Corisande's Contribution to the Army & Use

Hi Kytheros,

Thanks for the many excellent points.

This has been touched on several times by many posters for the last couple years it seems, that the time factor is indeed critical.

Among other things, it's quite possible that Clyntahn may rush the western Chisholm Ariosto rebellion before their planned revolt time; which is simply doomed from the beginning if they plan on marching across Chisholm to Cherayth to take the throne away from Sharleyan or dictate terms, since I doubt any of the plotters involved has the logistic experience to move any serious number of troops even a fraction of the distance required, or the ability to convince the rest they can't do what they want to when and where etc; so like Clyntahn they'll trust in God and fail miserably.

Gahrvai's Corisandan field army during the conquest was their only one and just ~30,000 men; so even if all the 'veterans' were available for foreign campaigns, they would be a very small cadre for armies of the suggested sizes [500-600,000 men], assuming they were all worthy of being at least NCO's of at least above squad leader caliber, let alone familiar with modern weapons which they aren't, so retraining and the time it takes is an important that has to be dealt with in some way.

For years I've pointed out the potential irony of Corisandan troops, particularly Windshare [which would appeal to RFC], stopping the western Ariosto revolt; but again as others have noted Zebediah is much closer and Grand Duke Chermyn has far better experience with modern weapons and logistics.

Then there's Duke Solomon on Emerald, even closer to the Chisholmian crisis center, and it'd be nice to see his last campaign.

Given the potential of Chisholm's neighbors to smother its revolt especially given how sneaky Sharleyan is, I'm not too worried about this aspect of the next book.

L


[quote="Kytheros"]In the event of a Chisholm Aristocratic Uprising, there's the training cadre and all the forces in training in Chisholm to support the Empire.
Then, instead of just forming an army group out of Corisandians to provide additional forces to counter this rebellion, if needed the Empire can draw forces from the Charisian Occupation Force in Corisande - who are/were Imperial Marines. A reduction in the Charisian occupation force would be unlikely to trigger a new Corisandian uprising, all things considered, and even if some Corisandian nutjobs went for an open rebellion, the Corisandian government would actively and aggressively move against it, with or without the Imperial troops that compromise the existing occupation force, and they'd still have Hector, Irys, and Coris, plus Nimue to arrange things as needed.


As for mustering and training a Corisandian contingent of the ICA, while there are a lot of [i]new[/i] things, there's also a fair amount of stuff that they shouldn't need a whole lot of outside support to train on - ie, how to make field fortifications, how to march, how to make camp, how to follow orders, etc.
If the Corisandian contingent starts with a lot of the veterans from the Conquest - they'll already know a lot of the fundamentals, which ought to cut down on the training time they'd need.
In other words, drawing recruits from Corisande, if drawn from Corisandians with some degree of military training already, could provide a pool of trainees that are further along earlier than normal.
Even if that potential timesaving winds up being negligible, and the Corisandian recruitment drive requires the full normal training duration, I think it is unlikely that they'd need to be thrown into the field on Howard/Haven before they were fully trained. I think the only circumstance where they might need to cut short training to deploy would be against a Chisholmian Aristocratic uprising. The Harchongese Mighty Host is a problem, yes, but I think it is doubtful that the Harchongese would be able to push sufficiently strong, hard, and fast enough against the generally informed and prepared Charisian/Siddarmarkian forces to or otherwise create a situation where half-trained recruits in Chisholm/Corisande would be the only possible option - I mean, it'd take a while for them to get to and even long to get anywhere in Siddarmark, to the point that I think they'd either not get there at all, or the situation isn't really bad enough to warrant throwing half-trained recruits into battle.
At worst, I think the CoGA-aligned forces somehow manage to crush an Allied Army group so thoroughly that all or nearly all the reserves being held back in Old Province/etc need to be rushed forwards, and then the "half-trained recruits" need to be rushed to Old Province to serve as an emergency reserve while finishing their training. Even then, I think that it'd likely be better to finish their training in Chisholm before being moved forwards, rather than interrupting their training.


