[SG/DS] Orbital assault

> Why land at the polar ice cap or similar remote place?

Okay, "enter from orbit at". I'd consider the long slog from orbit to be DS2
material, whether you do it in NOE landers or in grav tanks. Obviously if you
have track tanks, you stay in the landers for a while.

> By the way, your defenses sound very Traveller'ish.

Yes, they had some great ideas, didn't they?

> political structure that has home world(s) as no conflict, inner

This is the way it worked for European powers at one point. Being at war in
East Africa didn't mean you were at war in Europe.

> Interestingly, the restricted rules-of-engagement require drops from

It is not obvious why a drop from geosynch, or from an equatorial orbit, would
be any better than anything else. I'd think that dropping from a lower orbit
would be a lot better than from geosynch.

***
It is not obvious why a drop from geosynch, or from an equatorial orbit, would
be any better than anything else. I'd think that dropping from a lower orbit
would be a lot better than from geosynch.
***

Ships that become junk tend not to drop quickly on to the planet below that
way. It also meant that the re-entry path could be restricted to near
equitorial landing area, which I tended to think of a band on a planet set
aside for landings, as non-populated.

Like I said, the PSB is still pretty muddy.

The_Beast

> I can't imagine that there would be more than 100 installations on a

This assumes a) that you can economically build as large a beam as you want.
b) that beam weapons are effective through atmosphere--you might lose
90% of the effect. Or 10%, or 100%, or whatever number makes you feel happy.
c) in some cases, that you can distinguish the hospital from the school from
the armory, and hit only the one you want. Oops, even if you only hit the
armory, you'll get the school and the hospital from the secondaries. Looks bad
on the evening news. (of course, some of us don't much care about the evening
news).

Basically, to make orbital assaults work--and I agree with Beth that
we should have them--then we pretty much have to PSB a reason why
orbit-to-ground weapons are very limited.

You actually don't need to PSB anything - just make it a Convention -
something like MAD or the Geneva Conventions - you don't slag civilian
populations or your country/planet/empire will get slagged in return.

Seems to work in the modern world with nukes.

Target identification is a separate issue - you still have the problem
of ID whether you are shooting a Class 10 beam, a 2000 lbs PGM or a class 5
HEL. Is it an armory or a hospital? Are those reporters with abig camera or
enemy infantry with an ATGM? The only difference is
scale - at one end you end up with a single dead friendly, at the other,
maybe a couple of thousand. If you are having trouble ID'ing targets, you
might want to stay away from the large scale stuff.

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----

> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

> This assumes

Hehe.... hadn't thought of that angle.... but add
these two points to mine about specialized S-t-S
FireCon, and it's a plausible enough PSB....

> c) in some cases, that you can distinguish the

Although even those who DON'T care about the evening news will have to stop
and ask themselves who WILL care, and what THOSE people can do about it....

> Basically, to make orbital assaults work--and I

We agreed.   I'm scared.

Its not necessarily either or. You can include both the conventions (rendering
attacks less likely) AND the PSB (rendering successful attacks less likely)
all in the same background.
--- owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
> <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
This also assumes that
> > you've only brought in a single Ortillery ship,
(of course, some of
> > us don't much care about the evening news).

> You actually don't need to PSB anything - just make it a

did someone say "al Qaeda" and "September 11"? Not to mention the KV.

> Target identification is a separate issue - you still have the

So you send up an infantryman to see what it is.

> did someone say "al Qaeda" and "September 11"? Not to mention the KV.

Didn't work forever, just a long, darn, unpleasnant time. We, or at least I,
mentioned that Karl was a BIG surprise in a world not ready for them.

The_Beast

> Laserlight wrote:

> >Target identification is a separate issue [...]

During the pre-landing orbital bombardment? ;-)

LL:
> So you send up an infantryman to see what it is.

OO:
> During the pre-landing orbital bombardment? ;-)

No, if you're sending a gropo it pretty much has to be the post-landing
orbital bombardment.

Or the pre-brigade-landing, post-special-ops-landing bombardment.

Or, the point I was making, the
we-couldn't-be-sure-what-is-was-from-orbit-but-now-we're-here-and-it's-t
he-C
hinese-embassy (non) bombardment.

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 12:59:31 -0500 "laserlight@quixnet.net"
> <laserlight@quixnet.net> writes:
<snip>
> Or, the point I was making, the

Might I point out that NIMA (actually NGA as of Wednesday) did not select that
target (we identified all but one... and the CIA identified that
one - do the math - off incorrect and inferior data.)  Not 100% their
fault but if the DOS had told us/them the normal way or they had asked
DOS [no comment about if we would have] that would have been avoided. Nations
tell other nations (usually; almost always) where their embassies and counsels
are located so they won't be targets. Well, conventional targets anyway. [My
intense sympathy to our UK brethren about Turkey. There is no excuse for that
and I am sure 'somebody' in your armed
forces/IC is working to arrange an 'accounting' on that matter.
God/Allah/somebody  help bastards if your guys identify the perpetrators
since you are righteously good about applying justice to bad guys.]

That said, it's amazing more incidents like that don't happen. Mostly they
don't because the "West" spends a lot of time making sure they don't. I know
from first hand observation that most analysts put down a
whole lot of 'no strikes' - probable mosques/temples/churches shall we
say - in South Asia (those have never been called on for operational
purposes Thank God) that were on the block involved in products and left off a
lot of 'strikable' locations because they were not satisfied they were sure of
the choice of buildings on the block when there was a conflict in sources. And
even that doesn't guarantee no horrible incidents occur.

In GZG terms then there should be a low incidence in most cases about
striking 'possible' targets (more for some groups - NAC/NSL/FSE/possibly
RH for example and less for others ESU/possibly IC/IF come to mind) but
if a surface to space weapon fires from a 'house of worship' the level of care
and concern for 'no strikes' would drop dramatically in a campaign setting.

I think most major powers would certainly take precautions (big 4 and most
Eurocentric groups like the Netherlands and OU) and others would do so far as
resources allowed but less effectively (LLAR due to thin pesos for such
efforts, IC believe it or not might make a big effort in peace time to do so
but regret that resources were too thin in times of conflict, PAU would simply
not have resources and would give lip service to the concept, IF would
'regret' misidentifications, I'll pass on the UNSC due to intense personal
prejudice over it's origins.)

Gracias,

Reminds me of the SW Torpedo Sphere. 500 proton torpedo launchers and one
firecon (and couldn't hit a capital ship if it tried).

Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies

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