Since the Romans are behind technological they would learn more and stirrups would help the Roman calvary a lot.
Best ancient army organization?
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Since the Romans are behind technological they would learn more and stirrups would help the Roman calvary a lot.
You keep sticking to what is practically a non-issue. OK, the Roman cavalry gets stirrups but how exactly would this make it a match to the Mongolian cavalry? Would it be able to operate on its own without immediate infantry support?
I think there are two issues that are getting this discussion into dead ends:
1) comparisons and analogies: comparison and analogy are difficult because to be of any use hey must be appropriate ones. Comparisons between civilizations half a world a way or in different periods of time would have to take into account the context and geopolitics of the time and place of the compared entities.
2) time. “Ancient” or “antiquity” is a very long range of time in which numerous technologies and ways to organize armies can develop and build off each other. Thus, a scenario involving a Mongol-Roman war would have to take into account, say, stirrups, which could very well complicate things.
I think that if we discuss the actual military formations and technologies of armies and navies more, the discussion will be more practical and effective.
1) comparisons and analogies: comparison and analogy are difficult because to be of any use hey must be appropriate ones. Comparisons between civilizations half a world a way or in different periods of time would have to take into account the context and geopolitics of the time and place of the compared entities.
2) time. “Ancient” or “antiquity” is a very long range of time in which numerous technologies and ways to organize armies can develop and build off each other. Thus, a scenario involving a Mongol-Roman war would have to take into account, say, stirrups, which could very well complicate things.
I think that if we discuss the actual military formations and technologies of armies and navies more, the discussion will be more practical and effective.
Maybe in the long-term, for example, before the Mongols the Byzantines had a superb cavalry. In the short-term, I would not expect the Romans to use their calvary independent of the infantry.
The question was "ancient" and "organization". The Mongols were tactically excellent, and for a brief period of time swept all before them. Their "organization" was basically tribal and based on personal leadership and loyalty. As light cavalry their logistic needs were relatively light, however they needed to move because of the need for grazing for their horses, a supply of fodder was not part of the system. Multiple remounts per warrior, but a "logistics chain", no. To the extent they had combat engineers they were subject peoples. Again, this was not a knock on their combat effectiveness but an issue of "organization", compared with the Romans with a training system to create disciplined soldiers, the construction of fortified camps on the march, forts (castra) to a more or less standard plan, support functions including a central medical facility.
One measure of organization is staying power, the Mongol Empire broke in to pieces rather rapidly, compared to the substantially longer staying power of the Romans. Furthermore the Romans had a system for veterans, giving them land grants for extension of Roman power. While various promotion, awards, and larger grants were based on performance, every soldier who completed his time satisfactorily received his "pension".
I would venture to say that a Roman legion or two could not stand against a roughly equivalent number of combatants of a Crusader army. Longbows, crossbows, and the charge of armored knights would do the trick. Having said that, to use the word "organization" to describe any large medieval military formation constitutes "word abuse". The Native Americans of the western plains tribes inflicted quite a number of defeats on the US Army, and yet I doubt that anyone would say the Indians were better "organized" than the US Army. While organization is an important competent of military effectiveness, it is nt the be-all and end-all.
One measure of organization is staying power, the Mongol Empire broke in to pieces rather rapidly, compared to the substantially longer staying power of the Romans. Furthermore the Romans had a system for veterans, giving them land grants for extension of Roman power. While various promotion, awards, and larger grants were based on performance, every soldier who completed his time satisfactorily received his "pension".
I would venture to say that a Roman legion or two could not stand against a roughly equivalent number of combatants of a Crusader army. Longbows, crossbows, and the charge of armored knights would do the trick. Having said that, to use the word "organization" to describe any large medieval military formation constitutes "word abuse". The Native Americans of the western plains tribes inflicted quite a number of defeats on the US Army, and yet I doubt that anyone would say the Indians were better "organized" than the US Army. While organization is an important competent of military effectiveness, it is nt the be-all and end-all.
By the time the Romans and the Mongols fought, and they did fight, the Romans weren't called Romans anymore, y'all; and the Romans won.
In the context of the conversation, regardless of technical issues of stirrups and nomadic differences, the Mongolians are going to thwomp the first roman army they come across.
And the second, and probably the third and fourth too.
