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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks GeronL. Seven hills, 28 legions? Or, One Hill. One Marine? |
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Posted on 11/02/2011 8:30:47 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Rome, Sweet Rome: Could a Single Marine Unit Destroy the Roman Empire?
It was a hypothetical question that became a long online discussion and now a movie in development: Could a small group of heavily armed modern-day Marines take down the Roman Empire at its height? We talked about the debate with James Erwin, the man who scored a movie writing contract based on his online response, and ran the ideas by Roman history expert Adrian Goldsworthy.
James Erwin was browsing reddit.com 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.
After work, Erwin checked reddit. Thousands of users had read his post and they demanded more. Excited and overwhelmed, Erwin continued submitting pieces of this growing Internet phenomenon. The next day, Los Angeles–based management firm Madhouse Entertainment contacted him about representation. Within the week, after Erwin had put just more than 3500 words to screen, Warner Brothers Studios bought the movie rights.
Erwin’s story, which he titled Rome, Sweet Rome, has a cult following among reddit members, its own subreddit on the site, and has inspired fan music and art. But from the beginning, his posts received comments critiquing the accuracy of his conjured tale. Other redditors commented. Historians commented. Marines commented. "You can definitely tell that the story was something that I dashed out on my lunch hour without doing a lot of research beforehand," says Erwin, an encyclopedia writer and two-time Jeopardy! champ. "Any Marine is going to see mistakes in it, and I’m sure if there were Romans around, they’d say the same thing." He plans on doing intensive technical research during the screenwriting process.
So—disregarding troubling questions about time travel and just why some temporally displaced Marines would feel compelled to destroy an empire——could a single MEU destroy the Roman Empire? To sort through the flood of online responses, PM talked to a Roman military expert and found out how the two sides would line up.
Infantry
An MEU typically contains about 2200 troops, along with their artillery and vehicles. According to Erwin’s original reddit story (which will be altered for the movie), the Marines are transported back in time with what they have with them, including M1 Abrams battle tanks, bulletproof vests, M4 rifles, and grenades.
The year Erwin chose (23 B.C.) falls in the reign of Augustus, great-nephew of Julius Caesar and considered the first Roman emperor. His legions numbered nearly 330,000 men. They wore heavy leather and metal armor, carried swords and javelins, and operated catapults. They would have never heard the sound of an explosion before. "Obviously, there is a massive difference in firepower," says Roman military expert and author Adrian Goldsworthy. "Not only would Roman armor be useless against a rifle round—let alone a grenade launcher or a .50 caliber machine gun—it would probably distort the bullet’s shape and make the wound worse."
In the reddit story, however, Erwin said the Marines would not be resupplied with bullets, batteries, or gasoline from the modern world. "There would be no way of obtaining replacements for these supplies in the ancient world," Goldsworthy says. "An average unit of Marines is not likely to be able to make an oil refinery, start generating electricity, or create machine tools to make spare parts for equipment." And even if they could figure it out, it would take many months or even years. So, as soon as the Marines ran out of gas, their tanks would become little more than hunks of metal.
"In the short term and in the open, modern infantry could massacre any ancient soldiers at little risk to themselves," Goldsworthy says. "But you could not support modern infantry. So all of these weapons and vehicles could make a brief, dramatic, and even devastating appearance, but would very quickly become useless. Probably in a matter of days."
Reinforcements
Erwin’s reddit story stipulates that no more Marines will come back in time, although they may recruit in the ancient world. The Marines would have to; even at their lowest periods, the Roman Empire could conscript hundreds of thousands of soldiers whenever it wanted.
"A Roman centurion would say ‘Let’s take 1000 of these guys. Five hundred of them don’t come back? Get another 500 guys,’" Erwin says. "Americans have never been very good at sending people out as cannon fodder. Marines are better trained and are much harder to replace. No Marine sees himself as a cog, and no Marine is."
Both sides pride themselves on having competent leaders down to the smallest unit level. Goldsworthy says the battle would depend on who had the better officers. Erwin believes it would be shock and awe versus numbers.
"Marines are the best warriors ever trained," he says. "But they can’t fight an endless wave of soldiers. No one can."
Tactics
The Roman legions and Marines are both highly trained with a clear unit structure and hierarchy of command. They emphasize aggression, dominating the opponent, unit cohesion, and being flexible on the ground. "It’s easy to arrange people like chess pieces and march them in a direction," Erwin says. "But when you’ve got basically huge gangs of people going toward each other at knifepoint, it’s very hard to maintain a plan. So they have to improvise."
Romans depended on intimidation to psych out their opponents. They marched in unison and appeared as big and conspicuous as possible, overlapping shields to protect each other from attack. But wearing bright colors and lining up straight isn’t going to do much good against a unit of Marines, who would be best off attacking guerilla-style while the Romans marched.
One advantage for the Marines: a knowledge of military history. The Marines would know from Rome’s history that its legions could be susceptible to ambushes, such as the one that led to their crushing defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The Marines would have serious disadvantages such as navigation, Goldsworthy says. Besides losing all satellite navigation, their modern maps would be practically useless—everything from the course of rivers to the placement of forests would be different. But, at least in their first encounters with the Marines, the Romans probably wouldn’t know that.
The key for the Marines would be to stay on the move and avoid getting bogged down in one place. If they stood still, Goldsworthy says, the Romans could easily surround them and then take advantage of their huge numbers advantage. The Romans would probably use a variety of nasty siege weapons on the Marines, such as the scorpion, a large crossbow that rapidly fired long bolts. Romans were also known to cut off opponents from water and food supplies, forcing them to surrender or die.
