The ultimate comment on planetary invasions?

Hello,

  A number of people (including me) have been arguing about planetary
invasion. Without going into the relative merits of deep meson guns
versus orbital defence belts, I would like to pose a number of questions
cum comments, as follows:

  The prices of various armaments are just paper money to us, the
vehicle designers and wargamers - what do we care if the Meson-T gun is
MCr3,000 or MCr3,500? However, assuming a limited GPP (Gross Planetary
Product) and a limited defence spending, how many are produced? How many
warships and assault tenders?

  The very fact that spending is limited would favour an attacker or
defender who balances the quantity of medium priced combat vehicles with
a quality of high priced combat vehicles (be these vehicles TL9 grav
tanks or TL15 super dreadnoughts). There may be 5 Atlantis battleships
(Robert Dean's Prize Baby :-) in a star system, but a mixed force can
outmaneuver it and perform a planetary landing.

  On another hand - a planetary assault may take place WITH THE CONSENT
of the defender - if an attacker finds himself faced with an apparently
impenetrable defence belt, he may just give up the idea of an assault
and accelerate a few medium sized asteroids at the target planet. Thus a
situation similar to a battle of Maldon may arise - the defender
granting battlespace to the attacker.

  If the above comments hold true the deciding stage in an invasion
would be how much of the attacking force can the defender destroy before
an engagement on the world surface, but without making him desperate
enough or hurt enough to bombard and jump outsystem. This may or may not
be the fine art of generalship in the future.

  The future batlefiled itself depends very much on the concept of
anti-gravity. If it invented (and within Traveller it is assumed so),
filed artillery and infantry will rapidly decline in importance. Indeed,
infantry is losing importance even now, long before even air-cushion
combat vehicles have appeared.

  Infantry shall continue to be used in city assaults, police and
security work, shipboard actions and heavily broken areas combat.
Artilley shall probably lose all almost all use except for the most
rapidfiring cannon in light anti-vehicle combat.

Yours,

Marc A. Volovic
Sgt (res)
[email removed]