Archive through March 25, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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Archive through March 25, 2003
From: Lt Frazier
To: Cpt Stovell
Subj: Readyness Status
Sorry for the sir, just ran down a major fault in the equipment, made worst when a part was mis-shipped due to an incorrect labeling. Fortunately, I can report that all boards are showing green.
General catch all day tomarrow and this topic is on the list of things to do. See ya'll.
Colonel Knight????
Sorry, things are settling down. Almost ready to get back to this. Likely this weekend. I lost some of my print outs (due to a happy go lucky 3 yr old with a love for drawing, I think.) so I have to go back over things to find the current status of deployment.
Been doing some late night artwork but I'll turn my attentions to this topic straight away.
I have said this many times to many people:
Real Life Takes Precedence Over A Game.
Deal with your job first. If the Artwork needs to be done, it needs to be done well. Use the time to do it well. Doing your job is more important than this topic.
Thanks, I'll have time today with no trouble. This is a perfect day, in fact. The art was not a job thing (the job related art is done) but rather a thing I could do and have my wife not destroy my computer!
BTW, sold that last remaining major contract. That's three for three and I'm not going to be even bidding until September! Whoo hooo!
SPP: Could you give me a list of my staff again, please?
I've got most every thing done but would like to present everything in one shot.
I still have to determine exactly what the "Free" pods are and assign possitions to the staff.
SPP: I found my staff list. Unfortunatly I'm not real privy to how platoons and such a divided. I need to calculate my total troops while maybe you could offer some help as to how many units should be in each platoon.
One thing I know I want to do is to put Mike Raper in the Tank at Dallas. (Or at least in Command at that GCL).
Also, could you define to me (the player) what the differance between Maneuver Company and the General Defense Company is. Or rather, why do I have both?
Loren Knight:
Staff list for the battalion was already provided. I can post it again if you wish.
The things you purchase with your Commander's Options that are in excess to the assignments are assumed, at this point, to be part of Marc Baluda's local defense battalion, i.e., you and your guys are provided by Starfleet Command, Marc Baluda's troops are locally raised defenders. Mike Raper is one of your guys with his duty assignment as the Platoon Leader of the Third Platoon of the Maneuver Company, in essence he commands three of the squads (boarding parties) of the Ground Military Garrison.
Planetary Defense Battalions (per the article in Captain's Log #22) have two "infantry companies". One (the maneuver company) is intact and ready to perform under its commanding officer. It consists of five platoons, three line infantry platoons, a GAS platoon, and a GCV platoon. And of course one Heavy Weapons Squad under the Company Commander's direct control, in short, with the exception of the GCV and GAS platoons it is a standard Federation Company (see Module M).
The second Company is the General Defense Company. The Company Commander of this Company commands the Ground Military Garrison and is, in essence, the Hotel Manager for the Maneuver Company. The personnel assigned to the General Defense Company are generally billeted at the different Ground Bases to provide local security, i.e., the two Boarding Parties at each of the seven other ground bases actually belong to the General Defense Company. The Commander of the General Defense Company will usually (but not always) be senior to the Commander of the Maneuver company (more experience and he controls the GMG in combat). His company is actually quite large (as many as 20 boarding parties, i.e., up to twice the number found in the Maneuver Company), and he has to deal with them being deployed away from his direct control and op con to the officers in charge of the various ground bases. This requires him to make sure that their paper work is up to date, and that they are getting appropriate training and maintaining appropriate military standards and what all. (I have been an "assistant hotel manager" in the Army myself, by the way, so I have an idea what it all entails). In some circumstances elements of the General Defense Company might be gathered in one spot under the General Defense Company Commander's direct control for combat. Circumstance can dictate various situations.
Finally, personnel in the two companies "move back and forth". Over a given period all the members of the Maneuver Company will eventually move into the General Defense Company positions, and over an even larger time (due to the larger size of the General Defense Company) all the members of that company will eventually rotate into the Maneuver Company. In this way the troops keep familiar with the concepts of the maneuver battle, but also get breaks from that training and the constant patrols and drills to provide "local defense guard duty" at the various ground bases, thus keeping any of the troops from going stale.
So, of the 12 boarding parties (two of which are Heavy Weapons Squads) at the GMG, ten (including one of the Heavy Weapons Squads) belong to the Maneuver Company, and the other two (including the second Heavy Weapons Squad) are part of the General Defense Company. In this particular case the General Defense Company comprises 16 boarding parties (of which one is the Heavy Weapons Squad), nominally broken down into 5 platoons of three boarding parties each and a Heavy Weapons Squad. The breakdown is, however, not exact as you only provide two boarding parties to each base, so platoon integrity is kind of weak. Any GCL which has three Ground Bases might have two intact platoons assigned (six boarding parties), but a GCL with only one or two Ground Bases will have part of a platoon, and possibly one platoon and part of another.
