Comparison between Roman and Han Empires on Wikipedia!

[Dachs]

You're going off topic again....

Our original contention was that Chinese could not have possibly supplied hundreds of thousands of troops. Your silence on this matter indicates I am right.

No, it doesn't. You've totally failed to convince me that Chinese historians are reliable on this matter, any more so than Roman ones were on their large army sizes, mostly because you haven't provided any actual evidence other than the lack of complaints on Wikipedia. You've failed to address my point that court historians have no reason to be objective, either. In short: I ain't satisfied, and still claim that Chinese armies regularly massing armies of more than a hundred thousand men in a tactical situation is highly unlikely.

The point is rivers are GREAT Defensive barriers. That's a fact. If it wasn't a fact the Chinese would have been vanquished during the Wu Hu era and we wouldn't have paper, gunpowder, printing press and others.

Because Chinese rivers and the Rhine and Danube are totally comparable, guys! Absolutely nothing disingenuous about that.

(Hmmm, I wonder how Attila with 500,000 horsemen would turn out for Europe).

I wonder how Alexandros with a 500,000 man combined arms army would turn out for China. See, I can ask irrelevant questions too!

The point is that Europe has so much rivers and forest that it would be impassable for large groups of nomadic cavalry.

Ah, there we are. See, that's only a moderately incorrect statement. The Hungarian Plain, for instance, isn't half-bad (although it's not really perfect) in that respect. But yes: in the numbers that you claim advanced against China, nomadic horsemen would not be able to ride against European states in an equivalent time, that's correct.

Mongols also sacked Baghdad if you recall. That saved Europe a ton of trouble.

Considering that the Abbasids were basically about as powerful and relevant in temporal terms as the Pope is nowadays, it didn't save 'Europe' much at all.

your comment about hundreds of thousands of germans is absurd.

Learn about the agricultural revolution that the region that currently corresponds to Germany underwent following the Roman conquest of Gallia and tell me that again with a straight face.

Germans are not the military threat nomadic cavalry is. They are guys with axes. Any organized army could defeat them easily.

I see you're learning history from Gladiator again.

Xiongnu, Xianbei, Rouran, Gokturks, Khitan, Jur'chens, Mongols, and others.... any one of them could have brought down Roman, Persian or Indian Empires.

Those weren't all attacking China at the same time, unlike the list I provided for you. In addition, the statement that 'any one of them could have brought down Roman, Persian, or Indian Empires' is normative - you can't prove it, so don't use it as proof for something else.

I'm not even going to respond to your comment about Roman crossbows. If they had so many crossbows why would they have guys throwing javelins....... Please don't falsify history for your own ends.

Yes, because I totally forged the existence of the gastrophetes and of the Roman torsion crossbows, especially the Xanten find. Just to win this argument. Perhaps it has occurred to you that crossbows are not war-winning pieces of equipment, and that they were not suited to combat in the areas in which the Romans found themselves? Because guys, comparing the tactical instruments of vastly dissimilar areas of the world at roughly the same time isn't intellectually dishonest at all!

 

[LightFang]

Look, you guys, China is simply the center of the world and you have to learn to accept it. Chinese political thought has no place for you inferior barbarians who lose face against the Son of Heaven.

 

[negZero]

Am I the only one here who thinks this thread's name should be changed to the "Official Dachs's History Pwnage Thread"

 

[carmen510]

I see intellectual flaming here, the best kind.

 

[Masada]

Considering that the Abbasids were basically about as powerful and relevant in temporal terms as the Pope is nowadays, it didn't save 'Europe' much at all.

The most difficult bit would have been the slaughtering of the populace... muscle cramps

 

[Sharwood]

I haven't seen pwnage this complete since the moon landing thread, and I was behind that. Like my opponent there, this kid doesn't even have the decency to be ashamed of his ungodly foolishness, hypocrisy, and ridonculousity.

And I don't know much about the Dark Ages, I was too busy exploring Alpha Centauri with Zheng He at the time. How dare you diss me Dachs?

 

[negZero]

And I don't know much about the Dark Ages, I was too busy exploring Alpha Centauri with Zheng He at the time. How dare you diss me Dachs?

