BY HERESIES DISTRESSED — Snippet 40:
“I wish we had a better estimate of their total strength, My Prince,” Tartarian said. “The good news is that, thanks to the semaphore, we know they’re coming at least a five-day before something as slow as an invasion fleet can reach Dairos. The bad news is that we really don’t know how much fighting strength they’re bringing with them when they come. I know what Phylyp’s reports have been telling us about the size of their fleet, the hundreds of galleons they’ve been assembling to send after us with every man in the Kingdom embarked as elite Marines. But as I’ve been saying all along, I don’t trust our sources at this point.”
“With good reason, I’m afraid,” Coris muttered, and Hektor’s mouth tightened slightly.
It was always difficult managing spies at distances as great as the one between Manchyr and Tellesberg, yet the fiendish effectiveness Charisian security had developed over the past couple of years was still something of a sore point. He’d been forced to accept that it wasn’t really Coris’ fault, since Nahrmahn and all of Cayleb’s other enemies appeared to have been experiencing precisely the same sort of difficulties. Despite which, the fact that they were forced to rely upon secondary sources, the kinds of intelligence Coris’ agents could pick up by questioning merchant captains or frequenting taverns in other realms’ seaports to listen to sailors’ gossip, left him feeling off-balance and half-blind.
“I’m prepared to admit that the Charisians — especially now that Chisholm has thrown in with them — can put together an impressive fleet and find the transports they need to lift a fairly substantial army as far as Corisande,” Tartarian continued. “I’ll believe he has two hundred war galleons and a hundred thousand men when I actually see them, though. Assuming we’re actually facing a merely mortal foe, I don’t see how he could have as many as one hundred war galleons, and I’d be astounded if he’d been able to find the troop lift for more than fifty to sixty thousand men. Not to mention the fact that he’s had to raise and train his army virtually from scratch. That’s going to limit the total manpower he can actually deploy here in Corisande just as effectively as his troop lift will.”
“I agree,” Anvil Rock said, nodding vigorously. “Another thing to consider is that after a voyage as long as the one between here and Charis — or even between here and Chisholm — his cavalry mounts and draft animals are going to need at least a five-day or two on land before they’re going to be ready for any sort of serious campaigning.”
“Against which he’ll have the advantage of offshore mobility,” Tartarian pointed out. “We still don’t have the naval strength to face him, which means he can use his transports as aggressively as he likes. And, frankly, he’ll be able to move his troops faster and farther than Rysel and Koryn can possibly march our troops overland.
“Having said that, though, he’s not going to want to try anything too tricky right away,” the admiral continued. “He’s going to make sure he has a solid foothold here in Corisande before he does anything else. So, wherever he ends up going ashore — and, like you and Phylyp, My Prince, I think Dairos is his most probable immediate objective — he’s going to spend at least some time establishing a solid defensive perimeter. The point Rysel just made about the condition of his cavalry mounts and draft dragons is also valid, and I suggest we do what we can to make it worse by ordering every horse, mule, and dragon in the Dairos area swept up and moved west, out of easy reach from the coast, before his first Marine hits the shore. Let’s keep him from impressing any of our animals to make up any deficits. That should slow him down some. In fact, I believe we can probably count on at least another two or three five-days, even after he reaches Dairos, before he starts sending any spearheads off to find a way across the Dark Hills.”
“His best route would be by way of Talbor Pass,” Anvil Rock put in. “Well, his shortest and most direct route, at any rate. And I agree with Taryl. We’ve got time to get Koryn into position to cover Talbor before he can get there. For that matter, assuming Taryl’s estimate of his troop strength is accurate, we can get Koryn there with almost twice the fighting strength. If we start soon enough, we could actually hit Cayleb while he’s still east of the Dark Hills. We might even be able to get Koryn into position soon enough to pin him down in Dairos.”
“At which point he burns down Dairos, re-embarks his troops, and sails off to attack us somewhere else, leaving Koryn and the bulk of our army in his wake,” Hektor said sourly.
“All we can do is the best we can do, My Prince,” Tartarian said reasonably. “If we can concentrate our troops quickly enough to attack before he’s firmly established in Dairos, there’s at least the possibility of driving him into the sea. We may not be able to fight him effectively at sea just now, but if this new army of his suffers a major reverse and heavy casualties, we’ll probably get at least another six months to a year in which to build up our own strength. But if we’re going to have any chance of doing that, we’ve got to take some chances, uncover ourselves in other places, in order to concentrate the troops we need where we have at least the chance of accomplishing something significant.”
