Rome vs Han China

There are different kinds of crossbows. The repeating crossbows are hand armed and throws three bolts. It's kind of like an ancient shotgun or machinegun. The ones you use to draw with your feet probably makes up for more of the Qin army (copied from musuem pieces).

One of the real benefits of crossbows is that it enables farmers, peasants or soldiers who do not grow up learning archery to be proficient missile throwers. Because your army is not forced to rely on a cadre of trained elite archers, you have far more missile throwing power at your disposal.

Ballistas alone are said to have great psychological impact on the opponent. But these crossbows have to be mounted on wheels and require a few people to operate, the ancient version of an artillery piece. So they can't match hand operated crossbows in number.

The reason why ancient Chinese armies moved away from the model other ancient armies fight is because of the crossbow. Ancient armies move in large, densely packed formations, with cavalry on the flanks. Same thing during the start of the Warring States period. But the crossbow changed all that, as formations become easy targets, so Chinese armies evolved to becoming smaller and leaner, prefering the use of speed and cover, hence terrain considerations. The concept of working in squads was first developed in China. The much deeper considerations for strategy and tactics as a result of missile warfare led to summations and lessons, eventually compiled into books like the Art of War.

crobato:

I presume the reason China never developed machine-cranked crossbows is because China never developed heavy cavalry. If my understanding is correct, heavy cavalry can be more heavily-armored than heavy infantry as the horse bears more weight than a man. This allows heavy cavalry to be extremely projectile-resistant. On CHF, someone mentioned Jurchen heavy cavalry called "Iron Pagodas"; who were apparently immune to Chinese crossbows.

Also, what about that story on CHF, where English longbows, for some bizarre reason, managed to outrange Swiss arbalests? What is the reason for that? Shouldn't mechanical crossbows be able to employ greater kinetic energy than hand-drawn longbows? Maybe the Swiss used the wrong bolt types; opting for armor penetration over long range?

There are other factors for range and penetration. The length and stiffness of the bow, whether it's lowbow or crossbow, is the bottomline for storing and releasing the energy for the bolt or arrow.

For that matter, it's not just crossbows that revolutioned warfare in the Far East, there is also the invention of the composite bow. Combined, that gives 2-0 edge over the rest of the ancient world when it comes to missile tech. Add the stirrup, and that becomes 3-0.

Like I said, the real advantage of th crossbow is that it enables the peasantry, the farmers and the ordinary foot soldiers to have the same kind of missile throwing power as archers who trained their entire lives on the bow. It is quicker to get farmers proficient with a crossbow than with a long bow. That's going to mean a lot of crossbow troops, that means a lot more missile power, than to rely on a mercenary caste of professional archers with dubious loyalty, hired off from the nomadic tribes in the north and western deserts.

The problem of heavy cavalry is that it wasn't available to the Far East until the Han traded silks for Arabian steeds. These horses were breed by the Han royal house in their stables, and formed the first elite heavy cavalry. This heavy cavalry gave the Hans an edge over the Huns, as steepe ponies are not going to hold the weight of the armor plus the broadsword daos the Han heavy cavalry was using. Later of course, the captured and loose Middle East horses would start interbreeding with the steepe ponies, and that is going to have profound results centuries later.

Here you see how the ancient Chinese armies, using foot armies armed with straight double edged Jian swords, much like the classic ancient army of the Middle East and Rome, moved to a model that is much more like the Middle Eastern armies during the Islamic expansion. From a fencing army with straight swords, they become a fast slashing army with curved single edge swords. Combined with crossbow troops, professional mounted archers with composite bows and stirrup, with sophisticated doctrines in tactics and strategies, and the Chinese armies in the early AD period look far less than the classic ancient armies, and more like the medieval armies in Europe and the Middle East.

Crobato:

I'm talking about later in time. Swiss arbalests are around the 15th century, so I believe. Made out of iron (maybe steel?), with a machine-assisted loading system.

The Europeans even surpassed the vaunted Chinese crossbow in the Middle Ages, ahhh.

Why didn't the Chinese develop cranked arbalests?

Does not make sense to me. Cranked arbalests take a long time to load and arm. They're designed to take out knights in plated armor, which I don't think the Chinese would be encountering.

Chinese crossbows have a much different purpose. They're meant to give a large population like farmers and peasants, an easy to use, quick to load, convenient to aim, bolt throwing device without need for archery skill. They're not exactly superior to composite bow in range or hitting power, but you can train a lot more people faster to use them, and throw more bolts per minute. That greatly increases your army's total missile throwing power.

Weapon system were and still are designed to counter a specific threat. The main threat to the HAN were the horsearchers of the Xiongnu. So a crossbow, that can outranged their composite bows were vital. The greater the range, the greater the energy at the point of release. So at shorter ranges, the bolts of these cross bows have a very potent armor penetrating capability. Rate of fire were not as important as range and penetration. Afterall, volley fire were employed by the Han.

A US civil war regiment (1,000 men) can fire rapidly (2 shots per second) for the entire regiment. So a row of 1,000 crossbowmen, arrange in 2 lines of 500 men each, firing from left to right on both ranks, can also put out as much firepower. The only main difference is the ammunition. Bullets and powder were not as bulky as crossbow bolts.

For the rapid firing crossbows, those were not invented until later and were certainly not as powerful.

So, could the Chinese crossbowmen stop Roman cavalry also? Were their horses armored? Even if they were, how about horses' legs? A repeting crossbow could easily hit massed cavalry below the belt! Wound a horse in the leg and you can kiss it good-bye! Also, what about those Chinese chariots with crews carrying large halberds (see movie "Emperor and the Assassin"? They could also fight the Roman cavalry (as any other)!
Did the Chinese use war elepahants as Carphage/Indians have? Mounted on them, crossbowmen could shower the Romans from above!

At the start of the Warring States Period, the different states had chariots much like Middle Eastern armies. At the time of the Han, no one was using chariots anymore.

Chariots was one of those things that were casualties to that revolution in warfare brought up by a vast increase in missile power brought by crossbows and composite bows.

crobato said:

At the start of the Warring States Period, the different states had chariots much like Middle Eastern armies. At the time of the Han, no one was using chariots anymore.

Chariots was one of those things that were casualties to that revolution in warfare brought up by a vast increase in missile power brought by crossbows and composite bows.

Click to expand...

Even without those chariots the Roman horses and their riders, armored or not, would be dead meat under crossbow fire- the Hun cavalry was!

If you charge head on, that is. If you are moving transversely maybe not.

Against crossbow fire, it is still better to be moving fast than to be standing still no matter what.

Hence, with the enormous increase of missile throwing power armies in ancient China began to show around the later Warring States period, formations began to become much more flexible and mobile, as well as becoming more tactically astute.