SDN World 3 Commentary Thread I

[MKSheppard]

You have no idea of air combat, right? Recon planes don't "fight", and they do not need to "stand a chance" against enemy planes. They are used for recon. Detection from the ground in this era is craptacular, and the planes would veer off if there were a serious attempt to attack them.

1.) The reconnaisance plane has to survive to get back home with it's information. I think radios light enough to fit on smallish planes aren't going to come along for a few more years.

2.) The entire rationale behind fighter aircraft was to down enemy reconnaisance planes to deny aerial reconnaisance to the enemy. Then someone had the bright idea to form their own fighters to shoot down the other side's fighters to protect their own recon planes and deny the air to the enemy.

Yeah right. Concentrating 1000 pieces of artillery, including ultra-heavy howitzers, does NOTHING to destroy fortifications. No matter that heavy artillery is actually critical to have a chance to take a well-fortified position.

That's nice. How many pieces of artillery are actually seige caliber? 75mm and 105mm guns will just make the dust shake down from a bunker roof.

Big guns aren't *that accurate*, I've got a listing of all the rounds that Dora fired at Sevastopol, and there are quite a few big misses.



Considering you have to score pretty much a direct hit on an armored position to kill it....

I mean, huge seige guns are great against 19th century style superforts; but their job becomes a lot harder against a dispersed mutually supporting line of fortifications.

How? By what? Do you realize the Mendeleev tank was basically a 100 mm armored box on all sides? Neither your AT guns, nor your rifles could do that - and your artillery in the forts is likewise forward firing.

100mm armored box all around? Man, that's going to be so mechanically reliable, and light! One description I've seen has a weight of 170 (!!!) tons for one of Mendeleev's tank designs.

The tower armor of the Russian Renault version of FT-17 actually had 22mm armor versus 16mm.

.50 Caliber BMG has a penetration of about 19mm at 500 meters with about 17,800 J of muzzle energy from a 46 gram round at about 880 m/sec.

However, he's not firing 12.7mm rounds at your tanks, but 15mm rounds.

The US actually did develop a 15.2mm machine gun in WW2 as the .60 Caliber T17 series of MGs.

It had a muzzle energy of about 46,000 joules for the AP round; which was 76.5 grams at 1,097 M/sec

Really?

Yes. Every major fortification line put together after WWI had provisions for anti-gas warfare, because in lieu of a direct hit, killing the people inside or smoking them out with gas was a lot easier.

Of course, you can overwhelm anti-gas defenses by simply unleashing so much gas that it's literally a solid line of gas sinking in a single area -- this is how the Iraqis managed to overwhelm Iranian troops in fortifications several times during the Iran-Iraq war by simply putting whole sheets of gas that it overwhelmed the gear the troops were using by sheer saturation.

Of course, saturating gas masks and and suits worn by troops is a lot easier than saturating a fixed fortification....

[Steve]

Two things, Sorchus: 1) Shep sunk a Dutch ship, not Danish, 2) no way your aircraft can recon the battle from Afghanistan, half a continent away.

[loomer]

Sorchus could always attach one to the division they sent to Russia - of course, that'd be one hell of a boring stay.

[Agent Sorchus]

Off to fix that to Dutch and Mongolia. It is surprising how fast I forget my geography. Actually I should still need to land and refuel in Afghanistan anyway.

edit and no the 200 cavalry comes not from the Sultans army but from the local wackjobs in the north east wastes.

[Steve]

You mean the troops being used for Central Asian security?

[K. A. Pital]

1.) The reconnaisance plane has to survive to get back home with it's information. I think radios light enough to fit on smallish planes aren't going to come along for a few more years.

The M-24 is a close recon plane. It won't venture too far away from the advancing forces. Which would, I believe, warn the airfield of an enemy presence in the air. Does Beowulf keep his fighters in the air all the time? In that case he's wasting lots of fuel. Now, I don't dispute a lot of them will die in the first days of the war. Actually, I'd say half of them are already dead by now.

I only disputed the fashion he stated it in; as if I would use my recon planes in combat.

That's nice. How many pieces of artillery are actually seige caliber?

How many huge bunkers does he have there? By my own calculations according to his density figures it's roughly 1 large fortification per a 50 km front. And a small machine gun nest pillbox is not going to outlast a grenade into a pipe (and they got to have pipes, see climate zone).

