Reflecting Upon RTH -- SPOILER THREAD

Finally catching up on this thread and wanted to address this old post that I didn't see touched on.

n7axw wrote:Yeah, but he had to have understood that the Sharonians were moving against him in strength. He didnt know how soon, but he knew they were coming. The immediate objective of his campaign was to seize a portal he could hold until reinforced. He had that with the gap which he could defend. Ft. Salby he couldn't defend against serious attack.

Yes Harshu's immediate objective was to find a defensible stopping point where he could hold his gains until reinforced, but a strong secondary objective was to do so in such a place where it was feasible to resume the advance after being reinforced. Arguably a tertiary objective was to further expand the knowledge of Sharonan military abilities by being placed where he could engage in lower intensity skirmishes to work out effective tactics and otherwise gain military intelligence to support resumption of the advance.

The Trailsum gap is too good defensively from both sides. If Harshu had stopped behind the portal he could have held off even quite large Sharonan attacks (at least if he kept his dragons and heavy cavalry far enough back to avoid getting heavily hurt by Sharonana trans-portal artillery once they uncork the surprise of the range of power of their heavier guns. But any future offense would pay an extremely heavy price to crack the Sharonan defenses and resume the advance. Especially since they already knew that Sharonan forces had powerful weapons capable of engaging through a portal while only the lightest Arcanan weapons (arbilist bolts) could do the same.

If Harshu has been able to seize the fort I think you're underestimating his ability to hold it. It wouldn't be a dug in static defense like he'd likely mount behind the portal, but given the range and mobility of his dragons, gryphons, and even augmented cavalry, he could establish a deep and fairly effective mobile defensive possition; he'd gain knowledge of Sharonan military capabilities as he attempted to intedict the advance of their troops or troop trains; and any follow-on logistic trains and he'd still likely be able to fall back through the portal and take up secondary strong defenses should they prove capable of pushing him out of the fort. But it able to hold the fort that would give the room for future Arcanan advances to avoid the necessity of a smashing headfirst into dug in Sharonan forced backed by dialed in artillery.


And at the risk of making a massively too long post I also wanted to address this more recent post

n7axw wrote:Hi Nicholas,

You might be right, in fact under normal circumstances, I would agree with your first paragraph.

But consider. Arcana has no weapons beyond hand grenades and arblasts that can actually attack through a portal. Dragons and gryphon can fly through, but Sharonan artillery and machine gun fire has already proven effective against the threat this represents. So a heavy concentration of infantry and artillery at the portal threshold ought to put a pretty firm stopper in the portal that the Arcanans cannot effectively attack. Given that the swamp portal is represented as being quite small, what I've suggested should be possible to implement. If true, Sharona should be able to hang on to the portal for as long as it wants.

Currently Arcana has no major weapons that work through a portal. But their major spells are triggered from physical sarcosis (sp) crystals and we know those crystals and there spells work fine even after passing through a portal (see gryphon recon crystals). How much R&D might it take to make a delayed action spell and encode it into a crystal that could be physically shot through the portal before activating? (Or once clear of portals dropped like a bomb from a dragon or gryphon flying above effective AA range?)
We can hope, for Sharonas case that, like the magical breaching charges, all major destructive effects require direct and immediate activation from a gifted and trained operator - but the fact that they've buried what are apparently remotely triggered demolition spells along the cut hints that this may not be the case - at least not if you just want large imprecise effects)

And in a worst case, as mentioned upthread, we know they have WMD spells that can devastate whole cities; so equivalent to at least a tactical nuke or big skin-contact chemical weapon. Imagine the effect on the defenders if those get dusted off and can be integrated onto crystals that only have to survive long enough to pop across the portal interface!! I don't think even Sharonan heavy fortifications are designed to stand up to the equivalent of a nuke. Nor would they necessarily expect to need to fortify in sufficient depth to have surviving lines of defense beyond the range of a tactical nuclear level attack. (And even if they did they'd be too far back to have a good chance of interdicting an airborne follow-up)

I'm not saying it's a good idea, or even particularly feasible, for Sharona to push past the swamp portal. Just that the current weapons balance won't necessarily hold and Arcana might have the tools to, eventually, radically upset the assumption that a strong close defense of a portal provides Sharona a near insurmountable defensive advantage.
(Which somewhat undermines my point about the earlier post; but the difference is Harshu wasn't expecting to have to wait for trans-portal heavy spell delivery to be developed and deployed before the offensive was resumed - so he would be worried about cracking Sharonan defenses with the current weapons of the Arcanan army; while Sharonan planning to indefinitely stopper Arcanans at the Swamp Portal will have to deal with longer term potential weapons developments to counter their otherwise near impregnable crustal defense)

Jonathan_S wrote:Finally catching up on this thread and wanted to address this old post that I didn't see touched on.

n7axw wrote:Yeah, but he had to have understood that the Sharonians were moving against him in strength. He didnt know how soon, but he knew they were coming. The immediate objective of his campaign was to seize a portal he could hold until reinforced. He had that with the gap which he could defend. Ft. Salby he couldn't defend against serious attack.

