Ork WAAUUUUUGHH vs. Trek Earth redux

[Opecoiler]

You might start with STV for a legitimate roundup.

Elaborate. What were the circumstances surrounding the response time?

Except that many of those "civilian" (i.e., not active service pilots) have Starfleet training.

Do they have combat training, though? How often have we seen Starfleet personnel who are not dedicated pilots fly in dogfight manuevers?

Being trained to operate a shuttle for routine transport and able to operate it as a fighter are completely different things. If Starfleet pilots are mostly only trained on the former, they'll get shot down in droves by far more experienced flyboyz.

I'd like you to compare two ratios. One, the number of trained pilots to shuttlecraft on a typical starship. Two, the length of probable service for the average servicebeing in Starfleet, compared with the length of their probable civilian career and/or retirement following.

I'd like you to compare two ratios. One, the kill ratios achieved by skilled pilots over unskilled ones. Two, the amount of actual fighing the average Ork flyboy has been involved with (Aka, his whole life, since Orks fight each other when they aren't out on a Waaagh!), compared to the average Starfleet pilot.

Pearl Harbor didn't precisely blunt US pilots' flying skills.

I know that. But think of all the panic it caused among the civilian populace.

All the Orks have to do is fight. Starfleet has to fight and keep billions of no-doubt panicking civilians in line, as well as sheltered. Oops, looks like the tide is tilting even more in favor of the Orks.....

Actually, we do have evidence strongly suggesting that to be impossible. Humans exist in WH40K, and those humans do not disintegrate from being within one light year of Orks.

Did I say 40k humans? No, I said Trek humans. The two do have different origin stories, as is evident by the aliens around them.

It's very silly, yes. But that seems to be your argument. I'll drop it if you realize the double standard you're under, as Thanatos has been kind to point out.

Which gives us no problem with the idea of using flying craft for coordination

What flying craft? Starships that aren't there thanks to Orkish orbital superiority? Shuttles that are certainly overstreched?

Listen, I think you're overestimating Starfleet shuttles to a ridiculously absurd degree. You're having shuttles:

1: Act as flying artillery for Starfleet ground forces.

2: Engage Ork fighta-bommerz and landas in the air to try and win air supremacy.

3: Serve as command and control hubs for ground troops.

4: Take out large vehicles such as Gargants and superheavy Battlefortresses via coordinated actions.

These roles are contradictory and extremely hard to do against anyone with as many trained pilots and AA assets as the Orkz-especially when evidence points to the majority of Starfleet pilots not being trained for dogfighting.

The Ork fighta-bommerz only need to do roles 1 and 2, since 3 is occupied by the Nobz and Warbosses leading their boyz from the ground, and 4 is irrelevant because the Federation doesn't have large vehicles.

Besides, central control is difficult to achieve when Ork boyz and vehicles are storming their way through San Francisco.

[Roondar]

Listen, I think you're overestimating Starfleet shuttles to a ridiculously absurd degree. You're having shuttles:

1: Act as flying artillery for Starfleet ground forces.

Somewhat like this?

http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Special/ ... odzap1.jpg
http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Special/ ... odzap2.jpg

2: Engage Ork fighta-bommerz and landas in the air to try and win air supremacy.

Well, we have seen at least one occurance in which this kind-of happenend in ST:Insurrection. With the catch that the fight in question involved people who didn't want to kill the other party.

On the other hand, shuttles have been seen to have the ability to make the required moves.

3: Serve as command and control hubs for ground troops.

I'll agree this sounds unlikely. A comparable current-day system has quite a bit a bigger crew than a two person shuttle will. And this is not without reason.

4: Take out large vehicles such as Gargants and superheavy Battlefortresses via coordinated actions.

Somewhat like this?

http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/V ... truck1.jpg
http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/V ... tlfire.jpg
http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/V ... truck2.jpg
http://st-v-sw.net/images/Trek/Series/V ... truck3.jpg

Now, I'm sure you'll post the argument that Ork forces are stronger than a truck, but please note that this is only a lower limit for shuttle capabilities, not an upper.

