I think the real utility of aircraft in all this is going to be finding out where the other side even is in a timely manner. Thinking of it in terms of "air war" is likely a diversion at best.
Strategic Arms Quest 3/2: Armor Edition
- Thread starter 7734
- Start date
- Original
CthuluWasRight
Fresh Meat for the SV Grinder
- Location
- Canada
True enough, but it's worth noting that these guys are rolling with tanks and heavy artillery, and seem to be fighting pitched battles toe-to-toe with local forces. While reconnaissance is always vital, we hardly seem to be hunting the Viet Cong here. In light of this, I'm not sure that keeping an aircraft specialist onboard is worth more than having someone who knows both the terrain and the quality and capability of the forces we have under our command. The air force will still do their job, after all.
[X] Aleksander van Dromos: A young cartographer and pilot, Aleksander has contacts in the Luftwaffe and more importantly in the ground survey teams. He also has access to the local Nyassland Luftwaffe wing, and the dozen airplanes within.
[X] Irspen Chiku: A young widow, her husband in the Sumpfratten died in the War College after an automobile accident. She is reasonably Irromized, but speaks most of the native languages fairly fluidly.
[X] Kaptain Pfertat Molon: An infantry officer assigned to the 6/4 Marienburg Amalgamated, Pfertat is a young and impressionable officer, who's experience in war can be summed up with brutal city fighting or none at all.
So, we have local militias and shit to work with as well as 4 infantry regiments and 1 incomplete armor regiment.
Dromos means some degree of influence on air war - meaning air supremacy, mail and air recon. It might make all the difference.
Chiku is just a reasonably loyal local.
Molon is an officer who is experienced with: 1) Fighting. 2) Rebuilding formations. Both would be needed.
Folgers would be there with 1/1 Elbing, most likely, as it is the first armored regiment, and he worked with us before, so coordinating with him would be possible.
Udst is cool, and working with Seebattaliones would have been good, but we need others more.
[X] Irspen Chiku: A young widow, her husband in the Sumpfratten died in the War College after an automobile accident. She is reasonably Irromized, but speaks most of the native languages fairly fluidly.
[X] Kaptain Pfertat Molon: An infantry officer assigned to the 6/4 Marienburg Amalgamated, Pfertat is a young and impressionable officer, who's experience in war can be summed up with brutal city fighting or none at all.
So, we have local militias and shit to work with as well as 4 infantry regiments and 1 incomplete armor regiment.
Dromos means some degree of influence on air war - meaning air supremacy, mail and air recon. It might make all the difference.
Chiku is just a reasonably loyal local.
Molon is an officer who is experienced with: 1) Fighting. 2) Rebuilding formations. Both would be needed.
Folgers would be there with 1/1 Elbing, most likely, as it is the first armored regiment, and he worked with us before, so coordinating with him would be possible.
Udst is cool, and working with Seebattaliones would have been good, but we need others more.
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7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
The problem is the Luftwaffe is line of a fifth wheel on the trycicle right now; they're not sure what they're doing or who to report too. Most of what they've done so far is hauling cameras for the cartography group and dropping missives when the radios crap out.
Currently there are zero armed airplanes in the Luftwaffe. Pilots are issued a revolver for bird control, however.
Contest 5: Task Prioritization
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Looking over the nucleus of your new Staff Office, you groaned internally. You were a good God-fearing Army boy, so why did your job involve getting puttered around on small boats so much? Right, you were in transit, Marienburg to Dars-el-Salaam. The trip had about a week left in it, and it was time to start sorting out what the expected problem points were.
First up was Chiku, with the relative 'on the ground' report, so to speak. Most of the native groups were relatively happy with the Irromic presence, since the majority of the local Irromic presence involved running the village transportation hub, school, general store, and post office. The fact a tour or three in the Ostafrikacorps (The colloquial name for the combined Colonial Regiments and Brigades) could pay for significant improvements to one's life, such as game rifles, new plows and tractors, or even a riverboat from five or six stints made sure that the Afrikaner soldiers (Askari, collectively; an old word without tribal connotations) were generally very happy with their colonial overlords. The fact the pay was both regular and excellent by local standards didn't hurt- in most cases, the regiments had to turn away young men or hire them on as porters until a position opened up. The willingness of local forces to fight was an excellent sign- hopefully, they'd see noncombat positions as equally attractive if the money was regular enough.