Anvil Rock nodded again, his expression sober, and Hektor’s nostrils flared. They’d been over much of this same ground before, and he knew Tartarian and Anvil Rock were right. Now that the moment was actually upon him, however, he discovered that his intellectual agreement with their arguments was far less comforting than it had been when that moment had lain somewhere in a threatening yet still indeterminate future.
“All right,” he said, and looked at Hahlmyn. “Father, if you would, I’d like to use the Church’s semaphore to begin passing orders to Dairos, Baron Dairwyn, and Sir Koryn. Cayleb can move troops and men faster than we can, but at least we can pass messages faster than he can. With the Bishop Executor’s permission, I think it’s time we put that advantage to work for us.”
And Merlin having learned that Hektor’s army will be on its way to defend the pass, Cayleb may just dispatch a few ships to Dairos for maskirovka and sail on to Manchyr!
bh
Job 1: destroy the semaphore system. Or capture enough of it to send false info.
Query: where does it say how many troops Cayleb has?
r
Invasion Troop strength
50,000 Charisan Marines
+ some Chisholm galleys and marines? say a few thoussand don’t know if they will have modern weapons though
Given how much of the semaphore system is inland, there might not be any way to destroy it until the invasion is seriously underway… at which point, retreating Corisandians will probably destroy it behind them to keep the Charisians from using it.
Capturing a station along the coast and using it to, say, broadcast false reports of an invasion at that spot would be tricky — they’d have to approach it at night, or in bad weather when the system didn’t work — but well worth it if they could pull it off.
Since relying on tricks and misdirection is as best chancy, there probably will be a direct confrontation between the two forces. Where that will be will be determined by the strategy Caleb and Merlin develop. The reliable realtime intelligence Merlin can provide will be a very great advantage to Calebs troops and will be a force-multiplier because the troops can be deployed in the most advantageous way.
Concerning a possible confrontation about the control of the passes the optimism of Hectors command staff that is based on superior numbers could be totally misplaced. At least the Charisian troops are certainly much better equiped and thanks to Merlin will bring more modern tactics into play. That should be a nasty surprise for Hectors generals. Also we should remember that the primary training ground of the Charisian marines was in mountaineous regions, so they are used to fighting under the special conditions of mountain-warfare. How well Hectors troops are trained in that might be in doubt. All in all my estimate is that a confrontation between the two armies about a mountain-pass has the potential to inflict crippling losses to Hectors troops. Considering the moral of the fighting troops it might even amount to a crippling defeat for Hector.
After a breakthrough at the pass the shorter information- and command-loop as well as the reduction of the “fog-of-war” on the Charisian side, thanks to Merlins recoinassance-assets, will enable Charis to use a much more mobile tactic than Hector can possibly use, even considering the semaphore network.
All in all I do not see a way for Hector to win this conflict. The question will be how long it takes and in which way it ends. That will determine to a large extend how other realms down the road will act towards Charis. The best result for Charis would be to win a fast, crushing victory and then show restraint in dealing with the looser. That would encourage later adversaries to consider reaching an accommodation with Charis without risking open conflict.
Ah, the old we have better, interior lines of communication, superior knowledge of the land, the ability it pre-prepare defensive positions they must storm, the ability to ambush in the mountains, superior numbers and the ability to reinforce tricks. We have a good chance even though we know Cayleb has some good military capabilities he’s demonstrated at sea.
@6 Well… what do you expect them to say? “We’re all screwed and going to die horribly, so let’s surrender when we can”
This will be an interesting story thread – but I am more interested in the politicking in Charis and the Temple.
I can see Hector putting a serious force into the passes. Only an idiot would try to put significant forces further forward where they can be cut off. If Hector is smart he will go for a war of attrition as soon as he gets his nose bloodied the first time. He has the numbers, and knows his troops are outgunned on a one-to-one basis, though he probably doesn’t realize how bad the difference is. He needs a long war as badly as Caleb needs a short one. If DW portrays him as staying as smart as he has been so far, this will get messy. Short range small unit engagements (in mountains, forests and cities) will go a long ways to reducing the Charisian advantage, if he can keep his men fighting long enough to bleed Caleb’s forces badly.
Oh well, we’ll all know have the whole book in a month or so.
