The reason why the Romans were so successful was simple: Discipline, Conditioning, and tactics. Decimation was rarely needed.

Decimation was rarely used. Decimation was a punishment that the Romans inflicted on soldiers who had collectively abandoned their posts, acted like cowards in battle, or fomented some kind of rebellion in the ranks. This video makes it sound like a defeat in battle meant decimation.

Decimation is a disciplinary procedure not a battle tactic. Categorization is important.

Decimation was incredibly rare, I am very surprised you even mentioned it.

You don't mention that Corvus really only worked once. It was a secret weapon that lost its potency once no longer a secret. It would not have been too hard to avoid if you realize what the roman were up to, leaving them with a less maneuverable vessel overloaded with infantry. Still, for that one battle, it was a brillant tactic and key to winning the first Punic war as you said.

It's quite mind-blowing that the tribes of Italian Peninsula are highly adaptive in terms of survivability. The Romans in turn also possess that. They also learn from their defeats, often copying to a varying degree the tactics and strategies of their enemies. It sounds like a stretch but I think Romans stopped being underdogs when they defeated the Samnites and in turn complete their conquest of the peninsula. It's like Cao Cao becoming a superpower after defeating Yuan Shao at Guandu. The legionary and maniple system in their military is in fact "inspired" by the Samnites. The practice of employing mercenaries and subsequently auxilary troops comes from the defeat of the Successor Kingdoms and Greek powers. Especially, Pyrrhus and Hannibal in which the Romans learn to better employ such tactics and logistical capabilities.

At sea, the Roman solution was train troops on land using mockups and to make ships using previously manufactured parts that were numbereD or marked in a way that could be easily constructed. A flatpack navy if you will. Rome's real secret was engineering and legions full of artisans.

Decimation was EXTREMELY uncommon

Good video, thanks.

Great video as always! Do you know how the Roman Empire was cut in half? -With a pair of ceasars (scissors).

"Insane tactics"? You've never heard the axiom "If it works, it ain't stupid."

Nicely done - especially the 'divide and conquer' explanation.

I can't believe they didn't mention the fire pigs.

Strength and Honor!

Lol, so we don't agree on what tactic is, I guess. Their divide and conquer approach to diplomacy counts not as a tactic. A diplomatic strategy maybe? But absolutely an understated key to the longevity of the empire that you are right to point out.

Well presented and edited with nice use of comic humor. Very professional and informative, appreciated.

Well I didn’t know about decimation until now thx

Here’s a tactic for ye, “During a battle at sea in 264 BCE, a Carthaginian ship was captured by Roman forces. The Romans examined the ship carefully and used it as a model for their own new vessels. By stealing the Carthaginian ship the Romans were able to improve their own technology and increase their naval power.” I’ve seen a video about this but alas, I couldn’t find it.

Informative thank you 🙏

One of the best Roman combat scenes I've seen is the opening act of the TV series Rome (2005-2007). Which showed the disciplined way the Roman infantry fought and how superior they were to their opponents. When the centurion blew his whistle.. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y9x6h7F4rZqtkmQ.html&ab_channel=Private Highly recommend this series to anyone fascinated by Rome..

You never see about this tactics on Hollywood movies...Really wonder why. Also have to say, the memes were a huge surprise, but certainly a welcome one heheh

Caesar wrote a book about some of his military campaigns. The chapter about a campaign always started about the same: food supplies were purchased. The Romans became very good at securing food and transportation of supplies.

Decimation was not a tactic, it was a disciplinary action. The Corvus was nat a tactic, it was a tool. Divide and conquer was a strategy, not a tactic

First you had training, so you knew that your troops would do has you had told them. Then a combat system that favoured close combat. No wild slashing but instead a mobile shieldwall where soldiers worked together, not as individuals. With a battleline relief system that stopped the soldiers from becoming over tired. Then build field fortifications to give your forces an advantage. And finally the knowledge that Romans never gave up. Lose 80,000 men, well build a bigger army and try again.

