Logistics and the Coming Year

lyonheart wrote:Hi DMcCunney,

Welcome to the forums, please enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum!

I'm sipping virtual single malt as we speak. (That happens to be one of David's tipples. I was able to create the conditions at a con where he was GoH for him to sample the Bowmore Black, generally considered the best single malt ever distilled. If you can find it now, a liter will cost you about $7K. When I got to sample it at a different event, my response was "Don't bother me. I'm having a religious experience!" )

You've done some excellent analysis, and while the dragons have grown in weight from MTaT [ie @15,000 lbs], the wagons still can carry 27 short tons, so divide your American civil war 1 ton wagons by 27, and the hundreds or thousands of dragons mentioned in passing supporting the armies become very reasonable.
<...>

I'm aware of the loads Safehold draft dragons can pull, and that fact is one of the things that makes Safehold viable at all.

The transport capability arguably exists to get the food to the front. but first you must have it to ship.

And the best transport capability requires the right conditions. The high roads are one part of the equation. The canals are arguably a larger one, and taking out canals by destroying locks is a tactic now used by both sides. Are the high roads sufficient if the canals are out of commission? For the volumes we are talking about, the answer may be "no." (I haven't seen numbers on the total amount of cargo that can move on a high road at any particular time and we've already been told some are less well maintained than others.)

And once winter settles in in the northern climes, nothing is moving in quantity any real distance till spring. If you don't have a considerable amount of supplies stockpiled relatively near the forces you have engaged in the field, you are in deep trouble come winter.

Regarding the support of the MH at ~3.5 million total, it still represents less than 1% of the CoGA population in western Haven still under the Go4's control when Dohlar/Silkiah is lost; so less of a burden for the border states and the temple lands food supply etc than some may think, especially considering Safehold's food preservation technology and the pre-war food surpluses that may yet not be fully consumed, combined with the lack of famine reports Duchairn hasn't complained about [not that he isn't rather worried about the future], the CoGA/Go4 agriculture may be better organised and prepared to provide the required surpluses than some realise, with distribution being the future bottleneck, as more dragons are drafted for the front.

Possible. My concern is more political and morale than logistics. The Border States and the Temple Lands may be able to do it, but I can't imagine they'll be happy about the burden, or the disruption it will cause locally.

One of the things I was thinking about for other reasons entirely was the challenge faced by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution. Russia was a mostly agrarian nation with little industrial capability and next to no middle class. The Bolsheviks were aware Russia needed to become an industrial power. Doing that required moving a lot of peasants off the fields to the cities to become the core of an industrial workforce. But the peasants remaining would have to ship large quantities of food to the cities to feed those workers, and the standard of living of those remaining would drop. Lenin tried two totally unsuccessful voluntary efforts. When Stalin came to power, he removed the "voluntary". You did as the state told you, or you got shipped to Siberia or shot.

The morale of the faithful in the Temple Lands and Border States is already taking hits after the consistent reverses the Jihad has suffered in the field, and imposing real sacrifices on them for this will make that worse, especially if Clyntahn plays Stalin and says "Do it or else!"

Granted the labor loss to North Harchong is much greater than the border states and temple land food burden [being almost 2% of its population], but it should still be capable of food surpluses [albeit much smaller ones] or at least feeding itself due to the multiple growing seasons, plus the probability of most of South Harchong's own food surpluses are normally shipped to the north.

North Harchong may still be able to feed itself, but I'm not so sure about surpluses. And my impression is that South Harchong didn't previously ship surpluses to the north. North Harchong's agricultural sector was the least efficient on Safehold, but it could at least feed itself. (It would not have been able to expand to create South Harchong if it couldn't.)

It could very well be that the loss of the South Harchong food imports may be critical to North Harchong's food supply and stability, but we don't have any textev yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to see it in AtSoT with the complications you suggest.

Up till now, North Harchong doesn't seem to have needed to import food. That changes if its own agricultural sector collapses.

Of course all the weapons that South Harchong is unable to ship north will be available if or when they decide to choose an independent path.

The gun doesn't care who shoots it at what...

