Would Roman Legions have been good against native americans?

(dubs!!)
how many layers of irony are you on senpai

You too thanks

Look at Caesars invasion of Gaul, now think less developed enemies.

I don't think the Aztecs had nearly the military tactics and technology necessary to post a threat. What's a club with obsidion flakes against steel and gladiuses?

Obviously the Romans wouldn't have nearly as much success as the Spanish though.

lmao those epic romans sure got those filthy g*rmans and destroyed them forever haha!!

No prob bob

Wouldn't even a battle ready cohort crumble if they where jumped by raiding parties of natives in bumfuck nowhere swamp forest in Florida, Germania-style?

No. How are the natives going to kill them? They'd seriously struggle to put enough men in the field to threaten romans.

No. Teutorburgowald was basically a fluke by the German tribes and Varus was a total retard. Most of the time the Romans tore through Germanic tribesmen like a hot knife through butter.

The equivalent of 3 cohortes conquered Mexico, there were at least 9 active cohortes in every legion. There were usually about 25 legions going. There was another 25 legion equivalents in terms of auxiliary troops. They could have conquered the whole New World with a few legions. Most natives didn't even have iron weapons for christ's sake let alone artillery.

Obsidian is sharper than steel.

And a lot more brittle. The blades on one of those things would shatter immediately and become almost useless as soon as it contacted a shield, or even decent armor.

Thin obsidian breaks on impact with hardwood, let alone steel.

Romans got swarmed by the Iceni and look at what happened to them.

Then no they couldn't. The incas would btfo out the romans (assuming they were invafing their homeland) and the aztecs may give them a long struggle but whether they'd be successful or not is more 50/50 imo. It depends also who are leadung the armied. Is it scipio, caesar, tlacaelel and ahuizotl?

On one side you have a disciplined and professional army with metal weapons, shields and above all actual tactics and strategy. On the other side you have smelly stone age savages.

>Romans
By then the Roman army was practically able to recruit legionaries from all of Cisalpine Gaul, Gaul, and Hispania.

The Britons were invaded by Romano Germans. The Batvians were some of the most literate people in the Empire, also they acted like a Knighted class in relation to the Empire.

It was impossible for the Britons to overcome such an overwhelming force, it was not just Romans who conquered them, it was nearly unified Europe.

Romans barely had the naval technology to leave sight of shore. Crossing the Mediterranean was a real danger back in those days which is why studying ancient underwater wrecks commonly yields valuable archaeological treasure.

There's no way that the Romans could realistically sustain a presence there. They couldn't even sustain a permanent presence in Germania or Mesopotamia.

t. lindybeige

>small pox was the reason Europeans conquered the Americas
>implying the natives could have ever fit FUCKING 1 Million people onto a battlefield
>IMPLYING THERE WERE EVEN THAT MANY NATIVES AROUND
There is no evidence natives had such large numbers under one cohesive empire
There is no evidence natives had such large numbers period.
>shifting the goalposts this hard
The natives could fucking swarm the Romans, they couldn't field that many men in one area you fucking mongoloid.
Watling street is the refutation to the "swarm" argument.
Like what the fuck does that even mean? "They would swarm them hurr durr." What the hell does "swarming" even look like?
>this nebulous non-descriptive term demonstrates how the Romans would lose
t. angry Mestizo rapebaby
Build it.
t. IQ 185

The question wasn't "Who would win?" it was how many legions would conquer, so to the fucking Idiots saying "theyd be swarmed" well how many fucking legions would it take to "swarm" the Aztecs?

Doesn't matter how many natives. 5 legions is critical mass against these subhuman savages. Civilization will triumph just as it always has.

>they couldn't get there
That wasn't the fucking question, retard.
Read the OP, then ask yourself "Why am I such a moron?" Then kill yourself, then reply with How many legions you think it would take.
>Romano Germans
as long as they are fighting for Rome it makes 0 difference.

True but not germane to OP's supposition.

