BY HERESIES DISTRESSED – snippet 39:
.III.
Royal Palace,
City of Manchyr,
League of Corisande
Lamps burned late in the small council chamber as Prince Hektor walked through the door, followed by two of his bodyguards. As usual, Hektor was impeccably attired, yet something about his appearance suggested he’d dressed rather more rapidly than usual this time. Or perhaps it was merely that the men awaiting him already knew he had.
He walked across to the head of the conference table with a quick, determined stride, and settled into the chair waiting for him there. Then he looked around the table with hard, grim eyes.
The Earl of Anvil Rock, Admiral Tartarian, the Earl of Coris, and Father Mahrak Hahlmyn, one of Bishop Executor Thomys’ senior aides, were already seated there, waiting for him. The prince’s eyes might have hardened briefly as they brushed across Hahlmyn, but if they did, he banished the hardness quickly and nodded respectfully to the upper-priest.
“I’m sorry to have summoned you on such short notice, Father,” he said.
“Don’t be concerned about it, Your Highness,” Hahlmyn replied, his expression and tone both grave. “Shan-wei’s machinations wait on no man, and the Writ tells us news of them has a habit of coming at inconvenient moments. I only regret that the Bishop Executor and FatherAidryn are both away from the city tonight. I have, of course, informed them of your message by carrier wyvern. And the Bishop Executor has asked me by return wyvern to tell you he and FatherAidryn will set out on their return at dawn. In the meantime, I am instructed to offer whatever assistance Mother Church can provide at this time.”
“Thank you, Father.” Hektor gave him a brief smile, then inhaled deeply. “The first thing I believe Mother Church could do for us this evening would be for you to ask the intervention of God and the Archangels on our behalf.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” Hahlmyn made the sign of Langhorne’s Scepter, then bowed his head. “O God, we beseech you in the name of Your Holy Archangels to grant us Your strength and the true knowledge of Your will in this hour of trial. As the Holy Langhorne taught us, You and You alone are the true refuge of the righteous. Defend us from the malice and poison of Shan-wei, and strengthen us as we put upon us the armor of Your champions against those who would defile and defy Your Holy Church in the Evil One’s dark name. There is no day so dark Your light cannot fill it, no enemy so powerful Your strength cannot subdue it. Lead us, guide us, and make us your sword against the powers of Hell. In Langhorne’s holy name, amen.”
“Thank you, Father,” Hektor said again, his voice a bit softer, as he raised his head once more. His eyes circled the table again, then settled on Earl Coris.
“I take it you’ve already seen Taryl’s dispatch, Phylyp?”
“I have, My Prince.” Coris’ expression was grim.
“And your thoughts on the matter?”
“My Prince, Admiral Tartarian’s judgment would be far more reliable than mine in a matters such as this, I’m sure.”
“That’s probably true. However, I’d like to hear your thoughts before we hear from him. I have the greatest possible respect for the Admiral’s judgment, and for Rysel’s, but they’re both professional military men. I think it’s at least possible something will occur to you which might not occur to them precisely because they’re professional military men. If that should happen to be the case, I’d like to hear it before something they say sends all our minds in another direction.”
“Of course, My Prince.” Coris pursed his lips for a moment, obviously marshaling his thoughts, then leaned forward slightly.
“The first thing that occurs to me, My Prince, is that the sighting report put the Charisians off Cape Targan, not Tear Island. From the report, it sounds as if they were making for either Tralmyr Passage or Coris Strait.” The earl grimaced at the thought of how close to his own earldom the Charisian Navy was about to pass. “That’s scarcely the most direct route from Charis, but it would make sense if Cayleb came by way of Port Royal to make rendezvous with Sharpset and what’s left of the Chisholmian Navy, I suppose. Somehow, though, I don’t think the answer is quite that simple . . . or palatable.”
“Why not?” From Hektor’s tone, he already knew where his spymaster was headed.
“Because Sir Farahk Hyllair is Grand Duke Zebediah’s brother-in-law, My Prince,” Coris said in a flat voice, and Hektor grimaced. Sir Farahk Hyllair was the Baron of Dairwyn, and there were times the prince regretted the marital connection he’d urged Dairwyn to form with Grand Duke Zebediah. At the time, like a great many things, it had seemed like a good idea to anchor Zebediah to one of his more trusted barons. And one whose relatively lightly populated barony needed all of the royal patronage it could get.
“The fact that Cayleb has chosen to circle all the way around into the Chisholm Sea to come at us from the north, instead of the south, could mean several things, of course,” Coris continued. “The most likely, though, I’m afraid, is that he stopped off at Carmyn en route.”
“Do you really think Dairwyn would betray you, Your Highness?” Anvil Rock asked quietly.
“Frankly? I don’t know.” Hektor shrugged. “Ordinarily, I’d say no. For several reasons. But these aren’t exactly ordinary conditions, are they? Much as I hate to admit it, almost everyone has to be looking over his shoulder at the moment, wondering what’s going to happen to him if we lose to Cayleb. And as Phylyp has just pointed out, Dairwyn is Zebediah’s brother-in-law.”
“We’ve had no indications that Sir Farahk might even be contemplating anything of the sort,” Coris said. “What I’m afraid of is that Zebediah’s turned his coat. If he has, it would be just like him to send letters along with Cayleb urging his brother-in-law to do the same thing.”
“With all due respect, Your Highness,” Tartarian said, entering the conversation for the first time, “I know Baron Dairwyn. I don’t believe he’ll be that easily swayed into betraying his loyalty to you.”
