Join Empire or Stormcloaks? My Thoughts

[kimmera]

 

Only a small portion of the invading army used ships, most of it marched in on land. And since the AD couldn't have sailed to three different ports in three different groups and arrived simultaneously due to lack of communications and unpredictable winds, it is more likely that they attacked each city one after the other, not at the same time.

Small portion, right. Only 3,000 men instead of 30,000.

 

You must think that the Thalmor (and most any empire you do NOT align yourself with) are pretty stupid. Timing a broad offensive spearheading in multiple locations is NOT that hard. It's as simple as, "You need to be at your jump-off point ON the 15th of the month. Not before, and not after. ON." Given the tech level of the environment, anytime on that day would work. Or do you think that Thalmor sea captains can't read a calendar?

 

Hitting the ports one at a time would be the height of stupidity, actually. Then most definitely, EVERY city after the first would have had the opportunity to prepare defenses and stockpile supplies. Hitting them all at once makes for a MUCH more effective campaign. Hegathe, being the furthest away overland from Cyrodiil, would require the longest march time -- and more opportunity for the timetable to get thrown off. The other three, leaving the Cyrodiil border at the same time as the Hegathe force, had a lot more flexibility to compensate for unseen delays and still be at their jump-off locations on time. Note that there is no mention that the Thalmor had to do any kind of siegecraft at the first three ports -- which means that the Thalmor successfully surprised the Redguards and overran the cities on the first push.

 

 

 

Be fair on this. First of all, history is full of circumstances where all elements of a coordinated attack do not arrive on time. This still happens in modern times despite vastly greater mobility and real time communications. It isn't a matter of stupidity but one of many variable systems being hard to completely control.

 

Furthermore, the best strategy in that kind of situation would be to pull virtually everything back to the final city and make your stand there, leaving just enough forces in garrison to slow and/or harass the attackers. Otherwise, if the attackers advance en masse, they outnumber your forces significantly at each step. And if they try a multi-pronged assault, then the portion that hits the final city gets annihilated, and your defenses are consolidated against the rest.

 

What we have been told though is that the Redguards were not united under one cohesive government. and that is the reason they were taken off guard. Decanius and the Imperial troops rallied them together and thus began the counter-attack.

[CaptainPatch]

 

Be fair on this. First of all, history is full of circumstances where all elements of a coordinated attack do not arrive on time. This still happens in modern times despite vastly greater mobility and real time communications. It isn't a matter of stupidity but one of many variable systems being hard to completely control.

 

Furthermore, the best strategy in that kind of situation would be to pull virtually everything back to the final city and make your stand there, leaving just enough forces in garrison to slow and/or harass the attackers. Otherwise, if the attackers advance en masse, they outnumber your forces significantly at each step. And if they try a multi-pronged assault, then the portion that hits the final city gets annihilated, and your defenses are consolidated against the rest.

 

What we have been told though is that the Redguards were not united under one cohesive government. and that is the reason they were taken off guard. Decanius and the Imperial troops rallied them together and thus began the counter-attack.

To be fair, yes, "Some days you eat the bear; other days the bear eats you." But multi-pronged attacks DO succeed well enough and often enough that generals still keep devising them. And in hindsight, we can see that in regards to the Thalmor invasion of Hammerfell, it almost came off flawlessly. The ONLY shortcoming was that Hegathe was able to set adequate defenses in time to force the Thalmor to establish a siege rather than simply take the city by storm.

 

You are of course referring to the best defensive strategy. And that strategy addresses an offensive strategy of ONE massive army attacking cities like they were dominoes. It also presupposes that the Thalmor achieved ZERO surprise. Against a simultaneous multi-pronged attack at several locations, where would retreating Redguard forces go after escaping the onslaughts at Rihad, Taneth, and Gilane? The nearest Redguard city was Hegathe, and it was besieged. That left only Sentinel -- or North across the Alikr. (Which is apparently what the bulk of Imperial did in the March of Thirst.) Note that by taking that option, they did NOT have any noteworthy forces escape on ships (likewise going who-knows-where). Had the Thalmor failed to achieve any substantial degree of surprise over the Redguard defenders, there would have undoubtedly been a passage that read something like, "Perceiving the approaching Thalmor invasion, and realizing that no defense would adequate if they tried to hold everywhere, the Imperial forces consolidated what they could in Hegathe, which eventually proved to be a nut the Thalmor could not crack." No such passage exists for the simple reason that it didn't happen that way. Hence, the March of Thirst instead.

 

Were _both_ the Forebears and Crown totally blind to the threat? Forebears: "Not our problem. Those are Crown cities being attacked." Crown: "Well, if you won't help with the defense, we won't bother to defend either! And when the AD owns half of Hammerfell, then you'll be sorry! So, nyah, nyah, nyah!" Being part of the Empire, weren't both factions, like, obligated to help defend whichever part of the Empire that gets invaded? This sounds worse than the feud between Scottish Highlanders and Lowlanders.

