Could this force take over the world of 1,950 years ago?

Manji · Post by **Manji** » 2002-09-07 01:13pm

Or round about the year 50 AD

The Force:

USS Wasp

An Amphibious Assault Ship, with a large LHD (Landing Helicopter Deck). The ship can embark, transport, deploy, command and fully support all elements of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) of 2,000 Marines, inserting forces ashore via helicopters, landing craft and amphibious vehicles. The WASP Class is the first specifically designed to employ air-cushion landing craft (LCACS), and to carry a squadron of Harrier II (AV-8B) STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) jets.

USS Iowa

Nine 16" guns in three triple turrets, six 5" guns. Nuff said.

Plus also a support infrastructure built into a number of modified ships, to supply the needs of the ships, men, aircraft, vehicles, plus any holdings they may begin to set up:

A large oil drillship
A large vessel completely given over to a large onboard oil refinery.
Several ULCC tankers which each have about a billion gallons capacity, the ships carry different grades of fuel, and between them have enough to keep operations going for years (to tide them over essentially until they can be extracting their own fuel)
Several large bulk carriers, all at least over 80,000 tons and carrying thousands of tons of any commonly needed replacement part, thousands of tons of ammo for everything up to and including the Iowa's guns.
A large ship outfitted as one massive machine shop.
A massive ship which is a floating steel refinery - has everything required to take in raw iron ore and output high-grade steel
A factory ship with facilities to produce some other vital substances, such as weapon propellant, explosives, etc, again from raw materials.
A ship full of construction equipment, eg cranes, diggers, bulldozers, cement mixers, angle grinders, chainsaws, jackhammers, hammers, saws, nails, etc. etc. etc.

Could they take over the world of the year 50 AD? (Starting with the large empires/governments)?

Manji · Post by **Manji** » 2002-09-07 01:16pm

Oh yeah the ULCCs are full at the start.

And the Iowa pic don't work damn you to hell for disabling the edit post function

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2002-09-07 01:23pm

By itself, no... Can't be everywhere at once, and the force would have insufficient manpower to hold the required territory. To be sure, that force would find no significant opposition at a given place at a given time, but when it moved to another location, control of the previously occupied territory would fall to someone else.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-09-07 02:05pm

They could just do what Caesar did in Gaul. Recruit provinicials.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 02:13pm

Is this a re-post of the HMS Ocean verus the roman empire post?
with added infrastructure.
even if this one couldn't
would you try again
with an even
larger force?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2002-09-07 02:16pm

Your initial post makes the point well enough in itself.

No, modern equipment is too reliant on lines of modern supply, Taken from the modern world, a modern warship wuld have to take it's world with it (kinda defeating the object of the exercise) in order to function in the long term.

A modern warship or aircaft carrier would eventually run out of supplies, it would be a formiddable fighting force until that point, but when the fuel and bullets were gone, all it would be is a strangely shaped mobile island.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-09-07 02:21pm

I'm getting sick of these "take over the world with an LHD threads that are springing up all over the web. Heck I've seen this exact or near exact thread on at least two other boards. It's nearly as bad as the damned Montana's vs. Grand Fleet June 1916 one..

With there existing manpower, they cannot take over the world. And working the "God" aspect is not very likely to work. However the presence of manufacturing equipment would allow for the production of large numbers of more advanced non-gunpowder weapons.

To win the Marines need to capture an outlying region and recruit from its population. They need to raise a large army and use that for conquest and occupation, backing it up with there own firepower while still remaining dominate in the field.

BTW, refitted Iowa's mount 12 5/38s not six.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 02:26pm

They'd all get a veriety of desises when they came into contact with the locals

p.s. you left off food.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-09-07 02:36pm

NecronLord wrote:They'd all get a veriety of desises when they came into contact with the locals

p.s. you left off food.

The reverse would be a bigger problem, modern humans will be immune to and carry a lot of things people in 50BC wont have encountered or will not have immunity to.

Though I would expect small pox and a few others to be a problem. Better add the CDC archives and a pharmaceutical to one of the supply ships.

Manji · Post by **Manji** » 2002-09-07 02:44pm

I left off food because they dont need huge stores of that.

If they can't hunt, buy, or steal enough to feed a few thousand men then they're pretty incompetant.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 03:06pm

@sea skimmer; that was meant as half sardonic. I was thinking about small pox thoughand some extinct strains of TB and Malaria, and black death, they have got to go everywhere remember. You can't add stuff otherwise it could devolve into the 50AD world plus an ISD.
@manji; see the above for stealing. Hunting for a few thousand is far harder than you think. go out hunting in the same area, find food for yourself for three years, and tell me if you didn't exteminate everything. That would need to be done on an almost daily basis. They can't buy as that would bring them into cantact with the locals, see above.