“I think you’re probably right,” Hektor replied thoughtfully. “On the other hand, if Zebediah did send a letter like the one Phylyp is suggesting, then Cayleb may have decided it would be worth trying to get Dairwyn to come over to his side. Dairos is a good, relatively deepwater port right there on White Sail Bay. It’s a bit on the cramped size for a really large fleet, but it’s big enough to provide a decent anchorage at a pinch if his fleet’s still tied down when the storm season really picks up in the next month or two . . . and it’s only about two hundred miles overland from Manchyr. Admittedly, the Dark Hills are between Dairwyn and Manchyr, but that works both ways. If they’d be an obstacle for his army moving west against Manchyr, they’d also give his own base of operations some protection if we manage to concentrate our own forces against him. But the key point is that he’s going to need a port somewhere at this time of year. If there’s even a chance that Dairwyn might give him Dairos intact and without a fight, it’s probably worth his while to at least give it a try.”
“And if Dairwyn doesn’t go over to him, Dairos isn’t anywhere nearly as heavily defended as the ports along the Margo Sound coastline,” Tartarian agreed unhappily.
“We had to prioritize our forces and the new artillery somehow, Taryl.” Hektor waved one hand. “You and Rysel were right when you pointed out — as I just did — that the Dark Hills cover Manchyr from the east. So it made sense to concentrate on fortifying the southwestern ports, instead.”
“Which could also be another indication Cayleb has been in contact with Zebediah,” Coris pointed out. “Zebediah’s had plenty of time to discover where we were concentrating our forces. I expect it’s exactly the kind of information he would have been gathering up to offer Cayleb as proof of his value.”
“It could indicate that,” Hektor acknowledged. “By the same token, it’s hard to hide new coastal batteries, Phylyp. Any one of the merchant ships passing through the Sound could have reported the information to Cayleb.”
“And even if that isn’t what happened, it probably wouldn’t have required a military genius to figure out the way we’d approach the problem,” Anvil Rock added.
“Exactly.” Hektor nodded. Then he grimaced. “All right, I think all of that was worth thinking about, but now we have to concentrate on what we’re going to do if they are headed for Dairwyn.”
Yay We get to see hecktor!
Very nice…
I had wondered about those mentioned in the BSRA List of Characters who were not mentioned in BSRA.
This snippet begins to put Haryl’s Crossing and Priory into perspective. At this point, my surmise is that the big battle at the crossing will be in or near Dark Hills following the landing at Dairwyn.
HYLLAIR, SIR FARAHK, BARON OF DAIRWYN — the Baron of Dairwyn.
BAHNYR, HEKTOR, EARL OF MANCORA — one of Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s senior officers; commander of the right wing at Haryl’s Crossing.
BRYNDYN, MAJOR DAHRYN — the senior artillery officer attached to Brigadier Clareyk’s column at Haryl’s Priory.
GALVAHN, MAJOR SIR NAITHYN — the Earl of Windshare’s senior staff officer.
SUMYRS, SIR ZHER, BARON BARCOR — one of Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s senior officers; commander of the left wing at Haryl’s Crossing.
I assume that we’ll see the other characters listed in BSRA (those not culled from the BSRA list when the “book” was split into two books):
WYSTAHN, SERGEANT EFVARHD, ROYAL CHARISIAN MARINES — a scout-sniper assigned to 1/3rd Marines.
MAHNTYN, CORPORAL AILAS — a scout-sniper assigned to Sergeant Efvarhd Wystahn’s platoon.
ZHANSTYN, COLONER ZHOEL, RMMC — CO, 1/3rd Marines (First Battalion, Third Brigade). Brigadier Clareyk’s senior battalion CO.
SAHLMYN, SERGEANT MAJOR HAIN, RMMC — Colonel Zhanstyn’s battalion sergeant major.
So Cayleb’s heading north covering the angles and making sure that Merlin’s recconaissance is put to good use so they don’t waste lives. I wonder if the ARC owner will grace us with a preview of the coming attractions.
Will Cayleb have the nerve to invite Hektor aboard as he did Zebediah? Probably not the best idea, but it sure would be interesting to see Hektor’s reaction to an early look at his terms of surrender!
bh
Yes a big battle is coming at Haryl’s Crossing. It is the one with the most detail and coverage in the book. But it is not the decisive one.
MWW will explain the most of the technology and tactics in the Haryl’s Crossing battle and will not need to go over them again in the final battle.
I’m no expert on Military matters (having only reached the exalted rank of private with my short stint in the defense forces) but I wonder why Caleb doesn’t simply go for the capital or say a convenient beach located close to it (Remembering the Diebbe sp? raid WW2)
He has naval supremacy so he can land where he wants (more or less)he has Merlin giving real time intel on the location of every battery and battalion hektor has and he has rifles all of this combined means he should be able to land just a little closer to the capital.
And I also wonder if by landing further away they will let the “cat out of the bag” in regards to the existence and advantages of rapid firing rifles without decisively engaging the main part of Hektors forces allowing him some time to come up with a counter stratedgy or rifles of his own.
Does any arm chair generals out there have any thoughts on this?
Yeah, and I have a great armchair! Caleb is going for psychological victory. If he can maneuver Hector into meeting him in a position he picks and has time to study, understand and maybe fortify, the combination of knowing the ground, preparing the ground and superior weapons would be the military equivalent of a Kansas tornado. Any army beaten that badly will be very unenthusiastic about a repeat performance, making for a shorter war and fewer casualties. The effect can (and probably will) be magnified by easy surrender terms for the individual soldier and a good propaganda campaign to drive home the concept that God isn’t really on their side, or he wouldn’t have let them get clobbered like that.
