I am wondering now with the release of the DWS does Starfleet have any class that they use for assault transports. If not how do they deploy the Vendrel class hovertanks and the various types of ground vehicles used by the Ground Forces?
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I am wondering now with the release of the DWS does Starfleet have any class that they use for assault transports. If not how do they deploy the Vendrel class hovertanks and the various types of ground vehicles used by the Ground Forces?
If you look at the classes presently out there, and if you believe that all that equipement for the Ground Forces/Marines exist, then you'll see that there are several vessels that can handle 'amphib' operations and support those operations.
What me and the honorable CMDR Powers once talked about was a through-deck Akira Variant. She would make an excellent CVL/CVE. But in the same sense she can make a great LHA/LHD/LPD. She has alot of volume that can be used to store the 'amphib' equipment and the Marines/Ground Forces.
Furthermore, other vessels would make great LPD/LPAs such as the Streamrunner or the Norway. And how about the older vessels, all you need are multiple cargo transporters to get the job done. How about modified cargo vessels, they'd be ideal for the job. And furthermore that is where modern LPAs were derived from.
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"Your job is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
-Patton
"Like my father said, never start a fight, but always be sure to finish it."
-CAPT Sheridon, B5
"Know you enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious."
-CMDR Riker quoting The Art of War
So the consensus thus far seems to be that there is no dedicated assault transports with Starfleet. Thats what I kinda figured. What I am trying to figure out now is the "lift capability" for each of the listed classes troop capacity as well as vehicle capacities.
I also submit that with the end of the war Starfleet might decide to address this shortcoming and possibly have a regiment worth of troops and vehicles plus all supporting equipment on call for whatever reason they might be required. For that reason a dedicated assault transport may be forthcoming.
Being a fan of the 'Marines' myself, I would see them making variants of classes to fulfill the role. But lets be honest, and to keep with the general feeling on this board, the Federation is not MILITANT. And isn't suppost to be, it's a necessary evil due to the dangers that lay out there in the stars. And to have a standing Regiment, instead of one placed in Reserve (or some other type of setting) would be something against the ideals of the Federation, or so some would argue.
I personnally think that these ground forces/Marines are actually composed of Planetary units that become 'Federalized' besides that they remain just that, planetary defense force units. And thus, Starfleet doesn't actively support vessels that are designed to support these ground forces/Marines. Rather that would be the planetary defense force that would do that.
I am not a fan of the Akira-class by any means (damn ugly thing!). But I tend to support the idea that the Akira is a Marine Assault ship. . .capable of large scale shuttle operations and planatary bombardment. The only thing backing my belief is:
http://steve.pugh.net/fleet/akira.html
Well here is a quick and dirty idea knocked together during the Dominian War.
This transport module was origionally designed by the cheif engineer of the Norway class USS Tamsin. Faced with the diffculties of transporting the large quantities of troops and combat vehicles during the war, Lt Cmdr Day had the brainwave of using a modified class D cargo pod to carry them.
These modules he found were almost the perfect size to fit between the naccelle spars of his ship, with some structural latches added. Lt Cmdr Day received the go ahead to give it a try while the Tamzin was in for repair. Cmdr Day installed six interlinked and upgraded cargo tranporters creating three huge tranport pads for the rapid deployment of Starfleets largest tanks. Next 160 spatan quaters modules were added along with two auxiliary power generators to power the transporters and voila, a tranport method was born for the Norway Cruiser. Starfleet went into limited production a month after the basic idea was approved.
Notes
As I said its qiuck and dirty
SU cost for module 75 SU
Type 3 Cargo Transporters (x2) 28 (x2)
Capacity 3,000 kg each
Range 40,000 km
Class J
Strength 10
160 spartan Quarters 8
165,000 Cubic metres 5
2 Auxiliary power generators 6
Life support etc is provided by the host ship, and personel transfer is possible between the ship and module via gangplanks through naccelle spar inspection hatchs.
PS the transpoters are huge because I cannot see a 40 to 80 metre long tank being light. I still think they are too small, after all a British Challenger II MBT weighs 68 tons that 340 SUs just for its weight!
[This message has been edited by Captain Leana Craig (edited 08-30-2001).]
