HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)

Given how hard this retreat is on Sir Rainos formations, I'm reminded of how much trouble I think he'll be in even if he does get back home.

"You abandoned your allies!!"
"You ran away!!"
"You lost most of your army anyway!!"
" You ATE all those nice horses!!"

tootall wrote:Given how hard this retreat is on Sir Rainos formations, I'm reminded of how much trouble I think he'll be in even if he does get back home.

"You abandoned your allies!!"
"You ran away!!"
"You lost most of your army anyway!!"
" You ATE all those nice horses!!"

Maybe, but I doubt it. First, Ahlverez gutted his army in support of his allies. Secondly, he left a well documented paper train detailing and documenting Desnairian incompetence while he reported his own actions and the reasons for them up to the moment he lost touch. Thirdly, no one in Dohlar likes the Desnarians anyway which means that his superiors will be more than willing to protect their own and let Desnair take the fall for the disaster...especially when it is really deserved.

It is possible that there could be a problem with the Inquisition, but since Ahlverez's own intendent signed off on his decisions, so that will probably be pretty muted. Besides, Zion is presently going to have bigger fish to fry than who is to blame for what in Dohlar.

Don

Dilandu wrote:Well:

1) The tehcnical progress generally follow the logical path.

2) The "Writ" definitely aren't include anything about artillery, so the pre-knowlege isn't the factor.

3) The major reason for bombards was the need of destruction of heavy fortification; which, obviously, the Safehold also have.

So, logically, the Safeholdian should at least try this concept.

Does Safehold history typically have major sieges?

From what little we've got, the answer is no; the Church tolerated a certain amount of open-field warfare, but any time things got down to the potentially decisive or the potentially genocidal, the Church has tended to step in and force a settlement. If no one expects to have to besiege a walled city, or at least not a major one, the effort to make the heavy siege train isn't going to get made. (As distinct from Ottomans, who had both Christian fortress-cities and their own subsidiary cities, potentially held by rebellious satraps, to worry about.)

Thank you for the snippet. I was pleased to find out that you

had not shuffled off this mortal coil

. While I do not wish coping on anyone, it is nice to hear that Sharon is improving. Someone must have cursed you with “may you live in interesting times”

The last 4 weeks I've felt like the hopeful rat in the Skinner box persistently pressing the bar and waiting for a food pellet. Glad to hear that things are slowly on the mend in the Weber house. If you aren't getting Google Fiber I hope you can get FIOS. That would take care of crappy internet. Keep getting better and hopefully keep throwing us more food for thought.

Dilandu wrote:

You are once again repeating the "if it looks medieval and it walks medieval, it must be medieval" mistake.

The corned powder appeared only in 1500th; the artillery were in common use at least for a century before. The reason of building the breech-loading bombards was not the metal, as far as i knew, it was the powder. The meal powder isn't wery powerfull; to have a good anti-fortification effect, you must have a very heavy shot. And a very heavy shot in this time means VERY big guns. And to load and clean and transport a VERY big muzzle-loaders, that worked on meal powder...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ze_15c.png

Do you think Ottomans were incompetent in metallurgy, or they simply have a lot of fun, building this enormously big and enormously expencieve guns?

It was also the metal, or rather the producing methods. Early bombards were made using hot iron bar rings forge welded around a wood shaping core because the casting techniques did not permit to get thick walls either in iron or brass. When the clay molds were dropped in favor of sand+bentonite, casting walls thick enough to use in artillery became possible (late 15th century). The problem with early clay was that it is too airtight to venting gasses and so induced bubbles and other defects.

Safe hold knows about what make a proper casting sand or clay so won't run in that problem.

Graydon wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Well:

1) The tehcnical progress generally follow the logical path.

2) The "Writ" definitely aren't include anything about artillery, so the pre-knowlege isn't the factor.

3) The major reason for bombards was the need of destruction of heavy fortification; which, obviously, the Safehold also have.

So, logically, the Safeholdian should at least try this concept.

Does Safehold history typically have major sieges?

From what little we've got, the answer is no; the Church tolerated a certain amount of open-field warfare, but any time things got down to the potentially decisive or the potentially genocidal, the Church has tended to step in and force a settlement. If no one expects to have to besiege a walled city, or at least not a major one, the effort to make the heavy siege train isn't going to get made. (As distinct from Ottomans, who had both Christian fortress-cities and their own subsidiary cities, potentially held by rebellious satraps, to worry about.)

Just to throw something in here... The art of doing sieges is apparently known. Alyksburg was a walled city which Ahlverez had to assault. It was undermanned to the point where a standard siege didn't need to be conducted. But the implication that under other circumstances it might have been needed is there. When DE redid Ft. Tairys, he had engineers who understood how the positions had to be constructed to withstand direct assault. The Desnairians and Dohlarans, on the other hand knew how to develop siege lines approaching those positions.

