The 1780 Redcoats learned that trick the hard way five years earlier: “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!l
Definitely not.
My 50/50-ish (heavy emphasis on the -ish) number was for a stationary man-sized target.
With a Civil War era musket? Maybe. Civil War muskets compare much more favorably to modern rifles than smooth bores as far as accuracy goes. My 1853 Enfield is just as accurate as my WWII rifles. It just loads a lot slower.
The accuracy of rifled muskets in the Civil War made a lot of Napoleonic tactics extremely bad, as seen at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg.
A brown bess at 100 yards was tested and shown to have a radial dispersion of about 40cm at 100 yards. Call it a circle with a diameter of .8m. If you are aiming for the head, it would fill maybe 1/5 that area? Shooting for center mass you’re probably slightly less than 5050 to hit something.
Getting back to the soldiers - how are they not in effect similar to many armies the Romans faced with bows, or especially crossbows which could penetrate shields and armor? If we changed the scenario to 500 redcoats against 500 trained ancient archers, the archers would win every time. They’re more mobile, can reload while moving, their shooting positions wouod be harder to detect, etc
Is there any doubt that if you put 500 redcoats up against 500 Mongol horse archers, the Mongols woukd slaughter them? The Romans learned to fight the Mongols. I think they could come up with tactics for the redcoats who, other than their slow-loading but powerful weapons would have been inferior in pretty much every other way? They were not armored, not well trained, not very mobile, etc.
If I were the Romans, I’d try to move the battle to some place like a forest where the guns lose advantage. Or you lie in ditches and wait for them to stumble onto you. Or you start fires and burn them out.
And if the Redcoats won’t move, you let them sit there and starve.
Also, do the redcoats have unlimited ammunition? How many shots does each soldier have?
When did that happen? The Mongol Empire arose in the 13th Century, 700 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire aka the Byzantines fought a couple of poorly documented battles against the Mongols, but that’s over 1200 years after the era of the Caesarian legions the OP is talking about.
And I’m sure the Redcoats could come up with tactics for the Romans. The British actually had quite a bit of experience in fighting opponents armed with spears and shields. And I’m not sure why the Redcoats would be less mobile than the Romans.
Why do the Romans get to do all this?
If I were the Redcoats, I’d try to move the battle to some place like rocky, uneven ground, where I’m on high ground and the Romans have to ascend a steep embankment, and heavy infantry lose advantage. Or you dig ditches and embankments and wait for them to stumble on to you. Or you start fires and burn them out.
And if the Romans won’t move, you let them sit there and starve. Oh, plus you’ve got the superior ranged weapons, so you shoot at them while they’re not moving, so they starve and get gunned down.
Various sources I’ve found put the number between 30 and 60 rounds. The standard loadout for U.S. Army infantry during the Civil War was 40 rounds (the motto of my Regiment in Basic Training was “40 Rounds!”, which dates back to the Regiment’s history as an Infantry Regiment in the Civil War). So, not infinite, but enough to fire quite a few volleys. Certainly a lot more than the one or two pilums a Roman legionary would carry. So, if the Romans can somehow contrive to get the Redcoats to fire off 40 or so volleys, give or take, without taking so many casualties as to lose unit cohesion, they’ll be able to rout the Redcoats.
Yes, it was obviously later, but the weaponry was not much different. And the Mongols gave them fits until they figured out how to counter them.
Okay, this and your other comments make a fair point, but brings me to this conclusion: There’s no way to know who would win in general, because it’s going to be specific to the goals of the battle and the field on which it is fought. Is there a time deadline? Specific terrain features? How does the battle start? What kind of cover is available? Are retreats, counter-attacks or seige methods allowed?
I’m sure that we could all conjure scenarios where one side wins over the other. It seems most people are conjuring civil war type scenario where the soldiers meet for battle in an open field and the Romans have to cross the distance without being slaughtered. But if the Romans are at a disadvantage that way, they won’t fight that way.
And don’t forget - if the Romans are not allowed archers (and by the early empire period there were lots of archers traveling with legions), they still have Plumbata and light spears they can begin throwing from 40 meters. If they get that close there will be no more reloading. Outside of 200 meters they are relatively safe, and considering accuracy they won’t be intonthe ‘slaughter zone’ until about 100 meters. So we are talking about a zone from maybe 100 meters to 30 meters where a couple of volleys would be really bad. The trick is to avoid that.