(Witness the contributions made by the Army of Justice to the rearming Army of Siddarmark. Their kit was inferior to what Charis was deploying, but any rifle is better than none.)
_______
Dennis

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the lack of canals in Northern Harchong. Gunpowder was approved based on plans to build a new canal there, accompanied by a sufficiently large bribe of course! The effort to construct a new canal ultimately failed.

If you check the map, most of the rivers in the western half of North Harchong run north and south, so most of the food being shipped to the war effort from there is likely going by ship from the southern ports. Most of their steel mills and manufacturies are located near those ports as well. With the KH VIIs and a swarm of City class ironclads headed for the Gulf of Dohlar, a large percentage of those ports and the ships carrying their produce will soon cease to exist. So kiss the food and the supplies currently being sent by ship from North Harchong goodbye!

South Harchong will soon have the choice of dropping out of the jihad or having all its ports reduced to rubble. Based on their love of earning a mark (either legally or by more dubious means) the South Harchongese are likely to inform Zion that the depredations of the ICN make it impossible for them to continue to participate in the jihad. Then they'll get into the business of quietly selling coal to the ICN.

Bid farewell to all the food and arms that South Harchong was supplying, and at that point the entire continent of Howard will be out of the war.

So the logistics for the MHoG look rather bleak. They can't live off the land, since Northern and Western Siddarmark have been turned into virtual moonscapes, and with the elimination of all the supplies they formerly received from Howard and the western half of North Harchong, that leaves the Temple Lands and the Border States to feed and supply over three million locusts. That's going to be very difficult to maintain, especially if Green Valley (or a seijin or two) manage to slip behind the lines and burn a few supply depots or destroy some locks on the Great Langhorne canal. Eliminate the stores at Lake City and the jihad would probably be over!

Just sayin'

runsforcelery wrote:<SNIP>
Freight wagons on Safehold tend to have man-height wheels and considerably more efficient bearings than were available to 19th century military wagons.
<SNIP>

Wait, Safehold already has efficient ball bearing? This has been a major sticking point for manufacturing during our discussions in the past.

Well this revelation certainly opens up a lot of possibilities!

McGuiness wrote:Wait, Safehold already has efficient ball bearing? This has been a major sticking point for manufacturing during our discussions in the past.

Well this revelation certainly opens up a lot of possibilities!

He didn't say Ball Bearings, just more efficient than 19th century earth. Roller bearings would fit that qualification as well as Ball bearings, but brass or "white-metal" (as used for crankshafts and connecting rods) with lubrication grooves might also fit.

McGuiness wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:<SNIP>
Freight wagons on Safehold tend to have man-height wheels and considerably more efficient bearings than were available to 19th century military wagons.
<SNIP>

Wait, Safehold already has efficient ball bearing? This has been a major sticking point for manufacturing during our discussions in the past.

Well this revelation certainly opens up a lot of possibilities!

He didn't say ball bearings, and they are far from the only type.
______
Dennis

Hi DMCunney,

Thanks for the rapid response, I agree the potential for things to go badly wrong for the CoGA/Go4 populations through the 897 winter and spring through the summer of 898.

While I might quibble that Russia had a fairly large industrial [not to mention city] workforce before the revolution, because they wouldn't have lasted for 3 years against the central powers with very limited imports among other things; it was obviously rather less than what the resources of the huge nation permitted.

Regarding the limits of North Harchong's agriculture and transportation network, we really don't know yet, but I suspect RFC will fill us in at least somewhat in AtSoT.

Given what Green Valley did last winter, and what a comparable part of Eastshare's armies could do this winter to Holy Langhorne locks, as well as a strike up the Sabana river that I've long suggested, which Allayn, Duchairn, and Rainbow Waters have to be prepared to counter, if they can; I expect the CoGA armies north of the river and locks might have enough supplies to last the winter but none for any advance until they reconnect with Zion, which might meet a few bumps along the way, any and all delays only permitting the allies to render them increasingly irrelevant as they bypass the major armies.