Following this was van Dromos. While he had no concrete information at this time about the coming shitstorm, he did have a two-year stint in the early nucleous of the Luftwaffe to his name and therefore understood what the wing at Dar-el-Salaam could do. The answer was simple- not much. If they followed the table of independant wing organization, they had twelve light M.5 Atonin reconnaissance aircraft, six heavier J-1 cargo aircraft for delivering messages and information supplies to deployed forces, three G.I long range photoreconnaissance aircraft, and three "ground-attack" configured M.5 Antonin with the capability to drop a single fin-retarded one hundred kilogram high explosive bomb. Most wings didn't actually use their ground-attack M.5 planes for that role, however, due to the difficulty of assembling bombs and the high risk such missions had due to carrying a massive portion of the plane's weight in a bomb and the resultant performance loss. In van Dromos' opinion, the G.I planes and J-1 could be commandeered for the purposes of assembling rough maps of the terrain, while the M.5 units maintained recon schedules and delivered the mail with the ground attack units.
Last up was Folgers, who was quite pleased with his position in the 1/1 Elbing and the horde of tanks that entailed. Right now, they had on the rolls twenty SkW-1 tanks, twenty five KTW-2, and eighty W-5 units- and more importantly, they also had the factoid attached that the accountants had put a screaming hold on assembling the rest of the 1st Elbing Armor until they had a ToE nailed down that could actually get paid for without bankrupting the Northwest Military District. Currently, the plan was for each battalion to be one headquarters company, one tracked artillery platoon, and four companies composed of one SkW-1 or other radio-bearing tank platoon and two W-5/7 platoons plus normal support assets. The fact this would tentatively cost something in the neighborhood of twelve thousand thalers per battalion in armored vehicles, a number on par of cost with raising two infantry regiments, before most of the incidentals came in!
Yeah you were probably going to have to talk with the poor lad about trimming down things. A lot. Oh God, all the trimming.
---
Once you got to Dar-el-Salaam, though, things rapidly shook out to what you were really here for- problem solving. Specifically, the Hydra that was keeping forces operationally supplied out in the boonies. The situation was rough- enemy forces were mainly attacking and probing the western borders, where getting supplies was both difficult and time-consuming, but the southern areas were also at risk due to the Zambezi and Swahili raiding parties who were more and more interested in joining the war it looked like.
The supplies themselves, however, were even more disastrous. Each one of the Imperial Colonies- that is, Nyasaland, North Zambezi, Tangiyaka, and the Volta- had majorly differing kit, with two antique rifle calibers and the modern Irromic kit mixed in. Trucks and tractors were of dozens of brands, often civilian models drafted with their operators as porters if the persons in question did not voulenteerily attach themselves to the army. Currently, there were three main forces gathered, and the general war situation looked poor.
First up was the Tangiyakan/North Zambezi force, under Generalmajor Erik Schwarster. Encamped in the rivers and deltas near the Great Lake, the units were loosely dispersed and in good supply by locals and thanks to the easy waterlift from the delta and lake-crossing skiffs. According to Staff Plans which had been transmitted back via Luftwaffe messengers, the current plan was to fortify the White River Delta and highlands on the far side of the lake, keeping in mind that due to the steeply varied elevations that artillery would be innefective unless the front line was pushed past the point of easy supply by the lake. Judging by his missives, Schwarster was a conservative general who believed in the superiority of fire as a doctrine, and wished to keep his force in good supply as long as possible.
Second, and more importantly, was the Nyasaland/Volta force under Generalmajor Lukaz Holn. Much like Schwarster's force, he was spread out over the Zambezi/Lake Kariba area, although in much less density and on the south bank of the rivers and lakes, ceding defacto control of the waterway in exchange for using it as a defensive line. His southern and western flank had been hammered dearly, however, as the enemy took advantage of their light infantry units to move up through the Okovango Delta and push through the lighter southern forests in an attack that could push into the Nyasaland heartland. He was in far poorer supply than Schwarster, however his Staff Planning revealed that his units were in high spirits and had a large number of local auxiliaries informally attached at all levels to help drive the invaders out. If he was still pressed from the south, the plan was to retreat up to the Smoking Falls and Herzstein and dig in so as to plan a counteroffensive.
