How would you utilize a Federation army?

[biostem]

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the Federation decided to revive the idea of the MACOS from Enterprise, and went into a full recruitment and deployment rollout, including revamping the concepts of personal armor and troop transports/shipboard compliments.

1. How would you actually go about recruiting soldiers, (must be volunteer only)?

2. How you you equip them, (can only use technology demonstrated in the various media, no 1-off superweapon stuff).

3. What vessels would you have retrofitted or build additional, (again, keeping within established and fully realized technology)?

4. Where would you station said soldiers, (keep a contingent on board all vessels, keep them in reserve to deployed only when needed, etc)?

5. How or where would you train said soldiers?

6. How would the chain of command function, (reports to ship's captain, has separate directives, give them their own vessels to operate)?

7. Any other significant points you'd address or policies you'd enact? Would you further break this force down into more specialized squads/corps, perhaps?

[Borgholio]

1. How would you actually go about recruiting soldiers, (must be volunteer only)?

Well the economics of the future are different...using money or paid education wouldn't work. Whatever method works for recruiting people into Starfleet could potentially apply to the Federation Army. For instance, advertise the benefits of being stationed on strange, new worlds and interacting with new civilizations...helping keep innocents secure from outside threats, etc...

2. How you you equip them, (can only use technology demonstrated in the various media, no 1-off superweapon stuff).

Individual soldiers would have body armor that is at least reasonably resistant to energy and projectile weapons. They would be equipped with properly designed phaser rifles (stock, sights, trigger guard, etc...), and a similarly designed sidearm. They would be equipped with a combat knife / bayonet that could be fitted to the rifle, and photon grenades. The infantry squads would be organized similarly to modern standards and include a couple heavy tripod-mounted phasers to fulfill the role of the modern .50 cal machine gun, and a pair of mortars.

Although the soldiers would be primarily armed with phasers, they would receive training in using their bayonets as well as 24th century projectile weapons. The modern slugthrowers would not normally be carried as part of their gear but would be stored in sufficient numbers in all armories if needed against the Borg or some force that is resistant to energy weapons.

Each squad would also have a squad-sized forcefield generator that can be quickly set up to provide cover.

3. What vessels would you have retrofitted or build additional, (again, keeping within established and fully realized technology)?

Troop transport ships for moving large numbers of troops around the Federation can be simply be converted colony ships. They will need to be able to carry several thousand troops and all their equipment, which a large colony ship should be easily capable of doing.

4. Where would you station said soldiers, (keep a contingent on board all vessels, keep them in reserve to deployed only when needed, etc)?

All starships will have a marine detachment. The size of the detachment will depend on the size of the ship and it's mission. A tiny Oberth-class ship studying something in the core systems may only have half a normal squad, while a Galaxy doing deep-space charting missions might have several dozen (or more) marines to provide security on the ship and for away teams.

All planets, colonies, stations and starbases would have detachments. As with starships, their size would depend on the size of the outpost they are intended to protect as well as it's location and mission. Deep Space 9 would have a much larger contingent than Regula-1, for example, and Earth is the seat of Federation Government, the HQ of Starfleet, is the core shipbuilding system of the Federation, and has a population in the billions so it would have a massive garrison.

5. How or where would you train said soldiers?

Training would take place over several worlds in the Federation. This would ensure that soldiers can have training on multiple types of planetary environments, as well as ensuring that assets are spread out in the event of an attack.

6. How would the chain of command function, (reports to ship's captain, has separate directives, give them their own vessels to operate)?

The commands would be separate in some ways and intermingled in others. Similar to modern warships, the Commanding Officer of the ship has ultimate authority over the marine detachment, even if the CO of the marines technically outranks the ship's CO. The ship's CO, however, doesn't have authority to muck around with internal workings of the marine detachment (discipline, training, etc...) except in very special circumstances. Likewise, the marine CO doesn't have the authority to order any ship's personnel around except in very special circumstances (entire bridge crew is dead, chain of command broke down, etc...). The marines are there to protect the ship and away teams. The ship's officers are there to run the ship. They will typically keep to their respective functions except in exceptional circumstances.

7. Any other significant points you'd address or policies you'd enact? Would you further break this force down into more specialized squads/corps, perhaps?

