In a battle between the Han Chinese and the Roman Empire who has the edge?

Let's say hypothetically the Roman Empire expands into a region where they come into contact with Han Chinese armies, details of that aside here's a scenario:

Relations between the two go sour and Rome decides to send an army to assert their dominance, the Han do likewise.

Now for this I'm postulating a date of around 30AD for both sides, and each army has roughly numerical parity (with the Han army slightly larger).

So I'm just curious in this completely hypothetical scenario who would win?
 
In the unlikely event that the two conquer the lands between each other and share a land border, it's likely that their economies and their armies tactics and strategies will have been changed to such an extent as to make it fruitless to predict the outcome of any war.

However, in a simple, straight up engagement between a Roman army and a Han army around 30AD I'd say it comes down to leadership, location and strategy.
 
The logistics would be a nightmare for the Romans, they'll need to travel accros terrain that has newly conquered natives that are hostile, The Han are also face the logistic issue. Besides bothe empires have other closer enemies to fight.... I'm using my phone so sorry for several mustakes
 
I think he just means in the hypothetical scenario that a healthy Roman army and a healthy Han army meet in battle. I think he already knows how ASB it is...
 
In the unlikely event that the two conquer the lands between each other and share a land border, it's likely that their economies and their armies tactics and strategies will have been changed to such an extent as to make it fruitless to predict the outcome of any war.

However, in a simple, straight up engagement between a Roman army and a Han army around 30AD I'd say it comes down to leadership, location and strategy.

The logistics would be a nightmare for the Romans, they'll need to travel accros terrain that has newly conquered natives that are hostile, The Han are also face the logistic issue. Besides bothe empires have other closer enemies to fight.... I'm using my phone so sorry for several mustakes

I think he just means in the hypothetical scenario that a healthy Roman army and a healthy Han army meet in battle. I think he already knows how ASB it is...

Joyeux and slydessertfox have it right, I'm just wondering what the results of a battle would be. The scenario is entirely just there to conveniently justify a meeting between two armies that would have probably never met on the field otherwise.

I'm just really pondering which army might have emerged victorious in a stand up battle between these two great empires.
 

scholar

Banned
The Chinese would probably win in my view. The Chinese repeating crossbow, Liang/Bing/You Heavy Cavalry, Light cavalry, and Horsearchers, and very effective infantry ranging from heavy to light, and the normal vast disparity in the size of the typical armies point towards the Chinese.

Unfortunately I do not know as much as I should about Roman military armies, but I had heard it was susceptible to cavalry and effective use of archery. Both are areas that China has counters against and have largely mastered on their own. The repeating crossbow was, if I remember correctly, one of the single most effective military designs in history. Never abandoned, but refined, through thousands of years and was still effective until well into the age of gunpowder. There's also the numbers disparity.
 

Deleted member 67076

We need to further define the scenario. Who leads these armies, where are they fighting, how many people are there and what weapons/tactics are they using?
 
We need to further define the scenario. Who leads these armies, where are they fighting, how many people are there and what weapons/tactics are they using?

Well they'd be fighting with weapons and tactics native to both sides in 30AD, and like I said somewhere in a hypothetical area where the two sides would meet, probably a part of the former Parthian Empire I suppose.

Let's say the two armies are about even with 10,000 soldiers each. As for leaders, well I'm not well versed about Han Chinese leaders I'm afraid :eek:
 
In both cases, we would be looking at frontier armies, probably heavily dependent on client states for their manpower, so basically horse archer against horse archer.

But assuming a core of troops from the homeland, equal numbers, and the time roughly 30AD, straight stand-up fight, my money is on the Romans. Han China turned away from earlier military policies deliberately, emphasising a militia format for their troops. More importabntly, while their army would include larger numbers of archers and crossbowmen, the Roman army generally was quite capable of dealing with missile troops. The Chinese would have bigger problems with Roman torsion artillery, but above all, the Roman army would have superior aggression. One on one, a peasant called to the colours against a man who spent the past five to fifteen years of his life inflicting violence as a career choice is not a winning proposition.

Of course this scenario ignores the fact that the Han empire's advantages would specifically lie in strategic depth, client state armies, superior numbers, fortifications and logistics.
 
I can think of exactly one OTL battle between a Roman force and a Han Chinese force: the Battle of Zhizhi.
IIRC the Han force won, partly by sheer numbers and partly by better weaponry. Note however that the Roman force was one captured by the Parthians (and thus low on the leadership and strategy points - not sure about location), and that this happened in the Republican era so it was also slightly less advanced than it could've been (then again so were the Chinese).
 
Actually, as much as the battle of zhizhi is a good story, a Roman presence in the battle isn't taken very seriously now. And even if there WERE Romans there, they wouldn't have been able to fight in traditional legionary style, given equpment and supply issues, nor would there have been many of them, making them almost a non-factor in the battle.
 
Can we have a real question, please? Since the two empires were thousands of miles apart, well, who knew the Space Bat teleporters that'd be needed would be available?
 
Of course this scenario ignores the fact that the Han empire's advantages would specifically lie in strategic depth, client state armies, superior numbers, fortifications and logistics.

I'm posing the question purely as a stand up battle rather than a campaign. You do however make many good points that I have to agree with I think.
 
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