Disclaimer- This isn't gonna be another chapter for the story, but instead I will be delving deep into the strategies the Romans employed, their military structure (which I have altered for the fanfic), and their military equipment. I recommend you search up the various 'new' terms I will use in this chapter for the equipment because my descriptions won't be able to set the right picture in your mind.


First strategy- Trade

When the two groups made first contact shortly after the establishment of Konoha, the Shinobi continent was a self-sufficient landmass, and is more or less even now. But it is fractured into dozens of competing nations, big and small, and BLOODY wars weren't uncommon. In these tumultuous times, the lord of an agrarian land couldn't guarantee that trade with his neighbors would continue, that the steady supply of needed resources through trade would continue, or that all his neighbors would not just gang up on him.

Kumo has rich deposits of metals and minerals, Iwa has good blacksmiths, pottery, and timber, Konoha is the master of green farms abundant in food, while Kiri and Suna have other resources. But these villages didn't go along well, seeing they've had THREE world wars in under 75 YEARS, and that isn't including all the other smaller conflicts where one village each was involved, and incidents like the Hyuga affair.

Let's take into hypothesis that another world war breaks out, Kumo-Iwa-Kiri, and Konoha-Suna-Ame the respective sides. Kumo and Iwa will stop sending the good-quality iron over to Konoha diminishing their war effort. Iwa doesn't seem to be a fertile land, and Kumo is just rugged mountains without much agriculture, so Konoha in turn stopping grain shipments will affect them as well.

Then in comes Rome, with massive amounts of resources, products, and manpower for production. They establish commercial ties with all major and minor nations, exporting commodities and goods like grains, spices, tea, coffee, high-quality steel, tools, wine, textiles, etc., and precious goods like Silk and gems. Over the years up to Naruto's generation, the Romans develop deep-rooted trade relations with most nations, outsourcing local producers with higher quality and cheaper prices. This increased the dependency on the Westerners, not on an extreme scale, but enough that no village took any serious action when Rome was swallowing up minor nations on the coast. You wouldn't kill your best trading partner just because he 'acquired' some property near you, would you?

Diplomacy

The Romans were in a very fragile state during their early days on the continent. Any minor village could easily eradicate their entire establishment in the starting years, so they had to maintain strong relations and alliances with powerful villages. As a result, they entered an alliance with Konoha early on and were in good relations with Uzu for most of the time.

So as you may observe, the Romans never went to war with a shinobi village, unless in an alliance with another, to ensure their victory. This works well with the earlier trade strategy, to blockade any goods from enemy nations. An army marches on its stomach, and food comes from money, so no money means no war effort.

Military

army structure

The military structure of the Romans will be rather historically similar, but I will make a few changes.

The most basic form of grouping is the Conterburnium, made up of eight soldiers, four of which are required to be skilled/specialized archers, muskets are not yet favored for their slow reload rate. The men of a Conterburnium live in the same hutment/large tent and are assigned tasks on this basic level, like night watch or foraging. Two Conterburniums, supplemented by four auxiliaries, comprise a platoon of twenty soldiers. Of these, eight are required to be specialized archers. Platoons are only assigned during battles and campaigns.

The next grouping is the century, made up of eight Conterburniums, about eighty men, thirty of whom are required to be archers/crossbowmen, and twenty of them are provided with a horse as cavalry. Twenty auxiliaries supplement each century to add up to a hundred. This group is headed by a centurion, usually a skilled veteran with the minimum requirements of a decade of service in an extraordinary career. They also have an assistant, called an optio, who is well an assistant, and takes charge of the entire century if the centurion isn't available. Centuries are more flexible units, with a balanced amount of infantry, archers, and horsemen, and these are the individual units assigned to different tasks during a battle, or to man a small fort. As the soldiers come from diverse backgrounds, each Century has roughly three soldier-smiths to take care of any repairs. Each century is also assigned a standard, the standard-bearer of which manages the finances and equipment of the entire century (so it is more than just carrying a long stick around).

A cohort is made up of five centuries supplemented by auxiliaries, about five hundred men. 150 of these are required to be specialized archers, and 100 are provided with horses. This is the most flexible force in the Roman military, neither too small to be insignificant nor too big to be cumbersome. This group is headed by the best centurion among the five, his century is then taken charge of by his optio. Each cohort has a team of scribes, usually educated soldiers, who take care of and help the centurions with records and finances.

An entire legion is made up of 10 cohorts, about 5000 men. 1500 of these are expected to be specialized archers, while 1000 are provided with horses. Each legion is provided an Eagle standard, and the standard bearer, the aquifer, oversees the other Century standard-bearers and scribes in finances and records. Most legions are only gathered during the war, as they are spread throughout the province in groups of Centuries and cohorts, manning forts and garrisoning towns. A legion is headed by a legate, whose assistant is the Primus Pilus, the best centurion.

