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trajen777

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About trajen777

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  1. The biggest Plagues that struck the Roman armies were the one described above and with Marcus Arulius and the one which stopped Justinian from reconquoring the west. I am more familiar with the later one then under Marcus Arulius. For example in the first 10 yrs of Justinian
  2. trajen777

    Phalanx Vs. Legions

    A point well made, but the greeks had to compensate for their sheilds, which were much different. The English Pikeman didn't have as standardized equipment and often didn't fight with sheilds. The formation without sheilds would have allowed for slight changes in angles and direction of the phalanx formation without disrupting the overal defenses. Whereas the greek form of the phalanx used sheilds, which had to be kept in a certain overlaping wall (or simply held depending on era) which they depended on for defense becuase they didn't have the same body armor as the English Pike man later on. So when atempting to change direction of the phalanx these sheilds would have to be lifted up, there by lowering the defensive. They could not do this in battler becuase a opening in the sheild wall would break defenses which were nessacary becuase of the lesser body armor of the standard greek hoplite. All said and done the general would be weary to change position of the phalanx on the line when the formation was ready and marching towards the oponent (in this case roman) that could use any disruption in the order to its advantage with a deadly barrage of pilum and then a charge with the advantage of the broken phalanx. The phalanx would only function effectively against a roman oponent who had no opertunity to use its pilum with which to break up the tight packed formation. This means that the calvary would have to be used in order to keep the romans from their deadly charge, to effectively use the hammer and anvil strategy. This meant that the greek infentry had to be close enough to their roman oponents to have effect while not being damaged by pilum or other projectiles. Hence they added sheilds with which to defend against these projectiles creating the imobility of the phalanx. The Roman Legion was a self contained unit mostly based upon HI whereas the Macedonian Phx was an organization with the Phx as the holding unit while the HC attacked the flanks. In between they had a flexible unit which could fight in any terrain. In addition to this they had mounted archers, javelin men, archers, slingers, artillery, and other units. Under Alexander and unit commanders they operated in all types of terrain and against all types of mil orgs. Rome had the finest military discipline and would win the war but in battle the unit flexible and HC of the Macedonian army would prevail. Rome when it fought Hannibal only won at Zama when they had a superior cal unit. That was one of the few times they every bothered with cav until forced much later in history. The combined force of the Mac was superior then the HI of Rome
  3. trajen777

    Phalanx Vs. Legions

    A point well made, but the greeks had to compensate for their sheilds, which were much different. The English Pikeman didn't have as standardized equipment and often didn't fight with sheilds. The formation without sheilds would have allowed for slight changes in angles and direction of the phalanx formation without disrupting the overal defenses. Whereas the greek form of the phalanx used sheilds, which had to be kept in a certain overlaping wall (or simply held depending on era) which they depended on for defense becuase they didn't have the same body armor as the English Pike man later on. So when atempting to change direction of the phalanx these sheilds would have to be lifted up, there by lowering the defensive. They could not do this in battler becuase a opening in the sheild wall would break defenses which were nessacary becuase of the lesser body armor of the standard greek hoplite. All said and done the general would be weary to change position of the phalanx on the line when the formation was ready and marching towards the oponent (in this case roman) that could use any disruption in the order to its advantage with a deadly barrage of pilum and then a charge with the advantage of the broken phalanx. The phalanx would only function effectively against a roman oponent who had no opertunity to use its pilum with which to break up the tight packed formation. This means that the calvary would have to be used in order to keep the romans from their deadly charge, to effectively use the hammer and anvil strategy. This meant that the greek infentry had to be close enough to their roman oponents to have effect while not being damaged by pilum or other projectiles. Hence they added sheilds with which to defend against these projectiles creating the imobility of the phalanx.
  4. The key reason it took so long to recover is the loss of the Ottoman emperor, the civil war that started among his sons and the revolt of a number of his emirs. Could the Byz empire have recovered? Timur was heading west strategically at this time to conquer China, his ability to influence the outcome of Anatolia was questionable. However his destruction of the Ottomans was the last chance of the Byz empire. If they could have kept the Serbs and Bulgars from attacking in the West, and had reallocated there full resources to the battle to reclaim Anatolia it is possible. But doubtful
  5. I was reading a book the other day concerning the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmet II. This book shows the battle from the point of view of the Byzantines intially and then the Ottomans later. I was surprised in this book how high Byzantine enthusiasm was during the siege. They were convinced that they were in the right, and that the barbaric heretic Turk was in the very worst of the wrong side. Some of the people say that the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders did not "count", as it had been treachery that had led to the fall, and had not lasted. It was this book that has made me wonder whether to start a thread on if the Byzantines could have recovered and rebuilt had they beaten Mehmet or at least caused him to withdraw. It really was a lot closer than most think Thank you John Norwich Julius for that ! A good argument could be made for all of the above battles, however if you look at the most critical battle lost it would have to be the Revolution and death of Maurice in 602 (not really a battle). He had defeated the Persians and the Avars and was getting ready to take on the Lombards in Italy. Without his death, the empire would have had an intact - trained and highly skilled army. It would have had tremendous financial support and would easily have defeated the Arab drive from the South.
  6. Caesar was set in the fall to invade the Parthian empire before he died. Rome was primarily in infantry army which relied upon shock, and short range missile (pilum) throws vs the Part horse archer and HC. They had cut up one Roman Army in the not to distant past and would tear up Anthony shortly after. However Cesar had apparently learned from past mistakes and had built a good army to offset these tactics. Considering the brilliance of Caesar and his ability to overcome logistic feats, the quality of the troops, and his dispositions could he have won, and more importantly have consolidated his gains.
  7. I think the key factor of defeat was the civil war that lasted really from 1071
  8. trajen777

