HFQ Official Snippet #26 (I think)

runsforcelery wrote:Consider it blown.

50 yards is way too narrow for any sort of wind powered craft capable of carrying a remotely worthwhile load of cargo or even passengers.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Peter2,

The Wiki article on ice boats says they can travel up to ten times the wind velocity and within 7 degrees of the wind, which for 1 or 2 man crews sail handling is quite impressive.

The Icicle, built in 1869 for FDR's Uncle John, was ~69 feet long and carried over a thousand square feet of sail and regularly beat the train to Poughkeepsie.

50 yards is still quite a narrow path, and RFC could easily blow my supposition out of the ice for several reasons, but until then its still possible.

L

Hi Lyonhart,

You picked the wrong winter sport. EVERYONE knows that Chisholm is fanatical about hockey. (What, you didn’t know that? It’s probably because RFC doesn’t like to talk about any sport except baseball.) In fact little Chisholm boys dream of growing up to be a Gretsky, even though no one knows exactly what means other than being virtuoso at hockey. As you know, historians have traced the problems between Chisholm and the Raven Lords to a disputed hockey game.

What that means is that as soon as BGV takes care of Fairken, the first corp will trade in their snow shoes for skates. The corp will then travel at 40 miles per day toward Guarnak on the Guarnak Ice Ash canal. The troops could go further than 40 miles a day, the caribou sleds could go further that 40 miles a day. Unfortunately 40 miles a day is all the wimpy Morgans and the mounted troops are good for. Also the snow lizards can’t keep up that pace either, so they will be straggling behind the troops.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht

James

Hello RunsForCelery!

I thought I'd responded to this many hours ago-yesterday afternoon [my time], and then it evaporated or expired for time reasons apparently after I read all those posts since.

Such is life.

Oh well, here goes version 2.0.

I'm very glad you're feeling much better RFC.

I thought you might bite given such an opening, but I wasn't trolling, honest.

We all enjoy your non snippet posts, however personally painful.

Even if it's to demolish one of my pet suppositions "by a brutal gang of facts" [-WSC] but 50 yard wide canals are indeed rather too narrow, which I think I mentioned in my first suggestions last year.

Of course, since RFC didn't condemn ice boats/yachts completely, its still possible that they could use the much wider Ice Ash and Kalgaran Rivers to replenish BGV with supplies coming down from Ranshair.

Somehow, I think BGV is still going to travel much faster than Wyrshym expects, and the canals still seem critical to that.

Given the evident limits of snowshoes, was is the hourly progress of Caribou, Morgans and snow lizards pulling sleds on the canal ice?

If the snow lizards can sustain 5-6 kph [from AMF?] or 50-60 km per day for daylight hours only, they will still surprise him.

All the very best wishes to all.

L

runsforcelery wrote:Consider it blown.

50 yards is way too narrow for any sort of wind powered craft capable of carrying a remotely worthwhile load of cargo or even passengers.

Whatever your wiki article (and we all know what unimpeachable sources of knowledge those are ) may have to say about racing ice boats, it does not apply to craft capable of carrying worthwhile payloads consistently. In any vessel of useful size, if the wind is anywhere forward of the beam, you'll have to tack (which would be a copper plated bitch in a waterway that narrow), and --- trust me --- no one placed the canals to take advantage of the prevailing winds.

Lyon, if it was possible for your ice boat idea to work, then the default motive power for the canal barges would be sail, not dragon draft animals. After all, if ice boats could sail along the canals with complete freedom of movement (or even moderate freedom of movement) why couldn't boats that float do the same thing?

Now, what the frozen canals do normally allow is the use of large, dragon drawn sleds. This is what Duchairn was ruling out (at least for the entire length of the supply chain) because of the empty canal beds and aqueduct sections.

Sorry.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Peter2,

The Wiki article on ice boats says they can travel up to ten times the wind velocity and within 7 degrees of the wind, which for 1 or 2 man crews sail handling is quite impressive.

The Icicle, built in 1869 for FDR's Uncle John, was ~69 feet long and carried over a thousand square feet of sail and regularly beat the train to Poughkeepsie.

50 yards is still quite a narrow path, and RFC could easily blow my supposition out of the ice for several reasons, but until then its still possible.

L

Hi JRM,

Thanks for making me smile.

40 mpd would be around 4mph and seems doable if First Corps all know how to skate with their minimum combat equipment like their rifle etc not ruining their balance.

No critiques yet, so your idea may fly.

Keep smiling.

