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DS9 Tactical Synthesis

Plutodawn

Lieutenant
Newbie
Tactical Synthesis is a concept similar to chess, how each piece relates in capabilities and weaknesses to each other. How they can and do interact, and how people are aware of this.

So.... Seeing DS9, large ships are absolutely worthless, but everyone is addicted to them. I'm possibly wrong on this number, but 900 billion died in the dominion war- 10 billion angry shuttle craft with warp 5 capability, operated by Marquee like militias, could of squeezed the living day lights out of the dominion, no way the cardassions and dominion and green could of spread their fleets enough to stop thousands of shuttle crafts hitting every system at once, straffing everything.

That's sounding extreme, no way they would ever do that? Talk to me after the first 100 Billion die. Think they said 900 billion. Load me up in a shuttle craft, replicator, something that shoots with a guy from the Ozarks with personality issues, watch the two of us blow up random stuff in enemy space.

That's the untapped potential of the federation. They had Maquee, but the Maquee generally didn't target the federation, but Cardassia. Cardassia was imperial, hard to say how secure of a hold they had on each planet once troops ate being sent to the Federation Front Lines. Hard to say how much of the population would be willing to fight and die for Cardassia. I'm doubting the Maquee worlds were jumping at the chance to fight.

A insane number of Small Ships would of been a default cost effective counter to large fleets. Dominion would have to grow clones, federation is limited only by industrial replicators and fuel to outfit these deep raiders. Absolutely bizarre no guerilla/commando/partisan fleets were out and about annihilating the dominion after the costs in life got absurd.

Secondly.... Defence annihilated Offence. Take the replicator mines across the wormhole. Or DS9's missle batteries, held off a whole fleet.

I would rather avoid repeating the standard Roddenberry fixation on recreating the naval Battle of Lepanto time after time after time.... and just surprise everyone by having the ratio of missiles to ships heavily slopsided, like DS9 was.

This is stupid simple to do. You take a small ship, equivalent of a tugboat- power but small area, and add a absurdly large frame to it, filled with nothing but missles.

Has deflectors, some shields maybe. Escorted by a handful of ships, not a armada....

When you know where the enemy armada is, you fly to it, and unleash EVERY MISSILE OFF AT ONCE, and then leave. Ditch the frame if you gotta. Just zoom zoom out. Then, when their Armada is dead, your silly armada can fly around at another location, doing deep strikes. All the better if you got a billion angry shuttle crafts doing harassing raids literally everywhere.

I'm also a bit stumped in regards to how the dominion never took down the wormhole minefield. Wouldn't blowing up every mine simultaneously do the trick? They lacked the technical capacity to build a replicator minefield too, a ranks deep, and have it float towards the mines?

If you just fling a ripped bag of gravel at the wormhole, shouldn't it open? You can build a replicator/transporter at either end, ferry small ships over and past that minefield, as long as it opens.

So much of DS9 just seems.... so bizarre.

How did Sisko command the federation fleet when he wasn't even a admiral? Was Picard too busy? All those admirals, and they let a guy who has no upper echelon command experience, running a space station, thinking he is a religious prophet, run the show for them? They are a completely useless bunch of high ranking fools. Only time you see them is when they are committing treason, or introducing a bad scheme.

Only people who figured out deep strikin, unexpected microraids raids was a good idea was some renegade cadets, and Word when his wife died....

Federation deserved to die in this war. Had so many intrinsic advantages- a loyal, highly population with a just cause, major proven defensive advantages easy to turn offensive, undoubtedly a larger pool to recruit from, increased experience on using autonomous AIs....

I can go into other areas, like long range AI Middles, maquee used one. Nuclear weapons might not penetrate shields, but they do make lots of radiation. I get not nuking planets, but if you got a compact fleet, and debris and smash into shields, doing damage, you can't tell me a thousand nukes going off between ships wouldn't do damage. Sending in a fleet of shrapnel pact, AI driven junk and nuking them on a kamakazee blitz into shipyards would do insane damage.

Just so much stuff they could do. Instead, it's a midranking officer with no real experience commanding a starship prior to the Defiant, merely ran a spaceship, ran the war, while acting like he was Moses.... and Starfleet was more than happy to overlook it's rare surprising success that was proven to tip the balance in war, and stick with a militant obsession to the orthodoxy of what didn't work.....

