactics. They would have a good chance of winning against William the conqueror. Harold and William didn't have massively superior armor. The Romans were better trained (as best we know). The Romans army of Bellisarius had very sophisticated cavalry tactics. After losing the first battle against heavily armed knights, the Romans would devise counter tactics such as the deep ditches that Bellisarius used against the Persians at Dara; or use ballistas against heavy cavalry. 16 foot pikes are very effective which they used against Persian heavy armor. No heavily armored knights could penetrate well trained pike formations in any period of history.
I do agree, but the fact that the Romans can only go forward and attack uphill presents them at a disadvantage. The Huscarls would also be a problem, especially the ones of Harold and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. Cavalry wouldn't work against their shield wall either, just like how the Norman cavalry failed. In the long run though, with a good commander, the Romans would win, albeit with some casualties. And your last sentence is technically wrong; pikemen could be broken if they were attacked in the rear.
Jesus Christ men... "The Romans would most likely beat the Army of Harold at Hastings. The Romans had far more flexible tactics. They would have a good chance of winning against William the conqueror. Harold and William didn't have massively superior armor. " That armies were partly a early medieval (6th-11th century), partly a high medieval (12th-13th century)...not LATE MEDIEVAL (14th-15th century)... By the late Middle Ages (14th-15th centuries) warfare in Europe (that depends from regions, cultures, complex thing) had become much more professional and complex. Strategies, tactics, techniques were developed and gunpowder was used as early as the mid-14th century. There is eg. Italy, where the condottiere system dates back to the 13th century. I think there is a lot of darkness in the people mind about the Middle Ages ... Not only were the feudal armies (where not only the peasants served anyway and there was no mass consription, and etc., this is a big myth, the feudal armies were not that primitive which many people think ...), but also mercenary armies ... city-states and rich cities (eg North-Central Italian states, Netherlands and Low Countries, Hanseatic cities, Swiss cantons, etc.) that were able to train and employ professional soldiers where military science (such as Milan) ) it was decisive ... gunpowder, gunmaking, armor making and many other things ... There were fencing techniques, schools, books, etc ... Very much myth about the Middle Ages, especially the Late Middle Ages ... A lot of stereotypes! The Late Middle Ages (specially middle to late 15th century) much more advanced than the Early Middle Ages or the High Midde Ages too.
I don't think either of the tactics you described are as viable as you think for dealing with a late medieval force. 'No armoured knights could penetrate well trained pike formations in any point of history'...heavily armoured knights only existed in the late middle ages and they were consistently deployed against well trained pikemen, clearly they were effective. I don't think it's accurate to compare Roman 'pikes' and tactics to late medieval pikeman either.
@@Max-ek3kf 'Cavalry wouldn't work against their shield wall', I fail to see exactly what problem the shield wall presents. Does it stop the Cavalry from approaching, deter them? Do the shields stop a lance a full tilt, do they stop the horses?
@@7dayspking They were effective in gaps in an infantry, flank or back attacks. The Scots effectively stopped heavily armored English knights. The Swiss effectively stopped mounted warriors. Looking at the Battle of Carrhae, the Roman infantry held up well against the highly trained and armored (for it's day) Parthian cataphracts. That was after enduring a rain of thousands of arrows by well trained horse archers. The Persians did have a 100 year period in the 400's of very heavily armored knights and horses. But it only lasted about 100 years. Tactics and strategy are critical. The Romans, did outstanding against the Parthians when led by Vintidius. He fought them in ways that countered all the advantages of cavalry and heavy cavalry. The Parthian/Persians were the outstanding horseman and horsearchers for many hundreds of years. So knights would be effective on open, flat country. The element of shock and surprize helps. The are not so great on hilly land with ditches and potholes. Once they get inside the infantry line, they will live up to their reputation: deadly.
I think the best way to beat an cavalry heavy army with an infantry army is to dig trenches. Like one small chinese army did against a much bigger rebelling army. Even on flat planes, it will nullify the advantage of an cavalry charge.
This tactic works very well against horse archers. First the trenches limit the mobility of the cavalry (negating the advances of having a horse....with only several mens it's possible to traverse the trenches without casualities, but for an cavalry unit not so). Second it provides cover and also limiting the attack range of horse archers, while your own archers aren't constricted at all......the most fun fact this chinese commander was sent to die, he was ordered to fight with a small army at a flat planes against a big army of horse archers, heavy cavalry, several good trained units of infantry. It was a certain death, if he refused would be executed, if he fled his family would be executed.....he arrived at the plane and thought "In 2 days the main rebelling army would overrun this place, so i dig trenches" He forced everyone including high ranking officers and himself digging trenches more than 1 and half day everywhere and massacred the main army with his exhausted ragtag troops.....He was promoted and became a very importent general in the 19th century and was later executed as a scapegoat for failing of others.....the same tactic would be used by a roman army....because cavalry and horse archers are not invinvible, even at a place were they have an several advantages, but that depends on the army structure, command and strategies of both sides
of course this does not help against the european army brining in... you know... cannons for example. and yes, by the time of Agincourt, cannons had started to be used in battle. At Crecy, quite a while before that, it seems the English had 5 of those things: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribauldequin
The chinese armies at this point at time were equipped with cannons....but for late medieval armies their cannons could only shot a few time in succession, before they explode. So they used them mainly at a siege or shot them in a very low rate of succession....if the roman got hands of this technology they would improve them in a very short time (by standardization of production and training of cannons.....maybe they would introduce muskets sooner at this point of time)
Nope, but the problem of the early firearms, that the production process make them very unreliable....one shoot just fine and the next one explode after the first time use. While use a flintlock or matchlock on a arquebus to turn it in a musket isn't a big step. What the romans got against a typical westeuropean medieval army....their organisation, discipline and economic might (roman are well used of large scale production of standard equipment)
Just a few notes: 1. I completely agree that it depends a lot on skill and luck, and no one would be guaranteed to win. The medieval army would have the advantage, especially a late medieval one, that's obvious. So they would have more chances to win, but that chance would be far from 100%. They could make mistakes the Romans could exploit, and I know a very interesting example of a numerically and technologically superior force being wiped out by sheer overconfidence and tactical blunders, an even more extreme case than the battle of Agincourt. Basically a complete 17th century tercio lost a battle against a frontal charge of light cavalry less than 1/4th of their size. Sheer madness. A tercio could defeat a much larger army of heavy cavalry employed professionally. How could they lose against a much smaller force of light cavalry, especially as they charged from the front, which the tercio was perfect against??? (If your are interested, I can provide more details) 2. If we are talking about late medieval, don't forget gunpowder. If it was a single battle and the Romans didn't have time to learn about it, its sheer surprise effect would be demoralizing. Yes, I know late medieval guns were inaccurate and slow to reload, but gunpowder can be (and was) used in other ways. Artillery. Either from afar, or imagine the surprise of Romans charging what they see as a siege engine, and get completely wiped out by grapeshot from close range. Or hidden mines dug under the battlefield, retreating, and blowing them up while the Romans march across it.
Why are we outright ignoring the vast majority of medieval, in fact for most of history, soldiers were poorer spearmen or swordsmen (mostly spearmen tho) and the minority were archers and even fewer were knights. And Romans still existed in the Middle Ages, their tactics and armour had evolved massively by then. Hell the Varangians used extremely well made plate armour towards the end of the empire.
Shhhh. Because remember, "romans" didn't exist in the medieval period. Their were only "Byzantines" who were not at all roman and certainly very "unwestern" and "uncivilized". And they all suddenly went dumb and forgot all the classical knowledge and thus it was to the islamic forces to preserve greek math. How they even got their hands on it was of course never taught in western history classes.
Technically Romans existed until the 19th century (HRE) and they fought with rifles and canons at the end. This is also not taught in Western history classes, since it would not fit well into the modern Anglo-Saxon world view of the Middle Ages populated by primitive brutes until the British Enlightenment came.
Magister Mortran Rome ended in 1453, the people of the HRE never truly considered themselves as Romans and the HRE never ruled Rome as part of its domain. It was strictly an aesthetic title, seeing as the Imperial Dignity of the West was directly presented to the Eastern Emperor in 480 with the collapse of the Regime of Julius Nepos. As for Romans themselves, many Greek speakers called themselves as such until Greek Independence and even into the 20th century.
Heck, the Ottoman and the Russian empire had better roman claims than the HRE. One literally replaced the roman empire as the regional super power based in Constantinople, the other had roman royal bloodline. The HRE as people jokingly say is neither holy, roman or an empire.
Well, on the one hand The Roman Empire fell in 1453, with The Holly Roman Empire falling in 1806 and the middle ages are usually considered to have come to an end with the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492.... so, depending on whether we count the descendants of the barbarians that sacked Rome as Roman or not, Rome either wins the fight, or looses it.
I really like your comment. Few people are aware of that issue. The Roman Empire ceased to be Roman when Diocletian divided it and moved the capital away from Rome. So it was an imperial edict that ended Roman culture, no external cause. It was a voluntary end. Neither Byzantium in the East nor the Holy Roman Empire in the West truly represented Roman culture. But they represented the institution of the Empire. If we count them as Romans, then a medieval army could be considered a Roman army, just from another era and optimized for other kinds of opponents.
Oke i just watched 10 seconds further and you said "A modern well trained and well deploid medieval army will wipe out the roman army." I take back what i just said :)
10:00 if the romans aimed their throwing spears at the horses, toppling them will likely kill the rider, and result in alot of toppling and dead by being trampled from the riders coming in behind. Throwing spears are AMAZING against cavalry.
The Romans may be sent running for their lives before the collision. It's psychological warfare. The horses are also armoured well. "Trampling" wasn't an effective way of killing an armoured soldier either, it was more a way of forcing them aside and gaining momentum for your lance, plus an intimidating look to frighten enemy infantry. So once the charge has struck, the Romans also have to deal with many angry dismounted knights who will deal a lot of damage.
Thanks for the video. Good points through out. However, IMHO, I would still back a Principate/Early Imperial Roman army against any proceeding army right up to the widespread introduction of gunpowder weapons. The only advantage that I can see for the medieval armies would be the stirrup, though the roman saddle has been shown to be very good. I don't think that plate armour would be the obstacle you are implying. Formidable yes, but not insurmountable. Also, don't forget that a legion does not fight on it's own. It would have almost the same number of auxiliary troops with it. The legion provides the heavy infantry (mostly) and the auxiliaries provide archers, cavalry etc. Then there is roman field artillery, this would almost certainly be able to do great damage to a full plate knight (thinking of scorpions here). I agree with you however on your points about the commander and terrain being very important factors though. The last point I'd like to make is that you would be pitting a well and uniformly equipped, highly trained and experienced professional army, the Romans, (which we won't see again until the late16oo's into the1700's) against an army with admittedly a very professional and tough core, the Knights. Who are armed and armoured excellently, but with the balance, and majority, being drafted peasants or part time guardsmen (or mercenaries who fight for money not king and country) in a wide variety of armour, from that which is almost as good as the knights to almost no or minimal armour. And varying levels of training and experience. Were there medieval armies that would beat a Roman legion? Very definitely! But on the whole my money would be on the Romans almost every time. Thanks again for a thought provoking topic.
Without a doubt the Romans would lose the first engagement but that technological advantage the medieval soldiers have won't last forever the Romans would quickly and learn from their mistakes on the battlefield especially if they have intellectual generals plotting and strategizing behind the scenes while powerful generals that are good at boosting morale on the battlefield leading the charge
The Romans would win so easily you underestimate them so bad. They would let the cavalry charge. Surround them. Kill the horses. Then surround the knights and easily overwhelm them by stabbing the neck and under the arms. At the height of the empire. Rome would outnumber any English army 4 to 1 with each legion having it's own commander. Able to flank on their own. With highly disciplined men who could strategize on their own. Without needing a general.
I'm sorry but if you take out the mud(which is what exhausted the knights, given the distance, they would have been fresh without that), and in an open field, I struggle to see how the romans would survive the charge of 3000 knights ^^ Even if it'd definitely be better for the french to engage with the infantry and archers first, while their cavalry deal with the roman one. Azincourt french army was defeated in very specific circumstances, and if they met the romans on different circumstances than these specific ones, even with the same stupid strategy, I don't think the romans could stand a chance. You also mistaked what happenned to genoese crossbowmen, that happenned in crecy, not in Azincourt. I totally agree that commanders and many factors play a really important role on the issue though.
Oh my gosh you have short hair man... An early video indeed. I've been following you for a little bit, and I absolutely adore your videos. Thank you so much for the information very valuable information you provide..
As for the point about the pilum not being an effective weapon against the heavy cavalry, I can't imagine the Romans would bother trying to throw their pila through the knights' heavy armour, not when they are riding much less heavily armoured horses. You don't have to kill the rider to break a cavalry charge, killing the horses stops the cavalry charge dead in it's tracks too.
They probably wouldn't even waste the pila. IE at Magnesia they disrupted the charge of the chariots and prevented that of the elephants using slings. Slings were a favorite of Roman legionaries, since they were light to carry and inexpensive (and a long sling had about the same range than a longbow).
