SDN World 3 Commentary Thread I

[Steve]

Why do you think they're going after you?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Encirclement of 200,000 troops in this era? This isn't WWII when armies were super mobile.

[Ryan Thunder]

Why do you think they're going after you?

Where the hell else would Chiletina-Spain allied forces be going in the Carribean with troop landers? Guatemala?

[Steve]

Where indeed....

And Fin, I honestly thought Beo intended to attack further south, but apparently he cut across the neck of the Soviet forces far behind Hailar.

[CmdrWilkens]

Encirclement of 200,000 troops in this era? This isn't WWII when armies were super mobile.

Yet the Germans encircled 100k at Tannenberg and the Russians encircled Przemysl in addition to the big prisoner sacks in the whole 1914 Carpathians/Galacian campaign. 200k might be big but it could be done.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Encirclement of 200,000 troops in this era? This isn't WWII when armies were super mobile.

Yet the Germans encircled 100k at Tannenberg and the Russians encircled Przemysl in addition to the big prisoner sacks in the whole 1914 Carpathians/Galacian campaign. 200k might be big but it could be done.

But it's not like both armies didn't have any aerial reconnaissance etc. in this war.

Neither is it a game changer as it was in WWII. Especially if that 200K stood their ground and try to break out. A circumventillation of that many troops has to be matched by the same number or more.

[Ryan Thunder]

Where indeed....

Well, now I'm definitely going on alert.

[CmdrWilkens]

Encirclement of 200,000 troops in this era? This isn't WWII when armies were super mobile.

Yet the Germans encircled 100k at Tannenberg and the Russians encircled Przemysl in addition to the big prisoner sacks in the whole 1914 Carpathians/Galacian campaign. 200k might be big but it could be done.

But it's not like both armies didn't have any aerial reconnaissance etc. in this war.

Neither is it a game changer as it was in WWII. Especially if that 200K stood their ground and try to break out. A circumventillation of that many troops has to be matched by the same number or more.

Absolutely, I wasn't trying to suggest you could do a WW2 style armored pincer move with infantry as the anvil only. I just wanted to be clear that it CAN be done but you are right you would need at least equal troop strength, you would need good weather cover OR good counter-recon fighter sorties, and you would need to move faster than the enemy advances (or they might counter-encircle).

[CmdrWilkens]

Where indeed....

Well, now I'm definitely going on alert.

Yeah but you should have a hell of a time detecting this move on his part. Now I think given the diplomatic noise Mexico is ratcheting up and the movements and actions of Chilitina as well as dispatches from Spain that it is entirely likely an alert would be called...the thing is how paranoid are your generals and how paranoid is the legislature that needs to fund the cost of such alerts.


Back to an earlier point I really don't intend to do much with the Panamaian Resistance right now. I'm sort of intending them to be like the crazy "south will rise again" types only a lot wealthier and a lot more discreet (which means not demonstrations in the streets or sudden armed uprisings in the thousands). The conservatives I would be pitching to are the landowning primarily Creole/Ciriollo and European peoples who have money and influence but not numbers. Suffice to say if they ever did try to mount anything more than a harassment campaign you could crush them.

[Ryan Thunder]

Where indeed....

Well, now I'm definitely going on alert.

Yeah but you should have a hell of a time detecting this move on his part. Now I think given the diplomatic noise Mexico is ratcheting up and the movements and actions of Chilitina as well as dispatches from Spain that it is entirely likely an alert would be called...the thing is how paranoid are your generals and how paranoid is the legislature that needs to fund the cost of such alerts.

I have ASDIC/proto-sonar. Wouldn't that allow me to detect their entrance into the Carribean?

Back to an earlier point I really don't intend to do much with the Panamaian Resistance right now. I'm sort of intending them to be like the crazy "south will rise again" types only a lot wealthier and a lot more discreet (which means not demonstrations in the streets or sudden armed uprisings in the thousands). The conservatives I would be pitching to are the landowning primarily Creole/Ciriollo and European peoples who have money and influence but not numbers. Suffice to say if they ever did try to mount anything more than a harassment campaign you could crush them.

Alright, that's cool. Adds a bit of character, I suppose.

[K. A. Pital]

The encirclement probably would not have taken one day.

In that case I think it's too early to speak about an "encirclement" since I have the ability to reinforce the forces at my disposal.

If you want to bring your forces back to the river to attempt to mount a defense, that's an option... but you almost certainly will take significant losses as you disengage from the forces at Hailar.

I only had my forward units reach Hailar when you attacked (I said they were on the outskirts at day M+10).

And those forces will continue to chase you as you retreat back to the river.

To be fair enough, they can - but as soon as they leave Hailar, they should expect a chemical barrage.

Encircling the troops which had entered Hailar doesn't make much sense, since it's forces a battle between mine and the strength of your army, not the weak point.

