What's the best Ancient Roman weaponry?

Their supply pipeline.

Assuming you mean 'Ancient Roman era' (a lot of the non-artillery, weapon styles the Romans commonly used in various eras were largely pre-existing in many parts of the Mediterranean)

Bow: Qum-Darya style composite bows

Cavalry-sabre: Kopis / Makhaira

Regular infantry sword: Naue II type style in iron

Regular infantry spear: an iron leaf-shaped head that at it's widest point is only 1:10 to the overall spearhead length, with 6-8 foot long common ash shaft, and bronze butt-spike

Artillery: varies considerably with use and the fact that they often improvised parts in construction. Stuff like the Onager were really only built and used if they were short on time, and ballistas were favored if they could construct them quick enough in sieges.

Caltrops could be pretty useful when used wisely. Lead sling bullets (not very similiar to ones used in firearms) could also be very devastating and outrange a lot of bows.

They phased out the Corvus pretty quickly because it made ships tip sideways a LOT, they used a ballista-fired harpoon to hook and wind enemy ship close for boarding. This thing got used a lot in Actium.

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>Romulus and Remus were descendants of the King of Troy, according to mythology. The conquest of Greek territory by Rome is seen as Troy's revenge
l2read retard

>Cavalry-sabre: Kopis / Makhaira

what? why on earth would you use a weapon that has a negative curve for a role where you need to do mostly draw cuts? do you know how cavalry works?

Also swords during that time were more or less all the same,

The Aeneid is literally fanfiction commissioned by Augustus to legitimize the new imperial regime

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Greek Fire

bread and circuses

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Romans had handheld ballistas called manuballistas

they also had early crossbows they called Arcuballistas, which were used by cavalry

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>Crossbow
Are they same as the Han chinese's crossbow? The one with multiple bolts?

They're closer to the common Han infantryman's crossbow, similar draw weight and output too. Vegetius mentions them used by mounted units though. By the late Empire, circa 300s, warfare had changed radically and the empire was far, far more cavalry based thus massed missile units were impractical, considering they had endless hordes of millions of Germans, Persians and Huns running around in horses, sometimes wearing heavy armor allowing them to close in unscathed. Chinese warfare and European warfare began diverging at that point.

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/his/ is probably gonna keep a screencap of this to mock us

this or
>dark skinned auxiliaries
war. war never changes.

What's Ancient Roman equivalent of Two-handed Sword/Greatsword?

They don't. Imperial Rome, however, faced Dacians with Falx and Thracians with Rhomphaia

Why they don't adopt that as one of their Legion's armament?

Because romans were used to fight with large shields and large two handed swords don't work with these.

Bronze and Iron age warfare was almost entirely defined by the use of shield due to the great imbalance of offensive tech vs defensive tech, so two handed weapons in general were extremely uncommon and not really suitable for large scale formation combat which required massive shields to have any kind of survivability for the soldiers. Thracians and Dacians had a strange mix of Celtic and Greek tradition of dueling which led to them using two handed weapons, but it didn't turn out to be practical enough for any other culture to adopt them. Thracians themselves often used the one handed version, Sica.

Another two handed weapon that did saw somewhat common use were axes. Etruscans kept axes as ceremonial items but also used them in battle to cleave through armor. Tribes like Asturians and Agrianians were known for axemen.

Rhomphaias were actually used by the Byzantines as an anti-cavalry weapon, kinda like the Japanese Nodachi, but the Thracians and Dacians also used Falx which is much alike, only far more distinctively curved. Byzantines were an absolute clusterfuck in their use of classic Greek and Latin though, and many times they call -any- two handed sword a Rhompaia, well into the medieval period.

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pic: an Etruscan with an axe

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Pussy is a powerful weapon but Greek "historians" are well known for their embellishments. There is historical evidence for the conflict but it likely wasn't due to Helen being kidnapped/leaving with the Trojan. It was more likely due to political reasons. There are also some accounts that confirm it was for both political reasons and the lady being taken. Then there's some evidence that Troy never even existed at all.

