Rome vs Han China

zraver said:

Does anyone find you discredible? You appear to selectively pick evidence that suits you and disregard others

look in the mirror

1- the han used shields and thus found them miltiarily viable

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Which is why stronger and stronger bows were crossbows were developed. Even cavalry uses the smaller crossbows in addition to recurved bows.

But in the end, the Chinese were fighting with long double handed swords and halberds because shield and sword does not do well against cavalry. For skimishing and loose fighting ultimately it is better to go without shield and sword. If you look at feudal Japan, main Japanese soldier carries not katana or any ninja-to, their main weapon is naginata, a form of halberd.

2- the Scutum was laminated wood and the glue would streangthen it, as would the multiple layers arranged cross grained

3- blades don't work on wood as they tend to bind

4- larger impact surfaces result in a less concentrated energy deleivery

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Ancient glues are not really as good as today's, and wood has a tendency to get brittle and decay with humidity.

The impact surfaces are not any larger. It still is concentrated on a single point, transitioning to a wedge, a sudden increase in pressure that would break the wood around it.

If you ever smashed a wedge through wood you will see the back give way and spllinter.

Not really. "Average" bow and arrow can kill horses.

maybe from the side at close range with the arrow set up to slide between the ribs. From the front and top the horse has a tough hide and a mass of muscle and bone. Unless you hit the jugular that hors eis going to need a lot of arrows to go down, or a heavier bow/crossbow with bolts/arrows desinged to rend large amounts of flesh ohh wait just like the Han bolt heads which are not armor piercing, but rending.

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That depends where you hit the horse and the impact.

If you need that much crossbow power to take down cavalry, you really be better sorry for the Roman infantry when they have to deal with cavalry since they don't have a bow and arrow remotely close.

A guy with a 300lb draw personal crossbow would have a modern analog of a soldier carrying an antitank cannon for a personal weapon.

he gets one shot that might or might not work agaisnt the ancient worlds version of an MBT

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But he can still reload a lot faster than any of today's personnal antitank weapons.

WTF what is pulling the strong forward? The bows snapping forward is what you cannot have the string in motion in a direction opposite of the force pulling on it.

To load a crossbow you winch the bows backward along the string to reach the trigger catch then you se tthe catch and load the bolt. When you pull the trigger releasing the string the bows snap forward pulling the string and bolt with it.

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HUH? Are you kidding me?

Recoil in firearms is caused by by the blow of the gunpowder, none of which is present in a crossbow.

I have never seen anyone holding a hand held crossbow or bow jerk back at the moment the crossbow or bow is fired. Both crossbow and bow has the same principle for god sakes.

Close pack formations and tightly pack bodies must be one hell of a way to win a war because I myself don't see the Romans use that as often as some people might portray it to be.

well that is how they fought, they would overlap thier sheilds and on command would push with the scutum, turn it creating a gap and stab upward with the gladius. We still ahve Roman manuls at arms for this stuff.

Ohh BTW you jumped me for saying Plutarch was not 100% relaible and then turn around and say his description of massed infantry in not accurate.

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I am not saying that close formations isn't the standard doctrine of Roman combat. Just that it may not be practical all the time as you can see with fighting the Macedonians. That has nothing to do with Plutarch.

1- the Romans had sub unit leaders and drill at a much smaller level than the greeks

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And Han drill even smaller, and formed what is the most universal infantry unit of all time---the squad. For them to decide this gives you an idea of the refinement in their understanding of tactics.

2- practice, practice, practice you keep forgetting that these guys marched for liivng and had an average elangth of service in excess of 10 years.

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Somehow they often get their ass owned by the more 'barbaric' Europeans.

Do you honestly expect that every Roman soldier in the field is a 10 year veteran? The life expectancy of a soldier is short. Many of them do not survive even a year. You're going to have as many greenhorns and noobs in the Roman army as with the Han army.

vs the Imperial Macedonians the Romans pushed into the Phalanx locking the pike tips into the scutum and then side stepping and letting the next rank do the same, they split the phalanx this way and got inside the reach of the pike and went to work with thier gladius.

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And that is not fighting with close formation at all.