Why do you think there is any "weak point"? So far I see you dedicated nigh the entire Hulun salient force to attacking the Soviet SWF in a flanking attack. There's barely any men left there. ... Don't you think that looks like a huge gamble?

I mean, that's what I was able to plot with the data given by you:

(Cool maps ahoy!)

I presumed a roughly 4 km per division offensive density on your side (doctrinal or so) - tell me if you planned for a denser or wider offensive, or an offensive which does not involve all your divisions. The Northern attack looks really weak and it must have been the one from the South that broke through with 12 divisions. However, you yourself fully exposed your supply lines.

Hailar is the railway hub that supplies the Hulun salient. The rear of your forces is fully exposed to the Soviet SWF, left without the supplies from Hailar as the station is bombed to shreds, and my forces can move into the Hulun salient itself retreating westwards without significant resistance. That makes no sense, really.

Either you wanted to commit a smaller force, or a wider assault... or what?

[loomer]

And so it begins.

[CmdrWilkens]

Well, now I'm definitely going on alert.

Yeah but you should have a hell of a time detecting this move on his part. Now I think given the diplomatic noise Mexico is ratcheting up and the movements and actions of Chilitina as well as dispatches from Spain that it is entirely likely an alert would be called...the thing is how paranoid are your generals and how paranoid is the legislature that needs to fund the cost of such alerts.

I have ASDIC/proto-sonar. Wouldn't that allow me to detect their entrance into the Carribean?

Sure if you were sitting on top of his transit route +/- 50nm. The ocean is a big place and the only thing that would really let you hone in on such a long range movement would be radio triangulation. Now here is the thing, doing triangulation is easy in theory but much more difficult in practice not in the least of which is:
A) Signal length, short signals and your receiving station may not have time to setup a calculation
B) Signal clarity, there is a lot of shit in the air particularly with the number of modern navies that operate in the Caribbean (British, French, Mexican, Brazilian, Colombian, Spanish, etc) and picking out one signal isn't easy
C) Signals are encoded but unless you've cracked them you don't know by whom
D) Reception, unless you have a large deployment underway you don't have a lot of ELINT assets out there looking for signals and those that do could easily be swamped and miss it


Now that said you COULD have intercepted it (radio insecurity isn't unknown and one of his sub captains maybe transmitted something in the clear by accident) but its unlikely that you would be able to anything more than that a Spanish Warship had entered the Caribbean. Its reasonable to known the Spanish are there but it would be hard to figure out if its one ship or twenty ships so a huge paranoid "everyone is coming to kill me" response is unlikely.

[loomer]

Hey, Shep, I'm not seeing a land force orbat. Mind cluing me in to your rough force composition?

Edit: And looking over your points, to get an idea of what I'll be facing, you seem to be 3 points over and don't have anything in technology.

[Ryan Thunder]

<snip>

Now that said you COULD have intercepted it (radio insecurity isn't unknown and one of his sub captains maybe transmitted something in the clear by accident) but its unlikely that you would be able to anything more than that a Spanish Warship had entered the Caribbean. Its reasonable to known the Spanish are there but it would be hard to figure out if its one ship or twenty ships so a huge paranoid "everyone is coming to kill me" response is unlikely.

Well I can't be ignorant of what's going on in my own back yard. There's alot of important stuff along those shores.

What about radar?

[MKSheppard]

Hey, Shep, I'm not seeing a land force orbat. Mind cluing me in to your rough force composition?

haven't done one yet. But basically imagine a force largely similar in composition and size to the Grand Dominion's.

However, the BEST troops are on the Eastern Frontier with the Goddamns. The Northern Army Group is sort of a retread place for old generals, incompetents; as will be shown in the coming war.

[loomer]

Hey, Shep, I'm not seeing a land force orbat. Mind cluing me in to your rough force composition?

haven't done one yet. But basically imagine a force largely similar in composition and size to the Grand Dominion's.

However, the BEST troops are on the Eastern Frontier with the Goddamns. The Northern Army Group is sort of a retread place for old generals, incompetents; as will be shown in the coming war.

Oh, that's gonna be fun then, since Afghanistan doesn't have any decent officers! It's going to be fuckup against fuckup!

Edit:
Hooooly shit, I did a recount of my points as well. I'm eight under.

[Steve]

Radar doesn't exist in the 1920s.

[K. A. Pital]

This is a more realistic force disposition. You cannot commit all units on a 90 km wide front to a 30 km or so wide pincer. Some units will be left to defend the remaining areas. Commiting "2/3rds" of the forces at Hulun salient towards the attack is simply untenable, Beowulf. You'll be attacking with extreme intensity and brunt force, but you'll expose the salient itself for the Soviet forces, who can promptly move and break through since no units are actually guarding it.

This is what I came up with as a more realistic attack. It involves all Manchurian forces, but the Chinese keep the 60 km front.