----
Vote
[] Plan North: You're not confident in Schwarster's positions, and more importantly you're concerned by the fact he's only reported sporadic enemy contact. If you can work out a way to extend his supply area into the highlands proper, you can press the enemy dearly from a secure location in the massive highlands around the Great Lake.
-[] Write-in concepts
[] Plan South: You're panicking at the disaster of supply that is Holn's army. Three rifle calibers, dozens of makes and model of tractor and boat, and if reports are correct he's got more types of main battery artillery than the Irromic Empire's used since it's formation. If you can clean house behind his operation, he'll be in a prime position to advance and seize ground, forcing the enemy into a limited-frontage battle your armies spent the last six years turning into an art.
-[] Write-in concepts.
First up was Chiku, with the relative 'on the ground' report, so to speak. Most of the native groups were relatively happy with the Irromic presence, since the majority of the local Irromic presence involved running the village transportation hub, school, general store, and post office. The fact a tour or three in the Ostafrikacorps (The colloquial name for the combined Colonial Regiments and Brigades) could pay for significant improvements to one's life, such as game rifles, new plows and tractors, or even a riverboat from five or six stints made sure that the Afrikaner soldiers (Askari, collectively; an old word without tribal connotations) were generally very happy with their colonial overlords. The fact the pay was both regular and excellent by local standards didn't hurt- in most cases, the regiments had to turn away young men or hire them on as porters until a position opened up. The willingness of local forces to fight was an excellent sign- hopefully, they'd see noncombat positions as equally attractive if the money was regular enough.
Following this was van Dromos. While he had no concrete information at this time about the coming shitstorm, he did have a two-year stint in the early nucleous of the Luftwaffe to his name and therefore understood what the wing at Dar-el-Salaam could do. The answer was simple- not much. If they followed the table of independant wing organization, they had twelve light M.5 Atonin reconnaissance aircraft, six heavier J-1 cargo aircraft for delivering messages and information supplies to deployed forces, three G.I long range photoreconnaissance aircraft, and three "ground-attack" configured M.5 Antonin with the capability to drop a single fin-retarded one hundred kilogram high explosive bomb. Most wings didn't actually use their ground-attack M.5 planes for that role, however, due to the difficulty of assembling bombs and the high risk such missions had due to carrying a massive portion of the plane's weight in a bomb and the resultant performance loss. In van Dromos' opinion, the G.I planes and J-1 could be commandeered for the purposes of assembling rough maps of the terrain, while the M.5 units maintained recon schedules and delivered the mail with the ground attack units.
Last up was Folgers, who was quite pleased with his position in the 1/1 Elbing and the horde of tanks that entailed. Right now, they had on the rolls twenty SkW-1 tanks, twenty five KTW-2, and eighty W-5 units- and more importantly, they also had the factoid attached that the accountants had put a screaming hold on assembling the rest of the 1st Elbing Armor until they had a ToE nailed down that could actually get paid for without bankrupting the Northwest Military District. Currently, the plan was for each battalion to be one headquarters company, one tracked artillery platoon, and four companies composed of one SkW-1 or other radio-bearing tank platoon and two W-5/7 platoons plus normal support assets. The fact this would tentatively cost something in the neighborhood of twelve thousand thalers per battalion in armored vehicles, a number on par of cost with raising two infantry regiments, before most of the incidentals came in!
Yeah you were probably going to have to talk with the poor lad about trimming down things. A lot. Oh God, all the trimming.
---
Once you got to Dar-el-Salaam, though, things rapidly shook out to what you were really here for- problem solving. Specifically, the Hydra that was keeping forces operationally supplied out in the boonies. The situation was rough- enemy forces were mainly attacking and probing the western borders, where getting supplies was both difficult and time-consuming, but the southern areas were also at risk due to the Zambezi and Swahili raiding parties who were more and more interested in joining the war it looked like.
The supplies themselves, however, were even more disastrous. Each one of the Imperial Colonies- that is, Nyasaland, North Zambezi, Tangiyaka, and the Volta- had majorly differing kit, with two antique rifle calibers and the modern Irromic kit mixed in. Trucks and tractors were of dozens of brands, often civilian models drafted with their operators as porters if the persons in question did not voulenteerily attach themselves to the army. Currently, there were three main forces gathered, and the general war situation looked poor.
