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Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

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[X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)

Would rather not expend another OWE, and a lot of small actions means we can get a nice crop of NCO's and personnel to train up our army later on.
 
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Problem with the siege plan is that if our fleets busy with other stuff they aren't going to be able to intercept resupply attempts. Siege plans should have blockade as focus for navy.
 
aceraptor said:
Problem with the siege plan is that if our fleets busy with other stuff they aren't going to be able to intercept resupply attempts. Siege plans should have blockade as focus for navy.
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My seige plan uses bombardment in the hopes of breaking the Victorians' will faster. Which will hopefully render the potential danger of resupply a moot point.
 
[X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
-[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
-[X] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
-[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
-[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.

I'm a bit leery about going down to 2/5 OWE. No idea what the next few turns might hold, and would really prefer to get through this battle with 3 uses still in the tank (giving us another emergency usage while preserving enough for reverse-engineering.)

Other than that though, I have no objections with the plan, so here's my own that's the same except for aforementioned lack of OWE-using.

[X] Plan Uranus

Basically the same plan except for the specifics of capturing the ships.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
A siege will still take months. The Victorians will have time to organize (yet another) resupply attempt.
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But, can they? We have pretty much elimnated Vick naval presence and considering the sheer tonnage coming our way I doubt they have any ships left capable of preforming any meaningful resupply. Oh sure they have small boat launches they can use, but our navy controls the lakes and the small boats would not carry much. What it means is that the Vicks would be looking at a repeat of what happened to the Nazis at Stalingrad, where the supplies the Luftwaffe dropped were nowhere near enough to sustain the army.
 
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VOTE
[X] Plan Uranus
-[x][DEFENSE] Defend with all committable forces.
-[x][OFFENSE] Limited assault.
-[x][TRANSPORTS] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
-[x][NAVY] Full bombardment.

[X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
-[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
-[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
-[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
-[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.


REASONS
-We need to give all our troops serious combat experience at going on the offensive against Victorian troops. With their tanks destroyed and their aircraft grounded, and us with the artillery advantage, this is the best opportunity for it.
-Like @Simon_Jester pointed out, several months is a very long time. Long enough for Russia to intervene, whether with supply paradrops or a squadron of aircraft providing air support from Boston
-The more time we spend doing this, the more time the VAF has to send their planes home before we can capture them on the ground.
-WoG is that our sea captains are reasonable about the risks posed by the ships:
Again for the cargo ship vote. Realistically, Romano won't keep driving hard if he thinks it's too dangerous, but there's a lot of fear in the thread about those ships, so I'll let you have this one.
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Ergo there is no real need to micromanage.

Simon_Jester said:
A siege will still take months. The Victorians will have time to organize (yet another) resupply attempt.
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This.
Starwarlord said:
But, can they?
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Yes they can.
Victoria does not act in a vacuum. Not just the Vics, but the Russians are on the other side.
We don't get to act at leisure.

If you give them months, they call Alexander and hire a Russian "private airline" to do airdrops of supply materials; they can quite easily get in two hundred tons of supplies each day by air from Boston using two Ilyushin-76 Candid aircraft doing two daily flights each. If we fire on them, we give the Russian Air Force casus belli for retaliatory air strikes.

Or they get Russian "volunteers" flying new planes from the RuAF to provide air support.

Or the Russians could ignore the international community and bomb us anyway. Maybe even stage a brigade of VDV out of Buffalo.
Who's gonna do anything about it? We want to present everyone with a fait accompli as fast as possible before they can react.
That means some haste.

If that requires limited casualties, that's already a price we were willing to pay to keep Detroit.
 
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Starwarlord said:
But, can they? We have pretty much elimnated Vick naval presence and considering the sheer tonnage coming our way I doubt they have any ships left capable of preforming any meaningful resupply. Oh sure they have small boat launches they can use, but our navy controls the lakes and the small boats would not carry much. What it means is that the Vicks would be looking at a repeat of what happened to the Nazis at Stalingrad, where the supplies the Luftwaffe dropped were nowhere near enough to sustain the army.
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I don't know, but if your argument is correct, it doesn't make any difference whether we end the siege fast or slow, they won't be able to resupply it.