So thats why you couldn't pay your electricity bill that year.

 

[Sharwood]

So thats why you couldn't pay your electricity bill that year.

Electricity? Puh-lease? Zheng He and I produced a cheap and readily available form of chemical lighting. We called it: fire. The Romans had nothing to compare with it. Yet further proof that the Han were totally better than the Romans.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Anyways, I'm reading "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." It's a fascinating book. Did you know you can get it free off the internet?

5. Even if the Huns attacked at a moment of weakness they shouldn't have been so powerful. Attila+ allies had 50,000 men, max. thats not a lot of troops(Edward Gibbons.) Most of the best hunnic horsemen were already dead from the flight anyways.

I'd recommend The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather as a companion for that (don't take Gibbons too seriously).

 

[negZero]

Electricity? Puh-lease? Zheng He and I produced a cheap and readily available form of chemical lighting. We called it: fire. The Romans had nothing to compare with it. Yet further proof that the Han were totally better than the Romans.

You know I find it sad that this the most believable story of Zheng He's life I ever heard (outside of the stuff that you know happened)

 

[flyingchicken]

This thread gets awesome points for being awesome.

I'm not sure how to be on-topic, so here goes: Wow, look, there only six categorized political comparisons in Wikipedia.

 

[Yui108]

The most difficult bit would have been the slaughtering of the populace... muscle cramps

Rofl.. Or perhaps it was burning down the buildings? Some must have died when they collapsed.

 

[Teeninvestor]

Dachs, you've completely failed to respond to my argument...

By diverting the argument, you try to obscure the real question, which is troop figures, the whole point of this argument...

Yes, I was talking about MODERN Historians not questioning these figures. As far as I can see there has been no questioning of figures at Changping, Mayi, and other battles. Large archaeological finds have also vindicated this figures. It simply proves your ignorance on this topic. And it would make sense that Chinese armies routinely field hundreds of thousands of troops, half of their population is not slaves...

Also some sources

Battle of Changping- (400,000 Causalites(note. casuatlies)likely exaggerated). Grant, R. G. (2005). Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0756613604. http://books.google.com/books?id=iU-pAQAACAAJ&ei=OtqJSa-lLJTUlQTVuu3rAQ.

Battle of Chibi- 300,000+ participants. Eikenberry, Karl W. (1994). The campaigns of Cao Cao. Military Review 74.8:56–64.

Cambridge history of China also lists hundreds of thousands of troops for various battles in the Qin-Han Era.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=cHA...X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA627,M1

Even states which were only provinces of Han could field armies of up to 100,000 men; and this is during a period in which China(all 7 kingdoms added up) had only one third of the population of the Han. You can well imagine how big of a field army the Han could field.

I'm not saying Han should have had a larger STANDING army(due to being less militaristic culture overall), just that their field armies were much larger because
a. a bigger cavalry componet
b. Chinese canals, porters, etc.., allowed for better supply

So in a tactical situation Chinese armies can advance further & concentrate more troops.

For example: THe battle of Mobei.
about 300,000 Han troops managed to advance through about 2,000 miles of Mongolian desert.

As far as I know, the Roman army couldn't even advance that distance in the fertile lands of Iraq and Iran.
I've listed many sources, you haven't listed one. Seems like you aren't great with citing your sources either. Oh wait, is that because no credible source will agree with your wild and untrue opinions?

When faced with evidence, you like to divert the subject. Not a good way of looking at life.

Also, on your roman "Crossbows"

Heron identifies the gastraphetes as the forerunner of the later catapult, which places its invention some unknown time prior to 421 BC.[6
Forerunner of the catapault- not exactly the crossbow. If you can't tell the difference between crossbow and catapault, you have no knowledge of military history whatsoever.

As for torsion crossbows, let's see this part of wikipedia:
"The ballista is a torsion weapon, not being a tension weapon and for this reason it isn't considered a crossbow."

Ya. Your intellectual dishonesty amazes me. What's next on our oxymoron list: "Flying ships?", "Gigantic Ants?", or maybe the best one: "Truth-telling Dachs".
And besides, if the Romans had crossbows, why would they still field these guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velites

Roman armies' "Crossbows" are throwing weapons. A crossbow is a launching weapon. Not to mention none of these weapons were portable and their rate of fire is maybe 1/4 of the chinese repeating crossbow. And besides, the range of these "scorpios" and other weapons is much less than the repeating crossbow, which had a range of about "Sixteen hundred paces" or at least 300m.

