Could Roman Army at Trajan's time beat 15th century Aztec Army?

This. An army of primitives with weapons straight out of the stone age are not going to beat the roman legions at the height of their power.

Oh no I guess I'm defeated and OP is now redeemed

Don't you realize how big of an impact does iron and steel have on warfare? Specially if you are fighting against some people that were worse equiped than Briton tribes

Obsidian clubs/swords/throwing weapons that could penetrate through chainmail according to contemporary Spanish accounts. And the Romans, if there were only 1,000 of them, would be outnumbered literally more than 100:1.

I feel like you live in a universe where the Battle of Acentejo didn't happen, where about 1,200 Spanish troops with more advanced armor and weapons than the ancient Romans got BTFO'd by literally a Stone Age civilization. The Spanish did well against the Aztecs in pitched battles because they had shock cavalry and artillery. The Romans do not. They did well as a whole because of smallpox and native allies, otherwise they would've been eradicated in short order. The Romans can definitely cream the Aztecs in anything resembling an even fight, but one legion isn't going to accomplish shit against fifty times their number, much less a thousand men.

Even if you give the Azec empire 100,000 guns, they would still lose to Romans.

Aztecs have poor understanding of logistics in warfare and poor understanding of tactics.

Romans would somehow still win because of superior understanding of the nature of warfare.

>Romans would somehow still win

What a convincing argument.

>Obsidian clubs/swords/throwing weapons that could penetrate through chainmail according to contemporary Spanish accounts. And the Romans, if there were only 1,000 of them, would be outnumbered literally more than 100:1.
Pal the romans had shields.If you hit an iron shield with an obsidian club you would break your wrist.The romans would stomp th Aztecs even if they were outnumbered 100:1.Btw the Guanches were more advanced than the Aztecs so bringing them in the discussion is retarded

>Pal the romans had shields

Oh shit, you're right, having shields makes you invulnerable and unable to be flanked.

>iron shield

Okay, so you're just an idiot, good to know.

>Btw the Guanches were more advanced than the Aztecs

Acenetejo was literally fought with sharpened sticks and stones you fucking retard.

The argument doesn't rest on Roman power but rather on Aztec incompetency. They left no records of their tactical genius or strategic genius.

They have no real competition in warfare and the only competition is mainly other wild animals and small tribal feuds.

>Oh shit, you're right, having shields makes you invulnerable and unable to be flanked.
No but having shields would make the obsidian clubs useless
>Okay, so you're just an idiot, good to know.
>Polybius gave a description of the early scutum. He wrote that it was oblong and had a convex surface 2 ½ feet wide and four feet long. It thickness at the rim was "a palm's breadth" (about four inches). It was "made of two planks glued together, the outer surface being then covered first with canvas and then with calf-skin. 4 Its upper and lower rims are strengthened by an iron edging which protects it from descending blows and from injury when rested on the ground. It also has an iron boss (umbo) fixed to it which turns aside the most formidable blows of stones, pikes, and heavy missiles in general." Polybius, The Histories, 6.23.2-4
Any Aztec would break his wrist if they hot an scutum with their clubs
>Acenetejo was literally fought with sharpened sticks and stones you fucking retard.
Against a bunch of explorers.Even the Aztecs were less developed than the Guanches so its pointless to compare them

This comes to mind as a comparison

Britons were better at warfare than the Aztecs and had iron amongst other things

>Iron
Indeed. I think people forget that while obsidian is sharp it has that other property of glass as well that isn't as beneficial, namely, being brittle.

1. Otumba was the first time the Aztecs faced the Spanish and their cavalry. The armies of the Old World faced cavalry for thousands of years and still had defeats like pic related.

2.
>champions of warfare in the western old world, which spanned from portugal to india and from britain to egypt vs champions of an isolated region barely bigger than the iberian peninsula

Either way considering how battles went against the Spanish, I give 3 battles for the Aztecs with steel arms and horses to outmatch Roman tactics.

The Aztecs raised an army that size in Tenochtitlan alone.

>Obsidian clubs/swords/throwing weapons that could penetrate through chainmail
Only an atlatl with a head of bone could, and it had to be shot in less than 50 meters to be effective.

>Aztecs have poor understanding of logistics in warfare and poor understanding of tactics.

