To Colonel Knight,

Colonel given the possibility of a commando attack would you consider ordering a Platoon of Colonel Baluda's troops to support each GCL. Together with troops from the general defense company this would allow each GCL to keep a full squad on duty at all times.


OOC
I believe Colonel Buluda has already suggested this but it needs your say so for it to actually happens. This means of tightening security which brings Colonel Buludas troops and the 429th's into close working contact could prove useful in many ways in addition to the improved security.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 11:10 am: Edit

Alan Trevor:

Local police forces are going to be divided into two categories:

Those who are actually just cops and have zero combat effect (not armed, trained, or equipped to handle combat troops with all the modern combat conveniences, consider for example how much trouble the LA police had with those bank robbers with body armor).

Those who in addition to being cops are members of the local defense force, in which case their presence is already accounted for in Colonel Baluda's battalion.

Now, some of the former might form "militia squads", but under the current operation, if any militia was added to scenario, their presence would be BPV, and would add BPV to the Klingon force when it comes.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 12:23 pm: Edit

COl. Baludas forces were created out of the extra BPs I bought as commanders options. Those will occupie the areas from which I used the Commanders options to buy them.

As a role playing explaination I would imagin these troops are the best of the local police that have been upgraded in arms by our extra supplies, thus forming additional BPs.

Under the rules we might be able to form Malitia during the scenario without adding BPV. This is much slower but shouldn't be forgotten.

To all: I was going to review this thread yesterday but what started as an itchy throat turned into a full on head cold. Sucks! I'm still here though. I'll try to keep up.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 02:40 pm: Edit

SPP:

Understood, but that still leaves the intelligence gathering function. If the infiltrators' mission requires them to make contact with indigenous sympathizers (unfortunately, I don't know enough of the backstory to know whether this can be discounted out-of-hand), the local "cop on the beat" may have a much better chance of sniffing out something suspicious in his own neighborhood. He won't have the "big picture" or the resources that an actual intelligence service would have. But (if he's good at his job) he knows his own beat better than they possibly could. No matter how well trained/disciplined the infiltrators are, if they have to coordinate with locals, there is a risk of compromise. The local sympathizers may be much less disciplined or may actually include a "snitch". The infiltrators presumably minimize their contact with locals for just that reason. But it strikes me that careful use of police forces is surely no worse a (probable) waste of time then sending the relatively small military forces available out to search the boondocks, given the size of the area they would have to search. For one thing, this won't fatigue the police the way extensive searches might fatigue the military forces. In essence, the cops are doing what they always do, just with a different emphasis on what information has priority. That, plus they may be reporting suspicious occurances to someone they don't usually report to. There is a risk that this could swamp Col Knight's/Col Baluda's staff with too much info, most of it irrelevant. Good filters will need to be in-place at the S2 level.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Loren: The number of militia that can be raised by the ground forces is about 8 if I did the math correctly. The militia creation rules with their half less specialized crew total conversion limit tends to confuse me. A helpful portion but not enough to swing the battle.

Alan: I expect that a request has been sent to all police forces to watch for groups of strangers entering communities, especially of active military ages. The planet has limited commerce and few currently destroyed cities so strangers should be a rare occurrence and easily investigated. These are just normal prudent operations and occasionally successful (at least in the real world). Very unlikely to turn up a small team hiding out to watch if the Federation starts to build up a major base here.

I admit a bias here. I expect that the defender's normal actions to check out clusters of landing sites and informing the population to have a high chance of detecting a large 50 person landing but an insignificant chance of detecting a landed 5 man team. But then if 5 men can take over a sealed ground base, we are doomed. Getting through the base exterior, killing off the guard and capturing the bridge before any reinforcements can be transported in seems to require at least 3 BP in the attack force and has a less than 1/3 chance against a surprised base under SFB rules.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 03:30 pm: Edit

Richard Wells:

I had understood that requests of the type you mentioned don't get sent unless someone (Col Knight? Col Baluda?) explicitly makes such a request. I don't remember such a request being made, though perhaps I just missed it. I agree that if it's just 5 men hiding and avoiding all contact, there's very little chance of the police turning up useful information. But if the infiltrators try to contact civilian sympathizers, the chance of the police discovering something does increase. As I indicated earlier, I haven't followed the backstory closely enough to know whether coordination with indigenous sympathizers is plausible or not.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 04:09 pm: Edit

Militia availability:

Ground Military Garrison: Ten crew units of which six are already boarding parties leaving none available for conversion.