A “cheap” early victory could be decisive psychologically, even if the gains seem minor on a map, and if Caleb does secure his port, everyone will know the chances of beating him in the long run are much smaller. Long term, Caleb needs to dominate the Island’s population, and decisive victories tend to do that, where winning a series of hard fought close calls would not.
CS
Unless something new is added, Hektor will be the prime example of ‘don’t p*ss off’ Charis. There have been too many mentions of Cayleb stating that Hektor is a dead man and there will be no peace with him or his line.
Other kings and princes will have the option of surrendering. Hektor won’t.
Can’t wait to see what happens to the Corisande royal family dynamic: Infighting between Crown Prince Hektor and the iron-willed Irys??
Okay, my 2 cents worth just about that much.
Don;t know the land but those Dark Hills work both ways if they will slow down and invading army they will also slow down any reinforcement coming to that part of the land. In fact Hecklor (sp>) mentioned that obliquely.
So landing on that side he has time to get his people ashore with less resistance then anywhere else, a lightly populated area. Less chance of civiliam casualties, less resistance and plenty of room to maneveor. But he can quickly control all the land area up to the Dark Hills. Now not having a map I imagine that we will have a bottleneck at the Dark Hill have to watch out for the high ground but once taken with his rifles they will have the advantage. This give them control quickly of a whole Duchy. Propagand value, a secure beachhead for resupplies as needed. Now Hecklor has two places he has to watch. If he consentrate on the Dark Hills then with Cal. control the seas he could slip a 2nd landingor take their other port and Heclor has to fight on 2 fronts. Just because Cal. is coming through the Dark Hills does not stop him from also coming in again from the sea.
Usually “why did he go that way” starts with a consideration of the prevailing winds.
Hector seems not to be thinking a great deal about ‘Cayleb visited Chisholm’.
We are still short a plot element, namely at some point OWL gets to drop the ball. Perhaps it will be omitting positive news “Cayleb, dear, did I forget to tell you that while you were gone I conquered Tarot?”
Presumptively the snipers are going to snipe someone.
#7, Dieppe was a raid with no intention of remaining after damaging the dry dock and port facilities. A major force landing on a hostile shore needs a secure supply line and for that you need a functioning port. On D-Day 1944 the British and Canadians used floating piers (Mulberry’s) which were then sunk in the surf off Normandy to create an onloading point at the invasion landing sites in order to supply their troops in the short term but the first priority was still to take a port as quickly as possible.
Assuming the previous posts in this thread are correct, I anticipate the Charisian’s showing no mercy on the battle field but using a light hand on the local population. Something in the line of “Our argument is with Hektor, not with the people of Corisande.”
I am not up on all the tactics, but one logistical reason may be to degrade Hektor’s field artillery. The route Cayleb choose forces Hektor to march some distance away rather quickly and through rough terrain. That type of travel would degrade Hektor’s non-corned gun powder. The more jostling it takes the more degraded it becomes, not to mention the greater chance for accidental combustion. So, it appears that Cayleb is forcing Hektor into every concievable disadvantage his marvelously viscious mind can come up with.
I think CS@8 has it in spades. Force Hektor’s forces into a grueling forced march to meet an enemy with a consolidated position, then fight that enemy with gun powder you only half trust and to top it all off you face exploding shells and rapid firing flintlocks which out range the your forces’ most effective shot. Demoralizing doesn’t even cover it.
If the initial battle goes according to Cayleb’s plan, Hektor will have 2 choices; fort up and wait for Cayleb at Manchyr or gather his remaining forces to meet Cayleb further away from his base. The first option allows Cayleb all the time in the world to win enough fear and trust of the Corisandian nobility to consolidate the island into the Empire. The second option allows Cayleb to wrap this up quickly. Either way after this battle Hektor will know he not only lost but never had a chance. Irys and his son will be sent ASAP to Zion and their ship WILL escape. Cayleb’s approach allows the rats to flee. Although Hektor will not avail himself of this opportunity, he will send his family to safety. I suspected this last bit since Cayleb proposed to Sharley.
ps. If I am right, Richard, I did not read the ARC. ;-)
Peter
I think the combination of a poorly defended port, a weakly populated barony, and a brother-in-law saying “look, no matter what happens tomorrow not giving him what he wants today is essentially committing suicide, so lets play along for now and see what happens tomorrow” basically means “administrative troop landing”. And that has to be one of poor Hektor’s worst nightmares. Poor guy, we all feel so sorry for him.
OK, not really. But if Cayleb can get his army ashore without firing a shot, that’s a major coup in its own right. Getting good supply lines alone helps a lot, as you say Ian, but just the fact he got it without having to capture it will also be a major psychological blow. Then as the others above stated above, one or two major victories in fairly short order and most of the rest of the country will likely surrender without any real resistance at all. Especially if they figure that they are going to be treated well even if “poor” Hektor is going to get a bit shorter in the very near future.
But while the idea of fighting on two fronts is a good one when you have superior communication technology, they don’t actually have (legitimate, at least) access to such at this time. Without that, the idea of two landing points is a VERY bad idea Virgil.
RH
P.S. Richard, are you saying we do actually get at least some resolution in this book to the “Corisande Question”? (I am very carefully not asking what it is, just if it exists.)
PZ, the only reason I doubt the escape of the kids you suggest is because A) I figure Hektor would try to take advantage of any such opportunity himself, and B) I’m even more sure Cayleb knows its a possibility and will want to make sure to prevent it. There’s only one reason to pick up the galleys from Chisholm, and that’s for them to help with blockades of the enemy ports. They will likely go to the less critical ports for obvious reasons (or will escort more powerful companions), but they will still have to be used. This will free up more “light cruisers” and galleons for more critical port work.