CS
The obvious point of attack is the semaphore system. If the chain were subborned, rather than broken, some serious mischief could be done. But, as has been pointed out, putting people well inland is chancy, and the results far from assured.
On the other hand, with a large mobility advantage, the could try to march their enemy to death. And, given the perfect intelligence they enjoy, it would be easy. Given anything like even numbers, and a level battle ground, the Charisians will walk over anything Hektor can throw at them. Even 2-1 advantage, and the new arms they have produced, would not be sufficient, without other circumstances in play.
To sum it up, I see Dien Bein Phu lurking.
J
I’m wondering if the Corisandian cavalry will be surprised when the Charisan Marines “form square.” The combination of forming square and rifles means real problems for cavalry, especially since pistols have not made it in any quantity to realms other than Charis.
I’m also under the impression that ships are a lot faster than ground transport, so that while infantry can cover only 10-20 miles a day, and cavalry not that much more in a sustained way, ships can cover that distance in 3-4 hours, straight line anyway. So if Cayleb can convince Hector to go where he thinks the Charisians will be, he may actually be able to have Hector’s troops totally out of position. And tired out to boot. But Hektor knows that:
“Against which he’ll have the advantage of offshore mobility,†Tartarian pointed out. “We still don’t have the naval strength to face him, which means he can use his transports as aggressively as he likes. And, frankly, he’ll be able to move his troops faster and farther than Rysel and Koryn can possibly march our troops overland.
From Hektor’s point of view, he does have significantly more troops than Cayleb, so he may equate that to strength. It will take one major battle to really learn the operational difference between rapidly reloadable rifles and muskets, and how much of a force multiplier they are.
— Bob G
Seriously, Bob, yeah that range problem is going to be a killer. In multiple senses of the word. *snicker*
I’m thinking about how long it would take the musket-armed Corisandian troops to march from the outer range of Charisian rifles to their own engagement range. That could be outright nasty. Lets say Charis holds off until about 150 yards to get maximum effect, and then they open up with full combat fire rate, using the “switcharoo” method of firing to put two shots out for every one full length of reload cycle. That means that they’ll probably be firing one shot every 8 seconds or so. At a standard military march rate you are probably going to go about a yard in 4 seconds. That means that Charis could theoretically fire 25 rounds per gun at the Corisande troops before they could even think about returning fire, 40+ if the Corisande troops have to close to about a 60 yard range for aimed fire. If even two thirds of those shots hit and take out a man, I literally don’t see how Corisande can close to their own firing range without getting annihilated in the process. Even if they break formation to charge into position they’ll still take at least 5 and likely 10 rounds of fire before they get into their own range which will give out utterly horrific casualties before they can even try to reply.
Oh I’m sure there will be some casualties for Charis and some other problems to overcome, but Hektor is still going to get his clock cleaned. And I’m quite wishing we could get to read it already.
RH
Cayleb has more options here than I originally thought.
1) Dodge. as mentioned earlier, he can just sail to wherever Hecktor’s army isn’t and grab land. He could set up defenses there and then destroy the army.
2) Face them outright. Cayleb can grab this port and wait for them. They may come, hoping to force him out. His units could easily rip them to shreds then.
3) Negotiations. Convince Hecktor to surrender. Probably won’t happen until Hecktor’s army is destroyed, but its still a good option. If cayleb can get control over Hecktor’s army, he’s added very useful weapon to his arsonel.
4) Attack the army. Cayleb knows where they are, what they’re doing, and when they plan on doing it. He could attack them before they are ready, avoid their traps and destroy them, dodge them completely, even with his ground troops.
5) Attack somewhere else. Use your boats, avoid the army, and just sack the capital and capture Hecktor. Holding the enemy King prisoner generally helps negotiations move along. You still have the problem of the army, but thats something that can be dealt with later.
There are certainly others I’m not thinking of.
The only thing Merlin’s info will guarantee is superior initial positioning. Each engagement will be decided by the commanders on the ground. Only if Hektor’s forces mass up for one potentially overwhelming attack will Merlin’s assistance give Cayleb a faster command control loop. Otherwise, a sharp and creative Corisandian major or colonel may take his counterpart regardless of an advantages.
