Equipping Federation Troops Intelligently

[Ted C]

We have already seen in Voyager that such capabilities as storing transporter buffers in a storage device exist. A single barrel in one episode was used to store about a dozen or so people to hide them from inspections. We already know thanks to Nemesis that transporter devices can be made quite small. Combine the two technologies to form a transporter buffer, aka bottomless weightless rucksack.

You are postulating that this transporter buffer can be miniaturized to an arbitrary degree. Was this barrel-sized buffer easily small enough to be carried by a footsoldier? Did it include the means to materialize the stored people? Without evidence, I don't think it's safe to assume that you could reduce the size of the system further.

The exocomps are probably better evidence for the capabilities you want.

As for the shields. We already saw what Worf could cobble toeghet with a telegraph machine and two communicators. There have also been mentions of portable shield technology. The armor for the soldiers is also fairly simple. As for helmets, well again that is simple technology. The weapons can also follow existing ST technology yet still be vastly improved upon what we have seen and even have completely new stuff like mortars. Hell, I can take and modify the dune buggy in Nemesis into something much better at combat yet still retain the entire technology base we have seen.

We've seen some body armor in some of the TOS Trek movies, so there's some precedent for it, but sealed helmets have invariably been incorporated into bulky spacesuits. We'll assume that you could get headgear at least as good as what you could make today, though.

I think I'll take my complaints about Worf's shield from "A Fist Full of Datas" to another thread...

[Ted C]

It matters. You must provide canon support for anything you want to give the troops.

Sorry. I guess you've confused me. The stuff from Elite Force "didn't happen" because its not canon, but (as others have pointed out) most, if not all of it, is within the realm of reasibility, given canon Trek technology.

All I'm asking is that you cite the canon support for any given item.

[Sea Skimmer]

Most people think of Confucious as a pacifist but he said "If you want peace, prepare for war." The point he was making I think was that without an army your people are slaves!

Its all about deterrence. When the US wanted to avoid war with the Soviet Union, it built forty fucking one SSBN's and a thousand B-52's for its nuclear forces.

[Kurgan]

All I'm asking is that you cite the canon support for any given item.

I see, that's reasonable. Honestly I'd have to dig the game out and pour over some of Mike's site again to do a proper job of it. ; )

[Darth Wong]

We have already seen in Voyager that such capabilities as storing transporter buffers in a storage device exist. A single barrel in one episode was used to store about a dozen or so people to hide them from inspections. We already know thanks to Nemesis that transporter devices can be made quite small. Combine the two technologies to form a transporter buffer, aka bottomless weightless rucksack.

You're ignoring the fact that you must always take the enemy's response into account, instead of assuming he will passively allow you to do things without reacting (a very common trait in Treknobabble tactics). Let's suppose you had a whole army equipped with these transporter rucksacks (assuming they're light enough to carry even though they supposedly contain the mass/energy of all that material, which ... actually means they should weigh just as much as all the raw material unless they plan to have some raw material supply nearby when they attempt to materialize stuff).

Anyway, let's ignore the feasibility issues and assume that through sheer magic, you disregard conservation of mass/energy and make it happen. What's the first thing the enemy's going to do? Deploy EMP weapons. BOOM! Your entire army is now completely bereft of its supplies, vanished in a puff of EMP and dead hunks of transporter-rucksack. Good idea ...

As for the shields. We already saw what Worf could cobble toeghet with a telegraph machine and two communicators.

Yeah, it was able to stop holodeck bullets so weak that Worf got SHOT IN THE ARM and barely noticed. I've seen worse injuries from accidents with can-openers.

There have also been mentions of portable shield technology.

Which is never used in any battle we've seen, hence it is obviously not too combat-effective. It's probably just those panel-setup systems from TNG, which are only "man-portable" in the sense that men can carry around the parts and set one up. But they're certainly not WEARABLE, and fixed fortifications fall fast in modern warfare.

The armor for the soldiers is also fairly simple. As for helmets, well again that is simple technology. The weapons can also follow existing ST technology yet still be vastly improved upon what we have seen and even have completely new stuff like mortars. Hell, I can take and modify the dune buggy in Nemesis into something much better at combat yet still retain the entire technology base we have seen.

True, their technology could be used much more effectively if they were not hamstrung by bad politics, stupid leadership, and brain-damaged scientists and engineers.

[Kurgan]

Too bad outfitting them like the Empire isn't an option, eh?

True, their technology could be used much more effectively if they were not hamstrung by bad politics, stupid leadership, and brain-damaged scientists and engineers.

I think we all agree on that, or we wouldn't be trying to improve on the job they did in canon trek. ; )

[Alyeska]

You're ignoring the fact that you must always take the enemy's response into account, instead of assuming he will passively allow you to do things without reacting (a very common trait in Treknobabble tactics). Let's suppose you had a whole army equipped with these transporter rucksacks (assuming they're light enough to carry even though they supposedly contain the mass/energy of all that material, which ... actually means they should weigh just as much as all the raw material unless they plan to have some raw material supply nearby when they attempt to materialize stuff).