Also, on your point about Alexander's army of 500,000, he never fielded something close but hte Xiongnu did field 200,000-300,000, so it's not like it didn't happen before. And besides, supplying an army of 500,000 hoplites in Central Asia= nightmare. Maybe 5,000 will make into China, where they become crossbow practice. 200,000-300,000 horsemen, however, could easily sustain themselves to Europe.

Are you seriously considering the Alemmani and other Germanic tribes are the same threat the Mongols or Huns posed? These tribes routinely fielded 10,000-30,000 troops, max, and they were mostly low-endurance unarmored infantry. The Mongolian hordes regularly numbered hundreds of thousands of horsemen, which had extremely high endurance.

Besides, it's not just history of Han. The history of China from the warring states from 405BCE to Tang(which had only equal population to Han, by the way) all show these battles with hundreds of thousands of troops. These "court historians" must be pretty consistent in all lying over a thousand years.

Also, your reference to crossbow is pretty absurd by underestimating its power. Ten thousand crossbowmen could easily decimate a charging army of infantry. How do you think the Huns and Mongols derive their power? they were using the COMPOSITE bow which is considerably less powerful than the crossbow. Why do you think the pope of Europe banned the crossbow unless for use against the "infidels" if it was so weak as you claimed?

Ya, Rhine & Danube are terrible defensive barriers. THATS WHY ROMAN EMPIRE USED THEM AS DEFENSIVE BARRIERS FOR 400 YEARS.

Remember, the Mongol invasions of Turkey saved Europe a lot of trouble by devastating the OTTOMANS. Your ignorance on this subject is so profound its funny.

Your ad hominem arguments simply reveal your ignorance. Please don't use strawman arguments, such as refering to court historians who I referred to modern historians.

 

[flyingchicken]

Your ignorance on this subject is so profound its funny.

I second this motion.

 

[negZero]

Also some sources

Battle of Changping- (400,000 Causalites(note. casuatlies)likely exaggerated). Grant, R. G. (2005). Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0756613604. http://books.google.com/books?id=iU-pAQAACAAJ&ei=OtqJSa-lLJTUlQTVuu3rAQ.

Battle of Chibi- 300,000+ participants. Eikenberry, Karl W. (1994). The campaigns of Cao Cao. Military Review 74.8:56–64.

Cambridge history of China also lists hundreds of thousands of troops for various battles in the Qin-Han Era.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=cHA...X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA627,M1

You do realize none of those are original research sources on the number of troops? All of them got there numbers from someone else who lived hundreds of years ago. Dachs argued this long time ago with you, you just didn't understand what he said to you

Edit: Your arguments would stand up better if they didn't contain more errors then a Wikipedia article would allow

 

[Sharwood]

Dachs, you've completely failed to respond to my argument...

Awesome. You're great, you know that? My favourite noob ever. He's been responding to you for two damn pages.

By diverting the argument, you try to obscure the real question, which is troop figures, the whole point of this argument...

Which is why he's mentioned troop figures repeatedly, pointing out many errors you've made.

Yes, I was talking about MODERN Historians not questioning these figures. As far as I can see there has been no questioning of figures at Changping, Mayi, and other battles. Large archaeological finds have also vindicated this figures. It simply proves your ignorance on this topic. And it would make sense that Chinese armies routinely field hundreds of thousands of troops, half of their population is not slaves...[/quote]

Also some sources

Battle of Changping- (400,000 Causalites(note. casuatlies)likely exaggerated). Grant, R. G. (2005). Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0756613604. http://books.google.com/books?id=iU-pAQAACAAJ&ei=OtqJSa-lLJTUlQTVuu3rAQ.

Yeah, the casualties are exaggerated, but the troop numbers are totally spot on!

Battle of Chibi- 300,000+ participants. Eikenberry, Karl W. (1994). The campaigns of Cao Cao. Military Review 74.8:56–64.

