How did manlet armies win in ancient warfare?

Don't take your historical information from movies.
 
superpunch said:
You look at the Romans, and they're 5'6" men fighting against German savages that are 6'+ and 180-200 lbs. You look at Japan, and they're like 5'3", so it's just like how did they have these amazing armies? How did the Romans beat down guys with a 50+ lb weight advantage and 8+ inches of reach on them?
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Exactly. How did the Japanese beat the Romans?
 
Imagine being 6ft with full armour and swinging a sword at a shield wall you would be gassed in a minute. The romans rotated their troops in the shield wall to keep them fresh also.

Strategy and insurance probably was their main advantage.
 
tactics and technology will always overcome physical differences

manlet with a spear (7-9') will make short work of a 6'2 athlete with a sword. now add in formations and strategy and it changes it completely
 
steeldragon said:
Imagine being 6ft with full armour and swinging a sword at a shield wall you would be gassed in a minute. The romans rotated their troops in the shield wall to keep them fresh also.

Strategy and insurance probably was their main advantage.
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Even not counting the lines rotation... on top on that the roman training made stamina the most extremized trait

They had long ass marches with 50kg of equipment on, then you have to build the camp, then the day after you either had to repeat all of that, go to battle or train hard
Then repeat, was a no rest lifestyle

Fight training itself was made to work on stamina (and strenght), they used wood replicas of shield and gladius that were 2-3 times heavier than the real counterpart, to simulate when you're exhausted and get used to keep fight on even when limbs feels heavy af... the result was that in battle the regular weapons felt light to them

I remember somebody of the time pointing out that the clashes with big northern enemies usually made clear the difference between still green young soldiers and vets.

Young ones where the ones that were impressed and scared by these big men first charge, wich often was all-in violent rush with savage war screams and the swinging 100% trying to wreck roman lines and kill as much as possible

Vets were the ones that knew they just had to keep discipline, stay strong against first impact, weather the storm and then enemies will start to get quickly tired and slow down, creating big openings for the roman's quick stab


To make a fist fighting comparision, north warriors approached the melee like a bar brawl, where people throw big from the start trying to gain upper hand and looking for quick KO
Romans approached the melee like professional boxers, that know the fight may last for some/many rounds and you work keeping guard tight to either cause cumulative damage or wait the right moment to land a decisive strike

j123 said:
manlet with a spear (7-9') will make short work of a 6'2 athlete with a sword. now add in formations and strategy and it changes it completely
Click to expand...
Roman style of melee was'nt based on spear game though, that was more greek's way

Roman's pilum was designed as a short distance launch weapon, the melee was done with the short gladius and eventually even with the pugio (dagger)... romans tried to force the closest distance possible
To do again fist fighting example, roman was like a stocky short boxer who's strong af in the clinch and try to make a match like that against taller opponent to negate his jabs/cross/long hooks
 
They enslaved other warrior nations and let them fight for them. It wasn't 5,6 Romans fighting 6'0 greeks
 
VVarhead said:
They enslaved other warrior nations and let them fight for them. It wasn't 5,6 Romans fighting 6'0 greeks
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For great part of legion history they were first people of central italy, then got expanded to rest of italics
Auxiliaries were added units from allied/submitted nations (usually for specific tasks), but the big chunk of total number were the legions

Also lol at 6' greeks, tall people of describef in roman history were germanic, celts and gauls
Greeks were probably the closest to italics both in appearance and war phylosophy
Actually average northern italic was probably taller than average greek
 
superpunch said:
You look at the Romans, and they're 5'6" men fighting against German savages that are 6'+ and 180-200 lbs. You look at Japan, and they're like 5'3", so it's just like how did they have these amazing armies? How did the Romans beat down guys with a 50+ lb weight advantage and 8+ inches of reach on them?
Click to expand...

