Romans vs the Chinese

[HemlockGrey]

Any Roman army will have mounted auxillaries, so keep that in mind.

[Shrykull]

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.

I meant tacks, (as in caltops) on the ground that the elephants would step on

[Axis Kast]

Javelins did pierce; the benefit was that the obstruction offered by the scutum didn't permit the shaft through; the head then bent off on its own.

Arrows didn't usually pierce, but the crossbow is a hell of a lot stronger than the average bow.

[Axis Kast]

Romans generally "channeled" elephants through their own ranks - or shot them full of arrows with auxiliaries.

And auxiliary cavalry is lightly armed; they won't be able to catch horse archers anyway.

[Perinquus]

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.

A javelin was also a lot heavier than a crossbow bolt. The Roman pilum had a lead weight to give it more mass and aid penetration. Once again, I don't see the crossbow as giving the Roman heavy infantry that much trouble, especially as the men behind the shields were also quite well armored.

And I don't believe the Chinese had developed their horse archery to its later high degree during the time frame we are talking about.

[Perinquus]

Romans generally "channeled" elephants through their own ranks - or shot them full of arrows with auxiliaries.

And auxiliary cavalry is lightly armed; they won't be able to catch horse archers anyway.

Excuse me, the best arm for catching light cavalry is also "lightly armed". In other words, other light cavalry. It's heavy cavalry, weighed down by heavy armor that will never catch light cavalry like horse archers. IF the Romans are going to send anything after horse archers, they'd be better off sending the auxilia than any cataphracti they might have in their service.

[Axis Kast]

But the javelin was thrown by a man; the crossbow fires a bolt which derives its strength from a machine. Medieval crossbows punched straight through European armor and shields with ease.

As for cavalry, your light Romans are going to have a hell of a time cornering archers who can shoot them to pieces before they get close.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The thing is Kast, we are not talking about a medieval arbalast(heavy, crank-drawn crossbow) We are taling about a chinese, hand drawn crossbow.

A medieval crossbow, used by the french in the 16th century, yes, they would fuck a roman legionare sideways. A chinese crossbow would have been no stronger than a composite blow of the time.

[Axis Kast]

Can you prove that? Why would the Chinese use it if it wasn't the more powerful of the weapons at hand?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Because it was locking, and could be held at the ready, for use at any time. From there, it would have progressed to be more powerful, much like the european knockoffs. They started out as being about as strong as a standard shortbow, but they required less space to use, and could be loaded ahead of time.

[Graeme Dice]

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.

</Plug for wargame>
Then what you want is a battle between Pythium and T'ien C'Hi (Barbarian Kings theme) in Dominions 2
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[Axis Kast]

Loading is largely irrelevant; it takes seconds to draw back a bowstring.

[Graeme Dice]

Loading is largely irrelevant; it takes seconds to draw back a bowstring.

It also requires absolutely massive muscles to be able to hold a bow with a heavy draw in the ready to fire position for any length of time. A crossbow is cocked and is then ready to fire now, or fifteen minutes from now. The crossbow can also be fired more easily from positions other than standing, which again can improve accuracy. They also require much, much less training to fire accurately than a bow.

[Bill Door]

Loading is largely irrelevant; it takes seconds to draw back a bowstring.

In which time the crossbowman has already shot you... Its quicker to point and shoot than to remove an arrow, notch it, draw back and fire. And thats assuming the bow is already strung...

[Alyrium Denryle]

Also, the crossbow was perfect for the defenders in a siege. A recurve, requires space to draw, and when you are shooting from the top of a tower, to hit someone at the base of the tower, you must draw back the bow, and lean over the edge, exposing yourself to enemy fire.

A crossbow on the other hand, requires almost no space to use, and to hit someone at the base of a tower, you only have to expose a small portion of your body to aim, and shoot.

[Perinquus]

But the javelin was thrown by a man; the crossbow fires a bolt which derives its strength from a machine. Medieval crossbows punched straight through European armor and shields with ease.

Yes, and that was a medieval European crossbow, not an ancient Chinese crossbow. The Chinese did not have such a powerful crossbow available to them.

The powerful medieval arbalest to which you refer had a steel bow, and was so powerful that it could not be spanned by hand, not even if you placed a foot in the stirrup on its front end, and pulled with all your might using both hands. It needed a mechanism such as cranequin



or a windlass pulley system



in order to span the bow and ready if for shooting. The example of the windlass drawn crossbow in the photo above is a modern replica, patterned after a medieval original. All the parts are hand made, as in the original, even the screws. It has a draw weight of 800 pounds! By contrast, even the most powerful medieval longbows, which took an archer of unusual strength to shoot, had a draw weight of at most 120 pounds.

Also, as I said, and which you apparently ignored, such heavy crossbows as this had an extremely slow rate of fire. This is why they did not exactly revolutionize warfare in Europe when they did appear. It is also why they would probably not be decisive against a Roman legion, because they would get at most two or three shots off before the crossbowmen had to retreat from the advancing Roman infantry.

But the point is moot in any case, because the Chinese did not have any crossbows that were even nearly so powerful as a medieval arbalest. The earliest examples of Chinese crossbows that show a stirrup on the front date from the 11th century AD, and even then, it was only there to allow both hands to be used to span the bow, not to aid in the use of a mechanism like the windlass. The bows on these crossbows are much lighter than those on an arbalest. Chinese crossbows could not, in all probablilty, pierce a Roman infantry scutum, at least not with enough force to harm the armored man behind. The only way to make such a light projectile as a crossbow bolt pierce such heavy armor or shields is to propel it forward at very high velocity. And you can only get the necessary velocity by using a bow in the 750-800 pound range, like the medieval arbalest did. Chinese crossbows were spanned by hand, and could not have had a bow much above 100 pounds draw weight - especially not in ancient times, when they had no stirrup on the front to allow both hands to be used for spanning the bow.

