HQ Snippet #21 3-27-15

Peter2 wrote:The way weapons are developing on Safehold,...

The subject of automatic weapons, and other potential advances in both weapons and other technologies has been covered in detail in several other threads; like this one: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6848

McGuiness wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi McGuiness,

Very nice, plausible piece of analysis.

I think that Sharley's nobles get the headsman, not the noose...

Clyntahn will have to agree to split up that big army. There are too many point of threat not to.

Otherwise I pretty much agree...

Don

Oops, I should have remembered that the sentence for treason is beheading. Heaven knows Sharley has had enough rebels beheaded by now that it should be impossible to forget. My bad!

Traditionally, it's that nobles get a tidy decapitation and commoners get hanging. Especially egregious sorts (traitors probably only) get drawn and quartered. This all assumes medieval traditions applying on Safehold, of course, and differences are possible.

I do think we're in for some serious curveballs, else this is just the ICA and RSA stomping all over jihadis and that's neither Weber's style nor all that entertaining. But I agree that a successful or seriously disruptive noble's revolt in Chisholm is unlikely. Industrial accidents or sabotage are not, but enough of them for a stall in the war isn't likely either.

Meanwhile, we speculate on the basis of existing trends and hypothetical possibilities. We have enough material that way without even trying on the basis of curveballs that only look plausible in hindsight.

SPOILERS... maybe

lyonheart wrote:Hi McGuiness,

200,000+ ranks [for 640K rifles] at a yard per man is almost 114 miles, or almost 95 if only 30" as some sites claim; even splitting the MHoG into 4 'sub armies', since calling them army groups or corps gives them too much credit, would mean battle lines over 28 miles wide, ie at least a whole morning to deploy if the battlefield were even divided across the high road.

What the alliance did during the night is another question.

The canal barges can supply the whole MHoG, they just can't move much away from the canals or rivers.

Then they need to cover their flanks which can quickly deplete their front line numbers.

There is no textev that Clyntahn is interfering in any way with Magwair's control of the MHoG, so if Allayn wants to split it up Clyntahn will go along, especially if he wants to pursue and punish all the separate alliance forces that have prevented his inevitable NTM god blessed victory.

Isolating Dohlar seems quite possible, particularly under new management, but its some month's away until the KH VII's get there or one or both canals are taken.

Until the next snippet [Saturday?] we will have to wait for further data on the allies progress.

L

That's what I get for doing the math in my head - a 3 deep line at a yard per man would require a bit more than 5000 rifles per mile, so unless my elementary school math fails me, that would allow for a front of a bit less than 120 miles, not 12, as you correctly pointed out. Worse by an entire order of magnitude!

Clytahn is in love with both the size and the religious reliability of the MHoG. He seems to think that quantity will overcome quality - unfortunately they've underestimated the size of the Charisian army by a factor of 4 - they estimate no more than 100,000 troops when there are close to 400,000 in Siddarmark. That doesn't include the new Siddarmakan regiments, which received the hand-me-down rifles those 400,000 men used to carry, plus a bunch that DE has captured from Kaitswyrth. Earl Highmount arrived with 200,000 troops, most of which went west with him to become the Army of Cliff Peak, and he may need them all, since I'm sure part of the MHoG is headed his way.

BGV is going to face a large portion of it, and I'm still wondering if another group could attack Hanth by moving through the Border States. There's no high roads on the map, but there will be if RFC needs them for the storyline. With Hanth spread so thin, and with no member of the inner circle to guide him, unless DE reinforces him Hanth could be beaten back - badly. Realistically I don't see where else DE would go, so the southern flank should be strong enough to stop 1/3 of the MHoG and drive the Dohlarans back to their own borders.

The best way to fight those sort of numbers is to destroy their supply train. It's going to be stretched to the limit once the MHoG leaves Lake City in Tarikah, and all it would take to throw a wrench in the works is a bunch of dragoons with orders to shoot the dragons pulling the barges along the canals or high roads. Those aren't easily replaced, and the barges and wagons would stack up behind each other.

Picking off the engineers who are fixing the locks would help as well. Forcing the CoGA to guard its flanks would complicate its advance, and the cavalry being used to guard those flanks would be whittled steadily down. Better to use scout snipers to pick off the MHoG's expert horse bowmen as they guard their army's flanks than face them in a major battle.

The quicker the Haarahld VIIs arrive in the Gulf of Dohlar the better, (August or September) since they can slam the Dairynth - Alyksberg canal shut and cut off the southern supply route. If that canal can be taken intact and some of the new ironclads moved into the Gulf, kiss the enemy shipping there goodbye, and South Harchong and Desnair will be out of the war. Since RFC is on record as saying the Delthak IIs could take Gorath Bay by themselves, I'd like to see a few of them around to help the big guns on the battleships in the battle we've been waiting for and RFC has been building up to for three books now...

