Who CAN the Federation Ground Troops beat?

[Mr Bean]

Or Connan!

One fight I've always wanted to see is Connan VS Rambo, Why? They both posses increablbe amounts of dumb-luck, Whos force of dumb-luck is the more powerful?
DO we even caaare?

Find out next time on Rambo-Vs Connan
PART FIVE

[Pablo Sanchez]

Or Connan!

One fight I've always wanted to see is Connan VS Rambo, Why? They both posses increablbe amounts of dumb-luck, Whos force of dumb-luck is the more powerful?
DO we even caaare?

Find out next time on Rambo-Vs Connan
PART FIVE

Rambo runs out, firing an M60 one-handed from the hip. The forces of reality choose to assert themselves at this time. The recoil force and the lack of actual aiming cause Rambo to spray rounds in the general direction of Conan, all of which miss.

Then the notorious unreliability of the M60 comes into play, causing Rambo's weapon to go into an uncontrolled full-auto burst. He acts quickly, breaking the belt. Conan chooses this time to strike, slicing the unarmed soldier shoulder to hip.

Conan wins for two reasons:
1) His name is an anagram for "canon."
2) Good old Sword and Scorcery flicks beat jingoistic shit any day of the week.

[CmdrWilkens]

Does ANYONE think the Federation can take an army of equal size from WWII on?

Certainly not any person with more than five functioning neurons. I think the debate at this point is howfar back you have to go in orer for the Feds to have enough of an advantage to win. Personally I think you are going to have to predate the late Colonial era before you'l find the Feds capable of a force on force victory.

[Admiral Piett]

The problem with the feds ground troops is that they have only personal weapons.While the personal weapons themselves may be superior or at least equal to everything that was in use before the last years of WW2 the lack of automatic support weapons,artillery and tanks would make them dead meat in the most of scenarios even much before that period,unless you start to add their transporters and starships in the equation.
Try to imagine them in WW1.If they attempt to take an enemy trench they will be slaughtered like everyone else.If they try to defend one they will have a very hard time to hold off the enemies without machine guns,thus they will lose.They might be able to destroy a few enemy machine guns positions with their grenade launchers but that is all (without mentioning the lack of bayonets for what they are worth)

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Why would there be unarmed women and children? The situation clearly is:

"Federals:the same detachement with the same weapons(maybe a larger number of type III phasers) and equipment used for the Napoleonic scenario.

Palestinians:one thousands of partisans, each of them armed with an
AK-47.A dozen of rocket launchers(I will check the model later) are available,I would not say more than a dozen because apparently they did not deploy a lot of them in the last battles so I do not find likely they are plenty of them,but I may be wrong. Molotovs,some grenades and explosives are available.

The scenario takes place in a Palestinian city.The federation troops beam in during the day.And then the hell breaks loose."

I take it that "one thousands of partisans" means "one thousand soldiers," or do you mean women and children also kill people with AK-47's? If that were the case, probably Federation forces wouldn't kill women and children because they are humane, just as we are. So basically it takes an army that would shoot up women and children to win? Forget this scenario, because Federation forces don't kill women and children. Just doesn't work out for them. I guess Stormtroopers would come in handy there. How about Nazis against Palestinians? One armored division against a Palestinian city.

[Admiral Piett]

I need to refine the scenario specifying many details(hour of the day,level of intelligence available to palestinians and so on).However I suppose that they could stun noncombatants should the need arise.

[Master of Ossus]

I need to refine the scenario specifying many details(hour of the day,level of intelligence available to palestinians and so on).However I suppose that they could stun noncombatants should the need arise.

That is a good point. Stun settings would be VERY useful under such circumstances, and they would allow SF to function against an enemy that concealed itself among civilians.

[Mr Bean]

Why would there be unarmed women and children?

Because otherwise why not just blast the Buildings from a Distance with Max Power Phasers?
Sure they don't have much targeting ability but COME ON I HOPE they can hit a building

Besides you know what happens to Palesntiens who DONT surrond themselves with Non-combatants?
Two Words

Air Strike

[Isolder74]

who could the feds beat? lets see, not the Egyptian Army, because of their chariots and archers. not the English army because of their calvary and longbows, also heavy cannons. not the French either for similer reasons. not any army in WWII for a number of reasons including Tanks, Fighters, and light and Heavy bombers. it seems that the feds would only be able to defeat a bunch of cave men carriny only rocks. and then again maybe not

[Mr Bean]

The main and very simpe problem is the Federation Army is non-existant, Rather you have a group of people who are *conscripted (Basicly) with little or no training and droped somewhere with only small arms 99% of the time

This is not how people win ground Wars


~Mr Bean

[Pablo Sanchez]

Certainly not any person with more than five functioning neurons. I think the debate at this point is howfar back you have to go in orer for the Feds to have enough of an advantage to win. Personally I think you are going to have to predate the late Colonial era before you'l find the Feds capable of a force on force victory.

Mmmm. Lee-Metford bolt-action rifles and Archaic Maxim repeaters. I think they win.

[Howedar]

To be honest I'd put the Federation somewhat above the level of Napoleonic infantry, but below the Civil War. This is, of course, assuming that the Federation could cobble up enough command staff to create a large enough unit.

[Master of Ossus]

I would guess that they'd be able to beat the Mexican Army of the Texan War for Independence. They could also probably defeat the Spanish forces from the Spanish-American War. Their biggest asset is their ASTONISHINGLY good morale. Even though the red shirts seem to die continuously, no one ever refuses an order to step onto the transporter and be next in the firing line.... Then again, once you get up to about Lt. Commander you're basically immune. Get promoted fast.

[tharkûn]

Bah more ignorant morons. Yes the feddies suck, but not that bad.

First off let's outline their major advantages:
1. Transporters. Unless some of that damn funny ore is in the hills or the Van Allen Belt is doing something screwy ... transporters work.
2. Phasers have stun settings ... wide range stun settings at *short* range.
3. Lots and lots of knockout gas. If the ground troops have a replicator handy they should be able to whip out some of those knockout gases the feddies seem to favor flooding their ship with.
4. Good communication. Not even today are most soldiers issued radios. By TNG we see that every soldier and his brother has a highly effective communications devise that allows him to address anyone (in groups or as individuals).
5. HE (those "charges" used in voyager).
6. Superior battlefeild knowledge. Tricorders seem fairy ubiquietious and have decent ranges. If you know where enemy troop masses are, you can easily avoid them.

So here is my plan. Up until the enemy has armored vehichles and gas masks I transport in large amounts of knockout gas and incapacitate large troop formations (like Napoleonic columns). Artillery (which three tricorders can *easily* triangulate) is negated by the fact that I can transport in some gas and incapacitate the battery units. Transporters (which have *orbital* range) can easily outdistance artillery.

Even without the gas I can break up my forces and fight out of line of sight. Just instruct my soldiers to avoid open spaces until they have a "good" chance of knocking out large quantities of enemy soldiers with wide range stun shots. If I can't fight "Injun style" I'd employ napoleonic columns so massive volleys wouldn't stop me before I get to a range where I can knock off say 20 guys with one shot (say 5-20 m). This is further enhanced when I can transport people right next to the enemy (but behind cover), have them take quick potshots at wide angle (just enough to stun people with cloth uniforms).

Using squares and columns you can close to close enough quarters and then begin taking potshots. The enemy won't be able to mass his forces if I have a 20:1 effective ratio at close quarters ... even losing 3/4ths of my men I still come out ahead using columns and stun settings. The range of a musket means jack didly squat when you are facing off at 20 metres.

The ability for one man to down 20 enemy in a shot is huge. It allows you to break up the army and play like the storm troopers (not SW's ones, the real German ones).

And lastly the transporter should be quite useful against enemy commanders. Up until the stormtroopers in WWI most soldiers were not conditioned to take the initiative, rather to follow their officers orders (as Frederik said the men should fear their own officers more than the enemy). Simple transportation of key figures (marshals, generals, colonels, artillery gangs, etc.) would allow the feddies to dominate.

With enough transporter capability you can clear trenches (beam out say 30 guys, beam them back in ... about a km or two above ground), possibly even whole fighting forces. You can further use transporters to crack hard targets ... like say tanks, bunkers, pillboxes, etc. If we assume the feds have basic HE's (like say those "charges" they always used on voyager) then you can use those as effective artillery, anti tank, and even AP units. Until the armie has the ability to block the transporter ... its a near perfect weapons delivery system. In can penetrate rock and metal, does not need line of sight and can target individuals "lifesigns".

Once the transporter can be blocked (or found and seized) the feddies effectiveness goes downhill fast (like say over a cliff). I dunno if they could do it in WWII (or even today) but once that happens the helmetless targets who don't beleive in schrapnel are goners.

Even without the transporters you are still talking WWI. Feddies have the advantage at close range and do not fight in formation. Let the armies of the day dog it out on the plains ... stick to the forests and the towns. If needed, use columns and squares to get into close range against infantry. Open fire with superior close range weaponry and then mop up later (as in walk through the ranks of stunned soldiers and slit throats/place charges). Heavy calvary can be dealt with in like manner. Horses are biological and stunnable also. Horse artillery is your only major concern, but they are ineffective in areas with short lines of sight.

So in a nutshell the feddies can easily trounce Napoleon, Lee, Pershing if they get transporters, Patton and anybody else is dependant on if they can block the transporter or if they can track and go kill it. Fighting with dispersed forces that can be massed at critical points you can win against Napoleon, maybe even Lee. By the time Pershing comes around you've lost the short range weapons superiority and your communications are less of an issue. When the enemy has effective LMG's, small squad tactics, and grenades ... the feddies die without much of a fight without a transporter.

