Re: [GZG] Small thought re: Orbital Assault

[Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx>]

John Atkinson wrote:

> My thought is that these force numbers respresent the huge difficulty
> of transporting large armed forces across space.

To me, these numbers suggest rather small colonial populations (with a few 
exceptions where a power had gone all-out to push the population up fast, 
eg. Albion). For real-world comparisons, compare the size of the forces 
deployed in North America during the French and Indian War and the War of 
1812 with the field armies in Europe in the same period - and relate the 
force sizes to the sizes of the *populations* in North America and Europe 
at the time.

> Furthermore, the difference between long-service professionals armed
> with the latest weaponry and non-weapon technology (C4ISR, mainly) is
> such that even if you raised 10 divisions from the locals armed with
> local-built stuff, it will wither like a leaf in a blast furnace if it 
> attempts to fight Regulars with total air supremacy/orbital 
> supremacy.  See: Republican Guard in front of Baghdad.

*If* the regulars have total air/orbital supremacy, which is not at all 
certain:

> And COA superiority (Close Orbit/Aerospace) is a precondition to even 
> attempting to land
> troops.

Nope - or, rather, you only really need local COA superiority over your 
chosen drop zone; everywhere else COA *parity* is enough to give the 
invasion a chance to succeed. A planet is a very big place to defend, and 
unless the defences are truly outrageously massive you're pretty much 
guaranteed to find an unprotected spot to land in.

To use a real-world example, prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 1990/91 
hadn't yet achieved air superiority when the first ground troops arrived in 
Saudi Arabia - and they didn't need it either, because the troop landings 
took place too far away for the Iraqis to intervene effectively. (In the 
event they didn't even try, of course.)

Or to use an SF example, the battle of Hoth: the Empire was unable to land 
troops directly at the Rebel base due to the shield, so instead the 
Imperials had to land well away from the base and move their assault forces 
overland. The shield was a passive obstacle to the troop landings rather 
than an active one, but the overall effect is very similar: the Empire did 
not have air superiority over the combat zone. (Neither did the Rebels, of 
course.)

Other than that I agree with your post :-/

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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