Re: Planetary insurgencies..was Planetary defenses

John,

You raise a number of interesting points. obviously, everything is
situation specific. Also the more developed the colony is (where it's
almost a homeworld in its own right. themore chance it has to support
its own guerilla campaign.

John Atkinson wrote:

> The second point is interesting.  There are a number of variables.
> First, does the earlier owning government encourage this?  Second, do
> they organize this stockpiling?  If it's on private initiative, do
> they
> do like modern US survivalists and stock a wild variety of private
> firearms with no thought to long-term ammunition resupply,
> standardization, communications gear, logistic assets, and basically
> everything except small arms?  Are heavy weapons or crew-served
> weapons
> included?  A mortar in every villiage is enough to make me want to
> nuke
> from orbit.
>

I suppose if we can at the universe as it exists in GZG. Many planets,
many competing governments, wars small and big occasionally breaking
out. It's possible that colonies worlds, at some point, adopt local
defense along teh Finnish or Norwegain or Swiss model, of local militia
with weapons, and operational plans which can be put into action
quickly. They also have the advantage of knowing that help _will
probably_ come sooner rather than later.

I think that this model has a better chance of survavability than the US
survivalist mnodel, even if those individuals could hold out longer they
would be a bit less coordinated and organized to effct the enemy
operations on a global scale.

> Depends on which scale you are using.  If Earth is a 6" ball then it's
>
> fairly easy to blockade it.  If it's "table edge" sized, then you're
> screwed.
>

Good point. I take it that you are wondering how this translates to the
game table.

> One thinks it will be well-nigh impossible to stealth an atmospheric
> reentry.  Analogy--you may be invisible, but if you do the cannon-ball
>
> into my swimming pool, I damn sure am going know something is up.
>

Depends on the coordination of factors. Even a planet like earth is
experienceing hundreds of falling objects a day. many burn up in the
atmosphere. This is the kind of background noise that makes insertion of
small (VW bug) size packages and smaller possible. Also are teh Gs
(Guerillas in SF parlance) waiting for the stuff at the right place and
time?

Also what are they key items needed by the Gs? If the planet has a well
established infrastructure, this could be small but highly valuable
items. Small peices of key technology, (Special commo gear, encryption
devices or sensors), hard top produce offworld medicines, the occasioanl
advisor or technical expert.

Dropping pallets of Hw ammo or whatever is a nmore difficult porosition
to be sure!

> Ah, well, I've watched an E-4 bluntly inform an infantry company
> commander that if he didn't do things our way, then we would find
> something more important to do than bother with giving his company
> engineer support.  Jackass didn't listen, and found himself with no
> Engineers for the remainder of the exercise.	Corporal Luther's
> perspective was that if the infantry was that stupid in combat we'd
> all
> have been dead and he wouldn't have any Engineer support anyway.

Yes to some extent that's the advantage to being "attached". They
potentially have less control over you than if your a line doggie. You
can always say "FUBID" (Fuck you buddy, I'm detached) <g>

Los