SDN World 3 Commentary Thread II

[MKSheppard]

You goddamn jihado communist. We will crush you for Christ.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Communist, yet Muslim. Now that is like filled with all kinds of hilarious wrong that is sure to excite opposite ends of the spectrum.

[loomer]

Communist Muslim Biowarfare Special Ops! It sounds like some kind of bad conspiracy theory about Obama.

[RogueIce]

My problem of course is that my main concern right now is... guess what? The Colombian / MExican War, for which I'm writing a series of posts. Everything I do afterwards depend so much on the outcome of that one.

I'm pushing for a ceasefire/peace talks. But apparently we have to wait for the last two days of that war to happen.

[CmdrWilkens]

My problem of course is that my main concern right now is... guess what? The Colombian / MExican War, for which I'm writing a series of posts. Everything I do afterwards depend so much on the outcome of that one.

I'm pushing for a ceasefire/peace talks. But apparently we have to wait for the last two days of that war to happen.

Actually now the last 3-4 days because with the northern operations retro'd I'm back to planning from D+10 onwards. Your note hasn't even arrived yet.

Anyway unless Ryan plans a massive counter-attack I've got one or two more dice to throw and then we should start talking cease-fire and then permanent settlement...In other words every war that started before ours should not still be going on when we finish unless it is running in to September.

[CmdrWilkens]

So another quick note, I realized belatedly that I was using some 1923-series aircraft when my AF Tech limit is 1922. OrBat and Queue have been updated to reflect purchasing and using older equipment.

[Thanas]

Sorry for not having posted a story thread in a while, I am quite busy at work. I'll try to have one up by Friday.

[Ma Deuce]

On the other hand, things are slow at work for me now (as usual for this time of year), so I'll take the opportunity to see about finally getting my "great white fleet" underway today; Once that's done, I'll also start creating or editing some of my wiki pages.

[Ma Deuce]

Schedule

Diego Suarez (Start, ALL) 0

Victoria, Mahe Island (Squadron 1) 1
Port Louis, Mauritius (Squadron 2) 2
Saint Denis, Reunion (Squadron 3) 3
Port Mathurin, Rodriques Island (Squadron 4) 4
Baie Ste. Anne, Praslin Island(Squadron 5) 5

Tolanaro, Madagascar (Rendezvous 1, ALL) 6

Maputo, Mozambique [South Africa] (SQD1) 7
Moroni, Grand Comore (SQD2) 8
Mamoudzou, Mayotte Island (SQD3) 9
Famboni, Moheli Island (SQD4) 10
Mutsamudu, Anjouan (SQD5) 11

Diego Suarez (SQD1) 12

Mombasa, Kenya (SQD1) 13
Dar-es-Salaam, German Tanganyika (SQD2) 14
Zanzibar Town, Zanzibar [UK] (SQD3) 15
Kilwa Masokoi, Tuscan Tanganyika (SQD4) 16
Tanga, Balkan Tanganyika (SQD5) 17

Mombasa, Kenya (Rendezvous 2, ALL) 18

Djibouti City, Djibouti [France] (SQD1) 19
Mogadishu, Sudanese Sultanate (SQD2) 20
Aden, Dominion Yemen (SQD3) 21
Muscat, Shepistani Oman (SQD4) 22
Jeddah, Egyptian Sultanate (SQD5) 23

Socotra Island (SQD1) 24

Diego Suarez (Finish, ALL) 25

Fleet Roster

Squadron 1 (Flag)
1 x BC 1917: HMMS Voninahitra [Glory]
1 x CL 1922: HMMS Sofia
1 x CS 1920: HMMS Vondrozo
1 x CS 1923: HMMS Besakoa
1 x DD 1922
1 x DD 1920
2 x DD 1918
2 x DD 1916

Squadron 2
1 x BC 1917: HMMS Valifaty [Vengeance]
1 x CL 1919: HMMS Tolanaro
1 x CS 1920: HMMS Ifotaka
1 x DD 1922
2 x DD 1920
2 x DD 1918
3 x DD 1916

