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Do we have any hard figures as to how much steel armor a reconstructed Chinese repeating crossbow can penetrate? Standard Legionaire armor is on the thin side of plates but anything that had protection levels near chain-mail would be effective in averting lethal injuries by arrorow fire. Pre-gunpowder missiles tend to be weapons of harassment and disruption, not decisive destruction.
The Romans were not defeated by arrorow fire in the Battle of Carrhae. The Parthian cataphractoi charged the Romans twice to break their formation, and the first one was beaten off by the legion. The Parthians fired a couple more thousand arrorows before attempting a second successful charge. Even so, most of the Roman casualties seem to have been lost during the army's rout through the desert to pursuing cavalry. In other words, the overwhelming majority of Parthian missiles failed to kill. And most historians agree that the the Parthian composite bow was of the standard stepp design used by the Mongols.
To me this seem to indicate that Roman defenses had at least reached rough parity with most missile-weapons. And if that is true, it becomes harder to argue that the Eastern Han had much of an advantage in weaponry.
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What benefits the body is called medicine; what benefits the soul, discipline.
-Augustine of Hippo
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