I have the staff list and will review this and CL22.
Interesting info. I had guessed the General Defense Company would re-form into a number "provisional" 2 BP platoons (with either one of the Lt. or a nominal platoon Sgt. in command). Hmm, maybe that's the way some other race does it...
David Kass:
Well, you have to understand that some of the above is me playing with numbers and trying to rationalize. In reality few units are "up to strength" and frequently do not have all the bodies that their Tables of Organization and Equipment allow them. It happens that way back when when SVC did the Ground Military Garrison and all the other Ground bases there was no "formal" Table of Organization and Equipment for any of the Ground Combat elements. This was later provided in part when Module P4 was published, and much of that was repeated in Module M.
So, if we were to assume that the Battalion was a Romulan One, you would find the Cohort organized something like this:
At the GMG: Century Headquarters with two Platoons (eight boarding parties) and an attached Heavy Weapons Battery (two Heavy Weapons squads). The other three platoons (12 boarding parties) are broken up to provide local security at six of the Ground Bases, leaving two unguarded, so we can assume that an additional platoon is attached to a Century in such a battalion, an extra two platoons if four small fighter ground bases were used. In essence, for the Romulans there would only be one "company headquarters" and it would control all the troops.
Note that Romulan Centuries (companies) are HUGE compared to Federation Companies. A Federation Company has only ten boarding parties, one of which is a Heavy Weapons Squad, while a Romulan Century has twenty boarding parties.
SPP-
Since there is not a lot of activity happening on this thread, could you elaborate a bit more on annother related aspect?
Tactical suprise seems to be a major factor in defense of static positions. There are examples of positions being overwhelmed while other positions in a different postion in the same theater, defensive line or area provide a good account of themselves. I feel confident that you could site more examples of this than I.
One example that I have read of was during the Tet Offensive in VN in 1968. The book is "Military Intelligence Blunders", John Hughes-Wilson, Published by Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 19 W 21st Str, New York, N.Y. 1999. Pages211-213.
Without copying the entire passage, the gist was that the Commander of the "173rd Airborne Brigade" General Leo H. Schweiter, a former intelligence officer of an american Airborne Division which had dropped on D-Day, and who had been a Special Forces commander, 'had a knowledge of what intelligence could - and could not do' . Went on to say he had an 'insatiable appetite for all the stuff we could provide (quoting the brigade intelligence officer Captain John Moon US Military Intelligence Corps). "...He ran his intel staff hard, and was always pushing us to know everything. He understood our business sometimes better than we did! Even though we were in a supposedly safe area he kept his guard up all of the time. No sonofabitch was going to surprise his troops!"
Much of the rest of the section cited is devoted to the S2 operations and steps taken to acquire the intelligence the commander required, including intercepts, interogations of captured enemy personell, and other "low level indicators" of enemy activity. The final paragraph is a short and sustinct statment of the 173rd participation in the Tet Offensive doing its responsibility to defeat enemy intentions.
The reason I bring this up is two fold, that there maybe a "role playing" opportunity that we have not addressed for the discussion of the 429PDB preparations. And Second, what kind of "low level indicators" would a unit such as the 429th expect to see in anticipation of a forth coming enemy attack?
Is the only notice we're likely to see is the sensor/scanner reports of the OPFOR crossing the 101 hex range threshold? (in otherwords there is no "low level indicators" that are discernable at the F&E level, the SFB level and at the GPD level?)
Well, there would be the S1 to S5 Strategic level contacts (that I hope to write up) from (D17).
Jeff Wile:
I do not think I can even begin to answer that. It is a very complex question. In theory you are constantly looking at things going on. The Known Klingon Commanders, Known Klingon ship dispositions (and comparing that Federation ship dispositions), Reports by agents, intercepted message traffic, Orion activities . . . the list actually goes on. You also run into problems that you are looking at any reports of Monsters (a Space Dragon, for example, could show up and try to ravage the planet, thus intelligence would be tracking any reports of Space Dragon movements, although the chance of such an attack is pretty low) and Andromedans might be (at this time) included under the rubric of monsters.
David Kass: That would account for "sensor" and "Scanner" based systems for Intel gathering. IIRC there is not an "intercept" component where decyphering communications could provide additional indications of enemy actions. (and I admit that that is something never contemplated in SFB or F&E...though one would think it would be a factor for GPD?)
Are you planning an article in Captains Log to expand rule D17.0?
SPP: Thank you for the answer.
Guess what I am looking for is an understanding of the kind of "low level indicators" that could help predict what the enemy plans are...
