And as the Germans saw in Russia, he who lives by maneuver warfare may die by maneuver warfare. Using combined arms does not make you a good tactician; knowing the fundamentals of combat, and being able to adapt and apply them to constantly changing circumstances, does.

hmm missed this earlier.

The issue is that you only have so much acceleration to spend. If you spend it decelerating within firing range you've increased the accuracy of guns pointed at you by a lot. The only counter point will be for those fairly small gunboats that need to get in to like 30 to 50gM because they're effectively 100% hit chances at that range regardless of what they do acceleration wise, they're just in too close for lightspeed lag to help much. This same effect occurs in the super super heavy class ships that once they get into weapons range effectively can't dodge anything (although they should still dodge some to prevent specific parts of the ship [weapons systems, places in the armour that have already been hit etc] from getting targetted). For medium to large size ships with medium to long range Umiak weapons they're still at a long enough range at the effective distance to want to put a significant fraction of their acceleration into dodging.

This furthermore enforces the Umiak tactics that result in jousting as their biggest and smallest ships are not as well suited to matched velocity combat as jousting combat as they're basically sitting ducks in combat range.

-O

They considered it a good idea. It´s what WW1, which was pretty "static", taught them - but they failed to see technological improvements and their impact on doctrine and tactics.

but it wasn't even that, if they just covered say 30% of their full border (like all of their border with Germany, and Belgium plus some). They would have forced the germans to move through a lot mountains. Even IF you're thinking technology hasn't changed it was positively MORONIC to think that leaving the Belgium border unprotected was a good gambit. The money spent on the magnot line was a waste of money unless said line actually forced a german advance to do something different. I don't count rolling unopposed through belgium as something different btw.
-O

Which mountains? Svitzerland?
Well, they "covered" all the border. It still didn´t make any sense.




That´s for sure.
But now they have nukes. (In both forms... )

That's not strictly true. During the first stages of the war (~1914) it was very much a fluid conflict of maneuver. Only when the German advance became stalled did the massive trench warfare begin.

Yes, and in Belgium they covered it with terrible troops and even worse officers.

Yes, and that´s what they concluded from Verdun - Fortification. Big mistake.


German Troops found massive amounts of left-behind rifles etc, and they sold them to other countries with the advertising slogan "Brand new french rifles, only dropped once!"

man, i should check in more often, very good points all around.

now my two sense.

the discussion about the how prepared the french were ( and general basic tactics) , depends on the state of mind at the time of the conflict. Many of the allied countries at the time did want war, but started to prepare until the last minute. it is also import to know that many of the armies of the time ( France and Britain included) were designing, building and deploying weapons and tatics meant to fight the trench-like warfare of the WWI. This included the idea of building fortifications alone the french boarder ( as Trantor map shows) didn't cover or was n;t properly defended the Belgium-France broader on the political pretense ( and in hindsight was just dump thinking) that IF Germany invaded Belgium, it would break an old defense treaty with Britain and would bring in the Tommies boy's into the war. What none of the high commands realized ( or not wanted to if you read various texts) were the developments of mobile war fighting and mechanized vehicles had made this thinking unworkable in any real combat situation.

now as everyone here understands, that didn't happen, the Germany went around the defenses, punched through the allies tanks and in less than 2 months, France fell. But what many who may not have studied, may not realize is that the allies had the numbers in order to counter the Germany advance ( if they were able to moblized using the same tactics as the Germans). The Germans equipments was mostly light tanks with few medium tanks and even less heavy tanks, which were in many regards not suitable for combat. Yet, they had the radio communication to effectively coordinate their attack and keep the momentum of the attack going, while still being able to adapt to the situation.

now using this history and ideas, I saw a doc on youtube by the BBC about the gulf war and near the end, their was an interesting point made. By re-running the Gulf war 1 over in a computer and, Given the same equipment of both the equipment for the coalition forces and Iraqi army, if the training for the iraqi army units increased to about the same levels as west forces. the results were that the coalition would win, but the ground war would have lasted longer, the coalition would have taken more losses and the war might have been even less a clear victory (and in same of the sims that were run the war might have been, at a lower precentage mind you, a draw).

now apply the same thinking to the current battle that 51st loroi fleet are in, the Umiak and loroi are about the same tech level but fight very differently ( umiak in cheaper, more robust ships, using mass numbers ships and missiles; The Loroi using faster ships with longer range weapons and a hit and run approach). both sides are in a stalemate and holding back their forces for the big hit. As the insider article about the war states, the war has been going badly for the loroi with no end in sight. the only clear advantage is fighting near home systems and their far-seeing ability ( which has not worked now, IE the other lost fleets, and is a game changer). Now this move is simply the basic tatics mentioned in this trend, hitting the enemy ( the loroi in this case,) where they don't suspect ( and are no long able to sense). Now if this turn is a umiak new trick, then is opens up the basic stragem of flanking a more superior enemy (IE in speed and LR weapons).

