Federation Fleet Composition

[BigJKU316]

I do think the main flaw in the other deployment plan (outside of the scale of forces) is the lack of defensive depth and concentration of forces.

Simply put the rule of thumb in naval combat is that you always, always concentrate your fleet as much as possible. Why? Because if I have equal forces to my opponent but feed them in piecemeal I am going to get crushed almost every time. While I might well lose the battle throwing everything in at once I at least have a chance to win it, where I don't if I split my forces in the way you suggest.

A much more sensible deployment puts just enough lighter forces on the perimiter of your space to force the enemy to commit substantial forces to acheiving a border breach so that you can identify an axis of advance. All that really matters here is that you have strong enough forces that the enemy cannot just leap across on a broad front.

Then you would concentrate all of your heavy forces far enough back from whatever stretch of space you are responsible for to allow them to respond in a reasonable time to any breach while protecting whatever vital targets are in the area.

Splitting your heavy units any more than you have to to cover the amount of space you have is a bad idea. A single force can be both an offensive and defensive asset if positioned properly.

[Captain Seafort]

The counterpoint to that is that if you concentrate your forces too much then you risk the enemy being able to hit one of your planets and occupy it before your heavy forces can get there, or even do an end run around your fleet and into your rear areas. Given that travel between planet typically takes days, or even weeks, its important to make sure you're dispersed enough to be able to concentrate a force strong enough to repel a serious attack at any vital strategic along your frontier and hinterland.

[BigJKU316]

The counterpoint to that is that if you concentrate your forces too much then you risk the enemy being able to hit one of your planets and occupy it before your heavy forces can get there, or even do an end run around your fleet and into your rear areas. Given that travel between planet typically takes days, or even weeks, its important to make sure you're dispersed enough to be able to concentrate a force strong enough to repel a serious attack at any vital strategic along your frontier and hinterland.

Yeah, it is going to be a really delicate balancing act but I go back to Midway in the Pacific during WWII. The US simply made a value judgement. Letting Japan occupy some Alaskan islands was accepted so the fleet could concentrate for the main objective of importance at Midway.

Doing it in space is going to be more like setting up an air defense system though. Step 1 would be to basically rank the importance of your assets from highest to lowest. Then you devise a defensive system around those rankings.

Were I doing it my approach would be as follows.

1. Establish a reasonable early warning system and border patrols to make sure I know something is coming.

2. On key planets I need just enough planetary defenses to drive up the size of the necessary force to take it high enough that I limit the amount of places they can go at once. Putting in place fixed defenses that can repel a fleet is almost impossible (or at least it has been historically), but putting in enough to necessitate that your opponent commit a substantial number of ships (a hundred or more) is doable I would think since you are talking like a DS9 strength structure or so. The idea here is to minimize the number of threats your enemy can present. If your worlds are undefended then even a single ship is very bad news.

3. From there it will be a ton of trial and error. You place a fleet, estimate the response time you have and draw a circle for the given threat and how fast it can develop. You make sure it is strong enough to deal with the likely threat and move on. There will be a ton of compromise and reworking. You will never really have an ideal deployment. Given an 8,000 cubic/square LY Federation and a 3-4,000 ship post war Starfleet you will run out of ships way before you cover everything. This will dictate your defensive plans really.

While you may feel obligated to fight to the death for Colony X the truth will be you need to roll those forces back against large threats to supplement the fleets moving to your support. Fighting for that colony would just be a waste of time and ships that you can't get back.

Going forward I think you could look to plug many of those holes as the fleet moves upward in numbers. In the short term though I would not want to be on an outlying world if the poop hit the fan as simply geometry and defensive priorities are going to dictate that a large majority of the avaliable ships be kept somewhat near the major core worlds where they can support one another.

[Sonic Glitch]

One of the two general exceptions to the Prime Directive is in cases where an extreme threat to the Federation exists. General Order 24 authorizes a Captain to order the destruction of an entire civilization under certain circumstances. Captain Garth of Izar on Antos IV and Captain James Kirk on Eminiar VII.

In the far more militarised TOS=era Federation, not the TNG-era Federation.

Not to get too involved, but is there any evidence the General Orders changed? Just because they were referenced doesn't mean they don't still exist.