Hi McGuiness,

For some reason you keep forgetting General Symkyn and his 75,000 men, NTM being the ICA's #3 CO, on the Daivyn who are probably all set to give Kaitswyrth the final kiss of death, leaving EHM, who took only a third of the convoy's 200K+ as the Army of Cliff Peak, to "go west young man" [I have the impression he's younger than DE or Symkyn].

We have yet to see a Go4 meeting where these rather significant intel errors are laid on Clyntahn, if the rest have the temerity, but I'm looking forward to one soon.

Hanth may outnumber Rychtyr possibly as much as 3-1 if the gutted Thesmar assault regiments came out of his siege force.

BTW, the casualty numbers RFC cites in LaMA fit 3 RDA and 6 IDA infantry regiments far better than any other combination I can figure, even though it exceeds 8,000 troops rather than just under.

If only a third of Ahlverez troops still have rifles [the snippet just said arms] Hanth may have more rifles than both combined.

Given what mortars and angle guns/howitzers can do to an army on the road or canal/river [sinking a single barge could drown 800-1000 men at a time] I can see several scenarios where the MHoG suffer huge casualties for little or no loss to the ambushes from the ICA scouts and dragons etc.

Parkiar told Maidyn back in the first chapter of the September LaMA that the IDA should have regimental sized cavalry sweeps out a hundred miles in every direction, but despite having over a hundred thousand cavalry, they were out only twenty.

Given that distance just for screening, cavalry raids should extend much further, especially if they're to stay and harass the MHoG marching by.

There's lots of things RFC can have the alliance do now that they actually outnumber the CoGA armies in deployed rifles; 350+K Mahndrayns for the ICA and their 350+K flintlocks given to the RSA plus the 32+K captured, not counting the AoShlh's, or the republic's own production [at least 30 if not 40+K by now], besides Nynian's 5-8,000.

Given interior lines and faster barge traffic, no wonder Cayleb and Merlin etc think they've turned the corner.

L

McGuiness wrote:SPOILERS... maybe

lyonheart wrote:Hi McGuiness,

200,000+ ranks [for 640K rifles] at a yard per man is almost 114 miles, or almost 95 if only 30" as some sites claim; even splitting the MHoG into 4 'sub armies', since calling them army groups or corps gives them too much credit, would mean battle lines over 28 miles wide, ie at least a whole morning to deploy if the battlefield were even divided across the high road.

What the alliance did during the night is another question.

The canal barges can supply the whole MHoG, they just can't move much away from the canals or rivers.

Then they need to cover their flanks which can quickly deplete their front line numbers.

There is no textev that Clyntahn is interfering in any way with Magwair's control of the MHoG, so if Allayn wants to split it up Clyntahn will go along, especially if he wants to pursue and punish all the separate alliance forces that have prevented his inevitable NTM god blessed victory.

Isolating Dohlar seems quite possible, particularly under new management, but its some month's away until the KH VII's get there or one or both canals are taken.

Until the next snippet [Saturday?] we will have to wait for further data on the allies progress.

L

That's what I get for doing the math in my head - a 3 deep line at a yard per man would require a bit more than 5000 rifles per mile, so unless my elementary school math fails me, that would allow for a front of a bit less than 120 miles, not 12, as you correctly pointed out. Worse by an entire order of magnitude!

Clytahn is in love with both the size and the religious reliability of the MHoG. He seems to think that quantity will overcome quality - unfortunately they've underestimated the size of the Charisian army by a factor of 4 - they estimate no more than 100,000 troops when there are close to 400,000 in Siddarmark. That doesn't include the new Siddarmakan regiments, which received the hand-me-down rifles those 400,000 men used to carry, plus a bunch that DE has captured from Kaitswyrth. Earl Highmount arrived with 200,000 troops, most of which went west with him to become the Army of Cliff Peak, and he may need them all, since I'm sure part of the MHoG is headed his way.

BGV is going to face a large portion of it, and I'm still wondering if another group could attack Hanth by moving through the Border States. There's no high roads on the map, but there will be if RFC needs them for the storyline. With Hanth spread so thin, and with no member of the inner circle to guide him, unless DE reinforces him Hanth could be beaten back - badly. Realistically I don't see where else DE would go, so the southern flank should be strong enough to stop 1/3 of the MHoG and drive the Dohlarans back to their own borders.

The best way to fight those sort of numbers is to destroy their supply train. It's going to be stretched to the limit once the MHoG leaves Lake City in Tarikah, and all it would take to throw a wrench in the works is a bunch of dragoons with orders to shoot the dragons pulling the barges along the canals or high roads. Those aren't easily replaced, and the barges and wagons would stack up behind each other.