As for the knights and bowmen. Knights go down screw aiming for the knight ... kill the horse. The bowmen will cause casualties, but you need only rush to close range and dispatch from there.

The transporter would revolutionize the battefeild, especially if there exists a tactical transporter (no frills designed to brute force its way through interference at short range). You could mine the ground under the enemy, capture officers without risk (beyond a spotter), armor (such that allows transport in/out) becomes a liability, and my personal favorite ariel infantry (let infantry free fall while firing, when they get close to the ground, transport them back up a km or two ... yes its easily countered, but the thought of feddies fighting in freefall is amusing to me). Until the advent of the transport inhibitor, the transporter would rule the battlefeild. A transporter + spotter + HE could fill the roles of most traditional guns until the transporter can be blocked.

This of course assumes firing the guys who write trekkie ground combat rules (or sending theme to the firing squad) and retraining the troops ... even if you are still limited with their horrible equipment.

[Howedar]

You present many ways that transporters should be used. However, they have never, ever been used this way. Thus, we cannot assume that the Federation would change tactics so drastically.

[CmdrWilkens]

Bah more ignorant morons. Yes the feddies suck, but not that bad.

First off let's outline their major advantages:
1. Transporters. Unless some of that damn funny ore is in the hills or the Van Allen Belt is doing something screwy ... transporters work.

This is an advantage we nullify in ground on ground combat. The point is the Feds, being 24th century and all, should be able to win even without miracel transporters, Even with them this assumes starship support and if they have starship support the fight is over anyway. the reason we remove tranporters is it is the only item which gives the Feds a true edge.

2. Phasers have stun settings ... wide range stun settings at *short* range.

The number of times this has been used in combat before is indicative of the usefulness of such actions. You might note that in every ground forces engagement wide beams are never present, I think this is proof enough that the Feds aren't gonna suddenly get logical. More than this do they even knwo the stun setting to use for a charging warhorse?

3. Lots and lots of knockout gas. If the ground troops have a replicator handy they should be able to whip out some of those knockout gases the feddies seem to favor flooding their ship with.

Again the fact that they never use this in ground combat in ST seems to indicate a problem with just replicating the stuff and throwing it around on the battlefield. Beyond this every army after about 1904 had anti-gas protection unlike the feds so if you want to bring Chem weapons into play then sure the Feds can beat pre-WI but after about 1904 they fall victim to the first mustard gas discharge.

4. Good communication. Not even today are most soldiers issued radios. By TNG we see that every soldier and his brother has a highly effective communications devise that allows him to address anyone (in groups or as individuals).

Those "highly effective" communciations devices are the most HORRIBLE battlefield communcation system since semiphore flags. They require that you disengage from combat actions completely, tap your breast, and talk. Now that isn't the bad part (that's what a radioman does in a platoon nowadays) the bad part is that everyone CAN do this. There is a little thing known as information overlaod. its a good thing to have a lot of communication but you need streamling cha\ins of command AND some serious radio discipline or else you risk floding circuits with useless traffic. Beyond this how do you communicate with whole units, the badge system seems desigend to communciate either with individual wearers or with presighted installations NOT with multiple persons at once and this is not just a failing it is a huge drawback, ti removes the ability to command units and replaces it with the need to manuever soldier by soldier (and those soldiers often have to tap theri own breasts just to acknowledge and allow communciations to start which means every Fed trooper is gonna be spending a decent chunk of combat time tapping his breast instead of firing. Simply put the badge system is a great system within the starship and for exploratory purposes BUT it is not a good tool for combat.

5. HE (those "charges" used in voyager).

Once more the number of times they are used in DS9, TNG, and the moveis ought to be indicative that this is NOT a common weapon in the Fed arsenal.

6. Superior battlefeild knowledge. Tricorders seem fairy ubiquietious and have decent ranges. If you know where enemy troop masses are, you can easily avoid them.

Now this may be true, I say may because tircorders are often as reliable as transporters. Beyond this knwoeldge in and of itself is NOT enough to win battles, knolwedge is only useful when it is supplied to people with the right training. The feds don't have battlefield management skills, their battles virtually ALWAYS (in space or gourn) turn into vaugely organzied slugging matches at close range. Their ground combat style, for that matter, is little different from middle ages times when Armies would be led to the battlefield in good order and would often enter the battle in good order but once the fighting began it was just a close in slugging with commanders retaining little control.

So here is my plan. Up until the enemy has armored vehichles and gas masks I transport in large amounts of knockout gas and incapacitate large troop formations (like Napoleonic columns). Artillery (which three tricorders can *easily* triangulate) is negated by the fact that I can transport in some gas and incapacitate the battery units. Transporters (which have *orbital* range) can easily outdistance artillery.

Again we are dealing wiht something that requires starships here, as I pointed out there is a reason we remove starshis from the equation.

Even without the gas I can break up my forces and fight out of line of sight. Just instruct my soldiers to avoid open spaces until they have a "good" chance of knocking out large quantities of enemy soldiers with wide range stun shots.

The problem is you can't do this, not in this scenario not elsewhere. The range of the Fed weaponry requires that you close the distance with the enemy as he has longer ranged weapons and the enemy does have scouts, calvary, etc all of which are going to be skilled at movement over terrain (something else the Feds can't do). Sticking yourself in the woods is just asking the opposing commander to set up his artillery when he sees troops highlighted in red/yellow uniforms against forest green.

beyond this remeber we aren't talking about if WE were in command, we are tlaking about the average ignorant Fed commander.

If I can't fight "Injun style" I'd employ napoleonic columns so massive volleys wouldn't stop me before I get to a range where I can knock off say 20 guys with one shot (say 5-20 m).

Any army that so much as has longbowmen will rip apart any formation advance long before it reaches this point and any army with artillery will be able to take you out even before then. The effective range of Fed weaponry is less than that of colonial usketmen, colonial riflement, and even medievil archers.

This is further enhanced when I can transport people right next to the enemy (but behind cover), have them take quick potshots at wide angle (just enough to stun people with cloth uniforms).

Again there's a reason why remove transporters. If the Feds have starships they;ve already won, we;re trying to see if they can survive without them and they can't.

Using squares and columns you can close to close enough quarters and then begin taking potshots. The enemy won't be able to mass his forces if I have a 20:1 effective ratio at close quarters ... even losing 3/4ths of my men I still come out ahead using columns and stun settings. The range of a musket means jack didly squat when you are facing off at 20 metres.

Heres a couple roblems, mostly repeated from above.
1) The musket outranges you so you will have been takig fire from about 75 meters out and moving closer. By time you reach 25m the enemy will have (assuming even colonial relaod times0 have gotten off two full volleys with a possible third or fourth if he has time to arrange staggered lines.

2) In close combat against a medievil army you are placing phasers and shirts against swords and armor, phasers lose. When you reach the colonial era now you are tlaking about phasers against bayonets, once agian phasers lose.

3) The Feds have never been able to move in fomation, not even the lose tactical formations of modern fire teams...trust me they advance like drunken farmers over battlefields and drunken farmers moving en masse are ripe picking for any army with more than a few bowmen.

The ability for one man to down 20 enemy in a shot is huge. It allows you to break up the army and play like the storm troopers (not SW's ones, the real German ones).

Agian this is back to the fallacious Feds will use wide angle stun deal. Face it they haven't used it in combat before and things aren't going to suddenly change just for this fight.

<snip more transporters solve everything stuff>

Once the transporter can be blocked (or found and seized) the feddies effectiveness goes downhill fast (like say over a cliff). I dunno if they could do it in WWII (or even today) but once that happens the helmetless targets who don't beleive in schrapnel are goners.

There is a reason why transporters aren't...oh go read above. The ground forces using a transporter means they've got a starship supporting them which means its already over which is why we ignore it.

Even without the transporters you are still talking WWI. Feddies have the advantage at close range and do not fight in formation. Let the armies of the day dog it out on the plains ... stick to the forests and the towns. If needed, use columns and squares to get into close range against infantry. Open fire with superior close range weaponry and then mop up later (as in walk through the ranks of stunned soldiers and slit throats/place charges).

Again any time after 1904 and you will face chemical artillery barrages and the Feds have no NBC defense, your troops will be horribly dead.

Heavy calvary can be dealt with in like manner. Horses are biological and stunnable also. Horse artillery is your only major concern, but they are ineffective in areas with short lines of sight.

The feds don't have the range to get off more than one good shot before heavy calvary is breathing down their neck...literally because their heads will be chopped off. At melee range the Feds ae COMPLETELY ineffective compared to any army since mankind first picked up big clubs and beat each othr with them.

So in a nutshell the feddies can easily trounce Napoleon, Lee, Pershing if they get transporters, Patton and anybody else is dependant on if they can block the transporter or if they can track and go kill it. Fighting with dispersed forces that can be massed at critical points you can win against Napoleon, maybe even Lee. By the time Pershing comes around you've lost the short range weapons superiority and your communications are less of an issue. When the enemy has effective LMG's, small squad tactics, and grenades ... the feddies die without much of a fight without a transporter.

See above again for why we don't include transporters. For that matter prove that despite site to site transproting not being used in previous gorund combat engagements (AR and Rocks & Shoals come to mind) they will suddenly start using them agianst these enemies.

As for the knights and bowmen. Knights go down screw aiming for the knight ... kill the horse. The bowmen will cause casualties, but you need only rush to close range and dispatch from there.