[Opecoiler]

Somewhat like this?

Yes. I wasn't disputing that it could be done, merely that it couldn't be done too effectively with all the dangers the Orks are throwing up at them.

Well, we have seen at least one occurance in which this kind-of happenend in ST:Insurrection. With the catch that the fight in question involved people who didn't want to kill the other party.

On the other hand, shuttles have been seen to have the ability to make the required moves.

Mind posting a clip?

I'll agree this sounds unlikely. A comparable current-day system has quite a bit a bigger crew than a two person shuttle will. And this is not without reason.

Exactly.

Somewhat like this?

Now, I'm sure you'll post the argument that Ork forces are stronger than a truck, but please note that this is only a lower limit for shuttle capabilities, not an upper.

Of course a Gargant is stronger than a truck. Gargants are giant mechs often over a hundred feet tall that are protected by extremely thick armor and shields.

What that shuttle did to the truck is underwhelming in the extreme. The fragments are quite huge, and the whole incident shows that the shuttle beam did about as much damage as a modern autocannon.

A modern autocannon or even a hundred modern autocannons aren't going to do anything to a Gargant.

So what other evidence do you have of shuttle firepower being more than a modern autocannon?

Also, my point wasn't necessarily that Starfleet shuttlecraft couldn't do those things individually (Though I do dispute the Gargant-busting and communications hub parts), rather its that they have to do it all at once, to make up for Starfleet's lack of actual armor and artillery support. I see no evidence against them suffering massive attrition rates in any sort of operation. The Orks have armor and artillery of their own, so they don't need their fighta-bommerz as much.

In addition, fighta-bommerz are not the only air vehicles the Orks have to send against Starfleet. They also have little Dethkopta's that can serve the same role as modern helicopters.

Finally, all airborne operations of any sort will hindred by Starfleet's lack of anti-air weaponry (Don't try to make excuses about Quark, his weapon was hitting low-flying, slow drones and wasn't even of Federation origin) and the Orks' large amounts of the same (Flakwagons consisting of multiple large-caliber autocannons arranged on an anti-air mount, rokkit launchas in both manpack and vehicle-mounted forms, and simple big shootas angled upwards)

[Roondar]

Somewhat like this?

Yes. I wasn't disputing that it could be done, merely that it couldn't be done too effectively with all the dangers the Orks are throwing up at them.

Ok, in that case I'll let you resume your scheduled debate with JMS. I'm merely pointing out the abilities, not their effectiveness vs Orks because my Ork knowledge is, frankly, near zero.

Well, we have seen at least one occurance in which this kind-of happenend in ST:Insurrection. With the catch that the fight in question involved people who didn't want to kill the other party.

On the other hand, shuttles have been seen to have the ability to make the required moves.

Mind posting a clip?

I wouldn't mind at all, but I don't have the capturesoftware needed to make clips. For the record, I was however referring to one and the same incident there.

I might be able to get screenshots if you desire tho.

Somewhat like this?

Now, I'm sure you'll post the argument that Ork forces are stronger than a truck, but please note that this is only a lower limit for shuttle capabilities, not an upper.

Of course a Gargant is stronger than a truck. Gargants are giant mechs often over a hundred feet tall that are protected by extremely thick armor and shields.

Extremely thick means very little to me, can you give me (for fun, I'm not trying to prove shuttle dominance) a figure that is more meaningfull?

On that note, what exactly are Ork shields (again, not for me to prove shuttle dominance, I'm more interested in seeing some data on the ever-scary-yet-somehow-fun Orks)

100ft tall is impressive tho, a good 30 meters tall. That'd be about the size of the truck tho (albeit vertical instead of horizontal). Or are they more sqaure in shape?

What that shuttle did to the truck is underwhelming in the extreme. The fragments are quite huge, and the whole incident shows that the shuttle beam did about as much damage as a modern autocannon.

A modern autocannon or even a hundred modern autocannons aren't going to do anything to a Gargant.

So what other evidence do you have of shuttle firepower being more than a modern autocannon?

