The Roman Empire vs Han Dynasty China

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

The repeating crossbow was more for raping the hell of cavalry than anything. The entire Han army is basically used with a phalanx like infantry to hold down the enemy while constantly pelting them with missiles and sword armed shock troops supporting them. Along with that they are backed by a strong force of horse archers and heavy cavalry. Very Diadochi style in terms of variety, maybe comparable to the pike armed Renaissance armies.

[Lord Baal]

I was heading that way. Chinese armies at the time looked and acted more like relatively modern armies. For Rome to hold them or beat them they would had to adapt to counter those tactics, and quickly. Hence I see something more like the Imperial Rome tendency of hiring mercenaries and starting from there on.

Still, I fail to see a scenario where either successfully invade the other at their time.

[Nesij]

If you suddenly dropped Han Empire right next to Roman Empire:
I would say it would be somewhat of a stalemate with Han been able to push a bit more in general. Its a though call but I think Han was more advanced when it comes to military technology had more resources.

When it comes to the argument that ancient Europeans were always more advanced than Asians (or anybody else), Its completely false.
Europe hasn't been "the brightside" of the planet until around 1500s (the opposite in fact). It wasn't until 1750s where it was clear cut that the balance of power was decidedly shifted to Europeans and this continued until WWII.

[andrew881thebest]

after battle of Carrae 10 k romans were taken prisoners by parthians. Parthians used them as garrison for eastern front of their empire. In some battles garrison was defeated by huns and taken to war to chinese, where they were defeated and taken as mercenaries by chinese. It is proved in chinese texts which talk about "western looking soldiers making a formation -one close the other, with shields as A FISH'S SCALES".
So this made me an idea: what if romans met and did war with chinese? who would win? could this be shown in the game, maybe future dlc??

[Oestvang]

Sound like a great what if scenario mod. We need Total War: China first though. We'd have all unit assets we need.

[kamikazee786]

well historically they did, A roman envoy met Sun Quan who was the ruler of the Wu Kingdom in the three kingdoms period of china.

[Swerg]

Warfare over those distances in the ancient era would have been impossible for a non-nomadic army. Particularly since China had (in 272 BC) just entered the Three Kingdoms era, and nobody was going to send a large number of soldiers far away to attack some place that might not even exist.

The Parthians (and Sassanids later on,) were very careful to make sure that contact between Rome and China was kept to a minimum, lest it hurt their very profitable control of the silk road.

A TW game in China would be great, don't get me wrong, but in this era? It would be a bit silly.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

wrong forum section. there you have an entire thread about it:http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...-Dynasty-China

[Earende]

Warfare over those distances in the ancient era would have been impossible for a non-nomadic army. Particularly since China had (in 272 BC) just entered the Three Kingdoms era, and nobody was going to send a large number of soldiers far away to attack some place that might not even exist.

The Parthians (and Sassanids later on,) were very careful to make sure that contact between Rome and China was kept to a minimum, lest it hurt their very profitable control of the silk road.

A TW game in China would be great, don't get me wrong, but in this era? It would be a bit silly.

If it's 272BC, China was having the Waring States Period, not Three Kingdoms.

[Legio]

Merged threads.

[caissus]

I demand Chinese legionnaires.

[craziii]

you all should read the manga "kingdom" if you can get over the fact the main characters are basically teens + an abnormal art style, you would definitely get in the mood for total war in china the manga takes about 100 chaps to become good. but come on guys, you know a chinese theme game wouldn't sell well in the west unless it is panda

[Gogunbanzui]

I demand Chinese legionnaires.

Chinese Crossbowmen Levy will be better.

