Roman Military Technology and Tactics

two thousand years ago the Roman army is the best equipped army in the world while the architects have mastered the art of manipulating stone and concrete military engineers have fashioned metal and wood to create devastating weapons of war the Roman foot soldiers main weapon is a fearsome sword called the Gladius a double-edged blade about 18 inches long with a sharp point it was used for stabbing and thrusting rather than slashing but if a sword could be deadly at close quarters their spear called a pelham could kill from a distance it can be thrown with lethal accuracy around a hundred feet the Pitons designed basically to kill is designed to pierce people to pierce armor to pierce their shields the Pelham has a six foot long wooden shaft topped with a two foot long iron shank the tip of the shank was triangular and would have been difficult to remove once it impaled the enemy the drawback of any javelin type weapon is that the enemy may pick it up and throw it back but Roman military scientists employ the latest metal making technology to protect their men the iron tip of the PM is tempered through rapid heating and cooling making it hard and strong the shaft is untempered leaving it soft striking the shield the PM strong tip penetrates but the soft shaft bends making it useless for the enemy to throw it back at the Romans protecting your soldiers from injury is just as important as arming them for attack early Roman soldiers wear chain mail called lorica Kamata vertical rows of solid washer like rings made from bronze or iron are linked to riveted rings that run horizontally it does have its flaws it is very heavy weighing around 33 pounds enemy arrows can penetrate between the Rings to injure the wearer weapons reconstruction expert ben Geel studies the impact of Roman weapons so it literally explodes through the links and makes its own way roman Armorer's come up with a far superior form of protection articulated plate armor called lorica segments are made from a series of overlapping iron plates joined together by leather straps it's as flexible as chainmail but one-third lighter the protective shoulder and body pads worn by football players work in much the same way the light segmented sections on the shoulders and chest allow movement but spread the impact of a heavy blow around the body the lorica segment tunnel is built to withstand an enemy arrow but it went in only about that far the arrow may have made a dent but the armour saves its wearer from serious injury and if the Romans weaponry has a modern feel then so do the tactics they use some can still be seen today on the streets of New York January 31st 2002 facing demonstrations against the World Trade Organization the New York Police defend themselves with the latest body armor and high-tech protection but this use of shields is remarkably similar to something 2,000 years ago the Roman legions know exactly how to fight heavily armed foes they use the testudo Latin for tortoise Legionnaires bunched together and lock their shields in formation to create a large protective screen a formation as effective in attack as it is in defense the soldiers use a large curved shield which is made from another modern sounding material plywood plywood very easy to make just take a few layers of wood and glue them together with the grain at 90 degrees to each other on the different layers and that provides a protection that's fairly firm but that is still a little bit flexible and that's how they're able to produce these curved shields laminating the alternate layers at 90 degrees gives the shield its strength drop a marble on a thin sheet of wood and it breaks easily put two sheets together with the grains in the same direction and they still break but cross the grains and the marble bounces off but it isn't just the foot soldiers who have the high-tech equipment the Romans can also wheel out the big guns I think one of the things that impresses me most about Roman military technology is is the artillery few examples of Roman artillery survived but the Romans left detailed clues as to how to recreate them Geel is a member of the urban street guard britain's leading roman reenactment group he believes their recreations helped us to understand how Roman technology worked before this was done nobody really knew how these weapons and how this equipment worked but just knowing how it was constructed doesn't really tell you how it was used and that's why experimental archeology like this is very important this is the scorpion it fires iron tipped bolts it was used in the first stages of attack and during sieges it Pierce's armor and kills instantly it's a bit like a giant crossbow the rigid bow arms are cranked back storing the energy in the two vertical skeins made of rope and sinew once the bowstring is released it fires the arrow 1,200 feet at incredible speeds this is the bolt I will be placed here when I release the bolt you'll see that the wooden shaft underneath it also projects forward and that acts very similar to the barrel of a gun keeping the bolt as straight as possible when it leaves the weapon as you can see it's fully maneuverable I then aim at a target and when I'm happy to shooter them I will you the Scorpion is a lethally effective weapon they would have caused devastating injuries there are skeletons of British people who were probably killed by the Romans when they invaded there's one guy who had an arrow head through his spine another guy who had a catapult bolt through his head and it went through his skull about here there must have killed him instantly although it's an effective anti-personnel weapon the Scorpion is of little use in attacking a building for that the Romans need something with a bit more punch the onager and the ballista I think the stone throwers are the most devastating piece of Roman technology these pieces of artillery fire large stones at the enemy during sieges they propel projectiles so high into the air that they can break down enemy walls the whizzing noise of the stones strikes terror into Rome's enemies to increase the fear factor they're painted black so they're harder to see it's very effective physically but it's also a huge psychological weapon and enemies whom the Romans are fighting are really scared of this stuff the ballista works like the scorpion but is bigger and more powerful it can fire a 60 pound stone forward or a three-foot bolt around 1500 feet allowing the soldiers to stand well away from enemy archers the speed of the missile is phenomenal hitting its target at around 115 miles per hour anyone sustaining a direct hit would be killed instantly the onager uses a different principle it catapults basketball-sized stones weighing up to 50 pounds nearly a thousand feet using a single arm and sling the vertical arm is powered by a large horizontal skein of rope coiled and twisted to create a rotational force the skein acts like a spring storing energy to be released on firing the more powerful the spring the more powerful the catapult the Romans use rope made from sim use because it's very springy and gives back an exceptionally high percentage of the energy stored in it each Roman legion would carry around 60 pieces of artillery the combinations of technology and tactics makes the Roman army the premier fighting force in Europe for 500 years and influences military tactics for the next 1500

Channel: Naked Science

Views: 4,951,565

Rating: 4.7366471 out of 5

Keywords: roman, military, design, ancient, attack, weapon, empire, reconstruction, warcraft, reenactment, battle, army, engineering, devastating, war, onager, ballista, history, action, role, playing, larp, technology, soldier, fearsome, sword, gladius, strategy, legion, blade, combat, spear, pilum, lethal, javelin, armour, shield, enemy, armoury, weaponry, protection, injury, chainmail, lorica, hamata, bronze, iron, bow, arrow, test, segmentata, tactics, influence, testudo, defense, battlefield, artillery, shoot, scorpio, catapult, ballistic, stone, thrower

Id: kkgjiCKHvoY

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Benji_IB]

Incredibilis!

[u/Red_Dog93]

American pronunciation hurts my soul.

[u/joculator]

Layered offensive weapons and layered defenses. Slingers, archers, pilum, close quarters combat and cavalry.