Karen Travis' Army vs the Alpha Quadrant

[NecronLord]

I think we're all familiar with the Travissty, and I'm inspired to ask. How well do people think that the Travissty GAR would do in fighting a land war against the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians, Ferengi and UFP.

Someone has provided a ground-portal, like the Iconian Portals we're familiar with, but intergalactic and big enough to accomodate AT-ATs, on Kamino, leading to every world the Alpha Quadrant powers have. They're controlled from Kamino, so a counter-invasion cannot be launched. Further, there is no option of orbital attack for the Alpha Quadrant powers, as Admiral Janeway recently spilt her coffee pot on the lap of a short tempered Organian, and he has rendered all starship weapons in the alpha quadrant inoperable.

The GAR can send starfighters and small transports through the portals, but they will also be subjected to the treaty of Organia, and their weapons made inoperable. LAATs and similar air-vehicles will only be able to fire against ground targets, or enemy ships carrying ground troopers, and they will only be able to do so while within atmosphere.

The newly-minted Emperor Palpatine has charged the 3,000,000 clone GAR with the task of pacifying all these worlds, using whatever measures necessery to bring their populations under Imperial Juristiction.

So, how many worlds can the three-million man army, with a wide range of atrocities available, including chemical and biological weapons (but not including high-firepower weapons) as well as conventional brutality, take and hold for the Emperor?

[Cao Cao]

One thing to be considered is the 2000 man invasion force expected to take and hold Vulcan in "Unification".
Although that could be something unique to Vulcan, sparse population, ultra peacenikery, something like that.
But then martial law on Earth consisted of a couple of guys with phaser-rifles walking the streets.
So if the situations of Vulcan and Earth are similar throughout the UFP then these worlds would be conquered and held easily by.. say.. a garrison of 50,000 troops. If not then they capture Vulcan and a couple of worlds but cannot expand much beyond that.

The others wouldn't be too hard to tackle due to technological superiority (especially Klingons) but numbers might be a problem. Fighting a war against all these minor powers would spread the GAR far too thin to continue operating effectively.

[NecronLord]

Don't forget, in many cases, the technological disparity is nowhere near as pronounced in skirmish level ground conflict. A 1.5 MW phaser rifle is outgunned by a 30-40 MW blaster rifle, but not nearly that heavily.

[Darth Wong]

Against competent interstellar military forces I'd say they'd be in trouble, but in this hypothetical scenario against the pitiful ground forces of Star Trek where 2000 men constitutes a credible planetary invasion force and screaming Klingons are considered elite troops, I'd say they should be able to easily take and hold all of the major strongworld worlds in the critical nexus where the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassian, and Federation borders are fairly close to one another (along with their most important worlds; convenient bit of writing there).

[NecronLord]

To be fair, it doesn't matter that much if the worlds are closely placed. The effectiveness of Star Trek fleets in delivering reinforcements would be nil once an ESB grade runty turbolaser or ion cannon was placed on captured worlds.

[Darth Wong]

Don't forget, in many cases, the technological disparity is nowhere near as pronounced in skirmish level ground conflict. A 1.5 MW phaser rifle is outgunned by a 30-40 MW blaster rifle, but not nearly that heavily.

When you add in the effect of CAS, NBC warfare, artillery, armoured fighting vehicles, personnel body armour, etc., that difference becomes much more pronounced.

[Cao Cao]

Don't forget, in many cases, the technological disparity is nowhere near as pronounced in skirmish level ground conflict. A 1.5 MW phaser rifle is outgunned by a 30-40 MW blaster rifle, but not nearly that heavily.

However, I'm assuming that the GAR has most of it's ground vehicles, AT-RTs, Juggernauts, etc? That alone gives them a technological edge over powers which think combined arms means a guy with a mortar.

[NecronLord]

When you add in the effect of CAS, NBC warfare, artillery, armoured fighting vehicles, personnel body armour, etc., that difference becomes much more pronounced.

Indeed. But they're ordered to capture all worlds. In the end they'll be spread out at less (probably siginificantly less) than 20,000 clones per planet, in order to comply with the Emperor's orders. And at level, most engagements would be pretty close to skirmish level - after all, a few hundred clones holding a city aren't likely to have much use for artillery or vehicle support, except in retaliatory slaughters.

