Rome VS mongolia

[A Demented Goldfish]

Roman Empire
mongol Empire


So if the 2 empires somehow existed in the same time-frame and went to war (both at their hight) over the middle east. who would win

[dacder]

mongols due to the fighting systems

[FreeRadical]

Mongols,because they had at least 700 years of advancement in warfare technology,tactics,strategy.Romans didn't do so well against the Parthians at Carrhae, as I recall, who were comprised of Horse archers like the Mongols. Romans also didn't fare to well against the later Huns who were mostly comprised of horse archers as well. If you took the Mongols off their horses the Romans would probably win,but the Mongols were renowned for their skilled archery and horsemanship

Mongols were also noted for fielding massive armies on the battlefield,but even if the armies were matched numerically the Romans still wouldn't stand a chance. The Mongolian armies used the powerful composite bow which as I recall(History Channel Doc) was even more powerful than the longbow. Hence their Lorica Segmentata wouldn't do too much good,and they would have a hard time catching up to the Mongol cavalry when the Romans had a mostly foot army.Could you imagine the rain of arrows the Mongols could unleash on the Romans who are encumbered,moving slowly, with their armor and large shield?

Edit: ADD kicked in and I didn't see"existed in the same time frame,or at their height" If the Romans lasted until the 13th century who knows. That is all hypothetical. They lost in 476. They also lost against German armies on a number of occasions who were fighting the Romans because they were driven out of their homeland by the Huns!

[Delta21]

Mongols,because they had at least 700 years of advancement in warfare technology,tactics,strategy.Romans didn't do so well against the Parthians at Carrhae, as I recall, who were comprised of Horse archers like the Mongols. Romans also didn't fare to well against the later Huns who were mostly comprised of horse archers as well. If you took the Mongols off their horses the Romans would probably win,but the Mongols were renowned for their skilled archery and horsemanship

Hey...give the romans a break(at Carrhae)...Crassus was too dumb of a general and the roman army was facing Parthia for the first time+ Parthia had home-field advantage. Crassus didn't listen to other people who lived there for at least 10 times longer than he did and fought the parthians before, so it was not really "Rome's" fault...after all, it's not like the Parthians went ahead and conquered Rome or something(IMO, the Carthaginians were WAAAAAY closer). The Huns had a big advantage because the roman empire was already crumbling and the roman army was nothing like it was in it's glory days....in fact, a usual hun horse archer tactic would be to:
1) Fire a volley of arrows with a vertical arched trajectory so that the roman soldiers(crappy mercenaries wearing roman equipment, with crappy training and inferior commanders) would lift their shields up to protect themselves
2) Fire a volley of arrows directly at the soldiers(that are still protecting themselves against the arrows coming from the top) to pierce the bgeezors out of them.

As you can see...the roman army was so unorganized that they even forgot about the TESTUDO and how it worked so awesome in 100% of the cases.

BUT...there is NO way that the Mongols could have defeated the roman empire at it's peak(even with the 700 years of advancement)...their soldiers would just have lacked the motivation to fight(they were constantly driven west and east by the riches they pillaged and personal glory) in a prolongued war, with the civilized, centuries old sedentary romans, and they would eventually have disbanded.

[Drakedeath]

Mongols. Roman cavalry was never enough to deal with a horde of cavalry and horse archers easily.

[Timefool]

Mongols for sure. Rome was never good fighting cavalry, and as we know Mongols were prized for their cavalry . They would tear the densely packed Roman soldiers to shreds.

Yes, the Mongols used the composite bow, which is basically thin strips of wood glued together to form the shaft of the bow. This creates extra power, but is nearly useless in damp conditions where the glue comes apart. The longbow, not invented until the 100 Years War, was a single piece of wood that was long and used the increased draw of the bow to get more power.

[Parzival2211]

As the question was "at their height" I would say the Romans because

1. they always managed to adjust to different enemies (later incorporating horse archers and cataphracts into their armies and after Carrhae also did much better against the Parthians, under Trajan even took Mesopotamia for a short while)
2. they were at the forefront of the development of (war) technology. Had they remained "at their height" until 1200, they may have even developed the machine gun, possibly even the combustion engine, tanks, planes, etc.

