HMS Ocean vs Roman Empire at height

[Bastard]

HMS Ocean.



Assault ship. Can base 850 Royal Marines. To get them from the ship to their objective, it has 12 Sea King transport helicopters, and 4 amphibious landing craft.

It also has 6 Westland Lynx attack helicopters.

If the ship was sent back in time, and arrived in the Mediterranian Sea at the time when the Roman Empire was at its height, could the marines from the ship bring down the Empire?

The Only condition I'm imposing on this debate is that the Lynx's are only to be used if the Marines get into difficulty and really need urgent helicopter gunship support.

(BTW the ship itself is armed with Phalanx CIWS and 20mm cannon. Against Roman galleys such as any would-be boarders would use, these guns would be leaden death in the extreme. So as long as Ocean stays more than a few hundred yards from any coast, she is an invulnerable base for the marines to operate from.)

[Bastard]

Sometimes Ocean uses Chinooks instead of Sea Kings though. I'm not sure what it's Chinook complement is though if it's carrying them.


Caption: "Royal Marines about to board a Chinook on HMS Ocean"

[Cpt_Frank]

Hmm, since the ship can neither access the land portions of the Roman Empire nor Conquer them with 800 soldiers, it can't win. On the other hand, it can't lose.

[NecronLord]

It'd run out of ammo eventually, and oil, and consumables, then the romans would wait until the entire crew starved or were forced to land, and slaughter them, bayonets and knives versus Romans?

[NecronLord]

Also now i think about it the roamans would then learn the secret of gunpowder, (prisoners) and probably various other things as well.

[Crown]

If I were the commander of the ship I would;

1. Form an alliance with Rome's enemies, so that may continue to supply us with food and water.

2. In exchange order my allies to attack, where by we will provide air cover.

or

3. Bomb Rome, pretend to be Jupiter and apoint myself as the real emperor, problem solved!

[Manji]

This appears to be a repost of a SB topic from a while ago.

The answer to me is obvious - the ship can easily defeat the Empire, simply by sailing to Rome and taking it over.

The technology difference is so great that a 4-man squad of marines would easily be worth regiments of hundreds or even thousands of Roman soldiers.

The best way would be to use helicopters to set assault forces down throughout the city, securing key points such as military barracks and government buildings, including the senate and imperial whatsit (wherever Ceasar stays). The Emperor and all the senators will be captured and put on helicopters to be taken back to Ocean, where they will be informed that they will now be turning over control of the city and the empire, and would they sign here please. (Use someone who speaks Greek to get around the language barrier - all educated Romans were fluent in it, and unlike Latin, it still exists and has native speakers today). They will of course surrender immediately (having seen your might and technology, they will realize there is no choice), and you will now control the Roman Empire.

[Cpt_Frank]

Don't make me laugh! You're saying a small squad is equivalent to whole legions!
In case you don't know, the Romans have bowmen, and although the marines are able to kill many of the roman soldiers, if they're outnumbered so badly, sooner or later they'll be killed.

[NecronLord]

slight problem however, there were no barracks in rome, they were ouside it, other than that nitpick it should also be pointed out the roaman legionary armour is bullteproof, though hydro kenetic shock from the impact may still kill the wearer, so the marines would need armour peircing rounds, also the Empire had more than a million troops at it's height. Look at black hawk down, even with superior tech there is only so much a small team can do against vast numbers. When Ceasar is captured, not a certainty, they are having difficulty with OBL. They would have to get the army to surrender as well, not a certainty, the army was Not Particularly loyal to ceasar himself but to The Senete and People of Rome. Each Legate would probably make their own attempt to take back rome, 850 marines Max Versus (5000x25 legionaries=125,000 legionaries) bearing in mind that most of the marines will be armed with the SA-80 assault rifle, the most unreliable weapon in the world. They would be forced to Evac, and scavenge small ouposts. Eventually the ship would run out of oil and would be worse than useless, Without maintenace or new ammo the weapons would be nonfunctional in a few months.

(As a sidenote the Ocean is a helicopeter carrier, it doesnt have bombers, the best you could do is improvise and drop grenades out of a chinook which isn't very effectie)

[NecronLord]

At one stage near the end of the empire every legionary had a crossbow, a four man squad aint gonna last long..

[Smiling Bandit]

Minor point here Necron, but...

Who said the Imperial Legions would get a chance to shoot? Look at Cortez vs. the Incas. He showed up and smashed a huge army simply by shooting loud guns. These new weapons terrified the Inca. Also, the rate of fire, accuracy, and sheer tactical advantage seem to favor the attackers.

Please provide a cite for the idea that Roman Legionary armor is bulletproof.

