Defeating a numerically superior enemy.

SYED wrote:(SNIP)

Dohlar sent most of its army on attack, and lost most of it, so they are in a vulnerable poition, so the border should be easy to take and secure, depending on what resources they have left, will determine the next step, but dealing with dohlar would help repay the debt they owe charis.

Dohlar has a population of approximately 97 million. Using a rate of 1%, this results in Dohlar having almost a million soldiers under arms.

Dohlar lost about 100 000 men in the Army of Justice. So they still have nearly 900 000 men left.....

(Of course, they are going to be the most poorly trained and armed part of the army - but they satill have most of their army!)

Straight up calculus isn't sufficient in of itself. The British could muster up to 10:1 odds against the Germans in some operations during WWII, yet a motivated commander in a Tiger Tank (Michael Wittmann) could single handedly disrupt and defeat large formations.

In one particular instance Wittman simply drove over a ridgeline and started shooting up a collumn of British armour formed up waiting to advance. The shock and confusion of the attack totally derailed the proposed advance. Now you may argue that Wittman had a technical edge being in a Tiger, but while there was a qualitative edge, Tigers were by no means invulnerable to contemprary Allied tanks (Sherman "Firefly's" and T-34/85's were specifically developed to fight Tigers), and Tiger tanks were also notoriously unreliable. PanzerBattalion 101, which was the Divisional Tiger formation during the Normandy breakout could only field 18 working tanks at any given time against the Canadian and Polish divisions massed against them. And contrary to "Saving Private Ryan", there were no Tiger tanks at all facing the Americans, much of the damage was caused by agressive commanders fighting in Pz.Kpfw. IV tanks, which were roughly equal to contemporary Allied tanks.

In the context of Safehold, the superiority of the EoC forces is much more due to the innovative use of the new equipment than the technical excellence of the equipment itself.

Once again, using WWII as the example, the French had more and better tanks than the Germans in 1940, and in some senses they were fielding better aircraft as well. French command and control parcelled out the tanks in "penny packets" and French doctrine tied the tanks and aircraft to the Infantry, preventing the effective use of the equipment. The Finns had great success in the "Winter War" despite the vast mismatch in numbers against the Russians; their political leadership eventually decided the cost of continuing the war would be far too great for the expected results.

So it isn't all about numbers. Tactical skill, political will and political goals all must factor in as well

The harchong were ready to send their army over the waters of the gulf, if they get sent to dohlar, could they help keep the old boder through sheer numbers, giving them time to produce the needed war materials to hold off the republic.
I wonder how much of the navy resources will be striped away to defend the country, the inquisition may force the nobility to leave the country defenceless, just to keep the navy intact.

One of the qualities was training. Suppose one force was well trained, recently trained, and was trained on the relevant weapons and best tactics. An officer might assign that force a 3. If the enemy force were poorly trained long ago on the wrong weapons, an officer might assign that force a 1. All else being equal, one should expect a well trained force of 1110 people to easily defeat any force of poorly trained people up to 3330, since 1110 times 3 is 3330.

The difference for training can be FAR higher than 3-1.
Same goes for tactics and equipment.

There were several qualities other than training. I definitely remember morale, or how eager the force was to fight. I also remember equipment being one quality. Dunnigan wrote that officers had expressed the opinion that a well-trained, eager force with inferior weapons could easily defeat a poorly-trained, discouraged enemy with superior weapons, because the former force had a multiplier of 3 times 3 times 1, or 9, while the latter had 1 times 1 times 3, or three.

But if that fight was over open ground and the superior weapons were machineguns while the others play with muskets, i´m not going to expect the well-trained force to win no matter what.

I wonder...have any of you read the book, or books on similar topics? What other qualities might a force possess that might give them a multiplier?

Have read a fair amount of books on military forces yes.


*****

But not all units are equal. For example, US tank battalions have a little over 50 tanks while some Soviet style tank battalions have only about 30. To acocunt for this size difference, covert the actual number of units into "US Equivalents."

Just converting purely by numbers will not take into account how those numbers are used.

Our force ratio is now 16 enemy battalion equivalents opposed by 9 friendly battalions, or 1.8:1.

Yes, but those Soviet forces will still maneuver as 27 units, not 16. The flanking (or bypass or overrun) that is likely to allow will have great effect by itself.

This now gives us battalion equivalents of 16 threat and 18 friendly battalions, changing our force ratio to about 1:1.1.

That are still going to by outmaneuvered as long as the guy in charge of those T-55s are even halfway to competent.


*****

and Tiger tanks were also notoriously unreliable. PanzerBattalion 101, which was the Divisional Tiger formation during the Normandy breakout could only field 18 working tanks at any given time against the Canadian and Polish divisions massed against them.

