Re: [GZG] Still "colinies" :)

At 5:09 PM -0500 5/13/08, John Atkinson wrote:
>On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Enzo de Ianni <enzodeianni@tiscali.it>
wrote:
>
>
>>  You see, John, my original comment was inspired by the reflection
>>  somebody (can't remember who) did about how much space would a land
>>  unit occupy on a spaceship and the dimension of such a transport,
> >  with the final reflection proposed upon the very small total size
of
> >  an interstellar invasion force.
>
>True--but one presumes that an invasion force would have a number of
>transports.  In fact, the assault commanders would probably prefer
>multiple smaller transports (so that you don't loose a major portion
>of your force's equipment when one goes down, cf. MV Atlantic Conveyor
>and the helicoptors) in large numbers, as opposed to the Navy which is
>probably arguing for a handful of giant transports for efficiency's
>sake.

I expect this, in a colonial configuration, will resemble the Cruiser
treaty limits of the Washington Treaty. The US with few colonies to
police wanted fewer/larger cruisers. Less places to show the flag, more
weight in any given location. The british however wanted much smaller
cruiser limits because they had FAR more places to go and far more
places to police over longer distances. So they looked for more weight
over numerous hulls.

So, I would expect that nations like the OU with few colonies will have
go for the efficiency route. The NAC with a great many colonies and
dominions will probably have more compact as well as larger ships.

Though, I expect that there should be more provisions made for Marine
Detachments aboard some ships with a hanger for a drop shuttle out of
askance for reality vs all up gaming combat efficiency.

>Personally, I wouldn't drop a single battalion on anything populated
>by more than a few thousand folks in any case.  YMMV.

What if they're spread over a large area and any one town is more of a
hamlet than anything else? With the cost of telecommunications and
presumably light flyers, you could have a several thousand person
population with just a few people here and there that are mostly
farmers. Your strategic positions like the landing hard stands at the
shuttle port could be staffed by as few as a couple of employees who
work part time and one full time who can't do much more than call up the
militia when the FSE starts landing.

>
>Except for very small colonies, stipulated.  I make one of two
assumptions:
>
>Either Assault Transports are operated in great numbers for a major
>operation, or
>
>Assault transports are used to land an initial force that may be
>limited in size but with as much firepower as possible to secure
>landing sites for troops packed into transports in a more efficient
>but less 'combat ready' configuration.
>

Sounds about right and what I've envisioned.

I would suspect, that with fiber optics, packet radio and a lot of other
methods of communication, you'd still have problems suppressing a
population's ability to coordinate downside unless you were willing to
invest heavily in EW capabilities which would probably be expensive to
bring with you. You'd have to pick which transmitters you jammed or
which areas you jammed while being careful not to give away too much.

I think too many comparisons to today will suffer form the fact that a
future combat scenario like we're talking about will have a LOT more
communications between forces both red and blue with more capabilities
for jamming and ELINT on the part of the dirt side defenders, even if
they're mostly militia and farmers. They may not be quick but they'll
have some technologies edges that will at least moderate the differences
in size.

>
>Not obviously--prestrike intelligence should identify major locations
>of ammunition storage and other militarily significant stockpiles.

Assuming you get any or it's paid attention to. Remember we'll have
instances what bear more resemblance to Somalia in terms of ROE or
objectives and constraints and expectations where the major players will
send forces in expecting the Wogs to just roll over and for some reason
they don't OR the militia has more there than meets the eye. Whether
that means there's a counter balance to the invading expeditionary force
OR there's merely a delay as the expeditionary force get's it's bearings
after taking some lickings is a solid question.

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