@@martintieber7756 "horses in plate armor"? How many "horses in plate armor" do you think had ever been? In CONTEMPORARY (not the 19th century stuff) depictions of medieval battles is rare to see them even wearing simple saddlecloths. Medieval war-horses usually didn't wear ANY form of armor.
If the modern army finishes their ammunition, they still wont be fighting like them on open ground. Today's military tactics are heavily based on small groups fighting rather than thousands on man on an open field.
I love how you mentioned Agincourt, the history squad with Kevin hicks talks about the English bowman and so many famous battles and actual history as well very cool! I also just watched a video Kevin did Or he said the same thing you did about armor he doesn't believe that arrows could pierce it in most cases.
So many comments hyping the Romans far beyond reality. You're worse than the katana crowd :p The average commenter on this thread seems to think the rank and file at Agincourt is a peasant with a pitchfork, reality is quite different. At this time medieval nations were fielding (entirely professional) armies fully encased in steel armour. Ignoring all other technological improvements, this alone is extremely significant. Plate armour is ridiculously underrated in modern representations of medieval combat, in reality it's practically immune to most traditional weapons- realistically only *significant* blunt trauma or a thrust into weak points was going to do the job (or more likely significant blunt trauma followed by a coup de grace with a dagger). Hell, it was so impactful on the battlefield that it practically made both swords AND shields obsolete, forcing soldiers to use hammers, maces and pollaxes. Even the mighty longbow (which had to be trained from a young age to even operate it) had mixed success getting through plate. Powerful medieval era crossbows were the only ranged option that could, and then only at close range. The only hope of the Romans to take on such a technologically advanced force would be simply to field vastly, vastly more soldiers (somewhat a hollow victory even their most vigorous defenders must admit)- and even then I think medieval era armies would score stunning victories, overcoming vast odds. If you were talking about early medieval armies I could see much more of a chance, mainly because of the armour, which wasn't nearly as widespread.
Thank you, not only people underestimate the middle-age all the time* (especially the second part of the middle-age), but the Roman fanboyism makes some comparisons even more ridiculous. That's not counting numbers or technological improvements the roman could do though, just the quality of the troops. Otherwise, the Romans would have their chances. edit: *and they underestimate that period in everything, especially regarding the so called "lost greek knowledge" (as if medieval european societies didn't know that earth was a sphere...) and related stuff.
@@xenotypos The most insightful thing in the video is the comment about which general leads which army. With a great Roman general and a crummy medieval general, the Romans could win. It's a question of who realizes their advantages and the terrain and uses them.
Personally I think it would be more interesting because of the Greeks emphasis on spears over swords. Particular the Macedonians as they also I believe had a decent missile wing too. The greek cavalry would be a complete loss.
I don't think they'd charge with cavalry against the Macedonian phalanx, they'd dismount and let their armor protect them on foot, I mean other than their use of shields they weren't too different from Swiss Pikemen... er... actually, the french did beat the Swiss pikemen in the 1500s using heavy cavalry... After which the Swiss never fought in an offensive war again. Thought they also used cannons. They charged the pikemen from the sides and the rear using superior mobility.
Med knights would just dismount, use their pollaxes if the terrain didn't allow for a proper charge. But then again, chivalric stupidity has been known to strike from time to time.
They would be effective as light cavalry. They were heavy for their day but not compared to middle or late medieval heavy cavalry. I also believe they didn't use stirrups at the time and that would seriously hamper they ability to fight other mounted units. Even mounted Norman knights could prove a serious threat to them with their heavier armour and large shields.
I believe you are combining the battles of Crecy and Agincourt in your scenario. The crossbowmen were used at Crecy, where they were run down by the French knights. Whereas at Agincourt, they were not deployed owing to Henry's advance to longbow range whilst maintaining a safe distance from crossbows. This forced the French to abandon the defensive stance they had assumed and take the offensive against the rain of English arrows, with the expected results.
Actually that question is already answered in history. The medieval Romans were the Byzantine who were versed in classic roman tactics and strategies but armed appropriately for the times, and they didn't in my opinion fair very well against western or eastern medieval armies of their day.
As I understand it, they were able to repulse some renegade forces of the First Crusade with relative ease, but then again, the Fourth Crusade totally fucked their entire empire.
the fourth Crusade wasn't a good example of byzantine military effectiveness against their western counterparts. that crusade was won through treachery and deciet, not through victories of combating armies.
Romans did fight against heavy, fully armored lance cavalry (though they used both hands rather than couching it) it didn't go well for the Romans. i2.wp.com/www.learning-history.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Cataphracts-4.jpg?fit=850%2C560&ssl=1
The heavy cavalry of the late medieval armies would have been a huge problem for the romans in the first meeting, as they had never seen anyhing like that. No doubt they would have driven a roman cavalry of the field. But i´m abolutely sure about one thing: The roman organisation, discipline, engineering and flexibility would have won them any war against the medieval armies. Their biggest advantage was the abilty to learn from their mistakes. On top they were relentless and free of any scruples. The medieval knights thought about honour and collecting bounties, while the romans where busy with massacring their enemies. In the late medieval times bigger battles were pretty uncommon, while the romans would have had no problem with losing some ten thousand men and even less with slaughtering enemies in these numbers. The only advantage of the medieval armies would have been the suprise factor when they confront the romans with weapons they didn´t know about before. But their field engineers would present a solution for knight cavalry from the second day onward. I was just writing about the actual battles. Would we consider logistics and speed the advantages of the romans would be even larger, let alone the numbers and ressources they were able to manage. Last we should mention, that medieval armies never had an efficient command chain. You brought your men onto the battlefield, positioned them and then trusted in god. The romans where able to perform complicated moves with enormous ammounts of men in heavy battle. Think of the battle at harzhorn, the lately discovered battlefield in northern germany, where the archeologists where able to figure out, how a roman army was ambushed by an overwhelming force of germans, which where fighting from higher ground and which where well prepared, while the romans must have been surprised. The germans where smashed after a well orchestrated cavalry charge into their flank, which the romans must have performed spontaneously and then driven into the woods and scattered by heavy infantry supported by catapults and basilisks. No way one of these lousy medieval armies, composed of some hundred heavily armed knights at best plus some thousand poorly trained foot soldiers and archers (poorly compared to roman standards) would have stood a chance against an army of these capabilities.
@@andrijaas2095 Medieval castles would have supplies. The Romans might succeed with one castle but after that they would start to meet tactics also it would imply that the medieval kingdoms would just sit there and do nothing in he mean time while the Romans are besieging a castle. War is dynamic and the medieval kingdoms would just moderate their tactics. Those top medieval castles could withstand assault from hundreds of thousands of attackers if need be.
I am sure the Romans would work hard on nullifying the power of heavy cavalry. There is a lot that can be done. - stay out of the way - use terrain where horses will have hard time, use (mobile) defences - cannot penetrate armour? Unhorse the rider and beat them to death with blunt weapons. Romans showed an amazing ability to adapt and come out on top. I am sure their generals would figure out several ways to deal with the problem. And if something worked really well, they just copied it.
@David Gwin Not exactly. More like professional army with promotions based more on skill and ability rather than relatives. Rome had dedicated military and was pretty much optimised it for what it needed to do.
It would be amazing to see you do a video on the dominate of diocletian versus a medival army or that of the late Roman Empire under Justinian which had loads and loads of auxilia. Love your channe have for years
I agree whole heartedly Metatron, it comes down to battle tactics and discipline, many advanced armies have been beaten over the course of ancient and modern civilization! The afghan defeat of the Soviets is a great example of bad planning and tactics! The mongols even wiped out a force of knights at the battle of Legnica! The knights were far more heavily armoured however they were tricked with a feigned mongol retreat and pursued, upon being caught most of the knights were surrounded, knocked down and killed by men with less armour. Simple discipline, a battle plan, high morale and a capable commander can make the difference.
Except the knights weren't better armored than the mongol heavies. It's funny how westerners think they're better armored. Oriental style cataphracts had both the rider and horse completely clad in heavy armor. The cavalryman's panoply is around 30kg . The horse's probably even more. Knights and man at arms of that period rode non/medium armored horses clad in quilted barding at their heaviest. The mail suit weighted around 20kg. They looked like medium cav in comparison. So please don't use "even". It's no surprise that a proper professionally organized and disciplined army of troopers who learned to ride the age of 3 and shoot a bow at the age of 5 defeated a feudal rabble with a few nobles in fancy gear.
majungasaurusaaaa Haha firstly it wasn't a rabble in fancy gear, it was the best army the polish could field in Europe at the time, it was an approximate force of equal men 8000 on 8000 if you know about Legnica then you would know that the European troops were actually far better equipped in this particular battle than the mongols they were facing! The knights that were present posed such a threat even in their limited numbers that the mongols actually centred their battle tatics around luring them into am ambush and destroying them! The mongols did indeed have heavies however the warriors present at Legnica were not even closely comparable as most were light cavalry and horse archers. Their commander however was far more experienced, prepared and able to execute an excellent battle plan. The mongols centred this battle around being light and thus employed tactics suited to this role. Clearly you know some history but nothing of legnica!
evolution legion size depends on the time period for the Roman's so while it might be 6'000 was the average for a Legion during one time period, another could have 30'000 in a legion
@@thessop9439 Which is why Medieval Europe switched to superior wooden planks that are around 1/4th to 1/2 an inch thick.... *Wooden planks have a higher chance of splitting than plywood*
Trejgon Look up Siege of Nicea where they fought side by side, although the army was Thematic by then not Legionary. In fact Emperor Manuel I fought some crusaders.
the Romans would win hands down. This video shows the misunderstanding of purpose of the Pilum common today. They weren't meant to kill the enemy but rather to strip the enemy of their shields and impede them. As well, the Knight horses would be even more vulnerable to the Pilums than they were to Longbows. Also, the Romans were very well conversant with the use of caltrops and stakes to protect them from "Shock" armies. After that, the dismounted Knights and ill-trained and equipped medieval infantry would have been cut to pieces by the disciplined melee machine that was the Roman Cohort. Meanwhile, the Romans, with their large shields (Scutum) would have been virtually immune to the slow-firing crossbows or even faster-firing longbows, as the Romans won against many "Missile" armies such as the Parthians.
"After that, the dismounted Knights and ill-trained and equipped medieval infantry" Men At arms were not ill trained and not ill equipped on average. Your scutum would likely be useless against guns. And 15th century armies had guns. And in regards of Missile armies. Romans win against them, yes. They also lost againt them. Marcus Licinius Crassus anyone? Your legionaries form a testudo against the Longbows and Crossbows? The knights charge in.
By the time of Agincourt, it’s my understanding that most knights no longer used shields since their armor gave them all the protection they needed. Their horses would also begin getting their own armor by this time period, but it’s true that they would still be vulnerable to ranged projectiles. Either way, pilum are not nearly as effective as you describe them to be.
I think it depends on what Medieval army they fight. The Swiss would definitely beat the Legion but the Russians and some smaller English forces would lose, most medieval warfare had high strategy and would definitely pair well against Romans.
I love how you picked a picture representing the Roman army fighting Thracians to point out how well equiped they were to fight their armies considering all the stories about the falx being able to cut through the scutum and how tough it was for the Romans
He would still have to shave his beard completely... Roman generals and officers generally didn't tolerate bearded men in the army, it was a standard, like shaving the hair today... Unless the armies were being besieged for weeks or months and the soldiers couldn't have the time to take care of their appearances. (Sorry for my bad english)
So basically Byzantium with the resources, tech and commanders of the Roman Republic or early Empire, vs its peers in the mediaeval period? Hardly seems fair, lol. Caesar was able to raise two legions at a moment's notice during the eve of the Republic, and thus had six full legions at his disposal for the conquest of Gaul and invasion of Britain, whereas mediaeval knights had much smaller armies, I believe. Imagine Byzantium running roughshod over the entirety of Europe, lol. Oh, and Invicta is seconded. I had their Roman stuff suggested a couple of weeks ago, and they're not bad at all.
Spephan Brum that was jUSTINIAN INTENTION TO RECONQUER OR THE LOTS LANDS, PROBLEMS WAS THE EMPIRE POPULATIONS WAS DECLINING THERE WHERE NO LEGIONERS AND NO MONEY. What Belisarius did with little resources and men its incredible yet most people dont even know about Belisarius or even Basil the second.
Indeed, Belisarius must not be forgotten among the ranks of great Roman commanders. And had Byzantium not been struck with Black Plague, chances are European history might have looked very different. Alas, that was not to be.
Well, that is a little bit like when Aztec fought the Spanish, but the Spaniards where in renaissance time, while the Aztec were in the bronze age. However, the victory of the Spanish as more to do with politics than actual battle, so idk :/
The GhostHero and disease wiped out like 90% of the native population of the Americas. As well as many neighbors of the Aztecs joining to fight against them
Life4Metalcore I know about that, it was easy since the tarascan were in competition for the biggest empire, the mixtec were angry for having been driven out of their homeland and the other kingdom for serving as sacrifice supplies
Ron Lewenberg the Aztec weren't well versed in the making of bronze, but not all of mesoamerica. Check this Wikipedia article en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaximaltepoztli
The actual battles they did have were mostly completely one sided though. The Spaniards and Portuguese also had some pretty one sided victories against much, much bigger armies in east Asia in the Renaissance.
