Dunno...can anyone clarify that? And does anyone know how a roman sling looked like?

Ok

After Philip conquered the Greek States the old Hoplite became obsolete.

The army Alexander invaded Persia with was based around Pikemen (Phalangites) armed with the very long pike,(Sarissa). They ditched the Hoplon (too big and heavy, and a pike needs two hands) and used a smaller lighter shield that just hung from the shoulder by a strap and was guided by the arm. (Aspis).

The light troops remained, slingers, peltasts and Javelin men. Elite light Infantry  were recruited from the wild Agrianes and Crete was a source of good archers.

Macedon had big open spaces, unlike Greece, and Cavalry were important .  Heavy Cavalry (Companions) wore armour, hemlets and carried a Kontos. They fought in a triangular wedge formation, and since NO cavalry at this time could hope to charge a unit of disciplined infantry and win, the trick was that the Pike Phalanx would pin the enemy in place. Against a pike the enemy of the time could really only stand or fall back - frontally the pike phalanx was unbeatable - and after a while under the stress of combat gaps would start to appear.

Meantime light Thessalian cavalry would be used to try and stop the enemy cavalry, then the Heavy Cavalry would go in, seeking one of the gaps in the line, splitting the enemy battle line - thats why a wedge.

After Alexander died his empire broke up into different (still big) Kingdoms, ruled by his ex-generals and Companions - The Seleucids in Syria (Syria, most of turkey, israel, east to the borders of India) The Lagids (Ptolemies) in Egypt and the islands, the ermm cant remember in Macedonia itself and some new little kingdoms in Turkey.

Pike and Cavalry stayed the mainstay, but everyone had been VERY impressed by elephants during the war against Porus, so all the Successors tried to get their hands on them. At about this time Celts had invaded and briefly overun Greece, and one hang-over from this was the replacement of the peltast by the Thureophoroi - armed with a long oval shield just like the ones the celts used, and still spear and javelin.

The battles of the period were all very 'samey' - Heavy infantry Pike in the centre, Light infantry filling the gaps, Heavy and Light cavalry on the flanks and on the very edge the elephants. When people tried to do things differently it often went badly wrong... Cavalry can't charge a wall of pike, and when Antiochus tried alternating pike with elephants in a checkerboard formation at Magnesia, the elephants stampeded back through his own pikes.... nasty.

So, things stayed the same for about 2 hundred years 'til the pesky Romans came along.

A pike Phalanx is a simple weapon - a big block of men with a mass of projecting points in front of it. The Pike was over 20 feet long, and if you imagine 3,200 men trying to keep a nice neat formation while carrying these point forward, you can imagine it's tricky. A unit like that is simply unstoppable from the front, if everyone is in the right place and moving at the same speed. But if you attack it from the side, the guys can't turn around to fight you.. if they drop their pikes and switch to swords, there are gaps in the pike-wall at the front ....

Plus after a while, a fighting pike phalanx will start to get disordered. The Romans learnt to exploit these things. As long as the plucky legionary with his nasty gladius in his hand could work past the gaps and get face to face with the men holding them, the pike phalanx was a goner. The phlanx couldnt cope with a battlefield that was not flat and tidy - reven something simple, like a rock or a bush in the way could disrupt the pike phalanx.

So the Romans kicked successor butt.

Other weapons of the period - The staff-sling (sling on a pole for extra leverage) Cestrosphendon (sling used to throw a dart) and apparently crossbows too were available.


Philip (Alexander's dad) had a nasty shock when he was fighting the Phocians - they had picked up on the idea from the Syracusans of artillery. Phil still won, but he liked the weapon, and used them. All the early artillery 9Roman as well as Greek) was Torsion or Tension powered. = that is twisted hemp ropes to give the power, like springs. The Counterweight artillery (Trebuchet) was a middle-ages invention, and in some ways more primitive than Torsion. (But you can build a Trebuchet as big as you like, whereas with Torsion you need longer and longer ropes, so in theory you can build a more powerful trebuchet than you can a Catapult or Ballista - but thats only in theory)

I don't think the Romans had a repeating catapult by the way, but in the 4th century an anonymous Roman author wrote what looks like a 'proposal' for the emperor suggesting a whole bunch of  (slightly mad) weapons ideas - a Cataphract Chariots, nutty ideas like that, and he may have suggested repeaters as well. The Romans COULD have made such a thing, but since at the time the Roman army was pretty much on its last legs, I doubt it.