Anyway, let's ignore the feasibility issues and assume that through sheer magic, you disregard conservation of mass/energy and make it happen. What's the first thing the enemy's going to do? Deploy EMP weapons. BOOM! Your entire army is now completely bereft of its supplies, vanished in a puff of EMP and dead hunks of transporter-rucksack. Good idea ...

As for the shields. We already saw what Worf could cobble toeghet with a telegraph machine and two communicators.

Yeah, it was able to stop holodeck bullets so weak that Worf got SHOT IN THE ARM and barely noticed. I've seen worse injuries from accidents with can-openers.

Not ignoring, just not factoring this in. For a modern SF soldier their every weapon and piece of equipment is going to rely on technology. Tricorder, phaser, etc... They are either going to have sufficent protection against such an EMP weapon that their devices will still function, or they will not be able to protect themselves and it doesn't mater because everything (including their weapons) will be useless.

Which is never used in any battle we've seen, hence it is obviously not too combat-effective. It's probably just those panel-setup systems from TNG, which are only "man-portable" in the sense that men can carry around the parts and set one up. But they're certainly not WEARABLE, and fixed fortifications fall fast in modern warfare.

There could be a variety of reasons its not used. I think its a combination of not being able to deploy it in the field as well as simple SF idiocy.

True, their technology could be used much more effectively if they were not hamstrung by bad politics, stupid leadership, and brain-damaged scientists and engineers.

Yep. Of all the problems with increasing the capability of a SF trooper, the biggest problem is dealing with the deficiencies of SF itself. If we have a free hand in fixing things, the situation improves vastly.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Not ignoring, just not factoring this in. For a modern SF soldier their every weapon and piece of equipment is going to rely on technology. Tricorder, phaser, etc... They are either going to have sufficent protection against such an EMP weapon that their devices will still function, or they will not be able to protect themselves and it doesn't mater because everything (including their weapons) will be useless.

More complex and sophisticated systems are more likely to be fucked up by interference.

[Alyeska]

Not ignoring, just not factoring this in. For a modern SF soldier their every weapon and piece of equipment is going to rely on technology. Tricorder, phaser, etc... They are either going to have sufficent protection against such an EMP weapon that their devices will still function, or they will not be able to protect themselves and it doesn't mater because everything (including their weapons) will be useless.

More complex and sophisticated systems are more likely to be fucked up by interference.

Agreed. Such a system would have to be extensively tested. Furthermore, a backup system needs to be in place in case an enemy can negate the system. That means train the soldiers for the worst and hope for the best.

[Kitsune]

With slug throwers, there are a few different options.
We have pulsars like in Honor Harringinton which seem to be a very light projectile fired at incredible velocity throught electro-magnetics.
We also have caseless weapons like the German H&K G-11.
We also have electrothermal weapons where a small dot of metal is heated up through massive amounts of electricty and exploded and finally liquid propelland weapons.

No really knowing how far their technology goes, I think that a caseless weapon like the G-11 would be pretty effective maybe with a slighly heavier round for the Federation. I have read articles that seem to indicate that there is now some question about the combat effectiveness of the 5.56 round and that the 7.62 nato round is a more effective combat round.

[Joe Momma]

Anyway, let's ignore the feasibility issues and assume that through sheer magic, you disregard conservation of mass/energy and make it happen. What's the first thing the enemy's going to do? Deploy EMP weapons. BOOM! Your entire army is now completely bereft of its supplies, vanished in a puff of EMP and dead hunks of transporter-rucksack. Good idea ...

Not ignoring, just not factoring this in. For a modern SF soldier their every weapon and piece of equipment is going to rely on technology. Tricorder, phaser, etc... They are either going to have sufficent protection against such an EMP weapon that their devices will still function, or they will not be able to protect themselves and it doesn't mater because everything (including their weapons) will be useless.

Yeah, but if the "bottomless rucksack" is based on transporter technology, it's likely to suffer the same deficiencies, which means even a weak EMP weapon could likely foil it. After all we've seen standard transporter mechanisms foiled by the mere presence of lightning storms ("Power Play") or a nearby transformer ("Legacy"), among other things.

There might be a way to get around that with isolinear tages or transporter enhancers built into the uniforms. They've already got miniaturized transporter jammers built in (which always made me wonder how they used the transporter buffer, but I'm assuming it's set to switch off momentarily when the transporter rucksack's in use).

I'm still not sure that anything in the canon supports miniaturization to the degree necessary for the Elite Force gear, though. I also suspect it's unneccessary. It was a cute in-story rationale for the typical FPS ability for your character to carry an arsenal, but I'd think the troops could carry what they'd reasonably need and use just as they do in the real world now. They might be able to pack more and travel more conveniently with the personal transporter buffers, but given the demonstrated unreliability of ST transporter technology would make it too prone to failure relative to the benefit gained, AFAICT.

-- Joe Momma