I figure that the only realistic caveat I can see is if Cayleb waits until after the storm season to do the blockade. If Hektor A) fights the first battle soon enough and B) realizes the way his troops are toast quickly enough, then he might choose to take a chance with his kids life (and/or his own) to get out before the blockade ships could get into position. But this would require Cayleb to ride out the storm season with his whole fleet in Dairos. If he instead sends some ahead to pound the outer defenses of Manchyr and then blockade that port they wouldn’t have to come within range of the main shore batteries to make sure Hektor couldn’t escape yet remain relatively safe in the mid-depths area of that harbor.
Last but not least, PZ, exploding shells are (so far as we know at least) still very much under development. It’s only been a few months since we last saw the progress report and at that time there was no working model at all, much less a combat-ready quantity of the ammo, training in how to use it, or anything else they’d need for this round. I think it will show up in combat in another book or two, however, but not just yet. Not so long as Merlin is content to make it a local development instead of something he hands them.
RH
RH, I beg most humbly to differ. Exploding shells for smoothbore have been worked out. AFAWK, the field artillery are all smoothbores. So, while there may indeed not be sufficient supply of them for many battles, I am confident there are enough exploding shells for one or two. If so, then the best time to use them is in this opening series where the Corisandian morale can be eviscerated so thoroughly.
While you are probably right about Cayleb knowing about the possibility of Hektor’s escape, I suspect that between Merlin’s visions and Cayleb’s read in Hektor’s character, Caylebs knows Hektor won’t run. Even if Hektor does run, it plays into Cayleb’s hands. Without Hektor around Cayleb is free to show his magnanimity without needing to show the steel glove. Hektor will have forsaken his poeple and country. The nobles of Corisande will have no figure to rally around and the commoners will still have their good governance. On top of that, the commoners will have a greater say in how their nation is run through the emperial parliment.
By allowing the way for Hekotr’s family to escape, Cayleb is showing in some meaningful way that he is either confident enough in his political/military position that he show this unecessary mercy or that kindness and mercy are central to all his decisions. I may be wrong Robert, however, the flow of events suggest this plot direction rather strongly to me.
Peter
PZ@18-Don’t forget the wimpy forgiving woman Caleb married had her father murdered by Good Prince Hector. She won’t appreciate it if Caleb lets him slipping away, and she IS a good shot!
CS
@19 But what is a marriage without some spice? ;-)
Peter
@19 Indigestion followed by really good sex.
Wait… there is an ARC? How did I miss this?!?!?
Can it still be acquired? How? Where?
There’s always an ARC. But ARCs, unlike eARCs, are insanely hard to get. (Believe me, I’ve tried.) Unless you want to pay $2-300 or so for them on eBay, that is.
One of these days Tor will wake up and smell reality. Until then, Weber fans who also like this series are out of luck.
RH
while Cayleb may have naval superiority, this will be of limited use at any distance beyond the beach itself. As far as I’ve been able to tell he also doesn’t have any specialized landing equipment, which means that getting significant numbers of men ashore over an uninproved beach would be very slow, and moving through the surf would have significant effects on thr reliablity of their flintlocks. So if the landing is anywhere near a significant corisandan force that reacted quickly, it could very easily end up being crushed. Espcially given that with their new field artillery, they can deploy inland, out of range of the fleets guns, and smash the landing. Also moving significant amounts of supplies over a beach would be nearly impossible.
For the most part, Cayleb has limited land war resources because Charis has been fisrt and foremost a sea power. So two landings in any force are not feasible. The formalization of an army is still a ways away (per BSRA) so marines and sailors are the primary fighting forces. Now is Dairwyn is merely a feint to draw Hecktor away from the west? Or will Sir Farahk Hyllair capitulate with the excuse that he is outnumbered and wishes to avoid more bloodshed.
From what Richard writes, Dairwyn is the place where the landings will be staged. No more Richard! Ignore our pleas please.
Virgil, you can see the land at
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Safehold/232/1
or at
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/images/safehold.jpg
r
Cayleb could sit in Dairos, wait until Hektor’s army approaches, and then re-embark in good time and shift around the coast. Possibly to Manchyr, possibly elsewhere. Hektor is working with beta-test field artillery, and given an apparent lack of good roads, and the Dark hills in the way, would the artillery survive a 400 mile round trip journey?
RH. yes the “Corisande Question†is resolved.
Why do I keep getting the feeling that Hector is NOT going to end up a head shorter? DW’s been telling us for 2 books now that it’s impossible and all sorts of logical reasons why. Which makes me suspicious…
Well Lance, the only ways that I see Hektor not ‘getting his head chopped off’ is if he is exiled or somebody else kills him. (His head chopped off includes, in this case, killed in battle.)
While Prince Nahrmahn kept his head, we first saw evidence of his strong dislike of how he was used by the Gof4 and later his desire to save his people from Cayleb’s invasion.
Hektor has shown nothing of those factors. While I understand where you’re coming from, I can’t see Hektor wanting to make peace nor could I see Cayleb sparing Hektor’s life except for perhaps exiling him.
