Ground Forces

[General Mung Beans]

Do any of the Star Trek powers maintain any ground forces? On Memory Alpha there seems to be no mention of a terrestrial branch of the military at least for the Federation.

[Srelex]

Technically, yes. Virtually all of them are, put plainly, a joke. See the main site for this.

[Temujin]

In a nutshell they consist of lightly armed infantry, with at best the equivalent of some light artillery (i.e., mortars) and an RPG equivalent (see ST Insurrection, but don't bill me for the therapy ). Other than the poorly armed dune buggy from ST Nemesis, we've seen no vehicles.

In essence, they are wholly dependent upon starships and shuttles for space / air superiority and heavy bombardment, and shuttles and transporters for transport, aside from simply walking that is.

[Captain Seafort]

That's the case for most of them, but the Cardassians seem to have the best of the lot by a good margin - they at least have some kind of vehicle that's proof against small arms fire (described in a few of Kira's reminisces about the Occupation), and Garak mentioned being a Gul in the Cardassian Mechanised Infantry in "The Wire". Granted he was lying through his teeth at the time (even more so than usual), but why would he spin a lie about something as easily falsifiable as the existence of the Mech Inf?

[Temujin]

That's a good point. The Cardassians are often overlooked, but as Trek goes, they actually seem a bit more practical military wise. Their ships are a good example, a nice compact design with no large ass engines sticking out on pylons making the shield bubble larger than it needs to be, and certainly not serving as a juicy target.

[Captain Seafort]

That's a good point. The Cardassians are often overlooked, but as Trek goes, they actually seem a bit more practical military wise. Their ships are a good example, a nice compact design with no large ass engines sticking out on pylons making the shield bubble larger than it needs to be, and certainly not serving as a juicy target.

On top of that their weapons have a reputation for robust reliability and, their performance against the E-D in The Wounded notwithstanding, evidently fought the Federation to a standstill in the war (as the main site points out). I've long held the view that what happened was that they got the shit kicked out of them in space combat but on the ground they had a proper military, and the Feds couldn't dislodge them without resorting to large-scale orbital bombardment. Given that this is the Federation we're talking about the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

[Temujin]

On top of that their weapons have a reputation for robust reliability and, their performance against the E-D in The Wounded notwithstanding, evidently fought the Federation to a standstill in the war (as the main site points out). I've long held the view that what happened was that they got the shit kicked out of them in space combat but on the ground they had a proper military, and the Feds couldn't dislodge them without resorting to large-scale orbital bombardment. Given that this is the Federation we're talking about the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

Since we're talking about wussified 24th century feds, they probably fought a primarily defensive war, with limited offensives, marked with constant attempts at negotiations that the Cardassians gladly took advantage of. In addition, the Cardassians probably developed their weapons towards maximum practicality, and then instead of offering the Federation a stand up fight, they fought them in a manner that would maximize the Federation's cost and casualties.

They could sell this to their own people through their quasi-fascist regime as a national struggle against an oppressive power, while the Federation, even though they aren't really comparable to a democratic nation with a proper media, didn't have the stomach to wage full scale war. Even so, the war lasted quite along time, but that's why I think for the Federation it was a limited war, while the Cardassians were fighting a total war. IIRC there were some throw away references to their economy being in shambles due to the war, which would fit with a nation trying to adjust from a fully mobilized war economy.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Jem-Hadar have some interesting hardware as well. I recall that in the second-to-last DS9 episode, they throw some sort of device into the basement where Garak, Kira, and Damar are hiding (perhaps some sort of grenade?) before sending the infantry in. There are also the personal cloaks of their infantry, and didn't they use some technobable mines in The Siege of AR-558?

I also vaguely recall a reference to a Klingon vehicle once (in Voyager I think), but I can't recall anything more specific. Certainly we've never seen one in action.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

The Breen do pretty well in terms of small arms. Their rifle actually looks like an assault rifle, and they also get an infantry support weapon as described in the DS9 episode 'Business as Usual'. This episode also shows a type of battle droid, and mentions titanium-plated assault skimmers. The Jem-Hadar SMG is also superior in that it actually has a full-auto mode, though seen only once (DS9 - Blaze of Glory).

