Not to mention Star Trek's oddball belief that "evolution" can happen within a single organism during its lifetime. (A fallacy which, sadly, even Babylon 5 is guilty of repeating.)

Nah, all the "evolution" in B5 was due to either very intensive genetic engineering (we do the same thing, to a lesser degree, to plants and animals now) or long-term evolution in which the evolved traits only started to become apherent or useful in a particular generation. :P

I could if I had seen the episode. Unfortunately I don't have the Sci-Fi channel ( ) so I only get to see an episode every once in a while. -Colt

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'The Staff Weapon is a weapon of terror designed to intimidate an enemy' The P90 is a weapon of War designed to kill people'

Quote from Col 'Jack' O'Neill explaining why a P90 SMG beats a staff weapon.

Put a few SG teams onto the Enterprise and then you might see some fun.

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I have read that, I didn't think it was a whole book tohugh, only a novella/

A bunch of knights and their ontourage is about to set off on the crusade but end up capturing a visiting 'flying saucer' and it's pilot, they say a lot of things like 'thou' 'thee' and 'gadzooks' and think it would be a quick way of getting to the holy land but after turning left at Venus by mistake they end up on the aliens home world.

Aliens are so advanced they have no defence against a few swords, arrows and words like 'thou, 'thee' and 'gadzooks' the knights win by lobbing a nuclear warhead from a catapult and shouting 'zounds' a lot.

If I remember right the payoff is they conquor the world and set up 'New England' and hundreds of years later the first reprasentatives from earth arrive to find a 'british Empire' in space with everyone still wearing armour and using words like 'thou' 'thee' and 'gadzooks'.

It was rubbish.

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It amazes me that guided or stand off weapons aren't used, homing missiles or even good old fashioned beam riders, following a laser to the All Sci-Fi in General

After all those hundreds of years of research and development it comes down to lining up the cross hairs and pressing a button. even Spitfires had 'Gyro' sights that would calculate the correct 'aim off' for a shot, fighters in Star Wars operate like the Red Baron and his fixed sight.

Beam weapons should be operating at the speed of light but you cvan just about step out of the way.

Star Trek fire control is a laugh, damage control is a laugh and all the safety systems are the first things that seem to go wrong, how come they have never managed to eject the core when it's about to 'lose containment'? aboard the Enterprise?

Why don't they ever think of just using the transporters to pop a bomb aboard the enemy vessel? or a whole bunch of anti matter?

And, why is space flat?

if I had total freedsom to attack from any direction in 3D I would come from all directions not just left and right.

As for infantry tactics?

Both ST and SW are guilty of using the tactics of the post match pub fight. All get in a mob and run around at random.

Not even basic squad tactics. You would think in all those years of training someone would have been told about support weapons, grenades, covering fire, advance by section, flanking, fire control etc.

Even a bayonet. British troops still use them with great efficiency, there's nothing better for clearing a trench at close quarters than the threat of a knife in the ribs.

Those huge Star Wars battles are just so funny, all line up like Waterloo and pop away at each other.

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That's why I like the battles in "Andromeda". they use fleets but also have highly maneuverable fighters. Long range they use missles and have point defense lasers and heavy armor instead of shield. they even have to deal with the speed of light as some battles have taken place over the space of multiple light minutes and their speed is measured in psl or % speed of light.

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In the Stargate SG-1 episode 'Thor's Chariot', as O'Neill, Teal'c and a Cimerian were preparing to engage a few of Heru'ur's Horse guard, they hid in the brush in their camouflaged outfits and set up some Mortars. In 'Children of the Gods', after arriving on Chulak, before leaving the vicinity of the gate to set up base camp, they rigged a line of claymors (anyone know how to spell it?) on the ridge surrounding the gate area so when they were attempting to retreat through it at the end while being pursued by Apophis's serpent guard, they detonated them to take a number of them out. Also, earlier one while being pursued by a death glider, Kawalsky, who was awaiting them at base camp, snuck towards their location and fired a heat seeking missile which destroyed the glider. I believe that's the kind of thing you're saying the other series need.

