Alexander VS Qin dynasty

Kurt,

Why do you believe that a gastraphetes have more draw weight than a Chinese hand held crossbow? The shooting range of Qin crossbows are 200-300 paces, one pace being ~1.3 yards. Historical Han text shows a draw weight of around 160 Lbs; and Han cross bow are drawn with the foot. Medieval European sprung steel cross bows drawn from the foot can have a draw weight of 300-400 lbs; so 150~ Lbs is reasonable. This is also the limit of composite bows, the Mongolian war bows can draw ~150 lbs, while the Longbows from the Mary Rose can draw around 120 lbs, the Yumi also have a similar draw weight. I know you are a big fan of the gastraphetes and I am too as a mechanical engineer, but as a weapon of war, it is heavy for what it can deliver, big, heavy, unwieldy, you need to stand up to cock it, there is no sights, and the trigger mechanism is poor egronomics, there is no safety, mechanically complex, and cost a fortune to build. Frankly, it is a poor weapon of war.

Torsional weapons are also poor battlefield weapons. their rate of fire is too slow, they are good siege weapon for their power. i.e. How many salvos can you deliver before the enemy is within melee range? ballista have a low rate of fire, Roman Scorpio have a 400 m range, with a 3-4 bolt per minute. This is similar to Chinese triple bows - I see no advantage or disadvantage offered; and much less ROF compared to traction catapults of the same range.

One very important factor that you really have to consider is that composite bows work better in dry climate like northern China where the dryness tend to weaken the torsional fibers. it is a case of give an take - I would say that this is one of the reason why the mongol armies are generally so much weaker in humid climates.

Qin and Macedonia followed very different paths, Qin tend to exterminate as in slaughtering defeated soldiers, and exterminating the defeated generals, interlecturals and nobilities; it is the Qin way or the Highway. Alexander, alienated himself from his men by adopting the Persian style, the purple color and so on; but he gained new allies.

I also doubt that you can find a massed javelin formation doing well against the Chinese army in history. The Northern and western barbarians, are horse back riders with massed formations; the southern barbarians were skirmishers who resisted every step of the way but were gorilla fighters.

Also, the Qin army is made up of a core of professional elites. The elite northern army is supposed to be 200,000 men strong; and like Sparta, every man is a soldier. If we take the imperial guard as the terracotta army size that will be a 8000 men guard only who would definitely serve year round. The fact is, elite formations are nothing new, like the Persian Immortals; the Macedonians are just another.

No reason, I just read "Quin" and assumed you had established it as standard transliteration. I'm fine with both. I too often fall into the trap and use German spellings for such names.

The Greek numbers are twisted in specific ways:
On the own side only heavy infantry and cavalry are counted - omitting very many light infantry and very many servants.
On the opponents side every being with two legs in the enemy camp is counted as an opponent and if convenient multiplied with a more propagandistic number.
That's why our data on the Macedonian army of Alexander is in fact quite reliable - they had a combined arms approach and counted the irregular light troops as well.

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The ability to read has a tremendous impact on human understanding.

The gastraphetes were poor and heavy, but were scaled to oxybeles size and mounted on warships. everyone agrees that they are a poor infantry weapon, but they seem to have been a Macedonian cavalry weapon at stand off range. Their rate of shot was slow for multiple reasons nor were triggers as developed as in East Asia.
Torsion artillery is a complex issue. The springs could be encapsulated, but neither did the East Asian adopt them nor were multiple bow systems introduced by the Muslim Empire (who had an outstanding military research). I guess we could endlessly argue about these systems, but a well operated torque system has a faster acceleration capability than a tension system - translating that into energy at a range is a new problem and loading such a system depends on a lot of things independent from the release.
Traction artillery is the Chinese artillery invention with global impact and the improved counterweight artillery from the West had vice versa a global impact.
The southern opponents of China did skirmish, but they knew field battle, as is most evident by their conquests in South East Asia after the Chinese invasion of their ancestral lands.

