Rome v. USMC

[Smitty-48]

The available assets are; 2200 troops, with a platoon of Abrams, AAV7's, LAV-25's, and a M777 howitzer battery, but you have to conquer a swath of territory from the British Isles to Iran, and you only have one battle load of ammo, and one tank of gas for the vehicles.

So, basically forget all the vehicles, because they run out of gas by the end of the first day, and forget the howitzers, because without the vehicles you can't move them, and forget most of the ammo, because without the trucks, you only have 2200 troops and the kit that they can carry on their backs.

[Okeefenokee]

I guess you hillbillies can't read too good, but the OP is "destroy the entire Roman Empire", the Romans are going to figure out your tricks pretty quickly, in addition, you don't get resupply, so that's not many rounds of 155mm, to conquer 4.4 million square kilometers of territory and 60 million people.

The Romans had artillery of sorts, they would understand the concept, they would no doubt be impressed by 155mm, but they wouldn't think it was magic or anything like that, and they would dig trenches to defend themselves from bombardment, and it wouldn't take them long to fugure out, that you have a finite number of those shells, and could only use them very sparingly.

They had no concept of one round of WP that could wipe out several hundred soldiers massed in tight formation.

You'd have to be conservative about it, but you could put an entire Roman army into a rout with one or two rounds. I agree that when the rounds run out, you're in a close quarters fight that you probably can't win, but I'm thinking of how to avoid that.

How do I turn a massed Roman army?

I drop one or two well aimed rounds right in the middle, and watch them scatter like roaches under the pressure of fire they've never experienced.

You're ignoring reality. Modern formations won't hold strong under the fire of WP. Romans wouldn't either.

They want to fight en masse. Drop WP on the them. Just one or two rounds. Won't take much. Don't have to expend all ammo.

Not one army from 2000 bce to 2000 ce will stand up to willy pete. not one.

[Smitty-48]

They had no concept of one round of WP that could wipe out several hundred soldiers massed in tight formation..

Yes they did, they had incendiary artillery, they knew all about it, they invented it in fact.

And again, fuckbird, you have to conquer the entire Roman empire, and by the end of the first say, your vehicles are all out of gas, so your 777's ain't getting very far.

[Okeefenokee]

They had no concept of one round of WP that could wipe out several hundred soldiers massed in tight formation..

Yes they did, they had incendiary artillery, they knew all about it, they invented it in fact.

not the same thing, and you know it.

[Smitty-48]

You have to conquer the entire Roman Empire, from Britain to Persia, and 60 million people therein, two rounds of WP ain't gonna get it done.

[Smitty-48]

Yes they did, they had incendiary artillery, they knew all about it, they invented it in fact.

not the same thing, and you know it.

The Romans understood what an incendiary was, they would have been impressed, but not so impressed that they would have stopped fighting, they would have just waited until you ran out of ammo, and since you only have one battle load, that wouldn't take very long.

Since a Marine battery actually relies on its parent battalion for ammo ressuply, you're only going to have a handful of HE rounds, and even less WP.

[Martin Hash]

Dude, Small Pox? Plague? "The Sun" falling on Rome because The Gods were displeased? Who needs resupply?

One. Marine. Battalion.

What part of; no nukes, no chem, no bio; did you not understand?

Alright, alright, alright.

One guy: he's immunized but infected as a kid before he joined up. With the right mix he could be the only one left alive in the end. No guns required.

[Smitty-48]

Dude, Small Pox? Plague? "The Sun" falling on Rome because The Gods were displeased? Who needs resupply?

One. Marine. Battalion.

What part of; no nukes, no chem, no bio; did you not understand?

Alright, alright, alright.

One guy: he's immunized but infected as a kid before he joined up. With the right mix he could be the only one left alive in the end. No guns required.

If he's immunized then he's not contagoius, so still no dice. Neither smallpox nor plague is transmissable if you are asymptomatic.

Moreover, the Romans had both smallpox and plague outbreaks and they survived them all.

[Martin Hash]

One. Marine. Battalion.

What part of; no nukes, no chem, no bio; did you not understand?

Alright, alright, alright.

One guy: he's immunized but infected as a kid before he joined up. With the right mix he could be the only one left alive in the end. No guns required.

If he's immunized then he's not contagoius, so still no dice. Neither smallpox nor plague is transmissable if you are asymptomatic.

Moreover, the Romans had both smallpox and plague outbreaks and they survived them all.

Hmmm, Typhoid & Polio ain't gonna do it. Somebody's just going to have to sneak an active vial into the Wayback Machine.

[Smitty-48]

Bio is a dead end, the Romans dealt with just about every horrible disease you could think of, the worst of the worst, and none of it ever wiped them out.

Smallpox is about the deadliest pathogen you can get, and they managed to shake that off.