GIVEN a Roman ability to project force to the New World, they would kick ass and take names against barbarians there as readily as barbarians n Europe, Asia and Africa.

The romans proved time and time again that they had literal stone-hard military doctrines and it would take an unstopable force to get them to try out new things.

They could conquer most of North America and the very southern parts of South America, but it would be a bloody mess anywhere from Bolivia to Yucatan, and I have my doubts on wether they could actually win in any meaningful amount of time.

That is, unless their generals and commanders were willing to try out new things ;)))

Arguably this is hard to determine since the average size of a legion changed throughout the entire history of the Republic/Empire. They started out around 5k per legion, not including auxiliaries in their count, and they were upwards of 10k-12k near the time of their peak. I'd argue that it wouldn't even take five legions. One legion of 10,000 men held off bouddica and her 230,000 soldiers.

undeniably 100% based
t. romaboo

>this
>capable of stabbing

That as tried on the Legions, repeatedly, and often won the barbarians a battle. Never won a war.

They literally won battles at 10:1 odds. Five red niggers with stone tools won't be a threat.

Had they had steel weapons and horses, pic related.

>horses

So are we talking Indians/native the US dealt with them -- as they were becoming skilled horsemen, for example? Or as they would have been when the Romans were around?

>Naval invasions require no navy guys!

How do people like you breathe long enough to type a post?

PROTIP: Logistics, faggot. Read a book about it.

>b-b-but muh hypothetical!

It's a retarded hypothetical. Kill yourself.

boy, you sure are feeling bitchy tonight, aren't you? Change your tampon and try to stay civilized, here
>How many legions you think it would take.
You could have a thousand legions lined up on the shore of the Atlantic swatting their swords at the waves and not getting any closer to conquering Mesoamerica.

>True but not germane to OP's supposition.
Yeah, but if we start talking about age of colonialism level of technology, then we should probably assume that they wouldn't be wearing lorica segmentata and worshiping Mars, they'd probably be Christian and look, act, and fight in a matter analogous to how the Spaniards fought.

And the result would probably be the same: relatively few troops needed to project force and topple centralized resistance while European diseases do the real heavy lifting wiping out the natives.

OK but that is not the fun way to do it.

i want many (you( pls helbbbbb

The incas had a census of their people. Their empire alone had millions.

But many effective fighters?

as experienced as the Roman cavalry

>literally slaughtered the injuns of Europe for all its existance untill it collapsed
>Implying northern europeans weren't practically injuns

They would for sure be even more effective than the Spaniards if they had moderately more men. Even an average force of Gauls would outmatch the Aztecs, and we know what happened to them...

Pre-disease?

Caesar would have done it with 2-3 in the same number of years

>conquered the Gauls, who had iron weapons
Yes.

Correct. Look up accounts of the missisipi valley expedition.

Romans would struggle with the incas. The logistics of fighting in the mountains in enemy territory is mind-boggling. Hannibal crossed a relatively short stretch of the alps and lost like a third of his men. The Andes would win the war for the incas. Or tihuantisuyu.

Aztecs are a different game, as Romans have a good plan of action for subjugation city states: divide and conquer. They would use the same tactics cortes did, ally with the second most powerful altepetl and promise them a seat of authority and regional hegemony/autonomy when they won, and use that against the rest of the cities. Romans were really good at sieges, and these people had no horses. Even if they blocked the land bridges the Romans could built a pontoon bridge. When it comes down to actual combat the Romans blow the fuck out of the Mexica. It's not even close. In terms of equipment it'd be like showing up to a knife fight with the Death Star. Stone/wood weapons against people wearing mail? Pretty sure Roman armor alone would really limit the effectiveness of mexica peltists (atlatl) and archers, to say nothing of shields.

