You might want to add the three Vulcan transports the Romulans were using to transport 2,000 of their troops to invade Vulcan in "Unification: Part 2". If the Romulans would use the Vulcan freighters as troop transports maybe the Federation would as well?
I always thought that it was a bit optomistic on the part of the Romulans to try and take over an entire planet with only two thousand troops, but maybe they were just supposed to secure a landing zone for further troops to come in on Warbirds.
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I figured the 2000 troops would just establish a presence (probably violently) and blend in with the population: Romulans probably scan as Vulcan on a tricorder.
Vulcans very likely have no personal weapons (aside from ritual ones, of course) so there wouldnt be too much resistance from the natives once they were shown how illogical it is to fight -weaponless- someone with a disrupror.
There could have been a few Warbirds (like the one that destroyed the transport for example) alnog as well to block any Federation aid to the planet.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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In WW2 the US used regular merchant ships and cruise liners to transport troops across the atlantic through the merchant marines, but they also had dedicated troop ships of their own. I would think that Starfleet would be about the same, they would use their own ships and mobilize the merchant marines to suppliment them.
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Troop transports might need to be dedicated war machines in they had to offload without "ports" while civilian passenger ships rely on friendly orbital facilities. Of course, even a civilian ship might have shuttles or transporters that are capable enough to transfer the whole load planetside - but special shuttles and special transporters might be needed for combat applications, even when the planet is already secured and the landing is not opposed. That might call for a dedicated mothership type, too.
And ships performing the initial opposed landing would have to be special beasts indeed. I like to think of e.g. the Steamrunners and Norways as planetary assault ships, due to their oddball construction: the form has to have some function, something different from your average multipurpose starship. I agree that a Galaxy *could* do the job, but like to think she wouldn't *have* to.
The three Vulcan ships probably weren't optimized for performing such an assault, or even for carrying the troops to an unopposed landing. Instead, they were optimized for deception, which may mean they were highly atypical for troop transports.
As for the Romulan intent, I see several alternatives to true planetary takeover by just a couple of thousand soldiers.
a) Dieppe Raid. A small-scale show of aggression intended to remind everybody that the Romulans still were an enemy of the Federation, and thus a good ally for other UFP enemies. The troops would hold key points on Vulcan for a while, or destroy some key targets, and then retreat, or commit suicide.
b) Children's Crusade. Romulans claimed the people on the ships were Romulan peaceniks coming to talk softly with Vulcans. Perhaps they *were*, and the idea was to slaughter them wholesale while making the Feds look bad? It would have been simple to lure in the peaceniks when the government showed them "Vulcan" ships...
c) Devious Decoy. Perhaps in combination with b), the Romulans would send a couple of thousand "sacrificial offerings" whose true purpose was just to create enough "noise" (sensor-wise and intelligence-wise) to cover the approach of dozens of cloaked warbirds carrying hundreds of thousands of troops with vehicles.
Incidentally, this means that a) would have been a modest failure (Romulan aggression *was* demonstrated, although not very impressively), b) an almost sparkling success (no peaceniks left, but the Feds didn't get blamed), and c) a promising failure (invasion failed, but nobody noticed that it did, so the concept was proven valid for a second try).
quote: (And, given that even a runabout can detect and map tunnels and other kilometers-deep underground structures from orbit ("The Sword of Kahless"[DS9-4]), with tricorders having shown similar effectiveness when on the ground, the tunnelling problems relating to those historical examples would be moot.)
Probably should note that in two separate ocassions ("Sword of Kahless", "Siege of AR551"), sensor jamming and spoofing was employed. The Jem'Hadar jammed Starfleet's sensors, and Starfleet did the same, until no one could see anything, tunnels or otherwise. I would assume this applies beyond tricorders, to starship sensors as well.
The H'urq manage to spoof sensors enough that certain rooms and passages could be hidden from scans. Also, ST rock deposite tends to have sensor proof qualities when the plot needs arise.
In addition, tricorders can be modified to scan subspace, though it typically is not set up to do so.
quote: Back in early 2000, it was claimed by some of the more rabid members of alt.startrek.vs.starwars that a Canadian Army battalion would defeat an equal Federation force.
