Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

Hello to all,

John Atkinsons wrote:

>Seriously, let me know when you come up with a circumstance where
>untrained militias managed to inflict a loss on an able enemy.  You
>might be able to come up with a handful of limited circumstances where
>tactical defeats of isolated outposts occured due to failures on the
>part of the high-tech opponent.  Name a campaign where this happened
>with anything approaching regularity.

Vietnam? :)
Both against line units and elite ones, on the move or in prepared
positions?
I would rate the US armed forces as quite good as a "high tech 
forces" (but I see RIchard Bell already thought of that example).
I could go to any length on that, if you prefere.
And, without  intention of being rude, we could talk about Iraq, too.

Oerjan wrote:

>Cite an instance where elite SF types - which is what Enzo was talking
>above above - *by themselves* won a campaign, without any backup from
far
>more numerous "normal" ground forces or local militias.
>
>What Enzo is saying is that the elite few can win any number of
*battles*;
>but you also need to be able to *hold* the areas you've won in those
>battles, and the elite few simply aren't numerous enough to do that.
>
>Contrary to what you seem to think, saying this is NOT the same thing
as
>"to dismiss good quality troops as worthless"...

And I would like to thank you for explaining my issue so clearly.

Richard Bell wrote:

>It is not that the good quality troops are worthless, but that the
>superiority of the occuppying troops means nothing if they are not
where the
>insurgents are carrying out an op.

Exactly. Or, if trying to be there, they support endless attrition.

>If the unarmored, untrained militia boogers are meeting the advanced
>technotroopers in a  pitched battle, it is not asymmerical warfare.

Exact again!
That's only an unbalanced scenario :)

>A
>frontier colony engages in asymmetrical warfare by destroying what the
>invaders have come to take.  If they do not know what it is, they just
>destroy everything not needed for survival.

Or simply denying its use, even partially, or making it too costly...

>The iraqi insurgents do not score points for killing and wounding US
>soldiers, but for keeping Iraq from returning to stability.

Again, I concur. Even if human losses in the current political 
reality are a further bonus to them; such an issue would not be real 
in the kind of future our game depicts, though.

And now, why I think that is relevant to the "colonies" issue:
Such an "asymmetrical" campaign could be waged in simpler ways if the 
invaded population is relatively large.
So, what do you think? What's your opinion?
(A) Are we looking to a universe "Star Trek"-like, in which any group 
of 3-400 guys can claim a whole planet (couldn't they be happy with a 
continent? Or, even, Belgium? :)
or (B) Do you think colonization would rapidly involve larger numbers?
If (A), then elite units on relatively small transports have a role! 
But we could, then, be confronted by a ""Honor Harrington" scenario, 
in which you never hear about army forces and rarely about marines: a 
cruiser reaches high orbit (or a small squadron fights a battle and 
win local aerospace superiority) and, on the farspeaker, menaces to 
nuke the settlement; one of those "cattle transport" follow closely 
and people queue fast with little baggage to be transported to the 
nearest friendly planet (or prisoner camp)... or, a different enemy 
could simply slaughter the lot...

That would depend, also, on the reason why the colony was there in 
the first place: resources, strategical importance, whatever...

That could bring a kind of ritualized, limited warfare in which 
powers exchange planets and population with very little bloodshed... 
until an alien, oblivious to the rules, hits the human sphere and 
start a real massacre against the human forces, organized and 
deployed for a different kind of war.

Myself, I prefer (B): a more intensive development, such as seen in 
the Pournelle "Falkenberg "series (that I like very much and, in the 
Spartan part of the series, feel are a very good depiction of 
low-level warfare), in which elite forces would be limited to a more 
realistic role of support.

>At least the work can be done by an unskilled workforce.

:)
But skilled ones become popular, they tell me :)

Best wishes

							 Enzo de Ianni 

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