RE: Re: [sg] platoon stuff and combat engineers

--- "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:

> > So sieze the outlying agricultural areas,
> interdict
> > the supply routes into the city, and wait for
> > starvation to set in.   
> 
> Fusion power, a water supply, and hydroponics.  I
> grant that I don't see the *point* to that--might as
> well set up on a planetoid, your solar power is
> free, your water is pre-sterilized, you don't have
> to worry about native microbes etc having unexpected
> effects--but it could be done.

How well distributed is your power network?  As the US
demonstrated in Serbia, once you start smacking power
plants the pain level gets pretty high pretty quick. 
How does a fusion reactor react to a barrage of 20cm
RAM shells, or an SOF team with a HAMR, or precision
strikes from aerospace fighters, or antitank missles
from VTOLs, or a HAR strike?  Do you have more
reactors than I have shells?  Sieges would suck much
because you don't even have the ability to allow the
civillian population to leave the city because they'd
all get eaten by the nasty fauna!

Taking this planet would be a really tedious exercise
in siege warfare assisted by airmobility, followed by
a long-term counterinsurgency campaign.  Expect heavy
usage of defoliants, non-persistant chemical weapons,
and neutron warheads just out of sheer frustration. 
It would probably take years to take the major
settlements, and generations to track down the
bandits.  Which is, I suppose, the point.  Too
expensive for the potential return.  The only thing
that would make it economical is if you bribe a
faction into accepting your aid and use them.  But
then collaborators make any enterprise easier.

Internal warfare is likely to be indecisive and
protracted, more along the lines of raids to secure
portable wealth and quick grabs of border territory
intended to secure easily exploitable resources
(because next year you might lose it again).  This
makes for a warfare style that resembles blood feuds
more than anything else.  Think Middle Eastern
mountain people, Balkans, or Scottish/English Border.

Planetoids. . . there's no real point to invading
them, because the damage done would negate the point. 
Better to play interstellar pool--Whistle-click Pod
Sovreignty, left corner pocket.

John

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