@24. Um, no, rr, you miss read the situation here. You seem to be applying thoughts like D-Day in Europe to the situation, when instead you should be thinking raiding Danes or something. The only “specialized equipment” needed to land troops is their standard launches and similar small boats. That would be enough to get people ashore. Slowly, perhaps, but enough to get the job done. Especially since the galleons would be able to sweep the beach clean with bombardment first, especially so if they can get close enough to use grapeshot as well. Without a line of troops actually on the beach to fight against the troops trying to land, that would be more than enough to get the job done. Remember that Corisande has muskets — faster loading muskets thanks to their understanding now of premeasured charges, but still muskets — which have an effective range of about 50 yards. Grape has a range of about 150, and Charisian rifles around 200. If they need to make a hostile landing they can fire from outside Corisande’s range and sweep the beach clear before they try to actually land. The reason the specialized boats were needed during D-Day was two-fold: 1) because they had to land tanks which had to drive off onto the beach, and 2) because the inbound troops had to be at least partially protected against machine-gun fire, which tore them up like mincemeat as they landed anyway but would have torn them up before they even landed without that protection. No such conditions apply here.
And Corisande’s new field artillery, while a bit faster to reload, actually has less range than the Charisian version. At least for round shot, which is of course the worst round to use against enemy armies anyway. But it does work against ships and other gun emplacements, so if the Corisandian guns hang back to try to hit the Charisian troops after they’ve landed, the galleons will just switch to round shot and bombard the Corisandian positions from outside the Corisandian guns’ range. Now for “canister” and “grape” they are going to be about equivalent, which means each has approximately equal firepower to use against unprotected troops. Either way, however, neither side has such overwhelming power that they can crush a hostile beach landing from the other. Not, at least, without building fortifications all along their entire beach fronts which are close enough to use grape against the beaches if need be but far enough back (and with strong enough stone walls) to make it hard for naval forces to bombard them out with round shot. Neither has such fortifications yet, and neither has had time to build them. Both have (or at least would have, had Hektor enough of a Navy to try it) enough power to force their way onto the beach. Hektor might be able to hurt the landing force badly enough that it would lose later on… maybe. But crush it outright? No way. That requires massive technological or numerical superiority, and his tech is actually below that of Charis, although not nearly as far behind as Cayleb might prefer. Now had Cayleb hit Hektor where he was most reinforced (the western beaches closest to Charis) then he might have been hurt much worse storming those beaches, but even then I’d bet that he could have taken them. Especially if they do in fact have shells in their arsenal as PZ contends (although I still doubt that), but even if they don’t they probably would have won even if they couldn’t have proceeded much further inland afterward. Of course, the point is to capture Corisande not merely harass it, so it would have been foolish of Cayleb indeed to not look for somewhere he could get ashore unmolested…
@25, similarly, r, you miss the point here too. Cayleb didn’t (past tense) have an army that he could land in force before, but they now have at least 50,000 Charisians in the Imperial Charisian Army and very likely at least some of the old Chisholmian Army has been folded into the ICA as well. And that’s just what they brought along, I have pretty much zero doubt they are continuing to train and equip more back home. Maybe not a huge number of additional forces but they have to expect they will need to leave a garrison in Corisande and Tarot long-term, plus more forces for future naval expansion, plus at least some local defenses, so they have to be continuing to build up if perhaps they are doing so a bit less frantically than they were beforehand. Now they may technically still be called Marines because they haven’t formalized the distinction between the Army and the Navy yet, (although I’m betting they have actually done so off-camera as part of the integration of the Imperial force structure) but that’s definitely no raiding force of shipboard marine contingents and sailors like what they used to burn out that northern port city on Emerald during BSRA. That’s more than enough to force a hostile landing if need be and definitely enough to cause some real headaches for Hektor even if he thinks he’s got sufficient forces to meet Cayleb head-on.
RH
These are medieval armies in an economy with medieval production levels, admittedly in a healthy, reasonably well-fed population. Fortifying a coast line as the Italians did in 1943 and the Germans did in 1944 is totally out of the question. You have battles on battlefields, not continuous lines, because continuous lines really were not practical until World War 1. Corisande will not fight within cannon range of the coast, especially not a line perpendicular to the coast, because their opponents will have an overwhelming advantage in weight of metal.
The other interesting point will arise when Hector notices how big the Imperial Army is.
So, will Dairwyn fight or fold? I don’t think it will matter either way, just curious what others think.
Personally, I think he will fold. Zebediah has probably filled Dairwyn’s head with an image that Cayleb is hot headed but soft hearted (on the whole) and none too bright without his advisors. As I see it Zebediah is trying to keep his and potential allied forces fresh for after the Cayleb-Hektor showdown. Should each weaken the other enough, all sorts of opportunities for mischief will present themselves. Besides, Cayleb has begun a policy of local representation to the Empire. That’s hardly a strong incentive to fight to the last ditch for Hektor. In aggregate the nobility won’t lose anything (so it appears to them), Emerald certainly didn’t.
If Dairwyn goes without a fight, others will follow suit. This course of events will force Hektor out of Manchyr ASAP. He won’t risk sitting behind fortified walls as Cayleb sweet talks his Principality away from him.
Thoughts?
Peter
GP, I have to beg to differ. Medieval? No. Renaissance, maybe, but frankly at least in equipment we’re well into the early industrial era by this point. And there is a big difference. There were no muskets (much less rifles) in the medieval armies. Muskets and early rifles (the hammer-the-ball-down-the-shaft type) were available in the late Renaissance era, but effective rifles (as a military-grade weapon at least) were not available until around the 1830s/1840s or so. Merlin has given Charis the minie ball, which was the key invention necessary for them in our world as well. But while the industrial revolution hadn’t remotely hit its “full stride” yet in the early 1800s, it had started.