[kimmera]

They are part of the Empire but it rather shows the degree to which the Empire is normally pretty hands off. Until the WGC, they seemed pretty hands off in Skyrim too.

 

That is what bothers me most about Ulfric. It seems like the Empire is great as long as they are winning or as long as there are no major consequences, but when there are, then it's 'how dare the Empire act in some way less than perfect for us!'

[Elimc]

@CaptainPatch

 

There is a difference between a multi-pronged assault and an attack that relies on six different armies sucsessfully sneaking up to three different hostile cities in the middle of a hostile country, with three of these forces on sailboats, that rely on wind direction and speed to move, all being in position, not spotted, and ready to attack on the same day. That is never going to work, they would be lucky if half of their elements were in position, hidden, and ready on the day of the attack. If you are going to lecture me on the logistics of shipping supplies across a province, you should realize the difficulty of shipping six different armies into a hostile province without any of them being delayed or spotted. The Redguards were caught off guard by the AD attack, possibly because of the rivalry between the Crowns and Forbears, but I think you are greatly exaggerating their dislike of each other. At worst, they would have ignored each other and tried to fight the AD separately.

 

@Kimmera

 

What has TMII and the Empire done that is so great that Skyrim should let them take away their freedom of religion without complaining.

 

Okay, I did exaggerate her racism. But she does use a lot of the racist slang instead of the race's actual names.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Elimc

[CaptainPatch]

@CaptainPatch

 

There is a difference between a multi-pronged assault and an attack that relies on six different armies sucsessfully sneaking up to three different hostile cities in the middle of a hostile country, with three of these forces on sailboats, that rely on wind direction and speed to move, all being in position, not spotted, and ready to attack on the same day. That is never going to work, they would be lucky if half of their elements were in position, hidden, and ready on the day of the attack. If you are going to lecture me on the logistics of shipping supplies across a province, you should realize the difficulty of shipping six different armies into a hostile province without any of them being delayed or spotted. The Redguards were caught off guard by the AD attack, possibly because of the rivalry between the Crowns and Forbears, but I think you are greatly exaggerating their dislike of each other. At worst, they would have ignored each other and tried to fight the AD separately.

The ships are the easy part of it. They can traverse in hours what takes an army days to traverse. Maintaining secrecy is scads easier than you think. That's what scouts are for. A small unit of scouts (about 8-12 cavalry on land or 3 light warships scout ahead, with similar scout detachments on the flanks) travels between the main body any any potential observers. If they encounter individuals or small groups, they take them out immediately. Anything larger gets shadowed to make sure the main body doesn't get seen. If the MB is seen, the observers are now caught between the scout screen and the rather large MB = dead observers. Armies and navies have been doing this literally for millenia.

 

You seem to have not noticed the ships depicted in the TES series. They are essentially modeled after Viking longships. Further, Bethesda never bothered to show the warcraft version; we only see the commercial merchant ships. A nation going to war will be deploying warships and perhaps using the commercial vessels as transports. What you aren't seeing are the oars, which are generally stowed out of the way when the ship is operating in sail mode.

 

Trying to lecture me on logistical supply mechanics is pretty much "trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs", really.

[Elimc]

@Kimmera

 

It is pretty hard to sneak an entire army across a hostile border, no matter how many scouts you have.

 

I know the ships have oars, but you can't row nearly as fast as you can sail, and the crew will get tired so you can't do it all day every day either. Look at a map of Hammerfell. Any ships approaching Taneth would be spotted well before they arrived, because they would have to get to close to land before they were near the city. The same goes for Gilane.

[kimmera]

@Kimmera

 

It is pretty hard to sneak an entire army across a hostile border, no matter how many scouts you have.

 

I know the ships have oars, but you can't row nearly as fast as you can sail, and the crew will get tired so you can't do it all day every day either. Look at a map of Hammerfell. Any ships approaching Taneth would be spotted well before they arrived, because they would have to get to close to land before they were near the city. The same goes for Gilane.

 

I think you vastly overestimate spotting distances and peace time reaction levels. Based on your theories, there was no surprise at Pearl Harbor and despite seeing the attack coming the base completely ignored it, deliberately choosing to make only a token effort at defense.

 

Sighting ranges are not that great with the unaided eye. Even once you see the ships coming they close further before they can be identified. And even once identified, there is initial denial, further denial once an alarm is sounded, and likely lower staffing levels since no attack is expected. Even in war time it is rare for a base to be on full alert 24/7 and in peace time there is no full alert status.

[CaptainPatch]

It is pretty hard to sneak an entire army across a hostile border, no matter how many scouts you have.

