How'd they do it?

[Bellum]

How did the celts gather armies large enough to challenge the 'civilized' world? I'm probably wrong, but it seems like just after the Roman Empire collapsed, armies were much smaller in that short period of history; Britain comes to mind. What changed?

[pezhetairoi]

Before I start, I must say that large armies are not the only way to challenge the civilised world. You can take civilisation apart with small and numerous raids just as well as with large campaigns. Now on the the main topic as I see it.

Population pressures would be one reason for the barbarians being able to get together large armies. They were actually much more numerous than the civilised armies because while the civilised armies (i.e. Roman) were institutionalised and very highly-trained and therefore smaller in numbers, the 'barbarians' came with entire populations of manhood, not merely a percentage, and these were not trained in any formal way except in the school of hard knocks. Their equipment was simple, and hence they didn't cost much to field compared to the high-logistics civilised armies. I have in mind here the Germanic peoples, since at the time the Roman Empire collapsed, the Celts had already been Romanised and looked just as good in lorica segmentata as any Italian, maybe even better. This is continental warfare as I see it.

With regards to Britain, the barbarian armies that attacked the island were not even armies, but hordes of raiders. These struck at the cohesion of the civilised society, not at any representative presence e.g. an army. They came and went so fast armies were practically useless against them, as well as most navies.

Furthermore, there was the most insidious method of challenge which is from within. Many of the armies that caused the fall of the Western Romans were actually settled and present within the Empire as foederatio, allies of sorts. Essentially it's a case of letting the wolf into your bedroom because you know your door isn't strong enough to keep it out. They took apart the Empire from within.

It isn't true that armies grew smaller post-Roman Empire, not immediately anyway. But as the Dark Ages set in, you do get forces numbering in the thousands instead of the tens of thousands like before.

[Bellum]

Yeah, I was just thinking that everything I've read about Britain, probably from 700-900 hinted at pitifully small armies, but I think I understand what your saying.

Before I start, I must say that large armies are not the only way to challenge the civilised world. You can take civilisation apart with small and numerous raids just as well as with large campaigns.

Which leads to a much more important question. Could a couple guys with couple modern gatling guns and infinite ammo take out an entire legion?

[NeoSpartan]

Another thing I would like all of you to remember is that after the fall of the Western Roman empire the Easter was still alive. And they were progressing although with difficulty in "reconquering" the Western empire. HOWEVER, it was at that moment that the 1st wave of the BLACK PALGE came in and killed a whole lot of people. Thus the Byzantine economy was destroyed, the emperor himself fell sick, (although later live but paranoyed) his wife died, and no more $$ and people to continue the campain. PLUS there wasn't much to "reconquer" anyways. It was all... Dead

[Griever14206]

It seems that following the fall of the Roman Empire, instead of the world containing 5-6 superpowers (as it did around 240 BC) many of the "nations" that participated in organized warfare were very small, and therefore the sheer volume of their armies would be reduced. Most of Europe was of course in the Dark Ages, which meant that civilization was on the down-low, which of course meant that means of producing goods was in decline, and therefore the ability to produce arms and armor was also lessened to a great extent.

One must also consider lack of any record keeping whatsoever, and therefore it would be difficult to keep track of how many people you governed, making summoning such people to fight extremely difficult.

Edited for coherence.

[artavazd]

Yeah, I was just thinking that everything I've read about Britain, probably from 700-900 hinted at pitifully small armies, but I think I understand what your saying.



Which leads to a much more important question. Could a couple guys with couple modern gatling guns and infinite ammo take out an entire legion?

i think a couple of guys with sniper rifles with infinite ammo can do the same thing