Reddit mentions of Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition

From the Harper Encyclopedia of Military History, 4th Ed, pp. 89-90:

The typical army of the Ch'in and Han periods was a combined arms force of infantry, cavalry, chariots, and crossbowmen. The principal element had been heavy armored infantry, but increasing reliance was placed on cavalry as time went by. Shih Huang Ti did not introduce the crossbow into Chinese armies, since we know that these weapons were in extensive use as early as the Battle of Ma Ling (353 BCE). He seems, however, to have relied upon crossbowmen more heavily than his predecessors and may have been responsible for establishing a substantial contingent of mounted crossbowmen in his army. He also coordinated the employment of the reflex longbow with the crossbow, but (unlike the Mongols) does not seem to have had mounted longbowmen.

The combined arms concept seems to have been adopted for units as small as a 1,000 man equivalent of a modern regiment. Thus, the Chinese appear to have been able to deploy units capable of decentralized, independent action, as well as to combine them into large, massed, but articulated armies, in which the major units were brigades of 2 or 3 regiments. Heavy armored infantry predominated. Light unarmored infantry--archers, crossbowmen, and spearmen--functioned as skirmishers and provided security by screening flanks and rear.

The bulk of the soldiers, infantry and cavalry alike, had bronze-tipped--or iron-tipped--spears as their primary weapons. The secondary weapon for most soldiers, archers or spearmen, mounted or dismounted, was a single-edged sword nearly three feet long, suspended in a scabbard from a waist belt. All, except apparently for lightly-armed skirmishers, wore armor made up of small metal (bronze) plates attached by a form of rivent to a quilted fabric base. Some protection seems to have been provided even those without armor by a heavy quilted robe. The Chinese apparently relied entirely upon their armor for passive protection and did not carry shields.

Op. cit., p. 134:

The Han Dynasty inherited the government and military institutions of the Ch'in Dynasty. The basis of Han military power was the militiaman. Han law required males between the ages of 23 and 56 to undergo on month of military training each year at provincial training centers. Each man was also required to serve a 1-year tour with the Imperial Guards army in the capital and a 3-year tour at a frontier post. The militia was also called up during local emergencies and for foreign campaigns, such as those of Wu Ti against the Hsiung-nu.

The Roman army structure, equipment, etc under the Principate has been exhaustively documented ad nauseum in many many sources, some of which I'll list below. If asked to compare the two systems, I'd say that the Roman armies were strategically and tactically more flexible, and were by design able to be deployed from one end of the empire to the other for decades on end, versus the inherent limitations of a militia-type system. The testudo and gladius would have likely made the Roman legionary superior to his Han counterpart in melee combat.

However, the crossbow would be the central, pivotal piece of technological difference between the two armies, with its great range and its ability to penetrate virtually all known sorts of personal armor, one would have to conclude that, all else being equal, a Roman army's only chance would involve either a) surprise, or b) tactics wherein the main bodies of the legions closed the distance with the Han to precipitate a melee as soon as possible. This assumes that a crossbow bolt could penetrate the testudo, which seems reasonable, but may not have been true as a rule.

SOURCES:

Goldsworthy, Adrian. The Complete Roman Army. Thames & Hudson, 2003.

Coulston, J.C. Roman Military Equipment: From the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome. Oxbow Books, 2011.

The standard textbook history right now appears to be The Romans: From Village to Empire.

Klaus Bringmann's A History of the Roman Republic also still seems to be the standard introduction to that period (i.e. the time period of Imperator).

If you want to read about the end of the Roman Republic and Caesar/Augustus, it's hard to turn down Caesar: Life of a Colossus which is great for the general reader, alongside his Augustus: First Emperor of Rome.

He also writes pretty solid books on other major Roman figures, such as In the Name of Rome: The Men who won the Roman Empire.

If you want to get a pretty good introduction to Roman History, but more of what life was like for the average citizen, SPQR by Mary Beard is actually a good choice.

Older, but still solid, is Peter Garnsey's The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture which covers a lot of things Beard doesn't.

For the Roman army, Adrian Goldsworthy's The Complete Roman Army is a solid introduction.

However you'll want to break that down into several books if you want to go deeper:

Roman Military Equipment by MC Bishop and JCN Coulston

The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries AD by Graham Webster

A Companion to the Roman Army by Paul Erdkamp

For the collapse of the Western Roman Empire I'd recommend both Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians combined with the more scholarly Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West.

For the forgotten half of Roman History, often mistakenly called the "Byzantine Empire," it's hard to cover with just one book, but Warren Treadgold's A History of the Byzantine State and Society has become the standard reading. John Haldon's The Empire that would not Die covers the critical transition during the Islamic conquests thoroughly.

Of course I have to include books on the two IMO most overrated battles in Roman history on this list since that's what people love:

The Battle of the Teutoberg Wald: Rome's Greatest Defeat by Adrian Murdoch

The Battle of Cannae: Cannae: Hannibal's Greatest Victory is sort of the single book to read if you can only pick one. However, The Ghosts of Cannae is also good. But if you actually want to go really in depth, you need Gregory Daly's dry-as-the-Atacama book Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War. When I say dry as the Atacama, I mean it, but it's also extraordinarily detailed.

I'd complement this with Goldsworthy's The Punic Wars.

For other interesting topics:

The Emergence of the Bubonic Plague: Justinian's Flea and Plague and the End of Antiquity.

Hadrian's Wall: Hadrian's Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy

Roman Architecture: Roman Architecture by Frank Sear (definitely a bit more scholarly but you can probably handle it)

I may post more in addendum to this list with further comments but I think I'm reaching the character count.

For something more scholarly check out these two books:

Bishop and Coulson- Roman Army Equipment
https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Military-Equipment-Punic-second/dp/1842171593

Fisher and Bishop- The Army of the Roman Emperors
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1612008100/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome