Re: Communication and Travel

Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> Actually there would be quite a few cases where all that would be
> necessary is to seize the critical components of a colony. For example
if
> you seized the integrated steel plant, they wouldn't be able to smelt
> enough steel to build tanks ( OK scrap iron will let them make a dozen
or
> so, but that's it.) A few raids and the BIG dam at the head of the
valley
> will control a lot of farm land (Boom and you drown the valley.)

Let's assume you don't want to trash either the industrial capacity 
or the agricultural capacity of your colony. If you are willing to do 
that kind of damage, screw the JarHeads landing - just drop Ortillery 
on the key places like dams and plants and then you have more or less 
the same effect. 

 If you
> take over the Industrial Power plants they can only make weapons by
ones
> and twos in the farmers garage, but not enough to prosecute a war.

Ever visited a Mennonite Farm? Or was that Hutterite? I can't 
remember which it is (or both) - but they have FULL machine shops 
that make some commercial ones look like nothing. And this includes 
computer driven CAD/CAM rigs, which are getting cheaper, smaller and 
more capable. It is entirely within the range of imagination to 
imagine a single farmstead (with adequate raw materials) turning out 
20-25 serviceable assault weapons in a week. Now raw materials, ammo, 
primers, etc. become a bit of an issue, but you'd be surprised what a 
colony of people who live by being self sufficient because most of 
the time help is not nearby or DNE can do. 

 The
> simple fact is that a colony all by itself has too many jugular veins
to
> feel safe. (Unless of course it has a Plan! But that's MY book.) The
real
> trick is to know which colony is vulnerable and which one has a 10mm
> Colt-Kalashnikov under his dinner napkin! 
 
Yes the other issue is the liberty standards. If the colony is 
Tombstone, then you're in for a world of hurt as all the adult males 
and a lot of the adult females may be competent armsbearers. If the 
colony has a civil defense plan, bunkers, the right terrain, etc. it 
might be the same type of nightmare that Sweden would be to attack - 
any invader would find the experience very unpleasant. 

It seems to me in any of these scenarios, we're talking about an 
elite or veteran high-tech force (maybe with actual drop troops and 
SF), ortillery, and some limited high-tech aerospace craft, and 
orbital superiority versus a larger number of colonists, colonial 
militia, police, industrial gaurds/mercs, and maybe a few foreign 
'advisors' from another power. These folk would likely be equipped 
with second tier weapons systems but they'd be serviceable and 
deadly. They'd have less skill perhaps as a formation force, but 
perhaps more on an individual level (perhaps bonus to quality die for 
fire combat?), but they'd know their terrain quite possibly like the 
back of their hand. They might lack for anti-armour elements, but an 
invading force (by virtue of space transit) can't carry THAT much 
armour. What they had might be hard to hurt, but their might not be 
much of that. And every casualty the high-tech invader takes is worth 
more than each colonist lost. 

You'd devolve to a war where the orbitally based invader tried to 
pinpoint local formations so it could bring its superior firepower to 
bear in a precision manner, and where they tried to (through ELINT 
and recce) locate local leaders to decapitate them with small 
strikes. They'd avoid a pitched battle, as would the colonists. 
They'd try to avoid wrecking stuff. 

The colonists, by contrast, would try to lure the smaller elite 
formations into ambushes or into fights in mountains or other spots 
where ortillery wouldn't help as much. They'd keep decentralized to 
avoid giving the orbiting invader much to shoot at. If they had 
cavern complexes, they'd use them. They'd certainly harness any 
natural phenomena or conditions that the invaders might not be 
equipped to cope with. And they may, as mentioned above, have 
advisors from SF of another power to lead and train them. They might 
be able to arrange smuggled arms if the situation persisted. They 
might just have to hold for reinforcements.

Like most things in FT, a lot depends on the tech and gov't 
organization of your setting. :)

Tom. 
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay
Software Specialist
Police Communications Systems
Software Kinetics Ltd.
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