as far as this --
PeterZ wrote:Don and MTB,
Your analysis of potential tactics leads back to the logistics. Arcana's reliance on transport dragons will severely limit their ability to bring the equipment necessary to dig in quickly and heavily and their standard military equipment. So they have to build behind their current line and fall back to those fortifications. They won't know to do this until they get the snott kicked out of them at Thermyn(sp?).
When they pull their heavy horse back, will the riders are their arms go with? I suspect so. The battle at Thermyn will provide a clue about the relative open field capabilities of the two sides. If they are comparable without dragon air support, then the heavy guns are the key decisive weapon. The ability of the Sharonans to deploy their heavy guns will more than offset Arcana's dragons as we have seen.
Digging in deep is the only defense. Yet doing so quickly requires equipment. The Arcanans haven't needed to dig in deep in prior conflicts because their weapons are piss poor at penetration. Deploying earth moving equipment will take time and transport resources. Resources that can't bring more combat forces to the front.
So, I can't wait to see how mortars and heavy Farika IIs do in open field engagement against infantry dragons.
The Arcanian military has never seen a problem that hasn't been solved by more Battle and Transport Dragons.
All they have to do is suppress surface infantry and field dragons of a heavily fortified position with battle dragons, get transport dragon delivered levitation pods (covered with glamor spells) with combat engineer mages and combat demo spells into heavily fortified positions and collapse the fortification on top of the defender.
The Arcanians have never had to deal with indirect fire fragmentation artillery and automatic weapons making such air mobile assaults impossible.
And the books and snippets so far make clear that implications of long range indirect artillery fire have not sunk in for the Arcanians.
Firing through a gate -- that made a shocking impression -- but that it was indirect fire is still completely outside the Arcanian Military intellectual paradigm.
The combination of automatic weapons forcing infantry to take cover, followed by mortars killing that infantry in direct fire cover hasn't happened to the Arcanians yet.
The battle where the Andaran Scouts got clobbered saw elite forces with bad leadership reacting with a brain stem level programed tactical response that was utterly inappropriate for the enemy rifles, mortars and automatic weapons they were facing.
Getting mowed down by machine guns and the fact of artillery firing through a gate overshadowed the fact that the Scouts were engaged by indirect fire.
The Arcanians are a lot like WW1 generals in 1914-1916, learning the implications of lots of crew served automatic weapons and indirect fire versus 1860's style infantry fighting line and column assault formations. And thus far having only two data points to work with. The Andaran Scout's defeat and the Ft. Salby defeat.