SDN World 3 Commentary Thread II

[Ryan Thunder]

The largest was rather Gallipoli ~75,000 men in total. Which actually gives a pretty good indication of the problems involved in a landing without specialist craft. Frex just count how many of the 75,000 actually went ashore on the first day.

Also one must note that the allied army at Gallipoli could draw upon the largest merchant marine of Earth, in addition to the French navy and ever so quietly Greek merchant ships. Oh and of corse the British also had a multitude of smaller and larger ports from right by to not particularly far from the landing zones.

Well, that's Wikipedia for you.

[CmdrWilkens]

amphibious assaults are *hard* very hard.

Quite. The largest amphibious assault ever conducted prior to 1925 was carried out by the Americans during the civil war. It involved landing 15 000 troops supported by 70 ships of the line, with ironclads among them.

Wilkens has casually landed 50 000 troops behind my lines. Prior to that, he landed 100 000 troops in a swamp.

Now he's trying to land 10 000 troops in unfamiliar terrain through a river that would apparently have been mined by any competent military.

Umm NO the largest prior assault, which I have modeled mine on was at Gallipoli where the combined British/French force put 5 divisions ashore using only lighters, pinnacles and a converted colliers.

I specifically stated that this was only the first division of the XII Corps (the rest will be ferried over and dock at La Palma) along with the 2 Ranger Brigades...or 5 Brigades total. None of my landings YET have exceeded 3 Divisions in size (though reinforcements have been moved ashore after docks have been secured in the past) which places them all in the realm of the plausible as this is occurring 10 years after the aforementioned landing. Moreover I have converted several ships amongst my reserve and auxiliary units to act the same way the Clyde did in that battle (putting 2,000 troops ashore from a single vessel) so my carrying capacity for the first wave would be much larger than the Gallipoli landings.

As of D+10 there are roughly 10,000 troops (minus casualties) at Yaviza and 15,000 at La Palma. On D+11 the numbers would be 20,000 at Yaviza and 20,000 at La Palma (1 Division moved to La Palma and 2 bde shuttled downriver to Yaviza).

The idea of Mexico landing two brigades of special forces, sending them up river, and then blowing up those bridges is impossible, it could not be done. Note I'm not saying it would be hard, I'm saying it would be outright impossible in the face of anything resembling a sane military. Quite frankly the rolls shouldn't say that 8-12 is success, but that 1-8 is utter and total failure with the complete loss of the force, 8-12 some of the force manages to evacuate, 12-14 they actually manage to engage in combat with the bridge garrison before being defeated, 15-16 they manage to damage a bridge, and 17-18 they actually blow one up. That of course would be sane and sanity is something that has been in very short supply so far.

You know you offfer NO REASON why this should be the case. Have you bothered to look at the river in question? Its in the middle of nowhere. After La Palma the nearest settlement of any size is Yaviza itself some 60mi upriver. You state it shoudl be impossible but offer no defense of why it should be. You haven't looked at the map, bothered to account for his mad dash of troops to Ciudad de Panama or bothered to figure on the terrain in question which will not support the manuever of large bodies of men. There was a HUGE question as to whether it would even be possible for Ryan to have a rail line through the area because it is so daunting of an area to move equipment and personnel in and it wa only the Inf 5 score that allows him to claim any infrastructure in the region. If you want to say somehting is impossible then at least be like Shep and offer a reason. I was able to rebut Shep because we used comparative numbers from various sources to estimate the likelyhood of an attack succeeding. What you are doing is just bitching that I ran the Tennessee (oddly enough with just about as many troops and about as much support as Grant had against even fewer defenders). Seriously if you have a valid articulated complaint OTHER than that it was "too easy" please provide it.

Oh and the attack WAS SPOTTED you incompetent. I know you are trying to cherry pick the log but you might have missed where a local garrison patrol spotted the assault 2/3rds of the way in, alerted the local commander, and got abotu a BN of reserves assembled in a region where there is nobody to assemble from while all of the Colombian firepower is headed to Ciudad.

Ok since politeness seems not to be your strong point here

Politeness, as one may note from this site's history, makes no point when you fail to argue with facts. Using tone as a shield against what I opposed you with is just bitching for the sake of bitching. If I am impolite it is because I am really sick and tired of people with no stake in this fight who have not bothered to do even half the work I have trying to nitpick it to death because they don't like the result.

Shep at least comes out with numbers backing his argument (we disagree about some finer points but that is valid) and Ryan has a stake in this because its his country. You, however, don't have a single troop committed yet are butting in as if this was life or death for your nation. If you want to offer pointers fine but stop cheerleading for Ryan.

