HFQ Offical Snippet #18

Lyonheart, Don is counting all the RDA troops who stayed at home, perhaps rather conservatively, since he was responding to posts about invading Dohlar.

tootall wrote:Getting an 18 meter elevation advantage may be trickier, when Delthak is normally at the local water level. How much range would they have against targets, say, up to 10m over Delthak?


And what are the chances that there are some 30-50 meter hills between water level and our target? Pretty good I'd think.
Any forward observer will have to be able to see both the target and the battery involved.

Oh yes, the chances are excellent. But scout-snipers can climb hills. It's more complicated, but if need be, a string of them with heliographs, creating a chain in which one end has line-of-sight to the target, each link has LOS to the next, and the last has LOS to Delthak, would work. Bit clunky, of course, but doable. If you saw the situation coming up, you'd want the scout-snipers to get into position or very close to it covertly beforehand, and then Delthak pulls up and can get to firing quickly. For that matter, that recon can tell you when/if there's a worthwhile target at all.

lyonheart wrote:Hi JeffEngel,

Kudos for some excellent reasoning!

You may well be right, since we know so little about Nynian's full capabilities.

Preparing something that would ease any military action by Charis, since Silkiah is such an obvious naval target, would be greatly appreciated by the EoC, but it'd have too be rather subtle to be overlooked by the inquisition, possibly emphasizing the Empire's ending serfdom, free trade etc throughout the rest of the empire in newspapers or anonymous pamphlets or broadsheets she owned and operated through third parties before the SoS, in contrast to how Silkians are now treated in their own country by the inquisition.

After all if it works for the mysterious broadsheet network [OWL's], why not hers?

She might consider it a challenge to figure out how it might possibly be done by mortals as a test or proof [if her organization can't do it, are seijins the only explanation?] then that perhaps someone with some special tools like Seijin Khody, which might have encouraged her belief there's another seijin at work.

What are some other tricks you think she might have come up with or prepared in Silkiah?

L

Specifically, anything to get Inquisitors in Silkiah - or at least, the leadership and any likely to take initiative - dead, captive, or out of communication just prior to Charisian entrance into Silkiah would be convenient. How much can be done depends on luck, prep time and penetration. But if it's nothing more than locating the Inquisition leadership for Charisian infiltrators (or a friendly seijin) to nab ASAP, it's a great help.

General intelligence on the lay of things in Silkiah - political, religious, military - would all be handy. SNARC's will nab a lot, but Nynian has the advantage of perhaps having more operatives (perhaps by indirect chains) to spare there than OWL has SNARC's for one more small country. And she's one of their better analysts even for the SNARC take, and combining direction of them with her human intelligence resources there will make for much better work than either source can do on its own. (That doesn't have to assume she's got much humint there - anything more than zero will have more than zero benefit.) Another intelligence item that would be handy would be anything to indicate which Silkiahan leaders would be how helpful or how resistant for what purposes when Charis comes to free them. And preparations against sabotage of the canals Charis could really use afterward would be possible and helpful.

(A more general point, good here as well as anywhere. Nynian's a prolific letter-writer and has fingers in many, many places. The SSK is the basis of a lot of that network, but she's worked family connections, Temple prostitutional [yeah, I'm going to call that a word], and business ones as well, at least. Much of her capability as an operative has been limited just by communication speed, communication security, and her own time. OWL and Nahrmahn will be able to give her untold support that way, and Sandrah will be able to help integrate that once she gets her spiritual feet back under herself. The Temple is doomed.)

I think she would have to be very, very subtle using public broadsheets to make points in favor of Charis, as the Church in Silkiah - even the Reformists have to be running so scared as to cooperate now - will shut down anything they can reach with extreme prejudice if it steps an inch out of line. But they may be able to, say, "offer prayers" for the "many brave warriors for Langhorne" lost in battle after battle "against the oncoming armies of Charis and Siddarmark". (Maybe they can get away without playing up heresy at least.) The grasp on Silkiah is essentially based on fear now, and if they can let people know (while being loyal Temple sorts to all appearances) that the Temple's armies are fleeing, dying, and starving, that fear weakens.

