Roman Republic vs Eastern Han

[xunil]

Han Vs Rome comes down to one thing, really. How effective is the crossbow versus the Roman legions? If a Qin dynasty or a Han dynasty crossbow can pierce the scutum and kill the legionnaire, then the Han dynasty will rout. If it can't pierce the scutum and the legionnaire's body armor, then the Chinese forces will be in a lot of trouble.

I don't think crossbow would be so important. Think about squares of chariots with soliders armed with long spears, swords and crossbows. You should see the army lineup which showed in the Emperor Qin's mausoleum.

[IDonT]

Han Vs Rome comes down to one thing, really. How effective is the crossbow versus the Roman legions? If a Qin dynasty or a Han dynasty crossbow can pierce the scutum and kill the legionnaire, then the Han dynasty will rout. If it can't pierce the scutum and the legionnaire's body armor, then the Chinese forces will be in a lot of trouble.

The Han used heavy crossbow bolts about 1-2 lbs each (notice the entire bolt, not just the tip is made of metal). The shape of the bolt is clearly designed to pierce armor. The English would later independently re-invent and call them the Bodkin point. They will go through plywood and armor. The Parthian composite bows did.





Secondly, the Han army is a combined arms force of heavy and light cavalry, crossbow, sword and shield, and halbeard armed infantry. Historically, crossbows and other missile weapons were meant to disrupt and prevent formations. Even in the flint lock era, the bayonet charge was the main determinant of battle.

In the Qin and Eastern Han eras, their combined arms army have their crossbow men pelt their enemies, as the Halberd and sword and shield armed heavy infantry advances and heavy cavalry flank. Crossbows, with their long range and power, prevents their enemy from effectively countering any manuever by keeping them busy protecting themselves from crossbow bolts.

The Roman army had the same weapon with the same effect, the pilum.
Pillum is thrown before charge, rear ranks throw pilum as front ranks are charging. While the pilum may injure or kill some of the enemy, they have a much effective affect of preventing the enemy front ranks from successfully countering the charge by disrupting their thought pattern from "brace for the charge" to "keep your shield up and deflect the Pilum.

The Han heavy infantry, on the contrary, will seek to close with the Roman soldiers.

[Inst]

I'm having a tough time finding documentation on Chinese infantry tactics.

[Inst]

The point of the xbow is that it's easy. If the crossbow dominates Roman Legionnaires, then we don't really have a discussion.

Besides, the Chinese apparently switched to extremely crossbow heavy armies during the Song dynasty, until the advent of Jurchen heavy cavalry, who could both wear heavy armor and close in rapidly against missile troops, so it's certainly possible that missile troops could defeat the armor of infantry soldiers.

[Ironduke]

The Chinese had repeating crossbows too, complete with magazines full of bolts, capable of 40 rounds per minute.

The Romans, however, would have quickly adopted and incorporated any technology used against them, so any superior Chinese weapon would become a Roman weapon. I'm unsure if the Chinese would have done likewise.

[Ironduke]

Now I remember. The tests were positive but that really did not mean anything. We know that Roman traders had reached China and vice versa. All that this really means is that some Romans reached China.

Chinese historians called the Roman Empire Ta-ts'in, and the Roman emperor was called An-tun (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus).

In the ninth year of the Yen-hsi period of Huan-ti of the Han dynasty [166 C.E.] the king of Ta-ts'in, An-tun [Marcus Aurelius Antoninus], sent an embassy with tribute from the frontier of Jih-nan [Annam]; during the Han period they have only once communicated with Zhongguo. The merchants of this country frequently visit Fu-nan [Siam] Jih-nan [Annam] and Chiao-chih [Cochin China]; but few of the inhabitants of these southern frontier states have come to Ta-ts'in. During the fifth year of the Huang-wu period of the reign of Sun-ch'uan [226 C.E.] a merchant of Ta-ts'in, whose name was Ts'in-lun, came to Chiao-chih [Cochin China]; the prefect [t'ai-shou] of Chiao-chih, Wu Miao, sent him to Sun-ch'uan [the Wu emperor], who asked him for a report on his native country and its people. Ts'in-lun prepared a statement, and replied. At the time Chu-ko K'o [Nephew to Chu-ko Liang, alias K'ung-ming] chastised Tan-yang [or Kiang-nan] and they had caught blackish colored dwarfs. When Ts'in-lun saw them he said that in Ta-ts'in these men are rarely seen. Sun-ch'uan then sent male and female dwarfs, ten of each, in charge of an officer, Liu Hsien of Hui-chi [a district in Chekiang], to accompany Ts'in-lun. Liu Hsien died on the road, whereupon Ts'in-lun returned direct to his native country.