Squadron 3
1 x BC 1914: HMMS Haromotana [Rage]
1 x CL 1919: HMMS Manakara
1 x CS 1920: HMMS Mandabe
1 x DD 1924
1 x DD 1922
2 x DD 1920
1 x DD 1918
2 x DD 1916

Squadron 4
1 x BC 1914: HMMS Laza [Honour]
1 x CL 1919: HMMS Majunga
1 x CS 1920: HMMS Andapa
1 x CL 1922: HMMS Androy
1 x DD 1924
1 x DD 1922
2 x DD 1920
1 x DD 1918
2 x DD 1916

Squadron 5
1 x BC 1911: HMMS Sahisahy [Daring]
2 x CL 1919: HMMS Ihosy, HMMS Sambava
1 x CS 1920: HMMS Vatomandry
1 x CS 1923: HMMS Tuelear
1 x DD 1924
1 x DD 1922
2 x DD 1920
1 x DD 1918
2 x DD 1916

This is should be the final itinerary for the the Eastern Indian Ocean fleet cruise: I'm posting it here for review and commentary before I launch the expedition in the story thread (which will include a copy of the final, final itinerary, in case I need make any further changes). One more territorial question: Who owns Socotra Island? Regardless, I'd like to visit anyway because I want to see the Dragon's Blood trees .

[Thanas]

No complaints from me.

[Siege]

Visitors! How delightful. We'll be sure to roll out the red carpets!

[Thanas]

Okay, currently struggling with the soviet reinforcements.

Given 60 days of war or so,. I am currently trying to figure out how many soldiers the Soviet Union could have transferred to the front so far. Using the railroads, I think an order of 2 divisions a day would be realistic. Of course, the Manchu army has managed to transfer far more to the front, but they have a better infrastructure. 2 Divisions a day sounds also manageable considering the Byzantine Empire has transferred aditional trains to the Soviets.

Input? Comments?

[Ryan Thunder]

Wilkins has been able to bring seven armies through Costa Rica into Gran Colombia in ten days, with no existing rail connections between Gran Colombia and Costa Rica. That's an average of a bit more than 4 divisions a day.

Sure wish I could do that in my own country with my awesome infrastructure, but there just happened to be a giant fucking swamp in the way.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Wilkins has been able to bring seven armies through Costa Rica into Gran Colombia in ten days, with no existing rail connections between Gran Colombia and Costa Rica. That's an average of a bit more than 4 divisions a day.

Sure wish I could do that in my own country with my awesome infrastructure, but there just happened to be a giant fucking swamp in the way.

Never thought of reclaiming the swamp? Fill it up with earth?

[Ryan Thunder]

Wilkins has been able to bring seven armies through Costa Rica into Gran Colombia in ten days, with no existing rail connections between Gran Colombia and Costa Rica. That's an average of a bit more than 4 divisions a day.

Sure wish I could do that in my own country with my awesome infrastructure, but there just happened to be a giant fucking swamp in the way.

Never thought of reclaiming the swamp? Fill it up with earth?

I ran the idea of draining/filling/otherwise doing away with the swamp by Steve a while back, and he told me in no uncertain terms that it would destroy my economy.

So yeah, but no.

I'll just have to build about a dozen more lines on raised concrete platforms after the war or some such.

[loomer]

You can always import the soil for cheap cheap prices when Afghanistan starts terracing some of its mountains to increase arable land - which will no doubt kill my economy.

[Siege]

Beg your pardon, but how would reclaiming the Darien Gap bankrupt Colombia? The gap is 160 km long and 50 km wide, so about 8,000 km² all told. After a flood in 1916 the Netherlands decided to enclose and reclaim the entirety of the Zuiderzee, roughly 5,000 km². Now eventually we ended up reclaiming 'only' 1,419 km² but there can be little doubt the whole place could've been turned into arable land without much difficulty. The reclamation of the Zuiderzee was a project started in 1916 and completed in 1932, by a nation nowhere near as rich and technologically developed as Gran Colombia is supposed to be, and it most certainly didn't bankrupt anyone.

