marching yoke

[Karus]

I know I'm setting myself up for a good kicking here but does anyone else think that the marching yoke is a bit unpractical not to say unbelievable? All armies since the romans have slung their gear in packs or pouches with the weight spread around the body. Hanging thirty or forty pounds of dead weight from a pole a foot above your head and then balancing it on one shoulder just does,nt make sense to me.The pressure on the spine and hip/knee on that side would be horrendous and at the end of a days march you`d hardly be able to move let alone dig in for the night. Having done more than my share of tabbing for miles with a full load in the military of my era I have to say that the most important part of the exercise was properly balancing the weight around your body. Get it wrong and you were in bits after just a few miles. Do we really think they could march twenty miles with the full marching load strung on a pole and then dig a fortified camp or do we just continue with this idea because all we've got is trajans column and no one can think of anything else? Discuss :wink:

[Marcus Mummius]

Salve Karus,

First of all, please add your real name to your signature in your profile. That's a forum rule. :wink:

Have you already marched with a loaded furca? From your description above, I'd dare to say you haven't. If you would march with the furca the same way as the soldiers on Trajan's Column (with the load high above the shoulder) you would be in a lot of pain before too long. They probably depicted the soldiers this way on the column to offer a good view on the equipment hanging down from the furca. The trick is however to have the pack rest on your back. Not on one shoulder. The pole goes over one shoulder, but the packs rest on your entire upper back. If you march with the scutum on your back the load of the furca will rest over the top edge of the scutum. This means that most of the weight rests on the attachment points of your scutum to your body. If the carriage system of your scutum is good, this will ensure that the weight is nicely distributed over the body. I marched using the Junkelman carriage system and can say that this isn't a good idea. Blood circulation to my left arm got cut off and after a while it became very painful. a simple 'backpack' style carriage system is a much better way to carry the scutum on your back.

A big advantage of carrying most of your equipment on a furca is that in case of an ambush or another sudden need to be unencumbered you are able to drop all of your kit at once and be ready to fight or do something else. It also means that afterwards you are able to just pick up the furca, put it over your shoulder and march on. No need to collect all of your seperate bags and bits.


Just my experience :wink:

Vale,
Jef

[Tarbicus]

How would you wear a backpack, and take it off quickly, whilst wearing segmentata or squamata? Besides, it's describes and portrayed, so there's plenty of evidence.

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=17933

[Hibernicus]

Karus, your shoulders would be also be padded, probably the shoulder sections of the padded under armor garment. The padding is also better if its shaped to create a flat shoulder. This makes an enourmous difference in comfort and in how the sarcina rides.

Also, those photos of replica gear on the furca, where the gear is all a-dangle are, from our experinces, impracticle. Too much loose gear can cause the load to sway and THAT can become tiring if not tiresome! .. maybe even dangerous.. a pala hanging from its "D" handle! ....yikes!

If the gear is lashed down well and snug it rides quite comfortably.

[brennivs - tony drake]

Ive had no problem carrying my Fvrca as Hibernicvs says its the padding that helps and is a good way of carrying kit. I show kids why it is made the way it is, by making them wear a rucksack and asking them, to take it off without putting the shield down, put helmet on and draw sword. It takes a second to loose all that weight just by letting go with your fingers.
Regards Brennivs

[Triarius]

I've used this technique when portaging between lakes in the BWCAW and the Quetico in Canada—some of the worst terrain to walk over in the world. It works. Even without padding on your shoulder, it is much easier to breath than when carrying the load in a pack.