A. In my hardly humble opinion you have cheated with your navy and massively so. Twice. First by making nearly all your tonnage capital ships which had been expressly said that you should have not and second by throwing the pre 1915 tonnage limits out of the window. The rest of us were not idiots you know to make balanced fleets and fill our battlelines with older ships while you blithely went and made effectively your whole battleline out of modern designs while conveniently forgetting screens, after all it takes three years to build a battleship and a 12-18 months to make a light ship.

It was a conscious decisions since I am facing off int he Pacific and Atlantic with two NF5 powers along with potential for conflict with Brazil as well as everyone else with colonial interests in the Caribbean. My fleet was made as intentionally strong as possible. I wont' even go in to how the rule was not "tonnage" but "ships." I built (or had built for me) more than half of my capital vessels prior to 1916 and an even larger portion prior to 1918. You can be pissed all you like but I followed the rules.

B. Bismarck which you so kindly bring around to claim the immunity of your ships, was a floating wreck way before it was sunk. Same with Sharnhorst which took all of 13 14in hits from Duke of York to practically wreck to the degree that finishing it off was just a matter of time.

Schanrhorst was hit at ranges dropping under 12,000 yards (which means entirely side hits) out of a total of more than 700 shells fired. At 25,000 yards you are looking at primarily plunging fire (though you still get some side shots) which won't penetrate as well. You might also note that I left 6 of my 18 ships in dire straits. I have 2 BCs with mutiple turrets blown out, 1 BB with the conning tower shot away, one that has flooded out half its engine space and is running on two shafts, etc etc. Its not like I walked in to this fight and came away unscathed. I've got a full third of my battleline in need of 12-18 months refitting. lets say it is 18 months and it takes 3 years to make a new BB/BC, well then he has "sunk" the equivalent of 3 ships as I've got 6 that will be out and in yards for half the time it would take to build 3 new ones.

If you are missing the reasoning look at the post Jutland ratio of forces. Even though the High Seas fleet only lost to sinking 1 BC and 1 pre-Dread while the Grand Fleet lost 3 battlecruisers the actual ratio of available forces dropped from 16:28 to 10:24 (Keegan, The First World War pp 273-4). Likewise here my available forces have dropped from 26 heavy units to 19 since the start of action (1 BC damaged and in port from torpedo attack, 2 BCs damaged by Sherman, and 4 BBS damaged by Sherman). None of those ships will be available to go to sea any time in the next 12-18 months

C. Submarines are NOT effective sub hunters in the mid 1920s. Or the mid 1940s. That modern submarines can hunt down each other does not mean that a 1920s submarine can.

Subs cruise on the surface and thus can be targeted for torpedo strikes just like any other surface ship. With no enemies on the horizon it makes zero sense (as was pointed out to me several times) for Ryan to be running submerged even given the reduction in operating efficiency. We rolled for detection and ambushing and I got a huge relative advantage which allowed me to engage his subs with mine when the former was unawares. After that everybody likely dove and no more action took place (which was my intention from the start). Honestly just forcing his subs to dive was my only goal because submerged they would have been hard placed to close to within 5,000 yards or so of my line to be effective.

D. If you want to posit that your battleships stay beyond effective range of the forts...why your own fire is equally useless against the forts, more so rather since forts don't have to float nor are their guns heaving and rolling. So practically the forts can ignore your battleships for more useful targets and your battleships can do very little about that. Unless the close in of course and I believe we have mentioned already that forts tend to be more durable than ships.

I rolled a freakin 16 and only managed to clang some off their armor so wow color me surprised. The object was to get the fort firing in my direction, expending its heavy shells before my troops came from the backside of the peninsula. Since a landing at Punta Gorda or other location up the coast from Colon is just as likely as landing behind Sherman the gunners woudl have to assume I am planning to cover those landings with my battleline and thus need to drive me off with counter-battery. I wasn't trying to batter the fort down (its far more useful taken largely intact) just get them to fire off most of their heavy shells.

The remainder, is of course that under anything like common sense ruling your operations, you wouldn't have more than enough shipping capacity for call it three divisions, the Darien swamp insanity would be a complete disaster and the 2 brigades of yours reaching the railroad, the ones making anyway met by two three fresh divisions brought by rail.

But I forget. After all Mexico had "hot dice" Consistently for all its not exactly plausible operations. And then people wonder why I say this is a game of risk.

See above

[Ryan Thunder]

Trying to kill me with minutae again. I think that deserves an automatic massive failure.

Of course, that he doesn't like Lascaris arguing on my behalf because I don't know enough to argue with him is rather unsportsmanlike. That's right, just play your OOC advantages to the hilt.

