Posted on 02/17/2017 10:16:40 AM PST by C19fan
James Erwin was browsing Reddit on his lunch break when a thread piqued his interest. A user called The_Quiet_Earth had posed the question: "Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?"
The question struck a chord with the 37-year-old Erwin, a technical writer from Des Moines, Iowa, who happened to be finishing a book called The Encyclopedia of U.S. Military Actions (Through Facts on File). Erwin tells PM that he wasn't impressed by other users' early attempts to answer this question, and so, posting under the username Prufrock451, he came up with his own response. Erwin wrote a 350-word short story chronicling the fictitious 35th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which suddenly disappears from modern-day Kabul and reappears on the Tiber River in 23 B.C. Erwin posted the piece, finished his meal, and went back to work.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
would be a helluva supply chain
A6M2 Zero versus AIM-9 Sidewinder missile...’nuff said.
Just think of it—the Roman standards topped with the Eagle, Globe and Anchor...and the “SPQR” replaced with “USMC”....
I don’t think they could replace SPQR (”The Senate and People of Rome”) but the Globe and Anchor would make a nice addition.
And, maybe, if the Romans listened to their history from the Gyrenes, they might take necessary steps to bring Rome into the future...
Isn’t acne “the red death?”
Rome would be wiped out by a flood of diseases the Marines would be carriers of.
I don’t see a Marine unit being entirely composed of men too incompetent and narrow in their thinking as to not realize the potential for biological warfare their bodies carry.
Great pRemise.
One I have always wondered is, what if Rome and China had gone to war? Who would have won?
I read the first one and enjoyed it. I heard the follow-ups weren’t as good.
In fact they get vaccines against "exotics" like yellow fever, and would take anti-malarial meds even though these diseases are virtually unheard of in the US.
If anything, an unvaccinated Marine would be at risk for diseases the Romans might have or carry.
I don't think this would be an issue, like Columbus bringing smallpox to the Native Americans.
Thinking about this further, I can see perhaps TB being a problem for the Marines.
But what we have today is "multi-resistant" TB, brought in by third world hell-holes.
2000 years ago this would have been taken care of easily with streptomycin, because it was still effective.
A halfway decent medic would probably have the antibiotics they would need.
Penicillin would still have killed almost anything, because resistant strains didn't yet exist.
I have read and enjoyed all of the followups. Some have been better than others, but all, for me, have been worth buying and reading. and I share them with my adult daughter who also enjoys the series. Another reason i find them interesting is that I spend 7 years serving in the Fulda Gap region of Germany and Thuringia was just across the border to the east of us, where we expected the 8th Guards Tank Army to attack from its home stations in Thuringia.
“Guns of the South”....great read.
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