[Captain Seafort]

Yeah, it is going to be a really delicate balancing act but I go back to Midway in the Pacific during WWII. The US simply made a value judgement. Letting Japan occupy some Alaskan islands was accepted so the fleet could concentrate for the main objective of importance at Midway.

Absolutely. However, to continue the analogy, the allies couldn't afford to choose between Midway and Port Moresby, and had the Japanese chosen to strike simultaneously at both then the options would have been to either split their forces or leave an important strategic point underdefended. Given the scale of warfare in Trek, I expect such problems to recur frequently, and thus the fleet must be deployed so as to be able to cover all of them.

Going forward I think you could look to plug many of those holes as the fleet moves upward in numbers. In the short term though I would not want to be on an outlying world if the poop hit the fan as simply geometry and defensive priorities are going to dictate that a large majority of the avaliable ships be kept somewhat near the major core worlds where they can support one another.

The problem with that approach is that it risks surrendering huge swathes of territory and resources to an aggressor. Trading space for time is a viable strategy, but only if you can fulfil certain criteria:

1) You have to be able to defend the territory you're retreating from long enough and well enough to make the enemy expend more effort in capturing it than he'll gain from it

2) The balance of losses vis a vis new construction/enlistment with your diminished resources must be more beneficial over the time gained by the withdrawal than the greater losses you'll suffer vis a vis greater resources to apply to new construction/enlistment were you to defend that territory.

If you don't fulfil those criteria, then a premature withdrawal to the core risks simply handing your opponent the resources and momentum he requires to overwhelm your final defences.

[Captain Seafort]

Not to get too involved, but is there any evidence the General Orders changed? Just because they were referenced doesn't mean they don't still exist.

The entire culture of Starfleet changed, from the E-nil clearly being a warship sent exploring, to Picard being contemptuous of the 20th century US military in concept in "Farpoint", and both Picard and Riker pooh-poohing the idea of wargames in "Peak Performance". While the GOs might still be around (or rather, not disposed of), the cultural attitude required to enact them has clearly vanished.

[BigJKU316]

I do think that the resource thing is overblown. Turning around ones resources against them is a time consuming process, assuming you don't just hand them over intact. Occupied territory almost always is more of a burden than a help unelss you are after a specific resources, in which case I would know where you are going and could concentrate there to begin with.

I actually think there is some merit to the odds favoring the attack more than the defender, at least initially and if you confine the analysis to a fleet engagement only. At the point of attack, unless you had advance warning, you are almost certainly going to be outnumbered against a peer opponent. For the defender time and space are on their side.

The attacker should be seeking a decision as soon as possible with the goal being to come to grips with the immediate enemy forces while they have the advantage, before reserves can move up and combine to challenge you.

[BigJKU316]

Not to get too involved, but is there any evidence the General Orders changed? Just because they were referenced doesn't mean they don't still exist.

The entire culture of Starfleet changed, from the E-nil clearly being a warship sent exploring, to Picard being contemptuous of the 20th century US military in concept in "Farpoint", and both Picard and Riker pooh-poohing the idea of wargames in "Peak Performance". While the GOs might still be around (or rather, not disposed of), the cultural attitude required to enact them has clearly vanished.

Yeah, I think of the Federation as basically the United States in the period between the Civil War and WWII to some degree. There has been so little conflict for such a long time people scoff at the very notion that being prepared for it is important. Thus you end up with a situation where a major economic power is far weaker than it should be which actually invites rather than discourages conflict.

The question is does that sort of attitude remain after the Dominion War, the Borg and the Scimitar incident? I would tend to think it does not, but that is probably why I prefer Sisko to early Picard as he actually seemed human most of the time, rather than just some mindless Starfleet drone.

[Tholian_Avenger]

Could is the key word in that. Could, means your enemy could get past you. Could reach your homeworld and could level it hours before your support arrives.

We have seen these SF Captains, they are the most ruthless and immoral brigands this side of Orion, willing to use plagues, chemicals, and base delta zero. So if my Fleet 1 has a chance of luck or secrecy in its counterstrike, the repercussions could be nasty.

There has never been any indication of such indiscriminate attacks being sanctioned as a method of war by the Federation, and every indication (given their extreme pacifism) that they would avoid such tactics.

Agreed. We all go a little crazy now and then, especially when you find out your homeworld was just evaporated.