If the Romans realize how inaccurate the guns are, they won’t approach in mass formation. They’ll spread out and run serpentine towards you. Especially if they realize that the redcoats are a one-trick pony who will be slaughtered in a melee.
Or maybe they’ll light the grass on fire, and attack you obscured by the smoke. If they simply have to make a frontal assault they might make improvized cover, such as carts filled with rocks that they walk crouched behind until they get into plumbata/javelin distance, then rain projectiles on the redcoats while charging them.
.Roman armies were good at improvising, They were very good at making weapons and fortifications when needed. They successfully fought many kinds of soldiers with many different weapons and tactics.
The British fought lots of different countries, they had a huge portion of the world conquered not long after 1780. The idea that they would be totally flummoxed with how to deal with less technologically advanced people who probably are better in direct melee is kind of silly, there would be no British empire if that were true.
Amusing Thread
Vassar, Johns Hopkins and Wabash: Powerhouses of Track and Field
I don’t know who would win, but I’d pay to see it hit the fan.
The weaponry wasn’t as different as gladius vs. musket, but the 13th Century Byzantine army was armed and equipped quite differently from the 1st Century Roman legions. And while the Eastern Roman Empire was a direct successor of Caesarian Rome, their army was trained, equipped, organized, and lead quite differently. And, while I am far from an expert on this period, it’s my understanding the Byzantines didn’t figure out how to counter the Mongols. There were a couple of poorly documented battles, and as far as I understand it, the best available evidence is that the Byzantines lost the later battle.
Absolutely agreed. A number of posters have pointed all of this out. But the OP is proposing a deliberately unrealistic hypothetical.
And here’s my objection to you. You only seem to allow the Romans the initiative to choose their battles. It’s equally true that if the Redcoats are at a disadvantage, they won’t fight that way. The OP proposed a deliberately unrealistic scenario. If your response is that the scenario is so unrealistic that there’s no meaningful answer, I think that’s reasonable, and you wouldn’t be the first to make that point in this thread. But I don’t think it’s more realistic to give the Romans and only the Romans the ability to plan, improvise, maneuver, and adapt.
It seems it’s only the Romans that are being granted all sorts extra strategies, weapons, and circumstances in this thread. The need for all of these add-ons to the circumstances in the OP speaks to the overall disadvantage the Romans have in such a scenario.
I never meant to imply that ONLY the Romans coild change tactics. I mention the Romans simply because I was trying to think of ways to neutralize the Musket. But of course both sides will attempt to adapt to the situation.
However, do you see any difference in the ability to adapt on either side? The thing is, the Redcoats have their muskets, and not much else. They are almost certainly less trained, and have no armor or sword fighting ability. A bayonet on the end of a heavy rifle, wielded by someone with no armor and shield is a fairly useless weapon other than in certain circumstances. Roman Soldiers carried a variety of weapons and they were armored and shielded.
It seems to me that for the Redcoats to win they have to somehow force the Romans to attack them in an open field where they can fire multiple volleys at them while they close the distance. In what other scenario would they have the advantage?
Fortifications probably favor the Redcoats.
If the Redcoats are allowed to dig in, the Romans are forced to try to assault an entrenched position while under fire. Historically, it’s taken armies years and tens to hundreds of thousands of casualties to figure out how to breach entrenched positions held by a force with guns. The musketeers can also cover their foraging parties, and sallies against the Romans.
If the Romans dig in, the Redcoats can stand off and harass foraging parties and gun down sallies. If they Redcoats assault the Roman fortifications, the Romans will have limited ability to defend them. They only have a couple of pilums each, and then they’re down to throwing rocks. If the Redcoats seize the top of the fortifications, it’s a slaughter. The same with entrenched positions, which the Romans won’t be able to defend. The Redcoats just stroll up and shoot down into the trenches.
We have plenty of real world examples of fortification fighting in the gunpowder era. They only work if the defenders are able to prevent the attackers from taking the high ground. If gunpowder attackers get on top of your trenchworks, or seize the top of your embankments, you’re done, and your defensive position actually disadvantages you. You wind up as almost literal fish in a barrel.