>Both armies took the field in traditional battle formations with infantry in the center and cavalry on the flanks, Zabdas had two big advantages at his disposal: first was the superiority of his cataphracts, and the second was the extreme heat the Romans were not adapted to. When the two forces were close to engaging the Roman light cavalry suddenly broke ranks, routed, and left the battlefield. Zabdas ordered his much heavier cataphracts to give chase. After a while the lengthy chase and hot sun started to wear more on the heavily armored Palmyrene horses. At a predetermined point the Romans wheeled around and suddenly attacked the exhausted and surprised cavalry.

>the two armies fighting in a narrow space, and the barbarians using shorter spears than the Greeks, and having no advantage from their numbers. The Lacedaemonians fought in a way worthy of note, and showed themselves far more skilful in fight than their adversaries, often turning their backs, and making as though they were all flying away, on which the barbarians would rush after them with much noise and shouting, when the Spartans at their approach would wheel round and face their pursuers, in this way destroying vast numbers of the enemy.
- Herodotus, The Histories, Seventh Book

>We noted their tenacity in fighting, but I declare that I do not know how to describe it, for neither cannon nor muskets (..) for they still fought on in as close ranks and with more energy than in the beginning. Sometimes when we were gaining a little ground or a part of the street they pretended to retreat, but it was merely to induce us to follow them and cut us off from our fortress and quarters, believing that we could not return to our quarters alive, for they did us much damage when we were retreating.
- Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Chapter CXXVI

>What if it was in the hot steamy forests of Mexico

Aztec empire was mostly in the highlands...dry conifer forests, not humid jungle.

Dude stop your we wuzism. The Spaniards saw the natives as weak rivals to the point that they allowed women in the expedition. And if we believe Cortés Spanish women were generally stronger than native men

>if we believe Cortés Spanish women were generally stronger than native men
and if we believe everything cortes says his patron saint peter was the one who always rescued him and he didn't owe nothing to no one

Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Juan de Torquemada y Francisco Cervantes de Salazar all agree that Spanish women were better warriors than native proffesional armies
>Most of the early sources refer to María de Estrada in general terms among the small number of women who accompanied the army at this time. The Tlaxcallan chronicler Diego Muñoz Camargo wrote that she fought her way out of the city as a rodelero during the battle, proving herself "as good a warrior as any man", and that she participated in the decisive charge of armored cavalry at the Battle of Otumba. The Dominican historian Diego Durán claims that she subsequently led a force of conquistadors into the area around Popocatépetl, where, she defeated the Nahua Indians of Hueyapan, charging head first and screaming "Santiago!"
>Literally so weak and pathetic that womyn destroy your proffesional armies

>Juan de Torquemada y Francisco Cervantes de Salazar
none of them participated in the conquest

>Bernal Díaz del Castillo
he mentions her once, just to say she was appointed governor

>Most of the early sources
literally only one mentioned is Díaz

>The Tlaxcallan chronicler Diego Muñoz Camargo
He wasn't even born during the conquest

>and that she participated in the decisive charge of armored cavalry at the Battle of Otumba
pic related

>This buttmad we wuzer
A bunch of girls conquered your people.Deal with it

>girls
one girl doing something doesn't make her the sole conqueror of the Aztecs, shes lucky she wasn't raped by Spanish mercs

the Aztecs couldn't even beat the Tarascans what hope did they have against anyone else?

>Obsidian clubs/swords/throwing weapons that could penetrate through chainmail according to contemporary Spanish accounts
No. No such "contemporary Spanish accounts" mention that, for starters since chainmail wasn't even something that was still being used in the 16th century.

And the Romans had shock cavalry. Just saying.

>And the Romans had shock cavalry. Just saying.

>assuming Roman cavalry was any good.
>assuming the equites wouldn't dismount to fight like infantry like they so often did.

Roman auxiliary horsemen

Reminder that muh glorious Roman legions got BTFO by Germanic spearchuckers doing shieldwalls and ambushes in the forest.

It would be a harder fought battle than some people think, but training and superior weapons would win out for the glory of Rome.

KONO DIO DA

Aztecs were like the fisher price version of the Germanics.

Think how good they did against various barbarians. Imagine those barbarians don't even have any metal or cavalry, among other things.
Not hard.