But there is the following:
- on the ships, there is 16x152mm, 46x120mm, 14x122mm mortars
- on the ground - 10x280mm siege mortars, 1x203mm, 4x152mm, 8x120mm on heavy armored trains, each division had 12x122mm howitzers and 2x152mm howitzers. If the advance is 8xID, then it's 16x152mm and 96x122mm howitzers.

In total: 211 pieces of heavy siege artillery. 10x280mm, 1x203mm, 36x152mm, 110x122mm, 54x120mm.

You're still saying that's not good enough?

Big guns aren't *that accurate*, I've got a listing of all the rounds that Dora fired at Sevastopol, and there are quite a few big misses.

Shep, how the fuck is Dora relevant? I'm not using an oversized 800-mm monster. I'm using normal siege artillery. Like, 152, 203, 280 and 305 mm. Now tell me, are 280 mm mortars BAD siege artillery? And why did nations then use them against fortifications, pray tell?

I mean, huge seige guns are great against 19th century style superforts; but their job becomes a lot harder against a dispersed mutually supporting line of fortifications.

Dispersed mutually supporting lines of fortifications? I'm not using 305-mm guns to destroy armored MG nests and pillboxes, because smaller caliber will suffice here; I'm exactly using them against LARGE fortifications.

Note that I granted Beowulf his Maginot line despite nothing similar existing in the world at that time. Most defence lines were constructed post world war II in the 1930s, and took years and years and LOTS of money to complete.

100mm armored box all around? Man, that's going to be so mechanically reliable, and light! One description I've seen has a weight of 170 (!!!) tons for one of Mendeleev's tank designs.

Yeah, but why not then be realistic and say they went out due to mechanical and GEAR problems, not Beowulf's "side hits" (how did he get into that tank's side anyhow?). Because that would take too much reading? I know these tanks are not reliable, but so?

It does weigh 170 tons. It's basically the World War I equivalent of Maus, and it's more a siege and mobile AT gun than a "tank" par se, hence the nonsense of it advancing through the marshes ahead of the forces or something.

Every major fortification line put together after WWI

His are partly after WWI, partly after RJW. Moreover, "WWI" as an event is more or less abscent. So he effectively said "I have Maginot line" by fiat in 1925, unlike following history and building these lines in the late 1920s and through 1930s. Sure, let him have it - but half of it is probably from RJW times (1905-1915), hence my doubt.

[Steve]

Stas?

Defence line Yi was manned by reservists, which were half-way in deployment - they were under strength and lacked ammunition. The Manchurians would bring these units to full strength by end of June, were it not for the Soviet assault that broke their mobilization plans - only three months ago these units hardly even existed, save for a command chain. Now these reservists, after the standing division that was protecting them on Line Yat, fell, were to face the juggernaut of two Soviet armored flotillas, three augmented infantry divisions and a cavalry corps. They simply had no chance.

That was peacetime activation rate, and the 6 months is primarily for reactivation training; moreso, Beo had begun mobilizing before your attack.

More importantly, it is fifty miles to the rear, no way you reached it in a day or two, and thus he'd have more than enough time, with the army already mobilizing, to make sure the fortifications were properly manned.

I will not let you claim you ran over some partially-prepared reservist formation.

As for the rest of this Gordian knot, I will permit Beo to post a response to your OOC and IC posts tomorrow and then render final judgement. Alternatively, if AIM chat is workable for both of you, we can do this in fairer fashion than my judgement and permit dice-rolls (AIM has a dice roll generator for chats) to determine successes of attacks and sealing of breakthroughs.

[K. A. Pital]

That was peacetime activation rate

And Beowulf announced mobilization right before my attack. I expected something like that; hence why I attacked early despite not exactly being satisfied with the disposition.

Beo had begun mobilizing before your attack

Interesting. I have also "begun" mobilizing another thirty infantry divisions before my attack. Shall I claim them battle-worthy and thrown them to battle in the same fashion as Beowulf did? Because I will.

More importantly, it is fifty miles to the rear, no way you reached it in a day or two, and thus he'd have more than enough time, with the army already mobilizing, to make sure the fortifications were properly manned.

What's the point in attacking suddenly with the forces you have in the theater if anyone can claim to initiate mobilization and raise and deploy divisions in "a day or two"? *shrugs* If that's the way the "rules" apply, my thirty reserve divisions are battle ready. After all, I started mobilizing them in February and Beowulf even posted that his intelligence noted how I mobilized 300+ thousand men.

I refrained from using them in good faith, because I thought they would not be available until June for use (the 6 month limit), and throwing undeployed formations into battle is not good. But if you consider the time from February until now enough to deploy reservists, I shall act and modify my post accordingly.

