Rome vs Han China

are we talking about Early Rome? Republican Rome? Emperial Rome or late Rome?

of course it's a rhetorical question because the Romans would lose in all cases. Why? When has the Romans won against a GIANT army with a GIANT number of missile weapons and heavy horsemen? Even if you take out the first GIANT, anyone remember the Parthians early on? Yeah.

are we talking about Early Rome? Republican Rome? Emperial Rome or late Rome?

Well, seeing as we're talking about the Han Dynasty vs the Roman Empire, this would be somewhere between 200 BC and 180 AD. I know the Han ended in 220 and everything, but it was pretty well dead after the whole Yellow Scarves uprising and the ensuing chaos, Emperor Ling's death followed by that one Emperor who served for all of... maybe a year? not even that, I don't think. Then came Emperor Xian, formerlly Prince of Chen Liu who ended up being passed around by the regional lords from the 190 AD to 220 AD, when he was finally forced to abdicate the throne. Anyways... the point is... China would've been too split up after 180 AD to really fight the Romans full-force.

of course it's a rhetorical question because the Romans would lose in all cases. Why? When has the Romans won against a GIANT army with a GIANT number of missile weapons and heavy horsemen? Even if you take out the first GIANT, anyone remember the Parthians early on? Yeah.

Yeah, true. I don't think I remember the Romans winning against a numerically superior opponent too many times, unless it was against other Romans (Caeser vs Pompey).

well, there was the Gallic Wars...and of course, Roman triumph over the corpses of the Hellenic city states and fragments of Alexander's empire. But just how many times have the Romans faced a numerically superior army under able leadership?

Well, I think that the Roman Army cannot defeat a Han Army before the Marian Reform (Army reform by Gaius Marius in 103BC) but after that the Roman Army became very fearful.

The Marian Reform was to make a professional fighting force. Hannibal has defeat the Roman Army at Canae, but those were Republican legion, not the powerful Marian Legion (Marian Legion was the the name of the legion after the Army reform by Marius)

The Republicain Legion was a force of draw citizen that were only levied when need, unlike the Marian Legion which is a full-time army.

So the Marian Legion was a professional force of around 5120 infantrymen. Each Legion have 10 Cohort, each cohort have 3 maniples and each maniples is made of 2 centuries of 80 mens. But the 1st Cohort only 5 century instead of 6, but all Centuries have 160men instead of 80 + 120 horseman.

Each Century has a ballista as heavy weapon, and each cohort have an onager. Each Legions also have around 800 slaves to carry supply. Each Legion was also supported by a Auxilia of about the same size. The Auxilia (latin word for auxiliary) was all the unit that the Legion doesn't have. (A Legion was mainly heavy infantry except for around 120 horsemans who act as scout) Auxilia was mainly cavalry, siege engineer and light infantry.

Arrow ?? Well, The Marian Legionnay use the shield to form the testuedo, very effective to protect against arrow. But don't forget that the Roman Army can use siege weapon against the Han... This was frequent when the Roman fought against Barbarian...

Also, Roman Legionaries use the Pilum as pre-charge weapon, the pila has a iron shank, and the iron shank would bend on impact. A pilum, having penetrated a shield through a small hole and its shank having bent would now be difficult to remove. An enemy, if not killed by the pilum, would have little time before closing with the legionaries and would have to discard his now-unwieldy shield before going into combat, or the guy keep his shield, the legionary only have to step on the bend part and it will unwield the shield.

Also, the Roman has great discipline, and mobility, the tactical unit were the cohort.

Well, Roman Marian Legion have won lot of battle againt a numerically superior ennemy with cavalry. Think of Batle of Alesia, were 280,000 Gauls were defeated by 55,000 Roman soldiers, and the Roman only lost 8,000 men while the Gauls have lost 200,000. Battle of Vercellae, were Marius defeat 200,000 Germanics with only 50,000 and losing only around 1000 men. Don't forget, Germanic and Gauls were very good horsemen... even Julius Caesar own guard was partly made of Gallic Horseman. There's numerous exemple of great Roman Victory with Marian Legion...

I think the inflexibility of tight infantry formations, from the Phalanx to the Sarissa to even the Legionary, has been demonstrated time and time again.

