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lyonheart
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 4853
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:27 pm
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Hi Henry Brown,
Yes the IHA's MHoGatA is very big but also vulnerable.
Picking up the rifles from the dead front ranks was a Russian practice more from the first world war than the second, while the Chicoms in Korea were famous or infamous for doing that 'human wave' tactic almost constantly.
Passing on the rifles to the remaining pike-men who aren't trained to shoot will still lessen the MHoGatA's effectiveness in modern war.
Given the time it takes for a non alliance army to assemble itself on the battlefield, I expect Go4 armies to suffer very heavy casualties not just at the front but well behind the nominal battle line before their leaders realise they're being attacked and destroyed across a far greater area than they realised.
Even if most stay along canals for supply reasons, when it can no longer rely on the church to get the locals to feed it as it passes, it will be extremely vulnerable and unless much [perhaps most] of its manpower is diverted to protecting its supplies, it will suffer the same fate as the AoS.
Then again I'm not sure how much of IHA infantry could get within range of alliance infantry trying to cross an open field around 2000 yards long, which at 3 mph [fast for that battlefield distance] would take ~23 minutes, enough for each mortar to drop over 200 rounds; or 38,400 for just one division, and a single 3 deep rifle line means at least ~100 men are at risk from each shell.
I've posted several times that the ICA dragoons with their mortars don't need machine guns to destroy Go4 armies, that are kept ignorant by the scout snipers until its too late.
I envision short barrages of generally 3 prepared rounds to keep reaction time to a minimum [7-8 seconds], 5-6 rounds during the night before everyone is awake, then shifting to hit another before it realizes what's happened.
Consider a sub army marching on a high road, each 1000 man infantry regiment being roughly 100 yards long with a 30-50 yard gap to let the dust settle, a 3 mortar squad could eviscerate that whole regiment with a single volley.
Now multiply that by 32 for the 96 mortars in a dragoon brigade, though DE had twice that ratio on the Daivyn in Glacierheart, and 32 regiments could get the same treatment without warning, indeed the regiments next to those would have almost as little warning in the 9-10 seconds for three prepared rounds, though a single mortar attacking each regiment seems preposterous, such would need the least correction while causing somewhere between 70-90,000 casualties for less than 300 mortar rounds and no alliance losses in this very admittedly ideal situation; although it could be repeated at least a few times along the line of march to units who were out of earshot and the horse born messengers haven't arrived yet.
Then consider their bivouac at night where the tents are lined up back to back not very far apart [I'm figuring 24'X24' with 24 men in each for 4 per company up to 24' apart] because they've been doing it that way for month's and have no indication any enemy is near; but the mortars are carefully lined up and drop 4-5 rounds, one on each 4 tent cluster before most are awake and then repeats before shifting to another brigade /and/or waiting 3-4 hours through the night; thus tens of thousands more can be taken off the rolls of the MHoGatA in a single night, while the rest are kept awake for at least several nights worrying about who are they going to hit tonight.
The response of providing extra shelter for their tents might be by using wood from a nearby forest to provide a wooden frame and roof outside the tent to absorb shell fragments, backed by dirt filled wooden walls along the sides; but it will cost hours of effort, and halve their daily march rate, which alone might be one of the dragoons' missions to slow them down.
Then consider meal times, particularly breakfast, when the kitchen tents, waiting lines, serving and eating areas are targeted; practiced over a few days, the soldiers will not only be hungry and tired from lack of sleep, but very frustrated and angry, NTM not thinking very clearly when the time for their slaughter has ripened.
I've played the 'tactical' 5 yard interval gap at meals to avoid grenades game many a time, but such was never meant to avoid heavy casualties from artillery or mortars.
Dispersion is of course the first response, quadrupling distances between tents would reduce those targets to single tents, etc but on the march the intervals can't get to big; quadrupling the intervals will stretch the road the army occupies 4 times as long and still an inviting target, besides critically reducing how much of the army can reach the front or some other vulnerable parts if its attacked, before the whole is destroyed in detail, besides questions of supplies reaching the front units when they have 4 times as far to go etc.
Being an ex-artillery man, I'm more than aware we miss more than occasionally and despite their shorter range, so do mortars, but these are targets hard to miss.
Nonetheless, the carnage a dragoon brigade or two ["Look out! There's two of them!"] could do to one of the sub armies seems quite considerable.
The MHoGatA cavalry, particularly those out scouting and or patrolling will be the first to experience these lessons, not that many will pass them on, since after their tents are hit and horses driven off, they'll also be very susceptible to destruction in detail.
It will be interesting to see which RFC uses from from those above.
Can you suggest other possibilities?
L
[quote="Henry Brown"][quote="n7axw"]
Just visualize how long the Harchongese flank must be along that canal. Heck, you could even divide your 100,000 man army into 4 sections each supplied with mortars hit it about four places. Their mobility is going to suck. There is no way on earth they could react and concentrate enough to prevent you from really raising havoc and chopping up their lines. Then, too, remember that only about 600,000 of that army are armed with rifles at all, and that mostly muzzle loaders. The rest are arbalasts, bows and stone slings, for pity sake.
Don[/quote]
The scarcity of rifles adds an addition factor to the coming campaign I really haven't seen addressed yet. Due to the shortage of rifles in the Harchongese army, I think it is nearly as important to capture the rifles as it is to inflict casualties.
Lets face it, the HA is so large that they can absorb extremely heavy losses. If the HA has 1.5 million men and they suffer 60,000 casualties in an engagement then that represents only 2.5% of the HA. If the HA is allowed to recover the rifles of these men, they are merely going to pass them onto other men who currently don't have rifles and are going to keep coming.
In fact, I believe the Soviet Union did this kind of thing in WWII. I seem to remember battles in the early stage of the war where the Red Army had a similar shortage of rifles. Their solution was to have the men who had not received rifles advance behind the men who did have them. They were instructed to pick up weapons of fallen men from the 1st wave and to join the fight. If permitted to do so, I could see the HA using similar tactics.
The obvious solution to this would be for the ICA to capture the rifles. As I mentioned earlier, if the ICA inflicts 60,000 casualties on the HA then that is only about 2.5% of the total strength. However, if they can inflict those losses AND capture 60,000 rifles then they have dealt with 10% of the HA's rifle supply.[/quote]
Any snippet or post from RFC is good if not great!
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