Baen sample chapters (Spoilers)

Castenea wrote:

SYED wrote:The map is supposed to give a second distance if sea travel is involved, but the one in the side chain is not mentioned.

Say they push the enemy just beyond hells gate, how long would it take to build train track all tye way to the front. It could be speeded up if the began stockpjling material and equipment and men in preparation. Their enemy is at the end of a long supply line, so they would have a period of safety to build in.

Trains might be vulnerable, but the sheer mass they can move will make up for it and they can always establish a secondary purely cavalry or steam vehicles just in case.

Building the rail to Hell's Gate from current rail heads I think will be a 1-5 year endeavor, with supply of rations and other perishables being the actual bottle neck, not rail or other non-perishables.

Both sides are actually operating more or less on a shoestring at Hell's Gate, and I agree with several other posters that the Sharonian offensive will get there about the same time as the Arcanan reinforcements.

Astelon wrote:The sliders actually have similar capability, they don't have nearly as much capacity. They do have greater flexibility to partially make up for it. The front is so far from the slider head that I doubt it will make much difference for some time.

PeterZ wrote:Or the non-physical phenomena like magic can interfere with physical laws. If there was a plethora of aether interfering with natural laws around that firing range, Gadrial's control of aether could allow natural laws to work more freely simply by preventing them from intruding into the reactions Jathmar described.

That would assume that a non-gifted person (Jathmar) could alter the aether. It is a possibility to consider, but not one I am willing to swallow just yet. I would need to know more about Arcanan physics before I could make any real judgment.

Point 1 -- 24,000 miles to the nearest slider-head is many more to cover than 4,000 or 7,000 for Sharonan rail roads.

Point 2 -- Arcanian sliderway line building is compromised by the existence of dragons and levitation spells compared to the 25 mile a day rate for Sharonan TTE building crews.

Point 3 -- Arcanian sliderway lines require a lot of magically gifted people and magical infrastructure (magic power grids) to support them vice non-talented transport dragon pilots.

Point 4 -- The ability of Arcania to surge such magical infrastructure has not been shown by the text thus far. In fact, it has pointed the other way.

Point 5 -- Even if all of the above were taken care of, the Arcanian ability to surge economic/magical/military resources after decisions have been made are handicapped by its arthritic 100 mile an hour over long distances communications speed compared to Sharona.

The issue with Hummer relay communications is that it is a distance of 20,000 miles to the nearest sliderway.

We are talking 167 hours for an average Hummer rate of 120 miles an hour. That is one week from the Ft Salby front to the nearest sliderway station.

Add another week for every 20K miles from there to Arcania Prime.

_ONE WAY_.


You have to double it for a round trip.

By way of contrast it takes two weeks to get a Voice message to Sharona from Ft Salby, which is fixing to get shorter when additional Sharonan voices are deployed to patch gaps.

It maybe down to a matter of a few days round trip for Sharona some time in this book.

NB: Sharonan communications are better than Arcanian and can get much, much, better. This has huge logistical implications for the on-going Sharonan offensive.

Sharona's offensive will be breaking into Hells Gate about the time the political explosion from first Hummer messages about Arcanina's failed assault at Ft Salby, and killing of Sharona's Imperial Heir Secondary, is resolved on Arcania Prime.

This planned rupture by the 'Rycanthan Directorate' of the Ransanaran-Andaran alliance in the Arcanian Union means Ransanar has no-one it can trust to place as viceroy over the war with Sharona.

RFC has foreshadowed who that "Honorable Andaran Viceroy" might be, but getting there is going to take a lot of time that the Arcanian Military doesn't have short of Hells Gate.

Mil-tech bard wrote:Here are some logistical comparisons of Sharonan versus Arcania from the 'Re: Stopping the Sharonan Advance' thread that have been confirmed in the RTH webscription --


viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7040&start=70#p204760

Point 1 -- 24,000 miles to the nearest slider-head is many more to cover than 4,000 or 7,000 for Sharonan rail roads.

Point 2 -- Arcanian sliderway line building is compromised by the existence of dragons and levitation spells compared to the 25 mile a day rate for Sharonan TTE building crews.

Point 3 -- Arcanian sliderway lines require a lot of magically gifted people and magical infrastructure (magic power grids) to support them vice non-talented transport dragon pilots.

Point 4 -- The ability of Arcania to surge such magical infrastructure has not been shown by the text thus far. In fact, it has pointed the other way.

Point 5 -- Even if all of the above were taken care of, the Arcanian ability to surge economic/magical/military resources after decisions have been made are handicapped by its arthritic 100 mile an hour over long distances communications speed compared to Sharona.

and

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7040&start=40

The issue with Hummer relay communications is that it is a distance of 20,000 miles to the nearest sliderway.

We are talking 167 hours for an average Hummer rate of 120 miles an hour. That is one week from the Ft Salby front to the nearest sliderway station.

Add another week for every 20K miles from there to Arcania Prime.

_ONE WAY_.


You have to double it for a round trip.

By way of contrast it takes two weeks to get a Voice message to Sharona from Ft Salby, which is fixing to get shorter when additional Sharonan voices are deployed to patch gaps.

It maybe down to a matter of a few days round trip for Sharona some time in this book.

NB: Sharonan communications are better than Arcanian and can get much, much, better. This has huge logistical implications for the on-going Sharonan offensive.

and

Sharona's offensive will be breaking into Hells Gate about the time the political explosion from first Hummer messages about Arcanina's failed assault at Ft Salby, and killing of Sharona's Imperial Heir Secondary, is resolved on Arcania Prime.

This planned rupture by the 'Rycanthan Directorate' of the Ransanaran-Andaran alliance in the Arcanian Union means Ransanar has no-one it can trust to place as viceroy over the war with Sharona.

RFC has foreshadowed who that "Honorable Andaran Viceroy" might be, but getting there is going to take a lot of time that the Arcanian Military doesn't have short of Hells Gate.

SYED wrote:{snip - htm}
We know that most magical combat is up close, say tanks are made, could the dragons force open the tanks?they would be lightning
and fire resistant, but making it immune to gases would be tricky

SYED wrote:I forget is the gas the dragons use, explosive or flamable? If it is so volatile, that would make it easier to deal with.