Auxiliaries

Legionaries are Roman citizens who entered military service, auxiliaries are the opposite. Non-citizens inhabiting provinces are usually skilled in their traditional way of fighting, and enrolled for that. Most legions have auxiliaries from their garrisoned provinces, but some have more 'exotic' material. For example, Numidian cavalry and Balearic slingers were important auxiliaries for the Romans of antiquity.

In the shinobi continent, the Romans have abstained from enrolling Samurai auxiliaries (seeing they lost against both shinobi and Rome), but shinobi are more than welcome. However, auxiliary shinobi are in small numbers, as they are usually rogue ninjas seeking to start a new life, most in Roman service are temporary mercenaries. Recently, Rome has started work on a small Roman-trained shinobi corps to supplement their military, with help from Konoha. Moreover, a special corps of legionaries, those few who have chakra, are being trained with help from the Land of Iron to use chakra to strengthen themselves.

A soldier's equipment

In the shinobi continent, Roman soldiers are provided slightly different equipment than their other counterparts, to suit the new foes they face.

Their armor consists of a slightly modified version of the Corinthian helmet, to not restrict hearing. They wear a breastplate cuirass over a chainmail suit with shoulder pads and small neck guards, alongside bronze vambraces that cover the space between the elbow and the palm, as the chainmail suit and shoulder pads protect the upper limb. Lamellar plates extend down from the cuirass to cover the thighs and upper knee, while the lower legs are protected by leg vambraces. They wear studded leather sandals.

Roman soldiers carry a large tower shield, similar to a scutum. However, it has been made slightly taller to completely cover the entire body, and a bit thicker to easily withstand minor elemental jutsu. They are equipped with a longer version of the spatha, which is designed good for both stabbing and slashing. They also carry three javelins each, designed to be longer and can be planted on the ground to act like stakes.

Navy

The Romans built their power on trade, and thus it would be vital for them to secure these routes and control them. The Navy comes into play for this, there are three types of vessels.

Transport ships

These are usually used to transport material and soldiers across territories and are merchant ships during times of peace. They are of medium size, and not armed.

Shallow-sea ships

These ships are designed for inland seas, the coast, and shallow water bodies. There are four types-

1. Biremes

Biremes are small ships with two rows of oarsmen. These ships are used for skirmishing and flanking maneuvers, as they are quick. They only have a small crew of oarsmen, archers, and infantry, so are vulnerable against large ships. Because of this, they are usually given patrolling duties and as convoys of transport ships.

2. Triremes

These are light ships with three rows of oarsmen and a sail. These ships are quick, and designed for ramming enemy vessels with the bronze rams in their front, and a Corvus, a deployable bridge-like structure that can be dropped upon enemy decks to allow boarding actions; they also have 2-3 small ballistae fitted on the deck. These are medium-sized ships and thus used to patrol sea routes, blockade ports, and supplementary in battles.

3. Hexaremes

These can be called larger versions of the Trireme, with six rows of oarsmen on each side. Hexaremes are the main ships for naval warfare in shallow seas. The ship has a large deck, with small artillery batteries like ballistae and catapults fitted on board, with a lion-shaped weapon at the front that vomits Greek fire, a napalm-like substance that can burn for hours even on water. These ships have a balanced crew of archers and infantry, but their main tactic is to sink enemy ships from a distance using artillery batteries.

Ocean-going vessels

1. galleons

These are mainly transport ships, used to move troops and material across vast distances.

2. battle galleons

These are a modified version of the galleon, with an armed crew with muskets, swords, and recently cannons. Deep ocean battles are rare so these are used to patrol sea routes and naval bombardment.


Common shinobi tactics

Now let us analyze the most common strategy of the average chunin team from any shinobi village. The reason I have decided upon a chunin team is because they are, in speculation, the largest numbers in any village, and are the most likely to be sent to the battlefield, as most genins are inexperienced, while Jonins are likely in small numbers and too valuable to be wasted this way. An average team consists of four Chunin, and sometimes a Jonin commander. Seeing the villages' mixed approach to forming teams, we can guess that out of the four shinobi, one will be sufficiently skilled in healing minor injuries, bruises, and second-degree burns; another might be skilled in direct combat, another as a genjutsu prodigy (not an expert), and the last one perhaps as support. Let us keep in mind that Genin teams after the chunin exams usually break up, as mostly one member passes, leaving the other two behind and advancing alone. Even if the entire team passes, in most cases they are sent to different teams.

