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RTH Official Snippet #2

"Hell's Gate" and "Hell Hath No Fury", by David, Linda Evans, and Joelle Presby, take the clash of science and magic to a whole new dimension...join us in a friendly discussion of this engrossing series!
Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by Mil-tech bard   » Tue May 12, 2015 4:35 pm

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And while it was still a bit difficult for a Sharonian to wrap his mind around all the advantages the Arcanans’ “dragons” bestowed upon them, one thing was abundantly clear: they could project force much farther — and much more rapidly — than Sharona could, even through totally undeveloped terrain.


This is quite apparent with Division-Captain Arlos chan Geraith's resistance to fighting it out in the Traisum Cut.

The only way Division-Captain chan Geraith is going to inflict lots of casualties at anything approaching a one to one casualty exchange ratio with an enemy with the mobility advantage that Arcanian dragon air transport provides is to fight them in their fortified ground positions, under far seer directed heavy artillery impact fans.

That is the only situation when Sharona's rail-logistics advantage in material weight can make itself felt over Arcania's dragon air transport and spell-tramways.

Arcania's military is built around direct fire magical energy weapons and dragon airpower. A defensive siege with that military kit versus Sharonan heavy indirect fire artillery and long range automatic crew served weapons is a losing proposition.

Arcania cannot win a Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

See:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by Mil-tech bard   » Tue May 12, 2015 4:53 pm

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Heh!

My post in this thread --

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4643&start=50#p120839

Is born out by this part of the snippet #2 --

Chan Geraith nodded, his eyes dark. Traisum was one of the half-dozen or so “triples” the Portal Authority had explored — universes which possessed three portals rather than the customary two. The Chernoth portal, linking Traisum and Kelsayr, and the Salbyton Portal, linking Traisum and Karys, had been discovered within a year of each other. Unfortunately, Chernoth lay in the heart of New Ternath on the far side of the Vandor Ocean, which had made getting to it just a tad difficult. By the same token, however, the Salbyton portal (only there hadn’t been a Salbyton then, of course) had been one of the most inaccessible ones ever discovered, lying as it did in the heart of the Narshathan Mountains. Given their sheer distance from home and all the manifold difficulties inherent in their development, the PA and TTE had given both of them relatively low priority, at least initially.

When the Powers That Be finally got around to them, the outlay in infrastructure had been enormous. Since the journey between Vankaiyar, the Ricathian city closest to the portal linking Traisum and Salym, and New Ternath included a water gap of over six thousand miles — practically the entire length of the Mbisi and the width of the Vandor — TTE had built a shipyard from the ground up at Renaiyrton, on the same site as the Ricathian Mbisian seaport of Nymara. The yard — established simultaneously with the enormous railhead at Salbyton — had gone up fairly quickly. It was a bare-bones operation, with a work force of only a few thousand, but that was quite enough to assemble the prefabricated ships required to transport its work crews and heavy equipment across the Vandor. Once that was accomplished, exploration of Kelsayr had gone on apace, and the portal from that universe to Lashai had been discovered within another several months.

In the meantime, work had begun on the Traisum Cut, which had soaked up well over three quarters of the TTE’s freight capacity down the line from Salym. The line through Kelsayr had been given a lower priority than work on the Cut, but the railhead had moved steadily, if slowly, forward toward Lashai. It had been anticipated that construction priority would shift back to the Kelsayr Chain once the Cut was completed, and that was exactly what had happened . . . until the Chalgyn Consortium’s push forward through the newly opened Failcham had reordered everything. Chalgyn had surveyed portals in Failcham, Thermyn (yet another triple), New Uromathia, and Nairsom before they hit Hell’s Gate, and the Portal Authority had been astounded to discover that Nairsom connected directly to Resym in the Kelsayr Chain.



The 6K mile sea gap is a big fat hair deal in Ft. Salby logistics...and the Shronans have modular shipbuilding yards to deal with it.

The conceptual leap from moving modular ships or ship yards by train to modular transport by train and ship for _everything_ is very small.

