Could the Roman Empire at its height in the 2nd century AD defeat the Han Empire if both empires were located right...

>Chinese
>capable of doing anything besides crushing dumbass peasants
Top laugh

Definitely not. It would be the other way around. By proportion, Roman military power in any point in it's history was never as high as the the Mongols and Chinese. The only force that could likely have defeated them would be Alexander's during the fourth century BC, and they probably would have as well had they beileved there was anything worth having in nomadic North-eastern Asia.

Romans invented crossbows too

overall their military was higher quality, they had a bigger more developed economy, wider dispersion of technologies among the population.
Completely W R O N G,

Plus Alexander's force was completely decidedly inferior compared to the Roman Empire's military power.

If you cared to read about historical military campaigns you would discover that I am not wrong, absolutely not. Alexander's army was the strongest in history before gunpowder, but let's not argue.

Alexander's Army used inferior formations, didn't carry as many numbers as the Roman military, and the Romans had the benefit of all the tactical experience of their victories and conquests. They developed the best possible military of antiquity, what you're suggesting is just nonsense, Alexander managed so many victories against the Persians because the incompetence of his opponent and his use of quality strategies, however the Romans also had many great and high quality leaders.

Nice bullshit, namefag.

?Marius committed genocide on five out of eleven Germanic tribes.

1 Romans had superior equipment (chainmail offers good protection against chinese-style crossbows)

2 Romans has superior training

3 Romans had better Generals

>Christianity killed the roman empire
t. Edward Gibbon
Also, isn't Rome still a major seat of power today.....I wonder what made that so....Christianity

Easily, China didn't have a military diversity of Rome and was less able to handle corruption.

I strongly disagree with you. Firstly, you have to understand that Rome was an empire, it didn't just have one gigantic army as Madedonian Greece, and would never have mustered half the force. Outcome of battle were frequently uncertain. Alexander on the other hand never lost a battle, even when he had travelled as far east as India, from Greece, an immense distance at those times. The superiority in formation is a dubious argument. As I said, Alexander never lost a single battle when he had conquered most of the world so it would be difficult to doubt its superiority as we can now clearly see in retrospect. Besides, his campaigns conquered much more in a few years than the Romans ever did in five hundred years of ruling. I do not know where it is that you read your history but I encourage checking other books. As I said, let us not argue, there isn't much else to say.

Considering Chinese crossbows were incredibly powerful and required a 3 man team to operate as well as the fact that chainmail only offers protection against slashes and not piercing weapons and the fact that Romans didn't wear anything more than a linen shirt under their mail; I highly doubt they'd be protected against China's crossbows

Who has superior trained soldiers? Who has better artillery? Who has better battlefield logistics and supply trains? Who was better at sieges?

The Terrans, most certainly.

Roman Empire=USA
Han dynasty=Soviet Union

Shut up faggot.

No you shut up, you faggot.

No, you dumb faggot.

Roman Empire = the Empire
Han dynasty = Rebels

>Besides, his campaigns conquered much more in a few years than the Romans ever did in five hundred years of ruling.
And then it all fell apart immediately when he died. Running over large swaths of land with a xboxhueg army isn't how you build an empire. Look at Trajan, he saw a chance to gain a port connection to the Indian ocean and took it with ease, but abandoned it soon afterwards because he realized he couldn't maintain control over it. Conquering in the vein of Alexander and the Mongols is just masturbatory. It accomplishes little

Alexander's Army used the Phalanx formation which was already outdated by the later Roman Republic Era, let alone the Roman Empire and Late Roman Empire eras.

His cavalry tactics would have been countered in the same way the Romans conquered the mobile persian forces they fought and won against for centuries.

Alexander's army never exceeded roughly 50'000~ with additional camp followers. Rome has massed numbers similar to that many times, the Roman Imperial Army reached a manpower of over a million soldiers at certain times in antiquity.

Obviously you learned your history at the back of a middle school classroom, because I learned my history at an academic institution.

Roman already had large crossbows like that, they also had smaller personal crossbows and superior siege craft.

phalanx was strong but also incredibly inflexible, relied on flat uneven ground and i contend would be relatively bad against a more flexible roman invasion force with a good general. Alexander never lost but he also fought in very few battles in proportion to the amount of land he conquered. His enemy was also very unorganized and in terms of the structure of the persian empire, very easy to overturn. The states in that empire did not care who ruled them, it wasnt too difficult for alexander.

I knew you'd say that but it's not true. After Alexander's death his close generals ruled and created entire dynasties of rulers. But maybe I'm wrong and you're right, whatever.

Haha, funny man. Academic institution huh? Did you not learn to google there? Because if you had, you would good most powerful armies in the world and learned a bit of history while you're at it instead of mindlessly typing uneducated things on the internet. But it's okay, we all know kids who type on these boards and comments are consistently more wrong than right, and usually just stupid. I rest my case.