In this scenario, the Redcoats don’t have canon or large gunpowder stores, but if they’re allowed time to improvise, it wouldn’t be that much of a challenge for them to rig grenades and petards to breach any Roman fortifications - or just lob them over the top.
Flat, open fields are kind of a draw - historically, both the Redcoats and the Romans generally preferred them. Broken terrain might potentially give the Romans more cover, but it also breaks up their formations and makes advancing slower and more difficult - and the Romans need to close as quickly as they can. If the Redcoats are uphill, it’s even worse. And if the Romans are uphill, it doesn’t really help them that much, since the Redcoats are just going to fall back and fire musket volleys.
Forested terrain might advantage the Romans coughTeutoburg forestcough, but it might not. Sightlines are restricted, so its more difficult for the Redcoats to bring their muskets to bear and to concentrate their fire. But its also more difficult for the Romans to maintain unit cohesion, and again it makes their advance slower and more difficult. The Redcoats and the Romans both had experience in fighting in forests, and they both tended to fare rather poorly. Historically, even as late as World War II, fighting in forested terrain tended to result in confused skirmishes, where neither side really was really able to press home their advantages.
And, again, the OP was a deliberately unrealistic hypothetical. Sure, the Romans “realistically” would try to fight on terrain and under circumstances most favorable to them. So would the Redcoats. I don’t see any particular reason to suppose the Romans would be any advantage in selecting the time and place of the battle. If anything, the Redcoats would have a major advantage there.
The Romans would be encountering a totally alien and novel enemy. The Redcoats’ officers probably studied the Romans’ tactics and capabilities and historic performance in battle. If any of the Redcoat officers are career professionals rather than bored gentry who purchased their commission, they definitely did.
The Romans were pretty good at fighting entrenched positions. The obvious tactic once any enemy is dug in is to simply switch to siege tactics. Let the Redcoats die of thirst or starve. Without an army behind them, digging in is suicide.
The Romans can also fire high flights of arrows or plumbata that can fall on to of entrenched troops. Can’t do the same with a musket. The Romans could also burn them out.
And if the Romans realize they have a huge advantage in melee fighting, they don’t need to aporoach in massed formations with tight unit cohesion. They could order their men to spread out and run at the enemy serpentine. That would severely reduce the musket’s chance of hitting someone at a distance, since a miss won’t hit the guy beside you.
The Romans were pretty good at fighting entrenched positions when operating as part of a combined arms force. Actual Roman legions had engineers, scouts, skirmishers, missile troops, cavalry, and artillery. In this hypothetical, they have 500 heavy infantry, period. But, sure, they can just besiege the Redcoats. But the Redcoats can lay down covering fire on the Romans to cover their foragers. The Romans would have to try to block the whole perimeter of the Redcoat fortification, without missile troops, cavalry, or skirmishers. They can counter-fortify, which the Romans did excel at, but they’d have to do so under threat of musket fire. And the Redcoats can sally forth and attack the counter-fortifications under construction. The construction teams would be unarmed and unarmored. They’d be covered by other legionaries, but those legionaries are sitting ducks for the Redcoat muskets. And if digging in is suicide, it’s equally so for the Romans to do so. More so, even, since the Redcoats would have superior ability to interdict foraging and raiding parties.
In the OP’s hypothetical, the Romans don’t have arrows. No archers, just heavy infantry. If the Romans get archers, why don’t the Redcoats get field guns? The Romans might have plumbata (I genuinely don’t know - did the typical 1st Century AD legionary carry them?), but they’re not going to have many, and they have to get pretty close to lob them over the fortifications, and I doubt they could achieve enough density of fire to inflict significant casualties with random lawn darts. And if the Romans get plumbata, the Redcoats definitely get grenadiers, which are a lot more effective as indirect fire weapons against entrenched positions.
And even if the Redcoats aren’t advantaged by fortifying their positions, there are still a lot of circumstances beyond “flat, open plain” where they have the advantage over Romans. And I’m honestly not sure what terrain is actually more advantageous to the Romans than a flat, open plain. They can only win by achieving close contact with the Redcoats, and they need to do that as quickly as possible.
They could, I suppose. I don’t know enough about Roman military tactics to say - is this something they ever actually did? It seems to me like they’d be abandoning all of their training and doctrine to fight this way, but I am not an expert and maybe they actually did sometimes fight in loose skirmish lines.
