Anthrophobia

"How can i piss you off so PP can lock this thread, Anthrophobia?" Ohhhhh...shoot

"The war college thing - did China have this? Just because someone wrote a book on the art of war doesn't mean they did." That depends on whether you would write a whole book for your own pleasure or not<note: people don't write as easily back then, no pencil or paper, hint, hint.> "The Mongols never had a numerical advantage except when they invaded Europe. They were almost always badly outnumbered." Yes, does ANYONE know why so many people thinks that the Mongols only won through numbers? I don't see any history books stating this so far, so I don't get where this rumor came from. Although they did have there fair shares of defeats as well, almost as much as their victories, but somehow most sources never mention these. "Fatboy for starting this (even if it was a joke) sniper.gif Chinese Forum for inventing this topic" Fatboy has feelings and as far as I can tell it's the Civilization Fanatics forum that made it. If you really want to look into it the whole discussion probably began when both empires began to know the existence of the other side, so we might as well blame them for existing Really, I don't see why this discussion should be locked, unless people starts pissing each other off.

Why do I have a feeling this will be locked? I don't think the other topic ended sour. We didn't start calling each other fagots or anything, but it did end pretty suddenly.

"May be the overhead of just the Ballista but I highly doubt this, because what I knows that the Romans were masters of machinery, there are very popular seed weapons, building structures, getting water out of the ground (the same exact method by the Romans are still used today), mining minerals, and etc." You say they are the masters of machinery but you didn't give any statistics about how they are "better" than the Chinese. They may be at some parts, but it's definitely not at warfare. Han catapults and ballista's can all outrange a Roman one. "I personally think is a bias study, I mean average out ranges of different Ballistas. I to read as for myself to know." How is it biased? It's not as if I'm comparing the best Han ballista to the worst Roman ballista. No, I'm comparing the average range of all their ballistas. "It shows in history that they do conquer the known world if they

Some of the punishment was exaggerated. For example, Jesus was never beaten by flails with pointy nails attached to them, but he was whipped by the stick. Jesus did suffer, but not to the extent that every inch of his flesh was gone.

Well the Roman shield is wooden with iron on the sides and some in the middle, but it's made exactly out of wood. Yes, the Romans did eventually beat parthia<mostly by force of numbers>, and they also did adapt<although it's a LONG way from adapting significantly> to counter Parthian arrows, as displayed by more calvary/looser formations in Eastern rome. I can't imagine anyone saying Rome didn't have calvary. That's just way out there. However, Rome didn't concentrate as heavily on calvary as the Han did<who's number of horses in the nation was at the most compared to others at the same time period>. I don't get how Mongols invading Europe had anything to do with Rome v Han. Different time period equals different weapons, different tactics, ect. Concript armies with 2 yrs of training isn't gun fodder. Look at our armies today. Some just join for college credit <although now with the Iraqi war everything changed>.

1) No, the ballista range is not biased information. It's the AVERAGE range of both. And both had "DIFFERENT" ballistas. 2) Seriously, what do you expect Chinese "fanboys" do? It's a ROME V HAN discussion. The point is you take a side, and talk about how "great" their army is. Not to mention that I've seen more than a few posts that says they don't know anything about Han military, and still say that the romans would win, so I doubt you can call the Chinese histoy forum biased, who actually knows something about roman military<no offense>. 3) Rome lasted more than a thousand yrs if you count the Roman Republic, and the Byzantine Empire, not to mention the NUMMEROUS number of successions that took place. The Han lasted 400 with ONE succession<after the succession it moves to another dynasty, not a whole new empire>. You want to count the whole Chinese empire, like the whole Roman empire, than it's +3000 yrs. 4) Just because a country is ahead of another doesn't mean they can counquer the known world. Rome didn't do it, but people here don't ask why "if their ahead why didn't Rome conquer the known world". 5) As i have stated, Rome's formations against arrow fire is INEFFECTIVE against Han arrows. They are only effective against Roman ones. You can't just reject it without proof. Remember carrhae, their formations was quiet useless against Parthian bows, which is also behind that of a recurve bow. Yes the Romans had ranged weapons. That doesn't mean they have the best. This is the reason why the Han didn't have hulking shields against arrow fire, not shields made out of plywood, as well as looser formations against it, instead of mass shields, which would basically mean asking for death. 6) Both sides have tactics! I don't know why people can't figure this out. It's who's in command that's important. Of course both sides have good generals, but both has bad ones as well. It just depends on who is leading the army, a good general, or a lazy drunk? 7) Do you really think Han armies don't have volunteers as well? 8) Everyone's "built" to kick the other sides butt, this is an obvious.

Yes, at the very heights of both powers, I do believe that the Romans were better trained. I just wanted to point out that the Han didn't fight with peasant armies, but proffesionals, or at least semi-proffessionals, that's all.

"Equipment -- Romans of the legions early Empire were the cream of the crop here. Not sure about the Han Dynasty, but for the sake of argument let's say they are the same." No. Here's some examples. 1) Han used carbonated steel for weapons, while Rome used iron. 2) An average Han ballista can go up to 500 m, while for the Romans it's 400. 3) The Han had power bows that can pierce through the Roman shield(which is made out of plywood with some iron, only effective against other Roman bows, not Han ones) in 300 meters. "Training -- with the exception of the Spartans I can think of no better trained in all things military than the Romans. They could do it all and often did. They were the world's first truly professinal army." Western Han had conscriptions, but each had at least two yrs of training before battle. Eastern Han switched to a fully proffessional army like the Romans. "Moral -- This is the key fact, because the best equiped and trained soldier who does not want to fight is uselss compared to one that does." This "COMPLETELY" depends on the situation and the general. Moral always change, you can't really say which army had better moral.