East Asian History Sourcebook: Chinese Accounts of Rome, Byzantium and the Middle East, c. 91 B.C.E. - 1643 C.E.

[Inst]

The repeating crossbow is a curiousity. It's like obsessing over pistols as the decisive weapon in 21st-century warfare; the weapon has its place in battle, but is not particularly useful.

In Chinese warfare, the repeating crossbow suffered from a lack of range, power, and penetration. To solve the problem, the repeating crossbow would be employed in close-quarters with poisoned bolts. Of course, this was worthless against armored foes. Whatever happens with the scutum vs crossbow shtick, the repeating crossbow will not penetrate the scutum.

The Romans also had crossbows of their own, but operating on a different design. The Roman crossbow was less efficient than the later European crossbow and the Asiatic crossbow, due to its mechanism of propelling the bolt.

[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.

[IDonT]

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.

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.

[Zeng]

The Chinese had repeating crossbows too, complete with magazines full of bolts, capable of 40 rounds per minute.

The Romans, however, would have quickly adopted and incorporated any technology used against them, so any superior Chinese weapon would become a Roman weapon. I'm unsure if the Chinese would have done likewise.

Until middle Ming dynasty, China was very able to lean/adopt new things from its enemies or other cultures. China was very adventurous at that time.

In fact, militarily, China defeated the Xiongnu by extensively using Xiongnu’s cavalry tactics.

In early Ming dynasty, China even had a great expedition into Indian Ocean.

Zheng He - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Starting from Eastern Han, China adopted Buddhism from India and made it one of the building blocks of Chinese culture.

China really started to lock itself from the rest of world during late Ming dynasty. China was pretty open during early Qing dynasty, but they started to lock themselves again in the late Qing dynasty and nearly half of the PRC history.

[Ironduke]

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.

Well...

[astralis]

ironduke,

well, as you can see from the picture, the testudo does have a few vulnerabilities. it limits manueverability, vision, and one is still vulnerable at the sides/gaps.

a resourceful enemy (such as the parthians) could and would keep up a withering hail of fire, and then let off at the last second to allow heavy cavalry to charge the formation, which was not designed to hold against it.

also, if the composite bows were close enough, they had enough penetrating power to actually pin the legionaire's hands to the scutum. pretty painful.

i'd like to read up a bit on han cavalry tactics- i'm wondering if they used heavy cavalry much. IIRC by the tang and the song they were using steppe ponies they took from the mongols; there was a heavy trade for these valued beasts. but those ponies were built for endurance, and not for the muscle needed for heavy cav.

[IDonT]

Well...

From Plutarch
Plutarch • Life of Crassus

While the Romans were in consternation at this din, suddenly their enemies dropped the coverings of their armour, and were seen to be themselves blazing in helmets and breastplates, their Margianian steel glittering keen and bright, and their horses clad in plates of bronze and steel. 2 Surena himself, however, was the tallest and fairest of them all, although his effeminate beauty did not well correspond to his reputation for valour, but he was dressed more in the Median fashion, with painted face and parted hair, while the rest of the Parthians still wore their hair long and bunched over their foreheads, in Scythian fashion, to make themselves look formidable. 3 And at first they purposed to charge upon the Romans with their long spears, and throw their front ranks into confusion; but when they saw the depth of their formation, where shield was locked with shield, and the firmness and composure of the men, they drew back, and while seeming to break their ranks and disperse, they surrounded the hollow square in which their enemy stood before he was aware of the manoeuvre. 4 And when Crassus ordered his light-armed troops to make a charge, they did not advance far, but encountering a multitude of arrows, abandoned their undertaking and ran back for shelter among the men-at‑arms, among whom they caused the beginning of disorder and fear, for these now saw the velocity and force of the arrows, which fractured armour, and tore their way through every covering alike, whether hard or soft.

