StarDestroyer.Net BBS

MKSheppard wrote:Some logistical math!

Distances:
From Shepistan and the Grand Dominion to the Shepistani Sea: 1,000 miles
Pearl Harbor to Japan: 4,000 miles
North Sea to Shepistani Sea via Suez: 6,800 miles
Cascadia to Shepistani Sea across the Pacific: 12,000+ miles
North Sea to Shepistani Sea via Horn of Africa: 12,000+ miles

I somehow don't think your ships would be in good shape following such epic voyages, not unless you spent significant amounts of time docked at ports along the way cleaning hull bottoms, cleaning out boiler tubes, and in general performing maintenance.

This is 1925, not 1944.

It looks like I might need some bases in africa or the mediterranean, which of course I do not have...oh, wait.

The fleet will simply join up, steam to the african baes or the mediterranean, spent some time refueling/repairing and then sail on. They will arrive in good condition.

Lonestar wrote: You have the Pondicherry Enclaves, not just Pondicherry. As for what you think I would do...I suggest you ready through my posts.

One Whig shouting that he would deal with our enclave as I just went back and re-read your posts to fix everything in my mind and that was the only mention of Pondicherry. And not by your own government but by an MP if I got that correctly?
Ah well when I committed to my foothold method of holding colonies I knew I'd be risking the simple fact I'd not be able to defend them without serious effort

OAN

Thanas wrote:Shep, I have got friendly bases in Egyptian territory (as in they gave me permission to dock, refuel etc), I have got naval bases in all the former colonies of the OTL German Empire, other nations have offered the same deal as the Egyptians and if need be, I can send 18 oilers. So your argument of "GERMAN (and British) SHIPS TRAPPED" has no basis at all.

Yeah I have fleet bases in Bahrain, in several parts of Africa, in Diego. Heck I've got them in India as well as New Zeland, China and various islands between. The India ocean is in fact the place of most British Naval bases. The place I don't really have anything of note is South America, I have I think it's Java over that way and nothing else.

Part two of the treaty discussions. Thanas for obvious reasons you'll have to limit yourself to Bahrain, Diego Garcia as far as refueling goes because it would not be a nice gesture for you to pull into my Indian Harbor's to refuel.

OAN

Minefields

How exactly were these minefields constructed in a major trade route, remote or otherwise without various countries going apeshit about them? British ships use this route every year as they transfer back and forth between it's various possessions around Indian Ocean.

MKSheppard wrote:

Steve wrote:Of course, I should inquire, just how well will Shepistan be doing when all economic connections to the rest of the world are severed?

Considering how bloody hard it is to enforce economic sanctions on another nation in the present day with well established international organizations; quite well, I should say.

*polishes monocle some more*

The modern day world has cargo aircraft with long range and no will to enforce embargoes. Even if you get a few countries to stay out of the embargo, you have to keep them happy when they might themselves face embargo or restricted imports. You like to bring up Britain in WWI so much, remember how they'd threaten the neutrals (Denmark, Holland, etc.) with ending exports of necessary food and materials? They even reduced such exports to those countries to ensure there was no surplus the Germans could buy.

Frankly, I will decide how well your economy endures these things. Are we clear?

Um, Coyote?

They married in 1919, common era calendar, and I was born a year later."

So this guy is only 5 years old?

No, I messed up my maths.

[EDIT]: I changed it to 1899, he's supposed to be 25. People don't believe when I try to say just how incredibly bad I am at even the simplest of math. Anything that goes over a tens-value causes me to short circuit.

Norseman wrote:Some of you people are downright *paranoid* you know that Communism is only really dangerous if you have a large, heavily mistreated, underpaid, working class that is increasingly frustrated with how little say they have in society and...

And at what point in the cold war was the USA in any real danger of suffering a communist revolution? That didn't stop people from being irrationally paranoid, and as you yourself said, the much greater proliferation of Communism in this world would result in a much greater Red Scare as well. Besides, having a foreign boogieman to write rhetoric-laced propaganda articles about is FUN! .

Hang on... oh yeah that describes pretty much all of you don't it? Especially those of you who have coalmines.

Not me. The failed revolution in my country ironically did result in major social reforms, just not quite the ones the true believers™ wanted, which is why they continue to cause trouble even though they have little chance of getting the masses behind them again. Though the fact that a revolution did happen combined with continued trouble from holdouts would still make the government a little paranoid, wouldn't you think?

Mr Bean wrote: Yeah I have fleet bases in Bahrain, in several parts of Africa, in Diego. Heck I've got them in India as well as New Zeland, China and various islands between. The India ocean is in fact the place of most British Naval bases. The place I don't really have anything of note is South America, I have I think it's Java over that way and nothing else.

No, you don't, I own the Chagos Islands.

Thanas wrote:Shep, I have got friendly bases in Egyptian territory (as in they gave me permission to dock, refuel etc)

That only works if the Crusader's Gate stays open. If it closes, you're stuck with a long trip around the Horn.