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-09-07 03:10pm

This IS the same as Ocean vs. Roman Empire (50 AD = Roman Empire)

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 03:10pm

The reverse would be a bigger problem, modern humans will be immune to and carry a lot of things people in 50BC wont have encountered or will not have immunity to.

Though I would expect small pox and a few others to be a problem. Better add the CDC archives and a pharmaceutical to one of the supply ships

Au contraire, many desieses would have mutated enough that immunisaations would be innefective until you could harves samples and start again. Example Tuberculosis now is much different from then, similarly the 'killer' flu of 1919 no-one has immunity to now, as some samples of that survive, and it it radically different, though the mutation rates of bacteria and virus differ, the archives of infections we have now would offer very little defence, and modern people would haveless immunity than the locals.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 03:13pm

RayCav of ASVS wrote:This IS the same as Ocean vs. Roman Empire (50 AD = Roman Empire)

I am aware of the lifetime of the empire, however he's beefed up the forces and added an oil rig so I can't point out that little problem, and a steel mill, so on so forth.

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-09-07 03:15pm

NecronLord wrote:
RayCav of ASVS wrote:This IS the same as Ocean vs. Roman Empire (50 AD = Roman Empire)
I am aware of the lifetime of the empire, however he's beefed up the forces and added an oil rig so I can't point out that little problem, and a steel mill, so on so forth.

But unless he's also included cloning facilities or an ocean liner full of women, it's still impossible.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 03:25pm

That'll probably appear next time

Manji · Post by **Manji** » 2002-09-07 03:33pm

Um... I never did an Ocean thread

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-07 03:38pm

I never said you did, however you did post in it (now I check)

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=635

Deimos Anomaly · Post by **Deimos Anomaly** » 2002-09-08 08:30am

Hmm...

American officer: "Surrender now"

Caesar: "Never!"

American: "We'll see about that"

*Iowa fires a broadside at the city*

Caesar: "I think I've changed my mind about surrendering".

Repeat with China, Parthia, and any other large empires.

The large empires should actually be easier to defeat than the rest of the disunited world.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-08 08:41am

As you should be aware many cities are not within Broadside range.
This is rather stupid, and frankly annoying. The range of those ships is not sufficent to go aroundthe world from their oil rig.

also how are they going to communicate with your stated canversation?

Radio?

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-09-08 09:00am

Ah yes. Another good old
'our modern weaponz are soo strong we will kick yer sorry asses'
masturbation thread.

Montana's vs. Grand Fleet June 1916 one..

Could you describe what that was about a bit more precise?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-08 09:22am

Just for fun, why don't we change this to how badly even a useless borg tactical cube would kick the sorry arses of the US of A?

and then we can graduate to counting the atoseconds it would take an ROU to kill everything

This relly is about as mastabatory and pitiful.

Deimos Anomaly · Post by **Deimos Anomaly** » 2002-09-08 09:58am

About 70% of the world's population today lives within range of a battleship's guns. The proportion back then would likely be similar.

The vast majority of the world's great cities, both now and then, are either on the coast, or on large rivers capable of handling ships.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-09-08 10:01am

Fool thats cruise missiles.

May I also remind you that pre industrial revolution the worlds was mainly agraian, with cities being rare. This also limits your bility to bombard civillians.

Deimos Anomaly · Post by **Deimos Anomaly** » 2002-09-08 05:43pm

NecronLord wrote:As you should be aware many cities are not within Broadside range.
This is rather stupid, and frankly annoying. The range of those ships is not sufficent to go aroundthe world from their oil rig.

also how are they going to communicate with your stated canversation?

Radio?

Well, with the supplies of fuel (the tankers) given them in this thread they probably could go a right distance.

And for communication, there are ways. For example, all educated Romans were fluent in Greek, and unlike the dead language Latin, greek is still spoken, so provided they took along a greek/english interpreter (which needn't be a professional interpretor - any Greek-American marine would do if he could speak his mother tounge) they'd be fine. Other empires such as China would be easy, the Chinese language has existed for thousands of years so as long as there are any Chinese-Americans among the marines or the crews of the ships (highly likely) there won't be a communications problem.

The method of communication will involve a number of helicopters flying in to wherever Ceasar is and landing, troops jump out of them and lockdown the area, while others secure the Emperor, then the main US general comes forward accompanied by the interpreter, and makes his demands.

OR they could instead capture Ceasar, put him on a helicopter, and take him back to the ship. He gets a helicopter ride and a dramatic approach to the group of great ships before setting down on the Wasp and taking him inside to sign the surrender. Essentially let him see with his own eyes how great your power is.

The same thing with the emperor of China, etc...

Video the surrender, then set up televisions or large screen/projector setups in public places in the city and show the surrender ceremony. The citizenry will probably be more captivated by the amazing picture that moves and has sound than by what's actually being shown on it.

Reinforce this by printing out thousands of leaflets in the local language and then airdropping them over the cities. These leaflets will be basic information about the change of government and how the American forces are now in charge.