I forsee combat falling into several categories:
Outposts:
Small defence force - corp, colonist or military.
Raiders - small military or pirate force.
Small (new or marginal) colonies:
Small defence force - poorly equipped (small arms, maybe mortars,
basic ammo, mines), few combat vets, no planetary defenses, poor comms, poor
mobility. These forces have little ability to project power. Attacking force
could be anything from a reg force unit (small but
well equipped) to another on-planet group of poorly equipped troops. A
pirate or privateer force could attempt to pillage a small colony, but it is a
big bite.
Mid Sized (established) colonies:
Medium sized defence force - decent equipment (some high tech imports,
small arms, artillery, mid grade ammo, some vehicles), some planetary
defences, a moderate number of regs and vets, okay comms, decent mobility.
These forces can probably project some of their power reasonably. Attacking
force would have to be a fair sized regular force or another medium to large
sized force equipped to the same colonial level.
Large colony (inner colonies):
Large defence force - good equipment (line troops - not state of the
art, but not too far off, a fair amount of high tech kit scattered about,
small arms, arty, good ammo, vehicles, combined arms), good planetary
defenses, a good number of regs and vets. A tough nut to crack. Good comms,
good mobility. These forces have a fairly adequate ability to project a
significant force, and may have some offplanet reach. Attacking force would
have to be a large force of regulars, or another very large force of colonial
equivalents. The defenders are tough enough they won't be easy to ignore even
by state of the art assault troops.
Core:
Huge Armies - everything but the kitchen sink. State of the art
equipment, lots of vehicles and combined arms. Plenty of crack units. Just
overall a very very large force. Well equipped for excellent mobility, comms,
and weapons. All sorts of support vehicles and specialist troops. Lots of
combat vets, and brutal planetary defenses. Any attacker here would require at
least as large of a force and a really good plan and the will to fight. This
kind of fight only likely happens during the SWs and is a real
excrement-hits-the-rotary-air-circulator kind of war. These forces
have real force majeur and force projection. They can deploy assault forces as
large as entire colonial forces.
It seems most conflicts would occur on outposts, small colonies, or in
subparts of conflicts on medium colonies. Only major events like the SWs would
prompt huge conflict on the larger more established core and large colony
worlds. They can too easily bring a large force to bear on problems for this
to happen too often.
Just my 0.02.
> At 12:34 PM 12/1/99 -0500, you wrote:
This presumes colonies like we imagine them in the eighteenth century.
Mobility can be just as advanced as anything else. Hey if you have helicopters
flitting around (example) that's pretty mobile. Nor do colonies necessarily
means scattered out posts on difent sides of the planet. Heck that's porbbaly
the least efficient way to do it. Keep the outposts close and mutually
supporting, then expand out from there.
> It seems most conflicts would occur on outposts, small colonies, or in
Actually in the other described options (mid, large, and core?)the most likely
conflicts even up to full scale wars, imo, are as likely to be internal
planetary based affairs. Conflict can ocur for any number of easily imaginable
reasons on these types of planets, (especially with the core issue of mere
survival and resource obtainment licked) particularly based on initial
colonization policies, etc. And the most likely people to deal with these
events would be the owning governments forces already stationed on these
worlds. In fact I'd havetio imagine that local goernemnts would be very
reluctant to call in forces from the central governemnt to deal with these
porblems in any but the most dire circumstances. Given the great cost of such
reaction, and who the hell wants the home office in your knickers becasue you
screwed something up? Not to mention that the rival powerblocks would be doing
all kinds of things, clandestinely to precipitate such events. I think these
types of eventualities are glossed over becasuse they are not as sexy as
orbital dops, using marine forces, ortillery, or whatnot.
Cheers...
This is a good summation of my point. What I was trying to say is that apart
from standing colonial/regular forces we would not be seeing much in the
way of armor or artillery in the colonies. I find it hard to justify a colony
with the industrial capacity of the scale needed to make field guns and tanks.
Part of what prompted this was the claim that Drug Lords were MAKING their own
155s and ammo. Most countries just don't have the excess capacity to MAKE
these, buy yes, make no.