While the armament of a standard squad will remain the same wherever they are, a large enough contingent of marines or soldiers will have appropriate equipment available to them. On board a starship, the marines may only have (at most) the heavy squad-operated phasers on the smaller ships, and shoulder-mounted anti-armor weapons and maybe a couple of dedicated armed shuttles or ground vehicles on the largest starships. Ground detachments on colonies and member worlds would have armored units, armed shuttles, heavy artillery, etc... There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

[Lord Revan]

1.I campaigns to emphasasing the defensive of these troops, they're there to defend the Federation and its values, NOT to enact military conquest. Also I'd keep the peace time numbers fairly low with strong reserve in case of a war.

2. Basic body armor that's good enough to block low to med "kill" level blasts from phasers, those stun granades the ENT MACOs had, those rifles they had in the TNG films and some basic survival gear (knife, water bottle and so on..) with specialized gear deployed according to the needs of the mission

3. None what so ever, pre-existing Starfleet ships have more then enough passenger/cargo space to act as troop transports should need arise.

4. Mostly in reserve with small permanent garrisons only at critical installations or locations (like for example DS9 or ESD) maybe with few "mobile" teams on stanby for quick deployment, other teams would be activated only should need arise aka primarly during wartime, though this could include captain requesting a contingent if they felt that the their ship board security teams would enough against the threats they would encounter

5.I suppose standard starfleet installations work for where, as to how I would train the troops in to reduce the casualities as much as possible while dealing with threat as quickly and as efficiently as possible ideally in such a way that enemy gives up before a single shot is fire, but at same time if violence is needed to do it so only minimal casualities are inflicted after all wars aren't won by who has the largest killcount but by who could achivive their strategic objectives the best (with exceptions for things like the Borg Collective). At the same time I train the troopers so that if the shots have to be fired they don't hesitate or freeze up.

6. For teams on ships or installations (aka most the peace time strenght) I would have them be under the command of the CO of the ship or installation, last thing we need is a war started due to left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. During wartime detachments tasked with colony (or member world) defence would act "indepedent" under the command of Starfleet HQ.

7.I'd like to emphasize that this is defensive force meant to protect the Federation during wartime and that there's no threat from this to the other powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants unless they intend to attack the Federation.

[bilateralrope]

Training would take place over several worlds in the Federation. This would ensure that soldiers can have training on multiple types of planetary environments, as well as ensuring that assets are spread out in the event of an attack.

Why not use holodecks to simulate the various environments they are expected to fight in ?

[Borgholio]

If you're going to spread out across the Federation and have several training camps on several worlds, why not make use of that variety?

[bilateralrope]

Because making use of that variety would involve lots of shuffling soldiers around before they have finished their training. It seems like a better idea to take the recruits to a training location* and do as much of their training there as you can. Save capacity on transport ships for the trained soldiers.

Since the soldiers are expected to fight in hostile environments, you'd want to train for them. Holodecks can do the training with less risk to the recruits, because the holodecks can be turned off with a single phrase** and medical care will be closer.

*Having multiple locations across the Federation is a good idea.

**Or a phaser to a power relay should the holodeck go crazy.

[Borgholio]

How would you train large numbers of troops at the same time? Connect multiple holodecks together and have one squad per deck?

[Lord Revan]

or simply have 1 holodeck large enough to house sufficiently sized training groups. as far as I know there's no hard upper limit to how big a holodeck can be so you could have large holodeck you could use to train all your troops at once.

[Captain Seafort]

3. None what so ever, pre-existing Starfleet ships have more then enough passenger/cargo space to act as troop transports should need arise.

They're good enough to act as transports, but not as assault ships. They're also mostly limited to space operations, using transporters and shuttles to move people and kit between orbit and the surface. There is therefore a requirement for a high-speed, mid-sized vessel capable of carrying a battlegroup and all its equipment and delivering it directly to the surface of a world in fit condition to fight immediately upon arrival. The holoship should serve as an adequate template, provided it's got the legs.

[The Romulan Republic]

3. None what so ever, pre-existing Starfleet ships have more then enough passenger/cargo space to act as troop transports should need arise.

They're good enough to act as transports, but not as assault ships. They're also mostly limited to space operations, using transporters and shuttles to move people and kit between orbit and the surface. There is therefore a requirement for a high-speed, mid-sized vessel capable of carrying a battlegroup and all its equipment and delivering it directly to the surface of a world in fit condition to fight immediately upon arrival. The holoship should serve as an adequate template, provided it's got the legs.

"...a high-speed, mid-sized vessel capable of carrying a battlegroup and all its equipment and delivering it directly to the surface of a world in fit condition to fight immediately upon arrival."

Didn't you basically just describe the Intrepid class?

