Yes Yes

Yes yes... Well done, Pope Julius, well done...

HOWEVER

good post

Well done, Napoleon, well done...

HOWEVER

>gave rise to Rome amping up their shit and winning the day
Rome was already winning by the time Zama came around however. It was more the coup the grace than anything else. I mean just look at the other theatres: Italy clean, Greece clean, Sicily clean, Spain clean. Zama was like the battle of Berlin.

Is Cannae the biggest meme battle in history?

Well done General Lee, well done...

HOWEVER

Too far back, should've posted Ligny instead of Austerlitz

Why pick some relevant battle like the battle of Leipzig?

Why not*

Yes yes, well done Japan well done Japan...

What's so meme about Cannae?

HOWEVER

Recent fleet movements must be taken into account

>Muh tactical genius
>Muh weak center
>Muh encirclement
>Muh numerical inferiority
>Muh republican incompetence
>Muh total victory

Yes admittedly people claim opposing facts about Cannae. Can't really claim genius for defeating a moron. Can't really claim incompetence for being overwhelmed by twice your number.
But really if you look at it like that, the whole second punic war was very memey. In the end, for all he won the pitched battles, Hannibal was not only unable to break the italic alliance, he was also cornered like a rat on the tip of the italian boot through smart maneuvering, so the italian theatre was a total victory for Rome, not Carthage.

...

>i have scored with Hasdrubal. Fabius inform the legions

Reminder the Hannibal ultimately won the war and completed his objective of destroying Rome, even if he didn't realize it.

Elaborate

Are you fucking retarded. Ugh, you a moron.

Rome ended up falling in the 15th century, so Hannibal fucking won. Idiot.

The aftermath of the Second Punic war created the necessity for the Marian Reforms, paving the way for Caesar and the emperors, which in turn created the precedence causing the majority of civil wars across the empire, until the weakened WRE fell and was sacked by the Vandals.

It's a long shot but it was Hannibal who planted the seeds of Rome's fall. One could also say without Carthage to act as a foil to Rome, Roman virtue turned on itself and it became it's own worst enemy.

memetic

What? The Second Punic War and the Marian Reforms are 100 years apart.

2nd Punic War made Rome into an empire that warranted a professional army. You couldn't expect farmers to go campaigning outside Italy regularly. It fucked the landowners over when their homestead fell into ruin in their absence.

Or were bought out by the rich patricians when they were off fighting, only to return home and be kicked off their land and be replaced by slave labor creating a huge, unemployed urban population without alternative career prospects.

Here comes Marius proposing a career in soldiering with job security and retirement benefits, including land.

Is it a wonder that after that soldiers were loyal to the generals who fed them rather than Rome, led by the politicians that fucked them over?

>The aftermath of the Second Punic war created the necessity for the Marian Reforms
Top kek, no way. The republic went on for a full century relying on citizen soldiers after Hannibal. What required the enlistment of the capite censi and all that followed from it was the 200k soldiers Rome lost in like a decade before the cimbric war.

It also catapulted Rome into geopolitical relevance, granting them land in Iberia, rights to extort Carthage, domination of major sea-ports and ultimately hegemony over the Mediterranean. The events and circumstances leading to the Marian reforms would happen a great deal later.

Hannibal was by all means a genius, he was just not enough to carry Carthage. Maybe if he had been king, but he was just emperor to a greedy merchant republic. Compare Rome, which was a virtue built on virtue and patriotism.

In terms of leadership nobody on the Roman side could hold a candle to Hannibal, not even Scipio Africanus, but Rome never became great by being undefeatable. Rome became great by being able to bounce back from any defeat. Its politicians were veterans who knew their soldiers weren't just mercenaries, but "their" boys. They were the sons of Rome, loyal citizens with a stake in the prosperity of their Res Publica. Whatever happened, Rome always had fierce and devoted soldiers at its beck and call, and a relative lack of corruption in its armies and leadership.

Hannibal was, with very limited numbers and resources, kicking ass across Italy and effectively keeping the Romans holed up in their cities. The best Fabian could do was shadow Hannibal, shadow a numerically inferior force with much worse equipment because any pitched battle would inevitably end in defeat.

But that was not enough. Imagine a situation where Hannibal had Italia on lockdown like he had in history, but Carthage was able to send over even the most minor reinforcements. Checkmate, Rome loses and Carthage becomes the father of civilization in the mediterranean and beyond. But Hannibal was no miracle worker and could not prevent the less competent generals from having their asses handed to them in Hispania, Sicily, the sea and even North Africa. That's why the opposite happened: Hannibal never got reinforcements, instead he WAS the reinforcements to Carthage proper, he was the one tasked with defending the city even though he was knocking on Rome's gates.

I wouldn't try to downplay Hannibals genius. In fact, that he did what he did in spite of the incompetent leadership in Carthage and a plutocracy that couldn't field warriors of Rome's caliber proves his genius.

