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agarangu
Chile274 Posts
On February 24 2011 06:16 StorkHwaiting wrote: hahaha love your edit. That's pretty insane though. Any famous battles you think are a good highlight of Lautaro's abilities? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lautaro_(toqui) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/kbhHj.jpg) Napoleon himself is said to have studied the history of Lautaro, narrated in the book "La Araucana" of Alonzo de Ercilla. | ||
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On February 25 2011 04:50 StorkHwaiting wrote: No, it's not off topic because a key component of generalship is logistics and control over men. The more men you have, the exponentially harder it is to lead them well, which has been proven time and time again in history. It's not simply a matter of numbers, but it is a matter of who is able to do what. As such, Napoleon would have been considered a much finer general if he knew to take care of logistics such as preparing for winter. And it becomes infinitely easier to provide winter gear for 100 men than it is to provide for 100,000. Therefore, numbers do matter, and the relative difficulty a general faced in his era is a determinant factor in his ranking. Which is why this entire debate started when I said I feel Asian generals are vastly under-rated because of the increased difficulties they faced dealing with routinely larger troop numbers than that of ancient Europe. Greater numbers not only make it harder to control the army, they also significantly reduce the influence a single general can have on a battle. If the Han dynasty really fielded armies of several hundred thousand at that time, I bet they actually had several generals who operated almost independently. | ||
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emc
United States3088 Posts
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Kamille
Monaco1035 Posts
Alexander the Great, like Napoleon conquered large tracts of land, but his tactics aren't something that can be credibly sourced. Alexander's education lent itself to such a life. He was the son of a king, destined to receive the best training, best education from Aristotle himself. All he had to do was wait for the death of his father and he would inherit his land and army. Where was Napoleon? He lived in the squalor of Corsica, taking every chance to claw his way out. He had nothing to his name, yet managed to take hold of France. Napoleon's charisma is understated if anything. We have a nameless Corsican, not worthy of our respect compared with a prince. Who would you follow? Hannibal can be placed within the same category as Alexander, but more of a tactician than a strategist. Of course, he won many battles and performed amazing feats. Yet he never won the war. He could bring Rome to its knees, but never deliver the final blow. What makes Hannibal an even greater tactician is his understanding of limitations. He knew that he would never be able to attack Rome (the city). They wouldn't easily out last a siege, making Hannibal's forces vulnerable. He kept moving to avoid being overwhelmed and only fought where the battlefield favored him. His only fault is not being able to win a war, because I define the term general to encompass both tactician and strategist. Caesar is remarkably similar to Napoleon, having come from a relatively unknown branch of his family, taking every advantage to get into a position of power. This may seem to contradict what I said under Hannibal, but there is a distinct difference. Caesar settled. After conquering Gaul, he barely moved into Britain and Germany. He had success, but rather than continue returned to Rome. His conquering of Gaul may have been more of a necessity for his consulship of Rome, as the governors of each area would collect taxes and skim off as much as they needed. Napoleon never settled. He took every chance he had until the very end of his life. A good general should always be looking ahead, never content. He came from nothing to become Emperor of France; he earned every ounce of trust his men had. He fought with them and brought them to victory. The time period in which Napoleon won must also be considered. Everyone had muskets, cannons, and cavalry. The technology equal from one army to another (if anything Britain had an advantage being on the cusp of industrialization). With these odds, Napoleon manages to hold Europe for nearly a decade, when all the nobles were after him. The only battle you need to look at is Austerlitz, to see Napoleon's brilliance. It rivals that of Hannibal at Cannae, in terms of numbers. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On February 25 2011 05:28 Maenander wrote: Greater numbers not only make it harder to control the army, they also significantly reduce the influence a single general can have on a battle. If the Han dynasty really fielded armies of several hundred thousand at that time, I bet they actually had several generals who operated almost independently. Well, it was hard to coordinate armies at that time, so if any of the generals of the overall forces managed to skilfully coordinate many of the somewhat independent subgroups he should get special props. I cannot talk about Chinese on this specific issue, but I am sure they have examples of that, but there were several successful such operations done by Romans and the generals performing them should get points for that definitely. I think solving coordination problems, with logistic issues as close second should be the main criteria for judging generals, especially ancient ones. | ||
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Blasterion
China10272 Posts