I have got naval bases in all the former colonies of the OTL German Empire, other nations have offered the same deal as the Egyptians and if need be, I can send 18 oilers. So your argument of "GERMAN (and British) SHIPS TRAPPED" has no basis at all.

As Skimmer explained in the chatniki last night -- there are anchorages, and there are Naval Anchorages.

Most places have a deepish spot where you can anchor a battleship; note emphasis on singular. The places that are deep and wide enough to anchor a mass of large warships are pretty rare -- hence the importance of places like Truk, Eniwentok, Pearl Harbor, Scapa Flow, etc.

So basically, you would be forced in most places to hang your fleet well offshore in deeper waters as ships go in singly or in pairs for extended maintenance. This sort of ties into my next point.

Given that a single Sachsen class battleship requires 2,700 tons of coal (or 1,300 tons of oil); and that you're moving upwards of 20+ dreadnoughts, plus all their attendant stuff; that works out into colossal amounts of coal and oil that have to be ready along the way.

While a larger merchant port would have the coal in the required amounts; they'd be sucked dry by such a huge fleet putting into port (remember in this time, Oil fuel is the province of naval warships, not merchanters; though there are some oil fired merchants around). And thus drive coal prices up. The merchant lines would then complain.

I also notice that your ships are built on the traditional German model -- the model that produced short-legged ships designed for the ultimate North Sea battle with the Royal Navy -- and with accomodations so cramped that the German Navy put it's crews ashore in barracks when not at sea.

Steve wrote:The modern day world has cargo aircraft with long range and no will to enforce embargoes.

In 1925, do you know how many billions of tramp steamers there are, and they have quite a sizeable capacity.

In fact; the Liberty Ship of WWII fame was actually a slight modernization of a traditional tramp steamer design.

Liberty Cargo Capacity

You like to bring up Britain in WWI so much, remember how they'd threaten the neutrals (Denmark, Holland, etc.) with ending exports of necessary food and materials?

You also fail to note that everyone in this timeline seems to have a dreadnought fleet of some note. Which kind of makes such threats a lot less useful than they were in OTL.

MKSheppard wrote:That only works if the Crusader's Gate stays open. If it closes, you're stuck with a long trip around the Horn.

If you close the Red Sea I'll mobilize the army and toss you out of Arabia.

Siege wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:That only works if the Crusader's Gate stays open. If it closes, you're stuck with a long trip around the Horn.

If you close the Red Sea I'll mobilize the army and toss you out of Arabia.

Or you'd toss Lonestar, he's the one who controls the Arabian side of the Bab al-Mandeb.

The ports in the Horn region do suck enormously, I must add. Madagascar has some okay ports and Mombasa's not bad, but there's nothing there to properly support a dreadnought fleet of considerable size.

Supporting fleets at this range will be costly and painful.

Siege wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:That only works if the Crusader's Gate stays open. If it closes, you're stuck with a long trip around the Horn.

If you close the Red Sea I'll mobilize the army and toss you out of Arabia.

There are 150,000+ Dominion troops in the Army of Arabia, and I've been careful to not increase the number of troops there. I have another 6 million or so on the mainland(well, that can be called up rapidly)

Steve wrote:The ports in the Horn region do suck enormously, I must add. Madagascar has some okay ports and Mombasa's not bad, but there's nothing there to properly support a dreadnought fleet of considerable size.

Supporting fleets at this range will be costly and painful.

Ports have nothing to do with it. The sudden arrival of several dozen capital ships(plus screens, hangers-ons) would put a severe drain on local stores. Seriously, I haven't a fucking clue as to where you all think you're going to get food as it's rapidly bought up. How many refrigeration ships are in your navies? Parts? How soon before the grand coalition starts running into each other at sea because at least half a dozen signaling systems are used? High tensions when a ship pulls into a port for liberty, only to discovery that someone else has arrived?

For major repairs you would have to go even farther, unless you're hauling a lot of floating drydocks with you.

I think Siege was directing that threat at Shep, as he's the one who's been gleefully scheming ways to fuck the rest of the world over.

Just for giggles why don't we have Brazil arbitrate? That way everyone could have something to scream themselves hoarse over!

Lonestar wrote:There are 150,000+ Dominion troops in the Army of Arabia, and I've been careful to not increase the number of troops there. I have another 6 million or so on the mainland(well, that can be called up rapidly)

Oh yeah? And I can call up 200 divisions beyond the 50 I already have active right now. Let's see you call up 6 million reservists and transport them across a sea filled with hostile warships before I steamroll Yemen with 2-3 million soldiers. Hey, I might even have the Caliph declare a Jihad and instigate a popular uprising against you whilst I'm at it. Good luck depopulating your home garrisons in order to defend your far-flung colonial possessions whilst China, Shepistan and who knows who else are sitting right on your doorstep.