But if they’re spread out to avoid musket fire, the musket fire gets directed at small groups that get destroyed in detail, and the surviving Romans arrive in singletons and small clumps, to assault a cohesive musket square. The Romans have the advantage in melee combat, all else being equal, but the Redcoats have training and experience in bayonet fighting. 500 Romans in close contact with 500 Redcoats ends with the Redcoats routed. I’m not so sure of the outcome if the Romans engage the 500 Redcoats in small groups.
But, again, you seem to be simply glossing over the Redcoats’ ability to adapt, improvise, and maneuver. Why can’t the Redcoats simply fall back while firing at the advancing Romans? The Romans will advance faster than the Redcoats can fall back, but any delay in closing to close contact advantages the Redcoats.
And at close range, muskets are actually fairly accurate - more than accurate enough to reliably put a round center of mass of a man charging straight at them. And at close range, the musket ball has enough energy to punch through the Roman’s shield and armor. See @engineer_comp_geek’s excellent discussion of their first hand experience with a Brown Bess. If the Romans are engaging the Redcoats in small clumps rather as a cohesive bloc of 500 legionaries, the Redcoats can just concentrate their musket fire on whichever small group is closest to that side of their musket square, and annihilate that group, and defeat the Romans in detail.
Well, your standard legionnaire has a gladius and pilum at the time of Julius. Lorica armor, the mail type and a square scutum.
The Redcoats had a musket and bayonet.
The Op specified 100 years.
Of course, using pilae is a fantastic tactic for the circumstance. Each Roman soldier should trudge up in full gear to 30 years, then stop, aim, and hurl a javelin. The British, of course, will be standing stock-still the entire time, as it wouldn’t be honorable to shoot their guns or anything.
I kid, of course, but close range for a musket is still 100 yards out. Even a merely-decent shot can hit a man-sized target at that range. I quite literally posted video proof that this is possible.
Again, I’m focusing on what the Romans might do to counter the Musket advantage. You are doing a fine job of taking the Redcoat’s side.
If we assume both sides are going to have to be creative and adapt their tactics to win, which side do you suppose is better equipped and trained to do that?
I don’t think the plumbata would be all that effective against entrenched positions. Their value is in harassing the enemy while you close to either break up their formations or in this case to slow down their ability to reload. For that reason, I don’t think the Redcoats get off another volley after the Romans close to plumbata/javelin distance. Trying to reload while a charging army is coming at you and spears and darts are raining down on you would not be easy.
Beyond 200 yards, the Romans could withstand quite a few volleys as the miss rate would be high and shields and armor combined might stop or deflect some of the balls. The critical region would be between maybe 150 and 40 yards. That’s the real kill zone for the musketeers. So it would be up to the Romans to figure out how to close that distance without being slaughtered, and if they can’t, to figure out how to draw the Redcoats to a place where they don’t have such a severe disadvantage.
And I don’t think we can discount the difference in conditioning and training. By the Imperial era, most Roman soldiers were professionals serving 20 year terms. They will be battle hardened, well trained, and well conditioned. Depending on the unit, the Redcoats may be their equal, but I’m guessing not The Romans were known for their high levels of training and conditioning. The Romans were also adept at building improvised weapons and tools, and of living off the land.
But in the end, it will all come down to the specifics of the terrain and the nature of the battle.
Nitpick:
Singular - \color{navy}{\text {pilum}}
Plural - \color{navy}{\text {pila}}
For more than 100 years, scholars were convinced that descriptions of English bows were incorrect/misleading, because, obviously, nobody could effectively draw a (reconstructed) bow requiring that kind of draw force. But eventually they changed their (collective) mind: Archaeologic recovery of bow staves showed that the descriptions were accurate, and archaeologic examination of skeletons showed that English bowmen really were asymmetric and extremely muscled: they really could effectively draw and aim bows like that.
Winston Churchill fought in an mounted regiment that was defeated by ‘native’ foot skirmishers in Egypt (prior to WWI). He attributed his survival to an existing shoulder disability, which caused him to choose to use a handgun. He records that going into the attack, everybody knew that cavalry would defeat infantry, but that, apparently, nobody had informed the opposition, who, based on prior experience, had a different opinion.