I theorized a while back that the Federation didn't usually bother with planetary combat because of a transport capacity bottleneck (a Sovereign class starship can supposedly carry 10,000 in an emergency). On this basis, any sufficiently well-developed planet with a high-enough population would be able to defend itself against any conceivable invasion, since it would be able to recruit and arm more troops than any invader could hope to deploy against them. Nevertheless we know that planetary combat happens in Star Trek, and is common enough for its interstellar polities to develop the appropriate capabilities. The simple reason for planetary combat is that if you want a planet, you want it reasonably intact. Orbital bombardment may seem easier and cheaper, but any meaningful bombardment would invariably cause catastrophic damage. Make enough big explosions on the surface and you will, amongst other things, kick enough dust into the atmosphere to cause a nuclear winter and destroy the ecosystem. You want a planet? Be ready to make sacrifices.

There is also the principle of reciprocity to consider, in that those who trash planets will more than likely get their own planets trashed in retaliation. It has been suggested that an alien race might wipe out humanity because of the possibility that humanity will do likewise in the future, the possibility of extermination being too horrible to contemplate. However, this psychology will doom said alien race to destruction at the hands of its neighbours, because by the same logic it poses an intolerable threat. As an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, game theory makes the whole world dead.

My point? The Federation doesn't bother with planetary combat on any real scale, because it can manage neither the logistics nor the likely body count. Since it is equally unwilling to commit mass murder by bombarding planets, the easiest solution is simply not to engage in aggressive wars with other interstellar powers. If the Cardassians give them trouble, then the Federation can use their mighty fleet to destroy Cardassia's warships and interdict its interstellar trade. That done, they can sit back and watch as Cardassia's neighbours, including such esteemed company as the Klingons, Talarians, and Tzenkethi, munch on their planets. In which case, it is up to the Cardassian ground forces to defend their planets as best they can. All in all, the Federation doesn't bother with planetary forces because it doesn't really need them, though it probably allows member entities to make their own arrangements. Other powers who do acquire planets by force will of course maintain planetary warfare capabilities.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's an interesting idea, but it has two holes:

First, what happens when someone else manages to land large numbers of troops on a Federation world? This happened at least once during the Dominion War I believe (Betazed). Do they simply, as you suggested, leave it entirely in the hands of the planetary government?

Second, if the problem is transport capacity, why would the Cardassians or the Klingons be much better off? If this is the main reason for not having large ground forces, why do they?

[Juubi Karakuchi]

That's an interesting idea, but it has two holes:

First, what happens when someone else manages to land large numbers of troops on a Federation world? This happened at least once during the Dominion War I believe (Betazed). Do they simply, as you suggested, leave it entirely in the hands of the planetary government?

Second, if the problem is transport capacity, why would the Cardassians or the Klingons be much better off? If this is the main reason for not having large ground forces, why do they?

On the first point, it was stated that Betazed's defences were outdated and inadequate. I meant it on the basis of my point that a heavily-populated and well-developed planet should be able to raise and equip sufficient forces for its own defence. The implication was that Betazed had not done this, perhaps because there had been no pressing reason to do so for some time.

The Federation's doctrine in this situation seems to be the maintenance of space superiority, in the sense of keeping invaders away from planets and hindering invasions while in progress. In the latter case, they send ships to a beleaguered planet as quickly as possible, seeking to destroy or drive away the invading starships, thus trapping any landed troops on the planet. The Federation shows a marked preference for the former option (it should be pointed out that the Dominion took Betazed by surprise because the fleet that was supposed to be defending it was out of position), playing to their strengths. This was perhaps short-sighted, and it certainly caused problems in the Dominion War.