This also had fucking nothing to do with Rome...

And a guy dressed as an Illyrian warrior. Smaller axes were socketted rather than butted in this period, making them work sorta like picks did in Medieval times.

Greek,, Anatolian and Persian warriors had two headed axes such as the Labrys that acquired a more mythological symbol status than actual battlefield use, butt hey were weapons nonetheless.

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I'm a Mesoameriaboo and find that cradle of civilization and it's history way more interesting, and think it's really underrated (EX: there was a city from 1000 years before the Aztec in the region, Teotihuacan which was larger then Rome by expanse while having a far higher standard of quality for it's structures and housing then rome did, with basically the entire 150,000 sized (no second story structures so not as populated) populace living in what were basically large, fancy villas with dozens of rooms, courtyards and frescos; also with a sewage system, running water, toilets, and could flood it's plazas fo ceremonies like the Colosseum) and but roman engineering really is something else.

You could tell me the romans built a proto-typical version of pretty much any piece of modern, non-electronic machinery and i'l probably believe you.

Attached: Teotihuacan map.jpg (1622x1264, 567K)

That's not even scratching the surface, really. Roman engineering saw it's greatest splendor in the economic side. The Las Medulas mine in Spain was such a large operation that it flattened an entire mountain peak, as Romans dug hundreds of tunnels, then used underground fires and water to weaken and expand the rock and break the whole thing apart. Apart from that, they used extremely complicated mills and elevators to pull material up from shaft mines. Romans mined millions of tons of ore each year, between iron, lead, copper, silver, tin and others, they produced so much metal a lot of early medieval artifacts were made of recycled Roman material, and Roman coins have been found in Japan and even Precolumbian America(somehow).

Roman road networks also were unparalleled until modern day with up to 100,000km of multilayered, drained pavimented roads filled with commerce moving endless tons of goods to and from every corner. And that was only complimenting the mediterranean sea trade which brought goods from the far east, using the red sea as a lane to circumvent the Persians, the Romans bought silk, incense and spices by the millions of tons from India, as well as dyes, ivory and other goods from as far south as modern day Tanzania.

Romans just did everything in an absurdly big scale.

Mesoamerican user, I followed you in Jow Forums, /his/, did you ever posted in /tg/ ? But this is a weaponry thread, so post weapons.

I don't play tabletop games but I sometimes check /tg/ to see if there's threads I can give input on for mesoamerican info where relevenant

>post weapons

It's really moreso a roman thread so i'd rather not de-rail it with mesoamerican stuff unless people have a specific question or thing they want me to post or want me to compare roman stuff to mesoamerican stuff.

>and even Precolumbian America(somehow).

Not doubting the rest of your post, but this sounds like /x/ or Jow Forums pseudoscience to me, can you post links?

>Roman road networks also were unparalleled until modern day with up to 100,000km of multilayered, drained pavimented roads

While their road network was not nearly as extensive (as would be expected, considering they were in a jungle and had no pack animals to drive carts), the Maya actually also had true hydraulic cement like the romans and certain cities had drainage channels and pipes built around their roads and plazas in their city centers to avoid flooding and channeling rainwater or flooding back into a broader water mangement system that also interconnected with resvoirs, agricultural canals, etc (this was true of teotihuacan as well)

Their water mangement systems is actually my favorite part of Mesoamerican history, I'd be happy to upload papers if you are interested.

Attached: Resovoir systems in centeral ceremonial core of the Maya city of Tiikal.jpg (928x4514, 3.53M)

Discipline

No, he's right.
We know better now, but the Thracian cavalry had reverse curved swords, Roman cavalry just used longer gladius, it was the auxiliary that had whack swords

>>and even Precolumbian America(somehow).
>
>Not doubting the rest of your post, but this sounds like /x/ or Jow Forums pseudoscience to me, can you post links?

