"Earth Troops on Venus" Topic

A fortress is useless without a garrison, hopefully well trained and numerous enough to man the defenses effectively. The International City has a number of fixed fortifications which will require garrisons from the nations that built them. For the British this will be men from the Royal Engineers, the Royal Garrison Artillery and at some point the Venusian Gunners. The coastal batteries of built by the United States will be manned by the Artillery Corps and then the Coast Artillery Corps after 1901. What about the other nations? What about more mobile forces for use in exploration and patrols? What about civilian militias or reserve units made up of the citizens of each nation that have emigrated to this new metropolis? Finally what about forces raised from local Venusian cultures (which are made up of humans and have technology that in some ways rivals and occasionally surpasses the best that Earth can export)?

I mean the Venusian Terror Bird mounted cavalry regiments are famous across the solar system. The William Britain's set of giant ground sloth pulled siege guns was a children's favorite and is now much sought after by collectors, but what other units would be likely to garrison this world, or to be raised upon it?

The Lufttruppen. These are troops with hydrogen balloons to lift them into the air. It works better on Venus because of the increased air pressure, you see. They have small galvanic fans to push them about over the treetops.

Or Seebattalion mounted on mules for Germany.

Cossacks?

Bersaglieri?

Japanese troops in armoured rickshaws pulled by Chinese or Korean Auxiliaries/Cannon Fodder?

you need some Belgians and French Foreign Legion. The Legion can have some martians and Venusian in their ranks. The British need some native troops (Askari) recruited on Mars or in the Empire on old earth.

Definitely Both Belgian and French Legions, No mules though. Equines do very badly during space travel and very few of them have survived to get to Venus-those mostly get eaten by something or other, If nothing else gets them the Terror Birds are not only jealous about being the most noble of riding beasts as well as really enjoying the taste of horse flesh.

The Lufttruppen will do much better on Mars, which not only has a lower gravity and a higher air pressure (well in HQC anyway!)

In HQC there will be a period when it will be Chinese troops being pulled by Koreans and Japanese. The Japanese take a hammering from the Russians (with some help from off world friends) in the 1890s and China tried to take advantage of the weakness of their island neighbors.

Terry

Did the Russians and Dutch have any special units for Colonial garrisons?

Legion Etranger, Spahis utilizing local domesticated riding animals, and Tirailleurs both Terrestrial and recruited from friendly/subject tribes amongst the locals.

The Legion Etranger would not likely include non-humans in the ranks given the mores of the time, but "sepoys" recruited from amongst the locals.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

In the HQC universe both Mars and Venus have populations of humans when explorers from Earth reach them in the 1870s. This will allow the Earth Powers to recruit humans locally, both for things like the Askari and in full units as Mercenary forces. Local riding beasts on Venus so far include Terror Birds and Giant Ground Sloths and we are certainly open to additional ideas!

Askari units from every region on Earth that is hot, humid and overflowing with jungles or swamps. I would expect a massive recruitment program and nations allowing allies to recruit in their colonies as well. I could see the Cong Free State selling askari units by the battalion. All you need to do is hoist the flag of your choice. Provide a uniform if you don't like the one they arrive in.

I would imagine attrition would be obscene with "Venusian Malaria" plus swamp rot and disease infested bug bites. Not to mention the occasional trooper getting swallowed whole by the local dinosaurs. Desertion, suicide and mutiny would also be real possibilities. I doubt the "civilized nations" would tolerate the steady drip of death from their own populations.

Great … another front to deal with !

Dragon Gunner
one thing we didn't want was Venus or Mars to be "the Earthman's Grave" As Africa was and Panama. There have been a lot of fatalities on Venus, certainly some caused by disease but nothing like the 75-95% rate seen due to malaria before quinine was discovered and produced in quantity.

Also remember that although some countries were adverse to high casualties in the tropics due to disease the British populace really wasn't since before Kipling they really had no emotional link to the British Army as an entity, although individuals may have had concerns about specific soldiers of their acquaintance.

Maybe the farmers on the far frontiers are organised into Commandos to stop the Venusian lizard-men doing all that swamp-cow raiding.

The Terror Bird is all very well but quite highly strung and high maintenance (and it eats swamp cows…) so they tend to use the smaller but hardier (and largely herbivorous) ostrichodon

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