Sisko's Worst Command Decisions

[SomosFuga]

In your opinion, how big should be an invasion force to submit an Earth like planet, lets say 5-6 billion people?
How many soldiers were used in the invasion of Germany, how many soldiers Germany had at that point and how big was its population.

[Tyyr]

I think you're missing a few key elements. First of all is that as technology increases you tend to see smaller and smaller proportions of the population forming frontline troops and more supporting. So a ground force in the 23rd and 24th century would likely be much smaller than even what we see presently used in places like Iraq. Secondly, in the ST universe you've got ships hovering overhead capable of pinpoint precision with weapons around the power of a nuke. They can sit directly over the conflict zone for an unlimited amount of time and pelt anyone who so much as flinches down below. Large scale ground warfare is simply not an option in this situation. Any sufficiently large group of enemy ground forces will find a few phaser blasts or a photon torpedo coming its way pretty quickly. Heck, given the nature of Trek phasers you could use them to harass individual enemy infantry squads.

More than likely the only places you could really fight battles would be in population centers where some powers would be hesitant to use starship weaponry for fire support because of collateral damage. Of course there are others like the Romulans and Klingons who'd just level a city anyways.

I'm not suggesting that boots on the ground aren't important but I'd say you could be off by an order or magnitude or a bit more on the numbers needed.

[BigJKU316]

I think you're missing a few key elements. First of all is that as technology increases you tend to see smaller and smaller proportions of the population forming frontline troops and more supporting. So a ground force in the 23rd and 24th century would likely be much smaller than even what we see presently used in places like Iraq. Secondly, in the ST universe you've got ships hovering overhead capable of pinpoint precision with weapons around the power of a nuke. They can sit directly over the conflict zone for an unlimited amount of time and pelt anyone who so much as flinches down below. Large scale ground warfare is simply not an option in this situation. Any sufficiently large group of enemy ground forces will find a few phaser blasts or a photon torpedo coming its way pretty quickly. Heck, given the nature of Trek phasers you could use them to harass individual enemy infantry squads.

More than likely the only places you could really fight battles would be in population centers where some powers would be hesitant to use starship weaponry for fire support because of collateral damage. Of course there are others like the Romulans and Klingons who'd just level a city anyways.

I'm not suggesting that boots on the ground aren't important but I'd say you could be off by an order or magnitude or a bit more on the numbers needed.

I tend to agree with your view. Simply put the only way to make it manpower efficient is to utilize fire support from space. The power of the weapons being used for that says to me what you will end up capturing if the enemy forces you to fight block by block would be a bombed out rock. All of the fighting will be of the most nasty type and I would guess that you end up using your fire support in urban areas anyway rather than fighting the battle of Stalingrad with phasers numerous times on the planet.

But the thing is if I am willing to blast away with these weapons from space then why land troops until they surrender to begin with? As you point out they are precision weapons coupled with scanners that can locate and identify individual lifeforms and weapons from orbit. In all honesty you could carry out every single objective of a strategic bombing campaign in about 30 seconds. Why get messy when you could just blow up the power plants, sever communications and basically wipe out everything that makes organized life possible in a matter of seconds from orbit? At that point it is really a matter of time until they have to give up anyway. No reason to make it messy by making an opposed landing.

[Deepcrush]

Dude, you're ignoring points from before.

~If you just blast the whole planet then you lose everything you fought for. You've lost all gain and paid for it?
~Sensors and transporters are very easy to block. At which point, you need men on the ground.
~If your enemy thinks that you are going to commit genocide. Then they are just going to fight you that much harder.
~ST ships are simple and easy to ram. If you have ability to construct small ships or weapons planet side. Then parking a fleet in orbit is a simple matter of time for some easy targets. (Theme, simple and easy get it?)

[BigJKU316]

Dude, you're ignoring points from before.

~If you just blast the whole planet then you lose everything you fought for. You've lost all gain and paid for it?
~Sensors and transporters are very easy to block. At which point, you need men on the ground.
~If your enemy thinks that you are going to commit genocide. Then they are just going to fight you that much harder.
~ST ships are simple and easy to ram. If you have ability to construct small ships or weapons planet side. Then parking a fleet in orbit is a simple matter of time for some easy targets. (Theme, simple and easy get it?)

That is all well and good but how exactly are you going to take a defended planet with troops without basically blasting the thing to the ground anyway? You are going to get the same result either way.

[Captain Seafort]

But the thing is if I am willing to blast away with these weapons from space then why land troops until they surrender to begin with? As you point out they are precision weapons coupled with scanners that can locate and identify individual lifeforms and weapons from orbit. In all honesty you could carry out every single objective of a strategic bombing campaign in about 30 seconds. Why get messy when you could just blow up the power plants, sever communications and basically wipe out everything that makes organized life possible in a matter of seconds from orbit? At that point it is really a matter of time until they have to give up anyway. No reason to make it messy by making an opposed landing.