As for cavalry, your light Romans are going to have a hell of a time cornering archers who can shoot them to pieces before they get close.

Once again, do the Chinese even have horse archers of that type in the time period we are talking about?

The thing is Kast, we are not talking about a medieval arbalast(heavy, crank-drawn crossbow) We are taling about a chinese, hand drawn crossbow.

A medieval crossbow, used by the french in the 16th century, yes, they would fuck a roman legionare sideways. A chinese crossbow would have been no stronger than a composite blow of the time.

Can you prove that? Why would the Chinese use it if it wasn't the more powerful of the weapons at hand?

Because the crossbow still has one big advantage - the simplicity of its operation. One aimed and fired it much like a modern handgun. It did not require literally a lifetime of practice, which was necessary in order to master other bows such as the Welsh longbow, or Asian composite bow. A crossbowman could be trained to an acceptable standard of proficiency in mere weeks or months, as opposed to years or decades as for a longbow or composite bow.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The slow refire is why you used a longbow(if english), or a lighter crossbow(if you are on the mainland) for field battles. With a lighter crossbow they could get ff a few more shot than an arbalast, and with a longbow, well, they may not be as powerful, but equiped with a bodkin, they could punch through armor at 100 meters, and farther out than that, you ccan still kill men in armor, because ith enough arrows yo will eventually find gaps in their armor

Arbalasts were even used by the english in sieges, because, frankly, you have time to sit back and wind your bow up for about 30-45 seconds when your enemy is camped outside your walls for 3 weeks at a time.

[ArmorPierce]

The crossbow was one of the many inventions of the Han Dynasty. This is an incredibly important military weapon. It's stronger and more powerful than the longbow—the hand-bow. It could be pre-cocked in a manner that one could release it just by pulling a trigger—the equivalent of shooting a gun. So from horseback, one had greater control. The penetrating power of the crossbow was also incredible and could pierce many, many forms of armor.

http://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/chi ... print1.cfm

[Perinquus]

The crossbow was one of the many inventions of the Han Dynasty. This is an incredibly important military weapon. It's stronger and more powerful than the longbow—the hand-bow. It could be pre-cocked in a manner that one could release it just by pulling a trigger—the equivalent of shooting a gun. So from horseback, one had greater control. The penetrating power of the crossbow was also incredible and could pierce many, many forms of armor.

http://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/chi ... print1.cfm

The quote you cited is only partially correct. A crossbow is indeed more powerful than a hand drawn bow, but the edge in power is only significant when you use a bow of such power that you need some mechanism to help you span it. And for that you pay a price in rate of fire. This is why the English armies, with longbowmen beat the boots off the crossbow using French armies so often during the Hundred Years War. The longbow didn't have quite the crossbow's ability to pierce armor. But it could pierce well enough, and the English longbowmen could shoot six to ten well aimed shots a minute compared to the two or three times per minute that the Genoese crossbowmen in French service could shoot. The bowmen could simply put far more flights of arrows into the air.

Look at the actual historical record. For all the hoopla surrounding the crossbow, and for all the papal edicts banning it, as I said. It really didn't have quite the revolutionary effect on warfare its often touted as having.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Also, at that time, most chinese armor consisted of leather or bronze IIRC the romans used iron and steel for their weapons and armor...

[Jeremy]

If I remember correctly the Chinese would engage with infantry and archers to buckle the enemy. So if they would use archers they could have the romans form up their shields while they have the mobile cavalry archers come in from the sides and get their undefended flanks.

[Jeremy]

Not 'buckle', I meant 'pin down'.
oh well, I'm probably still wrong

[Shrykull]

The crossbow was one of the many inventions of the Han Dynasty. This is an incredibly important military weapon. It's stronger and more powerful than the longbow—the hand-bow. It could be pre-cocked in a manner that one could release it just by pulling a trigger—the equivalent of shooting a gun. So from horseback, one had greater control. The penetrating power of the crossbow was also incredible and could pierce many, many forms of armor.

http://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/chi ... print1.cfm

The quote you cited is only partially correct. A crossbow is indeed more powerful than a hand drawn bow, but the edge in power is only significant when you use a bow of such power that you need some mechanism to help you span it. And for that you pay a price in rate of fire. This is why the English armies, with longbowmen beat the boots off the crossbow using French armies so often during the Hundred Years War. The longbow didn't have quite the crossbow's ability to pierce armor. But it could pierce well enough, and the English longbowmen could shoot six to ten well aimed shots a minute compared to the two or three times per minute that the Genoese crossbowmen in French service could shoot. The bowmen could simply put far more flights of arrows into the air.

Look at the actual historical record. For all the hoopla surrounding the crossbow, and for all the papal edicts banning it, as I said. It really didn't have quite the revolutionary effect on warfare its often touted as having.

Hmm, when did Ballistae come about, which are essentially giant crossbows, think it would have worked better if crossbows fired something explosive for an area effect, rather than a simple bolt.

[StarshipTitanic]

Hmm, when did Ballistae come about, which are essentially giant crossbows, think it would have worked better if crossbows fired something explosive for an area effect, rather than a simple bolt.

Why not use a hand cannon?

[Alyrium Denryle]

If I remember correctly the Chinese would engage with infantry and archers to buckle the enemy. So if they would use archers they could have the romans form up their shields while they have the mobile cavalry archers come in from the sides and get their undefended flanks.

The Roman Testudo also protected the flanks. Each legion would break up into units of 27 men, the ones on the oursides, placed their shields to protect one of the sides of the square(this means the last man in line, walked bakwards) and the men on the inside held their shields up, the shield size was so perfect that they interlocked, very few arrows get through.