Wrong - ground combat was prevalent in the Star Trek Universe, it just wasn't pertinent to the Series itself as they were set on Star Ships, that said, Deep Space Nine showed a lot of ground combat against invading Klingon's' and Dominion forces.
Ground force equipment
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Wrong - ground combat was prevalent in the Star Trek Universe, it just wasn't pertinent to the Series itself as they were set on Star Ships, that said, Deep Space Nine showed a lot of ground combat against invading Klingon's' and Dominion forces.
To move an asteroid, the enemy faction just manage to randomly find one which:
1: Would be within reasonable range in a matter of months.
2: Would be large enough not to burn up in the atmosphere, yet not so large that it could not be redirected sharply enough (there is no reason to assume any mass can be moved easily, space stations must be built and launched from planets).
Then the asteroid, once it approaches the planet, would be open to far more sophisticated weaponry from the surface, leave they use the fleet to cover it, losing more fleet ships than they probably would trying to strategically take out the defenses in the first place. The range of the planetary defenses are probably long ranged enough to be able to take out asteroids pretty far away...
Pretty horrific. Beats planetary bombardment though.
Fleets keeping up and surgically taking out one side of the planet means they are only a danger to that one side.
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It would stand to reason. It would also be likely more popular among strictly militant species (where's the honor in bombing something after all), and species with a vested interest in the planet and/or its resources. Really the only time something like bombardment would be likely in my view is by either strictly pragmatic races, or on unimportant/expendable targets.
Where do you see me saying that either side does not have a certain range? I just don't see the fleet having a longer range than the planetary defense.
Starting at the end and working my way up...
Why is their not a facepalm emoji here.... No it doesn't work that way ffs Space fleet, moving target able to lob projectiles that wont land for hours at a target that it knows exactly where it will be when its projectile is timed to impact. The planets not going to suddenly speed up or slow down.
Versus lobbing projectiles at said fleet that wont land for hours.... do we really expect the fleet to still be exactly where it was 3 hours ago when you launched the projectiles?
Next point the asteroids weren't directed specifically to you I know shocker but another guy mentioned that you could deflect them when they get lobbed at you (You could assuming they were lobbed in the first place, but they make a pretty poor weapon choice unless your literally just saying fuck that planet)
If the shields don't work versus things low to the ground, i throw my lovely rocks at the edges of the planet instead of aiming center mass, sure it greatly increases the amount of atmosphere I have to go through, but I'll satisfy the low to the ground req.
If the shields are impervious indefinitely to any fast moving solid objects, how exactly did I beat the fleet in space? Answer Either I didn't or I have a weapon system that can penetrate said shield and I use it fairly self explanatory.
As for the wars you've had ww2 pointed out to you numerous times, That's the only war I can think of won by "air power" but there are dozens throughout all ages of history won by naval engagements
Now moving onto someone with more intelligible rebuttals, Reverend Belial how is landing troops and invading going to change this perception they have of you? There's still going to be massive civilian casualties, there always are in a war where someones trying to defend a city (or in this case many) if they arent going to surrender in the face of certain death how do you make them surrender with ground troops?
Secondly I suppose its possible that some combination of ethos might make a civilzation willing to accept millions of casualties in their own troops to prevent billions of enemy casualties, but it does boggle the mind a bit ya know?
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The question all these "ground troops aren't necessary" crowd need to ask is this...
If you're happy to "glass the planet" with whatever horrific weapons you have at your disposal - why the hell are you even attacking the planet anyway except for a genocidal rampage? You won't get anything worthwhile out of it if it is a smoldering rock.
If you're happy to "glass the planet" with whatever horrific weapons you have at your disposal - why the hell are you even attacking the planet anyway except for a genocidal rampage? You won't get anything worthwhile out of it if it is a smoldering rock.
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You said "the hostile fleet would stay out of the planetary weapons range" - explain that statement. I actually agree with your statement above, however, I don't see why the fleet has any range advantage either. In fact, for practical purposes, there is no such thing as "range" in space.
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jebus, such a big thread/arguement over a mechanic that is probably non-existent in Stellaris
I really get annoyed by ignorant nay-sayers of ground troops in this thread, you are really underestimating the efforts of logistical, tactical and strategical plans to turn a planet into a fortress. DO you really think that a first chosen commander with IQ of 300+ acting as 'field marshal of Alpha Centauri system X' would overlook having orbital hangars that host swarms of fighters? Moon batteries? Cloaked space mines? Screens at the entries of the system? Home fleet? Ignoring the possibilities of simply bomb or bulldoze away all asteriods in half a light year vincity of the planet fortress to avoid massextinction?