[Gogunbanzui]

I prefer CA to make a stand alone expansion pack for R2TW about China.
The stand alone expansion pack will feature a new map focus only on the Asian continent, the vanilla playable factions(except Parthia and Seleucid) in R2TW will not be playable in the grand campaign . However,, you can fight the vanilla factions in custom battles and multiplayer using the new added playable factions from stand alone expansion pack and the other way round as well just like in Shogun 2 FOTS if the original R2TW is installed.
The new added playable factions in the stand alone expansion pack:
Xiongnu
Parthia
Indian(Maurya,Gupta)
Seleucid
Korea
Vietnam
China(Chu State, Nanyue State,Han State)

[LeicsFox]

Pretty much depends on the commander and the conditions. Both empires had their highs and lows, heroes and idiots. Neither had a decisive technical advantage.

^ this

[Carpathian Wolf]

I kind of have to shake my head at the staggering amount of misinformation on some fairly basic aspects of both military machines. For the love of God, the repeating crossbow was not a machine gun. It was extremely low poundage weapon used by urban militia to spray raiding cavalry at close ranges in the hopes that they get scared and run away. Repeating crossbows were to my knowledge never used in actual pitched battles. All crossbows are not the same. There's a huge difference between the repeating crossbows of Han China and the windlass steel spanned crossbows of 16th century Italy. The repeating crossbow isn't the Italian variant that "simply shoots faster." And no the crossbow is not going to "cut a scutum in half" or whatever other misconception such as Rome not having good archers or bad cavalry in their military.

Han cavalry was also set up to deal more with northern tribal armies. By all accounts they weren't the super heavy kataphractoi of the 9th century AD some people might be imagining. The Han Dynasty by far and large still relied heavily on northern auxiliaries to fulfill their cavalry needs while the native Han troops filled in infantry roles. The most important aspect to understand about this comparison is how these two Empires' militaries were organized. Rome had a state funded paid STANDING army. Han also had a sort of standing army called the "Northern Army" or the "External Army" which focused on dealing with northern raiders and protecting the capital. But they were much smaller and relied on the "Southern Army" or the "Internal Army" which was composed of conscripts/volunteers that served for a couple of years. The Northern Army's main military objectives when dealing with northern tribes was to repel their raids and then go find their camps and burn them down.

The fact of the matter is that military was not one of the main points of focus for the Han Chinese. They had no real matching rivals aside from when China itself divided and fought itself or the tribes managed to snowball into something relevant. Rome on the other hand always had an entity around it that equaled or at times even surpassed it. Macedonia, Epirus, Egypt, Carthage, Persia so on and so forth. They were two distinct situations with fairly different necessities and stimuli. Their armies were composed for different purposes shaped by their specific geography and political situation. There is no inherent inferiority in one people or another, again simply different needs.

In saying that, due to the above mentioned reasons, I believe a pitched battle would go in favor of the more military oriented Romans. Both sides had arguably comparable technology as far as artillery goes. Neither one had necessarily better missile troops. Cavalry wise if we're comparing Han at its prime with Rome at it's prime, we also need to consider the sort of diverse roster the Roman military machine could form with its access to Iberian, Numidian, Sarmatian, Thracian, Thesselian and Middle Eastern holdings. I don't think the Han produced anything stringly advantageous considering that.

Infantry wise one must consider that the Han's primary concern were light cavalry based armies of the north and their equipment represented this. They were fairly light armored favoring the Ge, Spear and other anti cavalry weapons. Their primary concern was not another organized state with an organized military like Carthage or Epirus, but tribal cavalry. This doesn't mean the Han were stupid or incapable or weak, they simply didn't have that concern so their army reflected that. Light/medium infantry with the purpose of dealing with northern tribal cavalry is not going to do well against a Roman Legionnaire because it isn't suppose to, it isn't its purpose.