The way both Peoples saw war is totally diferent, the people known to you as Aztecs wanted to capture their enemies, and their warfare was developed around that goal, in the other hand, western warfare had the objective of destroy the enemy army, that led to the supremacy of the spaniards, among other factors. It is said, that Cortés, the leader of the spanish expedition, was captured in the middle of a battle, if the soldier who took him, had killed him... who knows
The Legion would win because the Centurions had beautiful feathered helmets
brilliant.
Dyed Horsehair mostly.
no, because they are INCREDIBILIS
Why do you think that late mediaeval helmets had no feather plumage?
@@shirtlessviking9225 ETIAM
But can the Romans withstand the Emu Empire?
I mean the 1932 Australians couldn't even withstand the Emu Empire
Dude, some Roman boys wouldn't have a chance against the mighty Emu Empire, the greatest empire the world has ever had.
@RAJU PEDDADA You should check your history books dude, hell, even some goats tried to imitate the Emu Empire and failed catastrophically.
Clarification, the Emu had no "Empire" they had a "Socialist Collectivist Goverment" of noble elder woman. The didn't fight for any Empirer, they fought for the blessed game trails.
Emus will win.Even the Australian soldiers with lmgs can't beat them.
I feel like the Roman's would lose comprehensively in the initial battle, learn from the experience, adapt and ultimately triumph.
💜
@@TessTickles1 absolutely. Then improve on it.
@@TessTickles1 Byzantine, you mean?
Don’t you have to win battles to be able to claim something to copy?
@@TessTickles1 i mean its pretty hard to copy a weapon design when that weapon keeps killing your guys
Aha! Men in skirts versus men in tights!
TinnedTommy the best showdown of all times. We just naked celts to show up and then the party begins.
Cynical Socratic there's almost no evidence that any Ancient Celtic tribes actually fought naked. The only evidence of it is in Roman accounts, which should be taken with as much salt as they allegedly poured onto Carthage.
Plus, for just one counterexample, Pictish stone carvings clearly depict themselves wearing some kind of cloth armour into battle.
well, Matthew, you missed the jokes completely....
Commander Chen No; I got the jokes. They were pretty funny. I just felt like responding semi-seriously.
TinnedTommy men in skirts...
Well if you mean these guys they probably will win lol
greekamericangirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/tsoliades21.jpg
Medieval armies are Feudal, and the Roman army was a standing Professional force. Feudal armies were mostly small and varied considerably in quality. The only advantage a Feudal army had in that time was armor.
I disagree, calling a knight, trained for all his life to war, not a proffesional soldier is rather mistake. Also english longbowmen were training for years and were hired not only by english nobles, but by Burgundy and Spain too. Also I doubt that every roman soldier in their army was so proffesional.
Sybirak
Professional army=volunteer
The knights got drafted from the age of 5,not professional
Spartan win😂😂😂💪
@@su_morenito_1948 wrong, squires were drafted...knighthood then might at one point bestowed by a nobelman, its a titel for life^^
Sybirak Roman legions we’re trained in absolute discipline. They were entirely professional. Where are you getting that opinion from?
Correct me if im wrong, but only wealthy knights had full plate armor. A roman army wouldnt be facing swarms if fully armored foes. Most of the medieval soldiers were far less protected and would be vulnerable to roman weapons.
But they have crossbows and thick chain mail armor, which can be a big problem for the Romans.
That's also kinda similar to what the Roman military used to be during the Republic era before Marius' reformation.
@@KuDastardly far less protected but still as well protected if not better protected than a Roman Legionary. Coat of Plates, Brigandines... Maille... Gambesons
That's what I was thinking of, I mean I'm not so well educated in medieval equipment but I was always under the impression that the fully armoured knights were a commanding minority, just the nobles in charge basically, and pretty much the rest were pretty lightly armoured
@@neoyuls Depends on when and where, but "lightly armored" wouldn't generally be accurate in the Late Middle Ages. The "average" soldier would at a minimum be wearing mail over a gambeson (as stated by undertaker, and that's by no means easy to penetrate using the weapons the typical legionnaire would have been equipped with) and would usually have some other form of better protection.
The virgin Agincourt peasant vs the Chad Roman legionary
GeeksPlayGaming *pleb
The agincourt army wasn’t virgin it was made up of troops who were veterans the muster roll shows that and British people trained from children to use the longbow
I mean, this analysis is wrong, and the english force at agincourt would likely trounce a legion pretty damn badly.
Still don’t understand how Rome fell from the inside...
Erin Ackerman Not if I learn Latin, travel back in time to Classical Rome and introduce plated armor to the masses. First thing I’m doing when someone invents the time machine.
Being 1400 gap they stand amazingly
Imagine the Romans at that age, bruh
For more advance
Stoneloan Roman orbital drop troops!
Unfortunately there were very few of them left at the time, being attacked from literally all sides every five seconds.
@@IoanCenturion true poor Byzantium
Oh Also Romans fielded armies of up to 60,000 frequently so i imagine if no them out-manning them they would simply out-number them like the huns themselves did. >>>Lmao
Largest medieval armies were perhaps 25 thousand strong, at Agincourt french managed to field 21 thousand. I can't recall any instances where larger armies were fielded.
Romans consistently fielded armies 2 and 3 times larger than that, due to their superb logistic system. The technological gap is not as big as one might think, considering romans would 2-3 times more numerous than the medieval army.
Last point, Roman Empire lasted well into the gunpowder age, or we simply chose to ignore the Eastern half ?
We’re referring to Imperial legions. Made up of legionaries. That means Marian reform legions, from the 100s BC through Caesar to Augustus to Trajan and to Marcus Aurelius. It was Diocletian who restructured it again to better fit the defensive scheme of the late Roman Empire.
@David Gwin your german is shit btw
Haha, no.
Western European armies were generally small, yes, but if you take a look at the East and some of the other continents they managed to field HUGE armies. Almost every army was as large as 20k, or even more. And Roman armies were that big because they were an *Empire.* If you look at Republics at any part of Europe such as Venice and Novgorod, they fielded large armies! They even had some form of standing army which was raised in peacetime, contrary to the popular 'no standing armies' myth. The Roman Empire in the medieval age (also known as the Byzantine Empire, which is a modern term) fielded equally large armie, just like the Sassanids, at least while their power was still strong. *Numbers were not even required anymore.*
So it is simply untrue that antiquity's armies were larger all the time. And numbers do not win fights either. Much of the Roman technology is outdated by the Late Middle Ages, as shields were hardly used anymore, especially at that size. A polearm would screw it, even levied soldiers used polearms by then.
Western Europe had literally been abandoned by the Romans so it is no surprise that they fielded smaller armies, but attempts at making larger and centralized armies were made. The Holy Roman Empire and Charlemagne's Frankish Empire are examples.
@David Gwin Landsknechte not landschnekcht, Zweihänder not schweihanders
Black Army of Hungary, professional mercenary standing army (deployment in 1487, at Schottwien, Lower Austria): 28 000 soldiers: 20 000 infantry (heavy, light, crossbowmen's, archers, hand-gunners, arquebusiers, etc.), 8 000 cavalry (heavy, like men-at-arms, and light, like hussars, etc.), artillery (bombards, light field guns, etc.), war wagons, river fleet, etc...
"Lots of mistakes because of overconfidence".
That is a massive understatement about the batltle of agincourt.
Not really, longbows were pretty average when the French werent sending their genoese crossbowmen forward through a marsh without their pavises (Azincourt). Or letting the crossbows under the rain with hair-made crossbow strings (Crecy).
The longbowmen eventually got steamrolled by the French vanguard under La Hire at the battle of Patay. Longbows are way overestimated in the english speaking world, they were not meta changing, which is why most armies continued using the crossbow. However what changed the meta in the 100 Years war is well, the arrival and mastery of black powder.
What changed as well was the overpowering of foedal lord centered armies and a move towards professional armies that eventually lead to the centralization of european states.
Ah yes sorry the Pavises thing was at Crecy, although Genoese crossbowmen did suffer the humidity problem at Azincourt too.
What allowed the english to massacre french nobility was the professional army discipline which the nobility lacked and which lead to the tactical blunders that we know. That was the game changer.
If longbows had been 100% game changing mainland armies would have adopted them. Most did not. Which means, the time and cost of training simply wasnt worth it. For they were far less efficient than those two battles would lead you to believe.
As for French archery, it was definitely not the best. And never did I even suggest that. But it existed, as the Franc-archers proved at the battle of Castillon but that's beyond the point because I never even mentionned French archery.
Concerning firearms. It's well known that it's the mastery of canons (as well as heavy cavalery) that won the French the War. And once again, never said "the french did it first" just that they did it better at least at the end. In 1453 in castillon, it's the mastery of cannons and firearms that won the day. And lead to the English losing the war and every single piece of territory they had on the mainland but the fortress of Calais.
Crafts are not secret things if they are wanted. They do not stay secret long.
And the mounted composite bow in Asia spread far and wide and so did the greek phalanx.
But how would massive longbow contribute to the fall of the mounted heavily armored knight. While it is unable to do much but to kill a horse if said horse is not armored. That makes little sense if any.
As for Henry VI, he was certainly no master tactician, but the very same could be said of the French kings of the beginning of the war. Not to mention the decades of political instability and the arrival of the black death in 1348.
Yes I do question the efficiency of Longbows against armored target. Especially well heavily armored knights with properly manufactured armor. It's well known that at Agincourt it wasnt the longbows that killed the knights.
However they did fuck up the horses. Big time.
However it's worth mentionning that the French won big battle applying old cavalery charges, but in order. And eventually wiped the floor with Talbot and his archers, despite his being said to be the best general of the King.
As a French, thank god for La Hire and his mastery of the vanguard cavalery charge. He did a lot for us not being english rn.
We apparently, do not know the same facts. From what I read they couldnt...
En effet l'invasion en 1066 était la première incursion Franque sur le territoire anglo-saxon, et quelle incursion. Quand à l'hexagone Anglais ou non, pour le coup, aucun moyen de le savoir. Que se serait il passé si les territoires continentaux de l'Angleterre était restés en sa possession pendant la centralisation de pouvoir de la période moderne. Impossible à deviner.
Les anglo-saxons par contre aurait eu du mal à lutter contre les gaulois sachant que l'Anglo-saxon n'apparait qu'au 8e siècle pour désigner les saxons isolés en grande bretagne.
"your father was a wRoMAN!?"
"No. A Roman "
Uhhh do what sir?
THROW HIM TO THE FWOOR AGAIN SIR?
Yes, thwow him to the flwoor
And your mother was a hamster!
No, he was A. Roman.
Prussian : 150% discipline memes
Roman Empire : A M A T E U R
Sparta: A M A T E U R
@@caualongshanks Spartans were not a particularly disciplined force. Their notoriety is in comparison to the rest of the greeks who were, well, sort of your stereotypical barbarian horde of dudes charging vaguely in the right direction while the spartans developed the secret mastery of... marching to music in basic formation. The romans, macedonians, certainly prussians, and most medieval armies were better disciplined than the spartans. It isn't that the spartans were great, it's that the people they were fighting were very bad.
@@EAfirstlast a joke man do you understand it? R/woooosh. Also i was talking about them training from 7 years old. Romans as i know did not train since they were 7 years old. Also also dont ruin memes and joke its just not cool :(
@@caualongshanks Spartans are incredibly overrated
@@avgvstvs7 yes they are, the worst of the main polises defeated them lol (thebes) but they are still very good
Romans managed to face the attack by elephants and to win the battle ... note that their success against elephants was based mostly on their discipline, military skills of soldiers and commanders, a smart tactics used, their ability to eliminate the elephant attack was not based on some advanced weapon tehnology
... thus I believe they would find a way to face the heavy cavalry
If there was a simple way to effectively stop heavy cavalry it would not have been so effective during the medieval ages.
Elephants never wore armour fighting the Romans ontop of this it doesn't take much to make an elephant rampage a few javelins or arrows and elephants were known to lose all control.
Now you're on about horse's they're generally flighty but have been trained to be disciplined and wore armour to protect from such things, much faster smaller target and more devestating charge.
There's a reason why heavy cavalry were always so prevalent up until gunpowder (and to a degree after) however elephants were much less common despite still being around.
Even after several hundred years the Romans failed to find an effective counter against heavy cavalry of the east, who had far worse equipment than the late medieval knights. They could win against them now and then, but not consistently, and instead they would adopt the very same type of equipment and tactics.
Well there is a difference between elephants are different from horses
Keep if mind that this is around Agincourt so .... Plate barding for the horse is not yet common
So? Muslims defeated Persian Elephants, and they still had problems with Crusaders and lost Spain to the Christians.
@@FriendoftheDork The Romans eventually had to hire Huns to keep the Persian cavalry at bay.
Something like this scenario happened when the roman armies went up against Parthia. The Parthian Cataphract is much like a late era medieval knight, and caused them all kinds of hell. There were stories about these armoured horseman shattering roman 'testudo' formations.
