Stopping the Sharonan advance

runsforcelery wrote:In fact, a transport dragon is good for approximately 1,500 miles per day, but it can’t fly that entire 1,500 miles without rest stops. Average speed for a transport, allowing for periodic rests, is around 100 mph over the space of approximately 15 hours, allowing 9 hours per day for feeding, “maintenance,” and extended (as opposed to periodic stops) rest.

This means locomotives will require and average of 62.5 miles an hour, all day every day, to transport as fast as dragons. I can see them easily making that speed over good track, but in average conditions I don't know if the trains can do it. It should still be close though.

As for whether three million people is a lot, it depends on how they are distributed. If they all live in a few cities between the portals (exploiting natural resources in the area, and with very few small settlements further out) it could qualify as a lot of people.

In the same way Sharona won't build a rail road to every little town, I doubt Arcana would build sliders to every little place. I still doubt that there is some major undisclosed transport capability on either side, if there was it would have rated a mention at least.

Astelon wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:In fact, a transport dragon is good for approximately 1,500 miles per day, but it can’t fly that entire 1,500 miles without rest stops. Average speed for a transport, allowing for periodic rests, is around 100 mph over the space of approximately 15 hours, allowing 9 hours per day for feeding, “maintenance,” and extended (as opposed to periodic stops) rest.

This means locomotives will require and average of 62.5 miles an hour, all day every day, to transport as fast as dragons. I can see them easily making that speed over good track, but in average conditions I don't know if the trains can do it. It should still be close though.

As for whether three million people is a lot, it depends on how they are distributed. If they all live in a few cities between the portals (exploiting natural resources in the area, and with very few small settlements further out) it could qualify as a lot of people.

In the same way Sharona won't build a rail road to every little town, I doubt Arcana would build sliders to every little place. I still doubt that there is some major undisclosed transport capability on either side, if there was it would have rated a mention at least.

Yet a dragon carries 20-30 tons while a train carries 100-200 tons per car depending on the type of car. So 30 200 ton heavy lift railroad cars can move what 200 dragons with accumulators and levitation spells can move at a slightly slower pace than the dragons. Using 50 heavy lift railroad cars and Arcana would need to use 333 dragons.

Also, Arcana needs way more lead time to increase their population of dragons compared to how long Sharona needs to build more locomotives. Between the decision to increase their war fighting capabilities, Arcana will need between 18 months and 2 years just to get more heavy horse, unicorns and griffins deployed to the front. This assumes the enhanced animals are bred and trained specifically to fight Sharona. There certainly are more available from other AoO. Dragons will take a good 18-20 more years to mature and train. Shifting the rear area transport dragons forward will have an impact on the transport needs of many other areas for those 2 decades.

In that time Sharona will have increased their production capacity of almost all equipment needed to fight the war as well as the trains needed to transport that equipment forward. The biggest limitation to Sharonan expansion is raw materials. Having 2-3 additional worlds to draw resources from near by Sharona to produce those goods and a good 20 along the way to Hell's Gate to help support the train system will overcome most of the limiting factors Sharona faces.

The Sharonan advance will then be able to throw significant amounts of heavy weapons against the Arcanans. Given the transport limitations of the Arcanans, will they be able to throw enough assets into the conflict the blunt the Sharonan advance? The math suggests they wont be able to any time soon.

Astelon wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:In fact, a transport dragon is good for approximately 1,500 miles per day, but it can’t fly that entire 1,500 miles without rest stops. Average speed for a transport, allowing for periodic rests, is around 100 mph over the space of approximately 15 hours, allowing 9 hours per day for feeding, “maintenance,” and extended (as opposed to periodic stops) rest.

This means locomotives will require and average of 62.5 miles an hour, all day every day, to transport as fast as dragons. I can see them easily making that speed over good track, but in average conditions I don't know if the trains can do it. It should still be close though.

As for whether three million people is a lot, it depends on how they are distributed. If they all live in a few cities between the portals (exploiting natural resources in the area, and with very few small settlements further out) it could qualify as a lot of people.

In the same way Sharona won't build a rail road to every little town, I doubt Arcana would build sliders to every little place. I still doubt that there is some major undisclosed transport capability on either side, if there was it would have rated a mention at least.

There is current data on the China-to-Germany rail haul, perhaps with interfering traffic. Nonetheless 12.5 mph is a better number (though a bit low) than is 62.5 mph, and that with modern equipment. Perhaps a reader can find numbers for the cross-Australia rail system a century give or take ago.