Cayleb’s ships may be able to move forces more quickly, but the forces will primarily be infantry. Cavalary and artillery require draft beasts. Loading and unloading them quickly may proove difficult and they may require some adjustment time before any engagement. So, Hektor will know where Cayleb’s anvil will land regardless of anything Cayleb tries to do. Our Imperial Majesty may slip a few smaller hammers behind Hektor, but not another anvil or even a real sledgehammer. As any tool using individual knows, a hammer is only as good as the wielder. In this case the wielder will be the ground commander, not Cayleb himself assisted by Merlin’s intel. This battle it appears will be fought and won by men with their imperfect insight and knowledge (as opposed to computers or PICAs).
Peter
@11
“If even 2/3 of those shots hit…”
That seems unrealistic under battlefield conditions, even assuming the drill is individual aimed fire…which means a total loss of command and control, because your troops cannot hear their officers… rather than volleys, which were far more effective. Recall the observation of Frederick the Great, in which a Prussian and an Austrian unit closed to the preferred firing distance, which was some tens of yards, and began shooting at each other. A Prussian unit might sustain 4 or 5 rounds per minute. He suggested that after ten or 15 minutes, the Austrian lines would tend to become indistinct, and at that point you could go in with the bayonette and kill people.
Al alternative outcome — authorial take may be different — is that you begin shooting, and after not at all long the Corisandian pike notices their people are getting off a round every minute or two … 45 or so distinct motions to fire a matchlock … the other people are getting off four rounds a minute, and this is bad for morale.
Also, the notion that the Corisande army has a preferred firing range implies that they base their combat on infantry carrying guns, which is not obviously true. References suggest that Safehold archery is not outstanding, as witness the idea that you hunt dragons with boar spears, in which case other missile weapons are unlikely.
Actually, mt reading of earlier volunes is that the Chisholm army is armed with muskets, not rifles, and the Corisande army had a scattering of folks with matchlocks in with the folks with swords or whatever.
Let me put in some alternative numbers.
Corisande charges. At double time, if they have invented marching in step, which is seriously not obvious, that is 120 steps x 2 feet, or 80 yards per minute. That is two minutes to close, assuming Chisholm opens fire at 160 yards. The Prussian army could do five rounds a minute, but perhaps the prepared charges are a bit better. That is a dozen rounds into the attacking force. A realistic to-hit number — see Nosworthy — is more like 1-2%. Welcome to battlefield conditions. That means the attacker has taken 10% casualties many wounded, or perhaps more, given that the casualties are in the front ranks of the attack, and this breaks up your formation and ability to run. I am assuming two equal forces. That’s more than enough to break a charge, probably by a good deal, especially for troops that have not seen the like in the past. However, if Charis has few cavalry for a pursuit, their ability to smash an opposing army that is retreating off the battlefield — and this is where most casualties occur — is quite limited.
I seem to recall a scene in one of the books where they observed the Charis artillery practicing. That scene talked about using anti-presonnel shots (like grape shot) at a range that was at least as long as normal musket range. If that is so then you are not only talking about the attacking forces being exposed to artillery at much longer range, then rifle fire, then grape shot, all before they reach effective firing range. An attacking army running headlong into grape shot for the first time is going to come to a sudden halt. All three of those things together is going to result in both a slaughter and a sudden collapse of the armies ability to continue the attack, at least in the first battle. And if that battle has gathered the majority and best of the opposing army then the war ends fairly suddenly.
Add long range exploding shells (which I believe they were also working on) and the result becomes even more one sided.
@14, I think your numbers are much closer.
An important point you make is that you really don’t usually don’t have to kill that much of a formation to break it. Remember the literal meaning of decimate, and its connotations.
Boy GP you really can’t get your textev straight can you. You’re swinging for the fences but you’re whiffing. Constantly. I’ll give you that you understand historical constraints on Earth but you’ve got Safehold completely wrong on just about everything.
2/3rds of the shots hitting is well below textev standards. In the book they were getting 3/4s of the shots to hit at either 150 or 200 yards. Can’t recall exactly for sure which but I’m pretty sure it was 200, given that volley fire is considered effective out to about 100 and the targets were specifically stated as “exactly twice that distance”. Granted those were demonstration conditions without combat stress, but given that these people have had even longer to train and they will be firing from even shorter distances I don’t think 2/3rds is remotely unrealistic.
Corisande may have had matchlocks before this point, or even archery and swords, but BSRA very specifically states that they had flintlock muskets with paper-wrapped premeasured charges. They hit a bottleneck on the wooden stocks so they weren’t going to have as many guns as they wanted, but they would still have a lot more than Cayleb was going to like. Since volley fire is considered effective to around 100 yards and aimed fired is considered accurate at somewhere around 50 to 70, there is at least 100 yards of distance Corisande must close after they enter Charis’ range before their “preferred” range (and yes they DO have one, NOW at least, because they have guns that they think are effective and powerful) is entered.