The Mongols have anywhere between 800 (Diocletian) and 1200 (Marian/Early Imperial) year distance between themselves and the Legions. A Marian style legion would do poorly, because it was an infantry focused unit with Auxillery cavalry, which was technologically inferior to the mongols, masters of not giving a fig about things like honor or unfair fights.
A Diocletian legion with its heavier cavalry focus might do better, but their cavalry are inferior in both 800 years of horse breeding and meeting the same fate almost every other cavalry force met when fighting the mongols, annihilation upon being lured out and surrounded.
If its a defensive battle the Mongols are probably just going to do what they normally do, bring out their captured Chinese siege engineers and bombard the romans with 800-1200 years worth of advancements in artillery, and when the romans come out, defeat them in detail, or starve them if they decide to play chicken.
And the second, and probably the third and fourth too.
The Mongols have anywhere between 800 (Diocletian) and 1200 (Marian/Early Imperial) year distance between themselves and the Legions. A Marian style legion would do poorly, because it was an infantry focused unit with Auxillery cavalry, which was technologically inferior to the mongols, masters of not giving a fig about things like honor or unfair fights.
A Diocletian legion with its heavier cavalry focus might do better, but their cavalry are inferior in both 800 years of horse breeding and meeting the same fate almost every other cavalry force met when fighting the mongols, annihilation upon being lured out and surrounded.
If its a defensive battle the Mongols are probably just going to do what they normally do, bring out their captured Chinese siege engineers and bombard the romans with 800-1200 years worth of advancements in artillery, and when the romans come out, defeat them in detail, or starve them if they decide to play chicken.
You are talking about it as if the situation is real and the “classic” Romans and Mongols live side by side for a prolonged period of time. Conversation was about comparison of the two systems at their best, which is a completely different issue. The classic Romans never encountered cavalry army equal one of Genghis (leadership factor was an important component of success). OTOH, the Mongols did not face an infantry army similar to Roman (I’m not sure about composition and quality of the Jurchen army but it seems that cavalry was an important component of it and, anyway, Muqhali had big numbers of the local troops switching to his side and by the time of Khubilai they were possibly amounting to a majority, at least this was Gumilev’s opinion).
So comparison is rather difficult and a lot would depend upon specific geography, leadership and who is trying to do what to an opponent.
Probably it is safe to guess that a headlong cavalry charge against a high quality infantry in a proper defensive formation would be, in general, a foolish idea (of course, there are numerous exceptions) but AFAK, Genghis’ generals tended to avoid such a tactics unless it was a part of a complicated maneuver (as at Mochi). They were not trying to storm the camps either (Kalka and Mochi). But bypassing the enemy flanks and attacking from the rear was one of the prescribed maneuvers.
Then, again a lot depends on precise timing and who is in charge. The “classic” Mongolian army was at its peak at the time of Genghis - Ogdai but while the Western campaign led by Subodai was a great success, later raids to Poland and Hungary planned by Nogay were general failures: synchronization of the armies was not achieved, troops got distracted by the sieges of the castles, etc. (and Nogay was a reasonably good general with an impressive resume). Probably the same goes for the Romans: are you picking one of the good/great commanders or one of the not very good ones?
I mean, the fact of the matter is that if the Mongols are Ancient then the Tercio could be considered ancient, and I'd be hesitant to say that. I think it could be useful to cap Ancient maybe at Charlemagne. Although that's Eurocentric, I think that includes Empires such as the Tang and allows the Islamic armies to sneak in there.
At any rate, I'd be hesitant to put the later Roman legions, as they were reliant on different things than the early ones. The early, Marian, legions, were primarily designed as offensive forces. As offensive forces, organization plays a bigger role, as every army had to coordinate with each other. The later legions, especially in the West acted more as defensive forces, in this way fortifications played more of a role than organization.
At any rate, I'd be hesitant to put the later Roman legions, as they were reliant on different things than the early ones. The early, Marian, legions, were primarily designed as offensive forces. As offensive forces, organization plays a bigger role, as every army had to coordinate with each other. The later legions, especially in the West acted more as defensive forces, in this way fortifications played more of a role than organization.
I tend to agree with you, we are talking about a significant technological difference. Both sides would change to adapt very quickly as they were known for being quick military adopters. Roman being the losers would have a greater incentive to learn.
I would not exaggerate Roman honor and dislike of unfair fights as Hannibal showed.