Decimation was not common, applied in cases of mutiny, cowardice or desertion of a whole unit. And decimation was NOT always execution! Flogging was a common punishment in the legions.

Hm, Important to show the instances of ingenuity within Rome's panoply of measures and means, but lacking a clear distinction between tactics and strategy. Adding that and providing clear examples would make this in and of itself well made production into an excellent one.

Why i can't find the Prince by niccolo machiavelli video on your channel?

the other tactic not often mentioned was to declare support for republics.. then enforce their own.

This is a lesson many times forgotten, and it applies to all walks of life. Discipline, ration...Alas, alas...

8:37 Oh wow! That is an amazing meme!

😎😎😎AWESOME VID 😎😎😎

You start with the one thing roman commanders extremely rarely did, it was two legions not cohorts, the corvus wasn't actually use, because it nade the ships unstable.

The corvus was only used in the first few battles, it was too top heavy and after a couple accidents it was abandoned in favor of boarding planks, or outright sinking enemy ships.

Their percistance was the real strength of the Roman empire. No matter how catastrofic defeats they endured, which they did sometimes over the centuries. They allways came back, for a millenium at least..

The Romans lost quite a few battles. But they learned and adapted.

discipline

Romans built a supply chain that was unmatched. And gained them victory, as they comparatively had unlimited resources to the point of battle, even if outnumbered. Even if they lost a battle....they kept coming and coming and coming......their logistics allowed that. Not much has changed since then. This is how the US operates today, worldwide. Rome did the equivalent in the known world back then.

The battle of Alesia sends chills up my spine. That’s how I learned of a Roman weapon used against cavalry. It was some kind of metal ball with three sharp spikes sticking out.No matter how you threw them, one spike would be sticking straight up!

It sounds like decimation was commonly used. But in fact during Roman history from kingdom to late antiquity only few occurrences have been documented. It was too ineffective to lose trained soldiers and there were other means of punishment (interestingly threating them with not including them in a battle)

I would not call 'decimation' a tactic by any useful definition of the word. It was discipline. And how well it worked is debatable and depend on the context. Though not an expert I know it was primarily used in the early to mid republican era, back when you were dealing with part-time legionaries who expected to go back to farming (or whatever) after a single season of campaigning. A lot of these guys really needed to be more afraid of their officer than the enemy to be motivated to risk their lives because they were not all gung ho volunteers. By the time of the late republic/early empire, as the army was quickly becoming professionalised, it might have still been 'on the books' but it was rarely used and only used at the general's own peril. I know Crassus revived it in his armies but his contemporaries Ceasar and Pompey never did. I'm sure we all know who has the best track record of these three, lol. Just because Crassus decimated a cohort and then went on to win against a slave army, it does not follow it was the right decision or that it played a key role. Ceasar and Pompey accomplished far more impressive feats without decimation. All in all Crassus is not to be regarded as a talented commander. It took all his spare change to put down a slave revolt and when faced by a real Army in Parthia he got crushed... A few generations later when Galba (of the 'year of the 4 emperors' fame) used it on a recalcitrant legion in 69AD it created shock and dismay more than anything else and contributed to him being extremely impopular with the army and one of shortest tenured emperor. I mean, if he was going to refuse to pay the expected bribes (aka donation) to the praetorian guard, he really hould have taken better care with maitaining the loyalty of regular legionnaires! LTDR As the army becomes more professional, decimation was phased out because it was becoming pretty much always a blunder. And I'm not convinced it was a smart choice even back in the days of the farmer soldier unless dealing with a fullblown mutiny (which did happen). A good commander should always be able to find a better solution than killing off 10% of his own men IMO!