[Captain Seafort]

Didn't you basically just describe the Intrepid class?

No. I thought about a modified Intrepid, but she hasn't got the capacity - 200 Klingons stretched Voyager's life support systems in Prophecy, and Friendship One pegged her evacuation limit at somewhere significantly below 350. She may be five time the size of a San Antonio, but she isn't designed to carry large numbers of passengers. The holoship, on the other hand, can carry at least 600 passengers with plenty of elbow room.

[The Romulan Republic]

I wonder how hard it would be to upgrade the Intrepid's life support system. Surely its physical capacity is more than 600, at least for short trips, if the life support is sufficient.

[Captain Seafort]

Surely its physical capacity is more than 600

If you beefed up the life support you could cram thousands of people aboard, but most of them would be standing in the corridors and therefore not ready to disembark and fight. I also very much doubt she's got lots of high-volume cargo bays low in the engineering hull to allow for RO-RO vehicle storage. The holoship, on the other hand, is mostly one big empty space, so you wouldn't need to gut it and redesign everything to turn it into an assault ship.

[NecronLord]

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the Federation decided to revive the idea of the MACOS from Enterprise, and went into a full recruitment and deployment rollout, including revamping the concepts of personal armor and troop transports/shipboard compliments.

1. How would you actually go about recruiting soldiers, (must be volunteer only)?

Bajor. First and foremost I recruit Bajorans to lead this army and design the training scheme. I would be tempted to headquarter the Federation army on Bajor, and certainly give the top jobs in training to ranking personnel in the Bajoran militia. Compared to every other Federation member they have a recent history of ground combat. Secondly, they could use the prestige. Bajor isn't liable to be contributing heavily to starfleet any time soon, thanks to the relatively low technology environment there, until its education system is fully integrated, but they know everything worth knowing about ground combat. Obviously it'd not be restricted to Bajor or anything so savage as that, but that's where the expertise is, and it's also likely to be where a lot of recruits would come from.

Assuming relations with our allies (Klingons, etc) are good, I'd also arrange for war games and such with them. I'd also hire any Hirogen, etc I can get on the payroll to provide training.

I'd have recruitment follow starfleet lines, but obviously with a more military focus. Perhaps use the occupation of Betazed to highlight the patriotic need to have a strong army.

2. How you you equip them, (can only use technology demonstrated in the various media, no 1-off superweapon stuff).

Lightweight Body Armour, a-la the Klingons (there's a few episodes where it demonstrates resilience to phasers on stun and light kill) for which I will probably hire klingons. I would look to upgrade this to fully-sealed armour to provide NBC protection, and provide them with grenades, rifles and so on.

If we're taking the new films as illustrative of technical canon, I'd look to give them equipment capable of orbital drops as in the ST reboot, if my experts say there's a worthwhile advantage to that.

If possible, each soldier will have a backpack that carries a transporter inhibiter that they can use, for obvious reasons, and every man will carry a transport enhancer for the same reasons. These will have to be ruggedized for field use.

Design priorities are Machine Guns, Mortars (as in the old days), Artillery, IFVs, tanks, aerospace craft (Can I get the Son'a/Bak'u to sell me the design for theirs? Those are great.)

3. What vessels would you have retrofitted or build additional, (again, keeping within established and fully realized technology)?

I buy B'rels. Those things can beam up a hundred tonnes at once or something.

More seriously, I look at creating a troopship pod for the Nebula class; and quartering arrangements for older ships like Excelsiors and Mirandas, of which there seems to be an inexhustible supply.

4. Where would you station said soldiers, (keep a contingent on board all vessels, keep them in reserve to deployed only when needed, etc)?

I give Starfleet Security army equipment, but keep the troops seperate. We do not need our defensive army going out on five year missions, nor do we need to be denying starfleet ships mission specialists they could carry otherwise. If there's a need for them on ships in defensive patrols, obviously they can be added, and they'd be deployed in wartime.

If Sela was right, and two thousand soldiers was enough to cause Vulcan to surrender, then obviously Vulcan is a clear priority for a garrison, and that's going to be their first job.

5. How or where would you train said soldiers?

Large holodecks; assuming it's viable, the holoship, and I think the Hirogen(?) uses of it in Voyager demonstrate that a holosuite can be built to house hundreds of people in one simulation, allowing for entire companies to train at once; other than this, training would of course also be in the real world at times, and I'd look to have them trained in varying climates, gravity and atmospheres, as required.

6. How would the chain of command function, (reports to ship's captain, has separate directives, give them their own vessels to operate)?