[Karus]

dear all.. well thanks for not putting the boot in! I take all your comments and bow to your experience. In fairness have never tried using one of these things and I posed the question purely out of interest mainly because it looks so bloody uncomfortable. In parting however I still feel that the legions whose bywords if any would surely be `practicality first` must surely have come up with a better system than this. The argument that it`s easy to drop the load when coming into contact does`nt convince me..modern infantry have to do the same thing (had to do it myself and believe me it`s surprising how quickly you can shed a fighting load when you have to). Also the point about carrying gear over body armour..our guys in Iraq and Afganistan (and for that matter me and my mates in South armagh in the 80`s) wear body armour that`s every bit as heavy and uncomfortable as a lorica but they still carry their gear slung close in rather than on a pole..I know that the system illustrated on Trajans column is pretty well all there is but in the back of my mind I still have to wonder whether thats the whole story..is there no evidence for some sort of patrol or fighting order? Please excuse my ignorance I`m new to all this but find it facinating and this system just looks wrong to me. ..by the way full 21st c name John Hyland..

regards all

[Hibernicus]

John,

One of the most difficult things about Roman reenactment is that we do not know everyhting.. in some instances we don't know enough which means that when we get some sculptural evidence (as unworthy as the details may be) and it's backed to one extent or another by written evidence we tend to latch on to it as the most likely answer.

I cannot account for the miles we've trudged about with a sarcina (furca and all its gear), yet I can attest to it's effectveness it's simplicity and it's practicality.

I think that you'll find that the segmentata is more comfortable than modern military body armor. If you can do sit ups in shorts and a t-shirt then you can do sit ups in a segmentata. The actice duty guys in our club have said that they'd love to have body armor that's articulated like a segmentata.

[Karus]

cheers mate..fair point

[Tarbicus]

John, you need to re-read some of the posts, and imagine a time before kevlar, et al. There aren't only images of the furca but also text references from primary sources IIRC. If you can find a single mosaic, fresco, sculpture, etc, of a modern day style backpack then let us know - that's the real acid test. There are bags and seemingly blankets rolled and wrapped around the body US civil war style, but no backpacks. I'm sorry to say it, but you're anachronising heavily using modern military experience.

[Karus]

fair point

[A_Volpe]

I [still] hold IMHO that images on Trajan's Column had been simplified and generalized to make it easier for the viewing public - who would otherwise have no clue to recognize specific details on military equipment (and why would they?)- to be able to "see" it's a soldier, Oh and look, he's marching with his buddies, my my look at all of that stuff they have to travel with, too! *tsk* that Emperor Trajan sure was a slave-driver in Dacia!

AFAIK, the column goes up a number of stories, so the poor guy at the base of the column looking up won't be able to see the tiny little dots representing rivets on the [armor] 30 feet up.

So it's likely (again IMHO), that the marching packs seen on the column are shown the way they are so the viewer gets a basic idea of all of the stuff [we] needed to haul around. And even at that end, I've been thinking that perhaps the marching images we're seeing on the Column may instead be showing soldiers on a "light" march, perhaps on some sort of 'work detail' or a short-range deployment...It could be just light enough to allow them to carry the pack "high" as seen; but, I personally don't think that's 'practical' either (and speaking of which, one should not try to assume the Romans were 'practical' - The Romans in 300-200 BC thought their baggage train worked pretty darn well for them; [Marius] thought his predecessors were nuts and inefficient. If a Legionary from 200 BC saw the "Marius Mules" in say, 69AD, he'd probably have a stroke at the audacity for the soldiers to be forced to carry their own gear. Likewise, I bet if Trajan had to deal with a Legion from 200 BC, he'd go nuts because they took so darn long to get anywhere and do anything! (nevermind that 3-rank buisness...Just form a line already!)

But anyway, we're not 100% on the marching pack at all. Anything anyone comes up with is valid as a theory, and it's something to work with and get information from; until we find more evidence and artifacts...To the same problem of how did the Romans strap up the shield? We just don't know! Argh! Frustrating! Junklemann is just one theory.

Every time I "load up" my marching pack, I get irritated trying to find a way to lash my dolabra axe on there so it doesn't shift, or otherwise stab me in the back of the head with the pick or the sheath....I've re-arranged my pack at least a dozen times trying to find something that 'works'....And I have no problem mentioning that to the public who's eyes pop out seeing this pack on me, let alone wonder how I could stand "all of that weight", or "Geeze that looks SO cumbersome/impractical!"

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Dudicus you forget that on long marches, heavy equipment such as the dolabra were transported on donkeys or ox-carts.

They would not have carried the dolabra attached to the furca on longer trips.

M.VIB.M.

