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
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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
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.
Davy Jones
"Frightened? My dear, you are looking at a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe! I was petrified."
-- The Wizard of Oz