Siege wrote:Oh yeah? And I can call up 200 divisions beyond the 50 I already have active right now. Let's see you call up 6 million reservists and transport them across a sea filled with hostile warships before I steamroll Yemen with 2-3 million soldiers.

Hm. Attacking across a desert, with no real supply lines; against a ring of forts?

Why am I getting shades of Verdun here?

You mean to say Lonestar has fortified the entirety of the roughly 600 mile long stretch of southern Arabia (i.e. Yemen) he controls? Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.

PS: 'No supply lines'? Are you kidding me? I own the Red Sea and my version of the Hejaz Railway runs down to Mecca and al-Qunfundhah. It'll be a piece of cake compared to having to run the gauntlet that'll be the Arabian Sea.

Siege wrote:You mean to say Lonestar has fortified the entirety of the roughly 600 mile long stretch of southern Arabia (i.e. Yemen) he controls? Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.

Considering how worthless Yemen is in @, and how worthless it must be in 1925; why bother constructing a huge 600 mile line?

Just construct forts at key locations like chokepoints and various important areas like oh, say, Crusader's Gate (to protect the flanks of the Coastal Defenses).

PS: 'No supply lines'? Are you kidding me? I own the Red Sea and my version of the Hejaz Railway runs down to Mecca and al-Qunfundhah. It'll be a piece of cake compared to having to run the gauntlet that'll be the Arabian Sea.

Have fun moving everything by truck over 200~ miles of desert before you reach Yemen.

And then from the Yemeni/Saudi Border, it's another 300~ miles to the area of Aden.

Historically; you can only move supplies forward about 300-400 miles by truck with 1940s trucks (a fair sight more efficient than 1925 trucks), before you spend more tonnage supplying the trucks than on actual tonnage shipped.

Siege wrote:You mean to say Lonestar has fortified the entirety of the roughly 600 mile long stretch of southern Arabia (i.e. Yemen) he controls? Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.

PS: 'No supply lines'? Are you kidding me? I own the Red Sea and my version of the Hejaz Railway runs down to Mecca and al-Qunfundhah. It'll be a piece of cake compared to having to run the gauntlet that'll be the Arabian Sea.

Once you get into Yemen, there wouldn't be any supply lines. And I wouldn't have to fortify all of Yemen between your border and Fortress William, just important bits here and there.

So, you're threatening me with marching an army 600 miles south, fighting whatever forts, men, and the terrain that exists between the two spots, with a weak-ass supply train, to say the least, to get to a gi-normous fortress(on an island) and...what? Drown them out with your own blood? It would take months just for you to get there. Meanwhile, some of the military leadership of Shepistan is already calling for a "timeout" between the two countries to turn back the interlopers...and if that came to be, there wouldn't need to be a dash across the Northern Arabian Sea, everyone would just hop a railroad to the Strait of Hormuz, and move across there.

My main question for the two of you is again when these forts were constructed why no one reacted to them and why they were permitted to be constructed in the first place. This is year one of this STGOD and Mayyun via my quick internet searches never had any large scale forts built on it. A google search turned up a book title "Forts of the Indian Ocean" by MS Naravane which mentions Yemen sea forts but none on Mayyun. So my question is with no historical reason to build said forts why would they be built on this island to begin with? No recent wars to threaten the red sea and the only purpose such a Fort could exist to have is to throttle sea traffic at will at the 19km wide choke point there

*Edit
http://itouchmap.com/?c=ym&UF=-3185399& ... 927&DG=ISL
This is a fairly high traffic area, ships go through here all the time.

Gee Stas, if I didn't know you any better, I'd have said that your reserve division mobilization was to defend yourself against me attacking you.

Mr Bean wrote:My main question for the two of you is again when these forts were constructed why no one reacted to them and why they were permitted to be constructed in the first place. This is year one of this STGOD and Mayyun via my quick internet searches never had any large scale forts built on it. A google search turned up a book title "Forts of the Indian Ocean" by MS Naravane which mentions Yemen sea forts but none on Mayyun. So my question is with no historical reason to build said forts why would they be built on this island to begin with? No recent wars to threaten the red sea and the only purpose such a Fort could exist to have is to throttle sea traffic at will at the 19km wide choke point there

*Edit
http://itouchmap.com/?c=ym&UF=-3185399& ... 927&DG=ISL
This is a fairly high traffic area, ships go through here all the time.

As Thanas has pointed out repeatably in this thread, this is not the original timeline, but since you asked, historically Britain controlled both the Suez Canal and Aden so probably had no need to build something to cut off trade in the Red Sea.

You'll note that the Dominionite officer referred to the "Over the past 30 years...", so yes, the fort was built after the Suez Canal was.

Quick question - is it possible to get in on this, since it's only a month or so old at this point? Are there any territories still unclaimed I could slide into, or would I have to negotiate with another player to split off a couple of states and start that way?