[FreeRadical]

As the question was "at their height" I would say the Romans because

1. they always managed to adjust to different enemies (later incorporating horse archers and cataphracts into their armies and after Carrhae also did much better against the Parthians, under Trajan even took Mesopotamia for a short while)
2. they were at the forefront of the development of (war) technology. Had they remained "at their height" until 1200, they may have even developed the machine gun, possibly even the combustion engine, tanks, planes, etc.

Ah, the question also could be pertaining to the Byzantine Empire who a good number of members(especially Greek descent)say was a continuation of the Roman Empire. The Romans were renowned for stealing as you will the inventions of a country they conquered The ballistas, catapults, architecture were incorporated from the Greeks.In fact many,if not most of the technological advancements were of Greek decent. I guess they would have had to have conquered the Chinese by then to develop the machinegun,since the Chinese developed gunpowder.In fact the Chinese developed a repeating crossbow which was the machine gun of its day(5th Century)called the Chukonu.Well I am to lazy right now to make a huge post,but that is just a few things to mentally chew on.

Edit: Horse archers and cataphracts were used primarily the Byzantine Empire. If you play Medieval 2 which in that regard is historically correct ,you see that they have great horse archers,cataphracts,but little gunpowder compared to other nations. They did develop Greek fire which was very effective against ships,but not so much in land warfare as it is erroneously depicted in Medieval 2 Kingdoms. They lost their Empire in the Siege of Constantinople(1453), in a large part because the Turks were wise enough to buy monster sized cannon for the siege. Those cannons were offered to the Byzantines by a Hungarian inventor first,but they were sold to the Turks because the Byzantines didn't see their usefulness!

[Rilsaur]

Mongols, of course. look how well the Parthians & Huns fared against the Romans. imagine that, only much, much larger.

[AZN]

Hmmzz... This is a good one. Cuzz If you know your enemy is supreme with cavalry what you gon do? Exactly! Bring all the forest down to get yourself some serious spearmen!!!! I think the Romans would do that. Of course the Mongols have the advantage of a bigger empire and more men. So I would vote for the AZN Empire: THe Mongols...

[General Nuisance esq]

Ya boo sucks to all you sceptics
Just go Roman and tell those pesky mongols its 15k cwb rules or kick

[Sipahi of Rûm]

I like Roman empire but mongol empire was better

[cupoftea]

I read somewhere the mongols brought a 100 k men into europe or something. Mongols for sure.

And even if the Romans brought cavalry, the mongols had special tactics to deal with heavyer cavalry.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

The mongols would probably win, but the roman empire was alot more stable compared to the mongol one.

[CK23]

I say Mongols for the sheer fact that they did have MORE troops and were probably much more deadlier then the Romans, but the Romans would fare well against them, scoring a couple of major victories, but losing overall.

[empr guy]

mongols, their use of calvary would probaly easily have beaten most roman tactics.

[A Demented Goldfish]

mongols, their use of calvary would probaly easily have beaten most roman tactics.

you people forget that the romans had legions in the east purposly designed to counter horse archers.

After the battle with the parthians that ended in a defete the romans scored major victoys against the parthians.

The reason the huns owned them was because the legions in eourope were designed for infantry battles against the germans ect.....

[War lord]

you people forget that the romans had legions in the east purposly designed to counter horse archers.

After the battle with the parthians that ended in a defete the romans scored major victoys against the parthians.

The reason the huns owned them was because the legions in eourope were designed for infantry battles against the germans ect.....

Your forgeting the mongols were basicly the best of the Partians and the Hun combined both of which rome could never defete.

[Entropy Judge]

The terrain in Europe is not, however, very well-suited to traditional Mongol tactics - there's simply not enough room for complicated strategic maneuvering and wide-scale traps. That's part of the reason they didn't go farther into Europe when they did start chugging along. Lots of forests and mountains really interfere with mounted archers who rely on large open spaces.

Too lazy to find one of the VV threads on the subject for a link, though.

[Rilsaur]

The terrain in Europe is not, however, very well-suited to traditional Mongol tactics - there's simply not enough room for complicated strategic maneuvering and wide-scale traps. That's part of the reason they didn't go farther into Europe when they did start chugging along. Lots of forests and mountains really interfere with mounted archers who rely on large open spaces.

Too lazy to find one of the VV threads on the subject for a link, though.

They turned back from Europe because their Khan had just died, and tradition dictated they had to return to Mongolia to choose a new Khan.