Yes Harshu's immediate objective was to find a defensible stopping point where he could hold his gains until reinforced, but a strong secondary objective was to do so in such a place where it was feasible to resume the advance after being reinforced. Arguably a tertiary objective was to further expand the knowledge of Sharonan military abilities by being placed where he could engage in lower intensity skirmishes to work out effective tactics and otherwise gain military intelligence to support resumption of the advance.

The Trailsum gap is too good defensively from both sides. If Harshu had stopped behind the portal he could have held off even quite large Sharonan attacks (at least if he kept his dragons and heavy cavalry far enough back to avoid getting heavily hurt by Sharonana trans-portal artillery once they uncork the surprise of the range of power of their heavier guns. But any future offense would pay an extremely heavy price to crack the Sharonan defenses and resume the advance. Especially since they already knew that Sharonan forces had powerful weapons capable of engaging through a portal while only the lightest Arcanan weapons (arbilist bolts) could do the same.

If Harshu has been able to seize the fort I think you're underestimating his ability to hold it. It wouldn't be a dug in static defense like he'd likely mount behind the portal, but given the range and mobility of his dragons, gryphons, and even augmented cavalry, he could establish a deep and fairly effective mobile defensive possition; he'd gain knowledge of Sharonan military capabilities as he attempted to intedict the advance of their troops or troop trains; and any follow-on logistic trains and he'd still likely be able to fall back through the portal and take up secondary strong defenses should they prove capable of pushing him out of the fort. But it able to hold the fort that would give the room for future Arcanan advances to avoid the necessity of a smashing headfirst into dug in Sharonan forced backed by dialed in artillery.


And at the risk of making a massively too long post I also wanted to address this more recent post

n7axw wrote:Hi Nicholas,

You might be right, in fact under normal circumstances, I would agree with your first paragraph.

But consider. Arcana has no weapons beyond hand grenades and arblasts that can actually attack through a portal. Dragons and gryphon can fly through, but Sharonan artillery and machine gun fire has already proven effective against the threat this represents. So a heavy concentration of infantry and artillery at the portal threshold ought to put a pretty firm stopper in the portal that the Arcanans cannot effectively attack. Given that the swamp portal is represented as being quite small, what I've suggested should be possible to implement. If true, Sharona should be able to hang on to the portal for as long as it wants.

Currently Arcana has no major weapons that work through a portal. But their major spells are triggered from physical sarcosis (sp) crystals and we know those crystals and there spells work fine even after passing through a portal (see gryphon recon crystals). How much R&D might it take to make a delayed action spell and encode it into a crystal that could be physically shot through the portal before activating? (Or once clear of portals dropped like a bomb from a dragon or gryphon flying above effective AA range?)
We can hope, for Sharonas case that, like the magical breaching charges, all major destructive effects require direct and immediate activation from a gifted and trained operator - but the fact that they've buried what are apparently remotely triggered demolition spells along the cut hints that this may not be the case - at least not if you just want large imprecise effects)

And in a worst case, as mentioned upthread, we know they have WMD spells that can devastate whole cities; so equivalent to at least a tactical nuke or big skin-contact chemical weapon. Imagine the effect on the defenders if those get dusted off and can be integrated onto crystals that only have to survive long enough to pop across the portal interface!! I don't think even Sharonan heavy fortifications are designed to stand up to the equivalent of a nuke. Nor would they necessarily expect to need to fortify in sufficient depth to have surviving lines of defense beyond the range of a tactical nuclear level attack. (And even if they did they'd be too far back to have a good chance of interdicting an airborne follow-up)

I'm not saying it's a good idea, or even particularly feasible, for Sharona to push past the swamp portal. Just that the current weapons balance won't necessarily hold and Arcana might have the tools to, eventually, radically upset the assumption that a strong close defense of a portal provides Sharona a near insurmountable defensive advantage.
(Which somewhat undermines my point about the earlier post; but the difference is Harshu wasn't expecting to have to wait for trans-portal heavy spell delivery to be developed and deployed before the offensive was resumed - so he would be worried about cracking Sharonan defenses with the current weapons of the Arcanan army; while Sharonan planning to indefinitely stopper Arcanans at the Swamp Portal will have to deal with longer term potential weapons developments to counter their otherwise near impregnable crustal defense)

Nice post and good points all around. If the Arcanans were able to deliver a spell that remained unactivated until it passes through the portal, there is no doubt but what the defensive equation for Sharona changes.