Rush to clsoe range and you have to face swordsmen who will dismember you, as to killing off chargin knigts range of Fed weaponry and the speed of advance on horseback will reduce accuracy to the point that most Knights wil survive and proceed to slaughter the Feds at melee range like they are built for (well not actually, the knights were built to defeat other knights, they just happen to also be good at killing infantry).
<snip more transporter solves everything>

Yes the transporter is an incredible tool, but the Feds don't use it to its full potential which means either
1) They are dumb and thus wouldn't use it here anyway or
2) They can't use it for some other reason which means they likely won't use it here.

Either way the fact that the Feds do not employ site to site transport in ground battles indicates that it ain't gonna be hapening much.

that is all ebfore I get into the need to have a starship handy to do your transporting and liek I've said a dozen time having a starship nullifies the "ground only" nature of this thread.

[tharkûn]

"This is an advantage we nullify in ground on ground combat. The point is the Feds, being 24th century and all, should be able to win even without miracel transporters, Even with them this assumes starship support and if they have starship support the fight is over anyway. the reason we remove tranporters is it is the only item which gives the Feds a true edge. "
In other words bias. Come now could the Spanish Conquistadors have defeated the Incans without firearms and cannons? Its a comparable fight. Its intellectually dishonest to say that the feddies can't win ground battles by denying them their most potent weapon.

Further you do *not* need a starship. We've seen starfleet transporters on earth operating and you can always I dunno land a runabout.

The fact of the matter is a transporter system doesn't appear to outmass an Abrams, its certainly feildable. If from a fixed location or some type of landed craft.

"The number of times this has been used in combat before is indicative of the usefulness of such actions. You might note that in every ground forces engagement wide beams are never present, I think this is proof enough that the Feds aren't gonna suddenly get logical. More than this do they even knwo the stun setting to use for a charging warhorse? "
I make no pretentions about the feddies tactics. Given the technology as it has been presented they are imbeciles. You should see bloody frag grenades. You should see tripods and bipods. You should see the idiots send up cross fires, and you should see camo uniforms. I am only argueing that the feddies have the equipment to attack such an army ... not their current tactics are sufficient.

I mean seriously we have seen the feddies overrun countless times ... has *anyone* ever though of issueing I dunno *KNIVES*?

"Again the fact that they never use this in ground combat in ST seems to indicate a problem with just replicating the stuff and throwing it around on the battlefield. Beyond this every army after about 1904 had anti-gas protection unlike the feds so if you want to bring Chem weapons into play then sure the Feds can beat pre-WI but after about 1904 they fall victim to the first mustard gas discharge. "
Read the conclusions. A feddie army without a transporter will be dead facing off against WWI armies. They have no advantages.

"Those "highly effective" communciations devices are the most HORRIBLE battlefield communcation system since semiphore flags. They require that you disengage from combat actions completely, tap your breast, and talk. Now that isn't the bad part (that's what a radioman does in a platoon nowadays) the bad part is that everyone CAN do this. There is a little thing known as information overlaod. its a good thing to have a lot of communication but you need streamling cha\ins of command AND some serious radio discipline or else you risk floding circuits with useless traffic. Beyond this how do you communicate with whole units, the badge system seems desigend to communciate either with individual wearers or with presighted installations NOT with multiple persons at once and this is not just a failing it is a huge drawback, ti removes the ability to command units and replaces it with the need to manuever soldier by soldier (and those soldiers often have to tap theri own breasts just to acknowledge and allow communciations to start which means every Fed trooper is gonna be spending a decent chunk of combat time tapping his breast instead of firing. Simply put the badge system is a great system within the starship and for exploratory purposes BUT it is not a good tool for combat. "
In comparison to who they are fighting, yes indeed those com badges are highly effective ... because oponents before the civil war will be using flags and messengers. In WWI you might have some telephones and radios (can't remember when they were issued to the troops) ... but buy and large orders were still passed by voice. Its not until WWII that you have particularly reliable communications system, and even then its bulky. Today we still don't issue radios to all our troops (though some units have taken to going to radioshack and buying hands free radios).

I am not saying that system is perfect, but it is superior to just about anything standard issue today (outside of spec ops does *anyone* get a 2 way radio that they can use without disengaging from combat actions?). As for information overload. Yes the system does allow you to address groups, how many times have we heard, "Person's Name, to anyone Condition"? I.e. "Chakotay to anyone on the bridge." Or something like "Kim to Paris, Nelix, anyone?" Maybe I'm interpretting it wrong, but it appears to me that you can address groups (considering its dirt simple from a technical standpoint I assumed it to be the case).

"Once more the number of times they are used in DS9, TNG, and the moveis ought to be indicative that this is NOT a common weapon in the Fed arsenal. "
No I just use it as an indication of how stupid feddies are about ground combat. To be fair we are only seeing what amounts to fleet officers in skirmishes, but I have long ago given up any aspirations of ascribing good tactics to the feddies.

"Now this may be true, I say may because tircorders are often as reliable as transporters. Beyond this knwoeldge in and of itself is NOT enough to win battles, knolwedge is only useful when it is supplied to people with the right training. The feds don't have battlefield management skills, their battles virtually ALWAYS (in space or gourn) turn into vaugely organzied slugging matches at close range. Their ground combat style, for that matter, is little different from middle ages times when Armies would be led to the battlefield in good order and would often enter the battle in good order but once the fighting began it was just a close in slugging with commanders retaining little control. "
Again I reiterate the feddies have no sense of compotent tactics. I assume their officers get their commisions the same way the Soviet forces did, through party connections ... its really the only way I can see so many incompotent people coming into power.

"Again we are dealing wiht something that requires starships here, as I pointed out there is a reason we remove starshis from the equation. "
And you pointed it out wrong. Transporters can exist on planteray surfaces. We've seen shuttles and runabouts land so they are even mobile terrestrial transporters.

Starships are removed because the feds, quite sensibly, follow an air power doctrine. Because the Feddies rely on airpower removing it makes them weaker (if such a state exists). Fighting without air cover in a war of manoveours or attrition is stupidity incarnate. The last time I recall that happening was Yom Kippur ... remind me again how well that went. Guerilla warfare, yes you can get away without air cover, otherwise its just people with a death wish.

"The problem is you can't do this, not in this scenario not elsewhere. The range of the Fed weaponry requires that you close the distance with the enemy as he has longer ranged weapons and the enemy does have scouts, calvary, etc all of which are going to be skilled at movement over terrain (something else the Feds can't do). Sticking yourself in the woods is just asking the opposing commander to set up his artillery when he sees troops highlighted in red/yellow uniforms against forest green. "
Sigh and then how in hell did Napoleon (in non-camo uniforms) get close enough to use bayonets? The answer was in the columns. By using a column (as opposed to the batteline) a volley would take a whack out of a column, but you'd keep on going. Yes you might have to accept 50% and higher casualties ... but you will close the distance.

As for artillery. Artillery bombardments only worked against large masses of troops. Indeed your typical Napoleonic artillery bombardment involved 100's of peices (and remember Napoleon was an artillery man himself). In the woods you can disperse your forces, fall back from any enemy encroachment (you will detect them long before they detect you) and using superior communication be able to mass your troops when needed. Your know where his troop masses are ... so you can order your men to avoid them. He can't respond in kind.


"beyond this remeber we aren't talking about if WE were in command, we are tlaking about the average ignorant Fed commander. "
I am assuming I (or someone else more compotent than your average feddie commander) is in command. My current hypothesis is that command is awarded based on who you know, what ideology you espouse, and possibly what academic laurels you have ... kind of like certain totalitarian regimes in the 20th century?

However in a war one can expect survival of the fittest to eventually set in, and decent purge of the upper ranks of the officer corps should leave you with marginal officers.

If the feddies have to rely on the guys in charge in the show, can we say cannon fodder?

"Any army that so much as has longbowmen will rip apart any formation advance long before it reaches this point and any army with artillery will be able to take you out even before then. The effective range of Fed weaponry is less than that of colonial usketmen, colonial riflement, and even medievil archers. "
Oh cut the BS. Napoleon used formations. He faced artillery. He won. If you use formations you can expect to lose a good percentage of your men (which Napoleon normally did), but the formation as a whole will survive. Once you get to close range (note close as in 5 m ... not as in 2 m) a compotent commander will have you use a broad beam stun. Range is rather meaningless once you get inside both sides ranges. Getting to this point might cost men ... but once there the most dead enemy the fastest wins.

"Again there's a reason why remove transporters. If the Feds have starships they;ve already won, we;re trying to see if they can survive without them and they can't. "
And again transporters don't need to be on starships. We have seen numerous examples of transporters not on starships. We further have seen mobile transporters that you can and set up on the ground.


"1) The musket outranges you so you will have been takig fire from about 75 meters out and moving closer. By time you reach 25m the enemy will have (assuming even colonial relaod times0 have gotten off two full volleys with a possible third or fourth if he has time to arrange staggered lines. "
yes that sounds about right. The fact of the matter is Napoleon used columns, due to the nature of the volley you couldn't destroy an entire column with a frontal volley. The first few ranks would be dead, but the rest would keep coming.


"2) In close combat against a medievil army you are placing phasers and shirts against swords and armor, phasers lose. When you reach the colonial era now you are tlaking about phasers against bayonets, once agian phasers lose. "
I don't know about you, but in the time it takes to make a 25 m dash I can squeeze a shot off (especially considering it can be aimed from the hip). Now a medieval army in chainmail (and don't make me laugh about plate) carring sword and sheild does not run all that fast. And again the column formation provides depth. Even if the enemy just stop to stab the front lines through the heart, the back can still get off the shots needed.