First up was the Tangiyakan/North Zambezi force, under Generalmajor Erik Schwarster. Encamped in the rivers and deltas near the Great Lake, the units were loosely dispersed and in good supply by locals and thanks to the easy waterlift from the delta and lake-crossing skiffs. According to Staff Plans which had been transmitted back via Luftwaffe messengers, the current plan was to fortify the White River Delta and highlands on the far side of the lake, keeping in mind that due to the steeply varied elevations that artillery would be innefective unless the front line was pushed past the point of easy supply by the lake. Judging by his missives, Schwarster was a conservative general who believed in the superiority of fire as a doctrine, and wished to keep his force in good supply as long as possible.
Second, and more importantly, was the Nyasaland/Volta force under Generalmajor Lukaz Holn. Much like Schwarster's force, he was spread out over the Zambezi/Lake Kariba area, although in much less density and on the south bank of the rivers and lakes, ceding defacto control of the waterway in exchange for using it as a defensive line. His southern and western flank had been hammered dearly, however, as the enemy took advantage of their light infantry units to move up through the Okovango Delta and push through the lighter southern forests in an attack that could push into the Nyasaland heartland. He was in far poorer supply than Schwarster, however his Staff Planning revealed that his units were in high spirits and had a large number of local auxiliaries informally attached at all levels to help drive the invaders out. If he was still pressed from the south, the plan was to retreat up to the Smoking Falls and Herzstein and dig in so as to plan a counteroffensive.
----
Vote
[] Plan North: You're not confident in Schwarster's positions, and more importantly you're concerned by the fact he's only reported sporadic enemy contact. If you can work out a way to extend his supply area into the highlands proper, you can press the enemy dearly from a secure location in the massive highlands around the Great Lake.
-[] Write-in concepts
[] Plan South: You're panicking at the disaster of supply that is Holn's army. Three rifle calibers, dozens of makes and model of tractor and boat, and if reports are correct he's got more types of main battery artillery than the Irromic Empire's used since it's formation. If you can clean house behind his operation, he'll be in a prime position to advance and seize ground, forcing the enemy into a limited-frontage battle your armies spent the last six years turning into an art.
-[] Write-in concepts.
Himmelhand
Giant Sinkhole 2020
- Location
- Midwestern US
What is the terrain to the south besides the lighter forests? Are there limits to our authority to recommend a course of action?
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
These guys massively outrank you. Remember, your MO is to make sure that they're free to operate without worrying about tying their metaphorical tails in knots. If you can figure out ways to fix these issues (Holn and needing six gazillion kinds of everything, Schwerster's inability to keep a supply line heading into the mountains) then you can probably give advice or suggestions for them to keep from accidentally blapping a giant disaster down on you. Their campaign plans are totally out of your influence though.
As for terrain, most of North is variations on a mountain or plateau, while the south leans towards light forest, peat bog, dense forest, river delta, and in the north past the river you start hitting into the true rainforest while far enough south you hit glacier moraines.
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
i don't have a plan but the South is obviously my vote. just thinking about it should offend our Teutonic love of standardization and efficiency.
Himmelhand
Giant Sinkhole 2020
- Location
- Midwestern US
What is the current supply chain like in the south? How do they determine need and how do we fill those needs? How much supply do units typically keep on hand?
Also, how much can the cargo planes carry?
I'm thinking something like using air mail to allow more centralized flow of supplies to forward distribution points, since it's very unlikely that a telegraph network would work well under the circumstances.
Also, how much can the cargo planes carry?
I'm thinking something like using air mail to allow more centralized flow of supplies to forward distribution points, since it's very unlikely that a telegraph network would work well under the circumstances.
- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He
Honestly, there is little need to resupply the southern part of the army. With the local population being firmly in support of our side, the supply promblems are not urgent. Just use guerilla tactics and loot everything from defeated small parties of enemy men.
What we can impact more, I believe, is the situation on the northern mountainous flank. Mountains > jungle in terms of air recon quality, so we can utilise our planes to fix Schwarster's recon problems. Then, using our experience with Operation Seepanzer (aka the pervious contest), we can help with transporting tanks over the Great Lake (!Victoria) and the surrounding river system. And finally, recall only some heavy tanks from the mainland (weren't SkW-1 able to float?), then use them as infantry support/breakthrough vehicles in small numbers where the terrain permits.
