>>18338176A cohort of legionaries decked out in lorica segmenta marching in unison with scutum in hand and gladius pointed forward was about as close to the equivalent of a very fast main battle tank in comparison to other Ancient era tactics and equipment. And nobody but the Romans really had an effective version of one. The most effective thing against a Roman legion was ironically another Roman legion.
The Greek phalanx was too rigid of a formation. It’s huge, had easily exploited weak points, and takes a fucking long time to move. All the Romans did was take the phalanx, make the shield larger, ditch the spear in favor of a more easy to handle short stabbing sword, and enforce strict discipline and an emphasis on not breaking formation no matter what.
Other than using cataphract cavalry and utilizing the Parthian shot and a feinted charge technique that the Parthians used against Marcus Crassus, it was near unbeatable in a straight up fight, even against 5:1 odds. Crassus might have been able to retreat or come up with a better plan if he wasn’t such an arrogant and shitty commander, his ego inflated because he helped put down a slave revolt while it was actually Pompey who did most of the work.
Even war elephants didn’t work that well, which actually were more of a heavy support tank. The Romans would just open a gap in their battle lines for the elephants to charge through and then jab at it with their pilum and bang their shields to get the thing to freak out, dislodge the elephant handlers and support archers that were mounted on to it, and watch as it attacked the men on it’s own side.
Or they just shoot the fucker with an ambush of auxiliary archers or slingers and watch it panic before it even comes close like they did against Hannibal.