The Federation has engaged in planetary combat in the past. It did so against the Talarians (TNG 'Suddenly Human') and the Cardassians(TNG 'The Wounded' and others). In both cases the planets in question were peripheral, containing small colonies which would not require large numbers to capture.

The second point is a fair one. My reply is that unlike the Federation, the Klingons and the Cardassians certainly do want to capture planets. The issue of space superiority comes up once again, as they may decide that its okay to loose a few hundred-thousand troops for a profitable conquest so long as their fleets are in fighting trim. The Dominion can certainly afford it, since having cloned, fast-growing, and fast-learning soldiers gets around a lot of bottlenecks.

On reflection, the transport bottleneck is not impossible to overcome. In The Sorrows of Empire the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance managed to land one hundred-thousand shock troops per hour during their invasion of Earth. I suppose it would depend on how big a fleet is available and how far the troops have to come. If they had large numbers of troops in a nearby system, and a sufficient number of transports running relays, then they might be able to pull it off. This is what may have been meant by Betazed being strategically significant, since it is implied to be quite close to Earth.

[The Romulan Republic]

On the first point, it was stated that Betazed's defences were outdated and inadequate. I meant it on the basis of my point that a heavily-populated and well-developed planet should be able to raise and equip sufficient forces for its own defence. The implication was that Betazed had not done this, perhaps because there had been no pressing reason to do so for some time.

I get what you're saying about worlds raising their own defenses, and about Betazed being poorly defended, but that very fact demonstrates the problem with relying on member worlds to provide their own defenses. If a member world neglects that issue and then gets invaded, there's no recourse for the Federation other than to surrender that world.

The Federation's doctrine in this situation seems to be the maintenance of space superiority, in the sense of keeping invaders away from planets and hindering invasions while in progress. In the latter case, they send ships to a beleaguered planet as quickly as possible, seeking to destroy or drive away the invading starships, thus trapping any landed troops on the planet. The Federation shows a marked preference for the former option (it should be pointed out that the Dominion took Betazed by surprise because the fleet that was supposed to be defending it was out of position), playing to their strengths. This was perhaps short-sighted, and it certainly caused problems in the Dominion War.

Indeed.

The second point is a fair one. My reply is that unlike the Federation, the Klingons and the Cardassians certainly do want to capture planets. The issue of space superiority comes up once again, as they may decide that its okay to loose a few hundred-thousand troops for a profitable conquest so long as their fleets are in fighting trim. The Dominion can certainly afford it, since having cloned, fast-growing, and fast-learning soldiers gets around a lot of bottlenecks.

I thought the bottleneck was supposed to be starship transport capability. In which case clone troops wouldn't help, as you'd have no way to move them regardless.

On reflection, the transport bottleneck is not impossible to overcome. In The Sorrows of Empire the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance managed to land one hundred-thousand shock troops per hour during their invasion of Earth.

Trek books are non-canon, generally.

[Azron_Stoma]

The Klingons and Cardassians have Transports that we've seen. They look identical to each other except for a colour swap. Such as the Gourmal (DS9 "Return to Grace") type freighter. They have used them for evacuating refugees from a planet bombed by the Maquis (DS9 "For the Uniform"). However these ships don't appear to be all that terribly likely to be capable of takeoffs and landings. So I'm guessing they still use Transporters which of course comes back down to the whole bottleneck issue.

[Marcus Aurelius]

The Klingons and Cardassians have Transports that we've seen. They look identical to each other except for a colour swap. Such as the Gourmal (DS9 "Return to Grace") type freighter. They have used them for evacuating refugees from a planet bombed by the Maquis (DS9 "For the Uniform"). However these ships don't appear to be all that terribly likely to be capable of takeoffs and landings. So I'm guessing they still use Transporters which of course comes back down to the whole bottleneck issue.

