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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ahkileez: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Reverend: [qb]Well my view is that Starfleet isn't in the habit of "taking" planets by force, it's not normally what they do.[/qb][/QUOTE]You'll get off on the wrong foot if you continue to think just in terms of Starfleet. I wouldn't expect Starfleet to ever have the manpower to fight a ground war of any real size on their own. You're conditioned to think of elements in Trek in the propagandic terms the show uses, my friend. :) "Oh, we're much too nice to do something like that." Bullshit. The Fed has been in a near-constant state of war since its very inception. You really think those have been 'clean' wars with a half dozen ships fighting on some border somewhere and then the issue's resolved? The Klingons, for example, seem to prefer to fight on the ground. All the time the Fed was fighting them, do you think they never had to invade worlds to push the Klingons back, or recover worlds the Klingons had captured? War has many undeniable realities and truisms, and one of them is "You can fight them on your ground, their ground, or somebody else's ground." I very much doubt they had the decency to pick unpopulated planets for their ground wars. [QUOTE] From what we saw in the Dominion War their tactics mostly revolved around engaging the enemy fleet (hence heavy losses) and small tactical raids to disrupt the enemy's ability to make war by taking out shipyards, supply bases and long range sensor arrays. [/QUOTE]Since Starfleet is essentially the 'space navy' of the Fed, this is absolutely the kinds of things that would be their province. Reduce the enemy's ability to fight at range and disrupt supply lines. [QUOTE] The point was made very clearly on the show that the initial strategy was "engage, retreat". [/QUOTE]Strategy that's worked for centuries when facing a numerically and tactically superior enemy. [QUOTE] It wasn't until the invasion of Chintoka that we even heard about them going after somewhere with a civilian population and it seamed once the orbital defences were down it was just a matter of delivering the troops to the surface. [/QUOTE]That was the end of the episode you mean :) I doubt very much that the fighting on the ground was so easily resolved. [QUOTE] Now I know it shouldn't be that easy to win a ground battle (certainly not with the Jem'Hadar) but a defender's options are decidedly limited when the enemy can transport thousands of troops at a time to just about anywhere on the planet and have total air and space superiority. [/QUOTE]Uh.... hold on here, boss. I'd already pointed out earlier in the thread that Trek is loaded to the gills with ways to disrupt sensors, transporters, weapons and so forth. Unless the enemy is woefully inadequate, it wouldn't be so easy at all. As for air and space superiority, that's another thing that would take a great deal of time to acquire. Planets are very big places. And from the ground alone they can hurt you quite badly just by lobbing missiles at you. [QUOTE] So in this instance once the strategic points are taken (power stations, comms relays etc) there isn't allot of pacifying left to do. Naturally all the Dominion troops will fight to the end ("jolly good" says the Klingon troops) but I imagine the Cardassians would surrender once they see they're cut off and on their own. [/QUOTE]Hehe, this kind of thinking has led to quite a few military disasters in recent history. Once you've got boots on the ground, it's only then that the real fighting starts. [QUOTE] So I dare say that pitched, planet-wide ground battles would be rare, if not unheard of in 24th century warfare. [/QUOTE]We'll obviously differ in opinion here, but I'd leave you with this thought: When the enemy, or the good guys, captures territory, what exactly are they capturing? What claim do they have to a region of space if there's nothing in it? There's certainly a degree of strategic buffering and transit points and so forth to consider, but ultimately what will establish a presence is a planet or an installation. And if the planet is populated, that means it has to be taken - by force or otherwise. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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