Pat

Rockets were presumably first invented along with gunpowder, so that means early Tang dynasty - around 650 CE, say.
 Chinese sword technology may have been inferior to Japanese sword technology, but I do not know.  Swords in Chinese warfare are actually quite limited in use, I believe, and since crossbows, halberds and spears seem to be the main early Chinese weapons, a sword would have trouble getting a look in.
 Yes, you are correct - aristos riding about with advanced bows, peasantry milling about with sticks.  This did change quite early on, when the king of one of the states of the Warring States (I'll look this up later and inform you of exactly whom) was forced to confront the nomads of the north and west who rode on horseback with advanced bows in an indidividualistic manner - henceforth, cavalry archery became part of the Chinese army's arsenal, and candidates in the military examination were tested on it from its introduction in the reign of Wu Zetian (Tang) to the last days of the Qing in the nineteenth century.
  Also:  The army of the Qin (221 BCE to 206 BCE [short dynasty]) and afterwards, the Han, had quite highly trained armies - the Terracotta army (bingmayong) of Qinshihuangdi is a testament to this - and included many crossbows, archers (actually armed with bamboo longbows as well as composites), spearmen, and very importantly, halberdiers.  From the Tang, as I said, the military examination was put in place, and was a very long lasting institution.  It ensured a high standard of military officer, trained in different weapons, classical and "modern" tactics, who also knew the Confucian corpus and other important things.  The exception to this is actually the southern Song dynasty, after the Juerchen (of "jinruzhen") invasion of the northern part of China in the 10th century - it is said that peasant levies had to cut staves from the roadside to use as weapons in combat.
  Btw, there is actually no such thing as "pre-dynasty" Chinese in history, but I understand what you mean; the Warring States period, and the Springs and Autumns, when the Zhou dynasty became so unimportant that the Emperor wasn't even a figurehead - the Zhou court was effectively dissolved - but there had been a dynasty in power.  The situation is comparable to the situation in Japan in the sengoku jidai era, given the same name of "warring states", the emperor becoming nothing in comparison to the heads of the different states.

It's unkown what slings were physically used, since there have been, to my knowledge, only 3 found in Europe.
   However, it is known through the Annals, that the slingers used woven slings, generally of sinew and hair. What specific weaving process used is anyones guess.
The Balearics used sling of" black tufted rush"

Slingbadger wrote:"The Asians were the ones who came up with the crossbow. It made its way to Europe via the Silk Road, that linked the 2.
  It was so affective in battle, that the church actually banned it, as being "unGodly, and unfair" for use.
 However, during the Crusades, the church allowed it to be used, but, only against the Muslims, as they were not Christians. Apparently that was alright"

???Wasn't there an ancient Greek version
of the Crossbow?

I think it was called"Gastrophedron"
if i remember correctly.

Besides,the triggers of european and asian Crossbows
are absolutely different!

Points to a parallel development if you ask me.

I think the ancient greek weapon was properly called a gastophetes. It means, roughly translated, "belly bow" because instead of a complicated levering mechanism to cock the bow, the bowman had to only press the U shaped stock against his belly and draw the bow back, using its own weight to cock it and seat the string. Very simple and very fast to load.

did it lose strength when compared to the asian design or not ? sounds like something easyer to make imo

This is a little late, and it's on later China, but you may find it interesting:
"Many Chinese maces were straight iron bars with sword-like hilts; others have ball-shaped heads. One Chinese form is quite characteristic. It has the "long life" character in quite high relief repeated 6 times around the head. It would not only smash a man's head but stamp it with the character meaning long life." Grisly