>>Examples of persons at one time or currently associated with Starfleet using or threatening to use plagues, chemicals, and BDZs to achieve their goals.<<

Using this and Sisko's actions to support a theory that the Federation uses genocide as a standard tactic in war . . . .

I apologize if I didn't communicate clearly but that wasn't what I was trying to convey. I wanted to convey the threat of an Attacker who knows his prey has just "leveled his homeworld" and the additional threat that this Attacker might go mad with bloodlust. These Heavy Attackers just might become a little crazy and decide to use plagues, chemicals, and BDZs on enemy territory in their madness.

Targeted attacks against the command and control systems of a specific, known threat to the Federation, not an indiscriminate one.

The killing of a trillion people may do supreme good for a military campaign but it is still a ruthless tactic. SF (or at least SF personnel acting on their own accord) can be a little ruthless. I know you don't care, but I have learned that an attack of extreme and sudden, ruthless violence that cause chaos and confusion in the Enemy sometimes wins wars. Also, I suspect that a person gone mad at the thought of a desolated homeworld is ruthless every now and then.

Captain Kathryn Janeway led the USS Voyager (staffed mostly by actual and acting SF personnel) to improve on Borg assimilation techniques.

When?

Scorpion I, the Doctor told Janeway how he adapted Borg Nanoprobes to not cause an immune reaction from S8472.
Scorpion II Janeway offers to trade PTorps designed to spread the modified Nanoprobes to the Borg for safe transit.

DS9 leaves no room for underestimation with it's fleet actions.

Then why do you claim the Feds only have hundreds of ships, rather than thousands or possibly low tens of thousands?

I read a request to put together a few major combat fleets with only 500 TNG-TMP era ships. 170 of these ships were already stated by the request, so I decided that about 1/2 of these ships would be logistics. I interpreted that the entirety of the Defiants, Soveriegns, and Prometheii were out hunting the Borg. I interpreted that there must still be some exploration (et cetera) units and to these I assigned the remaining tens of thousands. I decided that 10 years post DW many of the TMP designs must be gone (even the illustrious Excelsiors at a hunch) from "major combat duty" and in my estimation this left Novas and Sabres (admittedly not old designs), and New Orleans classes fit for "major combat duty". I reasoned out several other ships-of-the-week or ships-from-Wolf 359 on a hunch. So with only a hundred or so remaining spots open I attempted to create the best combat groups I could from those ship I considered available. I thought I had to account for an entire supply train AND a fighting unit with only 500 spots. I also was concerned for the rarity of these groups so I envisioned a few (to keep consistency with the request) EW-Intrepids to cover larger gaps and act as a forward controllers/AWACS.

By the way, after being informed by the requester (the original poster) that I need not bother with logistics, that all 500 ships may be combat vessels, I haven't had a chance to plan out a new grouping. I apologize for my dalliance. (I know, you don't care.)

[Mark]

Not to get too involved, but is there any evidence the General Orders changed? Just because they were referenced doesn't mean they don't still exist.

The entire culture of Starfleet changed, from the E-nil clearly being a warship sent exploring, to Picard being contemptuous of the 20th century US military in concept in "Farpoint", and both Picard and Riker pooh-poohing the idea of wargames in "Peak Performance". While the GOs might still be around (or rather, not disposed of), the cultural attitude required to enact them has clearly vanished.

I'm curious....do you suppose visiting Telos IV is still punishable by death? Seems very "TOS-ish".

[Captain Seafort]

I apologize if I didn't communicate clearly but that wasn't what I was trying to convey. I wanted to convey the threat of an Attacker who knows his prey has just "leveled his homeworld" and the additional threat that this Attacker might go mad with bloodlust. These Heavy Attackers just might become a little crazy and decide to use plagues, chemicals, and BDZs on enemy territory in their madness.

Or they might act as typical Starfleet - unwilling to inflict anything close to the destruction their ships are capable of. You can't assume that Starfleet commanders will act in such an uncharacteristic manner.

The killing of a trillion people may do supreme good for a military campaign but it is still a ruthless tactic. SF (or at least SF personnel acting on their own accord) can be a little ruthless. I know you don't care, but I have learned that an attack of extreme and sudden, ruthless violence that cause chaos and confusion in the Enemy sometimes wins wars. Also, I suspect that a person gone mad at the thought of a desolated homeworld is ruthless every now and then.