Given the political makeup of the border states as previously discussed here, the fact the levelers are in greater proportions in the Border States and the Temple lands than the republic due to much greater inequalities, and the wisdom gained from observing how their Siddarmarkian brethren were used by the inquisition and then fared; once the local armies and aristocracies have been beaten and or fled, the levelers and or some portion of the upper or middle class is going to try to fill the power vacuum.

Spread across some 17 different polities IIRC, it will be fascinating to watch.

Will Border State refugees be welcomed into the Temple Lands, or will Clyntahn try to keep them out?

Even if its October, Eastshare could easily send a third or more of his army south to better [warmer] winter quarters around say Darnyth, that would certainly increase the pressure on Dohlar and possibly distract the MH, particularly the reinforcements.

Interesting times, indeed.

L


[quote="DMcCunney"][quote="lyonheart"]Hi DMcCunney,

Welcome to the forums, please enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum! [/quote]
I'm sipping virtual single malt as we speak. (That happens to be one of David's tipples. I was able to create the conditions at a con where he was GoH for him to sample the Bowmore Black, generally considered the best single malt ever distilled. If you can [i]find[/i] it now, a liter will cost you about $7K. When I got to sample it at a different event, my response was "Don't bother me. I'm having a religious experience!" )

[quote]You've done some excellent analysis, and while the dragons have grown in weight from MTaT [ie @15,000 lbs], the wagons still can carry 27 short tons, so divide your American civil war 1 ton wagons by 27, and the hundreds or thousands of dragons mentioned in passing supporting the armies become very reasonable.
<...>[/quote]
I'm aware of the loads Safehold draft dragons can pull, and that fact is one of the things that makes Safehold viable at all.

The transport capability arguably exists to get the food to the front. but first you must have it to ship.

And the best transport capability requires the right conditions. The high roads are one part of the equation. The canals are arguably a larger one, and taking out canals by destroying locks is a tactic now used by both sides. Are the high roads sufficient if the canals are out of commission? For the volumes we are talking about, the answer may be "no." (I haven't seen numbers on the total amount of cargo that can move on a high road at any particular time and we've already been told some are less well maintained than others.)

And once winter settles in in the northern climes, [i]nothing[/i] is moving in quantity any real distance till spring. If you don't have a considerable amount of supplies stockpiled relatively near the forces you have engaged in the field, you are in deep trouble come winter.

[quote]Regarding the support of the MH at ~3.5 million total, it still represents less than 1% of the CoGA population in western Haven still under the Go4's control when Dohlar/Silkiah is lost; so less of a burden for the border states and the temple lands food supply etc than some may think, especially considering Safehold's food preservation technology and the pre-war food surpluses that may yet not be fully consumed, combined with the lack of famine reports Duchairn hasn't complained about [not that he isn't rather worried about the future], the CoGA/Go4 agriculture may be better organised and prepared to provide the required surpluses than some realise, with distribution being the future bottleneck, as more dragons are drafted for the front.[/quote]
Possible. My concern is more political and morale than logistics. The Border States and the Temple Lands may be able to [i]do[/i] it, but I can't imagine they'll be [i]happy[/i] about the burden, or the disruption it will cause locally.

One of the things I was thinking about for other reasons entirely was the challenge faced by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution. Russia was a mostly agrarian nation with little industrial capability and next to no middle class. The Bolsheviks were aware Russia needed to become an industrial power. [i]Doing[/i] that required moving a lot of peasants off the fields to the cities to become the core of an industrial workforce. But the peasants remaining would have to ship large quantities of food to the cities to feed those workers, and the standard of living of those remaining would [i]drop[/i]. Lenin tried two totally unsuccessful voluntary efforts. When Stalin came to power, he removed the "voluntary". You did as the state told you, or you got shipped to Siberia or shot.

The morale of the faithful in the Temple Lands and Border States is already taking hits after the consistent reverses the Jihad has suffered in the field, and imposing real sacrifices on them for this will make that worse, especially if Clyntahn plays Stalin and says "Do it or else!"