As for equipment levels, well, I’ll just refer to Weber’s own words. Merlin mused at one point that Charis had been well on its way to a purely water-powered industrial revolution even before he stuck his own two cents in. Now with post-industrial production systems they could field a much larger and even better equipped army, but for the semi-renaissance / early-industrial era they are in, they aren’t equipped with cudgels and leather armor or the local equivalent. Nor do they have one rifle per two grunts as in the Russian Front of WWII. They are a well equipped, professionally trained and prepared army that is carrying the local equivalent of “peace through superior firepower”.
Now you have a good point about fortifying the coast. It’s almost certainly not truly fortified, especially out in the “middle of nowhere”, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised (indeed I’d be surprised were it NOT so) for there to be some small forces scattered about, prepositioned near any reasonable landing spot so that they can quickly get there to harass any attempted non-port landing. Most likely however the main forces are kept in nodal concentrations at the major ports, which are fortified as the snippet itself points out. And since weather is a huge factor here, Charis has to somehow seize a port within the next two months anyway, so that was a logical move on their part. And while I highly doubt that those fortifications are particularly great, they probably aren’t just a couple of guns right by the piers themselves. No I’m quite sure they are well dug in and there is a line that stretches for at least some distance from the port proper to cover the good secondary landing spots near the port as well.
As for what Hektor does when he gets an accurate count on the ICA (if he ever does of course), I’ll bet his reaction will be… well… colorful. :)
RH
I think you are quite right on this one PZ. Of course I’m pretty sure Hektor wouldn’t have been the “wait for him to come to me” type anyway, because he has to know that standing on the defensive is not a viable plan for victory, but if his nobles start going over to Cayleb in droves he will be all the more interested in getting out to attack all the more quickly.
The only quibble I have is I don’t think a lot of the nobles will start going over to Cayleb as quickly as you postulate. I’m pretty sure Dairwyn will, whether or not he actually underestimates Cayleb as Zebediah has. But I don’t think his betrayal will be followed up by the masses until AFTER the battle of Dark Hills. After that battle, however, I suspect Hektor is going to find plenty of rats deserting the sinking ship.
RH
RH@30 Revisiting the field carronade of Corisande, a few questions present themselves. Those are 28-32 lbers, right? How the heck does reloading that weight of shot happen more quickly than a 12-15 lber? We are talking field conditions here, not the organized structure of a ship. We don’t have racks of shot patiently waiting to be used in the field. There are ammo wagons where the shot and powder are secured as in made secure for movement and harder to get out. Just hauling that weight of shot will take its toll on the crews. Add to it rougher terrain and irregularly spaced ammo wagons and the weight of the shot becomes more of an issue. So, even with a shorter barrel, the crew can’t service that carronade at optimum speed in the field as compared to on ship. I suspect that the Charisian filed pieces will be serviced more rapidly and for a greater length of time.
How the heck will that crew manage firing several rounds, limber up and set-up somewhere else and do it all over again, when their enemy is expending only ~40% of the energy they expend? If this logic is correct, Cayleb will force a battle of manouver before he engages seriously. The snipers mentioned in the BSRA credits fit rather well into a battle like that. I wonder if DW will touch on this point in his description of the battle?
Peter
I suspect you have hit a key issue PZ, but not quite squarely. I do think that at burst speeds the field carronade of Corisande would actually be the superior weapon it could have been had Merlin not A) known about it in advance and B) not warned Cayleb to prepare for it. But I think that even if the maneuver period you suspect doesn’t actually happen that these weapons will prove to be less valuable in the end-game phase of the battle than they might have been at the start. As you imply, wear and tear will reduce their crews’ effectiveness fairly quickly. And should the enemy break and flee they will be even less valuable because they will be unable to keep up and will get captured. Artillery is often the slowest moving force even in modern mechanized warfare, and I have little doubt they will be even more so at this tech level as well.
But there are three quibbles I would point out.
One, the load speed isn’t solely dependent on weight of shot. There is also time needed to worm the guns between shots, and time to ram the new charge home. Both of those would be faster in a shorter gun, regardless of weight of shot. And that doesn’t even account for maneuver speed. A shorter gun will almost always be faster to maneuver as well, and the weight of shot has no bearing here either. This all means Cayleb (or Merlin) will have to reinvent the idea of covering fire (some of his guns firing to suppress the enemy while others move to better positions where they can actually go for kill shots).
Two, the field conditions will affect the Charisian guns as well (likely why Merlin stipulated that size in the first place) and even though their lighter ammo will mean it affects them LESS it will still affect them. In a properly designed fortress, however, it’s a whole ‘nother can of worms, and Charis will eventually have to attach Manchyr itself which is almost certainly a walled city given its capital status and how extremely recently gunpowder weapons came about in the first place. The design may be poor (probably is) but they will no doubt have done all they can to minimize the problems. Won’t be quite like on ship but it will likely be the next best thing. Which is yet another reason why the slower load on the Charisian guns will be a problem. Cayleb will likely overcome this by using his guns from outside the range of the Corisandian guns, if that is possible, but we don’t know yet if that is an option in the territory around Manchyr.
Three, the true danger of the Corisandian piece is in the firing of “fixed rounds”. Those aren’t used on round shot. Those are only used for grape or canister. In those rounds they won’t be firing a heavy round that the loaders have to stagger around with, and the faster worming and faster ramming will play great dividends. Which is yet another reason why those snipers of yours will come into play. Cayleb will no doubt take great pains to snipe as many of the enemy gunners as he can before he lets his main forces into range of potential grape or canister rounds. (And this is yet another reason why I doubt the general availability of shells at this point. If they were available in large numbers, the snipers wouldn’t be anywhere near as critical. If they are available at all they still reduce the impact of snipers but aren’t quite the super-weapon they would be otherwise.)