Incorrect. Tigers could be VERY reliable as long as they were properly handled AND had proper maintenance. First ever attack using Tigers found out the first very blatantly when barely any tanks actually took part in the attack(Northwest USSR), while in France 1944, getting spare parts was pretty much unrealistic.

And contrary to "Saving Private Ryan", there were no Tiger tanks at all facing the Americans, much of the damage was caused by agressive commanders fighting in Pz.Kpfw. IV tanks, which were roughly equal to contemporary Allied tanks.

I always find it amusing how many "Tigers" were destroyed by US troops...

Actually, the Pz-IV was overall grossly inferior to most of the wallied tanks.
Simply because they were designed as 20 ton tanks, and by mid 1944, they weighed closer to 30 tons and their hulls and suspensions and pretty much anything to do with drivetrain or moving parts were horribly overstressed far beyond realistic use.

Many Pz-IV at the time went into battle plowing earth before it because the suspension was already broken down.

Hi Thucydides,

There is nothing on Safehold yet that comes close to the tactical superiority of a heavy tank like the Tiger to allied medium tanks, though how do you quantify the alliance artillery superiority, including mortars, [actually ICA] when it is so superior?

The King Harold VII's will easily exceed the Tiger tank tactical superiority when they enter combat in the late summer-fall, but such a naval aspect wasn't part of the original purview of this thread.

A few nits:

While the French tanks averaged bigger guns, their turrets were generally 1-man, compelling the commander to be his own gunner and radioman (when he had the time) and sometimes loader, besides commanding the tank, so that tactically he couldn't compete with the German 3 man turret tanks; the French often didn't realise they were being flanked etc, because their TC's weren't [couldn't] maintaining situational awareness, NTM being too busy to use or listen to the radio etc.

We've all probably hears stories of the Shir Iran [Chieftain] tank that delayed an Iraqi armored advance over a critical bridge for hours during the Iraqi invasion back in '79, but one tank can't change the tide of a campaign or war, however brilliant that crew may be, as the Germans repeatedly demonstrated during their long retreat in WW2.

Trying to stem two continental advances producing only ~50 Tiger tanks a month is simply a recipe for disaster, as it proved to be.

Then we haven't built any new M-1's since '92...

L

Thucydides wrote:Straight up calculus isn't sufficient in of itself. The British could muster up to 10:1 odds against the Germans in some operations during WWII, yet a motivated commander in a Tiger Tank (Michael Wittmann) could single handedly disrupt and defeat large formations.

In one particular instance Wittman simply drove over a ridgeline and started shooting up a collumn of British armour formed up waiting to advance. The shock and confusion of the attack totally derailed the proposed advance. Now you may argue that Wittman had a technical edge being in a Tiger, but while there was a qualitative edge, Tigers were by no means invulnerable to contemprary Allied tanks (Sherman "Firefly's" and T-34/85's were specifically developed to fight Tigers), and Tiger tanks were also notoriously unreliable. PanzerBattalion 101, which was the Divisional Tiger formation during the Normandy breakout could only field 18 working tanks at any given time against the Canadian and Polish divisions massed against them. And contrary to "Saving Private Ryan", there were no Tiger tanks at all facing the Americans, much of the damage was caused by agressive commanders fighting in Pz.Kpfw. IV tanks, which were roughly equal to contemporary Allied tanks.

In the context of Safehold, the superiority of the EoC forces is much more due to the innovative use of the new equipment than the technical excellence of the equipment itself.

Once again, using WWII as the example, the French had more and better tanks than the Germans in 1940, and in some senses they were fielding better aircraft as well. French command and control parcelled out the tanks in "penny packets" and French doctrine tied the tanks and aircraft to the Infantry, preventing the effective use of the equipment. The Finns had great success in the "Winter War" despite the vast mismatch in numbers against the Russians; their political leadership eventually decided the cost of continuing the war would be far too great for the expected results.

So it isn't all about numbers. Tactical skill, political will and political goals all must factor in as well

Hi MWadwell,

You're right as far as it goes, but;

We've been assuming a 1% of the population for the various national armies, yet the IDA had to be expanded to create the AoJ, especially the infantry; so perhaps the 1% is off, which shouldn't be too surprising, given how expensive armies are.

It wouldn't be the first time RFC has carefully implied something, then led us all astray along a different more obvious interpretation.

It may be that like Harchong, much of the RDA is still medieval levies [half?] so the RDA that invaded is a much more critical and larger part of the RDA.

L

MWadwell wrote:

SYED wrote:(SNIP)

Dohlar sent most of its army on attack, and lost most of it, so they are in a vulnerable poition, so the border should be easy to take and secure, depending on what resources they have left, will determine the next step, but dealing with dohlar would help repay the debt they owe charis.

Dohlar has a population of approximately 97 million. Using a rate of 1%, this results in Dohlar having almost a million soldiers under arms.

