Does Starfleet Ground Force realy exist?

1
In TNG epesod "Chain of Command" Picard and some of his senior officers go on the mission that usualy done by special forces


2
The only evidence of heavy weapons i see is the Jeep in Nemisis
(I wonder if they fought Dominian War with M1 Abrums tanks and LAVs)


3
The only comuflyaged uniform i saw is black for night ops ( the MACO has something that looks remotly like comuflyage)


4
And finaly there is no body protection. I understand that phasers ae to powergul but what about fragmens from explocions ?

All of that is true... Although the MACO Commandos do point at a pre-federation ground force.

However in addition, Heavy Weapons are also seen in Insurrection, when Worf unpacks the Isomagnetic Disintegrator.

But I digress.

The official canon position is no. there are no ground forces, as established by Gene Rodenberry.

This issue is clarified in true Star Trek style by the inclusion of a Starfleet Major in Star Trek 6, O'Briens history as an infantryman against the Cardassians after Setlick III and the defensive forces of AR-488...

So, it appears from the episodes that there are ground troops, but these are drawn from the ranks of Starfleet, with perhaps a smaller cadre of professional soldiers as a Fast Response unit...

In your reality? Well, its up to you, if you want PBI or marines, with Tanks and Air support, go for it!

what i ment under hevy weapons is something little havier then isometric dessinigrater like tank, APC or artillery

In one DS9 episode "hoppers" were mentioned, which seemed to be some kind of LAV (low altitude vehicle) to me.

"The official canon position is no. there are no ground forces, as established by Gene Rodenberry."

Actually, no... What Roddenberry said is that there are no Starfleet Marines - he never said there were no ground forces. Ground forces are shown in DS9's Nor the Battle to the Strong and The Seige of AR-559, and are explicitly mentioned in the DS9 finale, What You Leave Behind, by Admiral Ross during the Battle of Cardassian Prime.

As for the lack of heavy weapons in Trek, well, Trek has traditionally been space-based. How many shows about the US Navy feature Abrams tanks?

Well, when a person can blow away a small hillock with a Type VI Phaser Rifle on setting 16 who needs heavy weapons?

Actually, with regards to the 'marines' maco's or whatever you want to call them on Enterprise they were implicitly stated as NOT beign in Starfleet, so with regards to Cannon, it does'nt actually contradict anything (The first episode they were seen in on season 2/3 The admiral was asking how he felt about non Starfleet personel being assigned to his ship, to help with the Xindi)

In all honesty I can't see any problem with their being all sorts of specialist divisions within Starfleet, and we already know there are NCO officers within the ranks. Starfleet isn't entirelly made up of crews on Starships, so it would make sense that there were 'other' types of officers than the regular types seen. But even within the context of the much quoted Seige of AR-559 - they just looked like ordinary officers and NCO's who'd been dumped on a planet and told to guard it.

O'Brien had seen allot of action in the Cardassian war, and was considered a 'veteran' but he was still just a regular 'crewman'.

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Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
"The official canon position is no. there are no ground forces, as established by Gene Rodenberry."

Actually, no... What Roddenberry said is that there are no Starfleet Marines - he never said there were no ground forces. Ground forces are shown in DS9's Nor the Battle to the Strong and The Seige of AR-559, and are explicitly mentioned in the DS9 finale, What You Leave Behind, by Admiral Ross during the Battle of Cardassian Prime.

As for the lack of heavy weapons in Trek, well, Trek has traditionally been space-based. How many shows about the US Navy feature Abrams tanks?

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They could at least make ground force look like ground force because for example Navy SEALs sure doesnt look like Navy


as for the Abrams tank navy caries marines and their equipment all the time doesnt starfleet at least have troops transports because I dont think they fought dominion war ground engagements with starships sequrity detail

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Originally posted by Phantom
Well, when a person can blow away a small hillock with a Type VI Phaser Rifle on setting 16 who needs heavy weapons?

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Then what about body protection and comuflage


cuz if they march into battle with their uniforms it would be like napolionik era with pfasers


besides have you ever heared of Land warrier project?
when that system gona come out our solders gona be more advanced then in 24th sentury

So there is a military weapon that you can carry in your pocket that cal reduce half a mountain to Rubble ? Wow cool we are much more advanced than Ii thought... or you're mistaken, one of the two :)

I can see why Starfleet don't bother with armour and it's simple - the best way to avoid taking damage from energy weapons is good mobility - and wearing armour makes you walk like a robot. Body armour is only going to be of any use against physical weapons, very little will stop you from being vapourised! - Energy sheilding is pretty much impractical, unless you have a pocket warp core (Even the Borg shields are useless untill they modulate them, because they don't have enough energy to screen all frequencies)

Hence from what we've seen from Episodes of Startrek, the way they handle combat situations is to take a tactical strongpoint, use discipline and good training and coordinate with each other, and.... dodge! Because if that beam hits you, there's very little can stop it!

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Originally posted by UDT/Frogman
They could at least make ground force look like ground force because for example Navy SEALs sure doesnt look like Navy
..............
as for the Abrams tank navy caries marines and their equipment all the time doesnt starfleet at least have troops transports because I dont think they fought dominion war ground engagements with starships sequrity detail

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1. Yes, but the SEALs don't carry artillery with them, either. They're spec ops, specializing in small unit tactics.