I should note that the Jaffar tactics seem to be very old school. They advanced in Star Wars drone manner with their staff weapons ablaze. However, this is excusable because of their culture. This kind of tactic keeps them from being too strong and keeps them under the thumb of their gods. Also, since most civilisations aren't that technologically advanced because the Goa'uld ban them from being so, it doesn't really matter that much anyway.

We might ask how USAF can be so successful against these Jaffar warriors when they are more advanced. But they're not. They have advanced weapons, but they are still primitive in tactics because the Goa'uld like it like that. It goes to show that you can have loads of advanced weapons, but they mean nothing if you can't use them well.

We might also ask why their consoles are powered by a ten kilovolt supply.

To be fair, they have done that on occasion, but most of the time in a combat situation, both their and the enemy's shields are raised so they can't transport anything.

In 'All Good Things...' [TNG], the Enterprise in the future did attack from outside the standard plane.

It was a whole book, by Poul Anderson. I think you're taking it too seriously. Its light fare, intended primarily to amuse (the narrator is the Village Priest who is trying to make sense of what he's seeing in the light of his faith) but has serious lessons buried in it. One is just how much havoc a group of barbarians who know how to fight can cause to a civilization that doesn't. The reason why the humans get the upper hand is precisely that - they understand fighting and, due to their original circumstances, react accordingly when threatened. In the opening, when the aliens kill one villager, assuming that this will terrorize the rest, the longbowmen don't run, they fight back. and turn the aliens into pincushions. That's another buried lesson in the book; its not so much the weapons available that's important, its the people behind them. yet another lesson is that people and their motivations don't actually change very much. despite the change sin the culture around them.

High Crusade is still listed on Amazon and there are four reviews there that give a more balanced view of the novel.

Another short story that hits the same subject from a different viewpoint
is Turtledove's "The Way Not Taken". The basic premise there is that Earth gets invaded by a space-travelling race only there's a catch. It truns out space travel is very simple and convenient - the Greeks or Romans had the needed technology, they just didn't put the pieces together the right way. Most aliens do and, as a result, their technology stops at that level and their efforts go into exploring space and developing their space drive. Humans didn't and, as a result, humanity took a different path. The race that invades Earth is dominant because they invented gunpowder and flintlocks before the space drive. When they run into the Marines, they get shredded by a gruesome combination of modern firepower handled by people who know how to use it.

The key point about Startrek is that Star Fleet hasn't a clue how to fight. Its highly questionable whether they have any ground forces at all; most of their "ground forces" appear to be detachments of crewmembers from starships. Several episodes of Deep Space Nine show that the ground forces deployed are laughable in their ineptitude. A friend of mine (a professional infantry colonel) believes that the most realistic accounts of ground combat are in the novels by David Drake; read those and imagine how the almost unarmed incompetents of Startrek would fare against the soldiers David Drake describes illustrates the depth of the problem.

Even the most formidable of the Startrek universe denizens, the Borg, are pretty well helpless against a modern army. We know that their "shields" are useless against good, old-fashioned nickel-coated lead so 3ID would waltz through a "Borg Invasion" of earth. Makes "ST:First Contact" look pretty foolish.

The only episodes I can think of that showed ground forces were 'Nor the Battle to the Strong' and 'The Seige of AR-558'. In the former, we didn't see them in combat, it focused more on the hospital. The latter was one in which the Defiant offered relief to a Starfleet crew trying to hold a captured Dominion communications array. Nog got his leg amputated if that helps to identify it. Stuart, can you give us your thoughts on 'The Seige of AR-558'?

I saw that episode, it seemed to take place in some kind of cave system.

from what I saw no attempt was made to do any kind of recon, no attempt was made to ambush any advancing attackers and a single GMPG and a couple of belts of ammo could have taken out the entire attacking force before they could deploy through the doorway.

