HFQ Official Snippet #19 (I think)

Weird Harold wrote:For all those worried about the Harchongese moving into/through Dohlar and/or the threat from Dohlar if the MH is attacked first:

1: The Harchongese are strung out in manageable sized winter encampments. Attacking Dohlar first gives them time to consolidate into a "Mighty Host" instead of "a string of underfed, under-armed, detachments."

2: The Harchongese are en route to reinforce Guarnak and push the heretics back into Siddermark, not to backtrack into Dohlar to deal with lesser heretic forces in the south.

3: The Harchongese can't begin to consolidate until the canal locks are repaired, sometime around the beginning of April. They have to be dealt with before then or as soon as possible because defeating them in detail is going to be much easier than defeating a consolidated and re-armed "Mighty Host."

4: Dohlar is now or soon will be cut-off and irrelevant to the main war effort. The Harchongese are the main war effort -- or at least sitting firmly astride the land route to the main war effort.

The Harchongese probably can't consolidate into one force period. There is no way at all for them to manage an army of over a million men either tactically or logistically with current limitations. As, I believe, it was Clauswitz pointed out (or Sun Tzu-I don't remember), the only numbers that really count are the ones you can actually bring to bear in an engagement.

If I am right about this, they have to split up. I would anticipate either three 400,000 armies or four 300,000 armies directed at what the G-4 regards the primary threats. That would mean directed at BGV in the north, Sympkyns who is currently facing Kaitswryth and one toward Dohlar to confront Hanth and, probably DE.

I think that the Harchongians are going to be in a world of hurt. IIRC, they have only about 600,000 rifles with most of the rest being archers, arbalests and rock throwers. The COGA has improved its artillery situation somewhat, but is still going to be outgunned by superior allied artillery. I don't remember how many of those rifles will be the St. Klymans, but I do remember that the percentage was not high. Their mobility is going to be ponderous and slow at best. And it's not at all clear that they have competent combat commanders to plan their ops.

Don

600,000 muzzle loading rifles and 90,000 St. Kylmyn's.

Concentrated the St. Kylmyn armed GH troops might cause problems. That means everywhere else the St. Kylmyns are not present get renamed. So the Northern vanguard can blunt BVG's thrust from Guarnak and/or Five Forks. Who stops Sympkyns coming up from the Daivyn? What stops forces accompanying ironclads coming down the Hildermoss from the Passage?

There nowhere near enough St. Kylmyns to stop the ICA. If deployed forward, the ICA will target troops armed with them for special treatment with artillery and mortars. If the GH puts those rifles behind fortifications, the ICA can bypass those positions and attack further up the supply lines.

The CoGA's only chance to survive is to deploy the GH in a layered defense protecting the Holy Langhorne Canal. If the ICA views the cost of defeating those defenses is high enough, even Siddermark will balk that pressing matters once the CoGA sues for peace.

PeterZ wrote:600,000 muzzle loading rifles and 90,000 St. Kylmyn's.

Concentrated the St. Kylmyn armed GH troops might cause problems. That means everywhere else the St. Kylmyns are not present get renamed. So the Northern vanguard can blunt BVG's thrust from Guarnak and/or Five Forks. Who stops Sympkyns coming up from the Daivyn? What stops forces accompanying ironclads coming down the Hildermoss from the Passage?

There nowhere near enough St. Kylmyns to stop the ICA. If deployed forward, the ICA will target troops armed with them for special treatment with artillery and mortars. If the GH puts those rifles behind fortifications, the ICA can bypass those positions and attack further up the supply lines.

The CoGA's only chance to survive is to deploy the GH in a layered defense protecting the Holy Langhorne Canal. If the ICA views the cost of defeating those defenses is high enough, even Siddermark will balk that pressing matters once the CoGA sues for peace.

The big problem the Harchongians face even more than lack of rifles is the inability to field competitive artillery. Artillery has proven decisive in every battle so far other than Hanth's first encounter with the Dohlaran vanguard in the first battle at Thesmar and the fight in the Kyplyngyr Forest.

Don

n7axw wrote:The Harchongese probably can't consolidate into one force period.

They can consolidate into bigger armies than they are currently dispersed in. Every encampment that merges with another is a chance for an easy(er) victory lost.

n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:600,000 muzzle loading rifles and 90,000 St. Kylmyn's.

Concentrated the St. Kylmyn armed GH troops might cause problems. That means everywhere else the St. Kylmyns are not present get renamed. So the Northern vanguard can blunt BVG's thrust from Guarnak and/or Five Forks. Who stops Sympkyns coming up from the Daivyn? What stops forces accompanying ironclads coming down the Hildermoss from the Passage?

There nowhere near enough St. Kylmyns to stop the ICA. If deployed forward, the ICA will target troops armed with them for special treatment with artillery and mortars. If the GH puts those rifles behind fortifications, the ICA can bypass those positions and attack further up the supply lines.

The CoGA's only chance to survive is to deploy the GH in a layered defense protecting the Holy Langhorne Canal. If the ICA views the cost of defeating those defenses is high enough, even Siddermark will balk that pressing matters once the CoGA sues for peace.

The big problem the Harchongians face even more than lack of rifles is the inability to field competitive artillery. Artillery has proven decisive in every battle so far other than Hanth's first encounter with the Dohlaran vanguard in the first battle at Thesmar and the fight in the Kyplyngyr Forest.