On February 25 2011 06:09 mcc wrote: Well, it was hard to coordinate armies at that time, so if any of the generals of the overall forces managed to skilfully coordinate many of the somewhat independent subgroups he should get special props. I cannot talk about Chinese on this specific issue, but I am sure they have examples of that, but there were several successful such operations done by Romans and the generals performing them should get points for that definitely. I think solving coordination problems, with logistic issues as close second should be the main criteria for judging generals, especially ancient ones. At the armies the armies were so large, that an order was relayed like hundreds of times from the general (head of the army) to the last soldier that marches with the army at 4:43 watch how long it takes for the entire army to stop and back track >.< well and get owned but that's not on topic | ||
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jello_biafra
United Kingdom6633 Posts
He was a Prussian military officer recruited by Washington to give his army the training it needed. | ||
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FindMeInKenya
United States797 Posts
While it is from a chinese history forum, but the information provided there are unbiased. Esp. on the points regarding population and Army size, you can find this on page 93 and 94, that Han Army was about 2-3x larger than that of their Roman counterpart. | ||
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allecto
328 Posts
To Adaptation: I suggest taking a serious look at bumping up Sertorius, who I think is the second greatest Roman general. Imo, Africanus needs to be dropped a lot. Han Xin, Nurhaci, and Tran Hung Dao are the top Asians, for sure. | ||
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rushz0rz
Canada5300 Posts
On February 15 2011 13:53 Shrinky Dink wrote: ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/giCRx.jpg) Seriously though, if you look past the horrors he did, he was actually an excellent speaker, with his war machine being responsible for some of the greatest advances in technology and science, and recovered his country's extreme deficit in its economy at the time (following the Treaty of Versailles). I know it's obviously that he wasn't the greatest of all time, but IMO he is very underrated as a leader for his country since everyone looks at his cons. All German victories in WW2 were due to Hitler's very excellent generals. All German defeats were due to Hitler. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On February 25 2011 07:50 FindMeInKenya wrote: To Mcc and Stork, I find a website that might help to clarify some of your debates regarding Han and Rome military comparison. http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/13206-han-vs-rome-military-comparisons/page__st__1395 While it is from a chinese history forum, but the information provided there are unbiased. Esp. on the points regarding population and Army size, you can find this on page 93 and 94, that Han Army was about 2-3x larger than that of their Roman counterpart. hahaha very nice. I was too lazy to try to dig it up for him, as it was pretty well-established fact for me to say Han armies larger than pre-BC Roman armies, and in general, their FIELD armies were 4-5x the size of Roman armies. There is a world of difference between total forces under arms and FIELD armies. Something that mcc continually failed to recognize and in general, he fails to recognize any of the nuances in my posts. | ||
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Shiragaku
Hong Kong4308 Posts
Strategy means how well you can control troop movement, food supply, diplomacy, information, and trade. Tactics is basically the art of war. To make things short and simple, Napoleon was a great tactician, but arguably not the best strategist in the world for obvious reasons. | ||
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allecto
328 Posts
On February 25 2011 11:20 StorkHwaiting wrote: hahaha very nice. I was too lazy to try to dig it up for him, as it was pretty well-established fact for me to say Han armies larger than pre-BC Roman armies, and in general, their FIELD armies were 4-5x the size of Roman armies. There is a world of difference between total forces under arms and FIELD armies. Something that mcc continually failed to recognize and in general, he fails to recognize any of the nuances in my posts. Battle of Philippi had about 400,000 Roman soldiers in the field. Now, both sides were Roman, but that still means a field army of 200,000 even if it was a one-time occurrence. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On February 25 2011 07:50 FindMeInKenya wrote: To Mcc and Stork, I find a website that might help to clarify some of your debates regarding Han and Rome military comparison. http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/13206-han-vs-rome-military-comparisons/page__st__1395 While it is from a chinese history forum, but the information provided there are unbiased. Esp. on the points regarding population and Army size, you can find this on page 93 and 94, that Han Army was about 2-3x larger than that of their Roman counterpart. Only things that I found there are one guy saying that and another saying something else. The statements providing those big numbers for Chinese army are basing the size of the Han army on original sources, which is my biggest problem. Those sources inflate both Chinese and enemy army numbers. They often cite numbers for steppe nomads that were not possible for nomads to achieve. Also just to note I have problem taking many people on that site seriously (on both sides of the debate), starting with crazy topic of who would win a war Rome or China on 100 pages, when answer can be given after few pages as : cannot be decided  and often displaying poor knowledge of the topic at least as far as Romans are concerned, cannot comment on Chinese matters too much, but as I said their blind trust in Chinese primary sources makes them also pretty suspect.Especially I did not find that statement about 2-3 times. What was the posters name , may have missed it , since I spent a lot of time reading discussion about agriculture that was actually good. | ||
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raheelp
United States54 Posts