One would think (and again I have no relevant military experience driving my uninformed opinion) that prior to making an attack on an enemy, some effort would be made to verify that what the intelligence service says is present actually is...Didn't the Japanese try to get a seaplane to do a reconnaisance of Pearl Harbor just before the battle of Midway? (IIRC the US got wind of the operation through "radio intercepts" and positioned a seaplane tender and a squadron of seaplanes of their own at the "french frigate shoals" islands which is where the japanese planned to refuel their seaplane from a submarine...and were surprised to see the US Navy in occupation.)
IIRC also, to preserve opporational secrecy the commander of the japanese carrier forces was not told that the reconnaisance mission had been canceled...which may or may not have contributed to the decisions the Japanese Admiral made in the early part of the battle.
To get back to this particular question, if the OPFOR preparations for the action against the 429th PDB did include a reconnaisance, would the 420th even know about it?
The S1 to S5 strategic contacts that David Kass mentioned would allow the OPFOR some information about the 429th PDB, but if there was an OPFOR platform in position to gather S1 to S5 information, why would the 429th not be able to gather similar information about the that gathering platform?
Or is there so many contacts that could do a "flyby" that any of them (merchants, shuttles, seekers, skiffs etc) that the information about "the one" platform is lost in the sea of data?
Jeff Wile:
Most of the indicators are, unfortunately, fairly constant. The problem you see is that the enemy is constantly gathering the intelligence you speak of on all operations the Federation has going on. The 429th is hardly the ONLY Defense Battalion in sector, and the planet hardly the only one recently liberated. So tracking the arrivals and departures from all these planets is on going. Given Planetary Scale populations, how many agents are their on your planet right now? No way for you to know, and little reason to doubt that Klingon intelligence penetrated the planet before the war, and left those agents in place during the war (to help seek out resistance movements), and then left the ones that had not been revealed when they pulled out. So the Klingons are getting a constant stream of intelligence. But that alone is not an indicator because it is ongoing from all the captured and recaptured planets with populations in your sector (or any other sector where this has happened). That fact that you caught a spy who said the Klingons were going to attack your planet is not directly an indicator, as it could be deliberate mis-information (the Klingons have told several spies on different planets that their planet is targetted, this way the Starfleet disperses its resources if it believes the stories, and one of the planets may actually be the one targetted . . . or maybe it is the planet, or one of the planets, we told the spies that it was not a target).
The fact that the Klingons are shaking loose a reserve of ships that might be used for some raids is not an indicator that your planet specifically will be hit. It is simply the Klingons doing what professional militaries do. (If you ever nailed down SVC for a discussion of Captain Petrick's thought processes, he would tell you that very high on the list is "create a reserve, and have a plan to create a new reserve when that one is committed.")
The fact that the Local Klingon Admiral controlling your sector (on the other side of the line) is known for launching small scale attacks in order to try to keep Starfleet off balance does not mean that your planet specifically will be hit, so again it is not an indicator.
Intercepted messages that say Target XYZ has ABC might be an indicator, if you can match XYZ and ABC (an example being the famous "water purification problem" on Midway Island). But such a message, as in the example, only shows interest, not intent, unless the message indicates intent. The Example message did not, but other messages that mentioned Target XYZ indicated that the Japanese were going to attack XYZ, we just did not know what XYZ was.
Friendly agents in Klingon space might learn the Klingons are going to attack your planet, but they would have to be highly placed, and given the low priority your planet has (it got a battalion, but only a battalion) would the Federation warn you as that would risk revealing that they had a source in Klingon fleet and help the Klingons find him.
If a task force (part of that reserve) is created around a Klingon Commander known for conducting raids and assaults on planets, or for having worked closely under such a commander, it is an indication that the Klingons might be planning such a raid, but which planet? The Klingons would be doing all they could to threaten as many different planets as possible.
The list goes on.
Quote:Are you planning an article in Captains Log to expand rule D17.0?
No, sorry for the confusion. I meant I was considering a "memo" in persona in this topic to mention those levels.
Note that they do give info at > 100 hexes, but I don't know of any definition of how far (I had planned on keeping distances vague).
Cool! (for both DK and SPP
OK...Since Col Knight is still Cognating(polite word for reviewing his planning!)...what about a different question.
Earlier in the thread it was revealed that the convoy carrying the other small fighter bases for the 2nd fighter squadron (that was to be deployed with the 429th PDB) were lost enroute.
Does that mean that the OPFOR will be expecting 24 F16's? (the number that would normally be deployed with a def battalion?)
And should we assume that the "Higher command authority" had originally determined that the defense requirements for Cassandra IV are more than we are currently configured meet?