Kurt said:

The ability to read has a tremendous impact on human understanding.

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So you're telling me that your Greek comment was restricted only to the Greeks, and had no bearing on the Macedonians or the Qin? Then what the hell was the point of bringing it up?

Sounds more like you were trying to imply that Qin numbers are inflated, and is now backpedaling because you got called out on it and can't back it up.

I also find it hilarious that you think ancient Macedonian numbers are more reliable than Qin numbers.

The gastraphetes were poor and heavy, but were scaled to oxybeles size and mounted on warships. everyone agrees that they are a poor infantry weapon, but they seem to have been a Macedonian cavalry weapon at stand off range.

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ROFL, so you think it's easier to use a big unwieldy crossbow on horseback than on foot?

Again, let me remind everyone that there is no archaeological evidence of the gastraphetes. All we have is a single historical account, not even specifically attributed to the ancient Macedonians. So any discussion of the combat effectiveness of this overly-complicated, easily breakable crossbow is in the realm of pure speculation.

The horse was used to transport the crossbow/gastraphetes. The man dismounted and shot and afterwards rode away.

I have no idea what you are talking about, I explained the general problems with Greek authors giving numbers and why the Macedonian armies of Philip and Alexander are among the few with correct numbers for all Greek troops, but the same problem with numbers of their opponents. It's a Macedonian army, but the Greeks transmit their history by their Greek writings.

I expressed doubts that the very high numbers mentioned from the Warring States clashes could have operated as one army in any effective manner due to communication problems at that level of technology (the research is slightly later in the Middle Ages by a befriended nation of Han- and Tang China, the Byzantine Empire, that would never have considered themselves a vassal of anyone). It's possible that they operated as several independent armies in one area, but as long as that is not clearly established, doubts remain.

There's a general problem with finding remains of artillery and specialized wooden weapons of war. For bows for example, the evidence is limited to bone parts that are not used on self-bows (that's why the Mary Rose bows are so important). Just look how much evidence for manuballistae we have and so on.

Kurt said:

The horse was used to transport the crossbow/gastraphetes. The man dismounted and shot and afterwards rode away.

I have no idea what you are talking about, I explained the general problems with Greek authors giving numbers and why the Macedonian armies of Philip and Alexander are among the few with correct numbers for all Greek troops, but the same problem with numbers of their opponents. It's a Macedonian army, but the Greeks transmit their history by their Greek writings.

I expressed doubts that the very high numbers mentioned from the Warring States clashes could have operated as one army in any effective manner due to communication problems at that level of technology (the research is slightly later in the Middle Ages by a befriended nation of Han- and Tang China, the Byzantine Empire, that would never have considered themselves a vassal of anyone). It's possible that they operated as several independent armies in one area, but as long as that is not clearly established, doubts remain.

There's a general problem with finding remains of artillery and specialized wooden weapons of war. For bows for example, the evidence is limited to bone parts that are not used on self-bows (that's why the Mary Rose bows are so important). Just look how much evidence for manuballistae we have and so on.

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More baseless claims. Do you have any source that describes the combat use and effectiveness of ancient Macedonian archers, whether mounted or on foot?

The only basis you've given for your bias toward Macedonian numbers is that you *feel* it's more accurate. That's it. In any case, it's irrelevant: records of Alexander's battles indicate fielded armies of tens of thousands, while records of Warring States battles indicate fielded armies in the hundreds of thousands.

If you're going to claim that Qin numbers are not reliable due to some Byzantine communication problem, you're gonna have to provide some source before we can take you seriously. Just because you claim ancient armies can't exceed 120k doesn't make it so.

Finally, you acknowledge that you have no evidence on the gastraphetes, yet you keep trying to put it on the same level as Qin crossbows, for which we *do* have archaeological evidence. That's why your claims about the gastraphetes are worthless.

Kurt said:

The horse was used to transport the crossbow/gastraphetes. The man dismounted and shot and afterwards rode away.