OWL's broadsheets could play off hers, "revealing" what "those Temple Loyalist rags are afraid to tell you!" (Entirely accurately - they need to be afraid, although there's no reason to detail precisely why!) Where the public ones offer prayers, the broadsheets of secret origin can lay out just what happened to the Desnairians, maybe advise people to prepare against a Desnairian invasion. The two of them combined would represent an effective tag-team shift of the Overton window in Silkiahan public opinion, without the Inquisition having anyone they can Question. (Well, apart from innocents they pick up and torture out of frustration - for which they will at least be made to pay in even more lost respect.)

lyonheart wrote:Hi JeffEngel,

From the textev, where he warns Thirsk, I don't think he has any direct connections with Nynian or any resistance group, but I believe his moral compass won't let him ignore what he knows is wrong, even if he can't stop it right now.

I also can't help thinking that someone known to be a good bishop would be known to Nynian, and also have some special unremarkable (unknown to him) watchers looking after him because she's pegged him as a major future player in the future reformed Dohlar along with Thirsk, Ahlverez, etc.

Which we should see some outline of by the end of HFQ.

L

It's one of those things for which actual positive textual evidence would be a surprise. We've never had anything from Maik's POV - just Thirsk's, in his case, and observing SNARC's. No one who has to be as subtle and discrete as Maik has to be would reveal any such connection under those circumstances, so it's a case where absence of positive evidence means nothing.

But yeah, there's also the good possibility that he's got no connection he may know of to her but is under observation so she can reach out if there's an occasion for it. For that matter, with SNARC take access now, even if she'd barely heard of him before, she may pick him out as a string to tug to unwind the Inquisition in Dohlar. Naturally, if she's only picking him out as a potential agent or ally then, she won't have the prep-work to make extensive use of him. But she's certainly a woman who, given just a dollar's worth of covert operation benefit, will get the very best deal a dollar's worth of asset can buy.

I would be a bit cautious about reading too much into Nynian's organization. While its reach may indeed be what you say, what we know about it from textev is that it is heavily focused on Zion. Given how successful it has been with staying in the shadows, I have my doubts about the idea that its reach could be everywhere.

Don

n7axw wrote:I would be a bit cautious about reading too much into Nynian's organization. While its reach may indeed be what you say, what we know about it from textev is that it is heavily focused on Zion. Given how successful it has been with staying in the shadows, I have my doubts about the idea that its reach could be everywhere.

Don

Oh, let's suppose that she had practically no Out Island penetration. Given the way that Church families tend not to put anyone there or come from there, there was little opportunity for it. And there's likely no reason to have cultivated any in Sodar or Trellheim, and nearly no reason in Delferahk.

Chances are her reach in Siddarmark was mostly through commercial contacts and some special secondary connections, like Zhasyn Cahnyr's secretary. In a lot of ways, Silkiah is Siddarmark writ very small, so some marginal commercial ties there and just possibly some very limited Church-based ones are plausible in the longer term background, and maybe a bit more developed on that basis since the Sword of Schueler. I'm not supposing it's much; I'm just betting it's more than nothing.

Certainly the Church-based and SSK ties are focused on the Temple Lands, with probably a little more in the Border States and North Harchong, since they're culturally and politically in the Temple Lands' penumbra. There are probably some Church-based ties - much less, but again more than nothing - in Dohlar, South Harchong, and Desnair. And maybe a whiff of those commercial connections in Dohlar, given its maritime ambitions and being less backward than most mainland realms other than Siddarmark.

I just think it's important to remember both that her connections and network aren't exclusively derived from the Sisters, and that the network she had several years back before recent events - particularly the Sword - has likely experienced not only losses but also changes and extensions based on perceived future needs. And staying in the shadows is a lot easier when much of it isn't much to see - just correspondents for almost always apparently innocuous information, and some purchasing agents and commercial factors to make apparently innocuous things happen.

The Hand of Kau-yung certainly is going to have a hard time staying in the shadows, because it's attracting so much attention given what it is doing. But I'd think that it's just a tiny element of an entire organization (most of which has no reason to think of itself as one) that rarely does anything so dramatic.

I'm going to be interested to see how the situation in the cave turns out. I think it will be ok, but I wonder how Nynian's organization would do without her.

Don

lyonheart wrote:Hi Don,

Thanks for your concern.

Family and a few other duties have taken up my usual time, I'm way behind reading some other threads.

Where are you getting 120,000 men left in the RDA?

Ahlverez started for Fort Tairys with an army about half the size of Harless's [88-90K] and added some 20,000 replacements, yet now has less than 35,000 left.