More like a conceptual "skip" than a hop or leap.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by Howard T. Map-addict   » Fri May 15, 2015 11:56 am

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My idea (which I think I said before) is that
Sharona's superior artillery will let them fight
their way through Salbyton Portal, and the Traisum
Cut immediately beyond it - especially when their
arty is shooting *through* the Portal at Arcanan
Field Dragons that can't reply - but once Sharonans
reach the open lands beyond long-gun range of the
Portal, the advantage goes over to the mobile Arcanans.

But the Main AEF is in Karys, including both cavalry
regiments and most of the infantry, and now the last
Battle Dragons the AEF has is being transferred there,
too. Carthos has only 2 or 3 battalions of infantry,
and enough dragons to transport them.

We were told at the end of HG that the AEF started
with **c11,000 men.** {{This number CORRECTED to
14,000 men on page 3 of this thread, post number 5.}}

Figure Harshu gave
Carthos 2,500 and took 8,500 with him. If he lost
1,500 at Ft. Salby (probably lost fewer), he still
has 7,000 men, with Battle Dragons arriving any time,
against chan Geraith's expected 6,000.
But one brigade of 3DD, without extras, has 3,000
to go against maybe 2,500. And the brigade brings
heavy weapons, which Carthos-force lacks.

Of course, the Kelsyr Route is a long way to the front!
Many Portals to garrison.

HTM

Mil-tech bard wrote:
This is quite apparent with Division-Captain Arlos chan Geraith's resistance to fighting it out in the Traisum Cut.

The only way Division-Captain chan Geraith is going to inflict lots of casualties at anything approaching a one to one casualty exchange ratio with an enemy with the mobility advantage that Arcanian dragon air transport provides is to fight them in their fortified ground positions, under far seer directed heavy artillery impact fans.

That is the only situation when Sharona's rail-logistics advantage in material weight can make itself felt over Arcania's dragon air transport and spell-tramways.

Arcania's military is built around direct fire magical energy weapons and dragon airpower. A defensive siege with that military kit versus Sharonan heavy indirect fire artillery and long range automatic crew served weapons is a losing proposition.

Arcania cannot win a Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

See:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu
Last edited by Howard T. Map-addict on Tue May 19, 2015 11:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by Mil-tech bard   » Fri May 15, 2015 5:13 pm

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Sharona will win any death grapple in close terrain or any sort of grinding attrition fight in a fixed/narrow position like a portal.

Arcania has mobile warfare all to itself.

Winged tactical Dragon lift, Unicorns (40 MPH/64 KPH!) and Heavy Horse simply give Arcania an overwhelming advantage.

And dragons as anti-ship weapons versus smaller sailing ships and river steamers, or as fire starters against wooden railway bridges, give Arcania an absolute mobility/infrastructure raiding advantage in open plains, swampy, riverine, and sea-littoral geography.

Mixed forest with heavy overhead concealment, like the forests of Eastern Russia, narrow the disadvantage between Sharona and Arcania a great deal. As the superior communications and farseer reconnaissance capability of Sharonan forces allow them much better coordination to balance the Arcanian mobility advantages.

Fighting in mountains, with indirect artillery, long distance automatic weapons fire using long sight lines, and far seers, favors Sharona.

Sure, dragons can get Arcanian magic weapons to summits.

But it can't get them out once inside the Sharonan artillery fan, and particularly that of Sharonan mortars. Magic directed energy weapons cannot hit the back slopes of hills where Sharonan howitzers and mortars live and crossbows cannot reach.

Against a Sharonan artillery forward observer with predictive farseeing and either a telepathic or a teleporter messenger, transport dragons are so much dead meat the moment they land to deposit troops and kit.

The same would be true of a lift-platform mage dropped off on a summit by a dragon.

Any Arcanian infantry force inside both Sharonan crew served direct fire automatic weapon range and crew served indirect artillery fan of a large Sharonan military unit is _decisively engaged_.

Barring the Sharonans running out of ammo, any Arcanian infantry unit caught in that situation is going nowhere but a POW camp or a grave without Dragon breath weapon support to suppress Sharonan crew served weapons.

