Okay, since I haven't really done an in-depth response to this yet, here goes.biostem wrote:Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the Federation decided to revive the idea of the MACOS from Enterprise, and went into a full recruitment and deployment rollout, including revamping the concepts of personal armor and troop transports/shipboard compliments.
1. How would you actually go about recruiting soldiers, (must be volunteer only)?
2. How you you equip them, (can only use technology demonstrated in the various media, no 1-off superweapon stuff).
3. What vessels would you have retrofitted or build additional, (again, keeping within established and fully realized technology)?
4. Where would you station said soldiers, (keep a contingent on board all vessels, keep them in reserve to deployed only when needed, etc)?
5. How or where would you train said soldiers?
6. How would the chain of command function, (reports to ship's captain, has separate directives, give them their own vessels to operate)?
7. Any other significant points you'd address or policies you'd enact? Would you further break this force down into more specialized squads/corps, perhaps?
In brief:
1. Recruitment will emphasize that their role is peacekeeping and defence, not conquest. We will basically portray our armed forces as an elite, upgraded off-shoot of Starfleet Security (which is what they will be). To emphasize the need for a stronger defence, we will bring up the Dominion War and of course the Borg.
2. Pulse phaser rifles would be the primary weapons, with the usual phaser pistols as sidearms. A melee weapon would also be issued, along with some fancier stuff (like that rifle that shoots through walls from DS9) for special situations. Body armour would be introduced (maybe based on Cardassian designs, but with helmets). Special suites for environments that require them. Otherwise, equipment would basically be standard away team stuff.
An APC with light phaser weaponry and shields/armour would be introduced for transporting troops on the ground in situations where a transporter or shuttle isn't practical.
3. Intrepids would be used as fast troop transports as discussed previously, with the more civilian stuff take out to make room for more cargo/passenger capacity and tougher shields/armour. Delta Fliers as support gunships.
4. Vessels and instillations, or at least those operating on the frontier, in or near combat zones, or on hostile borders would carry a small contingent. In addition, each major region of Federation space would have several companies permanently based on one of the major worlds to respond to any crises requiring elite ground troops (hostage situations, uprisings, raiding an enemy facility, etc.), with a small fleet of armed transport ships and gunships maintained to deploy them. Their would also be a separate MACO training facility/HQ, but not based on Earth (the Federation is too centralized on Earth). Possibly on Mars or in the Andorian or Bajoran system (I believe they've already been brought up in this thread as more militant societies).
5. See above. Beyond that, I'd mostly do holodeck training in a wide range of different environments.
6. They would be a branch of Starfleet Security, basically an elite force a step above the standard security officers. As such, they would use Starfleet ranks and report to whoever is in charge of Starfleet Security (presumably some admiral). When aboard a Starfleet ship or facility (other than their own HQ/training facility), they would report to the local Starfleet CO. However, they could also be deployed on their own, rather than as part of a larger ship's contingent (some situations just require a commando team, without attached scientists/engineers/etc.).
7. I think having specialized units for different types of missions or environments makes sense. The challenges of fighting in 0 gravity would be very different from those of fighting in an urban warfare situation, or in a planetary wilderness.