The idiot gives our mighty CF too much credit. The Federation would win on logistics alone, or the ability to summon a battalion without bankrupting the military.
[ March 28, 2004, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: David Templar ]
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Regarding landing troops: Voyager was able to beam ~200 Klingons off their ship before it was destroyed by a core breach in a matter of seconds, and they were all beamed to one location, not to the transporter pads - as one could compare to the Romulan Warbird evacuation in "Timescape".
For that matter, Scotty beams ~50 El-Aurians off their transport onto the Enterprise-B in a matter of seconds, directly to sickbay (or so it seemed).
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Yeah but A) Voyager was horseshit and B) The transporter rooms on Enterprise B could be (and it would make sense) a stone's throw from sickbay.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Originally posted by Paladin181: In WW2 the US used regular merchant ships and cruise liners to transport troops across the atlantic through the merchant marines, but they also had dedicated troop ships of their own. I would think that Starfleet would be about the same, they would use their own ships and mobilize the merchant marines to suppliment them.
That sort of thing's pretty much standard practice, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if Starfleet had the same sort of system. I could see problems with starships that wouldn't be present with modern Navies and may lead to a higher percentage of Starfleet owned transports. 1) Transporters: I can't see most merchant vessels being fitted with large numbers of personnel transports, with the possible exception of cruise liners. For troop landings I'd think Starfleet has it's own ships, although equipment transport could be done by civilian vessels.
2) Shields. Could Starfleet rig up military grade shields to every commandeered merchant ship? They would certainly end up more vulnerable in a combat area, requiring more ships to act as escorts, thereby diverting resources from other operations.
3) Compatability: Of all sorts of things; docking ports, computers, comms. I'm sure they could be fixed, but it'd take time and resources.
So I think that any Starfleet merchant reerve would be specially assessed ships and mostly used for 'second line' operations- resupply, heavy equipment landings, troop rotations on already captured planets, etc.
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: As for the Romulan intent, I see several alternatives to true planetary takeover by just a couple of thousand soldiers.
a) Dieppe Raid. A small-scale show of aggression intended to remind everybody that the Romulans still were an enemy of the Federation, and thus a good ally for other UFP enemies. The troops would hold key points on Vulcan for a while, or destroy some key targets, and then retreat, or commit suicide.
Or rather, Operation "Space Lion"? (Hmmm... would that be "Unternehmen Rauml�we"?)
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quote:B) The transporter rooms on Enterprise B could be (and it would make sense) a stone's throw from sickbay.
BZZZZT
...beam them directly to sickbay
As for the article, I'm so happy that no mention was made of 'Starfleet Marines'. I hate that term with a passion, it's just so redundant. What are you going to use marines in space for? Attacking comets!? [/rant]
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: As for the article, I'm so happy that no mention was made of 'Starfleet Marines'. I hate that term with a passion, it's just so redundant. What are you going to use marines in space for? Attacking comets!? [/rant]
Hey Guardian, you missed something.
And I really don't see what the problem with the term Starfleet Marine is. It's just an attempt to suggest that Starfleet might have some troops that are a bit more elite than yellow shirts and is devoted to atmospheric combat operations. The term Marines apply fine just for that, especially if you're asking the troops to establish a planetary beachhead, or assault enemy ships. Regular infantry typically don't do the things Marines are suppose to be good at.
Registered: Apr 2001
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I believe there there would be Marines also, just like there are the MACO's in ENT who were specially trained. I seriously doubt a regular security officer is capable of Planetary Assualt, Hit nad Run ops, etc. Their to busy guarding the key componets of the ship... right?
Also we don't not have a ship that simply lands on the planet, a large scale landing craft of sorts. This could put your forces down quickly and work as a base of operations.
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I think there might be marines in the Kirk movie era (like those guys that raided Paradise City with Kirk) but when you watch the first few seasons of TNG, you definitely feel that starfleet has evolved past the need of a dedicated combat class.
And it hurt them in the (pre-TNG) Cardassian War and later in the Dominion War when crew and officers had to face horrors they were completely unprepared for.
[ March 28, 2004, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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