Flintlocks and Roman legions?

From what i understand black powder would have been possible in the ancient roman age if not very difficult to produce. Leaving that aside for a moment how do you think the roman military apparatus wold have responded to black powder and the introduction of black powder weapons?

Would there have been roman legions as we knew them fielding muskets and the like? Seeing as the military had such a big role in roman affairs would black powder weapons create a major paradigm shift to their structure as it did in the middle-ages? How do you think the roman military would have adapted their use?

Could we have seen a japan situation where they would have been discarded even due to political reasons?

Mitchell Hundred said:

From what i understand black powder would have been possible in the ancient roman age if not very difficult to produce. Leaving that aside for a moment how do you think the roman military apparatus wold have responded to black powder and the introduction of black powder weapons?

Would there have been roman legions as we knew them fielding muskets and the like? Seeing as the military had such a big role in roman affairs would black powder weapons create a major paradigm shift to their structure as it did in the middle-ages? How do you think the roman military would have adapted their use?

Could we have seen a japan situation where they would have been discarded even due to political reasons?

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Well, the Roman mindset was always geared less towards innovation, and more towards applicability (that is to say, they didn't invent much themselves, but were great at getting usefulness out of an idea through engineering). With that said, I HIGHLY doubt you'd see black powder weapons being discarded for any political or moral reasons, since this IS the Romans we're talking about.

FleetMac said:

Well, the Roman mindset was always geared less towards innovation, and more towards applicability (that is to say, they didn't invent much themselves, but were great at getting usefulness out of an idea through engineering). With that said, I HIGHLY doubt you'd see black powder weapons being discarded for any political or moral reasons, since this IS the Romans we're talking about.

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I agree. if somehow the Romans can get their hands on gunpowder or something from China...

In my own TL 'Men of Rome', the Romans develop gunpowder and use it as a springboard for other weapons technology. In short, if such a thing happened historically, the Romans would NEVER give it up.

In fact, they would have taken vastly more territory than they did originally.

Mike Garrity

I can't see them giving it up once they have it. After all, the Varangrian Guard would be in the position to get the best weapons, the best supplies of powder etc.

I don't think there was quite the mythos of the sword as developed in Japan?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

How do you think the roman military structure would have adapted to firearms? What of the legions and their forms?

Mitchell Hundred said:

How do you think the roman military structure would have adapted to firearms? What of the legions and their forms?

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Assuming that accuracy at anything other than short range was hopeless, then you would see something equivalent to later medieval and early modern tactics - rows of firing soldiers giving way to melee with swords etc.

The main distinction may well be in the inclusion of artillery in being a weapon to use against massed ranks of men, rather than against fortifications.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

If you take into consideration that the Romans were used to fight in close formation with releasing a volley (or two) of Javelins (pilum) and then using the gladius for melee, I think that using Muskets is basically the same - the development of knights will likely be butterflied away - the Roman tactic stays the same (Napoleonic aera battles are looking similar to roman legions fighting

I can imagine Romans with muskets being support troops the same way as men with slings or bows until muskets can be made better.

Grey Wolf said:

I can't see them giving it up once they have it. After all, the Varangrian Guard...

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I see what ya did there.

I think that tactically you'd see something close to a 17th. century kind of army; a good portion of the Roman troops would be musketmen (taking the place of javelin throwers and bowmen), but another portion would likely be melee oriented given the slow reload times and possibly large armies of enemies to fight. After all, people forget that OTL's Highland Charge was developed to fight troops largely armed with muskets, and forced the adoption of the bayonet for self-defense in between reloads. The Romans will have to therefore use a bayonet-type weapon OR specialize different kinds of troops with different weapons a la the New Pattern Army. I think that artillery will end up entirely gunpowder-based, and used both as siegecraft tools AND against enemy threats in the field.

FleetMac said:

I think that tactically you'd see something close to a 17th. century kind of army; a good portion of the Roman troops would be musketmen (taking the place of javelin throwers and bowmen), but another portion would likely be melee oriented given the slow reload times and possibly large armies of enemies to fight. After all, people forget that OTL's Highland Charge was developed to fight troops largely armed with muskets, and forced the adoption of the bayonet for self-defense in between reloads. The Romans will have to therefore use a bayonet-type weapon OR specialize different kinds of troops with different weapons a la the New Pattern Army. I think that artillery will end up entirely gunpowder-based, and used both as siegecraft tools AND against enemy threats in the field.

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Interesting.

Late Roman field units often combined spears and darts as their primary weapons with the darts lodged behind the shield. I could see this morphing into spears and pistols for the shock / line troops with auxilia carrying longer muskets.

Of course this is a big leap for Roman metallurgy and would require wholesale stealing of Chinese technology (which would have other impacts too)

The Romans were facing heavily armoured cavalry though which would still give them problems using muskets only. You'd really need the pike and shot concept to appear earlier, pehaps based on the mixed spear and missile formations of the later Byzantines (parentaxis).