900 Billion Dead. Wow. So easy to avoid.
 
900 billion was the Jack Pack's estimate if the Federation lost the war, not how many actually died.
 
Your likely right on that fact. I'm going off memory, doesn't change the fact the battles are utterly inept on either side, not playing to awesome proven strengths, or low-cost high yield strategems.

Honestly, imagine DS9 middle payload tugged into any battle, it would obliterate any fleet fast. You don't need DS9 to do that, just a mobile platform.

They have this Spanish Armada mentality. Space is so very large, and they are flying in massive maves trying to break enemy lines like they were infantry from the middle ages. Spread out a few thousand kilometers each, don't slow down out of warp. Easy to break through. Space is really, really big.
 
So.... Seeing DS9, large ships are absolutely worthless, but everyone is addicted to them. ...
That's sounding extreme, no way they would ever do that? Talk to me after the first 100 Billion die. Think they said 900 billion. Load me up in a shuttle craft, replicator, something that shoots with a guy from the Ozarks with personality issues, watch the two of us blow up random stuff in enemy space.
They were not all ships of equal size. The basic Jem'hadar "fighter" was quite large, but smaller than the Galaxy and the Jem'hadar had larger warships. The Defiant was comparatively small, although still about 500 feet long. The Starfleet "fighters" were smaller still.There were not simply big ships, nor were those big ships obsolete.
A insane number of Small Ships would of been a default cost effective counter to large fleets. Dominion would have to grow clones, federation is limited only by industrial replicators and fuel to outfit these deep raiders. Absolutely bizarre no guerilla/commando/partisan fleets were out and about annihilating the dominion after the costs in life got absurd.
That's not necessarily clear. Of all the things Donald Rumsfeld uttered in his time as US Secretary of Defense, I think one really stands out: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want." What we see is Starfleet bringing back lots of older technology or employing technology generally used for science, diplomacy and peace keeping to fight what is essentially a WWII style war. While likely they could design ships that could better fight the current war, it is likely they would still rely on what they had in inventory. There is nothing surprising here. Korean and Vietnam era planes and ships have been kept in reserve, to be used if necessary, even as navies and armies are using more updated technology. The US Airforce is still talking about using the A10 Thunderbolt, the Warthog, into the 2040s, meaning that the model could be in service for over 70 years. That doesn't mean they won't order other types of planes.

Now, if one side decided to rely on one size ship, would not the other side try to exploit it? Small ships in Trek have limited power, their firepower and defenses significantly limited.
I would rather avoid repeating the standard Roddenberry fixation on recreating the naval Battle of Lepanto time after time after time.... and just surprise everyone by having the ratio of missiles to ships heavily slopsided, like DS9 was.
No, DS9 warfare was really WWII, with a lot of Hollywood interpretation.

Has deflectors, some shields maybe. Escorted by a handful of ships, not a armada....

When you know where the enemy armada is, you fly to it, and unleash EVERY MISSILE OFF AT ONCE, and then leave. Ditch the frame if you gotta. Just zoom zoom out. Then, when their Armada is dead, your silly armada can fly around at another location, doing deep strikes. All the better if you got a billion angry shuttle crafts doing harassing raids literally everywhere.
That might work once.
I'm also a bit stumped in regards to how the dominion never took down the wormhole minefield. Wouldn't blowing up every mine simultaneously do the trick? They lacked the technical capacity to build a replicator minefield too, a ranks deep, and have it float towards the mines?

If you just fling a ripped bag of gravel at the wormhole, shouldn't it open? You can build a replicator/transporter at either end, ferry small ships over and past that minefield, as long as it opens.
It's been a long time since I took physics in college. You'll need to remind me of the equations that describe the interaction between quantum explosive devices and subspace structures.
Federation deserved to die in this war. Had so many intrinsic advantages- a loyal, highly population with a just cause, major proven defensive advantages easy to turn offensive, undoubtedly a larger pool to recruit from, increased experience on using autonomous AIs....
That would seem to be your preconception[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
Because we're experts on starship combat, just like the aboriginals fighting with spears in 1910 were experts on dreadnaught naval tactics.
 
900 billion seems really high, but if that were the case, in modern wars(ww2-present), 95% of the victims are civilians. The Federation couldn't build a Million shuttles, much less a BBBillion. "And who's gonna fly 'em, kid? You?"

Heck, almost all planets in Star Trek where the population is mentioned-is in the Millions.

Maybe 900 Billion is the total known population of the Federation?
 
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