"3) The Feds have never been able to move in fomation, not even the lose tactical formations of modern fire teams...trust me they advance like drunken farmers over battlefields and drunken farmers moving en masse are ripe picking for any army with more than a few bowmen. "

Sigh again read your military history. What do you think the French republic volunteers were? Farmers and other drunken peasants. The column is a remarkedly easy formation to maintain ... and was chosen by the republic for this reason (its tactical benifits becoming apparent after the fact). Its actually harder to move inline (without bowing the line) than to move in column. Do you honestly think the million odd men Napoleon had under arms were professional soldiers or might they have had simple formations that are easy to hold?

"Agian this is back to the fallacious Feds will use wide angle stun deal. Face it they haven't used it in combat before and things aren't going to suddenly change just for this fight. "
Yes and there are several possibilities:
1. Against an enemy with technological parity there may be countermeasures (i.e. a drug to prevent or preemptively counter act its effects).
2. It may not be part of the military training. Bad militaries often don't teach their soldiers particularly good tactics (the red army and human waves comes to mind). So the conditioned reflex is to squeeze off shots that most likely miss, rather than take the more prudent route.
3. It may not work on certain species (i.e. Klingons, Breen, etc.) . We are talking about humans, where it has been shown to work.

"There is a reason why transporters aren't...oh go read above. The ground forces using a transporter means they've got a starship supporting them which means its already over which is why we ignore it. "
Oh please do we really need to establish the point that transporters exist outside of starships? That there is no technological need for FTL egines or a ship in orbit? We've seen numerous transporters at fixed sites and we've seen ones which could be landed and put to ground use easily.

"Again any time after 1904 and you will face chemical artillery barrages and the Feds have no NBC defense, your troops will be horribly dead. "
And again against WWI tactics/equipment the feddies are dead without a transporter. Should I say Sino-Russian war instead or will you undestand me when I say WWI as tactics involving the use of: Poison gas, machine guns, flamethrowers, tanks, etc. ?

"The feds don't have the range to get off more than one good shot before heavy calvary is breathing down their neck...literally because their heads will be chopped off. At melee range the Feds ae COMPLETELY ineffective compared to any army since mankind first picked up big clubs and beat each othr with them. "
Sigh. Read your damn history. Take Napoleonic troops, arange them into a square. The outer ranks die, the inner layers live. Sigh here let's look at a primary source:
"We only had 200 cavalry, still temporarily disabled and shaken by the crossing, whilst the Mamluks had a magnificent cavalry corps, decked in gold and silver, armed with the best London carbines and pistols, the best sabres in the Orient and riding perhaps the best mounts on the continent.
When the army was arranged each division formed a battalion in a square with the baggage in the centre. The artillery was placed in-between the squares. In order, the second and fourth battalions were set behind the first and third. The five divisions of the army were placed in echelon, flanking each other and themselves flanked by the two villages which we had occupied.

...

The Mamluk cavalry soon swept over the plain, going round both wings seeking on all sides (and flanks and rear) to find the weak spot. But at every turn the enemy found that the line was firm on all sides and that it fought back with a double fire from the front and the flanks. They made several atempts at charges but they were never decisive. One or two hardy attackers came to skirmish, but they were met with fire from the carbines placed to the front of the gaps between the batallions. After having spent part of the days under fire, they began their retreat and disappeared. There losses can be estimated at three hundred men killed or wounded."

Squares stop calvary. Its rather simple. Yes the cavalry can waltz up and lop off heads, no they can't mow down the entire formation. Its just not possible to push through many ranks of men that quickly. With the advent of the machine gun columns and squares die (even the repeater rifle does a good bit towards killing them) but in Napoleonic times they were hideously strong. Combined arms could still kill you, but that always can.

"See above again for why we don't include transporters. For that matter prove that despite site to site transproting not being used in previous gorund combat engagements (AR and Rocks & Shoals come to mind) they will suddenly start using them agianst these enemies. "
Might that be because these enemies can say jam transporters? I mean the Iraqis don't use radar against stealth bombers, therefore nobody would ever feild radar right? Even against WWII proplanes. The brits don't firebomb their enemies ... so I guess they'd never do that either. The US feilded no atomic artillery against Sadam, Slobo, or the Taliban ... I guess that means they never would have had the option against the Soviets.

The weapons and tactics you use are in large part determined by who you are trying to kill. If the enemy can intercept and decode your radio transmissions ... don't use radio transmissions. If he can't fine.

It might also be that transporting in battle is a dangerous thing ... like asking enemy orbitals to nail your position. We do know that transporters are used ... because the Klingons block them and force the feddies to use hoppers (don't recall the episode, its the one where Bashir, a bloody surgeon, is sent to get a generator.)

"Rush to clsoe range and you have to face swordsmen who will dismember you, as to killing off chargin knigts range of Fed weaponry and the speed of advance on horseback will reduce accuracy to the point that most Knights wil survive and proceed to slaughter the Feds at melee range like they are built for (well not actually, the knights were built to defeat other knights, they just happen to also be good at killing infantry). "
Knights off horse have trouble walking, let alone fighting. Do you have any frikking clue how much plate mail weighs? Formations several ranks deep will stop cavalry . Last I checked your average sword was maybe 1 m long with an effective striking distance about the same (at least my Toledan is about that size, if not smaller). The feddies close to within range of their phasors which can take more people per shot, but also stay outside of the range of the swords, knives, and clubs.

"Yes the transporter is an incredible tool, but the Feds don't use it to its full potential which means either
1) They are dumb and thus wouldn't use it here anyway or
2) They can't use it for some other reason which means they likely won't use it here.

Either way the fact that the Feds do not employ site to site transport in ground battles indicates that it ain't gonna be hapening much. "
Sigh. Let's say that the US got into a major war with say China (ground war). Now both sides can try to use GPS ... but the US controlling the satellites can begin screwing with the timestamps. So in this fight the Chinese will not use GPS. Does this mean they will never use GPS? No. It means when the enemy is able to block some technology its not used.

When the soviets cut back and in some places stopped using helicopters in Afghanistan was it because the things didn't work? No its because the enemy had a mean to stop the thing (the stinger missile).

Or go back to poison gas. Nobody uses poison gas today (except for a few real nutcases) ... why? Because we have gasmasks. The tactics used against opponent A will be different than against opponent B if A has countermeasures for some of your toys B does not.

A sniper may have a rifle which fires 3 bullet bursts (granted this is a compromise sniper rifle) does that feature go away with disuse?

No, try some logic here.

So in a nutshell:
1. Transporters can be based in fixed locations ... not just on starships. Some are mobile and can be landed.
2. Columns allow you to absorb volleys and rushes without the formation breaking and everyone dying. Yes many will die, but not all.
3. The non-use of a tactic or technology is dependant on the enemy you fight. Active sonar is deadly (to you) if the other guy has ears to hear you pinging. If he's a wooden man-o-war its makes your job easier.

[Admiral Piett]

As I promised you a couple of days ago I have worked on a scenario based on this subject,which will used mainly to define the terms of the debate.I have done a small research about Napoleonic era armies.I hope to be as much as accurate as possible,but I cannot guarantee to be 100% correct.
Beside I have to do several arbitrary assumptions about formations,weapons,number of troops involved and so on.The scenario is roughly about one thousands of federals versus one thousands of Napoleonic(more specifically french) era troops.Larger numbers would make the scenario more difficult to analyze and since the federals have never deployed large amounts of ground troops,pointless.


Napoleonic side:French army,like it was around 1810.The mixed detachement listed below is leaded by an average commander.Competent
and quite experienced is not however exceptional and will use standard tactics.

Infantry:one battalion of standard line infantry,composed by six companies for a total of 750 troops(more or less 120 troops per company).
Two companies (one of grenadiers and the other made of light troops) are made of well trained troops, most of them are veterans.
The other four companies are composed of not too well trained and inexperienced recruits.
All the soldiers are armed with standard muskets.No rifles.The musket is a variant of the 1777 model(standard weapon for the french army of the time).
Maximum range for aimed fire:100 meters.It means that it is absolutely impossible to hit a man with aimed fire beyond that distance and only a skilled user can have some chances to hit the target at 100 meters.
Maximum range for massed fire:200 meters.Beyond 100 meters the musket ball goes where it wants,making aimed fire useless.However firing enough muskets against an enemy formation allows the balls to hit some targets by pure chance.
Rate of fire:2 rounds per minute.I suppose that you could find soldiers capable of firing 4 rounds per minute on the parade ground.But 2 rounds are what you get from the average soldier in battle.

Cavalry:One squadron of dragoons for a total of 180 horsemen.
The dragoons are armed with sabres,pistols and short carabines.No armor plates,helmets or lances.They are all well trained.

Artillery:one "foot" battery (the gunners travel by foot and not by horse) composed by eight cannons firing 12ibs balls.It is a "foot" battery, which means,as opposite to an "horse" battery,that cannot be redeployed very quickly on the battefield.The guns are served by one hundreds of veteran gunners.


Federation side.The timeline is in the post star trek Insurrection era.