I have no idea what you are talking about, I explained the general problems with Greek authors giving numbers and why the Macedonian armies of Philip and Alexander are among the few with correct numbers for all Greek troops, but the same problem with numbers of their opponents. It's a Macedonian army, but the Greeks transmit their history by their Greek writings.

I expressed doubts that the very high numbers mentioned from the Warring States clashes could have operated as one army in any effective manner due to communication problems at that level of technology (the research is slightly later in the Middle Ages by a befriended nation of Han- and Tang China, the Byzantine Empire, that would never have considered themselves a vassal of anyone). It's possible that they operated as several independent armies in one area, but as long as that is not clearly established, doubts remain.

There's a general problem with finding remains of artillery and specialized wooden weapons of war. For bows for example, the evidence is limited to bone parts that are not used on self-bows (that's why the Mary Rose bows are so important). Just look how much evidence for manuballistae we have and so on.

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I don't know why you keep doubting the number of troops used in battles in ancient China. They have been cited and accepted by many experts, East and West, in the field.

I found some references for some famous battles in the Warring States time.

This is one of the famous ancient Chinese battles and both sides combined to amount to ~1.1 million


This one had ~360,000 from both sides


This one is much much smaller with only 80,000 each


This one is not complete with only 700 chariots confirmed


This one is also a famous one, with 220,000 both sides combined


In here, you can find the description of my original example, where Qin sent 200,000 to attack Chu and was defeated badly. Qin eventually went back with 600,000 and defeated Chu. Check out section "Conquest of Chu"



As you can see from the examples I gave above, the Chinese historians had no trouble reporting smaller troop numbers if that was true. And they would not report anything if they did not have enough evidence. The battle of chengpu I showed above would be a good example when they only cited 700 chariots and nothing else since they didn't have enough info. Also, yo can look at the casualty column to see that the scale of these battles was huge. And if the casualty went up to 700,000 in the case of battle of Changping, it means these were actual fighting units that actively participated in the actual battle, not some servants. Note that this is a battle, not a war. the whole battle lasted 3 months (April, 262 BC – July, 260 BC). And multiple armies or not, the simple fact that these units could be coordinated enough to participate a big battle suggests that the Chinese were able to fight battles in huge scales, which defeats that original assumption that they were only beating up bandits.

The standard of fighting in the East and West was different. The scale of battles in the West was always smaller than in the East. You cannot use what used to work in the West to judge what should work in the East.

Also, simply doubting the numbers is not enough. Simply using "logical analysis" is also not enough. Theories can be wrong. In fact, most of them are. You need to demonstrate evidence to support your suspicion. What source gave a different number of troops than what the historians gave. When did this happen and what evidence did the new source use to support his claim of less #. Otherwise, your doubt would be baseless.

Dear Kurt, I couldn't care less about Macedonian vs. Qin. I would just like to share with you something I know of Chinese history.

Kurt,

Chinese armies have all the traditional means of communication: messangers, smoke columns, fire, drums and horns.

Now, What the Chinese had which others nations did not use until much later - signal kites (European armies started to use signal kites ~ Napoleonic wars) and whistle arrows during the day, fire arrows doing the night.

Obviously, there are certain limits to these methods, they are not like a radio. But if naval signals atop a mast of a ship can reach ~15 km, on a good day - so coded kites should at least do the same.

I mean, Egyptians were known to be able to coordinate their armies with smoke columns and signal fires

Alexander? His army would have been eaten alive by Xiongnu horsemen. It would be a tragic end to the "Great" Alexander.

Correct me if i'm wrong but Alexander's army reached indus river(nowdays pakistan).Where/When/how did they fight chinese?

Kid NOVA said:

Alexander? His army would have been eaten alive by Xiongnu horsemen. It would be a tragic end to the "Great" Alexander.

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Omino said:

Correct me if i'm wrong but Alexander's army reached indus river(nowdays pakistan).Where/When/how did they fight chinese?

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Gents, Why must it be Alex who visits the Orient? Can a Han army not go take a bath in the red sea? This is hypothetical, The stated topic is "if"