Who CAN the Federation Ground Troops beat?

[Mr. B]

Those are the LONGEST FUCKING POSTS I HAVE EVER SEEN.

[CmdrWilkens]

Those are the LONGEST FUCKING POSTS I HAVE EVER SEEN.

Come by ASVS and view some of the obscene reply after reply A/V threads Phong and Dalton get into, that is the definition of long.

[Master of Ossus]

Squares are only effective against cavalry provided that the infantry forming the square are armed to deal with very short range attacks. Thus, bayonet equipped soldiers (or pikemen) were ideal for forming such units. If the threat of hand-to-hand fighting does not exist, cavalry ARE able to break up and destroy squares, because they will quickly try to close the distance to their enemies and trample/stab them to death.

There are some other examples of non-guerrilla fighting that one side attempted without air power. The mini-conflicts that America had with Iran and Iraq over sea-lanes prior to the Gulf War were really interesting because they were an example of engagements in which the Americans did NOT have aircover. Instead, their cruisers/destroyers were largely left on their own to keep the sea-lanes open to Kuwait/Bahrain. The Iranians and Iraqis both used aircraft to attack the Americans (as well as gunboats, mines, etc.), but were ultimately unsuccessful. This example is not especially relevent because those were largely naval conflicts. The Desert War was one example (though it can be argued that it was guerrilla), and it can be argued that the Falkland Islands was such a war, with the Argentine's only truly dangerous aircraft being destroyed without much of a fight (they should have one-wayed their aircraft and fired the Exosets at maximum range at the British. Then MAYBE they could have held.). Your point is well taken.

No matter how good your morale is, it is VERY difficult to stand up to people with fixed bayonets. In fact, it almost never happened that two different bodies of soldiers fought each other using such weapons in ANY conflict. Bayonets are VERY intimidating, and most soldiers would break and run if faced with the prospect of being skewered.

I do not think that a Napoleonic Army would be able to beat a similarly numbered body of Federation soldiers/converted sailors. I do think that any army armed with MG's (about WWI on) and repeating rifles would be able to crush them. It is POSSIBLE that an army armed with only repeating rifles and VERY primitive MG's would be able to win, but I would need to look at the scenario more closely.

[CmdrWilkens]

Tharkun I'm gonna try and simplify this largely because, even with some sniping on my part, the thread is quickly becoming unmanageably large..

My points.

1) Transporters:

They require a dedicated either starship, shuttle vehicle or heavy ground installation. In the case were either of the former is present the ending is a foregone conclusion (and thus not fun to debate) and regardless air cover will not always be available (see AR-588 and many a batle in Earth's history). In the last case such an installaiton would only be present after prolonged Fed prescence on a given planet, we are tlkaing about incursion timefram battles ere or battle on neutral planets where no one has support facilities. In other words transporters most likely will not be available and in most of the cases where they would be it involves air forces which is against the nature of ground forces vs. argument.

2) Range

The Napoleonic army or even a Colonial or Medievil Army has an advantage of range in set peice battles. The artillery has the range to decimate the feds while the muskets and rifles will be more accurate at longer ranges.

3) Manueverability

Any army after the rise of Rome will incorporate heavy calvary into many of its formations enabling the commander to have both scouting at range and a heavy very moobile force capable of quickly closing with the Feds to melee range where the Feds would be slaughtered.

4) Information gathering

Tricorders are indeed excellent tools, you'll probably be able to manuever around about where the enemy is BUT counter detection with calvary scouts is very likely as the Federation "army" is NOT equipped for extended manuevers. In other words the advantage given by tircorders is rendered nearly useless by lack of endurance at manuever warfare

5) Communications

Sure those badges are fine but they have drawbacks which the Feds are NOT trained to compensate for. Yes a commander can contact each and every person as need be anbd both gather and recieve information BUT the "all chiefs few indians" mentality begins to come into play. Every person is an officer with information to gather and report thus making them less combatants and mroe armed observers. This obviously goes more towards C&C but I placed it here breifly.