[CmdrWilkens]

Some quick notes about Gallipoli relative to my landings. At the former there was a grand total of one semi-purpose built craft the SS River Clyde which held a total of 2,000 troops on a 4kt converted collier. Since I've been planning this invasion "in game" for some time now (this is essentially the wargame my commanders have been playing since the Canal opened) I've assembled several dozen similar ships, that is colliers, oilers and converted merchantmen with bunking for 1,000 to 2,000 troops and planks off the forward bow designed to allow the troops to land after the ship itself beaches.

A dozen of these ships is sufficient for transporting a division.


Of the landings engaged in so far the D+2 and D+3 were 3 division affairs. The La Palma attack is a 1 Division plus 2 Bde affair and the Point Sherman attack is a 3 division affair. The 2 Bdes of rangers moving down the Chucunaque River are mounted separately in shallow draft steamers, primarily riverine/coastal craft with 300-500 men to a boat and a total of 25 boats in use separate from the primary force operating against La Palma.

[Steve]

Honestly, at this point I will hear one refutation of Wilkens' points, with data, before giving any kind of final ruling on whether certain aspects of his attacks should be mandated as scaled back, and then I expect this issue to be over. I am tired of nearly every. single. BATTLE. being subjected to OOC bitchfests.

I am already considering the data given for 3d6 probabilities and how that should impact roll thresholds in the future. Given this is the first game where we're trying something other than "who can post the most first and argue their position the most successfully OOC" as the deciding factors in competitive PC warring, I'd like to think we'd get some leeway in working the kinks out and learning what works right and what doesn't.

[Ryan Thunder]

I am tired of nearly every. single. BATTLE. being subjected to OOC bitchfests.

Then maybe you could try a little harder to tie things back to reality where you can't just land hundreds of thousands of troops on a whim and troops unfamiliar with hazardous terrain have difficulties crossing it.

Christ. What did you expect me to do? Meekly roll over and accept some kind of retarded "defeat" that could cost me a massive chunk of my political influence and drop me back into irrelevance? You think I want to play that game again?

[CmdrWilkens]

Trying to kill me with minutae again. I think that deserves an automatic massive failure.

Of course, that he doesn't like Lascaris arguing on my behalf because I don't know enough to argue with him is rather unsportsmanlike. That's right, just play your OOC advantages to the hilt.

You had Shep doing the work for you before and him I didn't mind because he brought numbers to the equation (it had me call off the D+3 landings at Punta Gorda while assembling a better data set) but Lascaris and Norseman are just bitching that what I am doing is impossible or shouldn't be allowed.

[CmdrWilkens]

I am tired of nearly every. single. BATTLE. being subjected to OOC bitchfests.

Then maybe you could try a little harder to tie things back to reality where you can't just land hundreds of thousands of troops on a whim and troops unfamiliar with hazardous terrain have difficulties crossing it.

Christ. What did you expect me to do? Meekly roll over and accept some kind of retarded "defeat" that could cost me a massive chunk of my political influence and drop me back into irrelevance? You think I want to play that game again?

Well for a starter you could stop doubling the number of troops I'm supposedly putting ashore. No attack yet has launched more than 45,000 troops.

[Steve]

There's a reason we're doing dice rolls for success, Ryan, it means that if the roll is high said player's forces overcome those difficulties. As it is, I have reconsidered his success in the recent phase landings in the Atlantic and ruled his forces only managed about a mile or two as the zenith of the inland advance.

Now, you already sent your rangers forth to disrupt his supply line, I suggest you decide ultimately on what you're going to do now that he's arrived at the Panama Line, as well as formulate a response to the Yaviza attack presuming I don't hear sufficient evidence to have me reconsider its success based on the dice rolls for it.

[Siege]

Can I ask a question here? How many casualties has this war caused so far? Because whereas Thanas and I (okay, admittedly mostly Thanas) made meticulous day-by-day in-context posts detailing exactly where each assault took place and how many lives were lost on each side, the details of the Mexican-Colombian war seem to exist almost exclusively in a fugue state of out-of-context bitching.

[Steve]

Wilkens is keeping track of his by unit, mostly percentage so far, I'm not sure about Ryan, but this war has primarily been OOC as is since the players have had so much difficulty finding time to post.

Note that as mod I reserve the right to eventually punish such by imposing upon the belligerents rainbow flags and uniforms of hot pink and pastel.

[DarthShady]

Frankly if I give him the choice Czech probably will just switch over to Britain, he was going to do so now but considered he had to follow through on what he'd started as the Nordics. If there is such opposition to such then he's free to transfer countries now. I'll just have to run any campaigns the Nordics would make against the USSR.