Participants. That's 150,000 on each side, assuming equality. The Romans could field an army that large if they wanted to - they never needed to - but not for long. Nor could China.

Cambridge history of China also lists hundreds of thousands of troops for various battles in the Qin-Han Era.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=cHA...X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA627,M1

Dachs has already discredited that source. Cambridge history is a terrible source of information.

Even states which were only provinces of Han could field armies of up to 100,000 men; and this is during a period in which China(all 7 kingdoms added up) had only one third of the population of the Han. You can well imagine how big of a field army the Han could field.

I'm not saying Han should have had a larger STANDING army(due to being less militaristic culture overall), just that their field armies were much larger because
a. a bigger cavalry componet
b. Chinese canals, porters, etc.., allowed for better supply

What? The country that had to import horses had a larger cavalry component? And canals allow for better transport and supply than a frigging inland sea? Not to mention all them road what dem Romans built. As for porters, most hotels have them, I'm sure the Romans thought of them somewhere along the line.

So in a tactical situation Chinese armies can advance further & concentrate more troops.

For example: THe battle of Mobei.
about 300,000 Han troops managed to advance through about 2,000 miles of Mongolian desert.

That is obviously false. What were they eating? Mongols? Did they also drink their blood? Because supply in 2,000 miles of desert is well beyond the capabilities of either empire. If you're talking about the Han push to the Caspian, the army wasn't nearly that large, and Turkestan aint no desert.

As far as I know, the Roman army couldn't even advance that distance in the fertile lands of Iraq and Iran.
I've listed many sources, you haven't listed one. Seems like you aren't great with citing your sources either. Oh wait, is that because no credible source will agree with your wild and untrue opinions?

Rome advanced very far into Iran several times. And the Romans had this little thing called Parthia stopping them. The third greatest empire in the world at the time. Not that it provided much of a fight when the Romans forced the issue.

More like because he's not the one making ridiculous claims. You make the claims, you back them up. He doesn't need sources to refute unsourced claims.

When faced with evidence, you like to divert the subject. Not a good way of looking at life.

What evidence? I've yet to see you provide any. You do realise everyone on these boards knows that Dachs is nothing like the picture you're painting, and it just makes you look like a complete douche?

Also, on your roman "Crossbows"

Heron identifies the gastraphetes as the forerunner of the later catapult, which places its invention some unknown time prior to 421 BC.[6
Forerunner of the catapault- not exactly the crossbow. If you can't tell the difference between crossbow and catapault, you have no knowledge of military history whatsoever.

As for torsion crossbows, let's see this part of wikipedia:
"The ballista is a torsion weapon, not being a tension weapon and for this reason it isn't considered a crossbow."

The ballista is a giant goddamn crossbow. Look at the frigging thing. And crossbows and catapults are based on the same relative principle. So are snare traps. I wanted to single this out for greatness:

you have no knowledge of military history whatsoever.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dachs has no knowledge of military history. He's been fooling us all along!

Ya. Your intellectual dishonesty amazes me. What's next on our oxymoron list: "Flying ships?", "Gigantic Ants?", or maybe the best one: "Truth-telling Dachs".

You need to learn; a) what lying is; b) what an oxymoron is, and; c) what the facts are.

And besides, if the Romans had crossbows, why would they still field these guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velites

Why not? The British continued to use archers after the invention of the musket. Cavalry is still used by many nations to this day, despite this thing called the tank.

Roman armies' "Crossbows" are throwing weapons. A crossbow is a launching weapon. Not to mention none of these weapons were portable and their rate of fire is maybe 1/4 of the chinese repeating crossbow. And besides, the range of these "scorpios" and other weapons is much less than the repeating crossbow, which had a range of about "Sixteen hundred paces" or at least 300m.

None of those portable? What did the Romans do, build them on the spot and leave them when they were done? I might be willing to accept that Han crossbows had greater range, but that hardly means the Romans didn't have them. The Greeks had for Christ's sake, they pre-date Rome. They also had primitive flamethrowers.