Two points that should be mentioned is that the Mongols are a long way from home and the Romans have numbers. The Mongol armies at its peak had about 130,000 men whereas the Romans about 450,000 men.
I'd say the introduction of the stirrup. It was a quantum leap in warfare, and give a different date for different regions.
To say that at period of conquest they were just tactically excellent, is completely wrong. Their campaigns in the CA and Europe had been samples of the strategic excellence unsurpassed until the modern times. Coordination of the armies advancing on a front of few hundred miles with an ability to get messages from the troops 300+ km away within 3 days was something close to impossible before well into the XIX century (Nappy could not arrange for the reliable communications within tens of miles and coordination of the corps actions was something of a systematic problem).
Oops... The major difference between the system introduced by Genghis and the earlier nomadic system was in abandoning formation of the troops by a tribal principle: it was retained only on the low level formations (up to hundred).
Starting from Marius armies of the Roman Republic had been recruited based pretty much on the principle but it seems that you are more than a little bit confused about application of that principle in the Mongolian armies of Genghis. Of course, loyalty to the supreme ruler (Great Khan, emperor) was a paramount for having and effective army but as far as leadership on the lower levels was concerned, the Mongolian top commanders did not have their own armies. For example, Subotai (the best-known figure) had been more than once transferred from one theater to another and the armies of which he was de facto commander during the European campaigns were not his armies or the armies of a formal commander, Batu. When, after European campaigns, he was transferred to China, he did not come there with his personal army (which he did not have to start with): it was just an individual transfer of a highly respected military specialist to a new position.
The Mongols were not exactly a "light cavalry": they had plenty of contingents heavily armed and armored by the standards of time. And an idea that they did not need a logistic is quite interesting: are you implying that the soldiers also had been eating grass?
Or that they did not have any luggage, did not need to arrange for replacement of the horses, did not need new arrows, and the list is going on. This probably implies that the Mongols did not have any training needed for fighting in a formation and accomplishing rather complicated maneuvers which would surely make them into some super-soldiers with that ability magically being extended to the subdued people added to their armies. Actually, they had been conducting extensive training on all levels and even conducted what in modern terms would pass for the army-level maneuvers (regular mass hunting involving maneuvers by the army units). Of course, they did not have the Roman training system but Mongolian discipline was at least as strong as Roman. Their military organization was well documented and quite complicated and logistics had been a part of it. While they were not building the fortified camps, they had quite effective organization for making the camps with a high ranking officer responsible for the arrangements. It was quite different from the Roman system but this does not mean that it did not exist or was inefficient.
The reasons for the Mongolian Empire falling apart relatively fast but an absence of the pensions was not one of them. You can start with the system of appanages, which made its disintegration inevitable. Then, the very size and cultural diversity of their empire in which they were a tiny minority and the least "cultured" one made the task of keeping it together impossible even under the most favorable circumstance: how to make China, Central Asia, Middle East, Russia into a reasonably uniform cultural entity? Especially if your "core nation" is something like 1 - 2 % of a total population? The Romans never had empire of a comparable size and never had been at that demographic and cultural disadvantage.
I wonder which "Crusader Army" it would be, taking into an account that Richard had crossbowmen, not longbowmen, and the later crusading armies did not have significant numbers of the English. Charge of the knights against a high quality infantry, especially if it manages to put on even minimal field defenses, would be a dicey thing at best as had been demonstrated more than once against the infantries that were no match to the Romans in the terms of organization and training. Let me see, Courtrai, Nicopol, Mohacz, etc.
True but you are not counting the foreign (especially Chinese) troops on the Mongolian service.
Well I followed until this point. I've always resisted at least to some degree the same classification of Rome and the Mongolian Empire, as the Mongolian Empire was really never centralized to any degree. Thus I think its more productive to compare the constituent parts to the Romans. Even ones like the Ilkhanate was dissolved after around 80 years. That tends to support the idea that the Romans had a definite administrative capacity. The Romans absolutely were at a demographic disadvantage in their empire. The population of Roman Italy has been estimated to be about 6 million compared to an empire anywhere from 60 million to a 100 million people. Most of those people were in the East, and almost certainly considered themselves more cultured than the Romans, after all, Augustus' building campaigns were designed to EQUAL the great hellenistic cities.