Corvus literally turn the tide

The Carthaginians, like the Greeks, fought their naval battles mainly by ramming

And what exactly ís decimation?

and he did not even mention caltrop's or Manu-Ballista's (which are like hand held ballista's in case you fighting cataphracts) ... the alliance thing was a bit simpler though .... just ally with the weakest local ... being the punchbag for several generations and getting offered an opportunity for payback usually does not require much convincing... the constant copying of their enemy ...the swords were spanish, the mail celtic and the helmets gaulic .... and of course since the empire was founded ...half of all troops were auxiliaries recruited from all sorts of people across the empire, making the conquered people feel part of the empire, while also Romanizing them, while also mixing unique tactics

The Bronze Age and Iron Age (5000BC - 600AD-ish) had the coolest history and stories and characters. Arguably, many armies and tactics of the Iron Age (the Romans and Greeks/Hellenic states like Epirus and Macedon and Successor Kingdoms of Alexander) could MOP the floor with Medieval armies before gunpowder was involved. I would even argue the equipment was more suited to the task of melee and ranged combat, but I will admit the trebuchet is a very effective artillery. I wonder what the stories of the deep past of humanity are though, but it would be impossible to know in a place as fragile and vulnerable as Earth. There could be remnants of ancient human technology on the Moon and Mars and beyond for all we know. Us "normal" people would never be able to find out, anyway. Not the way we behave.

I still dont understand how the Romans could conquer half the mediteranean when their soldiers were still levied conscripts who must attend their farms once a campaign session is over😅

You make it sound like Caesar decided to build both walls at Alesia, at the same time. Instead, he had already built the wall of circumvallation around Alesia when he heard about the enormous relief forces en-route. Rather than abandoning the siege and allowing Vercingetorix to escape, Caesar decided to maintain his siege on the city and the best way to do so, would by building an entirely new wall (series of fortifications), to protect the besiegers from the relief forces.

Thanks for the video but the title is misleading. Most of the video refers to strategy versus tactics in the military sense. If this were on tactics it would be on specific actions taken during a battle. Strategies generally refer to steps taken or planned outside the actions within a battle. Strategies: Divide and Conquer, addition of corvuses to quinqueremes. Tactics: Caesar building outer wall against Vercingetorix, Scipio Africanus having legions open lanes for Carthaginian elephants to pass through without killing the Romans, when and how corvuses were used in a battle Also these are not insane. Being a bit over-dramatic.

If it wasn't for the Cimbri....

Any of this sound familiar?

No flaming pigs?

And all tactics, etc, come down to training.

AI made video. Just look at the Roman helmets😅

1st pic shows the soldiers with beards Romans were clean shaven barbarians wore beards

I'm not sure you know what the word Tactics means. Some of what you call "Tactics" were nothing of the sort. Decimation was a discipline measure that had nothing to do with tactics. Divide and Conquer was a Strategy. Strategy is not the same thing as tactics.

Decimation should not be on this list. It was used only a handful of times in the entire empires history. Additionally it was used only for legions that showed cowardice or refused orders. Not to any odd legion that lost a battle.

For these soldiers to remain in a decimated unit tells me these soldiers were, in practice, slaves. If they were volunteers, they would have looked for the first chance to desert and return home.

Tactics? I thought this was about the Romans using the iron spike modules to injure opponents feet and the hooves of enemy cavalry horses, Or the use of new weapons that could fire multiple arrows or the use of their war dogs to terrify opponents.

Decimation was good in modern times, If done regularly,, some actually fell on their swords, because of heavy mortgage payments etc, It saved pension payments, insurance payout etc, We have a lot to learn from the Romans,, Expansion ( profitable) owes itself to such discipline. Ignore history at your peril.

Roman art of war.

Hols the line Sir hahhahaha ai goof

🤘

Great presentation, and very nice to hear accurate prenunciation of words, without the usual americanisation, Worcestershire Sauce an all that.

I would love to know what Britain was like prior to the successful invasion, the 1 prior to that some 70 years previous, it was said that it was not storms that destroyed their ships the romans but the British were on another level & united in spirits, the romans didnt even make it of the beach & were so frightened by the people they encountered that it was all them years later that they attempted again but were successful because the Britts or albions & Caledonians i think they were called with Rome giving the name Brittania were already divided & at war with each other, so easier to conquer but not totaly as Caledonia went on to be called Scotland, but what were these previously? They must have been most formidable & that togetherness is uncanny in today's world.

