05-29-2006, 08:45 PM
Quote:No-one said the Han army stunk...but rather people here simply shared evidence contrary to the original poster's essay. We're saying that the Han army is going to have a really tough time with the Romans. You simply kept on defending the side of the Han, in which case you got ganged up on...though not surprising considering this forum is of course called Roman Army Talk.
There are plenty of things that I disagreed with as to the "facts" of the original poster, but it makes it no more right to counter his essay with facts that are just as false(ideas such as no stirrups on crossbows, no worthy enemies, fighting for the next bag of rice?). Obviously I don't need to defend the Roman empire in this forum because there are plenty of people here to do it for me(being that it IS a Roman military forum), but I do defend the Roman army in CHF about the same essay(being that it IS a Chinese history forum, but still there are others in there who defended Rome too). It is incredibly easy for me to paint such a picture with facts(that are true to boot) in order to make it seem that the Han are mightier than Rome, as long as I give one side of the picture. It is just as easy for me to paint a picture in which Rome seems mightier than the Han, and with true facts as well. All I have to do is choose which facts to post. It is altogether even easier if I throw out flase facts as according to stereotype, but should I do that? No.
I really want to compare how the two armies evolved from each other. Similarities include that they both switched from typical short gladius/jian to longer spatha/dao, both probably due to the increased importance of cavalry. What they differed at is that the Roman empire sticked mainly with lorica segmentata and mail while the Han sticked with mainly Lamellar armour. This may be due because of differences in cost or simply the weapons that was preferred. Another difference is that the Han concentrated much more on firepower than the Romans, while the Romans concentrated much more on melee than the Han. This can be seen by the style of warships that both employed. Roman ones rammed/boarded a lot more than Han warships, so even with warships Rome relied on its melee power. As for the Han, their ships relied on firepower, sinking other ships at a distance. As a result, Roman ships tend to be faster than Han ships(slower ships can't ram faster ships), while Han ships tend to be bigger/taller(to add more siege engies/archers).
Rick Lee