Ahem..

A modern autocannon does not quite do that level of damage to something as heavy as a truck. I've seen them in demo's etc and while impressive, they certainly don't blow up stuff anywhere near that energetically.

Secondly, as I've said before this is, at best, a lower limit of shuttle capabilities, not an upper.

Also, my point wasn't necessarily that Starfleet shuttlecraft couldn't do those things individually (Though I do dispute the Gargant-busting and communications hub parts), rather its that they have to do it all at once, to make up for Starfleet's lack of actual armor and artillery support. I see no evidence against them suffering massive attrition rates in any sort of operation. The Orks have armor and artillery of their own, so they don't need their fighta-bommerz as much.

In addition, fighta-bommerz are not the only air vehicles the Orks have to send against Starfleet. They also have little Dethkopta's that can serve the same role as modern helicopters.

Finally, all airborne operations of any sort will hindred by Starfleet's lack of anti-air weaponry (Don't try to make excuses about Quark, his weapon was hitting low-flying, slow drones and wasn't even of Federation origin) and the Orks' large amounts of the same (Flakwagons consisting of multiple large-caliber autocannons arranged on an anti-air mount, rokkit launchas in both manpack and vehicle-mounted forms, and simple big shootas angled upwards)

I'm 100% sure that Orks are better suited for ground warfare. No arguments there. I'm however, also 100% convinced that Ork capabilities are being overstated a tad in this thread (or in fact, everywhere else).

Mainly because despite their ubah powahz (forgive the pun) they apperantly still manage to take prisoners, instead of everything being well, dead by the time their done landing. Or get by in leather armor from time to time. Or get damaged by black powder weapons. Or actually still rely bigtime on melee weapons.

(There is a reason modern troopers don't carry swords. Hint: they are practically useless if the other side has projectile weaponry. Yes, I know about bayonets but I also know that their use is, despite some of the suggestions on these boards, practically non existant. A gun works better. Period.)

On the other hand, I freely admit that the Federation is not a primarly ground-based faction. They, quite logically if you ask me, decided that space-supremacy is more valuable in an age where single starships can devastate entire worlds. Heck, I think the Orks will win here. But, being the sucker for punishment I am, I just have to fix misconceptions about Federation abilities.

--

A small rant now on space-vs-ground based combat. More for fun than being serious, but the point is meant.

Who cares about a guy with a gun (or a few guys with guns - say a couple of million) when your average starship can blow up (at the very least, I'm using low-end figures here on purpose to prevent calls of too powerfull ships) cities in a single shot and carries enough ammo to do this to at least 250 odd cities before the need for beamweapons even begins. And this is merely using the lowest end figures for photon torpedos I could remember being called out, something on the order of 6 megatons IIRC.

Note that one of said photon torpedoes would, even at 6 megatons, have the power to blow up a pretty darned big army. Armor or no armor. Heck, you'd probably kill half of London with one of those. Thats millions dead at one, extremely low end, photon torpedo blast.

A single USS-Enterprise style ship could hold a planet hostage without any problems even if all the lowest of the low figures I could find are true. Come close? We'll blow up a few million of your citizens for fun. Try funny business? We'll release come bioweapons that cover the entire planet (witness the TOS episode where they distributed a planetary antidote via the ship. The entire visible part of the planet was affected in a few seconds).

Case in point:
Dropping a few Roks on a world like Earth would be enough to kill, well, everyone. The Orks would never need to land.

Meaning: Ground-based combat in the space-age is dumb. Fun to read about perhaps, fun to consider, but still just that: dumb.

[Typhonis]

Why is it dumb? You need people on the ground to ensure you control a planet or the areas you want controlled. Yes attacking from orbit is good, so is blasting them back to the stone age using photon torpedoes.

However as was mentioned in the book Starship Troopers you do not punish a chiold for doing something minor by killing them. You need a variety of responses. Thus the need for ground troops.

1991 the Coalition airforce dominated Iraqi and Kuwati airspace, yet they still sent in the ground troops to finish the job.