Chisholm earlier may well have had muskets, but I’m betting this was a mistype and you meant Charis. In which case you were wrong again. The textev was that they were discussing the possibility of not rifling their guns right at first. It never said that was their actual decision. And when Merlin was musing about the Corisande muskets he specifically noted that they hadn’t figured out rifles so Charis would still have the range advantage, but not as much as they had before. Which is pretty conclusive proof that at least SOME (and very likely most or all) of Charis’ army is equipped with rifles.
Now if Charis had only muskets then your “new” numbers would be fairly accurate probably. Those were good numbers on Earth back when these types of guns were just being built. But as we’ve seen from accurate textev the situation you describe is massively different. Plus you forget about Charis’ idea of using two firing lines of shooters where both lines fire at the halfway point of their companion’s reload cycle. That will double their fire rate because otherwise generally only the front line of the army can fire without either deafening, blinding and/or killing their fellows in front of them. Again this is from the training grounds demonstration, but unless they’ve decided instead to switch to the Redcoat method of having the rank(s) kneel for the one(s) behind to fire over their heads, its the best option they’re likely to have.
If Corisande doesn’t realize how badly they are out-ranged, then they will likely initially try to merely march into position. That will be suicide. Better than half of those shots will hit and will at least put somebody out of action if not kill him outright. Lets say they get their entire 100,000 man army in position and attack Charis when Charis is in a semi-prepared position. The first 20,000 or so people will get slaughtered. After that they’ll pull back to regroup (if they don’t flee outright, but that’s unlikely given that they ARE familiar with the RATE of fire and only the RANGE will catch them off-guard). They’ll then try a charge to try to get into range before they are all cut down. That will likely cost them another 40,000 to 60,000 — especially once the Charisian guns firing canister get into action — before they finally decide they have to run for it. And this is BEFORE whatever cavalry Charis has (if any) comes into play. They’ll hurt Charis in the process no doubt. Probably 5,000 casualties at least, maybe 10,000. But they will find themselves facing approximately equal numbers of troops after taking 6-to-1 casualties and that will destroy whatever morale they had beforehand.
RH
@15, for Earth history, yeah. He nails it there. But for religious fanatics battling to stop the most horrendous evil they can imagine? He isn’t even in the city, much less the ballpark.
RH
@16
You are quoting the firing range results. At least in the real world, these have astonishingly little to do with battlefield results, which are around 1% as large in the real world. Weber’s opinion may vary. It’s his book.
We are skipping a core question as to how Weber handles the mass fire question that is correctly treated in Eric’s Rivers of War series, in which one of the heroes dutifully recalls for the education of the audience that on hearing the command ‘fire’ he *jerks* the trigger, thus getting the round off in very close to the same time as everyone else, this being the opposite of the erroneous practice of aiming.
Interestingly, there is an 18th century battle in which the French Guards were holding a narrow passage against a massive force, and the officers instructed their men (who would be officers anywhere else) to ignore all normal practice and spend time aiming their weapons. The carnage among the attackers totally astonished the Guards, after the battle.
Cayleb has several options for cheating. For example, he could defend at the top or bottom of a slope — 10 or 20 feet in that hundred yards is enough. His army has practiced shooting up or down hill. The other side may be sufficiently unlucky that it has not done so. Indeed, in period 18th century armies, the technical study to determine how to change musket levelling, in the armies that levelled their muskets before firing, had not been done, and there were pamphlet disputes as to what was the correct practice.
Hector also has the difficulty that his forces are just being re-equipped. I shall take my observations from Melissa Scott (SF author, but more relevant Ph.D., military history, Brandeis). Training soldiers to fire a gun under *battlefield conditions* was a very long process. You had to ingrain the process so it was all in muscle memory, so that the soldier never had to *think* about what he was doing. The time required was several years, according to period documents. One French officer was made a Marshall for adding a step to the firing process: The soldier was to stop and slap his cartridge box with his free hand. The improvement in sustained firing was substantial, because the step significantly reduced the rate at which soldiers fired their ramrods at the enemy due to skipping a prior step in the process.
Hector may have some little difficulties facing him.