[quote]Granted the labor loss to North Harchong is much greater than the border states and temple land food burden [being almost 2% of its population], but it should still be capable of food surpluses [albeit much smaller ones] or at least feeding itself due to the multiple growing seasons, plus the probability of most of South Harchong's own food surpluses are normally shipped to the north.[/quote]
North Harchong may still be able to feed itself, but I'm not so sure about surpluses. And my impression is that South Harchong didn't previously ship surpluses to the north. North Harchong's agricultural sector was the least efficient on Safehold, but it could at least feed itself. (It would not have been able to expand to create South Harchong if it couldn't.)

[quote]It could very well be that the loss of the South Harchong food imports may be critical to North Harchong's food supply and stability, but we don't have any textev yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to see it in AtSoT with the complications you suggest.[/quote]
Up till now, North Harchong doesn't seem to have needed to import food. That changes if its own agricultural sector collapses.

[quote]Of course all the weapons that South Harchong is unable to ship north will be available if or when they decide to choose an independent path. [/quote]
The [i]gun[/i] doesn't care who shoots it at what...

(Witness the contributions made by the Army of Justice to the rearming Army of Siddarmark. Their kit was inferior to what Charis was deploying, but any rifle is better than none.)
_______
[b]Dennis[/b][/quote]

McGuiness wrote:snip

So the logistics for the MHoG look rather bleak. They can't live off the land, since Northern and Western Siddarmark have been turned into virtual moonscapes, and with the elimination of all the supplies they formerly received from Howard and the western half of North Harchong, that leaves the Temple Lands and the Border States to feed and supply over three million locusts. That's going to be very difficult to maintain, especially if Green Valley (or a seijin or two) manage to slip behind the lines and burn a few supply depots or destroy some locks on the Great Langhorne canal. Eliminate the stores at Lake City and the jihad would probably be over!

Just sayin'

Yet, if the MHoG remains on the defensive and the Border Kingdoms and Temple Lands do support them, the Allies may well pass on attacking those defensive positions head on. The casualties would be severe on both sides. Harchong is in process of sending another 2 million soldiers. If the current MHoG can hold off long enough for the additional 2 million to be armed, that is a tough force to deal with.

To this end I am reminded of a passing internal comment Magwair made. He longed for a respite when he could rebuild the economy and infrastructure to enable supporting a jihad large enough to defeat the heretics. I don't believe he truly considered what the Allies could do with the same amount of time. Yet, that desire fits nicely with the menu of options the G4 has before them. They either take the offensive and secure defeat either militarily or through an inability to support the offensive, or they stand on defense and husband their resources to make an Allied offensive too expensive to bear.

The Temple Lands, North Harchong and Border Kingdoms would all see losing the MHoG as letting the allies take their nations. They will be all in whatever it takes, even beggaring themselves to retain independence from the heretics.

The Allies would be tempted to really build a massive economy to support a truly prodigious war machine. Steam tanks, fast steam transports, machine guns, mechanized artillery, 35,000-40,000 tonne super-dreadnoughts firing 14"-16" guns AND the infrastructure to support all of that in an offensive that ends in Zion.

If that transpires, then we see the Temple Loyalists forced to try and replicate the Allied war machine and the societal changes necessary to support it. By the time the Sleepers awaken, the technology permeating Safehold will be far in excess of whatever Langhorne and Bedard had envisioned. What will the Sleeper do? Destroy all of Safehold to save it? If so, will the survivors ever embrace that theology every again?

Bottom line is that if Clyntahn buys it, the Temple loyalists can survive the Summer quite well. They just have to stay on the defensive and make serious changes in their societies to enable maintaining the required support their army needs.

lyonheart wrote:Hi DMCunney,

Thanks for the rapid response, I agree the potential for things to go badly wrong for the CoGA/Go4 populations through the 897 winter and spring through the summer of 898.

I don't see it being a good time for them.

While I might quibble that Russia had a fairly large industrial [not to mention city] workforce before the revolution, because they wouldn't have lasted for 3 years against the central powers with very limited imports among other things; it was obviously rather less than what the resources of the huge nation permitted.

Fairly large is relative. They had some industrial base and workforce, but nowhere near the development of the European powers.