That's actually an interesting piece of information, in relation of "which would win Romans or mounted knights' charge"
@@chalcedonycoral1943 ACTUALLY the enemy would spam arrows at the Roman soldiers which couldn't penetrate the legion armor but penetrated unprotected limbs causing them to fall! The now injured Roman legions were now vunerable to a heavy Calvary charge! They would repeat this strategy and kill 20,000 legions while only losing 28 catraphats!
@Mary Dominguez: if seems you are speaking of Battle of Carrhae. Ya, Romans had their asses handled to them there.
But I'm more interested in wherever Roman heavy infantry would stand against charge of heavy calvary. What happened near Carrhae was not exactly clean experiment in that regard. Calvary charge only took place after Romans were softened up enough by mounted archers. Organization and supply lines of Partians allowed them to forget about limit of arrows
a mounted archer could carry in their quivers to a certain degree - bundles of new arrows were shipped regularly; Romans didn't have any good cards to lay on table in ranged combat between the armies (later, this battle led Roman military to invest in sagittariorums if they were going against Parthians); and if Romans formed testudo, heavy calvary of Parthians passed by to say hi and open them up a bit and left; then mounted archers continued their shots into holes of damaged formation.
But in this case heavy calvary was crushing into opponent who was already quite injured, exhausted and demoralized. I'm not sure if that's indicative case...
@@chalcedonycoral1943 THE MONGOLIAN HUNS COPIED THIS STRATEGY! Chengis Khan!
@@chalcedonycoral1943 A shield wall can defeat light Calvary but heavy Calvary is a b I t ch to fight as the shield wall will only stop the charge of heavy Calvary and be at a stalemate!
I'd say Marcus Aurelius' legion could handle many obstacles.
Dan Morgan interesting Match up against the french army both overconfident
I'd say King Matthias I's professional mercenary standing Black Army (1462-1493) could handle many roman armies! ;) :) Heavy infantry, light infantry, heavy cavalry, light cavalry, archers, crossbowmen, gunners, war wagons, etc.
@@kristofantal8801 His army was pretty exceptional during his time. I mean, it was a standing army instead of just levy.
@@alalalala57 The first standing army in Europe was the "Compagnie d'ordonnance"
which was created by Charles VII of France in 1439. Yes, the standing army was not a ordinary thing, but from the mid 15th century, slowly replaced the levies and militias . Other good example was the "condottieri
" system in Italy. In the Late Middle Ages, medieval warfare slowly falling, and the professional troops, like the mercenaries were much more important. The medieval armies, especially the late medieval armies used mercenaries as much as possible.
@@kristofantal8801 Nope! There were 'standing armies' before then. From the household guards to all-out assembled forces of men, like this one from the Slavic parts of Europe that numbered a thousand and accompanied their lord, can't remember its name but it was in the earlier part of the Middle Ages. A 'standing army' is vague here, remember that.
The one with bigger numbers and better logistics will win all the time. I'd personally put my money on Rome. I have never read about a kingdom taking as many massive losses after losses as Rome at the hands of Hannibal and still be able to make new tactics and field new armies. So here's my bet- maybe the medieval army will win first time, then second, maybe even for third time, but we all know who has the last win.
+Amitabha Kusari
Yeah even if they destroyed 9 armies the Romans would mobilise a 10th and finish what the medieval army started.
Probably true.
Bullet-Tooth Tony cannons
+Abel 76.2
What about them?
For the sake of the argument I think we should treat any battles as being fairly even numbers and on neutral ground.
Same thing with the quality of equipment. Lots of times X vs X answers are well this warrior or army would win because they're in a time period or location where they have better steel. No, first of all, it won't make that much of a difference. A simple iron sword can fuck someone up just as easily as a legendary enchanted plus 10 Vorpal sword of Destruction.
The determining factors should be on training, tactics, and how they USE the equipment they have and not on who has the better quality gear or is able to throw a lot more guys at their enemy.
Legion vs Crusaders would be an interesting video. Ave Imperator vs Ave Maria.
Or heck, another interesting video would be Romans vs Jommsvikings.
Wait, no Jommsvikings vs Nahuatl Jaguar Warriors
Pathfinder Savant See the Fourth Crusade and Nicaean-Latin wars. They didn't stop being Romans because some dude with a point hat decided he liked the Germans better 😁
Pathfinder Savant the ROMAN EMPIRE vs the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
MICHAEL GOLD the holy roman empire was a "thing" during the crusades, I was referring to crusaders vs the older roman legion from around the 1st century
I doubt the french would have underestimated the romans. From what I've heard romans would telegraph their disipline and organization, one because it was so ingrained that they couldn't help but do so, but also I'm sure it intimidated and demoralized the enemy. If romans suddenly stepped through time, if the french didn't know they stepped through time, I doubt they would look on them as primitive or weak.
I disagree with him anyone, I'm not sure his description of agincourt is accurate nor that the Romans could pull off what the English did. Apparently the English got hold of the French's battle plans. The English nullified the French Cavalry even before the battle had started and had also countered their battle plan, forcing them to abandon their plan and to dismount. They forced the French to advance.
The French apparently charged straight for the English man at arms, not their archers (apparently smaller numbers of Cavalry tried to flank the archers but were ineffective.). They were pelted with arrows as they crossed the several hundred metre gap between them. Apparently as the English archers were situated at the flanks they continued to be pelted with arrows as they were fighting the English man at arms. It's said that the French were too bunched up to allow them to use their weapons effectively.
I don't see the Romans executing this same plan or having the same favourable circumstances against that same army. They didn't have longbowmen for a start. They'd never faced French heavy Cavalry with lances, they didn't know French tactics and did not have their plans for the battle. It's unlikely if they did that they would have known how to counter them anyway. They did not have fully armoured man at arms like the English did to hold off dismounted French knights assuming they managed to nullify their tactics and their Cavalry charge forcing them to approach dismounted. The Romans didn't have anything to nullify or deter the Italian crossbowmen.
There's no reason the French man at arms would reach Roman lines 'exhausted' like they did at Agincourt even if they used the same tactics. There's no reason they'd bunch up like they did at Agincourt. Assuming the French used identical tactics, it'd just be a battle of two infantry forces and it's hard to argue the Romans had superior infantry to the highly experienced and fully armoured French knights, man at arms and experienced soldiers that were at Agincourt.
The Romans would need to win in a very different way than the English did. Not to mention the circumstances surrounding the battle that in this case would not be replicated. How are the Romans getting their pick on where and when they fight?
medieval warfare was also very much stategic, often armys would not engage but just tease the opponent, basicly with the goal of the opponents armys funds drying up , on this level there would probably a lot of movement warfare. to besieging towns,
military defences had changed very much since antiquity even smaller towns had formidable defenses, with trained townmilitias, and artillery placements, and i doubt roman testudo formation would protect much from wallguns(wallbüchsen) and such toys.
7dayspking And the English had the chad peasant bowmen firing longbows.
the virgin agincourt soldiers vs the chad roman imperial soldiers
Are no match against the much chad Mongolian Horde, just joking. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Best comment.
Since when do chads where skirts?
Sir William those ain't skirts, if you were chad you would have know
joe martin oh sorry I didnt mean skirts, that long ass tunic is practically a dress. Makes sense considering: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome
Title: Late Medieval Army VS Roman Imperial Army
Content: 20 minutes of ragging on the French. I love it.
Imo the medieval armies are often underestimated in their professionalism. The Burgundian medieval army before the wars against the Swiss was a very highly organized machine.
Would they stake up to Romans? Well, we compare two 500-1000 year long periods, the Romans were a citizen army in the beginning, a good professional force at their peak and a ragtag mix pretty indistinguishable from any other contemporary army in the end. So which do we choose?
Do the Romans fight the Anglo Saxon Fyrd? They'd be used to that.
Fighting a 15th century French army? They'd not be used to that.
Against the army of a knightly Order like the Hospitaler or Templar or Teutonic knights?
In a similar vein: Republican army. Semi professional but large manpower pools.
Imperial army: High professionalism, but the loss of several legions could cause the collapse of an entire theatre for a decade before replacements could be trained and put together.
Overall knights, man at arms and medieval infantry in general was used to fight heavily armored opponents so facing the Romans would not be somethin unusual. In actuality the Romans would stack up not so well in equipments to an average heavy infantry guy from the medieval period (if you didn't have the equipment which would be some kind of armor and weapon to fight armored opponents, you weren't used as heavy infantry) In reverse, the cavalry tactics of the Middle Ages had not been around at the times of the Romans. The closest would be Parthian and Sassanid cataphract charges which the Romans did not like at all and weren't superior to. But heavy shock charges... not someting done like that in antiquity
This last bit is the most important here, I'd say. How do the kataphraktoi rate against knights? Factoring in the legions' effectiveness against the former, you can make a guess on the outcome.
mangalores-x_x are you using metatron’s setting? Because like he said, we need to establish the time and which armies would be fighting.
The legions time and time again bested the Parthians. They just couldn’t hold on to the territory. Trajan basically wiped them out in his conquest of Mesopotamia. He wanted to push through to India like Alexander the Great, but knew Rome couldn’t hold that much land.
@@maddocpax788 Cataphracts were still around in the Middle Ages, so we can assume that they were still terrifying, but with the rise of knights their fearsome reputation against armies from Asia was dwindling. They were very widespread, but knights would most likely surpass them due to having longer lances, arguably better armour, etc.
@Super Cartoon Universe You forget that there were many good figures in the Middle Ages as well, and this only applied to *Western* Europe, which was lost to the Romans, who continued to strive but with more Greek culture due to no longer having Italia.
Charlemagne, Henry V, Saladin (who raised an even larger cavalry army than the Parthians' one at Carrhae), Richard the Lionheart, etc.
I think it would really depend a lot on the commanders/generals. As a Czech my favourite example are Hussite wars, where Jan Žižka turned mostly peasants with a little bit of training, improvised weapons (and some modern weapons) into a force that could face much larger numbers of crusaders because of the superior tactics and perfect use of the available terrain and tools.
Also a huge factor is the morale of the units. The knights were mostly nobility, the Romans were professional soldiers. The Romans were generally more effective fighting in formation imho because of their superior discipline.
1v1 I think medieval soldier would have much higher chance.
Jan and his taborites were an example of military genius. Jan is my favorite general.
Why isn't the Roman siege crossbow or the fact Roman soldiers can build full defensive camps everytime they make camp so if they had even 1hr knowing they'd be attacked by a force like a late medieval forces they could build light defenses to make their forces more effective
The medieval soldiers would be able to build trebuchets to bombard the fort given enough time. If they'd have a greater advantage in range they'd have a big advantage. I personally feel the Romans would need to be very aggressive to achieve victory.
Classy Fett The Romans were much faster at building fortifications.
Thorolf of Dyflin The Romans would have stomped them.
Classy Fett The Romans damn sure were aggressive, they conquered the entire Mediterainian area. Africa, and the mid east as far as Baghdad today. And theRoman empire lasted over 1000 years. No one else ever came close.
Bob Martin I dont think they would of stomped them on account of the armor but Im pretty dang sure romans would come out on top because they just simply put have the skills too be flexible in face of whatever comes at them
People tend to forget how very physically strong long bowmen were
@Patrick Brennan great series
A warbow would tear in half a roman scutum from 1 BCE with a couple shots
Depends though. Sometimes you'd have common numbers like 90-130lbs, then you got more uncommon to rare weights like 140-180lbs
@@jonajo9757 no dude. War bows were 100lbs minimum and averaged at 150lbs some were up to 200lbs... The reason the English were so known for their longbows is because archery was a passtime and they often started as kids, which is why they were so good at using bigger stronger bows
Bows with same draw weight exist during ancient times. What made longbow good is their range which is 300meters. But romans would likely counter them with slings.
Invicta is great! Subbed to them not long ago. Actually Metatron, both of you are great!
It seems most of the videos I've seen and articles I've read making this comparison don't take into consideration the composition of the armies. All the legions of the early Empire were made entirely of professional soldiers and were well-equipped by the state. Most medieval armies were at least partially reliant on peasant levies. Armies like those at Agincourt weren't, but raise a different question.
Due to their logistical capabilities and a variety of other factors, the average Roman army of the early Empire would absolutley dwarf the average medieval army.
Just a little food for thought.
I really liked this video and would love to see more like it.
Matthew Anstatt the vast majority of medieval armies were made from professional soldiers and mercenaries.
Well, the weakness of roman is their inability to switch rapidly of tactics against a changing enemies. One time I don't remember what battle, they lost because thier enemy's was alternating between mounted archers and heavy infantry units , and the legions could not face the threat as effectively and ended up losing. So if Roman attack crossbowman and foot soldiers, flank them with mounted crossbowman and handgunners and shock cavalry to defeat them
In this time period, peasant levies weren't very common, and when they did occur, it was usually to provide porters or pioneers or any other form of basic manual labor as opposed to fighting men. There were of course people called up to fight, but they were not peasants. They were people of some substance who were required by the government to provide armed men as according to their means. Thus, a wealthy man, and I do not mean a noble per se, would be required to provide so many knights and other armed and armored men. However, he might instead pay scutage, which is basically instead of sending men to fulfill his feudal obligations, the vassal sends money, with which the king will hire mercenaries. This was incredibly common by the late middle ages, so much so that one could make an argument that a majority of fighting men were professionals and not merely part time, and certainly not levies.