What you're suggesting would be illegal under the current laws of war, because it would be indiscriminate. You can't simply waltz in and start blasting away at every power generator and comms centre on the planet for the very reason you trumpet it - because it would destroy everything that makes organised life impossible. How many civilians to you plan on killing through cold, heat, disrupted communications, polluted water supplies, radiation from breached reactors, etc? You can certainly use orbital fire support to act as your eye in the sky, to take out major troop concentrations and to destroy reactors that are identified as having primarily military users (if you can - the Dominion base attacked in "Once More Unto the Breach" proved resistant to the firepower of five BoPs), but you can't use them to depopulate the planet.

Secondly, as Deep points out, your suggestion is a lot more complicated than just point and shoot. Simple transformers, dense rock, funny types of rock and energy fields can all block sensors, and the major powers have specific equipment designed to replicate these effects. If it was a simple matter of punching holes in any opponent, then how did the Bajoran Resistance survive so long? Why all those away team ground assaults and searches? Why did the surface action in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" happen? What was the point of sending Klingon and Starfleet troops down to take and hold the planets of the Chin'toka system?

Finally, even once you've taken the planet, if you want to hold onto it you'll need even greater forces than you will taking it - look at Iraq and Afghanistan today, Russia and France a few decades ago, and Spain a couple of centuries ago to see now much agro a bunch of armed, bolshy, civilians can cause, let alone dedicated stay-behind parties. At worst you'll need your best equipment and your best people just to hang onto the major urban areas.

[Deepcrush]

That is all well and good but how exactly are you going to take a defended planet with troops without basically blasting the thing to the ground anyway? You are going to get the same result either way.

You are pathetic, you know that right (statement, not a question). This has been covered a half a dozen times by as many people on here. Read what people have been posting before you respond.

[BigJKU316]

That is all well and good but how exactly are you going to take a defended planet with troops without basically blasting the thing to the ground anyway? You are going to get the same result either way.

You are pathetic, you know that right (statement, not a question). This has been covered a half a dozen times by as many people on here. Read what people have been posting before you respond.

Calm down a bit. I just have a different opinion on what the outcome would be of an outright invasion of a highly populated world. Mostly I just think that you will kill nearly as many people fighting it out on the ground unless you use incredible restraint of force. The fighting on Okinawa in WWII destroyed something like 80% of the structures on the whole island. It is going to be incredibly bloody and I just don't see how it leaves a whole lot more behind for you to take control of in the end.

[Captain Seafort]

That is all well and good but how exactly are you going to take a defended planet with troops without basically blasting the thing to the ground anyway? You are going to get the same result either way.

How exactly are you going to take the planet just by blasting it to the ground? The Germans did that to Stalingrad, and the RAF, the USAAF and the Red Army took turns doing the same to Berlin. Both eventually had to be taken street by street, with millions of men, and smashing them up simply made the problem worse by providing cover for the defenders. If you restrict your fire to specific strongpoints identified by ground forces as you advance you retain the possibility of pushing armoured columns in along the main roads, dealing with resistance as it arises and taking all your major objectives intact. This will allow you to a) get those objectives working for you ASAP, without having to expend resources rebuilding them, and b) try and persuade the civilian population not to use you as target practice for the next however many years you're there. There's a good chance that this will fail, and you'll have to fight your way in street by street, but you'll still a) have avoided the Stalingrad scenario of producing perfect cover for the defenders, b) might not have pissed off the locals quite so much as otherwise, and c) retain the possibility of taking major objectives intact by coup de main, even if other areas get trashed.

[Captain Seafort]

Calm down a bit.

I don't think you've met Deep before. Let me assure you that for him, this is calm. He takes a bit of getting used to, but he's also an excellent training tool for developing a thick skin.

I just have a different opinion on what the outcome would be of an outright invasion of a highly populated world. Mostly I just think that you will kill nearly as many people fighting it out on the ground unless you use incredible restraint of force. The fighting on Okinawa in WWII destroyed something like 80% of the structures on the whole island. It is going to be incredibly bloody and I just don't see how it leaves a whole lot more behind for you to take control of in the end.

That's one extreme. The other extreme is the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in which both Basra and Baghdad were taken with exceptionally light casualties, and which I have based my best-case-scenario above on.

[Tyyr]

Artillery shelling, bombing, etc. has never successfully taken and held a piece of ground. In a few cases it has forced an enemy to surrender but only with the threat of total annihilation. (Japan 1945) If your goal is anything short of genocide it simply doesn't work.

[BigJKU316]

Calm down a bit.

I don't think you've met Deep before. Let me assure you that for him, this is calm. He takes a bit of getting used to, but he's also an excellent training tool for developing a thick skin.