5 But the Parthians now stood at long intervals from one another and began to shoot their arrows from all sides at once, not with any accurate aim (for the dense formation of the Romans would not suffer an archer to miss even if he wished it), but making vigorous and powerful shots from bows which were large and mighty and curved so as to discharge their missiles with great force. 6 At once, then, the plight of the Romans was a grievous one; for if they kept their ranks, they were wounded in great numbers, and if they tried to come to close quarters with the enemy, they were just as far from effecting anything and suffered just as much. For the Parthians shot as they fled, and next to the Scythians, they do this most effectively; and it is a very clever thing to seek safety while still fighting, and to take away the shame of flight.

25 Now as long as they had hopes that the enemy would exhaust their missiles and desist from battle or fight at close quarters, the Romans held out; but when they perceived that many camels laden with arrows were at hand, from which the Parthians who first encircled them took a fresh supply, then Crassus, seeing no end to this, began to lose heart, and sent messengers to his son with orders to force an engagement with the enemy before he was surrounded; for it was his wing especially which the enemy were attacking and surrounding with their cavalry, in the hope of getting in his rear. 2 Accordingly, the young man took thirteen hundred horsemen, of whom a thousand had come from Caesar, five hundred archers, and eight cohorts of the men-at‑arms who were nearest him, and led them all to the charge. But the Parthians who were trying to envelop him, either because, as some say, they encountered marshes, or because they were manoeuvring to attack Publius as far as possible from his father, wheeled about and made off. 3 Then Publius, shouting that the men did not stand their ground, rode after them, and with him Censorinus and Megabacchus, the latter distinguished for his courage and strength, Censorinus a man of senatorial dignity and a powerful speaker, and both of them comrades of Publius and nearly of the same age. The cavalry followed after Publius, and even the infantry kept pace with them in the zeal and joy which their hopes inspired; for they thought they were victorious and in pursuit of the enemy, until, after they had gone forward a long distance, they perceived the ruse. For the seeming fugitives wheeled about and were joined at the same time by others more numerous still. 4 Then the Romans halted, supposing that the enemy would come to close quarters with them, p393since they were so few in number. But the Parthians stationed their mail-clad horsemen in front of the Romans, and then with the rest of their cavalry in loose array rode round them, tearing up the surface of the ground, and raising from the depths great heaps of sand which fell in limitless showers of dust, so that the Romans could neither see clearly nor speak plainly, 5 but, being crowded into a narrow compass and falling upon one another, were shot, and died no easy nor even speedy death. For, in the agonies of convulsive pain, and writhing about the arrows, they would break them off in their wounds, and then in trying to pull out by force the barbed heads which had pierced their veins and sinews, they tore and disfigured themselves the more.

