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Comment by kaybe | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't sound fair. I don't think the army would have been successful with the ointment alone. Ointment doesn't make you a competent army commander. You can make the same argument with most things - food, a warm cloak, knowledge about the weather.. all those things that make survival and even comfort possible.

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That's all true, but given that both parties were evenly matched before picking winter to do battle required something to tip the advantage to the attacker who picked that time because they had a solution to the problem of dealing with chapped hands, which in the age of manual combat may well have been of such importance that the outcome was all but certain.

Asterix joke: "The Romans, upon learning that the English requested a daily ceasefire from 2pm to 4pm because they were having tea decided to attack only between 2pm and 4pm". Obviously, that's fictional but you get the idea.

somebody is wrong on the internet and IT'S YOU!!!

In Asterix in Britain https://asterix.fandom.com/wiki/Asterix_in_Britain the Romans attack during the time the British are having their hot water - with maybe a little bit of milk in it.

Before the final battle when all seems to be lost because the barrel of magic potion was sunk in the river Asterix announces that they have the makings of the magic potion (pulling some herbs out of his pocket) - synopsis from link above:

"Finally reaching the independent village, Asterix eases the Britons' disappointment by claiming he carries herbs to remake the potion; these are later revealed to be tea. With a psychological boost, the village prevails against the Romans. Asterix and Obelix return home to the inevitable feast. The Britons like the tea so much, they proclaim it shall be their national drink."

Wait, there's an ongoing alternate history French comic that's been published since 1959 about warriors from Gaul fighting the Roman Republic under Caesar?

I admit, retconning your arch-foe's national non-alcoholic drink of choice is fairly grand, but I feel like you buried the lede there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix

I mean the top poster was aware of Asterix

Ah yes, of course! The tea was revealed on the last page only. My memory isn't entirely bit-rot proof and it's been a good 47 years since I last read that particular story.

Small technical innovations have won wars in the past. In the first Punic war the Roman Republic (who had no significant naval strength at the start of the war) defeated Carthage, the dominant naval force of the Mediterranean. One of the most significant factors in their victory (they certainly would have lost without it at least) was inventing a plank with a spike on the end of it[0].

The Romans at this time were so incompetent at naval warfare that their only significant defeats in the war were losing their entire fleet to bad weather (more than once).

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_(boarding_device)

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