HFQ Thoughts/reflections SPOILERS

One thing no one has really commented on: at the end of HFQ, Magwair is several hundred miles out of Zion. While I'm sure Clyntahn has spies in his entourage, if he can evade them, he can take direct control of the army. Certainly he has a lot of opportunities that don't start with "then the inquisitors seize him". I am really surprised that Clyntahn let him out of Zion.

As for Rainbow Waters, after a few months during the winter of listening to Clyntahn's chaos, suppose Mab visits him one night, as the Prince of Tarot was visited, and he suggests "alternatives" to war with the EoC and RoS.

As for Thirsk, I think his priorities are (1) his family (2) the people in his navy (3) his Kingdom. I think he is also loyal to the Church, but not Clytahn's church. While knowing his family is safe may giving both freedom of thought and opportunity, I don't think he would defect because of the effect on <I>his</I> Navy. I do think that Bishop Maik has been "corrupted" enough to support a reasonable plan, just as Denis LePic had for Thomas Theisman. I also think he is smart enough to figure out a plan, but I have no idea what that could be.

Finally (I'm late to this group), I'm afraid the war will at least for a while turn into the equivalent of the Western front in World War I. The Katusya rockets, the angle guns, the mortars, and the breech-loading rifles give a major advantage to the defensive in some ways. However, they also mean that without the ability to resist indirect fire, I.e. massive defensive lines, they won't last very long. Add machine guns to the EoC forces, and more enhanced artillery, and going on the attack will be a bloodbath. Maybe Rainbow Waters will be willing to throw away his men the way both sides did during WW I. Or maybe Mab can convince him that taking his army home (and taking over) would be in almost everyone's best interests (excluding the nobility, the bureaucrats , and Clyntahn).

-- Bob G

Magwair could try something like that or at the very least getting some troops into Zion but that a declaration of war. Plus I suspect the reason Clyntahn let him out is twofold; 1 he has an insurance policy in place, given he planned to get rid of Magwair in HFQ thats almost certain. 2 is that the Go3 are now far more worried about the jihad, planning against your allies when declared enemies who want you dead are close to winning... Well Clyntahn may do it but I expect Rayno will advise him to wait due to needing his allies to win the jihad.

That the land war front can turn into WWI is a logical conclusion, until you consider how aggressive the Charis commanders are. They have the initiative and I find it unlikely they will just go defensive, especially since the navy will soon have no opposition and can help flank the HoGaA. Also the CoGA cannot afford to go defensive either, they have to attack and win otherwise go bankrupt. Finally you can count on Clyntahn to screw things up for his army, certainly he has managed to do so every time thus far.

Rainbow Waters is the new guy, we do not know enough about him yet. His current method of dealing with Clyntahn's orders, plus his own opinion of those orders are interesting. ATM he could do a number of things, or he could do nothing which IMO is the most likely. Wasting his men is not something he will do and given his musings I expect a general Harchong betrayal of the CoGA. Especially given that they have 1/2 the vicars from their empire they could pull off a secular coup of the Go4 (or Go3) if they feel it serves them best. IMO doing nothing is more likely as it appears to be the Harchong way thanks to their bureaucracy and near total lack of direct command in Harchong.

CJK wrote:Magwair could try something like that or at the very least getting some troops into Zion but that a declaration of war. Plus I suspect the reason Clyntahn let him out is twofold; 1 he has an insurance policy in place, given he planned to get rid of Magwair in HFQ thats almost certain. 2 is that the Go3 are now far more worried about the jihad, planning against your allies when declared enemies who want you dead are close to winning... Well Clyntahn may do it but I expect Rayno will advise him to wait due to needing his allies to win the jihad.

That the land war front can turn into WWI is a logical conclusion, until you consider how aggressive the Charis commanders are. They have the initiative and I find it unlikely they will just go defensive, especially since the navy will soon have no opposition and can help flank the HoGaA. Also the CoGA cannot afford to go defensive either, they have to attack and win otherwise go bankrupt. Finally you can count on Clyntahn to screw things up for his army, certainly he has managed to do so every time thus far.

Rainbow Waters is the new guy, we do not know enough about him yet. His current method of dealing with Clyntahn's orders, plus his own opinion of those orders are interesting. ATM he could do a number of things, or he could do nothing which IMO is the most likely. Wasting his men is not something he will do and given his musings I expect a general Harchong betrayal of the CoGA. Especially given that they have 1/2 the vicars from their empire they could pull off a secular coup of the Go4 (or Go3) if they feel it serves them best. IMO doing nothing is more likely as it appears to be the Harchong way thanks to their bureaucracy and near total lack of direct command in Harchong.