Vikings traded with native Americans, probably came with them

Dysentery

Spatha.

It’s a Gladius used by cavalry. I’ve been trying to justify buying an albion spatha for a month now but I don’t need it.

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>Not doubting the rest of your post, but this sounds like /x/ or Jow Forums pseudoscience to me, can you post links?

There's a list here of all the reported cases though some are more credited than others, the more likely explanation is that they were still in circulation with Norse and Spanish explorers, the more buried ones seem to all face the north east coast in New England. Roman coins got around a lot:
anthropology.msu.edu/anp364-fs17/files/2012/08/Epstein-1980-Current-Anthropology.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwi5yY6R1trkAhXnGbkGHVXsD00QFnoECAoQAg&usg=AOvVaw0-T1SGTTTI2hYCR7ShRWjl

It's funny that Roman Gladiuses were about as long as Spathas at first and shrunk over time until they were just toothpick straight shanks, then grew back into Spathas. I bet some Imperial bean counter looked at the material and shipping costs, and the marching times, and decided they really didn't need the extra 20cm and legionaries should just stretch their arms more. Must have been the same story with Pilums, Plumbatas and Spiculums.

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Because you couldn't use a shield with it.

Armor was usually chain or poorer so archery was especially effective. Most armies used shields EXTENSIVELY because of the massed archery.

Most battles ended up as giant pushing matches anyhow so a short stabbing sword was better than a giant chopping sword.

>Spiculums
...the kind of jewelry?

No,
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiculum

By the 3rd and 4th century they were experimenting with a lot of new things, they also began using Lanceas, a weird Javelin short spear double purpose weapon:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancea_(weapon)

This is the correct answer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

The Romans almost started the industrial revolution before the dark ages. If anything, I'm almost surprised that they didn't strap this thing to a boat with paddles like the Mississippi river boats.

rape

Glock 17

Even if they understood the principles of steam powered motion, there was no way they could have forged the large, high quality parts required for a functional steam engine. The metallurgy just wasn't possible.

>this also had nothing to do with Rome
Or Greeks, actually. Just Ionians.

>Troy never existed
Isn't the ruin an official world heritage site?

Supply logistics and infrastructure.

>soufern pooftas

It is, the actual site was discovered in the 60s right in the mouth of the Hellespont.

You know this because you tried to construct steam engines using ancient Roman metallurgy?

The engineering corps

/thread

No, because anyone who's seen a fucking steam engine even the most rudimentary of, knows you can't build them without more advanced metals and tools than some blacksmith in 300AD had access to.

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It's okay, we all suffer from severe brain farts from time to time.

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>Han chinese has produced many variants of spears and halberds
Why Imperial Rome can't do the same?

They could, it's just a matter of degree. It would be an extremely expensive, rudimentary and inefficient engine with no standardized parts, but a steam engine regardless. Most of it doesn't even need to be made of steel.

Because Chinese waged a completely different kind of war from Europeans. Chinese warfare involved consistently larger and more cumbersome armies, which they mustered to fight in roughly the same places of strategic importance and thus was far less mobile. Infantry carried static shields that they'd deploy in a line and then slugged it out with missiles and spears from behind them, and the battles would involve engaging and disengaging in frontal battle many times, while Europeans carried personal shields and used them in combat far more actively, a lot of warfare being shield formations in motion, shield attacks and defenses, and most of warfare being several days of maneuvering and skirmishing trying to get the best position to commit to a full battle, in which the units would try to encircle and destroy eachother in a few hours.

Polearms such as halberds, Pollaxes, Polehammers, Lucernes, Voulges, Partisans, Bardiches, etc require either very good armor or a kind of warfare that protects them from missiles in some way. If the Phalanx had kept dominating warfare in the west then more polearm based weapons would appeared earlier in European history, but it was only when they returned in the form of pike blocks and tercios, in which a rigid combined formation and good personal armor could offer sufficient protection to the two handed wielders, that those kinds of polearms entered the battlefield.