Wasn't decimation very rarely used? It usually seems to be done for political purposes (appius claudius first bringing it in to punish the plebs for wanting rights, most future cases seeming to follow a similar vein). I dunno if it impacted the troops much if it's so rare and usually not done for cowardice as much as for your commander being a patrician psycho

The Roman military defeated numerically superior forces the same way the Greeks did and every army ever has. Order and discipline defeats individual military prowess EVERY TIME EVER.

Then as soon as the conquest had begun the building of Roman buildings would start.

Gork and Mork

Grave erreur ici ! The roman legionarii didn't wear helmets with nasals. It came later from the norse people later on, even though the ancient corinthian helmet had a nasal at the time of ancient Greece. Fritsky

Hannibal trained them well.

Rome could be your greatest friend or your worst enemy. Your choice.

Gee, I was taught it was because of their use of combat engineering. Stupid me.

Also remember the Roman’s were small many under 5 feet.

1) Decimation was not a tactic. It was a form of punishment designed to instill discipline. 2) Building the circumvallation and contravallation at Alesia is more of a strategy than a tactic, because once the construction was completed, there was very little flexibility in how the Romans could fight. 3) Dividing and conquering was not a tactic - it was a strategy. You don't even understand what you're presenting in this video, but nice try, and nice AI images.

My theory Rome is a lot like Amazon. It was q back water village nothing special but I think what turned them into super power is . A federal government of that time period must of taken interest in them and saw the potential of what It Caan be if they have the power and not a king

Similar to the British - we learned from the Romans

You lost me when you brought up decimation in under 2 minutes, for gods sake it was extremely rare and any real ancient historian knows this.

Sad though they basically did was screwing over everybody else forcing themselves un-invited

Misread the title as Crazy Woman Military Tactics...😅

Devide ans conquer. Something the European people have been doing ever since which is how Europe conquered the world

Bullshit, the soldiers kept a large percentage of the spoils of war. That’s how they achieved loyalty and in the end lost it.

What could have been an informative and interesting video is unwatchable due to unnecessary, asinine and puerile meme graphics.

Memento mori

Decimation is punishment, not tactics. 😂”divide and conquer” is strategy, not tactics.

Only watched 'till the corvus, and neither the decimatio, nor the corvus were tactics.

The Imperial Roman Army had Conventional Forces, Marines ( in the form of Milites Classiarii, id est, " Soldiers of the Fleet") , and even had Special Task Forces ( STFs) , 200 Soldiers ,with 70 Horsemen and 200 Spearmen( Acts 23:23) , and, Law Enforcement ( Acts 16:35). There's even a tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church where a Battalion sized element of Roman Soldiers were martyred for their faith in The LORD Jesus Christ. Surely, the Roman Armed Forces were a potent and professional Military ,but, were defeated and destroyed by the Visigoths around 431 AD. 🛡️🗡️⚔️

Based and AI pilled...meanwhile this is made by some random pajeet in the slums of mumbai

Insane Roman Tactic: Copy Hannibal

It's a video under ten minutes in length. For those expecting a full discourse on everything Roman have places too much hope on something which is basically infotainment.

These tactics didn’t work against Parthians and other Persian armies

Of forgot to say they Copy their foes 😉always

Please, don't put the stupid memes in these videos. It takes away for what otherwise is a good video with good information.

AI generated

Excellent, accurate and engaging. God! There are some stupid comments on here.

What did the Romans ever do for us?

Here we are 2024 and we are still waging war, nothing learned 😢😢😢

dis sukked

Ugh

very light, hope Napoleon anr Alexander did not lear from you...

Endless repetitive introduction and restating the premise before finally getting to the point. milking KZfaq cash.