You do realize that Hannibal was sent reinforcements multiple times by Carthage, only the republican armies and fleets always managed to annihilate them before they could reach him. What could Carthage do if the only general who could hold a candle to Rome had decided to cut himself off from them in the vain hope of fomenting a revolt among people who had no obvious interest in rebelling?
Also Hannibal for all his tactical brilliance made many strategic mistakes, which culminated with him losing all the cities he captured and being forced into immobility in Calabria, penned in by republican armies.
Hannibal's brilliance was in only fighting on his own conditions, and avoiding any other situation. However, when he couldn't manage to do that, he could only refuse battle, like he did in Italy in the end, or accept it and get rekt, like he did at Zama.

I see. Rome killed him, so he won/Trudeau

All this crying for reinforcements is a shit argument. Hannibal went through the Alps specifically because he knew that the only way to get into Italy was by taking the romans by surprise. OBVIOUSLY he wasn't gonna get any reinforcements from any other routes, that's why he went that way in the first place.
That is, unless he actually managed to do what he thought he could do on his own, which was making all Italy rise against Rome. He couldn't do that, so his whole strategy was a failure. He took a very long bet and got rekt, all the rest are excuses.

>You do realize that Hannibal was sent reinforcements multiple times by Carthage, only the republican armies and fleets always managed to annihilate them before they could reach him.
Yeah, hence my reference to Rome kicking Carthage's ass on sea among other theaters. Though perhaps I could've phrased it better.

>What could Carthage do if the only general who could hold a candle to Rome had decided to cut himself off from them in the vain hope of fomenting a revolt among people who had no obvious interest in rebelling?
Hindsight is 20/20 but if Carthage actually managed to create a military that didn't solely rely on the talent of one general, a more concerted plan of conquest could be formulated. In other words, in order for Carthage to win it'd have to be Rome.

>That is, unless he actually managed to do what he thought he could do on his own, which was making all Italy rise against Rome. He couldn't do that, so his whole strategy was a failure. He took a very long bet and got rekt, all the rest are excuses.
Pretty much. It makes me wonder why the Italians never bothered. Roman citizenship at the time was only extended to those actually within the city of Rome and some other individuals, right? Most Italians were just subjugated peoples, so why didn't any of them hold any resentment to their masters?

The second punic war lead directly to the total destruction of Hannibal entire culture.

You're an idiot. He lost as utterly as anyone ever has.

>Pretty much. It makes me wonder why the Italians never bothered. Roman citizenship at the time was only extended to those actually within the city of Rome and some other individuals, right? Most Italians were just subjugated peoples, so why didn't any of them hold any resentment to their masters?
Subjugated is a big word. A good half of them had joined of their own volition, to obtain military assistance against gauls and greeks. If Rome got rekt, who was gonna help them, Carthage? Yeah right. And the roman connexion brought peace, trade and loot to a peninsula previously ravaged by warfare. It wasn't a bad deal at all, gib troops (who will share in the loot) and we protect you. No taxes involved for the most part, no obligation to follow roman laws and shit.
Citizenship was doled out at a steady pace before the second punic war. In fact it was exactly the revolt among the samnites and greeks that halted the process and (together with the unconscionable behaviour of roman generals in the late 2nd century BC and other complaints related to latifundism, colonies, and debt slavery) started the social war.

Nigger, you need to sit the fuck down and listen.

>inferior force with much worse equipment
Let's go over this.
Hannibal had an army of hardened veterans, with the pick of several armies worth of loot to arm themselves with.

Fabian had raw recruits and men who'd lost.

>But Hannibal was no miracle worker and could not prevent the less competent generals from having their asses handed to them in Hispania, Sicily, the sea and even North Africa.
>I wouldn't try to downplay Hannibals genius. In fact, that he did what he did in spite of the incompetent leadership in Carthage

THIS IS PROOF THAT HE IS FUCKING INCOMPETENT.

He embarked on a war he had ZERO fucking chance of winning. None. At all. This alone is the mark of an idiot.

Everyone fucking knew that Rome owned the sea at that point, and that between them and storms, shipping an army to Italy was insanely high risk and liable to fail. Carthage still pulled it off.
Everyone fucking knew Rome had massive manpower reserves. Hannibal still figured they'd just bow out and their allies would abandon them out after a few losses like a Hellenic kingdom. Why? Because he had no idea what he was doing.

A barely literate child understood that Hannibal wasn't likely to get reinforcements.

He still did, an in quantity, multiple times. B But because Hannibal, being a fucking moron, had been backed into a completely untenable position, the following things happened:
His brother had his entire army slaughtered by a superior roman force and lost his head.
Hannibal was unable to link up with this force in time because Fabian tactics actually made perfect sense.

His other brother sat in north Italy fucking Gaulish and Ligurian women for three years. He received a reinforcement army from Carthage to supplement his men, and had those three years to recruit gauls.

He never broke out, and hannibal never broke in.
Why? Because again, he was stuck a strategically useless position because he wasn't as good as you think.

>Hannibal had an army of hardened veterans, with the pick of several armies worth of loot to arm themselves with.
Weren't most of his troops Gauls, with only a small minority of his armies actually being North African?

