Re: Troop Capacity

You wrote: 

>How is it limited? Why should it be innacurate? It can be accurate as 
>we decide it is...

Fine.  If you wanna customize your background, that's your call.  I'm 
using the assumptions presented in More Thrust and Dirtside.  You know, 
the ones where on average orbital fire missions wander?  And have a 
200m blast radius, 400m if specifically designed as ortillery?	And 
leave residual radiation like nuclear weapons?

>Planetary defenses, I agree, are a tough nut to crack, depending on 
>their limitations. Ships do not need to sit in nice predictable 
>orbits. In FT the manuever capability of a ship seems to be massively 
>larger than the problems gravitic attraction from a planet causes.

More Thrust 'strongly reccomends' ruling that to provide orbital fire 
support, a ship must be in low orbit, as opposed to geostationary.  
Sounds to me like they do need to sit in nice predictable orbits, at 
least when firing.  Which makes swatting them with SMLs fun and easy.
 
>But since 1918, and during the recent sudden rise in technology, the 
>standing forces of the advanced technology countries have been 
>shrinking radically. (Other than the US, who had a pre WWII standing 
>army of only 100-200,000, not including national guard, but this was 
>very atypical of the time)

Oh, you meant standing armies.	I thought you maybe meant wartime 
strengths, seeing as how we are talking about fighting wars.  But even 
standing armies have remained relatively large, compared to 
batallion-sized landing forces.

>It takes more than an idiot to fly a fighter. It currently takes 
>two years of very expensive training to be ready for fighters.
>I'll also choose to not take that as an insult to the bravery of the 
>RAFduring WWII, where at the height of the battle of britain the 

I didn't insult their bravery, simply their sanity.  It's a mentally 
unstable person who takes up a profession where death is as close to 
garunteed as possible.	But fighters are sexy, hence fighter jocks will 
always be with us.

>average pilot had a lifespan of two weeks from entering active 
>service. They were not idiots. We were actually running out of 
>people to be pilots, rather than planes. It was a serious problem.

If they're so bright, why did they end up dead?  History is filled with 
courageous people who's sanity I question.  But better them than me.  I 
like my nice safe job playing with land mines.	At least I can hide.[1]

John M. Atkinson
[1]For the terminally clueless:  Yes, this is at least half-joking, as 
was previous comment.  I'll say the same sort of thing about most of 
the combat elements of various services--except mine.  It takes all 
kinds, but that doesn't mean I have to view others in the most positive 
lights.  12-Boom-booms, Dumb grunts, Snake-eaters, Tread-heads, REMFs, 
Zoomies, and Squids, we're all on the same side, but having fun at each 
other's expense is an ancient tradition, not likely to change in the 
next 200 years (there--I made it topical!)