One thousand of ground troops.They are all security personnel "trained" for ground combat.A minority of them,around 5-10%,are Dominion war veterans while an other 10% has taken part to minor skirmishes in other situations.
Each trooper has a phaser assault rifle,a type 1 phaser and of course his communicator.
The phaser assault rifle is that seen in first contact.It has a shoulder stock, an optical sight and a trigger guard.The type 1 phaser is a small palmar phaser seen often in "star trek the next generation".For those of you who do not know it is similar to the remote control for your TV set,but smaller.
Few tens of people retain the older type 3 phaser rifle,that with the silly flip up panel and no shoulder stock,mainly for short range combat.
Some of the people not armed with phaser rifles (high ranking officers for example) carry the infamous ergonomics' nightmare type 2 phaser,while the others (medical personnel,people employed on supplies) only the type 1.
20 grenade launchers,such as that seen in Insurrection are available.
A small number of type 1 phaser are available as emergency makeshift hand grenades.
Trycorders,field medical equipments,computers etc are available.

No transporters(and replicators),starship fire support,shuttles,peregrine fighters.
Choose your preferred captain to command the detachement.

It is a warm comfortable day.The ground is open and flat with few trees and few small rises in the ground.No mud that affects negatively Napoleonic cannons or (technobabble) energy fields that block trycorders or phasers.
The federals are awaiting still the french army detachement which is coming towards them in battle formation.Both sides know more or less where the enemy is.The Napoleonic troops would not be scared or surprised by phasers(we can say that they have already seen them in a previous smaller action).The federals have knowledge of Napoleonic tactics.Both sides are plenty of supplies such as munitions,water food etc.

This is the scenario I have designed for the Napoleonic army vs the federation.I have done this because I have observed that during the debate everyone in his mind is setting different conditions foe the battle to take place(one think that transporters and replicators would be available,the other that the battle takes place in a forest and so on).
And since in war different conditions change the outcome too much the debate risks to become pointless,unless you want to debate only general strenght and weaknesses of the various armies.
So I have done some research about napoleonic era armies.I cannot claim to be an expert,for example I do not know if the french army in the 1810 would use the column or the line as battle formation.The decision to assign a battery of artillery to a simple battalion(normally artillery was assigned only to brigades,apparently) is also quite arbitrary but not more than others parameters.

[Mr Bean]

A note tharkûn
Please use the quote tags, it makes posts so much more easier to read and every single person on this board but you uses it...

[tharkûn]

Admiral Piett:

In such a scenario the prudent response is to withdraw to more favorable fighting terrain. The feddies might be able to win if they used columns and got to range where they can fire faster with wider range shots than the French. At the optimal rnage (beyond bayonet range but close enough for hip shot wide beam stun) the feddies would enjoy an advantage. On the other hand horse artillery on flat open terrain is brutal. Its a a question of can the feddies get to the optimum range without losing so many guys it no longer matters.

However such a battle will never occur (with a compotent feddie commander). The feddies have superior information gathering abilities (tricorders appear to work beyond LOS and communicators allow scouts to report back to HQ *much* faster from *much* farther away than Napoleonic scouts). I see no reason why the feddies would fight on terrain that does not give them excessive advantage. Given their superior scouting they can pick the feild of battle, one which accents their advatanges. Feddie scouts will have vastly superior ranges up until the advent of scouts with radios (WWII?).

If their goal is to hold or capture some territory or critical point then we need to talk about whose on offense vs defense. But if its just the goal to beat the other guy, withdraw to favorable grounds. Your scouts can range *excessively* farther from your army than his can.

Mr. Bean:
My apologies, personally I dislike the excessive indentations multiplicative quoting causes, but if its a bother to read ... Would using italics or bold work instead?

[CmdrWilkens]

[quote="CmdrWilkens]This is an advantage we nullify in ground on ground combat. The point is the Feds, being 24th century and all, should be able to win even without miracle transporters, Even with them this assumes starship support and if they have starship support the fight is over anyway. the reason we remove tranporters is it is the only item which gives the Feds a true edge.

In other words bias. Come now could the Spanish Conquistadors have defeated the Incans without firearms and cannons? Its a comparable fight. Its intellectually dishonest to say that the feddies can't win ground battles by denying them their most potent weapon.[/quote]


Their most potent weapon requires them to use it
1)Under circumstances where air support would already be present and that means its over before it begins. However, and important to this point, air support will not always be available. Ships can be called elsewhere, goround instalations are often elft without fleet coverage.

2) In a way they've never used it before. Lets not bandy about, the Feds have NEVER used site to site transportation in tactical engagements. They might use it for insertion and egress but never for movement once they're on the ground.

Further you do *not* need a starship. We've seen starfleet transporters on earth operating and you can always I dunno land a runabout.

Then explain why they don't do this in combat?

The fact of the matter is a transporter system doesn't appear to outmass an Abrams, its certainly feildable. If from a fixed location or some type of landed craft.

Fixed location transporters of such size means massive power generators, big camp, big target for a covert strike as Fed base security resembles a sieve. As to landed craft why has this never been done?

"The number of times this has been used in combat before is indicative of the usefulness of such actions. You might note that in every ground forces engagement wide beams are never present, I think this is proof enough that the Feds aren't gonna suddenly get logical. More than this do they even know the stun setting to use for a charging warhorse?

I make no pretentions about the feddies tactics. Given the technology as it has been presented they are imbeciles. You should see bloody frag grenades. You should see tripods and bipods. You should see the idiots send up cross fires, and you should see camo uniforms. I am only argueing that the feddies have the equipment to attack such an army ... not their current tactics are sufficient.

The problem is that once you remove the transporters they DON'T have the equipment OR the tactics. They're range is less than that of medievil armies and their skill at corssing any kind of terrain is horrible as is their reliance on uber high tech. There's a reason why Marines are good at their job, we are taught how to do things with a rifle, a map, and an e-tool.

I mean seriously we have seen the feddies overrun countless times ... has *anyone* ever though of issueing I dunno *KNIVES*?

Which is exactly my point, at the combat ranges were phasers become effective any army more recent than the colonial era will be better equipped and better trained.

"Again the fact that they never use this in ground combat in ST seems to indicate a problem with just replicating the stuff and throwing it around on the battlefield. Beyond this every army after about 1904 had anti-gas protection unlike the feds so if you want to bring Chem weapons into play then sure the Feds can beat pre-WI but after about 1904 they fall victim to the first mustard gas discharge.

Read the conclusions. A feddie army without a transporter will be dead facing off against WWI armies. They have no advantages.

I was pointing out that reliance on chem weaponry is a foolish idea for that era period.

"Those "highly effective" communciations devices are the most HORRIBLE battlefield communcation system since semiphore flags. They require that you disengage from combat actions completely, tap your breast, and talk. Now that isn't the bad part (that's what a radioman does in a platoon nowadays) the bad part is that everyone CAN do this. There is a little thing known as information overlaod. its a good thing to have a lot of communication but you need streamling cha\ins of command AND some serious radio discipline or else you risk floding circuits with useless traffic. Beyond this how do you communicate with whole units, the badge system seems desigend to communciate either with individual wearers or with presighted installations NOT with multiple persons at once and this is not just a failing it is a huge drawback, it removes the ability to command units and replaces it with the need to manuever soldier by soldier (and those soldiers often have to tap theri own breasts just to acknowledge and allow communciations to start which means every Fed trooper is gonna be spending a decent chunk of combat time tapping his breast instead of firing. Simply put the badge system is a great system within the starship and for exploratory purposes BUT it is not a good tool for combat.

In comparison to who they are fighting, yes indeed those com badges are highly effective ... because oponents before the civil war will be using flags and messengers. In WWI you might have some telephones and radios (can't remember when they were issued to the troops) ... but buy and large orders were still passed by voice. Its not until WWII that you have particularly reliable communications system, and even then its bulky. Today we still don't issue radios to all our troops (though some units have taken to going to radioshack and buying hands free radios).

Heres the thing though, the commanders are trained to utilize the units which they have immediately availble. They arte trained to fight with limited informaiton and make the best of it. Communicating amongst regimental sized units of infantry or even calvary is easy enough even by Civil War times that your com badges don't give any real noticeable advantage.

I am not saying that system is perfect, but it is superior to just about anything standard issue today (outside of spec ops does *anyone* get a 2 way radio that they can use without disengaging from combat actions?).

However they do not require every recipeint to stop acting. At the squad level (usual radio deployment for USMC) you have a radioman who passes info to a squad leader who then directs thesquad. Thus 1 person is disengaged from combat while the others can continue the engagement. In the Com Badge system the recipient has to tap their badge to get comm data flowing which means even if whole units can recieve at once they each have to tap their badge and take themselves out of combat to acknowledge orders (plus its a great way to reveal oneself at night).

As for information overload. Yes the system does allow you to address groups, how many times have we heard, "Person's Name, to anyone Condition"? I.e. "Chakotay to anyone on the bridge." Or something like "Kim to Paris, Nelix, anyone?" Maybe I'm interpretting it wrong, but it appears to me that you can address groups (considering its dirt simple from a technical standpoint I assumed it to be the case).

However we never hear more than one person on the line at once unless the conversation is routed through a fixed installation such as a com center or a starship bridge. Again even IF you can reach multiple persons at once with just com badges they all have to make acknolwedgement taps which will take them away from action.

Once more the number of times they are used in DS9, TNG, and the moveis ought to be indicative that this is NOT a common weapon in the Fed arsenal.

No I just use it as an indication of how stupid feddies are about ground combat. To be fair we are only seeing what amounts to fleet officers in skirmishes, but I have long ago given up any aspirations of ascribing good tactics to the feddies.

You're just illustrating my point. The Feds do not use viable ground combat technolgoy, they are nto well trained, and they haev virtually no grasp of tactics all of which would doom them against any army knowledgeable about combined arms tactics.

