Tim,
My replies after an @
On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 12:16:22PM +1000, Greg Chalik wrote:
> A chaser commander may choose to progress through these, but an
> ambusher will simply drop the entire force in on the theatre
> objective, orbit-to-objective movement.
Yes, you can do a great deal if you have overwhelming aerospace
superiority and there are no defending weapons that can touch your
craft. Grav technology means a huge advance in mobility, with all
sorts of follow-on effects in tactics, logistics, strategy, and even
political objectives.
@ I'm going to re-read part of Tactics of Mistake, but...
My argument from the start is that it isn't slolely the 'tools' (overwhelming aerospace
superiority) that can defeat the opposition.
In any job there are at least three elements: the worker, the tools, and the skills in tool use.
The best tools in th eWorld will not enable an unskilled worker to perfrom the job, and the most skilled worker will not perform the job if the skills don't match the job, i.e. sending an electrician to do a plumbing job.
So you mention aerospace superiority, but this becomes a mission in its own right.
@ That is you now present the anti-grav mounted force with two missions: defeat the defender's aerospace forces, and achieve the goal of the operation, whatever that may be, on the surface.
@ Can the same anti-grav vehicles' design the force is equipped in do both, aerospace superiority and surface combat?
If not, you need to bring two 'tools'.
How will the achievement of the first mission affect the second?
So you achieve the aerospace superiority, but while doing so the opponent obtains the time to deny (by whatever means) the goal of the entire operation on the surface. Its called wining the battle, but loosing the war.
If you don't have that overwhelming superiority though, it's a very
expensive form of suicide. In an open warfare situation, even
approaching orbit is going to be difficult, since Traveller's sensors
and weapons typically have effective ranges much greater than
planetary diameters.
@ So here are the seeds of the technological arms race.
Facing an opponent's overwhelming sensos/weapon arcenal, the only solution is to field better sensor countermeasures and some way to defeat the weapon effects?
But, what is "an open warfare situation"?
So it's the sort of tactic that could be employed by a powerful
interstellar force against a very lightly populated or low-tech
planet, especially if the attacking force isn't viewed as a threat,
but isn't likely to work well against any credible prepared defender.
@ A "powerful interstellar force" doesn't use tactics.
Tactics is a term that applies ONLY to units engaged in combat, that is to a combat environment limited to weapon ranges.
If a force of interstellar combat vessels for example had weapons capable of being effective at 0ne light year in distance, then for them the tactical distance would be one light year. Everything over that distance is an 'operational depth'.
In Mongoose Traveller the Distant Missile range is 50,000 km+, so this is the 'tactical' space combat depth.
Read that, and you will realise that a) his thinking is deeply rooted in the Second World War doctines, and b) his thinking is deeply rooted in US Government POLICY.
@ The advice is "it is often very advantageous to insert an
orbit head near a population center of the defenders", which is same as saying, when nailing one piece of wood to another it is often advantageous to put the first nail close to where the two pieces of wood intersect :-)
This, is because despite having served in the US Army and the NSA, Rick doesn't seem to think that the one and only objective is to kill the enemy. This should be accomplished as quickly and efficently as possible.
@ In Rick's conception an orbital assault would take a week, and start with "Initially naval forces will conduct ortillery attacks against
strategic targets.", i.e. a strategic attritional warfare. Thats not even Second World War thinking, but the First World War.
Mercenaries, according to Rick, need not apply :-)
> The tactics are simple - the entire unit drops from orbit onto the
> most obvious location of the planetary seat of Government at about
> 50km/s.
First it has to slog its way in from the 100D limit, in a good case
taking about 3 hours (though in adverse cases it could take a lot
longer).
@ Why is this important?
If it can get that far, then I suppose it can be assumed
that it must have been able to destroy most of the space-based assets,
and any ground or orbital defences with significant range.
@ Basing military operations on assumptions is the equivalent of introducing margins of error into the work performed.
Its called risk in commercial operations, and every assumption increases operating risk.
In warfare risk = lives of military personnel, and in a mercenary operation these are your hard-to-replace assets.
So, the planning of a mercenary operation is about the elimination of risk, not the opposite.
And of course you don't have all the resources at the disposal of the Imperium on hand.
@ The task is therefore to evade the "most of the space-based assets, and any ground or orbital defences with significant range.", not destroy.
At 50 km/s, it's going to be very obvious where the ships are headed
long before they reach atmosphere.
@ I was talking about the anti-grav assault force vehicles, not their transports.
After that it gets messy. Whether or not the target was the seat of planetary government, it's up to the
defenders whether the top government leaders are there by the time the
invaders arrive. Either way, it is likely that a significant portion
of the planet's armed forces are in effective range of the landing site.
@ So this is an 'adventure' of the SOF type.
In all warfare the most important part is not having the most powerful weapon, but in being able to acquire the target.
What most SOF personnel do THESE DAYS is in fact target acquisition support, not actual 'commando' type operations of the Second World War.
@ "Either way, it is likely that a significant portion of the planet's armed forces are in effective range of the landing site."
What you describe is a physical impossibility because if the landing site is the location of where "the top government leaders" that physical areea is unlikely to also contain "the planet's armed forces" :-)
@ In any case, the contracting client sees himself as the next ruller of the planet and does not wish unnecessary bloodshed or damage doen to his future realm. Its bad for PR. The cleint (Patron) has in the past had one of those 'keyhole' surgeries performed by a nano-robot that was performed without ansthesia and allowed for a post-procedure recovery of just five minutes. Surely a mercenary unit can do 'keyhole surgery' on the current planetary government?
"What happens next is variable, but extremely unlikely to be "combat takes 1 minute, surrender negotiations 59 minutes."
@ If the enemy thinks something is extremely unlikely, he is likely to be extremely unprepared for what I propose, and this woudl ensure a very short duration of combat mission (actual weapon firing), reducing my risk.
Mercenaries do what is extremely unlikely. Mercenaries are not 'extremely expendable'.
In fact Rick Stump says exactly this, "Mercenary Units
- While it is extremely unlikely that mercenaries would undertake a
full-scale planetary assault, they may occasionally be hired to perform
small-scale operations that are very similar in execution, if not scope or
breadth of support."
- I can't remember the exact quote, or who said it, but to paraphrase, 'never deny the enemy his moment of delusion'.
Greg