@17
20% is catastrophic losses. A more typical number before breaking is rather smaller. Obvious counterexamples, e.g. Lundy’s Lane, involved very well trained forces that had never heard a shot fired in anger in a mass battle.
I believe you will find in one of the naval battle descriptions the comment that shipboard marines had been issued rifled muskets, and this was done because there was no risk of capture.
Boy, I hope the snippets get to the battle so we can see who gets the face full of egg!
RH@16 Your assumptions on accuracy are a bit faulty. Yes, the demonstration marines were very accurate when there were no bullets flying past them or when the targets weren’t mounted cavalry charging down on the unit with swords drawn. These conditions were present on many earth battlefields in history when the combatants were similarly armed as they are on safehold. In each of these battlefields, these types of factors generated casualty figures similar to what George describes. Why should Safehold be any different?
Even without combat stress, consider the Biathalete; he/she skis around for kilometers then shoots at a target. Most of these world-class athaletes and marksmen could hit that target 10 times out of 10 when rested. After the exertion most miss at least 1-2 rounds using percision rifles well beyond what Safehold can boast. Yes, the target is small, but the range is shorter and these guys can hit that target without fail anyway. The common Safehold soldier is neither a world class marksmen or athalete nor is he Sargent York reborn. The combination of stress, lack of time, exertion, potentially fatal distractions, moving targets, increasingly reduced visibility, mistakes made by friendlies and the evolution of the combat environment will take its toll just as it has in every battle humans have fought in.
Nothing DW has written suggests that this will change any time soon.
Peter
If there is a set piece battle, the correct strategy for Hektor will be to have prepared positions and try to force Cayleb to attack. Conventionally, this would make Hektor feel fairly confident. But what he doesn’t know about is Cayleb has essentially perfect intel and he can use maneuver to defeat previously prepared positions, or to avoid them and force Hektor out into the open.
Consider Gettysburg if Lee had taken Longstreet’s advice, avoided the Union Army on the heights, and positioned himself on the Washington side of those heights (and helping himself to copious supplies in the process–which isn’t an issue here, of course). The Union could likely have been forced into ruinous attacks rather than Lee. Might not have changed the final outcome, but sure would have made the battle a different proposition for the Union.
Two things to consider upon reflection…
First the Charis army must severely defeat/crush the Chisholm force as quickly as possible. Caleb can’t afford to get bogged down for months during the winter fighting in Chisholm while he has enemies elsewhere. He needs a decisive and crushing moral victory to win the greater war. So I don’t see much fancy manuevering by the Charisians in the war.
The other point is that we’re talking US Civil War 1864-65 tactics by the Charisians versus English Civil War 1640’s tactics by the Chisholm army. Rifled artillery and rifled muskets, rapid formation evolutions, socketed bayonets and concentrated volley fire with everyone equipped with a rifle-musket versus a predominately pike-shot army using slow linear formations with predominately smooth bore artillery and muskets…it’s going to be a slaughter at so many levels!
its all about geography,pick your battlefield,and the enemy has to respond to those conditions,location,location,location.
I don’t think Chisholmians are there too fight, I think they are there so the Charisians can demonstrate their new weaponry. I wonder if there are any Emeraldians there besides Nahrman? Perhaps Hanbil
one reason the redcoats were more effective than other European armies is that they trained with live rounds not just going through the motion. doing that gave them a huge advantage. also do you think merlin will fly priests from saint zerphyan to the temple to spy inside negotiate or get info from the brothel keeper?
I believe we are in agreement “Weber’s opinion may vary. It’s his book.”
For my detailed opinion, ask me for a copy of the manuscript “The One World”
phillies@4liberty.net about 2 Megs .rtf/
@25 As illustrated by Wellington when he first saw Waterloo years before 1815 and “kept it in his pocket”.
So, Lads and Lasses, shall we see a Wellington arise on Safehold? A John Churchill perhaps?
@24. Charis isn’t at war with Chisholm. Corisande is the enemy here.
Don’t forget Merlin may influence the battle. Oh, not the actual fighting, although that may happen too. The pre-battle. It would be …unlucky for Corisande if all their gunpowder got soaked the night before. Half the troops are sick. Someone burned the food supply. Add that into the battle, and you could see a sudden morale problem among Corisande’s forces.
I doubt it will happen, but its possible.
@27 Bravo, AVD! Can we spell “GREMLIN”???
@28. Maggie, have you been analyzing music again? Your misspelled “Merlin” and then added a “G” to boot.