Now this may be true, I say may because tircorders are often as reliable as transporters. Beyond this knowledge in and of itself is NOT enough to win battles, knolwedge is only useful when it is supplied to people with the right training. The feds don't have battlefield management skills, their battles virtually ALWAYS (in space or ground) turn into vaugely organzied slugging matches at close range. Their ground combat style, for that matter, is little different from middle ages times when Armies would be led to the battlefield in good order and would often enter the battle in good order but once the fighting began it was just a close in slugging with commanders retaining little control.

Again I reiterate the feddies have no sense of compotent tactics. I assume their officers get their commisions the same way the Soviet forces did, through party connections ... its really the only way I can see so many incompotent people coming into power.

Which is why they won't be able to defeat any army after the colonial era.

Again we are dealing with something that requires starships here, as I pointed out there is a reason we remove starships from the equation.

And you pointed it out wrong. Transporters can exist on planteray surfaces. We've seen shuttles and runabouts land so they are even mobile terrestrial transporters.

None of which are ever used in ground combat scenarios.

Starships are removed because the feds, quite sensibly, follow an air power doctrine. Because the Feddies rely on airpower removing it makes them weaker (if such a state exists). Fighting without air cover in a war of manoveours or attrition is stupidity incarnate. The last time I recall that happening was Yom Kippur ... remind me again how well that went. Guerilla warfare, yes you can get away without air cover, otherwise its just people with a death wish.

However we have the Feds fighting people without air cover so things are rather even.

The problem is you can't do this, not in this scenario not elsewhere. The range of the Fed weaponry requires that you close the distance with the enemy as he has longer ranged weapons and the enemy does have scouts, calvary, etc all of which are going to be skilled at movement over terrain (something else the Feds can't do). Sticking yourself in the woods is just asking the opposing commander to set up his artillery when he sees troops highlighted in red/yellow uniforms against forest green.

Sigh and then how in hell did Napoleon (in non-camo uniforms) get close enough to use bayonets? The answer was in the columns. By using a column (as opposed to the batteline) a volley would take a whack out of a column, but you'd keep on going. Yes you might have to accept 50% and higher casualties ... but you will close the distance.

You will close the distance against any enemy trained in close in fighting, not a smart idea.

As for artillery. Artillery bombardments only worked against large masses of troops. Indeed your typical Napoleonic artillery bombardment involved 100's of peices (and remember Napoleon was an artillery man himself). In the woods you can disperse your forces, fall back from any enemy encroachment (you will detect them long before they detect you) and using superior communication be able to mass your troops when needed. Your know where his troop masses are ... so you can order your men to avoid them. He can't respond in kind.

Again a competent commander will have calvary scouts who ought to find enemy troops in such uniforms easily enough at which point massng one's forces becomes an easy enough matter. The enemy has to engage you at some point becuase with heavy calvary you will always have greater mobility than foot infantry. Also the Napoleonic and even Colonial-era footmen were much more preparred for long marches with the requisite supplies and equipment than the Feds. Fed ground troops can NOT engage in a cmapaing of manuever against an enemy with greater speed, greater manueverability, and superior endurance.

beyond this remeber we aren't talking about if WE were in command, we are tlaking about the average ignorant Fed commander.

I am assuming I (or someone else more compotent than your average feddie commander) is in command. My current hypothesis is that command is awarded based on who you know, what ideology you espouse, and possibly what academic laurels you have ... kind of like certain totalitarian regimes in the 20th century?

The problem is that whatever systme the Feds use it still hasbn;t prevented naval Officers from being ground commanders and incompetents from running the show.

However in a war one can expect survival of the fittest to eventually set in, and decent purge of the upper ranks of the officer corps should leave you with marginal officers.

Hwoever this isn't a war, this is a single scenario batle.

If the feddies have to rely on the guys in charge in the show, can we say cannon fodder?

My point all along.

Any army that so much as has longbowmen will rip apart any formation advance long before it reaches this point and any army with artillery will be able to take you out even before then. The effective range of Fed weaponry is less than that of colonial usketmen, colonial riflement, and even medievil archers.

Oh cut the BS. Napoleon used formations. He faced artillery. He won. If you use formations you can expect to lose a good percentage of your men (which Napoleon normally did), but the formation as a whole will survive.

You have heard of counterbattery fire right? Once your troops have advanced to a certian point cannon targets other cannon and they duel each other. For hundreds of canon only a small percentage will be able to fire on troops who will be moving at decent speed relative to the reload rate of cannon. The oldest axiom of war is that you kill thsoe most like you before hitting others, pilots kill pilots first, arty kills arty first, tanks kill tanks first, etc. The point is of those hundreds of cannons battles not all that many are going to be anti-infantry until close range and then you don't have all that many shots left.

Once you get to close range (note close as in 5 m ... not as in 2 m) a compotent commander will have you use a broad beam stun. Range is rather meaningless once you get inside both sides ranges. Getting to this point might cost men ... but once there the most dead enemy the fastest wins.

Heres the thing...the Feds don't use wide angle stun in battle period. If they haven't used it before they aren't gonna use it now and at close range (under 25m) they are subject both to musket fire and quickly bayonets. Range does NOT help the Feds and while they have a slightly higher ROF they don't have melee skills so heavy calvary would tear them apart.

1) The musket outranges you so you will have been takig fire from about 75 meters out and moving closer. By time you reach 25m the enemy will have (assuming even colonial relaod times0 have gotten off two full volleys with a possible third or fourth if he has time to arrange staggered lines.

yes that sounds about right. The fact of the matter is Napoleon used columns, due to the nature of the volley you couldn't destroy an entire column with a frontal volley. The first few ranks would be dead, but the rest would keep coming.

Now against the Feds with PJs and no skill at crossing open ground they wil be hit by volley after volley which WILL have shots find their marks.

2) In close combat against a medievil army you are placing phasers and shirts against swords and armor, phasers lose. When you reach the colonial era now you are tlaking about phasers against bayonets, once agian phasers lose.

I don't know about you, but in the time it takes to make a 25 m dash I can squeeze a shot off (especially considering it can be aimed from the hip).

Sure you can get a shot btu i\s it gonna hit anythign with the dustbusters? Maybe 1 in 3. Also are you gonna get more than 2/3 shots off? Nope.

Now a medieval army in chainmail (and don't make me laugh about plate) carring sword and sheild does not run all that fast.

Correct, however they will run fast enough that you aren't gonna take down a charging formation before they breach your lines.

And again the column formation provides depth. Even if the enemy just stop to stab the front lines through the heart, the back can still get off the shots needed.

That's why they don't stab, they slash. The first slash is to the left, the second to the right, etc and a charging swordsman can wade through several ranks of unarmored Feds in brief order.

3) The Feds have never been able to move in fomation, not even the lose tactical formations of modern fire teams...trust me they advance like drunken farmers over battlefields and drunken farmers moving en masse are ripe picking for any army with more than a few bowmen.

Sigh again read your military history. What do you think the French republic volunteers were? Farmers and other drunken peasants. The column is a remarkedly easy formation to maintain ... and was chosen by the republic for this reason (its tactical benifits becoming apparent after the fact). Its actually harder to move inline (without bowing the line) than to move in column. Do you honestly think the million odd men Napoleon had under arms were professional soldiers or might they have had simple formations that are easy to hold?

Way to not address the point. The Napoleonic armies were not the p[aragons of movement but wihtin the restrictions of movement they were trained. They were disciplined, they crossed terrain in formation keeping themselves on line. The Feds just run every which way with no formation, no sense of covering fire, often getting in each other's lines of fire. Its amazing they don't shoot each other in the back mroe often.

Again this is back to the fallacious Feds will use wide angle stun deal. Face it they haven't used it in combat before and things aren't going to suddenly change just for this fight.

Yes and there are several possibilities:
1. Against an enemy with technological parity there may be countermeasures (i.e. a drug to prevent or preemptively counter act its effects).

Thats the weakest excuse I've heard yet.

2. It may not be part of the military training. Bad militaries often don't teach their soldiers particularly good tactics (the red army and human waves comes to mind). So the conditioned reflex is to squeeze off shots that most likely miss, rather than take the more prudent route.

If they aren;'t trained to do it then they won't do it.

3. It may not work on certain species (i.e. Klingons, Breen, etc.) . We are talking about humans, where it has been shown to work.

They've never used it in combat against other humans. For that matter stun has worked in general, IIRC, against other species so why should wide angle not work?

Again any time after 1904 and you will face chemical artillery barrages and the Feds have no NBC defense, your troops will be horribly dead.

And again against WWI tactics/equipment the feddies are dead without a transporter. Should I say Sino-Russian war instead or will you undestand me when I say WWI as tactics involving the use of: Poison gas, machine guns, flamethrowers, tanks, etc. ?

Nonetheless you've advocated th use of poison gases and I'm pointing out that this is a stupid idea, nothing mroe.

The feds don't have the range to get off more than one good shot before heavy calvary is breathing down their neck...literally because their heads will be chopped off. At melee range the Feds ae COMPLETELY ineffective compared to any army since mankind first picked up big clubs and beat each othr with them.

Sigh. Read your damn history. Take Napoleonic troops, arange them into a square. The outer ranks die, the inner layers live. Sigh here let's look at a primary source:

<snip useless point raised about an army that knows how to fight heavy calvary>

Your source is a complete red herring. The ability of other armies of the day to engage heavy calvary has NO bearing on the Feds ability to do so. They do not have the range, the formaiton holding abilities, the dsicipline, the anything to stand up to calvary.