My point is that siege warfare was apparently known to both sides although we don't have a lot of evidence about how frequently it was done. We do know that the church does step in occasionally, especially when it perceives its interests threatened. But the church obviously never managed to banish war. And where you have war, there will be sieges.

Don

tootall wrote:Given how hard this retreat is on Sir Rainos formations, I'm reminded of how much trouble I think he'll be in even if he does get back home.
[SNIP]

n7axw wrote:Maybe, but I doubt it. [...]
It is possible that there could be a problem with the Inquisition, but since Ahlverez's own intendent signed off on his decisions, so that will probably be pretty muted. Besides, Zion is presently going to have bigger fish to fry than who is to blame for what in Dohlar.

Don

Ahlverez won't be in trouble with his king - partly because he's a noble. But he will be in deep trouble with the Inquisition and Church hierarchy. Especially as he is such a convenient scape goat for Earl Hennet, who is bound to deflect any blame to someone else. Moreover, if Ahlverez is back in Dohlar, the Inquisition can use his prosecution to vent its anger and give everone else the message: Don't surrender, don't run, don't even propose to, just attack and die. I guess that this message is highly attractive to the Inquisition, even though it will be catastrophic for the CoGA war effort. (Not good cards for Hennet, though .)

As to Ahlverez 40k army: The epilogue in LAMA is conspicuously silent on the ICA deployment against him. But: Both Eastshare and High Mount won't stay at the Kyplyngyr. They will likely resume their advance. And at least one of them will be going in the direction of Evrytyn - where Ahlverez is ultimately headed. You simply can't have 40k enemy troops unaccounted for in your (potential) rear area. So, the ICA will look for him and - if needed - Merlin will drop some hints on Ahlverez' whereabouts.
But what the LAMA epilogue does tell us is that Rychtyr's couriers are looking for Ahlverez. Now, someone will find him, and it'll be bad news. Should be interesting to see how Ahlverez reacts to that - and if the courier is Merlin .

Dilandu wrote:

But the heretics were doing it. Somehow, they must be loading the accursed things from the breech end, like their damned infantry’s rifles!

Hm. Technically, the early bombards were breechloaders; so, the concept of breech-loading guns would not be something really surprizing. The main problems was the durability and reliability; up until the middle XIX century, the avaliable metal and technology simply was unable to build reliable breechloading gun of great calibre. But the concept was very well-known, so the surprise seems a bit too... surprising.

Great snippet

Why should it not be a suprise to one specific man? Even if there were breachloading bombards in the early history, that seems to have been quite a while back - centuries maybe, so the knowledge of them would have faded from general memory. Everyone 'knows' that artiliary pieces are muzzle loaders!

Besides we all know that not everyone is a history buff - especially some soldiers

anwi wrote:

n7axw wrote:Maybe, but I doubt it. [...]
It is possible that there could be a problem with the Inquisition, but since Ahlverez's own intendent signed off on his decisions, so that will probably be pretty muted. Besides, Zion is presently going to have bigger fish to fry than who is to blame for what in Dohlar.

Don

Ahlverez won't be in trouble with his king - partly because he's a noble. But he will be in deep trouble with the Inquisition and Church hierarchy. Especially as he is such a convenient scape goat for Earl Hennet, who is bound to deflect any blame to someone else. Moreover, if Ahlverez is back in Dohlar, the Inquisition can use his prosecution to vent its anger and give everone else the message: Don't surrender, don't run, don't even propose to, just attack and die. I guess that this message is highly attractive to the Inquisition, even though it will be catastrophic for the CoGA war effort. (Not good cards for Hennet, though .)

It's possible that the Inquisition in Dohlar - Bishop Maik may not be unique - realizes that giving too much totally unreasonable trouble to Ahlvarez may make too much trouble for itself and the jihad there. If he gets back, the only surviving Church army of Howard and the Dohlar-Silkiah isthmus will owe their lives to that man. (If there's anything coming out of South Harchong or Delferahk yet, I don't recall what - or have much expectation of it.) Along with Thirsk, the most senior and competent secular military/naval leaders they have are Dohlaran and will be behind that retreat under those circumstances.

Furthermore, scapegoating him will mean setting a precedent for scapegoating every Army of God leader in the same situation - or letting the secular rulers, armies and navies that the Temple will protect its own and give you the shaft.

Even some Inquisitors with the Army of God up north would realize the effect that would have on morale, and the interest in "their" troops in not letting them fall into Charisian/Siddarmark hands. Or not fragging them personally, in some cases.

I'm not guaranteeing or definitely expecting that outbreak of sanity in the Inquisition. Certainly it's not typical of Clyntahn. But it's possible that somewhere, there is someone who may prevent that kind of disaster.