That make it super hard for invaders to simply bypass all the defenses, or simply 'fling an asteriod' from far distance when it can't even reach half of the light speed before gettin obilirated? Or even warheads... no fleet of battleships at the size of 1:10^1000 mass of a planet can muster enough energy to laser nuke a planet.
I'm not saying a fortress planet is impreginable but my conclusion is that gGround forces are needed, in a syngergy with fleet to surpass defenses to claim victory to a fortress planet.
That make it super hard for invaders to simply bypass all the defenses, or simply 'fling an asteriod' from far distance when it can't even reach half of the light speed before gettin obilirated? Or even warheads... no fleet of battleships at the size of 1:10^1000 mass of a planet can muster enough energy to laser nuke a planet.
I'm not saying a fortress planet is impreginable but my conclusion is that gGround forces are needed, in a syngergy with fleet to surpass defenses to claim victory to a fortress planet.
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Supplying examples is your job. After all you are one implying that show of force can't win you a war
And remember that we had MAD doctrine (smth space empire wouldn't fear) later so your window of opportunity is incredibly small, the other guys could rock from 1949 on. And not even one bomb after those three was developed in US history, right? They could wait and build, build and build to the point there would be nothing left out of Japan islands. Not that space empire would lack in weapons but hey.
Surface not liveable? And why exactly? You bomb and either they surrender either you send terraforming teams.
I am not implying ground troops aren't needed, you need to establish your presence after all. I am implying that ground warfare for a space empire would be idiotic option. I mean fighting over every single planet would delay your invasion to the point where it would be the best not to even start one. And loss of life would be catastrophic. And it has nothing to do with hard core SciFi.
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It's a long tradition in warfare: the garrison of a fortress survives if they surrender before the assault happens, and dies if they wait too long. Heck, old school it used to be that most commanders agreed to surrender the fortress if they weren't relieved by a friendly army by a set time.
Trust me, if a planet's defenders refused to surrender in the face of an enemy fleet determined to possess the ball of dirt, and with no prospect of relief from a friendly force, there would quickly be an uprising against the defense forces (as I believe there is precedence for in the past, with cities turning on their garrisons in the face of fearsome enemies).
Of course it wouldn't be necessary to glass the planet anyway: once the defenses are destroyed (as they would be after briefly holding the fleet at bay), attacking ground troops would be able to fight with constantly available close air support while their enemies were limited to ground fighting only. Fighting house to house in the cities gets a lot less enticing to the defender when attackers can call for a precision strike on that one building as soon as you open fire on them when they try to enter it.
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Seriously though where is this sudden idea i need an asteroid to use as a WMD? Literally a 10kg projectile lobbed to 1/100th the speed of light would glass the island of Manhattan.
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And conversely, the person being fired upon can see those projectiles coming at him for hours and react - point defences of some kind, for example. It is entirely possible now to track and shoot down artillery shells, in the future, what is to stop the same being done with Space based kinetic weapons? Nothing. Go facepalm yourself...
That entirely depends - is there inertial dampening in the ships? If not, then yes, I would expect them to not be pulling high G maneuvers while travelling through space at several Km's a second., so it is reasonable to assume their course would be somewhat predictable.
However, this is Sci-fi so I expect they do have that and ships will whizz about like fighter planes, which is totally unrealistic (funny, as you guys are arguing realism yet seem happy to ignore the bits that would bugger you up) but what the hell.. What about missiles with guidance? Or Energy weapons travelling the speed of light? Or simply go old school and fire a shed load of kinetics at a general area, you're bound to hit something...
Well then, perhaps don't include it in a post which is replying to me....
That makes no sense - I am not assuming a planetary shield, but rather shields over installations. And as a planet is round, it has no edges...
I never said anything about them being "impervious indefinitely to any fast moving solid objects" - go back and read. I actually said maybe they don't work against slow moving objects, or perhaps they don't work against solid objects at all. Totally the opposite of what you claimed I said.
WW2 wasn't won with airpower alone. Why do people think it was? Have schools got that bad? Or was Overlord a day out at the beach? Or the Battle of the Bulge a nice trip to the woods? Or the War in Russia a colossal snow-ball fight ? Or the War in the Pacific a series of island getaways? Jeebus...
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Though I would prefer 40k style ground attack, I still have multiple reasons to bombard planet. If a planet is very important for enemy but I can only launch a pearl harbor style assault rather than full scale ground invasion, I want to maximize the damage. Or if enemy have some very nasty thing that I want to get rid of as soon as possible on planet, a nuclear missile from ship would be fast and clear (though someone may prefer a spacemarine kill team).