There's a difference between the Darien Gap and the Zuiderzee of course, the Gap would probably pose more of a health risk to the people working on the reclamation, but at the same it it should be easier to dam and drain a swamp than a full-fledged sea. So yeah, I would think Gran Colombia should be able to bankroll a project like this, especially since it's so obviously beneficial to the nation to not have a big-ass swamp between the bulk of the country and one of its most important strategic assets.

[CmdrWilkens]

Wilkins has been able to bring seven armies through Costa Rica into Gran Colombia in ten days, with no existing rail connections between Gran Colombia and Costa Rica. That's an average of a bit more than 4 divisions a day.

Sure wish I could do that in my own country with my awesome infrastructure, but there just happened to be a giant fucking swamp in the way.

Well three things:
A) I have 9 armies at the point of impact and one further back of those units 4 were already at the border when the war began so I've only had to move 5 armies forward
B) Most of the armies were in place by D+9 but again the trailing units were still moving (and actually shifting their location due to your ranger attack).
C) A good deal of movement has been by road behind the main columns, most of my armies that are in support lines traveled by road at ~20-25mi/day for at least half the time mentioned

Anyway even if everyone not engaged in offensive action (and thus required to be on foot) moved in by rail it would be only 36 divisions moved forward or 3.6/day over the undamaged infrastructure of Panama. There would be a delay switching out from standard to Colombian gauge at the Costa Rican border at which point things would proceed apace. As actually campaigned fewer than half those divisions made a trip via rail even as far as Aguadulce. The rails have primarily been for supplies and materiel while troops having been moving primarily over your well paved roads...hell that's why it took me 10 days to even be in position to threaten Ciudad de Panama.

[Ryan Thunder]

Wilkins has been able to bring seven armies through Costa Rica into Gran Colombia in ten days, with no existing rail connections between Gran Colombia and Costa Rica. That's an average of a bit more than 4 divisions a day.

Sure wish I could do that in my own country with my awesome infrastructure, but there just happened to be a giant fucking swamp in the way.

Well three things:
A) I have 9 armies at the point of impact and one further back of those units 4 were already at the border when the war began so I've only had to move 5 armies forward

Well, now I'm completely mystified. Are there any limits on your rate of transportation at all? That's more than an entire army every day. And we know you didn't move them at a constant rate, you moved them in bursts, which means the number is even higher than that.

I mean, I'm limited to *one division* every 18 hours. If I were to march troops into Panama I could've had five *additional* armies in place by D+10, but Steve asserted that they would be exhausted and not in fighting condition were I to do so. The fucking swamp would kill a bunch of them and they'd lose a bunch of their heavy guns.

Awesome shit, huh?

B) Most of the armies were in place by D+9 but again the trailing units were still moving (and actually shifting their location due to your ranger attack).
C) A good deal of movement has been by road behind the main columns, most of my armies that are in support lines traveled by road at ~20-25mi/day for at least half the time mentioned

Anyway even if everyone not engaged in offensive action (and thus required to be on foot) moved in by rail it would be only 36 divisions moved forward or 3.6/day over the undamaged infrastructure of Panama. There would be a delay switching out from standard to Colombian gauge at the Costa Rican border at which point things would proceed apace. As actually campaigned fewer than half those divisions made a trip via rail even as far as Aguadulce. The rails have primarily been for supplies and materiel while troops having been moving primarily over your well paved roads...hell that's why it took me 10 days to even be in position to threaten Ciudad de Panama.

*buries face in hands*

I swear, this fucking world...

[Thanas]

So...any comment on my troop reinforcement schedule?

[CmdrWilkens]

Well three things:
A) I have 9 armies at the point of impact and one further back of those units 4 were already at the border when the war began so I've only had to move 5 armies forward

Well, now I'm completely mystified. Are there any limits on your rate of transportation at all? That's more than an entire army every day. And we know you didn't move them at a constant rate, you moved them in bursts, which means the number is even higher than that.

