How far could the legions travel in a day

[Caius Fabius]

I served in the (foot) Infantry, and was involved in the sport of Orienteering.
We usually counted our own paces, and in the infantry, while moving across country, at least one person was the "pace man" per squad. Then at a rest, we could compare the paces, and see how far we had traveled.
The Romans had a cart invention that measured the distance traveled by the turning of a cart wheel and the dropping of stones, if I read the books correctly, but I doubt that you need to have this when you have soldiers who can count. Why would you need a slave? Counting the pace is a great way to keep your thoughts away from your blisters.

[Arngrim]

Steve Sarak\\n[quote]In “Conquest of Gaulâ€

[Mithras]

Shit. Man. hock:

As an engineer signaller i once marched 30 kilometers with 30 kilos of packing, in just over five hours, on gravel roads. I wept as i stumbled over the finish line. Other guys in the platoon, who i know was far weaker than me took a couple of hours longer than me to finish, and had no problems what so ever. Swedish ranger forces are supposed to be able to march fifty kilometers a day with bigger bergens plus taking turns with a 81 mm mortar, one per platoon. Our paracomandos are supposed to march 70 kilometers in under 24 hours in very difficult terrain. I suppose that roman veterans were more like paracomandos in stamina than like weaklings like me.

[Robert Vermaat]

As an engineer signaller i once marched 30 kilometers with 30 kilos of packing, in just over five hours, on gravel roads. I wept as i stumbled over the finish line. Other guys in the platoon, who i know was far weaker than me took a couple of hours longer than me to finish, and had no problems what so ever. Swedish ranger forces are supposed to be able to march fifty kilometers a day with bigger bergens plus taking turns with a 81 mm mortar, one per platoon. Our paracomandos are supposed to march 70 kilometers in under 24 hours in very difficult terrain. I suppose that roman veterans were more like paracomandos in stamina than like weaklings like me.

Wow. I could never do that, not even in my twenties when I was young and in shape!

How would that work in a larger Group, when all men would have to march together? I remember from my days in the military that marching in a group (especially the forced marching) was most difficult for the tallest and the shortest men, for they were always adapting their pace to the ones in the middle. Any marching effort would have been influenced by that factor, right?

[Arngrim]

You could march more kilometers per day if you march less kilometers per hour. Its the forced marches that will break you. Look at the Leisurely style of marching of the French Foreign Legion. The roman army must have had a standard length pace, and if you had to march orderly in bigger units you have to march slowly due to the accordion effect. You can't have your men march faster than the centuria in front of you or slower than the centuria behind you. Any kind of forced marching in bigger units would probably mess up your organization. I think that what the ancient meant with forced marching is that they went more miles per day, not more miles per hours. Just a guess.

By the way; In your forties you are actually better adapted to long marches than you were in your twenties, due to the changes in muscle composition from fast short cells to longer more enduring cells. One of the few advantages of growing older. Us older dudes aren't´t as quick anymore, but we can go at it all day. Not only at the road... :wink:

[Caius Fabius]

First, when you are marching long distances, you don't march in step. That is common HOLLYWOOD Garbage. I was a basic Training Company Commander at Fort Benning, in the U.S. Army. We had at least one 20 mile march every 6 weeks with basic combat load of about 20-25 KG, and many other shorter marches. (After Basic Training, and in Combat we carry much heavier loads, because we add extra ammunition, food and water). I and my NCO's marched with the men, the jeep and truck that followed carried water and any casualties.

In a long distance march, it is best to use a "route step" where the people are a bit further apart, and not trying to march in step (again, we don't have proof that the Romans did that anyway). ((Yes they learned the military pace, which may just have been a distinct length of stride.))

The shorter men are in the front of a long road march, while the taller men are at the rear, which enables the people with the shorter strides to set the pace. Since most Americans ride everywhere, most basic trainees had to first be taught to walk distances, a factor the Romans might not have worried about. At a good pace of 4 KM per hour, you can walk a very long way, especially if you stop for 5 minutes every hour for water and checking your gear, feet and buddy. The long marches were usually done along the sides of a road. I wonder if the Romans actually walked on the stone roads, or left those for wheeled traffic and couriers. The sides of a road, dirt or grass are much easier on the feet than a hard surface. However in sand or wet ground it is better to walk on a hard packed surface.

A regular basic trainee could walk 40KM in a day, if we started them early and gave them plenty of water. In severe weather days, hot, cold, wet this is reduced. In the mountains, swamps or sand this is reduced, in heavy vegetation, this is reduced. On the other hand, at the end of the march, they just had to dig a foxhole or fighting position, not put up a whole Roman fort.

Removing weight was good for short, high speed movement, but over a long distance, a soldier who is accustomed to carrying 20KG doesn't lose much distance.

The hardest courses were the "combat trainers" where you had to cover 4-6 KM in under an hour, while carrying weapons, ammo, water and a light pack, vest and helmet, and engage targets along the course, through broken ground and dense vegetation. You could fail for going over time, or for not seeing the targets or for missing the targets you were supposed to shoot. The guys with the heavy weapons had the worst of it, so we usually helped by trading weapons and sharing the heaviest loads, just like we did on the long marches.

[Robert Vermaat]

First, when you are marching long distances, you don't march in step. That is common HOLLYWOOD Garbage.
[..]
The shorter men are in the front of a long road march, while the taller men are at the rear, which enables the people with the shorter strides to set the pace.