In fact given the timing, it might be more plausible for a seventh century introduction of firearms into Byzantine rather than Roman armies.

I can't see how this would work. The first hand-held firearm is used in Europe in the 14th Century. By then, it's primarily useful because it can penetrate armour and the noise spooks the horses.

Presuming the Romans get the technology (they easily could, even though they have an anti-innovation mindset; technologies that cost people jobs were frowned upon and by the late Western empire they hated to adopt "barbarian" tech) they won't use it for muskets. Muskets are terribly inaccurate and slow to reload. Bows and Arrows were simply the superior weapon in all aspects during the early history of the musket, unless of course Armour was in the way.

I can see the Byzantines using gunpowder technology though, if they get it early enough. The Persian-Byzantine Wars saw deployment of heavily armored soldiers by both sides, including horses. This could provide a use for the musket.

Other than that, if Rome had gunpowder it would probably only use it in siege weapons or to mine under the walls of enemy forts. Possibly a primitive grenade could be used on enemy shield-walls, but the Musket or the Hand Cannon is inplausible for Roman forces.

EDIT: A use in naval combat is plausible though. For most of Rome's history ramming and boarding was how ships fought. Suppose they're about to ram you and someone fires a swivel cannon through their oar deck...

This is assuming that a surviving Roman Empire would stick to the Legions for centuries until gunpowder is available, but that's a pretty big "if". Rome was already switching to armoured cavalry and fortifications by the end of the empire to counter the Barbarian invasions and the Eastern Romans only continued the trend. Once firearms become advanced enough to render armored cavalry obsolete, I'd expect the Romans to go back into modern period legion equivalents like the Spanish Tercios - but only if Rome's enemies do have access to that armoured cavalry or advanced gunpowder weapons in the first place, that might not be the case!

Surviving Rome is pretty much in a position close to China's... a giant empire swallowing all valuable land around, surrounded by cavalry nomads on all corners with the only likely exception being Persia. One is tempted to think of a Roman Empire extending to the shores of the Baltic in later centuries (like in "Gunpowder Empire" or "Roma Aeterna") with a loosely romanized Scandinavia as its Japan equivalent and Lithuanian/Turkish/Tatar/Whatever light cavalry raiders as its sole preoccupation besides the Persians and internal strife.

So that's basically the two results I come to see. Either:

- Chinese Scenario: Rome is never divided, prevents or beats back the Barbarian invasions (or somehow comes into one piece after the fact, like China did several times) - "Classical" army dominated by infantry, with cavalry and gunpowder being present but secondary.

- Byzantine Scenario: Rome is divided and "falls" to a point, but the WRE itself never disappears. Army evolves through the "Middle Ages" to a heavy cavalry dominated one with cataphracts, 'varangians' and everything, and is later superseeded by infantry+gunpowder combinations in turn.

Well you would need to bring gunpowder forward rather than have Rome last until gunpowder!

My point was that the 7th century Byzantines have the tactics and the opportunity (closer proximity to the necessary techhnology in China) and also the kind of enemies that would be hurt by gunpowder weapons (Sassanids)

I'm unconvinced they would be alot of use against the Arabs but then again the shock value of massed firearms may be suffcient to blunt the early arab conquests.

Imperial Rome's problems were generally self inflicted until towards the end and there isn't as great a driving force to develop firearms against hordes of lightly armed infantry - bows are better.

Grey Wolf said:

Assuming that accuracy at anything other than short range was hopeless, then you would see something equivalent to later medieval and early modern tactics - rows of firing soldiers giving way to melee with swords etc.

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After the first volley you can only see about 25 metres, especially with the likely crude gunpowder.

At first the guns would be supported by spears for protection from being rushed whilst reloading until the logic of the bayonet dawns upon someone.

yulzari said:

After the first volley you can only see about 25 metres, especially with the likely crude gunpowder.

At first the guns would be supported by spears for protection from being rushed whilst reloading until the logic of the bayonet dawns upon someone.

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i think we could assume that someone would come up with Nobunaga's tactics when it comes to using Roman firearms. i mean, it's a pretty simple tactic. defending with spears, definitely, but eventually someone will come up with what Nobunaga did

I don't know anything about it, but was the metallurgical knowledge of the Romans good enough to be able to make guns?

The Romans had good technology for bronze. Perhaps artillery develops first (as in late Middle Ages Germany.) Alternatively, some Byzantine genius comes up with the rocket. The Chinese used rockets effectively against Mongol raiders at Kaifungfu.

Claudius said:

The Romans had good technology for bronze.

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Sure, but was it good enough? There was 1000 years time between Roman time and gunpowder time. You can develop a lot of metallurgic knowledge in 1000 years. The thing is I don't know anything about the quality bronze needed to make a gun (but probably pretty good quality, I doubt you could make guns in the early bronze age) and I don't know anything about Roman bronze, which was probably pretty good (they were Romans after all), but was it good enough?

Is there anyone here with knowledge about it?