As some of you may know I'm in the US Navy. Was in a (very boring) logistics class the other day and had a RPG related idea http://216.40.212.6/Board/ubb/smile.gif
These days most of our sealift/troop transport is via civilian ship or plane - some of them are on permanant contract to the military and some are part of a program where the goverment funds the vessel in part allowing the private company to run it for profit until recalled in time of emergency. Less cost to the goverment, plus a boost to private business. Worked in the Gulf pretty well.
So - perhaps SF's missing troop transports and support craft are missing because they *aren't* SF until war time. Makes sense to me - the UFP doesn't need troop transports most of the time, or even military cargo ships. Let private concerns take care of moving things for you (Federation Express perhaps) during peacetime, send the "troops" via passenger liner if they can't ride "space-A" on a starship. From what we've seen "fleet operations" are a rare thing during peacetime - so large scale resupply while underway isn't likely a big part of their plans.
Troop and cargo transports would need: a decent turn of speed, good enough shields to take a hit or two, large internal space. All good for a civilian ship. Weapons would be a bad idea - you don't want these ships to fight you want them to run and to hide. You'll provide escorts to protect them. Even today's (and yesterday's for that matter)landing ships and craft are not heavily armed. You simply aren't going to be able to blast your way in like that - if naval (starship) gun support and surprise can't do it nothing will.
IMHO -
TK
Toad,
You do have a point, even todays largest amphib vessels aren't very heavily armed and most amphib groups require at least a DDG and a FFG to support amphib operations. As the LHA/LHD they only have VERY limited anti air outfit, and that's it.
Furthermore, you do have a point that in an amphib operation, you don't want one that last longer then a day. You as the landing force want to establish a beach head ASAP and bring the war to them on what use to be their ground. However, this doesn't directly relate to 'planetary support'/ star trek 'amphib' ops. Where as in you have a very small beachhead in modern day landings, planetary landings would be an enormous undertaking, i.e. Starship Troopers. Therefore, even though supprise is essential, any force with a half way decent sensor suite will see you coming from light-years away.
Also, due to the limited force that Starfleet seems to be able to deploy, you can only release so many vessels for any given 'amphib' operation. And those vessels you would want to be able to do as much as possible, including being able to defend themselves against reinforcements (in a reasonable number, come on now they aren't expected to hold of whole fleets) if need be.
There for as I see it a 'amphib' task force would be composed of one heavy cruiser (Akira most likely with Air Wing attatched), two size 7 or greater transports (most likely modified cargo vessles) and a half dozen smaller escorts for support (Sabers most likely). Any suggestion, complaints about this composition. About this string?
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"Your job is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
-Patton
"Like my father said, never start a fight, but always be sure to finish it."
-CAPT Sheridon, B5
"Know you enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious."
-CMDR Riker quoting The Art of War
Actually I agree about the size of force needed for planet scale invasions. In fact I think by and large in the Trek system they are basically impossible against a hardened target like Earth or Cardassia Prime the end of DS9 not withstanding. (I don't think they intended to "invade" CP so much as blockade and neutralize it - which would have pretty much the same impact).
I mean - even today with our 6 billion on Earth you're going to have a hard time actually controlling the movements of armies let alone resistance cells. My explanation of the "invasion" of Betazed (or similar) would be that the attacking force gains safe use of orbit by eliminating hostile space forces and destroying any planet based weapons. They can then claim victory and sieze via small raids assisted w/ orbital bombardment key morale points (capital city, major power centers, ect.)
They don't need to place a troop on every street corner as they have them in orbit where you can't hit them back.
This is only possible when the attacker has: complete or firm "space control", enough resources to leave ships in orbit or place fixed assets there, no problem with nukeing a couple of cities to get the point across.
I don't think SF's going to be doing that - if required they'd simply blockade the offending system(s)and try to work a peace deal.
What I do see SF having to set up to do is counter terrorism ops (retaking facilities, ships, and colonies), placing troops in contested areas, and forced entry into "soft" targets i.e. vs. small colonies, outposts. I simply don't see the need to actually take the enemy homeworld if you don't intend to keep it - which UFP wouldn't do. Taking away their starships and holding the high ground so they can't make more is good enough - and hard enough.
