Re: YACOPI (Yet Another Comment On Planetary Invasions)

Marc Alexandrovich Volovic [email removed] writes:
> Adrian Hurt [email removed] writes:
> >Marc Alexandrovich Volovic [email removed] writes:
> >>					 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.
> >
> >Perhaps, but there had better be something that can take out those 5 Atlantis
> >class battleships, or at least keep all 5 occupied for a long time, or else
> >at least one battleship will come and make the invasion very costly.
>
>   Granted, partially. However, it may be possible to take out the Atlantis
> sized ships with ramming drones. Does it matter how much damage the Meson-T
> can do on it - anything short of "Ship Vaporized" will still propel a drone
> at a high speed into the ship.

Can the ramming drones be destroyed or disabled with lasers or missiles?
If not, they count as "something that can take out those 5 Atlantis class
battleships".  The point I was making was, if even one of the battleships
can make its way to the invasion area, the invasion is in big trouble.  I
was not commenting on how you stop them, only that you need to do so, as
opposed to just going round them (outmanoeuvre and perform a planetary
landing).

> >The whole assumption in this discussion is that for some reason, the attacker
> >can not/does not want to destroy the defender totally in this manner.  (Why
> >was such a tactic never used during any of the Frontier Wars, by the way?)
> >Otherwise, if the attacker finds himself faced with an unbeatable defence
> >at any stage, he can just give up, take off and nuke the planet from orbit.
>
>   I assume the following - Steve Kellog suggested a possible way to
> obliterate (or, at the very least, heavily damage) any planet by a single
> Type S scout. This is a tactic employable by any starfaring nation. The
> only possibility is to have it mutually proscribed, the same going for
> planetary bombardment to destruction. Otherwise - better not speak, eh?

In other words, for some reason, the attacker can not/does not want to destroy
the defender totally.

> >Why?  There are reasons why the infantry has to get out of the vehicles
> >and fight on foot.  The only way anti-gravity will put an end to fighting
> >on foot is if every soldier gets a grav-belt, and anyone with Striker will
> >know what that will do to the unit's maintenance costs!
>
>   With the widespread usage of rapid-firing laser guns (say, the Traveller
> equivalent of the 10Mw pulse laser) infantry - mounted, dismounted or with
> grav-belts - shall become very vulnerable. A phalanx arrangement of ten or
> so vehicles, carrying three to five such guns will probably deny the area to
> anything but other vehicles.

The same can be said nowadays about machine-guns.  They're why the infantry
tends to ride around in APC's.  Even so, there is still infantry around.

- - --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]