What exactly is the reason for starting this war? From where I am standing, it is a naked land grab. That, to me, is unacceptable. Are all socialist nations going to become targets for others? My own nation contains socialist elements, so I have a reason to get involved. I let the Dutch thing go by without my interference mainly because I didn't have time to be here, and because I have a treaty with Thanas, but know this. If the Soviet Union is attacked, for no apparent reason, other than an obvious Nordic land grab - I will not stand idly by. The Confederacy will intervene, with force.

As for ruining Russia for a new player, wouldn't embroiling it in a difficult, perhaps impossible war with mainland Asia's two top powers count already?

Stas had every right as a player to do what he did with his country. Just because he is gone, doesn't give the vultures the right to feast upon the Soviet Union.

I will be completely honest here, I don't believe that Chech should get to switch countries, just because it's more convenient for him now, or because he wants to be more powerful. That's just opportunistic bullshit. Britain, in my opinion should be reserved for any new potential players.

However, this decision is ultimately up to the mods, so I will accept it - whatever it may be.

[RogueIce]

Stas had every right as a player to do what he did with his country. Just because he is gone, doesn't give the vultures the right to feast upon the Soviet Union.

In fairness to Czech, that was not the case with this. He was planning it before Stas left. If you look waaay back you'll see him express regret he didn't get to match wits with him. That and I know because I was told about it. As for the Nordic Empire's IC justification, I leave that to him if he cares to post it. But in this case, it's not because Stas left that Czech was planning to attack.

As far as the wider issue of people attacking socialist nations, well I have heard it said that Stas himself opened that door with his attack on Manchuria (which was a pretty blatent landgrab itself). But that's a seperate matter anyway.

[Lascaris]

amphibious assaults are *hard* very hard.

Quite. The largest amphibious assault ever conducted prior to 1925 was carried out by the Americans during the civil war. It involved landing 15 000 troops supported by 70 ships of the line, with ironclads among them.

Wilkens has casually landed 50 000 troops behind my lines. Prior to that, he landed 100 000 troops in a swamp.

Now he's trying to land 10 000 troops in unfamiliar terrain through a river that would apparently have been mined by any competent military.

Umm NO the largest prior assault, which I have modeled mine on was at Gallipoli where the combined British/French force put 5 divisions ashore using only lighters, pinnacles and a converted colliers.

I specifically stated that this was only the first division of the XII Corps (the rest will be ferried over and dock at La Palma) along with the 2 Ranger Brigades...or 5 Brigades total. None of my landings YET have exceeded 3 Divisions in size (though reinforcements have been moved ashore after docks have been secured in the past) which places them all in the realm of the plausible as this is occurring 10 years after the aforementioned landing. Moreover I have converted several ships amongst my reserve and auxiliary units to act the same way the Clyde did in that battle (putting 2,000 troops ashore from a single vessel) so my carrying capacity for the first wave would be much larger than the Gallipoli landings.

As of D+10 there are roughly 10,000 troops (minus casualties) at Yaviza and 15,000 at La Palma. On D+11 the numbers would be 20,000 at Yaviza and 20,000 at La Palma (1 Division moved to La Palma and 2 bde shuttled downriver to Yaviza).

Funny that you mention the Clyde. V beach in general and the River Clyde in particular were perhaps the worst failures of the landings. The troops on the Clyde were massacred.

Now post that there you have three more problems.

A. Distance. From your ports to Darien is shall we say further away than Lemons (or Alexandria) to Gallipoli?
B. Britain was as already mentioned thre pre-eminent naval power on Earth. Troopships in abudance and the lighter craft to go with them. Mexico for good or bad ain't.
C. It may be 10 years but divisions have gone a LOT heavier in the meantime. With all that implies for your carrying capacity.

You know you offfer NO REASON why this should be the case. Have you bothered to look at the river in question? Its in the middle of nowhere. After La Palma the nearest settlement of any size is Yaviza itself some 60mi upriver. You state it shoudl be impossible but offer no defense of why it should be.

Because Darien is a giant swamp cum jungle? Because there aren't suitable beaches in La Palma for a large scale landing, one with no specialist craft too? Because La Palma has all of 4300 population so one doubts it has sufficient port facilities to keep a whole corps in supply?

And yes the Rio Tuira can be navigated. This presupposes you brought a few hundred river boats with you. From were exactly?

Ok since politeness seems not to be your strong point here

Politeness, as one may note from this site's history, makes no point when you fail to argue with facts. Using tone as a shield against what I opposed you with is just bitching for the sake of bitching. If I am impolite it is because I am really sick and tired of people with no stake in this fight who have not bothered to do even half the work I have trying to nitpick it to death because they don't like the result.
[/quote]

The cynic will note that ignoring the facts as you do tends to be oh slightly different from not offerimg you arguments.