I'm mostly interested in whether the Travis GAR could actually hold this much territory, rather than could they annihalate any given ground force with impunity, which is obvious.

[Darth Wong]

Your original post said "pacify", which I took to be accomplished if you could seize key installations and planets. All of these organizations appear to be rather heavily centralized upon a central homeworld, and would rapidly fall apart as cohesive forces without it.

[Jim Raynor]

Karen Traviss should really switch over to writing ST. Her 3 million man GAR actually somewhat makes sense for a scifi universe where people are so easily pacified and war is handled so incompetently.

[NecronLord]

Your original post said "pacify", which I took to be accomplished if you could seize key installations and planets. All of these organizations appear to be rather heavily centralized upon a central homeworld, and would rapidly fall apart as cohesive forces without it.

Indeed. They (and by extension, anyone posting ideas) have operational command in excecuting the political goal assigned, which is to bring the planets of the Alpha Quadrant under Imperial control. They can murder however many civillians they like, but they've got to leave enough to make the area profitable. I suppose, if one was really feeling ruthless, one could make a case for total genocide and repopulation using heavy weapons, but I was thinking that conventional invasion is more likely.

While taking control of major planets would destroy the UFP, Klingons, Romulans, etc. as powers in short order, doing only that and going no further would result in eventually having to explain to Palpatine why, when he told the field commanders to get him a few thousand planets, they captured dozens.

[NecronLord]

Now I think about it, it might be more challenging if I added some bullshit reason up why they couldn't use planetary defence either, but it's a bit late now.

[brianeyci]

A few years ago I would have said the Romulans might be able to hold it off based on the 2000 troops being able to hold all of Vulcan (how many Vulcans holding dustbusters would there be, obviously the Romulans were either insane or they could really seize a planet with 2000 troops meaning their troops are proficient). The Romulans definitely have more than three million troops and their weapons are powerful enough to kill, their tactics in TNG were savvy and cunning.

But then came DS9 where Romulan Captains forgot how to best use Warbirds (hit and run, decloak and alpha strike) and then came Nemesis showing the pitful Reman ground troops who got killed by one old man. So too bad.

Brian

[NecronLord]

But then came DS9 where Romulan Captains forgot how to best use Warbirds (hit and run, decloak and alpha strike)

They had to comprimise their tactics to work in allied fleets, I would imagine.

[NecronLord]

Now I think about it, in this scenario, the Alpha Quadrant forces might be able to do a good number on the clones by beaming them up, Protocol 5, and taking them into custody.

[Elfdart]

Even Karen Traviss can't lose to Star Trek.

[fusion]

Best way just release tons of sleeping gas though the portals, and have the gas keep pouring until the storm troopers take over.
A more realist way is to pacify the worlds one a time. It may take longer, but you would lose a lot less troops.

[dragon]

One thing to be considered is the 2000 man invasion force expected to take and hold Vulcan in "Unification".
Although that could be something unique to Vulcan, sparse population, ultra peacenikery, something like that.
But then martial law on Earth consisted of a couple of guys with phaser-rifles walking the streets.
So if the situations of Vulcan and Earth are similar throughout the UFP then these worlds would be conquered and held easily by.. say.. a garrison of 50,000 troops. If not then they capture Vulcan and a couple of worlds but cannot expand much beyond that.

The others wouldn't be too hard to tackle due to technological superiority (especially Klingons) but numbers might be a problem. Fighting a war against all these minor powers would spread the GAR far too thin to continue operating effectively.

Also rember during the War they wiped out what 400,000 Cardissan Ground troops. But the didn't say how though. As for the rest as several others have pointed out the GAR has NBC, aromr and so forth.

[Noble Ire]

Now I think about it, in this scenario, the Alpha Quadrant forces might be able to do a good number on the clones by beaming them up, Protocol 5, and taking them into custody.