The transport issue can be examined through historical large scale amphibious invasions, with the Normandy landins being probably the best example. When invading a planet the attacker has the distinctive advantage that it can choose the place the of the landing just like the Allies could choose from a couple of different areas in France. Unless the planet in question is really densely populated, it is impossible for the defender to defend all possible landing areas. The attacker must also have space superiority, which will act as a force multiplier and prevent the defender from bringing large amount of forces to the landing site quickly. Space ships weapons can be used as artillery.

So, in reality you probably do not need too much troops in the initial phases of the invasion. You can bring in more later. After that the attacker will expand the "beachhead" and use the troops and space superiority to isolate the population centers from each others, which in turn will allow you to create local numerical parity or even superiority. Then you take the population centers one by one. All this of course means that you will have to maintain a near complete space superiority. If the enemy is able to stop your ships from supporting the ground troops for a significant amount of time you will be in trouble. This, however, is not any different from the air and naval superiority requirements for real life contested amphibious landings.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I get what you're saying about worlds raising their own defenses, and about Betazed being poorly defended, but that very fact demonstrates the problem with relying on member worlds to provide their own defenses. If a member world neglects that issue and then gets invaded, there's no recourse for the Federation other than to surrender that world.

True, but that nevertheless appears to be the situation. It's not that surprising, considering that the Federation has generally been able to use Starfleet to keep enemies away from planets. The Dominion War changed all that, of course.

I thought the bottleneck was supposed to be starship transport capability. In which case clone troops wouldn't help, as you'd have no way to move them regardless.

I meant it in terms of likely casualties. Transport capacity would still be an issue, as you say.

The transport issue can be examined through historical large scale amphibious invasions, with the Normandy landins being probably the best example. When invading a planet the attacker has the distinctive advantage that it can choose the place the of the landing just like the Allies could choose from a couple of different areas in France. Unless the planet in question is really densely populated, it is impossible for the defender to defend all possible landing areas. The attacker must also have space superiority, which will act as a force multiplier and prevent the defender from bringing large amount of forces to the landing site quickly. Space ships weapons can be used as artillery.

So, in reality you probably do not need too much troops in the initial phases of the invasion. You can bring in more later. After that the attacker will expand the "beachhead" and use the troops and space superiority to isolate the population centers from each others, which in turn will allow you to create local numerical parity or even superiority. Then you take the population centers one by one. All this of course means that you will have to maintain a near complete space superiority. If the enemy is able to stop your ships from supporting the ground troops for a significant amount of time you will be in trouble. This, however, is not any different from the air and naval superiority requirements for real life contested amphibious landings.

The Klingons and Cardassians have Transports that we've seen. They look identical to each other except for a colour swap. Such as the Gourmal (DS9 "Return to Grace") type freighter. They have used them for evacuating refugees from a planet bombed by the Maquis (DS9 "For the Uniform"). However these ships don't appear to be all that terribly likely to be capable of takeoffs and landings. So I'm guessing they still use Transporters which of course comes back down to the whole bottleneck issue.

The transport issue can be examined through historical large scale amphibious invasions, with the Normandy landins being probably the best example. When invading a planet the attacker has the distinctive advantage that it can choose the place the of the landing just like the Allies could choose from a couple of different areas in France. Unless the planet in question is really densely populated, it is impossible for the defender to defend all possible landing areas. The attacker must also have space superiority, which will act as a force multiplier and prevent the defender from bringing large amount of forces to the landing site quickly. Space ships weapons can be used as artillery.

So, in reality you probably do not need too much troops in the initial phases of the invasion. You can bring in more later. After that the attacker will expand the "beachhead" and use the troops and space superiority to isolate the population centers from each others, which in turn will allow you to create local numerical parity or even superiority. Then you take the population centers one by one. All this of course means that you will have to maintain a near complete space superiority. If the enemy is able to stop your ships from supporting the ground troops for a significant amount of time you will be in trouble. This, however, is not any different from the air and naval superiority requirements for real life contested amphibious landings.

Good points all round. I should have mentioned that starships could provide fire support without causing the kind of destruction a full-scale bombardment would.

[Stofsk]

Technically, yes. Virtually all of them are, put plainly, a joke. See the main site for this.