RH
For an interesting historical comparison of forcing a hostile landing, look up the Battle of Sacket’s Harbor during the war of 1812.
Defending forces (US) on shore in earthen works with inferior artillery (12 pound cannon and one 20 pound cannon with NO ammo).
Attacking forces (British/Canadian) in ships with superior artillery (20 pound cannon).
Win (sort of) to defenders. Key factor was not the earthen works – it was the slight (10 to 15 feet max) difference in elevation.
Medieval? Late medieval, not 900 AD, but medieval.
The wonderful invincible army belongs to Siddermark, and it is, like, armed with *pikes*.
While I could check the text, my impression was that matchlocks were closer to the order of the day. Most ships cannon are on sledges.
Now, above is absolutely correct that Charis is making a waterpower industrial revolution, so the Charisian army is well equipped and armed. This, however, does not help Hector’s forces a whole lot.
I agree with Nelson that he who takes a warship against a fortress is a fool. However, with reasonable planning — an exotic notion in the 18th century* — landing in a limited harbor is feasible. You need extra oats and improved disembarkation arrangements. Ramp to raft vastly beats climb over the side.
*Recall that Anson was a genius for taking along an extra set of masts for his warships in his around the world combat mission.
Finally, with respect to loading speeds on land, note that you can have a much larger crew to service the gun.
You do have the challenge that swimming the horses to shore is less advisable than in our world.
On a separate thought, I would not be surprised if the Imperial Army of Charis and Chisholm is significantly into another training cycle, meaning it will be ready in time for her Imperial Majesty to find a birthday present for her husband, while he is away, notably the Kingdom of Tarot.
Hmmmm. Taking my own advice, I looked up the battle on Wikipedia. The description there focused on an entirely different part of the battlefield than I walked at Sacket’s harbor.
Where I walked the US guns were sited on a low bluff with an earthen rampart. From there they had the range to just barely keep the attackers far enough away that in order to range the shore batteries, the 20 pounders had to elevate the guns to the point that they actually overshot the defenders every time. Sort of a Mexican standoff.
Eventually some sharp thinking American gunner went and dug a British 20 pound ball out of the ground where it hit and fired it back at the Brits, hitting one of the ships. The attackers left in “defeat”, but some idiot had already burned the harbor to prevent it falling into enemy hands.
The point of all this is that elevation, even a little bit, really changes the face of a cannon duel.
RH, I find it a bit funny that your reasoning why there won’t be shells reinforce why there will be shells in my mind. Merlin mentions the advantages of the carronade in counter battery fire assuming the same types of ammo on either side. It boils down to range vs. rate of fire. The carronades need to get closer not only because their range with round shot is shorter, but as you said their ability to fire a painful load of grape or cannister needs to be taken advantage of. This can be countered with rifles or round shot (it has better range than grape or cannister). Of the two rifles will be more effective assuming both out range cannister rounds. All the bullets of the rifles are aimed after all. Rifles will also be better at cutting down opposing infantry or cavalry, unless they can use exploding shells instead. I suspect they are saving what shells they have (I do agree that if they exist they are in short supply) to shatter the Corisandian formations and so they need the snipers to keep the carronades beyond effective cannister range of the Charisian infantry/cavalry.
Pretty soon we shall discover who is closer to the truth.
Peter
@40 George, do you really think Her Imperial Majesty will actually use marines to acquire that BD present? Somehow, I think she will find a way to have the present wrap itself then place itself on the gift table when she snaps her fingers.
:-)
Peter
@39 Oho, GP, that’s like blood in the water to a shark! I couldn’t stay away if I wanted to. And I don’t.
The “invincible” pikemen army of Siddarmark? You must be joking! Hah! Thanks I needed a laugh. Powerful, yes. Too powerful for Charis to overcome, yes (at least with current tech). (Not that they would want to anyway.) But invincible? Hell no! If it was, they wouldn’t be “focused” on securing their borders! They’d be done already, or at least finishing up! And their borders would be the coastlines of Haven and Howard! Desnair also has a powerful army, primarily cavalry-based, which isn’t going to help them against Siddarmark but would absolutely tear up the Charisians if they could hold formation long enough to carry a charge home. And most of the other nations have powerful, if poorly equipped, armies as well. No, weapon-wise much of the mainland armies may still be medieval, but that has ZERO relevance to the forthcoming attack on Corisande.
You are also overestimating the length of the medieval era as well. The Renaissance doesn’t exactly have an “official” start date, of course, but it was already at least ramping up by the mid 1300s. At that point in time, the industrial revolution was still a hallucination of some dreamer in a corner somewhere, as it wouldn’t start (in earnest at least) for another 400 years. Now the world as a whole may be in the late medieval industrially speaking, perhaps. But Charis is past that point. More importantly, so is Corisande. Charis was the originator of the water-powered industrial revolution, true, but it literally COULD NOT fail to rub off on the rest of the so-called “out islands” (as the “mainlands” think of them). Especially so when Hektor has spent years spying on Charis to learn their secrets. Even more so when Hektor knows full well he MUST adapt every single one of Charis’ innovations he can get his hands on. And as the piece de reisistiance (or however the heck you spell that), he ALSO has hard information on most of those innovations from the Charisian Patent Office! He knows how to make a cotton gin (not that such helps directly), he knows how to do a schooner rig (how else do you think that Desnairian ship from the last few snippets would have gotten schooner-rigged if they’d gone through with their plans, sailing it to Charis for the work? I don’t think so!), and more. Some of that doesn’t have direct application to the war effort, true, but he’s got far more than you seem to think. And while the mainland is still *mostly* in the late medieval, Sharleyan didn’t join up with Charis because she was lonely! She knew full well just how much Charis’ mindset has rubbed off on ALL the out-islands. Not enough for them to stand alone against the church, of course. But enough to be considered a threat. And they wouldn’t BE a threat if at least SOME of the mindset and technology hadn’t spread.
