I was recently watching the excellent “time commander” series and suddenly got to thinking about what would happen if you replaced some of the barbarian hordes with english longbowmen or some other more modern infantry force. This set me thinking other potential trans-chronological confrontations. I know there are plenty of military history buffs out there so I present the following scenarios for your consideration.
Modern navy frigate - How much of the spanish armada could it work it’s way through, would it do any worse against say civil war ironclads or perhaps an old Royal Navy Dreadnought.
Modern infantry platoon - Suppose you sent them back to Rome to bump off one of the Caesars, could they fight their way through however many legions and (Pretorian?) guards garrisoned the city, Would they have enough fire power to break a medieval siege.
British longbowmen - How would they do against Roman legionaries, Greek hoplites, or Japanese cavalry.
I’m sure I could think up plenty more but that’s more than enough to be going on with.
Feel free to chip in with any other interesting scenarios that spring to mind.
100%, assuming you did not run out of ammo. The modest 76 mm cannons on a modern american navy frigate have an effective range greater than any pre-1865 naval weapon (about 10 miles).
Once again, it depends solely on how much ammo you can carry. A typical modern platoon of 40 infantry carries an amazing amount of death and destruction, and can kill at a range much greater than anything that existing prior to the invention of gunpowder. My guess is they would run out of ammo before they could kill more than a couple of legions, and they are to ofew to control a sizable urban battlefield regardless of weapons.
Heck if i know. All I can say is that none of these three units were strangers to archers.
I imagine a modern-day (i.e. sailing in 2004) frigate would probably sink the entire Spanish Armada singlehandedly.
A Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate is armed with 1 Mk 13 missile launcher (40 Standard SM-1MR + Harpoon SSM), 1 76mm OTO DP, 1 20mm Phalanx CIWS, 2 triple 12.75 inch torpedo tubes (Mk46 torpedoes), 2 25mm Bushmaster low-angle, and 2-4 12.7mm MG.
I figure it’s safe to assume that the ships of the Armada will be almost invisible to radar(maybe the guns would show?), so they’d have to use the OTO Melara 76mm gun, the Bushmaster chain guns and the 50 cal machine guns. Since all of the above have effective ranges somewhere upwards of 500 yards and the OHP class frigates can sail at 29 knots… independent of wind, they’d be able to run rings around the Spanish formations and shoot hell out of them. Plus, the HE and tracer ammunition is quite effective when compared to solid shot- I imagine that anyone on deck would get killed by 50 cal machine gun fire, and the ships would get set afire by the other shells.
Against the more modern ships, such as HMS Dreadnought(1906), the OHP class frigate would be quite effective- the combination of radar and stand-off Harpoon missiles would probably serve to do in the Dreadnought. If not, then they could probably come in close in low visibility conditions and torpedo it when they couldn’t see the frigate, but the frigate could see them on radar.
Modern infantry platoon. Hmm… I imagine any scenario pitting them vs. more primitive infantry would be pretty much Rorke’s Drift, only on a larger scale. The modern boys would only be effective so long as their ammunition held out- once that was out, they’d get killed in short order, since they have little training in close order hand-to-hand combat like the Romans or medieval types used. Until that point, they’d mow the primitive soldiers down.
British Longbowmen would probably tear up Roman Legionaries, Greek Hoplites and Japanese Cavalry. (what would make Japanese Cavalry any less vulnerable than European cavalry?) Infantry would just get chewed up, until they got close enough, and then the archers would get it in the neck, unless the Longbowmen had some kind of protective infantry of their own.
Depends on the commander. Since the longbowmen could shoot through the French armor at Agin Court (sp?), Greek, Roman, or Japanese armor without difficulty.
Properly deployed and positioned, it would be no contest whatsoever. IIRC, the English developed a formation where a the line of met-at-arms was broken up by V-shaped formations of archers, with the tips of the Vs extending out from the line. What happened is that the approaching enemy came forward through the arrows, and those who got close were caught in enfilading fire–the arrows coming in from both flanks since the wedges extended from the line.
If the commander put the line in a position where outflanking were not an option, a geographical bottle-neck perhaps, then an opponent wouldn’t stand a chance.
The disadvantage is that the bowman is so expensive as it takes virtually a lifetime of training to become one. In terms of range, accuracy, and rate of fire, I’d put bowmen against a U.S. Civil War army and bet against the Americans. In a battle, that is. With a good commander. For a war I’d go w/ the Americans, since the gun takes relatively little training and can be used by weak, wounded, sick, and exhausted soldiers. 'Ya know, it’s a manpower thing.
I dunno about Civil War army, since the rifle was more accurate than the bow, but I would definitely say Napoleonic infantry, since the bow beats the musket in rate, range, accuracy, AND deadliness/effectiveness (maybe not more deadly per se, but it’s harder to fight with an arrow sticking in you). It’s disadvantage is the training involved, as stated, but even worse is lack of defensive abilities: nowhere to stick a bayonet.
At least as many casualities in the Napoleonic Wars were caused by “White Weapons” (melee) as by musketry. That changed in the Civil War due to the longer ranges of the rifles making stopping an infantry charge possible. And the bow only has a range of 100 yards or so greater than the musket: the rifle has an accuracy even greater than that. So the bowmen would most likely get decimated even before they assume their firing positions, at which point they would be vulnerable to an infantry (or cavalry!) charge.
The chief advantage of the Welsh longbow was its stopping power. It could penetrate plate armour, felling the hitherto nigh-invulnerable mounted knight.
Romans did not wear heavy plate, so this kind of firepower would be largely wasted on them. Unencumbered by the kind of weighty armour that makes a longbow necessary, the Roman units were quick and maneuverable, and their individual soldiers were better trained and better armed for close combat. So once the Roman legions had crossed the field of death and reached the lines of English archers, I daresay they’d make mincemeat of them.
That’s assuming, of course, that the English army is comprised entirely of archers, which I seriously doubt would be the case. They’d have their own mounted knights, pikemen, and perhaps even some artillary.
Off the top of my head
The long bow IIRC, was effective against plate armour up until the time of the battle of Agincourt, when it was the French horses and not knights that the arrows took out. It did have a range long enough to keep javelin throwers at bay, and a decent rate of fire, 6ish rounds per minute. And the archers were meant to switch to hand to hand combat when the enemy drew close enough, with anything they could bring to the battlefield with them.
So the Romans, having provided the English with their large formations to take careful aim at, straggle towards the archers. With most of them dead and the rest maybe wounded, they have to use all their skill to fend off the bloodthirsty archers, who win
I recall reading that the French were largely on foot–the knight having been de-horsed by disciplined infantry w/ pikes sometime before that. I think that might have been in Keegan’s A History of Warfare…maybe.
Yeah…I think that even though a large part of the French were on foot, most of those were infantry and men-at-arms rather than noble knights.)
And the noble knights were still on horse…at least for several of the major battles of the HYW IIRC. And they were the ones who insisted on the glory of being in the vanguard of the attack. Alone. None of this all attack at one time business: those commoner crossbowmen will have none of MY glory! So they got repulsed and infected the second and third ranks with failure when they rode back, losing the battle before everything could be committed.
My memory’s hazy on this, so I could be remembering a battle other than Agincourt, but I can’t remember a major field battle on French soil versus the English in the HYW in which French knights were dismounted. But sometimes the English were.
