Siege wrote:Frankly I think all of y'all are being terribly inflexible. You're treating planets like something you have to cling to because it's real hard to get on or off them, when that's really not the case. Sovereignty doctrine is for the USSF to establish a foothold in orbit large enough that it allows the USMC to land; the Marines can then operate under theater shields just fine even if total orbital supremacy hasn't been achieved. And if through some unforeseen circumstances the USSF is forced out, as happened on Majella, the Marines simply pack up and leave with them. The task force can then either decide to high-tail it or wait for reinforcements.
Landing and moving troops about might seem like a challenge in our time, but with the preposterous amounts of energy we've got to throw at problems why bother leaving the troops in a tight spot? They can just lift up and reinsert at a more advantageous position, either directly or at a later time. If your troops end up in a "heroic last stand" type of scenario, you've made a big-ass mistake somewhere: no matter where you are on a planet, space is always just a handful of kilometers away, and you really should be making the most of that fact.
I have no objection to this kind of strategy. At some point we'd tend to abandon that constraint, but only when we reach a point where the orbitals are secure enough that we can afford to have more men on the ground than we can withdraw in an hour or two.
Siege wrote:USMC emergency evacuation doctrines call for enough landers to be present at all times to lift all troops from the surface to their carriers in 30 minutes flat (2 round trips). It helps that every interface craft the Marines use is capable of reaching orbit under its own power, and that Marine Corps troop ships can deploy swarms of automated carryalls to pick up heavy equipment such as tanks.
It also helps that your Marines, unlike some people I could name, we don't have ten thousand ton War Behemoths wandering around on the ground and being nigh-impossible to spacelift...
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Simon_Jester wrote:Takes pains to ensure" is not the same as "assumes it will have." Granted the Imperial Army is unusually independent of space support, but without it it runs into the very real danger that its own superheavies will be targeted by orbital weapons too powerful for even a Titan to handle. That's what I would expect Imperial doctrine to call on the Navy to do: to make sure that at a bare minimum the enemy does not gain total space supremacy over the planet for any extended period of time. If this happens, the Army forces on the planet cannot survive indefinitely, and are liable to suffer badly asymmetric losses to enemy orbital bombardment.
Taking pains isn't enough. You haven't fought a war of annihiliation before, whereas the Imperium has in the past fought over a rock for a year over. In a meat grinder situation, the Navy cannot be relied upon for support all the time.
Obviously, if the naval support is gone, the game is quite up. But it's not like we wouldn't support our Titans with plenty of infantry.
...I think we're talking past each other.
Any extended planetary combat is going to involve space combat, and you cannot count on space supremacy, or even space superiority, at all times during the engagement. That much is just common sense. My point, though, is that I think the doctrinal path that leads to increased emphasis on land-based superheavies or on increased naval fire support is just that: a
difference, a valid split where it's not a case of one side being able to say "I'm right, you're stupid."
Clearly the Imperial Navy doesn't assume it can fight a ground campaign indefinitely without naval support or at least naval forces running interference with the
enemy's naval support. Clearly the Umerian security forces don't assume the ground troops will be able to call on orbital fire support at a moment's notice any time they wish. Either position would be ridiculous.
There has to be some degree of combined arms. that requires
both that the Army be able to rely on the Navy to at least maintain a presence in the vicinity so that they can't be isolated and destroyed,
and that the Navy be able to rely on the Army to take care of ground opposition on its own without needing routine support from space.
If available, orbital bombardment would always be the preferred means for dealing with land-based superheavies, because it offers the best way of solving the problem at minimal risk to one's own forces. If not available, then the job either goes to opposing superheavies, or to massed armored units from other forces in an engagement reminiscent of
Ogre
Conversely, the more naval-oriented powers' first goal would be to break an Imperial blockade to make the task of dealing with superheavies more straightforward- or, in some cases (such as Umeria), if the necessary mass is present, try to engage them by sheer mass of smaller ground units.
The Imperium dosen't walk away quietly. Likely we will detonate our stock of plasma/bio/nuclear weapons, leaving the ground so irradiated/contaminated that the land will take ages to recover.
Detonation of plasma explosives might shatter the crust in the local area come to think of it.
Uhm... OK?
It works well enough against the occasional Gargant we find ourselves dealing with... granted that we're more tactics-savvy than the orks, which helps a lot.
Who gives a shit about orcs? The Imperium would have glassed/blown the planet to bits.
In fact, I was just talking to Shady and decided; Janus will be glassed after the colony is evacuated and the crust so broken to bits it will never again be resettled with its tectonic plates in complete disarray. I could try destroying the planet outright, but Steve would scream.
Uhm... OK?
I mean yes in theory there's always "render the planet uninhabitable" as an option. But I would argue that there is something to be said for the ability to at least
engage an enemy without reducing the planet to ruins. I mean you go on at great length about the Imperial Army; what's the point of even
having an army if every combat ends in the planet being destroyed anyway?
So while I appreciate the GRIMDARK-ery of "We do not fight our enemies, we PULVERIZE them, so thoroughly that no life can survive where they once dwelt!" it strikes me as little more than an opportunity for you to sneer for the sake of sneering.
We have a similar concept with our frigates (ha, you say, mere minimicroparasite warships that do not realize their pitiful status!), which are designed for atmospheric fire support even though their main antiship weapons don't work well in air. Also with our strike cruisers (HA!, you say, so puny!), but with more specialized space-to-ground and air-to ground weapons.
What are you talking about? These ships were designed specifically to go into the atmosphere. So specialised there are only 9 of them (100pts each). The only other ships that can go land on solid ground are 75pt corvettes.
...I fail to see how this is a criticism. All I said is that I, too, have specialized ship classes that are designed to enter atmosphere and support ground troops. That seems a perfectly reasonable thing for me to say in response to you talking about how you have specialized ship classes that are designed to enter atmosphere and support ground troops.
seige's idea of "evacuate in 30 minutes or less" and leave only random discarded MRE boxes behind.