6 Thus many died, and the survivors also were incapacitated for fighting. And when Publius urged them to charge the enemy's mail-clad horsemen, they showed him that their hands were riveted to their shields and their feet nailed through and through to the ground, so that they were helpless either for flight or for self-defence. 7 Publius himself, accordingly, cheered on his cavalry, made a vigorous charge with them, and closed with the enemy. But his struggle was an unequal one both offensively and defensively, for his thrusting was done with small and feeble spears against breastplates of raw hide and steel, whereas the thrusts of the enemy were made with pikes against the lightly equipped and unprotected bodies of the Gauls, since it was upon these that Publius chiefly relied, and with these he did indeed work wonders. 8 For they laid hold of the long spears of the Parthians, and grappling with the men, pushed them from p395their horses, hard as it was to move them owing to the weight of their armour; and many of the Gauls forsook their own horses, and crawling under those of the enemy, stabbed them in the belly. These would rear up in their anguish, and die trampling on riders and foemen indiscriminately mingled. 9 But the Gauls were distressed above all things by the heat and their thirst, to both of which they were unused; and most of their horses had perished by being driven against the long spears. They were therefore compelled to retire upon the men-at‑arms, taking with them Publius, who was severely wounded. And seeing a sandy hillock near by, they all retired to it, and fastened their horses in the centre; then locking their shields together on the outside, they thought they could more easily defend themselves against the Barbarians. 10 But it turned out just the other way. For on level ground, the front ranks do, to some extent, afford relief to those who are behind them. But here, where the inequality of the ground raised one man above another, and lifted every man who was behind another into greater prominence, there was no such thing as escape, but they were all alike hit with arrows, bewailing their inglorious and ineffectual death.

11 Now there were with Publius two Greeks, of those who dwelt near by in Carrhae, Hieronymus and Nicomachus. These joined in trying to persuade him to slip away with them and make their escape to Ichnae, a city which had espoused the Roman cause and was not far off. But Publius, declaring that no death could have such terrors for him as to make him desert those who were perishing on his account, ordered them to save their own lives, bade them farewell, and p397dismissed them. Then he himself, being unable to use his hand, which had been pierced through with an arrow, presented his side to his shield-bearer and ordered him to strike home with his sword. 12 In like manner also Censorinus is said to have died; but Megabacchus took his own life, and so did the other most notable men. The survivors fought on until the Parthians mounted the hill and transfixed them with their long spears, and they say that not more than five hundred were taken alive. Then the Parthians cut off the head of Publius, and rode off at once to attack Crassus.

[Ironduke]

well, as you can see from the picture, the testudo does have a few vulnerabilities. it limits manueverability, vision, and one is still vulnerable at the sides/gaps.

The sides aren't vulnerable, as the men on the side and rear flanks would simply face in those directions to form a complete testudo when needed.

There are also no gaps in the testudo, other than the front (or sides and rear) where those soldiers peer outwards, which is only vulnerable from nearby enemy aiming at that gap firing directly head on.

a resourceful enemy (such as the parthians) could and would keep up a withering hail of fire, and then let off at the last second to allow heavy cavalry to charge the formation, which was not designed to hold against it.

The soldiers in the front (or sides and rear) would alert the formation of an oncoming threat, so they were not going to be caught by surprise. If the enemy let up arrow fire at the last possible moment when the cavalry hit the legionnaires head-on, the Romans would be as ready for the cavalry charge as they would be if there were not an arrow barrage.

I don't believe the hands were exposed, thus the arrows would have to penetrate the shield to pin a soldiers hand to his shield.

I looked up the Battle of Carrhae, and it appears the Parthians tired the Romans in the desert by alternating between cavalry charges and missile barrages, forcing the Romans to repeatedly change formation. Sheer exhaustion.

[astralis]

The sides aren't vulnerable, as the men on the side and rear flanks would simply face in those directions to form a complete testudo when needed.

There are also no gaps in the testudo, other than the front (or sides and rear) where those soldiers peer outwards, which is only vulnerable from nearby enemy aiming at that gap firing directly head on.

if you see the pix, there are still gaps between the shields, where the head is (front and rear rank), and the feet. this would be all the more true as arrows start thunking down.

basically, against foot archers this wouldn't be so bad- testudo offers enough protection for the legionaries to close in, first with pilum and then with sword. but against horse archers, this is more problematic, as the romans on foot are going have a devil of a time catching up to horse archers doing cantabrian circles/parthian shots.

that was one of the weaknesses of an infantry-based army; some adaptations needed to be made. in the eastern roman empire, where the romans faced off against cavalry-based armies, the romans soon adapted this style of warfare as well, as seen in the appearance of roman cataphracts by the 2nd century.