Star Wars: Is probably the most similar to what Baloo is theorizing. Orbital bombardment can be devastating but an overwhelming ground force is still needed. (Walkers, support Starfighters, troops, large cannons, etc. )

B5: I missed many episodes (stupid TV stations) but the Centauri employed mass drivers which pretty much forced Narn to surrender to avoid too many casualities.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation: It is hinted that Trantor (the major capital planet) doesn't have sufficient food production at all. All an attacker had to do was cut off food for a short time to produce a victory.

Remotely-piloted vehicles are the next-closest thing to what you are describing, and since they are machines (though extremely advanced and complex ones) they are subject to countermeasures.

--Baloo

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Come Hither and Yawn...

I have to nitpick military stuff when I catch it.

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Navigator-"Heading, Sir?"
Kirk-"Out there...somewhere...out thatta-way."--Star Trek: TMP

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Navigator-"Heading, Sir?"
Kirk-"Out there...somewhere...out thatta-way."--Star Trek: TMP

I agree with the esteemed Baloo that ground combat will continue to be necessary to hold ground during the 23rd and 24th centuries. However, attempting to invade a heavily industrialized, densely populated planet, like Earth, and invading and occupying a largely or completely uninhabited planet garrisoned with nonindigenous troops are two different things. Obviously, what you do depends largely on your goals in each case. If you want to subdue an inhabited planet or prevent them from making trouble off world you can bomb or burn them into submission by taking out few big cities, but this, of course, is not in the Federation play book. What the Feds would probably do in this case would be to establish orbital control, blockade the planet, and wait it out. This would result in the fewest civilian casualties. Any surface batteries firing either phasers or torpedoes at orbiting Fed ships could be taken out from orbit after their shields had been cracked. The orbiting ships would, of course, be shielded as well. Specialized heavily armed �monitors� or �arsenal ships� could be used for bombardment. Of course, the orbit of the planet would have to be swept for any stealthed (ie, cloaked) phaser platforms, mines, or ships. The number of men in uniform would be irrelevant unless you actually wanted to engage them in combat.
If you wanted to actually expell or subdue hostile troops you might try to shell them from orbit, but there are many places to hide on a planet. They could be deep underground, behind heavy shielding, or cloaked. If you do try orbital bombardment, doing so will also be easier if you have control of orbit and nearby space, as above. In World War II, all successful US amphibious landings, either in Europe or the Pacific, required air superiority or supremecy. However, pre-landing bombardment wasn�t always successful in subduing the defenders.

Getting down: Another trick is how to get down to the surface for fighting or maybe for rescuing hostages, spying, or stealing stuff. As countless episodes have shown, beaming down is the statistically safest form of transportation, perhaps because there are so many times where they don�t even try it because of interference from ion storms, radiation, magnetic rocks, scary animals, etc. Therefore, transport would be pretty easy to stop using phaser fire, shields (planetary or local), orbital gun platforms, and mines (stealthed but activated to emit radiation when a transport beam is detected), or even suspended metal particles. In particular, standard orbits (geosynchronous?) would be particularly well defended. If you go to a lower orbit, the distance for transport is less, but the speed relative to the beam-down point is higher and you are easier to hit from the ground. A higher orbit would be safer from ground fire but increases the distance for transport and the relative speed. Also, what about the inability to transport while shielded?
Therefore, you might want to maintain a mechanical landing capability, ie, flying down your troops in landing craft or shooting them down in little capsules, as in the book �Starship Troopers.� You�d want to protect the capsules or ships by using lots of drones, chaff, and decoys and heavy ECM to confuse any defenders.

Our boys in uniform: If I were sending down troops I�d put them in some kind of armored suit, both to give them a livable environment and to protect them against shrapnel, etc. Even if they weren�t any good against phasers, suits are still a good idea: after all, modern helmets don�t protect against bullets, but soldiers still wear them to protect their heads against other things. As long as you have suits you might also like to add some waldos to augment muscular strength (both for physical tasks and to carry heavier weapons), sensors, night vision, personal energetic shielding, ECM, etc. Maybe even personal flight capability.
Regarding fighting drones or robots, I suspect the Fed might have some sort of taboo against ones that could kill, maybe because of Asimov�s laws. You could, however, have drones remotely controlled by operators up in orbit. That might be somewhat more kosher. But, as Baloo points out, the link could be jammed.

