Why did they wait?

[Captain Seafort]

Ok. The Intrepid class has one shuttlebay but does have transporter rooms. If transporting is not an issue than there is no problem, but what if there is one? I doubt an Intrepid class has enough shuttles to land for example 250 troops to the ground.

I suspect they've got some other (unseen) method of disembarking large numbers of individuals. Look at Basics, for example - rather than using the transporters to embark and disembark the crew, the ship was landed. I don't recall any mention of transporter interference, so this suggests that it's more efficient to land than to go by transporter.

[McAvoy]

Wasn't the transporters down? I don't remember.

However, in Basics, the natives were rushing the ship as it landed or shooting at it while it landed. Certainly dedicated transports would have the same problem, but mass embarking of the troops would be a priority.

[Graham Kennedy]

Even colony transports aren't that common. Remember "Ensigns of Command"? It would take 3 weeks for a colony ship to arrive to get the people off.

That doesn't necessarily speak to their commonness. There could be a thousand of them, it's just that they were all carrying a load of colonists off somewhere.

Also, if they are analogous to present day Navies, the amphibs should be considerably slower than the likes of a GCS.

For a troop transport, I'd expect Intrepid or other ships capable of landing to serve as such. You'd have a single giant transport in orbit, with a few shuttles, but lots of personnel. The ships capable of landing land on the planet, then synch their transporters to the ones on the transport in orbit. Personnel are beamed to the landed ships, where they deploy to a front line. By synching transporters, they reduce the effect of jammers. If they need to use shuttles, they can do that as well. The ships perform as forward field bases, using their shields and sensors to keep the personnel informed, and medical facilities to help out. If one of the landed ships gets taken out, only the troops at that location are affected, and the others can redeploy as necessary. Supplies are handled in a similar manner.

I'm leery of depending on transporters in combat situations. Historically, transporters have proven to be horribly vulnerable to interference, everything from half a dozen different types of rock to background radiation to solar activity to deliberate jamming has screwed them up.

Ships like Voyager could have a role, being able to land deals with the transporter vulnerability, but they seem too small to me. In Trek terms Voyager is a small ship, probably capable of handling no more than 500 or so troops even if designed for that from scratch. You'd need 20 or so of them just to land a division at that rate.

No, give me a BIG ship that can hold ten or twenty thousand troops, and give it either a whole slew of shuttles or a few large landing craft of some sort. Transporters for when they can be used, but never to be relied on.

For dealing with the Jem'Hadar, I'd wonder if US Civil War troops could have handled them just as well as the Star Trek personnel.

Bleah. Frankly pretty much the whole discussion is stupid IMO.

[Mikey]

1) US Civil War soldiers were armed with muzzle-loading rifles, not muskets, although the RoF was about the same.

Depends on who and where. Some Civil War soldiers were armed with breech-loaders or even Spencer or Henry repeaters.

[Captain Seafort]

Ships like Voyager could have a role, being able to land deals with the transporter vulnerability, but they seem too small to me. In Trek terms Voyager is a small ship, probably capable of handling no more than 500 or so troops even if designed for that from scratch. You'd need 20 or so of them just to land a division at that rate.

No, give me a BIG ship that can hold ten or twenty thousand troops, and give it either a whole slew of shuttles or a few large landing craft of some sort. Transporters for when they can be used, but never to be relied on.

Voyager would be able to do that. She may be small by Trek standards, but she's about the same volume as one of the Queens, which routinely carried whole divisions across the Atlantic, and she would almost certainly have considerably less volume taken up by engine.

[Coalition]

An Intrepid is too small I think. They were having trouble with the Klingons on board. If I remember it was 250? If anything, a Starship Troopers type of landing is probably the best.

The Intrepid isn't only carrying the troops, it is acting as a relay. The ship lands, synchs its transporters with a troopship in orbit, and receives the combat personnel. The combat personnel then debark on whatever is used (modified Argos?). If the ground forces get injured, the ships serves as a hospital.