Shep at least comes out with numbers backing his argument (we disagree about some finer points but that is valid) and Ryan has a stake in this because its his country. You, however, don't have a single troop committed yet are butting in as if this was life or death for your nation. If you want to offer pointers fine but stop cheerleading for Ryan.

If I wanted to cheerleed for Ryan as you so kindly put it, I'd have simply taken over Colombian military operations from Ryan. Which better hope doesn't happens. Leaving aside whether I have geopolitical interests in the canal or whether I'd like to see outright aggression if I see crap which I see in abudance in this war whether in is the Colombian dyadic divisions or military operations so far it's only natural I'll call on it.

It was a conscious decisions since I am facing off int he Pacific and Atlantic with two NF5 powers along with potential for conflict with Brazil as well as everyone else with colonial interests in the Caribbean. My fleet was made as intentionally strong as possible. I wont' even go in to how the rule was not "tonnage" but "ships." I built (or had built for me) more than half of my capital vessels prior to 1916 and an even larger portion prior to 1918. You can be pissed all you like but I followed the rules.

You didn't follow them but so what? Our mods retroactively say its ok. The rest of us that made balanced fleets and put a third our tonnage in pre-1915 ships to follow the rules are of course cheated, after we got screwed by the 1 artillery brigade per division people but that's apparently minutiae. Just next time I really don't want to hear anyone complain about Shep's 1000 B-47.

B. Bismarck which you so kindly bring around to claim the immunity of your ships, was a floating wreck way before it was sunk. Same with Sharnhorst which took all of 13 14in hits from Duke of York to practically wreck to the degree that finishing it off was just a matter of time.

Schanrhorst was hit at ranges dropping under 12,000 yards (which means entirely side hits) out of a total of more than 700 shells fired. At 25,000 yards you are looking at primarily plunging fire (though you still get some side shots) which won't penetrate as well.

Not quite. Duke of York opened up at extreme range using radar scoring the said 13 hits that killed two turrets plus reducing Sharnhorst's speed. After that Duke of York fired dozens more of salvoes to finish her off. Post that yes at 25,000 it will be mostly plunging fire. So lets put to use that old little utility known as biggun for a hypothetical 350mm 50cal gun.

Armor Penetration - Vertical Belt Armor

(Relative armor quality, 0.90)

Maximum penetration: 32.38 inches


Elevation Range Belt Deck

1.3 deg 3500 yards 28 in
2.1 deg 5400 yards 26 in
3.0 deg 7300 yards 24 in
3.4 deg 8000 yards ... 1 in
4.1 deg 9400 yards 22 in
5.5 deg 11900 yards 20 in
6.4 deg 13400 yards ... 2 in
7.1 deg 14500 yards 18 in
9.3 deg 17500 yards 16 in
9.9 deg 18400 yards ... 3 in
12.1 deg 21000 yards 14 in
15.0 deg 24100 yards ... 4 in
16.2 deg 25300 yards 12 in
19.0 deg 27800 yards ... 5 in
22.5 deg 30600 yards 10 in
22.6 deg 30600 yards ... 6 in
26.3 deg 33200 yards ... 7 in
30.0 deg 35400 yards ... 8 in
33.0 deg 36900 yards 8 in
33.8 deg 37300 yards ... 9 in
37.8 deg 38800 yards ... 10 in
41.9 deg 39900 yards ... 11 in
46.2 deg 40300 yards ... 12 in
48.4 deg 40300 yards 6 in

You might also note that I left 6 of my 18 ships in dire straits. I have 2 BCs with mutiple turrets blown out, 1 BB with the conning tower shot away, one that has flooded out half its engine space and is running on two shafts, etc etc. Its not like I walked in to this fight and came away unscathed. I've got a full third of my battleline in need of 12-18 months refitting. lets say it is 18 months and it takes 3 years to make a new BB/BC, well then he has "sunk" the equivalent of 3 ships as I've got 6 that will be out and in yards for half the time it would take to build 3 new ones.

None sunk. Yes some heavily damaged. And 200 odd hits if you keep it up till the forts have to cease fire will cause more than 6 damaged ships.

Subs cruise on the surface and thus can be targeted for torpedo strikes just like any other surface ship. With no enemies on the horizon it makes zero sense (as was pointed out to me several times) for Ryan to be running submerged even given the reduction in operating efficiency. We rolled for detection and ambushing and I got a huge relative advantage which allowed me to engage his subs with mine when the former was unawares. After that everybody likely dove and no more action took place (which was my intention from the start). Honestly just forcing his subs to dive was my only goal because submerged they would have been hard placed to close to within 5,000 yards or so of my line to be effective.

How many subs have been sunk by another sub in WW2? 1? I may recall wrong on it being a single one but the number still was exceedingly low.

