Starfleet Jedi

Its already a given that an ISD wouldn't last long against a Galaxy in a straight fight. However, what if they were connected together and it was a battle between the crews in a boarding action? The two ships start off moored together with about four or five causeways between them. Both ships have had their shields and weapons disabled and all ordinance removed (No transporting torpedos lol). Its a straight up boarding action between the two. Who wins?

Inconclusive. ISD carries way more troops, but their aim is pathetic.

The ISD, if only by the use of sheer stupid numbers and indiscriminate use of explosives to overwhelm the GCS' crew. The only way the GCS' crew can win is pulling back into their ship, setting traps, vacating air from the sections as they go, using phasers on widespread kill without regard for damage to the ship, and just hope that they can beam a squad into the ISD's bridge in a desperate gambit to take the command staff hostage.
-Mike

Yeah, I don't see a boarding action going well against an ISD, which supposedly carries how many thousands of troops?
Compared to what, the 1000 thousand personnel, including hairdressers, on board a Galaxy-class ship?
The only advantage the E-D has is the ability to block corridors off with force fields, but how long they would last is up to debate when facing trigger happy idiots who don't care what or who they hit, and when to use gredades...

Praeothmin wrote:Yeah, I don't see a boarding action going well against an ISD, which supposedly carries how many thousands of troops?
Compared to what, the 1000 thousand personnel, including hairdressers, on board a Galaxy-class ship?

I believe you can cover a good arc to block a corridor with a heavy hair dryer mounted on a tripod chassis.

Praeothmin wrote:Yeah, I don't see a boarding action going well against an ISD, which supposedly carries how many thousands of troops?
Compared to what, the 1000 thousand personnel, including hairdressers, on board a Galaxy-class ship?
The only advantage the E-D has is the ability to block corridors off with force fields, but how long they would last is up to debate when facing trigger happy idiots who don't care what or who they hit, and when to use gredades...

The best thing they can do is try and seal off the bulkheads and set up cascading series of forcefields. If the crew is inventive enough, they can set traps all throughout the ship, take safeties off in the holodecks and leave them active for Imperial troops to wander into, or the Cardassian replicator phaser trap from "Civil Defense" and all sorts of other things. Again, if transporters are operative in this scenario, then beaming to he unshielded bridge with a heavily armed squad to destroy or capture the command staff and crew and force capitulation is their only serious option for winning.
-Mike

Can't they abuse the beaming tech to displace troops into space, move crates, place small charges in the ISD, or even kidnap the entire top crew of the ISD?

They could that to an extent, but beaming around several tens of thousands of crew and troops would be more than what they can normally handle. Better to focus on the troops attempting to board the ship, and or the ISD bridge crew and officers than kidnapp the entire crew as a whole.
-Mike

Still 30 000 troops to deal with, eventually they'll get overrun...

It's hard to say. If the UFP position is fortified, they can hold on with much less troops. The advantage of beaming tech and internal shields (they have those, no?) would help a great deal.
The GE ship would have to issue heavy weaponry and somehow find another way around.
I guess at some point they'd try to blast holes in the hull and send in troops in suits which can withstand space walk, or at least space drift in vacuum.

A large part of the tactics for the ISD troops boarding the GCS would depend on how badly the ISD's captain wants to take the Federation ship intact, and how tough the hull of a GCS is relative to it's SW counterparts. Attempting blow open cabin windows or airlock hatches or anything like that is certainly possible for them to do in order to gain access to the GCS' interior, and possibly kill off any defenders. On the other hand, if the GCS' forcefield system is up to the same snuff as Intrepid or the Sovereign classes', it can strengthen ISF to make the ship's hull a very tough nut to crack open, and quickly erect forcefields, if the hull is breached.

As I said before, one of the best tactics the GCS defenders can do is to retreat slowly towards the inner compartments of the ship, setting up forcefields, traps and make balls to the walls use of phasers set on kill and widespread. If the transporters are available, they can attempt to kidnap the ISD command crew from it's bridge, or attempt to lock on and beam boarders out into space. Conversely a team of commandoes form the GCS could attempt to beam in and take the ISD's bridge, or even enter the engineering section and cut power or cause an overload in power, if they can understand the workings of the drive system and powerplant.
-Mike

Tritanium is said to be 21.5 times harder than diamond, and it is used in GCS hull construction, so I'm not quite sure Stormtroopers could blast through it in any reasonable time. Maybe through windows, but even that is questionable - we don't know from what materials windows are made.

There is also issue with number of troops GCS can carry - I think it carried 16 000 in alternate reality during day-to-day operations, and Darkstar estimates possibility of up to 50 000 troops carried for planetary invasion. However, if it is only ship's standard on-board security complement, that is at most hundred-or-so personell armed with hand phasers, although they would probably get phaser rifles during wartime.

Also, weapons used give advantage to Federation troops in CQC - phaser rifles are seen on several occasions to have rapid-fire ability (in First Contact and DS9) when using bolts - similar to Defiant class pulse phased cannons.

According to Wookiepedia, ISD carries 9700 troops, which is 100 to 1 numerical advantage against standard ship security of Galaxy class, but are outnumbered 1.6 to 1 or even 5 to 1 against possible ground troops or marine complement carried during wartime.

Picard wrote:Tritanium is said to be 21.5 times harder than diamond, and it is used in GCS hull construction, so I'm not quite sure Stormtroopers could blast through it in any reasonable time. Maybe through windows, but even that is questionable - we don't know from what materials windows are made.

Whatever the windows are made of, transparent aluminum perhaps, it is material which is capable of withstanding being slammed at several hundred meters a second through rock and large trees as was the case when the E-D saucer crashed and slide out over the surface of Veridan III in ST:Generations. See the "Happy/Crappy Landings" thread from a few years ago for more detailed discussion and analysis. Suffice to say, those windows are fairly tough whatever they're composition! At least the one's on the saucer's leading edge, anyway.

Picard wrote:There is also issue with number of troops GCS can carry - I think it carried 16 000 in alternate reality during day-to-day operations, and Darkstar estimates possibility of up to 50 000 troops carried for planetary invasion. However, if it is only ship's standard on-board security complement, that is at most hundred-or-so personell armed with hand phasers, although they would probably get phaser rifles during wartime.

If you are refering to the troop numbers seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise", that was stated to be 7,000 troops. The largest evacuation numbers we have heard were in reference to moving more than 15,000 people off Tau Cygna V in TNG's "Ensigns of Command". The original OP suggests, however, that this is a regular exploratory GCS, so I'm not sure that wartime troop numbers are applicable to this scenario.
-Mike

About entering hull from outside, I'm not sure that Stormtrooper armor is able to be hermetically sealed; see TESB for reference.

Picard wrote:About entering hull from outside, I'm not sure that Stormtrooper armor is able to be hermetically sealed; see TESB for reference.

Will these do?.












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Hardly sealed in anyway imho.