Thank you Anwi,
For such an excellent response.
Your answer to McGuiness's first point was superb, and right again to his second.
Regarding McGuiness's tenuous second point about the size of the MHoGatA and their apparent 640,000 rifles etc and how they should have been engaged last year before they got so good.
Permit me to disagree.
Last fall the alliance had barely 30,000 rifle equipped infantry in-country, against some 57-60,000 AoG, besides the RDA with another 30,000 and the IDA with almost 18,000 more; while the MHoGatA was too far away to get to Lake City before winter froze everything in the first place and they had some 77,000 more rifles for a total roughly 6 times what the alliance had before Symkyn arrived.
Secondly the IHA's improvements and improved training are by the standards of Wyrshym's AoG of last year, which against a vastly under equipped RSA wasn't all that great to start with, which is still remarkably ignorant of what BGV did, and with how little he did it with.
Now here in March of 897, there are something like 360,000 ICA combat troops in theater since the middle of November, before the troop ships mentioned the snippets, besides some 400,000 RSA troops now equipped with rifles for over 750,000 alliance rifle equipped troops by this spring, already more than all the remaining CoGA armies, NTM before Wyrshym and Kaitswyrth are destroyed with their ~28,000 remaining rifles [~19,000 for Wyrshym and ~9,000 for Kaitswyrth], and the Army of Shiloh's roughly 60,000 captured rifles and muskets, or the ~300,000 more EoC M96's to be delivered in Siddarmark this year, or the republic's own increased rifle production, so by the end of the year the alliance might be approaching having twice as many rifles in theater than what Duchairn arranged to provide the MHoGatA, before it loses big to the ICA, given all the textev references to the ICA being able to easily beat armies 2-3 times their own size straight-up from MTaT onwards.
Keep in mind nearly a third of the MHoGatA's rifles were made by the Border States, and will be rather difficult to maintain, given their piecework nature.
The MHoGatA don't have mortars, they can't; they don't have indirect artillery capability, they don't have massive artillery superiority, which will soon include breech loaders and smokeless cordite etc, as they should be delivering it into the theater in quantity by the end of summer, in time to rewrite the lessons they'll have taught the Harchong armies they've destroyed up to then.
From Thirsk's comments about the loss of the AoS, the Go4 will have to send a replacement army, the only one available being the MHoGatA, but will they send all of it?
Given Clyntahn's apparent preference for mass, he may insist on sending everything south even though quarter armies make more sense.
Then after ~3-4 more 5days, the Go4 get word Wyrshym has been wiped out while its still winter, when armies were always supposed to be neutralized by the weather; except the ICA isn't playing by those rules either, so the Go4 have to send something back north to replace Wyrshym, only now it'll reach Lake City at least a half month later in the year than the AoG did in 896.
Will the Go4 still subscribe to mass over economy of force, and send half the MHoGatA back north?
Only to learn 2-3 5days later that Symkyn has destroyed Kaitswyrth, so they split the northern force in half again to send a quarter army due east, effectively army group center, which discovers why the EoC built so many river ironclads...
By the time the northern army group reaches Lake City etc, BGV will have reached Five Forks, and Symkyn will be in position to cut the Langhorne Canal behind them, putting BGV in position to visit Zion a few 5days later.
Things will be fascinating in the south with Silkiah being liberated, the Salthar canal canal taken, Dohlar collapsing, Howard being physically isolated from Haven, what EHM and DE will do to the rest of the IHA will be fun to watch too.
I don't see any fortified position the MHoGatA can take [like Dairnyth] or make that the ICA can't isolate and starve them into surrender long before anything the Go4 can do to rescue them.
Saying Nynian is up to something huge only understates the snippets we've got so far.
So I'm far more confident about where HFQ is headed, and desperate for another snippet.
-Cue 1930's depression music; "Brother, can you spare another snippet?"-
I hope all had a great Thanksgiving.
L
anwi wrote:McGuiness wrote:Actually, I'm fairly
worried about what happens on the battlefield next summer for two reasons: the Harchongese contingent of the CoGA's army, and the fact that there are NO weapons currently in use that the church hasn't managed to reverse engineer, or even improve!
(snip)
Even the introduction of the M96 won't help much. It will speed up the rate of fire, but initially it will still use black powder so the resulting smoke will obscure the enemy, which makes the rate of fire relatively unimportant. (snip) The church already has 4000 of them, so Magwair will understand what his troops are up against even though the church
cannot duplicate brass cartridge ammunition. (If Charis was
really lucky there was no ammo on the captured ship with the 4000 M96's aboard!)
BGV should wipe the map with Wyrshym, clear the north end of the Sylmahn Gap, take Guarnak, and drive northwest towards the oncoming church reinforcements - the Harchongese. Kaitswyrth is toast, and Ahlverez may or may not be caught and decimated before he escapes into Dohlar, but if a large portion of the Harchongese are diverted to help Dohlar, things are going to be quite dicey in the south as well.
(snip)
Yes, the CoGA is in an unenviable position, but after the initial setbacks in HFQ, it will have both the manpower and the armaments to meet the allies on an even playing field, and
that won't be pretty!
Several comments:
First, the last generation EoC weapons are (as far as I understand it) described as superior to everything the CoGA has and, moreover, the CoGA isn't even able to duplicate the captured weapons because that exceeds their technological capabilities. (And there was ammo on the captured transports, whereever they ended up.) Consequently, the EoC can innovate itself out of significant problems.
Second, when the Harchongese become militarily significant, the RSA should have deployed unit numbers with rifles and artillery that are significant even compared to the "mighty" host.
Third, the effectiveness of the "mighty" host depends on the strategic approach by the parties. I assume that the Harchongese under Temple Guard guidance could realistically be able to successfully defend a well prepared position. (Note: Success being defined as inflicting casualty numbers on the ICA that make an attack prohibitively costly.) So, if the ICA would try to wipe the CoGA from the whole of the RoS, then it would get interesting. Conversely, that "mighty" host will be less effective on the offensive (coordination and transport being much more difficult) and vulnerable to the defence in depth strategy and tactics already seen successfully implemented by the ICA. (Note: The ICA didn't have a lot of choice, but effectively they sucked their enemies in and then defeated them by counterattacks and cutting lines of communication).
Forth, I don't see the inner circle risking excessive casualties, so they should refrain from attacking a superior number force in prepared positions with adequate weaponry. I don't see Clyntahn understanding the limitations of his "mighty" army, thus sending them to disaster. Therefore, I'm wondering how RFC will create the tension he needs. We'll see.
Fifth, with the increased activity at Nimue's Cave, there's something significant in the woods. I'm not sure what, but I fully expect that it will change the paradigm of the current military conflict.