No, aside from the foolish idiots in Zion and the Empire of Harchong, the medieval period is dead and gone. They are well aware that better is available and they want it, and the only thing holding them back are the idiots in Zion.
RH
PZ, I think you have some good points there… and yeah… pretty soon we will know. Still too long, however. I want it to be tomorrow! :)
RH
Back to GP, now…
I went and read up some more on the history of iron metallurgy just for kicks to see what I would find. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ferrous_metallurgy And in many ways I think it bears out my contention that Charis, at least, and likely most or all of the out-islands, are definitely out of the middle ages industrially-speaking, at least. Mostly, at least. I mean, in some ways, they are still in the bronze age back in 2000 BC or so! But in others they are well beyond where you think they are.
If you think about it, they have advance smelting processes given to them in the Writ that make bronze extremely easy to work with, but still hard to make in quantity because the necessary ingredients aren’t exactly just lying around everywhere. So bronze is no problem to produce but still hard to make in the quantities needed for a FULL industrial revolution. Iron, however, is harder to figure out exactly where they are. Part of the reason, of course, is they haven’t followed Earth’s technological paradigm. They don’t know chemistry, and we don’t really know what if anything they do know about its precursors. For all we know they may well have been given the old Greek Air Earth Water Fire crap. I kind of doubt it, because if Langhorne had ANY sense whatsoever he’d have to know how easy that was to disprove. But at the same time we know full chemistry is prohibited by the proscriptions, so they’ve got to be stuck in some intermediate state. Which means they probably don’t know what REALLY makes pig iron different from wrought iron.
We also know they are using they are still using the basic idea of blooms to make their wrought iron and they are using drop hammers to hammer out the blooms (medieval), but they are also using the puddling process (18th century). They haven’t (apparently at least) invented water-powered trip hammers (drop hammers where the hammer is raised back up by water power before being released to fall back down), which were in used in medieval Europe to hammer out blooms in the 1200s or earlier. If they have they are relatively new, because Howsman was specifically musing about “new heavier drop hammers” which might be misnamed trip hammers but if so are still a brand new concept. But they have invented (just now) the hot blast, which for us wasn’t invented until 1828. And they’re using coke, again a development not made for us until 1700 and not used for wrought iron until after 1750.
So yeah, in some ways they are downright medieval, but in some ways they are very much *not*. Just in iron making alone they are a curious mixture of ancient and very modern, in part because of the ways they’ve gotten some advancements because they are not proscribed and haven’t gotten others because they are (or they lack the necessary chemical background to figure it out). But in textiles and other areas they are very much into the the industrial revolution, and in farming the late Renaissance or even early agricultural revolution indeed. There is quite a bit they can still develop before they hit the proscriptions. I doubt they’ll get to the Bessemer process unless Merlin brings Howsman and/or Michail fully “into the know” and sits down with him/them to try to figure out a way to explain the development without giving the game away, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they come up with proper finery forges and then the cementation process fairly soon.
RH
You know, RH, GP is right-on about the Pikemen. Except for Charis and Corisande, no one has field artillery. Matchlocks don’t have sufficient rate of fire for their frontage to stop a determined wall of pikes. Scatter some matchlocks between the pikemen and that formation is the equivilent of a human tank (except its lousy as a force projector). Cavalry can get around it and broken ground will degrade its integrity rather easily. However, combined with cavalry to cover its flanks and nothing short of field artillery or 3 shots a minute from a line of muskets will stop it. On Safehold nothing on the mainland can do it.
Within that limited scope of utility GP is right.
Peter
I know it’s a bit late (ie like 2 years) to start this discussion – but does anyone else have trouble keeping all this kingdom’s straight?
Charis – Chisholm – Corisande? They’re a little to similar for my aging brain. I’m embarrassed to admit that I keep a cheat sheet handy…
The Corisande “field carronades” are going to have an ammunition supply problem. If they’re firing 28-32 pound solid shot (or equivalent cannister/grape), they’ll only be able to put one-third to one-half as many shots’ worth of ammunition into an ammunition wagon or caisson as Charis’s (12-pounder?) batteries can carry, because the limiting factor is how much weight the draft team can pull. Thus, a caisson which could carry 90 12-pounder shots would only be able to hold about 38 rounds for a 28-pounder, assuming proportional powder loads. Unless Hektor has a very large ammunition train, his batteries are going to shoot dry fairly quickly. A large ammunition train means more horses pulled out of the working economy, extra wagons to carry feed for the extra horses, more rations for the extra ammunition wagon drivers, etc., compounding the supply problem that Hektor’s army will have.
This isn’t normally a problem on a sailing ship because of the relatively large ammunition-carrying capacity of the ship itself, but it is a distinct problem for land-based field armies.
Ken Valentine
sq_rigger
I’m not sure how to contact Eric Flint, but there is a problem with the website. I did a file.save as and saved the file as text. The first 50 lines or so are all spam words referring to “ci..” and “vi…”!!! I don’t think that this is intended. If you cannot duplicate this, please email me (you have my eddress) and I’ll send it to you. The links all point to medschool.slu.edu. I apologize to readers of this, but did not how else to report it.