I would say that Mohacz is a hard thing to bring up, just because it involves Jannissaries against Medieval Tactics. To some extent that's more about Early Modern Infantry against Medieval. Nicopol again is a hard thing to say is a failure of the knightly system. Courtrai again had the pike burghers, who with Crossbowmen would have torn through a legion. I think that the predominance of heavy cavalry on the medieval battlefield indicates the relative advantages. The change from heavy infantry to cavalry based armies seems to show that the heavy cavalry had certain advantages which were only overcome by developments in ranged technology.
First thing is where are you fighting? If its open and flat a cavalry army is going to be best, if its mountain, forest, swamp its light infantry time. If you don't have maneuvering room or defending/attacking fortifications then heavy infantry rule.
Horse archers did not appear much in Europe mainly due to the fact the terrain/situation tended not to favor them enough for the increased upkeep ( lots of horses need lots of fodder/care ), conversely they rule the steppe.
Generals matter a lot, combined arms forces need better commanders who can magnify the strengths and mask the weakness of each component by proper tactics and positioning else they get ripped apart piecemeal. Its also the case that some armies are natural counters to others but suffer terribly when matched against certain , normally non historic, foes.
For example the Romans beat up the Macedonian phalanx historically but that in part was due to latter Macedonian commanders not being able to use their cavalry like Alexander could to protect the phalanx from flank attacks. Similarly Hannibal could combine the elements of his varied army a lot better than other Carthaginian generals and so beat Roman legions. Longbows made HYW English good if they could take the tactical defensive but not so good at forcing battle if the enemy retreated in front of you and skirmished.
Horse archers did not appear much in Europe mainly due to the fact the terrain/situation tended not to favor them enough for the increased upkeep ( lots of horses need lots of fodder/care ), conversely they rule the steppe.
Generals matter a lot, combined arms forces need better commanders who can magnify the strengths and mask the weakness of each component by proper tactics and positioning else they get ripped apart piecemeal. Its also the case that some armies are natural counters to others but suffer terribly when matched against certain , normally non historic, foes.
For example the Romans beat up the Macedonian phalanx historically but that in part was due to latter Macedonian commanders not being able to use their cavalry like Alexander could to protect the phalanx from flank attacks. Similarly Hannibal could combine the elements of his varied army a lot better than other Carthaginian generals and so beat Roman legions. Longbows made HYW English good if they could take the tactical defensive but not so good at forcing battle if the enemy retreated in front of you and skirmished.
Honestly, I don't think that comparison makes any sense at all. I was mostly reacting upon a statement which implied that the main reason for a speedily disintegration of a Mongolian Empire had anything to do with an absence of pensions to the retired soldiers.
IMO, discussion makes some practical sense only as far as comparison of the military institutions in the terms of organization and practices is involved.
Well, yes. And they already had the firearms and artillery even neither of them were too efficient at that time. My point was that the knights charge was not such an overwhelming thing against a good infantry.
It is: Sigismund was trying to convince the French/Burgundian knights that they should wait until his light troops somewhat "soften" the enemy's position but such a proposal was considered dishonorable so the charge it was and the results are known.
AFAIK, the Flemish had been predominantly armed with the goddendags which were much shorter than the pikes and crossbowmen were, IIRC, on the other side. Again, the knights were unhappy with a slow progress of the lowly infantry and charged to their deaths. Pattern is the same.
Not sure if the Flemish phalanx would be very effective against the legion because its flanks were vulnerable and it could not maneuver in smaller units. I'd say that this would strongly depend upon the circumstances.
Of course, heavy cavalry had certain advantages (actually, quite a few of them within certain time frame) but by the time it became predominant in Europe the heavy infantry was long gone. And when it was "re-born" by the Swiss dominance of the heavy cavalry was severely tested. Of course, the heavy armored cavalry was still useful but the knights became obsolete (with some exceptions) after introduction of the reiters who had been cheaper, had firearms and could be drilled to act as an unit.
Ultimately pretty much any army thats more than say 400-500 years ahead of the roman legion in question is going to obliterate said legion.
What is this referring to, BTW? The only Western forces to have defeated the Mongols that I'm aware of were the Mamluks (Ain Jalut, Marj al-Saffar). Unless we're talking about the era of Golden Horde decline and Kulikovo (but Russian claims to being the Third Rome wouldn't have been a thing until midway through the following century)?
