Could a USMC platoon defeat a whole Roman legion?

a speculative what-if battle is before us could a rifle platoon of US Marines defeat a whole Roman Empire legion that's 43 soldiers with rifles and fancy modern equipment against over 5,000 men with swords and spears Roman legion is not only a much bigger unit size between a modern-day Brigade and a division but is a unit with own logistics and this clash of historic numbers versus modern tactical unit who would come out and top what the tanks have to do with Roman legion well Romans with their Spears and swords would prefer not to fight them at all but many thanks as well as planes helicopters and ships are available to drive and control courtesy of war thunder sponsoring this video war thunder is a combat online game I tried it and liked it very much it features over 1200 historically accurate playable items from pre World War 2 to 1990s there are massive combined-arms battles on over 80 major battlefields to participate in the physics are realistically modelled and vehicles suffer 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designed to operate independently for many days but tunes carry small ratio of food and water enough for barely a few days exact size of a legion is not a clear cut number some estimates are held in high regard than others though so Bing Cove will go with this roughly 4,800 to 5,000 hundred and 20 soldiers roughly 150 more officers additional 120 Scouts and messengers on horses between sixty and several hundred artillery weapon specialists and upwards of 1,000 additional supply train personnel civilians and pay and slaves some of which had Spears and were tasked with aiding in the protection of the supply train that's what would constitute a corps Legion circa 2nd or 3rd century AD in actual Wars legions were almost always supported by auxiliary troops those would mostly be local bred units which were usually the main source of attack cavalry and ranged units with all those actual Legion and its accompanying auxiliar was at times known to reach 11,000 personnel for simplicity's sake those auxiliary units will not be accounted for as they were not core part of a legion but at the same time the Marines will not get anything that's not organic part of their rifle platoon so even though the higher units such as the marine battalion would in actual wars give detachments of heavier weapon units to fight alongside the platoon or an engineering team with land mines here the platoon will be all by itself giving Marines vehicles would also not make the scenario interesting as the Marines could just spend all the ammo the vehicles have causing numerous casualties then disengage moving hundreds of miles within a day if needed if both sides don't know who their enemy is but get orders to find them and hand them down Marines should fare better while they may be surprised at first to see a Roman legion Romans are a known quantity for them but Roman seeing Marines would be in a hell of a surprise well as the rifles start firing and her comrades start dying hundreds of yards away from the enemy faced against something new to them loud and frightening almost magic like bullets and explosions the Romans are very unlikely to remain coherent as a unit the Romans are much more likely to quickly start fleeing and eventually disintegrate as an organized opponent so to make things a bit more even let us assume that Romans also have some knowledge of their enemy from before perhaps some other Roman units captured a few other Marines earlier and have gotten to inspect their weapons and gear even though they may not fully understand how they work they're likely to learn of what such weapons and gear are capable of so then a Roman legion is dispatched to try and kill a known enemy unit perhaps in an effort to seize even more of their almost godlike weapons and equipment at the same time the Marines know some of their comrades have been captured and that there is likely a whole Legion out there looking for them do they flee or do they engage if they're not sure there's just one Legion they would likely try to flee after all there are much smaller unit and therefore much more mobile while the enemy does have some horses those are not numerous and aren't a threat on their own let us remember the hundred and twenty or so horseback riders the Legion has are not primarily a combat force while they have swords for self-defense they're mostly scouts and messengers even if Romans gave them Spears neither the horses nor riders are accustomed to charges onto enemies if Romans still tried to press on with a cavalry charge those hundred and twenty riders would likely be slaughtered they will be spotted from afar raising up dust and being larger targets than an average human and then concentrated fire would whittle down their numbers until the attack falls apart even if the riders don't change their mind and don't flee upon seeing half of their comrades killed the horses are likely to just go wild when 40 millimeter grenade start landing left and right to them grenade ears could deliver precision fire 250 metres and reach area sized targets up to 350 metres away it's highly unlikely a single horseback rider would actually reach the Marines unless they managed to sneak up to them Marines could start firing from several hundred yards away first the marksmen with better rifles and scopes then from 300 to 400 yards away the rest of the Marines could fire with sufficient accuracy sure a lot of those would be misses at such distances but as legionaries get closer accuracy would improve starting from say four hundred yards away and an average of 15 seconds per hundred yards Romans are likely to be exposed for some 60 seconds Marines could run away to keep the distance but if they do that they can't shoot so lies they're running to get to a better defensive position they're likely to stay put and just lay prone to improve their aim how accurate can soldiers be with today's rifles and scopes here are results of some recent testing bench results our mechanical limits of the weapon