Indepenendnt rank structure, reporting to the Federation Council, or whoever Starfleet Command reports to. Transport would be provided by starfleet vessels as required however, to allay domestic concerns about the military as much as possible. Starfleet should remain the 'senior service' and the military should support starfleet when necessary, but be more limited in its policies.

7. Any other significant points you'd address or policies you'd enact? Would you further break this force down into more specialized squads/corps, perhaps?

Some species would obviously have their own units if too divergent from the progenitor/humanoid baseline. I'm looking at you, Horta.

I'd look to have a specially trained Betazoid unit, these would be used in occupation duties, if we have to do that, to assist at checkpoints and otherwise sense hostile intent. Seperate from this we will obviously make full use of the Federation's advanced mental health care to protect soldiers' mental health.

Additionally, and somewhat violating the word if not the spirit of the 'no one off superweapons' I would make development of a viable hovering autonomous drone approximately one to two feet tall a top priority. We've seen that this is fiesable, with Echo-Pappa 206 in Arsenal of Freedom and the Son'a capture drones in Insurrection. Something along these lines is such an advantage in urban combat and other environments that we'd be frankly mad not to use them if it's at all cost effective. Both examples come from cultures with a higher level of technology in at least some areas though, and there may be treaty restrictions against fully automatic kill-bots, but it's something we must have if we can. The son'a transporter tags are a good idea for a less lethal weapon too, and I'd look into getting a rifle version made for any scenarios where stun doesn't work.


Theatre shields are another top priority for development. We know that a planetary shield is physically possible from a few one-off examples, and we need to work on that. Along with those we need to work on planetary defences, we know they're viable from the fact that they were used to attack the borg ship in BoBW; but clearly we need to see what can be done to beef those up.


I approach the Klingons and Romulans, if at all friendly (such as, say, the Romulan Republic in STO), about developing interoperable equipment. If politically fiesable, I also arrange people to visit the Cardassians, as their ground equipment is reportedly impressive, and includes armoured vehicles. Our objective of course should be to make the Cardassians our friends, though obviously this may be doubly complicated as I mean to heavily recruit Bajora. We probably have captured cardassian gear from the war anyway.

[Eternal_Freedom]

AS for landing/assault ships, I would probably go with a version of the Intrepids built from the ground-up as landing ships, as they are already capable of that (unlike every other starship class I can think of).

Essentially, strip out all the science labs, the excessively large individual crew quarters, and everything else that you need on an "exploration" ship. I would also remove the torpedo armament and the anti-ship phasers, replacing them with multiple smaller phaser emplacement or pulse phasers if feasible. Thus I can have the ship land and act as a mobile firebase if needs be, providing direct fire support where needed but without busting out the megaton-range photorps. I'd include some provison in the design for a ventral vehicle bay like you see on UNSC frigates in Halo 3, something vehicles can deploy from directly when the ship is on the ground.

[Captain Seafort]

AS for landing/assault ships, I would probably go with a version of the Intrepids built from the ground-up as landing ships, as they are already capable of that (unlike every other starship class I can think of).

Essentially, strip out all the science labs, the excessively large individual crew quarters, and everything else that you need on an "exploration" ship. I would also remove the torpedo armament and the anti-ship phasers, replacing them with multiple smaller phaser emplacement or pulse phasers if feasible. Thus I can have the ship land and act as a mobile firebase if needs be, providing direct fire support where needed but without busting out the megaton-range photorps. I'd include some provison in the design for a ventral vehicle bay like you see on UNSC frigates in Halo 3, something vehicles can deploy from directly when the ship is on the ground.

By doing that you'd have to gut the entire ship, either literally or digitally, and redesign it from scratch - you'd be better off just creating a brand-new design. The holoship, on the other hand, is an existing design that can land and has lots of empty space to work with.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The holoship was a one-off design, and while it had lots of empty space it still relied on transporters for moving people around - there was no sign of a shuttle bay or anything similar, so you would have to add something like that to the ship before using it anyway, so you'd still need a major re-design.

And I'm not talking about refitting Intrepids to my new standards, but using the existing design as a template for a purpose-built vessel. Using a base design that can already fulfill several of the key requirements (able to land, high endurance at high-warp speeds) strikes me as being more advantageous than complete new design (which will need those features anyway) or adapting a different design that can't already land.

[Captain Seafort]

The holoship was a one-off design, and while it had lots of empty space it still relied on transporters for moving people around - there was no sign of a shuttle bay or anything similar, so you would have to add something like that to the ship before using it anyway, so you'd still need a major re-design.