[Roondar]

Why is it dumb? You need people on the ground to ensure you control a planet or the areas you want controlled. Yes attacking from orbit is good, so is blasting them back to the stone age using photon torpedoes.

However as was mentioned in the book Starship Troopers you do not punish a chiold for doing something minor by killing them. You need a variety of responses. Thus the need for ground troops.

1991 the Coalition airforce dominated Iraqi and Kuwati airspace, yet they still sent in the ground troops to finish the job.

The difference being that the coalition didn't desire to use nuclear weaponry to force the issue. An Ork starship clearly would have no such compulsions.

And yes, you would need some people on the ground. But not that many, nor anything heavilly armed. A police-like force will be plenty. Purely because any form of military threat can be quickly and easily dealt with from space.

And if a few, lone idiots decide to try terrorism you could always beam them directly into prison ;)

[Typhonis]

And if you don`t have space superiority?

Reminds me of an old cold war joke. Two russian generals were eating in a cafe in Paris, one turns to the other one and asks "Who won the air war ?"

The other replied "Does it matter?"

[Roondar]

And if you don`t have space superiority?

Reminds me of an old cold war joke. Two russian generals were eating in a cafe in Paris, one turns to the other one and asks "Who won the air war ?"

The other replied "Does it matter?"

With weapons as powerful as shown in SF, whoever has space superiority has already won.

[Typhonis]

You have to achieve space superiority first. That is not guaranteed.


Siege of AR 588. Where was the Defiant with its weapons? Also as was shown in Vietnam an enemy can get lose enough to where you are risking hitting your own troops with your weapons.

In the late 40s people thought Nuclear weapons made armies obsolete then Hullo thar Korea, Hullo thar Vietnam, 6 day war, Yom Kippur, Falklands Etc, Etc,Etc.

[Opecoiler]

Siege of AR 588. Where was the Defiant with its weapons? Also as was shown in Vietnam an enemy can get lose enough to where you are risking hitting your own troops with your weapons.

More appropriately and importantly-where were the Defiant's shuttles during the final Jem'hadar charge?

[Roondar]

You have to achieve space superiority first. That is not guaranteed.


Siege of AR 588. Where was the Defiant with its weapons? Also as was shown in Vietnam an enemy can get lose enough to where you are risking hitting your own troops with your weapons.

In the late 40s people thought Nuclear weapons made armies obsolete then Hullo thar Korea, Hullo thar Vietnam, 6 day war, Yom Kippur, Falklands Etc, Etc,Etc.

<shrug> All this is true to an extend. I'm afraid we're going off topic tho. Perhaps a new thread would be a better place for this.

That said:

If a party has space superiority and is inclined to use it's weapons, considering SF weaponry they have won. They won't need ground forces in the traditional sense, so the comparison with Vietnam is fundamentally flawed. A capital ship like say a Galaxy Class starship can singlehandedly defeat any conceivable ground force that is not so heavily armed they kill themselves whenever they fire their weapons. And even then the spaceship will probably still win quite easilly.

Arguing with pin-point precision phaser blasts (or, if you are so inclined a few photon torpedoes in the general area) is not going to work if you're a couple of guys on the ground with a few tanks or mechs. Your own security forces in danger? You can always beam them up before you bomb the region. Or beam the bad guys up in space for that matter.

All these things are within the capabilities of a Federation ship (all my examples have been shown on screen - from the photon torpedoes and phaser blasts to the beaming of both friendly and enemy personnel), and probably an Ork ship as well (only uncertainty is the Ork Teleporter, I don't know how that works and if it can pick up people from a distance as well)


And, as the nuclear powers of today show, having a couple of H-bombs is pretty much enough to stop all but the most insane of regimes from even considering an attack. The only reasons that North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, etc aren't nuked into the stone age is a) the diplomatic fall out would be enough to ruin whichever nation pushed the button, b) there is too great a risk to allies around the region and c) you run the risk of others deciding to throw some nukes about as well (which is not something you want when you live on the world in question).