6) Speak of the devil...Command and Control

The armies after the colonial era for the major powers were largely (except in wartime and excessive need) professional armies well trained and highly disciplined. The artillery forces and heavy calvary of such armies would rate excellent while the Feds are cursed by too many officers and not enoguh shooters nr have they shown the kind of quick thinknig, acting on limited information mentatlity of a true officer in the field.

7) Intangibles

The Feds don't really see blood. Their combat, with few exceptions, is energy weapon combat which leaves people dead, internally injured or nearly 100%. When shrapnel, musket fire, sabre slashes, etc start raining in amongst them they will most likley break.

[Darth Wong]

When was the last time you heard of a dedicated aircraft being called away from ground support?

Starfleet doesn't have dedicated ground-support aircraft. They have naval vessels which are not dedicated to support, and which routinely strand ground personnel (see "Siege of AR-588", "Nor the Battle to the Strong").

{Re transporters} 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.

Transporters would potentially be very useful against a primitive army (as opposed to one that can jam them, detect them, or reroute them with tractor beams). However, an army need not possess a technology in order to develop a countermeasure against it. In the case of transporters, any sufficiently strong EM field will stymie its operation (see my TNG database), even one from an ordinary electrical transformer. Moreover, the presence of certain mundane minerals will do the same thing. Granted, these contermeasures apply to modern armies rather than the Napoleonic armies you seem to be discussing, but then again, a simple lightning storm will kill transporters.

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.

Actually, there is no record of wide-angle phasers on stun at any range greater than a few metres. We've never seen them being used in anything larger than a cramped room.

Re long-range wide-angle stun: Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence

I am so sick of this stupid line. It's cute but it's bullshit, like "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit". Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence, but evidence of absence is not necessary. If you believe in everything unless you see evidence to disprove it, then you are being completely irrational! No phenomenon should be assumed to exist unless you have some evidence of its existence. See Occam's Razor.

In the case of wide-angle phasers, we have evidence of their usefulness at short range and we have obvious range dissipation mechanisms (air heating as mentioned in DS9, visible light emission, dispersion), so the burden of proof is upon you to show that long-range wide-angle phasers exist, not upon anyone else to show that they don't. No "evidence of absence" is necessary.

[Master of Ossus]

Actually, Commander Wilkins, there are many armies before the rise of Rome that also used heavy cavalry. Alexander the Great was particularly fond of them, as was Sun Tzu (China) and the First Emperor of the said nation.

There are also many examples of SF forces fighting in non-sterile conditions and not suffering from morale failure (Klingon attacks, Dominion forces using anti-cauterization weapons, etc.) No SF forces have ever seen to break and run in panic due to such injuries (it feels so weird to be arguing FOR ST, but that is what was on TV). No force in the world/galaxy, however, could stand up to fixed bayonets and expect regular results. Your psychological warfare statement is true, in that regard.

Finally, the "all commander no troops" idea is actually extremely effective in combat, as it is often extremely difficult for commanders to micro-manage individual soldiers. This is the model used by the US Army and most Western forces today. It allows for greater flexibility than under the "Soviet" systems, and makes for more effective units than the older, "You only move when I tell you to," system. Again, it is hard to be arguing FOR ST, but again, that is what historical precedent has indicated. It, in part, explains how the Nazi German units were so successful against the Soviets. Man for man, they were more efficient with their units, giving them a force-multiplier against the USSR and its Red Army which was particularly noticable early in the war, when it was still a conflict of movement instead of attrition.

Again, I do not think that the Feds could beat a WWI army, but I think it is probable that they could fight a Napoleonic one (though, in such a conflict, there would be SOME advantages both ways).

[The Yosemite Bear]

Triffids!

I mean how hard can it be for Even Starfleet to kill a Friggin Flower, that's just standing their, launching poison barbs?

Not to mention, since it's a plant the Phasors should be able to damage it.

[The Yosemite Bear]

They have already lost to Cavemen and Yeti and that was in the TOS.

[Pablo Sanchez]

There are also many examples of SF forces fighting in non-sterile conditions and not suffering from morale failure (Klingon attacks, Dominion forces using anti-cauterization weapons, etc.) No SF forces have ever seen to break and run in panic due to such injuries (it feels so weird to be arguing FOR ST, but that is what was on TV).

