Rome vs China

I don't think the logistics make this ASB. (Why must people misuse this term? Is alien intervention really necessary to have Romans in Central Asia? Really?) I think a shared border situation could happen (Tang-style expansion plus Rome takes Persia, done), but any war would likely be a short and reasonably pointless affair for both sides. You wouldn't get an up-close-and-personal situation due to the sheer distances of their centres of power.

Plus, while I think that a Rome-China border is not impossible, sustaining it would probably be highly unlikely. So, there's probably scope for a few years of border, and some skirmishes over misunderstandings. But nothing big.

Although, the idea of a crazed (but fashionable, as well as militarily brilliant) Roman general deciding to march an army to China in order to wring the secret of silk manufacture out of them might be rather good. It would require a specific set of circumstances, and a specifically intense kind of individual (like, Alexander/Napolean level here), but it could be done.
 
I don't think the logistics make this ASB. (Why must people misuse this term? Is alien intervention really necessary to have Romans in Central Asia? Really?) I think a shared border situation could happen (Tang-style expansion plus Rome takes Persia, done),

Why not China takes Persia?

Looking at the map, Han China seems to have advanced far more in Rome's direction that vice versa, and the disparity is even greater in terms of expansion overland. The Chinese put their empire together without any inland sea to help them, whereas the Romans rarely went far from theirs. Draw a line around the Mediterranean and Black Seas, about 300 miles inland, and see how much of the Roman Empire is outside it. Then look how far into Central Asia the Chinese got. Seems to me that China coming to Rome's border is a good deal more likely than the reverse.

Agreed, China probably wouldn't have held Persia very long, but there's no particular reason to think that Rome would have done any better.
 

Thande

Donor
Persia is the problem really. But it's not necessarily the only way the two could clash.

1) Rome had a lot of nautical trading posts in western India. China has only limited contact with India, so WI China also gets in on the act and the two come to blows that way, similar to Britain/France in the 18th century?

2) WI Rome pushes up north of the Caucasus and enters the 'stans, while China expands westward? While still somewhat difficult, easier than Persia going away.
 
It'd be two giant shouting at each other from opposite ends of the planet and only vaguely making out that the other one is making a sound. Central Asia would be too far from both's main power base and they wouldn't be able to get many troops there to do much.
They might not even notice there's another power at the other end of the attacks on their border provinecs, all they'll see is barbarian auxilaries.
Which...could be quite a good scenario in its own right.

To do it ASB though and delete most of Asia and mash them together...that could be a cool scenario too....
 
If Rome had took on the full Parthian empire not just Mesopotamia. After a few generations training Persians in Roman fighting styles. I could see Naval skirmishes in India over trading rights. Although Chinese Junks would be no match for Roman super ships complete with Roman Marines, Catapult, Balista, Corvus and Roman triream.
 
How about if Caesarion's tutor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarion likes travel and is given most of Egypt's gold? He goes to India and Augustus sends three cohorts after him. He sails off the known world with the Romans following along the coast. Finally, Caesarion reaches China and pays the local governor to protect him from the “Southern Barbarians”. These arrive a little later and after a battle, fortify an island off the Chinese Coast (they have run out of gold, so they cannot match the bribes). The Romans send a ship home to report the problem but think that the forces opposing them are a small local state. Augustus sends Agrippa with seven legions to sort out the problem and miraculously he arrives without suffering any loses from shipwreck and few from disease.
 
I can't speak to the plausibility of this (I would assume the logistics of such a war would mean both powers would prefer other means), but there are two general rules I follow for warfare in that age. First, a well trained infantry-dominant army will defeat a well trained cavalry-dominant army every time, and secondly a citizen based army will always triumph over an army where the soldiers do not have a stake in the state. The decline of the Roman Imperium is directly related by the army being dominated by non-landowners and mercenaries. That's why the Romans were able to defeat the Carthaginians decisively in the Second Punic War, despite suffering several catastrophic battles like Canae.

If a pitched war was to be fought between the Romans and the Chinese, so long as the war takes place at a time when the Romans were still a citizen based military force, the Roman armies will outperform the Chinese ones, and China would lose the war.


Of course logistics is the limit to these general rules. Romans marching across the Himalayas would look awesome, but can you even try to imagine how to supply that?:eek:
 
On the show "Deadliest Warrior" they had a repeating crossbow that did penetrate chain mail. It's unlikely to go through lorica segmentata obviously but going through earlier armor is possible.
You can't use modern tests really because it's almost impossible to recreate conditions. For instance, did they stick it on a dummy and shoot straight on?

As for lorica segmentata that's probably not worth considering and we don't know how good it was compared to the mail or scale armors anyhow. Anyhow we're in agreement: probably not going to use repeaters on an open battlefield.
 
I can't speak to the plausibility of this (I would assume the logistics of such a war would mean both powers would prefer other means), but there are two general rules I follow for warfare in that age. First, a well trained infantry-dominant army will defeat a well trained cavalry-dominant army every time, and secondly a citizen based army will always triumph over an army where the soldiers do not have a stake in the state. The decline of the Roman Imperium is directly related by the army being dominated by non-landowners and mercenaries. That's why the Romans were able to defeat the Carthaginians decisively in the Second Punic War, despite suffering several catastrophic battles like Canae.
Again, you are severely overestimating the number of legionnaires and significantly understating the Chinese army. Not all Roman soldiers were in the legion, most would be auxiliaries. The Chinese were not totally cavalry dominant, and the most well trained infantry force is not worth anything at all when they are severely out-ranged as the Romans would most surely be. The legion was the perfect force for combating barbarian hordes and Greek phalanxes, but the Han army differed from those two in that they were extremely well-disciplined, well-led, trained to some extent, had advanced technology and tactics, and most importantly have a massive advantage over the Romans in both mobility and range. Try saying that well-trained infantrymen will always win to the Scots or the Welsh, both of whom stood in tight, disciplined and formidable spear-formations and were shot down in droves by Welsh archers and then slaughtered by English knights.
 
One question, how could China raise armies of 100,000s of men? I mean you always see like 200,000 v. 400,000 or something. That seems insane anywhere else, even India.
 
One question, how could China raise armies of 100,000s of men? I mean you always see like 200,000 v. 400,000 or something. That seems insane anywhere else, even India.

Note in Chinese movies their big heroes also fly through the air and take down dozens of peasents themselves.
The Chinese were big fat liars.
 
Note in Chinese movies their big heroes also fly through the air and take down dozens of peasents themselves.
The Chinese were big fat liars.
It's a good thing only they lie in movies. If it turns out that William Wallace never did the English princess and NYC is not routinely saved by a spider-person mutant, I'll be so horribly depressed. :(
 
Note in Chinese movies their big heroes also fly through the air and take down dozens of peasents themselves.
The Chinese were big fat liars.
Yes, but in records I always see in the west notes of 'well this is an exaggeration' and then a raft of estimates of actual numbers. But never in stuff I read on the east. Do people just not really care about the exact numbers in china?
 
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