basically taking the soldier out of the accuracy equation qualification is what average soldier can achieve in shooting trials when he has a fair amount of time to take a steady aim and when he's not under threat or stress combat stress results are firm simulated combat conditions and the accuracy drops quite a bit important to note though simulations include soldiers being shot at so stress levels are likely higher than what a soldier shooting from 300 yards away at a guy with a sword would be 300 yard results against Romans would plausibly be somewhere in between of qualification and combat stress results the romans gets closer under hundred yards away a mass of guys with swords running towards the marines would likely lead to stress levels comparable to ones from the simulation to sum it up marksmen had up to five hundred yards away would probably be aiming at target standing out like ballistic crews officers and horse riders and might achieve 20 to 25 percent hit rates again stationary targets let's try to crunch some numbers each of the three marksmen could hit one legionary every five or so seconds at 500 or so yards at 300 yards each of the 34 gun firing Marines could need a second or two to successfully hit a Roman followed by a second or two more to pick a new roman target Marines firing at 200 yards would hit targets a bit more often at 100 yards combat stress would start becoming a big factor but the weapon system precision overcomes it and overall accuracy still increases 60-something seconds would be needed to cover the 400 yards so here's a table of Romans shot by the time they cover a certain distance at 50 yards or less Marines accuracy could get very high possibly killing a Roman with almost every bow every one or two seconds or so if the soldiers could remain cool-headed and notice the video mentions 34 gun firing Marines that's because there are nine grenade ears in the platoon instead of shooting their rifles they could shoot a 40-millimeter grenade every 10 seconds hitting a ballista size target from 150 meters away or lobbing a grenade into a wider area from 350 meters away grenades can be deadly if they land in an area with lots of enemies still they pack a little explosive filler and produce a limited number of fragments the farther a person is from their detonation point the more likely it is they will not get hit by fragments how would the Romans even be positioned being in a very tight formation is not good not only for surviving grenades but it would also offer their enemy a dense forest of bodies meaning Marines could afford to just lay down automatic fire and be fairly certain most bullets would hit something at several metres between each Roman soldier individual aim for rifles becomes important semi-automatic fire would get preferred to automatic one which would waste too many bullets into empty spaces if Romans are advancing in lines say two metres between each of them and a dozen metres between lines several might be killed outright by each 40 millimeter grenade with several more neutralized duty wounds guren tears are more limited with time than with number of grenades they carry as Romans could cover those 400 yards in roughly a minute during that time each Grenadier could fire roughly 6 grenades and neutralize some 60 or so Romans also when an F Romans get to some 40 yards or so of the Marines another option opens up for the Marines hand grenades most soldiers don't carry many of them though but they are a bit deadlier than 40 millimeter grenade still we might be looking at 100 or more hand grenades thrown with a lot of casualties on the Roman side at 20 or so yards away Romans could use their Pelham's spears that they usually through just before charging onto their enemies with swords if hundreds of Romans were still around a rain of spears could present quite a threat to the Marines if for nothing else then because of the psychological factor but it's unlikely Pelham's would even be carried by Romans to get an answer why we need to go way back to when the battle is planned for if Romans get to know some basic information about the capabilities of their enemy they would come to the conclusion they would suffer huge casualties so if they still press on with the attack they would need to plan it accordingly the usual tight Roman formations would be useless it would only make them better targets for us automatic fire for grenades not so much actually as bodies first to be in line of incoming fragments would protect most of the bodies behind so the soldiers would need to lose most of their equipment to make them able to run fairly fast for over 400 yards which is why they would most likely be ordered to carry only their swords running with a large shield and a long spear is too cumbersome in theory all the casualties mentioned up until now while steep still allow Romans enough survivors to slaughter the Marines with swords but would that actually happen almost certainly not the main reason is human psychology let's say the Roman legion to face the marines is hand-picked for their loyalty bravery etc they may be told what to expect they may even be told about explosion that will kill a dozen of them at once but once they actually start charging and see their friends die at an alarmingly fast rate they will fall apart as a unit they will get scared and as soon as they see some larger groups of their fellow soldiers running away they will say screw this and turn away as well Romans would get routed before they reach the Marines in such a fight out in the open there is simply no historical precedent for an event where an army unit loses roughly half of its force and still keeps charging in ancient Roman battles the winning side had usually 10 to 20 percent of dead and wounded the losing side will have a bit more debt up until a point where they broke apart and started to flee that's where steep additional casualties often came in especially if the winner had a cavalry to pursue those fleeing soldiers so if Romans could be robots without fear then yeah they could win but realistically