There is the dangers of transporter blockers, which is why the transporter pads are linked. If the jamming is bad enough that transporting is impossible, that makes it a target for heavy platforms, not where I would send shuttles in (chances are, they've got anti-shuttle weaponry as well). I'll land a ship outside the jamming range, and beam down troops and hoppers to send in. No need to expose shuttles to orbital fire, a shielded ship is much more sturdy.

I tend to classify Star Trek defenses into two groups:
1) Detectable from orbit - this include transporter jammers or similar. Since the attacker knows where they are, he can send Federation fighters on strafing runs, depending on the local defenses. As a defender, since I know that I can be detected, I know I can expect visitors. To avoid a random jerk in a shuttle popping in, I'd want to defend it so shuttles get shot down, and fighters have to evade. This means shields and a few anti-shuttle weapons. Heavier shields and weapons would be used for larger facilities.

2) Sneaky - You are not detectable from orbit, meaning no active transporter jammers. I'd want to place them near natural locations that cause problems with transporters, but not invest a lot into them. They can get popped by anything, so stealth is their best defense. The best use for these locations is a small force with remote anti-shuttle weapons. You take out the weapon, but the controlling force is in cover, and readying another weapon.

If I just place a transporter jammer, someone can pop by in a shuttle and destroy it in a few seconds (or snipe it from orbit). This will barely interfere with their plans. I could deploy hundreds of them across the planet, but based on "Conundrum" (where the Ent-D popped a half-dozen moving pods in a couple seconds), the tactical officer would pass that off to a lieutenant with a few Ensigns to assist while the senior staff discuss landing operations. As a result, I want the jammers defended, shielded, and with weapons to make the attacker have to take them seriously.

If the attacker has enough forces to pop sites from orbit, then regular transporter jammers are a minor issue, and anti-starship weapons and shields are the key. They might beam down or land in a shuttle, but without the starship in orbit they will have a much harder time surviving (unless they are named characters).

In real world terms, imagine if a location in Iraq had a powerful radio jammer, so American troops couldn't communicate in that area. Would we drop in an Airborne unit to deal with it, or would we send in a bomber, cruise missile, or other high explosives first?

[Deepcrush]

In addition to the enemy having to knock out your jammers and their defenses. You've forced the enemy to engage you in locations of your choosing which is normally a bad thing for an attacker. Placing jammers in areas that aren't important at all would add to the number of locations in which the enemy has to engage you, even though many of those areas would be useless in their conquest.

[Mikey]

Deep's dead-on. In the plan delineated above: even if you are able to deal with the transporter jammers, you have by definition both given a full report of your anti-ground capabilities to the defending enemy; and perhaps worse, you have been made to deploy forces where the defender has forced you to do so.

[Deepcrush]

What makes it worse is we've seen how poor Trek ground forces are. A single company of infantry would be able it inflect a regiment's worth of casualties on the attackers for every single position they take. Not counting the losses of fighters to the AA/AC fire.

To think of it, it wouldn't be hard to deny the attackers safe orbit either as their ships would have to accept heavy ground fire if they want to come close enough to support the landings. Every warship lost in that fight is yet another warship they don't have for later.

[Graham Kennedy]

Voyager would be able to do that. She may be small by Trek standards, but she's about the same volume as one of the Queens, which routinely carried whole divisions across the Atlantic, and she would almost certainly have considerably less volume taken up by engine.

This is one of those Trek/Real Life things. In real life, Voyager should be able to handle easily five thousand people or more. But canonically, even having 400 Klingons on board stretched the ship's ability to house and feed everyone for more than a few days. Friendship One establishes that transporting 5500 people would take 17 trips minimum, so the ship has a maximum limit of 320 or so evacuees. Whilst the alternate wartime GCS in Yesterday's Enterprise could carry over six thousand troops.

If we do bump up Voyager's numbers to a sensible 5,000 or so, then by the same measure the GCS should be able to handle more like 50,000 and something that size but suitably designed is still a much more useful amphibious assault platform/troop carrier.

