Hi MWadell,
Because RFC doesn't fill his very popular books with stupid enemy generals.
Damning generals as stupid when they don't know all what you the reader do is kind of silly, I expect better from you, especially as a discerning fan of RFC.
It's awful easy to criticize someone especially from hindsight when you're not making the decisions; but when you're on the hot seat, and discover you don't know everything that you thought you did, suddenly you take a lot more time considering every decision from all sorts of angles, trying to learn more before you have to make life changing decisions for other people, and the odds are that you 'll be at least partly wrong no matter what you do.
Too often its common for history's losers to be branded stupid for losing by armchair generals with Field Marshall Hindsight on their side when the generals didn't know critical factors their critics take for granted.
Besides Shattered Sword by John Parshall and Antony Tully [2005] might teach you many things about the Battle of Midway that you may think you know which are actually wrong if not based on deliberate misrepresentations of what happened.
Then take David Howarth's The Voyage of the Armada, the Spanish story [1981]; who used Spanish court records to affix the real blame for its failure to King Philip its creator, not the Duke of Medina Sidonia [only 37 at the time] who's often derided as stupid by the ignorant in the English speaking world, who begged the king not to pick him because of his ignorance of all things naval and military, who predicted what would happen, but the king wanted someone who would follow his stupid orders without being able to argue from personal experience that was superior to the king's, which is why some 20,000 men died, of whom less than 5% were caused by the British navy.
So Medina-Sidonia listened carefully to his captain's council [including all the admirals] used his common sense to sort out the best options which everyone agreed to [including trying to again persuade Philip to call the whole thing off at Corunna after they discovered their food was rotten and they couldn't sail to windward[!] so they saw it could easily and most likely would end in disaster, but the king refused to even acknowledge their letters], and they didn't make any mistakes based on what they knew.
King Philip was a megalomaniac who saw himself as the champion of God, caste in his image; bigoted, dogmatic, sincerely self righteous and ruthless, illogical and hopelessly confused.
Sound like a familiar Safehold character?
Even if his fleet had won, impossible as that was, he couldn't occupy and control England militarily and financially, given how much trouble the far smaller people and territory of the Netherlands continued to frustrate his will for almost 30 years; it would take another 30 years before Spain would accept the obvious and recognise Dutch independence.
If you've been paying attention to the textev, the Go4 generals aren't stupid, but their choices have been reduced by a combination of their orders from above, their own desires and decisions coupled with the limitations of their men's equipment and training to a short list of often double plus ungood choices, but they've mainly been bested by weapons they knew nothing or very little about before the battles.
Regarding your post, quite aside from the size problem [ie no corps sub division system etc so far], the MHoGatA is currently to awkward to maneuver as you desire, nor will the ICA/RSA be so dumb as to be trapped so simply when they can easily break contact any number of ways.
The MHoG doesn't know about the M96 magazine rifle, though their highest officers might, if the Go4 decides to inform them, but the shock of finding out on the battlefield could easily lose a battle or two; then there's discovering your officers and religious leaders knew but withheld informing you of what you faced, in the hope you would somehow overcome despite them while knowing more than you not seeing anyway you could succeed without God's help, though he hasn't been helping anyone on your side for quite a while...
Then there are the ICA's incredible advantages in indirect fire, yet to be demonstrated for a far worse battlefield shock -easily worth a few more panic abandoned battlefields at least, NTM far longer ranged artillery which no one in the MHoG etc has yet experienced, particularly with the newer breech loading weapons with their much higher rates of fire and more powerful explosive fillings.
If you managed to survive the first battlefield surprise, then discover your trusted religious leaders had effectively lied to you, and then experienced the second and third battlefield surprises, wouldn't you begin to suspect they had held out on you again?
How long before your faith in them is destroyed?
Fighting it out in the open with large numbers as you suggested would among other things would make an excellent target for the Katusha type rockets posters have been suggesting for years; will you condemn the MHoG generals for having no clue about that potential threat the first time they're used?
How do you expect the MHoG to attrite the ICA at a 1-1 ratio when the M96 fires twice as fast as the St. Kylman, besides all the mortars and longer range indirect fire artillery with far higher rates of fire?
Waiting for you to suggest a much smarter solution.
L
MWadwell wrote:n7axw wrote:I would not deny the value of machine guns. However the allies already have what is probably a more efficient way of dealing with massed human wave attacks; the long range and shorter range angle guns which we saw used by DE against Kaitswyth on the Daivyn River. With those they can already create a fire zone that would be almost impossible to cross.
My second comment here has to do with the numerical odds the allies face. I realize that 1.7 million men sounds formidable. And it is. But consider. On the Daivyn, DE with 13 thousand men not only defeated Kaitwryth with his approx 140,000 men but forced him to retreat almost 100 miles. Better than 10 to 1 odds. Then at Ft. Tairys, Along with Sympkyn, EHM and the Siddarmarkans, DE not merely defeated but utterly destroyed an army of about 250,000 men with, so far as I can determine, about 125,000 men. Alverez's escapees are really all that's left. The odds have dropped to about 2 to 1.
Now it is basicly up to the Harchongese. My own guess by this time is that the alliance will field approx 800,000 men against the Harchongians, with every man being armed with at minimum of a rifle. I would expect the ammo production issues to be resolved by then without even discussing the steadily increasing allied superiority in all manner of artillery.
The Harchongese, on the other hand, will field a bit less than 600,000 rifles, somewhere under 15% of which are the breech loading St Klymans along with respectable numbers of out ranged muzzle loading cannon. After that, the rest of their 1.7 million men are armed with arbelests, horse bows and of all things...rock throwers! To borrow a delightful phrase from the Empire of Man universe, "basik to the atul!" They just as well slaughter almost half their army themselves. The actual numerical odds here will be about 2 to 1 in favor of the Harchongese, but that doesn't really mean much. In fact, the allies will actually bring more firearms to the party than the Harchongese.
There are other issues that the Harchongese face such as lack of experienced, competent leadership, increasingly stretched out and vulnerable logistics and the list can go on.
The point being I'm not overly worried about human wave attacks. If they try that tactic, they will merely be lining their men up for the allies to kill them faster and more efficiently.
Don
I agree - in a straight fire, the AoG is going to be
slaughtered.
However, after seeing what has previously happened to AoG armies, if
I was a AoG army commander, I would use my numbers advantage in a different way.....
Such as leaving behind a blocking force to pin the ICA in place, and then strike around their flanks.
I know that in a war of movement the ICA is going to have an advantage - but at least
try and get the situation where
neither side is entrenched, and you can attrit them on a 1-to-1 basis, rather then the 10-to-1 basis it has historically been.....
I now this is common sense, but I doubt that it is what the AoG commanders are going to do. (What is it with MWW writing dumb opponents???)
