Rome Vs Han China

[skel]

in all reality, no armor ever made could stop a sword or arrow from penetrating flesh in a mortal way. yes armor protected against graces, light slashes, weak thrusts, and other cuts and scraps from weapons and battlefield surroundings, but when it all boils down to it, a sword or arrow will go right through everything you are wearing and it will kill you.

 

 

Not the case so far as I'm aware. In the Hundred Years War, Milanese armour stopped even arrows from the English longbow, it was that good. The arrows just bounced or stuck without full penetration. The English almost lost their part of France, had the Italian mercenaries wearing it not decided to loot the baggage train and forget about their French paymasters The French armour was not as good as the Milanese. Can't remember the battle, will post if it comes to mind.

 

In fact, there is a theory that the English longbow was not all that effective against French armour.

really??

 

 

ill have to research that.. i have never heard of this lil fact...

[Fafnir]

:stupid: Lol he looks cool.

 

Does armor include shields? Because if it does, i think the shield could deflect arrows... hence the Testudo formation...

[skel]

your calling me stupid because i said something that is almost entirely true? body armor really does not help you much at all in a real battle.

 

yes sheilds do but sheilds arent really considered "armour" they are... "sheilds"

 

 

if you dont belive what im saying about armour then by all means.. go buy a roman lorica and put it on yourself and have a friend fire arrows at you and swing swords at you and see what happens...

 

 

 

PS.

 

jimbow, if you could guide me to a link supporting what you said about the Milanese armour, id appreciate it because i cant find any links really saying much about its effectiveness in combat...

[Fafnir]

So, why would past commanders spend all the money, and all the time to equip their soldiers with armor if it did not enhance their fighting ability at all? Sounds just a tad farfetched.

 

By the way, if armor doesnt work then why would there have been the Cataphract, a heavily armored cavalryman, and why was it so much more effective than average shock cavalry?

[skel]

if you reread what ive said youll find nowhere did i say that armour was noneffective and useless.

 

its the same as elbowpads and a helmet when you ride your bike... it will protect you somewhat, if you get sideswiped by a car going 30 mph youll still have a broken back and a concusion.

 

armour protects the soldeir from minor things that would otherwise hender their ability to carry on in the battle, such as a graze that normally would have been bone deep is now only a fleshwound after passing through the armour.

 

but when you thrust with all your might as soldiers do in battle it will go right throuigh your armour and into your flesh killing you either at that moment or when the battle is done.

 

 

please dont twist my words and read them clearly before you accuse me of saying things that i did not say or mean. and if at some point you manage to show me proof that my statements are false then i will admit my wrong and thank you for making me a smarter person.

[dnewhous]

• 
  

On crossbow's slow speed. The Han used an organised drill to counter this. Pretty much, while one rank fired, another reloaded, and when they fired, another began to reload. It was like the gun drills used by 18th century Europeans, exept with crossbows.

 

Han too have been known to win battles outnumbered.

 

and would crossbows pierce the tetsudo? Most definitely yes. Roman shields can stop Roman arrows, but not ones of Han. The Parthians soundly beat them with a mounted cavalry army (the style which Han favours).

 

*an ironic note- On Roman javalins- The Chinese considered javalins as weapons fitting only for barbarians, as they had crossbows.

 

as for Rome vs the Mongols.

It would be a "most glorious slaughter"

 

And you must also remember that the Mongols defeated China last, and fought them first. The mongols warred in the Middle East and rampaged through Europe before being able to defeat the Song. They warred with them for nearly eighty years, suffered their greatest amount of casualties, before they could claim their most sought after prize. The Song are also considered a somewhat militarily weak dynasty in the scope of Chinese history.

 

and this is a fighting force that comes around 1000 years after Rome's demise, that's not really fair.

 

The Byzantine empire was still around when the Mongols were, so the question is not that unfair.

 

I figured that the Roman shields would be unreliable against the Mongol compound bow, but how do you know that the Chinese crossbow would penetrate it? The Romans did eventually defeat the Parthians, though they chose not to attempt to add the territory to the empire. Their big defeat at the hands of the Parthians was when they were led by an incompetent fool whose only claim to fame was defeating a slave revolt.

 

Also, the cataphract cavalry intrigues me. Could it have had some success agains Chinese archers? If I'm not mistaken Roman cavalry was more of a run up close and use your sword kind of thing, not much into archery.

