posted
Is that some sort of fighter on top? Wacky.
Really does not look very "federation" to my eye. I'd use that transport from DS9 (the design from that episode where some psycho-bitch stranded everyone on a world with no tech as a sorta luddite experiment). It sorta looked like a Trek Eagle Lander.
The DS9 design could be tweaked with weapons and such....the linked design looks too "TOS-meets-Terminator".
Still, if ayone can make treasure from trash, it's you Rev. (everyone do the wave for Rev)
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posted
Well, in the US military, a platoon can vary between 36 and 50-ish, with like 3-4 squads of maybe a dozen men. I don't know how the Fed's troop structure differs though.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
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quote:Originally posted by Masao: Looks too much like a tank, i.e., a ground vehicle. It doesn't look like something that flies.
Actually that's partly why I latched on to this so much. Although it is capable of "flight" it spends most of it's time skimming/hovering a few feet above the ground or just sitting on those pontoon like structures. I think it's also fair to say that the vast majority of the shuttles look like they're supposed to fly either, only the nose is vaguely aerodynamic (some more than others) while the rest of the hull is basically a box with engines. So in a way it is consistent with Federation technology.
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: I was thinking hovercraft at first, but then I thought it'd probably have a max altitude of some miles. (It is sub-orbital at most, right?)
Also, how many are in a platoon? I kinda figured...way too many to fit into that thing.
That's right. It can get dropped from low orbit and safely make atmospheric entry then when the time comes to leave it can climb back up out of the atmosphere so the mothership (which I'm toying with being a Steamrunner) can scoop it up. While the underside of those pontoons do feature some very strong anti-grav emitters, allot of the thrust is from those two scram-jet like engines, so it can bug out in a hurry if need be.
As for the troop capacity, I'm going with the assumption that it would carry 60 in those two pontoon like structures, with the flight crew and support personnel on the upper decks of the midsection. The lower decks connecting the pontoons is where the entry/exit ramps are and act as a staging area. Obviously in the civilian configuration those would be used mostly for equipment storage, particularly on long duration missions. That's the smaller version, the larger one is almost twice the size.
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Is that some sort of fighter on top? Wacky.
Really does not look very "federation" to my eye. I'd use that transport from DS9 (the design from that episode where some psycho-bitch stranded everyone on a world with no tech as a sorta luddite experiment). It sorta looked like a Trek Eagle Lander.
The DS9 design could be tweaked with weapons and such....the linked design looks too "TOS-meets-Terminator".
Still, if ayone can make treasure from trash, it's you Rev. (everyone do the wave for Rev)
I do have a design for the Erewhon, but nobody seamed to like that either, go figure. Seriously though, that's more of a transport and is warp capable so not really a good candidate for a hopper. Though being a Sternbach design I got a definate Danube vibe so it's certainly in the same family as the Erewhon and Danube. Perhaps developed by the same company.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Well, it doesn't fly, presumably, does it? It hops.
Pretty much. It dose go airborne, but it doesn't exactly fly. Put it another way, it looks like a collection of bricks and that's exactly how it flys. Not much finesse, no barrel rolls or swooping. In a combat situation it depends on some very heavy shields and armour for physical protection while a fighter escort dose the fancy stuff and of course the mother-ship would hopefully be available to provide some orbital cover too. However as was stated in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" these things can be knocked right out of the air, especially when they're forced to operate on their own. In that regard they're not unlike any troop carrying helicopter like a huey or a blackhawk where a well placed rpg can ruin a pilots day. Plus of course these things are about the size of a chinook, so it's rather hard to miss.
posted
I'd always assumed it was a "Planet Hopper"- thus capable of impulse spaceflight and allowing troops to move in-system as needed instead of being trapped planetside while enemy ships bombard you from orbit.....I'd also hope a Klingon or Romulan version would have cloaking capibilities to prevent orbital pinpoint strikes.
Also, i'd think that such hoppers would have defenses like bigtime mass-area stunners (like the Enterprise cold do in TOS) to knock the fight out of roving Cardie/Dominion forces prior to the Hopper's setting down.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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posted
Well, you've just described a large shuttle craft, so since those already exist a hopper with that kind of range would be redundant. Also one of these on it's own doesn't constitute much of a threat to even a lightly defended world and a whole convoy of these things plodding through space at impulse, with 60+ personnel per boat equals a very soft target.
No, it really needs a mothership for protection, fast transportation and aerial support, to say nothing of making it past orbital defences.
As far as what the other powers might be using, that's open to speculation of course, but not really a factor in this design. After all, landing craft seldom have to engage their opposite numbers.
A mass area stunner would, I imagine be useless against a shielded installation and I doubt large numbers of enemy troops will be milling around in the open during an invasion. For one thing they'd probably be under orbital bombardment and sitting in their bunkers and aforementioned shield structures.
As for these things being vulnerable to orbital attack, impulse drive doesn't eliminate that weakness at all, since it still has to actually land on the planet. What does compensate is having a mothership (plus escorts) in orbit, keeping enemy ships out of weapons range.
posted
Yeah, but if the mothership is driven off, the hoppers and their crews/troops are dead.
As to the stunner thing, we saw the Jem Hadar travel klicks from their garrison without shield cover- something area-of-effect would have been handy against them.