But consider...will they be able to do that? While it is possible, their whole tech base is focused around magic. Without magic their most advanced weapon would be an arbalast. I would wonder what they would use as a delivery system for delivering the spell. While the thought is not impossible, it doesn't really sound likely.

As for defending Ft Salby, I don't think Harshu could have done it with the forces he had on hand which included roughly 14,000 men plus about 30 battle dragons and an indefinite number of gryphons prior to the Ft. Salby attack. Even if we assume that he caught Ft. Salby napping, and did not take the losses he did in the story, chan Geraiths division is only the point of the far heavier forces coming up behind him. He can raid, yes. But when he does that he would start losing his battle dragons of which he has only a very finite supply to Sharonian machine guns and cannon which out ranges anything he has on hand. He can slow up the Sharonians somewhat by tearing up rail but can't stop them from repairing quickly and Sharona can cover the bridges with defensive installations.

To summarize, I would disagree that Harshu with his current force could hold Ft. Salby for any extended time against the forces Sharona could concentrate against him.

Don

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If Harshu had taken Ft. Salby, he would be on the wrong side of the portal. Sharona's truly heavy artillery could be deployed at extreme range of Ft. Salby and Harshu would be shelled mercilessly. Harshu would have pulled back his dragons at minimum. His troops' morale would have been devastated by the artillery. The longer Sharona shells him instead of attacking, the more likely he will conclude that Sharona must take Ft. Salby.

Bottom line is that Sharona would most likely still be able to loop around to Ft Ghartoum. They could still take Hell's Gate. Odds are they would have to fight harder for it as Harshu would have more resources to shift his forces quickly. He couldn't get his troops out of Ft. Salby, though. Any dragon landing to collect troops would shelled into hamburger. The predictive far seers will nail the dragons. A combination of Far Seers and Voices can get close enough to pierce any obscuring spells. Add snipers to the mix and Harshu will have wished he didn't take the fort.

PeterZ wrote:If Harshu had taken Ft. Salby, he would be on the wrong side of the portal. Sharona's truly heavy artillery could be deployed at extreme range of Ft. Salby and Harshu would be shelled mercilessly. Harshu would have pulled back his dragons at minimum. His troops' morale would have been devastated by the artillery. The longer Sharona shells him instead of attacking, the more likely he will conclude that Sharona must take Ft. Salby.

Bottom line is that Sharona would most likely still be able to loop around to Ft Ghartoum. They could still take Hell's Gate. Odds are they would have to fight harder for it as Harshu would have more resources to shift his forces quickly. He couldn't get his troops out of Ft. Salby, though. Any dragon landing to collect troops would shelled into hamburger. The predictive far seers will nail the dragons. A combination of Far Seers and Voices can get close enough to pierce any obscuring spells. Add snipers to the mix and Harshu will have wished he didn't take the fort.

You and n7axw both make good points. I guess I was thinking more the Harshu's motivation for trying to take the fort; not whether he'd be able to have actually held it long if he'd succeeded.

I don't see where he could know how the extra room might work against him despite his units higher tactical, and arguably even theater (though no strategic), mobility.


Though I suspect if he'd steamrolled the fort with relatively low losses that his remaining dragons would have had a more effective run, and taken lighter losses before being withdrawn, than he actually suffered in his failed attack. You're not going to get the glimpse, nor the terrain, to ambush them as well with machine guns and probably won't be able to suck as many into flak traps before they wise up and refuse to enter AA range. But can you imagine the casualties if they managed even a single successful strike by yellows against a troop train? Talk about a concentrated target for gas attack!

Look at the photos and information at this link


Railway gun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_gun

And consider what Ternathian Army units were capable of shelling Ft. Salby with.

And given the predictive distance viewers plus voices or flickers means in terms of accurately delivered shells, Arcanian troops at Ft. Salby would have been worse off than the French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu.

See:

Battle of Dien Bien Phu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu

I disagree with the following --

Sorry Peter, but I would have thought that with the entire family in Tajvana, with 2 of the Calirath's biggest enemies literally in arms reach, staying in the Palace that one of them bitterly resents the Calirath's continued ownership of, that they would have their ears to the ground, spies in every apartment, monitoring every meeting that everyone goes to, day or night, especially with all those special talents that had been developed in the service of the Hawkwing crown.

This was a terrible screw-up on the part of the protection service.

The decision by the Calirath Emperor to move the Imperial family to the Tajvana palace was likely fought tooth an nail by the Imperial protection service.

It takes time to thoroughly invest an urban area with informers the way the Imperial protection service had around the old palace.