He has the distinction of being undefeated in over a hundred battles, against the numerically superior forces of the Byzantine-Roman Empire, Sassanid-Persian Empire, and their allies, in addition to other Arab tribes. His strategic achievements include the conquest of Arabia, Persian Mesopotamia and Roman Syria within several years from 632 to 636. He is also remembered for his decisive victories at Yamamah, Ullais, Firaz, and his tactical marvels, at the Walaja and Yarmouk.[2] He is also one of the two military commanders, the other being Hannibal, who have successfully executed the pincer movement against a numerically superior opponent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid | ||
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Piscean
United States40 Posts
On February 15 2011 14:30 Whiladan wrote: ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/EiLQc.jpg) ^^ | ||
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0mar
United States567 Posts
admiral not a general, so doesn't count. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On February 25 2011 10:49 allecto wrote: I would estimate the maximum of standing Roman soldiers at any one time to be upward of 500,000 (50 legions at 6,000-8,000 per plus auxiliary troops, cavalry). Roman Republic is no where even close to that number though. Han armies in particular campaigns were listed at 200K, and that is just one sphere. I never learnt what the total sum was but I imagine it would be at least double this. So maybe perhaps at the absolute height of Roman military output, they were comparable, but in BCE, not even close. You have to also consider historical inaccuracies too. I mean, the Persian army was listed in the millions by Herodotus (lol). To Adaptation: I suggest taking a serious look at bumping up Sertorius, who I think is the second greatest Roman general. Imo, Africanus needs to be dropped a lot. Han Xin, Nurhaci, and Tran Hung Dao are the top Asians, for sure. Well it is highly likely that the biggest army (as in total military and as field army) Rome had was actually BC, specifically civil war between Antonius and Octavianus. So that much for that strange BC argument. And yes inaccuracies and exaggerations are problem. The only reason we know Roman numbers pretty well is because they mostly give number of legions and not the number of troops and the size of the legion is well known from many literaty/non-literary sources. Sizes of enemy armies are exaggerated by Romans also very often. So why would I trust Chinese crazy numbers from original sources that are known for inflating numbers ? | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On February 25 2011 11:20 StorkHwaiting wrote: hahaha very nice. I was too lazy to try to dig it up for him, as it was pretty well-established fact for me to say Han armies larger than pre-BC Roman armies, and in general, their FIELD armies were 4-5x the size of Roman armies. There is a world of difference between total forces under arms and FIELD armies. Something that mcc continually failed to recognize and in general, he fails to recognize any of the nuances in my posts. Maybe post the page and poster of that well-established revelation, because any mentions of army sizes use only original sources for size of particular army that I do not take on face value, otherwise I can say that Persians had million people in the army. And yes I recognize that difference, but when I post counterargument you nicely ignore it. I already posted you numbers for Actio, which pretty much equal anything you posted for Chinese field armies. But that is actually your standard MO so I should not be surprised, | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On February 25 2011 12:02 mcc wrote: Well it is highly likely that the biggest army (as in total military and as field army) Rome had was actually BC, specifically civil war between Antonius and Octavianus. So that much for that strange BC argument. And yes inaccuracies and exaggerations are problem. The only reason we know Roman numbers pretty well is because they mostly give number of legions and not the number of troops and the size of the legion is well known from many literaty/non-literary sources. Sizes of enemy armies are exaggerated by Romans also very often. So why would I trust Chinese crazy numbers from original sources that are known for inflating numbers ? Too bad Roman legions were rarely at full strength. Zing! Also, prove that the steppe tribes could not field those numbers, mcc. You talk a lot of smack about proving this or that, yet you have no proof for any of your theories about Chinese troop numbers or steppe nomad troop numbers. Point out some sources you think are credible for Chinese military history. Go ahead. Point em out. Btw, Battle of Phillippi if it had 200k troops per side, proved that Rome could field army of that size with their population/wealth. So if you think that's accurate, how do you turn around and claim you think Han dynasty troop numbers are inflated, when like you say, the empires have a similar population? Kind of hard to make your point, yet argue that it wasn't possible to field armies that size, yes? And sadly, Battle of Phillippi was the absolute peak of Roman deployment. So, it's a one-time thing, rather than regular field army size, which is exactly the point I was making. Chinese armies of pre-AD era were routinely larger than anything Rome fielded. I picked that time because vast majority of the Roman and Carthaginian generals being listed in the top were from the pre-AD era, so I don't get why you're so inane as to not understand why I would make that specification. But again, your MO seems to have been proving your lack of reading comprehension throughout this debate, rather than actually making any cogent points. Edit: And wth do you keep trying to mention this Battle of Actio? There's no such battle. Do you mean the Battle of Actium? And why would you keep mentioning that battle? It was a naval battle that didn't have numbers anywhere near the hundreds of thousands. Nice example... | ||
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