EvilTwinn yet the medieval army would still be vastly out numbered and outsupplied and in a protracted conflict, the Romans actually had reasobably competent medical staff to deal with injuries and disease while the medieval army didn't.
I didn't argue about any of that, Lorgar. A highly centralized state drawing on the resources of an entire empire is way more capable of fielding a large army than anything we'd see through the middle ages. I agree with that. What I am arguing against is the continued notion that the armies of the 13th to 16th centuries relied in any substantial way on so called "peasant levies"
The Romans throwing weapon was ment to stick into shields and make them really difficult to wield right before everyone closed in melee and thus disrupt the enemy shield wall. Also it might not kill the knight but if would probably seriously upset a few horses. The standard of discipline and training across the board on the Roman side would be higher, only the more elite forces like knights would be comparable.
that's why usualy you would not charge just head on into heavy infantry also spears were not unknown in the middleages, but this changes again si horsearmor is in play i think it was more common later but i doubt pilum would make a great impact
@Super Universe exactly mate. If we are choosing hand picked frontier legionnaires they will massacre any medieval army in a hand to hand combat. European knights lost a lot battles against professional armies like ottomans or mongols.
Love the vid have been a fan of both channels for awhile
Romeo Cassino why do you ask? I could just go back to his older videos and hear his channel name at the intro
Romeo Cassino
THFE Productions
He used to go by THFE Oakley Hi Def in his Total War videos.
Romans would win ultimately because they were a Professional Force with the backing of a large State. They were better trained, disciplined and possessed more sophisticated command and control . Medieval armies were small and inconsistent in quality and generally only had a handful of well trained and experienced men.
Also, the Romans would have a *huge* manpower advantage. At Agincourt, the English only had about 6k-9k men, and the French are estimated from anywhere around 12k to 36k. Even if the French had 36k, the Romans could, feasibly, field double that number. Against the English, the Romans would likely outnumber them 4:1, if not by even more. Furthermore, we have to take into consideration that medieval armies relied heavily on mercenaries, and the Romans were fabulously wealthy. They could likely buy some heavy cavalry, crossbowmen, and whatnot, in order to make up for their technological deficiencies.
If the Romans had a competent commander, such as Trajan, Pompey, Caesar, Odaenathus, Belisarius, Scipio Africanus etc., at the helm, I'm certain they could pull off a win against any medieval opponent.
It has been proven in history that even if the Romans had a bad commander in charge, they might still win just because of the training and discipline they had. The Roman legions of the late republic and early empire were arguably the best trained and disciplined army in history. They trained and marched daily just to stay in practice.
As for the manpower thing. While the Romans could deploy more troops, in practice they usually did not as they did have a large empire to defend as well. Still a classic legion would have around 5000 men plus irregulars, artillery, and cavalry to support it. Their artillery (particularly the bolt and stone throwers used as anti-personnel weapons) would have been very effective against heavy cavalry (knights). These weapons had range and a legion would have between 30 to 40 of them. A knights charge would be telegraphed by the knights getting into formation and trotting out for a charge. As soon as they were within range, concentrated fire from all over the line of the Romans would pour into the knights line of charge. And some of these weapons would have been mounted on wagons with traversable platforms, allowing fast deployment to a critical area and quick changes in direction of fire as needed. (Yes, the Romans built the first tank).
The Illuminazi. Exactly. Just look at the Finns vs. the Russians during the Winter War. The Gurkha's against just about anybody anytime. I believe it was Robert Rogers of Rogers' Rangers that said, "I can do more with 100 men, yes even with 10 men, who obey orders than I can with a 1000 that do not."
What? No Gaius Marius?
@@davidtherwhanger6795 Bad example. The fins lost eventually. Ghurkas would never be able to wage a full scale war considering that they're a special operations force and not conventional infantry. That's like comparing the entirety of the US military to Navy SEALs.
15:36 "it IS a matter of genitals..."
"The Romans would loot whatever they found to be useful" Romans confirmed to be Orks.
Or Blood Ravens.
Brother, check the Reliquary!
Heresy.
It's only heresy if the Inquisition knows about it.
@@XanderTuron we have a little n lier humie
4:48 The Romans had looted a video camera from the Judeans.
Liquidsback yeah, actually the second temple was a giant movie theater :D
That "roman soldier" struggling through the weight of pilum at 8:58 with his office trained hands doesn't look really representative.
😂😂😂
I think that despite the fact that in many points Roman Army is superior, the advantage for the medieval army is massive. Heavy cavalry charges were such a decisive factor, that they would in most cases (as Metatron said under some conditions Romans could try to nullify this threat with positioning, etc.) just break roman formations and cause panic. Polish winged lancers are the best example of how decisive the heavy/shock cavalry was until late 17th century.
The winged hussars had pistols. At the siege of Vienna they also had cannons.Sobiesli was quite the commander in that battle. He was also 70 years old.
I think I know what you are getting at, but pistols and cannon support was not what made winged hussars so devastating - it was the changes with their lances. Pistols where to be used after the charge when the hussars where retreating to resupply with new lances and renew the charge. Anyway medieval cavalry had no pistols and was equally devastating at its time :). My feeling is also that while fairly praising Roman training and discipline, people are generally underestimating the professionalism of the medieval knights and standing forces (archers, crossbowmen, etc.)
You have to admit that the Turk army was mishandled at Vienna.Cannons and pistols made cavalry charges obsolete.
DId yOu JuSt CaLl WiGnEd HusSaRs...
*WINGED LANCERS*???!?!?!?!?!?
Walter, please tell of the Roman cannons and pistols?
I feel like the fact that middle aged cavalry was so much more advanced would cause the Romans to lose more than anything else
Romans didn't have the medieval stirrup and saddle (nor the destrier horses) that allowed for heavy shock cavalry. They also wouldn't stand a chance against gunpowder and cannon.
@@TrueFork gun powder was fairly rare during this time in Europe so I doubt most medival armies at the time would have cannons in their arsenal
@@tauempire1793 The topic is "Late medieval army", gunpowder was not rare in the late middle ages. It was well established by the end of the 14th century. E.g. Joan of Arc was known for her effective use of cannons.
they could lure away parts of the roman, army and cursh them in a cavalry charge or infantry ambush, also roman army trains could be very long and this made them vulnerable like at teutoburger forrest.
so if the romans fail to deploy in formation, they are very bad off
Good videos, thanks for the work. My two cents:
A skilled Roman general could detect through skirmishes the differences in equipment and tactics. That would enable that, in a first clash, even though I do think they would lose the first combat, the discipline and skill of a fully professional army would allow them to survive the battle, minimize casualties, and even stand their ground until they could retire. The shock of the battle could wear them off a bit, but they would have gained the insight of witnessing the deployment and usage of late Medieval forces, regardless of the country.
The core of heavier infantry(mercenaries, dismounted knights and serjeants) would be a formidable foe, and they would know it. But they would also recognize the lightly armed, undisciplined and barely trained militias, levies and lighter infantry making the bulk of the opposing force. They would recognize the danger of the crossbow(after all, they had technology alike), and would plan accordingly. They would recognize too the dangers of longbowmen, and guess that, with crossbowmen and longbowmen, the key is to close in quickly, and to minimize casualties on the way, to keep unit cohesion before the attack.
The major shock would come from a full charge from heavy cavalry. The technology associated and the tactic itself would be a surprise and cause for concern. They would guess that stopping it with stakes, as they had done during sieges, was their best chance. If they had the time and the possibility, they would undoubtedly adopt the tech or hire mercenaries that used the tech, while they trained their own heavy cavalry (like they did in Late Imperial times).
In short, we would see the changes Late Imperial administration and Byzantine administration did in the next centuries, but condensed in a campaign. The pilum would remain, for use against lighter infantry and missile troops, and the hasta would make a comeback, with Gladius and spathas as backup weapons, with scutums forming shield walls. Lamellar arm protections, and greaves would become more widespread, if not mandatory, and heat treated steel would be adopted for armor. New adaptations of existing tactics would arise, and heavy shock cavalry would be used. Since deployment would be more important than ever, skirmishers, mounted and not, would be required, to allow the commanders to probe the opposing force, harass them(given how weak medieval logistics were), finding a suitable battlefield, and enticing them to it. Centurions would be paramount, training and drilling the new tactics and keeping unit cohesion. Centurions would also mark the difference between a standard medieval army and a Roman army. A small unit officer, experienced, learned, respected and known by its men, unlike the bigger units, which lacked the equivalent for the most part, of most medieval armies. Granted, they weren't mobs, but not until maybe the free companies or the religious orders' armies, such level of training and professionalism was reached again in the West.
I see the Roman army evolving into a Middle Byzantine kind of army, but with better heavy cavalry...
@David Gwin And yet according to wikepidia the romans at the battle of philippi were able to field between 120000 and 200000 soldiers (with at least 30.000 cavalry) while at agincourt there likely were less than 30.000 men overall.
Under Augustus the roman army is believed to have even exceeded the 300000 mark.
@@moralhazard8652 under constatine-till late roman empire, the roman army had a standing army of 590-700k troops
wouldnt the romans generally field more warriors then a medieval armor too? i must research this but it seems like roman armies were massive and medieval armies generally not.
Generally, simply because the territory held by medieval kings was smaller. I mean, the WHOLE roman empire (which included all of what is France today) against just the kingdom of France which is half occupied by England hardly seems fair. Imagine if we had a battle between the armies of the Roman Empire against the armies of all the countries that used to be part of the roman empire except in the 1400s, combined. Suddenly the odds don't seem as good for the Romans, don't they.
Socio Philosopher No. I think you would need to take the republic at its strongest then drop 1400s France in the middle of their empire.
Rome wins.
France could last a long time with the heavy cavalry...but against the full might of rome...it could be a hundred year war.
The ability to muster men and resources is THE reason a faction wins its wars. A quick look at the USA's steel out put and population is enough to conclude that the germans stood no chance in WW2.
Actually not. A roman legion consisted of 3000 - 6000 warriors and in Agincourt there were between 6000 to 9000 english/welsh and 14000 to 36000 french. Of course, those were exceptionally large armies for the time and if we wanted to be fair we could give the romans two legions to get them to about 10-12k troops.
"the one with the larger army" doesn't necessarily win as the english/welsh have proven but I think in this case the romans would probably be outnumbered. We don't really know how well the romans do when vastly outnumbered. According to Caesar they were in the battle of Alesia but later estimates suggest that he was just overstating the gallic numbers considerably because the battle with the ensuing maneuvres wouldn't really make sense unless there were 2 simularily sized armies facing off against each other.
aha thanks for the information, looks like i misled myself on this. When i see a roman army in my imagination i always assumed there woul be 6-20k troops in a roman army wen going to war against a major foe. Now that i read the comments i see that i need to rethink this.
I'm not so sure medieval armies would be overconfident in an encounter with an imperial roman army. Ancient Rome was the stuff of legends, and at least the military leaders would have studied the battles of antiquity, understood the importance of organization and discipline and been painfully aware that their own forces were nowhere near as organized and disciplined as a Roman legion. Facing an army that your teachers always told you was a pinnacle of military might that the world hasn't seen anything even close since, is a very daunting prospect.
But then: A medieval battle commander would have studied Roman tactics and would therefore have an idea what to expect, where an Imperial Roman battle commander would have no clue what to expect from a medieval army. I suspect they would greatly underestimate the threat medieval ranged weapons pose to them. And since the Roman didn't know stirrups, they'd also underestimate the power of medieval cavalry
MrAranton did you watch the video? That's why he said England would probably win but the French army at agincourt was lead by arrogant, competitive and selfish nobles that historically made incredibly stupid strategic decisions. Slamming your heavy cavalry straight into the enemy is not exactly a sophisticated tactic and that's literally all the French were prepared to do at that point in their military history, Romans would probably camp behind mud just like the English did and basically laugh at how useless full plate is when it's cooking you alive and full of mud.
You can't just assume that the French would approach a Roman army exactly the way they approached the English at Azincourt.
When the French faced the English, the faced what they believed to be a rag-tag band of peasants. Had these French encoutered a Roman army there's no way they would have mistaken them for a rag-tag band of peasants. And when people take their opponent seriously their decisions tend to be a lot smarter than when they're not taking their opponent seriously.
Well, for having studied ancient military tactics they sure displayed little of having done so.
Even the most capable and educated military commanders have to make do with what's at their disposal. Ancient tactics in general and roman tactics in particular relied on well-trained, highly disciplined infantry that medieval commanders simply didn't have. They a mix of highly trained chivalry of varying discipline, well-trained mercenary of varying loyalty and barely trained peasants.
A head cavalry charge is mostly a scare-tactic, and usually a quite effective one. A formation of knights in armour on horses charging towards you is a terrifying sight to behold, and it's not unreasonable to expect a line of typical medieval infantry to break up and run before the forces even clash into each other. But seeing a roman army, knowing that those are the most disciplined and professional the world has ever seen up to that point in history just might give a medivial commander pause and cause them to re-think their tactics. Whether they'd be able to actually implement their adaptaded tactic with the personnel they have is a different story; but to assume they wouldn't even try to adapt their tactics to the foe they face?
