Rome vs Han China

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crobato

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Really?
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The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly.[1][2] The process is a development of a practice known in China as early as the 200s. [citation needed] The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation through air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten.

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Around 500 BC, however, metalworkers in the southern state of Wu developed an iron smelting technology that would not be practiced in Europe until late medieval times. In Wu, iron smelters achieved a temperature of 1130°C, hot enough to be considered a blast furnace. At this temperature, iron combines with 4.3% carbon and melts. As a liquid, iron can be cast into molds, a method far less laborious than individually forging each piece of iron from a bloom.

Cast iron is rather brittle and unsuitable for striking implements. It can, however, be decarburized to steel or wrought iron by heating it in air for several days. In China, these ironworking methods spread northward, and by 300 BC, iron was the material of choice throughout China for most tools and weapons. A mass grave in Hebei province, dated to the early third century BC, contains several soldiers buried with their weapons and other equipment. The artifacts recovered from this grave are variously made of wrought iron, cast iron, malleabilized cast iron, and quench-hardened steel, with only a few, probably ornamental, bronze weapons.

During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220), Chinese ironworking achieved a scale and sophistication not reached in the West until the eighteenth century. In the first century, the Han government established ironworking as a state monopoly and built a series of large blast furnaces in Henan province, each capable of producing several tons of iron per day. By this time, Chinese metallurgists had discovered how to puddle molten pig iron, stirring it in the open air until it lost its carbon and became wrought iron. (In Chinese, the process was called chao, literally, stir frying.)

Also during this time, Chinese metallurgists had found that wrought iron and cast iron could be melted together to yield an alloy of intermediate carbon content, that is, steel. According to legend, the sword of Liu Bang, the first Han emperor, was made in this fashion. Some texts of the era mention "harmonizing the hard and the soft" in the context of ironworking; the phrase may refer to this process.

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Maybe you should read your own link better why the Romans failed in steel production.
 
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crobato

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zraver;49061[B said:
And the Chinese knew the concept of zero as a number, not to mention the value of pie.[/B]

is there an invention you wont steal form anothe rculture for Chinese pride

zero

The Babylonians were known to have used a space as a placeholder for empty "columns" as far back as 1700 BC.

The first records we have of the symbol we use for 0, is from Hindu writings from the late 9th century.

Pi

Known also as the "golden mean" or "golden rule" was an invention of ancient Egypt and is found repeatedly in their buildings, it wa salter copied by the Greeks.

Seripusly man, discussion require honesty and truthfulness. Stealing other cultures inventions to inflate your side of the argument is dishonest


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Mathematics

The decimal system
A place for 0
Negative numbers
Extraction of higher roots and solutions of higher numerical equations
Decimal fractions
Using algebra in geometry
A refined value of pi
'Pascal's' triangle of binomial coefficients

"An example of how the Chinese used the decimal system may be seen in an inscription from the thirteenth century BC, in which '547 days' is written 'Five hundred plus four decades plus seven of days'. The Chinese wrote with characters instead of an alphabet. When writing with a Western alphabet of more than nine letters, there is a temptation to go on with words like eleven. Less elegant number schemes such as Roman numerals, built on positions by adding a unit to a power of ten symbol, without using placeholders (zeros). Eleven was X (ten) followed by I (one). This became even more unwieldy with or half powers of ten such as L for 50 or D for 50. With Chinese characters, ten is ten-blank and eleven is ten-one (zero was left as a blank space: 405 is 'four blank five'). A noteworthy characteristic of the Chinese system, and one that represented a substantial advantage over the Mediterranean systems, was its predilection for a decimal notation. This is demonstrated by early measuring rulers dating back as far as the 6th century BC. "

"Some have argued the first use of a place value system should be attributed to the ancient Sumerians during the Proliterate period (3100-2800 BC). While it cannot be denied that the Babylonians used a place value system, theirs was sexagismal (base 60), and while the concept of place value may have come from Mesopotamia, the Indians were the first to use it with a decimal base (base 10). All current evidence points towards the Indian system having been influenced by the base 10 Chinese counting boards (precursor to the abacus) and the place value system of the Babylonians. Without doubt the use of a decimal base originates from the most basic human instinct of counting on one's fingers. The key contribution of the Indians however is not in the development of nine symbols to represent the numbers one to nine, but the invention of the place holder zero. "
 

crobato

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2- The native Americans a nomadic horse people with exposure to trousers preffered breechclouts.