I saw a good case made elsewhere that the domination by the Mongols back when Russia was still Rus, and a maze of principalities and other independent polities, impeded Russia's social and political development relative to the West. In Eisenstein's classic film "Alexander Nevsky", Prince Alexander is paying tribute to the local Khan of the Golden Horde at the time he is struggling to repel an invasion by the Teutonic knights. (A friend in Britain who was involved in international education talked about a Russian student who said "The Mongols made us short!")

Russia's political organization was still feudal with serfs when other nations had progressed rather beyond it. And you had issues like the fact the great nobles often didn't speak Russian, and couldn't speak directly to those they ruled. At the court of Peter the Great, for example, the court language was French.

And while Russia possessed industry, heavy industry was sorely lacking. Consider the Russo-Japanese War, when Russia's Pacific Fleet was destroyed by Admiral Togo, and when the Baltic Fleet sallied to the Pacific, it came to grief too. The ships used had all been ordered from and built by Western powers. Russia didn't have the capacity to build them.

The Bolshevik's recognized the need to eliminate that sort of dependency, and Stalin's forced movement of peasants to the cities was a result.

Russia holding out against the Central powers was a function of population and space. It was huge, with a large population. The Central powers in WWI weren't the only ones who came to grief trying to subdue it. (The fact that the Triple Entente was fighting a two front war didn't help.) Napoleon had earlier, and Nazi Germany did later.

Regarding the limits of North Harchong's agriculture and transportation network, we really don't know yet, but I suspect RFC will fill us in at least somewhat in AtSoT.

I think so too. My basic question was "How many peasants can you pull from the fields before those remaining can't grow enough food to feed the country?" North Harchong has managed despite a transportation infrastructure inferior to the rest of Safehold, so I don't see transport as a limiting factor. It doesn't matter how good your transport sector is if you don't have stuff to transport.

Given what Green Valley did last winter, and what a comparable part of Eastshare's armies could do this winter to Holy Langhorne locks, as well as a strike up the Sabana river that I've long suggested, which Allayn, Duchairn, and Rainbow Waters have to be prepared to counter, if they can; I expect the CoGA armies north of the river and locks might have enough supplies to last the winter but none for any advance until they reconnect with Zion, which might meet a few bumps along the way, any and all delays only permitting the allies to render them increasingly irrelevant as they bypass the major armies.

Note Earl Rainbow Waters' comments to his nephew about what the Mighty Host should be doing, particularly in regards to building a large stockpile of supplies at Lake City to support future advances, and to withdraw AOG personnel further East and fortify the whole place into something even Eastshare and Green Valley would find a tough nut to crack.

Given the political makeup of the border states as previously discussed here, the fact the levelers are in greater proportions in the Border States and the Temple lands than the republic due to much greater inequalities, and the wisdom gained from observing how their Siddarmarkian brethren were used by the inquisition and then fared; once the local armies and aristocracies have been beaten and or fled, the levelers and or some portion of the upper or middle class is going to try to fill the power vacuum.

That is an interesting question. We don't really know that much about the Border States, save that they have the same sort of feudal structure as elsewhere, and will be more conservative than places like Siddarmark because they are closer to the Temple Lands and Mother Church. I recall it being considered significant by the EoC when it was discovered that drafts from the various Border States armies were enrolled in the Jihad for deployment in Siddarmark. That dispersion of power may cause problems for Border State rulers trying to keep a lid on the pot if conditions deteriorate badly on them.

Spread across some 17 different polities IIRC, it will be fascinating to watch.

Will Border State refugees be welcomed into the Temple Lands, or will Clyntahn try to keep them out?

Does the Temple Lands have the capacity to absorb them if he doesn't? And if he does, how does he keep them out? What does he use for a border patrol?

Even if its October, Eastshare could easily send a third or more of his army south to better [warmer] winter quarters around say Darnyth, that would certainly increase the pressure on Dohlar and possibly distract the MH, particularly the reinforcements.

I'm not sure increasing the pressure on Dohlor is really needed. Earl Hanth is already pressuring them, and wait till the KH VIIs steam into the Bay of Gorath. Dohlor hasn't seen bad yet, but it's coming.

But one direction things could take will be what happened in WWI with stalemate and trench warfare. Both sides will be dug in and fortified, and over-the-top assaults will be prohibitively costly. (I suspect Earl Rainbow Waters will be aware of that, but the MH will have to pay a hefty price before Clyntanh is forced to face reality.