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Ever since the romans defeated the Macedonian and greek phalanxes, they got the idea that sword + shield was superior to polearms for infantry use.
But this conception bit them in the ass when in later periods romans were facing much more cavalry heavy enemies like the german tribes, huns, and the sassanid persians.

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Are you that retard that constantly sprouts Mesoamerican superiority bullshit on pol as well?
Take your meds man

>But this conception bit them in the ass when in later periods romans were facing much more cavalry heavy enemies like the german tribes, huns, and the sassanid persians.

Macedonian Phalanx would have been torn to pieces too. The Seleucids used them AND cataphract cavalry support but the pike line was just obsolete at that point, too slow, too easy to split apart, too essy to flank. Horse archery and shock cavalry would have Carrhae'd them every time.

Diadochi generals completely forgot about the importance of combined arms of Alexander and only focused on the phalanx (their armies were mostly composed of phalanxes instead of being a portion of the army) whilst neglecting their heavy infantry and skirmishers that protected the flanks of the phalanx. Actually Alexanders' first campaign was to subdue the nomadic tribes from nothern Macedonia who were mounted archers, and during his persian campaign he defeated a scythian army of horse archers during a river crossing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jaxartes
And the phalanx could easily improved into pike blocks (and were much more flexible and mobile), which is what the later Swiss and spanish Tercios used against heavy cavalry

No, I don't post on Jow Forums, you probably mean the "Muh civilizational potential/eurangtans are inferior" poster, who is somebody else, I also think they are retarded

It annoys me he and I get mixed up because his bullshit then makes the info I post seem less reliable

thanks, i'll try to check it out when I get time.

Yeah, i've read about this before, crazy shit.

Only sort of comparable "wow they invented this way earlier" things that happened in Mesoamerica is that the Maya may have invented true suspension bridges like 1000 years before they got invented in modern times, if one proposed reconstruction of a specific bridge at the Maya city of Yaxchilan is accurate, see pic; and the Aztec had stupid advanced botanical science (building bonotanical gardens to emulate various different biomes and for medical research/breeeding purposes) and basically invented taxonomy with their own taxonomic system for organizing them.

Did the romans not already have some pretty large scale metallurgical projects? Trebuchets and Ballistae must have had some pretty big metal joints and hinges, no?

Attached: Yaxchilan Bridge one of if not the first suspension bridges largest for centuaries ACTUALLY MAYA NOT (650x570, 72K)

>Only sort of comparable "wow they invented this way earlier" things that happened in Mesoamerica...

shouyld be noted i'm excluding relative examples here: if you include examples of stuff they indepedently invented that was already invented elsewhere, but they invetnted it way earlier relative to their startuing point of civilization, then there's a lot of other examples: They got huge urban population sizes (100,000+ people) and complex waterworks faster then eurasia did via relative standards, for instance.

>Diadochi generals completely forgot about the importance of combined arms of Alexander and only focused on the phalanx (their armies were mostly composed of phalanxes instead of being a portion of the army) whilst neglecting their heavy infantry and skirmishers that protected the flanks of the phalanx.

That's not true though, Generals like Phillip V used plenty of support infantry, it just wasn't enough.

>Did the romans not already have some pretty large scale metallurgical projects? Trebuchets and Ballistae must have had some pretty big metal joints and hinges, no?

Well yes, but for steam engines you're looking at substantially more complex linkages, joints, and parts that must be capable of withstanding fairly high temperatures, pressure and stress and also maintain a seal. The's also other elements like good enough oil or a way to dump excess heat or even regulate it. There's a list of other technology that needs to be developed first before you can get anywhere with the principle, hence it only really returned in the 16th century. It's kinda like building a car from scratch, it's easy to understand a four wheeled chariot hooked to an engine, but you're not going to be making even a model T any time soon without a bunch of specific tools and materials.