So, now: at M+10 there will be 320 000 in reserves (defending my territory), 230 000 in the South Front, 250 000 in the North Front. Used the units that are available (30x reserve divisions) for augmentation of the initial force. Those are usual rifle divisions without tank augmentation. Minus any losses inflicted by Beowulf, of course - he might smash up a few divisions.

At Day M, there is 100 000 South Front, 110 000 North Front, 537 000 men still in Soviet territories.

[Steve]

First things first.

Stas, your argument over Starotsurukhatuy is reasonable and stands. Soviet engineers did have roads there.

That was peacetime activation rate

And Beowulf announced mobilization right before my attack. I expected something like that; hence why I attacked early despite not exactly being satisfied with the disposition.

My point was that you cannot claim that the divisions manning Line Yi are half-strength based on the peace-time activation; they would actually have their equipment and everything ready, they're just still in activation training. Their effectiveness is down, true, but they're at full physical strength.

Beo had begun mobilizing before your attack

Interesting. I have also "begun" mobilizing another thirty infantry divisions before my attack. Shall I claim them battle-worthy and thrown them to battle in the same fashion as Beowulf did? Because I will.

Assuming you mean they magically arrive at the extent of your advance fully rested and ready for combat? Only if you want to provoke my merciless wrath. All I was saying is that he's begun mobilization, and logically the first thing was cancellation of activation training and making sure all troops were ready for combat, as well as sending reservist units in the area to their fortifications. Even if he only had a day or two before the Soviet offensive was launched, that's enough time to man defenses, and he'd get another few days while your forces pushed through Line Yat and then marched the 50 miles to Line Yi, having to maintain pace so as to remain in supply.

More importantly, it is fifty miles to the rear, no way you reached it in a day or two, and thus he'd have more than enough time, with the army already mobilizing, to make sure the fortifications were properly manned.

What's the point in attacking suddenly with the forces you have in the theater if anyone can claim to initiate mobilization and raise and deploy divisions in "a day or two"? *shrugs* If that's the way the "rules" apply, my thirty reserve divisions are battle ready. After all, I started mobilizing them in February and Beowulf even posted that his intelligence noted how I mobilized 300+ thousand men.

Well, for one thing, from the start of mobilization every day sees new units put together and moved into position, either forward position or as military rreserves. For the other thing, he mobilized first. For the final thing, my point was that he'd have some forces there. He'd have the fortifications properly manned and some forces would be there to support them. Not that the entire freaking Manchurian Army would be there. You proclaimed that your offensive was so fast and successful that you broke through the line and advanced fifty miles within a day or two in order to catch Line Yi off-guard and with only a half-ready reservist formation manning it that you easily crushed with this massive amount of artillery that you also seemingly moved 50 miles in the space of 24-48 hours. To this I said no and I explained why.

I refrained from using them in good faith, because I thought they would not be available until June for use (the 6 month limit), and throwing undeployed formations into battle is not good. But if you consider the time from February until now enough to deploy reservists, I shall act and modify my post accordingly.

The 6 month time is to activate a reservist unit into a standing formation, not to mobilize it. If you want to use those forces in battle now be my guest, but they won't be as effective because they've not finished getting back into active military shape, they're only reservist quality. They won't march as quickly, they won't fight as well. Though they're at the halfway mark so they'd still be more effective than a reservist unit called up in mobilization and thrown into combat.

Of course, it'd also further complicate your logistics since you're needing to move supplies over more and more land, laying rail as you go I imagine to bring trains up closer to the new line.

Beowulf began activating his units in Q1 and more in Q2. The majority of the 6 month period is not for arming them, it's for training them. For working them back into top military shape as standing units of the Army. Since you attacked before they're done with this training period they won't fight as well as they would if you'd given him time to complete their activation training... but was that not the point?

[MKSheppard]

You're still saying that's not good enough?

The French had several grades of fortifications.

Level 1: 1.75m of concrete = resists 160mm
Level 2: 2.25m of concrete = resists 240mm
Level 3: 2.75m of concrete = resists 300mm
Level 4: 3.5m of concrete = resists 420mm

Cloche (aka turret) armor thickness ranged from 200 to 350mm. The french felt that 300mm+ armor could withstand 420mm shells; and in actual practice, 200mm thick armor held up quite well against 88mm guns firing in the direct fire role.