Interesting times, indeed.

Yep. And speaking of polities, I don't expect it to be really covered in the books, but it would be interesting to see the development of such things on Safehold. At the Creation, we simply had 8 million Adams and Eves. Now we have an elaborate feudal structure, with barons, earls, dukes, princes, kings, and emperors. How did those political structures develop? I'll make a guess the hierarchical organization of Mother Church provided a structural model.
_______
Dennis

The thing that gets me about the analogies to WWI trench warfare is, that war was neither won nor lost in the trenches. The best that can be said about it is that the trench battles resulted in a stalemate that used up men and supplies.

Germany did not surrender by reason of those battles.

From everything I've gleaned, Germany surrendered because its Navy could not overcome the blockades imposed by the allies, and because the country and its people were systematically being denied access to food and supplies.

I could easily be wrong, but I believe the trench warfare that may (repeat, may) be the result of the current situation in the field east of Dohlar will not decide what happens in that country. That will be decided by whatever happens in Gorath, Silkiah and in the Gulf of Dohlar.

I further believe the "fall" of Dohlar will be like the tipping over of the first domino, resulting in the slow, but inexorable and inevitable collapse of the Border States and of the remaining economy of Church-controlled territories.

If it is helped along by the actions of the Charisan armed forces, so much the better.

Hi XofDallas,

Quite right.

You make some excellent points, except that RFC has warned us that we won't see a western front style of ~400 miles of trenches, because they won't work on Safehold/Haven when the lines are 2000 miles long; they can either flank such field fortifications [in part thanks to dragon logistics] or punch through the rather weak lines, since even the MH's ~3.5 million would only be one man per yard [as opposed to the few to several men on WWI's western front] with only an improved flintlock; not a magazine rifle, NTM no machine guns or even breech loading artillery for support, and no longer facing an equally armed foe as the AoNV did the AotP at Petersburg, but one that does have magazine rifles and recoil artillery etc besides some other advantages the Go4 has yet to imagine, let alone realize the profound paradigm changes they entail.

I imagine Clyntahn would be speechless with fury if the MH felt unable to advance even with 3.5 M men, after they learn just how powerful the allied armies will have become by spring [40-60% larger?]; which might kill him with apoplexy, and be fun to watch too. (not that its going to happen)

Because the allied armies are much more mobile, they don't need such temporary advantages like trenches, except when fighting on the strategic offensive yet tactically defensive.

I wouldn't be surprised if the MH's 2M men second wave never links up with Rainbow Waters; first because Clyntahn doesn't want RW that empowered, second he doesn't want them contaminated by whatever has chilled RW's fervor for the jihad [his view], NTM being distracted by other things like losing Dohlar, etc.

As others have pointed out again, the CoGA economic engine is going to take some nasty shocks accompanying the loss of Dohlar and Howard; Desnar's gold, South Harchong's industrial production, and Dohlar as an anchor militarily, industrially and in inventiveness; which may precipitate the collapse of the financial house of cards Duchairn has been tending the past couple of years, which could precipitate other crises, like Duchairn's coup.

Interesting times indeed.

L

XofDallas wrote:The thing that gets me about the analogies to WWI trench warfare is, that war was neither won nor lost in the trenches. The best that can be said about it is that the trench battles resulted in a stalemate that used up men and supplies.

Germany did not surrender by reason of those battles.

From everything I've gleaned, Germany surrendered because its Navy could not overcome the blockades imposed by the allies, and because the country and its people were systematically being denied access to food and supplies.

I could easily be wrong, but I believe the trench warfare that may (repeat, may) be the result of the current situation in the field east of Dohlar will not decide what happens in that country. That will be decided by whatever happens in Gorath, Silkiah and in the Gulf of Dohlar.

I further believe the "fall" of Dohlar will be like the tipping over of the first domino, resulting in the slow, but inexorable and inevitable collapse of the Border States and of the remaining economy of Church-controlled territories.

If it is helped along by the actions of the Charisan armed forces, so much the better.