Theoretically, if someone went back in time and gave Spartacus, and his army, 10,000 AR15s...

Theoretically, if someone went back in time and gave Spartacus, and his army, 10,000 AR15s. (Along with a decent amount of ammo)
Could they destroy the entire Roman empire? Even without training?

>pic unrelated

Depends how much ammo you give them.

If the ammo was unlimited could they do it?

I think they'd be pretty frightened of them. The noise, the recoil, the power. They might consider them to be somehow godly and refuse to use them.

Maybe if they were Abrahamic.
Pagans would just consider them a gift from their God of war.

>Could they destroy the entire Roman empire

No, because the Roman empire didn't even exist during Spartacus's time. You cannot destroy that which does not exist.

>I think they'd be pretty frightened of them. The noise, the recoil, the power.
Fuck off, Kuntzman.

for people who are used to the loudest weapon being a sword, it'd make sense for it to be frightening

Fuck no. You know rifles need maintenance and training to function right?

they have no idea how to load the weapons or even how to make them shoot. They will eventually jam and they won't be able to fix them. Also, AR-15's only use childkilling ammunition, so the .50 caliber ghost gun hollow points would just fly off and strike the nearest baby, missing the roman army entirely.

Yes, obviously they could. If you are just unloading thousands of rifles in the direction of massed human formations, you're going to wipe them out.

It's not like they'd replace the Roman Empire with anything as stable or impressive, but that's not the question.

the answer is yes. with unlimited ammo it's not a matter of 10000 people either, 100 assault rifled troops and you could conquer the planet

Lets pretend they (the rebels) received proper training and tools for maintenance and all. They know how to aim, fire and reload their weapons properly, as to repair it when necessary.
Yet, they only got 10.000 of these AR-15's (which is a shitty rifle if you ask me, jams a lot), and the Roman Republic at the time of Spartacus was HUGE! They had millions of troops, legionnaires and auxilias. They had lots of cavalry and artillery, which they'd use to target the rebel riflemen. It wouldn't be enough to defeat the roman might in open battle, but it would be more than enough to strike fear in its troops and its people, which could lead to a Pyrrhic Victory for the romans, or a valiant defeat.

you're forgetting that they have no idea how to aim, load or even fire any of these weapons

>ar-15 is a shitty rifle that jams a lot
stop talking out of your ass you faggot

>100 assault rifled troops and you could conquer the planet
Well, nope. Have you ever heard of attrition? Horse archers? Artillery? 10000 riflemen would mean the doom for the romans, but 100? They'd have to rely on guerrilla tactics to avoid roman artillery, yet they'd take heavy losses due to attrition, dicease, the usual crap. And ammo runs out, angry men with a sword arm don't.

What the hell is a kuntzman? My point was valid

lol Don't take my word for it, ask any vet. The AR-15/M4/M16 rifles are unreliable, but that's not the focus of the topic.

This

>They had millions of troops, legionnaires and auxilias.
The absolute state of Veeky Forums, my word

Depends a lot on how competent the Roman reaction is. A proper response with a variety of trained soldiers with ranged weapons could overwhelm the rebellion, but a poor response would result in essentially Spartacus sacking whatever he felt like.
However, he wouldn't be able to hold much territory without making his army more vulnerable through splitting things up, and I doubt he was ready to try ruling anything he felt like properly conquering instead of raiding.
A full on collapse would require his army to wipe out enough of the government so that they couldn't reorganize, and would likely result in the split portions organizing into their own city state or small states.

Just look at the size of the Republic at the time of Spartacus, I'm not just talking about the trained soldiers of the Legions, but the fresh recruits and citizens.

Romans are a bad example, they never admitted they were defeated

hell, a good sniper could scare the shit out a negotiating party

>surrender or we'll use our magic
>guy's heads start exploding

that could work

>ak-47 malfunction rate: 1 per 1000 rounds fired
>m-16 malfunction rate: 2 per 1000 rounds fired
truly the worst rifle ever made

>ask any vet
>In 2010, U.S. Marines operating in Afghanistan reported no reliability problems with their M16 rifles and M4 carbines.[262]
stop believing memes

>and would likely result in the split portions organizing into their own city state or small states.

Exactly! They actually did that when Spartacus decided to leave Italy, but they never settled, the Republic crushed the rebellion before they could do any significant damage.

I recall an account of line infantry who, after no doubt plenty of training (probably none lol) decided that their volleys should be fired in a 45 degree angle. Cuz y'know, that's how you'd fire an arrow, right?
Give em space age tech and say "have fun!" they're not gonna know what they're doing.

>Romans are a bad example, they never admitted they were defeated
History is written by the victor. But I wouldn't say they were defeated until the fall of Ravenna in A.D. 476 and Constantinople in A.D. 1453. The romans were pushed back in a lot of wars with the germanic tribes, the celts, even Spartacus's brigands, but they were never defeated until their eventual demise.

This is probably a shitty comparison, but I imagine it would be something similar to issuing a marine a trident and net, and then sending him into battle. He wouldn't know what the fuck to do with them.

Don't think so, can't siege well.

>They'd have to rely on guerrilla tactics to avoid roman artillery

Wut? Just shoot the Romans from beyond their range.

>Spartacus, and his army, 10,000 AR15s. (Along with a decent amount of ammo)
>Could they destroy the entire Roman empire? Even without training?

Not without training but if they were trained, and they'd be perfectly suited for a rebel slave army.

(currently rewatching Spartacus)

>watching porn with a plot