I rolled a freakin 16 and only managed to clang some off their armor so wow color me surprised. The object was to get the fort firing in my direction, expending its heavy shells before my troops came from the backside of the peninsula. Since a landing at Punta Gorda or other location up the coast from Colon is just as likely as landing behind Sherman the gunners woudl have to assume I am planning to cover those landings with my battleline and thus need to drive me off with counter-battery. I wasn't trying to batter the fort down (its far more useful taken largely intact) just get them to fire off most of their heavy shells.

And the fort will cooperate on the grounds of...

[Steve]

What exactly is the reason for starting this war? From where I am standing, it is a naked land grab. That, to me, is unacceptable. Are all socialist nations going to become targets for others? My own nation contains socialist elements, so I have a reason to get involved. I let the Dutch thing go by without my interference mainly because I didn't have time to be here, and because I have a treaty with Thanas, but know this. If the Soviet Union is attacked, for no apparent reason, other than an obvious Nordic land grab - I will not stand idly by. The Confederacy will intervene, with force.

That is your choice.

Stas had every right as a player to do what he did with his country. Just because he is gone, doesn't give the vultures the right to feast upon the Soviet Union.

A) Just because Stas played the Soviet Union doesn't mean what he did was wise. And that was my point.

B) Part of the risk of such things is that if you embroil yourself in a conflict in one spot, someone else may take advantage of your newfound distraction to redraw borders or otherwise pursue changes in the balance of things.

I will be completely honest here, I don't believe that Chech should get to switch countries, just because it's more convenient for him now, or because he wants to be more powerful. That's just opportunistic bullshit. Britain, in my opinion should be reserved for any new potential players.

However, this decision is ultimately up to the mods, so I will accept it - whatever it may be.

Honestly, I'd feel a lot better if we had Britain as a PC, and Czech made the offer to do so which he is now, I believe, mostly reconsidering on account of the condition in which Britain has been left.

[DarthShady]

That is your choice.

Indeed it is.

Honestly, I'd feel a lot better if we had Britain as a PC, and Czech made the offer to do so which he is now, I believe, mostly reconsidering on account of the condition in which Britain has been left.

Like I said, the decision is up to you guys( the mods). But in my opinion, such things should not be allowed.

[RogueIce]

Alright, on the subject of this Panama thing: if you think we (as in, the mods) got it wrong, address your comments to us instead of Wilkens. If you argue with Wilkens, the mods shall ignore it, the ruling will not change and you're just wasting your time. As Steve said, we'll consider one refutation (addressed to us) and that'll be that. We'll either revise our ruling or let it stand.

In the future, and to try and be as fair as we can, when we post a dice log such results will not be 'final' but as a sort of preliminary viewing. If you think we got it wrong, you tell us about it, and why, back it up as well as you can, and definately don't start off the flames, because that's a great way for us to ignore you. We're not going to go back and forth forever on it, however. Once we say a ruling is final, it's final.

We've had enough of having an OOC fight for every single battle. You guys wanted mods, so we're going to be mods.

[DarthShady]

Stas had every right as a player to do what he did with his country. Just because he is gone, doesn't give the vultures the right to feast upon the Soviet Union.

In fairness to Czech, that was not the case with this. He was planning it before Stas left. If you look waaay back you'll see him express regret he didn't get to match wits with him. That and I know because I was told about it. As for the Nordic Empire's IC justification, I leave that to him if he cares to post it. But in this case, it's not because Stas left that Czech was planning to attack.

Yeah, I can guess the reasons he had for attacking Stas, but there is no point in discussing that now that Stas is gone.

As far as the wider issue of people attacking socialist nations, well I have heard it said that Stas himself opened that door with his attack on Manchuria (which was a pretty blatent landgrab itself). But that's a seperate matter anyway.

Yeah it is. I ran a communist nation for so long, that I now sympathize with them - hence the desire to help them.

[CmdrWilkens]

Funny that you mention the Clyde. V beach in general and the River Clyde in particular were perhaps the worst failures of the landings. The troops on the Clyde were massacred.

Now post that there you have three more problems.

A. Distance. From your ports to Darien is shall we say further away than Lemons (or Alexandria) to Gallipoli?
B. Britain was as already mentioned thre pre-eminent naval power on Earth. Troopships in abudance and the lighter craft to go with them. Mexico for good or bad ain't.
C. It may be 10 years but divisions have gone a LOT heavier in the meantime. With all that implies for your carrying capacity.

Okay so the Clyde was a disaster because of the beach defenses not because of some inherent design flaw. As a means of getting troops ashore she worked admirably well and had the landing site been cleared out properly she would have been fine. They also still managed to land roughly 60% of the troops despite all this.