Dohlar lost about 100 000 men in the Army of Justice. So they still have nearly 900 000 men left.....

(Of course, they are going to be the most poorly trained and armed part of the army - but they satill have most of their army!)

Hi Tenshinai,

As I recall, the first 6 Tigers went to the Leningrad front in the summer of '42 [late July?], but were ambushed on a forest road; unable to maneuver, they were all then easily destroyed by the soviets at little loss.

I understand Hitler was rather miffed.

L

Tenshinai wrote:

One of the qualities was training. Suppose one force was well trained, recently trained, and was trained on the relevant weapons and best tactics. An officer might assign that force a 3. If the enemy force were poorly trained long ago on the wrong weapons, an officer might assign that force a 1. All else being equal, one should expect a well trained force of 1110 people to easily defeat any force of poorly trained people up to 3330, since 1110 times 3 is 3330.

The difference for training can be FAR higher than 3-1.
Same goes for tactics and equipment.

There were several qualities other than training. I definitely remember morale, or how eager the force was to fight. I also remember equipment being one quality. Dunnigan wrote that officers had expressed the opinion that a well-trained, eager force with inferior weapons could easily defeat a poorly-trained, discouraged enemy with superior weapons, because the former force had a multiplier of 3 times 3 times 1, or 9, while the latter had 1 times 1 times 3, or three.

But if that fight was over open ground and the superior weapons were machineguns while the others play with muskets, i´m not going to expect the well-trained force to win no matter what.

I wonder...have any of you read the book, or books on similar topics? What other qualities might a force possess that might give them a multiplier?

Have read a fair amount of books on military forces yes.


*****

But not all units are equal. For example, US tank battalions have a little over 50 tanks while some Soviet style tank battalions have only about 30. To acocunt for this size difference, covert the actual number of units into "US Equivalents."

Just converting purely by numbers will not take into account how those numbers are used.

Our force ratio is now 16 enemy battalion equivalents opposed by 9 friendly battalions, or 1.8:1.

Yes, but those Soviet forces will still maneuver as 27 units, not 16. The flanking (or bypass or overrun) that is likely to allow will have great effect by itself.

This now gives us battalion equivalents of 16 threat and 18 friendly battalions, changing our force ratio to about 1:1.1.

That are still going to by outmaneuvered as long as the guy in charge of those T-55s are even halfway to competent.


*****

and Tiger tanks were also notoriously unreliable. PanzerBattalion 101, which was the Divisional Tiger formation during the Normandy breakout could only field 18 working tanks at any given time against the Canadian and Polish divisions massed against them.

Incorrect. Tigers could be VERY reliable as long as they were properly handled AND had proper maintenance. First ever attack using Tigers found out the first very blatantly when barely any tanks actually took part in the attack(Northwest USSR), while in France 1944, getting spare parts was pretty much unrealistic.

And contrary to "Saving Private Ryan", there were no Tiger tanks at all facing the Americans, much of the damage was caused by agressive commanders fighting in Pz.Kpfw. IV tanks, which were roughly equal to contemporary Allied tanks.

I always find it amusing how many "Tigers" were destroyed by US troops...

Actually, the Pz-IV was overall grossly inferior to most of the wallied tanks.
Simply because they were designed as 20 ton tanks, and by mid 1944, they weighed closer to 30 tons and their hulls and suspensions and pretty much anything to do with drivetrain or moving parts were horribly overstressed far beyond realistic use.

Many Pz-IV at the time went into battle plowing earth before it because the suspension was already broken down.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Tenshinai,

As I recall, the first 6 Tigers went to the Leningrad front in the summer of '42 [late July?], but were ambushed on a forest road; unable to maneuver, they were all then easily destroyed by the soviets at little loss.

I understand Hitler was rather miffed.

L

First 4 in August and they were sent forward single file across wet terrain, after a too long roadmarsch that already had them in need of basic maintenance. Quickly taken out of action but their armour was not penetrated at all, 3 of the 4 were recovered.

Essentially, COs had to plan the use of Tigers a bit different from lighter tanks due to how they needed maintenance after any prolonged movement. Give the crews an hour after the inital approach towards a battlefield and they could be very reliable when entering combat afterwards.
Try to skip on the maintenance and a quarter even a third would break down before the day was over.

When used correctly by a CO, some crews managed to keep their Tigers running for weeks of combat without breakdowns, which is actually better than other tanks.

Hence why i reject the notion of it being unreliable. It was simply too heavy for what tech at the time could manage, so it had to be pampered a bit to make sure nothing fell off at a bad time.

THe roads on the main land were built to epic standards, so I was thinking, they could create something like an armored tank, or gun carriage, moved by peddle power possibly. how would an army defeat an armored vehicles on such perfect roads.

SYED wrote:...how would an army defeat an armored vehicles on such perfect roads.

Make the roads less perfect?