>Result
>Desicive Roman victory
>End of Boudica's revolt
>Time reportedly stopped
>Date of Ancient Road Roller findings in Britain
>Roman rule secured

so hard, you have no idea what kind of advantage steel is. Keep in mind they still have horses, even if they don't have firearms.

But nobody knows how the Romans do in jungle.

It depends where the battle's fought, I think. Rome would win, it just depends on the location to see how easy the victory is.

In open battle it's hard to imagine them hurting the Romans of this era in any meaningful way at all. They're even better equipped to fight them than the Spanish were in a lot of ways.

The Aztec were extremely primitive, even to 3rd BC Rome, I would say. The Rome that was in the Punic Wars would decimate the Aztecs let alone the Rome during Trajan's rule.

This is no contest, really.

you mean like conquering all of Mexico? Quit speaking out your ass

>conquering tribals on the same technological level as them is something special.

Kek.

easily. hands down

i could literally say the same of the romans

and the romans were conquering more advanced civilisations? I was responding to what you actually said

Yeah, the Greeks, Carthage, Egypt, Seleucids were certainly tribal... The Gauls, Germanics and the other barbarians, even though tribal were FAR more advanced in warfare than the Aztecs could ever imagined of being.

>one girl
There were more. The Spaniards so the Aztecs as such pathetic fous that they allowed women to join the expedition. Just think how pathetic they were in reality

t. Juan 'Montezuma' Garcia

IN WHAT TIMELINE ARE THE ROMANS EVER OUTNUMBERED?!?!? ROMANS NEVER SETTLE FOR SMALL!

Why the fuck is Veeky Forums so obsessed in comparing neolithic people and iron age or bronze age empires?

We wuz craze lies at the heart of every egoist.

So its only natural to duke it out through historical context.

i dont kknow op, what im curious and gopefully someone will know. is there a painting similar to this one with some spaniard standing over a crowd like this.. i saw it so long ago it might be this actual painting/picture but i just misremembered.

also, what its called, if it has a name

There is a similar painting. Ask on /int/

why /int/ of all places?

>Steel vs bronze
Hmmmmmmmm

High activity and lots of
>Banter
Based on history. I am pretty aure that any general with spaniards like /esp/ or /ibe/ would have the painting

>bronze
More like obsidian and wood clubs

That's from Age of Empires III.

when your counter argument consists of "u mad" I cease to take you seriously as a third party.

Just sayin'.

thanks

You are just denying that women soldiers destroyed the empire that you like to LARP about.

Easily.

>Cavalry
>Metal weapons and armour
>Siege Weapons
>Logistics
>Discipline and tactics

Vs

>Manlets armed with obsidian sticks who pretend to be jaguars.

When you can only reply with false accusations of samefag I cease to feed your weak bait. Enjoy the two (You)s.

>reply with false accusations
Are you denying that women participated in the conquest of the Aztec empire?

>Mail.
>Not used at the 16th century.
?
Aztecs didn't live in the Jungle.

yes

Obsidian wouldn't be 'able' to cut through iron. Sorry buddy, but you're making up shit. The effectiveness of Obsidian was that it's edges are very natural fine that when sliced against a smooth soft object, it can easily cut it, but is very brittle. It would've got fractured if they attempted to hit their armor. Penetrating iron and steel armour relies on shape and force, and not so much as how fine the edge of the weapon you have.

Do you that the Mediterranean had obsidian weapons too? Early Cycladic culture had obsidian tools and weapons circa. 3200 - 2800 B.C. You know why they stopped? Because obsidian is a very shitty material to be used as a tool and weapon unless you're a surgeon or a chef or a skinner. They adopted copper and later bronze and never went back, even though no doubt they probably knew about it during the Iron age. Same probably happened in the volcanic areas of Italy.

People hype up obsidian to excuse the primitive aspects of MesoAmerican creativity. Obsidian weapons weren't unheard of in the early Western-part of the old-world. They just stopped using it after their Neolithic era once they adopted metal because they weren't retarded. Surely if it worked like you said it did, the primitive tribes the Romans came across wouldn't have stopped using it, nor would the Aegean civilizations. Both showed signs of having access to obsidian artifacts deep in the iron ages but they didn't bother about relying on them for weapons.