And until the Hawkwing crown returned to Tajvana, the home team counterintelligence organization sitting in Tajvana would have been doing it's best to prevent said Imperial protection service infestation.

Whether it was glimpse driven or a calculated political risk taken by the Hawkwing crown, there was absolutely no way the Imperial protection service could guarantee the safety of the Imperial family in Tajvana.

Mil-tech bard wrote:I disagree with the following --

Sorry Peter, but I would have thought that with the entire family in Tajvana, with 2 of the Calirath's biggest enemies literally in arms reach, staying in the Palace that one of them bitterly resents the Calirath's continued ownership of, that they would have their ears to the ground, spies in every apartment, monitoring every meeting that everyone goes to, day or night, especially with all those special talents that had been developed in the service of the Hawkwing crown.

This was a terrible screw-up on the part of the protection service.

The decision by the Calirath Emperor to move the Imperial family to the Tajvana palace was likely fought tooth an nail by the Imperial protection service.

It takes time to thoroughly invest an urban area with informers the way the Imperial protection service had around the old palace.

And until the Hawkwing crown returned to Tajvana, the home team counterintelligence organization sitting in Tajvana would have been doing it's best to prevent said Imperial protection service infestation.

Whether it was glimpse driven or a calculated political risk taken by the Hawkwing crown, there was absolutely no way the Imperial protection service could guarantee the safety of the Imperial family in Tajvana.

SOMEBODY planted a bomb large enough to do major damage to the Palace, at least the section where the wedding party was taking place. There is no way that the wedding party could have been known in advance of the return to Tajvana. The Seneschal was unhappy that the Caliraths were taking back his home, there is no way that he could have prepared that bomb in advance of the return so it must have been planted after the preparations for the wedding were set. This is a major intelligence failure.

Additionally, Alizon's husbands father (who;s names I disremember) was majorly concerened about spies having been planted in his staff, which admittedly was supplemented by locals, so why could the Imperial Intelligence service not have done the same thing, or at least bought informants among the existing palace staff? There's gotta be plenty of low-paid staff who would appreciate a couple of extra bucks for sharing what they see while washing floors or clearing garbage.

The current Seneschal, and the previous Seneschal(s) had to have built a large number of secret passages into and out of the Palace during in the intervening centuries between the palace's occupation by the Hawkwing crown.

Enemy agents and explosives getting into and out of said palace is less an "intelligence failure" than an unavoidable risk.

A complete replacement of all the servants in the Palace would not have removed the secret passages.

And both the current and previous Seneschal's likely had the passages built in such a way as making them hard to detect even for people with underground density scanning talents, unless they knew exactly what they were looking for.

Point in fact, the Seneschal could have had a distance viewer looking for the Imperial family's movements waiting for the right moment for a flicker to drop a lit match into explosive powder inside one of those passages.

And if the secret passage was filled in -- AKA it was a void not a passage anymore -- the Seneschal could have had a flicker talent placing small amounts of explosive into a secret passage sealed void whenever the Seneschal's distance viewer(s) said it was clear of the imperial family, it's servitors, and Imperial Protective Service talents.

Mil-tech bard wrote:The current Seneschal, and the previous Seneschal(s) had to have built a large number of secret passages into and out of the Palace during in the intervening centuries between the palace's occupation by the Hawkwing crown.

Enemy agents and explosives getting into and out of said palace is less an "intelligence failure" than an unavoidable risk.

A complete replacement of all the servants in the Palace would not have removed the secret passages.

And both the current and previous Seneschal's likely had the passages built in such a way as making them hard to detect even for people with underground density scanning talents, unless they knew exactly what they were looking for.

Point in fact, the Seneschal could have had a distance viewer looking for the Imperial family's movements waiting for the right moment for a flicker to drop a lit match into explosive powder inside one of those passages.

And if the secret passage was filled in -- AKA it was a void not a passage anymore -- the Seneschal could have had a flicker talent placing small amounts of explosive into a secret passage sealed void whenever the Seneschal's distance viewer(s) said it was clear of the imperial family, it's servitors, and Imperial Protective Service talents.

Sorry, I think you are overeaching to assume that they would rebuild the Palace with secret passages - heck they stole the gold foil from one of the entrances. They were too cheap to spend the money on rebuilds and they had no good cause. If the process was set in motion when the meeting was set, there was no time.

If there was a secret passage, and someone loaded it with dynomite, don't you think that someone might have heard all that work? Flickers can only move small items, and AFAIR, to places they know about. A secret passage in the middle of a palace? Highly doubtful.

We don't know the details as to how the explosion in the palace was arranged, but from the epilogue of RTH, we do know that the gas mains were utilized. That would probably mean that no secret passages were needed, only the passages used to service the mains and whatever other out of sight stuff that needed to be routinely done.

Don

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