[Captain Seafort]

But canonically, even having 400 Klingons on board stretched the ship's ability to house and feed everyone for more than a few days. Friendship One establishes that transporting 5500 people would take 17 trips minimum, so the ship has a maximum limit of 320 or so evacuees.

Which demonstrates that either a) life support is utterly pathetic or b) they considered having personal space less than a tennis court is an unsustainable hardship. Given the way they treated having to double up, I lean towards the latter.

If we do bump up Voyager's numbers to a sensible 5,000 or so, then by the same measure the GCS should be able to handle more like 50,000 and something that size but suitably designed is still a much more useful amphibious assault platform/troop carrier.

Certainly if you wanted large-scale intervention, but modifying the Intrepid class as an assault ship would be much easier given that they can already land, their small size would allow more to be produced allowing greater flexibility, and their speed would allow them to be deployed to trouble spots in half the time a GCS could.

[Mikey]

Which demonstrates that either a) life support is utterly pathetic or b) they considered having personal space less than a tennis court is an unsustainable hardship. Given the way they treated having to double up, I lean towards the latter.

I'd say you're right, especially considering the number of times we've see ships "pull power from life support" and still not have mass deaths or incapacitations.

[Deepcrush]

I have to agree fully with Seafort and Mikey.

[McAvoy]

An Intrepid is too small I think. They were having trouble with the Klingons on board. If I remember it was 250? If anything, a Starship Troopers type of landing is probably the best.

The Intrepid isn't only carrying the troops, it is acting as a relay. The ship lands, synchs its transporters with a troopship in orbit, and receives the combat personnel. The combat personnel then debark on whatever is used (modified Argos?). If the ground forces get injured, the ships serves as a hospital.

Nice idea, however I am assuming that you mean the modified Argos would be beamed from the transports from above right outside the ship. I doubt even if there was readily accessable point in one of those legs of an Intrepid that a meaningful amount of those vehicles could be disembarked.

We have seen Starfleet bunking up, while not nearly as tightly in modern terms it does save space. Look at ST6 and Flashback. Though it is interesting that those crewmembers have less privacy than your typical sailor.

It seems that some sort of switch clicked on in the 24th century where ship interiors have to look like a hotel, a starship's captain in military operations consults with a therapist, your average guest room is larger than a typical apartment. etc. Even Scotty has said as much. Dax mentioned that they packed in alot of crew in Constitution class ships as well.

[Coalition]

This is one of those Trek/Real Life things. In real life, Voyager should be able to handle easily five thousand people or more. But canonically, even having 400 Klingons on board stretched the ship's ability to house and feed everyone for more than a few days. Friendship One establishes that transporting 5500 people would take 17 trips minimum, so the ship has a maximum limit of 320 or so evacuees. Whilst the alternate wartime GCS in Yesterday's Enterprise could carry over six thousand troops.

If we do bump up Voyager's numbers to a sensible 5,000 or so, then by the same measure the GCS should be able to handle more like 50,000 and something that size but suitably designed is still a much more useful amphibious assault platform/troop carrier.

They could probably do it by having the troops loaded up a hour before landing. Elbow to elbow, extra oxygen, and make sure you ate and went to the bathroom before boarding. Like airborne troops today, or the landing craft on D-Day.

After unloading the ground personnel (I refuse to dignify them with the name of troops), the engineers go through and overhaul the life support system. For unloading the Argo buggies, the ship would have to be modified for a ramp, so they can be driven out of the cargo bay.

Now I'm getting a mental image of Klingons landing a group of BoPs, and using them in the landing craft manner. Troops pile onto the Argos, extras hanging off the sides, and driving full speed towards the defenders. One guy on top with the main gun shooting at anything in front, and the extras on the side trying to aim at anything. Several go flying when the buggy hits a rock, and they grab rides on the buggies following. If n buggies, they just run towards the enemy, waving a gun in one hand, and a Bat'leth in the other.

Like a weakly armed group of WH40k Orks, and about the same mentality.