Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

Joat42 wrote:I do recommend that people use some automatic backup/sync software for important files since the investment in time to set it up is minuscule compared to the time it takes to try to restore a crashed disk and lost data.

Just remember that the statistical minimum for a good backup is 3 independent copies, which means *power supplies* as well as storage devices. So USB stick, external drive, cloud (all cloud together counts as 1 because you're really depending on your network connection) and you've got a backup. Just an external drive, and you don't.

Which, arguably, means the Charisian Empire's nascent industrial revolution isn't properly backed up until there's an equivalent of the Delthak Works on Chisholm and in Siddarmark.

Graydon wrote:Which, arguably, means the Charisian Empire's nascent industrial revolution isn't properly backed up until there's an equivalent of the Delthak Works on Chisholm and in Siddarmark.

It would be clearly an enormous stress on the Charisian tools and machinery production capabilites.

Hovewer, it would be effective to create at least some industrial capabilites in Charisian dominions, colonies and allies (the problem with later, is that the ally may someday turn into the concurrent). Actually, one of my objections agains iron-hulled ships (like KH's) was that it would be nearly impossbile to repair them anywhere but in the Charis itself.

Dilandu wrote:Actually, one of my objections agains iron-hulled ships (like KH's) was that it would be nearly impossbile to repair them anywhere but in the Charis itself.

This is true, but it's a bit like the coaling stations; if they were fighting another equivalent navy, you'd need lots, and distribution of facilities, and depth of trained crews, and so on.

The ICN isn't fighting an equivalent navy; they can totally expect to get away with loading up a couple ships with spares and artificers and a small flotilla with coal and sending it along behind. The most likely source of damage to the KH's is a collision within the squadron.

Defeat happens in the other's guy's head, and the Charisians do need to defeat the Church. Part of that is showing up in something the Temple Loyalists simply can't build, and fail to be smote by God for the presumption. So I'd say there's a good strategic purpose to the KH's right there. (Rather like the USN parking battleships in Tokyo Bay at the end of the Great Pacific War. It makes an inescapable point.)

Of course, the KHs might actually be needed at some point; I can't see how the Church could possibly build unreasonably many ships in a way that escapes detection, but I can see a combination of weather, misdirection, and swarm tactics being used to get a significant number of ships somewhere the ICN isn't. There isn't a whole lot of depth to various blockades, and if one of them fails I can see some high-speed steaming from the KH's being the only way to get something in front of it, before, for instance, rebellious Chisholmian nobles receive weapons and reinforcements from the Church.

Hi Graydon,

Kudos for some excellent points.

We have textev that steel mills just as big as Delthak have been building for 3 books now, and are about to go online, so trebling the EoC's steel production ought to improve production of a lot of non military items like agricultural machinery, steam engines for industry etc.

The amount of weapons a schooner commerce raider could carry to Chisholm isn't enough to truly threaten Chisholm, but more than enough for Sharleyan to hang all her guilty nobles.

L

Graydon wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Actually, one of my objections agains iron-hulled ships (like KH's) was that it would be nearly impossbile to repair them anywhere but in the Charis itself.

This is true, but it's a bit like the coaling stations; if they were fighting another equivalent navy, you'd need lots, and distribution of facilities, and depth of trained crews, and so on.

The ICN isn't fighting an equivalent navy; they can totally expect to get away with loading up a couple ships with spares and artificers and a small flotilla with coal and sending it along behind. The most likely source of damage to the KH's is a collision within the squadron.

Defeat happens in the other's guy's head, and the Charisians do need to defeat the Church. Part of that is showing up in something the Temple Loyalists simply can't build, and fail to be smote by God for the presumption. So I'd say there's a good strategic purpose to the KH's right there. (Rather like the USN parking battleships in Tokyo Bay at the end of the Great Pacific War. It makes an inescapable point.)

Of course, the KHs might actually be needed at some point; I can't see how the Church could possibly build unreasonably many ships in a way that escapes detection, but I can see a combination of weather, misdirection, and swarm tactics being used to get a significant number of ships somewhere the ICN isn't. There isn't a whole lot of depth to various blockades, and if one of them fails I can see some high-speed steaming from the KH's being the only way to get something in front of it, before, for instance, rebellious Chisholmian nobles receive weapons and reinforcements from the Church.

lyonheart wrote:We have textev that steel mills just as big as Delthak have been building for 3 books now, and are about to go online, so trebling the EoC's steel production ought to improve production of a lot of non military items like agricultural machinery, steam engines for industry etc.