I just have a different opinion on what the outcome would be of an outright invasion of a highly populated world. Mostly I just think that you will kill nearly as many people fighting it out on the ground unless you use incredible restraint of force. The fighting on Okinawa in WWII destroyed something like 80% of the structures on the whole island. It is going to be incredibly bloody and I just don't see how it leaves a whole lot more behind for you to take control of in the end.

That's one extreme. The other extreme is the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in which both Basra and Baghdad were taken with exceptionally light casualties, and which I have based my best-case-scenario above on.

I agree that is the best case scenario and that would make the most sense if you thought you could accomplish it. I suppose it depends on who you are fighting for the most part. My point is simply that if you are fighting someone that is willing to fight you all the way into their own kitchen so to speak I don't see why anyone would rationally be looking to launch an invasion.

You would have to gauge who you were up against. If it was a dicatorial regime with little public support then by all means go after the military and look to collapse them. But if I were say fighting the Klingons and I get to the point I control the space are their homeworld I am going to take a pass and not indulge their insane desire to have honorable deaths and take my chances just wiping out the ship building capability and keeping an eye on things from orbit.

Also I am not suggesting blasting it to the ground, that would be wasteful and stupid. I am suggesting doing basically the same thing the USAF and USN did to Japan in WWII and were openly advocating through the end of the war which was basically to cut them off from any help and wait for them to give up rather than indulge their desire to fight a mutual battle to the death in the streets amidst huge civilian populations.

[Captain Seafort]

Artillery shelling, bombing, etc. has never successfully taken and held a piece of ground. In a few cases it has forced an enemy to surrender but only with the threat of total annihilation. (Japan 1945) If your goal is anything short of genocide it simply doesn't work.

Even the Japanese surrender wasn't just the bombs - it was the annihilation of the Kwantung Army in August Storm, which showed that courage and fanaticism is small help against a determined, well-equipped and experienced enemy. On top of that, even after Pearl Harbour, the Bataan Death Marches and the fight across the Pacific, the prospect of a US occupation was as nothing compared to that threatened by the Red Army.

[BigJKU316]

Artillery shelling, bombing, etc. has never successfully taken and held a piece of ground. In a few cases it has forced an enemy to surrender but only with the threat of total annihilation. (Japan 1945) If your goal is anything short of genocide it simply doesn't work.

Even the Japanese surrender wasn't just the bombs - it was the annihilation of the Kwantung Army in August Storm, which showed that courage and fanaticism is small help against a determined, well-equipped and experienced enemy. On top of that, even after Pearl Harbour, the Bataan Death Marches and the fight across the Pacific, the prospect of a US occupation was as nothing compared to that threatened by the Red Army.

If you have not read it Retribution by Max Hastings is an excellent book about the end of the War in the Pacific. Armageddon is about the European war and is equally as good.

[Captain Seafort]

I agree that is the best case scenario and that would make the most sense if you thought you could accomplish it. I suppose it depends on who you are fighting for the most part. My point is simply that if you are fighting someone that is willing to fight you all the way into their own kitchen so to speak I don't see why anyone would rationally be looking to launch an invasion.

Except if there's no other way to convince them that they're beaten. Even the hundred-days offensive didn't convince the German population (or at least, they managed to brush it under the carpet). If you're standing over the enemy capital and they haven't surrendered yet, there's a good chance that unless you go down and deal with them block by block they yell "stab in the back" and come back at you in the not-too-distant future.

You would have to gauge who you were up against. If it was a dicatorial regime with little public support then by all means go after the military and look to collapse them. But if I were say fighting the Klingons and I get to the point I control the space are their homeworld I am going to take a pass and not indulge their insane desire to have honorable deaths and take my chances just wiping out the ship building capability and keeping an eye on things from orbit.

That was one of the options raised at Cardassia. It was rejected because the resources of the system were sufficient to rebuild the Dominion military into a threat to the Quadrant. Besides which, how long are you going to maintain a close blockade of the system or planet. A year? Ten years? A hundred? Sooner rather than later the public will loose patience with the cost, forget why your there, and demand a withdrawal, whereupon your enemy will probably declare victory, rebuild, and come back at you.

Also I am not suggesting blasting it to the ground, that would be wasteful and stupid. I am suggesting doing basically the same thing the USAF and USN did to Japan in WWII

Which? Not blast it to the ground or do what was done to Japan? By the end of the war something like a quarter of Japan's entire urban area had been flattened

basically to cut them off from any help and wait for them to give up rather than indulge their desire to fight a mutual battle to the death in the streets amidst huge civilian populations.

If you try and do that, not only are you going to have the problems with public opinion mentioned above, but you'll fail. Planets, unlike island nations such as Japan are, by definition, self-sustaining. You might be able to keep them pinned down as long as public opinion holds out, but you won't be able to starve them into surrender.