L

JRM wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Consider it blown.

50 yards is way too narrow for any sort of wind powered craft capable of carrying a remotely worthwhile load of cargo or even passengers.

*quote="lyonheart"*Hi Peter2,

The Wiki article on ice boats says they can travel up to ten times the wind velocity and within 7 degrees of the wind, which for 1 or 2 man crews sail handling is quite impressive.

The Icicle, built in 1869 for FDR's Uncle John, was ~69 feet long and carried over a thousand square feet of sail and regularly beat the train to Poughkeepsie.

50 yards is still quite a narrow path, and RFC could easily blow my supposition out of the ice for several reasons, but until then its still possible.

L

*quote*

Hi Lyonhart,

You picked the wrong winter sport. EVERYONE knows that Chisholm is fanatical about hockey. (What, you didn’t know that? It’s probably because RFC doesn’t like to talk about any sport except baseball.) In fact little Chisholm boys dream of growing up to be a Gretsky, even though no one knows exactly what means other than being virtuoso at hockey. As you know, historians have traced the problems between Chisholm and the Raven Lords to a disputed hockey game.

What that means is that as soon as BGV takes care of Fairken, the first corp will trade in their snow shoes for skates. The corp will then travel at 40 miles per day toward Guarnak on the Guarnak Ice Ash canal. The troops could go further than 40 miles a day, the caribou sleds could go further that 40 miles a day. Unfortunately 40 miles a day is all the wimpy Morgans and the mounted troops are good for. Also the snow lizards can’t keep up that pace either, so they will be straggling behind the troops.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht

James

Ummm... fellas?

Green Valley, for this operation, doesn't have a reserve. The five - not 2, BTW - brigades he brought with him are the sum total of the troops in the AoM competent to fight, as opposed to merely exist, in winter conditions. That's why they're with him and every one else is back in Allyntyn and likely to stay there until average night time temps are a lot closer to 0F - or more likely + 10F.

Moving during a thaw is actually the most dangerous of all winter evolutions: if you get soaked when the temp is cycling around freezing, you're dead pretty quickly; at -40 the big issue is sweating too much. However, given the quality of the kit available and what I recall of the construction of Safehold high roads, I'd be willing to move 2nd Corps forward starting around the middle of April, provided they didn't have to do any actual fighting. Which they shouldn't, since 1st Corps should be able to at least reach and pin Nybar [I actually expect him to be destroyed as well], and, as pointed out many times, Wyrshym will play Hell trying to get an effective force moved up to meet Green Valley anywhere close to the Ohlarn Gap. The tricky part would be ensuring that they have dry places to sleep, since even a brigade camp occupies a fair bit of ground, but if security is a non-issue sending work parties out earlier to build tent platforms is practical. They don't have to be pretty, they just have to keep you out of the slush and mud. And that assumes that there's nothing like a caravanserai already in existence along the roads - again, as long as the country has been secured, you can spread your brigades out to occupy available facilities. Even taking it easy and staging only a regiment a day through any given point would probably let you concentrate the AoM again a good month before anybody in Zion, or even Guarnak, expects.

EdThomas wrote:

n7axw wrote:Do we have any textev to suggest that the second wave has moved out of Allyntyn? I don't remember any..


Don

hi Don,
I don't recall any and must admit to engaging in some not so wild speculation that he's not going to leave the rest of the Corp sitting in Allyntyn while he marches on with his 2 brigades to Fairkyn.
The High Roads to and from Allyntyn are going to be his Main Supply Route until gets to Fairkyn at a minimum. The MSR has to be built which means depots at about a days march apart, repair facilities, corrals for the caribou, snow dragons and High Hallows etc, etc.
Even though he knows he's not going to run into anything significant , he has to make like he thinks he might so he can't leave his main body/reserve too far behind. I picked a day's march. USMA74 and/or Lyonheart can probably tell us how this kind of movement is done in real life (hint, hint )
MSR depots would probably also include secure detention facilities to allow pows to be moved to permanet camps. It would make sense to build such a facility right there at the Abbey.
Troop movement along the MSR might utilize large sleds or wagons to carry two-legged items to decrease transit times.