If that was your intent, very funny!
:-)
Peter
@23 One of the recent ACW novels more or less did this. My memory is that is was the Gingrich-Forstchen trio, in which the Union ends up attacking confederate positions at Pipes Mill and is wrecked for a book or so, but wins the end. It was well written, and actually written by Gingrich and Forstchen, to judge from the style. I confess I preferred the Tsouras alternative history in which Meade is wounded and Hancock inherited by direct order of Lincoln command…and Gettysburg, instead of being a bloody draw that was all the Union needed, is a smashing Union victory.
One might propose that the correct strategy for Hektor is to refuse battle and prepare each of his cities for a siege, while the bulk of his army pursues caleb’s supply lines, such as they are — it worked for Fabius. His other strategy is to set up and use his large army to have unreasonably large reserves, so as to force hand to hand whenever possible. Defending on the rear slope rather than the forward slope also may help.
As a minor aside, for 1700 give or take armies, the described forces are huge.
@27 As someone posted a bit earlier, it is sometimes confusing to have all those “C” names (Charis, Corisande, Chisholm) and he has to keep a cheat sheet to tell them apart. I agree, also being well past maximum age for retention of all those names. Thank goodness for the map.
“…thanks to the semaphore, we know they’re coming at least a five-day before something as slow as an invasion fleet can reach Dairos.”
Are they really going to Dairos? Couldn’t they mount a raid ashore, capture the semaphore at Cape Targan, turn around and land on the western side of the island, while Hektor is sending everybody to Dairos? Quote: “If we can concentrate our troops quickly enough to attack before he’s firmly established in Dairos, there’s at least the possibility of driving him into the sea.”
Well, not if they are not there.
But I guess Cayleb really wants to force a battle rather than invest as much of the island as he can as fast as he can.
I guess Richard’s last comment means that the battle will be where we all expect it to be, near or at the Dark Hill Mtns.
When Merlin describes snippet 40 (Hektor’s staff meeting) to Cayleb, Will Cayleb not then:
(1) confront Sir Farahk Hyllair (Dairos) with about one third of his forces, inviting him to capitulate without a fight.
(2) While Hyllair is thus occupied, a few vessels quietly land a thousand or so skirmishers just east of the entrance to White Sail Bay, to make their way to Talbor Pass and help Koryn and his army avoid the boredom of garrison duty.
(3) While Koryn’s army is thus occupied, Cayleb and the other 2/3 of his forces would enter Manchyr Bay in the wee hours of the morning, and establish control of as many of Hektor’s fortifications as possible, greeting Hektor when he awakes with a capitol city under Cayleb’s control and an invitation he can’t refuse (it being presented by an armed guard that significantly outnumbers the Corisanders in the immediate vicinity) to come and visit with Cayleb and discuss how Hektor’s surrender will be handled, etc.
Of course, it’s not going to work out that way, because it would shorten the book too much, but such a bloodless coup is a nice thought.
Actually, raids to destroy semaphore stations are an interesting way to make life unpleasant for the side using them.
@26, speaking of waterloo, I can definitely see a “They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way.” moment coming in this book. These people don’t seem to learn quickly (e.g., rebuilding galleys).
Raid the semaphore stations after Hektor’s forces deploy. Get them out of position and then lengthen their communication lines. That will force the unit commanders to adapt to Charis’ new bag of tricks completely on their own or darned near on their own. The stations between the capital and the main Corisandian force will be pretty well protected, but they can’t all of them be absolutely secure.
Peter
I note that no one mentioned the abrupt degradation of accuracy after the first volly-in a word, gunsmoke. Unless the wind is favorable, massed formations at a hundred yards would be lucky to get 1% hits, even with rifles, firing on memory of about where the enemy was before he disappeared behind the fog bank. Add that to rough terrain, short lines of sight, shorter distances to charge etc. and this will only be a slaughter if DW wishes it to be. It could be set up to go either way.
CS
@37 While I agree with you that it would shorten the book, I still think that this book will be mainly concerned with the Empress and not primarily about all these snippets with Hektor, et al. The battle for Corisande will not be such a large portion of the book as the sea battles in OAR were. Thus, the book will not be short (are Weber’s recent books ever short?) because Sharly still has some adventures to go through and some pistolero work to do.
The area where they think they have the greatist advantage ie. Able to know where Cayleb lands and the amount of time it will be before he’s ready to fight due to adjusting to the land is negated by Cayleb able to land where he knows Hektor isn’t thanks to Merlin.