Ground Warning Stations: Six crew units of which one is a boarding party leaving two available for conversion. Two GWS gives four total militia squads.

Ground Based Defense Phaser-4: Five crew units of which one is a boarding party, as 50% round fractions up of the crew must remain crew (D15.8311), this means only one of the four remaining crew units can be militia. Three GBDP-4s gives a total of three militia squads.

Total for the battalion to this point is seven militia squads.

Small Fighter Ground Base: Six Crew units of which one is a boarding party leaving two crew units that could be militia. However, as one STANDARD Crew unit is required to operate the base (minimum crew one, needed to operate the APRs and fire the phaser-3), and three of the crew units are "deck crews", so if both of the militia squads are called up, one will be composed of two of the deck crews leaving only four deck crews to service fighters. However, each Small Fighter Ground Base could provide two militia squads. Two Small Fighter Ground Bases provides a total of Four militia squads.

Total for the battalion is 11 Militia squads.

Further, under (D16.522) the seven bases could form an additional seven militia squads (one per base, and might form more than one such if over several turns if the situation allows) if attacked by enemy ground forces that broke inside and tried to capture an otherwise undefended base. This representing the bridge crews grabbing phasers for the final battle, but these militia squads are not "mobile" in terms of being able to leave the base, and if the base is destroyed, they might never be formed, but if formed before the base is destroyed, they suddenly become mobile under (R1.14C1) and (P2.756), so it is best to blast the bases before the militia forms to defend the bridge.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 04:19 pm: Edit

Alan: That is one problem with an exercise like this. Our fictional counterparts would have had both written SOPs provided by Starfleet and many weeks to prepare a complete document. As players, we don't have time to draft things to that level of completeness. I thought some of those orders had been given early on in the process but I have been wrong frequently over the past month.

By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 04:28 pm: Edit

Why would we raise militia? I see no point - there is nothing going on at the moment that would require us to degrade base performance.

This really is much-ado-about-nothing. Carry out a search to the extent a strategic threat may be present, but be ready for an invasion in the next week. Not much more to it.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 04:41 pm: Edit

SPP: I am corrected. Thanks.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Col. Baluda: To me the discussion is to review what we can count on in the event of an invasion. As such it is part of getting ready.

8 or 11 Militia doesn't seem like much but unless we are totally overwhelmed by enemy ground forces they can make quite a bit of difference. Adding one militia to a group of regular Troops moves the bracket over one on the Marine Casualty Table. In most cases that one militia increases the odds of scoring a kill by 16.66%. Adding one to a group of nine guarantees a kill. Groups of ten units are the best way to kill enemy troops.

Militia should not be under estemated. when it comes to the final battle it they could mean the difference between victory or total failier for only the side with troops remaining gets the prize.

By Marc Baluda (Marc) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 05:18 pm: Edit

Col. Knight:

I agree. And an easily-executable action plan should be put in place which can effectively defend the bases. The discussion is a useful one, but it is a second step to executing our search. Therefore, I believe the conversation is getting sidetracked. We are looking for more assets insttead of using the ones we ahve to begin a search. I assume that a search has not been abandoned....

However, every minute we spend discussing this instead of executing orders to begin searches is costing us in terms of the probability of intercepting a landing force, however remote that probability may be.