Also, on your point about Alexander's army of 500,000, he never fielded something close but hte Xiongnu did field 200,000-300,000, so it's not like it didn't happen before. And besides, supplying an army of 500,000 hoplites in Central Asia= nightmare. Maybe 5,000 will make into China, where they become crossbow practice. 200,000-300,000 horsemen, however, could easily sustain themselves to Europe.

Jesus, you're just making yourself look stupider and stupider. He never said Alexander fielded a 500,000 man army. NEITHER DID EFFING ATTILA THE HUN GODDAMMIT!!! This argument needs to see the Wizard to ask him for a brain. I know someone who should make the trip with it. And it aint Dachs.

300,000 horsemen could easily survive a trip to Europe you say? Then how come it never once happened? Also, Xiongnu were not Huns! This has been conclusively proven! If the Xiongnu were able to field an army of 300,000 I will eat my hat. Literally.

Are you seriously considering the Alemmani and other Germanic tribes are the same threat the Mongols or Huns posed? These tribes routinely fielded 10,000-30,000 troops, max, and they were mostly low-endurance unarmored infantry. The Mongolian hordes regularly numbered hundreds of thousands of horsemen, which had extremely high endurance.

The Germanic tribes did conquer Europe. How'd the Mongols go at that? The Huns? You don't know anything about the subjects you're disussing. The Mongols certainly didn't have "hundreds of thousands of horsemen" just running around ready to invade at a moment's notice, and the Huns largest army was 50,000, including "Germans." As for being "low-endurance unarmoured infantry," it'd be pretty hilarious if "low-endurance unarmoured infantry" toppled Rome, the largest empire West of China.

Besides, it's not just history of Han. The history of China from the warring states from 405BCE to Tang(which had only equal population to Han, by the way) all show these battles with hundreds of thousands of troops. These "court historians" must be pretty consistent in all lying over a thousand years.

You pointed it out yourself. "Court historians." Read Livy, see how honestly he portrays Roman history. Historians employed by the state have a vested interest in lying to make their state seem grander.

Also, your reference to crossbow is pretty absurd by underestimating its power. Ten thousand crossbowmen could easily decimate a charging army of infantry. How do you think the Huns and Mongols derive their power? they were using the COMPOSITE bow which is considerably less powerful than the crossbow. Why do you think the pope of Europe banned the crossbow unless for use against the "infidels" if it was so weak as you claimed?

Ten thousand crossbowmen could decimate a lot of things. And the composite bow is a lot more effective than the crossbow, especially for offence. Crossbows are a defensive weapon. And the Huns and Mongols - stop comparing the two, it's like comparing the respective power of Rwanda and the US - gained their power largely from cavalry.

Ya, Rhine & Danube are terrible defensive barriers. THATS WHY ROMAN EMPIRE USED THEM AS DEFENSIVE BARRIERS FOR 400 YEARS.

They didn't use them as defensive barriers, the barbarians on the other sides of said rivers used the lay of the land on their side to defend themselves from Rome. Most of Germania was pretty heavily forested at the time, good luck maintaining unit cohesion marching through a forest.

Remember, the Mongol invasions of Turkey saved Europe a lot of trouble by devastating the OTTOMANS. Your ignorance on this subject is so profound its funny.

Oh God, it gets better. The Ottomans weren't even around then. The Seljuks were, and their power was already waning. Kwarezm was stronger, and it fell due to a combination of Mongol skill Kwarezmic stupidity. You'll note the Mongols couldn't conquer Byzantium, and if they couldn't, how big a threat could the Turks have been?

Your ad hominem arguments simply reveal your ignorance. Please don't use strawman arguments, such as refering to court historians who I referred to modern historians.

I love you. You're awesome. You use words with no idea as to their meaning, but they're big words, right? Must add to your argument, they certainly make you look intelligent. You should where glasses even if you don't need to, it also makes you look smart.

Learn what an ad hominem is. I'd tell you to learn what a strawman is, but you can find out just by reading your posts. And ignorance? "Pot, I'd like to introduce you to my good friend, kettle."

 

[innonimatu]

Well, I gave up on this thread when I began to suspect that Teeninvestor might be an alias for Gavin Menzies.

 

[Teeninvestor]

Awesome, Sharwood.

Ya, I'm sure you would have gotten HIGH marks in school, sourcing like this.

