So after reading a really good blog that discusses history--particularly military history--of pre-modern times through the lens of media and popular culture, I thought I'd take a moment to give some brief analysis of Divided Loyalties on one of the recurring sets of subjects the blog covers: logistics, strategy, operations, and tactics.
Namely, do logistics get the major focus they deserve that serves as the backbone of any major military action? Do the strategies of the involved factions make sense for the given leadership of those factions? Do the operations they employ make sense (or even exist beyond being handwaved away)? And are the tactics plausible within the setting's defined rules?
And in contrast to many mainstream works these days, the answer to all of these questions in Divided Loyalties is pretty consistently "yes".
This is a very widespread failing, and it's one that I understand, to an extent. It is hard to make logistics compelling to read about. But I tried anyway, and what I found is that it's actually indirectly very possible because by thinking through the logistics, you find the pain points and those become plot points. Hungry soldiers isn't an adventure, but securing food can be. Walking along a road isn't an adventure, but scouting that road can be. Having good maps for this setting is absurdly helpful for this, because by drawing the path an army will take along an actual map you find the interesting problems a protagonist might face - a forest full of spiders, a volcano covered in Dragon Ogres, a lost Dwarfhold, Chaos Dwarves and Kurgans to be fought through or negotiated with.
While foraging for food--a required task for an army on the march if it isn't using supply caches laid out ahead of time--isn't really mentioned, the fact that Sylvania is populated decently with humans who grow food means that this task isn't impossible, either. The limited distances the army advances also makes it less of a problem.
When you're moving forces numbered in the tens of thousands around, if they rely on 'foraging' they end up doing so like a swarm of locusts. Hunting deer and picking berries can't sustain that sort of force, you need the caloric density of cultivated lands. Entire herds and harvests are fed into the maw, and even if you're nice about it and have gold or promissory notes distributed, there are people that are going to say no and then that no can't be accepted. It gets ugly in a way that will be remembered for a long time. If you expect the lands you're marching into to be paying taxes to you sometimes within your lifetime, better to rely on your own supply lines.
The wagon equation states that the further you have to use a wagon-based supply chain to an army, the less efficient that resupply gets because the horses/mules and cart drivers need to eat too, using up more and more of the supplies they're carrying in the first place. This is why making supply caches along the route you intend to advance or limiting your army's operation to a matter of days for lunges beyond your existing logistics is key--that, or having a resupply route by water, which is vastly more efficient.
When people speak of the Empire's blessings, too rarely do they bring up Grandfather Reik. If you exclude the Drakwald and the Forest of Shadows, shockingly little of the Empire is further than three days of wagon travel from navigable water:
The one criticism is that cavalry actually bring multiple horses with them on campaign--the warhorse (which is very expensive) is reserved for the actual battle, but you'd have a riding horse or two as well. For Demigryphs, this would be more challenging because of how it seems nigh-impossible for a demigryph to be tamed by a new rider if the previous one dies, and demigryphs would be even more expensive than a warhorse, so perhaps demigryphs are just so good that you don't even need a spare horse (or they use a riding horse outside of battle). The Winter Wolves might have a problem of giant wolves just not being so available that spares can be found, and perhaps they too use a riding horse outside of battle, but that seems unlikely given there is no mention of riding horses in the Karag Dum Expedition.
Wolves are one of the few animals that can keep pace with a human over long distances, so it makes sense to me that remounts would be unnecessary. Demigryphs have a lot more unknowns about their biology, but in the end genre conventions won out - these sorts of Knightly Orders are characterized as having incredibly close bonds with their steeds, and having them riding a regular ol' horse around most of the time and only getting on the pupper or kittybird for special occasions is just kind of lame. Though to make up for it, their appetites are immense and difficult.
Finally, the Battle for Shirokij Forest. Here is perhaps the most problematic showcase of logistical concerns, with things like "everyone but the women, children, and elderly are warriors ready to march for battle on very short notice" raising lots of questions about where some of these forces find the time to train for more than just basic combat, but it's within the realm of possibility to have at least a modestly-trained and equipped force like that ready to reinforce a professional army or more elite force. Likewise, the speed with which not just some forces with particular qualities, but practically all of the types of forces Kislev fields are assembled, marching, and prepared for battle in a couple of days at most, all converging at the same place, seems a little fantastical to me.
Kislev gonna Kislev. Their whole thing is that everyone outside the cities has been in a constant state of total military readiness since shortly after the Khan-Queen crossed the mountains. Whether that's at all possible, logistically and sociologically and psychologically, and how many sacrifices that would require and how much damage that would do to your society, is the sort of debate that inevitably spirals down into 'how the fuck does anyone live on this planet, actually'. But as questionable as it is, that's who
Kislev is.
If you put a gun to my head, something something ancient widow the land empowers the people who live upon it to defend it. There might also be something in lightning needing no wind-back time to strike, and the bear's claws always being ready to strike, and the sunlight always being everywhere it needs to be.
Mathilde rides to Kislev City and back multiple times to ferry reinforcements to the battlefield (one of which is an army of infantry on foot) in the span of less than two days--the only way this seems plausible is if Kislev City is just really close to the relevant part of Shirokij Forest.
It's forty miles away from where the forces were mustering. Kislev City has the bizarre property of
always being further south than than you remember it being.
) I've had a lot of fun voting, not just debating, actually working out what the voting treands are going to looks like, what arguments might work out for certain people tho sway them to a second or third choice