As far as the bad guys go - wouldn't they just level enough stuff from orbit to make the rest give up?
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TK
I don't think having a regiment plus all associated equipment would constitute as being "Militant". A smart government will always have a force in place ready to "react".
I am glad that JALU3 is a fellow marine supporter like myself but this discussion on whether marines/Marines exist has been argued to ad nauseum and with Steve Long and others putting the Starfleet GroundForces into the Dominion WAr Sourcebook with all equipment I feel that any arguments about Marines/marines is now rather moot. However, I cannot see the Ground Forces being part of planetary defence forces. There would be too many variations and differences in training and possibly in some cases equipment. I like the centralized approach to ground forces that the DWS addresses and when you think about it, up to 200,000 personnel is not a big number. At the same time you can see why the SFGF is used not in the invasion role but more or less in the intelligent war role that Mr. Long indicates in the DWS.
I can see the possibility of variants of exisiting classes developed into the "amphib role". As redwood973 and JALU3 have mentioned the Akira seems to be ideal for this role. Remove the 30-50 attack fighters and replace them with Wyvern class transports and you will have a significant lift capablity. Add a couple of Steamrunners or El Dorado's to JALU3's task force and you have a potent and versatile mix of ships.
In my campaign I created a varient of the Galaxy class which I call the Quasar class.
Converted during the war it is called and Assault Carrier and in addition to increased weapons it carries 32 fighters/16 Talon class scouts(which make excellent gunboats if you ask me)/8 runabouts/9 hoppers/6 skimmers/and 4 standard admin shuttles.
To crate the Quasar in Spacedock make the following mods to the Galaxy class...
system space
Crew Quarters:
Sparten -1000 50
Basic -500 50
Expanded-50 10
Luxury -20 20
Unusual -20 20
Recreation class 6 48
Science systems 1 13
Specialized scince 1 5
Laboratories 8 2
2 extra torpedo tubes (f/a)34
300 S.U. Shuttlebay +176 (150 space bay)
+120 Torpedoes 12
This ship can carry and deliver a battalion of marines and then support them once onplanet. This ship is ideal to launch raids or, with support, assualt a fortified world.
I also have modified the Talon class to increase it's speed to something that a scout would need to survive. While I was at it I added 2 of those 4 shot torpedo launchers carried by runabouts to give the ship the kind of punch it seemed to have in Insurrection.
Sorry the spaces did not turn out like I expected but if you look for the gaps between the numbers you should be able to figure it out.
A Modified Galaxy huh?
Hmmm . . . Sounds interesting, however I would doubt that would be the case for the are far to little Galaxys around to start modifying them as significant as that. And furthermore they take a long time to build thus leaning to at most one of those varriants being part of the Fleet.
Even though I like the modifications, I doubt this would be common, and as previously stated, just one if any at all. Maybe you can take a Nebula and modify her, she already leans, due to design, to manipulation of her modular sections.
However, also look at some of the above post. Chances are these 'amphib' vessels will contain much armarment above self defense. Like a Medical Cruiser or a specialty ship as such, they would consentrate the resouces alocating to such a specialized vessel to the role that that vessel was made to do. In this case this role is 'amphib'.
Also look at above postings about 'modern amphib' ops. Chances are you are not able to make a complete planetary drop due to the massive amount of resources to be able to complete such operation. Therefore chances are the 'amphib' vessel would most likely be accompanied by a number of support vessels inorder to give fire support to the troops that undertake such operation.
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"Your job is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
-Patton
"Like my father said, never start a fight, but always be sure to finish it."
-CAPT Sheridon, B5
"Know you enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious."
-CMDR Riker quoting The Art of War
Except for the, admittedly large, torpedo launchers all of the mods are to the saucer so I figure Starfleet would build the saucers and attach them to main hulls brought in for repairs that could have the extra launchers mounted.
This would give them the ability to upgrade over time. They would need to because they would need to build the Quasar saucers to go on the upgraded hull.
I'm sure that in the FASA/LUG game worlds the Federation Merchant marine plays a large part in moving the troops and supplies.
Mike
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"Only Nixon can go to China" Spock