Besides, there is a huge difference with bombing your own world into rubble and bombing a world you are trying to oppress or conquer into rubble.


Case in point: the Enterprise episode "In a mirror, Darkly" shows of exactly what I mean. 'Empress' Sato became that by merely the threat of using her starship against the Earth populace.

2nd case in point: the Deathstar is pretty much built solely for this purpose. "Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battlestation". The emperor was no fool, he knew how it'd work.

3rd case in point: the Ork-siding people in this thread have repeatedly stated that ground based defense against the Orks will be difficult if not impossible, merely because of the violent, death-spree bringing way in which the Orks land. Which is, incidentally, really quite similar in effect as my 'throw down some photon torpedoes' plan.

4th case in point: there is in fact a whole ST:TNG episode dedicated to Starfleet being desperate to have the time to resettle some people from a settlement because if they don't the bad guys will just wipe out the life on the planet. When the colonists object and say they'll defend themselves Mr. Data says something along the lines of "They won't ever need to land. They can obliterate you from orbit. You'd never even see them".

[Roondar]

More on topic (because I'm nice :P):

I've watched ST:TMP today and in it the following line is said which makes me wonder... "V'ger just disabled the entire planetary defense grid". They where talking about Earth (obviously) and since there where no other starships in the region (as per movie premise and dialog, as well as visuals) I wonder...

Just what is the planetary defense grid anyway?

[GStone]

Probably a planetary shield, a number of theater shields and some industrial replicators for large scale repairs/more defense creations.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Elaborate. What were the circumstances surrounding the response time?

Urgent need for particular crew members who were on vacation and incommunicado.

Do they have combat training, though? How often have we seen Starfleet personnel who are not dedicated pilots fly in dogfight manuevers?

Given that "dogfight maneuvers" have been limited to the Defiant and occasionally runabouts and shuttlecraft, not too often... nor have we seen circumstances where piloting skills proved inadequate.

I'd like you to compare two ratios. One, the kill ratios achieved by skilled pilots over unskilled ones. Two, the amount of actual fighing the average Ork flyboy has been involved with (Aka, his whole life, since Orks fight each other when they aren't out on a Waaagh!), compared to the average Starfleet pilot.

Now compare the average amount of training and simulated combat, and compare the kill ratios typical of Ork flyboyz fighting against normally trained Guard pilots in similar craft.

Orkz are not known for their elite level of skill or exceptionally good aim. They're known for being clumsy and making up for low quality with high numbers.

I know that. But think of all the panic it caused among the civilian populace.

Which is irrelevant to the question of how Starfleet pilots would be affected.

Did I say 40k humans? No, I said Trek humans. The two do have different origin stories, as is evident by the aliens around them.

Actually, they canonically have the same roots in modern day Earth.

It's very silly, yes. But that seems to be your argument. I'll drop it if you realize the double standard you're under, as Thanatos has been kind to point out.

No double standard is being used by me here.

What flying craft? Starships that aren't there thanks to Orkish orbital superiority? Shuttles that are certainly overstreched?

Listen, I think you're overestimating Starfleet shuttles to a ridiculously absurd degree. You're having shuttles:

1: Act as flying artillery for Starfleet ground forces.

2: Engage Ork fighta-bommerz and landas in the air to try and win air supremacy.

3: Serve as command and control hubs for ground troops.

4: Take out large vehicles such as Gargants and superheavy Battlefortresses via coordinated actions.

These roles are contradictory and extremely hard to do against anyone with as many trained pilots and AA assets as the Orkz-especially when evidence points to the majority of Starfleet pilots not being trained for dogfighting.

All four of them are quite practicible for Starfleet shuttles... and I again challenge you to produce any evidence for you claim that Starfleet pilots are commonly untrained for fighter combat. You have produced no evidence for this contention.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Probably a planetary shield, a number of theater shields and some industrial replicators for large scale repairs/more defense creations.

What about torpedo silos, ground to space phaser cannons, jammers and other fast interception platforms or ships?

The evidence of a planetary shield is unconvincing.