This is true, but I find it amusing that there is very seldom any blood at all, even when Federation troops are overrun by bat'leth wielding Klingons.

No force in the world/galaxy, however, could stand up to fixed bayonets and expect regular results. Your psychological warfare statement is true, in that regard.

Another amusing point about bayonets is that they are usually only used by troops against retreating or prostrate enemies. The majority of hand to hand combat casualties, even when bayonets are available, are caused by blunt trauma--rifles used as clubs. The average human finds it very difficult to stick a sharp length of steel into his fellow man and watch him die. This changes, of course, when he can't see their face. They become a fleeing back, not a human.

Finally, the "all commander no troops" idea is actually extremely effective in combat, as it is often extremely difficult for commanders to micro-manage individual soldiers.
[snip]
conflict of movement instead of attrition.

You're confusing the use of experienced NCOs and encouragement of individual initiative with the "every man an officer" structure of the Federation "army."

[Master of Ossus]

Yes, Mr. Sanchez, I understand that the vast majority of hand-to-hand combat casualties involving soldiers with bayonets actually came from traumatic injuries rather than bayonets. That does not eliminate the central point, which is that soldiers do not actually have to use their bayonets in order to be intimidating. They can just charge with the bayonet. Once they get within a few meters of their enemies, their enemies will almost always break and run.

I also find it funny how little blood there is shown in ST, especially since in Way of the Warrior Bashir SPECIFICALLY warned his medical personnel to be ready for lacerations, etc. from Klingon weapons in melee fighting. Then he didn't even become a doctor, he sat there and shot up Klingon warriors for a while. Still, though, I think that there is blood in ST fighting, it just is not shown on screen. This means that my real point still stood, which was that the "intangible" advantage that a Napoleonic Army, supposedly, would have over a group of SF officers would not be as exaggerated as some people claim. While I STILL find it hard to argue for ST, I think that Napoleonic forces would have great difficulty in overcoming similarly numbered SF forces. I think that the main advances that would make an army more powerful than SF forces are the machine gun and the repeating rifle. Until those bits of technology are thrown in, I am unconvinced that an army can defeat SF personnel, despite their laughable lack of preparation for ground combat.

I still do not think that the "every man an officer" problem would apply to SF because we have never seen a federation command structure break down while in combat. In fact, we have seen relatively few instances of orders being purposely ignored in ST. Again, SF's discipline and its morale would be its best assets against any army that it faced. Think of all the redshirts that have died! NONE OF THEM have hesitated before stepping on the transport pad. They just keep coming.

I think that any army from about WWI onward would find a Federation force easily defeated, but I still do not believe that an army without even primitive machine guns or repeating rifles could defeat the Feds. On the other hand, Yosemite Bear's reminder that SF personnel have lost to cavemen and Yeti is funny, though not especialy relevent. I had forgotten about that.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I still do not think that the "every man an officer" problem would apply to SF because we have never seen a federation command structure break down while in combat. In fact, we have seen relatively few instances of orders being purposely ignored in ST. Again, SF's discipline and its morale would be its best assets against any army that it faced. Think of all the redshirts that have died! NONE OF THEM have hesitated before stepping on the transport pad. They just keep coming.

To be fair, you are correct here. But you still have to remember that the Federation has never been shown to be involved in any ground combat operation larger than company level.

[Master of Ossus]

You're right about the lack of actions above company-level that we have seen (or, not seen) in ST. I don't think that it would make the command structure more unmanageable by that much, but I also think it would be interesting to see. Actually, if memory serves, SF didn't even do that much fighting on the ground. Instead they left it up to the Klingons to send [insert number] of battalions to land against random Cardassian targets. Again, I find it difficult to argue for SF, but I don't think that what has been shown on screen leads to the conclusion that Napoleonic armies could defeat them.

[Pablo Sanchez]

You're right about the lack of actions above company-level that we have seen (or, not seen) in ST. I don't think that it would make the command structure more unmanageable by that much, but I also think it would be interesting to see. Actually, if memory serves, SF didn't even do that much fighting on the ground. Instead they left it up to the Klingons to send [insert number] of battalions to land against random Cardassian targets. Again, I find it difficult to argue for SF, but I don't think that what has been shown on screen leads to the conclusion that Napoleonic armies could defeat them.