A) I actually showed on my map where I was departing fro, the rough environs of La Boca de Chame and running for about 120mi. There is a nice port facility right there to rest and reset prior to boarding and launching.
B) In this world Britain ain't Britain and Mexico is the only nation with home ports on the Pacific and Atlantic (other than the Colombians) so I've got a pretty hefty naval focus.
C) Which is why I figured 5kt per 2,000 versus the 4kt per 2,000 achieved at Gallipoli
D) I've also been (in game) planning this attack for years so I've been assembling troopships for some time. Much like fisher and his crazy Baltic project (only my Treasury department was fine with spending the cash and I don't have to bypass Denmark) if you buy the ships you will have them.

Because Darien is a giant swamp cum jungle? Because there aren't suitable beaches in La Palma for a large scale landing, one with no specialist craft too? Because La Palma has all of 4300 population so one doubts it has sufficient port facilities to keep a whole corps in supply?

And yes the Rio Tuira can be navigated. This presupposes you brought a few hundred river boats with you. From were exactly?

1) I only landed 1 Division at La Palma, I am rotating units through there not keeping them there. I would point out that Cairo (a town today of roughly 3,600 residents and roughly 2,000 in 1860) was during the Civil War the primary supply base for the Tennessee River campaigns.
2) Shallow draft steamers...I've got hundreds plying the trade in Nicaragua. Just had to bring them down the coast. Even losing a dozen here or there would leave me fine. I'm writing an IC post about economic disruptions in Nicaragua with the lake trade disrupted to satisfy a requirement Steve laid on me if I drafted civilian vessels.
3) Continuing onwards, it takes about 4-5 tons to bunk a soldier on a sternwheeler or other shallow draft craft (since you can double/triple/quad them up) which means I would need about 20kt of steamers to make the runs. Call it 25kt to be safe. With an average commandeered steamer at 400t would be 75 ships (oceangoing production variants could be anywhere from 100 to 800t with some monsters in the 3kt range)

Politeness, as one may note from this site's history, makes no point when you fail to argue with facts. Using tone as a shield against what I opposed you with is just bitching for the sake of bitching. If I am impolite it is because I am really sick and tired of people with no stake in this fight who have not bothered to do even half the work I have trying to nitpick it to death because they don't like the result.

The cynic will note that ignoring the facts as you do tends to be oh slightly different from not offerimg you arguments.

Point out one fact I've "ignored" or just drop it

Shep at least comes out with numbers backing his argument (we disagree about some finer points but that is valid) and Ryan has a stake in this because its his country. You, however, don't have a single troop committed yet are butting in as if this was life or death for your nation. If you want to offer pointers fine but stop cheerleading for Ryan.

If I wanted to cheerleed for Ryan as you so kindly put it, I'd have simply taken over Colombian military operations from Ryan. Which better hope doesn't happens. Leaving aside whether I have geopolitical interests in the canal or whether I'd like to see outright aggression if I see crap which I see in abudance in this war whether in is the Colombian dyadic divisions or military operations so far it's only natural I'll call on it.

You didn't follow them but so what? Our mods retroactively say its ok. The rest of us that made balanced fleets and put a third our tonnage in pre-1915 ships to follow the rules are of course cheated, after we got screwed by the 1 artillery brigade per division people but that's apparently minutiae. Just next time I really don't want to hear anyone complain about Shep's 1000 B-47.

The rule was never tonnage it was half the fleet pre-1915. There is no mention of half your tonnage but rather half your fleet and indeed half of my hulls are pre-1915.

Not quite. Duke of York opened up at extreme range using radar scoring the said 13 hits that killed two turrets plus reducing Sharnhorst's speed. After that Duke of York fired dozens more of salvoes to finish her off.

So not really:

At 16:47, Admiral Fraser ordered Belfast to open fire with star shells from 17.500 meters, at 16:50 the starboard side 133 mm guns of Duke of York did the same from 11.000 meters, Scharnhorst got illuminated and was caught by surprise and unprepared especially by the presence of heavy ships between her track to south and Norway.

Duke of York thundered her 356 mm main guns broadside and Jamaica joined in, Scharnhorst got hit with first salvo and immediately reacted firing at Duke of York and Jamaica, turned to east and than to north increasing speed to the maximum.

Scharnhorst A turret was hit and put out of action permanently with her guns elevated against the enemy blocked on the starboard side unable to rotate, fire involved also turret B as well and the turret was flooded to avoid explosions, later restarted firing.
...
...
At 17:20, Scharnhorst was sailing east at 26 knots followed close by Force 1 and the destroyers, both ready to attack the German battleship with the torpedoes, Duke of York and Jamaica on her wake were still firing at the Scharnhost from 13.000 meters.
...
...
...
At 18:24, Duke of York was at 19.500 meters and ceased fire (after 52 broadsides), a shell from Scharnhorst passing through the mast had broken some wires of the Type 284 Artillery Radar consequently firing was going to be only a waste of ammunition.