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The communications array was in a cave but the battle took place outside. Nog, Reese and Larkin were sent out on recon to find the Jem'Hadar encampment and to assess their strength. It was while returning from that recon mission that Nog got his leg hit by a Jem'Hadar disruptor. However, it was thanks to the knowledge of the location of the Jem'Hadar encampment that they learned that they would have to pass through a revine in order to attack, which was where they deployed the Houdini mines to take out most of the Jem'Hadar forces. So they didn't ambush persay, but they did mine the attack path. Without that, the allied forces would have been hopelessly outnumbered.

Sorry, I was being flippant, It's a long time since I read it and I do like Poul Anderson, Hal Clement is my fave though, nice 'Hard' Sci-Fi.

[/quote]
The key point about Startrek is that Star Fleet hasn't a clue how to fight. Its highly questionable whether they have any ground forces at all; most of their "ground forces" appear to be detachments of crewmembers from starships. Several episodes of Deep Space Nine show that the ground forces deployed are laughable in their ineptitude.

[/quote]

Klingons, so called Warriors are even worse. I always have a problem with Sci-Fi and fantasy warrior societies, any force that would rather die than retreat or surrender and whose tactics are dictated more by personal honour and some warrior 'code' wouldn't last long as a fighting force. They may win some battles but their attrition rate would be huge. Klingons even seem to kill each other for promotion, literaly 'dead mans boots', talk about a waste of experienced crew.

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there was an episode where a 'MALP' was sent through a gate and used a Laser designator to target Goa'uld gun emplacements which were destroyed by missiles fired through the gate which I thought was rather cool.

As quoted in a previous post Goa'uld tqactics are designed to terrorise and intimidate populations who think the Goa'uld were Gods and that technology is magic. Teal'c allies with SG1 because he sees for the first time people who aren't intimidated and terrorised and have a technology of their own.

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--- But Skywalkers band of traitors (long live the Empire!) are rebels- terrorists essentially except that some of them wear uniforms- that have to rely on what they can get their hands on. So it makes sense that they have old and beat up equipment. That's one thing I always liked about Star Wars was that the weaponry LOOKS old and obsolete. Guns aren't shiny black nor are they terribly accurate. All the Rebel fighters had more oil leaks than my Harley.
Hunt the traitors down and destroy their homeworlds!

---I tend to follow the EMCON idea of cloaking. Firing while cloaking would give away your position. Even passive weapons like mines (unless they were cloaked as well) would be detected as soon as they were released. If they didn't come to an instant stop, their speed and direction could be used to plot the ship's movements.

But the EMCON (emmision control) theory gets hammered by the fact that voice and even video transmissions are made while cloaked. Those signals would certainly be intercepted and direction finding efforts made.

Both series have varying tech levels. Only in Trek does anyone care about not arming primitive cultures. For Wars, the empire of course issues standard equipment. The rebels make do with old military gear (from the government the Empire conquered?) that seems much more crude than Empire gear.
I contend that the rebels have too homogenous of an arsenal to be representitive of the many cultures the Empire has attacked. Unless the core of the resistance is from a specific group and all the other races have simply cast their lot with this particular movement.

Teal'c's defection was because of the watch. He identified that anyone with a watch must be stronger than anyone he is likely to meet and therefore the most likely opponent against the false gods.

But that wasn't the only thing. When he asked where SG-1 were from, Daniel drew the point of origin symbol for Earth, which Teal'c recognised as the symbol of the Tauri. He may not believe the Goa'uld are gods but he is still quite spiritual and he believes that the First World would naturally be the galaxy's best hope.

I remember watching a Star Wars parody in which the Obi-Wan character intones in Luke's mind, "Use the automated targetting system, Luke. That's what it's there for!

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I remember playing one of those battle board games, the high-quality ones that have little pieces for each military unit or whatever, that was set in medieval times. The knights were a pain because it was a rule that if a knight saw an enemy, he immediately had to go charging after him due to the rules of chivalry, whether he would be slaughtered or not. So you had to stick your knights behind hills or woods or such until you were ready to use them.