In a nutshell:

1) Observed weapons ranges of less than 30 meters.
2) Lack of anything heavier than a grenade launcher, excepting orbital and air support.
3) No real tactics of formation, movement, or fire.
4) Awful hand-to-hand combat abilities.
5) No combat vehicles, excepting the Nemesis dune buggy.

[Master of Ossus]

You're right about the lack of actions above company-level that we have seen (or, not seen) in ST. I don't think that it would make the command structure more unmanageable by that much, but I also think it would be interesting to see. Actually, if memory serves, SF didn't even do that much fighting on the ground. Instead they left it up to the Klingons to send [insert number] of battalions to land against random Cardassian targets. Again, I find it difficult to argue for SF, but I don't think that what has been shown on screen leads to the conclusion that Napoleonic armies could defeat them.

In a nutshell:

1) Observed weapons ranges of less than 30 meters.
2) Lack of anything heavier than a grenade launcher, excepting orbital and air support.
3) No real tactics of formation, movement, or fire.
4) Awful hand-to-hand combat abilities.
5) No combat vehicles, excepting the Nemesis dune buggy.

I agree completely. The only point that we disagree on is whether or not SF could defeat a Napoleonic army using their ground forces. Maybe I am overestimating the utility of repeating weapons, but I do not think that a Napoleonic army would be able to win a battle against a similarly sized group of Federation soldiers. While any army with MG's and repeating rifles would be able to beat up on Federation officers, I still do not believe that a Napoleonic army could.

[Mr. B]

Napolionic army losing?

I think not. Napoleon(sp) is a better general than any redshirt ST could come up with.

Phasers may have the firepower advantage but The Feds have no ground combat experience. The artillery and calvary charges of Napoleon would eventually win out.

[Admiral Piett]

Napoleon is not in command of course.Napoleonic,not Napoleon's.

[Doomriser]

Triffids!

I mean how hard can it be for Even Starfleet to kill a Friggin Flower, that's just standing their, launching poison barbs?

Not to mention, since it's a plant the Phasors should be able to damage it.

Well, in at least one TOS episode, a redshirt was killed by a stationary, "Friggin Flower" that launched darts into his stomach. So sorry, ST loses to flowers.

[Doomriser]

If you have a chopper gunship supporting infantry it will stay there till it is called back, killed, or out of bullets.[/b]

And where did you learn this tidbit of information? "Red Alert?"

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

2) Lack of anything heavier than a grenade launcher, excepting orbital and air support.

A grenade launcher that failed to kill several men less then 2 meters away (you see the So'na moving)

[Doomriser]

Can 6000 Starfleet troops beat Doom I Episode I on its easiest setting equivalent?
http://www.stardestroyer.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=522

[tharkûn]

First off this has been bugging the hell out of me. A few people always state that Seige AR wahteverthehellthenumbersare is an example of no air support. However we might note that its *underground* in frikking tunnels. Now this may be a foreign concept to some people but indirect fire doesn't work in tunnels. Air support, artillery, even mortars are damn near suicidal when you don't have clearance overhead for your shot to go off.

http://www.startrek.com/library/media_DS9.asp?id=101454
Note the hideous lighting, note the rock which is at the end of every LOS. Its underground where any form of indirect fire is not used.

Yes its an example of stupid ground tactics and poor equiping of ground troops (2 HMG's and several frag grenades could have held the chokepoint). However indirect fire would never be used when the round is going to impact the ceiling. A mortarman who shoots at the ceiling tends to die, fast. Air support against an enemy is a bad thing ... if said air support just might mean you get buried under rock.

As far as transporter warfare goes, its frikking part of the storyline that the Dominion is jamming ... hence they use Nog's ears, get his leg blown off, etc.


Also mentioned is "Rock and Shoals", again allow me to refresh your memories. Is this a ground army? No. Its a bloody covert naval mission. Sisko and company *crash land* on a planet. They are pitifully equipped yes, but so too would say a WWII sub asigned to take out say a Japanese tender that was damaged and the screw was forced to abandon ship on an uninhabited planet. There would be nothing but small arms for *any* military in that situation (last I checked artillery, tanks, etc. are not used on covert naval missions).