Duke of York engaged starting after 16:45 with her main guns at <11,000m or about 12,000 yds and continued to engage out to 19,500m. The Turret A hit was at low range while the B turret hit was a shot at about 18,000m.


As for the biggun I'd like the utility to check for myself mostly since I'm far more comfortable using ACTUAL gun data from NavWeaps like the US 14"/50 Mk 11 which had a max actual range of 36,800 and a max theoretical range of 43,000.

None sunk. Yes some heavily damaged. And 200 odd hits if you keep it up till the forts have to cease fire will cause more than 6 damaged ships.

If he fires until the barrels fall off, if his accuracy doesn't fall off, if his accuracy isn't shifted towards the 13.7" guns whcih I'm largely impervious to at engagement range, etc. The 210 hits is a pretty median number and supposes engagement at roughly 25,000-30,000 yards not ranging in at extremes like 40k plus.

How many subs have been sunk by another sub in WW2? 1? I may recall wrong on it being a single one but the number still was exceedingly low.

I'm up to 6 in the Pacific just from US subs with names starting with an A or B. See starting here and feel free to continue from C onwards but again that was 6 in the As and Bs.

And the fort will cooperate on the grounds of...

Having the harbor blown away as an alternative so that none of his ships can moor there...also if he isn't firing back then I can bombard the hell of his divisions in place with HE shell.

[Beowulf]

C. Submarines are NOT effective sub hunters in the mid 1920s. Or the mid 1940s. That modern submarines can hunt down each other does not mean that a 1920s submarine can.

Subs cruise on the surface and thus can be targeted for torpedo strikes just like any other surface ship. With no enemies on the horizon it makes zero sense (as was pointed out to me several times) for Ryan to be running submerged even given the reduction in operating efficiency. We rolled for detection and ambushing and I got a huge relative advantage which allowed me to engage his subs with mine when the former was unawares. After that everybody likely dove and no more action took place (which was my intention from the start). Honestly just forcing his subs to dive was my only goal because submerged they would have been hard placed to close to within 5,000 yards or so of my line to be effective.

Not all surface ships are equal. You couldn't take out a rowboat with one. You actually need a certain amount of depth to the ship to be able to hit it with a torpedo. A torpedo needs to run sufficiently deep that it doesn't porpoise out of the water. This is one of the reasons why destroyers were used for ASW: the submarine they're chasing has a hard time sinking them, because it's rather difficult to get the torpedo to run shallowly enough to hit, but not so shallow to pop out. This becomes easier with additional torpedo experience. Most of the US submarines sinking other submarines was after at least 3 years of experience in submarine warfare in WWII.

In fairness to Czech, that was not the case with this. He was planning it before Stas left. If you look waaay back you'll see him express regret he didn't get to match wits with him. That and I know because I was told about it. As for the Nordic Empire's IC justification, I leave that to him if he cares to post it. But in this case, it's not because Stas left that Czech was planning to attack.

Yeah, I can guess the reasons he had for attacking Stas, but there is no point in discussing that now that Stas is gone.

Yes, it's because I asked him to. And he could come up with a decent reason why attempting to redraw the borders was a good idea (pan-Nordicism).

[Steve]

....hrm. Okay, I take back what I said to Shady earlier about Czech not being your pet.

[Beowulf]

....hrm. Okay, I take back what I said to Shady earlier about Czech not being your pet.

Hey, if he couldn't come up with a good reason (besides helping the Manchus) why not to attack the Soviet Union while it'd distracted by fighting in the east, he wouldn't have made plans to attack them.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

....hrm. Okay, I take back what I said to Shady earlier about Czech not being your pet.

It does not take a person with half a brain cell to know, given Czech's known behaviour, that Czech is known to bear grudges. Never mind the ocassional tantrums.

[DarthShady]

Yes, it's because I asked him to. And he could come up with a decent reason why attempting to redraw the borders was a good idea (pan-Nordicism).

Glad to see your pet still obeys you without question. Not that there was ever any doubt in my mind.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Yes, it's because I asked him to. And he could come up with a decent reason why attempting to redraw the borders was a good idea (pan-Nordicism).

Glad to see your pet still obeys you without question. Not that there was ever any doubt in my mind.

Given the lame Pan-Nordicism, was there any doubt? Then again, a chance to squash flat an irritating gnat was always an enticing thought...

Never mind that, historically, Norway, and Denmark never really liked Sweden. Though at points in time, they did become very close...