Dragon breath weapons now in very, very, short supply.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:My idea (which I think I said before) is that
Sharona's superior artillery will let them fight
their way through Salbyton Portal, and the Traisum
Cut immediately beyond it - especially when their
arty is shooting *through* the Portal at Arcanan
Field Dragons that can't reply - but once Sharonans
reach the open lands beyond long-gun range of the
Portal, the advantage goes over to the mobile Arcanans.

But the Main AEF is in Karys, including both cavalry
regiments and most of the infantry, and now the last
Battle Dragons the AEF has is being transferred there,
too. Carthos has only 2 or 3 battalions of infantry,
and enough dragons to transport them.

We were told at the end of HG that the AEF started
with c11,000 men. Figure Harshu gave Carthos 2,500
and took 8,500 with him. If he lost 1,500 at Ft.
Salby (probably lost fewer), he still has 7,000 men,
with Battle Dragons arriving any time,
against chan Geraith's expected 6,000.
But one brigade of 3DD, without extras, has 3,000
to go against maybe 2,500. And the brigade brings
heavy weapons, which Carthos-force lacks.

Of course, the Kelsyr Route is a long way to the front!
Many Portals to garrison.

HTM

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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by brnicholas   » Sun May 17, 2015 11:49 am

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Captain (Junior Grade)

Posts: 254
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Thanks for the snippet and I want to join the chorus insisting that you take care of yourself!!

This snippet is full of new information and in light of it sending a reconnaissance in force down the Kelsyr chain makes a lot of sense. I see several reasons for that.

1) Given his near total lack of information any engagements he can afford to lose would help him understand what he faces.

2) There are notable civilian populations in Kelsyr and Lashai (this is new information) and Sharona still controls both universes. Defending those people has to be part of his thinking, which means sending more troops that way.

3) He doesn't know the limits of dragons, or enemy troop numbers down the Kelsyr chain. He should also be worried about Arcanans coming down Kelsyr bypassing Salby and moving toward Sharona. Advancing may get him the information and strengthen the defenses along the chain may prevent Arcanan advances.

4) The Salby valley is so small that the first two of the 9 Sharonan brigades coming up will fill it up (this is new information) so until he has the strength to push up from Salby (and note he doesn't know that the Arcanans don't have artillery) more forces there don't make for a stronger defense at the portal.

Splitting his forces is a gamble and he may well have his force cut off and destroyed but even that would get him information, which is probably more valuable then the soldiers at this point, and he isn't going to accomplish anything by sitting on the defensive and waiting to be attacked.

Nicholas
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by brnicholas   » Sun May 17, 2015 11:53 am

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Posts: 254
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I would guess that they haven't had time to get them organized yet. This meeting appears to be taking place with 48 hours of chan Geraith's arrival at Salby. Which makes it about a week since the battle of Salby and probably less then a week since the workers got back to Salby.

Now why anyone would imagine that those crews won't be put to work in short order I have no idea.


Nicholas

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Why are TTE's work trains still at Salbyton?
Why haven't they already been sent to build more
tracks between Salym's Fort Tharkoma and Salbyton?

Sharona needs to redouble the tracks on the entire route!

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1673
for chart of Outworlds.

HTM

runsforcelery wrote:______________________________________________
{big snips - htm}
"... having Engineer Banchu’s work trains
parked all over the sidings doesn’t help.”

the massive work trains Banchu had brought back
from Karys had already packed much of the
sidings’ available room solid.

And they’d go right on using up that parking space . .
. **unless someone found them something else to do.**
{snip - htm}
[/size]
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by brnicholas   » Sun May 17, 2015 12:13 pm

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I wanted to make a couple of comments on these numbers.

First we know that there are seven more brigades behind these two. How far behind is an open question but the fact that the first two arrived about a week apart implies to me the rest probably aren't too far behind.

