Re: Planetary invasion ramblings (longish)

At 12:59 AM 6/16/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Well, actually, I was thinking of them protecting the planet from 
>counter invasion, rather than (but partly in addition to) 
>discouraging partisans.

My contention is that there are better ways to do this.  But they
involve
moving most of your mobile forces out of the low orbit position required
for tactical fire support.  

Option one: Assuming you want to maintain a strong fleet presence, then
I
would start fortifying the planet by laying minefields, shipping in
pre-fab
orbital defense platforms and putting the locals to work building
bunkers
for John's SLM launch sites.  Turn the planet into a major fleet base.
Bring more ships.  Patrol the outer system so you can ambush the enemy
as
they drop out of hyperdrive.  Run fleet exercises to keep the crews
sharp.
Don't leave your ships in nice, safe predictable orbits where they can
be
ambushed by a counter-attacking fleet.	This option works best when
there
is a strong assurance that a counter attack will be delayed several
months.
 (Which is not unreasonable given some of the communication techniques
under discussion.)  Best option for limited strategic goals and/or
contested territory.

Option two:  "The best defense is a good offense."  Take the assault
fleet
and hit the enemy somewhere else.  Take two or three colonies away and
make
him choose which one he is going to relieve.  Keep him off balance. 
This
strategy dictates that the invader leave a smaller (and more expendable)
occupation force; big enough to prevent casual re-occupation, small
enough
not to cripple the war effort if they are lost.  Use kid gloves on the
planet's population so that if the occupation force does end up getting
bounced, they are not all shot for war crimes.	This is a strategy of
denial of resources to the enemy in an unrestricted campaign of
conquest.

>Whoever you took the planet from is going to want it back, and the 
>one sure place their invasion fleet is going to turn up is the planet 
>that they want to recover.

Granted.  But I would fire any admiral who just sat and waited for them
to
show up.  In reality, the counterattacking fleet would come in
sufficient
strength to win or not at all (barring bad intelligence).  If they are
strong enough to retake the system from your assault fleet, then a) Why
did
you start this war in the first place? and b) Why are sitting and
waiting
for them?  If you are stronger that them, press the issue and take the
battle to them.

>This ties in with something that occured to me about FT campaigns. It 
>can be mighty difficult to meet the enemy fleet if communication is 
>only as fast as FTL ships, and you both jump to where you think you 
>ought to, or where you think they are going... or.. etc. etc.

Yup.  I can think of quite a few sci-fi stories in which that very thing
happens.  Occasionally, they pass one another in hyperspace and sack
each
others bases.  Gets complicated.

Jeff