Unfortunately for those - and I freely admit to being one of them - optimistic about the humanity of man to man, not only has Kynt been whistling The Pikes of Kolstyr, the last time we saw him at the end of chIV, he closed it off with the following rumination:

"If he’d ever entertained any doubts on that subject, the SNARC imagery of the Army of God’s outposts would have put them to rest. Very few of those half-frozen men, shivering in inadequate clothing as they crouched around fires in whatever structures they’d found or whatever huts they’d been able to piece together, had any interest in going anywhere else. Nor would they survive if their shelters were destroyed, Green Valley reflected, his expression bleak under the two layers of snow mask — what would have been called balaclavas back on Old Earth — and the ski goggles he and every other man in the column wore. Freezing to death was a very unpleasant way to die, and the baron took no pleasure in the thought of inflicting that particular death even on his enemies.

Which wouldn’t stop him from doing it for a moment."

n7axw wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:
It's a hard war. The best practical conduct in it is going to leave people with memories of what they had to do they're not going to care to revisit. Merlin's not alone in that. Good men and women are going to manage it at all not by insisting that every one of them had it coming (much as that's tempting even for people on this forum), but by cleaving as close to the best practical conduct as they can get and reminding themselves that nothing closer was practical.

Armed non-prisoners driven out into the cold won't be anyone they have to worry about feeding or guarding - or even guarding against, not for long. It's harsh, bitterly harsh, but this is war and that best practical conduct will still mean heaping buckets of bitterness.

Some of them may be wounded and unable to flee, or willing to put down their arms and surrender. Given what they have been made to believe about the "heretics", that's likely to be a small number still. Guarding those and taking them prisoner shouldn't be too difficult. Granted, given a choice, I'm sure BGV would rather save and feed a single camp inmate than 100 of those, but it's not a choice he's got.

IIRC, playing "The Pikes of Kolstyr" is a Siddarmarkan tradition rather than a EOC one even if BGV was humming the tune.

I don't think that the feeding and care of prisoners is BGV's concern. I believe that provision for dealing with that has been made even if it was done off stage. Green Valley and his advanced corp will be on their way to Fairkyn not long after the battle at Esthyr's Abbey and whatever provision that has been made for handling prisoners will be taken care of.

After all everyone involved in setting up and supporting the op would have understood that there would be prisoners if BGV is successful and factored that into the overall planning.

Don

Green Valley has half of the arctic trained troops in the ICA. Where is the other half? Does it make sense to keep the in Chisholm or to send them with the ICEF into Siddermark?

I wonder if it is more likely they are getting ready to punch out the forces blocking the road at Saiknyr or if they are deployed to punch through at Green Cove Trace?

It's true that the troops trained to fight under winter conditions are with BGV.

However the entire ICA has been trained to march under those conditions. That is a long standing Chisholmian tradition which IIRC has been continued when the RCA became the ICA.

So it is not unreasonable to propose that BGV has arranged to move the main force forward behind his vanguard which does have training in winter fighting.

At the same time, I am unaware of anything to suggest that he actually has beyond speculation here on the forum.

Don

Louis R wrote:Unfortunately for those - and I freely admit to being one of them - optimistic about the humanity of man to man, not only has Kynt been whistling The Pikes of Kolstyr, the last time we saw him at the end of chIV, he closed it off with the following rumination:

"If he’d ever entertained any doubts on that subject, the SNARC imagery of the Army of God’s outposts would have put them to rest. Very few of those half-frozen men, shivering in inadequate clothing as they crouched around fires in whatever structures they’d found or whatever huts they’d been able to piece together, had any interest in going anywhere else. Nor would they survive if their shelters were destroyed, Green Valley reflected, his expression bleak under the two layers of snow mask — what would have been called balaclavas back on Old Earth — and the ski goggles he and every other man in the column wore. Freezing to death was a very unpleasant way to die, and the baron took no pleasure in the thought of inflicting that particular death even on his enemies.

Which wouldn’t stop him from doing it for a moment."

n7axw wrote:
IIRC, playing "The Pikes of Kolstyr" is a Siddarmarkan tradition rather than a EOC one even if BGV was humming the tune.

I don't think that the feeding and care of prisoners is BGV's concern. I believe that provision for dealing with that has been made even if it was done off stage. Green Valley and his advanced corp will be on their way to Fairkyn not long after the battle at Esthyr's Abbey and whatever provision that has been made for handling prisoners will be taken care of.

After all everyone involved in setting up and supporting the op would have understood that there would be prisoners if BGV is successful and factored that into the overall planning.

Don

Hi Louis,

I have started putting the maps up on my PC monitors when I read a Weber book, and sometimes I even list the forces so that I can keep track of who is doing what. Here is the list for the first corp.

