(SPOILERS) The solution to Baron Green Valley's logistic qua

Hi all,

BGV apparently expects to travel some 1200 miles to Guarnak during the icy winter, using thousands of Snow Lizards and thousands of caribou besides at least 10,000 gene modified Morgan horses, which seem more like the Russian steppe ponies, but even at half normal horse rations for the Morgans and the same for the caribou, with the snow lizards getting a weight-proportional ration to the dragons, carrying a month's worth of such rations [~250 tons per day] would be the maximum he could move and have it exhausted by the time they reach the Kalgaran river, so how do they get supplied traveling down the 600 Guarnak-Ice Ash Canal?

From the textev implications, I suspect his advance guard is traveling much faster than the 20 miles per day max we've decided is their maximum rate.

While Wyrshym has dismissed Ranshair, suppose that Ranshair while having only a small garrison, had a dozen or so extra sailing ships unload the supplies BGV will need, but more importantly, suppose they also unloaded ice boats.

While the church thinks its the only one able to afford the steel for the runners of its ice boats, Howsmyn is making a lot more steel of a lot better quality, and could provide the steel for supply type ice boats very cheap.

Size-wise, the CoGA Lake Pei design is based on the hull of the CoGA messenger galley, apparently [best guess] only around 100-200 tons or so, 'displacement' or mass.

The main projected ICA iceboats are intended for supply not speed, though smaller ones for scouting and troops transport are also obvious, and could likely be much bigger than the CoGA's using more and better runners to distribute the weight [catamaran, trimaran, or more runner designs], so they might deliver up to 200-300 tons at a time.

While the wiki article author is apparently ignorant of ice racing in the 19th century including races all the way to Albany from New York and back in 24-36 hours, with some racers in the 100 ton class, with around 1000 square feet of sail, being able to deliver supplies up a frozen river would be the primary advantage the ICA sees.

Thanks to OWL etc, such large ice transports seem quite possible feeding data through the college and the ship designers in the inner circle.

While the Northland gap is about 200 miles from Allyntyn, and St.Zhana is about 200 miles further, the high road crossing the Kalgaran to Fairkyn is only around 340 miles from Ranshair which the supply ice boats could easily reach in a day or two, with possible winter moon light being very useful for navigating after nominal sundown.

Having established an 'ice head' there, they then might start sending supplies to BGV before his main body has reached the Kalgaran river if they're running low, then they approach and surprise Fairkyn using the ice boats on the canal to advance far more rapidly than the TL's believe possible.

Thanks to the ice boats they might then cover the remaining ~540 miles to the Guarnak-Sylman Canal in a 5day or less even if using only daylight [8-9 hours at that latitude?], far faster than Wyrshym's army can march back to the city, besides cutting the Guarnak high road to Five Forks.

So BGV's real military secret might be he can be supplied and move far faster than anything Wyrshym knows is possible.

Granted there are navigation concerns on such a narrow canal, but the potential rate of advance appears to be the only solution possible.

I invite your comments and look forward to the positive ones.

L

This makes a certain kind of elegant sense. It is reminiscent of the logistics of the march through Raven's Land, and seems to be just the kind of surprise RFC's fertile mind might dream up.

Think of it, as well, from Wyrshym's probable troop deployments. Given his rather wretched supply stiuation, Wyrshym very likely would garrison St. Zhana, Fairkyn and Ohlarhn as lightly as possible. Assuming, as he has, that BGV won't be able to mobilize prior to late March, he would also conclude his shorter supply routes would give him ample time to beef those garrisons up before BGV could come close to them.

Ice boats would bring several advantages:

1. BGV could move even faster than we'd thought (and than Wyrshym would think);

2. Not only could ice boats assist with supply, they could also carry light parties of scout snipers, increasing BGV's ability to interdict communications, and providing an additional force multiplier through the further-enhanced element of surprise;

3. Ice boats just might be able to carry enough highly-trained troops to take those garrisons, if Wyrshym's forces continue to be so miserable they're not even looking out their own windows.

A key factor would be BGV's ability to coordinate with the ice boat commander and to communicate with him.

Having said all this, I'm no at all sure it'll happen. But it's a really elegant solution.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Pretty big house you've built. Just totally unsure there are any foundations under it!

Agree that supply line back to the jumpoff point is rather long. Could they be expecting to do well enough with what they have and can replenish that the spring will come soon enough for more massive resupply? As well, could resupply come down to at least the first lock on the Ice Ash river come spring?

lyonheart wrote:Hi all,

...
While Wyrshym has dismissed Ranshair, suppose that Ranshair while having only a small garrison, had a dozen or so extra sailing ships unload the supplies BGV will need, but more importantly, suppose they also unloaded ice boats.
...
L

lyonheart wrote:Granted there are navigation concerns on such a narrow canal, but the potential rate of advance appears to be the only solution possible.

I invite your comments and look forward to the positive ones.

L

It's an intriguing idea, but I can feel my remaining hair going gray thinking of threading fast-flying ice ships through narrow canals.

And are there locks along that route? They won't work frozen, and - depending on how frequent they are - portage of the ice ships over them and/or unloading, moving, and reloading cargo to another one already on the far side of a lock would be the slow, difficult, and irritating response to those locks.

You may work through some of that a bit with much smaller boats in much greater number, sailed slowly and dragged as sleighs when need be. In effect - though much less exciting, I'll grant you - sleighs with sails for when you can use them, and often slowly and perhaps in combination with a snow lizard team more for control than for actual traction in moderate sailing conditions.