No, if there are significant numbers of Corisandians fighting soon in Imperial uniform, it's likely because they're the first big clutch of Corisandians being sent as the Corisandian part of amalgamating national militaries into the Imperial military, and that's likely the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy, but if they're Navy, it's likely not particularly noticeable, whereas if they're Army and Chisholmian Aristocrats get uppity ... that's huge - both what it means for Imperial unity, and also what the Go4(or recently 3, effectively) will be saying when they find out. I mean, sure, there's plenty of room for PR and political issues in Corisandian recruits to the Imperial Army suppressing Chisholmian Aristos, but I suspect that the Corisandians would be busy shouting "In Her Majesty's [Empress Sharleyan] Name" and "For the Empress/Empire", and other things along those lines a whole lot - plus they'd probably at least try to take the Aristos alive, for Stone Mountain (Chisholmian Chief Justice, IIRC) to prosecute, and the Empress to pass sentence on.[/quote]

lyonheart wrote:Hi Kytheros,

Thanks for the many excellent points.

This has been touched on several times by many posters for the last couple years it seems, that the time factor is indeed critical.

Among other things, it's quite possible that Clyntahn may rush the western Chisholm Ariosto rebellion before their planned revolt time; which is simply doomed from the beginning if they plan on marching across Chisholm to Cherayth to take the throne away from Sharleyan or dictate terms, since I doubt any of the plotters involved has the logistic experience to move any serious number of troops even a fraction of the distance required, or the ability to convince the rest they can't do what they want to when and where etc; so like Clyntahn they'll trust in God and fail miserably.

Gahrvai's Corisandan field army during the conquest was their only one and just ~30,000 men; so even if all the 'veterans' were available for foreign campaigns, they would be a very small cadre for armies of the suggested sizes [500-600,000 men], assuming they were all worthy of being at least NCO's of at least above squad leader caliber, let alone familiar with modern weapons which they aren't, so retraining and the time it takes is an important that has to be dealt with in some way.

For years I've pointed out the potential irony of Corisandan troops, particularly Windshare [which would appeal to RFC], stopping the western Ariosto revolt; but again as others have noted Zebediah is much closer and Grand Duke Chermyn has far better experience with modern weapons and logistics.

Then there's Duke Solomon on Emerald, even closer to the Chisholmian crisis center, and it'd be nice to see his last campaign.

Given the potential of Chisholm's neighbors to smother its revolt especially given how sneaky Sharleyan is, I'm not too worried about this aspect of the next book.

L

What you are referring to here, for purposes of clarification, are the number of troops Gahrvai was allowed for keeping order after the surrender.

IIRC, the size of the Corisandian Army prior to the surrender was upward from 120,000 troops including the 80,000 with him in Tabor Pass along with reinforcements he had available to him prior to Cayleb's flanking movement and Windshare's misadventure at Green Valley.

I would presume that early recruiting would be among these vets who would need the rust knocked off their basic skills and to be familiarized with modern weapons and tactics which would mean that their training cycle wouldn't need to be as long as with completely raw recruits.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

lyonheart wrote:Hi Kytheros,

Thanks for the many excellent points.

This has been touched on several times by many posters for the last couple years it seems, that the time factor is indeed critical.

Among other things, it's quite possible that Clyntahn may rush the western Chisholm Ariosto rebellion before their planned revolt time; which is simply doomed from the beginning if they plan on marching across Chisholm to Cherayth to take the throne away from Sharleyan or dictate terms, since I doubt any of the plotters involved has the logistic experience to move any serious number of troops even a fraction of the distance required, or the ability to convince the rest they can't do what they want to when and where etc; so like Clyntahn they'll trust in God and fail miserably.

Gahrvai's Corisandan field army during the conquest was their only one and just ~30,000 men; so even if all the 'veterans' were available for foreign campaigns, they would be a very small cadre for armies of the suggested sizes [500-600,000 men], assuming they were all worthy of being at least NCO's of at least above squad leader caliber, let alone familiar with modern weapons which they aren't, so retraining and the time it takes is an important that has to be dealt with in some way.

For years I've pointed out the potential irony of Corisandan troops, particularly Windshare [which would appeal to RFC], stopping the western Ariosto revolt; but again as others have noted Zebediah is much closer and Grand Duke Chermyn has far better experience with modern weapons and logistics.

Then there's Duke Solomon on Emerald, even closer to the Chisholmian crisis center, and it'd be nice to see his last campaign.

Given the potential of Chisholm's neighbors to smother its revolt especially given how sneaky Sharleyan is, I'm not too worried about this aspect of the next book.

L

What you are referring to here, for purposes of clarification, are the number of troops Gahrvai was allowed for keeping order after the surrender.

IIRC, the size of the Corisandian Army prior to the surrender was upward from 120,000 troops including the 80,000 with him in Tabor Pass along with reinforcements he had available to him prior to Cayleb's flanking movement and Windshare's misadventure at Green Valley.