You can see how even the most basic Magniot fortification makes pretty much any field gun useless; you have to move up into the 170mm and above area; and they're a lot less available than 105s or 155s.

So basically, of all the guns you list; if we assume that all of his bunkers are built to the weakest Magniot standard; then only ten 280mm guns and your single 203mm gun can mash them up.

The thirty-six 152mm guns you have might be able to mash up a strongpoint with repeated hits. But that's kinda iffy.

[Ma Deuce]

Ships that won't commission before 1 January 1926 don't count toward tonnage at all.

One last question on this matter: is the half tonnage rule what applies to ships that will be completed before the end of 1925? If so, then I'm considering modifying the design of those two new ships so that they were laid down in Q4 1922 and commission in Q4 1925

[Steve]

Yes. If a ship is commissioned between 1 January 1925 and 1 January 1926 it counts for half against your tonnage cap. Though if it commissions before July I may become.... irritated.

[K. A. Pital]

Only if you want to provoke my merciless wrath.

Not immediately, of course (although considering what you said, I could've actually claimed them to be ready for battle even prior to war start - after all I'm planning the war, anyhow....).

I will throw them into battle one division per day as reinforcements, for 10 days after the war beginning. I still can't understand why Beowulf's reservists (units that are not existing albeit for a command chain) at Line Yi are full strength regardless of the 6 month demand, but my 30 divisions can't be mobilized?

For the other thing, he mobilized first.

But that's wrong!
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3208725

Raising 324 thousand men wasn't easy.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3207557

Army Buildup: Q1 - 30, Q2 - 30.

TBD (most likely none)

Raising units, Q1:
30 reserve divisions to full strength - 30 points. Special Far Eastern Army.
Raising units, Q2:
10 reserve divisions to full strength - 10 points. Siberian Military District.
20 reserve divisions to full strength - 20 points. Central Asian Military District.

I only didn't throw them into battle because of the 6 month limit, planning for June. If that's irrelevant in the fact of the war, I will just do it.

You proclaimed that your offensive was so fast and successful that you broke through the line and advanced fifty miles within a day or two in order to catch Line Yi off-guard and with only a half-ready reservist formation manning it that you easily crushed with this massive amount of artillery that you also seemingly moved 50 miles in the space of 24-48 hours. To this I said no and I explained why.

Oh, certainly that was not meant to be as if I "reached" Hailar passing 50-60 km in a day. That's impossible. And I removed the reservist bit when I learned your position.

However, in that case I should be allowed to use my units now. I activated them in February and paid the industrial costs. I broke no rules.

The French had several grades of fortifications.

So why again are we talking about the French? His forts are partly Russo-Japanese War era, partly post WWI era. It's not a direct equivalent of the Maginot line.

You can see how even the most basic Magniot fortification makes pretty much any field gun useless ... The thirty-six 152mm guns you have might be able to mash up a strongpoint with repeated hits. But that's kinda iffy.

You see, "mashing up" a strongpoint is not always necessary. Distracting it with field artillery hits so that the fire is stopped for a while and then storming it with infantry - taking heavy casualties, yeah, but war is war. The very heavy guns are only necessary when the stronghold is enormous. And even then, it can be bypassed if you have forces in your rear that will deal with it later (see Brest).

[MKSheppard]

You could however, keep the blockworks suppressed by bombarding them continuously with 100mm~ caliber gunfire. But the problem comes when you stop the bombardment so your infantry can assault it -- the forts will open up the cloches, firing slits, etc and open fire on them...

UNLESS.......

You send forward PENAL BATTALIONS under your constant bombardment. "REDEEM YOUR FAILURES TO THE MOTHERLAND IN BLOOD" armed with flamethrowers and such to burn out the blockworks.

[Steve]

Thing is, Shep, that there's an argument that Beo's defenses would date to the RMW (historic RJW) and would be mostly 1905-1920 in design and capability, not Maginot Line. I find that argument logical, though I'm not against proto-Maginot-style defenses at key points along the lines.

[K. A. Pital]

You send forward PENAL BATTALIONS under your constant bombardment. "REDEEM YOUR FAILURES TO THE MOTHERLAND IN BLOOD" armed with flamethrowers and such to burn out the blockworks.

Well, teh Russian Imperial Army had penal units. The early RKKA didn't, but that's because it's enemies were pathetic. Maybe I should add them to the fray... form them from the class enemies I have detained at Chita. There's 30 000 of them. Two divisions' worth.