Don't forget the absence of trigger guards.

[Ritterin Sophia]

didn't they use some technobable mines in The Siege of AR-558?

I actually wouldn't use those mines as an example of anything impressive, they didn't deny any ground.

[Captain Seafort]

I actually wouldn't use those mines as an example of anything impressive, they didn't deny any ground.

AR-558 aside, however, the Jem'Hadar seem to be among the better Trek armies. They demonstrated at least a basic understanding of tactics when boarding DS9 (of which a professional analysis would be much appreciated), and used mortars against Sisko's landing party in "The Ship".

[lord Martiya]

AR-558 aside, however, the Jem'Hadar seem to be among the better Trek armies. They demonstrated at least a basic understanding of tactics when boarding DS9 (of which a professional analysis would be much appreciated), and used mortars against Sisko's landing party in "The Ship".

Well, the Jem'Hadar at AR-558 may have been the 'Alpha' version, and not the original one.
After all, the one time we clearly saw them compared showed that the supposedly improved 'Alpha' Jem'Hadar are much more aggressive, to the point they captured the Defiant by adopting a tactic too insane to be expected, but pay the price in arrogance (a 'Gamma' Jem'Hadar at their orders warned them many times that Sisko and the crew were about trying something and suggested to stop them whatever they were trying to do, but the 'Alpha' leader dismissed him out of arrogance). Also, the Jem'Hadar at AR-558 made the stupid mistake in modern warfare of charging like Napoleonic infantry, and I don't think it's something an experienced soldier would do...

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I have to say something regarding Ar-558. Speaking as a student of Napoleonic warfare, I have to question or at least elaborate on the idea that the Jem-Hadar tactics were 'Napoleonic'. This may refer to the initial assault, in which the Jem-Hadar walk slowly towards the defenders without even bothering to spread out. However, these turn out to be hologram decoys, deployed by the Jem-Hadar to trick the defenders into revealing their numbers, dispositions, and presumably the effective range of their fire. Not at all bad, presuming you actually have such a technology.

It's difficult to get a clear idea of the later assault, on account of the darkness and the focus on the defenders. I saw some charging straight for the defenders, some taking cover, some appearing to move from cover to cover. Having thought this scenario through (and wargamed it to get a feel), my impression was that the Jem-Hadar were attacking in about the only way that would work. They don't have much cover, so trading fire with the defenders puts them at a disadvantage. The purpose of charging seems to be to distract the defenders (who will instinctively aim at the charging Jem-Hadar since they represent the most immediate threat), while other Jem-Hadar shoot. These tactics seem insane, but they're fighting in a narrow pass and can't use heavy weapons (unless of course they simply don't exist) for fear of a stray shot collapsing the entrance. Real-life infantry would have used grenades, which the Jem-Hadar supposedly have, but doing so would have slaughtered the defenders and wrecked the storyline. The Federation victory seems even more inexplicable considering how many Jem-Hadar actually got inside the defences.

[Sea Skimmer]

In a nutshell they consist of lightly armed infantry, with at best the equivalent of some light artillery (i.e., mortars) and an RPG equivalent (see ST Insurrection, but don't bill me for the therapy ). Other than the poorly armed dune buggy from ST Nemesis, we've seen no vehicles.

In essence, they are wholly dependent upon starships and shuttles for space / air superiority and heavy bombardment, and shuttles and transporters for transport, aside from simply walking that is.

Say in Nemesis, didn't the random armed mob on the planet have a tank or something in the background of one of the shots? I remember someone saying you could see a tracked vehicle anyway, but I never watched the movie again to check.

[Uraniun235]

That's an interesting idea, but it has two holes:

First, what happens when someone else manages to land large numbers of troops on a Federation world? This happened at least once during the Dominion War I believe (Betazed). Do they simply, as you suggested, leave it entirely in the hands of the planetary government?

Second, if the problem is transport capacity, why would the Cardassians or the Klingons be much better off? If this is the main reason for not having large ground forces, why do they?