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That would be Thumb Wars.

For my money, one of the funniest lines in that is when Princess Bunhead shows up and simply says, "I escaped somehow."

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The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

I think that for all its astronomical inaccuracy, the game Freespace (and Freespace 2), has the best space combat I've ever seen. It's very naval-style, with large capital ships that broadside each other with huge beam weapons, and small fighters and bombers that skirmish in between. One of the problems with space combat is that it's a lot harder to develop a tactical arrangement; there's nothing but empty space, no matter what you do, you still eventually end up flying straight at your opponent, head to head. Still, good stuff.

It even features a "stealth" fighter that's used for recon. It doesn't go invisible, but it doesn't show up on radar, which makes it tough to find in a thick nebula (BA ahoy!). It's a good thing they're on your side.

I love those games. You would also love the Wing commander games. Very similar.

The best way to evaluate this is to look at how Starfleet and their enemy handled this, then compare with how a modern army would deal with the situation when replacing either side. I’d like to acknowledge two sources for this that are invaluable. One is Michael Wong, author of the website Stardestroyer.net that is a wealth of information on both Star Wars and Startrek, the other is Colonel Supatra Soavapop of the Royal Thai Army, an old friend and a skilled infantry officer.

Basic situation.

The situation on AR-558 is that a Starfleet garrison had held a Jem'Hadar communications relay for five months. The important thing here is that this is a Starfleet garrison of total strength 150 men tasked with taking and holding an enemy installation, This force is a disorganized mass of 150 warm bodies; it has no heavy weapons, no fire support, inadequate small arms, no artillery, and no armor. There is no designated chain of command nor is there any apparent unit sub-division.

However, the task assigned is a company-level task so lets bring on the modern army equivalent. A company from a Royal Thai Army light infantry division. This is a balanced and structured force. It has three infantry platoons each of 44 men. These are further divided into three rifle squads (each with an NCO, a light machine-gunner with an M-240 7.62mm MG, six riflemen with M-16s and two grenadiers with M-16s fitted with M-203 grenade launchers) and a support squad. Thai support squads are highly variable but since the primary job here is to defend a fixed position, we’ll assume this one is the version that has two additional M-240 machine guns and two 60 mm mortars. There is also a four-man command section (officer, NCO, radio operator and medic) for a grand total of 44 men per platoon. The company also has an HQ/Support unit that has a scout-sniper section, an 82 mm mortar section (two mortars) an anti-tank section with either Milan wire-guided missiles or 106mm recoilless rifles (similar to the Iraqi guns that took down two Abrams tanks recently) . We’ll assume 106s here because they are quite impressive multi-role weapons. The modern force is a balanced combined arms group with firepower that total overwhelms the Starfleet unit. Furthermore, it is structured and has a designated chain of command that allows for casualties and operational disruption.

Lets look at the individual soldiers. The Startrek force is from Starfleet. Not Star Army or Star Marines. They wore Starfleet uniforms (basically decorated pajamas). The commander wears rank insignia revealing a total lack of battlefield experience (in reality any officer that stupid would be dead in hours). Hey have no body armor or other protective gear, No Federation body armor has ever been seen in the entire series runs of TNG, DS9, or Voyager. They seem to ignore the possibility of shrapnel from concussive explosions . Real-life armor is designed to prevent fatalities; the head and chest must be protected, since wounds to the rest of the body tend to be crippling but not fatal. Yet startrek infantry have no helmets. A man without a helmet is not ready for battle. They have no webbing so they cannot carry equipment. They have no spades for digging in (the spade is brother to the rifle), they have no reload ammunition, they have no packs, no supplies, no hand grenades, no flares, no rocket launchers - they don’t even have a decent knife. They appear to have no night vision gear and their “sensors” are active – that is they give their position away. Their standard arm is pathetic; the Type III phaser rifle is designed for two-handed use (as evidenced by the foregrip and length), but it has no shoulder stock, thus invalidating it for long-range or even medium range use. Given these conditions, it seems apparent that a Federation Type III phaser rifle may carry the name "rifle", but it is actually a very short-range weapon which is more suited to the role of a very light SMG. The Type III's continuous beam effectively duplicates the function of an automatic weapon, and it is usually used at close range. In fact, Star Trek combat usually occurs at such miniscule ranges that it routinely degenerates into hand to hand combat, where the knife fighting skills of Klingon warriors can actually be a decisive factor!

