From: c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
Subject: Re: Chinese Meet Romans?
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:15:39 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.024445.16020@cactus.org> rlp@cactus.org (Robert Platt) writes:
>A few years ago I attended an exhibit of artifacts of the 1st emperor
>of China, including a very small part of the Terra Cotta army with
>which he was buried.  The first emperor believed he ruled the whole
>universe because he had conquored all of the inhabited areas that
>were known to Chinese civilization.  He fielded armies of up to a
>million men that included both infantry and cavalry.  The Chinese
>possessed crossbows capable of penetrating metal armor.  Notes
>from the exhibit stated that had the Chinese and Roman empires met,
>the Romans would have been easily defeated.   I find this very credible,
>the Chinese were superior in weapons, tactics, logistics, and engineering.

No way that easily. The Chinese armies of the date consisted mainly of 
light cavalry, chariotry and mixed crossbow/spearmen units. In contrast,
the Roman armies had their main emphasis on Legionarii, who were armed
with pila, heavy javelis, which were to be thrown immediately before the
contact, being far superior to any other missile weapons. The Legionarii
were superior to Hellenistic pike phalanges, which were almost always
defeated when they were encountered, and the spears of the Chinese were
much shorter than the 6 meter sarissae of the phalangites, being even less
match against the Roman weapory and tactics. The spearmen were also inferior
in hand-to-hand combat to the legionarii, since gladius, the short sword
and the main weapon of the Legionarii, was more use in the tangled melee than
any spear or pike, whose wielders were less experienced in fencing.

Crossbows ? The Greek knew the weapon, Gastrophtetes (belly-bow), so did the
Macedonians, and the Romans themselves employed it under the name of 
Arcubalista (hence the Medieval name "arbalest"), so it was no big secret
weapon. The Roman infantry shield, Scutum, was very large and covered a large
part of the body of the Legionarius: he himself wore mail osegmented armor.
Testudo (tortoise) formation was a special battle formation employed against
an enemy strong of missile weapons: the Romans would certainly have had used
it against the Chinese. Crossbow quarrels could, and would also, penetrate the
scutum; but they would also have stuck into the shield, thus reducing much
of the power of the weapon. Crossbows are of more use against cavalry (as
the Chinese used it, Crusaders used it and later the Lithuanians were to know
it when confreonting the crossbows of the Teutonic Order, not to speak about
knights elsewhere in Europe) than against infantry. The chariots are easily
destroyed when stuck in the battle (no scythes :-), handled easily with the
Auxiliarii, and the Chinese light cavalry would have dealt with the Roman
ally medium cavalry, their own Equites and auxiiliarii infantry co-operation
(cavalry was an integral part of the main infantry army and did not yet form
a separate branch of military). Heavier Chinese troops would have been handled
with Catafractarii, super-heavy cavalry, or shot down if cavalry by the Auxili-
ares Sagittarii, perhaps armed even with crossbows themselves: also each Legio
fielded their own field artillery, Onagri and Ballistae, which were clearly
superior to the field pieces of the Chinese.

Fighting the Romans was always risky business, even more so, since the Romans
were professional elite soldiers and even the poorer conscripts were better
drilled than most of their counterparts, whereas the hordes of the Chinese, 
though being regular, were much less enthusiastic, well-drilled and equipped.
Their morale and esprit de corps was certainly not par to that of Romans; the
profession of soldier was always scorned and frowned upon in China: "Good
iron is not for nails and good men are not for soldiers", as they said.
With the notable exceptions of Terentius Varro, Marcus Crassus and Publius 
Varus, the Roman generals were usually as comptents as any of the modern 
generals, being well aware of strategy and tactics. Varro was, of course, a
rash gambler, whose gamble failed (but it might well have had succeeded had the
Equites not been beaten), Crassus an arrogant amateur and Varus plainly stupid.
The Chinese also had their Son Ze, though, that it can not be straightfor-
wardly be judged, whose generals were better, but the Romans would have fought
at their home terrain and it would have given a slight advantage to them. For
each Hannibal the Romans had their Fabius and Scipio.

About logistics and engineering, I would claim the Chinese and the Romans were
fairly evenly matched, the defender always being on the upper side. And still
feeding a million men locust swarm, even 10% of that, would have been next to
impossible with the logistics of the date.
>Bob Platt

An interesting question, though ! Perhaps the staff of the Wargames' Research
Group or other similar authority consisting of military people and historians
could say their heavy word upon this question ?


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