Was it ever stated how many troops were landed? Because if you convince the local government to surrender by beaming a couple hundred guys into the government offices and presenting them with a threat to sterilize half the planet if they don't cooperate, you've still taken the planet.

[Marcus Aurelius]

It's difficult to get a clear idea of the later assault, on account of the darkness and the focus on the defenders. I saw some charging straight for the defenders, some taking cover, some appearing to move from cover to cover. Having thought this scenario through (and wargamed it to get a feel), my impression was that the Jem-Hadar were attacking in about the only way that would work. They don't have much cover, so trading fire with the defenders puts them at a disadvantage. The purpose of charging seems to be to distract the defenders (who will instinctively aim at the charging Jem-Hadar since they represent the most immediate threat), while other Jem-Hadar shoot. These tactics seem insane, but they're fighting in a narrow pass and can't use heavy weapons (unless of course they simply don't exist) for fear of a stray shot collapsing the entrance. Real-life infantry would have used grenades, which the Jem-Hadar supposedly have, but doing so would have slaughtered the defenders and wrecked the storyline. The Federation victory seems even more inexplicable considering how many Jem-Hadar actually got inside the defences.

I agree with you on the Napoleonic issue. I would say that the Jem'Hadar tactics were similar to mid-war WW1 small unit infantry tactics, although even in 1916 WW1 infantry would probably have fragmentation hand grenades and possibly some light machine guns, while the poor Jem'Hadar seemed to have no crew served weapons to provide suppressive fire or indeed, hand grenades. Rate of fire of the Jem'Hadar guns was similar to semi-automatic rifles, while the Fed's phaser rifles seemed to have slightly lower ROF. On the other hand the lack of reloading time would be an advantage compared to real life semi-auto weapons.

Nevertheless, late WW1 German Stosstruppen or mid-to-late WW2 infantry well equipped with SMGs, LMGs and hand grenades would have been much better than the Jem'Hadar. Even WW1 infantry would have had the advantage of bayoneted rifles, which probably would have decided the hand-to-hand combat in favor of the attacker, although like you said, the Jem'Hadar should have overrun the Feds anyways once they reached their position. Only a counter-attack could have saved the situation, but apparently the Feds had no real reserve left to carry out one, so they won by a writer's fiat.

[RedImperator]

That's an interesting idea, but it has two holes:

First, what happens when someone else manages to land large numbers of troops on a Federation world? This happened at least once during the Dominion War I believe (Betazed). Do they simply, as you suggested, leave it entirely in the hands of the planetary government?

Second, if the problem is transport capacity, why would the Cardassians or the Klingons be much better off? If this is the main reason for not having large ground forces, why do they?

Was it ever stated how many troops were landed? Because if you convince the local government to surrender by beaming a couple hundred guys into the government offices and presenting them with a threat to sterilize half the planet if they don't cooperate, you've still taken the planet.

Yeah. It's not like "surrender or we'll bomb your civilization flat" is an unbelievable position for the Dominion to take.

[Azron_Stoma]

Having thought this scenario through (and wargamed it to get a feel), my impression was that the Jem-Hadar were attacking in about the only way that would work.

Not really, the terrain around them was somewhat rough, but going out of their way to engage the enemy from a wildly different avenue of approach would be preferable, especially after using the holograms to make it appear as though they would come from the obvious way.

For example, instead of moving through the canyon pass (which would also be where the minefield was located) depending on their equipment, they could have instead moved around it, over the cliff faces and behind the defenders, drop some stun grenades and rappel down, then taking the interior, all the while the defenders are still waiting to hear the booms of their minefield going off. Regardless of whether they knew about the mines or not (which they didn't, at least as far as the mines being taken over and to be used against them) still fits in with the wildly different avenue of approach thing.

A Single squad could do such a feat let alone the "two columns" which if the Dominion War Sourcebook is even remotely trustworthy (I know, non-canon) is about 160 troops (80 per column).