 

Also, when did Rome invent their crossbow? It could be after encountering China they found it much more important than they did before.

[dnewhous]

your calling me stupid because i said something that is almost entirely true?  body armor really does not help you much at all in a real battle.

 

yes sheilds do but sheilds arent really considered "armour" they are... "sheilds"

 

 

if you dont belive what im saying about armour then by all means.. go buy a roman lorica and put it on yourself and have a friend fire arrows at you and swing swords at you and see what happens...

 

 

 

PS.

 

jimbow, if you could guide me to a link supporting what you said about the Milanese armour, id appreciate it because i cant find any links really saying much about its effectiveness in combat...

 

Armor stops swords from being effective in slashing motions. This is why the Europeans went to the rapier in the Rennaissance, which is a stabbing weapon.

 

By way of comparison - the medieval full plate armored knight on a horse with stirrups (very important invention) was like a tank. There were very few of them, but they were extremely effective.

 

Full plate armor works against swords and arrows.

 

Chainmail is worthless against a crossbow. Chainmail was the armor of the medieval European foot soldier and this is partly why the Mongols were so effective.

 

To fight a knight in full armor you have to stab them at the joints between sections of armor. It came to be that being maneuverable was more important (think - the musketeers). I.e. an unarmored man with a rapier has an advantage over a knight on foot because the knight can't move well.

[Jimbow]

jimbow, if you could guide me to a link supporting what you said about the Milanese armour, id appreciate it because i cant find any links really saying much about its effectiveness in combat...

 

 

Hey there dnewhous,

 

Here you go (took a while to find it) Ch4 documentary

 

The Battle of Verneuil, 1424. It was in a TV series called 'Weapons that made Britain'.

 

 

 

"...... The French pulled back to Verneuil where they were joined by reinforcements, including 2,000 Italian cavalry. These knights and their horses were encased in the latest hardened full-plate 'arrow-proof' armour, which would be seeing battle for the first time ......... the heavily armoured Italian cavalry charged against the English frontline archers. As the latter's arrow storms fell, they failed to stop the thundering advance, and the archers' line was ultimately smashed by this new phenomenon of heavy cavalry. The almost impregnable Italians raced through the English force and set to looting the baggage train ....."

 

 

It was an excellent documentary series, and they actually filmed some of the same armour being made by a modern armourer. It had a bluish tinge, I seem to remember; a result of the special hardening method.

 

 

Come to think of it, it could have been Genoese armour?

 

Jim.

[Lex]

Hi TMPikachu

 

The Eastern Roman Empire only fell in 1453. The term

[Fatboy]

Hmnnn,imaginary wars,these arguments can go on....and on...and on - and really nobody knows because we have no ( sensible ) context to put it in

Lots of fun though, so I think I'll have a go myself

If we're talking about both empires at their peak I think its hard to call because both were pretty much invunerable.

We could argue about the old chestnut of Western armour versus Eastern mobility far ever but these things decided battles, not wars. For every Mongol horde surrounding closely packed European Knights or Eastern horsemen swamping isolated Roman Legions, you have a Macedonian phalynx smashing through Persian front lines or a Frankish shield wall

rolling over Saracen horsemen.

It was the machinery behind the individual armies who decided wars ( and still do ) - determining who was beter equipped, organised, supplied etc.

Both these Empires were seriously well organised and barring and early, cataclysmic defeat for either side ( almost unthinkable given both sides resourses ) whichever side was on the back foot would be able to roll with the punches and learn how to fight their new enemy.

Romes probable superiority in the field would not be enough for complete victory as the never ending struggle of the Roman/Byzantine Empire versus that of the Persians/Parthians shows - the Romans were usually on top but never really conquered them, that took the Islamic armies who took advantage of the two worn out behemoths after their final epic confrontation and conquered most of both empires.

The Romans famously relentless approach to war would not have been decisive either - the Great wall alone is enough to show that the Chinese can match anyone for sheer bloody mindedness.

The obvious advantage for the Han would be sheer weight of numbers, but this wouldn't be sufficient either.

The Romans true military talent wasn't tactics or technology

( although advanced in both ) it was the ability to raise armies.

The Romans lost almost as many battles as they won, but unlike anyone else Rome could absorb huge military disasters without breaking a sweat. We hear of them losing an entire army of 50,000 in a day, but before their opponents had finished celebrating their victory they could see another Roman army on the horizon -of identical size, identically trained and identically equipped as the last - but they knew about the last battle and had learned from it - it was like fighting the Borg. Basically, the Romans are built for wars of attrition and you will never wear them down.