Not WW1. Allied tactics are too fluid and armies too small along with land area too large to support WW1 static front. Given mobility, this looks more like WW2, although the weapons are not up to WW2 standards.

Don

Ramhawkfan wrote:I could see a rebellion in Harchong happening off screen, so to speak, as it may not directly impact the direction of the story moving forward.

Same here. We already got to see what such a war would be like in Siddarmark. No need to retread old ground here.

Besides which, no such blow up in Harchong is going to be effective (Harchong has had peasant rebellions before) until all the trained and armed soldiers go home. And that's not going to happen until after the war ends, presumably with the vast majority of the Mighty Host still alive and not having been killed by Allied forces.

After all, a few paltry survivors are no threat to Harchong stability. Large bodies of trained by demobilized troops are a different story. Heck, large numbers of troops coming home from war can can cause problems even in well run nations. And Harchong is as far from well run as any nation in human history.

CJK wrote:That the land war front can turn into WWI is a logical conclusion, until you consider how aggressive the Charis commanders are. They have the initiative and I find it unlikely they will just go defensive, especially since the navy will soon have no opposition and can help flank the HoGaA. Also the CoGA cannot afford to go defensive either, they have to attack and win otherwise go bankrupt. Finally you can count on Clyntahn to screw things up for his army, certainly he has managed to do so every time thus far.

The CoGA is probably already bankrupt and is depending on the demands of the jihad to keep from having debts called in. But that's more their problem than anyone else's, and Rainbow Waters - if he knows, which is plausible at least - may not particularly care. If what he can hope to do is hold a line and stop the barbarian hordes of the uncouth east from overwhelming civilization, that's a fine thing to accomplish. If, in the meantime, it keeps people who may re-organize Harchong in terrible ways on the far side of the Temple Lands from it, that's even better. Having the Mighty Host holding that line may mean a negotiated peace that keeps in place a Temple now beholden to Harchong even more. There may be reasons to fear they'd lose South Harchong, but with the Mighty Host in play where it is and the Church effectively its client, the Temple Lands and maybe even some Border States could become West Harchong as a fine replacement.

It's a whole lot of subtle consideration of possibilities, but it'd be enough if some of it is in the background of Rainbow Waters contingency planning, and he's a subtle sort.

Rainbow Waters is the new guy, we do not know enough about him yet. His current method of dealing with Clyntahn's orders, plus his own opinion of those orders are interesting. ATM he could do a number of things, or he could do nothing which IMO is the most likely. Wasting his men is not something he will do and given his musings I expect a general Harchong betrayal of the CoGA. Especially given that they have 1/2 the vicars from their empire they could pull off a secular coup of the Go4 (or Go3) if they feel it serves them best. IMO doing nothing is more likely as it appears to be the Harchong way thanks to their bureaucracy and near total lack of direct command in Harchong.

The bureaucracy is very effective at making things happen when they have to or can make money out of it, and even better at making things not happen for similar benefits. I'm sure they can readily consider a new world in which they've got a more advantageous position relative to the Church and maybe even the aristocracy somewhat.

That's not to say that Rainbow Waters or the bureaucracy have quite wrapped their heads around how much Safehold is changing or Harchong might. They may be thinking outside one box, but there are a lot of boxes they're still deep inside.

BobG wrote:Finally (I'm late to this group), I'm afraid the war will at least for a while turn into the equivalent of the Western front in World War I. The Katusya rockets, the angle guns, the mortars, and the breech-loading rifles give a major advantage to the defensive in some ways. However, they also mean that without the ability to resist indirect fire, I.e. massive defensive lines, they won't last very long. Add machine guns to the EoC forces, and more enhanced artillery, and going on the attack will be a bloodbath. Maybe Rainbow Waters will be willing to throw away his men the way both sides did during WW I. Or maybe Mab can convince him that taking his army home (and taking over) would be in almost everyone's best interests (excluding the nobility, the bureaucrats , and Clyntahn).