I would presume that early recruiting would be among these vets who would need the rust knocked off their basic skills and to be familiarized with modern weapons and tactics which would mean that their training cycle wouldn't need to be as long as with completely raw recruits.

Don

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That's more or less what I was going for with the Corisandians.


They were allowed to keep 30,000 after the surrender, and that's less than a third of the pre-surrender army.
And there are 20,000 Imperial Marines serving as the occupation force.
It's doubtful that Corisande is going to have significant unrest, much less a revolt any time soon.
If they're going to put reinforcements into Chisholm ... Zebediah's closer than Corisande, sure, but I think the Zebedian occupation force is a much smaller one. Also, there aren't any Inner-Circle members in Zebediah, whereas there are several in Corisande.
As for forces from Emerald ... Emerald, while it had an army, IIRC, it didn't have a particularly large one. Plus, it's been long enough that much of the Emeraldian Army could already have been integrated and retrained into the Imperial Army and already have deployed with the rest of the Army to Siddarmark - or maybe they're the bulk of the current/next scheduled batch of trainees. That's purely speculative, though. Still the issue of appropriately positioned Inner Circle members with the right authority would be a problem.

Everyone is overlooking the fact that Corisande already has the core of a good sized army. IIRC Charis left behind a occupation force of 35,000 troops and the RCA has a force of 30,000 troops and can probably recall the bulk of the Army that was dimobleized after the Corisande campaign. IIRC the RCA had a pre-invasion army of 100,000+ soldiers. They could field an army of 60-70,000 men easily and combined with ICA troops in Chisholm hit 100,000 easy.

saber964 wrote:Everyone is overlooking the fact that Corisande already has the core of a good sized army. IIRC Charis left behind a occupation force of 35,000 troops and the RCA has a force of 30,000 troops and can probably recall the bulk of the Army that was dimobleized after the Corisande campaign. IIRC the RCA had a pre-invasion army of 100,000+ soldiers. They could field an army of 60-70,000 men easily and combined with ICA troops in Chisholm hit 100,000 easy.

That's literally what the last five or so posts were talking about. At least, one of the things they were talking about.

I thought the Charisian occupation force in Corisande was 20,000, not 35,000. That's just a change to the numbers, not the underlying point, though.

For the record (I just double checked in AMF), At the conclusion of the conquest, General Chermyn had 60,000 marines in Corisande, 20,000 of whom were stationed in Manchyr.

Koryn Gahrvai was allowed a constabulary force of "just under" 30,000 Corisandians for use in keeping internal order.

From LAMA, Chermyn's army as Grand Duke Zebediah numbered 30,000 men....

Don

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Guys, Sharleyan will only ever need a big army to put down this rebellion if she falls asleep on the job and lets it get far past the point where action is indicated. The nobles are only allowed to have token forces under arms, with numbers being strictly limited by law. Flouting that law by recruiting beyond what is permitted is already treason. (I don't even need to look at the plotters difficulty in arming any sizeable number of people.) Once the SNARCS show the Crown where to look to get the evidence the rebellion can be promptly put down, by arresting the ringleaders, with a fairly small number of loyal troops,just as the last one was.

Only this time, please, no more Mr nice emperor. Let's prevent the next rebellion as well, by confiscating the rebels' titles, land, property, wealth and goods to the crown. Their heirs should not inherit, their widows should be too busy taking in washing to plot and their lands and titles should be given to people who can be trusted to take their oaths of allegiance seriously.

Randomiser wrote:Guys, Sharleyan will only ever need a big army to put down this rebellion if she falls asleep on the job and lets it get far past the point where action is indicated. The nobles are only allowed to have token forces under arms, with numbers being strictly limited by law. Flouting that law by recruiting beyond what is permitted is already treason. (I don't even need to look at the plotters difficulty in arming any sizeable number of people.) Once the SNARCS show the Crown where to look to get the evidence the rebellion can be promptly put down, by arresting the ringleaders, with a fairly small number of loyal troops,just as the last one was.

Only this time, please, no more Mr nice emperor. Let's prevent the next rebellion as well, by confiscating the rebels' titles, land, property, wealth and goods to the crown. Their heirs should not inherit, their widows should be too busy taking in washing to plot and their lands and titles should be given to people who can be trusted to take their oaths of allegiance seriously.

^ This, with a hammer!