@buli-buli believes that bombardment will help by ending the siege faster, before resupply can happen. My point is that that's not feasible. If resupply can happen at all, it'll happen if we give them months to do it in without a focused, systematic blockade of Toledo and the coastline in general. And if resupply can't happen, then it matters quite a bit less how long this siege lasts, plus the risk of it lasting more than a month or two is greatly diminished in any case.

...

Bombardment is going to have a greater effect in the short run than the long run. In the long run (weeks), the Victorians will tend to retreat away from the coast, and by sheer Darwinian pressures the surviving Victorian troops will figure out how to construct dugouts that can mostly resist the relatively light shells our naval guns can throw. It's going to do a lot of damage in the short run, but any Victorians still alive two weeks from now will perforce be the ones who've figured out how to survive under shellfire.

By contrast, blockade is going to have a greater effect in the long run than the short run. The Victorians can get SOME supplies in, if we aren't efficiently blocking the harbor and airfield at Toledo. Rifle ammunition and medical supplies, if nothing else. Even if it's getting smuggled in on coastal traffic, or by air, it'll be something. The more effort we put into strangling that supply line, the more likely it is that we can force the Viks to accept those crippling -4 or -8 supply penalties.
 
[x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
[X] Plan Needle and Hammer
[X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
[X] Plan Uranus

Frankly, at this point we need to be concerned about winning the peace. This war is already over; we're just figuring out how much it costs to end it.

That's why I absolutely want to avoid any plan that comes with a siege plan; it wins us the war with minimal casualties, assuming nothing goes wrong, in several, as in 3+, months.

That is a singular positive outcome, saddled with a freakishly huge asterisk and a hefty cost.

Because I'm looking to our next regular six month plan for the nation vote, and my thought process goes like this:

Our key issues are going to be diplomatic, economic, and military in that order. We would dearly like to have more AP. AP which we won't receive for the duration of the war, so long as the embargo on both hostile parties stays up. Picking Siege has a significant chance of bleeding into the next turn, draining us of even more precious AP to work with right when we most want it to take advantage of, you know, beating the snot out of the Victorians. For me, this is too great a negative to consider voting for Siege plans.

Just as equally, however, I would like to avoid taking too many losses, so that we won't be absolutely required to rebuild our military immediately; rebuilding our military will also come at an action cost, one I would also like to avoid. For this reason, I probably won't vote for any Full Assault plans.

This leaves approval-voting for all Limited Assault plans; our losses don't stack too heavily, and we should be able to produce results quickly for our diplomats to begin pressing full advantage. This should allow us to at a minimum take diplomatic actions with increased chances of success, if not partial-to-full revocation of the embargo negating our Independent Merchants national spirit.
 
[x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
-[x] Defend with available forces. They simply cannot force the Huron with worse than two-to-one odds. Commit the Big Red One if somebody really fucks up, but otherwise just let them batter themselves to death. Head out and finish them once they're incapable of resisting you. Estimated three days to total force destruction. Uses a charge of OWE in the unlikely event that the BRO needs to step in.
-[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
-[x] Scouting missions. Whatever you do on land, you'll need accurate and up-to-date information to do it. With control of the sea, you might even be able to force naval landings behind the River Raisin and circumvent Victoria's main defensive barrier.
-[x] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
 
Starwarlord said:
What it means is that the Vicks would be looking at a repeat of what happened to the Nazis at Stalingrad, where the supplies the Luftwaffe dropped were nowhere near enough to sustain the army.
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This is not 1942.

The Ju-52 had a rough cargo capacity of around 2.5 tons at cruising speed of 209km/hr and a range of around 1,000 km.
The modern Ilyushin 76 Candid can carry around 52 tons of cargo at 772 km/hr and a range of 5,000km.
If the Luftwaffe had Candids, Paulus would have made it out of Stalingrad.

Given six hired Ilyushins, the Victorians can use 2 of them one day out of three, giving the other 4 rest time for maintenance and rest.