-- Bob G

It was technology, more than anything else, that caused the static lines and trench warfare of WWI. Defensive technologies such as the barbed war, the armored bunker and the machine gun, had outpaced any offensive technologies so it become far easier to defend than to attack. And the pattern became clear to all, much like a dance where everyone knew all the moves. One side commenced shelling in order to force the other side to abandon his forward trenches while his infantry forces rushed forward across the no man's land. The shelling would stop when the troops would get close to the trenches and then they could only hope that the troops reached the other side's trenches before the other side managed to return and man the machine guns (which would then be used to mow down the approaching forces). If the attacker managed to reach the other side's trenches in time, then the dance would begin again the next day or the next week (depending on the state of supply - of shells in particular). Yet the further forward the attacker moved the longer and more complicated his supply lines became and so eventually the retreating side (whose supply lines shortened) started to have the advantage. It reached levels of absurdity when tacit agreements coalesced to not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in full view of the enemy, not to bomb the other side's mail trucks, or in the infamous Christmas Truce of 1914 which had several instances of troops from both sides having joint ceremonies and meetings that ended in carol-singing.

But what really broke the axis nations in WWI was their crumbling finances. Germany had been dead broke after 4 years of fighting - when many of the allies only gave them a year to begin with. And it was the pace of technological development which had allowed them to stay afloat for so long. Yet in the end, they ran out of money to pay the munitions factories and even their troops salaries. Soldiers would abandon their posts and go AWOL because they hadn't been paid while the allies secured the support of the US, whose main contribution to that war was in the money to keep France and England going longer than Germany or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Actually, that might be a hilarious end to the war on land - an agreement to have a "God's Day" truce with the chaplains on both sides leading services that the other side could hear - particularly sermons on freedom of conscience that the Harchongese serfs would hear. Or to have the Charisians and Siddarmarkians complain about the low pay while the serfs think
"they get paid?". Indeed, anything short of an outright offensive victory in the next installment would spell the death of the Church of God Awaiting, either by mass desertions or because Clyntahn will stupidly attempt to eliminate Maigwair and Duchairn.

I still think that the next book will have land battles looking more like Mackensen's (German) 1915 offenses or Brusilov's (Russian) 1916 offenses on the eastern front during World War One. The lack of mechanization, state of technology, and troop densities strongly mirror each other except for the lack of automatic weapons and primitive aircraft. (Don't know if the COGA will introduce poison gas or not.) Well trained riflemen can impose effects similar to machinguns. (See what the Germans thought the British had at Loos in 1914.) The EOC and RoS (indirectly) both have access to SNARKs so they have vastly superior intelligence.

The CoGA is going to bring to the battleground some new rockets that were compared to Russian katyusha rockets from WWII.

Charis is intending to bring to production a better version using better propellants with dynamite explosive charges that results in longer range and more destructive power.

What I am wondering is if they couldn't also start to make man portable shoulder fire versions of these. Can any body say "R P G." They could come in handy in street fighting or in ambushes. And unlike the Harchong "sling" weapon they can be fired from cover. (more or less)

The CoGA katyusha is going to change things about fixed fortifications and trench warfare. I see next summer's battles being more a case of maneuver and fire operations. I can see modified gorilla style of fighting where you hit them hard then reposition before the katyusha's can be put to use and then fire again. I want lots of 3 inch mortars that small units can move around with easily.

When katyusha's are involved, I cant see sitting in one place letting the CoGA armies use them effectively. Maneuver the enemy into an open position where anti-personal shrapnel shells or the EoC's own longer ranged version of the katyusha can be used to devastating effect.

But before next summer gets there, the Gulf of Dohlar must be under complete control of the EoC navy and Dohlar and Silkia must be surrendered to the EoC. That is what the winter months need to be used for. This will give the EoC a speed of maneuver over the ocean that the CoGA armies on land can not match.

Then in the spring, I want to see the new armies of Charis, Ghisholm and Corisade to open a new battle front way in the rear of the Siddarmark lines. I would invade from Malansath as that would give me the shortest path to Temple Lands. I would move up the hi-road from Hayzor through the Wishbone Mountains heading to Lakeview on Lake Pei. And up the river that I think is named “Samabana”. If I could get 3 or 4 river class iron-side boats up that river and the connecting “Lake Pei” canal onto Lake Pei itself, I could cause some serious damage and threaten Zion itself.

Such a thing would threaten the supplies of the CoGA armies in Siddarmark and cause a substantial division of forces on the CoGA side. It would also cut the Harchong Empire off from it's armies in Siddarmark.

It could all be helped out if Merlin could be convenience to take out a few locks on the Holy Langhorne Canal and drop a few incendiaries on the supply dumps of the Harchong armies during the winter.