Don

The other possible problem could be reload times, if you have enough bodies moving fast enough you can overwhelm your enemy if he can't put enough bullets into bodies fast enough. i.e. a dozen guys can take out a guy with a revolver with knives if they are willing to take 50% casualties. (There are a few thousand Korean war vets still around who can verify this works - most of them are Chinese).

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:The Harchongese probably can't consolidate into one force period.

They can consolidate into bigger armies than they are currently dispersed in. Every encampment that merges with another is a chance for an easy(er) victory lost.

Just looking at the map, it seems to me that the allies are too spread out and still have too many other challenges to execute your strategy successfully before the Harchonese begin to move. Kaiswryth and Wyrshym need to be dealt with for one thing. Then too, Hanth and DE still need to finish off or contain Dohlar.

An alternate plan might be to take advantage of how ponderously slow the Harchongese are going to be once they do start to move. Think Harless and the AOS. Then arrange for flanking attacks. Then too, having them on the move can be taken advantage of because the longer their supply lines, the easier they will be to interdict.

This allows more time for dealing with what remains of the AOG and doing whatever needs to be accomplished with Dohlar.

All of that being said, I wholeheartedly agree that the allies need to move as rapidly as possible.

Don

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:The Harchongese probably can't consolidate into one force period.

They can consolidate into bigger armies than they are currently dispersed in. Every encampment that merges with another is a chance for an easy(er) victory lost.

WH, As Don implies elsewhere, the problem with your view of things is that the dispersed Harchongese units are a lot closer to the next few units up the canal than the ICA are to any of them. The ICA just cannot stop them from concentrating to a fair degree because they are currently too far away and the Harchongese are sitting on the biggest canal on Safehold.

I must go back to theme I was pushing quite a while ago.

The Great Host must be split and Probably into thirds with the obvious “names”; GH Dohlar; GH Cliff Peak; GH Sylmahn. In all cases food & fodder will be the undoing of the Armies. Each 400K men army will be running on poor logistics when they start to get close to the ICA contingents.

Hopefully by the time they can get in proximity to the ICA Dohlar may have lost control of the eastern Gulf of Dohlar and supplies from all source but the Temple Lands will have dried up. The Dairnyth-Ayleksberg Canal will be under ICA management with the River II’s moving through the Bay of Bess to further destroy the Temple’s logistics.

It is important to the Allied forces to defend not attack. Keeping their supply lines short and strong while stretching the Church’s logistics the cutting them off is the best bang for the buck. Owning the Seridahn, Fairmyn, Daivyn and the Hildermoss is doable and the most effective in destroying the Great Hosts.

When the ICN's Gwyllam Manthyr enters Gorath Bay and puts a few (or a great many) 10” shells into the Palace Towers, either defeat & surrender or some form of Coup will hit Dohlar and they will become a focus of Clyntahn’s wrath. Then DE and Hanth in their efforts to defeat the GH will end up defending Dohlar and it’s new ruler/(vassel of the Imperial Charisian Empire). Of course, the ICA could just hold back – defending the Siddermark territories and let the Harchongese destroy Dohlar - but that is not their style.

The best way to deal with the Great Host is strategic offense, tactical defense. Find a place the COGA must keep, take it and fortify the bejezus outta it, then let them throw dragonloads of Harchongese into the sausage grinder.

n7axw wrote:Just looking at the map, it seems to me that the allies are too spread out and still have too many other challenges [SNIP]
An alternate plan might be to take advantage of how ponderously slow the Harchongese are going to be once they do start to move. Think Harless and the AOS. Then arrange for flanking attacks. Then too, having them on the move can be taken advantage of because the longer their supply lines, the easier they will be to interdict.

Yes, the Allies having too many fronts and too few frontline troops (i.e. ICA units) is a major issue. However, I fully expect to learn somewhere in HFQ that there are quite significant numbers of rifle regiments and new artillery regiments for the SRA.
I would assume that offensive operations are best made having one or two of the ICA corps at your disposal; in addition you'll have good support from SRA units. Consequently, you need to select the offensive campaigns you want to pursue; and for HFQ it should be the campaign in the North against Wyrshym and Kaitswyth which are to be beefed up with the Harchongians.

As to the speed with which the "mighty host" will move: I'm not convinced that they would move as slow as the AoJ. Maigwair has instilled some military competence into the units, and their logistics is effectively run by Duchairn. He should be able to move them up to Lake City (where a stack of provisions is waiting) without too many problems and in time for the campaigning season in Tarikah. (Of course, Maigwair would only move up as many troops as he can supply at a given time, but that number could well be in excess of 500k at the start of spring.)

Where and how fast the Harchongians go from Lake City is another issue. Maigwair probably intends to reinvigorate the two attack columns of LAMA. In any case, the advancing Harchongians should meet the retreating CoGA troops under Wyrshym and Kaitswyrth somewhere around the Hildermoss.
And here is the interesting thought: Get some river class ironclads (where is Hador?) on the Hildermoss and negate it to Duchairn as a transport route. If a large part of CoGA troops is bottled upon around e.g. Lake Isyk, the Allies might have a good catch in their nets...