But perhaps you say that none of that is important. The Han would adapt with what they have and focus their military composition to be made exclusively or mostly of lancers and missile cavalry and cite Carrhae. What you need to understand is that that was a specific example in history where a commander made an extremely poor decision. Misuse of a tool does not equate to the tool being bad. But perhaps you would go further and cite the successes of Attila (who was not Mongolian by the way whoever said that) and Genghis Khan's Mongols defeating European armies as proof that a cavalry based army is simply inherently better. I would ask that you consider Attila's success more a product of Rome's political weakness. We can all knock out a prize fighter too if he's been drinking all night. As far as the Mongols go, consider that Russia/Europe was extremely divided at the time of the Mongol conquests. Further yet, neither of them had an actual standing army in the sense that Rome did so the comparison is irrelevant.

But perhaps for you none of that matters. Perhaps you will simply say that the missile cavalry based army will win simply because the Han can ride around shooting arrows. What you would fail to understand however is the mechanics of horse archery vs foot archery in general. Shooter for shooter a foot archer formation will have a higher rate of fire from a stronger bow with longer range and better penetration simply because by standing you can wield a stronger bow better. On foot, coupled with the superior range, rate of fire and penetration, you can also hold a tighter formation that allows further higher concentration of fire. On foot you can also employ things like shields for protection. The Han cavalry riders would ride around and trade shot for shot losing more troops at each exchange.

The advantage of missile cavalry comes from surprise and local numerical superiority. What I am referring to is that you can have two armies face in a 1 soldier for 1 scenario and then suddenly you move troops from one area to another giving you superior numbers in a specific portion of the battle field. Beyond that we must also consider terrain and the variation that brings. Yes a pure cavalry army can wreck havoc on a Roman army under all the right circumstances and exploit said circumstances into a full massacre but that doesn't equate to being the rule.

With these factors understood I don't think much of a counter argument can be made.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

The Han cavalry themselves were mostly medium cavalry and supplanted with other medium cavalry from tribal peoples and their horse archers, the best cavalry were certainly from the nomadic northerners. As far as cataphracts go that wasn't really until 400 AD that they were used in China when Northern tribes conquered the top half of China, during the Three Kingdoms period (end of the Han) the cavalry was only starting to get armour and not too much of it either. The Han themselves (as in not Wei, Wu or Shu) never really used heavy cavalry in the sense of armoured cataphracts nor did they have true stirrups. I guess heavy cavalry would be misleading for that time period, more like medium cavalry really. Also the repeating crossbow (especially that of Zhuge Liang, which was only a partial redesign) was only ever used to shoot unarmoured masses of footmen or spray masses of cavalry. With the purpose of that being to knock down the horses and then take out the riders with infantry or charge them with cavalry. In the case of the unarmoured infantry it was better used as a psychological weapon or to weaken that group of infantry slightly before they engaged in close combat with infantry. When used against well armoured infantry I'm afraid that the repeating crossbow isn't too effective either. Basically what Carpathian Wolf said.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

At least compared to the sourrounding nations the Han had advanced iron-smith techniques and equipment. One reason why the Han had the Ironmonopol in that part of the world.

[HuangCaesar]

I kind of have to shake my head at the staggering amount of misinformation on some fairly basic aspects of both military machines. For the love of God, the repeating crossbow was not a machine gun. It was extremely low poundage weapon used by urban militia to spray raiding cavalry at close ranges in the hopes that they get scared and run away. Repeating crossbows were to my knowledge never used in actual pitched battles. All crossbows are not the same. There's a huge difference between the repeating crossbows of Han China and the windlass steel spanned crossbows of 16th century Italy. The repeating crossbow isn't the Italian variant that "simply shoots faster." And no the crossbow is not going to "cut a scutum in half" or whatever other misconception such as Rome not having good archers or bad cavalry in their military.

