Alexander VS Qin dynasty

Well, looking at the results, it's pretty much a 6-4. Even the program iteseld seems to be undecided who actually won. So, to me it indicates a complete draw, and the outcome would have been decided by something that's outside the progams scope.
Or, if it really was that comprehensive, pure chance would have decided.

vesicles said:

Yes, I agree that simulation cannot simulate actual battles. However, neither Alexander nor any of his potential adversary is alive nowadays to have a face-off and satisfy our curiosity. Compared to our way of comparing Alexander vs. so-and-so (simply speculating and imagining), a computer simulation is a much better way of comparison and, to be honest, IMHO, is the ONLY logical method left to us.

Also, I would imagine this particular program has been verified by testing historical battle that actually happened and the outcome, in most cases, agrees with what actually happened. I know we do this when completing a molecular dynamic simulation for a protein. Once complete, we would compare the simulated structural changes to those discovered experimentally (by crystallography and NMR). Then the next step would be to run simulations on things that cannot be tested experimentally. So although simulations have shortcomings, they do have their use, especially when combined with statistics.

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Yes... what you say make sense. Simulation is the only logical object that we have right now that could actually show some light if the two armies actually clashed.

However as Seigecrossbow had also pointed out, the two armies don't exist in the same era... which also means that their equipment are actually not the same.

Warfare and tactics changes as their equipments changes too. In the era of Alexandra, I believe stirrup had not been invented or used yet, so the cavalry of Alexandra could not fight very effectively on horseback. However in the case of the Huns, they already have stirrup and so their cavalry would be much more effective as compare to Alexandra.

However if stirrup are to be used by Alexandra... I believe his tactics might be very different. Sometime invention of certain equipment, material and even weapons could revlutionize the entire battlefield and give the commanders a wider options.

In the case of the simulation done... I see that the result are actually quite close, given the fact that the Hun had better and more modern equipment and weapons... which essentially show that Alexandra's tactics and choice of weapons actually is somewhat incredible.

So given that all aspect is the same, and that equipments are also the same, I believe Alex could have kick the Hun's butt.

About the 6:4 outcome, it may look similar, but in actuality, it may be a big difference. Huns won 2/3 of the time and won ~50% more times than Alexander. That's a huge difference.

About the validity of the simulation, sure it's always easy to criticize someone who finally decides to do something to settle an argument. See if any of us can come up with anything better, or even something close enough...

About the actual simulation, like any theoretical prediction, it should only work under a certain defined conditions and with many assumptions. I mentioned in my previous post that this was a simulation of various weapon types and had no massive formation involved. They did not simulate two massive armies go head-to-head, but simply two small groups of fighters (4-5 soldiers on each side) using various signature weapons. So it's more of a comparison between weapon systems. As I said before, this is NOT a simulation of two armies fighting face-to-face, but which one is the better and more effective warrior and weapon systems.

Like my fellow forum members, I am well aware of the limitations of simulations. I myself have done my share of simulations. ALL simulation and ALL theoretical work should be taken with a grain of salt since they all only work with many assumptions and under well-defined conditions. Many times, these assumptions and conditions may not even be realistic, but have to be set and defined for the calculations to work. The most famous of such assumptions would be the ball-like shape of atoms, nuclei and electrons. No one knows what these particles look like physically. The assumption of the sphere-like structure was necessary for calculations of atomic orbitals and energies. The famous molecular orbital theory is also an assumption although it can explain many chemical phenomena.

Although these theories have limitations, they are needed. These theories and simulations give us an idea of what COULD be happening on things that we cannot experimentally test and inspire us to develop new hypotheses and design new experiments, etc. etc...

rhino123 said:

In the case of the simulation done... I see that the result are actually quite close, given the fact that the Hun had better and more modern equipment and weapons... which essentially show that Alexandra's tactics and choice of weapons actually is somewhat incredible.

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The simulation did not test tactics. The simulation only tested weapon systems. It only shows that Huns had superior combined weapon systems. Alexander may have good tactics, but Huns may have even more superior tactics. We don't know and the simulation did not test. So in actuality, Huns may have both better weapons AND tactics. So IF they two faced each other, Huns might hold a much bigger edge. It's also possible that Alexander might have better tactics with slightly inferior weapons and might win an actual fight. We don't know. All we know is Huns had better combined weapon systems, according to this simulation. Let's not over-interpret the outcome of the simulation.

rhino123 said:

So given that all aspect is the same, and that equipments are also the same, I believe Alex could have kick the Hun's butt.

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Again, we don't know who had the edge on tactics. It's possible that Huns had even better tactics and Huns MIGHT kick Alexander's butt. We simply don't know.

The interesting about tactics is no one, even the ones in the fight would know who might come up with the better tactics. Many times, it was simply a flash of ingenious thinking that led to the winning blow. So no one can speculate the tactic aspect.

This may be a little off-topic, but since we are on the simulations, another episode of the Deadliest Warriors tested Jesse James vs. Al Capone (Yeah, I know, it's a weird comparison). On the first look, it's a no-brainer. Al Capone would win hands-down because of the technology advantage. At leat, that's what I thought. Jesse James had a Colt 45 six shooter, the Peacemaker, while Al Capone had the Tommy gun. Jesse James had the Winchester while Al Capone had the pineapple grenade. Jesse James used the shiv while Al Capone had the famous bowie knife.