Picking off the engineers who are fixing the locks would help as well. Forcing the CoGA to guard its flanks would complicate its advance, and the cavalry being used to guard those flanks would be whittled steadily down. Better to use scout snipers to pick off the MHoG's expert horse bowmen as they guard their army's flanks than face them in a major battle.

The quicker the Haarahld VIIs arrive in the Gulf of Dohlar the better, (August or September) since they can slam the Dairynth - Alyksberg canal shut and cut off the southern supply route. If that canal can be taken intact and some of the new ironclads moved into the Gulf, kiss the enemy shipping there goodbye, and South Harchong and Desnair will be out of the war. Since RFC is on record as saying the Delthak IIs could take Gorath Bay by themselves, I'd like to see a few of them around to help the big guns on the battleships in the battle we've been waiting for and RFC has been building up to for three books now...

McGuiness wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi McGuiness,

Very nice, plausible piece of analysis.

I think that Sharley's nobles get the headsman, not the noose...

Clyntahn will have to agree to split up that big army. There are too many point of threat not to.

Otherwise I pretty much agree...

Don

Oops, I should have remembered that the sentence for treason is beheading. Heaven knows Sharley has had enough rebels beheaded by now that it should be impossible to forget. My bad!

They seem to be beheading nobles and hanging priests.

Don

Hi McGuiness,

With Hanth, I think that now that the business around Ft. Tairys is cleaned up a portion of the alliance forces under either EHM or DE are on their way to reinforce him. My suspicion is that was what that allied force that over run Cheryk was on its way to doing.

Don

McGuiness wrote
That's what I get for doing the math in my head - a 3 deep line at a yard per man would require a bit more than 5000 rifles per mile,

Hi McGuiness ,

We have not used Imperial measurement down here since the 1970s (40+ years) but I thought there were only 1760 yards in a mile

Down Under

Down Under wrote:

McGuiness wrote
That's what I get for doing the math in my head - a 3 deep line at a yard per man would require a bit more than 5000 rifles per mile,

Hi McGuiness ,

We have not used Imperial measurement down here since the 1970s (40+ years) but I thought there were only 1760 yards in a mile

Down Under

Given the MHoG are probably used to working as spear men maneuver as squares, with a soldier at 18" spacing and five deep, is probably what they are used to. This works if your enemy has to come to close quarters to fight (as is required even with gunpowder muskets).
If your enemy can stand off then you and the four guys behind you are sitting ducks to smokeless powder rifle fire.
With even primitive rifles you can hit a target a 500 yards easily, with smokeless powder you can see the next target, where as the gunpowder muskets are pushed to hit a man sized target at 100 yards and you cant see anyone of about 20 seconds after firing while the smoke dissipates.
This was a lesson learned in the first world war, infantry charges result in mass casualties against an opponent who can see you, and was one of the reasons the Chinese suffered over three million casualties in the Korean war rolling the US forces back to the 38th parallel. (But the Chinese had a a few surplus soldiers to spare).

Hi Airtech,

The spacing for infantry in the Napoleonic- ACW period leans more toward 30 inches than 18, using that figure the ~200,000 man rifle line drops to almost 95 miles.

Split into 4 sub-armies of 400K each, that's just under 24 miles if there's no reserve, NTM the flanks being over an hour out of immediate communication with the center [likely HQ] and all that can mean.

L

AirTech wrote:

Down Under wrote:*quote*McGuiness wrote
That's what I get for doing the math in my head - a 3 deep line at a yard per man would require a bit more than 5000 rifles per mile,*quote*

Hi McGuiness ,

We have not used Imperial measurement down here since the 1970s (40+ years) but I thought there were only 1760 yards in a mile

Down Under

Given the MHoG are probably used to working as spear men maneuver as squares, with a soldier at 18" spacing and five deep, is probably what they are used to. This works if your enemy has to come to close quarters to fight (as is required even with gunpowder muskets).
If your enemy can stand off then you and the four guys behind you are sitting ducks to smokeless powder rifle fire.
With even primitive rifles you can hit a target a 500 yards easily, with smokeless powder you can see the next target, where as the gunpowder muskets are pushed to hit a man sized target at 100 yards and you cant see anyone of about 20 seconds after firing while the smoke dissipates.
This was a lesson learned in the first world war, infantry charges result in mass casualties against an opponent who can see you, and was one of the reasons the Chinese suffered over three million casualties in the Korean war rolling the US forces back to the 38th parallel. (But the Chinese had a a few surplus soldiers to spare).

n7axw wrote:
They seem to be beheading nobles and hanging priests.

Don

That was shipboard. Lots of rope, and a lot of places to tie it to. Plus, less mess on the decks.

Further, remember the heads on pikes? Not clear what method was used there.