Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple C
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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1.) You are correct. In pre-industrial revolution warfare, the majority of the deaths occur during the mop up phase. Missile weaponry, including during the Flintlock era, were used as harrassment and disruption. (this is a very generalized assumption). Decisive destruction only came into effect during the U.S. Civil/Crimean war eras. Even in the Napoleanic wars, the bayonet charge/cavalry charge was still the main destructive method.
Missile weapons generally have a demoralizing effect on the enemy. Taking casualties without the ability to inflict some has a very bad effect on morale, no matter how disciplined your forces are. At Carrhae, the Roman legions became demoralized when they realized that the Parthian horse archers had reloads. At that point, the fight was no longer in them.
2.) Parthian Composite bows did inflict wounds that render a roman legionaire combat ineffective, which has a greater resource draw than having a death casualty. (Similar concept as modern anti-personel mines that are designed to wound.)
3.) Not all of the Han Army consists entirely of crossbowman. Archeological records shows a combined arms force. The army sent by Han Wudi to defeat the Xiongnu were entirely cavalry. Unfortunately, we do not have records of the Han army that has the same amount of detail that we have on the Roman Legions. We can however infer to how a crossbow, halberd, sheild and sword, and cavalry armed army operates by how a similarly armed European army fought during the high middle ages.