[Legbreaker]

We've talked over all this a dozen times before. There's explanations for all of it which I'm not about to repeat again!

As for steam ships, what's their capacity? Where are they getting the coal? If they're wood fired, are they designed to burn it, or will that require greater maintenance? What about enemy forces they'll face along the way, are there sufficient warships with fuel and ammunition to escort them the whole way. Can the escorts be spared from where they start out? Can the steam ships for that matter be spared for such a long and potentially deadly journey? What about weather, will storms be a problem? We know the global climate has changed so Captains can't rely on historical probabilities, and there's no weather bureau left to analyse the sparse data available and make predictions.

There are hundreds, even thousands of problems to be overcome. Many of the problems could very well cause the necessary delays to prevent reinforcements and redeployments which in an ideal, pre-nuke world would happen.

Looking at the canon material might well raise lots of questions about why certain things haven't happened the way they might be expected to, but lets not dismiss it all out of hand without first exploring a few explanations.

As an example, why was the US 5th ID so far from friendly lines when it was overrun. Why was the US 8th ID so far beyond it's Corps brother units? On the surface it makes little sense, but once you dig down and see the big picture it comes together (see the various threads where this topic has been discussed down to the last detail already).

It is my understanding the war was gamed out by the writers before the books were written. The books are a result of that wargaming. 2300 was likewise gamed out over many many months in the mid 80's using T2K as the starting point.

So, the issue to me isn't that apparently arbitrary decisions were made, but understanding how and why those decisions came to be made during the evolution of the T2K world history.