Squares stop calvary. Its rather simple. Yes the cavalry can waltz up and lop off heads, no they can't mow down the entire formation. Its just not possible to push through many ranks of men that quickly. With the advent of the machine gun columns and squares die (even the repeater rifle does a good bit towards killing them) but in Napoleonic times they were hideously strong. Combined arms could still kill you, but that always can.

Yes squares can stop them...if you have equivalent weaponry in range and power as well as discipline BUT the Feds have nothign except equivalent stopping power and there is no evidence that they would adapt their tactics to calvary. Fo that matter military history seems so little understood in the Federaiton that I doubt their officers even know about the effectiveness of circular/square formations against calvary.

The weapons and tactics you use are in large part determined by who you are trying to kill. If the enemy can intercept and decode your radio transmissions ... don't use radio transmissions. If he can't fine.

Fine but when you have an enemy who does NOT have your normal oponents tactics and technolgoy then all your stuff will be specialized to do something different and there is no garuntee you will be able to fight them effectively.

It might also be that transporting in battle is a dangerous thing ... like asking enemy orbitals to nail your position. We do know that transporters are used ... because the Klingons block them and force the feddies to use hoppers (don't recall the episode, its the one where Bashir, a bloody surgeon, is sent to get a generator.)

Yet in places like AR-588 they don't use transporters for site to site. On DS9 they move troops about by corridors and lifts most of the time. The numebr of times site to site transport would be useful but isn't used far outweighs the number of times it has been used or has been suggested as an option.

Rush to clsoe range and you have to face swordsmen who will dismember you, as to killing off chargin knigts range of Fed weaponry and the speed of advance on horseback will reduce accuracy to the point that most Knights wil survive and proceed to slaughter the Feds at melee range like they are built for (well not actually, the knights were built to defeat other knights, they just happen to also be good at killing infantry).

Knights off horse have trouble walking, let alone fighting. Do you have any frikking clue how much plate mail weighs? Formations several ranks deep will stop cavalry . Last I checked your average sword was maybe 1 m long with an effective striking distance about the same (at least my Toledan is about that size, if not smaller). The feddies close to within range of their phasors which can take more people per shot, but also stay outside of the range of the swords, knives, and clubs.

Hold on you want the Feds to be able to clsoe within 25m of an enemy formation, maintiain fire forwards when they are charged, attack the heavy calvary on their flanks and do this all IN FORMATION? Do you forget what would make the Fed vulnerable to longbowmen and artillery? Are you actually advocating that the Feds group themselves in a way that maximizes the enemy's range advantage? Similairly are you suggesting that they can prevent an enemy from closing with them?

Yes the transporter is an incredible tool, but the Feds don't use it to its full potential which means either
1) They are dumb and thus wouldn't use it here anyway or
2) They can't use it for some other reason which means they likely won't use it here.

Either way the fact that the Feds do not employ site to site transport in ground battles indicates that it ain't gonna be hapening much.

Sigh. Let's say that the US got into a major war with say China (ground war). Now both sides can try to use GPS ... but the US controlling the satellites can begin screwing with the timestamps. So in this fight the Chinese will not use GPS. Does this mean they will never use GPS? No. It means when the enemy is able to block some technology its not used.

Yet the applicaiton of this quote requires that the transporters are blocked all those times when they would be useful but not used and that it is always thee means of the enemy. Do you realize how fucking huge of a leap of faith that is?

When the soviets cut back and in some places stopped using helicopters in Afghanistan was it because the things didn't work? No its because the enemy had a mean to stop the thing (the stinger missile).

Your first example was actually relevant this one isn't.

Or go back to poison gas. Nobody uses poison gas today (except for a few real nutcases) ... why? Because we have gasmasks. The tactics used against opponent A will be different than against opponent B if A has countermeasures for some of your toys B does not.

Did you even hear about the Iran-Iraq qar? Do you understand that both sides had NBC measures and that people still died? Stupid example that is patently unaware of the full complexities of the issue involved.

A sniper may have a rifle which fires 3 bullet bursts (granted this is a compromise sniper rifle) does that feature go away with disuse?

This has even less point and relevance.

No, try some logic here.

So in a nutshell:
1. Transporters can be based in fixed locations ... not just on starships. Some are mobile and can be landed.

Yet they aren't used, and we don't know why. Unless you have a theory which is readily backed by the data that explains this I find it far mroe plausible that they just don't do it.

2. Columns allow you to absorb volleys and rushes without the formation breaking and everyone dying. Yes many will die, but not all.

However
1) Formations make you MROE vulnerable to long range fire which means aritllery and bowmen will be MROE effective.
2) The Feds haven't ever been able to do this before so why now?
3) The casulaties suffered will hurt most when it comes to melee range where the Feds are even weaker.

The ONLY range at which the Feds are better off than any army before 1700 is from 5-30m and that is so small a range gap that you can't fight the battle there and you will lose.

3. The non-use of a tactic or technology is dependant on the enemy you fight. Active sonar is deadly (to you) if the other guy has ears to hear you pinging. If he's a wooden man-o-war its makes your job easier.

Yet to show that this is a reasn why you would haev the technology available to you against other enemies you must show they have the non-use is due to enemy influence rather than simple unavailability. You haven't done that.

[CmdrWilkens]

Damn but that post is too long.

[Mr Bean]

tharkûn
Toss your comments in bold should be fine

Or do the Wong Way and use Color tags for thier orgiona comments and a diffrent color for yours

[Doomriser]

In other words bias. Come now could the Spanish Conquistadors have defeated the Incans without firearms and cannons? Its a comparable fight. Its intellectually dishonest to say that the feddies can't win ground battles by denying them their most potent weapon.

Actually, the superior swords, horses, armour, and crossbows of the Spanish were also a decisive factor. Their gunpowder and indeed bullets and shells were limited and as a result, their superior metallurgical technology was extremely important. But the Federation does not seem to have such an expansive, wide-reaching superiority in arms and materiel.

"Further you do *not* need a starship. We've seen starfleet transporters on earth operating and you can always I dunno land a runabout."

A runabout IS a starship or at least an air vehicle and I don't think that the Federation army will be fighting on 24th century Earth, with abundant transporter pads. The fact is that the U.S. army would be able to defeat more primitive armies even without air, naval, or space support. Yet the Federation would need such support...

"3) The Feds have never been able to move in fomation, not even the lose tactical formations of modern fire teams...trust me they advance like drunken farmers over battlefields and drunken farmers moving en masse are ripe picking for any army with more than a few bowmen. "

"Sigh again read your military history. What do you think the French republic volunteers were? Farmers and other drunken peasants. The column is a remarkedly easy formation to maintain ... and was chosen by the republic for this reason (its tactical benifits becoming apparent after the fact). Its actually harder to move inline (without bowing the line) than to move in column. Do you honestly think the million odd men Napoleon had under arms were professional soldiers or might they have had simple formations that are easy to hold?"

Sigh, read your history. Napoleon won his infantry battles through numerical superiority and brave shock troops. Mass conscription allowed him to have a numerical advantage over the elite but small armies that he fought. Napoleon's training allowed for the formations you describe, but Starfleet training doesn't. I assume that we're assuming equal numbers for this battle, so if the Feds advance like drunken farmers, it's not going to give them an advantage or have no negative effect. In other words, your French volunteers won through numbers and formation training, an advantage that the Federation force in this scenario would not have unless you want to concede that a Federation ground force would need numerical superiority and non-standard training in order to take on a pre-1900 ground force.

Furthermore, since Starfleet has no artillery and probably no calvary equivalents, the opposing forces will be able to use their non-infantry units on full anti-infantry duty. Whatever formations, if any, are used by Starfleet, the redshirts will certainly be decimated by gleeful artillerymen who have never seen such a target-rich environment in their lifetimes.

[tharkûn]

"Their most potent weapon requires them to use it
1)Under circumstances where air support would already be present and that means its over before it begins. However, and important to this point, air support will not always be available. Ships can be called elsewhere, goround instalations are often elft without fleet coverage. "
When was the last time you heard of a dedicated aircraft being called away from ground support? If you have a chopper gunship supporting infantry it will stay there till it is called back, killed, or out of bullets. If your military is good about combined arms, if you need air cover to complete a mission you have it or the mission is scrubbed. Aircraft do not desert you in the midst of a mission unless they are going to die shortly anyways. I mean seriously if an anti-tank unit is assigned a warthog to assist them what happens to the crew of the warthog if they abandon them?

But let's see an example of an army that successfully fought a non-guerilla war without air support post WWII. The Arabs tried in Yom Kippur, we saw how that went. Can you name another war fought without airpower when the enemy had it?

Requiring dedicated assistance is not a bad thing ... we use it all the time. We dedicate artillery to assist infantry units, spec forces to assist artillery and bombers, and naval bombardment to assist all manner of ground forces.



"2) In a way they've never used it before. Lets not bandy about, the Feds have NEVER used site to site transportation in tactical engagements. They might use it for insertion and egress but never for movement once they're on the ground. "

Please we have seen how many total ground battles? The seige of AR whatever ... where they were jamming everything. The one against the Klingons were Bashir runs to his shuttle (explicity said to be jammed). The one were Sisko et al crash land on a planet. Other than that all the ground action we've seen has been skirmishes, normally not even against regular armies. All of them have been fought by naval officers and all of them have been with low unit totals (as opposed to the million odd Cardis mentioned to be killed on the ground in one DS9 episode ... right before Damar starts his little rebellion).

If we took WWII, took a half dozen battles we'd miss half the tactics used. How many battles were there where AA guns shot up infantry? Just because a tactic has never been seen before in battle does not mean it can't be used.

