The 1,000 man legion

[Timotheus]

A few minor comments:

As to Timotheus' point, modern miltary forces do not deploy armies of 50,000 men in order to train the commanders !! Officer training is done by means of TEWTS ( Tactical Exercises Without Troops) and Staff Courses. The 'Basic' unit sizes are immaterial to this ( because any sized hypothetical units can be used). Doubtless the Romans did the same ( though they may not have needed complex Staffs, given the different scale of armies involved....certainly their Staffs seem to have been minimal....but that is a different discussion for another day !

My point was that especially in the day before war colleges and advanced simulation knowing your troops and your fellow officers would be an invaluable asset on the battlefield.

Given equal terrain and equal equipment a principate legion of 6000 men who have travelled and fought under the same general. Knows what he expects, whose officers know how to interpret his commands and how to react and fit within his strategic style when forced to think on the fly are going to always be better and more efficient than taking six 1000 man legions and throwing them together before the battle and expecting them to perform as well.

This point was only relevant to the idea that lots of little units would then be less useful in the east where dealing with small tribal barbarian raiders would be much less of an issue and dealing with much larger Persian excusions much more likely.