In contrast, our Thai infantryman is a trained grunt. He is armed with an M-16 rifle with 360 rounds in magazines and another 120 rounds loose (some may be replaced by extra ammunition for the machinegun or grenades for the grenadiers). He has body armor that protects against rifle ammunition and fragments and a helmet that does the same for his head. He has a modernized version of ALICE webbing to carry his kit that is actually better than the MOLLE webbing used by the US Army. He has four fragmentation hand grenades, two smoke grenades, an M-72 anti-tank rocket, food and water supplies for up to three days away from any replenishment. He has an entrenching tool, a combined pick and shovel for digging in, something he does when stopped even for a few minutes. The spade has a sharpened edge for close-in fighting, something he may prefer to use in place of his jungle knife (an 8 or 10 inch blade sawbacked bowie). He’s trained to fight as part of one of two four man teams supported by the squad machine gun. Fire and maneuver is a big part of that training.

The Siege of AR-558.

OK so our loosely organized group of 150 ill-armed sailors pretending to be infantry have occupied AR-558. They then do nothing for five months while allowing the enemy to whittle away a third of their strength via attrition. They are so negligent of basic infantry tactics that they haven’t even scouted out their perimeter. They have no idea where the enemy is based. They have no fixed defenses and no prepared positions or secured perimeter. In the end, a group of civilians, boring actors and medics (who are non-combatants and therefore cannot bear arms) arrive and rescue the situation. They do the recon that should have been done five months ago, determine that the enemy must attack through a single choke point which they mine. The enemy break through that choke point but are eventually overcome.

Now lets look at our Infantry company. They move in set up a mined perimeter (M-26 claymores) which is wired and backed up with multiple fire positions. Then the scout-sniper units go out, patrol the area and locate the enemy HQ. This is battered mercilessly with mortar fire (it must be within range because everybody is moving by foot). The enemy are forced to either attack or be wiped out by the artillery. Being idiots they attack screaming battle cries and running over open ground through the choke point. Which is covered by five machineguns. The surviving Jemahadar are wiped out to the last man, their bodies stacked like cordwood. A week after the initial landing, its all over, the base is secure and the Infantry company commander decides his men deserve to kick back for a while. Commander Sisko arrives and is summarily executed for multiple offenses against good acting. Doctor Bashir is judged an illegal combatant and summarily executed for bearing arms.

If the modern infantry replace the Jemhadar, its even worse. The Starfleet forces land and get blown apart by mortar fire. Without fragmentation protection or counter-battery fire and too ill-equipped to take the offensive they’re slaughtered and surrender within hours. Commander Sisko is arrested and executed because his conduct is an offense against good taste. Dr Bashir is executed (same grounds). Nog is summarily executed for being annoying.

Boy... conversations like this make me a little nervous. I normally try to conceal my upbergeek status but here goes... I'll discuss the points in the order listed

Warp Drive: The fact that all the people federation ships meet up with have warp drive is explained very simply. The Prime Directive (PD) To limit my display of nerd qualities in my initial post to this board I won't explain the prime directive. Go to http://members.tripod.com/~Avataria/ufpreg.htm this isn't an official page but it is close enough. Now there is nothing in the PD that says a race must have warp technology before you can initiate contact, but it is generally used as the litmus test in the Trek universe.

