New skins for legio lanciarii

[Chlodwig]

Hello
I have a little question
Anybody knonows realistic skins and animations for barbarian heavy infantry? I need something like that for West empires comitatenses. In IV century comitatenses in the west looked very similar to the barbarian heavy inantry and skins I know doesn't be proper. :sweatingb
Help!

[Lusted]

Well my late roman reskin features historically accurate models and textures.

[Chlodwig]

When can I look at your work? I've already downloaded it, but I can check it just at home. Give me a link to pictures from your skins please.

[Chlodwig]

I hope your barbarian infantry have steel helmet, ringmail, heavy spear, red military overcoat and big and oval shield?

Ha! I can see a dragon as signum! Nice! Do you have a picture with you infantry in shield wall formation?

Double post - please use the edit button in future.

[Lusted]

Well when you click on the link in my sig "LUSTEDS LATE ROMANS v2.0" it should take you to the download page, there are screenshots there.

[Lusted]

No i don't. Mine is only a historically accurate late roman reskin. You did ask for sometihng to use for comitatensis.

And the signum is the draconarii type standard which was used by the late roman army.

[Chlodwig]

I last year of existing of west roman empire, the comitatensis from west were armed like barbarian. Roman empire armourer workshops produced weapon and armor in barbarian fasion. So, the west roman army looked as allmost the same as barbarian armies. Romans were perceiving as weak and the barbarian in roman army were despiseing Roman and roman facion (for example august Honoriusz - i don't konow how write it in english - admired huns and wered huns clouds - the same was with barbaric officers - they prefered barbaric clouds and armament in barbarian fasion - not produce - and looked like they brothers from behind limes . that's why I need barbaric heavy infantry skins for "roman" comitatenses).

[Lusted]

You are talking about the foederati troops used by the late roman empires. Most of the armies were still roman, but they used large amounts of foederati to help defend the border.

[Chlodwig]

Lusted -
"Most of the armies were still roman, but they used large amounts of foederati to help defend the border."
you are right - in east army. In west army from second half of the IVth century and Vth century Roman had not recruit base and they had to use tirones (peasants draft by force to the army - they had only very chip helmed, poor quality shield and short spear - they usually ran away in first clasch) and a lot of barbarian lower officers. Tirones looked like peasants with shield, helmed and light spear and barbarian officers usually looked like barbarian nobles.

[margeta2005]

"The late Roman army is often stated to have suffered from barbarisation, a deterioriation of old standards as the result of the recruitment of large numbers of barbarians, especially Germanic tribesmen, from across the borders of the empire. In fact the recruitment of barbarians into the ranks of the late Roman army did not take place in extraordinary numbers. Recent research indicated that even in the auxilia palatina, formerly considered to be heavily barbarian in composition, only a fifth to a quarter of soldiers were of barbarian extraction. Many early imperial army units contained a higher proportion of foreigners or only recently subjected barbarians. The majority of troops in the late Roman army were therefore of provincial Roman origin.

Barbarian influence on tactics, equipment and organisation also appears to have been very limited. The longer swords used by Roman infantry soldiers from the second century AD were not a sign of changing tactics. The use of the Roman shortswords for stabbing rather than slashing has always been overemphasized in modern literature. Even the republican legionaries are explicitly described by Polybius to employ their Spanish swords for slashing as well as thrusting. The longer blades of late Roman troops were pointed and would have increased their reach in close quarter battle. The spatha was in fact not a weapon that Romans took over from Germanic barbarians, but a seperate Roman development of earlier Celtic blades. As most weapons of this type found across the borders were imports from the Roman empire it appears that the barbarians adopted a Roman weapon rather than the other way round.

The performance in battle of late Roman troops was not significantly worse than that of their early imperial counterparts. The Roman army had never been an invincible war machine. The battle at Adrianople fitted in the list of Cannae, Carrhae, the Varian disaster, Tapae and countless other defeats. Even poorly armed Judean rebels destroyed the legio XII in the early stages of the Jewish War. The late Roman army had more than a fair chance of victory against any barbarian opponent it met. Persians, Sarmatians and Germans all alike were defeated time and again."

From a wikipedia link

[Lusted]

See? My late roman reskin is very accurate, it shows the late legionares with the intercisa style helm, vidan shield and spartha sword and armoured in the lorica hamata.

[Chlodwig]

I can't agree with this text. We have some excavations from IV-V century, but we havn't a proofs to this thesis. I espetially have big reservations to this sentence:
The longer swords used by Roman infantry soldiers from the second century AD were not a sign of changing tactics.
Someone who wrote this sentence never had a sword in a hand. Espetially spatha and gladius sword. Gladius is a wespon to stab and spatha is the sword to slash. You have to remember, that roman legionares in roman empire first period fought in close formation. They aimed to take enemies formation off pushing them by ourselfs shields. In this kind of tactics short sword good to stab is the best because during fight in crowd you have no place to using a long weapon. When you would like to use smth like spatha, you have to have place to take a swing. So, the interspace betwee two soldiers must be much bigger then using short gladius. Spatha is the sword to single fight. Gladius is the sword to fight in close formations.

Romans legioneires fought first as a javeline throwers. Just after throw away pilum, they made a shield wall and tryed to take enemies formation off. Just after this they could fight one to one, bacause fighting with no-broken enemy, they could suffer big losses in men (why? it's very simply - they were shorter and weaker then most of barbarian enemies). When Roman started to recruit barbarian to legions, the soldiers startet to be big and strong, so they started to prefer a fight one by one (like barbarians).
Moreover - in the course of time, Roman started to fight with mounted barbarian. In this case, they had to fight using spears (they used to use a heavy version of javelin) in close formations. Ammian Marcelinus say, that roman fought in close formation not only with nomad. They fought like this witch Germans too (look at his description of battle of Argentoratum)
As a conclusion - in the course of time - roman legion ceased to be an offensive force - they started to be a base to cavalry pricers movements and a protection for own main offensive kind of units - ballistiarii (ballistas, onagers, gastraphetes). For this tasks close formation was most adequat then manipular (open).

[Lusted]

May i suggest you read this thread?

http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...pic=12483&st=0

[Chlodwig]

uhmmmm... I've already read it. And?
I know one thing: after great mess from III century, Roman army was going to reduce of costs of army keeping. So, the natural way was army divide to garrisons part defending limes (milites limitanei) and field part allot to seize and destroy big invasions. As I sed, Romans had have a big troubels witch recruiting soldiers to the army ( fast decreasing of recuits quality, aversion to military service, increasing pacifism etc). So, they had to use tactics expousing his atmy to possibly lowest losses in men. That's the way because Roman started to use a lot archers and field artillery. In this tactics the infantry was a static, passive part of army. They simply had to only protect archers. Legion from i century was very flexibility - they could fight with all kinds of opponent. They could fight and win with infantry, cavalry, elephants, etc. But this tactics given them fast victory or defeat and relatively big losses. Unfortunately, the republic rectruits possibility was much more, then empire recruits possibility. So after disaster of Kanny (I don't know englisch spelling - it was a roman consular army defeat during second punnic war) they easily could to create new army. After defeat of Adrianopolis it was not so easy.

[Lusted]

But my point is that most of the roman troops were still recruited form inside the empire. The spartha, ovidan and lorica hamata were used to make the legionaires more mobile, and better able to respond to the threats of the late empire. With the ovidan replacing the tower shield, a longer slashing sword such as the spartha would be much better to use in concert with it than the stabbing gladius.