Romans vs the Chinese

[Shrykull]

Say an army lead by Julius Caesar and one lead by Sun Tzu, and did these two cultures know of each other in real life? I don't know where Attila was born but the Huns were from China and traveled all the way to the Roman Empire.

[Graeme Dice]

Say an army lead by Julius Caesar and one lead by Sun Tzu, and did these two cultures know of each other in real life? I don't know where Attila was born but the Huns were from China and traveled all the way to the Roman Empire.

The army led by Sun-Tzu loses, unless he gives command to someone else. Sun-Tzu is really the epitome of the armchair general.

[StarshipTitanic]

and did these two cultures know of each other in real life

Yes, if vaguely.

I don't know where Attila was born but the Huns were from China and traveled all the way to the Roman Empire.

1) The Huns were from Mongolia, north of China.

2) The Chinese didn't have the extreme flexability that the mounted nomads like the Huns or Mongols had. The only way that China could send an invasion army is through Siberia, which is virtually impossible for them. The only other way is to fight their way throught the multitude of South Asian and Indian empires and then through the Parthian Empire.

[Graeme Dice]

1) The Huns were from Mongolia, north of China.

This is what is usually thought to be correct, but there is actually no really good evidence for where the Huns came from.

[Shortie]

Anyone have any links to good sites about the chinese military (and civilisation in general) a millenium or more ago?

It seems difficult to find much about them, whereas ones about Rome are two a penny (and often wrong, but hey).

[Jeremy]

Weren't the Huns all over Mongolia, Turkistan, India, and the Caucus area?

[SyntaxVorlon]

This is quite an interesting match up, though I would use a real chinese general like, Liu Pang or T'Ang's first Emperor, Lu I think.

[Shrykull]

This is quite an interesting match up, though I would use a real chinese general like, Liu Pang or T'Ang's first Emperor, Lu I think.

One thing we haven't discussed yet is weapons and tactics. The romans would have thier usual shield walls with archers, the Chinese's main advantage would be thier huge numbers, and mounted units. Most roman soliders used a gladius, while the chinese used other weapons like a quarterstaff, and long pikes and spears, AND depending on what time period we're dealing with here could the chinese even have rockets they could use against the romans?

[SyntaxVorlon]

It would be an interesting fight even if these were the armies that existed in Caesar's time. The chinese have some nice tactics and weaponry from what little I know of ancient chinese warfare, which isn't much.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

One thing we haven't discussed yet is weapons and tactics. The romans would have thier usual shield walls with archers, the Chinese's main advantage would be thier huge numbers, and mounted units. Most roman soliders used a gladius, while the chinese used other weapons like a quarterstaff, and long pikes and spears, AND depending on what time period we're dealing with here could the chinese even have rockets they could use against the romans?

The gladius was a last resort weapon. The first rank of maniples would launch their pila at the enemy, then allow them to close and then engage in hand to hand, falling back and swapping in a reserve rank of maniples as necessary (until such a time when all three ranks were broken and defeated. Which was not often).

[Pablo Sanchez]

The army led by Sun-Tzu loses, unless he gives command to someone else. Sun-Tzu is really the epitome of the armchair general.

From what I know of him he was closer to a secretary of defense than anything else. I want to see a fight between the Julius Caesar's experienced Gallic divisions and Hsiang Yu's rebel army.

A nice figure of history, Hsiang Yu. In order to establish his Han dynasty, Liu Bang came up against Hsiang Yu on the field. Liu was much more popular and personable than the other warlord, so he had a broader base of support and could raise huge numbers--and he had to! I believe he lost two entire armies before he hit upon the winning strategy of avoiding combat unless he was facing an army not under Hsiang's command. Eventually he won by sheer weight of numbers. I think Hsiang Yu ranks up there with Guiscard for the great forgotten commanders. His death is also a truly great story

[StarshipTitanic]

Weren't the Huns all over Mongolia, Turkistan, India, and the Caucus area?

They were there, but they never displaced, or even came close to displacing, the native population.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

2) The Chinese didn't have the extreme flexability that the mounted nomads like the Huns or Mongols had. The only way that China could send an invasion army is through Siberia, which is virtually impossible for them. The only other way is to fight their way throught the multitude of South Asian and Indian empires and then through the Parthian Empire.

Actually the Han dynasty the Chinese began to push the Huns northward. The general Wei Ching and Ho Chu-Bing led some hard strikes. At the East-Han dynasty another strike pushed them even westward. The armies seemed to consist with calvary.

[Axis Kast]

Consider that Sun-Tzu lived at a time during which China had technology by no means comparable to later Romans, I'd say the Ceasars win hands down.