If these are you standard for determining ground combat capabilities ... I'm sorry but they tell us nothing about the effectiveness of air support, artillery, armor, etc. in the feddie universe. Its utterly moronic to state, "Well the feddies didn't use a tactic in Seige or Rocks and Shoals so they cannot/will not ever use it."

Now "Nor Battle the Strong" the feddies actually are sending in air support, which gets killed en route. Does this happen to ground assets also? Yes. Would it happen more often in the ST universe? Yes

Imagine you are firing artillery on a planet with no theatre sheild and a hostile ship in geosyncronous orbit (35,000km up for a planet with a rotational period similar to that of earth). Some feddie with a communictor manages to relay your coordinates to the ship overhead. To force the gunner overhead to realign more than 1 degree (assuming he's directly overhead and ignoring curvature so I can be lazy and just use basic trig) you'd need to travel roughly 611 km. Now we've seen feddie guns hit targets at vastly different angles (at least 30 degrees apart) in relatively shor time frames (seconds). Very few armored vehicles are going to be able to make that run and still be ground vehicles. Concealment is only an option if you can: withstand multiple kiltonne explosions in the near vicinity or if the enemy has assets in the near vicinity he wants to protect. ST uses what amount to stragetic nuclear weapons as standard issue tactical weapons for its ships. There is a word for armor under such a barage ... dead.

Now as far as infantry equipment, again the concepts of HMGs and frag grenades are lost on the feddies (again that tunnel could have been easily held with HMGs and grenades). It might be excusable that this was a backwater planet that nobody would care about anyways and was attacked after a ceasefire. Still utterly moronic on their part, but not their worst mistakes.

With regards to transporter warfare, again its *explicitly stated* that the transporters are jammed.

In the ST universe once you've lost the orbital battle, your armor is dead. If you've won the orbital battle, ground armor is superflous in general. I've always thought that the feddies ditched ground armor because it was uneconomical, too little return for too little gain. This effect tends to be self-reinforcing ... if one guy decides against MBT's, then there is little else for the other guys MBT's. Given the lack of mobile anti-orbital ground weapons in ST, ground armor is of limited usefulness. If it exists it either has to have armor/sheilds well in excess of current MBT's or it has to rely on speed and stealth to not get its ass blown to peices by whomever can take shots from orbit with kilo(mega)tonne yeilds.

Now if somebody with half a brain developed the "Personal launch devise for planetary surface to orbital theatre missiles" armor might become viable. To the best of my knowledge we have never seen a mobile AO gun in ST. But as long as orbiting ships are immune from anything but other orbiting ships and fixed guns ... he who wins the orbital battle wins the air battle.

Now some of you have stated that the feddies don't have naval vessels which stick around and help out. Might be the case, but in the examples we've seen:
R&S: Marooned, MIA, if any military can deliver naval/air support without knowing where its people are they a frikking amazing.
Seige: Underground. What do you expect the Defiant to die? Toss megtonne warheads down on the carvern roof? Phaser the troops before they have target aquisition?.
Nor Battle: Naval support was being sent, it was destroyed en route. When feddie naval support arrives the feddies have won.

Would any of these battles turned out differently had the feddies used dedicated air support?

Now maybe I'm missing a feddie battle here, but with regards to tansporters, every freaking one its either been explicitly stated that the enemy is jamming (Nor Battle the Strong, Seige AR) or its on an uninhabited planet with no transporters after a naval ship has crashed and sunk beneath the water. So for every case you guys bring up where the feddies don't use transporter tactics I submit its:
1. Explictly stated as being blocked.
2. Explictly stated as being marooned without a transporter and SF HQ has no frikking clue you are alive.

Now please can anyone name a feddie battle which is not explicitly stated to be jammed or where the battle is not ad hoc (i.e. a dozen gold shirts beam in, find some hostiles, and small arms exchanges ensue). In other words battles (as opposed to skirmishes) which aren't explicitly stated to be jammed?