Of course that's Hollywood. But I don't think anyone even suggested that.
It's nice to have short men in front and taller at the rear, but that won't have been any use for a Roman unit on the march.
Afawk, the Roman army marched in a formation where the contubernium had a fixed position in the column, enabling the column to form the designated front line as effectively as possible.

That means you can't mix up the men according to lenght and thus ease the marching. And, indeed, we don't know if the Romans knew that.

Oh, and, even when the short legs set the pace, that still means that the taller ones have to adjust their 'natural' stride.

[Arngrim]

I know that the carolean army under normal circumstances marched between 20 and 30 kilometers a day with a days rest every other day, and they used the same means of transportation ( transport, personnel, leather boot). Besides wouldn't it make sense to leapfrog your army (The vanguard waiting for the rear to catch up). Especially if you had just one road and couldn't march in parallel columns, and you couldn't be sure when and where you would come into contact with an enemy? I wouldn't be very smart to come into contact with an angry neighbor with your vanguard while most of your army were still miles away.

Just the musings of an armchair tactician.

[Felix]

Baggage is also an issue. Any army with an animal-powered baggage train has to cope with the beasts as well. Horses and oxen need to water and graze, and that takes time, and oxen are (as I understand it) just plain slow. Very strong, but they are not very fast under any conditions. And of course, wagons and carts need decent roads to move at any speed. Each time a wagon gets stuck, the whole column loses time. Once you get to a legion sized unit, with artillery and so forth, mobility may be reduced considerably.

[Caius Fabius]

Romans matched their chariot teams by stride and height. They had litter bearers who were probably matched the same way. The idea of learning a Roman marching pace may be just that, everyone learning to walk all with a certain distance for their stride. If you look at some accounts, the soldiers selected for the legions were chosen by height, which would possibly mean the tent groups were divided by height as well.

I doubt that there is much about marching a modern drill manual could have taught ancient Roman, if they cared about it. They walked and marched every day, and had hundreds of years of experience and institutional memory. The modern military pace in the US Army is 30 inches, my normal paces is 36 inches, (we measure this for the sport of orienteering), but after being trained in the "Military Pace" I could "fall in to the pace" automatically, and with no problems on a short or long march, even when walking at the 'route step'.

We know from Josephus and Vegetius that they did march in a strung out column, with flankers and scouts posted to prevent ambushes. That didn't always work, but again, it is a TOTAL MODERN ASSUMPTION that Roman soldiers marched in "step". The ROMAN PACE is a distance, and has not been proved as a cadence. (And they didn't march to drums....)

If you give each man the individual distance that is mentioned by some of the ancient manuscripts, they were not marching in close order, and so would not have to worry about stepping on each other, as long as they kept their place. This is discussed elsewhere, and probably not worth repeating again and again. One either accepts what we are told by people who were closer to the time, or you add modern assumptions and 'know' something that is not yet proven as a fact.

[Iosephus]

Avete!

Arngrim: The roman marching column was normaly reinforced with cavalry. The mounted troops scouted ahead of the column checking for possible enemies. Ceasar's works are full with this kind of activity so "accidentaly" engaging the enemy while the army is in marching order was minimal.

Caius Fabius wrote:
"I wonder if the Romans actually walked on the stone roads..."

I have recently got a copy of Ripa Pannonica Magyarországon (Ripa Pannonica in Hungary) from Prof. Dr. Visy Zsolt (he is the most famous hungarian limes archeologist).
The book is a complete archeological summary of roman sites found along the Danube line in Hungary.
He writes, that the limes road in Pannonia was covered in gravel. Only the parts that run inside settlements were stone-covered.

Of course other roads in other provinces could be built entirely of stone, but not in Pannonia.

[Arngrim]

Iosephus, you are propably right. I was thinking that an army of, say, four legions plus auxilia plus baggage on a single road makes a very
long column. I also had a vision of the german forrests where the cavalry wouldn´t have noticed jack sh*t before being massacred. I keep forgetting that all of Europe does not look like the f***ing conifer jungle outside my window. Somplaces your line of sight is more than ten meters.

[Mithras]

I keep forgetting that all of Europe does not look like the f***ing conifer jungle outside my window. Somplaces your line of sight is more than ten meters.

Sounds neat to me!

JUst the cold, and the long winters. Its bad enough living in Yorkshire, never mind the Arctic Circle )

[Tarbicus]

I thought the actual ambush and "battle" took place in open space between the forest and marshland? It was just too narrow for full formation or manoeuvre.

[Arngrim]

Mithras;
If you believe our winters are cold, you should try our women!
Actually, the part of Sweden i live in is propably no closer to the north pole than south Scotland or even Yorkshire. (Damn, if i just could find my map book).

Back to the subject;
I wept because i was totaly untrained and in an idiotic attac of machismo chose to march in the regiments second toughest group. Onlly a group of professional officers was faster than our group. If i had marched slower 30 kilometers would have been a cake-walk.

My point is that 30 plus kilometers a day would have been nothing to a trained roman infantry man. Even if they had to erect a fort afterwards. A forced march could propably extend for as long as forty or fifty kilometers a day - for a short period of time. Our paracommandos would have trouble fighting their way out of wet paper bags after their seventy kilometers. Forget about any forts or fighting bluepainted football hooligans. And they are our elite!