There is little to gain with light W-5 tanks because neither front has ample opportunity for maneuver. Low visiblity from inside of our heavy tanks leaves them very ambushable, and the local tribes know ambushing tactics like the backs of their hands.
If anything, our more conventional force we can sort of control (planes, tank reinforcements) just has very little application in the South.
@7734, can skiffs tow the SkW-1 along the river? If yes, could SkW-1 + towing skiffs with Seebats be a potential assault force that can reach further than the immediate Seebat. infantry + naval arty attack range?
North, but no complete plan yet.
What we can impact more, I believe, is the situation on the northern mountainous flank. Mountains > jungle in terms of air recon quality, so we can utilise our planes to fix Schwarster's recon problems. Then, using our experience with Operation Seepanzer (aka the pervious contest), we can help with transporting tanks over the Great Lake (!Victoria) and the surrounding river system. And finally, recall only some heavy tanks from the mainland (weren't SkW-1 able to float?), then use them as infantry support/breakthrough vehicles in small numbers where the terrain permits.
There is little to gain with light W-5 tanks because neither front has ample opportunity for maneuver. Low visiblity from inside of our heavy tanks leaves them very ambushable, and the local tribes know ambushing tactics like the backs of their hands.
If anything, our more conventional force we can sort of control (planes, tank reinforcements) just has very little application in the South.
@7734, can skiffs tow the SkW-1 along the river? If yes, could SkW-1 + towing skiffs with Seebats be a potential assault force that can reach further than the immediate Seebat. infantry + naval arty attack range?
North, but no complete plan yet.
In the north, how far from the lake you we have to go before the artillery becomes more useful? Are there any railroads, navigable rivers or good quality roads that could significantly impact the supply situation?
In the south, let me once again ask what our brown-water navy is like. Also, does the other side have any boats outfitted with combat in mind, or just boats with guys with rifles in them, and how clustered along the shore is Holn's army? Also, if some effort were to be made to trade shit back and forth to concentrate matching equipment, how much of a mess would that be? Is there enough slack in the supply of equipment, weapons and ammo to make those kinds of trades without completely fucking everything over in the short term?
In the south, let me once again ask what our brown-water navy is like. Also, does the other side have any boats outfitted with combat in mind, or just boats with guys with rifles in them, and how clustered along the shore is Holn's army? Also, if some effort were to be made to trade shit back and forth to concentrate matching equipment, how much of a mess would that be? Is there enough slack in the supply of equipment, weapons and ammo to make those kinds of trades without completely fucking everything over in the short term?
The SkW-1 may be built like a boat, but it doesn't actually float like one. Also, it's a lot bigger than anything you'd typically call a skiff. This is completely non-viable.
- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He
Okay, thank you. I had a wrong idea what a skiff is.
I've got a stupid engineering solution for extending supply lines in the north: ropeway conveyors. They are low cost and quick to build compared to other transportation infrastructure, they are incredibly well suited to rough and mountainous terrain, they are old, proven tech, and the early 20th century is pretty much their heyday as far as large projects go. These things cost almost nothing to operate and can potentially transport hundreds of tons per day. The biggest obvious downsides are that they require a little manufacturing capacity for pulleys, equipment and rope and cable (though really nothing special for the former), it may take a little time to figure out what we are doing if none of the local mines use them, a system we could plausibly put together couldn't transport any single load over a ton or so, and they are more vulnerable to sabotage than roads or railways if raiders sneak through the lines. Also that it's not an instant turn-key fix, but nothing else would be either.
For more info, here's a good article in some weird primitivist magazine, here's a video showing off the design and operation of a system fairly typical of the fancier ones a large mining operation might use (ours could be a lot simpler and cheaper), and here's a page documenting the ropeways used to transport people and goods in rural Nepal, complete with detailed diagrams.
For more info, here's a good article in some weird primitivist magazine, here's a video showing off the design and operation of a system fairly typical of the fancier ones a large mining operation might use (ours could be a lot simpler and cheaper), and here's a page documenting the ropeways used to transport people and goods in rural Nepal, complete with detailed diagrams.
A passage from the article of particular note:
This validates their utility for military purposes in this timeframe. Also, it suggests this may be a thing our mountain troops know how to do.
