Han VS Rome

Originally posted by Omnipotence  The Romans and Greeks had 3 masted cargo vessels, lateen sails and sprit sails. Interesting, do you have any sources on this? I have seen some late Roman(after 200AD) pictures done on walls in which it implies the use of multiple masts, but I can't find any information that says that Imperial Rome and the Greeks had it. I assume you mean the stern rudder here since the Classical world did have rudders they just preferred the stern quarter system.. But since the evidence from Egyptian tombs provides models of ships with stern rudders Can I see the sources on this too? And I don't think Egypt was part of the "west". I do believe that a lot of credit that should belong to Egypt(particularly in the math section) was instead given to the classical powers such as Greece and China. Both China and Greece discovered many mathmatical equations and such at about the same time, but nowadays the West gives all the credit to Athens, never even mentioning China, while China gives all the credit to, well, China, and fails to mention Athens. But no matter, they both came up with equations already used by Egypt long before. The timeline given by Sinodefender is indeed inaccurate at certain points, and the numerous " discovered so and so years after the West" are bound to cause bad feelings. Here is a more accurate description(more descriptive, less vague) of Chinese inventions, without comparing it to the west. http://www.villarevak.org/cathay/invention.html

Some do consider Egypt part of the west ( at lest during classical time), it mite be the Euro mountains and how they divided, so some considered north Africa part of the west.  This is a similar situation with Turkey� Or its just north Africa or Egypt is consider because its so close, or Alexander and other Greek conquest, and/or some influents, or even other reasons.

 

�Praetorian, I can't tell which one is quoted and which one is not, except the pictures you've taken, which I would say is more of a fair comparison than the previous pictures you've posted�

I fixed my quotes you can read it if you want. Yea at least I try to fix things in my post, so if theirs any thing ells, I�ll try fixing it�thanks for pointing things out to me.

�In general, Han technology in metal weaponry was superior to the Romans'. I think it is very difficult to dispute this fact.

However, the problem is that warfare is not a matter of weapons. Warfare is a matter of money. I'm not convince that both Han and Rome fielded armies whose weapons were the best in their design. In the later Roman Empire, it was determined that more infantry troops of inferior equiptmen was better than fewer troops with superior equiptiment.

Also, only a small part of combat effectiveness has to do with weaponry, which is usually an overrated aspect of ancient warfare, In my opinion.

Most of large scale success and failure in warfare in the ancient world was not a direct consequence of weaponry, but a consequence of state power. For example, how can you except the Romans to conquer the Han if they couldn't even permanently conquer a country as small as scotland. A similar observation can be made for China, replacing scotland with Korea.�

Both did have Steel...

Well I think some of this statement is wrong. The Roman army was not well equipped as they use to in mid 300AD or so (because of some corrupt people in the government), and the army shrunk in size as well. But at the height of the Roman Empire, they had a very, very big army and the best equipped! I do not know way they say the Romans have inferior melee weapons, I thought I explained about how Roman melee weapons were superior! Like the Roman big shields. (Yes I seen and know about Han melee weapons)

Big shields, yes a shield is a weapon, its not only to just block! I read what kind of taconites Romans can do with there shield to neutralize the enemy with out using their swords! (I do not think I told ya�ll about this.) And how the Roman shot sword is better in infantry/formation warfare. I can give it to you agene or name and explain more Roman melee weapons.

Edited by Praetorian

For those interested there is a historical drama on HanWuDi, the martial emperor of the Han. Many think that it was under his reign that the Han reached the height of its power(although I disagree).

Here's a clip. Please note that there are many things that are historically inaccurate with it(some of the armour look more samurai than Chinese), but it's still good to watch, because there are things such as court dress which are historically accurate, at least to my knowledge.

http://www.zokegd.com/bbs/UploadFile/20045813820174.wmv

I'm not accusing you, I'm just accusing the list. All you did was paste it. Sorry if it sounded like the former.

 

 

Edited by Omnipotence

Originally posted by Ponce de Leon Let me make just one statment that i believe "half" of you at least will agree on.......................................................... ..............Rome can beat Han-nny butt because they have legions and the legions have cooler looking armour, and the Romans define Western Europe which really helped create the Western culture as we know it today!!! ROME......kicks ass

no, i dun agree with any of that. han got better looking armors imo. it's just a matter of preference. and roman soldiers wore sandles. that was really ugly imo, too. for the past 20 centuries, chinese civilization was the leading one in 18 of them. so ur last point also is pointless.

Im kidding im just feeling a little tickilish at the moment

Originally posted by Sino Defender Originally posted by Ponce de Leon Let me make just one statment that i believe "half" of you at least will agree on.......................................................... ..............Rome can beat Han-nny butt because they have legions and the legions have cooler looking armour, and the Romans define Western Europe which really helped create the Western culture as we know it today!!! ROME......kicks ass no, i dun agree with any of that. han got better looking armors imo. it's just a matter of preference. and roman soldiers wore sandles. that was really ugly imo, too. for the past 20 centuries, chinese civilization was the leading one in 18 of them. so ur last point also is pointless.

I wouldn't say that .... China was different but not necessarily more or less advanced than high civilizations in other parts of the world for much of that time. It's clearly in the lead from the Dark Ages until the early colonial period. Still a good 10 centuries or so. And Roman armour *is* cooler looking ... Han armour was pretty basic.

Han armour

More Han armour

Roman armour

More Roman armour

Also, Roman soldiers weren't really wearing sandles much after the 2nd century or so ... the hobnail boot, or calceus, was more popular.


Officer's Calceii

Common Calceii

Edited by edgewaters

Also, Roman soldiers weren't really wearing sandles much after the 2nd century or so ... the hobnail boot, or calceus, was more popular.

Well, by the second century there is really no comparison on which armor look better because by then the Lorica Segmentata went out of style.

 

btw, here are more pics on the more appealing Chinese armors(the picture shown above is Han vs Hxiong Nu).

The battle of ChiBi:

Picture of General HuoQuBin's campaign against the HxiongNu(accuracy would have been good if the picture of that stirrup didn't exist):

Edited by Omnipotence

Another picture of a Han horse archer. Note that there is no stirrup during the Han dynasty, yet it is shown in this picture, an inaccuracy.

 

Edited by Omnipotence

Gladiator is inaccurate just like how Hero is inaccurate. Catapults won't be used for battles as shown like that, and the gladius wasn't used for cutting/hacking. Gladius was also shown to be used by cavalry, which was not true, for Roman cavalry used the Spatha. Roman cavalry soldiers also don't wear the Lorica Segmentata, and they also don't have the stirrup.

Originally posted by Omnipotence Again, that would be a very unfair comparison. Comparing the best of Roman armor to the worst of Han armor would obviously mean that the Roman armor would look more appealing. Here are the better pictures of Han armour.

I concede that you do have something of a point there, but, you've gone and made the opposite mistake by portraying the armour of Han military elites - the lorica segmentata and other Roman armours like chainmail were not special armours worn by elites and special units, but the universal armour of the common foot soldier.

The average Roman foot soldier - and therefore the mass of their armies - had better and more appealing armour. But I will certainly grant that the Han elite armours have much more appeal than the armour worn by Roman elites, which was a muscle cuirass (I don't think one can get any uglier than armour that has nipples) and a skirt. Not a pretty sight.

Edited by edgewaters