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Originally posted by Sea Tyger
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.
True, but in a war situation, space vessels would be dealing with other space vessels. They could probably not spare the power to support ground assaults, who would need their own equipment for that. In addition, military ground targets would be hardened or shielded. And there would probably be planetary defense batteries (in fact, we know at least some races employ these as of TOS).
To reduce hardened ground targets in a battle against an equivalent force, you would need some sort of ground artillery.
To keep troops alive, you would need some kind of close air support. It would likely be some kind of hardened shuttlecraft, but it would exist. Maybe the hoppers can fill this role.
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Originally posted by Sea Tyger
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.
When those targets aren't shielded, yes. Shields reduce that advantage considerably. Shields also prevent you from beaming ordinance or troops directly onto the target. Any serious military installation would have to be shielded or it wouldn't last long.
Any sort of heavy weapon would have to be mobile, or it would quickly fall victim to counter-battery fire -- something we have *now*. And it would have to be shielded. Remember that the RPG was originally developed to make the tank obsolete. Modern tanks aren't much bothered by them unless the guy gets really lucky. Weapons designers came up with the discarding sabot shell. And tank designers countered with reactive armor. And so it goes.
I suspect a 24th century tank would hover, not roll on treads, and would have deflector shields. It could easily mount a small M-AM reactor, which would be sufficient to power such things. The main gun would likely be some variation on that clunky phaser cannon we last saw in "The Cage" / "The Menagerie".
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Originally posted by Sea Tyger
3. In one of the TOS episodes (and I can't recall the name at the moment),
That would be "Arena", the first and so far only Gorn appearance. You're welcome. :)
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Originally posted by Sea Tyger
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.
I agree that emplaced heavy artillery is unlikely, because counter-battery fire is likely to be more effective, more accurate, and faster every year.
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Originally posted by Sea Tyger
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?
See "shielding", above. :) Also, rememeber the remat detonator from DS9? Little thing the size of a pea that turns a person into organic refuse on rematerialization? If that exists, surely it's possible to inhibit transporters using something similar.
My point is, as offensive power advances, so to does defensive power. Given two forces that are roughly comparable, wars will still be won the same way then that they are now: with strategy and tactics.
My $0.03. (Opinions cost more since the weak dollar policy went into effect :))