Second, the Arcanans ought to start having significant rear area security problems in the next few weeks. We know the Sharonian civilian settlers were pulling out from the universes close to Hell's Gate but I can't imagine that applied to the survey crews. I expect they were rushing toward Hell's Gate. Chalgyn's teams had claimed only a few mile wide direct route between the portals, everything else is still open to be claimed and with contact made with another civilization the expected value of such resources will be very high. I'm sure the Portal Authority closed Hell's Gate to survey teams and they may have also closed New Uromath but they surely left the other worlds open. Those survey teams are all men who chose a high risk high reward occupation, all have small arms, are about half military veterans, are all in voice contact with the Portal Authority voices. They will have figured out by now that something is wrong back at the portals and at least some of their Voices probably got messages a lot like the one Syrial got. I expect them to walk back to the forts and to attack when they find them under Arcanan control. Does anyone doubt several survey crews working together can take a fort away from an Arcanan force commanded by someone of Hundred Thalmayr's ability? I don't. Especially since the Arcanans don't even appear to realize they are there! That is likely to pull a lot of Arcanan forces away from the front in the next six months are so.

Nicholas

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:. . . snipped . . .
We were told at the end of HG that the AEF started
with c11,000 men. Figure Harshu gave Carthos 2,500
and took 8,500 with him. If he lost 1,500 at Ft.
Salby (probably lost fewer), he still has 7,000 men,
with Battle Dragons arriving any time,
against chan Geraith's expected 6,000.
But one brigade of 3DD, without extras, has 3,000
to go against maybe 2,500. And the brigade brings
heavy weapons, which Carthos-force lacks.

Of course, the Kelsyr Route is a long way to the front!
Many Portals to garrison.

HTM

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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by phillies   » Sun May 17, 2015 2:00 pm

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Location: Worcester, MA

Blow up dragon corpse.

Hopefully they were more fortunate than the iirc Oregon Public Works Department that had a dead whale on the beach.

Boys and their toys meant a perfect excuse to use...

HIGH EXPLOSIVES!

After all, if you blow something up, it isn't there any more, is it? And perhaps this was just to turn the whale to fragments.

In any event, since there is little civil engineering experience in blowing up whales, they used a healthy amount of high explosives. And they apparently invited the public to watch. It was, well, sort of like watching The Great Train Wreck.

Fortunately, this time no one was killed or injured. The car parked well back from everything, well, 'resistance to being crushed by a half ton of dead whale falling from a great height and also having sideways velocity' is apparently not in the car's design specifications. There are, however, videos someplace.

Returning to the railroad, the folks advancing by rail are in the position of Sherman trying to reach Atlanta or the fascists in the Ukraine. To defend a railroad, you have to defend all of it, every inch. The fascists had the advantage that the other side did not have total air superiority and the ability to infiltrate assault forces by air to the point of interest. Sherman dumped his supply lines, but he was not going very far, there was a supply base at the far end, and he was advancing through terrain that could be thoroughly plundered. Also, he had heard of 'plunder, before you burn'. The Sharonans have none of these advantages, and are going to have a challenging time of things. Steam overland freight haulers over flat terrain may work better. Advancing by water rather than rail may work better, though translocating the Cape Fear Dreadnaught works may be a chore.

How tall is one of these holes in the universes?
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by pushmar   » Sun May 17, 2015 3:02 pm

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Location: <Moscow, Idaho> Nope, back in Michigan.

So, how is the Arcanan prong coming down the Kelsayr chain going to get across that 6000 mile water gap when they reach Trasium? You know, the Vandor (Atlantic) Ocean? Steal transport ships? They wouldn't know how to operate them, probably force Sharonans to run the ships. Either that, or take the long way around, up the "Pacific" coast, across the "Bering" strait, and then on to Fort Salby.
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Re: RTH Official Snippet #2
Post by brnicholas   » Sun May 17, 2015 7:44 pm

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Posts: 254
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If you were replying to me, as far as the Sharonans know, they can just fly over the Atlantic Ocean.

Nicholas

pushmar wrote:So, how is the Arcanan prong coming down the Kelsayr chain going to get across that 6000 mile water gap when they reach Trasium? You know, the Vandor (Atlantic) Ocean? Steal transport ships? They wouldn't know how to operate them, probably force Sharonans to run the ships. Either that, or take the long way around, up the "Pacific" coast, across the "Bering" strait, and then on to Fort Salby.
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