"Planetary Assaults" Topic

Well my Space Fleets & Star Legions will capture planets … others can just destroy them … Hey Whatever works for you !

The way I see this is; 1. The Sci-Fi part in a fuction of imagination, it always has been. Without the viusal effects of video games we have always had to imagine that the weapon looked like a red (or blue, or green) beam. 2. The method of taking a planet would be dictated by the same set of parameters as any other battle throughout history. We are taking tactics here. Tactics are dictated by six parameters; a. Your objective for taking the planet. b. What you are willing to do to accomplish this objective. c. What your opponent is willing to do to stop you from acconmplishing your objective. d. The terrain to be fought in. e. The technology available, and f. The weather to one extent or another.
3. This brings us to the planet in question. Is your objective to capture natural resources? If so, the areas of the planet where these are located must remain habitable enough to harvest those resources. This battle will have to be fought on a planetary scale (if you assume one planet, one government. If it is not one planet, one government, will the other government(s) let you do to their neighbor without interfering. Most would, if you use current day Earth as an example. Then you can scale down to a continental assault. Still a daunting task by any measure. Millions of tropps, billions of tons of supplies and equipment, and lots of time, blood, sweat and tears. Most wars are fought for this reason. They may be couched in politics, religion or hate, or any combination, but it almost always boils down to the fact that someone's property has something on it or in it the someone else wants (to own, control and/or sell).
4. If you objective is to deny the resources of this planet to your enemy, just blast it with a couple of cobalt bombs, save yourself (and your troops)a great deal of trouble and be done with it.
5.If you want to use the planet as a military and/or logistical staging area, then you are back to having to leave portions of it habitable enough to use it as such.
I am sure that I have missed something and someone on this forum will be most happy to point out what I have missed in short order. But this is the majority of the pertinent facts as I see them. So, there you have my $0.75 USD worth.

Respectfully,
Norman of Torn

Sounds good to me …

Many of the posts seem to feel that a planetary invasion is out of the question based on the population levels of the worlds v. the ability to transport troops/armor.

Depends on your universe….and your goals.

In Jerry Pournelle's Codominium an infantry batallion can take a world with 1-3 million people that are spread all over a planet. In the core systems of Traveller's Imperium, well…you're just going to have to nuke it to the stone ages to deal with the 10-20 billion inhabitants.

The feasibility of a planetary invasion really depends on how the target planet is set up economically, socially, and culturally.
We can look at historical examples where huge land masses and population groups were conquered and administered by much smaller invading forces (The British in India, or Europeans in Africa and South America are examples, as is Western Europe in WW2).
Depending on the infrastructure and economy of the target planet, you might be able to gain a stranglehold on the population by controlling a single key installation or a small number of key locations. One example would be control of the planet's only spaceport – this would give a great deal of economic control on planets where imports and/or exports were critical to survival/success.
Other examples might include resource production centers (mines and factories), vital power production centers, and communications facilities.
After the initial invasion, there might be an ongoing resistance or insurgency, and the invader has a variety of options on how to forestall or react to that (offer them citizenship in the invader's society – the Roman method, take and execute hostages – the NAZI method, allow free elections among the "liberated" people, and abide by the results even if they encourage resistance – the Americans in Iraq method, or "elect" a hand picked puppet government supported by the invader's military – the Americans in Germany and Japan method).

Gotta admit, I agree with *both* the previous posts – It depends on the abilities of the forces involved, and the political procedurals of the forces involved.

Having said that, the idea of 'capturing a planet' is in itself pretty loose – It depends what you want to do with the local population.

Just to mention that there are two new games out that will simulate planetary assault.

Spartan games Firestorm Armada Planetfall and Dropzone Commander.

You don't have to have 3-1 odds for the whole planet at once. You just need local control of one small area. After that the enemy has to attack you, which means them trying to bring forces into contact. If you control the high ground (space) then moving large bodies of troops is going to be really difficult. You can then pick and choose where you attack next, either through ground advance or another orbital attack. If they move to attack you they have to be weak somewhere else, and with orbital movement you can be there in hours. Orbital control also means supplies come down to you directly, so little interference from the ground. Once you are on the ground you are a big problem. You just need a defensible beachhead.

And has been pointed out here and many books, you are not always landing on a planet with a billion people. A few hundred thousand would be big. Considering that most planets like that would not even have a standing army, or not much of one, makes taking it all the easier.

"If you control the high ground (space) then moving large bodies of troops is going to be really difficult. "-Flicking wargamer

Provided ther are no ground based systems that can blow your spacecraft out of orbit.

Or the dropships and assault landers moving down to the planet, from orbit, or taking off again.

Still, if they are out of range of the ground defenses, or have neutralized those in a preliminary bombardment, I can see where it would be easier to move units to new places, assuming you have the tech, logistics, and assault craft for that. Reminds me a bit of the helo assaults in Vietnam, where they can put down anywhere there is a decent landing zone, and can then strike out at will.

Of course, if the defenders can bring weapons to bear on the LZs, or the ship in orbit, then the invaders will be in a world of hurt. Most likely, they'd get cut off, and eliminated by the larger ground forces, if those are available, eventually.

Strike Legion is a 6mm sci-fi game. The author has a Space game called Task Force Zeta, which I have not played, and a game called Planetary Ops, which I have also not played but supposedly is the bridge between the two.

Find them here at link

I must say, SL is a pretty decent 6mm game. The others I will own, given time.

There are direct linking rules for combined space/ground scenarios between the Strike Legion tactical system and Task Force Zeta, with rules and a linked scenario in TFZv2. As the time scales don't match, there are looser rules for using Planetary Ops combined with TFZ, with the majority of the space action taking place prior to the ground action.

Sooner or later, we'll have an operational/fleet-level set of space combat rules finished that will directly interface with planetary Ops; thinking around the end of 1st quarter '13 (other projects need to be finished before this sees daylight).