they could withstand perhaps a thousand or 2,000 casualties before their ranks break up and a mass round begins there are additional issues for Romans having formations where there's two meter distance between two legionaries in a line is very hard to achieve and upkeep in a battle to get the most out of the charge all Romans would need to be in a single line but that's not possible that would call for a line that's over ten kilometres long one needs to organize that line first and then keep it oriented towards the enemy who needs to be stupid enough to just let the Romans waste hours on organizing such information furthermore edges of the line would need to advance first and middle of the line would need to wait it all calls for precise organization that's extremely unlikely over such distances and running speeds required most likely the whole line would just dissolve into a huge mass of people running somewhere most of them not even knowing whereas they would not see their enemy having several lines would be better while that means not all Romans would be reaching the Marines at once and more time would be given to the Marines to shoot in practice it would make the whole formation more manageable still having even five lines would make each line two kilometres long perhaps even borderline manageable with various signals and cavalry messengers but depending on the exact terrain still way too cumbersome realistically Marines would simply run away before Romans get organized ideally and what would solve most of Roman problems would be an ambush to somehow get the Marines to walk into an area where Romans already encircle them but that's extremely implausible unless Marines believe no threat exists in their surroundings also while there are terrains that might suit Romans better such as the woods it's unlikely that Marines would get themselves into such a situation once they know they're under threat they might seek clear terrain without obstacles Romans would have their cavalry Scouts with which they could cover more ground while seeking the Marines but Romans lack optics the Marines have Marines could spot a horse rider from over a mile away a few times greater distance than what the Romans would enjoy then there's the issue of nighttime the fact Marines are more mobile as a unit would dictate when engagements could take place and since every marine in the platoon does have night-vision goggles it means the Marines could actually be the ones attacking the Legion they could roughly track the location of the roman legion during the day then send out scouts to pinpoint the location during nighttime and then perform raids during night time using sniper shots from afar and lobbing grenades from a few hundred yards away at concentration of Roman soldiers such attacks especially if done over a few consecutive nights would have grave impact on Roman morale as Romans could simply not see who is attacking them they could had best deduce the direction the gunfire comes from but during nighttime trying to organise a large formation to go into that pitch-black would be impossible it is thus likely the Roman legion would fall apart within days under such raids from the Marine platoon and its legionaries would simply desert various tactical shenanigans Romans could try mostly required daytime to work they could try and bring the cavalry behind the Marines as the Roman lines are charging the front but while it would mean more bullets spent and a bit more panic and result would still likely be the Romans breaking lines and routing before they reach the Marines Romans could burn vegetation both to box in the Marines and cover on movements but the Marines would be able to simply run away from a wildfire and choose not to go into dangerous areas Marines only real limitation would be the food and water in a very inhospitable environment such as a desert they may die of thirst first as Roman unit carries more water per person even if they kill half the Romans first the remaining half may declare themselves victors if they remain to live longer but those are extremely specific situations in most other situations the Marine platoon comes out on top they could perhaps even deal with better part of two Roman legions before reaching their limits which would be dictated by the number of bullets carried these figures are quite relative though as Marines would carry as many rounds as they think they might need if they got whisked away into the Roman times while in some boring patrol they might carry less if someone told them their to fight a Roman legion upfront so they get a chance to stock up they might double the number of bullets carried bottom line is swords and spears are unlikely to defeat modern night-vision optics rifles and grenades at least not with these ratio of numbers oh and before you go think about subscribing if you like my content if you want to be notified of my upcoming videos subscribing is not enough you also have to click that bell-shaped notification icon and if you're reviewing vinkor on the phone notifications from YouTube also need to be turned on well that's it for now salutations and remember bin cough may talk about hypothetical Wars but only real peace can bring us all together [Music]

Channel: Binkov's Battlegrounds

Views: 2,266,728

Rating: 4.7060318 out of 5

Keywords: Roman legion, US marines, USMC marines, US platoon, Roman legion vs us marines, Roman legion vs us army, m4 carabine, m16 rifle, time travel, fantasy, guns vs spears, rifles vs swords

Id: AGmqNPR9RtQ

Length: 18min 34sec (1114 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 18 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/DHFranklin]

I am glad they go over the various scenarios in which both sides could engage. I think we have more evidence that the first battle would be the most telling and decisive. Both sides would fall to attrition. I as wrote in *Fidelius* the logistics of long term strategy would mean the most. In all but one or two incredibly selective scenario a MEU would win in almost all tactical situations.