My infantry's armed with grenades to throw them down the smoke pipes, etc. That worked against IRL Manchurian fortifications - the very cold climate demanded good heating = large and easily noted smoke channels.

[MKSheppard]

My infantry's armed with grenades to throw them down the smoke pipes, etc.

The problem is, that that's easily countered with grenade sumps and kinks in the smoke pipe lines. Hence why I prefer the use of flamethrowers to burn out forts by sucking all the air out.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, I know flamethrowers are more effective; I just don't have them in any large numbers, though. Also, RJW-to-WWI era forts are not fully sealed pre-world war II megabunkers like the Maginot. They often lacked such features.

[Steve]

You can employ the 30 activated divisions, but as they only trained for 3 months their activation training is incomplete, so they are only a bit better than if you'd mobilized them and thrown them right into action and not as good as your regular forces. I'd say 50% of the distance from being reservist quality to being regular quality.

Anyway, select the ones you wish to cancel the activation training of so you can put them into combat and remove them from your construction queue, freeing up the IBPs being spent to activate them.

As for the issue if Beo's reserves moving up, he mobilized before your attack began, and he would already have some forces moving by train to Hailar and other such areas. Plus it would take you a few days at least to march the 50 miles to Line Yi in your localized breakthrough, to bring your artillery up as well with sufficient shells and supplies for an attack, and to launch such an attack. It should probably take you D+3-4 Days to commence attacks on the Line Yi defenses blocking the way to Hailar and that, honestly, is likely being generous. And that gives him time for bringing more units on the line. He won't have the entire Manchurian Army to throw at you, but he should decent forces moving forward to reinforce Line Yi or to prepare to hold Hailar. His choice.

[Norade]

Are Beo's soldiers only a few months trained and half useless too?

[Sea Skimmer]

Thing is, Shep, that there's an argument that Beo's defenses would date to the RMW (historic RJW) and would be mostly 1905-1920 in design and capability, not Maginot Line. I find that argument logical, though I'm not against proto-Maginot-style defenses at key points along the lines.

Since Shep drew my attention to this... the Maginot line was directly based on German distributed feste type fortifications built around Thornville, Metz and Strasbourg from 1890-1916. Indeed the Maginot line reactivated the German forts around Thornville as part of the line, and pictures of these forts are still often mistakenly labeled as being French works. Russia built somewhat similar distributed works around Vladivostok and a few cities in the west in the 1910s as well. So this distinction is not that relevant, it was only a matter of spending the money, not military thinking or more then a few minor items of technology that would stop the Maginot Line from being built earlier (most of the technology is irrelevant to the combat power of the works too, its crap like automatically closing fire doors on the power plants). If you have thought of tanks, then you already thought of the things that would drive you to build Maginot style combat blocks and flank firing bunkers. Though really any line even close to the scope being discussed would have to be more like the OWB line then the Maginot line to be remotely economical.

The performance of Japanese fortifications in 1945 is not very relevant, because the Japanese had stripped the forts of most of the reserves they required to be defensible. No fortress or fortified line in the era of rifled artillery can hold without a mobile support force, and not even the Maginot Line was ever intended to operate without one. One of the lines lesser known features was large troop shelters behind the main combat block line, which could hold 200 man infantry companies each for the counter attack role.

[Steve]

Are Beo's soldiers only a few months trained and half useless too?

His activated reserves are. And it's not "half useless", it's just that they're not fully up to active forces quality as opposed to reservist quality.

And interesting input, Skimmer. I need sleep but I'll consider it in my deliberations.

[Norade]

Okay, just being sure that Beo and Stas would have the same quality of hastilly recalled reserves at this point.

[Bluewolf]

Communists are everywhere! This will not do.

[Dark Hellion]

I don't really want to wander into the Stas/beo boondogle but isn't the first rule of STGOD play your own dudes, never play your opponents? Doesn't this just flat out solve most of the issues that have come up so far? Can't we just draw a line in the sand here, say "only play with your own toys" and then just drop rocks on people who don't follow it?

It seems to me that if we have it clearly stated that this is true and bad things will happen if you don't follow it we can avoid many further problems.

Also, I think it would do well to remind people that you are just playing a game. If you win the only thing you get is to see a map of the world all in your color but I'll let you on a secret that requires far less subterfuge and tactics: MSpaint. In the end this is for fun, give a little when asked and don't take too greedily when invited and make sure others have fun. If you are just here to masturbate to twenties war gear I'll mail you a copy of springsharp, some Janes books and a box of tissues and you can go to town.