"Rich Rostrom" <rrostrom.21stcentury@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:rrostrom.21stcentury-30FC57.18515807072008@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 1) Roman troops are not going to wet
> their pants and flee en masse just
> because some barbarian fires off a
> boomstick.
>
> A handful of clumsy smoothbore
> matchlocks will not be decisive against
> well-trained infantry with steel
> weapons, bows and arrows, and horses.
Oh yes they are.
A single smoothbore musket fired isn't the problem, the five or six
hundred
of them in a regiment being fired together will.
The things will penetrate a late medieval plate harness at two hundred
yards, it'll make interesting iron origami from Roman armour.
Of course a single musketeer can't hit anything much at 200 yards, but
five
hundred men letting fly with a volley will do serious damage.
The Romans had serious problems with pike armed troops anyway. Pike armed
troops with musket and cannon are almost certainly beyond their abilities
to
engage, never mind defeat them.
Cavalry of the period with a carbine, two pistols and a sword, wearing
leather and steel and trained to trot into contact are a problem as well.
The Romans have nothing except their pillums to keep them away, and
they're
not long enough and not designed for hand-to-hand fighting.
Roman discipline may hold, but their technology is just outclassed.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.
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