Re: [FT] UN ship design

laserlight wrote:

> > 1) small in number, not large in size
> > 2) designed for economy, not tech
> > 3) subject to some really variable crew quality
> > 4) captained by men afraid to damage their ships due to the
> > difficulty of the UN affording repair - timid captains.
> 5) subject to serious ROE limits.  "You can't shoot them until AFTER
> they've killed you, Jones."
> 6) often unarmed. "We're only here as observers." "Captain, I observe
> incoming fire." "Hm.	Well, try not to bleed to much, we're short of
> bandages."

7) Of highly varying quality.  Some troops used in UN operations are
serious bad-asses and damn fine troops (Nordic Batallion in Bosnia
springs to mind, as do certain Canadian units).  Some are utterly
worthless (Bangladeshis spring to mind too).

My universe has a series of semi-genocidal conflicts in it's recent
past.  The UN is pretty much a non-issue outside of the Solar System and
a handful of the first colonies. Inside The Core, it depends more on
concensus and troops loaned from greater powers to provide most of the
firepower.  The UN Space Command and UN Marines tend to be
first-response troops (aka 'tripwires'), liason assets (reference recent
discussion on Special Forces--a handful of advisors at the batallion
level to make sure everyone is on the same sheet of music and to
coordinate between units of differing nationalities.), and for use in
routine situations ("ho-hum,  Congo's having another revolution.  Let's
go supress it.	SOP #3 boys").

John M. Atkinson