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F U N D I T O R E S

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Mainz, Fulham or Pompeii, Jow Forums?

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I wish we could get some more media depictions of man-portable Roman war machines like the onager and ballista. They always seem to size them up in movies to gigantic proportions. Depictions of ballista on trajan's column show them being used more like crew-served weapons rather than artillery.

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Not just that, they were crew served weapons used on chariots to provide mobile support fire for infantry. Essentially a Roman era technical.

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...Even being shootable on the move

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>Ancient Grenade Launcher

What's the difference between Pugio and Parazonium?

to be fair they did also build larger versions for cracking fortifications, but yeah the smaller siege engines don’t get enough love
parazonium is longer than a pugio but shorter than a pompeii gladius it’s kind of just an archaic thing for fancy noblemen to wear with their muscular cuirasses and attic helmets

>best weapon

Celtic mercenaries/ Auxilary.

Those niggas got rekt every time, Numidians had horse javelin spam and Germans had weaponized autism

The size had to do with the way that the infantry functioned. The shorter swords were better in the close-packed infantry battles the romans fought against other civilized nations. Their ideal mode of fighting in these were to put the big shield forward and stab the guy diagonal to you so you didn't have to move the shield away from your primary defense in order to attack and in this, the short, stabbing swords would get caught on less and they weren't going to be doing any real reaching for hits while in formation.

The spathe came into popularity in the later empire when they were mostly facing barbarian tribes in skirmishes and the like where combat was more individualized and the reach was needed, while the bulkiness wasn't much of an issue.

Look into the lake nemi ships or the antikythera mechanism. They had both the ability to make machines parts and the knowledge to make devices like that

Then why didn't they?

You are one millenium early, cretin

Manuballistas were way more complex than chinese (and medieval) crossbows, since they used the ballista technology consisting of twisted ropes or sinews, instead of wood that bends.

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I have some
1 - Modern reproduction of the Xanten catapult

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2 - The same

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3 - The real one. Note how it is exceptionnaly well preserved, and leaves no place for doubt about portable catapults

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Also the media wrongly pictures the ballista. It had protruding arms, as recent scientific research has proven.
Pic related, catapult and ballista
Note that ballista were throwing stones, catapults threw (big) arrows. By the 1st century pc, however, Romans were using the word ballista interchangeably

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Actually, the media show big siege weapons, but I never saw a depiction of pic related
4 - The huge ballista of Demetrios Poliorcetes

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And this huge ballista was on the lowest level of the helepolis

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5 - The evolution of the Xanten catapult : the magnificent chiroballista
I'd like to see THAT in movies

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They never show them THAT big because that would require an humongous prop and it looks rickety and weird compared to the stereotypical straight frame onager. Remember the opening for Gladiator where they had ballistas exclusively using bolts, and some of them having one big bow arm instead of two torsion springs.

I believe he meant the repeating crossbow of the Han, which does have an equivalent with the Polybolos in mechanism, but not in size.

ballista?

>not the entrenching shovel

If you take the Aeneid as gospel it's close?
Based and correct. Hearts and minds.

Roman calvary was always soft-bois

>>dark skinned auxiliaries
>war. war never changes.
the day that drones become cheaper than niggers is they day we all become niggers

Giant gastraphetes (huge crossbows) were probably still in use in imperial times, because of their lower construction cost. At least, arcuballistas (crossbows) are attested. However, onagers only appeared relatively late, in the 2nd or 3rd century (I don't remember the time period of Gladiator).

The Han repeating crossbows were still simpler than the polybolos. No torsion mechanisms (only tension), and no chains and windlass

Attached: Polybolos (Marsden 1971, p. 179).jpg (2412x1804, 427K)

>the more buried ones seem to all face the north east coast in New England
confirmed viking vinland

Not sure if that makes sense.