[/quote]"Cambridge history of China is a terrible source."[/quote]

Why? How? When? because their version of facts are better then your biased and useless junk?

Also, taking my comments out of context.

The full statement was [/quote]"if you can't tell the difference between Crossbow and catapault, you have no knowledge of military history."[/quote]

For battle of Chibi, there was 300,000+ participants.

For the battle of Mayi and other battles, there are 300,000+ troops

And you call me a noob. You have no sense of history whatsoever, it seems all you are good at is namecalling

Look at your misstatements-
[/quote]"Ottomans weren't even around then."[/quote]

Then who did TIMUR conquer then?
Wikipedia:
[/quote]"Before the end of 1399, Timur started a war with Bayezid I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt. Bayezid began annexing the territory of Turkmen and Muslim rulers in Anatolia. As Timur claimed sovereignty over the Turkmen rulers, they took refuge behind him. Timur invaded Syria, sacked Aleppo and captured Damascus after defeating the Mamluk army. The city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans, who were deported to Samarkand. This led to Timur's being publicly declared an enemy of Islam."[/quote]

Seriously, I laugh at your education system. Whichever country's education system brought you up needs some serious reform.

Another one of your statements
[/quote]"And canals allow for better transport and supply than a frigging inland sea? "[/quote]

Ya, I'm sure Mediterrenean is such a good place to transport armies UP THE RHINE.

[/quote]"Because supply in 2,000 miles of desert is well beyond the capabilities of either empire."[/quote]

Proof? Evidence? Then HOW DID HAN win this little war, if they couldn't even push into the Xiongnu heartland?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Xiongnu_War

[/quote]"What? The country that had to import horses had a larger cavalry component?"[/quote]

WOW. I'm not even going to talk. You are aware that the Han controlled Dzungaria and Mongolia, which had some of the best horses in the world.....

[/quote]"Rome advanced very far into Iran several times. And the Romans had this little thing called Parthia stopping them. The third greatest empire in the world at the time. Not that it provided much of a fight when the Romans forced the issue."[/quote]

BS. Parthian cavalry could trample over Rome's legions any day. Please actually read some Roman history. Crassus, Julian, the list goes on. Not to mention Parthia's population was like a third of Rome's.

[/quote]"The ballista is a giant goddamn crossbow. Look at the frigging thing. And crossbows and catapults are based on the same relative principle. So are snare traps. I wanted to single this out for greatness:"[/quote]

THATS EXACTLY WHY IT IS USELESS. The whole point of the crossbow is to provide rapid fire to the infantrymen individually. It takes 2 minutes to turn the damn ballista around to fire- not exactly the greatest thing against a fast-moving horseman.

Also, wikipedia and any other source discredits you eh?
[/quote]"The ballista is not a crossbow because it is based on the TORSION principle, and is not a tension weapon"[/quote]
Also, its rate of fire is nowhere near the repeating crossbow.

[/quote]"Jesus, you're just making yourself look stupider and stupider. He never said Alexander fielded a 500,000 man army. NEITHER DID EFFING ATTILA THE HUN GODDAMMIT!!! This argument needs to see the Wizard to ask him for a brain. I know someone who should make the trip with it. And it aint Dachs."[/quote]

I was responding to a joke. It's called hypothetical situation, your mind is obviously incapable of understanding it. Xiongnu did field 200,000-300,000 cavalry; check any chinese history and you will see.

[/quote]"The Germanic tribes did conquer Europe. How'd the Mongols go at that? The Huns? You don't know anything about the subjects you're disussing. The Mongols certainly didn't have "hundreds of thousands of horsemen" just running around ready to invade at a moment's notice, and the Huns largest army was 50,000, including "Germans."[/quote]

Pure speculation. If the Mongols didn't have "hundreds of thousands of horsemen" on the go, how did they form the Mongol Empire? Not only China(Song) deploy over 500,000 troops, but Islam could also deploy hundreds of thousands of cavalry. I don't see a Mongol Empire based on fifty thousand horse archers....

Of course, the Huns did overrun Europe with 50,000 horse archers+ Germanic infantry. The whole point is that Germanic infantry were pretty ill-equipped and not up to the standard, especially compared with Roman army at their height.