The intelligence gathered by the G1G will be used for something, probably influencing the assets that will be dedicated to the invasion of our planet. That means it will not happen in the next hour or two, but probably in less than a week. That means we have time to analyze and deploy our assets efficiently without over-extending them over the next day. An analysis of our ability to raise militia is useful to the extent it shows the maximum fighting strength to aid in redeployment.

What it doesn't do is get our forces in the field looking for Klingons. We may have a beautiful notebook of execution plans in our hands when they invade, but that can be prepared while people are in the field.

I assume the clock is ticking.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 06:37 pm: Edit

I would not get overly flustered about the intell the G1G gathered. All it really knows is that you have two GWS, and where they are (because the special sensors were active scanning for intelligence), and other than that, it found out where the other bases were, but did not identify them by type (you would have had to have fired a phaser or something). Basically, the G1G got Level K, but did not get Level L, so unless a base revealed what it was, the G1G did not learn what it was. But it did learn that there are eight bases (1xGMG, 2xGWS, 2xFGB-S, 3xGBDP-4), and identified two of them (the two GWS). That is enough to tell the Klingons that the planet has one PDU, but not necessarily what type of equipment or how reinforced the ground component is. (Of course, they may have gotten this data from other sources, and all the G1G was accomplishing was confirming that there is only one PDU Battalion's worth of ground bases.)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 07:58 pm: Edit

Game wise the search order has been given and basically has progressed.

The clock isn't ticking AFIK. Everything could be caught up to at any point before we begin the invasion scenario. In other words, game time is not progressing day for a day.

And, unfortunately, I'm still sick. I wish I had my game Chief Medical Officer here in RL!

BTW, who is my CMO?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 11:25 pm: Edit

I went back through to find the Year of this scenario (Y182). Boy, interesting reading. I find myself less convinced that a ODP is as valuable as I thought. Alone, that is. Might make an interesting unit in ADDITION to a BATTS in orbit where a SB would be too much and too expensive but a BATTS is not a full match to the threat.

Don't want to start up the whole thing again as the main point was I couldn't remember the year of the scenario. So, here it is above as a reminder to all.

SPP: E-mail incomming.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Status?

We are still within 24 hours "gametime" of the G1G 'Flyby'.

Col knight has ordered resupply of the Def Sat's expended drones.

Col Knight has authorized search of planet by manuver units of the 429th and HDB(lt Col Baluda&Co.)(Perhaps the 'ground unit commanders' should report for duty in the event that Col Knight and SPP have need of those officers services?)

Several people have suggested coordinating transporter assisted search by BP's and supplemented search using Admin shuttles and fighters.

a number of suggestions have been made but no decision or the suggestion discredited (example would be to request assistance of Star Fleet assets such as a scout ship to facilitate the search, disadvantage to using a scout ship is it would require an inordinate time to search the planet...)

Does anyone else have suggestions for the 429th and or HDB (home defense btn) activities within 24hours of the G1G flyby?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 11:04 pm: Edit

General question-

If forming militia squads out of the various PDU's ground bases is adopted and the militia BP's are to be formed as part of the overal defense plan, should there be any additional defense positions prepared?

Per SPP post on friday 10/17 there would appear to be 11 militia squads available to Col knight in a combat situation.

Ingeneral, (depending on the combat situation at the time) there would be 3 "general" uses for the militia boarding parties, they are:

1. reinforce the security detachment at the base the Militia unit is formed.
2. reinforce the manuver units (presumably after they are in combat with OPFOR ground troops).
3. reinforce some specific place in response to the tactical situation, one possible example would be if the OPFOR landed and tried to capture the govenors quarters and family in a propaganda move to demonstrate the Federations inability to "defend the planet".

Does anyone else have ideas or alternative uses for the militia units available to Col Knight?