Strength in numbers, armaments, formations and intense training. Even still, that wasn't enough to save them in the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire
 
Bacco said:
For great part of legion history they were first people of central italy, then got expanded to rest of italics
Auxiliaries were added units from allied/submitted nations (usually for specific tasks), but the big chunk of total number were the legions

Also lol at 6' greeks, tall people of describef in roman history were germanic, celts and gauls
Greeks were probably the closest to italics both in appearance and war phylosophy
Actually average northern italic was probably taller than average greek
Click to expand...

I wasn't the one who brought 6' greek people into this thread, btw. I'm well aware that the taller population of Europe at the time were those you mentioned, among others.
I wasn't aware though that they used auxiliaries to such a small degree - I honestly remember that differently but I'm not invested in roman history.
 
Interestingly, Ceasar documents in the War of the Gauls, that Gauls/Celts used to be better warriors than the Germanic tribes East of the Rhine, but that as the Gauls got in contact with Roman civilisation, they became "softer" and more sophisticated Ceasar describes the Gauls as prone to observation, versatility and naturally very curious.

At the same time, Germanic tribes are described as swimming in cold rivers even in winter, as hunters who eat only meat and as truly primitive barbarians who are good at nothing else than fighting, lol.
 
j123 said:
tactics and technology will always overcome physical differences

manlet with a spear (7-9') will make short work of a 6'2 athlete with a sword. now add in formations and strategy and it changes it completely
Click to expand...
Exactly. But now give the 6'2" guy a 9' spear too. And you know how the shorter guy always has to eat the first shot in boxing to move inside and get his own shots going? I imagine it being the same way, only the manlet is eating a spear to the head instead of a jab.. Wouldn't the reach disadvantage get the manlet killed every time?
 
VVarhead said:
I wasn't the one who brought 6' greek people into this thread, btw. I'm well aware that the taller population of Europe at the time were those you mentioned, among others.
I wasn't aware though that they used auxiliaries to such a small degree - I honestly remember that differently but I'm not invested in roman history.
Click to expand...
Depend on the period
Whole roman rise to power and establishment as teh top dog was like that
Auxiliaries used a "specialist" at stuff they were particulary good at (cavalry, throw shit etc) or played as extra help(usually light infantry), while romans keept the large core heavy infantry role

Later when true expansionism started and empire got larger, the right of become legionary has been expanded to non italics too
There you had some legions with huge % of non italics indeed

Closer to the end the legions were barbarized af (both ethnically and culturally) like 70% iirc, but that was the very weakest version of the roman army, the empire was decadent
Actually the barbarization (germanic in particular) of the army hes been one of the reasons of Rome's fall
 
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superpunch said:
Exactly. But now give the 6'2" guy a 9' spear too. And you know how the shorter guy always has to eat the first shot in boxing to move inside and get his own shots going? I imagine it being the same way, only the manlet is eating a spear to the head instead of a jab.. Wouldn't the reach disadvantage get the manlet killed every time?
Click to expand...
But, again, romans did'nt used a long spear
They used the gladius wich was a short sword designed for very close quarters melee
 
Humans being over 6ft is mostly modern thing. They've dug up vikings from around 900 AD (considered giants in their day) and they were only 5'8-5'10. Still taller than the average Roman but not exactly a giant.
 
Rozko said:
It was their tight formations, unit cohesion, mutual support in close quarters, superior armor and battlefield tactics. They slaughtered numerically superior armies all the time because it. The Gaul's tactic of charge and swing was suicide if the shield wall didn't buckle in the opening moments.
Click to expand...

Also I suspect simply better training, a standing army of trained soliders against armies of farmers.
 
The Mongolian Empire of the 1200s and 1300s was the biggest continuous land empire in human history. That's a testament to how much they conquered and killed.

From mummified remains, researchers estimate Mongol men of the time ranged in height from 5'2" to 5'5".

The reason their army was so successful: The fastest and most mobile cavalry in the world, including horseback archers. Every Mongol soldier was a rider.

Over the past 2,000 years, height and size have had nothing to do with victory in warfare. Weapons and tactics are the defining factors.
 
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