So yes my theory is that using a transporter in battle would be highly effective unless:
1. Some funny ore is in the hills (or whatever the hell natural phenomena makes them go kaput).

2. The enemy has counter measures. Mike brings up EM, of course when discussing Napoleon its important to note that Coloumb, Galvani, Volta, etc. are barely 2 decades gone ... just about nobody understands their work. Ampere, Ohm, Farady, Kelvin and that ilk are not done with their research. Edison, Maxwell, and Tesla are still decades away. I *highly* doubt Napoleon could have jammed a transporter without some funny ore or other such gibberish.

I don't know for sure, but my bet is by WWII the transporter could be disrupted.

3. The enemy can find the device, attack it, and disable it before it can be moved or used to stop the enemy attack. We do know that by the '90s we can track transporters (or was that just in one of the better ST novels?) so then its just a matter of search of destroy.


From what've seen using transporter support and even assigning dedicated ground support is feasible and possible for the feddies to do. I am assuming that there is a purge of the officer core for what the feddie army could do. What the feddie army would do is get their asses kicked due to utterly incompotent decisions coming down from the top and slightly less incompotent ones coming up from the bottom.

[tharkûn]

Now so I can be beat down by a master:

Starfleet doesn't have dedicated ground-support aircraft. They have naval vessels which are not dedicated to support, and which routinely strand ground personnel (see "Siege of AR-588", "Nor the Battle to the Strong").



I never said the feddies do have dedicated naval vessels, more that the could and if they did that's not a bad thing. Trying to make some sense out of feddie tactics, the most logical conclusion as to why the feddies actually manage to win and nobody uses heavy armor is that at times SF does dedicate naval vessels as ground support.

Its certainly what I'd do if handed the idiocy that is strafleet command during a ground battle.

Remember I'm argueing that it could be done ... not that it is or will be done without a change in planning.



Transporters would potentially be very useful against a primitive army (as opposed to one that can jam them, detect them, or reroute them with tractor beams). However, an army need not possess a technology in order to develop a countermeasure against it. In the case of transporters, any sufficiently strong EM field will stymie its operation (see my TNG database), even one from an ordinary electrical transformer. Moreover, the presence of certain mundane minerals will do the same thing. Granted, these contermeasures apply to modern armies rather than the Napoleonic armies you seem to be discussing, but then again, a simple lightning storm will kill transporters.


Yes I've read the database, I have nitpicks (who doesn't?), but I highly doubt Napoleon could block a transporter (or Lee or von Moltke). I'm guessing you'd need more power generation and projection than is possible at the time (given EM falls off with distance squared and transporters work across ranges of thousands of km). Only the area in a circle near the lightening storm would be effected (unless transporters are LOS and you have only one direction to go from). Again my hunch is WWII, when is yours?

Actually, there is no record of wide-angle phasers on stun at any range greater than a few metres. We've never seen them being used in anything larger than a cramped room.


I'm doing half-assed extrapolation. Current tasers take about .4 joules (manufacturer specs) to stun a victim. So to operate at 25m over a cone with a 30 degree angle we are talking ~654 m^2 (some reason that doesn't look right). Now most people are going to get hit with what .5 m^2 contact area? So we need to deliver about 523 joules after bleeding out. I think thats doable, could be wrong. Bah I'll finish this after some sleep.[/i]

[Master of Ossus]

The limitation on "wide angle stun" may have nothing to do with energy generation. It is probably a limitation with the emitter.

[Straha]

Just a lark for a sec.
Suppose a Roman (roughly 160-240 A.D.) legion of 40,000 with said calavary, archers, ballistae catapults etc. fought a 3,000 fed detachment?

In compensationg for techno advantage I would give the romans home turf advantage of about a day, with a competent military commander and a loyal staff.

[Darth Wong]

Now so I can be beat down by a master:
I never said the feddies do have dedicated naval vessels, more that the could and if they did that's not a bad thing. Trying to make some sense out of feddie tactics, the most logical conclusion as to why the feddies actually manage to win and nobody uses heavy armor is that at times SF does dedicate naval vessels as ground support. Its certainly what I'd do if handed the idiocy that is strafleet command during a ground battle.