Boston Airport to Monroe is roughly 1000km by air, which means a Candid can fly that distance in 90 minutes, perform an airdrop, then fly home. Two or three trips a day by 2x Candids puts a minimum of 200 tons of supplies and a maximum of 300 tons in the hands of that besieged force.

Food, weapons, ammunition, fuel.
The Candid can even airdrop light tanks like the BMD-series of infantry fighting vehicle.

I implore you people.
Do not assume that Victoria or Russia will sit on their hands while we take our time wiping out fifty-something thousand Vic soldiers. If we take too much time at this they WILL find a way to get people away.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Aug 4, 2019 at 3:06 AM, finished with 33 posts and 21 votes.
  • [X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This!
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
    -[X] Siege. Victorians do not get glorious last stands against you. They get run down like foxes before your tanks. They get picked apart from extreme range, useless prayers on their lips. This force will die the slow death of starvation and dwindling supplies. Only once they have lost any ability to present a threat to your forces will you close the noose on them. Does not use a charge of OWE. Possibility of light casualties. Possibility that the Victorians' nerve breaks and they resume their offensive. One week to prepare and begin offensive operations. Resolution will likely take a long time, possibly multiple months.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
    -[x] Defend with available forces. They simply cannot force the Huron with worse than two-to-one odds. Commit the Big Red One if somebody really fucks up, but otherwise just let them batter themselves to death. Head out and finish them once they're incapable of resisting you. Estimated three days to total force destruction. Uses a charge of OWE in the unlikely event that the BRO needs to step in.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[x] Scouting missions. Whatever you do on land, you'll need accurate and up-to-date information to do it. With control of the sea, you might even be able to force naval landings behind the River Raisin and circumvent Victoria's main defensive barrier.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    [X] Plan Needle and Hammer
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces.
    -[X] Ongoing harassment and probing attacks to force the Victorians to exhaust their supplies, followed by a decisive attack supported by Old World Equipment after they are deemed to be sufficiently weakened.
    -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This!
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
    -[X] Siege. Victorians do not get glorious last stands against you. They get run down like foxes before your tanks. They get picked apart from extreme range, useless prayers on their lips. This force will die the slow death of starvation and dwindling supplies. Only once they have lost any ability to present a threat to your forces will you close the noose on them. Does not use a charge of OWE. Possibility of light casualties. Possibility that the Victorians' nerve breaks and they resume their offensive. One week to prepare and begin offensive operations. Resolution will likely take a long time, possibly multiple months.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
    -[x] Defend with available forces. They simply cannot force the Huron with worse than two-to-one odds. Commit the Big Red One if somebody really fucks up, but otherwise just let them batter themselves to death. Head out and finish them once they're incapable of resisting you. Estimated three days to total force destruction. Uses a charge of OWE in the unlikely event that the BRO needs to step in.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[x] Scouting missions. Whatever you do on land, you'll need accurate and up-to-date information to do it. With control of the sea, you might even be able to force naval landings behind the River Raisin and circumvent Victoria's main defensive barrier.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    [X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [X] Plan Uranus
    [X] Plan Uranus
    [x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
    -[x] Defend with available forces. They simply cannot force the Huron with worse than two-to-one odds. Commit the Big Red One if somebody really fucks up, but otherwise just let them batter themselves to death. Head out and finish them once they're incapable of resisting you. Estimated three days to total force destruction. Uses a charge of OWE in the unlikely event that the BRO needs to step in.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[x] Scouting missions. Whatever you do on land, you'll need accurate and up-to-date information to do it. With control of the sea, you might even be able to force naval landings behind the River Raisin and circumvent Victoria's main defensive barrier.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    [X] Plan Needle and Hammer
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces.
    -[X] Ongoing harassment and probing attacks to force the Victorians to exhaust their supplies, followed by a decisive attack supported by Old World Equipment after they are deemed to be sufficiently weakened.
    -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [X] Plan Uranus
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uju32 said:
Separate your votes with a space or something.
The voter tally is reading them as one homogenous blob.
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It's doing it for mine as well, even with several sentences between them.

Maybe I should just discard my plan. Yours is pretty much the same except the exact way we capture the ships (which I'm not sure what the difference is.)
 