I mean, I'm limited to *one division* every 18 hours. If I were to march troops into Panama I could've had five *additional* armies in place by D+10, but Steve asserted that they would be exhausted and not in fighting condition were I to do so. The fucking swamp would kill a bunch of them and they'd lose a bunch of their heavy guns.

Awesome shit, huh?

Well your divisions have to come by rail as the only alternative is tracking through a road-less swamp followed by mountainous rainforest followed by a long single road march to Ciudad de Panama. If you came by foot even assumign nobody got lost in the swamps your speed of advance would be maybe 10-12mi/day. It would have taken you 5 days just for the lead units to clear the Darien Gap and another five days to reach Panama City by road...in other words a best case scenario would get you one additional division in place by D+10.

Conversely Western Panama is lousy with roads as is , at least comparatively, and my units have been marching in along them (aside from those that were shipped by rail as far as first Santiago, then Aguadulce, and then finally Penonome) behind the leading units who have to advance overland otherwise they couldn't engage in combat.

B) Most of the armies were in place by D+9 but again the trailing units were still moving (and actually shifting their location due to your ranger attack).
C) A good deal of movement has been by road behind the main columns, most of my armies that are in support lines traveled by road at ~20-25mi/day for at least half the time mentioned

Anyway even if everyone not engaged in offensive action (and thus required to be on foot) moved in by rail it would be only 36 divisions moved forward or 3.6/day over the undamaged infrastructure of Panama. There would be a delay switching out from standard to Colombian gauge at the Costa Rican border at which point things would proceed apace. As actually campaigned fewer than half those divisions made a trip via rail even as far as Aguadulce. The rails have primarily been for supplies and materiel while troops having been moving primarily over your well paved roads...hell that's why it took me 10 days to even be in position to threaten Ciudad de Panama.

*buries face in hands*

I swear, this fucking world...

[/quote]

I mean I COULD have, if I was throwing caution to the winds, organized all of my armor and motor-rifle brigades in to a single coherent army and driven straight on Ciudad de Panama and been on the outskirts duelling with your fortress on D+4 or so. I went for the more deliberate approach of bringing up the whole army.

Beg your pardon, but how would reclaiming the Darien Gap bankrupt Colombia? The gap is 160 km long and 50 km wide, so about 8,000 km² all told. After a flood in 1916 the Netherlands decided to enclose and reclaim the entirety of the Zuiderzee, roughly 5,000 km². Now eventually we ended up reclaiming 'only' 1,419 km² but there can be little doubt the whole place could've been turned into arable land without much difficulty. The reclamation of the Zuiderzee was a project started in 1916 and completed in 1932, by a nation nowhere near as rich and technologically developed as Gran Colombia is supposed to be, and it most certainly didn't bankrupt anyone.

There's a difference between the Darien Gap and the Zuiderzee of course, the Gap would probably pose more of a health risk to the people working on the reclamation, but at the same it it should be easier to dam and drain a swamp than a full-fledged sea. So yeah, I would think Gran Colombia should be able to bankroll a project like this, especially since it's so obviously beneficial to the nation to not have a big-ass swamp between the bulk of the country and one of its most important strategic assets.

The Gap also includes a huge amount of rainforest in the mountains so after spending a decade or two draining out the swamp, installing thousands of pumps to keep it drained, since the aforementioned rainforest will keep dumping water in to the basin 365 days of the year, and building the infrastructure across it you would still have to build through that same rainforest at elevations upwards of 200m just about everywhere. Is it doable? I'm sure but it would be an engineering project taking a huge portion of his resources for well over a decade. As a point of IBP comparison the Nicaraguan Canal which largely involves installing locks on the Rio San Juan and turning the river in to a navigable route is going to cost 150 IBP constantly over the course of 7 years. This undertaking would dwarf that in comparison and have little to no economic return on investment short of the 20 year horizon where farming would establish itself in to the river delta.