We do know that transports can be detected, normally getting detected in battle is a *bad* thing. One might not use it simply because it would GIVE YOUR POSITION AWAY against an opponent who can detect it.



Further you do *not* need a starship. We've seen starfleet transporters on earth operating and you can always I dunno land a runabout.


Then explain why they don't do this in combat?


Again looking at every actual ground battle we know the enemy is jamming. Its explicity stated when Jake and Bashir fight on one planet and at AR their sensors are jammed (hence they use Nog's ears). Can you name a battle in ST where the enemy is not jamming? Every battle (as opposed to skirmish) I recall is jammed and explicity stated as being such

The problem is that once you remove the transporters they DON'T have the equipment OR the tactics. They're range is less than that of medievil armies and their skill at corssing any kind of terrain is horrible as is their reliance on uber high tech. There's a reason why Marines are good at their job, we are taught how to do things with a rifle, a map, and an e-tool.




We have seen the feddies use phaser as stun weapons against multiple targets at close range. They also have been seen to take shots at decent rate of fire.
In a nutshell combat is broken down in this manner
> 100 m ... extreme advantage to the enemy feddies have nothing without transporters
100 - 50 m ... advantage to the feddies enemies. At this range the feddies can shoot and have a bad chance at hitting. Their enemies will be better shots
50 - 25 m ... at this range its likely about equal. Feddie shots can be walked into the target and they don't have a huge cloud of smoke in their eyes.
25 - 5m ... here the feddies have an advantage. Using a wide angle stun they can hit numerous opponents with a single shot. Most armies of the time organized into battlelines, most often 1-4 soldiers deep. You can decimate the line at this point.
< 5m here melee weapons can be used, the feddies lose, hideously

"Which is exactly my point, at the combat ranges were phasers become effective any army more recent than the colonial era will be better equipped and better trained. "

Last I checked before the advent of the machine gun (maybe the repeater rifle) at a range of 25m the average soldier could not incapacitate more than 1 of the enemy. The feddies can. For a very specific range the feddies have the advatange.


"Heres the thing though, the commanders are trained to utilize the units which they have immediately availble. They arte trained to fight with limited informaiton and make the best of it. Communicating amongst regimental sized units of infantry or even calvary is easy enough even by Civil War times that your com badges don't give any real noticeable advantage. "


I was once told that "Scouting is life". Now we know feddie communicators are good from ground to orbit. A feddie scout can be say 3 km away from the main force, call in a report and the army respond. A napoleonic scout wout have to ride 3km and then delivery the same information. Once the commanders have the information the feddies disseminate it to squad leaders in a matter of seconds, the French in a matter of minutes by sending runners (or shouting it off down the line ... which has its problems if you are using artillery).

Good recon is terribly important, especially against Napoleon who normally kept his troops dispersed. The feddies can easily have their scouts *days* ahead of their main force and relay information back (using intermediaries if need be) in seconds.

Just because every soldier has a communicator does not mean it needs to be used. If it works the feddies can just use them to efficiently relay orders between officers.



"However they do not require every recipeint to stop acting. At the squad level (usual radio deployment for USMC) you have a radioman who passes info to a squad leader who then directs thesquad. Thus 1 person is disengaged from combat while the others can continue the engagement. In the Com Badge system the recipient has to tap their badge to get comm data flowing which means even if whole units can recieve at once they each have to tap their badge and take themselves out of combat to acknowledge orders (plus its a great way to reveal oneself at night). "

Only if the information is 2 way. We hear exactly what the person says, once the recipient taps their badge it gives their reply. In any event have we not heard "the captain to all hands" and then orders without hearing a cacophony of beeps in reply.

Further the communicator need not be tap activated, we've seen implanted communicators (under the back of the hand) which do not require tapping.


"And you pointed it out wrong. Transporters can exist on planteray surfaces. We've seen shuttles and runabouts land so they are even mobile terrestrial transporters.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



None of which are ever used in ground combat scenarios"

again can you name a ground battle where it is not jammed to hell and back?



"However we have the Feds fighting people without air cover so things are rather even. "

I see but now the French would be fighting people without artillery so it should so things are rather even.

If your military doctrine is based off one type of tactic or unit its moronic to compare them without that unit. For instance a USN in WWII without aircraft carriers is idiotic. We'd have been slaughtered whole sale by the Japanese, but we based our forces off the carrier and we won. Remove enough, powerful tools from any army and their performance goes downhill fast. Not as fast as idiotic feddies, but still its moronic to chastise the feddies for relying on air power when:
1. We do it too
2. It works



"You will close the distance against any enemy trained in close in fighting, not a smart idea. "


Sigh there is a categoric difference between close enough to fire from the hip and close enough to slash his eyes out


"Again a competent commander will have calvary scouts who ought to find enemy troops in such uniforms easily enough at which point massng one's forces becomes an easy enough matter. The enemy has to engage you at some point becuase with heavy calvary you will always have greater mobility than foot infantry. Also the Napoleonic and even Colonial-era footmen were much more preparred for long marches with the requisite supplies and equipment than the Feds. Fed ground troops can NOT engage in a cmapaing of manuever against an enemy with greater speed, greater manueverability, and superior endurance. "

Really then how did the British march across the Pennisula? The French had substantial heavy cavalry, yet they couldn't beat the British.

The answer is that heavy cavalry cannot decimate infantry in box formations (squares and columns). Your cavalry can conduct hit and run, but if they actually attempt to stand and fight the enemy their speed is no longer an advantage. Unless they have numerical parity, they will be dead. Only the battleline was particularly vunerable to heavy cavalry ... even when the enemy had *no* artillery.

"Hwoever this isn't a war, this is a single scenario batle. "
Oh in which case the sheer shock of watching your army "vaporize" should be enough to win. At this point in time armies are still rediciously superstitious. Just circulate rumors that God is on your side and then perform a few "miraculous vaporizations" and you've won.

" If the feddies have to rely on the guys in charge in the show, can we say cannon fodder?
My point all along. "



I might be wrong, but the question is who could the the feddies beat not who would the feddies beat. In the opening year of the Civil War the north could have beaten the Confederates, it turned out they wouldn't due to incompotent leadership.

"You have heard of counterbattery fire right? Once your troops have advanced to a certian point cannon targets other cannon and they duel each other. For hundreds of canon only a small percentage will be able to fire on troops who will be moving at decent speed relative to the reload rate of cannon. The oldest axiom of war is that you kill thsoe most like you before hitting others, pilots kill pilots first, arty kills arty first, tanks kill tanks first, etc. The point is of those hundreds of cannons battles not all that many are going to be anti-infantry until close range and then you don't have all that many shots left. "


Sigh read up on Napoleon. The foot batties would do counter battery fire, the horse batties were held in reserve, sent to the front and ASAP pounded on infantry. At this point foot batties would disengage their current targets to assist in the bombardment. It literally would be hundreds of batties against infantry. Others used the same tactics.

as for the oldest axiom, umm let's see AA-infantry kills first:
a. other infantry
b. the sonuvabitch about to drench you in napalm

AT mech infantry kills first:
a. enemy mech infantry
b. enemy tanks

Bombers kill:
a. AA units
b. enemy fighters

the oldest axiom in war is kill the guys who can kill you first. Sometimes this means hitting your own, other times it means hitting something else. The point of holding the horse batties in reserve was so they could hit infantry without having to slug it out in a batty fight first.

"Heres the thing...the Feds don't use wide angle stun in battle period. If they haven't used it before they aren't gonna use it now and at close range (under 25m) they are subject both to musket fire and quickly bayonets. Range does NOT help the Feds and while they have a slightly higher ROF they don't have melee skills so heavy calvary would tear them apart. "

We've seen maybe 10 ground battles (more often we see ad hoc skirmishes between shipborn units). Saying that a demonstrated tactic would never be used because we haven't seen it used in the *few* case examples we have is moronic. Look over all the battles in WWII, how often were AA guns used on infantry? Does that mean that an observer who didn't see Rommel's famous desert tactic should rightfully conclude it would never be done?

Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence




"Now against the Feds with PJs and no skill at crossing open ground they wil be hit by volley after volley which WILL have shots find their marks. "
And you think Napoleonic columns (which marched in *straight* lines) didn't?

The fact of the matter is if each side has 1000 guys and one is in columns and the other in line ... the line *can't destroy the column. Say the column is 10x100 (wide x deep). The line is 2x500. The ends of the line can't hit the column (too narrow of an angle) and even if they could they can aim for the outside rank at most. If you are marching dead on the line has perhaps 50 targets exposed, two ranks in gives you perhaps 100. Even with perfect aim a volley kills only 10% of the column. 2 volleys only 20%. Napoleon understood this and marched his columns straight up to the enemy and then bayoneted the enemy.

Napoleonics wore cloth uniforms and marched in straight lines over open ground. The feds can't do much worse at "crossing open ground".

"Sure you can get a shot btu i\s it gonna hit anythign with the dustbusters"

Maybe 1 in 3. Also are you gonna get more than 2/3 shots off? Nope. "
Sigh the whole point of using these tactics is to get to a range where you can fire a broadband shot. Assuming the damn thing is a cone with even say 60 degrees of spread ... the enemy *will* get hit. Given that you have enough men to stagger fire you can likely stop a charge because each shot is hitting multiple opponents. The closest analog I can see is a flamethrower squad against an infantry squad. Each shot takes out multiple opponents and each shot does not need to be terribly well aimed.

Sigh I will finish the rest later (we need to cut this down to size).