[Akm72]

While I'm not sure they'd win, the Marines COULD defeat a very large force of Roman Legions;

As well as the SA80 (which while crap, isn't quite as bad as some say), the Marines have frag-grenades, incendary grenades and claymore mines, modern sniper rifles in various caliber, anti-personel and anti-tank mines, 7.62mm GPMGs, 12.7mm HMGs, 51 and 81mm morters, 105mm towed howitzers, Milan ATGM, LAW80 disposable anti-tank rockets and night-vision goggles. So even if they have problems with their little rifles, they have a LOT of extra support firepower.
Also most of the helicopters have door-mounted 7.62mm MGs, and the Chinook has door-mounted 7.62mm miniguns which will just chew up Roman formations.
Hell even barbed wire by itself will be a problem for an advancing Legion, even before you've set up your GPMG kill-zones and anti-personnel mines.

I reckon the Commando and Navy engineers and logistics people on the Ocean could set up manufacturing facilities to make more ammunition as they should have a pretty good supply of machine tools on the Ocean. Just so long as they can find a supply of the raw materials.

Food won't be such a problem - they probably find something to barter with the local peasants for food if required, and if not they could just take what they need anyway.

Fuel for the ship and helicopters would be the most difficult area, as I guess you'd need to set up an oil drilling and refining facility, which would take a long time. During which the ship and helicopters are rapidly burning up the existing supplies.

[NecronLord]

1 Romans were more advanced than the incas
2 Romans didn't have a prophecy about a god from over the sea, which greatly helped the conquistadores
3 The conquistadores had support, the Ocean wouldn't
4 Almost all armour is bulletproof, somewhat like Mr.Wongs sheild page, bullets rarely penatrate armour, unless they are armour peircing rounds
what actually kills you if you are weaing armour and shot on the armout is Hydro-Kenetic shock, in otherwords, human bodies are mostly water, when kenetic energy is transferred to it the enrgy is dissapated throughout the body, this effect is one of the things which make projectile weapons deadly as the energy travels the organs of the body are damaged, the damage to internal organs can kill someone even if the bullet(s) doesn't
Actually i got the bulletproof thing from a man who makes armour for a roman re-enactment group. It won't stop sniper rifles or armour peircing rounds. Hence why materials such as Kevlar are more effective than steel as these dissapate energy more than transfer it to the wearer.

In addition the Ocean would have great difficulty setting up and defending installations required to manufacture ammunition, but it is probably not impossible. Getting oil would be though, unless they choose to cannibalise the ship for parts, which negates the problem anyway

I don't think all 5000 legionarys are going to run away, considering the level of discipline they usually showed from four men. Bearing in mind what the romans did to cowards.

Yes the romans would take horrendous casualties, but if they ran into problems regarding barbed wire killzones, emplace HMG's then thy'd do what they did at Massada and round up the locals and get them to do their dirty work.

[Akm72]

Yes the romans would take horrendous casualties, but if they ran into problems regarding barbed wire killzones, emplace HMG's then thy'd do what they did at Massada and round up the locals and get them to do their dirty work.

In this case the locals are from Rome (assuming the Ocean has headed straight for the center of the Roman Empire as suggested), they'd be getting their OWN people to walk across minefields and MG kill-zones. This would make the Marines job MUCH easier, as the locals would all side with the Marines - no need for the usual 'hearts and minds' campaign.

The Legions would also have other problems - their high ranking officers would be being picked off by snipers, their formations would be torn apart by morters and light artillary everytime they try to attack, their camps and garrisons would be attacked at night with incendaries to burn down the wooden and canvas structures.
If they tried to scout out the enemy fortifications, they'd risk being picked off by Marine sharpshooters. Meanwhile the Marines would move patrols and SBS teams to observation posts by night to provide warning of any Legions approaching their positions by day.
The Marines would be moving and attacking at night and defending by day - the Legionaries would be in danger 24 hours a day if they are anywhere near the Marine bases.

While the Marines still have fuel and ammunition this is not much of a contest, unless the Marines make mistakes when setting up their defences.

[NecronLord]

at the height of the empire 2/3 of Romes population were slaves, a good percentage municipal slaves, they would send them

[NecronLord]

SBS unavailable, Patrol largly unavailable, you only have 850 marines remember, The ship is on it's own, obiusly with support they would slaughter the romans, just call in an Armoured devision

[Akm72]

The standard Amphibious Ready Group will look like this;



1 x Commando Group;
1 x HQ Coy with attached support units;
1 x Recce Troop with Snipers attached
1 x Anti-Tank Troop (each with ? x Milan firing posts)
1 x Mortar Troop (with 9 x 81mm Mortars)
1 x MMG Troop (with 7.62mm GPMGs)
1 x Logistics Coy
2 x Stand-off Combat Coy (one wheeled, one tracked) with;
1 x HMG Troop (each with 6 x 0.5" HMG)
1 x Anti-Tank Troop (each with 6 x Milan firing posts)
1 x Close Combat Troop (each with SA80A2, LSW, LAW94 and 51mm Mortar, 7.62mm GPMG and LRR)
(total strength of each Stand-off Coy is 5 officers and 78 other ranks)
2 x Close Combat Coy each with;
3 x Close Combat Troops (each with SA80A2, LSW, LAW94 and 51mm Mortar, 7.62mm GPMG and LRR)
(total strength of each Close-combat Coy is 5 officers and 98 other ranks)

Total strength of the entire Commando Group is 692 (all ranks).