Heavy weapons: I think with antigrav technology, the distinction between tank, artillery, and aircraft may vanish. I envision some sort of heavily armored and shielded land speeder, like in Star Wars, that could carry some troops and some guns and bombs heavier than a man can carry. I�d load them up with ECM and energetic shielding to hide them and protect them if they are hit. I can�t see any real use for tracked, wheeled, or legged vehicles other than they�d look cool. Armor and big guns are a must: If they had used any sort of armor in Starship Troopers (the movie) or any guns bigger than a machine gun the bugs could�ve have done any damage.

Angels on your shoulder: I would think that having a ship or ships in orbit is a must for any assault landing. They can give you intelligence and fire support and beam you out of trouble in a hurry. They can also chase away any thing in orbit that wants to bother your troops. I would also set up a whole bunch of satellites to make communications easier. If you could designate targets for destruction or pick up with a laser (like they do now) or some sort of signal emitter you could have pinpoint accuracy.

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Our efforts must be aimed at explaining how ground combat in DS9 style is possible even though we have for decades been told that single big starships can handle everything. We must preserve the strength of the capital ship while giving the grunt a niche as well. We must also make sure we don't make DS9 ground combat *too* attractive, so that it would be inconsistent to show more mechanized fighting in the future as budgets and technology allow.

I think it solves many things if one simply assumes that strong opponents have powerful jamming tech that negates the sensor advantages of the capital ships, and makes transporters less useful. That's two main points taken care of. The rest is fine-tuning.

The lack of army mechanization could be just an illusion, since we saw so little of ground combat, especially in open terrain. I'm sure future episodes will feature "flying APCs" or militarized shuttles very soon, while mech armor will follow only when CGI gets better and cheaper. The lack of personal or squad-sized shields is a greater problem. Perhaps shields are cumbersome, difficult to hide from sensors, and never sufficiently strong to withstand heavy weaponry, so they are used as little as possible and only when the unit has already been spotted and is being shelled?

Currently, one could argue that ground troops are only used in small numbers in the few cases where starships fail, explaining why the units we see are so lightly armed and protected and of poor mobility. But in the future, such a view might be too limiting. Perhaps it's best to assume that we simply missed the heavy gear in the less than half a dozen ground combat episodes.

If a planet is unoccupied for whatever reasons (poor resources, poor environment) but is strategically located it will be necessary to control that planet, or at least that system during a conflict. If the planet has no intrinsic value itself the system would do. If it does have value obviously it would have to be occupied. However, without a civilian population it seems unlikely that a siege (as many have recommended) would do a hell of a lot of good. It might drive out the original occupiers but that could take more time than you're willing to spend.

In such situations, then, what elements would be necessary for field operations? It seems that orbiting ships would be the logical substitute for the artillery. They can perform the function and there is no higher ground... Beyond that we have the question of armor. IMO the development and deployment of 'armor' as we think of it seems unlikely. First of all because the way we tend to think of it is as a ground based machine. Why would you use that when a modified shuttle would be far more effective, more maneuverable, and have a greater range? Variations on that shuttle would also provided troop transport, in addition to being able to achieve space orbit and evacuate the troops. Standard armor wouldn't be able to do that, not only that but you'd have to leave it behind.

Air power is yet again only a variation on this theme, perhaps the fighters that we've seen in some DS9 eps, etc. But clearly the ideal of armor is mobile, rugged, firepower. One type of ship with slightly different modifications would fill that role nicely.

Surface warfare in the 24th century then, would probably be dominated by small engagements of ground troops using superior weapons (note: actual engagements themselves would involve relatively low numbers, though those involved in a single campaign as for a planet might be larger). It is doubtful that given the methods of transportation available specific cities would be valued for rail or road connections. Instead vertical corridors to and from the surface to the most mineral rich areas, or the most heavily industrialized, or whatever, would be the most important. Small garrisons holding the perimeter of these areas, protected by the artillery orbiting them, and with an extendable reach of transporters and vehicles would be able in theory to hold the fort for an extended period of time.

Any significant attack with the hopes of dislodging them would have to begin in space with the removal of the ships. Ground troops could then be landed (though probably not in tremendous force - 500K for a single planet? as in the Chintaka system, and probably scattered at that) and begin the assault. Gaining a weapons edge would be top priority; knocking out the most mobile units and shrinking the defensable position of the garrison to just the reach of the men within (including any vertical reach provided by shields or transporters) then reduction of the men by assault, siege, or bombardment. The last option being viable only when not seeking to protect some installation.

Anyway, that's how I see it.

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Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

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Dane

http://members.tripod.com/~SMR4124/tdv.html

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"Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."

"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."