[Karus]

thanks for this Andy... I think you`re right and also have to concede the other points that have been made in that until something else turns up the reenactor community has no choice but to follow the available evidence. No argument there whatsoever. Reading your mail though I did get a vision of 5000 blokes desperately trying to stop bits of their kit smacking them in the head or falling on the deck while carrying heavy shield on the other side and a heavy helmet slung around their neck. Numb shoulders (pins and needles in the arms and hands), sore hips, aching knees, shin splints and hyperextended achilles tendons (no arch support in a pair of caligae) for 20 miles per day while wearing segmentata (the strain on the lungs would be appalling) every day for weeks and weeks on end and digging in every night as well.....and still be in fighting condition at the end of it. I tell you what your average modern day squaddie could`nt do it (and I mean no disrespect to any service personel here and non to other members of the forum I'm just talking from personal experience)....I asked the question originally because I could`nt see it working and I still don't buy it. Theres a limit to what any soldier, in any age, can do. A human being can only travel so far, with so much weight and then only if the weight is properly distributed. The maximum load for a modern infantry soldier (on average bigger than a legionary) is eighty pounds but only if the load is properly distributed, if it is'nt all sorts of injuries become apparent from a very early stage and the longer it goes on the worse it gets! Maybe you`re right Andy and the evidence so far does't tell the whole story. Anyway thanks again

regards

[Paullus Scipio]

Just some random points of note.......

AFAIK, the column goes up a number of stories, so the poor guy at the base of the column looking up won't be able to see the tiny little dots representing rivets on the [armor] 30 feet up.

Originally, the Column stood in a sort of courtyard, surrounded on three sides by a multi-story building....a library IIRC. The Column was also painted, so the audience would have a good view of all the Column's details as they went from floor to floor ( the bulding extended past the column so all sides were visible)

Reading your mail though I did get a vision of 5000 blokes desperately trying to stop bits of their kit smacking them in the head or falling on the deck while carrying heavy shield on the other side and a heavy helmet slung around their neck. Numb shoulders (pins and needles in the arms and hands), sore hips, aching knees, shin splints and hyperextended achilles tendons (no arch support in a pair of caligae) for 20 miles per day while wearing segmentata (the strain on the lungs would be appalling) every day for weeks and weeks on end and digging in every night as well.....and still be in fighting condition at the end of it.

This is hardly an accurate picture at all! The Roman soldier adapated as quickly to load carrying efficiently, as any raw recruit does in a modern service.......I'm sorry to say that this sounds rather like those who hypothesise that a knight needed a crane to get on a horse wearing 60lbs of armour.....not true! A knight was expected to vault into the saddle - a feat which I have seen modern re-enactors duplicate ... or take that old chestnut that Romans couldn't draw swords right-handed from a scabbard on the right ( when all too obviously they did).
One of the great contributions of re-enactment/living history is the testing in practical terms of many of these ideas........and as Junkelmann showed, the modern equivalent of raw recruits could cope with the Legionary 'lifestyle', become one of 'Marius' mules' and do it successfully.....quite a job when the recruits have no experienced NCO's or squaddies to show them the ropes and they have to figure it all out for themselves.......wouldn't you agree? 8) ...and you might have a lot of fun finding out 'the tricks of the trade' of a 1st C AD squaddie by joining a re-enactment group.....as Hib and others have highlighted, in some ways the Roman kit was better ( e.g. flexibility of body armour) than today's....put together the whole....padded undergarment, segmentata and furca, and you might have a 'comfortable' load carrying kit ( and don't forget, many of the items wouldn't 'fit' into modern PLCE) for the "gear ", whose biggest problem, then as well as now, is getting rid of heat....

Another random shot....the personal load of the 'squaddie' has remained remarkably the same throughout history, from Rome to the present, at around 80 lbs 'by the book' but always closer to, but rarely more than, 100lbs when those 'extra essentials' are added.....and throughout most of history, the squaddie found ingenious ways to carry it without modern ALICE/PLCE gear !! ... from Furca/Yoke, to rolled blanket etc....and when some fool inflicts a horrible bit of kit on them, the squaddie has always found ways to get round it...... :lol: :lol: :lol: