HFQ Official Snippet #9

runsforcelery wrote:SNIP
On the other hand, Makrohry himself had been raised amid the beautiful, bitter peaks of northern Chisholm’s Snow Crest Mountains, and all of his units had been exhaustively trained in winter warfare at Raylzberg, perched high in the westernmost spur of the Lonely Mountains above High Hallow’s Stonewater Lake. The Royal Chisholmian Army had made a point of acclimating all of its units to winter marches, but only about a third of the entire army had been trained in actual winter war fighting, which was a much more demanding regimen.

fighting with dragons eh

Finally... I have been so waiting for the advance into Midhold and beyond, getting the feeling of the land again...

Chief, "Happy up coming birthday, RFC"



Poker

grimble wrote:If 5000 M96's were captured and it's only Rock Port showing anxiety, does this mean that the production lines are in full swing? Is this just a way for RFC to make the main land powers have to innovate again to keep up with Charis?

(First time post, looooong time lurker)

Allow me to speak for us all in welcoming your 1st post. If you've been lurking you know the drill, don't be a stranger, make us of the facilities and have one on us at the bar. Of course getting us to pay for it might be another thing entirely!

As for your comment about this being a method for RFC to make the CoGA innovate again , I refer you to the classic A.C.Clarke short story "Superiority" with an evil grin!
http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clark ... ority.html

Hello RFC!

Thank you so much!

I hope you, Sharon and Morgan are feeling better.

All the best!

I assumed we would get the casualties and cargo list in this snippet.

Unfortunately, McGuiness, from the small amounts listed, those ships probably carried a lot of ammunition.

From the Raw Meat post, the average Charisian galleon was 1300 tons [compared to 937 for everybody else's], so it might be as much as several thousand tons.

Since this just happened, and Rock Point can't officially take notice until a normal message arrives, but a SNARC sensor could quietly start a fire aboard them, though this appears to be something too important for that.

It might be seeing EoC tech up close will convince the Desnari leadership they need to seriously catch up; start their own production circles, and encourage any innovators they can find, so Merlin may be more philosophic than the rest of the inner circle about these losses.

While 5000 M96's and a hundred mortars etc seem a lot, if unloaded south at Geyra or Desnar, the number sent to the temple will likely be relatively few (10-20%?), and the bulk left in Desnar, where I could see only a few units equipped with them, like the palace guard, and 2-3 of the favored 'household' regiments, but many, perhaps half or so, will be distributed to the nobility, quietly according to their influence, perhaps only one or two per baronial family, and so dispersed their battlefield effectiveness will be nil.

By the time the Go4 demand more [half or 2/3?], it might take a while to collect them all again, and who knows; the ICN might have a chance to recover them in the Gulf of Dohlar or Silkiah.

Time wise it could take at least 3 month's to ship them to Zion after they arrive at Desnar; ~7000 miles from Zion -assuming they travel only 40-50 miles per day-, particularly if avoiding the central Gulf of Dohlar, since Sharpfield's schooners may be on the lookout for such cargoes, NTM the KH VII's arriving in July-August; although the ICN might have already taken Silkiah and the canal before the shipments get to the Gulf of Hankey (~May?).

Commodore Zhastro might be soon on his way to visit the port where the captured ships were sent with his squadron of City class ironclads, I hope with a large contingent of Marines aboard to raid the warehouses etc.

Thanks to steam power, he might arrive far sooner than the Desnari expect.

But that's just one option our marvelous storyteller can take!

Thanks again RFC!

L

Hi InvisibleBison,

Thanks for accenting these points.

If there were small steam engines for the army engineers [sawmills and pneumatic or hydraulic chain saws anyone?], I'd be very worried, but RP would have thought about that too, so apparently not.

Winter war is so specialized that I wondered about the whole army having time to really learn how to do it well in just a single winter, particularly for the new recruits training, so having dedicated seriously experienced northern RCA units eases my mind considerably.

What other tech did you have in mind?

L

InvisibleBison wrote:Thanks for the snippet!

runsforcelery wrote:The captured cargoes, however, had provided Desinair with five thousand precious M96 rifles, almost a hundred three-inch mortars, and two entire batteries of four-inch rifled field guns . . . among other things.

I really hope those "other things" are just various uninteresting supplies, not something super-useful to the Church.

runsforcelery wrote:The Royal Chisholmian Army had made a point of acclimating all of its units to winter marches, but only about a third of the entire army had been trained in actual winter war fighting, which was a much more demanding regimen.

Man, the Army of the Sylmahn is so doomed! I can't wait to see how things go, and how Clyntahn reacts.

Hi Grimble,

Welcome and enjoy yourself; since Charybdis beat me offering you your cg favorite beverage on the cg forum.

Evidently.

Desnar, as the least innovating continental power after northern Harchong, is the least likely to take advantage of their windfall, if they remain as blind as Harless.

I suspect they are smarter than that, or Desnar is toast sooner than later.

But I doubt they will share it willingly with south Harchong, despite all those new open hearth furnaces they've just built, which are virtually cut off from Haven.

So many fascinating ways this can still go!

L

grimble wrote:If 5000 M96's were captured and it's only Rock Port showing anxiety, does this mean that the production lines are in full swing? Is this just a way for RFC to make the main land powers have to innovate again to keep up with Charis?

(First time post, looooong time lurker)

Lyonheart, thanks for saying much better what I was thinking than I can do myself.

And it stimulates me to wonder about a few things.

lyonheart wrote:
Hello RFC!

Thank you so much!

I hope you, Sharon and Morgan are feeling better.

All the best!

<snip>

It might be seeing EoC tech up close will convince the Desnari leadership they need to seriously catch up; start their own production circles, and encourage any innovators they can find, so Merlin may be more philosophic than the rest of the inner circle about these losses.

I wonder what a cavalry oriented military leadership, who can’t even learn from their own failings, can learn from the new weapons.

Do they realize that the time of gallant nobles fighting honorable wars on horseback is over? They never got the lessons the Siddarmarkian pikeman tought them on the battlefield.
And now they should realize what those ugly rifles in ordinary wooden crates imply? They are not engraved, no little shield from a famous weapons smith on the but, and no beautifully crafted case. At best they can be a problem for their levis of peons, but not for Them!

lyonheart wrote:
While 5000 M96's and a hundred mortars etc seem a lot, if unloaded south at Geyra or Desnar, the number sent to the temple will likely be relatively few (10-20%?), and the bulk left in Desnar, where I could see only a few units equipped with them, like the palace guard, and 2-3 of the favored 'household' regiments, but many, perhaps half or so, will be distributed to the nobility, quietly according to their influence, perhaps only one or two per baronial family, and so dispersed their battlefield effectiveness will be nil.

<snip>

Thanks again RFC!

L

I would not be surprised if less than 1-2% is shipped to Zion and then less than a dozen back to Dohlar. Enough to scare the hell out of the military men over there and start a new round of R&D.

In Desnair meanwhile?
Perhaps the mortars are used to equip army units. But as you say, the rifles will be dispersed as toys and tokens of status. Not many of them will reach a battlefield.

Thanks!

We shouldn't sell Desnair too short---but we shouldn't sell Desnair too long either!

About the only good news is that when those rifles run out of ammo, they are done. Certainly no one on the COGA's side is going to be able to deplicate it.

Can you imagine the conversation between Thirsk and his pet wizzard when they get an M96 on the bench?

Don

lyonheart wrote:Hi InvisibleBison,

Thanks for accenting these points.

If there were small steam engines for the army engineers [sawmills and pneumatic or hydraulic chain saws anyone?], I'd be very worried, but RP would have thought about that too, so apparently not.

Winter war is so specialized that I wondered about the whole army having time to really learn how to do it well in just a single winter, particularly for the new recruits training, so having dedicated seriously experienced northern RCA units eases my mind considerably.

What other tech did you have in mind?

L

Aside from steam engines (or more precise information about how to make them than was in that briefcase the Church got in LaMA), the only specific idea I had was some industrial information intended for Siddarmarkians, though I don't know how likely it would be for such info to be shipping on an army cargo ship, if it was shipping at all. My comment was more expressing vague apprehensions about the erosion of Charis's tech supremacy.