 

I know the ships have oars, but you can't row nearly as fast as you can sail, and the crew will get tired so you can't do it all day every day either. Look at a map of Hammerfell. Any ships approaching Taneth would be spotted well before they arrived, because they would have to get to close to land before they were near the city. The same goes for Gilane.

You really haven't studied much History, have you? About the ONLY time invasions have been spotted right at the border is when the defending nation already had extensive unit deployments, right at the border.

 

The invasion of Hammerfell came out of Cyrodiil. Did Hammerfell have units deployed on the border between Hammerfell and Cyrodiil? Why would any be there, on either side of the border? Both provinces were part of the same Empire. In fact, given the AD presence between Cyrodiil and Hammerfell, Hammerfell probably wasn't even aware that the AD had invaded Cyrodiil. So no Redguard units are even on Alert that there may be a big storm on the way.

 

"Unclear on the concept". Oars on a ship with a sail is for two reasons: 1) alternative motive power for when the wind dropped off and the ship is becalmed. And 2) power augmentation for when the ship needs a burst of speed. Like for chasing down a ship that relies only on wind power and/or has significantly fewer rowers. Nearly all commercial shipping is geared towards economical operation. That means they try to get by with the minimal amount of crew which in turn means fewer available rowers and fighters. Warships, otoh, try to maximize both offensive and defensive capabilities: Bigger sails to catch more wind and a LOT more rowers available to run down vessels that try to flee.

 

Do you even realize that the world is round? There's this thing called "the horizon", and at best it's only 26 miles away. (Assuming Mundus has the same diameter as Earth.) And I haven't noticed anyone using a nautical telescope, so there really wouldn't be much capability to ID vessels more than a few miles away anyway. In a body of water that is hundreds of miles long and hundreds of miles wide. By the time a Redguard vessel could make such an ID, it would be too late for that vessel.

[Elimc]

@CaptainPatch

 

I know Hammerfell was caught by suprise, but I think if the AD had split themselves into three separate groups and also the separate navies, then it would have been nearly impossible for one of the armies to sneak around to Gilane without being noticed. The army would be only a third of the size of their whole army, not counting the ones on ships, so it would not be enough to take the city unless it had not been spotted, which is unlikely, since it would have had to treck all the way across Hammerfell without being noticed. Their is a difference between what Japan did at Pearl Harbor and launching three different full scale invasions miles into enemy territory without being spotted until one of your armies has walked hundreds of miles to their destination. They could take Rihad and Taneth quickly, but Gilane is too far west.

 

Gilane is located near a peninsula that could easily see any invading ships, and the channel between the peninsula and mainland near Gilane does not look very wide. Also, since the AD is apparently splitting their navy into many groups, the Redguards would only encounter a sixth of their fleet at a time.(The other half would be in Cyrodil.)

 

I did not say they wouldn't be able to go fast to run down an enemy ship over a short distance, I said that with three different fleets one of them is likely to either be becalmed or caught in a storm, both of which would throw off their estimated time of arrival by at least a few days.

 

And even if the AD did manage to pull off such a feat, they were still defeated over a course of five years until they decided to pull out. But you still haven't given me a good reason as to why they stayed those five years if they were just going to leave.

[kimmera]

@CaptainPatch

 

I know Hammerfell was caught by suprise, but I think if the AD had split themselves into three separate groups and also the separate navies, then it would have been nearly impossible for one of the armies to sneak around to Gilane without being noticed. The army would be only a third of the size of their whole army, not counting the ones on ships, so it would not be enough to take the city unless it had not been spotted, which is unlikely, since it would have had to treck all the way across Hammerfell without being noticed. Their is a difference between what Japan did at Pearl Harbor and launching three different full scale invasions miles into enemy territory without being spotted until one of your armies has walked hundreds of miles to their destination. They could take Rihad and Taneth quickly, but Gilane is too far west.

 

Gilane is located near a peninsula that could easily see any invading ships, and the channel between the peninsula and mainland near Gilane does not look very wide. Also, since the AD is apparently splitting their navy into many groups, the Redguards would only encounter a sixth of their fleet at a time.(The other half would be in Cyrodil.)

 

I did not say they wouldn't be able to go fast to run down an enemy ship over a short distance, I said that with three different fleets one of them is likely to either be becalmed or caught in a storm, both of which would throw off their estimated time of arrival by at least a few days.

 

And even if the AD did manage to pull off such a feat, they were still defeated over a course of five years until they decided to pull out. But you still haven't given me a good reason as to why they stayed those five years if they were just going to leave.

 

There are no telescopes, and the attacking ships aren't exactly huge. At best they'd seem them hours out, not days. Not enough time to send out for reinforcements.

 

My explanation as to why they stayed remains that they stayed because no peace had been negotiated yet, likely due to pride on the part of either or both sides. It is also possible that they stayed in case the Empire did decide to break the treaty after all.