Army of Midhold...General Kynt Clareyk, Baron of Green Valley
.1st Corp.........General Ahntaln Makrohry
..4th Mtn Div.....General Eystavyo Gardynyr
...7th Brigade....Brigadier Ahdryn Krystyphyr
....13th Regiment
......1st Battalion......................................Sit it out
......2nd Battalion......................................Sit it out
......3rd Battalion......................................Sit it out
......4th Battalion......................................Sit it out
....14th Regiment
......1st Battalion......................................Sit it out
......2nd Battalion......................................Sit it out
......3rd Battalion......................................Sit it out
......4th Battalion......................................Sit it out
...8th Brigade Brigadier Sutyls
....15th Regiment...Colonel Symohr Hyndryks
......1st Battalion..............................................South guard
......2nd Battalion.............................................South RESERVE
......3rd Battalion.............................................South RESERVE
......4th Battalion..............................................South guard
....16th Regiment...Colonel Ahlfryd Maiyrz
......1st Battalion...Major Tohmys Mahkylhin.....East Primary Assault
......2nd Battalion..Major Brygham Tahlyvyr......East Primary Assault
......3rd Battalion...Major Rahnyld Gahdarhd.....East RESERVE
......4th Battalion...Major Samyl Hylmyn............East Primary Assault

.3rd Mounted Brigade of the 2nd Division
..3rd Brigade
....5th Regiment..Colonel Gairwyl
......1st Battalion.....................................North guard
......2nd Battalion.....................................North guard
......3rd Battalion.....................................North guard
......4th Battalion.....................................North guard
....6th Regiment..Colonel Uhlstyn Yarith
......1st Battalion.....................................West guard
......2nd Battalion.....................................West guard
......3rd Battalion.....................................West guard
......4th Battalion.....................................West guard

.2 Battalions of 1st Scout Sniper Regiment
....1st Regiment
......? Battalion......................................West guard
......? Battalion......................................West guard

Notice that BGV has 26 battalions, he has assigned 3 battalions primary assault, and one battalion as reserve to the primary assault. He assigns 4 battalions to the Southern approaches, but two battalions are reserve. He assigns 4 mounted battalions to the North, and we don't know whether any are reserve. He assigns 6 battalions to the West, and again we don't know whether any are reserve. That is over 18,000 troops to take care of 5,000 enemy. If BGV wasn't trying to make sure that there was no communication going back to Wyrshym, do you think he would use so many troops to surround Esthyr's Abbey. BGV has plenty of troops available to guard POWs.

Either BGV achieves surprise at Fairken, or he doesn’t. Surprise would mean a more devastating victory over Bishop Nybar, but Nybar’s army won’t survive a retreat to Guarnak as an effective unit. BGV won’t have to waste as many troops to surround Fairken. Wyrshym’s only hope is that he is reinforced before BGV gets to Guarnak.

James

I do recall that the town is empty except for the AoG. No civilians, and if they don't want the word to get back that the town was taken I see the mortars using incendiary explosives to take on the AoG. Without fear of civilian casualty the arty can drop all they want where ever they want and cause as much damage to the town. I don't see to many men from the AoG surviving to surrender, and those who do will gladly go back in the empty wagons to get away from the war and the promise of life after the war with Charis. But I see carnage from above. Plus the commander had access to Owl and the snarks. His actions are being watched and he knows that Caleb will reprimand him for any wrong doing.

isaac_newton wrote:

tootall wrote:tootall- Given BGV's disgust (RFC' disgust) it seems to me that mercy is going to be in short supply -on both sides- in this book.
n7axw replied
I will only say to this that, for what it's worth, I have been reading David Weber for 20 plus years. I have never seen him write that way and I don't believe he's going to start now. There will be justice for the parties guilty of atrocities. But that's different than vengeance or simply blind rage.


I don't really disagree, and I see a difference between shooting prisoners who have surrendered- and driving them out of their holes into the wild to survive as they've left their victims to survive.
I don't see atrocities on BGV's part.- However, given the fate of any of his men who might be captured, and the fate of the camp inhabitants, and past massacres, I see little mercy.
One final thought, if he has to care for 4000 prisoners, his offensive operations are over.

I think I concur with Don on this. However, since BGV is likely to be using his morters etc as door knockers, then there will be a lot less than 4000 anyway. I can't see the AOG army surrendering immediately!

Can't wait to see how this winter campaign plays out. Wonder how the Church and it's allies are going to react when they find out the Charisians can mount winter campaigns on this scale. Can we hope to see scenes of various church leaders dying of stroke when they find this out.