Who Would Win?
Historian Goldsworthy says the MEU would probably lose in the long term—without the ability to resupply their modern weapons, they simply wouldn’t be able to overcome the Roman numbers. However, he says, they could destabilize the Roman Empire, encourage civil war, and initiate regional fracturing. "[The Marines] might discredit the Emperor by defeating the closest army to Rome," he says. "But they would lack the numbers to control Rome itself—with a population of a million or so—let alone the wider empire."
What about in the film? Erwin says he knows the ending, but won’t reveal it anytime soon. He’s currently on leave from his technical writing job to work on the screenplay full-time. A release date for the film version of Rome, Sweet Rome, or what it will be called, is still unknown.
The endless harems...
Curiosity bump...
That would make for an amusing ending.
The American Marines storm Rome, kill the emperor declare themselves to be the new leaders
And then die of smallpox infections.
Sounds like an outer limits episode.
Unsupplied, no. With supply lines, yes.
If the vehicles run on diesel, you could probably rig them to run on biodiesel. Failing that, you can make ethanol or methanol. I have no idea how long a modern military vehicle could run on that kind of stuff though. They’d probably be better off with old Russian vehicles if they had to try that.
Bookmark! Great comments on this thread. :)
Also, the Romans were highly disciplined warriors and a small band of powerful warriors didn't destabilize the Empire in 200 BC (Hannibal) when he had a close political alternative, there is no way a modern unit could do the same -- they would be aliens for everyone with no base.
Back on topic - a single Marine armed with an unloaded rifle with a fixed bayonet or perhaps just a K-Bar versus a Centurion in full battle gear?
Will read it tomorrow.
Also a lot of discussion here...
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks GeronL. Seven hills, 28 legions? Or, One Hill. One Marine? |
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So all of these weapons and vehicles could make a brief, dramatic, and even devastating appearance, but would very quickly become useless.
The Romans wouldn’t stand a chance if the Marines had “Hollywood Guns”!
(they never run out of ammo)
BTTT
In April of the year 2000, a six-mile sphere centered on Grantville, West Virginia was displaced in space and time to Germany and May, 1631. The inhabitants of Grantville decided to start the American revolution early; the nobility of Europe were not amused.http://1632.org/
This story deals with the same issues of how to leverage a modern advantage while adjusting to the limitations of older technologies and dwindling resources.
1632 Series (wikipedia)
The thing is, the Romans would have no idea of how they worked, or their limitations. One huge demonstration outside the walls of Rome, destroying some abandoned structures with artillery, slaughtering thousands of sheep, cattle and pigs from the air, and you could bluff them into damn near anything.
I don't think a single human would need to be killed to effect major changes in their society.
Then there is always the God route, openly accept that you were chosen by a single great entity to rise Rome to rule the world but they would have to change their ways first. Admit you're just humans like them, but you were chosen and hand picked because God was upset his son was killed and he was going to give humans one last chance to straiten up or he would destroy the world and start over.
You could install western values in a couple of generations and with the technological advances, hell just accurate maps, you could bring the whole world into a age of enlightenment.
Basically, you become the UN but rule it with an iron fist.
The Spaniards that defeated Montezuma existed at a transitional period of warfare. Muscle powered weapons were slowly giving way to fire-fighting. The Spaniards could continue to fight even when their powder & shot were expended as fire-fighting was a “fair-weather” activity in those days.
Then you have the fact that the Aztecs never saw warhorses or war dogs. Both would have been as terrifying as an Abrams or an LAV, and neither of the latter can live of the land.
Finally we know that the Spainiards made use of native allies. This was the key to their victory. The Marine MEU would have to do the same. I think that would be most difficult as that is a SpecOps function and the Italian city-states mostly remained loyal to Rome during Hannibal’s depredations.
A MEU has enough supplies to sustain itself for a week. In a situation like this they could stretch it out to a month or two on the outside a year. Fuel and ammo are finite.
If I were the MEU CO I'd get on the ships and sail back to America go to Titusville, Pa and drill for oil. With oil all things are possible. Within a few years you're self-sustaining and then go back to Rome.....
The colonel commanding the MEU would have to combine cunning with a level of ruthlessness not seen in Western warfare since the SS were defeated. He would also have to be able to manipulate Roman religion, supersticions, etc. You are after all an alien society that has a greater understanding of your target than they have of you. That is your chief advantage.
Not if they think God was going to resupply them. Working on their religions and superstitions is how this battle will get won. If they think God was sending these men then they would follow with God will see them taken care of, the CO would play on that completely. I still think a merger without violence would be possible, allow the emperor and senate to remain in power, just with some changes.
Second question: Bio diesel? If even one member knew how to make it off the top of his head, which is very easy, that would make an even bigger difference. Their armor would eventually break down and run out of ammunition, but they could go quite a few miles first. Planning for those limits would allow them to accomplish quite a bit if they had the extra range from unlimited diesel.
When they collide, my money is on the Marines.
Finally: could they make black powder on their own? It's not the same as their initial loadout, but I'd guess they would have dozens of Marines who are handloaders. Rome would have issues dealing with that, unless a Marine decided to sell that knowledge to the other side (unlikely with the USMC).
Night vision and a modern knife alone would be formidable and would last for a very long time if they conserved their batteries.
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