Fairly easily remedied, I think. When the force realizes this is happening, they withdraw a bit, then send some ARCs or RCs (the latter would be immune to the tactic anyways because of their personal shielding) back in to inflitrate the UFP presence on some Federation planets, figure out how to stop transporters (beam disruption jamming arrays), steal the specs for them or a few samples, and outfit vehicles with them, giving troops unbrellas of protection (you might even be able to make the emitters pack size and give one to a trooper in every squad). Or, barring that, simply outfit the larger vehicles with low-power shields and smash a planet until it losses it value enough to force the ships in orbit to withdraw, thus freeing up ground troops.

[Darth Wong]

We can jam transporters with present-day technology (an electrical transformer), so I doubt it would be difficult for the Empire to figure out how to do it.

[Teleros]

Even Karen Traviss can't lose to Star Trek.

Yep .

We can jam transporters with present-day technology (an electrical transformer), so I doubt it would be difficult for the Empire to figure out how to do it.

I wonder if the teleporters would be jammed accidentally by the GAR?
GAR Clone: "So where's all their vaunted teleporter tech then?"
ST Ensign: "Bugger, their power generators are jamming us sir."

[PayBack]

There were a number of comments regarding the 2000 strong force invading vulcan... but IIRC that was going to be landing in and taking control of some supreme HQ or something wasn't it? It wasn't supposed to take a whole city, let alone the planet. (note, IIRC )

[brianeyci]

Transporters can be a really deadly weapon if used properly. Even if you are able to partially jam a transporter beam, as long as you can rip a piece of the guy out he's dead. And of course you can beam antimatter in and cause explosions. Even if they manage to jam part of it, part of it could materialize and cause a reaction. Usually in Star Trek they're trying to save people so you can't beam part of a lung, part of a brain.

I'm not saying that they will do this since we haven't seen them do this, but if they used their technology properly they could win and it wouldn't even take mass replicating firearms either. They'd just need to figure out how to use their own technology better, especially their weapons. Phasers should be deadly supression weapons as long as you have a big enough power pack for widebeam (wear a backpack power supply if you have to).

Alas, it's not like that, at least not with the Federaton.

Brian

[Darth Wong]

Transporters can be a really deadly weapon if used properly. Even if you are able to partially jam a transporter beam, as long as you can rip a piece of the guy out he's dead. And of course you can beam antimatter in and cause explosions. Even if they manage to jam part of it, part of it could materialize and cause a reaction. Usually in Star Trek they're trying to save people so you can't beam part of a lung, part of a brain.

What makes you think this is possible through jamming? Your thorough understanding of how transporters work?

I'm not saying that they will do this since we haven't seen them do this, but if they used their technology properly they could win and it wouldn't even take mass replicating firearms either. They'd just need to figure out how to use their own technology better, especially their weapons. Phasers should be deadly supression weapons as long as you have a big enough power pack for widebeam (wear a backpack power supply if you have to).

At any kind of range, widebeam would be useless against armoured targets because it would degrade to stun, which is useless through full-coverage armour.

[brianeyci]

What makes you think this is possible through jamming? Your thorough understanding of how transporters work?

Well the first thing is it makes sense, because you have to have a perfect lock to transport a person unless you want to take a risk and have pieces of him not materialize which would explain why they're so often useless. IIRC there was a skeletal lock through some kind of jamming.

Also they managed to beam a torpedo into a Borg ship. They had Seven, and I don't remember whether they fired on the Borg ship, but I always assumed this was them waking up to the idea that they could beam things through jamming as long as they were willing to risk it. We certainly never see ships beam torpedoes into warp cores once shields are down--tactically once your shields are down you should be dead but that never happened until Voyager (and I don't even think the shields were down in this case).

At any kind of range, widebeam would be useless against armoured targets because it would degrade to stun, which is useless through full-coverage armour.

That's true, I wasn't thinking that clonetroopers are fully armored.

They do have a continuous beam weapon though, and it seems they don't take advantage of that often enough. TNG The Arsenal has them altering the beam to hit a target and I think that's the only time, but Data and Yar moved their beams slowly. I don't see any reason why they couldn't train their people to fire and move the beam quickly (other than the "steady-cam" idea for a phaser rifle, but if it's so limiting just turn it off).

Brian