Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Samurai Armour VS Roman Armour" video.

  1. Is simply the inverse law of armor effectiveness. The less skin the armor cover, the more effective it is. See games and tv shows for references. Vikings were infact cowards. By wearing only a leather bracelet they made themself impervious to any attack. Fight wearing a mail armor and a helmet (so that you can be stabbed with a pointed stick) if you are a man!
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  2. They are nothing compared to swords' pommels.
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  3. Actually for a good part of their history, Romans fought only in summer (traditionally wars were not fought in winter), and the lorica segmentata was probably designed to counter the arrows of the Parts, so it was used first in the middle east. Obviously armors were a burden in summer, but the other option was worse.
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  4. You can clean up your nails, or open letters, with them. Knights were practical guys after all.
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  5. Yes. Infantry formations that were fairly worse and less disciplined than the Romans had been effective in the middle ages, and the Roman field use of heavy ranged weapon (ballistas of various size) was tipically superior to that of the middle ages armies. Furthermore, the Roman armies had a chain of command that allowed to cohordinate several tens of thousands of men, while the medieval ones were much simpler, and were typically in crisis when the number of combatants exceeded 10.000
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  6. Celts wore armors whenever possible. Actually the Romans took the lorica hamata and the helmet with cheekplates from them.
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  7. There is a time gap, but, interestingly enough, not a technological gap. There is nothing in the 16th century samurai armor that the Romans couldn't have done. But even having a samurai armor to copy, they wouldn't have adopted it. Samurai armors could be better for samurais, but were certainly worse for mediterranean warfare. From a Roman point of view, those gaps in the front of the shoulders were unacceptable. It's not even a question of hand to hand combat. A simple slingshot can break your shoulder even before the beginning of the real fight.
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  8. But the Last Samurai is set in the late 19th century, when samurais had been a class of bureaucrats that sometimes practiced martial arts in dojos for more than two centuries. In the movie reality, it may very well be that they worn the mempo cause they didn't know that their 16th century ancestors wouldn't have done it.
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  9. The real original "clavii caligari" were more pronounced, and acted like cleats.
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  10. +Armoured Productions That's the difference. Knight plate armors and longswords were reserved to a fraction of a medieval army. The wast majority would have worn armors that a Roman legionary would have considered laughable. Kinghts were an elite unit among an army of armed peasants. Romans could field tens of thousands of professional soldiers in armor.
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  11. More like 10.000 between knights and men-at-arms in total. At the battle of Vercellae, Marius had 50.000 men, of which 36.000 were legionaries. At Alesia, Caesar had 45.000-50.000 legionaries, and that was still a fraction of the total strenght of the Republic.
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  12. +pypy1986820 And, thinking about Caesar, we have to think about it's enemies. At Alesia he reportedly faced 85.000 armed Gauls barricated into the city and 240.000 outside it. We know, from the aftermats, that the first number was quite accurate, the second can be exaggerated, but, even admittting he doubled it, that means that the Romans were facing 200.000 armed men. Those were not professional soldiers, but probably most of them had already fought in battles or duels in their life, since disputes and skirmishes were common between the celtic tribes. Their equipment was usually composed of a long iron sword or an axe, a shield, a spear, a helmet and, at least for the wealtier of them, a mail armor (the Romans actually adopted the "lorica hamata" and the helmet with cheeckplates from them, centuries before). They could use (and used in the Gallic War) javelins and bows as well, and had a cavalry, altough not efficient as a medieval one (no stirrups). A similar army, at Agincourt, would have walked over the English due to the sheer strenght of numbers, longbows or not. Probably they could have walked over the English and the French at the same time.
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  13. Sorry, but I've never talked about impossibilities or combat capabilities. I was talking about numbers. "Romans could field tens of thousands of professional soldiers in armor". Medieval armies were "huge" when they reached, or barely passed, 10.000 men. "When numbers are similar" a heavy medieval knight is a great weapon, but heavy medieval knights are extremely expensive items. Numbers will not be similar, since 10.000 knigts were more or less all that a powerful medieval state could deploy. 10.000 legionaries were a relatively small contingent. However, it had been the legionaries that made those fortifications. They didn't found them there. Do you think they would have been incapable to make the battlefield impracticable to horses? Is not that they didn't know how to dig, or sharpen poles. The English did, and, with all the due respect, they were not 45.000-50.000 Legionaries capable to build 16 km of double fortification around the city.
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  14. There is a time gap, but, interestingly enough, not a technological gap. There is nothing in the 16th century samurai armor that the Romans couldn't have done. But even having a samurai armor to copy, they wouldn't have adopted it. Samurai armors could be better for samurais, but were certainly worse for mediterranean warfare. From a Roman point of view, those gaps in the front of the shoulders were unacceptable. It's not even a question of hand to hand combat. A simple slingshot can break your shoulder even before the beginning of the real fight.