Once the machine tools follow on; steel production's great, but then you need to be able to do something with it, and that's harder. (Making the steam engines to make the steam engines. So, yes, the Empire has been diligent about this but they are also still vulnerable if something happens to the Delthak Works before the instrument shop and the bit-makers and so on are duplicated.

lyonheart wrote:The amount of weapons a schooner commerce raider could carry to Chisholm isn't enough to truly threaten Chisholm, but more than enough for Sharleyan to hang all her guilty nobles.

It depends on how many get through but it may also depend on what the Temple is trying to do. And you prepare for threats you know about, it's an axiom.

The Temple has an effective breech-loading rifle that they haven't deployed in battle; it's quite possible that they believe the Charisians don't know about it. The Temple doesn't know Sharleyan is in Corisande, either. So it's quite possible for someone like Rayno to conclude, hurm, Chisholm is loyal to Sharleyan, really, the House of Tate is the lynchpin of Chisholmian politics and we really don't approve of the House of Tate. Sharleyan has the heir, and there's only one heir, and not much army on hand, it's mostly in Siddarmark. Let's send six crates of rifles and a skilled instructor or two to Chisholm with the intent of killing Sharleyan and the heir; good security can't prepare for something it doesn't know about, and an ambush by a force of a hundred men armed with breech-loaders would be such a thing. Sharleyan doesn't go everywhere with a dragoon battalion, after all, and as far as the heretics know all the rifles are in their hands.

Assassinate Sharleyan and it would get Cayleb out of Siddarmark and it ought to force Cayleb to try to hang on to Chisholm (the Temple doesn't expect Chisholm to be loyal to Cayleb) which will, at worst, disorder this army we're fighting and at best cause it to collapse into fighting itself as loyalties to Charleyan become different and hopefully (if you're Rayno) other loyalties.

That's one schooner and sneaking. A schooner that's not sneaking and you can land artillery, and better artillery is no defense against artillery you don't know about. An urban artillery ambush has everything to recommend it from the Temple's point of view, it's the kind of thing that has actually worked for them before, especially as they'll be getting wildly optimistic accounts of the noble's chances of recovering control of Chisholm once Sharleyan is dead.

SNARCs might well tell the inner circle this is happening, but it's not obvious how they'd manage to deal with it without giving away the demonic assistance.

Graydon wrote:...snip...
Assassinate Sharleyan and it would get Cayleb out of Siddarmark and it ought to force Cayleb to try to hang on to Chisholm (the Temple doesn't expect Chisholm to be loyal to Cayleb) which will, at worst, disorder this army we're fighting and at best cause it to collapse into fighting itself as loyalties to Charleyan become different and hopefully (if you're Rayno) other loyalties.

You would think that Merlin/Owl keeps close tabs on Sharleyan after the last assassination attempt, or for that matter everyone in the inner circle. Do you really expect her to wander about without escort? I doubt it.

Joat42 wrote:

Graydon wrote:...snip...
Assassinate Sharleyan and it would get Cayleb out of Siddarmark and it ought to force Cayleb to try to hang on to Chisholm (the Temple doesn't expect Chisholm to be loyal to Cayleb) which will, at worst, disorder this army we're fighting and at best cause it to collapse into fighting itself as loyalties to Charleyan become different and hopefully (if you're Rayno) other loyalties.

You would think that Merlin/Owl keeps close tabs on Sharleyan after the last assassination attempt, or for that matter everyone in the inner circle. Do you really expect her to wander about without escort? I doubt it.

Of course Charleyan (is that an S or a C?) is closely watched. The Temple doesn't know that, or, rather, the Temple doesn't have the least clue of what that actually means.

They do know that the Empress doesn't normally have a large escort; it's a political thing, an expression of trust in her populace which is important to someone whose primary support comes from the Commons. (Something both Emperor and Empress make a point of, and are loved for.) So, sure, let's suppose a platoon of dragoons with the coach. A battery of worthless old 12lb smoothbores and a hundred guys with breech-loading rifles somewhere there just isn't an alternate road and there has been time to put in serious concealment? Rayno would have to think that would work.

How you keep that from working without looking like you're getting direct demonic aid is a bit of a poser, too. "I want a dragoon regiment today" is something the Empress can perfectly well say, but it's going to produce "how did she know?" questions.

Graydon wrote: Let's send six crates of rifles and a skilled instructor or two to Chisholm with the intent of killing Sharleyan and the heir; good security can't prepare for something it doesn't know about, and an ambush by a force of a hundred men armed with breech-loaders would be such a thing.

You really assume, that a bunch of hundread riflemens lurking around in Chisholm would be mistaken for the extraordinarily large cat-lizards?

