Romans Really Only Worthy Opponents Parthians?

[Virgil61]

 

By the time Attila became a problem for the Romans his army was probably made up of more non-Hunnic allies than Huns.

slaves not non-hunnic, this slaves are taught how to fight the romans and other barbarians using hunnic tactic.

 

Frankly you have no idea what you're talking about. By the year 440 Germanic tribes like the Gepids, Rugi, Suevi, Sciri some Alamanni and Franks were under Hunnic control as well as three seperate clusters of Goths keeping their own tribal leaders. They weren't slaves but client tribes.

[Moonlapse]

I don't whether to laugh or get angry. Before this continues... PARTHICOS, go to the library and come back to debate when you have some solid facts, references and grammar - otherwise I might turn into the bad guy. lol

[Brucecarson]

One theme I've pulled out of this thread is that the Parthians caused the Romans problems because of their horse archers. I would imagine that an infantry based military would have problems with them on the first encounter. But it seems to me that the counter to Horse Archers is not only obvious, but very easy execute.

 

Simple. ARchers vs Horse Archers. Horses offer much larger targets than humans and therefore would be much easier targets. I would think that the Roman Auxiliary Archers would have no trouble dealing with horse archers.

 

The second solution would be the Ballistae. Our resident Roman Army experts here can post more specifics than I can, but don't the Ballistae out range any bows of that era. Well placed Ballistae and archers covered by Infantry or Cavalry would easily counter Horse Archers and any Cavalry trying to take out the Roman Archers.

 

And then there is the Roman ability to fortify their positions. THey could just dig in or form Testudo to mitigate the arrows. Meanwhile, send out some cavalry to set up ambushes for the Horse Archers.

 

I can see where it would be a pain in the butt fighting Horse Archers, but being a nuisance doesn't necessarily equate to being a "worthy opponent" in my book.

 

Solid analysis. I've been wondering for awhile what the best counter for horse archers are. I had come to the same conclusion. You need missile troops to counter. The use of Ballistae had however not occurred to me.

 

Is there any other counter to missile cavalry besides other missile troops? Some sort of trebuchet with a flaming projectile filled with pitch perhaps? I'm guessing that wouldn't really be effective as it wouldn't ignite a large enough area. The other thing I thought of was putting a whole bunch of Caltrops in a loosely bundled cloth sack, so they separate out in flight. Then you cover a good section of the field with them, hopefully they wouldn't even be aware of the Caltrops presence. If they run onto them, the Caltrops would destroy the horses hooves and buck the rider.

[Melvadius]

Solid analysis. I've been wondering for awhile what the best counter for horse archers are. I had come to the same conclusion. You need missile troops to counter. The use of Ballistae had however not occurred to me.

 

Is there any other counter to missile cavalry besides other missile troops? Some sort of trebuchet with a flaming projectile filled with pitch perhaps? I'm guessing that wouldn't really be effective as it wouldn't ignite a large enough area. The other thing I thought of was putting a whole bunch of Caltrops in a loosely bundled cloth sack, so they separate out in flight. Then you cover a good section of the field with them, hopefully they wouldn't even be aware of the Caltrops presence. If they run onto them, the Caltrops would destroy the horses hooves and buck the rider.

 

I understand that the best counter to horsemen in desert areas was traditionally always considered to be camels as you don't require to carry as much water and horses tend to dislike their presence - al;though this last is mainly providing the horses were unused to them;)

 

More seriously I wouldn't agree that the Parthians/ Persians were unused to fighting against defended cities you only have to consider their siege of Dura Europas and the effective loss of Roman control in the area following its capture.

 

The idea of using caltrops is interesting however they are potentially equally effective against foot soldiers however and its a big however think of how many you would need to fire to cover a sufficiently large area, you need to transport both them and the means by which they are fired. Any siege weapon is of limited utility against a manouverable target if you fire a bag of caltrops then horsemen could probably have easily evaded its flight path. Ballista bolts are more problematical due to the speed with which they are fired but you still need to transport a lot of missiles along with the ballistae to wherever they are needed as well as ensuring the tension is correct before firing missiles. Although the Roman may have moved the lighter missile firers around on carts and possibly used them in some battles the preference appears to have been to only use them from or against fixed positions.

[Kosmo]

Against horse archers foot archers are very effective. Light cavalry was also very good.

Siege weapons were probably too hard too maneuver on a battlefield and with a rate of fire too slow against such a mobile enemy.

Wagon formations were often used with great success by hussits, russians, chinese, boers etc.

[guy]

During the last half of the Roman Empire, Rome's major opponent was disease. After disease, their next major opponent was themselves.

 

Foreign enemies were able to exploit Rome's weaknesses after Rome had either been devastated by disease or weakened by one of their many civil wars.

 

Although the Parthians may not have penetrated much beyond Asia Minor, the plague the Romans brought home during the war with Parthia (known as the Antonine plague or the plague of Galen) extended to the heart of the Roman empire and the city of Rome, probably causing the deaths of two emperors (Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus).

 

 

guy also known as gaius

[Brucecarson]

The idea of using caltrops is interesting however they are potentially equally effective against foot soldiers however and its a big however think of how many you would need to fire to cover a sufficiently large area, you need to transport both them and the means by which they are fired. Any siege weapon is of limited utility against a manouverable target if you fire a bag of caltrops then horsemen could probably have easily evaded its flight path. Ballista bolts are more problematical due to the speed with which they are fired but you still need to transport a lot of missiles along with the ballistae to wherever they are needed as well as ensuring the tension is correct before firing missiles. Although the Roman may have moved the lighter missile firers around on carts and possibly used them in some battles the preference appears to have been to only use them from or against fixed positions.

 

Interesting.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop#History

 

According to Wikipedia, the Romans used Caltrops to take on chariots. Do you think they spread them on the field before hand? I think you're right about siege weapons. Firing Ballistae at horse archers wouldn't probably work now that I think about it.

 

Guy, your totally right about disease of course. Questions like this really only apply for those rare times both the Parthians and Romans were organized enough to face each other on the battlefield.

Edited April 22, 2010 by Brucecarson

[barca]

Against horse archers foot archers are very effective. Light cavalry was also very good.

 

When looking at the battle of Carrhae one gets the impression of the Parthians as being invincible because of the futile efforts of the Romans to engage them successfully. It is important to recognize that this was an isolated situation where the Romans were misled by an Arab scout and found themselves stranded in unfavorable terrain.

 

There were numerous enemies of Rome who also had horse archers, but they weren't able to use them effectively. At Magnesia Antiochus had horse archers and we all know the outcome of that battle. Mithridates and his Armenian allies also had horse archers, but again they weren't very effective against the Romans. It seems to me that they were more effective as part of a pure cavalry army that was was not encumbered by slower-moving infantry, so that they could apply their hit and run tactics.

And these tactics work best in isolated areas such as Carrhae. It seems to me that Lucullus' army performed well against the Parthians when he engaged them in favorable terrain.

Edited May 2, 2010 by barca

[Centurion-Macro]

I believe the Romans and Parthians were complete opposites, so yes they were a worthy opponent. While the Romans used foot soldiers, the Parthians used horse archers, and both had their fair share of wins. But the Parthians were masters of the desert, and I do believe in the Parthians terrain (desert) the Romans were inferior unless they had strong cavalry escorts for their legionaries.