No you wouldn't - it's already got large side hatches, so use them. Neither transporters nor shuttles are suitable for high-volume high-speed movement of people off the ship, which is an important a reason for being able to land as the prevalence of transporter-blocking phenomena.

And I'm not talking about refitting Intrepids to my new standards, but using the existing design as a template for a purpose-built vessel.

I recognise that, hence my reference to having to gut the ship literally or digitally.

Using a base design that can already fulfill several of the key requirements (able to land, high endurance at high-warp speeds) strikes me as being more advantageous than complete new design (which will need those features anyway) or adapting a different design that can't already land.

The main problem with the Intrepid is that while it fulfills several of the criteria, it fails miserably when it comes to the most important one of the lot - passenger capacity. That means you'd have to completely redesign the interior, working around existing major components such as the warp core and deflector dish. This is made more difficult by the fact that most of these components are in the engineering hull, which you'd have to move your troops and their equipment through to get them off the ship. The holoship, on the other, gives you an existing big empty space to work with, with existing big hatches to get people and kit on and off..

[Eternal_Freedom]

But we have no idea of the holoships other capabilities. We know it has nacelles so is warp-capable, but we do not know its range, speed or endurance. We do not know what defensive systems it carries, or more importantly what defensive and offensive systems the existing power core can support.

Using either design as a basis is going to require significant redesign work. This is why I opted for a ship design we already know can keep up with other starships at high warp.

[NecronLord]

It occurs to me that one of the reasons perennially suggested by fans for the size of the D'Deridex is transporting troops and vehicles as well as functioning as a warship. It might be necessary to consider building on that scale.

[Captain Seafort]

We do not know what defensive systems it carries, or more importantly what defensive and offensive systems the existing power core can support.

Fighting off serious trouble is the job of an escort, not the assault ship itself

Using either design as a basis is going to require significant redesign work. This is why I opted for a ship design we already know can keep up with other starships at high warp.

Then I think the big difference between us is what we're prioritising. The ability to land and disembark troops quickly is, of course, paramount. Below that, I'd prioritise carrying capacity above all (assuming we end up with a force with the same capabilities as a modern armoured battlegroup this means 100+ vehicles in addition to the men), followed by ease (or relative ease) of conversion, be that of existing ships, or of the design. I believe you're underestimating the difficulty of having to reroute pretty much every wire on the ship, which is what will be necessary to get the Intrepid into a fit state to carry and deploy the forces we're talking about. Ships based on the Intrepid class would be useful additions as a rapid-response force, but they'd be limited to a single light infantry company group, maybe two if everyone breathed in. The holoship, on the other hand, already has proven passenger capacity (although even its life support may need to be upgraded to cope with a full battlegroup), plus lots of empty space to work with.

[NecronLord]

Looking around, I actually think there's a viable concept for a transport already in the canon, in the form of the USS Jenolan.

Looks to have at least five decks and is flat-bottomed. It's described as a Federation transport ship, and was presumably in civilian use as the retired Captain Scott was aboard.

The same ships appeared in DS9 a few times, but they also used the same model without the windows as a smaller shuttle on another occasion. Eyeball scaling it against the dyson sphere doors suggests that it's at about as long as the Enterprise is tall at least.

Whether it's suitable for military use is another question.

[biostem]

I wonder how much re-engineering it would take to simply add a deployment ramp off the back of the Intrepid, along with a large staging area connected to it, where troops, ground vehicles, and so forth, can be stored. Beef up the environmental systems to accommodate the additional troops, and perhaps add some defensive anti-ground phasers to the outside...

[NecronLord]

I wonder how much re-engineering it would take to simply add a deployment ramp off the back of the Intrepid, along with a large staging area connected to it, where troops, ground vehicles, and so forth, can be stored. Beef up the environmental systems to accommodate the additional troops, and perhaps add some defensive anti-ground phasers to the outside...

I'm not wholly convinced there's not a deployment ramp on the Jenolen.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If you are using the ship to land forces directly, then it is reasonable to assume the enemy will try to contest this landing with whatever artillery and air cover they have available. So you want the ship to be able to withstand a reasonable amount of force, especially if you are extending the shields to cover the landed forces until they can set up theatre shields.

Yes, what I'm envisaging is a quick-response vessel, but given the idea that this is a primarily defensive force, being able to move between garrisoned worlds and trouble spots quickly strikes me as being one of the most important factors.