Re: Communication and Travel

> >A general slowness in interstellar travel might also justify the use
> by >larger powers of mobile "amphibious" forces, perhaps with most of
> 
> >This could give rise to assorted FT scenarios such as recce to find a
> >lurking phibron, recce in support of the phibron, skirmishes to stop
> >couriers or drop raids etc.
> 
> Minor peeve--note that it's only possible to actually conquer a small,
> small colony from space.  Once you get a couple million colonists with
> a homegrown industry, it becomes impossible to physically land enough
> troops to do more than raid.	Example:  Israel, with 6 million 
> inhabitants, can field 13 armored divisions, and one parachute
division
> (or is it 12 and 1?  I don't recall).  Taking down a force that big 
> would require either massive and indiscriminate use of orbital support
> (trashing what you're supposed to be trying to conquer!) or one even 
> larger--which would be prohibitive to transport.
> 
> John M. Atkinson

I would think that in general you could only conquer those colonies
where order was maintained by force or a monopoly on a particular
vital supply.

For example, if the colony has no established industry or a
concentrated industrial area under control of the local rulers
then an attacker would only have to displace the rulers.

The rulers may not be very popular, and the militia may not
be very enthusiastic about fighting a war that doesn't mean
much to them.  In general, an attacker will try to only
attack those colonies where it believes the defenders aren't
heavily motivated.

As far as a campaign game goes, early encounters would probably
have higher numbers of lower morale and quality troops defending.
If the attackers suffer a setback the defenders morale and
motivation goes up.  Likewise, if the attackers resort to
ortillery bombardment the motivation will either go to elite
or down a level.  You take your chances by inflicting civilian
casualties, after all.

On a colony world it would be a huge expense to maintain
a standing army, as spare parts would be hard to come by
and the colony needs every resource it can to survive and
grow.  A lot of equipment may be cheap obsolete equipment.
A way to reflect this would be a much lower ECM rating
for militia troops, unless the communications infrastructure
of the planet is such that the locals produce their own
comm gear.

A lot of equipment is going to be converted or dual use
equipment.  They may have a lot of airplanes and helicopters
which are used in ranching and surveying which will be
armed.	They would be less effective in air-to-air than
aerospace fighters, but they should do just fine in
ground attack mode, and there could be a lot of them.

A lot depends on the military philosophy of the colony.
Here are a few possibilities:

1)  Defend the local space or orbit.  This philosophy
is a good one for detering pirates and raiders.  Versus
any serious force the planet will just surrender.  Local
taxpayers like this because there is little risk of
bombardment, just a change of government.  Often the
locals don't much autonomy anyway and are part of a
centrally planned economy.

It is a large easier to put local production into orbit
where it will be under control of the government than to
try to arm the populace.  The local spaceport and heavy
industrial areas would be the most heavily defended, as
nothing else would be a militarily important objective.

2)  At the other end is the poison pill defense.  On a
planet where humans can live and subsist in the while,
especially a world with dispersed resources a policy
of denying an enemy control of the surface could be
taken.	The locals will fight for their property and
the government which protects their property.  They
are willing to fight and commit more resources to defense
because the citizens believe the world belongs to them.

And heaven help the government which tries to displace
them for new immigrants, whether it is their mother
country or not!  On such a world, all the locals can be
considered armed and part of the armed forces.
Overall equipment quality will be low, but the locals
will be very familiar with the terrain and the ecology
can be deadly as well.

For extreme examples of this:
_The People of the Wind_ by Poul Anderson,
_The Lone Star Planet_	by H Beam Piper
_The Uplift War_ by David Brin

Of course, a planet rich enough to support such a defense
would also be an attractive prize.  It is quite possible
that several rival ethnic groups colonized a rich planet
as different governments controlled the orbitals.

A planet, Avalon, could be colonized by NAC citizens and
grow in population when a NSL fleet takes over the orbitals.
The locals aren't too upset about it at first until the
NSL starts sending colonials of its own to the planet.
Eventually the locals decide to eject the colonials, even
though that means attacking against both orbital and
air superiority.  Sure, they outnumber the defenders
ten to one on the ground but they often have to attack in
the open.

Models for this would be the Boer War, as successive waves
of European immigrants had different loyalties and cultures
and eventually came into conflict.  The bad news for the
defenders is their distaste for powerful governments may
prevent them from arming their government!  The locals
could feel that a powerful government airforce would
result in a lot of surveillance of their lands, and a
government fast response battalion would be a government
tool for quashing dissent, not for stopping invasions.

There could be no standing force capable of preventing
the attackers from establishing a base on a different
continent or less populated part of their continent.

3)  The locals could have a Churchill defense strategy, defend
the orbitals, the air, the landing grounds, etc...  Defending
the space would be ideal, next would be denying the enemy
a bridgehead by attacking their landing area and defending
their airspace.  Finally, if they can't prevent the enemy
from gaining orbit or landing troops they try to make their
stay as unpleasant as possible.  This would involve a
significant portion of the colony's GDP going to defense,
with the proportions of space/air/ground defense being
governed by what the local industry could turn out in
quantity.

One tactic would be to 'let' the enemy land troops and then
engage them at ammunition wasting ranges.  The theory would
be that the locals can replace tons of ammunition faster and
easier than the attackers can be resupplied, and the
resupply shuttles would be targetted by missiles and
aerospace fighters.  The attackers would have enough resources
to punch through the defenses in order to land troops, but
the defenders would reserve aerospace assets to attack when
they have an advantage.  Resupply missions would therefore
require the same resource commitment as the original landing
against an opponent who has a better idea as to where they
are heading, and so can position ground-to-air, ground-to-space
weaponry more efficiently.

Or the defenders could attempt the NVA tactic, "Engage the
enemy at close ranges, grab him by the belt buckle at the
landing zones".  The attackers would not be able to evacuate
a heavily pressed beachhead without heavy casualties.

A lot depends on the level of motivation of the troops and the
initiative of the officers.

Michael Sandy