Basically, it's a problem about let enemy lost everything, not I got anything.
There is ground combat, generals are leaders who lead it. it must matter a little if spending leader spots is worth it.
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To be specific you've had the war in the pacific IE that against japan pointed out to you numerous times, and you choose to utterly ignore every comparable naval example.
Ok screw it moving on from this guy I cant handle this level of dumb.
I enjoy debate but intelligent debate is the key here.
And yenzen you make a fair point maybe they will flesh it out a bit more than I'm expecting fun trumps realism anyday in a game ^_^
Ok screw it moving on from this guy I cant handle this level of dumb.
I enjoy debate but intelligent debate is the key here.
And yenzen you make a fair point maybe they will flesh it out a bit more than I'm expecting fun trumps realism anyday in a game ^_^
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It may very well not change the perception they have, but that isn't really my point. A lot of people are tossing around orbital bomardment as if it would basically just automatically win and battle and that the populace would assuredly surrender, and what I'm saying is that that is one-dimensional thinking. Although now that you bring it up a ground invasion would still have a higher potential to prove to the defenders or populace that your presence is more or less benign. Simple things like having occupation forces for captured cities assist in relief or repair efforts, or making a show of steering clear of clearly non-military sections of the settlement. An orbital bombardment would have none of those chances, and would basically do nothing but (at best) cause the citizens to fear you and (at worst) cement in their minds that you are ruthless and barbaric invaders.
Plus for the grander topic at hand consider it on the wider scale. Not only would you possibly have to count dissenting voices at home in peaceful elements of society or other conquered races, but think about the reaction from the empire that actually owns that planet. A world taken by ground forces would likely just be considered a planet occupied by the enemy (thinking in terms of how humans might view it), but a planet that either gets glassed or has its cities ruined by bombardment may be viewed in a much more negative light. Especially in the case of glassing which would likely be viewed in much the same way many games treat other types of WMD.
Somewhere earlier in the thread someone used the example of literally "flinging" asteroids from any nearby belts at the planet in question, and it stuck since it's a convenient reference point for the arguments.
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The funny thing is you actually have it reversed: in soft sci-fi the ships tend to have artificial gravity so that the floor is always down, and you tend not to feel any velocity change (except maybe a brief lurch as you go to hyperspace); despite having this magitech though, these ships tend not to engage in very complex maneuvers, limiting themselves to moving like real ships (i.e. forward with slow turns).
It's hard science fiction where the ships will be accelerating in any direction without regard for which way is "forward", even though all of the people on the ship will probably have to strap themselves down for combat. If fighter pilots can pull several Gs and fly just fine, then a ship's crew can pull the 0.5-1 g it would take to make themselves incredibly difficult to accurately target even for lasers just fine.
Wrong. DS9 had no such thing. They were few cases where starfleet officers had a shoot out with the enemies but it was in no way or shape a ground warfare. The closest bet would be special forces operations. I mean no vehicles, no artillery, nothing to speak of. And they were usually fighting over crucial installations which couldn't be blown to pieces.
Meanwhile Betazed got taken right off the bat.
1. Could be transported closer and then accelerated.
2. Well, universe is suppose to be infinite, right?
Even destroyed fragments of asteroids would still hit with power on nuclear bombs. In B5 using mass drivers to shoot them at planet was actually considered war crime.
Well, sucks for the population of that side. Maybe they could surrender and turn down the power grid :3
That said, the point was fleet ca concentrate its firepower, planetary defences cannot. That is why this second option could be actually more expensive if we count firepower in certain area.
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Supplying examples is your job. After all you are one implying that show of force can't win you a war
Actually no - I never said that and pointed that out in my previous post. I actually said no war has been won (even by a tech superior enemy) using airpower alone. Where you're getting this idea about a "show of force" from is a mystery. You're barking up the wrong tree with that argument.
I see the subtleties of my argument confound you - my point was, had Japan called the US bluff and gone for a third or fourth attack, they'd have realised the US had no more bombs! And then what? Anyway, we're arguing the toss over an example used to prove a point over something I didn't actually say.
Terraforming teams? Do we even know if substantial terraforming is even available (especially early-mid game)? A massive assumption on your part simply to try and win an argument. What if you cannot terraform? What if you didn't get the tech?
In reality, I doubt any colony would have a massive population or vast urban sprawls anyway, so it would actually not be the bloodbath you seem to think it would be. Take Star Trek - most colonies are very small and when invaded and occupied it was done with relatively small forces. It would take centuries for a colony to get up to the size of Earth, at which point an invasion does become a problem
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