Now that is stupid. Horse never came to the American continent until the Europeans brought them in.

As for wearing breechclothes

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but thier preferance does not change the protective value of the armor. and solid plates designed to deflect are superior to chain

How is that? They preferred it because of their looks? Why would they go for allegedly 'cheap' armor among the valued officers? Give me a break.

Armor in larger and larger pieces tend to fracture and buckle more than in smaller pieces. Try breaking in half a 24" inch of wood, a 12" piece of wood, and then a 6" piece of wood. Chain is like a net, it catches and traps the arrowhead, and the arrowhead have to shatter the chain link by forcing the entire diameter of the arrowhead through instead of allowing the energy of an arrowhead to concentrate on a single point. Likewise, a metal scale of a much smaller length is much harder to break through than a larger pierce of plate or segment even if the same metal and thickness is used.

Once penetrated, the iron plate does not give much resistance against the shaft coming through, contrary to your belief, due to its low frictional properties. The Hans have it right by putting leather underneath because leather tends to "grab" the sides of the arrowhead and create the friction to slow and stop it. In addition to that, the use of leather and clothing underneath the scale armor also produces a cushioning effect against the arrowhead.

Oh, and you're wrong there also. Logica Segmentata is cheaper to produce than Logica Hamata (chain mail) which is a lot more time and labor intensive. Logica Squamata or scale armor is also preferred for use by Centurions.
 

crobato

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2- the broad three bladed design would induce massive friction when passing through the laminated wood (if it didnt just impale and stick) and lack the power to pierce the armor. It's cross section is too big to defeat heavy armors, it was desinged to defeat leather not metal.

Massive friction? Wood shatters, and when it shatters, all the fibers and fragments move in the same direction as the projectile. Heavy armor is penetrated because iron can also bend and shatter. At least iron is more ductile than wood, and bends in impact, which is why it resists arrows better.

There is a lot of weight in those Qin arrowheads and bodkin. They remind me of nail sets seen in hardware stores that is used to punch holes in wood, or the tips of nails, or concrete chiesels made to break solid concrete. In fact all the designs that were shown are highly meant to penetrate wood. If you want to make an arrowhead meant to really maim someone in leather, it won't look this way. It would have more of a knife point with barbed edges on the side.

Wood has other problems. They tend to lose hardness over time and repeated hammering, become either brittle or soft with humidity.
 

crobato

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Conditional. Not all combat takes place in close quarters and not all Han swords are jians. Have you heard of the Dao? The heavy sword with the single edge?

No it's not, if the Legions impact your lines, your fighting thier battle, and the dao like the celtic longsword would have been a huge liability for it's lack of close quarters mobility.

Lol. If you have known the Dao, you would not be making Celtic long sword comparisons.

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BeeJay

New Member
A lot of mails to catch up!

By now we have established that some people are absolutely convinced of the superiority of either the Han or the Roman civilization, (too?) often citing Wiki and making very broad (and very debatable) assumptions of subjects remotely connected to our discussion ("A civilization is better because it has mass production?" ... Where did that come from? Etc). Why not start a separate thread about this superiority thing? Because we are going around in circles and everyone only seems interested in trying to convince the others of being right, but no-one succeeds in that.

For every argument a good counter argument can be build, so this kind of debate (it's not a discussion anymore) can go on forever ... it's not that hard to come up with new ones: "Qin arrow shape was not for armor penetration. It was because this shape inflicts wounds that are much harder to heal and easier to infect than those from flat shaped heads. This ensures much greater losses to the steppe nomads, who could always get away easily and recuperate even when wounded."
Or: "Armies are commonly designed to successfully fight their own kind. Han armor is not that special. From these two we can infer that Han crossbows would not be that effective at all against better-than-Han armored troops."

Why not stop this kind of debate and get back to the army thing, for a really interesting discussion? Because in the end it never comes down to the weapon system itself.

(So even supposing your units are superior,)
How would you successfully deploy and use your army's units vs the other army?