The Chinese crossbow would be tough weapon Rome would face. China specialized in mass crossbow fire that decimated the Xiongnu horse archers. Some records say that the crossbow can pierce very thick boards. The Scutum definetely with its thin composite design could be pierced as proven many times. Although I'm not sure how it would fair against the Lorica Segmentata, as in modern test could withstand any arrow fire of the Ancient period. Having said that if you wana compare the late Romans after 300 AD, most wore scale or chainmail.
Rome did use crossbows too but it isn't as well recorded. The hand ballista had been recorded to be used around the principate and probally the late empire but we don't know how much did they field. Rome's use of crossbows mainly came in the form of artillery like the Scorpion or Ballista. Rome's use of artillery in field battles is unrecorded not well either since most well recorded battles like Cannae, Cahrae, Phaspahlus they didn't use artillery and were in the Republican period and were only used for sieges. The imperial period definetey saw more use of artillery in field battles like the "carrige ballista" and I believe Marcus Aurelius used them during his campaigns against the Alan horsemen. Most of Rome's missle troops would have recorded to be Syrian archers or Baelieric slingers I believe.

Han cavalry was also set up to deal more with northern tribal armies. By all accounts they weren't the super heavy kataphractoi of the 9th century AD some people might be imagining. The Han Dynasty by far and large still relied heavily on northern auxiliaries to fulfill their cavalry needs while the native Han troops filled in infantry roles. The most important aspect to understand about this comparison is how these two Empires' militaries were organized. Rome had a state funded paid STANDING army. Han also had a sort of standing army called the "Northern Army" or the "External Army" which focused on dealing with northern raiders and protecting the capital. But they were much smaller and relied on the "Southern Army" or the "Internal Army" which was composed of conscripts/volunteers that served for a couple of years. The Northern Army's main military objectives when dealing with northern tribes was to repel their raids and then go find their camps and burn them down.

Although I believe Chinese numbers are heavily overexaggerated(like fielding 200,000 infantry and 100,000 cavalry or fielding 700,000 total men in a single field battle) I do believe Chinses cavaly force would be substantially larger than the Roman Alae or Corhortes cavalry.

The Roman army at its max would be about 300,000 to 400,000(legion and Auxilia)(under Hadrian-Severus) while the Han army could be 100,000 proffestional force plus 1 million to 700,000 militia. (1 million I believe is a overexageration. The Roman army could also field allied mercenaries known as Federotii from the Barbarian allies(for example during the Illyrian revolt, Rome had a couple Legion and Auxilia in the area but were able to get a force of 100,000 total strong due to their barbarian allies)

I don't think total force matters all that much. It is logistics and money that could field armies(for example Rome could field 80,000 men at Cannae but much fewer oversees in Greece.) Chinses armies definetley have better logistics with wider roads and better logistical trains due to their wider use of cavalry and horses. Roman armies in the East definetley get slowed down a lot.

The fact of the matter is that military was not one of the main points of focus for the Han Chinese. They had no real matching rivals aside from when China itself divided and fought itself or the tribes managed to snowball into something relevant. Rome on the other hand always had an entity around it that equaled or at times even surpassed it. Macedonia, Epirus, Egypt, Carthage, Persia so on and so forth. They were two distinct situations with fairly different necessities and stimuli. Their armies were composed for different purposes shaped by their specific geography and political situation. There is no inherent inferiority in one people or another, again simply different needs.

Indeed its very hard to compare since both armies would have never been able to meet each other or fight an all out war.

In saying that, due to the above mentioned reasons, I believe a pitched battle would go in favor of the more military oriented Romans.

Depends on the terrain. In mass wide spaces like a field or desert, the Chinese logictics well suit better. Roman armies have a tendancy to get cut off like in Mark Antonty's campaign in Parthia.

Both sides had arguably comparable technology as far as artillery goes.

The Romans fielded more I think. 1 Scoripion per Century i think.

Neither one had necessarily better missile troops.

A huge mass rank of crossbowmen vs a couple of Syrians?(unless you want to consider a Legionaire a missle troop)

Cavalry wise if we're comparing Han at its prime with Rome at it's prime, we also need to consider the sort of diverse roster the Roman military machine could form with its access to Iberian, Numidian, Sarmatian, Thracian, Thesselian and Middle Eastern holdings. I don't think the Han produced anything stringly advantageous considering that.