Military necessity will give supply trains absolute priority, and there is very little in the way of cities to cause a slow down. Without cities most slowdowns would be caused be terrain obstacles, and a quick google search says long haul freight can average fifty miles an hour. (Sharona may not match our current technology.)

Astelon wrote:Military necessity will give supply trains absolute priority, and there is very little in the way of cities to cause a slow down. Without cities most slowdowns would be caused be terrain obstacles, and a quick google search says long haul freight can average fifty miles an hour. (Sharona may not match our current technology.)

I got the impression that Sharona's big locomotives are close the epitome of steam power reached on earth. Perhaps not the absolute top like the 4468 Mallard, but close enough that 62 MPH average is certainly possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard

Astelon wrote:Military necessity will give supply trains absolute priority, and there is very little in the way of cities to cause a slow down. Without cities most slowdowns would be caused be terrain obstacles, and a quick google search says long haul freight can average fifty miles an hour. (Sharona may not match our current technology.)

You can have absolute priority, but you still need to cope with slow freight needing to reach a siding that is long enough to hold it. Coordinating signals without telegraphy -- the alternatives appear to need a really large number of talents -- is also a challenge.

Finally, you may want to recognize that giving military trains absolute priority may lead to undesired outcomes. Absolute priority has to go to the people hauling coal and if need be water to the recoaling-rewatering points.

phillies wrote:

Astelon wrote:Military necessity will give supply trains absolute priority, and there is very little in the way of cities to cause a slow down. Without cities most slowdowns would be caused be terrain obstacles, and a quick google search says long haul freight can average fifty miles an hour. (Sharona may not match our current technology.)

You can have absolute priority, but you still need to cope with slow freight needing to reach a siding that is long enough to hold it. Coordinating signals without telegraphy -- the alternatives appear to need a really large number of talents -- is also a challenge.

Finally, you may want to recognize that giving military trains absolute priority may lead to undesired outcomes. Absolute priority has to go to the people hauling coal and if need be water to the recoaling-rewatering points.

As I recall the expansion leading the Traisum cut is a 4 tracked line. That means 2 tracks each way. As that gets extended further towards Hells's Gate, the average speeds will increase significantly.

More than anything else, the new Sharonan Army planning snippets in the Multiverse series remind me of the Soviet Union's armored raid by the 24th Corps on the Luftwaffe Tatinskaya Airfield in the Soviet Christmas 1942 "Little Saturn" offensive during the Stalingrad campaign.

The Soviet 24th Tank Corps not only destroyed most of the Luftwaffe's Ju-52 transports -- and importantly long term -- they over ran the most experienced JU-52 mechanics and destroyed the majority of the Luftwaffe's truck chassis fuel bowsers on the Eastern Front.

The parallel here with the Sharonan Bison raiding force and Arcanian transport dragon situation is very strong.

Here the thing, the advance will stop it self. They will advance to retake that portal in the swamp, as the smaller portal is a better position, and they do not yet have the sam intelligence on the lands beyond. In the future they might advance, but that is later. fo now they need to push the enemy out of their claimed worlds and retake an invaluable resource. There is also the fact that to advance into arcanum territory, they needs to create shipyards in a war zone.
They also now have priority targeting, due to the knowledge of logistical weakness of dragons, so target the beasts with the heavy weapons or the pilots themselves.
Dragons and horses are being sent to Thermyn to graze and hunt, the thing is using hteir stealth sneaking, the sharonans will sent through the track not being focused on, so their animals will get captured or slain.
All this depends on the speed of track constructione. When retaking the main line, they are building the track from two points.
The more force they push beyond Thermyn, are more force they can isolate from their support system. If enough can be isolate, then it might be easier to regain hells gate and potential take some arcanum territry.
The arcanum focus on keeping thier forces supplied to sustain them, and with lack of transport that is tricky. Pushing additional forces and assets might not be feasable, so held at base thill their are enough supplies waiting ahead of them to support them, or a great increase in transport capability.

I agree that it would be logical for any sharonian advance to stop and fortify Hell's Gate. It is valuable real estate, with its nearby natural resources and numerous portals. It is also a very defensible position with the small (four mile) portal into Mahritha. Lastthe swamp in Mahritha will be difficult terrain for Sharonian forces to cross, they will need to be prepared for it.

I suspect that there is enough extra transport capacity throughout arcanan territory that they can increase the size of their expeditionary force. The question is how long will it take them to gather that force and the capacity to keep it supplied? The leaders on Arcana will have to issue the orders, and find someone to command the force. Wild guess: the arcanan reinforcements reach Hell's Gate just before chan Geraith and his divisions do. The Arcanans don't have enough time to dig in and fortify so we get to see an open field battle (the forest having been burned down).