10-20-2006, 05:50 AM
I'm not quite rock solid on this concept, so allow me to pose it as a question: How much more logistically effeicient would a industrial age war be than an ancient war in the mediteranean?
Agreeably at least somewhat, but I doubt it's as dramatic as it seems. 10 days to move supplies from storage to front lines isn't bad at all. An ancient army would be much less concerned with constant ammunition problems, and most likely wouldn't support their wounded nearly as well. Dried foods and grains really don't get much smaller, even today meals don't take up all that much less space. Again I'd mentiong that the Persians are a desert people who were highly mobile to begin with. Hand tools and repair supplies would have probably changed very little as well I imagine. I really fail to see how industrial technology would have greatly aided the situation.
I'm not saying it would be 'as easy' as an industrial age campaign, I just don't see what technology would have made their campaign much faster, other than better boats. Remember waging war over water would be costly, but would make supplieing and army much simpler than using roads. Especially since they had so much practice fighting these kinds of war and using these specific weapons. An industrial age army had many problems to hammer out because of oversights that seem obvious to modern military command, just because of the rapid change in over all tactics. The Persians were using the same basic weapons they'de had for some very long times, they would know *exactly* how much their army would need to run.
And for what it's worth, I agree with Stefanos, 3,000,000 seems like the top limit to me.
Agreeably at least somewhat, but I doubt it's as dramatic as it seems. 10 days to move supplies from storage to front lines isn't bad at all. An ancient army would be much less concerned with constant ammunition problems, and most likely wouldn't support their wounded nearly as well. Dried foods and grains really don't get much smaller, even today meals don't take up all that much less space. Again I'd mentiong that the Persians are a desert people who were highly mobile to begin with. Hand tools and repair supplies would have probably changed very little as well I imagine. I really fail to see how industrial technology would have greatly aided the situation.
I'm not saying it would be 'as easy' as an industrial age campaign, I just don't see what technology would have made their campaign much faster, other than better boats. Remember waging war over water would be costly, but would make supplieing and army much simpler than using roads. Especially since they had so much practice fighting these kinds of war and using these specific weapons. An industrial age army had many problems to hammer out because of oversights that seem obvious to modern military command, just because of the rapid change in over all tactics. The Persians were using the same basic weapons they'de had for some very long times, they would know *exactly* how much their army would need to run.
And for what it's worth, I agree with Stefanos, 3,000,000 seems like the top limit to me.