Rychtyr had close to 40,000 before combining with Ahlverez when he had almost 50,000 after Alykberg, but before their assault on Thesmar, but we have no details on the size of Rychtyr's after the assault, but best guess would be 20,000+ before adding any replacements.

Even with the almost 13,000+ Desnari infantry that attached themselves to Ahlverez, he had less than 48,000 men, and he was still halfway to Thesmar, as last we read in LaMA.

I'd want Fyguera to have at least close to 10,000 men to garrison Thesmar while Hanth took ~20,000 men to roll the AoJ's supply tail up.

L

Hi Lyonheart,

You are a lot better at the numbers thing than I am.

I didn't count all the reinforcements sent forward. We know that roughly half of the Dohlaran Army crossed the border into Siddamark under Ahlvarez, including Rychtyr. IIRC the number given for that was 95,000. Rychtar's force was about 40,000 and about 55,000 were under Ahlvarez himself.

That would leave about 90,000 at home. We know that reinforcements were sent for Rychtyr and replacements sent to Ahlvarez while he was at Ft Tairys. There is a logic that would suggest that this would reduce that 90,000 figure by the number sent forward.

But I think not. Dohlar has a system of militias that can be called up to supplement the main army. In addition, recruiting has been going on, perhaps under a draft. So while the quality of the replacements probably aren't as good, I suspect that the 90,000 fugure has held up pretty well. Then assuming that either Rychtar or Ahlvarez or perhaps both get their people out--figure 30-35,000 men-- that 120,000 figure men for the defense of Dohlar starts to look pretty reasonable.

I have no doubt that while the ICA and the Siddamarkians can still reduce Dohlar by land, it looks to me that it would cost less in blood to do it by sea, striking directly at the capital.

The countervailing risk here would be being caught between a still dangerous Dohlaran army and the Harchongese moving south. That would put an allied army in the position of needing to deal with each in detail or be trapped.

That could be a bad thing.

Don

tootall wrote:Getting an 18 meter elevation advantage may be trickier, when Delthak is normally at the local water level. How much range would they have against targets, say, up to 10m over Delthak?


And what are the chances that there are some 30-50 meter hills between water level and our target? Pretty good I'd think.
Any forward observer will have to be able to see both the target and the battery involved.

And, of course, those "inland" are in for one hell-of-a-shock when they find out the hard way that they re not out of range of HMS Delthak's new guns.

In a way it's a shame that they do not have more elevation to enable them to shoot over any intervening hills, though. I suppose that there is a possibility, as used by RN "Pre-dreadnaughts" during WW1 of "heeling" the ship for increased elevation when used in a shore bombardment role.

Ruminations and Ramblings
At Trevyr, Rychter appears to have placed his defensive positions in a line on both sides of the river. Might this mean he doesn't realize how small EH's forces are? I'm assuming (that nasty word again! ) EH doesn't have sufficient troops to advance up both sides of the river.
Question - Is Rychter trying to defend both the Seridahn and the Canal? Answer - Both with the Canal having a higher priority because it leads directly into the heart of Dohlar.

He's pulled back 20 miles and set up what he believes to be a strong blocking position on the river. Is he deployed on both sides of the river? A conservative position would be for him to concede the eastern shore because the possibility still exists the ironclad could breakthrough and cut the east bank off. I think he's hedging his bets on the battery on the bluff being able to stop the ironclad. My SWAG is the power of the new guns and brown powdder will devastate the battery and the morale of his forces. (Maybe God really is on the side of the Heretics!

The eastern shore. - Rychter knows the forces that shattered the Desnairian and Dohlaran forces sent againt Fort Tairys are still there. We don't know how much he knows but it seems reasonable to assume he has some sort of cavalry screen to the east to give him warning if those forces are coming into his area.
We have no idea if DE has been in communication with EH. My SWAG is DE is headed west and would have made some effort to communicate with EH. Obvious place to send couriers is Thesmar but he does have mounted infantry which will allow him to probe to west and the Seridahn. Possible scenario here would be for Hanth to provide the anvil south and west across the canal for DE's hammer coming in from the east to crush Rychter.

Mortars - 1. If EH can get his additional support platoons or a portion thereof, mounted and working with his scout/snipers, he may be able to seriously disrupt, or possibly shut down Rychter's supply route.
2. The mortars are a strong defensive, and offensive weapon weapon that will serve as a force multiplier for EH.

Your thoughts?