Plus if you have cavalry vs people with no cavalry and haven't ever even seen a horse before, it's not even fair. When it comes to tactics, even the Germans/celts were more advanced. Aztec warfare was almost always xochiyaoyotl (literally "flower war") meaning it was all for show. Basically Gladiatorial combat for the sake of moving up in the social order, gaining slaves/prisoners, and establishing regional Hegemony. It's a more elaborate version of "send out your best guy, they 1v1, and the winner wins the war." the cities would agree on where/when to meet, how many warriors to send, and what the victory conditions were (e. G. Winner gets x amount of cacao per year for 3 years, you join our Alliance, etc) and whenever even a quarter of the other side was captured (they fought for capture rather than killing) they called it quits and went home to sacrifice, drink, and move around in the social order. To say nothing of troop numbers... Even during the punic wars Rome alone fielded more troops than all sides of Cortes's conquest (Alliance and tlaxcala). Rome vs Aztecs is like Rome vs Sumeria. It's not even close. I'm actually reasonably certain the Sumerians would beat the Aztecs too, as they at least used metal weapons and armor.

Romans vs East Coast is even more of a curbstomp, but unlike the Aztecs they'd be harder to occupy. Aztecs had a functioning state level society and had tons of precedent for treaties, Hegemony, etc. East Coast natives would basically harass the Roman settlements. But given the nature of Roman fortifications, they probably would be less effective than vs the settlers in our world.

If this is the case I would actually have to say Rome would struggle with the plains. There are no features to use to their advantage, and they historically struggled with horse archers.

Oh I didn't mean to imply it would go through armor, just that it would fuck up any part of the body caught exposed.

In any case, the Romans would have to do like Caesar in Gaul or Cortes in Mexico and make alliances to divide the natives or else they'd be crushed. Their love of slaves would cause a lot of health problems once Syphilis breaks out in camp.

Don't forget the Inca empire also had deserts and the amazon rainforest in the east.

Rome didn't have wars of conquest, they gained control through Civil War and political instability ie. Pergamon.

Yeah, the Inca Empire is often written about as an archipelago of mountaintops surrounded by oceans of inhospitable terrain.

A Roman general would play the other natives against the Aztecs, just like Caesar in Gaul.

Not all mountains are the same. Hannibal lost his men because he was crossing a frozen hellhole and his men were walking down paths so narrow a fucking mountain goat would have trouble. On top of that, they also routinely got ambushed by locals.

>they historically struggled with horse archers.
No they didn't. They lost a single major battle to the parthians and then proceeded to shit on them until they stopped existing.

That is hands down the most retarded statement i've ever seen on Veeky Forums.

they'd just reuse the Hestati, Triarii, and Principii system, worked in italy, which is rather mountainous

not attacking your post.

the whole roman naval technology reminded me of this

oh la la somebody's getting laid in college

Doesn't matter, you're not getting a Roman army bigger than ~10,000 in the fucking Americas in this time period in history. Disease! Starvation! Climate! You have no Roman roads. You have no Roman fort system. You are in a foreign land that has never been documented by Europeans even in a broad sense of the term and you have no fucking conceptualization of the terrain.

All of these factors applied to the Conquistadors too, but they had heavy ships, colonies along the West Indies, and medical supplies.

Eek Barba Durkle

>>>/reddit/

Romans at their peak around the time of Trajan would have smashed anyone up until guns were invented.

This

Horse archer was a meme because Crassus was a fucking idiot who was just rich never a good commander. Parthians got booty blasted the second a real Roman General went against them.

Italy is a mountainous country, not a country of mountains. The Inca empire is more akin to a really long Switzerland surrounded by jungles and deserts. The Romans lived in a mountainous country but they did not have the sort of expertise at Alpine warfare that comes with having a large empire composed mostly of inhabited high-altitude mountains and valleys. To the present day proficiency in Alpine warfare remains an important, but still ultimately secondary pursuit by the Italian Army.

I find the engineering and logistical prowess of the Inca astounding in fact, particularly considering their lack of applied metalworking and large beasts of burden. It's a shame the Spaniards burned all the records over muh heathenry and muh idolatry.

Lost

Could Romans even handle the weather in North America, the climate is quite extreme?