For improving last mile supply, or before a ropeway is set up, or for farther out, introducing Chinese-style wheelbarrows could be a good way to drastically increase what porters can carry on narrow trails. Once again, this is simple, proven, hundreds of years old technology that just works and is well suited for the task. These things are pretty much a slightly lower tech replacement for the modified bicycles the Viet Cong used for most of their logistics. I think they would have a lot of potential to help unfuck logistics in places even pack animals have trouble.
Of course, neither of these answer how you move anything much larger than a mountain gun. For that you need roads, railways or a river. There's no getting around that.
Edit: Here's a book from 1911 with detailed information on the kinds of ropeways that we could possibly make use of.
Edit 2: A little anachronistic, and it refers to prefabricated designs we don't have, but here's a WWII US Army technical manual which deals with ropeways.
This validates their utility for military purposes in this timeframe. Also, it suggests this may be a thing our mountain troops know how to do.
For improving last mile supply, or before a ropeway is set up, or for farther out, introducing Chinese-style wheelbarrows could be a good way to drastically increase what porters can carry on narrow trails. Once again, this is simple, proven, hundreds of years old technology that just works and is well suited for the task. These things are pretty much a slightly lower tech replacement for the modified bicycles the Viet Cong used for most of their logistics. I think they would have a lot of potential to help unfuck logistics in places even pack animals have trouble.
Of course, neither of these answer how you move anything much larger than a mountain gun. For that you need roads, railways or a river. There's no getting around that.
Edit: Here's a book from 1911 with detailed information on the kinds of ropeways that we could possibly make use of.
Edit 2: A little anachronistic, and it refers to prefabricated designs we don't have, but here's a WWII US Army technical manual which deals with ropeways.
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Well, ropeways are viable for Northern flank - particularly due to the fact that artillery fire wouldn't be particularly viable for disrupting it.
On the southern one, however... Forests and swamps... Go for either long-term roads or lots of boats.
Preferably roads, we need to start building proper engineering corps somewhere.
On the southern one, however... Forests and swamps... Go for either long-term roads or lots of boats.
Preferably roads, we need to start building proper engineering corps somewhere.
Yeah, the north's main problem seems to be a supply chain that wouldn't be able to reach far enough due to no infrastructure and rough terrain, a problem ropeways are well suited to helping solve. In the south, to the extent that getting supplies to the army is the problem, I like boats as the solution where possible and road improvements where they are not, on the grounds that boats are a hell of a lot faster to get working. The real problem in the south seems to be no standardization, though, and I have few insights on how to unfuck that. Some scheme related to trading equipment back and forth until it matches locally, bringing in new replacement stuff from elsewhere, and putting some kind of process in place to better keep track of what everyone has and what they need could all be part of it, but I don't see any obvious answer. Which is a shame because it is probably the more important problem in the big picture.
- Location
- England
The better question is this: How often are we going to need to be fighting through mountains?
This section is teaching us how to do something, supplies through mountains or proper clean supply lines and standardisation with a massive amount of soldiers.
In case you hadn't noticed, tanks really don't do well when fighting in mountains.
Roads my friend, roads roads roads.
Also, we don't have to figure out how to unfuck things, I don't think. We just have to pick which we are going to work on.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
The J-1 can carry roughly 500kg of cargo on a bad day, 750 if the sun is out and they're taking off from Dars-el-Salaam. However, they also normally have to drop half their load when they stop in Harare to load up on fuel for the second half of the trip, and their last stop is in Herzstein because that's the last good landing strip.
The current southern supply chain is generally supplies are taken from Dars-el-Salaam or Lilongwe in Volta, then into the Zambezi River by sealift or down connective tributaries, and up to Herzstein which serves as the Headquarters for the entire Southern Front. After reaching Herzstein, material is taken penny-packet via boat to where it needs to go based on normal use and if an area expects to be involved in any short-order offensives or if there's a specific supply that got overdelivered.
If you took the turret and gun off an SkW-1c or better and set up a bilge pump, yeah. You're not getting the turret back on after, though, because that's almost fifteen tons of metal and nobody has a clue how to move that onto a tank again.
You've got engineering companies attached to most regiments, and a proper infantry brigade has two engineer companies and a logistics company in the support battalion.
