Here is the final part to my story. Hmm, that sure took long enough to finish.
Cyrus and Darius Military Academy, Part Three
He looked at the placard by the first door. It said, “Colonial Warfare, and Political Applications to Warfare.” Opening the door and sitting in the rear of the room, Mustafa heard the unmistakable arrogant but educated tone of a British Federate. “Now, when on a campaign, particularly as an occupying aggressor, it is likely that you can and shall encounter local resistance. Guerilla warfare has reduced and decimated modern, well trained colonial armies to shreds of it’s former self. Now one might wonder what the most effective course of action against such irregular resistance might be. Suggestions?”
“No Aaban, you do not round up all the villagers and immediately execute them. *sigh*
This course of action would only make resistance more fervent. Your first tactic is negotiation. We’ll cover Local Diplomacy on Wednesday, but please write down that fact. The local populace is not your enemy, you must make them realize it as well. However, in many cases an ethnic group or political faction shall pledge undying violence and continue the fight, even after all armies have left the field. In this case, immediately find the leadership of the group opposing them…and immediately capture or execute them, depending on the specific scenario. An opposing force may have thousands of untrained peasants to throw at you, but kill one man in the command structure and they are all paralyzed! Please right down that fact. Now…"
Mustafa left the classroom. “I should have been taking notes too, that lecture was very informative.” Continuing down the hall, he saw that another class was in session. The card on the wall read “Tactical Strategy and Logistics.” Walking inside the room, Mustafa heard the heavily accented voice of a German career soldier, probably a colonel or brigadier for hire, or on half pay, or retired. There were some in every nation, at least one was being put to use here.
“Now..there is one thing you must always remember…do not micromanage your campaign! If you are busy determining the exact weight in centigrams of the biscuit that your soldiers are going to eat on the 3rd day of battle, and checking and rechecking the operational readiness of the horses and cannon of each unit, you will fail, do you hear me? UTTER FAILURE! Brilliant men, geniuses, matchless in their profession and knowledge of tactics and strategic planning, have been exhausted and humiliated in defeat because they overplanned. Quartermasters and medics were invented for a reason, to take care of the things that are not important enough for you to handle! Do not worry about the minutia. Worry about the bigger things, like how to outmaneuver your opponent, how to cut his rails, take his cities, demoralize his armies. Now, despite what I have told you, there is always one tactical element that you must perpetually keep in mind.
Silence in the classroom.
The German pounded the table to emphasize his point. “Never…*pound*…ever…*pound*…overextend…*pound*…your…*pound*… SUPPLY LINES!! If there is one sure route to failure, it is allowing some blundering amateur of a citizen soldier the opportunity to cut your supply lines! You must always allow for a secure route of communication and supply back to your main headquarters. If you become isolated, you will become DECIMATED! Ach, how many good men have made a simple mistake and been destroyed!!! DESTROYED!! As the German was now clearly ranting, Mustafa left the room. “Perhaps I should let the quartermaster determine the rationing this week,” he said to himself.
Coming to the last room of the hallway, he knew who taught in this class. The smells of sulphur, phosphorus, and melting iron wafted out of the room, and it was hot. Quite hot, in fact. Hot enough to make Mustafa sweat, and it takes a great deal of heat to make a Persian sweat. The singed placard on the door read simply, “Military Engineering.” “Ah, excellent! This is Suleiman’s class after all!” Walking inside (But not before removing his coat, was it ever hot in there!) he saw an interesting sight. In various states of assembly or disassembly were swords, pistols, rifles, several cannons, cannonballs, bombs, and one single, 7 foot long steel tipped pike.
Sitting in the corner, in a near-collapsing pile of gears and barrels, sat what appeared to be a gun attached to an oversized tripod. The card above it said, “Prototype: Self Repeating Machinery Gun, Designed by Colonel Ahmed Suleiman, Islamic Army of Persia. “Magnificent,” gasped Mustafa, (not from surprise but from heat) “Now tell me what the hell it does and maybe I’ll be impressed!” Turning from a crowded bunch of cadets huddled over some type of schematic, Colonel Suleiman stood, smiling. “It’s supposed to fire a constant stream of bullets, but the materials we have here just aren’t advanced enough yet to make it work right. The only thing it fires now is a constant stream of problems.” “Hmm, so until you’ve got your magical self-firing gun ready, what else have you been working on?”
“I am quite glad you asked, Mustafa. Mostly I’ve been teaching these cadets the basics of weapons design, fortification construction, and different types and applications in artillery. Several of our breakthroughs have been in projectiles, actually.” Mustafa, who hadn’t really been listening up until now, had his interest peaked. “Oh really? I can always use better cannons…tell me what you’ve done!” “Well, at first we worked on refining the gun barrel itself, to allow for increased distance and projection.” We realized, however, that until a large weaponry forge can be built, we’re not going to be able to forge cannons by ourselves. After that though, we decided to work on cannonballs.”
“What could possibly make a cannonball more effective than it already is? It’s a round ball, it hits people, it sometimes explodes…” “Well, we realized our deficiency in this area when we knew we only used two types of projectiles, Allah’s Needles for anti-personnel and anti-cavalry operations, and the standard ball for firing in massed formations. We wanted to combine the effectiveness of Allah’s Needles with the power and range of the standard shell, so we weakened the structure of the ball so that it would burst into shrapnel upon impact.” “My my…talk about good crowd control!” “I know, and also excellent for peppering a large target area with heavy fire. Last month though, we had an amazing breakthrough, totally by accident! That poor idiot Pahlavi, (He never was very smart you know.) tried mixing potassium and water “just to see what happened.” “But that would mean oh no…how much did he use?” “Enough to blow him to incredibly small pieces. But in the light of the boy’s combustion, I had an excellent idea. If that kind of explosion were able to be contained…and put inside a cannonball…the explosion could wipe out an entire column!”
“I don’t exactly follow you Suleiman, perhaps this heat is getting to you. How could you possibly put that kind of explosion inside a cannonball?” “I thought the same thing, but then…(he rummaged through some papers and gears) we came up with this!” He handed Mustafa a small cannonball. “Hmm, this is quite light, compared to a normal one. Why?” “I hollowed out two chambers within the cannonball, and made the outer structure strong enough to not explode upon being fired, but strong enough to break apart on impact. In one chamber I put potassium, or some other chemical that reacts violently, and in the other, water! When the cannonball impacts, the shrapnel will go everywhere. But more importantly, the potassium and water will mix, causing a massive explosion!”
“Suleiman?”
“Yes, Mustafa?”
“I know I said this when you invented Allah’s Needles, but..”
“Yes?”
“You’re a genius.”
“I know.”