[/quote]"As for being "low-endurance unarmoured infantry," it'd be pretty hilarious if "low-endurance unarmoured infantry" toppled Rome, the largest empire West of China."[/quote]

I'm not a descendant of these Germans. Go ask your ancestors how they did. History is history.
Low endurance? check(little cavalry, mostly infantry. Barely advanced past borderlands.)

[/quote]"Ten thousand crossbowmen could decimate a lot of things. And the composite bow is a lot more effective than the crossbow, especially for offence. Crossbows are a defensive weapon. And the Huns and Mongols - stop comparing the two, it's like comparing the respective power of Rwanda and the US - gained their power largely from cavalry."[/quote]

Composite bow more effective than the crossbow???? What are you smoking my friend, do you have any idea what's the rate of fire on these things.
By the way, by Huns I mean the Xiongnu. Xiongnu at one point fielded 200,000-300,000 horsemen.
This is why you guys all need a crash history lesson. You have no knowledge of these basic things whatsoever!

[/quote]"They didn't use them as defensive barriers, the barbarians on the other sides of said rivers used the lay of the land on their side to defend themselves from Rome. Most of Germania was pretty heavily forested at the time, good luck maintaining unit cohesion marching through a forest."[/quote]

Really, they didn't use them as defensive barriers. THATS WHY THEY BUILT 50 FORTS ON EACH RIVER. BRILLIANT.

By the way, the battle of Changping proves my point. If each kingdom out of seven in China could field a standing army of over 100,000 men each, I'm pretty sure an Empire with THREE times the population could field 300,000 troops in one battle... and a little fact that not half the Han population were slaves...

Anyways, the ignorance displayed by you and dachs is simply amazing. Do you guys actually read any history? Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen before yourself two examples of the stupidity people display when they try to preserve their ignorance. Not to mention they haven't mentioned a single source.

I have only one message: Before trying to accuse others of being something, check yourself, or else its called HYPOCRISY.

Moderator Action: Infraction for trolling/flaming. - KD
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Teeninvestor]

So far none of you have presented a single credible argument, besides the fact that supposedly one thousand years' records + the verification of modern historians are supposedly "unreliable" and supposedly all court historians are evil and kept the records falsified for over one thousand years....

You've also made a ton of errors. Here are my favorites.

1. "Mongols didn't devastate the Ottoman Empire"- What is TIMUR then, my friend.

2. "Crossbow & catapault work on same principles" Please check your history, as well as your physics.

3. "Germans have excellent cavalry"- Excellence indeed my friend. Try keeping 200,000 horses alive in forest sometime.

4. "Rivers are terrible defensive barriers"- Right. That's why every empire relies on them for defence at one point, and all campaigns stop when they reach them.

5. "Torsion crossbows"- OH MAN, this one got me . You guys aren't too great at history, but you sure are good at oxymorons!

6. "Jesus, you're just making yourself look stupider and stupider." Man, the ad hominem piles on and on. Jesus isn't gonna to save you, and he sure didn't save the christians after the Germans overran the Roman Empire.

7. "What did the Romans do, build them on the spot and leave them when they were done? I might be willing to accept that Han crossbows had greater range, but that hardly means the Romans didn't have them. The Greeks had for Christ's sake, they pre-date Rome."

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_Roman_and_Han_Empires Which I wrote, by the way) and look at the ballista please. DO YOU THINK THAT THING IS PORTABLE AND YOU CAN SWING IT AROUND. THE ANSWER IS NO.

Then check the Han crossbow. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I think we're getting off topic here. The whole point of this thread was to see the above article anyways. What do you guys think?

Ya I'm such a "noob" I wouldn't make these "pro" errors like you guys. Guess being "pro" is being a shameless liar. Guess I'll continue being a "noob" and actually have some respect for the truth.
I love this forum. It's definitely a posterchild to why we need some basic history education.

 

[negZero]

Awesome, Sharwood.

Ya, I'm sure you would have gotten HIGH marks in school, sourcing like this.

The sources you've used so far would get your paper thrown out back in high school from where am from. Dachs, Sharwood, and almost everyone else here uses sources they themselves have cross referenced and were cross referenced when written.