At first glance, the overwhelming firepower of Al Capone would certainly win the day. However, the head-to-head comparison of the weapons and the final simulation give the edge to Jesse James. The main factor is the clumsiness of Al Capone's weapons. In actual experiments with weapons experts, it's 4 shots and 4 kills with the Colt 45 while the guy using the Tommy gun had to empty the entire magzine to get 2 sure kills and 1 seriously hurt. Also at stake is the draw speed. While the sharp shooters using the Colt 45 used only ~ 3 seconds to take his Colt out of his holster and open fire and hit a target, the guys shooting the Tommy gun used nearly twice amount of time to open fire although he was holding his gun at waist to begin with. So you can imagine in a actual fight, the fast draw of the sharp shooters will definitely hold a big advantage. Also, the accurate shooting will allow more efficient killing while the clumsy shooting of the Tommy gun may look and sound impressive, but less likely to cause damage. With the pineapple grenade vs. Winchester, it's the same stoory. When a pineapple grenade was tossed into a house, we saw the expected huge boom. But one guy escaped without a scratch. When testing the Winchester, it's again 4 shots 4 kills.

Then the simulation, again 1000 times. I don't remember the actual #'s, but Jesse James won. So at the end of the day, accuracy and efficiency won the day.

I thought it was interesting because we normally like to believe that more advanced tech is always better. But sometimes, it doesn't work out that way, at least in simulations.

vesicles said:

About the 6:4 outcome, it may look similar, but in actuality, it may be a big difference. Huns won 2/3 of the time and won ~50% more times than Alexander. That's a huge difference. ...

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We are now maybe just arguing about how to interpret a simulation.
I was just thinking, even if one side was just slightly better than the other, and especially when things like tactics, leadership, moral etc. are not taken into account, shouldn't that one side win at least 9 out of ten times in a simulation?
Because the way I understand you, the sim just says: this sword against that leather armor is more deadly than that pike against this armor. So, the other way around, 1/3 of the times, the sim calculated the inferior weapon to be superior. ...
My thinking behind that basicly is, that every outcome up to probably 8 to 2 just indicates a very close match between the parties.

Scratch said:

We are now maybe just arguing about how to interpret a simulation.
I was just thinking, even if one side was just slightly better than the other, and especially when things like tactics, leadership, moral etc. are not taken into account, shouldn't that one side win at least 9 out of ten times in a simulation?
Because the way I understand you, the sim just says: this sword against that leather armor is more deadly than that pike against this armor. So, the other way around, 1/3 of the times, the sim calculated the inferior weapon to be superior. ...
My thinking behind that basicly is, that every outcome up to probably 8 to 2 just indicates a very close match between the parties.

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I've watched many episodes of this show and have never seen a fight ending with anything bigger than 7:3. I don't know how the simulation was done, but based on the little "action" simulating the simulation at the end of the show, it's not simply one weapon vs. its equivalent counterpart. It's a mix of everything. The simulation was however based on parameters derived from actual experiments done by weapons experts. In these expts, it was basically a comparison between various weapon types.

crobato said:

By studying the Terra Cotta army of the Qin, archeologists are able to ascertain that the Qin Army also uses formations similar to Macedonian Phalanx, that using 18 to 21" pikes.

With matrices of pikemen and crossbows, the Qin Army resembles more like the Swiss army in the 16th Century.

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there is no way persia had a million man army. and i have said this before but defeating the persian army maybe great but it is not as hard as you think. first of all they had an idiotic leader which makes things ten times easier. second of all their army was consisted of soldiers from different states so they had different ways of fighting, you end up with a bow of salad that cant even hold themselves together. also we must not forget that xenophon fought his way right across persia with just 10000men...it shows you how crappy the persian army is...with the exception of the immortals.
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daviidwilson said:

there is no way persia had a million man army. and i have said this before but defeating the persian army maybe great but it is not as hard as you think. first of all they had an idiotic leader which makes things ten times easier. second of all their army was consisted of soldiers from different states so they had different ways of fighting, you end up with a bow of salad that cant even hold themselves together. also we must not forget that xenophon fought his way right across persia with just 10000men...it shows you how crappy the persian army is...with the exception of the immortals.
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huh... first off... which era are you talking about and where is the battle? I believe it to be the Persian against the Spartan and the rest of Greece. If that was the case, I doubt Xerxes is an idiot, if he really is an idiot he wouldn't be able to conquer and control such a vast stage and command such a huge army... even if the Persian force could not have number one millions, but do you have any idea how difficult it would be to command such a force faraway from home?

Plus this thread is about Alex against the Qin, so where does Persia came about?

rhino123 said:

huh... first off... which era are you talking about and where is the battle? I believe it to be the Persian against the Spartan and the rest of Greece. If that was the case, I doubt Xerxes is an idiot, if he really is an idiot he wouldn't be able to conquer and control such a vast stage and command such a huge army... even if the Persian force could not have number one millions, but do you have any idea how difficult it would be to command such a force faraway from home?

Plus this thread is about Alex against the Qin, so where does Persia came about?

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he was prolly thinking about darius III, whose incompetence in my opinion bordered on high treason.

as for the persians, i think their strength was some where between a tenth to a quarter of a million when they went for greece.