BeeJay
 

Obcession

Junior Member
To me, this whole topic is meaningless.

What if Parthia joined on Han's side?

What of Parthia joined on Roman's side?

What if Han was able to transport 1 million soldiers to Rome's borders?

What if the Gauls and later, Goths, rise against Rome when Rome's land is empty of its soldiers?

What if Han was able to build a fleet comprised of hundreds of ships in the Mediterrenean?

What if Rome was able to muster a fleet of such number?

What if another Sun Tzu is leading the Han army?

What if Caesar himself was leading the Roman army?

What if a meteor fell out of the sky and smites the Roman formations?

What if Zeus threw down a few lightning bolts and fried the whole Han army?

What if Han army had tanks?

etc etc...

You get my point.
 

IDonT

Senior Member
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(So even supposing your units are superior,)
How would you successfully deploy and use your army's units vs the other army?

In terms of Army composition, the Han consist of a true combined arms team with crossbowmen, archers, spearmen, swordsmen, heavy cavalry, and light cavalry. No defining branch was dominant.

The "western" army in antiquity seldom had any combined arms (except for Alexander the Great's and Hannibal's) and rely on single type of heavy infantry (hoplite or legionaire) as the main component of its strength. Cavalry and archers were not that important and were relegated as supporting arms.

Although a Roman Legion is a flexible infantry formation, it is not suited for all scenarios. It excels at fighting other infantry based armies (Phalanx based and Gallic-German) in a pitch battle. The moment it fights a support arms military (Hannibal at Cannae) or a Cavalry centric military (Parthian's) is its inherent weakness is seen.

Such weakness is also apparent in Cavalry centric armies (horse archer and heavy cavalry combination) as well. The Xiongnu had trouble when the Chinese used crossbows against them. The Pathian's lack of infantry means that they suck at seiges (the reason why they never got pass Syria, even when the Romans were preoccupied with fighting each other).

A true combined arms army is more flexible and is more able to meet all types of battlefield problems. This is why I believe the Han can beat the Roman army.
 

BeeJay

New Member
[...] The "western" army in antiquity seldom had any combined arms [...] A true combined arms army is more flexible and is more able to meet all types of battlefield problems. This is why I believe the Han can beat the Roman army.

Ah, I think that the 'Roman school' would say that many prof. western armies were combined arms as well. But to avoid that debate ...

HOW would you use and deploy the different Han army parts vs the different Roman army parts and then beat it?

For example, I already introduced caltrops or trenches, and screening troops to help the Romans counter (up to a point) some of the strengths of the Han.

BeeJay
 

redarmy2004

Just Hatched
Registered Member
This topic is certainly interesting.

Both Han and Rome fine tuned their weaponry and tactics to counteract their respective enemies. Both are innovators. Period.

Having said that, I still tend to favour the Han armies if they did meet the Romans in battle, due to technological advantages, such as bows and crossbows, metallurgy and tactics. The bow/crossbow advantage has been well illustrated by previous posts.

As for tactics, the Han has the advantage, because I think their armies are varied and thus able to make adjustments, pending battle conditions, more so than the predominantly mono Roman infantry. However, if both sides were to meet in battle I believe the Romans might eventually make changes to their tactics to counteract their disadvantages.

How long will it take for the Romans to change their tactics is another matter altogether. The Roman army in my opinion (loosely based on my various readings) are reluctant to change their tactics, case in point being their reluctance to move from a infantry centric fighting force to a more broad ranged fighting force, despite their shortcomings against various nomadic (horseback) races.

Enlighten me! I'm an infrequent poster so be nice. ;)

Something came in to my mind, has anybody mentioned the most important element in warfare; the respective ECONOMIES of Han and Rome? In my opinion this is the decisive factor in any war, given that neither side are light years ahead of each other in technology. Yes, I believe the Han are technologically superior, but it's not like the Han are using AK47 (my favourite rifle, ;)) to fight the Roman legions equipped with shields and gladiuses.

I thinks some discussion on respective economies to sustain the war will be an interesting angle. Let's face it, neither side will be conclusively defeated in less than 10 (maybe more) years if they were to face off in the greatest ancient war of all times.

edited for syntax.
 
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