[Norseman]

<snip>

Now that said you COULD have intercepted it (radio insecurity isn't unknown and one of his sub captains maybe transmitted something in the clear by accident) but its unlikely that you would be able to anything more than that a Spanish Warship had entered the Caribbean. Its reasonable to known the Spanish are there but it would be hard to figure out if its one ship or twenty ships so a huge paranoid "everyone is coming to kill me" response is unlikely.

Well I can't be ignorant of what's going on in my own back yard. There's alot of important stuff along those shores.

What about radar?

No radar, but the fact that the departure of the Spanish *and* the German navies coincide with you getting a night ultimatum... now *that* should legitimately make people go "Hang on... this isn't right." Even if his spies can't tell him I can assure you that this is the sort of thing the MSE might ask their socialist allies about, especially when it coincides with Chiletina mobilizing their forces for no reason whatsoever! I mean Mexican nigh ultimatum, Spanish and German fleets out to see, CHilatinan mobilization (or at least moving to the borders), all at the same time? Sorry but that's way too much for coincidence... Incidentally it'd take time for the fleets to muster as well and there's no way you could hide that sort of thing, unless you're a paranoid Communist dictatorship that is, which Spain and Germany aren't, so we'd even have early warning that they were heading out.

Now you could argue that Brazil would herself freak out, given Chilatinas intervention, but at this stage I predict that the suggested mutual defence treaty would be rushed through before anything more could happen... in an attempt to discourage aggression.

[MKSheppard]

Radar doesn't exist in the 1920s.

from Naval Radar by Norman Friedman:

Radar echo-ranging was proposed as a navigational aid in patents issued by several countries as early as 1904; indeed, Heinrich Hertz, the discoverer of radio waves, had observed their reflection from metal as early as 1886. Even so, military and naval authorities do not appear to have tried radar-like systems during World War I. In June 1922 the idea was revived by Marconi, who suggested the use of high frequencies, but nothing appears to have come of his comments.

Subsequently a number of radio researchers detected echoes (which they thought of as interference) from ships and aircraft. For example, in the fall of 1922 Dr A Hoyt Taylor and Mr Leo Young, both of the then (US) Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory, suggested that a scouting line of destroyers could detect ships passing through by observing distortions in signals from ship to ship. Although both were later prominent in US radar development, their proposal at the time was deemed impractical.

[Norseman]

I think it's safe to say that although very early sonar exists and would be used by powers who had invested heavily in submarines, radar is simply not practical at the current tech level, even if experimental models exist.

[K. A. Pital]

It would be best if Beowulf took care to draw just where his divisions are. Even if just putting them as dots or circles on the map. I'm having trouble visualizing his attack. The "big fat arrows" are not even close to the real disposition of forces and hardly demonstrate anything...

A good battle advance tempo for a usual rifle division, without heavy resistance is around 10-15 km per day (meaning 24 hour day with all the time procedures of a division in combat). On march it can reach 20-30 km per day - 30 km per day is the absolute top speed of a rifle division marching over plain territory, no water obstacles and no resistance or very little resistance offered. That's what I gathered from history.

So, to get my forward units to Hailar over around 90 km of distance, it took 10 days, with a low advance tempo (1 km per day) during the breach phase and probably higher (10 to 15 km per day) during later days, marching over the plain that offers a path from the breach at Starotsurukhaitui to Hailar.

Meanwhile, Beowulf concentrated a force of 12 (?) divisions on my Western flank, but simultaneously left the Hulun salient with nigh zero guarding forces? Or? If he attacked along a 50 km front, then he reached no numerical superiority anyhow - I have roughly the same density of divisions along the supply line to Hailar, and the three reservist divisions attacking from the North don't change the picture much, since there's 3 infantry divisions securing the breach and another 11 standing as reinforcements in the Soviet territories. If he attacked on a smaller front, he exposed his territories and the rear of the attacking forces. That hardly makes any sense too.

He's "encircling" my 200 000 troops with 180 000 + 45 000 troops, or 225 000 his troops in total - but he exposed the salient which . Most of the forces in combat are infantry, fighting over plain terrain without significant populated urban objects like cities, etc. There's 150 000 reserves in the Soviet territory ready to reinforce that front and augment them till the very moment his forces actually break through.

That doesn't look like much of an encirclement, anyhow. The Manchurian forces at Hailar wouldn't be able to resume offensive so quickly after the Soviets disengage from the city - and there's like what, ~160 000 worthy troops in Hailar itself, or are they spread around the regions next to the city? They will have to advance at a similar tempo, which is not much faster than the tempo of the Soviet units - and while retreating Soviet divisions from Hailar will march through territory controlled by Soviet forces, the Manchurians will have to march engaging in combat, slowing down the advance.

~400 000 Manchurian troops versus the same ~400 000 Soviet troops in the area doesn't look like much of a superiority.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Byzantium will not tolerate a Shepistani invasion via the Afghan flank.

And I can definitely get Shady's help if there's an invasion.

[loomer]

I knew it! World War One, here we come!

...now to beat Stas and Beo to the history books to take credit...