Well, late medieval French armies cannot be described only by the battle of Azincourt. They were overconfident in that particular instance, but not all of them.
Romans fought to conquer. It wasn't a sport to them. It was a fight meant to be won.
Late era knights fought for glory, people would literally come out of near by towns to watch them. War was different entirely in medieval times. It was more good sport than serious war.
Romans left the sport to the gladiators, and the war to the front line.
You're belittling countless deaths in medieval wars.
Agree, it seems that medieval warfare emphasized more on glories and equipments whereas the Romans emphasized more on the tactics, and battle formations. The late wins in my opinion simply because its useless to own a superior weapon but not knowing how to use it. French vs. England was the perfect example for this case.
Romans where the first war machine and had some honor, the english and french where all panzies they had to fake their glory because they would loose most of their wars and had no honor for their fellow soldiers who they would abandon in retreat
You have no idea, what "medieval" warfare looks like...
I think the Roman Imperial army, from say Trajan's time would be a class above the late medieval army. The regimented discipline of military life, the training, the esprit d' corps or pride in one's unit, the organization, logistics, the equipment. On the whole, the legion would be much better armored as well. I think the only advantage that the medieval soldier has would be that some of the soldiers would be heavily armored, and also their heavy cavalry, which the legion has experience with against the Eastern Empires. I'd give the edge to the legion in any battle honestly.
stuka80 Late-medieval armies were made out of heavily armoured mercenaries and fully armored knights, and even the lower class soliders would have used partial plate and mail.
Also late-medieval armies would have full usage of firearms.
The imperial Inquisition of course firearms will change the game completely. im talking about pre gunpowder medieval armies say around 1300s. at this era, id say its 50/50. but early or mid era id give the edge to the legions.
The imperial Inquisition i'm not so certine that early blavkpowder fire srms would have had any real effect at all right up intill the invention of the plug bayonet early guns were largly ineffective (cannon had there place knocking down fortifications) they were inacurate compared to crossbows and bows and due to that inaccuracy had relitivly short effective ranges. No late middle age firearms are more of an expensive curiously at this point.
The discipline and organization of post Marian Reform Roman Armies were on an entirely different level in respect to what could be seen in medieval, even late medieval, times. In medieval times there was someone whose job was to fight. The Romans already industrialised warfare. Their ability in building fortification and field traps out of nothing was unparalleled. Their literacy level was unparalleled. Middle age armies (and that''s the case of Agincourt) were often led from the front. This way the commander couldn't even see what was happening more than few steps away, let alone react to unforeseen situations. The Roman chain of command was miles ahead anything seen in Europe until the 30 Years war. Every Roman officer was very likely to have read treaties on strategy and tactic (those written by Pyrrhus of Epirus were available and popular in Roman time). The medieval army's commander to be able to read was not a given.
I think you have to be super specific for a question like this. If army size in rome was accurate according to the roman records then simply overwhelming most every medeival army would be a probabibilty.
Ancient records are unreliable due to exaggerations. And by the way, *numbers do not win battles.* The medieval army also varies, some were tens of thousands strong and very well-funded. The real advantage of the Romans is that they are an Empire.
@@Max-ek3kf the question "could the force of the entire Roman Empire at it's peak defeat a random medieval kingdom" is not exactly the same as "Roman versus medieval army" though
This is a refreshing take on the THIS VS THAT type of video. Id love a few more comparing romans and medieval. If you could compare specific armies when it comes to outfit it would also be really cool, so the french cavalry of the houndred years war isnt lumped in with the english.
An interesting point is that no medieval state could afford the number of soldier recruited during the roman empire.
That could be a good advantage for the roman army.
Medieval states have harvest to care, plague to fend and you can always hire mercenaries. Or medieval states could simply issue crusade to deal with most dangerous threat.
He means the Romans can play attrition game. But he also forget when the Byzantine suffer plague that rival black death during Justinian era, they have trouble with raising armies.
Who win battle determined on who fuckup their own deployment the most. Someone who fuck their deployment will lose even against smaller weaker opponent who deploy properly.
This isn't about a war, it's about a battle.
Sigiswulf During a battle the roman army would be surely more numerous.
It's specified that we're talking about a *legion,* not an entire invasion force sanctioned by Trajan to march through a time portal and conquer the Medieval world.
I've been waiting for you and invicta to discover each other for a while now
Phalanx: "am i a joke to you?"
After the first, second and third War of Macedon, roman answer is :
"yes, indeed you are !"
@@elbentos7803 haha yup" don't trust mercenaries to protect your back
@Windows xD thank you
yes, the phalanx is a joke.
@Windows xD They didn't to my knowledge have pikes or pike tactics in antiquity comparable to late medieval. They also didn't have gunpowder or reliable, powerful, easy to reload crossbows used by well armoured men.
Very nice video Metatron. Keep it up. I would also like to acknowledge the fact that comparison like this is slightly ridiculous considering the fact, that Rome was present in first half of 15th century. Byzantines believed, in my opinion rightly, that they are in fact Romans and true predecessors of Rome in form that we think of when we hear or say the words: Roman Empire.
That's why I specified Roman early Imperial.
Metatron I know, i know. Just wanted to give my two words. I value your expertise highly. From what i recall you have degree in history, not me. Keep doing what you are doing, man. You run one of the channels that i keep in highest regard.
I’ve been a Roman fan since I was a young boy. Your channel was recommended from another channel.
I love how you often explore the questions / scenarios often asked by us military history dilettantes, without just running a warfare video game sim.
I think the Romans would have no truble taking care of themselves as long as it's the Roman army of the early empire
Nancy Volker agreed
I don't think they can stand the charge of western knignts any better than the turks, and the turks often turned to firearms in their defense against heavy cavalry charge of this sort that's to say, perhaps 3 times more powerful than any ancient cataphract and alexander's companions.
And let's not forget that even the black prince could field enough guns to outfox any ancient engineering technology, not to mention the army of charles the bold, so in terms of siege, i'd vote for a late medieval army like the one joan d'arc conquered in orleans. The romans were well trained according to ancient writers, then again they might not be any better than the combination of the ottoman yaya, janissary infantry, sipahis of timar and kapikulu armies.
Not sure what you meant by the knights being 3 times more powerful than the cataphracts or alexander's companions, how did you get that figure. The medieval knight actually was less armoured than a cataphract, and it was the knights speed, at least in a straight line, that made him powerful. Behind the front line of knights were a line of their squires, and behind that, a line of sargents. Once the knights had broken through the line, the lighter rear lines would play havock with the now scattering enemy lines. Cataphract were only rarely used, for example when then enemy had a lot of armoured infantry, whereas the knights where used in practically every battle they went to. Just as a side not, maybe I should have said 'men at arms' not knight.
The Romans would win so easily you underestimate them so bad. They would let the cavalry charge. Surround them. Kill the horses. Then surround the knights and easily overwhelm them by stabbing the neck and under the arms. At the height of the empire. Rome would outnumber any English army 4 to 1 with each legion having it's own commander. Able to flank on their own. With highly disciplined men who could strategize on their own. Without needing a general.
I dont think you have any idea how much a minority highly trained Knights where. They would be so outnumbered it would be a joke. The strategic structure of the legion would destroy any Medieval army. Most of your Medieval army is Men at arms with shield and spears. Not trained well enough to go close quarters against a Gladius.
I agree the Romans would win, but your tactic doesn't make any sense.
Talking about the Clash of Medieval Army vs. Roman Imperial Army, can we have a conceptual battle between the joined forced of the Romans and the late antiquity army vs. the Mongols?
Evidently well researched content, factually correct and well produced, thank you Metatron! Subbed.
About the Pilum, I agree that it might not be affective. But from some research, I came across that the pilum would be used to damage the opponents shield by getting it stuck in the shield, causing them to possibly drop their shield as they could not use it.
Yes, but full-plated knight losing a shield against roman would not be such a problem(especially considering that even if knight had shield it was because it gave him protection against anti-armor weapons... which roman doesn't have).
Frank Teryngel that's why I agreed with Metatron that a Pilum would not be that effective
MacTire Tiogair then the Genoese crossbowmen would be way ahead of them by using a pavice: a giant shield one plants in the ground rather than carrying on one's arm. (I'm replying to your first comment).
MacTire Tiogair That was a very useful feature against the armies of their time. But consider the types of troops involved in the 100 years war:
-heavy crossbowman: his shield is a huge pavise firmly planted on the ground, more like a one-man barricade. Pilum would be useless against it.
-mounted knight: his armour protects him well enough against javelins, can do without a shield.
-heavy infantry: straight up don't use shields, also protected by plate armour.
-English longbowman: massive range advantage, if the Romans get close enough to use their pila they can just fall back and let other troops handle them.
The Romans would most likely beat the Army of Harold at Hastings. The Romans had far more flexible tactics. They would have a good chance of winning against William the conqueror. Harold and William didn't have massively superior armor. The Romans were better trained (as best we know). The Romans army of Bellisarius had very sophisticated cavalry tactics.
After losing the first battle against heavily armed knights, the Romans would devise counter tactics such as the deep ditches that Bellisarius used against the Persians at Dara; or use ballistas against heavy cavalry. 16 foot pikes are very effective which they used against Persian heavy armor. No heavily armored knights could penetrate well trained pike formations in any period of history.
I do agree, but the fact that the Romans can only go forward and attack uphill presents them at a disadvantage. The Huscarls would also be a problem, especially the ones of Harold and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. Cavalry wouldn't work against their shield wall either, just like how the Norman cavalry failed.
In the long run though, with a good commander, the Romans would win, albeit with some casualties.
And your last sentence is technically wrong; pikemen could be broken if they were attacked in the rear.
Jesus Christ men... "The Romans would most likely beat the Army of Harold at Hastings. The Romans had far more flexible tactics. They would have a good chance of winning against William the conqueror. Harold and William didn't have massively superior armor. " That armies were partly a early medieval (6th-11th century), partly a high medieval (12th-13th century)...not LATE MEDIEVAL (14th-15th century)... By the late Middle Ages (14th-15th centuries) warfare in Europe (that depends from regions, cultures, complex thing) had become much more professional and complex. Strategies, tactics, techniques were developed and gunpowder was used as early as the mid-14th century. There is eg. Italy, where the condottiere system dates back to the 13th century. I think there is a lot of darkness in the people mind about the Middle Ages ... Not only were the feudal armies (where not only the peasants served anyway and there was no mass consription, and etc., this is a big myth, the feudal armies were not that primitive which many people think ...), but also mercenary armies ... city-states and rich cities (eg North-Central Italian states, Netherlands and Low Countries, Hanseatic cities, Swiss cantons, etc.) that were able to train and employ professional soldiers where military science (such as Milan) ) it was decisive ... gunpowder, gunmaking, armor making and many other things ... There were fencing techniques, schools, books, etc ... Very much myth about the Middle Ages, especially the Late Middle Ages ... A lot of stereotypes! The Late Middle Ages (specially middle to late 15th century) much more advanced than the Early Middle Ages or the High Midde Ages too.
I don't think either of the tactics you described are as viable as you think for dealing with a late medieval force. 'No armoured knights could penetrate well trained pike formations in any point of history'...heavily armoured knights only existed in the late middle ages and they were consistently deployed against well trained pikemen, clearly they were effective. I don't think it's accurate to compare Roman 'pikes' and tactics to late medieval pikeman either.
@@Max-ek3kf 'Cavalry wouldn't work against their shield wall', I fail to see exactly what problem the shield wall presents. Does it stop the Cavalry from approaching, deter them? Do the shields stop a lance a full tilt, do they stop the horses?
@@7dayspking They were effective in gaps in an infantry, flank or back attacks. The Scots effectively stopped heavily armored English knights. The Swiss effectively stopped mounted warriors. Looking at the Battle of Carrhae, the Roman infantry held up well against the highly trained and armored (for it's day) Parthian cataphracts. That was after enduring a rain of thousands of arrows by well trained horse archers. The Persians did have a 100 year period in the 400's of very heavily armored knights and horses. But it only lasted about 100 years.
Tactics and strategy are critical. The Romans, did outstanding against the Parthians when led by Vintidius. He fought them in ways that countered all the advantages of cavalry and heavy cavalry. The Parthian/Persians were the outstanding horseman and horsearchers for many hundreds of years.
So knights would be effective on open, flat country. The element of shock and surprize helps. The are not so great on hilly land with ditches and potholes. Once they get inside the infantry line, they will live up to their reputation: deadly.
I find your shows extremely interesting and informative I love all your Roman equipment!!!
Dude, I just love the music you used for the Logistics part of the video.It's like the Romans are saying: "Fear us! For we are coming!"
If the Normans were the enemy they would probably fan boy over the Romans since the Normans are nerds.
Lmao
been away for awhile you are still as good as ever and will keep watching and sharing
I think the best way to beat an cavalry heavy army with an infantry army is to dig trenches. Like one small chinese army did against a much bigger rebelling army. Even on flat planes, it will nullify the advantage of an cavalry charge.