Shields/Weapons: You are a little off in your assessment here. The first 2 or 3 seasons, Voyager had a significant advantage over the individual ships it encountered. One on one Voyager was not really threatened unless it ran into packs of 'bad guys' as they drew closer to the Alpha quadrant, the tech gap closed but generally Voyager still had the edge

Sub Space communications: For this one I have to refer back to the Prime Directive. Now, if a group has warp engines, they must, as a matter of logistics, have sub space communications. Without that, they have lost contact with their home world, other ships, etc.

This now concludes today's nerdiness.
Thank you for your attention (and for not pointing-and-laughing)

TD

Thanks, Stuart.

To my knowledge, there has never been any kind of big guns seen anywhere on Star Trek. I've never seen any armoured vehicles or land vehicles of any kind until Star Trek: Nemesis and that bit was just plain stupid.

While Stargate has big guns, there are some set up permanently in the gate room to defend against incoming hostiles, we've never seen any land vehicles other than FRED, which just carries supplies, you'll note they do have supplies. I was thinking that in 'One False Step', the distance between the gate and the alien village was a few miles, it couldn't have hurt to have a small rover or something.

I was wondering, why is it bad to wear rank insignia in the field?

Snipers.

Priority targets for snipers are

(a) officers
(b) people with radios
(c) people near people with radios
(c) people who look different
(d) anybody who seems to be taking charge.

So experienced officers never wear rank insignia and its considered very bad form to salute somebody (and thereby mark them as a target). Colonel Supatra, for example, never wears a sidearm in the field; its a badge of rank. The Colonel carrys an M-16 like everybody else.

Incidently, as far as I can determine, phasers can't penetrate armor. They vaporize humans, cause rocks to heat and explode but have virtually no effect on metal. Go figure, I can't work that one out.

Not only is it unhealthy for the leaders to show distinctiveness, it is unsolderly for the enemy to even hear your rank. In the field, titles like "Boss" or "Chief" are a must (why give the enemy any information?)

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Soldiers do wear insignia in the field. They wear muted color versions. But Starfleet wears nice shiny insignia. But then they also wear bright yellow, red and blue pajamas everywhere.
They send their senior officers on recce missions and on espionage missions. Yeah, sure. They do send extras on away teams when they want to kill someone off for the plot. Notice how some security guys wear yellow while others wear red?
From a military standpoint, Starfleet would get it's A** handed to it.
Cloaking- what technology did the Federation trade for not producing this device? Surprise is everything in combat (if it can be achieved) and it would be a heck of a thing to not have one. However, the limitations of cloaking is that decloaking takes so long that the Federation ships have time to power up shields and weapons. So how useful is it really other than for intelligence collection?
But I do argue the statement;
"A soldier without a helmet is not ready for combat."
Maybe for "legs", but after nearly 11 years in, mostly in Special Operations units, I had no use for helmets other than for airborne ops. After we hit the DZ, we ditched the pot for a soft cap. 6 pounds of crap on my noggin is a distraction. The actual safety afforded by a kevlar pot is minimal, and inhibits the soldier.
Watch a video of the 101st and you'll see a sea of hard hats. Then watch the Rangers in action. Nothing but soft caps.
But hey, the kevlar was better to shave out of than a soft cap.....
I thought we should add a spike on top of the kevlar for effect.

See, you guys should play games more often. In the game Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. You are a part of a newly formed "hazard team" You have armour, good weapons, and have squad tactics. Your armor protects from beam and kenetic weapons. Also you have more than the two standard phasers. You have also a hodge podge or alien and new human made weapons. Rocket launchers, grenade launchers, beam eapons and a chain gun like device.

So if modern infantry went up against a elite force of Hazard team members, they would be goners. :-)

SG teams always seem to carry radios. I believe in 'Children of the Gods', an SG-2 member, who was patrolling the perimeter while SG-1 was trying to get the refugees to safety, used his radio to alert SG-1 about the arrival of the Jaffar. Is that bad then? Surely radios are important in combat situation.

You must admitt SollyLama, that if the Rangers or the 101st were in a defensive position with lots of incoming, the possession of a brain bucket would be highly desirable.

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