By Andrew C. Cowling (Andrew) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 04:07 am: Edit

Since it would take excessive resources to comprehensively search the possible landing points, would spot checks - beam a team out to a randomly selected "possible location", search for an hour or three, and beam (or shuttle) home - be of any use?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Well, lets do a little math...

suppose we specify 12 hour "shifts" and each boarding party does a 3 hour "scan" at each possible location and that we devide the 24 hour "day" (IIRC the local day is actually 27 hours, but just for illustration I'll use 24 hour "standard earth (terran) day".)

there are 5,000 possible locations, so 1 BP could search up to 4 possible locations each shift so it would take 1,250 'BP days'.

if 1 bp on each shift using 24 hours/7 days per week (for a total of 2 bp's being used) would mean all 5,000 possible locations checked in 625 days (assuming no down time, no holidays or interuptions.)

10 BP's working in 2 shifts could check each site for 3 hours scanning in 62.5 days.

If 30 Boarding Parties were to be assigned to the duty, it would take an estimated 41.6667 "days" to scan each of the 5,000 locations for 3 hours.

The analysis changes significantly if in stead of 3 hours, the "scanning" is changed to 15 minutes instead of 3 hours...

30 Boarding parties scanning each site for 15 minutes during 12 hour shifts means 720 sites scanned per day for 5,000 locations means all could be checked within 6.9444 "days".

Personally, I like some of the suggestions posted by others ignoring the farthest possible locations and concentrating on those locations closest to our bases...but 3 days of operations (one of the other suggestions posted earlier) would mean that 3*720 = 2,160 locations checked out.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 04:23 pm: Edit

A note to let you all know that I am working on Captain's Log #27 and helping Steve with The Klingons module for GURPS (Plus trying to squeeze in a little time to putter on the ISC echelon response). I am not ignoring this topic, after all I started this little PDU exercise and role playing game. However, time is fleeting I fear.

I would, however, like to ask one more time if anyone among the many characters wants to be some race other than "human". Deian, Vulcan, Andorian, Mynieni? You can all be simply humans if you want, but there are other races in the Federation and the option is open.

I did get Colonel Knight's E Mail about the overall situation, and like many of the questions asked, it will take me a little time to formulate a relatively simple answer. And I am not ignoring Major Ford's, or Major Wile's (or anyone else's) questions, but I may be backtracking through message traffic to find and answer them.

Would Alan Trevor like to be CMO (Chief Medical Officer . . . "I'm a Doctor, darn it. Not a Botaninst!" Or maybe Andrew Cowling could be the CMO. Or maybe one of them could be the CSM (Command Sergeant Major) of the Colonel Baluda's battalion?

I am planning on tossing in a couple more scenes in the near future in any case to help keep the pot stirred.

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 05:28 pm: Edit

I have no racial preference, I do think that most of the names make human likely, and in TOS IIRC federation ships were typically 90%+ one species, so it is not unlikely that most of the officers are one race.

If you think some nonhuman officers would add to the 'flavor' feel free to move me from Battery Alpha to staff (S2 or S4 for preference, I would make a loosy Adjunct and am not at present contributing enough to be comfortable at opperations), and put an alien name in my place.

Do we have a battalion staff yet? The S2 job seems to be getting filled by requests to the 'computer'.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 05:52 pm: Edit

Douglas Lampert:

Uh, the names are human because they are the names of actual participants on this topic. If a fiction story does come out of it, names will changed. Someone who participated might feel a warm fuzzy about the job his Tellarite officer did, but the character would no longer have his name. So names are irrelevant.

I am not trying to force anyone to be other than human, I am just saying the choices are open if anyone wanted to be other than human, and mayhap it would add a little more color.

Justin Howell was slotted as S2.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 12:23 am: Edit

Barring any reasons to the contrary, could my analog be rendered as a Tellarite? I made ran a Tellarite character in about half of the Star Trek derived games I participated in and I may as well keep that consistency.

By Paul Stovell (Pauls) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 03:48 am: Edit

As a foreigner to this board I feel a transformation to non-human coming on, a werewolf ! No, as I'm from an older civilisation that helped discover yours a Vulcan seems logical

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 12:00 pm: Edit

So noted.