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You may or may not know a lot about Han infantry and tactics (although so far you have not explained much detail about the latter), but you need to read a lot more about non-Han warfare or military history.
That is what other posters offer (at least, what I try), but instead of accepting their expertise and expanding on it thus contributing to build up some interesting content, you attack those posts using your own, made-up definitions to prove why the other is 'wrong again'.That way, you turn this thread into a debate (instead of a discusison, which I - and I suppose others - prefer), where it only matters who wins. Sure, a debate can be good fun now and then, but not all-the-time. Besides this debate is not going your way as you tend to say the opposite of what you said several postings earlier.
I have no problem with you seeing the Han as some kind of Uebermensche with Superweaponry using technology Far-Advanced-Beyond-All-Others, making mince meat out of every opponent that does not know how Feeble their own heavy armored, 20 year proffesionals really are ... but it tends to clog and fog up the discussion. Nevertheless:

crobato said:

[...] That depends where you hit the horse and the impact. If you need that much crossbow power to take down cavalry, you really be better sorry for the Roman infantry when they have to deal with cavalry since they don't have a bow and arrow remotely close.

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Please read a book or two about - for example - 18th century or Napoleonic warfare to get an understanding of ranged weaponry vs drilled but unarmored horses and unarmored infantry, both lacking ranged weapons. If they could withstand salvo musketry and charge home - with acceptable or few losses-, then why wouldn't heavily armored melee vets vs crossbows. Let me guess ... "Han crossbows actually were better than muskets: better morale, better drilled, better salvo doctrine, higher rate of fire, longer range, better accuracy and of course far more lethal impact."
Which must be the reason why all armies changed from crossbows to muskets, even though muskets are harder to make and use, and more complicated to operate (not my assumptions btw).

crobato said:

[...] I am not saying that close formations isn't the standard doctrine of Roman combat. Just that it may not be practical all the time as you can see with fighting the Macedonians. [...] that is not fighting with close formation at all.

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Which close is this? Crobato-close or military-history-close? We mean (and it was) the latter. And against the Macedonians it was probably as close as you can get in any infantry formation. What makes you think otherwise?

crobato said:

[...] And Han drill even smaller, and formed what is the most universal infantry unit of all time---the squad. For them to decide this gives you an idea of the refinement in their understanding of tactics.

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And for the same reasons, of course, other professional armies - like Romans - used similar refinements (unless you're talking Crobato-squads of 2 men).

crobato said:

[...] Somehow they often get their ass owned by the more 'barbaric' Europeans.

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Ah, the Carrhae card again. I don't mind you measuring the Roman's (or whomever's) performance thru their uncommon defeats, but then please do the same with your Han-Uebermensche ... unless you are saying that no Han army was ever defeated.

crobato said:

[...] Do you honestly expect that every Roman soldier in the field is a 10 year veteran? The life expectancy of a soldier is short. Many of them do not survive even a year.

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As you said earlier "spin spin spin" ... not every one, no of course not. But on average, probably. Obviously you do not expect or believe that ... notwithstanding documented losses of Roman armies, the fact that they ran into a lot of problems thru their policy of granting land to retired vets, etc etc etc. You must have some interesting sources that no-one has yet discovered to be so sure.

For the record, to me Han are no better or worse than Romans (although I detest the Roman civilization for ethical reasons, but that is another subject and completely off topic).

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BeeJay

IDonT said:

Who would win?

The Roman Testudo and manipular infantry tactic vs the Han Dynasty crossbow and missile warfare.

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Han would win the warfare.I have studied the Han history for a long time.Han had so many horse troopers .The battle is not between Han infantry and Rome infantry.
The emperor of Han Dynasty had once used 180000 horse troopers to attack Hun.So Han Dynasty could call out a large number of horse troopers. The horse troopers would easily vanquish Rome infantry and Rome have no chance to win the battle unless they use horse toopers to defend themself.
At first Rome should have more field to feed their horse.there were so much field in north of china and Han Dynasty could raise millions of horse troopers.
that's all I'm not good at english but I will try my best to explain clearly.

The general concensus is the "if" means somewhere in Central Asia aka the stans or Causaus regions. That far from the Chinese bread basket you are not going to feed 180,000 men let alone 180,000 men and horses. China's numbers are tied to rice and grain, central Asia is scrub grass. China should be able to achieve no more than a 2-1 max superority in men.

zraver said:

The general concensus is the "if" means somewhere in Central Asia aka the stans or Causaus regions. That far from the Chinese bread basket you are not going to feed 180,000 men let alone 180,000 men and horses. China's numbers are tied to rice and grain, central Asia is scrub grass. China should be able to achieve no more than a 2-1 max superority in men.