Heck, at least add on a Runabout-sized phaser bar on the side of the hull to cover disembarking troops...possibly one on the ventral side for clearing a landing space too.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Yeah, but if the mothership is driven off, the hoppers and their crews/troops are dead.
As to the stunner thing, we saw the Jem Hadar travel klicks from their garrison without shield cover- something area-of-effect would have been handy against them.
Heck, at least add on a Runabout-sized phaser bar on the side of the hull to cover disembarking troops...possibly one on the ventral side for clearing a landing space too.
And they're just as dead if there was no mothership to begin with. Impulse engines won't do them any good if the enemy has space superiority AND warp capable ships in system. Any invasion requires a coordinated effort from multiple platforms across an entire fleet. You can't just have a bunch of shuttles turn up filled with troops and have an invasion. First you have to attack they planets to eliminate any nearby ships, neutralise any static defences THEN secure the planet with a full scale invasion. Miss out the first two steps and it's a turkey shoot.
As for onboard weaponry, I haven't gotten that far yet. Right now I'm making sure the proportions and internal layout is about right before I start worrying about the superficial details. Though I imagine any weaponry on the tactical version would be purely defensive to give covering fire, nothing too offensive as this is most certainly not a gunship.
As for the Jem'Hadar, I presume you're referring to the siege of AR-558. In which case the argument is irrelevant as they were the invaliding force assaulting an enemy that was dug in, not the other way around. Because they happened to be dug in right next to a valuable asset (the comms relay) orbital bombardment wasn't an option. As for the stunner, I think it's be established the stun setting doesn't work on Jem'Hadar.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: (I was just being snarky, by the way.)
posted
I dont think we ever saw someone atempt to stun a Jem Hadar...maybe that kid version, but that may have been low setting at Odo's order.
I'm not saying it should be a battleship or anything, only that it can suppress enemy fire and cover troops.....possibly extend a shield over a few yards around the hopper to evac wounded, etc.
It occurs to me that Quark has more Jemmie kills than Nog or Bashir....making him the single toughest Ferengi of Trek.
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posted
Like I said, the tactical model will have a pair of Phasers (Type V?) for fire support, so a stun setting isn't out of the question. Point is you don't generally land your troops right on the enemy's heads as it's a very efficient way of getting yourself shot down, so I doubt it often comes up.
It also might be worth remembering that at close range a hand phaser on stun can be lethal (ST:VI) so I imagine the same is true at medium to long ranges for more powerful phasers. In fact that could be precisely the reason why we don't often see stun being used on anything larger than a hand phaser, the more powerful the beam the harder it is to get a non-lethal effect within a certain range. We've seen it effective from high orbit to a planet surface but I'd be willing to bet if you were in the path of that beam, say a few kilometres away in an EVA suit it would have fried your nervous system.
So in the case of a hopper's Type V, the stun setting could have a minimal safe stun range that is very close the the maximum effective range, greatly hindering it's usefulness. While it's possible to use it as you're in the upper atmosphere but once you're at a lower altitude and your horizon is reduced it would be next to useless and as I said before, you're not going to come dropping on their heads so a sub-orbital stun (even IF they're unshielded AND in the open) won't be possible as the drop zone is likely out of range.
Again, at AR-558 the Jem'Hadar didn't just land right outside the installation and charge out as that would have been tactically moronic. What they did do in land some kilometres away and establish a secure LZ and forward base. I dare say the same would apply if the roles were reversed.
As for a stun's effectiveness against the Jem'Hadar a quick visit to Memory Alpha shows that they are indeed immune. I'd post a link, but it's not letting me.
posted
Well, if not a stun setting on the phasers, why not a small automated grenade launcher to launch stun grenades? The launcher itself could be small, and the hopper could carry a lot of small grenades. The same launcher could be used to launch smoke grenades to cover an advance or a landing.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
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posted
Oh for heavens sake - As I've repeatedly said, it's not a tactically wise thing to do. Helicopters don't use tear-gas, they pick an LZ that is secure, or they make damn sure they get in quick and get the hell out, preferably before RPGs start flying at them. Ever seen Black Hawk Down? I'm sure dropping out of the stratosphere right on top of the enemy, stun grenades and phasers a flyin sounds great and terrably dramatic and I'm sure a fanboy could make a very exciting CG animation out of it, but the reality is, doing that will get your hopper shot down before it even has a chance to fire stun grenade #1. So the only thing that will hit the ground running to the accompaniment to Song 2 by Blur would be smoking wreckage and cooked flesh.
It'd be like trying to mount the d-day landings by sailing up the Elbe and into Berlin. You'd last about three seconds longer than a snowball on the surface of the sun.
If you want to quickly insert a small team, you'd use transporters. If the transporters are being jammed, then it's likely there are other defences like shields and force fields, in which case stun grenades will do precisely f*ck all, except tell everyone for half a mile in every direction exactly where you are about to land and it's death from below again.
Which ever way you cut it, landing on the base and using stun devices of any description will only cause an enemy to point and laugh. If you're doing the sane thing and established a beachhead a safe distance from any fortifications and you happen across a lone patrol, you don't waste time trying to stun them, allowing for the possibility one will hit a panic button, you vaporise the buggers and hope you can dig in before they're missed.
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