During these peaceful times, I speculate these shinobi mostly do minor escort missions, or such missions that go from C to B tier. During the war, they will be sent to the frontiers or for sabotage, seeing Konoha is willing to send team Minato (comprised of three children) to sabotage an important chokepoint. In this segment, I will be narrating a hypothetical battle between an average chunin team and a Roman platoon, and use their tactics to see who would do better. So let's start with the terrain.

Let's hypothesize the battle on a plain, with small vegetation and a few small thickets of tall trees. The Roman platoon is made up of 20 men, 16 legionaries, and 4 auxiliaries, while the chunin team is made up of 4 ninjas; a genjutsu prodigy (I don't use the term expert because it would be likely overrating an average Chunin's skill), a sensory expert with sufficient medical knowledge, and two fighters. I have given the shinobi smaller numbers because it represents the resources both factions have, both money and manpower and to support my earlier argument of 'replaceability of casualties'.

If you see the most common skills among average chunin, they consist of usual Taijutsu, maybe weapons, normal techniques, and minor to mid-tier elemental jutsu, with the ability to break usual genjutsu. Let's say the four chunin are equipped with a sword each and the usual kunai and shuriken, will these weapons and jutsu of their level be effective against the Romans?

As I have mentioned before, the majority of Romans won't have any chakra, except 10% of soldiers. Because of this, genjutsu and sensory abilities won't work on them, that is because genjutsu manipulates the victim's chakra to cause such hallucinations, while most sensory abilities detect the enemy's chakra imprint. The usual weapons Shinobi use are NOT gonna pierce the type of armor the Romans have. It is a great blunder by popular media to showcase armor, but even leather armor can do a lot to stop sword strikes, let alone a steel breastplate with chainmail beneath. The Kunai and shuriken can cut through the thick cloth of shinobi flack jackets, but they're not exactly designed to, nor heavy enough, punch through heavy armor. The same applies to Katanas, it would take inhumane amounts of strength and a really strong blade to cut through such armor directly, and because of this historically, warriors tended to look for weak spots in the armor of heavily armed opponents to defeat them; such as joints and armpits which were not covered by metal armor to allow mobility.

And as I have mentioned before, Roman shields and armor were made thicker and taller to withstand minor jutsu, so I don't think they will have much of an effect considering there are 16 soldiers against the chunin, one death doesn't disbalance the scale much.

Another thing I would like to point out is that the number of shinobi in each village is far less than the 85000 described in the war arc. Why, because the graduating process of Konoha and any other village doesn't make enough sense to pump out that many men. If we divide the 80000 shinobi (excluding the 5000 samurai), each village should have 15000 shinobi each if they are at the same strength.

This doesn't make sense, only 9 students, or roughly around that number, graduate from the Konoha Academy each year, as told by Kakashi in the manga. Given that the Leaf village was only 75 years old by the time of Naruto's generation, if we do the math, Konoha could only produce about 675 shinobi since its establishment, which is far lower than the 15000 referred to in the war arc. Given this, if this number of 15,000 was true, it would've taken Konoha 1666 YEARS to train that many shinobi.

But the village was only established 75 years ago, surely there are people from the warring states era that form the rest of the numbers? Well, the oldest Konoha shinobi we know of are the three village elders and Hiruzen, who were born after Konoha's establishment and trained under Tobirama, so if there is anyone who was born in that era, it is easy to suppose they'd be retired shinobi resting in their homes, not fighters. It is also a fact that Konoha has been part of all the world wars, and they must have suffered considerable losses throughout the conflicts.

The massive numbers can only be explained if there is more than one academy in Konoha or the Land of Fire, but the only academy we see, and that is always referred to, is the one Naruto's generation studied in. No other character in the series even remotely points towards that idea, so we are left with a massive inconsistency that is hard to fill. For this reason, I'll be making multiple academies in the Land of Fire, headed by Konoha, who trains shinobi at a respectable pace. The numbers will also be kept at a healthy 6,000 to just make SENSE.

(as an afterthought, Minato DEVASTATED Iwa by killing 1000 of their shinobi, if we speculate Iwa's numbers were around 6000.)

The only reason Kishimoto cranked up the numbers to 85000 was to give the reader/viewer an epic fight at the endgame because 30,000 Shinobi vs 10,000 Zetsus doesn't sound so epic right?

So now, I will be ending this lengthy, nerdy chapter. This must feel abrupt, as I have released this in the middle of the plot. But I wanted to give you a reference of sorts, to always come back (or come forward) to, during the battle scenes. I hope this was helpful, any ideas are welcome, and do review the story :)