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  15. All in all the Swiss squares were not that different from the Macedonian phalanx, that the Romans defeated easily even before the Marian reform. Obviously, in that case, the tactic was not to directly attack the front of the enemy formation, but to lure the enemies on rough terrain, where they could not mantain it, or to take advantage of the superior mobilities of the cohorts to attack the flanks. The Swiss were much more disciplined than the average infantry formation of medieval time, but not more disciplined than the oplites or phalangites. After the marian reform, we have to take in account military engineering too. Even on a seemingly favourable terrain for the pikemen's squares, Romans could easily dig or build obstacles that would have made impossilbe to mantain the formation. That's an often overlooked topic. A battle vs a legion was not only a battle vs shield and short sword. It's a battle vs a military system that in no time could build fortifications, trenches, traps, and make a terrain impracticable for the enemy. That doesn't mean that the Roman victory would be a given fact, obviously. Even the Romans had their bad days. But, assuming both the formations to have a capable commander, one that know how to get the best from his men, to me the legion had more possibilities.
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  16. *There could be, and had been used, multiple phalanxes. The pikemen had always more columns cause they came from different places, and, like for the oplite phalanx, the unity of a column depended from the fact that its members came from the same place and thrusted each other. Furthermore, among the Swiss, every column was free to decide wether to attack or rethreat. The coordination was scarce. *To have different kind of soldiers into the same formation is not necessarily an advantage. If you have not enough pikemen to keep the enemy infantry at bay, and not enough swordsmen to fight them in close quarters, it will end in a slaughter anyway. Furthermore, phalangites had swords as well, and they had been easily defeated. *The legion evolved a lot during the years as well. But, until the advent of firearms, I don't see advantages in the pikemen squares over the legion. *Is like saying that, since a AA station can shoot down an attack helicopter, while a tank will have a hard time versus it, the AA station will easily win versus the tank. It doesn't work that way. The pikemen squares evolved exactly to counter the cavalry, but they generally never fought vs other kind od organized infantry. Legions instead fought vs many kind of organized infantry. Pikemen would have been nothing new to them, only a variation of the Oplite-Macedonian phalanx they knew well. And, as said, there is the military engineering to take into account. At the Bicocca the Swiss were defeated mainly by the mere presence of a sunken road transverse to the battlefield. To make better obstacles would have been child play for the legionaries. That's my opinion.
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  17. *Pike squares put togheter men of the same origin. For this cause, often there had been competition, and not cohordination, between the Swiss columns on the same battlefield. *Gauls too fought in close formaftions of spearmen. Formations of spearmen were nothing new for the Romans. They saw it before. *Is not a question of numbers, but of numbers for the same area. In a certain area there could be only a certain number of men. Too few pikemen, and the enemies will find their way to fight in close quarters, and at that point the pikemen will be only an hindrance. Too few swordsmen, and they will not make any difference. If combined formations would have been ALWAYS an advantage, the Romans would have kept the hasta between their squares, or the phalangites would have kept the oplites between theirs. They didn't cause it was not an advantage. *I never said the Romans were invincible. I said: "That doesn't mean that the Roman victory would be a given fact, obviously. Even the Romans had their bad days. But, assuming both the formations to have a capable commander, one that know how to get the best from his men, to me the legion had more possibilities." *Infact, once other organized infantries begun to appear on the battlefield, initially copying the Swiss (cause they were then the only example of efficient infantry available) the pikemen square formation begun to change, incorporating more and more other kind of soldiers (cause heavy cavalry was no more the primary threat) and resembling less and less a pikemen square, until the ones that remained more faithful to the original formation had been the first to be throughly and repeatedly beaten. It doesn't seems a demonstration of strenght of the pikemen squares vs other forms of infantry. *The phalanx could too. There is simply a trade-off between lenght of the spear and number of lines of soldiers employed, and so the effectiveness of the defense, and time employed to change formation. After the harquebuses became the main infantry weapon, the pike remained in use only to protect them from the cavalry charges. It had been abandoned as soon as the bayoned was invented, and a musket with a bayonet is a short spear. So short spears and no shields are the best formation ever? No. Simply shields were useless vs firearms. And, as said, there is the military engineering to take into account. A battle vs a legion is not only a battle vs shield and short sword. It's a battle vs a military system that in no time could build fortifications, trenches, traps, and make a terrain impracticable for the enemy. Historically the pikemen squares did nothing similar, and did not cope well with natural or artificial obstacles. Thanks to you.
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  18. Roman society was sexist (like all the societies of that time), but not as sexist as the Greek one. Roman women could study (actually, until they worn the "toga praetexta", male and female children were considered equal), and, altough they couldn't have a political career, it was considered normal for them to have a political influence, talk with men that were not their relatives, participate in banquets with the men and so on. Roman women usually worn the "stola" that covered more than the tunic, but could leave arms, neck and even the shoulders uncovered. The choice to cover or not the hair was of them, we have depictions of Roman women with or without the hair covered by the "palla" (a kind of mantle).
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