If, of course, we take both China and the Roman Empire in, say, the year 0, the Chinese win. No Roman legion would have been able to survive an onslaught by crossbows.

[StarshipTitanic]

2) The Chinese didn't have the extreme flexability that the mounted nomads like the Huns or Mongols had. The only way that China could send an invasion army is through Siberia, which is virtually impossible for them. The only other way is to fight their way throught the multitude of South Asian and Indian empires and then through the Parthian Empire.

Actually the Han dynasty the Chinese began to push the Huns northward. The general Wei Ching and Ho Chu-Bing led some hard strikes. At the East-Han dynasty another strike pushed them even westward. The armies seemed to consist with calvary.

1) But how far?
2) I did say mounted nomads for a reason. A Chinese cavalryman will want to go home after a long campaign.

[SyntaxVorlon]

I think Hsiang Yu ranks up there with Guiscard for the great forgotten commanders. His death is also a truly great story

Then Liu kicked his ass, sent him running and he slit his throat rather than be taken by bounty hunters. Then they split him up 5 ways to get the reward.

[Shrykull]

Consider that Sun-Tzu lived at a time during which China had technology by no means comparable to later Romans, I'd say the Ceasars win hands down.

If, of course, we take both China and the Roman Empire in, say, the year 0, the Chinese win. No Roman legion would have been able to survive an onslaught by crossbows.

Can they penetrate thier shields?

[Perinquus]

Consider that Sun-Tzu lived at a time during which China had technology by no means comparable to later Romans, I'd say the Ceasars win hands down.

If, of course, we take both China and the Roman Empire in, say, the year 0, the Chinese win. No Roman legion would have been able to survive an onslaught by crossbows.

Can they penetrate thier shields?

If they are light crossbows capable of being spanned by hand, probably not at anything but very close range, and maybe not even then; the scutum was quite a heavy shield. Heavier crossbows, like those of medieval Europe, which needed a cranquin or a windlass to span could pierce the Roman scutum easily enough. But such crossbows as that have an extremely slow rate of fire. I don't really see such a weapon being decisive against a well trained, highly disciplined Roman legion.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Actually the Han dynasty the Chinese began to push the Huns northward. The general Wei Ching and Ho Chu-Bing led some hard strikes. At the East-Han dynasty another strike pushed them even westward. The armies seemed to consist with calvary.

1) But how far?
2) I did say mounted nomads for a reason. A Chinese cavalryman will want to go home after a long campaign.

1) Wei and Ho pushed the Huns from Hopei to Northern Mongolia, near Lake Begal. During East-Han the left Huns split into Northern and Southern Huns, the Southern Huns settled in China while the Northern were basically pushed out of the Altay Mountains and moved to Europe.

2) Ho seemed to be aware about this problem so his tactics were mainly quick suprise attacks raiding the Huns' camps (bring few days supplies, ride a long distance, bang.)

[PainRack]

Just a point of contention.

Chinese horses at the time of the Han Dynasty were smaller, lighter, more equivalent to ponies than Roman horses.

Personally, I wouldn't match Chinese calvary against the Romans just yet.

[Z-Ha-Dum]

I remember from watching the Discovery Channel that when the Han empire was able to breed better horses to fight the Huns/Xiongnu they sent a military expedition to a distant kingdom in Afghaninstan to get more of those horses. That kingdom hired a lot of Roman mercenaries, who were defeated by the newly reorganized Chinese cavalry.

[Axis Kast]

The scutum could be easily pierced by thrown javelins. There's no reason to suspect that a crossbow with moderate pull couldn't pierce the Roman formations even when in shield-lock.

I also point out that the Romans were infamous for being poor fighters when it came to engaging cavalry armies. At the height of their land power, the Romans didn't have a decent cavalry arm; horse archers would decimate their lines.

[Shrykull]

I also point out that the Romans were infamous for being poor fighters when it came to engaging cavalry armies. At the height of their land power, the Romans didn't have a decent cavalry arm; horse archers would decimate their lines

Wouldn't cavalry on horses be easy to hit with javelins? And didn't Carthage use elephant archers and elephants to stomp on roman soliders, and the romans used tacks against them.

[Axis Kast]

The Romans only used "decent tactics against them" at Zama; most of the other battles in which elephants were featured saw Romans run off the field or soundly defeated on it.

The Roman army always had a poor record against cavalry; the javelin didn't help them then. Besides, mounted Chinese archers would put them out of range.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Last time I checked, the Scutum was made of what ammounted to heavy plywood. I could be wrong of course, but it stopped arrows and thrown spears easily enough, the spear may get imbedded in the shield, makng it harder to work with, but it didnt pierce.