Russian News 1919

[Blooded]

Early 1919
Relations have improved over time with The Netherlands since the fall from power of those responsible for the Siamese War.

Relations with the Ukraine are going well since the death of the Ukrainian Czar. The borders have opened and business is beginning to boom.
Many old deals from the 1917 military contracts are reopened and discussed. Positive relations have bloomed at all levels.

[Blooded]

June-July

With the onset of yet another unnecessary war- this one in Africa. Russia has decided to show its disapproval by placing partial embargos on the instigating parties(at the time these seem to be New Zion, Italy and New Switzerland).

from other thread
"As the events of the Rift War begin to unfold, many arguments are raging in the Duma. The Battleship deal the Naval Minster approved had little support within the Duma. The large payments in High Tech Engines and treasure going to a known troublemaking nation like New Switzerland had already caused the Naval Minister to resign. His second deal in trading the Swiss ships for Rohanese Vessels made the cancelation of the original deal impossible, as he had well known.

With the blatant movement of substantial portions of the Swiss fleet across a third of the worlds surface to 'defend' a nation who would need no defense if not for Swiss dealings. It has become obvious that the Swiss cannot be trusted to behave as a peaceful nation should and will abuse our peaceful intentions and twist them into supporting their desires. With this conclusion, Russia places a hold on all Military payments, supplies and technological transfers to beligerants of the conflict. They know this mostly affects the Swiss, but it is felt that these wars of Aggression can no longer be tolerated. It is hoped that Italy will understand we do not view this as a righteous War, and hold them to blame as well."

[Blooded]

Russia again calls for a meeting of Nations to discuss the massive disruption of trade and loss of valuable merchant cargos and lives, due to these Wars.

Russia believes it to be in poor taste that Merchants suffer so heavily in these short(2-6 month)wars. It takes many months for the first war supplies to ordered,created, then shipped. The 'war' supplies they would be bringing in would then take several months to reach troops in the field. Odds are, based on past experience, the War is over by then. So what is the point of sinking the lifeblood of the modern world, Russia asks?

[Blooded]

OOC

I really believe that the modern level of worldwide and especially military communications need to be toned down. I believe, Tramp steamers cant be expected to get notice of a conflict for a month. Newspapers seem to all have the story within a day of its occurance. High level decisions and consultations with other governments should be taking months, not 2-3 days.

Coordination of Warships is an artform. Good communications can be decisive. In the Rift War(or in mass attacks in general), getting dozens of DDs to attack together would be virtually impossible. Poor quality Wireless sets, brief bouts of poor weather or obscured signalflags from waterspouts, coalsmoke other vessels, etc., untrained or poorly trained radio operators, tired lookouts, unreasonably long times to decode or poorly decoded messages. All this and more would conspire to ruin any vast coordinated attack.

I would have expected, ships collideing and masking targets, basically chaos as multiple groups attempt attacks over several hours. I think this is contributing to the crazy levels of torpedo hits we are seeing. Murphys laws rule in battle, Reality just is not that cut and dried.

The battle between the dutch and french forces stumbling over each other should have ended a massive tragedy. I dont know why myself, but it takes dozens of minutes for orders to be sent, transmitted, recieved and deseminated, then acted upon. I believe it would take 30-60 minutes for every single ship and gun to cease fire, not the three stated. At Midway, it took something like a half hour for the Tones scoutplane to send its message, get that message to Nagumo, have Nagumo question it and ask for verification, then get that verification. It seems way too long to me, but that is the reality of it.

[Desertfox]

OOC I agree for the most part. However, NS has been training forever to conduct such massed attacks. Training tends to help out on communication issues. OTOH and this did happen a little bit, trying to coordinate three fleets with different standards, languages, etc on a moments notice should have been quite problematic, the Allies should have had quite a few problems just sailing in a straight line, much less fighting a battle.

[ctwaterman]

OOC I agree for the most part. However, NS has been training forever to conduct such massed attacks. Training tends to help out on communication issues. OTOH and this did happen a little bit, trying to coordinate three fleets with different standards, languages, etc on a moments notice should have been quite problematic, the Allies should have had quite a few problems just sailing in a straight line, much less fighting a battle.

We did have such problems on the other hand Italy and France have had an alliance which does call for periodic training with the other fleet.   Honestly Most Italian Naval Officers are required to learn French its the International language of diplomacy.  :'(

Adding in two other fleets of vessels DKB, and Austrian speaking German complicates matters again.

On the other hand any fleet which practices daylight Torpedo Attacks in mass on an enemy fleet ?????   ;) Your Poem about the charge of the light brigade is very very appropriate. 8)

[damocles]

OOC

I really believe that the modern level of worldwide and especially military communications need to be toned down. I believe, Tramp steamers cant be expected to get notice of a conflict for a month. Newspapers seem to all have the story within a day of its occurance. High level decisions and consultations with other governments should be taking months, not 2-3 days.

There is a lot of merit in this. One of the things I created in storyline was the NRDN, (AFAIK the only dedicated national communications intelligence service in the Nverse). It has a system of ships and shore stations as well as a code service and the agents and personnel, whose only purpose is to create and sustain a global Dutch comminication system that can alert the Dutch civil defense and military commands and control their actions within days of a general MVB action or decision. The other thing is the MVB which is the Dutch general staff, which takes political guidance and national policy and tries to plan and implement it.  