Finally a plausible reply, but the argument against what you said is the mother of all arguments, that of history. Only one thing happened. Alexander conquered the world in a few years while Rome only gave citizenship rights in return for empire status, no taxes, to half of it. What you said is right, but it happened inspite of that, and the only reason it did is military superiority, very patially helped by the tyrannical behavior of despots which made some populations rather glad to have as ruler the incredibly famous and cultured Alexander the Great. People were even more complaint with the Romans however, but for such entirely different reasons as cruelty and revenge.

Could someone give me a tl;dr on the Han military?

They used a lot of heavy infantry.

...

...

What?

Roman Empire had larger military, population, and more production and mining. Unfair comparison.

Didn't the Han have armies frequently in the hundreds of thousands?

Easily the Han

The Romans much like the Greeks were shit at war, their strength relied on the ability to wear down the enemy over time and logistics chain to overwhelm the enemy with a stream of manpower.

Their military tech was geared towards fighting Germanics and Hellenes, and struggled against people who didn't fit either category. They were weak on the combined arms approach as they relied heavily on their core of heavy infantry to be the decisive arm of battle, definitely weaker in that aspect compared to the Alexander's Army. Roman military science was also inferior to that of the Han, the latter was rich in theories and established military science as an academic discipline even if they didn't call it that. The great generals of the Classical World like Hannibal and Pyrrhus whom the Romans loved to gush over would have been considered mediocre by Chinese standards.

How long do we have before the fall begins in earnest? 10 years?

The Diadochi armies are not a fair representation of the capabilities of Alexander's system. Hannibal's forces were organised along Hellenistic lines and demonstrates the system's potential under energetic and imaginative commanders. The key to the Alexandrian system is the hammer and the anvil, in the form of a heavy cavalry and phalanx combination. Roman forces were organized primarily to maximize the combat ability of their infantry, they don't fair particularly well against well-organised enemies utilizing combined arms

Yep

It's because the Han economy was heavily agriculture based. A legacy of the legalist policy of giving land to soldiers to farm in exchange for military service

>Their strength relied on the ability to wear down the enemy over time and logistics chain to overwhelm the enemy with a stream of manpower.

That's largely true of the Chinese as well, it's the primary advantage of organized empires against nomads and savages. Fundamentally I think this question is flawed; the Romans and the Chinese fought fundamentally different enemies and their armies' organizations reflect that. Comparing them is comparing apples and oranges

Actually the Marcomanni survived the wars with Aurelius. They crossed the Rhine in 406 with the Vandal/Alan/Suevi coalition of tribes and ended up settling in north-west Spain in Gallaecia.

By the same token, unlike Rome, the Han did not have standing armies during peace times iirc.

that's a medieval crossbow, Roman ones were hardly personal weapons.

The Macromanni were devastated after losing their war, they survived but were hardly a major threat at that point on their own.

>Roman ones were hardly personal weapons.

That sounds like the talk of a man who doesn't have enough slaves to pull around and operate his crossbow for him.

it's the second century AD, afraid the average heavy Roman infantryman isn't that rich.

Isn't that just the same as a roman scorpion?

Why would any civilization? Large standing armies are extremely expensive to maintain. The reason why the Romans did was because political prestige and mobility was heavily tied to military service. That's why despite all of Romans various industries the empire was not economically healthy.

So what are you complaining about? The Romans had a reason and need for professional forces in their military at all times not only as garrisons but as mobile reserves in case of invasions or quick reaction forces against foreign or internal threats.

The Han not doing the same shows a military weakness on their part.

And you're stupid if you think that Han didn't also have a core of professional soldiers like every single civilization. The steppe nomads were a permanent threat and garrisons had to be established along the Northern borders to deter raids and invasions. Of course they were never as the same size as the Legions because the Han elite did not depend on military service as a way to enhance themselves the way the Roman elites did.

The Han operated a system comparable to medieval Europe, in that armies were personally levied and controller by either the Monarch or the local lord.

Large standing armies hanging around is begging for a coup from whoever controls it.

>CIDF is here

>The Han operated a system compare to medieval Europe
No.

>no countergument
>I'll call him CIDF, that'll do the trick

Yes because Romans were white

I feel like the Romans faced a more diverse set of military challenges in making and maintaining an empire than the Chinese did. I'm afraid that I don't know much about ancient Han military doctorines but the two empires were of roughly equal populations and I feel like the Romans would have slight edge with the legion system and all.

>I'm retarded

I'm inclined to agree. The Romans faced the Parthians, Sassanids, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Germanics, Celtics, Carthaginians, Libyans, other Semitic and African tribes in the Near East and North Africa so they have a history and the experience that goes with facing opponents whose military forces ranged from heavy infantry to heavy cavalrymen.