Farseeing didn´t work only on the humans, umiak are still detectable.

Except that the Farseer onboard the Tempest (and the Farseers in the other 2 fleets) didn't get a good lock on the Umiak here. They know (IIRC) that there are Umiak there, but they aren't able to nail down numbers or locations. Hence the loss of two raiding fleets and the damage that has been done to the Tempest's.

I seem to recall reading that as the Loroi got closer to Umiak space they started haveing trouble with their Farseeing device. Maybe they can only detect Umiak life signs and cant differentiate between a colony and an attacking fleet unless it moves.

that is exactly true Arioch has said in the past the device/farseer cannot differentiate between people on board a ship above a planet and a colony on the planet (the whole no man's land of dead systems negates this effect allowing easier detection and interception). I am not sure but the device may also suffer from an inability to differentiate species...

You also have to wonder maybe the umiak may have sent a small number of ships by different routes to get to this system while its main fleet travelled a more direct route distracting the farseers from spotting the other ships travelling to the same system, there by until it was to late the 3 fast attack fleets didn't recognise they where so badly outnumbered

Yes, that follows.
In any case, not exactly the initial situation on Trafalgar.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the assumption the Umiak already spent quite some time in the Naam system. It follows their fleet(s) in the system can be replenished, including fuel.
And the deceleration phase after crossing the Loroi formation would normally be for as long as the Loroi ships are within effective Umiak beam range. Once the half light second distance is crossed, it would depend on the type of pursuit vessels. We've seen that the armor of at least some Umiak ships is good enough to deflect Loroi long-range (one light second) fire. Those could lag behind, while the less-protected vessels continue to move out of range, either on inertia or acceleration.
And last of all, the Loroi can't play tag too long. They've got a fixed position to "defend". At least for now.

And, of course, the Outsider tie-in here is that Germany accomplished this by attacking and occupying "neutral" nations: first Norway and Denmark, then Belgium and Holland. The Third Reich had no compunction about overrunning unsuspecting and ill-prepared countries to attain a strategic and/or tactical goal. The fact that the allies were not prepared to mount a counteroffensive into Germany at that point, while the bulk of the panzerwaffe and luftwaffe were committed in the north, simply punctuates the lethargy and lack of imagination pervading the allied General Staff.

Lesson: There's no such thing as "Neutrality" when major powers engage in total war.

Actually the French did start an offensive in the early days of the war, advancing several km into Germany and meeting little resistance (since most of the German army was busy in Poland). However, they pulled back almost immediately for no reason I can see. (except perhaps political cowardice: maybe if we let them have Poland they'll stop there ). In any case, we'll never know what might have been.

Call us "Umiak".

that maybe true, but explain to me this, If the Loroi far-seers were able to see in the "dead space" then why weren't the other two fleet able to track and successfully engage the umiak fleets ? It might have to do with that ship the bell uncountered before it was attacked

as for the french attack into Germany, the reason for pulling back might have to do with the pace of the Germany attack. No point in attacking the enemies homeland when their attacking your own core territory.

as for attacking neutral nations: it is unfortunate the warfare has gotten to this point

IIRC it was because their forces weren't really mobilized for a full-scale invasion yet. So they wouldn't have had the ability to continue the attack, but they were beyond their defenses, not a good situation for the troops.

Especially considering that the troops they advanced with were really only good for garrisoning a trench.

Nah, you guys whistle another tune.

Hi
i found this comic recently and wanted to say that i find it great.
the British and French expected an attack through Belgium and the Netherlands. They had stationed a large part of their troops there. A breakthrough by the Magnotline led to encircle of these troops at Dunkirk.

sorry for the bad grammar.

There´s no better language for swearing or yelling commands.

True, that.

A Russian friend onced claimed that Russian is superior for swearing, though he laughingly admitted German was a close second. He probably wouldn't argue about the yelling commands part though (being a Russian Jew).