Rome vs Han essay- want get some opinions

[First_Legionary]

As far as penetrating plate armor, don't make me laugh. The lorica segmentata has been tested against a Roman scorpion torsion catapult at full cock, capable of delivering a bolt at many times the velocity and penetrating power of the Chinese crossbow. In every case but one, the bolt simply bounced off (once, a bolt managed to wedge itself into the gap between two girth hoops and would have probably killed the wearer, but this is a hundred-to-one shot).

Interesting, can you cite your source?

I'm not sure where he got his information but I've seen televised demonstrations of a Roman Scorpion being fired into Legionary armor and the most it did was bounce off and land harmlessly on the ground.

Speaking of scorpions, each Roman legion could deploy at least 50 of these weapons, much more powerful than the Chinese double-bow catapult, plus a number of larger siege engines in any set piece battle. Not to mention the Levantine and Numidian auxiliary archers, who could fill the air with arrows fired from powerful recurve bows, and the Balearic slingers, who could whip up clouds of deadly lead bullets.

A major tactic of the crossbow is to use it to fire a continual barrage. The scorpion, although powerful, could not rain the sky with bolts. Thus, it could not stop an enemy's advanced when compared with a wall of bolts. It is deadly none the less, I do admit but only effective in killing a few man at a time.

Someone will have to see if the Han crossbow could even pierce the Roman Shield. If the Han's crossbow could not, then the Han might be in a bit of trouble. :wink:

Most likely the Hun crossbow men would have been out flanked by allied calvary and cut down.

How about Chinese cavalry? Cavalry had lots of Steepe archers and was quite powerful. It was able to fight battle simply by itself against the Barbarians.

Ventidius showed us how to counter horse archers, in his campaign against Parthia he took a force of 11 legions, including a large number of slingers to defend against horse archery, for the Romans had learned that unsupported heavy infantry in the open were highly vulnerable. The Romans would have learned to support their infantry. You are also overlooking the fact that the Romans were a highly adaptive army. They devised tactics for any situation that came their way.

You are also ignoring the fact that Carrhae was a battle that should have been won and that Crassus is just a horrible general, not to mention the use of cataphract calvary by the Parthians would have unnerved any soldier.

Crassus could be a horrible general, heard this one quite a few times. How about Mark Anthony, is he a poor general too? He almost got his army slaugtered. Cataphract didn't not play a significant role, according to John Warry who edited/wrote Warfare in the Classical World.

Crassus WAS a horrible general, or are you not familiar with his attempt on taking out the slave rebellion led by Spartacus? =P

I think Antony's biggest problem was that he was far too confident when attempting to attack the Parthians because of his subordinate's (Ventidius) victory over the Parthians. But that's assuming he lost, details about the battle at the Parthian stronghold of Phraaspa are inconclusive, but one thing is for sure, Antony's return to Armenia because of lack of progress was met only with disease and further harassment from the Parthians.