(Please don't arbitarily assume that I am (as have been accused of in the past on this thread) trying to expand or increase the defense forces assigned to Cassandra IV.)
The reason I ask, is it appears to me that it would be very reasonable for the OPFOR to expect that the 429th would be equiped with 24 x F16's instead of the 12 we actually have...and that the enemy "Higher Command Authority" would (unless they receive creditable intelligence to the contrary from a reliable source) conclude that to attack Cassandra IV they would require an attack force able to deal with 24 X F16's...
(also note that for purposes of the exercise I have every confidence in an appropriate allocation of OPFOR units order of battle.)
Just would seem to me that it would be an interesting alternative battle force option that would appropriately be added to the Scenario (when it comes time to write it out). for instance, what if instead of the two small fighter base's being lost enroute, could it have been 2 phaser 4 units? or both early warning bases? or the ground garrison?
Sorry, still tying up loose ends. I'm also expanding my shop for the big jobs. I've done most everything but still have to...well, tie up loose ends.
Jeff Wile:
Slight disconnect. The entire battalion was moved as part of a single Convoy. The Convoy was attacked, and two small freighters were lost. It happened that one of those freighters was carrying two of the four Small Fighter Ground Bases, and the other had the fighters, drones, pods, chaff packs, etc. of one of the battalion's fighter squadrons. Fortunately the personnel of the squadron were on the troop ship with the rest of the battalion, so none of them were lost. Rather than have a squadron of trained personnel standing around, the Federation pulled them back (they just stayed on the Troop freighter) until replacements could be be provided (for the lost bases and fighters and fighter supplies).
Storyline-wise, it may be possible that the fighters and bases that were lost belonged to the First Squadron, but Colonel Knight for his own reasons chose to have the First Squadron take over the Second Squadron's fighters and bases (maybe First Squadron is a little better trained).
And of course one of the things you all are missing is that Major Harding was supposed to be the WING Commander of the two Fighter Squadrons, but remained as Squadron Commander for the one Squadron, which of course dropped Captan Robert Cole from being Squadron Commander to being Squadron Exec (yes, I snuck that in on you guys GRIN).
In any case, the OpFor is going to have a good idea of what arrived on planet simply due to spies. They are going to have heard about what happened to the Convoy from your own guys talking in the bars.
The upshot is that Higher Authority sent a battalion, and in the year we are operating, a battalion has two fighter squadrons.
As to the OpFor, I have been toying with various OOBs awaiting only the final total of the Defense. The OOBs I have toyed with have gravitated between the Humorous (He is attacking us with that????), to the "Oh My God We Are Going To Die", but will ultimately be something that I consider reasonable for the general state of the Klingon Empire for the time period.
I wondered if that were going to have an effect...just seemed so...ironic that we could end up tasked for a job that was a little bit out of our "weight class".
Is this the appropriate time for me to be told "soldier! shut up and soldier!"(GRIN)
Loren: As has been said before, Real life is the priority! (just taking an opportunity to expand my knowledge!)
SPP:
Since we are still awaiting the final "tally" on drones and other equipment from Col Knight, what is the benefit (if any) of acquiring probe drones in this situation?
Could they be used to "augment" the information discernable on the D17 Tac intel S1 to S5 levels?
Would a base such as the 429th PDB have a need to deploy drones on missions beyond 100 tactical hexes from base?
would Major Wells be able to deploy a probe Drone during a "Fighter sweep" mission? If a fighter sweep mission were tasked, how far would would be reasonable under the tactical situation that the 429th is in? (100 hexes? 500 hexes? more?)
Jeff: If I recall the load outs, the bases do have sensor pods for the fighters so probe drones can be used. The fighters would have to be more than 24 hexes from the planet before launching the probe drone to get any benefit from them. (96 hex movement + 30 hex observation radius versus 150 hex radius of the GWS.)
I would want probe drone as a precautionary measure but don't want to pay BPV for them. Probe drones will not help in the expected battle situation and sensor pods replace useful pods on the fighters. However, if required to sweep a heat zone, I want to task a probe drone to do that.
Richard:
Thank you. I looked through the archives but there have now been so many posts (not counting the original Orbital Defense Platform posts!) but didnt find the one referring to the "final" Drone load outs.
Actually I didnt have any specific tactic in mind when I asked the question...it was meant to acquire knowledge for knowledge sake.
If this PDB were operational we would no doubt be making operational plans, training and schedule fighter sweeps for various missions.
Thank you also for electing to remain with the 429th as Squadron CO instead of accompanying the 2nd squadron personnel back to "the barn" to re-equip. Depending on just how dangerous the OPFOR turns out to be, we may ALL be very grateful that you decided to "stand by us".
I suspect that sweeps would easily cover the solar system say 50+ AU...