bewareofgnomes said:Ebitdadada, i believe you just got dismissed by xen. that was very impressive xen
Basicly, my whole post there: Not Serious. Have a nice day though.Ozz said:
Jeff Yu said:The Mongols were nothing like the Huns. While they used the same basic unit of soldiery for their forces (light cavalry), they differed in tactics, organization, morale, and quality. Ghengis Khan was surrounded by steppe tribes like the Huns before he became a leader. The Mongols stood out by developing the tactics and organization that made them stand out from the others and brought them to victory. That's why the Mongols were able to campaign thousands of miles, while the Hun armies were in fact a loose confederation of Eastern European peoples led by Atilla's forces at their core.heh- the romans had the exact same factor son thier side- except they perfected them tot he point where they had a thousand year empire, and left a mark on the worl dthat has yet to deminish in anyway.
thier also the fact that, liek or not the Huns ARE a mellowe ddown version fo the mongols; and they still lost when put to the test agiast that las tthing that resemebles anythign liek even a contiegent of imperial roman auxilliaries, and the vast majority of thoise troops mind you, were on foot.
A)- every single one of those armies with the exception of china was utter crap by that point, and the chninese were weak and divided
B)the romans had skills in all of those exact feats and more; invading deserts in th emiddle of summer and winnign, wageing single cmapaigns across entire land masses, such as all of brtian at once, or the entire danube and rhien frontirs in a single year, all of it co-ordinated in a fashion that would make even modern tactician envious
C)the romans fought far more peoples then you are willing to recognize it seems- the carthgians, spainards, berbers, greeks, macedonains, dacians, gallics, germans, parthians, persians, judeans, thracians, armenians, skythians (amougst many other steppe tribes), arabs,goths, and even other roman armies all fought in different manners with different tactics, in different terrian, and yet the roman army preaviled over all of them.
A)hardly scarrd spitless- little known fact is that the Byzantien empire was allied to the golden hord
B)we're not talking byzantines- they were "roman" in name only, and even then , they calle dthemselves 'Romans" in the greek word- I'm talking empire baby, the armies of Nerva and Trajan, armies that conqoured all in thier path, and were only stopped by the folly of Hadrian.
stratego said:
Xen said:
stratego said:
I've never claimed the Romans were incvincible, you just twist my (like so many others) words around to give you an adavncment in the argument- dont. I have claimed the the Romans had one of the bes tmilitaries, an dmilitary support practices that the world has ever seen, and that is the undeniable truth of the matter- combine this with the fact that the romans had planty of mistakes- and then proceede dot capitalize off them, and oyu have a very powerful little group of stratigiests indeed.
Mongoloid Cow said:
What I meant about the early Imperial armies not being versatile enough, I should have probably said that they didn't excel enough in the various parts in the army. The legion really was forced into one style of battle, as opposed to the Mongols which had the ability to change tactics and use various contraptions. The early legion was good at taking out civilised lands which used phalanx warfare, or divided and warring tribes which used skirmish tactics, and it excelled in keeping it together. But the legions in this state were massacred by the Parthians, and the Mongols were far superior to the Parthians.
alex994 said:
perhaps, but I just wanted to jeer you a little bit- its not often we see each other these daysMongoloid Cow said:
I kinda guessed at that. I've gone back into lurking again.Xen said:perhaps, but I just wanted to jeer you a little bit- its not often we see each other these days
Actually, the Parthians did. After the enormously bungled invasion of Parthia by Crassus, the Parthians reestablished full control over their eastern border (the traditional threat region of Persia) and began a campaign against Rome. They allied with local legion commanders, and were widely supported by almost all peopled of the eastern provinces as the Romans had been real bastards. At one stage, the Parthians were at the Ionian coast and at the borders of Egypt. It was instability in the chain of the Parthian command which stopped them from holding these territories. Unfortunately, after this invasion, the Parthian Empire entered into another period of great instablitity (which ensued until the overthrow of the Parthians) and could no longer fight a decent war against a full-fledged empire like Rome or Kushan. I would use the post-Crassus campaign as a good example of what I meant, and would rather leave out the later period of Parthia.thats rubbish, and you know it; after the augustian reforms- which mind you, paved the way for the era i'm talkign about the romans never agian suffered a defeat the likes of carrhae at the hand of the parthians - and indeed, i tbecame the avergae way to pull th eempire ourt of debt by invadeing P{arthia, defeating them in front of theit capital, loot the treasury, or just extort them, and then get the hell out as fast as they could get out- Trajan prooves very nicelly the versitility of the legions; too oftem, people think of a mass moving sheild wall- such wa snot the case at all, the Romans had onel one shild wall formation, and that was the famous turtle
truth be told, the Roman swere successful becau eof thier troops versitility- fighting on almost every sort of terrian outside the arctic, and the jungles is clear testiment fo that, and the fact that the Romans were so eager, until thier economy collapsed, to adopt what every was needed to beat the enemy- war was a buisness ot the Romans, not osmthign to bne taken lightlly, and was somthign to be done professionlly, and effectivlly.
The Gallic Empire was run by excellent military commanders. No one can doubt that. But when the founding emperor died, the rest of the emperors were not well-supported by the Gallic commanders. I think all of them were assassinated. The threat the emperor must have realised was that if his empire had such great commanders as it did, it would have fallen apart as each one would continue to fight against usurpers. Eventually, he must have thought, the Romans would just come back anyway. It's a lot of sense IMO that the Gallic Emperor did go to Aurelian to get him to invade. He would undoubtedly have been assassinated if he remained on the Gallic throne, and the Gallic Empire would just go to hell. At least he would have got a pension and a comfortable end to his life if he did what they say he did.well, IMO, the legionsget the unfair blame- its thier commanders who area t fault here, after all
I'll have to read intot he gallic empire debacle, i;ve read osme on what you have said, but to me it dosent make sense- the gallic empire had a very good track record, militairilly at least, and so if it emperor was fearing somthing, i think was sedition, rather then army rebellion.
either way, if we coudl have a battle between one mongol army, and one roman army, I'm tempted to say, very, very tempted to say that the middle roman legions under Aurelian would be the best option.
Actually all three of the Chinese Empires were formidable. The Xi-Xia was undoubtedly the weakest, and Genghis Khan vassalised it early. The Xi-Xia though were dangerious vassals, and Genghis Khan eventually died on a campaign against them. The Jurchen Jin of the north were incredibly powerful, and are almost always considered the strongest of three at this time. The Jurchen army was enormous and comprised of skilled steppe cavalry and Chinese footsoldiers, backed up by skilled Chinese engineers and weapons (like the fire sabre, grenade, and cannon). The Southern Song empire was the richest and most populous of the empires, but the majority of the population were at this time followers of an extreme anti-war version of Confucianism.alex994 said:
Both the Mongols and the Romans equiped their soldiers for war. Scrounging for materials for weapons was not an important issue.
Yes, this is a good point. The Mongols had everything they needed on hand, whilst the Romans did so also, they had to haul it on baggage trains or on their backs. The supplies would have been an easy target for the Mongols, and the Romans might have had to abandon the campaign to get food if they were in an untamed region.
The Mongols learnt how to perform sieges after the campaign against the Xi-Xia. After that, the Mongols were experts at it.
< rushes off to open "rome vs rommels africa corp " thread >