Did the Han have chainmail armor? What was their armies main focus? Infantry? Cavalry? What about artillery weapons for sieges and taking down fortified defenses like walled cities, etc...

Yes you are

Your average Han soldier and their master of gongfu would allow him to wipe his ass with any average Roman conscripted peasant.

there is a major discussion across military historians about Alexander vs Rome Republic at the date of his death 323 BC in who would win in a battle
Empire is not even a question and the reason it's sheer tech power (engineering and armor first) and military training of Rome would give them an easy victory
323-105 BC Rome is a different story: while Phalanx was indeed obsolite by roman standard, as proven in the Pyrrus and all the wars in Greece after that , it's also true those formatio were very different in respect at those Alexander used, with a more people in the lines and less and less cav. That happened after Diadochi wars and since everybody used Phalanx, it seemed a good idea to have more powerful single unites. But of course it didn't work as well with Roma's Pila.
Would Alexander be any different? His main strategy was crushging one wing of the enemy and from there winning the battle, but that would be difficult with maniples formation. Still Alexander would probably crush roman cavalry and win the battle in the same way Hannibal did at Cannae.
Personally I believe Alexander would have the same fate as Pyrrus: Winning battle, but losing core infrantry in the process and in a long war, Rome would probably win. If Alexander menage to disembarc, win a couple of battles and then besiege Rome, he can win.
But his army has a great problem: if he dies, war it's over, if rome lose a consol, the war is not over.

But I'm quoting you.

/Thread

Not the same person retard

depends on who bought the most Sarmatians.

>Roman Empire invades Han China
>Han Emperor sends letter to governor telling himn to deal with the situation
>Governor cant do it, is deafeated and retreats to provincial capital
>Han Emperor sends another guy to replace him, the old governor is executed
>But the troops dont like the new governor and revolt
>The Han capital sends its troops to quell the rebellion
>But now the capital has few troops so the people revolt
>Han Emperor runs away and crates the han-yuan-ping-pong-north-and-more-north-but-a-bit-west-turn-right-at-the-lane-dinasty
>Roman General has just finished assembling his troops when he hears the news.

Thats how it would go.

let me add
>roman general forms new dynasty and becomes new china
>invades roman empire and wins

>Christianity kills Roman Empire
>Christianity Created in 33 AD
>Roman empire collapses in 1458
(Byzantines count, don't even BEGIN to deny)

lol...you know your Chinese history.

You are confusing handheld crossbows with triple bow arcuballista.

Han crossbows had long powerstrokes and high draw weights. The only thing missing is prod efficiency.

Whether the typical 6 stone Han crossbow(387 lb draw weight) can pierce Roman armor is unknown.

>larger military
The Eastern Han relied on professional mercenaries.

>population
Roughly the same.

>production
source

>mining
Cherrypicked sources. The Han excelled in ferrous metallurgy not the Romans.

Play dynasty warriors. Basically spears.

Nice try retard (You).

Lolwat

This. The rest of the thread will be pol spook jerking

You keep believing that cucktard, it won't make it true.

The Romans had nowhere near as diverse the opponents as you believe. The opponents they encountered were largely the same militarily with minor differences here and there.

>Did the Han have chainmail armor? What was their armies main focus? Infantry? Cavalry? What about artillery weapons for sieges and taking down fortified defenses like walled cities, etc...

The Han had a vast diverse arsenal of weapons at their disposal but they had no uniform set piece doctrine for their military. The Han were incredibly flexible and fluid with their approach to external threats and expansion, creating armies that best suited the environment in which they were expected to fight and often made use of colonists and military adventurers independent of the imperial court to expand their domain.

Could the British Empire at its height in the 19th century defeat the entire classical world?

No shit you idiot

It is true, faggot kun.

only if guan yu hasn't been born yet

You are an idiot. Please compare opponents of the Romans and Byznatines like the Parthians, Persians, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Germanics, and Celtics with different fighting styles of largely the same horse archer Mongoloids the Chinese fought.

You don't know fuck all about any of those opponents they fought if you even have to present the question. Read a fucking book or even do a simple google search because even Roman military writers and texts like the Strategikon noted the similarities of fighting style of the opponents they fought.

>Barely hold
I think you mean, barely invade. unless you're talking about 300s Rome which OP specified is not what we're talking about. Asian military tactics and technology is far inferior to Western nations with the exception of certain parts of Central Asia

>Asian military tactics and technology is far inferior to Western nations with the exception of certain parts of Central Asia

What are you gonna say next? That Europeans are actually descendant from Atlanteans? Take your /pol/cuckery back to your board.