...This time, the unfortunate"spie" was drunk as usuall, dressed only in two big flour bags, and tried to convince usm that he is camouflaged as a morning mist. (c)

Hi Graydon,

I forgot to mention the two new steel mills are at Tellesburg and Maikelberg.

I've posted before that a couple of schooner loads of much more than a hundred rifles NTM artillery, to support a rebellion of thousands of TL's are possible, but that Rock Coast Keep, Dragon Hill etc and the nominally smarter TL nobles are terrified when the guns arrive without warning.

Trying to send a hundred armed men from Chisholm's west coast all the way to Cherayth [over 2000 miles] without them becoming known to the authorities seems a stretch given how the government is already well inserted into the TL noble network, watching them.

Imagine the reaction of these would be assassins when they learn Sharleyan has been gone for month's, NTM they think they should have found more support in Corisande etc; but what do they do now?

It could be very entertaining for the inner circle to watch the TL noble's trying to dance around the assassin's blackmail, a comedy of errors etc amid the fierce fighting in Siddarmark.

L

Graydon wrote:

lyonheart wrote:We have textev that steel mills just as big as Delthak have been building for 3 books now, and are about to go online, so trebling the EoC's steel production ought to improve production of a lot of non military items like agricultural machinery, steam engines for industry etc.

Once the machine tools follow on; steel production's great, but then you need to be able to do something with it, and that's harder. (Making the steam engines to make the steam engines. So, yes, the Empire has been diligent about this but they are also still vulnerable if something happens to the Delthak Works before the instrument shop and the bit-makers and so on are duplicated.

lyonheart wrote:The amount of weapons a schooner commerce raider could carry to Chisholm isn't enough to truly threaten Chisholm, but more than enough for Sharleyan to hang all her guilty nobles.

It depends on how many get through but it may also depend on what the Temple is trying to do. And you prepare for threats you know about, it's an axiom.

The Temple has an effective breech-loading rifle that they haven't deployed in battle; it's quite possible that they believe the Charisians don't know about it. The Temple doesn't know Sharleyan is in Corisande, either. So it's quite possible for someone like Rayno to conclude, hurm, Chisholm is loyal to Sharleyan, really, the House of Tate is the lynchpin of Chisholmian politics and we really don't approve of the House of Tate. Sharleyan has the heir, and there's only one heir, and not much army on hand, it's mostly in Siddarmark. Let's send six crates of rifles and a skilled instructor or two to Chisholm with the intent of killing Sharleyan and the heir; good security can't prepare for something it doesn't know about, and an ambush by a force of a hundred men armed with breech-loaders would be such a thing. Sharleyan doesn't go everywhere with a dragoon battalion, after all, and as far as the heretics know all the rifles are in their hands.

Assassinate Sharleyan and it would get Cayleb out of Siddarmark and it ought to force Cayleb to try to hang on to Chisholm (the Temple doesn't expect Chisholm to be loyal to Cayleb) which will, at worst, disorder this army we're fighting and at best cause it to collapse into fighting itself as loyalties to Charleyan become different and hopefully (if you're Rayno) other loyalties.

That's one schooner and sneaking. A schooner that's not sneaking and you can land artillery, and better artillery is no defense against artillery you don't know about. An urban artillery ambush has everything to recommend it from the Temple's point of view, it's the kind of thing that has actually worked for them before, especially as they'll be getting wildly optimistic accounts of the noble's chances of recovering control of Chisholm once Sharleyan is dead.

SNARCs might well tell the inner circle this is happening, but it's not obvious how they'd manage to deal with it without giving away the demonic assistance.

A schooner that's not sneaking and you can land artillery, and better artillery is no defense against artillery you don't know about. An urban artillery ambush has everything to recommend it from the Temple's point of view, it's the kind of thing that has actually worked for them before, especially as they'll be getting wildly optimistic accounts of the noble's chances of recovering control of Chisholm once Sharleyan is dead.

Oh, what could be more common than a bunch of a hundred zealous-type riflemens, just jogging around with the gun on the leash? Surely, no one even look at them twice!

So, sure, let's suppose a platoon of dragoons with the coach. A battery of worthless old 12lb smoothbores and a hundred guys with breech-loading rifles somewhere there just isn't an alternate road and there has been time to put in serious concealment? Rayno would have to think that would work.

Yes, yes, there is nothing more trivial in Chisholm, that guns, placed near the road.

Rayno would have to think that would work.

In that case, Clyntahn and Dushrain would both have serious doubts about his mental health.