If the sleighs can be made little barges come the thaw with a bit of field carpentry, so much the better later on.

I think you are onto something regarding the effectiveness of steel runners for transporting supplies in winter conditions. I just am not sure that the runners are going to be attached to an ice boat. I think they will just use regular sleds pulled by draft animals.

We already saw textev in one of the snippets that BGV's force has small sleds integrated into the army on a squad level. These are more or less a tactical transport system, designed to keep up with the troops and only move the winter gear assigned to the squad.

Although we haven't seen them, I think it is a fairly safe assumption that the quartermasters of BGV's army are using much larger sleds in the baggage train to manage logistics on a strategic level. Given the effectiveness of steel runners on ice, the draft animals of BGV's army should be able to move considerably larger loads than they would using wheeled wagons under summer conditions. With this in mind, I think that the logistics of BGV's army might be in better shape than you are assuming.

Henry Brown wrote:I think you are onto something regarding the effectiveness of steel runners for transporting supplies in winter conditions. I just am not sure that the runners are going to be attached to an ice boat. I think they will just use regular sleds pulled by draft animals.

We already saw textev in one of the snippets that BGV's force has small sleds integrated into the army on a squad level. These are more or less a tactical transport system, designed to keep up with the troops and only move the winter gear assigned to the squad.

Although we haven't seen them, I think it is a fairly safe assumption that the quartermasters of BGV's army are using much larger sleds in the baggage train to manage logistics on a strategic level. Given the effectiveness of steel runners on ice, the draft animals of BGV's army should be able to move considerably larger loads than they would using wheeled wagons under summer conditions. With this in mind, I think that the logistics of BGV's army might be in better shape than you are assuming.

The only hitch in that giddyup, Henry, is the water level in the Guarnak-Ice Ash canal system. Wyrshym mentions that the water levels were low. So even if the steel runners would be effective, is the enough ice in the canals to use them? Even if there was, will the level be sufficiently below the edge to make snow drifts a problem? Not saying you aren't right, just that there are other considerations.

PeterZ wrote:

Henry Brown wrote:I think you are onto something regarding the effectiveness of steel runners for transporting supplies in winter conditions. I just am not sure that the runners are going to be attached to an ice boat. I think they will just use regular sleds pulled by draft animals.

We already saw textev in one of the snippets that BGV's force has small sleds integrated into the army on a squad level. These are more or less a tactical transport system, designed to keep up with the troops and only move the winter gear assigned to the squad.

Although we haven't seen them, I think it is a fairly safe assumption that the quartermasters of BGV's army are using much larger sleds in the baggage train to manage logistics on a strategic level. Given the effectiveness of steel runners on ice, the draft animals of BGV's army should be able to move considerably larger loads than they would using wheeled wagons under summer conditions. With this in mind, I think that the logistics of BGV's army might be in better shape than you are assuming.

The only hitch in that giddyup, Henry, is the water level in the Guarnak-Ice Ash canal system. Wyrshym mentions that the water levels were low. So even if the steel runners would be effective, is the enough ice in the canals to use them? Even if there was, will the level be sufficiently below the edge to make snow drifts a problem? Not saying you aren't right, just that there are other considerations.

Then the question of getting the sleds past the locks which has already been mentioned. We know that the iceboats work for the temple, but that is actually crossing a lake where there is lots of room and no locks. It might work as Lyonheart has described, but I think that there could well be some problems to be solved to make it so.

Don

n7axw wrote:Then the question of getting the sleds past the locks which has already been mentioned. We know that the iceboats work for the temple, but that is actually crossing a lake where there is lots of room and no locks. It might work as Lyonheart has described, but I think that there could well be some problems to be solved to make it so.

Don

You know though - if there's a decent amount of exposed, flat-ish ice in the canal (as noted, that's not assured) - the snow nearby may make for some help for the locks problem. You could move it into long ramps up or down the lock, with a tow road handy for tugging the sleds up the snow ramps or easing them down. (If you can't risk just sledding down, wheee!) You'll lose that in a hurry with disuse and the thaw, of course, but sufficient unto the winter the troubles thereof and all that.

n7axw wrote:Then the question of getting the sleds past the locks which has already been mentioned. We know that the iceboats work for the temple, but that is actually crossing a lake where there is lots of room and no locks. It might work as Lyonheart has described, but I think that there could well be some problems to be solved to make it so.

Don

Rather straight forward brute force solution to that, set up a gantry crane. Pick up the sled in front of on end of the locks, set it down on the other side. Take the crane down about the time spring thaw arrives. Supports for the gantry would be set on either side of the locks.

Castenea wrote:

n7axw wrote:Then the question of getting the sleds past the locks which has already been mentioned. We know that the iceboats work for the temple, but that is actually crossing a lake where there is lots of room and no locks. It might work as Lyonheart has described, but I think that there could well be some problems to be solved to make it so.

Don

Rather straight forward brute force solution to that, set up a gantry crane. Pick up the sled in front of on end of the locks, set it down on the other side. Take the crane down about the time spring thaw arrives. Supports for the gantry would be set on either side of the locks.

This kind of demonstrates that often where there is a will there is a way. One would still need a prevailing wind in the direction the supplies would need to go and haul them back with slow lizzards the other, or failing that use the carribou and slow lizzards both directions.

Of course, we really don't have any textev that BGV is having a problem at all... so all this could be a solution looking for a problem.

Don