You have to explicitly pick one front or the other to work on every update for this section, because I know you screwballs would try and work on both. That splits things up way too much for any of us to handle, though.
The south seems both more immediately important and more useful in the long run for learning important lessons, but it looks harder to straighten out where the north could be relatively straightforward in the broad outlines. As such, I find myself conflicted.
Also, the fact that my latest silly idea that I over-analyze and spend hours nerding about might have accidentally ended up really practical is exciting to me, and constitutes an additional push towards the north because I'd like to see it work. I recognize that this might not be the best reason, but it should at least be an understandable one.
@7734 is there enough stuff to go around that phasing out some of the weird old garbage could be part of the solution in the south, or can we legitimately not do without the weird old garbage? How much if at all can we influnce what gets shipped in from home, and how much can we realistically expect? How's the fuel situation? About what parentage of the rifles we have shoot our modern ammunition standard?
Also, the fact that my latest silly idea that I over-analyze and spend hours nerding about might have accidentally ended up really practical is exciting to me, and constitutes an additional push towards the north because I'd like to see it work. I recognize that this might not be the best reason, but it should at least be an understandable one.
@7734 is there enough stuff to go around that phasing out some of the weird old garbage could be part of the solution in the south, or can we legitimately not do without the weird old garbage? How much if at all can we influnce what gets shipped in from home, and how much can we realistically expect? How's the fuel situation? About what parentage of the rifles we have shoot our modern ammunition standard?
Fezzes
Knight of King Stannis Baratheon
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Flatterer.
I think we should focus on the South. It's definitely a more complex problem, unless I'm not seeing something, so getting started on it soon is a priority, before it comes back to bite us. If need be, Schwarster can live without secure highlands supply lines. Just hold position.
I'll outline this clearly instead of rambling. Of the two fronts, which would be more likely to go wrong if nothing changed? Schwarster won't run out of ammunition, provided he doesn't do anything too aggressive. Holn's supplies are already a tangled mess, it's entirely likely that sections of his troops would run out of ammunition altogether, even if he didn't advance, because not enough of this or that specific kind of munitions was provided.
As a newcomer to the quest, I'd just like to express gratitude that this quest is changing formats, even if only temporarily. It's a nice change of pace to see.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Ehhh... this is getting into some dicey in-character questions, so I'll tell you what you know, or have public access information on.
The big logistical hangup is rifle calibers. The Volta troops use the old Irromic Army 11x60mm black powder cartridge that's been filled with an old, low-power smokeless powder and is fired out of the old single-shot bolt-action rifles. The Nyasaland troops use a 13x65mm smokeless that is fired out of a rolling block bush rifle that originally started as a sport design and got upgraded with a bayonet lug and fixed sights to militarize it. Both territories have domestic rifle and ammunition production sufficient to their needs, but a lot of modern arms have been coming in. Adding to the mix are machine guns and I.Gew rifles, which take the modern 6.5x55 rounds. There's also a lot of captured munitions floating around and flat-out weird shit (like 15x80mm Roc guns which get used as anti-boat weapons) in the irregular units that also gets accounted for whenever the officers can track down the irregulars and get them to hork up information on what everyone carries.
The Northern Force is a lot better in this regard, being roughly split half and half with 6.5mm and 11mm guns, with a favoring towards the later because Tangiyaka actually has a factory for the I.Gew rifle. Most of the bullets, however, get eaten up by the machine gun sections, so they keep the old 11mm lines running.
- Location
- England
- Location
- Germiston, South Africa
I would suggest focusing on the North due to it Looking like a safe secure position. A conservative general with a defensive mindset should have the them itching to give him a Maginot.
We can use air recon to find the them heading through the pass that no-one could possibly use or whatever.
Remember victory does not go to the brilliant commander with the Code Geass plans, it goes to the one who makes the least mistakes.
If there is not a disaster coming - so much the better. We will have the secure striking base everyone thinks it is.
We can use air recon to find the them heading through the pass that no-one could possibly use or whatever.
Remember victory does not go to the brilliant commander with the Code Geass plans, it goes to the one who makes the least mistakes.
If there is not a disaster coming - so much the better. We will have the secure striking base everyone thinks it is.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Welcome to Ostafrika. Come for the disaster, stay for the private fifedom and gross lack of oversight!