I always thought the most logical conclusion was that their enemies on the ground were absolute idiots. The Klingons are famous for dropping their disruptors and pulling out bat'leths in battle!!!! What army couldn't hold their own against that, and yet Federation ground troops routinely get overrun by these morons!

Remember I'm argueing that it could be done ... not that it is or will be done without a change in planning.

Well, any hypothetical ideas about ground-support aircraft would require the necessary manpower and equipment, and I don't think they have it. As we have seen on the show, ground troops can be dropped in hostile territory and left to fend for themselves for months before being resupplied. This is obviously a Starfleet that is stretched to its limits already, despite a lot of Trekkie claims about vast fleets and industrial output.

Yes I've read the database, I have nitpicks (who doesn't?), but I highly doubt Napoleon could block a transporter (or Lee or von Moltke). I'm guessing you'd need more power generation and projection than is possible at the time (given EM falls off with distance squared and transporters work across ranges of thousands of km).

They've been stymied by natural lightning storms in the past, or even elevated but non-lethal levels of stellar radiation in orbit. Even the slightest electromagnetic interference seems to disrupt their operation. The fact that they work over ranges of thousands of km (leaving aside the ongoing debate about whether they would have them at all, since they appear to need Starfleet support for them) doesn't necessarily mean anything; modern AM radio can carry for more than a thousand km, yet it is easily disrupted by feeble magnetic fields.

Only the area in a circle near the lightening storm would be effected (unless transporters are LOS and you have only one direction to go from).

You must also keep in mind the limitations on rates of transportation. We learned from "Descent Part 2" that the E-D's entire complement of transporters can only move people at an average rate of 1 person per second. Extrapolating downwards, let's say that a single shuttle has one tenth the E-D's transporter capability (this is probably over-generous). That means it would take a ground army with a dedicated shuttle-type transporter nearly 14 hours to move 5000 men.

Transporters would be useful for inserting covert operatives, and for scouting. That's valuable (although simple electromagnetic interference would keep sensitive installations intruder-free), but is it enough to turn the tide?

They wouldn't be able to perform the kind of rapid deployments and stunning maneuver warfare tactics that some people envision. If they deploy anywhere near an enemy troop concentration, they'll be massively outnumbered and picked off one at a time as they come out of transport (particularly since there are visual and audible cues, and they are basically helpless for several seconds until the sequence is complete). If they deploy farther away, they still have to march toward the enemy, and if the enemy has been well prepared, he will have his formations and defenses laid out to deal with an attack from any possible direction anyway.

Again my hunch is WWII, when is yours?

I'd say 19th century and above guaranteed. I'd have some uncertainty about a Napoleonic army, but if I had to bet one way or another, I'd bet on Napoleon rather than the Feddies. Unless they've got air support, they're completely outmatched in combat. Scouting is great in normal situations, but not if you can't do much to the enemy once you know where he is.

I'm doing half-assed extrapolation. Current tasers take about .4 joules (manufacturer specs) to stun a victim. So to operate at 25m over a cone with a 30 degree angle we are talking ~654 m^2 (some reason that doesn't look right). Now most people are going to get hit with what .5 m^2 contact area? So we need to deliver about 523 joules after bleeding out. I think thats doable, could be wrong. Bah I'll finish this after some sleep.

The energy requirement is reasonable, but the assumption of no inherent range dissipation (eg- due to particle decay) is not. You are assuming no losses other than beam-spread. However, we have seen from ST6 that a short-range stun blast is LETHAL and causes serious burns, while we know that the same blast from only 2 metres away is harmless. This is canon evidence of very rapid range dissipation, because in both cases, 100% of the beam's width hits the target. If the only dissipation were due to beam spread, the shot at 2 metres should be just as dangerous as the shot at very close range, yet this is obviously not the case.

In other words, we have clear canon evidence that phasers dissipate very quickly with range, perhaps due to some intrinsic failing such as particle decay (Trekkies: make up some meaningless "subspace" technobabble if you like). Therefore, the onus is upon anyone who would claim long-range wide-angle phasers exist.