Someone made the point that Chinese are better warriors, hardly, its obvious from history that all peoples are capable of fighting like lions or running like cowards, it depends on their attitude at a particular time - unshakeable religious belief or confidence in your commanders help, infectious defeatism or lack of supplies obviously don't.

If its the late Han Empire the Romans would conquer the individual fractured areas one by one

By the same token if its the late Roman empire the Han would swamp them a la the Barbarians

Finally then,who'd win?

I think after the first few bloody and inconclusive battles they would learn to leave each other well alone and go pick on some "savages" instead. Maybe some sort of cold war as befitting two superpowers. Or Rome would win on points. Or something.....ok, I still havent a clue.

[skel]

thanks for sharing that jim! i never knew such an armour existed. i found that info very interesting.

[nic]

I think it was the time of augustus, that the Han were the most riches of the two and generally had much more gold. I remember it saying that Augustus told all the rich nobles, or what ever, to stop buying silk because it was taking gold out of Rome ( and going to China [indirectly]).

[nic]

Some say that Romes great advantage is its professional army. Is it really that great an advantage? and is china's really similar to the Persian's as is what they say alot also. Were stirrups not part of China or Romes army at around han times. Ive read that when the parthians were fighting Rome during Carrea they took them out with horse archers using the 'Parthian shot' where they can twist around to shoot behind them. Did they have the stirrup then if they could do that.

Is it right to presume that a generic Roman army conisted of tens of thousands of troops while a Chinese generic army consisted of hundreds of thousands of troops?

 

It seems to me that Roman troops seem to be generally better armoured then Chinese troops is this wrong? If not, is it because the Chinese had more emphasis on mobility?.

 

 

Thanks.

[Fatboy]

I'm almost sure that the Chinese didn't have stirrups during the Han Dynasty, although I believe they invented (?) them by the fifth Century.

The Romans definitely didn't have them - for some reason Europeans took forever to adopt them - until the middle ages I think.

Why the world was so slow to develop stirrups despite centuries of mounted warfare is an absolute mystery to me.

As for the similarities between the Chinese and Persian armies -

to a certain extent we tend to consider them alike more out of ignorance than anything else, but nevertheless there are similarities.

One major constant in history is that western armies tend to prefer frontal, shock battle in order to break the enemy line and win a decisive victory

( and generally a preference for infantry over cavalry ), while eastern armies generally like battles of manuvre where surrounding and enveloping the enemy is the aim of the game

( obviously favouring mounted warriors )

For this reason the Romans struggle with the Persians is quite instructive when imagining a clash between the Empire and the Han as despite any specific differences between the Persians and the Han ( and there are many ), the pattern of the warfare would probably follow the same pattern as almost every other east/west clash in history.

The idea of the disparity in numbers would not be such an issue because the Roman military machine's ability to form and equip new armies was one of its greatest strengths - they would be able to match the Han in the field on any given day.

As for heavy Roman armour versus Eastern mobility - your spot on( although by most standards the Han infantry WERE heavily armoured - just not by Roman standards )

[Marcus Regulus]

There are three controled factors that determine a units effectiveness in combat.

1) Equipment

2) Training

3) Moral

 

Equipment -- Romans of the legions early Empire were the cream of the crop here. Not sure about the Han Dynasty, but for the sake of argument let's say they are the same.

 

Training -- with the exception of the Spartans I can think of no better trained in all things military than the Romans. They could do it all and often did. They were the world's first truly professinal army.

 

Moral -- This is the key fact, because the best equiped and trained soldier who does not want to fight is uselss compared to one that does.

 

I give the Romans of the Early Empire the edge because they had all three, in the han Dynasty I don't know. But I imagine it would be ugly.

 

Just for the record, the reason the French feared the longbow was not that armor didn't work, but that they had invested so much on calvary which was difficult to armor the horses. Arrows would bounce off French plate of the knight, but against the horses they were riding, armor was too expensive. Many knights died because an arrow found its way into a horse and threw the rider -- being in armor does not really stop crushing attacks like being thrown from a horse. It does prevent you from being cut and bleeding to death. That is its real advantage. Bruises will heal after a battle, Cuts get infected and lead to death given the medicine of the time. Armor allows an army to survive the aftermath better.