I believe Chermyn and Windshare will ride to the rescue with Gahrvai shepherding the Corisande marines and his infantry to Dohlar. I would think that those marines would have been given a few mortars to train with at minimum. When production increases sufficiently to provide those marines with mortars, they would likely have enough trained men to use them effectively.
Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if those marines began training the Corisandian army soon to be ICA with mortars. I'ld also bet that those Corisandian marines also have a few 4" riles and 6" angles. I hope that RFC might introduce breechloading field artillery in HFQ. That would be sweet!
lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,
What is the production rate for mortars?
1 or 2 a day?
5 a day?
10 a day?
The 150 mortars were a very big item in the arms convoy yet they represented less than 4% of the mortars the ICN needed if it then had ~360,000 in combat units, assuming the scout sniper regiments don't have any and not counting the Corisande garrison; nor was there any mention of giving them to the RSA at that point, so yes I think they were for the ICA, specifically DE's first 80,000+ men who may have been trained on mortars, but not yet dully equipped since they were so far away from Maikelberg.
I wouldn't be surprised production was at the low end of that range a year ago or when the SoS attacked, given Howsmyn didn't have an assembly line to produce them in such numbers.
We don't know the ratio of mortars the RSA will have but even if only half that of the ICA, they would still need 2250 for the RSA's 30 divisions in service or training, plus their artillery, which the empire must mainly supply, and at 1 battalion per brigade or equivalent, that's 1500 12 pounders, with out getting into 4" rifles and 6" angles.
The quickest and simplest way may be for the ICA to turn over their current inventory as its artillery is upgraded, but that could be slow, perhaps too slow to adequately fight the IHA etc.
While we haven't any textev of bottleneck's in mortar or artillery production for the ICA yet, we also haven't had any about supplying the RSA on top of that.
Hopefully HFQ will resolve these questions or the book after that, apparently the last for this bridge of the story.
Regarding Corisande saving Chisholm, Windshare may figuratively rescue Empress Sharleyan (who's safe in Cherayth, far away), and die charging doing it, but until RFC sheds some further light, we can only speculate.
Personally, I suspect Gahrvai will be there too, since the window for the traitors will be narrowing by the end of summer, but don't forget Chermyn is closer in Zebediah with his own garrison and lots of eager volunteers.