Aztecs were literally just brown, manlet Germanics that could build to the level of old Assyrians.

Romans were manlets too
Aztecs were about average back then
>The Aztecs were short and stocky, the men rarely more than 5 feet 6 inches tall (The average height of men in the 1600s between 5'5 - 5'8)
About average, and well built
But no armour

Incas were organized but even at their best they couldn't compete with the heavy Roman infantry and advanced tactics, they'd just have no way of breaking through.

best example here. Boudica's picts were better armed than any mesoamerican could hope to be(stolen roman weapons and armor on top of their own), And they were even familiar with Roman tactics, but they hammered the Roman lines over and over until they were exhausted and panicked.

North American natives only knew of light skirmishing, not battles THIS big and hardcore, Aztecs fought to capture and would be horrified at killing machine, Incas wouldn't be able to keep up hours of slugging it out with ironclad soldiers with formidable stamina and unflinching dicipline. They didn't even alternate their battle lines to keep the formation fresh and rested.

Gaul was not Germany you fuck wit

>Romans vs East Coast is even more of a curbstomp, but unlike the Aztecs they'd be harder to occupy. Aztecs had a functioning state level society and had tons of precedent for treaties, Hegemony, etc. East Coast natives would basically harass the Roman settlements. But given the nature of Roman fortifications, they probably would be less effective than vs the settlers in our world.

it'd be like Hispannia then?

Spaniards got swarmed too and look what happened.

Remember that the amount of gunpowder and horses they had was ridiculous. Barely a factor.

>Aztecs fought to capture and would be horrified at killing machine
Are you high?

We're talking about people who publicly sacrificed WINNING members of s sports team, and who lived in a society where ripping a mans heart out was a common and public sight.

A bit less than Cesar needed for Gauls I would say, technologically they were inferior to gallic tribes and did not have the pre-existing 350 years of combat experience against them.
The biggest challenge would have been logistic though but romans were pretty much the ones who invited the discipline and the british managed to do better only after 1800 years.

Didn't the Aztecs fight as individuals?

The Spanish handled Central America fine, and that's much hotter than most of North America.

No, between lower population density, a much more peaceful existence, and the fact that the Americans would be wielding stone weapons, it would be much easier than Hispania.

In a completely hypothetical scenario where logistics don't exist the Romans would destroy literally everyone, they would have no answer to the Romans equipment, tactics and discipline.

In xochiyaoyotl, pretty much.

And just like Cortes did.

They probably would have preserved the Aztec temples and religious life. The best analogy would be Egypt.

anything would have been good against native americans, they hadn't even developed any kind of metallurgy

>IMPLYING THERE WERE EVEN THAT MANY NATIVES AROUND
>There is no evidence natives had such large numbers period.
bitch please

Native americans were pre-historic
They didn't even master bronze age technology
50 spanish conquistadors btfo thousands of them fighting with vulcanic rocks embedded in sticks
and this was in the 1500s for fuck sake

tip

>thinking that the conquistadors had to do much, if any of the fighting when they had 10,000s of local allies who hated the aztecs guts.

>shittalking obsidian weaponry.

You're mostly here for the &humanities aren't you?

>obsidian weaponry
>not prehistoric clubs
>having any chance against arquebuses and longswords
you must be here for the memes

The Conquistadores suffered greater than 50% casualty rates despite their technological advantage.

Not surprising, giving that they weren't actually all that well equipped and were badly outnumbered even with their allies.

And given the fact that they were conquering TWO fucking continents. That's a long fucking campaign.

Depends which part of the americas.

The Inca and also the Inuit would probably be the hardest, maybe nearly impossible for the Romans to defeat

>they hadn't even developed any kind of metallurgy
>They didn't even master bronze age technology

...

>We're talking about people who lived in a society where ripping a mans heart out was a common and public sight.
and thats they went to battle, to capture warriors to sacrifice

>Remember that the amount of gunpowder and horses they had was ridiculous. Barely a factor.
best bait I've seen on this board and it goes unnoticed, shame