But I can't draw up any example because the Han and the Romans have never faced anything similar to each other.

Actually Xiongnu Empire is the most powerful empire in the world at least until 134B.C. Xiongnu had dominated the central asia area of the silk route, and it always remained close behind the Han dynasty in power even after Han Wudi defeated them. The Han only had slowly began wrest the tarim from the Xiongnu begining in 108B.C. and defeated the kingdom of Gu Shi which is persent day Turfan and Urumchi. People just tend to forget about Xiongnu, because Xiongnu empire had defeated by Han. They have overlook that Xiongnu Empire and Han(including Warring time period) had fought for few hundreds years until Han finally able to crash the Xiongnu.

Hi Rommel

Through Han army didn't employ ballistas or stone throwers in the battlefield. Their primary source of suppressing fire was massed normal crossbows. Extra-large croosbows would be used by both sides in a siege. The ballista ranges listed at between 300-500m, but the range of the Qin hand croosobw was 300 meter maximum, and 200 is the effective range. Qin crossbow's mechanism was less developed than that of the other warring states as well as the Han which had range of some 450 meter maximum and 300 effective range.

Han's calvary was mostly light calavary during the western Han period, but by the eastern Han riders became increasingly well armored. Han's calvary were usually equiped with ranged hitting power too(bows or smaller crossbows) . I would not say the outcome of Legion vs chinese infantry line, but seem chinese focused a lot more on calvary than the romans and the fact that they had much better ranged. I would say this fight would not bold well for the romans.

The roman heavy infantry was surely impressive, but if we take a look at the battle of Carrhae. We can see their armors or shields couldn't protect them against Parthian arrows shot from composite bows. The Han used the same horse archer tactics and with composite bows.

The roman have lower quality iron/steel and manufacturing techniques. Chinese steel and bronze were stronger than roman Iron. So while the legion irica segmentum is very nice looking. The Han lamellar is more resistant to blows.

Han was much greater in terms of population especially true since a great majority of Roman populations were slaves that tend to become more of a liability than asset in battle. Han tactics were far more superior and they had technology advantages in many areas.

oh the Parthians......too bad EVERYONE hated them.

vincelee said:

oh the Parthians......too bad EVERYONE hated them.

Click to expand...

Hate them. What for. Because they almost defeated the Roman.:nana:

Hi vinclee whey don't you change back to your usual name such as yuethemighty. Vinclee alway give me the chill.

Rommel, I think anyone who read a good majority of this thread has established that the Romans do, indeed, use tower shields. Thank you for reminding us for the hundredth time. Now, let me remind you that the shields are wood, and thin wood at that. The reason they're round is so that blows will glance off to the side, rather than cut through it. Not only that, but seeing as an arrow with some decent power behind it can penetrate the shield (and almost penetrate the unfortunate Roman behind it), then I'm guessing that the Han crossbow would easily penetrate the shield and more than likely the man.

Also, you have to take into account how many Roman soldiers did not use a gladius and a shield. I think we also all came to the agreement that about half of Rome's total army size would've been made up by auxilla[sp?] which weren't legionaries, but rather, various other types of units. They also weren't as heavily armored as the legionary, nor did they carry as large of shields half the time. The majority of the casualties in my scenario would be these troops, not the legionaries. However, with it's ability to penetrate the tower shields and the poorly crafted Roman iron, I'm sure a good amount of the Roman legionaries would be wounded to some extent, and a lot of these wounds could render them immobile or much less able to fight, at the very least.

Now, once again, Rommel, picture some 250,000 legionaries, a lot of which are wounded, and all of them must be very distraught over the extremely heavy casualties and constant rain of arrows. Now all they gotta do (in my scenario, that is) is fight through either 650,000 infantry and 650,000 cavalry or withstand multiple cavalry charges. Do you *honestly* believe they're still capable of winning?

I never knew that about the Xiongnu Empire... that's quite interesting, KYli. Gives me something new to research.

"Hi vinclee whey don't you change back to your usual name such as yuethemighty. Vinclee alway give me the chill"

......don't wanna.

Xiong Nu isn't an empire. When translated literally, it means Hostile(Xiong) Barbarians (Nu). They were large tribes of normadic horsemen, much like the Khan's flock, but less organized.

Of course I can be wrong.