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You have to understand more about the Han. They **meticulously** calculated the requirements of sustaining every man, and brought a massive logistical chain that included as much as 30,000 spare horses and 10,000 oxen to support Ban Chao's drive.

crobato said:

You have to understand more about the Han. They **meticulously** calculated the requirements of sustaining every man, and brought a massive logistical chain that included as much as 30,000 spare horses and 10,000 oxen to support Ban Chao's drive.

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Thanks for your reply.The soldiers of Han Dynasty also acted as farmers.Han had its own economic policies.When the war began ,the soldiers should defend their country and when the war was over they came back to do some farm work.This is called "Tun Tian" policy.So obviously Han Dynasty could afford their army.Every person of Han could raise horses to avoid their corvee and obtain a lot of money at the same time. Horse troopers were turned into the main army during Han Dynasty.Emperor Liu Che is one of the greatest Emperor in the history of China.He commanded that government should control the commerce of Han Dynasty.His minister did some business instead of businessman to make the price stable.The minister earned abundant money for government to establish a strong army.Every man was the soldier.They were allowed to hold bows and crossbows for daily training.

crobato said:

You have to understand more about the Han. They **meticulously** calculated the requirements of sustaining every man, and brought a massive logistical chain that included as much as 30,000 spare horses and 10,000 oxen to support Ban Chao's drive.

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Which must be why Li Kuang Li marched into Ferghana (105-102 BC) with less than half of the 60 000 men he started with, was then first beaten back, but tried again and finally returned triumphantly with 10 000 survivors?
(or maybe a lot deserted just to go back to their farmlands, as Han was more of a militia army and not like the full time professionals that the Romans were)

A thing about cavalry armies: they certainly weren't like tidal waves, destroying any army that was not cav-only. 'Even' our Romans beat cavalry on a regular basis, like Sulla at Chaeronea and Orchomenus; Lucullus at Tigranocerta (10 000 Romans vs 100 000 Armenians) and at Artaxata; and our infamous Partians repeatedly by Trajan and Cassius (who brought back the plague, unfortunately).

BeeJay

BeeJay said:

Which must be why Li Kuang Li marched into Ferghana (105-102 BC) with less than half of the 60 000 men he started with, was then first beaten back, but tried again and finally returned triumphantly with 10 000 survivors?
(or maybe a lot deserted just to go back to their farmlands, as Han was more of a militia army and not like the full time professionals that the Romans were)

A thing about cavalry armies: they certainly weren't like tidal waves, destroying any army that was not cav-only. 'Even' our Romans beat cavalry on a regular basis, like Sulla at Chaeronea and Orchomenus; Lucullus at Tigranocerta (10 000 Romans vs 100 000 Armenians) and at Artaxata; and our infamous Partians repeatedly by Trajan and Cassius (who brought back the plague, unfortunately).

BeeJay

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Han had its full time professional soldiers,but the professional army should do some farm work to provide themself and Han Dynasty didn't need to rob other countries to maintain their army.So Rome should expand their land for their soldiers because they had no correct economic policies.General Wei Qing,general Huo Qu Bing and general Li guang of Han Dynasty had beaten Hun so hard.Emperor Liu Che didn't think it necessary to send professional soldiers.Criminal and volunteers were sent to the battlefront.Hun became more and more weaker after several failure.This policy ensured that the soldiers were strong enough.Generals never worried about if the soldiers knew how to use bows or crossbows ,Han Dynasty owned a different culture and policies.The government encouraged his people to get more prize and high rank through the campaign.The government also encouraged his people to be a warrior.Of course the soldiers should be trained for some time.Bow and crossbow were just like toys of Han citizen from childhood.I should mention a general whose name is Li Ling.He was the grandson of Li Guang who is one of the greatest generals in history.He and his 5000 infantry confronted 80000 Hunnish soldiers and killed more than 10000 Hun.He surrendered at last.He taught Hun how to defeat Han army.What a pity.Han generals underestimated the Hunnish enemy when they got enough success.Li Guang Li was the bad ensample.

Meritocracy is more effective than plutocracy- that factor alone would have insured the Han victory!
For the sake of an argument, let's say the Romans won instead. But at what price? The survivors would have been so few that they wouldn't have a chance to consolidate their gains thousands of miles from home.