>THIS IS PROOF THAT HE IS FUCKING INCOMPETENT.
Not trying to be facetious or sarcastic or anything, but what should Hannibal have done according to you? Personally I think that while going for Rome was a longshot, it was the only chance Carthage had at ending the war on favorable terms.

>Weren't most of his troops Gauls, with only a small minority of his armies actually being North African?
His army was a mix of gauls, iberians, and libyans. He was careful about keeping the libyans alive, and as a direct result they formed a larger portion of his men than you'd assume.

Regardless, the men he had with him had already been victorious over entire armies of romans. If they were poorly equipped, it was by choice.

Not started a totally unwinnable war in the first place.

Yes well done Napoleon, well done....

HOWEVER

> The Romans followed this convention fairly closely, but chose extra depth rather than breadth for the infantry in hopes of breaking quickly through the center of Hannibal's line. Varro knew how the Roman infantry had managed to penetrate Hannibal's center at Trebia, and he planned to recreate this on an even greater scale. The principes were stationed immediately behind the hastati, ready to push forward at first contact to ensure the Romans presented a unified front. As Polybius wrote, "the maniples were nearer each other, or the intervals were decreased...and the maniples showed more depth than front".[4][25] Even though they outnumbered the Carthaginians, this depth-oriented deployment meant that the Roman lines had a front of roughly equal size to their numerically inferior opponents

Could Hannibal have survived if the legions weren't abnormally deeply as opposed to wide? This has always made the victory a little less impressive to me: he seems to have gotten lucky.

How is putting more lads behind the front line and immediately backing ranks supposed to cause the opposite portion of the line to buckle or break, anyway? I understand the advantages of local numerical superiority, but what effect can additional ten or twenty ranks have when they're nowhere near the front? Literally just pushing and shoving? Formations on a map seem to a have a physics to them -- how does that translate to the hand-to-hand combat that the shapes meeting represents?

From a thumbnail, this image looks like an anime girl.

Do you think the artist planned that?

Would you stand your ground if 50 people lined up and came marching at you?

>Literally just pushing and shoving?
Among other things yes. Most melee fighting is based around pushing and shoving, at some level.

In reality, though, that deep formation at cannae means that once the center breaks through, those fuck huge columns peel apart and attack to both sides, widening the breach, separating the opposing army into two forces that can't support each other, and eventually getting behind them.

The center breaking through at trebia was a big fucking deal, and in almost any other situation, it would have won the battle.

If the romans had managed ot break a hole in the middle of the Carthaginians at cannae hannibals whole plane would have failed.

The extra men pushing would be able to force a breach in the lines by just pushing through with their sheer mass.

If you break through the enemy, you would hold the initiative as you have divided their force, making it impossible for them to concentrate it anywhere and make commanding a pain. It would be also devastating to the enemy morale if you broke through as you would have won the main engagement.

Hannibal's plan required his relatively weak center to be able to hold on until complete envelopment and his cavalry to win the engagement with the Roman cavalry without his center breaking. It was only considered really genius because it actually worked.

Each to their own opinion. I would agree that if Hannibal had full support from his state I can't imagine how things could have played out.
But you need to be more informed on both sides for an unbiased opinion.
I can't help being more of a Roman fuckboi than a Hanniboo. So I find the strategy that Scipio started to play from the beginning to be more genius than that of Hannibal, both of their odds stacked high against them whilst staying speculative on the "facts". Scipio knew that retaining morale high ground was worth far far more than numerical superiority.

>neckbeards with hindsight pretend to be smarter than military commanders

>if Hannibal had full support from his state
Carthage did fully support him after he managed to reach Italy, the city went full warmode when the news of the crossing of the Alps reached it.
It's not their fault if he couldn't manage to escape the roman armies that kept him away from his reinforcements.

>Scipio decisively beating Hannibal's smaller, new and inexperienced army

It annoys the absolute fuck out of me that Scipio sweeps in for what was an easy victory over Hannibal's predominately civilian levies and he then gives Hannibal shit later on about it.

What bullshit, Hannibal had more troops at Zama (40k vs 36k) and they were not just local troops, but also mercs and his veterans from Italy. What a stupid thing to say regardless when the opponent is Rome, who has been doing nothing but churning new civilian levies for the whole length of the war. If Scipio can't take credit, then Hannibal achieved fucking nothing either.

Fabius was the real unsung hero of the 2nd Punic war.

No, his army was full of veterans.
He lost fairly

It's from Harry Potter and /tv/ originally

Yeah, no. He had his veterans from italy-the most battle-hardened soldiers in the world at the time- along with his brothers troops from north italy. His loss cannot be blamed on the quality of his troops.

He made bad calls and got his ass beat for it.

On top of that, do you think the roman force was full of veterans?

That fucking army was put together at a time when so many equites had died that the legions were having trouble fielding the normal amount of cavalry, and allied cities were telling rome outright that they were totally out of manpower. The roman veterans were DEAD for the most part.