Oh for Christs Sake!

[Minimalist]

What rubbish.

http://www.livescience.com/history/arch ... 00627.html


Both Livy and Polybius recount Archimedes' use of catapults cleverly positioned to cover the few approaches to the walls.

The city was taken due to treachery after a long siege.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Imo that paper, presentation, and publication are PR ploys to sell a book. A.k.a. commercially motivated "spin". Stirring up the pot, as it were.
It becomes condemnable when such invented theories start poisoning the scientific debate.

[Minimalist]

Yeah. As with so much else, the Romans adapted and perfected the Greek designs for various classes of ballista. In the 3d century BC, that process had not begun yet and Roman siege doctrine was not highly developed.

[Johnny]

Yeah. As with so much else, the Romans adapted and perfected the Greek designs for various classes of ballista. In the 3d century BC, that process had not begun yet and Roman siege doctrine was not highly developed.

Gotta disagree with you there, Min. The Romans had been absorbing and adapting greek tech for so long that they'd already abandoned the phalanx by that time, adapting to the tactical requirements of combat in hilly terrain against less organized forces. Their siege certainly wasn't at its zenith or even the level of proficiency near Caesar's time but they certainly had some firepower in the form of sparingly used early ballista, rams and by the 2nd century bc, towers.

Not highly developed, no. But certainly, the process was underway.

[Minimalist]

Don't know where that came from, Johnny. Phalanxes? Romans tossed those while fighting the Samnites and other hill tribes in Central Italy. But the doctrine of siege warfare they developed came later on as did their adoption of military engines which they got from the Greeks. Caesar was almost 150 years after the siege of Syracuse and 100 years after the sieges of Carthage and Corinth. The Romans had come a long way by then, no question about that. They knew how to build ramps and cover the approach with their scorpions and ballistas to keep the defenders' heads down. But at Syracuse the use of catapults by the Greeks was something of a surprise. The reports we have on Roman naval warfare in the First Punic War indicate only that they used the corvus to pin their ships to the Carthaginians and then the legionaries (serving as marines) crossed that bridge to convert the sea battle to a land battle....plus, as an added bonus, instead of sinking the ship by ramming it you got to capture it and use it yourself. But there is nothing to indicate that the Romans used engines on their ships. Which brings us back to the surprise inflicted on the Romans at Syracuse when the defenders unleashed various large missile weapons on their troops and ships. Marcellus backed off, maintained the siege, and captured the city by stealth. And one can certainly imagine that Marcellus' first action was to investigate those weapons which thwarted his assault. The Romans did subsequently design and adapt the ballistas but, unfortunately for the article in question, they never seemed to pick up on any "steam cannons." Now, why would they perfect the ballista but ignore the "steam cannon" if it had existed?

Oddly, it was the Greeks' stubborn reliance on the phalanx which led to their total defeat by the Romans. The manipular legion enveloped the flanks of the phalanx with its superior flexibility and the various Greek states never seemed to learn the lesson until it was far too late.

[Rokcet Scientist]

A bit like the 1940/41 situation when the old powers still relied on battleships while Japan and the US had already 'converted' to aircraft carrier warfare.

[Digit]

Ever heard of the Yamato and Musashi RS?
The RN had seven carriers in 1940 BTW.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Yeah, the Japanese had good carrier doctrine but they got the idea for Pearl Harbor from the British attack on Taranto. What the Japs really had were superb carrier aircraft and trained air crews at least at the beginning of the war.

They could not sustain their pilot training nor their technological improvement. By the end of 1943 every air mission was a virtual suicide mission. Poorly trained pilots flying obsolescent aircraft against well trained British and American pilots flying Hellcats and Corsairs.

American carrier doctrine developed because the Japs were kind enough to sink our old battleships in the harbor where they and their crews could, to a large part, be salvaged. Look up War Plan Orange to see what American admirals had in mind if given the chance.