If 850 men are available, that means we probably have a battery of 105mm guns available (6-8 guns), each of which requires 6 crew. And a company size unit of Royal Engineers.

[Akm72]

LRR by the way is a .338 sniper rifle firing armour-piercing rounds with a range out to 1.2km - every single Commando Troop has them.

LAW94 is a 94mm unguided HEAT rocket with a range of 500m against tanks. Every Fire Section has 4 of them.

[RayCav of ASVS]

couldn't the Ocean ram any Roman ship (or have a Roman ship ram it, for that matter) and pretty much win?

[Manji]

Yeah, it could. But I don't think the idea of the thread is so much about ship to ship combat as about having this ship there as transport and base for a land invasion army...

Right?

[Bastard]

Yeah, it could. But I don't think the idea of the thread is so much about ship to ship combat as about having this ship there as transport and base for a land invasion army...

Right?

Right.

[Smiling Bandit]

4 Almost all armour is bulletproof, somewhat like Mr.Wongs sheild page, bullets rarely penatrate armour, unless they are armour peircing rounds what actually kills you if you are weaing armour and shot on the armout is Hydro-Kenetic shock, in otherwords, human bodies are mostly water, when kenetic energy is transferred to it the enrgy is dissapated throughout the body, this effect is one of the things which make projectile weapons deadly as the energy travels the organs of the body are damaged, the damage to internal organs can kill someone even if the bullet(s) doesn't Actually i got the bulletproof thing from a man who makes armour for a roman re-enactment group. It won't stop sniper rifles or armour peircing rounds. Hence why materials such as Kevlar are more effective than steel as these dissapate energy more than transfer it to the wearer.

I have read Wong's page. So what? Your post implies that because the armor can survive, the wearer will. I don't care if they come out polished and shiny, the Roman Legions will freaking die by the thousands. Their tactics are utterly useless for getting them anything but killed. The Royal Marine can hold off a hundred thousand men, easily.

[Cpt_Frank]

I dunno, but this 'one marine is equivalent to thousands of roman soldiers'
is slowly reaching trekkie levels of masturbatory over-estimation of capabilities. (no insult intended)
With 850 modern soldiers, you can win against, say, at least 10000 roman soldiers. You may even win against 15000 or 30000, perhaps even 50000 but beyond that the marines are so badly outnumbered they will have to lose.
Obviously some here think the romans will have to get so close to the marines they can slaughter them with their swords.
Remeber: those guys also have ranged weapons: composite bows, later even crossbows. They were standard issue. They had an effective range of approximately 200 meters. With an extreme numerical advantage, they will be able to win.

Even if the marines were able to win every single battle, they would still lose the war. Why? because it is impossible to occupy the whole Roman Empire with several hundred men.

Btw, the Romans would probably not fight at all, because people who can fly with birds made of iron, have an invincible ship and kill their enemies by sending fire down on them must be gods, or at least semi-gods.

[NecronLord]

I never claimed the romans had UBER armour, that was mearly a definintion of bulltproof. The point is completely moot anyway, the ship will run out of fuel and lubricant.

[Akm72]

I agree that occupying the whole Roman Empire is ridiculous with just a single Commando group. But is that the likly objective of the RM ARG? What they really need to do is establish a home base, purely for their own survival, as they can't sit around in HMS Ocean forever.

They 'only' need to carve out a small defendable enclave from Roman territory, and defeat any army sent to kick them out.

As to the various Roman arrow/bolt throwers and seige catapults, they are almost completely neutralised on the battle-field by equipping every combat troop with a modern sniper rifle and GPMG (as the latest RM organisation does), which can accurately take out any major Roman long-range weapons well before the Romans can get in range. Also the Romans have no answer to counter-battery fire from the RMs using 81mm and 105mm tubes.

Roman tactics and weapons are designed to destroy enemy shield-wall formations or to assault walled fortifications. They have never faced the combination of barbed-wire, minefields, high explosives and machine-gun fire that the RM will use in defence. They also have no answer to the tactical mobility of the RMs - how are they going to deal with hit and run tactics using wheeled or tracked vehicles equipped with roof-top MGs?