What the fuck has this got to do with the Borg? Geordi's virus was designed to collapse the Borg command and control, structure. The fact that this would also cause the deaths of trillions of Borg simply isn't relevant to that intent, especially as all those affected would be part of the Borg armed forces.

Scorpion I, the Doctor told Janeway how he adapted Borg Nanoprobes to not cause an immune reaction from S8472.
Scorpion II Janeway offers to trade PTorps designed to spread the modified Nanoprobes to the Borg for safe transit.

Which did not affect Borg assimilation techniques in the slightest. Did you miss the bit where it was clearly stated that the modified nanoprobes would destroy 8472 without assimilating them, or are you just lying?

I'm curious....do you suppose visiting Telos IV is still punishable by death? Seems very "TOS-ish".

I doubt it - indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if GO7 was repealed shortly after "The Menagerie".

[Mark]

Good point. Didn't Commodroe Mendez say something like "Its the only death penalty left on the books." Well, we know it hadn't been changed as of Turnabout Intruder at least.

[Tholian_Avenger]

Or they might act as typical Starfleet - unwilling to inflict anything close to the destruction their ships are capable of. You can't assume that Starfleet commanders will act in such an uncharacteristic manner.

They are just as Human as me, and as I have my evidence I will continue to assume they could just as readily be ruthless in an attack as they could be undeviating from mission and attacking with no extra emotional motivation. I guess it could be a Vulcan crew.

The killing of a trillion people may do supreme good for a military campaign but it is still a ruthless tactic. SF (or at least SF personnel acting on their own accord) can be a little ruthless. I know you don't care, but I have learned that an attack of extreme and sudden, ruthless violence that cause chaos and confusion in the Enemy sometimes wins wars. Also, I suspect that a person gone mad at the thought of a desolated homeworld is ruthless every now and then.

What the f**k has this got to do with the Borg? Geordi's virus was designed to collapse the Borg command and control, structure. The fact that this would also cause the deaths of trillions of Borg simply isn't relevant to that intent, especially as all those affected would be part of the Borg armed forces.

I perceived that, the sudden, and extremely violent attacks which S8472 ruthlessly employed against the Borg had confused the Borg's efforts at counter attack, causing chaos within the Collective. So an attack of extreme and sudden, ruthless violence can be effective against the Borg (or anyone). Admiral Janeway's decimation of the Unicomplex or Captain Picard's attempt of a similar attack are indications that Starfleet officers are capable of ruthless violence and that such is a legitimate military tactic (as you noted). Sure, every Drone is part of their armed forces, just as every laborer helps a nation's war effort and is a valid target in Total War theory--but a fire bombed Dresden is still firebombed, and a trillion dead drones are still a trillion dead people.

Scorpion I, the Doctor told Janeway how he adapted Borg Nanoprobes to not cause an immune reaction from S8472.
Scorpion II Janeway offers to trade PTorps designed to spread the modified Nanoprobes to the Borg for safe transit.

Which did not affect Borg assimilation techniques in the slightest. Did you miss the bit where it was clearly stated that the modified nanoprobes would destroy 8472 without assimilating them,

I thought the Doctor adapted Borg Nanoprobes to not cause an immune reaction from S8472 and then adapted them to self-destruct instead of assimilating. Did the Doctor instead redesign the Nanoprobes to only care about kamikazeing S8472's cells? If I am wrong I am, but if it was a camouflaging followed by a self destruct then they improved upon the Borg's assimilation technique and risked the delivering of this to the Borg as during no point in Scorpion 1 could Voyager have withstood a Cube. The Borg's willingness to negotiate also indicates they are capable of independent action, and once provided with the rudimentary details by assimilating Janeway, they could have recreated the Doctor's success.

[Deepcrush]

They are just as Human as me, and as I have my evidence I will continue to assume they could just as readily be ruthless in an attack as they could be undeviating from mission and attacking with no extra emotional motivation. I guess it could be a Vulcan crew.

So what country are you from where your navy captains often break protocols and murder people in the billions?

[Reliant121]

What genome of human being are you that quite contently kills millions without being labeled a war criminal?