This tactic works very well against horse archers. First the trenches limit the mobility of the cavalry (negating the advances of having a horse....with only several mens it's possible to traverse the trenches without casualities, but for an cavalry unit not so). Second it provides cover and also limiting the attack range of horse archers, while your own archers aren't constricted at all......the most fun fact this chinese commander was sent to die, he was ordered to fight with a small army at a flat planes against a big army of horse archers, heavy cavalry, several good trained units of infantry. It was a certain death, if he refused would be executed, if he fled his family would be executed.....he arrived at the plane and thought "In 2 days the main rebelling army would overrun this place, so i dig trenches" He forced everyone including high ranking officers and himself digging trenches more than 1 and half day everywhere and massacred the main army with his exhausted ragtag troops.....He was promoted and became a very importent general in the 19th century and was later executed as a scapegoat for failing of others.....the same tactic would be used by a roman army....because cavalry and horse archers are not invinvible, even at a place were they have an several advantages, but that depends on the army structure, command and strategies of both sides
of course this does not help against the european army brining in... you know... cannons for example. and yes, by the time of Agincourt, cannons had started to be used in battle. At Crecy, quite a while before that, it seems the English had 5 of those things:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribauldequin
The chinese armies at this point at time were equipped with cannons....but for late medieval armies their cannons could only shot a few time in succession, before they explode. So they used them mainly at a siege or shot them in a very low rate of succession....if the roman got hands of this technology they would improve them in a very short time (by standardization of production and training of cannons.....maybe they would introduce muskets sooner at this point of time)
and if we would give the ancient romans an Assault rifle they would turn it into a laser rifle, eh?
Nope, but the problem of the early firearms, that the production process make them very unreliable....one shoot just fine and the next one explode after the first time use. While use a flintlock or matchlock on a arquebus to turn it in a musket isn't a big step. What the romans got against a typical westeuropean medieval army....their organisation, discipline and economic might (roman are well used of large scale production of standard equipment)
Just a few notes:
1. I completely agree that it depends a lot on skill and luck, and no one would be guaranteed to win. The medieval army would have the advantage, especially a late medieval one, that's obvious. So they would have more chances to win, but that chance would be far from 100%. They could make mistakes the Romans could exploit, and I know a very interesting example of a numerically and technologically superior force being wiped out by sheer overconfidence and tactical blunders, an even more extreme case than the battle of Agincourt. Basically a complete 17th century tercio lost a battle against a frontal charge of light cavalry less than 1/4th of their size. Sheer madness. A tercio could defeat a much larger army of heavy cavalry employed professionally. How could they lose against a much smaller force of light cavalry, especially as they charged from the front, which the tercio was perfect against??? (If your are interested, I can provide more details)
2. If we are talking about late medieval, don't forget gunpowder. If it was a single battle and the Romans didn't have time to learn about it, its sheer surprise effect would be demoralizing. Yes, I know late medieval guns were inaccurate and slow to reload, but gunpowder can be (and was) used in other ways. Artillery. Either from afar, or imagine the surprise of Romans charging what they see as a siege engine, and get completely wiped out by grapeshot from close range. Or hidden mines dug under the battlefield, retreating, and blowing them up while the Romans march across it.
Came here from a recommendation by Invicta. Not disappointed! Interesting channel, please keep collaborating gents.
Why are we outright ignoring the vast majority of medieval, in fact for most of history, soldiers were poorer spearmen or swordsmen (mostly spearmen tho) and the minority were archers and even fewer were knights.
And Romans still existed in the Middle Ages, their tactics and armour had evolved massively by then. Hell the Varangians used extremely well made plate armour towards the end of the empire.
Shhhh. Because remember, "romans" didn't exist in the medieval period. Their were only "Byzantines" who were not at all roman and certainly very "unwestern" and "uncivilized". And they all suddenly went dumb and forgot all the classical knowledge and thus it was to the islamic forces to preserve greek math. How they even got their hands on it was of course never taught in western history classes.
majungasaurusaaaa lmao how silly of me to forget
Technically Romans existed until the 19th century (HRE) and they fought with rifles and canons at the end. This is also not taught in Western history classes, since it would not fit well into the modern Anglo-Saxon world view of the Middle Ages populated by primitive brutes until the British Enlightenment came.
Magister Mortran Rome ended in 1453, the people of the HRE never truly considered themselves as Romans and the HRE never ruled Rome as part of its domain.
It was strictly an aesthetic title, seeing as the Imperial Dignity of the West was directly presented to the Eastern Emperor in 480 with the collapse of the Regime of Julius Nepos.
As for Romans themselves, many Greek speakers called themselves as such until Greek Independence and even into the 20th century.
Heck, the Ottoman and the Russian empire had better roman claims than the HRE. One literally replaced the roman empire as the regional super power based in Constantinople, the other had roman royal bloodline. The HRE as people jokingly say is neither holy, roman or an empire.
Well, on the one hand The Roman Empire fell in 1453, with The Holly Roman Empire falling in 1806 and the middle ages are usually considered to have come to an end with the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492.... so, depending on whether we count the descendants of the barbarians that sacked Rome as Roman or not, Rome either wins the fight, or looses it.
I really like your comment. Few people are aware of that issue.
The Roman Empire ceased to be Roman when Diocletian divided it and moved the capital away from Rome. So it was an imperial edict that ended Roman culture, no external cause. It was a voluntary end. Neither Byzantium in the East nor the Holy Roman Empire in the West truly represented Roman culture. But they represented the institution of the Empire. If we count them as Romans, then a medieval army could be considered a Roman army, just from another era and optimized for other kinds of opponents.
Romans: Bring out the onagers, ballistas, scorpions! Late Medieval soldiers: Bring out the cannons! Romans: 😳
Oke i just watched 10 seconds further and you said "A modern well trained and well deploid medieval army will wipe out the roman army." I take back what i just said :)
10:00 if the romans aimed their throwing spears at the horses, toppling them will likely kill the rider, and result in alot of toppling and dead by being trampled from the riders coming in behind.
Throwing spears are AMAZING against cavalry.
The Romans may be sent running for their lives before the collision. It's psychological warfare. The horses are also armoured well. "Trampling" wasn't an effective way of killing an armoured soldier either, it was more a way of forcing them aside and gaining momentum for your lance, plus an intimidating look to frighten enemy infantry. So once the charge has struck, the Romans also have to deal with many angry dismounted knights who will deal a lot of damage.
Max well you have to understand that the Romans held off elephants and Hannibal with discipline. Henry V held off some cocky French bois
Thanks for the video. Good points through out.
However, IMHO, I would still back a Principate/Early Imperial Roman army against any proceeding army right up to the widespread introduction of gunpowder weapons. The only advantage that I can see for the medieval armies would be the stirrup, though the roman saddle has been shown to be very good. I don't think that plate armour would be the obstacle you are implying. Formidable yes, but not insurmountable.
Also, don't forget that a legion does not fight on it's own. It would have almost the same number of auxiliary troops with it. The legion provides the heavy infantry (mostly) and the auxiliaries provide archers, cavalry etc.
Then there is roman field artillery, this would almost certainly be able to do great damage to a full plate knight (thinking of scorpions here). I agree with you however on your points about the commander and terrain being very important factors though.
The last point I'd like to make is that you would be pitting a well and uniformly equipped, highly trained and experienced professional army, the Romans, (which we won't see again until the late16oo's into the1700's) against an army with admittedly a very professional and tough core, the Knights. Who are armed and armoured excellently, but with the balance, and majority, being drafted peasants or part time guardsmen (or mercenaries who fight for money not king and country) in a wide variety of armour, from that which is almost as good as the knights to almost no or minimal armour. And varying levels of training and experience.
Were there medieval armies that would beat a Roman legion? Very definitely! But on the whole my money would be on the Romans almost every time.
Thanks again for a thought provoking topic.
We've had gunpowder since the 1300s, well before full plate armor even. Cannons were definitely used at Crecy (1346).
Without a doubt the Romans would lose the first engagement but that technological advantage the medieval soldiers have won't last forever the Romans would quickly and learn from their mistakes on the battlefield especially if they have intellectual generals plotting and strategizing behind the scenes while powerful generals that are good at boosting morale on the battlefield leading the charge
I fucked up everything I said in this video fucking autocorrect
The Romans would win so easily you underestimate them so bad. They would let the cavalry charge. Surround them. Kill the horses. Then surround the knights and easily overwhelm them by stabbing the neck and under the arms. At the height of the empire. Rome would outnumber any English army 4 to 1 with each legion having it's own commander. Able to flank on their own. With highly disciplined men who could strategize on their own. Without needing a general.
So, the Romans are so skilled that they can develop and forge new armor and weapons mid battle?
Quite impressive.
I'm sorry but if you take out the mud(which is what exhausted the knights, given the distance, they would have been fresh without that), and in an open field, I struggle to see how the romans would survive the charge of 3000 knights ^^ Even if it'd definitely be better for the french to engage with the infantry and archers first, while their cavalry deal with the roman one. Azincourt french army was defeated in very specific circumstances, and if they met the romans on different circumstances than these specific ones, even with the same stupid strategy, I don't think the romans could stand a chance.
You also mistaked what happenned to genoese crossbowmen, that happenned in crecy, not in Azincourt.
I totally agree that commanders and many factors play a really important role on the issue though.
Oh my gosh you have short hair man... An early video indeed. I've been following you for a little bit, and I absolutely adore your videos. Thank you so much for the information very valuable information you provide..
As for the point about the pilum not being an effective weapon against the heavy cavalry, I can't imagine the Romans would bother trying to throw their pila through the knights' heavy armour, not when they are riding much less heavily armoured horses. You don't have to kill the rider to break a cavalry charge, killing the horses stops the cavalry charge dead in it's tracks too.
They probably wouldn't even waste the pila. IE at Magnesia they disrupted the charge of the chariots and prevented that of the elephants using slings. Slings were a favorite of Roman legionaries, since they were light to carry and inexpensive (and a long sling had about the same range than a longbow).
@@neutronalchemist3241 a sling would be utterly useless against knights amd horses in plate armour.
@@martintieber7756 "horses in plate armor"? How many "horses in plate armor" do you think had ever been? In CONTEMPORARY (not the 19th century stuff) depictions of medieval battles is rare to see them even wearing simple saddlecloths.
Medieval war-horses usually didn't wear ANY form of armor.
If the modern army finishes their ammunition, they still wont be fighting like them on open ground. Today's military tactics are heavily based on small groups fighting rather than thousands on man on an open field.
I love how you mentioned Agincourt, the history squad with Kevin hicks talks about the English bowman and so many famous battles and actual history as well very cool! I also just watched a video Kevin did Or he said the same thing you did about armor he doesn't believe that arrows could pierce it in most cases.
So many comments hyping the Romans far beyond reality. You're worse than the katana crowd :p The average commenter on this thread seems to think the rank and file at Agincourt is a peasant with a pitchfork, reality is quite different.
At this time medieval nations were fielding (entirely professional) armies fully encased in steel armour. Ignoring all other technological improvements, this alone is extremely significant. Plate armour is ridiculously underrated in modern representations of medieval combat, in reality it's practically immune to most traditional weapons- realistically only *significant* blunt trauma or a thrust into weak points was going to do the job (or more likely significant blunt trauma followed by a coup de grace with a dagger). Hell, it was so impactful on the battlefield that it practically made both swords AND shields obsolete, forcing soldiers to use hammers, maces and pollaxes. Even the mighty longbow (which had to be trained from a young age to even operate it) had mixed success getting through plate. Powerful medieval era crossbows were the only ranged option that could, and then only at close range.
The only hope of the Romans to take on such a technologically advanced force would be simply to field vastly, vastly more soldiers (somewhat a hollow victory even their most vigorous defenders must admit)- and even then I think medieval era armies would score stunning victories, overcoming vast odds.
If you were talking about early medieval armies I could see much more of a chance, mainly because of the armour, which wasn't nearly as widespread.
You are all wrong. I really don't know how to start to correct you
@@TomSmith-li5se That's handy then
Tom Smith, if you have no arguments, that means you’re wrong.
Thank you, not only people underestimate the middle-age all the time* (especially the second part of the middle-age), but the Roman fanboyism makes some comparisons even more ridiculous.
That's not counting numbers or technological improvements the roman could do though, just the quality of the troops. Otherwise, the Romans would have their chances.
edit: *and they underestimate that period in everything, especially regarding the so called "lost greek knowledge" (as if medieval european societies didn't know that earth was a sphere...) and related stuff.
@@xenotypos The most insightful thing in the video is the comment about which general leads which army. With a great Roman general and a crummy medieval general, the Romans could win. It's a question of who realizes their advantages and the terrain and uses them.
Classical Greek vs late medieval knights ,or Macedonian Greeks vs late medieval knights.
Personally I think it would be more interesting because of the Greeks emphasis on spears over swords. Particular the Macedonians as they also I believe had a decent missile wing too. The greek cavalry would be a complete loss.
I don't think they'd charge with cavalry against the Macedonian phalanx, they'd dismount and let their armor protect them on foot, I mean other than their use of shields they weren't too different from Swiss Pikemen... er... actually, the french did beat the Swiss pikemen in the 1500s using heavy cavalry... After which the Swiss never fought in an offensive war again. Thought they also used cannons. They charged the pikemen from the sides and the rear using superior mobility.
