1719 replies to this topic

[caocao74]

if the battle will end in One day... the great Julius Caesar and the Roman will win..

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Strange since perhaps Julius Caesar's victory (over Vercingetorix at Alesia in 52 BC) took weeks of siege-work.

[TMPikachu]

"if the battle will end in One day... the great Julius Caesar and the Roman will win."

Care to explain more?

"I think most soldiers wore leather though."

No, they wore overlapping steel plates.

"Han do not have heavy infantry, "

yes they do

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Hmmm, I've read though that the heavy infantry formations, with tower shields and pikes in tight order, are extremely vulnerable to crossbows/strong composite bows, therefore not used in Chinese warfare. Maybe it meant they had a much smaller role.

Around Han times, I think the average soldier would have been wearing rhino leather armor. Steel/iron was certainly around though. The Osprey book says the Han used mostly leather.

[Koolasuchus]

Hmmm, I've read though that the heavy infantry formations, with tower shields and pikes in tight order, are extremely vulnerable to crossbows/strong composite bows, therefore not used in Chinese warfare. Maybe it meant they had a much smaller role.

Around Han times, I think the average soldier would have been wearing rhino leather armor. Steel/iron was certainly around though. The Osprey book says the Han used mostly leather.

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It is unpractical for the central government to try to offit the average soldiers with rhino leather armor, as the rhino was already very vare in the China proper by the times of Shihuangdi.

[Moose]

Read from somewhere,only officers wore rhino armour.I wonder where they get those rhinos from anyway?I think the common infantry just wore normal cloth or leather.

[TMPikachu]

Read from somewhere,only officers wore rhino armour.I wonder where they get those rhinos from anyway?I think the common infantry just wore normal cloth or leather.

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Rhino hide was popular in the Spring and Autumn, but then the rhino became more and more rare. Later on, when the rhino goes extinct, ox hide is used.

[warlordgeneral]

It was actually the Iranians that first used the cataphracts

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Well, the Massagetae and Sarmatians were technically steppe nomads, and the Parthians, at least semi-nomadic, though they were of Indo-European (Iranian) origin.

[General_Zhaoyun]

But the Han Dynasty are use to fighting a War what we call now Organized Guerilla Battle...with Use Of Major Forces...it is like
the Vietnam Guerilla War against US Super Power.

How is that so? The han doesn't really fight guerilla battle..they relied the war more on deception and strategy.

[Liang Jieming]

But the Han Dynasty are use to fighting a War what we call now Organized Guerilla Battle...with Use Of Major Forces...it is like
the Vietnam Guerilla War against US Super Power.

How is that so? The han doesn't really fight guerilla battle..they relied the war more on deception and strategy.

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The Han military philosophies were built directly onto the writings of strategists and tacticians like Sun Wu and Sun Pin! Just read Sunzi's Art of War and the examples given and you'll see how they would have fought. Don't misinterpret the mobility of an army for a chaotic rabble. These same battle formations are carried through into the 3K era which was greatly emphasized in the novel.

Jieming

[RollingWave]

Both the Roman and the Han empire lasted a LOOONG time, their army from begining to finish were dramatically different, unless you can set a more fixed time this whole comparason is basically rubbish.

If you simply compare them at their height, in most sense the Han army was superior (superior however.. has nothing to do with winning or losing), Han was much greater in terms of population (espically since a great majority of Roman populations were slaves that tend to become more of a liability than asset in battle) their tactics were far more versital. and they had technological advantages in many areas.

The main difference today is simply because the Roman legacy is more well known to the western dominating world, while here we still have major arguments on what the Han soliders armor was (it was both leather and iron, some armies had full body iron scale lapping armors while some were more leather oriented with some iron scale covering. again it can vary greatly in either direction during the 500 year timespan of the Han, late Han already sees horse armor. and some think that stirrups probably came to use in late han too) showing that the vast majority of us are totally ignorante on at least half of the comparason, if so... how can you honestly trust your analysis if you don't even know what you are comparing?

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

"But the Han Dynasty are use to fighting a War what we call now Organized Guerilla Battle...with Use Of Major Forces...it is like
the Vietnam Guerilla War against US Super Power."

No, they didn't. In whats today's Vietnam, the Han had their own method of fighting the Guerillas there, which was largely successful.


"The Osprey book says the Han used mostly leather. "

The Osprey, like most other internet sources on Han is simple and ignores the fact that there is two Han while during the 1st century B.C. with the introduction of the Blast furnace, iron armaments are widely replacing Bronze and leather as the dominant arms of combat.

[Mei Houwang]

No, they didn't. In whats today's Vietnam, the Han had their own method of fighting the Guerillas there, which was largely successful.

Care to explaing?

[TMPikachu]

any suggested reading Warhead? In english? I'm illiterate...

Just that I've usually heard leather was the norm in Han.
Was it the most common form of armor in Spring and Autumn period?

[RollingWave]

TMPikachu, i'll dig up my book on Chinese weapon/armor this weekend at latest and give you some more insight.

[thirdgumi]

Ok, I was thinking, was leather armor really inferior to metal armor. We know today that kevlar is excenlent for body armor, it is light and resistant. Now, leather was lighter than metal, and with a proper method of manufacturing, could a leather armors turn out as a better than metal armors in term of weight-resistance ratio?
It was said that during Spring-Autum period, the Chinese used to make armors from rhinos. Their manufacturing technics consisted of putting one layer of male rhinos' skins over one layer female rhinos' skins and then another layer of female rhinos' skins on over the male rhinos' skins and so on. Now we can clearly see that those leather armors were composite armors, a technic to manufacture later tank armors. It is particulary effective against projectiles, coud be bullets or, arrows. I really wonder if the leather armors were really that inferior to metal armors such as bronze or iron.

A photo of West Han dynasty steel (the word they used was 炒钢, though I don't know what it is, anyone specialied in metallurgy care to explain more?) armor found in Jiang Su province (south of China):