    Phalanx Vs. Legions

    I think it comes down to leadership and which time frame you are in. If you look at the armies which defeated the Romans over and over again it was based upon the Alexandrian method of Heavy inf and a strong Heavy Cav. These were the methods of Hannibal who was not defeated until Rome revised its method of warfare to have a superior cav arm at Zama. The legion was founded to defeat the Gauls not the Greeks. The Macedonian army was also very flexible until after the death of Alexander. After this the pike length and armor was increased to give a better power push but at the cost of speed and flexibility. In addition the light infantry of Alexander (bow
  9. I think the issues Justinian faced were pretty simple. Byzantium could have easily defeated the Persians under Justinian if the plague had not broken out. The extra revenue from Africa and from Italy as well as the troops that could have been produced would have been a tipping point. In face the reason that the Persians attacked Byz is the fear that a partially reunified Byz / Rome would have too great a resource base to deal with. The problem was not defeating Persia but instead conconq Persia which was a tribal confederation of Calvary. Rome won many of the battles against Persia and the Byz HC armed with both bow and lance reduced the Persian ability to pin cushion the Roman sold. With arrows. After Justin
  10. If the west had been reunited under my alternate scenario, I think the answer is yes. The Persians were only able to take Syria, Egypt and a very large part of Asia Minor because of the weakness brought upon by Justinian's search for glory. He exhausted the empire. Without this drain on manpower and finances, it is very likley that the eastern front would have held and the Roman/Persian conflict would have remained one of raids and periodic siege warfare around upper Mesopotamia. If this happened, then the people of Syria and Egypt would have likely been far less unhappy with their Roman overlords and the Arab tribal leaders would have been far less likely to have gone unpaid by their Roman benefactors. Don't forget that Islam was only able to hold Syria and Egypt in the early years because of the active aid of the citizens of those regions. Also, its important to note that Heraclius, as a measure of economy for his nearly bankrupt treasury, had stopped paying his arab allies who were monphysite Christians. Without the unhappiness and ultimate change in allegiance of Rome's Arab allies, it is also highly unlikely that the arab raiders from the interior could have held Syria or even beaten the Roman forces there. The Moslem conquest was a very delicate business in the early years. Many things had to go right for them all at the same time for it to work so it would be very easy to create a believable alternate timeline where it did not work. So if the Roman Empire had not been so exhausted by Justinian, then the sequence of events that led to its being exhausted under Heraclius would have been far less likely. And that would have meant that Rome's Arab allies would have been better paid and most likely kept their loyalty to Rome in sufficient numbers to repel the invaders or to have even discouraged their attack in the first place.
  11. Justinian would have reunited much of the Roman Empire and reenergized the kingdom. He first defeated the Persian Empire and signed the "everlasting peace" and then conquered Africa and most of Italy quickly adding 45% more population to the kingdom and defeating a weak gothic kingdom. This was done in the first 10 yrs of his reign. If the plague had not struck which reduced the population including the tax base and army by between 50 % - 70 % Italy would have been stabilized in 5 yrs vs. the 20 yrs it took. Because of the drop in population he was forced to reduce his army in Italy by 50% thereby allowing a resurgent Gothic state to reclaim much of Italy. He in turn reconquored Italy but between the plague in Italy and the destructive war it was decimated. To give you an idea of the damage caused by the plague - the conquest of a populous Africa and Italy should have added 50% more population to the empire, however the net result of the plague left the empire with a total reduction in the entire empire - but now with significant more border area to protect with less tax base and a reduced army. Even with these reductions and tax loss - army depletion he went on to easily conquer 20% of Spain. Net result if the plague never hit - Italy reconquored - Spain reconquored - Africa reconquored - peace in the east - and a good relationship with the Franks - a reduced but stable and powerful empire.
  12. Actually i used to feel the same way - however as i did more research i came to understand that the Rome really ran into major trouble wiht the advent of the Plauge under the reighn of Marcus Aur. when upwards of 50% of the roman pop died. Including a high % of the army. This major pop loss really impacted the army and the tax base. Even worse was the plauge in the middle of Justianian's rule, soon after the caputure of Italy from the goths. Upwards of 50 - 70 % of the pop died - for example the pop of the empire after the capture of Italy and Africa was the same as before these populous regions were captured. The loss of rev and armys was a true didaster.
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