>From: alvin plummer [email removed]
> Thirdly: There was once a game called Invasion: Earth, where the
>Third Imperium faced off against the Solomani of Terra. What I want to
>know is: 1) What are the main strategic considerations of invading a
> high-tech, heavily-defended world without just nuking it?
Actually, why nuke it? It's cheaper and more effective to just nudge a
few asteroids into a carefully calculated course intersecting with the
world (and with the ocean, if you can manage). Lucifer's Hammer, by
Larry Niven, does a good job of describing this, although he talks about
a large comet. The advantage of this is that you still have a habitable
world after it's all over.
> Should you go for the do-or-die assault on the 'hardpoints'
> of system defence? Or start at the poles - or the oceans -
> and work your way in?
The asteroid plan answers this question.
> 2) What are the advantages/disadvantages of the invaders carrying
> fighter aircraft, rather than just using the warships for
> orbital fire? I understand that the fighters can carry
> a lot of very useful payload, but couldn't you just launch the
> payload from near orbit, without risking the pilots on the AA
> fire (I believe it was Peurelle (spell-check) who got rid of
> future fighters, since high-tech AA becomes just too (beep)
> accurate).
The besieged planet's defense against the asteroids will be to fire up
missiles or spacecraft to nudge the rocks so that they miss the planet.
Fighters and other spacecraft will be needed to attack the planet's
defensive forces to ensure that the rocks are not diverted.
Your point about fighters being obsolete due to the accuracy of AA doesn't
work though. Assume that there are two types of AA: solid projectiles
(missiles, mostly) and energy beams (lasers, mostly). The solid projectiles
need time to travel from launch point to the fighter. No matter how
accurate the projectile, the fighter will see it coming and be able to do
something about it. Energy beams, though, are a different matter. The
fighter will not have warning about a targeted beam. Unfortunately, the
cost of these weapons favours the use of missiles. Thus, the effectiveness
of fighters has been reduced because of AA but not eliminated.
> 3) How would High-population woulds configure their system defences?
> At TL 15? At TL 12? At TL 10? As an example, how
> is Capital/Core defended? How would this defence contrast
> with a 'troubled, strategic' world, like Terra/Solomani Rim?
> With the defence of a Depot? With the defence of a minor,
> backwater world?
High pop worlds at TL 13+ should consider placing a few spinal mount-type
guns on their surface and on their satellites. A system navy would help
as well but having large particle accelerator cannons and meson guns sure
would help against the asteroid-bombing scheme.
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