Somethings wrong with that tally, bud...

Also
Simon_Jester said:
survive under shellfire
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This reminded me of a video publishes by Lindybeige, which essentially said that the point of artillery is not to kill the enemy but to suppress and shock them. One figure that stood out to me was that one or two reasonably sized shells a minute landing within 200 yards of a soldier was enough to keep them in cover... Which might be all you need your artillery to do, keep them from moving around much.

I think there is a significant degree of truth to that even if I am as ever an armchair tactician. The video struck me as well researched and balanced, and fairly detailed. Plus lindybeige has a good reputation about these things to me.

 
Chimeraguard said:
It's doing it for mine as well, even with several sentences between them.

Maybe I should just discard my plan. Yours is pretty much the same except the exact way we capture the ships (which I'm not sure what the difference is.)
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Nah, it's fine.
I figured out how to fix it.
Rockeye said:
Somethings wrong with that tally, bud..
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I know. Fixed it. I think.
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Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Aug 4, 2019 at 4:17 AM, finished with 37 posts and 21 votes.
  • [X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This!
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
    -[X] Siege. Victorians do not get glorious last stands against you. They get run down like foxes before your tanks. They get picked apart from extreme range, useless prayers on their lips. This force will die the slow death of starvation and dwindling supplies. Only once they have lost any ability to present a threat to your forces will you close the noose on them. Does not use a charge of OWE. Possibility of light casualties. Possibility that the Victorians' nerve breaks and they resume their offensive. One week to prepare and begin offensive operations. Resolution will likely take a long time, possibly multiple months.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
    -[x] Defend with available forces. They simply cannot force the Huron with worse than two-to-one odds. Commit the Big Red One if somebody really fucks up, but otherwise just let them batter themselves to death. Head out and finish them once they're incapable of resisting you. Estimated three days to total force destruction. Uses a charge of OWE in the unlikely event that the BRO needs to step in.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[x] Scouting missions. Whatever you do on land, you'll need accurate and up-to-date information to do it. With control of the sea, you might even be able to force naval landings behind the River Raisin and circumvent Victoria's main defensive barrier.
    -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    [X] Plan Needle and Hammer
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces.
    -[X] Ongoing harassment and probing attacks to force the Victorians to exhaust their supplies, followed by a decisive attack supported by Old World Equipment after they are deemed to be sufficiently weakened.
    -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
    [X] Plan Uranus
    -[x][DEFENSE] Defend with all committable forces.
    -[x][OFFENSE] Limited assault.
    -[x][TRANSPORTS] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
    -[x][NAVY] Full bombardment.
    [X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
    -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
    -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
    -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
    -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
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I still don't think Siege is a good idea. Its laudable to want to take minimal casualties if at all possible, but saving some pain now could result in much bigger headaches later on if the Vics somehow manage to get resupplied. Hell, it wouldn't cost the Russians much to send a few transport planes to drop a ton of supplies on the Vic forces that would be under siege. With just minimal investment Russia can cause a lot of damage to us if the Vic holdout forces are resupplied at a very inconvenient time.

Frankly if a few thousand casualties now will allow us to present a fait accompli of nearly the entire Victorian army being destroyed with no one being able to do anything about it it would be well worth it. Remember that if we pick siege and we roll less than good we have a good chance of going into the next turn. Remember that not only will we still be under the effects of the embargo but also that we will be down our military action due to the strain of keeping our forces mobilized and being all the way at Detroit.

Remember that its not just us that get actions. The Vics (and everyone else iirc) get actions too and will work to screw us over the best they can. We need actions freed up ASAP.
 
Rockeye said:
This reminded me of a video publishes by Lindybeige, which essentially said that the point of artillery is not to kill the enemy but to suppress and shock them. One figure that stood out to me was that one or two reasonably sized shells a minute landing within 200 yards of a soldier was enough to keep them in cover... Which might be all you need your artillery to do, keep them from moving around much.

I think there is a significant degree of truth to that even if I am as ever an armchair tactician. The video struck me as well researched and balanced, and fairly detailed. Plus lindybeige has a good reputation about these things to me.