In terms of quality I think the Chinese cavalry wouldn't have been much better than the Roman cavalry. However Chinese cavalry commanders would definetely been more knowledgeble of mass cavalry expeditions such as against the Xiongu. Rome at its Prime???? Eh. Probally around Trajan-Severus. Roman cavalry didn't become extremeley in well use till Emperor Gallilnus and good Roman cavalry commanders like Aurelian and Constantine came after that.(Roman Legionaires were carrying round shields and wearing chainmail by that time) I'm not saying Rome couldn't adapt fast. Hadrian I believe created a Cataphract force but this didn't really come into much use due to the lack of wars in the Pax Romano. Most battles were sieges at that time.(like Masada)

Rome did use Cataphracts but most of its cavalry would have been Medium cavalry wearing Legionaire like equipment, a light lance(Lancea or Hasta) and "as many javelins" as possible. Described by Josehpus I believe.

Infantry wise one must consider that the Han's primary concern were light cavalry based armies of the north and their equipment represented this. They were fairly light armored favoring the Ge, Spear and other anti cavalry weapons. Their primary concern was not another organized state with an organized military like Carthage or Epirus, but tribal cavalry. This doesn't mean the Han were stupid or incapable or weak, they simply didn't have that concern so their army reflected that. Light/medium infantry with the purpose of dealing with northern tribal cavalry is not going to do well against a Roman Legionnaire because it isn't suppose to, it isn't its purpose.

That is were I would agree with you. Roman Legionaires or Auxilia spearmen would destroy a typical Han levy. The problem is those medium cavalry you talked about could link up to a proffesional Han field army.

But perhaps you say that none of that is important. The Han would adapt with what they have and focus their military composition to be made exclusively or mostly of lancers and missile cavalry and cite Carrhae. What you need to understand is that that was a specific example in history where a commander made an extremely poor decision. Misuse of a tool does not equate to the tool being bad. But perhaps you would go further and cite the successes of Attila (who was not Mongolian by the way whoever said that) and Genghis Khan's Mongols defeating European armies as proof that a cavalry based army is simply inherently better. I would ask that you consider Attila's success more a product of Rome's political weakness. We can all knock out a prize fighter too if he's been drinking all night. As far as the Mongols go, consider that Russia/Europe was extremely divided at the time of the Mongol conquests. Further yet, neither of them had an actual standing army in the sense that Rome did so the comparison is irrelevant.

But perhaps for you none of that matters. Perhaps you will simply say that the missile cavalry based army will win simply because the Han can ride around shooting arrows. What you would fail to understand however is the mechanics of horse archery vs foot archery in general. Shooter for shooter a foot archer formation will have a higher rate of fire from a stronger bow with longer range and better penetration simply because by standing you can wield a stronger bow better. On foot, coupled with the superior range, rate of fire and penetration, you can also hold a tighter formation that allows further higher concentration of fire. On foot you can also employ things like shields for protection. The Han cavalry riders would ride around and trade shot for shot losing more troops at each exchange.

The advantage of missile cavalry comes from surprise and local numerical superiority. What I am referring to is that you can have two armies face in a 1 soldier for 1 scenario and then suddenly you move troops from one area to another giving you superior numbers in a specific portion of the battle field. Beyond that we must also consider terrain and the variation that brings. Yes a pure cavalry army can wreck havoc on a Roman army under all the right circumstances and exploit said circumstances into a full massacre but that doesn't equate to being the rule.

With these factors understood I don't think much of a counter argument can be made.

Agreed. In a field like Cahrae, the Han has an advantage, in a hilly terrain or a mountain terrain the Romans do.

[BroskiDerpman]

There are crossbows that don't repeat you know guys?

Han aren't as military minded compared to Rome in the first place and I view that as a plus.

Also artillery isn't deployed in massed numbers in every battle, it would be a hindrance sometimes.