Coordination of Warships is an artform. Good communications can be decisive. In the Rift War(or in mass attacks in general), getting dozens of DDs to attack together would be virtually impossible. Poor quality Wireless sets, brief bouts of poor weather or obscured signalflags from waterspouts, coalsmoke other vessels, etc., untrained or poorly trained radio operators, tired lookouts, unreasonably long times to decode or poorly decoded messages. All this and more would conspire to ruin any vast coordinated attack.

Scheer pulled it off twice. Jellicoe had problems with it. The allies in the Nverse Rift War had problems with it. Schoepen certainly had trouble with it with the Ottoman allies at Aden.  

I would have expected, ships collideing and masking targets, basically chaos as multiple groups attempt attacks over several hours. I think this is contributing to the crazy levels of torpedo hits we are seeing. Murphys laws rule in battle, Reality just is not that cut and dried

.

Well in the Battle of the Java Sea which the New Swiss suicide run resembled, the torpedo PK from over 200 fish fired was about 4-7%. That was rather effective. I don't have the exact numbers and the PK %s from the East China Sea actions, but the actual losses have been rather high for both sides for the forces engaged.    

The battle between the dutch and french forces stumbling over each other should have ended a massive tragedy. I dont know why myself, but it takes dozens of minutes for orders to be sent, transmitted, recieved and deseminated, then acted upon. I believe it would take 30-60 minutes for every single ship and gun to cease fire, not the three stated. At Midway, it took something like a half hour for the Tones scoutplane to send its message, get that message to Nagumo, have Nagumo question it and ask for verification, then get that verification. It seems way too long to me, but that is the reality of it.

(OOC and Still Secret to the Nverse)
Geon and Schoepen and their respective governments and commands (PMs were sent) were supposed to have worked out the Aden situation before hand. It WAS a breakdown in pre-arranged French/Dutch communications that allowed Aden to get out of hand. The only thing that saved the day WAS good radio and signal lamp discipline aboard the French and Dutch fleets  It was that one DKB picket out of position that blew everything up. (Sorry, Ottomans)  


As for the thirty minute delay at Midway, the Tone cruiser floatplane  had engine trouble which delayed her launch 30 minutes. Launch delay, not signals foulups was the reason Nagumo got a late report.  The radio and sigcom WAS fine.

[maddox]

I concur, France did send an invitatio to the Ottoman and Dutch fleet commanders when they passed the Suez canal, to join for a friendly breakfast/lunch/dinner on Occitanie.
Admiral Geon anticipated a positive answer, and that is the only reason the French Flagship and her escort was nearby.

Unfortunatly, this anticipation gave the New Swiss an opportunity to escape.

[Blooded]

I was not aware of previous French-Dutch communications, that certainly helps things. I thought they stumbled on each other. More akin to the OTL 1905 Russian attack on those super deadly North Sea fishing boats.  ;D

As to Midway, I am aware of the late launch of Tone's floatplane. In a way the late launch revealed the American CVs earlier than if it had launched on time(as he cut his search turn to the north short). When reading 'Shattered Sword' the poor communications of the aerial scouts are apparent(as well as the pathetic recon doctrine). 0728 Tone No.4 signals Tone sighting of TF 16; 0740 1st message '10 surface units' recieved by Nagumo on Akagi's bridge. 0747 'retain contact' sent in the clear from Akagi. 0758 Tone #4 'course change', Akagi asks for ship types, etc.

I have read a great deal on the War in the Pacific and the 12 minutes from Tones receipt to delivery to Nagumos hand/ear(or the 19 minutes from Tone#4's first signal to his initial reply) seem commonplace. Or one can look at how long it took for the 'ready' jets to be scrambled on 9-11(which was supposed to be during a practice alert). Nevermind, that will probably start some flame wars. I just wanted to get my views out there. Things just seem to happen too fast IMO.

[Blooded]

Just out of curiousity, has signals intel been in use during these conflicts? I just noticed the Swiss and Italians are at a 1895 level(ie. no codes at all  :o ).

[Blooded]

OOC

Well, I have been busy reloading all my old pics(plus some new ones) into the Ground and Air sections of Russias Homepage. At some point I will detail the info a bit more.

I have also been trying to update the naval OOBs more and I redid The Aircraft into 1920 style. It really was not that hard, I truly feel everyone should have it done by 1920. The decrease in Airfleet size is tremendous, it will be even moreso for those who did not invest in infrastructure. I had spent $53.5/7.5BP from 1907 to 1919 on my Airforce, which now only consists of 1000 planes  :o (was around 2000) and that required removing a few Airfields to raise the extra cash for another 400 or so of those planes.

Still have to finish and load the ship pics at some point.  ::)

[ctwaterman]

I agree on the speed of communication I try to add at least 3 days to any response I post if it was critical.    If it isnt critical or important response time is more likely 2 weeks.  If I want to keep it secret response time could be in months as I send a courier with the message.

I too noticed my lack of code technology a while ago and I have been working on it but it is a double time tech so incorporating it from my allies still takes double time  :'(

Hmmm On Airfields I spent $14.5 and 4.5 BP on the Airfields and the cost of roughly 2000 aircraft.

I expect the Airforce to decrease in size due to combat losses around 250 aircraft and replacement aircraft being alot more expensive :)

[Logi]

I believe the only use of signals tech is by the Chinese Civil War, on the side of the RRC.

However, I do agree on the communication times.

[damocles]

You are wrong.

BOOM.

[Logi]

Right.

I might be wrong, it's not an occurance that doesn't happen. But a better agruement would be appreciated.