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Haven't watched the whole thing yet but the opening segment about the day of the Typhoon already has me skeptical of his knowledge and tempted to not watch the whole thing. Typhoons didn't carry 8-inch diameter rockets, the RP-3 was a 3-inch rocket with a 5.4kg warhead and can be carried in quantities of 8 rockets per plane. It's a big detail to get wrong because not only would 8-inch rockets be taking up more space on a plane's wing in addition to the potential increased lethality, it's something that will noticeably impact a plane's performance and the amount it can safely carry!

He also made an incredibly novice mistake and claimed that a typhoon's rocket barrage is equal to a heavy cruiser's broadside on the basis of the diameter of its loadout... Even ignoring how the mistakes of earlier statements are being perpetuated and going forward with assuming that it was meant to be about the RP-3s instead as well as using a metric that actually compares like measurements (kg of explosives delivered), it still doesn't add up because the smallest broadside of a British heavy cruiser (6 eight-inch HE projectiles) delivers 60kg of explosives while a Typhoon only delivers 43.2kg of explosives. The difference between them is about 16.8 kg in favor of the heavy cruiser which is a pretty big gap! One can say that on a technicality the Typhoon's loadout of RP-3s merely has to match or exceed the broadside of a cruiser which would describe how it can deliver more kg of explosives than its six-inch gun light cruiser counterparts; but it's blatently clear what Lindy intended to use in his comparison. It's pretty hard to trust that he knows what he's talking about when he makes such a simple mistake that can be easily rectified by google in an edited video essay.
 
[X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This! (BUT WITH BLOCKADE)
-[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
-[X] Siege. Victorians do not get glorious last stands against you. They get run down like foxes before your tanks. They get picked apart from extreme range, useless prayers on their lips. This force will die the slow death of starvation and dwindling supplies. Only once they have lost any ability to present a threat to your forces will you close the noose on them. Does not use a charge of OWE. Possibility of light casualties. Possibility that the Victorians' nerve breaks and they resume their offensive. One week to prepare and begin offensive operations. Resolution will likely take a long time, possibly multiple months.
-[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
-[X] Blockade. All of this could be undone if Victoria manages to slip transport ships to its cut-off forces. Ensure that that cannot happen.

If we're going with the siege, WE WANT TO BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that they don't get any supplies that could make it last longer!

I think it's a lot more important than adding some extra bombardment with our ships.

If the Victorians try to resupply and fail, the soldiers will probably give up the defense, lose their nerve and try an heroic charge! After all at some point they'll understand they are simply waiting to die, without even the glory of a last stand


[X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This!

I'll also vote for this plan for now, but I'd REALLY prefer if we made sure the Victorians didn't get the resources needed to last longer AND recover a bit of their morale.
 
Pittauro said:
If we're going with the siege, WE WANT TO BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that they don't get any supplies that could make it last longer!
I think it's a lot more important than adding some extra bombardment with our ships.

If the Victorians try to resupply and fail, the soldiers will probably give up the defense, lose their nerve and try an heroic charge! After all at some point they'll understand they are simply waiting to die, without even the glory of a last stand
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*points at Russia*
None of that does anything to stop a airdrop of supplies by the Russian Air Force or a hired Russian "contractor" aircraft service.
And may the Founding Fathers have mercy on your soul if you shoot down a Russian transport plane and give them casus belli.

There's a reason why I insist Siege is such a sketchy option.
We don't know what the international situation is like and whether Alexander is distracted.
Whether he can send Russian Airforce transport planes or order a magacorp to do so is currently beyond us.

What we know is that he's not the sort to simply ignore shit.

Counting on his doing nothing for up to several months it would take Siege to resolve is reminiscent of North Korea assuming they had the time to overrun South Korea in 1950 before anyone could intervene properly.
 
Yeah. We can blockade a boat full of Victorian military supplies headed for Toledo harbor.

We can't blockade Russian transport planes. We'd be hard pressed to even stop a nominally 'Russian' freighter full of 'humanitarian relief supplies' that are 'for the people of Toledo.'
 
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