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
> This is a good summation of my point. What I was trying to say is that
Well... They choose not to 'cause it's cheaper to buy them and not maintain
the infrastructure to produce their own. It's all about spending priorities. A
colony of 10,000 with machinery capable of doing basic
machinework (lathes, drill-press, stamping equipment, etc) could produce
"low-tech" artillery or mortars if they wanted to - even if they made
them one at a time. Bicycle manufacturers in Britain were producing weapons
within months during WWII when the country decided that they needed STENs
rather than bicycles. Sure there's a difference between a STEN and a 105
howitzer, but not much relatively speaking... They could hand-build
armoured vehicles one at a time if they REALLY needed them, provided access
to the raw material - but it would take a SERIOUS commitment on the part
of the colony leaders to do something like that. It is hard to justify a
colony with the political commitment necessary to deny their citizens what
they want/need in terms of agricultural equipment, etc so that the
meagre resources of the colony could be turned to produce arty and armoured
vehicles - particularly in an economically efficient (ie large scale
production) way. It is not unreasonable to hypothesize a colony with the
industrial capability to potentially make SOME if they really needed to
-
it really isn't THAT complex.
We can, I think, safely assume that the science of manufacturing technology
will have advanced enough by 2180 that even their "low tech" equipment on a
"primative" colony would be modern by our standards: miniturization,
automation, etc etc etc would have 200 years to develop - it's not like
they're going to be using 19th century-level technology... And even if
they were, remember that the industrial capability of the Northern States in
the US pre Civil War was fully capable of producing "modern" weapons (or
ones very similar) like the STEN smg I mentioned earlier - if they had
had the design. They COULD have produced "modern" (well, modernish) breech
loading rifled cannon a-la the late 1800's with their industrial
technology
- had they the designs... The colonies of 2180 will have "primative"
industrial technology by THEIR standards, not necessarily by OURS - but
they will still have our designs - which will be more than capable in
their context...
So on Earth they are using Replicators and out on the fringes they only have
50 year old nanobuilders. Those hick farmers take five times as long to
produce their light howitzer than the Replicators back on earth. Positively
primative, I say...:)
My $0.02
Questions, questions, questions... Just how much HEAVY industry does a startup
(10-50 years) colony have? Will the plans for 100+ year old (2080?)
equipment be available? How do you get the steel in the sizes needed to make
artillery? Or is artillery made from Plastic?
Unless the colony sets these things up fairly early, the war could be over
before they retool.
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 2-Dec-99 at 10:04, Michael Brown (mwbrown@veriomail.com) wrote:
I would guess this mostly depends on cost of transport.
How much does it cost to bring a bulldozer from offplanet? If
numDozers*(purchaseCost + transportCost) >
numDozers*BuildCost+factoryCost
They should have the manufacturing capability to build a tracklayer, be it
dozer or tank. As for the barrels, I can't see casting a reasonable barrel
being a big deal,
especially if you have any local wet-navy shipping production.
> At 07:04 AM 12/2/99 -0800, you wrote:
equipment
> be available? How do you get the steel in the sizes needed to make
Why retool or even covert industry? Just do what every small country and back
ass area of the world does nowadays, buy the stuff. (or take it from
local armories) Then smuggle it in, or have it delivered UPS/FEDEX.
Where theres a conflict in any of this competition rich power blocks we have
in the late 2100s there someone willing to sell or get the stuff to you one
way or another.
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> Why retool or even covert industry? Just do what every small country
[snip]
> [quoted text omitted]
You mean ITTT. ;-)
> From: Los [SMTP:los@cris.com]
> Why retool or even covert industry? Just do what every small country
[snip]
For advance manufacturing (compare today to 1800 A.D.) all that is needed
would be dies and programes, with the techology to travel space, I would think
that manufacturing plants could be changed like changing software in computers
today......
> Michael Brown wrote:
equipment
> be available? How do you get the steel in the sizes needed to make
weapons (or
> ones very similar) like the STEN smg I mentioned earlier - if they had
breech
> loading rifled cannon a-la the late 1800's with their industrial
> Michael Brown wrote:
equipment
> be available? How do you get the steel in the sizes needed to make
weapons (or
> ones very similar) like the STEN smg I mentioned earlier - if they had
breech
> loading rifled cannon a-la the late 1800's with their industrial