Artillery Effectiveness?

Most of the discussion here, especially of a Sharonan assault on the cut assumes that Sharonan artillery will allow them to dominate the battle field. I'm not confident of that and would like to look more closely at it. The dominance being assumed seems to require four things in addition to a range advantage:

1) Reconnaissance so the Sharonans know where to target their weapons and when they have destroyed the target. The combination of Distance Viewers, Plotters and Mappers seems to guarantee this although a small force might not have enough strong talents and it is possible although unlikely that in the long term Arcana will figure out how to block or fool these talents.

2) Sufficient guns and ammunition to destroy the enemy. This probably is not in place now and won't be even when the entire 3rd Dragoons have come up but given the speed at which Sharona is expanding its supply line this will be in place eventually.

3) The ability to defend the guns while they destroy the enemy. I am doubtful about this one, the Arcanans have a lot of tools they could use to try and take the guns out and a lot of incentive to do so. This seems to be an area where surprise is going to produce success on both sides many many times over the next few years.

4) The ability to shoot accurately enough to destroy the enemy in a timely manner. This one I very very strongly doubt. It has been said that the only place an Arcanan force caught in artillery range of a major Sharonan force is going is a POW camp or the grave. Yet the same should be true of a Sharonan force without artillery when faced with an enemy Sharonan force. If this were true though I would expect artillery to be the premier arm of all Sharonan armies, yet it seems to have the same place as artillery did in the early 20th century on earth when the absence of #1 made the above statement untrue. A second reason to doubt this is that at Fort Salby the distance viewer was protected by a bunker not secrecy. Since if the above thinking is correct his death would cost Fort Salby the battle against an equal Sharonan force it seems the guns at Fort Salby could not break that bunker in the time it would take the guns at Fort Salby to destroy there equal number. This implies that fortifications will be much more effective then people think.

In sum, I think a combination of well built fortifications (which the Arcanans will quickly learn how to build) and raids targeting Sharonan artillery will permit Arcana to hold defensive positions against Sharona.

Nicholas

I tend to agree. Artillery is powerful but not omnipotent.

Ammo will be a significant limitation -- the Third Dragoons are advancing a very long way overland, so they're mostly limited to the ammo they carry with them. (The railroad is coming up behind them, but substantial stockpiles of artillery shells are heavy and take time to build up. And then you have to move them all over again if you advance from your position.)

We'll see more quick suppressive shooting (or Plotters mapping people for shell barrages to hit -- if they can detect people at a distance, cover and camouflage will not help the Arcanans very much. We won't be seeing big barrages as much, except maybe in portal assaults or other chokepoints.

And I predict that the Arcanans will be using night movement (with their navigation spellware and locator spells) a lot more. Artillery spotting at night is very difficult.

I would agree with both of your points about artillery being able to provide a decisive advantage on specific occasions, but is not automatically a silver bullet all the time.

I would add two points here. First, artillery is not the only arrow in Sharona's quiver. Between rifles, bison, machineguns, there is going to be a lot of stuff for Arcana to adjust to.

Secondly, the side that adapts best will be the winner. My feeling that Sharona will have the edge at that.

Don

I think it is more than adaptability, both forces are at tge ebd of long logistical system with finite supplies. The nagical gear needs to be recharged, while the train system has greater capacity and can be built into new worlds quicket..

BR, your question about targeting of Sharonian guns does bring up an interesting point. I remember no text ev that either side has telescopes or that Sharona in particular has optical range finders. I think that Arcana has spellware that can work as optical range finders, but am uncertain if it would work through a portal. Sharonian talents cannot penetrate a portal, and are degraded by proximity to the portals.

This could complicate any attempt to control the approaches to the ramp from the Triasum cut with artillery. What methods will be used to increase the effectiveness of artillery, as accurate pre-registered fire tends to be more effective than guns that spend several minutes finding the range to target.

I would expect that more ammo is on it's way to Salby, but short term they are likely low on ammo for most weapons there. It will take them likely 8 to 16 months to get ammo and gun production up to rates needed based on WWI experience.

It appears to me that logistics provide the tipping point here. Arcana is much further away from home than Sharona. Given their ability to resupply, it is hard to see how they can support more than light forces as far forward as Harshu is.

Don

I am wondering if artillery can be fitted on to the trains or the bisons, give them some mobile heavy weaponry.

From what I am getting out of the bison, they are about one step away from being light tanks.

I wonder how vulnerable they would be to the lightning dragons...(reds or blacks???). I have an uneasy feeling that it would be very...

Don

Mounting guns on trains is certainly possible, and has been discussed in text -- mostly Yerthak pedestal guns for self-defense, but it shouldn't be impossible to mount some offensive guns on trains as well.

I expect that Bisons can tow guns (if they can tow anything else, like cargo wagons, they can also tow guns), but I don't see the Sharonans as quite ready yet to mount guns on armored vehicles. They're not tanks yet, just armored steam tractors for cross-country mobility. I expect tanks are coming, but I also don't see one brigade, or even one division, as having the workshop capacity necessary to make major modifications on the vehicles. (_Eventually_ they will be able to, and Fort Salby's railroad yards probably have all the necessary tools, but it'll be a while before anyone gets the idea and has the necessary time to experiment with modifications.)

Machine guns and Yerthak guns can handle dragons -- heavier guns can be towed along and used as needed. It'll be a while before Sharona needs big guns mounted directly on the armored vehicles.

tonyz wrote:Mounting guns on trains is certainly possible, and has been discussed in text -- mostly Yerthak pedestal guns for self-defense, but it shouldn't be impossible to mount some offensive guns on trains as well.

I expect that Bisons can tow guns (if they can tow anything else, like cargo wagons, they can also tow guns), but I don't see the Sharonans as quite ready yet to mount guns on armored vehicles. They're not tanks yet, just armored steam tractors for cross-country mobility. I expect tanks are coming, but I also don't see one brigade, or even one division, as having the workshop capacity necessary to make major modifications on the vehicles. (_Eventually_ they will be able to, and Fort Salby's railroad yards probably have all the necessary tools, but it'll be a while before anyone gets the idea and has the necessary time to experiment with modifications.)

Machine guns and Yerthak guns can handle dragons -- heavier guns can be towed along and used as needed. It'll be a while before Sharona needs big guns mounted directly on the armored vehicles.

All of the pieces are already in place for a tank, by which I mean to suggest, there is no technical obstacle that I can see to building one.

I can see some real utility to tanks used against infantry armed with arbalasts, gryphons or even the light artillery that the Arcanans use with infantry.

In my previous post I was visualizing the effect of a tank getting hit by one of the dragon's fire weapons. Baked and possibly scalded crew coming up...

I would imagine that if we do see tanks, they will have been manufactured at home by the industrial complex. I would doubt that it would be as a consequence of improvising in the field, although the idea might come from the field.

Don