05-25-2006, 02:07 AM
Quote:These crossbows surely packs more punch than the hand drawn medieval crossbow(about 150 pounds) thanks to the addition of the belt hook device, but it also surely lags way behind the medieval winched crossbow(some over 1000 pounds).
What is a belt hook device, when was it introduced and how widespread was it?
Quote:They can lose battles, but it's almost impossible to conquer them because they have no cities to conquer. Each time they lost a battle they'll just pack their tents and move away, just so that they'll strike back when the main opposing army's gone.
Each time they lose, they will get under strong pressure from other neighbouring tribes, because to hassle and attack the weakened is the iron law of the steppe. That consideration alone has kept nomads warfare usually far more cautious than the mental image of the unconditionally wild nomadic onslaught might have conveyed.
Nomadic steppe warfare always had to calculate with the intrinsic weakness of having no safe havens (fortified towns) to which one can fall back in case of defeat and wait out the worst from a favourable defensive position. Therefore, a defeat on the steppe should not be equated easily with a defeat in urbanized societies. A defeat on the steppe endangered the basis of life, that is the pastures, and the life of ones family in a much more immediate way than it was possible in sedentary societies.
Your approach is a bit one-dimensional because you only view the strategical situation of the nomads vis-a-vis the sedentary Han, but you leave out the shift of power balance vis-a-vis other nomads, that is whats going on in the back of a nomad tribe in case of defeat.
Overall, I dont think that the XiongNu were such super-formidable enemies of the Han - what is sometimes portraited in order to upgrade the performance of the Han armies in view of the almost complete lack of other worthy enemies the Han China had to face in their history - the XiongNu certainly must have felt their own strategical constraints heavily.
I would not place them in terms of military capability over the Sarmatian tribes (in view of the military innovationess even less - consider the Sarmation contribution to the development of the cataphracts), who operated in a similarly large area west, north and east of the Black Sea and were numerically therefore probably in the same bracket. But, unlike in case of the Han, the Sarmatians were only one major enemy Rome was busy with. If you go by the quality and number of foes both empires fended off successfully in their time, I dont think it is even a contest and I dont think I am guilty of stretching things here.
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