2. You're not thinking in the context of the setting. It's been shown (TOS "A Piece of the Action") that shipboard phasers can be used for planetary bombardment....that means these massively powerful beam weapons can be used to support troops like heavy artillery.

This is different from naval gunfire in that a ship can position itself anywhere over the globe to fire at any spot they want (whereas naval gunfire is limited to littoral areas of combat). Note that I didn't mention strikes with Tomohawk or Harpoon missiles, because that's not troop support, but a strike mission.

As has already been mentioned, light, man-portable weapons (phaser rifles, disrputors) can vaporize relatively large objects. That means tanks and other heavy vehicles are at a high risk on a battlefield from every soldier with a phaser/disruptor rifle, which is decidedly not the case on modern-day Earth.

3. In one of the TOS episodes (and I can't recall the name at the moment), Kirk and Spock are in a combat situation at the beginning, and are forced to use a photon grenade and mortar-like launcher to take out an enemy position. So, even with ultra-powerful beam weapons the size of an M-16, Starfleet also makes use of miniaturized photon weapons as a form of lightweight, portable artillery support for troops. That further reduces the need for heavy artillery in a highly-mobile force such as Starfleet ground forces.

4. Mobility isn't as much of an issue, given that a squadron of ships, carrying ground forces, can beam troops, en masse, wherever they need to go. (Ever hear of those 22-man emergency transporters that reportedly have been around since TOS? I'm quite sure they could modify those/adapt them for troop transportation.) If you have six Size 6 transport ships (each spending one space to get a second allotment of transporters), you could easily move 1,000 troops half-way across a world in a single beaming! And 1,000 troops in a high-tech setting (our modern Army already has magnitudes of order greater capability than that of WWII's) is a pretty decent amount of firepower (remember, tank guns in their hands?).

You need to think like you're in the 23rd/24th C., and not confine yourself to the thought processes of the modern military.

With regards to the Photon Grenade concept - that is very Starfleet oriented and still relevant to modern military tactics. Taking someone out of a combat scenario is far more useful than plain destroying them, because most people object to death in bad way. It's far more useful to develop weapons which can take out one or multiple targets, but leave them alive. - That's concurrent with modern day military practices of 'wounding' weapons, because any enemy soldier who is wounded automatically becomes a burden to the enemy, a dead person does not. When you take that to the context of phaser stun settings, you can see how useful those weapons are!

Setting a phaser on a wide beam stun setting or using a photon grenade (or even the stun setting on an Isokinetic canon) can take out your entire oponents force in one hit, without compromising their position... I.e. you don't rush in to their bunker, only to find that you blew out their roof support and it lands on your head, when you fired a grenade on them!

Anything giving off a heavy thermal signature, such as a 'tank' like vehicle is going to be very easy to target, even from orbit - and if it's shielded - it's still going to be no match against a starship phaser array!

Starfleets choice of tools is about quickness, ease of movement and multifuntionality. yes they do have 'desert' clothes and 'winter' clothes, but mostly they go to temperate environments, where they aren't needed.

U ppl all missing the point here

if the space program evolved from our day space shuttles to 24th sentury starships, Millitary semmd to had a leap backwards
because with their coloreful uniforms ground force is a perfect sniper targed. And that not just my opinion because in WWI while everybody swiched to green and gray uniforms Franch had blue and read uniforms and in number of battles they had a lot of casualtys just because of the sniper fire


Another thing is that u all seen evolution of tank and other heavy stuff like that from WWI to our days. I see no reason that it souldnt have evolved even further

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Originally posted by Tobian



Anything giving off a heavy thermal signature, such as a 'tank' like vehicle is going to be very easy to target, even from orbit - and if it's shielded - it's still going to be no match against a starship phaser array!

Starfleets choice of tools is about quickness, ease of movement and multifuntionality. yes they do have 'desert' clothes and 'winter' clothes, but mostly they go to temperate environments, where they aren't needed.

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in regard to thermal signature there is a lot of technics that are used on the battle field to conceal thermal signatures of the tanks and other stuff

another question. what about body protection Klonongs anb Borg semms the only races that truing to protect its troops with some type of body protection. and i am not talking about deflecting phaser fire (alto Borg are prety succcessful) i am talking about simple flack vests and helmets. In the Vietnam this things werent buletproof but they saved so many ppl from fragments.

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Originally posted by Tobian
So there is a military weapon that you can carry in your pocket that cal reduce half a mountain to Rubble ? Wow cool we are much more advanced than Ii thought... or you're mistaken, one of the two :)

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the land warrior is not weaponit its a basicly a computer thats atached to a solders its allows u to see where ur gys are and where are enemy have been seen its also incorporates night and thermal vission devices and video camera attached to solders rifle so in urdan environment u dont have to stick ur head out of cover and shoot the enemy u just have to stick ur rifle out of cover and see enemy thro the eye peas on ur helmet and also accuratly engage tangos if u want to
why does starfleet doesnt have somethind like that