akash

Who would win?

I say the Mongols would win easily because Romans are no match for the quick cavalry of the mongols. The slow-moving and heavily armored Roman soldiers would be destroyed by the Mongols.

The Mongols were known to use gunpowder, and grenades and their methods of seige warfare would equal if not surpass the Romans.

The Romans would be clearly overwhelmed.

leib10

Yes, such as happened when the Mongols engaged the heavily armored soldiers of Eastern Europe.

__________________
"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

PubFather

If you equalize the technologies - which you would need to do for a meaningful comparison - then ultimately, the Romans at their height would have won.

Why? The Romans were principally noted for their heavy infantry - but also for their ability to adapt tactics. They fought other horse cultures - sometime losing, sometimes winning. Disciplined, heavy infantry is capable of defeating cavalry and has done so on many occaisions.

More than that, they used lots of auxilla to supplement their forces - including lots of cav.

Last, but not least, the Romans at their height, would have been fighting from much reduced lines of communication, with far greater population densities. They may have lost lots of battles, but they would have won the war.

__________________
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit - Scottish Motto

"They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion” Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

leib10

The heavily armored infantry could not compete with the cavalry archers that the Mongols employed. Using hit and run tactics, the Mongols could decimate Roman infantry before they got into range. It happened to the Eastern Europeans that the Mongols fought. Only the use of counter-archers could help keep the cavalry archers at bay.

The Romans used cavalry, but usually depended almost solely on the infantry to win battles. Up against heavier Parthian cavalry, Roman horsemen usually couldn't compete.

gunnut

And of course they were seperated by nearly 1000 years. What do you think would happen if the Romans had access to gunpowder at 200 AD?

ArmchairGeneral

Good gosh, let's not speculate. That's just too scary. Romans with gunpowder? We'd probably still be speaking Latin.

__________________
"Apocalyptic thought is curiously pleasurable."
-Theodore Dalrymple

Asim Aquil

Romans definitely if you don't compare 15th century weapons with the 10th century weapons.

The real match for the Roman and Byzantium Empire was the Ottoman Empire. Mongols did attack them, but kept failing till the Ottomans reaped victory one after another.

But if you compare governance then the Mughals were far ahead especially under Muslim rule, under the Babur dynasty.

__________________
-- Administrator @
Pakistan Defence: Defence.pk

Officer of Engineers

What? Tammerlane mean anything to you?

__________________
Chimo

kNikS

First, If we re talking about same “heavily armored soldiers of Eastern Europe” they were actually West European-style heavy cavalry/knights.

Second, that West European-style heavy cavalier/knight I am talking about is Serbian Despot Stefan Lazarevic, the first knight of The Order of the Dragon, same order whose member earlier killed sultan Murad I.

Third, he fought in Battle of Angora (as well as in several other battles) on the right wing of sultan Beyazid I, where he

1) Routed Tamerlan’s light cavalry on the left wing
2) Pushed back Tamerlan’s heavy cavalry on left wing
3) Finally stopped by Tamerlan’s reserve consisted of heavy cavalry
4) Assaulted thrice the ring of the Tamerlan’s most experienced heavy cavalry at the center that encircled Beyazid and Janissaries
5) Left battlefield with remaining troops

__________________
For King and Fatherland ~ Freedom or Death

sparten

Was not really Mongol. And the Turks did shake that defeat off.

Not really. When gunpowder came along, people did not get the idea that "we should take a hollow metal tube which is open at one end, put a bag of black powder and a metal ball in it, and then set it off with a match", immdietly after gunpowder was invented. And in battles they were used either as granades (as a Ayn Jalut in 1260) or to launch arrows. It was many centuries before the Chinese and the Arabs came up with a workable cannon.

Please, they captured Ctesiphon, 5 times, in 116 AD, 165 AD, 198 AD, 250 AD, 295 AD, as well as in 627 AD, (Herculius)
This is based on another myth; Romans could not fight in the desert. Yeah, right, they conqured such places as Egypt, Libiya, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Jordan and North West Saudia Arabia.

__________________
"Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

Officer of Engineers

Who was going to argue?

PubFather

Its too easy to argue that horse mounted archers would be decisive.

If you recall the long shields of the Romans - they were actually designed to minimise the casuality count of any missile barrage. Lets not forget that in early AD times the Romans had already mastered artillery, with Onangers and Ballistae.

Any Roman/Mongol war depends on the ability of the commanders - Romans with Varus would die, with Julies Caesar would find a way. same with the mongols.

Seige warfare - where it would have come down to- would have been much more equal. The Romans were masters at seiges - and imho would have bled the Mongols dry

Blademaster

Ha! Have you ever study the wars of China during the Roman times? The level of sophistication of the artillery were way ahead what the Romans had. And there were long sieges and short sieges waged in China.

If you study Caesar's invasion of Gaul and the Battle against Vertingrotix(sp?) He made a fatal mistake and that is letting an enemy force sandwich his forces between an anvil (the fortress) and the hammer (the outside enemy force). It was only through sheer stupidity of the commanders of the enemy forces that allowed Caesar to win. Against the Mongols, his mistake would have led Caesar and his forces to horse fodder.

By the way, the Mongols were masters of siege warfare. Ever study the siege of Baghdad and the siege of some European city in Eastern Europe. One of their favorite tactics was to cut off the heads of horses, enemy soldiers, and throw them back inside in the fortress. That way, they would spread disease among the defenders of the fortress. The Mongols were one of the early pioneers of bio warfare.

Besides, siege forces is no match for manuever forces because you need a steady stream of supply to keep your army fed, clothed, free from disease, sanitised, etc. Manuever forces would cut off the LOCs of the sieging force.

SRB

Huns kick Romans bad and Mongols were far more deadly than Huns.
Mongols were masters of siege which Huns never learn.
Also Mongol crossbow was very good and cheap bow.
Nothing could compare with mobility of mongol horse rider each had 5 horses, they were faster than modern armies.
In the end they control largest land emipe in human history.

__________________

USSR EXPERIMENTAL SPITFIRE

gunnut

Yeah, but the cultural aspect is important also. Mongols had no culture. They have not made lasting impressions on this earth, other than body counts. Their rule in China was one of the shortest dynasties. The Hans kicked them out.

They might be able to defeat the Romans in the short, military term, but they will lose the long term cultural battle. We are still talking about the Roman Empire today. We still marvel at Roman technologies. Our government is modeled after the Romans, who were not too good to borrow a good thing from the Greeks when they saw one.

How long did the Roman Empire last? Some say the American Empire today is the distant relative of Roman Empire. Where are the Mongols?

Don't get me wrong, the Mongols were fierce warriors who rarely met their match on the battlefield. But being nomadic, they didn't have the staying power for a settled people.