Also the Zuiderzee works involved not just the damn but dikes and then pumping out the individual marsh sections after the water inlet had been controlled. Even then work was ongoing through the 40s on the actual land reclamation. The first of those projects after the dam was constructed didn't finish until 1934 and that only reclaimed a bit over 300 km^2 after starting in 1929. So yes it is possible for him to do this but for the area in question what you are asking to do is much more akin to draining out the Mississippi River Delta than the Zuiderzeewerken.

[Siege]

The Gap also includes a huge amount of rainforest in the mountains so after spending a decade or two draining out the swamp, installing thousands of pumps to keep it drained, since the aforementioned rainforest will keep dumping water in to the basin 365 days of the year, and building the infrastructure across it you would still have to build through that same rainforest at elevations upwards of 200m just about everywhere. Is it doable? I'm sure but it would be an engineering project taking a huge portion of his resources for well over a decade.

Obviously it would take up resources, but just how huge a portion would depend entirely on the scale of the works. It's not like he's required to drain the entire swamp in one go; he can reclaim smaller portions first and slowly but surely extend the reclamation deeper and deeper into the Darien Gap, perhaps by working around railways or roads bridging or extending into the Gap. Incidentally this way of going about it would decrease the chance of significantly mucking up the water table in the area as well.

This undertaking would dwarf that in comparison and have little to no economic return on investment short of the 20 year horizon where farming would establish itself in to the river delta.

That's just utterly silly and you know it; it wouldn't take 20 years to dam and drain smaller portions of the swamp and turn them into usable land. You're treating this hypothetical project like a canal, but it's just not: a canal is useless until the whole thing is completed and ships can sail through; land reclamation can be done in such a fashion that sections of the new land become available well before the entire project is completed. Building a bunch of dykes and draining the first sections of the marshes could be done in a few years easily. Hell, we dammed and drained the Markermeer in a single year, and five years after the start of that particular project the polder was deemed usable land.

[Lascaris]

Anyway even if everyone not engaged in offensive action (and thus required to be on foot) moved in by rail it would be only 36 divisions moved forward or 3.6/day over the undamaged infrastructure of Panama. There would be a delay switching out from standard to Colombian gauge at the Costa Rican border at which point things would proceed apace. As actually campaigned fewer than half those divisions made a trip via rail even as far as Aguadulce. The rails have primarily been for supplies and materiel while troops having been moving primarily over your well paved roads...hell that's why it took me 10 days to even be in position to threaten Ciudad de Panama.

I wouldn't be complaining that loudly on the 10 days figure. I'm counting a rough distance of 320-360 km from the Costa Rican border to the Canal area on Google earth and its probably higher on the ground and you did have to fight against the Colombian border forces which may have not caused you any significant casualties but would definitely cost time to destroy them. So after that you posit advancing at rates of 40 km a day. I suppose it might be barely plausible to force march troops at 40 km a day (though an average marching speed of 32 km per day would be much more reasonable) but well speed of march and speed of advance in hostile territory are not the same thing...

[Beowulf]

So...any comment on my troop reinforcement schedule?

I don't think you should be figuring on the entire 60day period, but only the time after the mods gave control to you (about D+40). Also, I've been limited to 1 divison/day on each of my major lines (that are dual tracked). Since the TSR at that point was largely single tracked, you should be getting half that at best, not even counting the extra rolling stock required. A brigade per day is a likely throughput for the TSR.

[Lascaris]

So...any comment on my troop reinforcement schedule?

I don't think you should be figuring on the entire 60day period, but only the time after the mods gave control to you (about D+40). Also, I've been limited to 1 divison/day on each of my major lines (that are dual tracked). Since the TSR at that point was largely single tracked, you should be getting half that at best, not even counting the extra rolling stock required. A brigade per day is a likely throughput for the TSR.

A brigade per day is well below the number of troops being deployed by the later phase of the Russo-Japanese war (which amounted to about 50,000 per week) and this has been 2 decades in the past.