With the weapons and Cayleb able to pick where he wants the fight to occur, I see something akin to Pickets charge occuring here.
The below means the semaphore is the Chruch, I would imagine they use a code system to keep anyone not of the chruch from reading the message.,
I’d like to use the Church’s semaphore to begin passing orders to Dairos, Baron Dairwyn, and Sir Koryn
SO captureing and sending false message would be difficult.
Next real time reconniance is good but Merlin can only communicate with cale. So it does not help much with true interior line of communication. He ccould know that Hector had an ambush at a pass but if he a 100 miles away it does not good he can not communicate the information to the party about to be ambus.
I stated on the last snippet, He would land at the small port establish a beachead and prepare to advance. Looks like Hector agree with me. But I don;t think the animals will make that much of a difference. Hector is think calvary mobility versus poorly trained infantry. That was pre-merlin normal. But the Marines ar not train as calvary at the most mounted infantry. Ride to battle et of that stupid animal and kill the enemiy.
Calvary was always an elite force, most member had to supply their on primary animal. So poor men were in the infantry, ad who care how many of them got killed. These Maarines are going to be a real surprise, an elite infantry fighting units. Screw the horses and dragon.
Now Hector is going to push a econnasie in force through the pass and use them toe get the animals ,burn and fodder for men or animals up and scatter to be used ans advance scout as caleb begin to approach the dark hills maybe and raiding force in his rear when he pushes for the pass. Will not be as effective as Merlin will be able to locate their line of travel. They will be destroyed in detail if they do not retreat back into the dark hiills,
Whichwhat will happen to Hectors men in those hills, you can not fight a calvary battle in hills. ou need open area if he trys to set up oocket to ambush the nagain with melin destro in details. He actually needs Cal. on the his side of the Dark Hills where he can use in number to greater advantage.
@32 Aw, Peter, don’t you ever play Scrabble?? Beats analyzing Bach all hollow…
Bbarcsle? No, never played it. I also have difficulty spelling without spellcheck. The hodge podge of English phonetic rules drives me nuts sometimes. As for analyzing Bach… I prefer simply to listen to it while modeling various revenue sources.
I hope we get some decent set up for this battle in the next snippet and finish Corisande up by next weekend. I want to go back to Sharly.
Peter
Think the of differences of the civil war vs all of the prior wars. The casualty rates were considerably higher. The weapons were more accurate at longer range, the use of artillary, etc.
What this is going to look like is a revolutionary war style force engaging a civil war style equipped force, but with Civil War troop numbers.
While you might quote the impact of ranges and weapons accuracy. The casualty rates of the civil war vs previous engagements would seem to disagree.
@47 They (whoever “they” are) say that the military always fights the last war. So it was with WWI where modern weapons practically destroyed an entire generation of Europeans who did not learn the lessons of the American Civil War.
Also remember that the U.S. military academies were not very good at what they were supposed to do until reforms began in the late 19th and early 20th century. In effect then, officers were either untrained naturals or incompetents (not to say they were not brave), and many were appointed by politicians of the states they came from. Even during WWII there were the 90 day wonders from OCS.
Indeed, the change from Napoleonic Period to the Victorian is the replacement of smooth-bore muskets with rifled muskets. The result was that one replaced a shock and morale weapon with a weapon whose primary effect was actually killing the enemy. The rifles of the period also outranged the effective range of the start-of-war artillery.
The question is whether, as some above have proposed, Charis and Chisholm have deployed rifled muskets for their ground forces, or whether they have smoothbore muskets.
The question is probably not as much the specific weapons as the range and quality compared to the opposition. The diggest issue is the smoke generated during a battle as a result ability to aim is very limited. One source indicated that even during the civil war the hit rate was on the range of 1 per 250 rounds. So the range and rate of fire becomes important. Artillery I suspect may play more of a role and may have had more of an impact in the Civil war then is generally given credit, especially exploding shells and cannister.
Combine the weapons with the knowledge of tactics and the visibility of both the oppositions location and their intent and you have all of the ear marks of a pretty one sided battle. I suspect that there will have to be a surprise of two thrown in to emphasize that Merlin can’t know everything and the need to keep it from getting boring.
If they do have rifled muskets, then you might see snipers, improved skirmishing tactics, flanking manuevers (after all they should know exactly where the oppositions flank and weak points are along with the location of their HQ.