Med knights would just dismount, use their pollaxes if the terrain didn't allow for a proper charge. But then again, chivalric stupidity has been known to strike from time to time.
I think if Greeks had the Macedonian Calvary and Alexander the Great as Commander with the Thebes or spartan phalanx they Could win.
They would be effective as light cavalry. They were heavy for their day but not compared to middle or late medieval heavy cavalry. I also believe they didn't use stirrups at the time and that would seriously hamper they ability to fight other mounted units. Even mounted Norman knights could prove a serious threat to them with their heavier armour and large shields.
I believe you are combining the battles of Crecy and Agincourt in your scenario. The crossbowmen were used at Crecy, where they were run down by the French knights. Whereas at Agincourt, they were not deployed owing to Henry's advance to longbow range whilst maintaining a safe distance from crossbows. This forced the French to abandon the defensive stance they had assumed and take the offensive against the rain of English arrows, with the expected results.
Actually that question is already answered in history. The medieval Romans were the Byzantine who were versed in classic roman tactics and strategies but armed appropriately for the times, and they didn't in my opinion fair very well against western or eastern medieval armies of their day.
As I understand it, they were able to repulse some renegade forces of the First Crusade with relative ease, but then again, the Fourth Crusade totally fucked their entire empire.
mysticonthehill Post 476 they adapeted their tactics with the times
the fourth Crusade wasn't a good example of byzantine military effectiveness against their western counterparts. that crusade was won through treachery and deciet, not through victories of combating armies.
On the other hand treachery and deceit is also a valid way to wage war
Romans did fight against heavy, fully armored lance cavalry (though they used both hands rather than couching it) it didn't go well for the Romans. i2.wp.com/www.learning-history.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Cataphracts-4.jpg?fit=850%2C560&ssl=1
"Against Stupidity, the Gods themselves try in vain."
- Some German Guy
Very insightful consideration.
The heavy cavalry of the late medieval armies would have been a huge problem for the romans in the first meeting, as they had never seen anyhing like that. No doubt they would have driven a roman cavalry of the field. But i´m abolutely sure about one thing: The roman organisation, discipline, engineering and flexibility would have won them any war against the medieval armies. Their biggest advantage was the abilty to learn from their mistakes. On top they were relentless and free of any scruples. The medieval knights thought about honour and collecting bounties, while the romans where busy with massacring their enemies. In the late medieval times bigger battles were pretty uncommon, while the romans would have had no problem with losing some ten thousand men and even less with slaughtering enemies in these numbers. The only advantage of the medieval armies would have been the suprise factor when they confront the romans with weapons they didn´t know about before. But their field engineers would present a solution for knight cavalry from the second day onward.
I was just writing about the actual battles. Would we consider logistics and speed the advantages of the romans would be even larger, let alone the numbers and ressources they were able to manage. Last we should mention, that medieval armies never had an efficient command chain. You brought your men onto the battlefield, positioned them and then trusted in god. The romans where able to perform complicated moves with enormous ammounts of men in heavy battle. Think of the battle at harzhorn, the lately discovered battlefield in northern germany, where the archeologists where able to figure out, how a roman army was ambushed by an overwhelming force of germans, which where fighting from higher ground and which where well prepared, while the romans must have been surprised. The germans where smashed after a well orchestrated cavalry charge into their flank, which the romans must have performed spontaneously and then driven into the woods and scattered by heavy infantry supported by catapults and basilisks. No way one of these lousy medieval armies, composed of some hundred heavily armed knights at best plus some thousand poorly trained foot soldiers and archers (poorly compared to roman standards) would have stood a chance against an army of these capabilities.
How would the Romans though deal with Medieval castles.
@@bighands69 just siege them,and wait for them to starwe
@@andrijaas2095
Medieval castles would have supplies. The Romans might succeed with one castle but after that they would start to meet tactics also it would imply that the medieval kingdoms would just sit there and do nothing in he mean time while the Romans are besieging a castle.
War is dynamic and the medieval kingdoms would just moderate their tactics. Those top medieval castles could withstand assault from hundreds of thousands of attackers if need be.
I am sure the Romans would work hard on nullifying the power of heavy cavalry. There is a lot that can be done.
- stay out of the way
- use terrain where horses will have hard time, use (mobile) defences
- cannot penetrate armour? Unhorse the rider and beat them to death with blunt weapons.
Romans showed an amazing ability to adapt and come out on top. I am sure their generals would figure out several ways to deal with the problem. And if something worked really well, they just copied it.
@David Gwin Not exactly. More like professional army with promotions based more on skill and ability rather than relatives. Rome had dedicated military and was pretty much optimised it for what it needed to do.
Not even fair. Late Medieval armies had gunpowder, plate mail, crossbows. Romans didn't have any of these.
there is no such thing as plate mail. it's either plate or mail.
Plate mail is plate armor. Duh.
It would be amazing to see you do a video on the dominate of diocletian versus a medival army or that of the late Roman Empire under Justinian which had loads and loads of auxilia. Love your channe have for years
It depends. Best answer really...
I agree whole heartedly Metatron, it comes down to battle tactics and discipline, many advanced armies have been beaten over the course of ancient and modern civilization! The afghan defeat of the Soviets is a great example of bad planning and tactics! The mongols even wiped out a force of knights at the battle of Legnica! The knights were far more heavily armoured however they were tricked with a feigned mongol retreat and pursued, upon being caught most of the knights were surrounded, knocked down and killed by men with less armour. Simple discipline, a battle plan, high morale and a capable commander can make the difference.
Except the knights weren't better armored than the mongol heavies. It's funny how westerners think they're better armored. Oriental style cataphracts had both the rider and horse completely clad in heavy armor. The cavalryman's panoply is around 30kg . The horse's probably even more. Knights and man at arms of that period rode non/medium armored horses clad in quilted barding at their heaviest. The mail suit weighted around 20kg. They looked like medium cav in comparison.
So please don't use "even". It's no surprise that a proper professionally organized and disciplined army of troopers who learned to ride the age of 3 and shoot a bow at the age of 5 defeated a feudal rabble with a few nobles in fancy gear.
majungasaurusaaaa
Haha firstly it wasn't a rabble in fancy gear, it was the best army the polish could field in Europe at the time, it was an approximate force of equal men 8000 on 8000 if you know about Legnica then you would know that the European troops were actually far better equipped in this particular battle than the mongols they were facing! The knights that were present posed such a threat even in their limited numbers that the mongols actually centred their battle tatics around luring them into am ambush and destroying them! The mongols did indeed have heavies however the warriors present at Legnica were not even closely comparable as most were light cavalry and horse archers. Their commander however was far more experienced, prepared and able to execute an excellent battle plan. The mongols centred this battle around being light and thus employed tactics suited to this role. Clearly you know some history but nothing of legnica!
Invictus is fantastic! Thank You for the Rec.
What if: Roman legion VS Zulu Impi?
Trashthlete lots of numbers and gorilla warfare would pose quite a threat
@Chin Brumback NO THEY'D JUST LET THEIR WAR BEASTS TRAMPLE THOSE TURDS, ID DOUBT ROMANS WOULD WANT TO GET FECAL MATTER ON THEMSELVES
LOL WHERE THE ZULUS EVER EVEN AWARE OF METAL, THEY WOULD GET SLAUGHTER LIKE SHEEP BY THE ROMANS
@@cbxadt440
For those passing through, yes the Zulu people were aware of metal.
They used iron weapons.
evolution legion size depends on the time period for the Roman's so while it might be 6'000 was the average for a Legion during one time period, another could have 30'000 in a legion
13:50 You are confusing Crecy and Agincourt
Awesome content and great to see a channel recommending another channel.
Rome: our infantry is superior, our victory is obvious
English: haha longbow go fwoooosh
rome: plywood go testudo
@@matushonko7223 Oof plywood really wouldnt last long against the warbow
@@thessop9439 well, it didn't need to- close in and that's all you need; also, romans did face warbows, and to little effect, so...
@@thessop9439 Which is why Medieval Europe switched to superior wooden planks that are around 1/4th to 1/2 an inch thick....
*Wooden planks have a higher chance of splitting than plywood*
@@matushonko7223 I know they faced against the german warbow...
But isnt the British medieval Warbow superior?
The french have a chance, with their Rah rah rah rah rah, but then again so do the english, and the romans can just INCRIDIBILIS them....
I love these what ifs id love if you did more
I kinda want that roman legions vs crusader army comparision....
Trejgon Look up Siege of Nicea where they fought side by side, although the army was Thematic by then not Legionary. In fact Emperor Manuel I fought some crusaders.
the Romans would win hands down. This video shows the misunderstanding of purpose of the Pilum common today. They weren't meant to kill the enemy but rather to strip the enemy of their shields and impede them. As well, the Knight horses would be even more vulnerable to the Pilums than they were to Longbows. Also, the Romans were very well conversant with the use of caltrops and stakes to protect them from "Shock" armies. After that, the dismounted Knights and ill-trained and equipped medieval infantry would have been cut to pieces by the disciplined melee machine that was the Roman Cohort.
Meanwhile, the Romans, with their large shields (Scutum) would have been virtually immune to the slow-firing crossbows or even faster-firing longbows, as the Romans won against many "Missile" armies such as the Parthians.
"After that, the dismounted Knights and ill-trained and equipped medieval infantry"
Men At arms were not ill trained and not ill equipped on average.
Your scutum would likely be useless against guns. And 15th century armies had guns.
And in regards of Missile armies. Romans win against them, yes. They also lost againt them. Marcus Licinius Crassus anyone? Your legionaries form a testudo against the Longbows and Crossbows? The knights charge in.
By the time of Agincourt, it’s my understanding that most knights no longer used shields since their armor gave them all the protection they needed. Their horses would also begin getting their own armor by this time period, but it’s true that they would still be vulnerable to ranged projectiles. Either way, pilum are not nearly as effective as you describe them to be.
Love this guys content.
More army matchups!
Nobunaga vs Cesar!
Nobunaga has firearms. Not fair.
Timothy Christie just tried that in a Civ V game, didn't go well for both sides
Short Answer: Roman army
Long Answer:
I think it depends on what Medieval army they fight. The Swiss would definitely beat the Legion but the Russians and some smaller English forces would lose, most medieval warfare had high strategy and would definitely pair well against Romans.
I love how you picked a picture representing the Roman army fighting Thracians to point out how well equiped they were to fight their armies considering all the stories about the falx being able to cut through the scutum and how tough it was for the Romans
You got alot more handsome with the new haircut.
It really does suit him a lot better.
Agree to disagree there, but it's much more Roman.
I honestly liked the old one better but after all it's his decision on what he prefers.
Its a freaking hair cut. His hair will grow back haha
He would still have to shave his beard completely...
Roman generals and officers generally didn't tolerate bearded men in the army, it was a standard, like shaving the hair today... Unless the armies were being besieged for weeks or months and the soldiers couldn't have the time to take care of their appearances.
(Sorry for my bad english)
So basically Byzantium with the resources, tech and commanders of the Roman Republic or early Empire, vs its peers in the mediaeval period? Hardly seems fair, lol. Caesar was able to raise two legions at a moment's notice during the eve of the Republic, and thus had six full legions at his disposal for the conquest of Gaul and invasion of Britain, whereas mediaeval knights had much smaller armies, I believe. Imagine Byzantium running roughshod over the entirety of Europe, lol.
Oh, and Invicta is seconded. I had their Roman stuff suggested a couple of weeks ago, and they're not bad at all.
Spephan Brum that was jUSTINIAN INTENTION TO RECONQUER OR THE LOTS LANDS, PROBLEMS WAS THE EMPIRE POPULATIONS WAS DECLINING THERE WHERE NO LEGIONERS AND NO MONEY.
What Belisarius did with little resources and men its incredible yet most people dont even know about Belisarius or even Basil the second.
Indeed, Belisarius must not be forgotten among the ranks of great Roman commanders. And had Byzantium not been struck with Black Plague, chances are European history might have looked very different. Alas, that was not to be.
Yes definitely a series please.
Well, that is a little bit like when Aztec fought the Spanish, but the Spaniards where in renaissance time, while the Aztec were in the bronze age. However, the victory of the Spanish as more to do with politics than actual battle, so idk :/
The GhostHero and disease wiped out like 90% of the native population of the Americas. As well as many neighbors of the Aztecs joining to fight against them
Life4Metalcore I know about that, it was easy since the tarascan were in competition for the biggest empire, the mixtec were angry for having been driven out of their homeland and the other kingdom for serving as sacrifice supplies
Ron Lewenberg the Aztec weren't well versed in the making of bronze, but not all of mesoamerica. Check this Wikipedia article en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaximaltepoztli
The actual battles they did have were mostly completely one sided though. The Spaniards and Portuguese also had some pretty one sided victories against much, much bigger armies in east Asia in the Renaissance.
The way both Peoples saw war is totally diferent, the people known to you as Aztecs wanted to capture their enemies, and their warfare was developed around that goal, in the other hand, western warfare had the objective of destroy the enemy army, that led to the supremacy of the spaniards, among other factors. It is said, that Cortés, the leader of the spanish expedition, was captured in the middle of a battle, if the soldier who took him, had killed him... who knows