Maquis versus Cardassian Infantry Combat

[Dingo]

I'm writing my second Voyager fic called Star Trek: Voyager - The Guardian (It's in the fanfiction section) and its a story about a former Starfleet Search and Rescue operative named Carl Stevens.

The prologue takes place on a colony named New Grozny where the Maquis and Cardassians are duking it out a-la Stalingrad style in the ruins of various large cities on the planet. The reason the Maquis are fighting the Cardassians is to facilitate the evacuation of what used to be one of their main colonies. The Maquis are giving ground slowly in this ground assault (the Cardassians are intent on not destroying several dilithium refineries found on the planet and that's why they're in this ground assault).

I've taken Maquis infantry tactics to be something akin to how the Chechen fighters fought the Russians at Grozny or the Viet Cong during Hue City for how to portray a Cardassian/Maquis Infantry battle. Any other views on that?

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Guerilla warfare and/or terrorism would really be the only viable ways for them to make headway against a much larger military force like a Cardassian Order, I'd advise you to watch Blaze of Glory from DS9, which shows a little insight into how Maquis cells operate. Sounds interesting!

 

[Timo]

Random ideas:

In modern urban warfare, vehicles (especially armored ones) are extremely valuable, mainly as carriers of heavy weaponry and supplies. They are also very vulnerable. Destroying these vehicles is a priority. In comparison, Star Trek combat seldom features vehicles, and a single infantryman can carry powerful, cityblock-busting weaponry that only weighs a few kilograms. I'd expect vehicle ambushes to be much less important in Trek urban warfare, then.

Garak alluded to Cardassian "mechanized infantry" in "The Wire". We seldom saw ground fighting vehicles, but we did see flying fighting vehicles and, once or twice, glimpsed powered armor. Perhaps said mechanized infantry would be operating flying craft and powered armor, rather than ground crawlers? This would further alter the nature of urban warfare, because it wouldn't be possible to stop an enemy column from advancing by blowing up a vehicle in front and rear of the column in a narrow street between buildings. Rather, one would have to individually target swarms of mechas, or fight back hovering enemy vehicles that are much more mobile than a Maquis fighter, not less so.

Transporters would antiquate the idea of front lines and barricades, so an important part of defending your ground would be to jam the transporters or to use shields to block them from reaching specific locations. That would make hiding difficult: a tricorder should be able to tell quickly where a Maquis jammer or shield lay, meaning the Maquis themselves would also be quickly spotted. So jamming the tricorders would also be a priority...

Cardassians have often been accused of dabbling in chemical weapons, but they have never been shown actually using them. Still, if the Maquis did put up resistance, a poison cloud would sound like the obvious response. Maquis fighters could probably protect themselves, but what about the evacuees?

Indeed, how will the fighting help protect the evacuees to begin with? They want to leave the planet, supposedly on spacecraft. But the Cardassians would be blockading the planet against such flight. How are the Maquis going to run the blockade? Can they threaten the Cardassian ships with some sort of ground artillery? Will they wait until everybody is in spacecraft, then launch all of them at once, along with lots of decoys, and hope for the best? Or will they bargain: "You let these colonists go, we don't blow up these dilithium refineries"? Perhaps there will even be an audacious plan to capture some of those Cardassian spacecraft that brought the invaders to the planet, and turn them against their masters?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dingo]

More or less New Grozny (depicted in my fic Star Trek:Voyager - The Guardian) has layered defenses and almost every Maquis cell has decided to contribute fighters and ships to try and evacuate the colonists and using many of their resources to ensure this evacuation takes place.

My image of New Grozny is based on stories I've heard of the fighting in the Chechen city of Grozny and the various insurgencies of history where insurgent forces stood and fought against superior forces for various reasons.

 

[DonIago]

I'd recommend reading A Time to Heal if you haven't already done so. It rather vividly describes combat between guerilla fighters and a superior force (the Federation).

For all the times we saw runabouts get shot-down in DS9, television doesn't allow for things like runabouts full of people being torn apart in mid-air.

 

[Caliburn24]

I was in Iraq for a 15 month deployment with the heaviest armored unit in the US Army and saw some limited combat over there. The difference in force between the US military and the insurgents is mind boggling, and the Cardassian military v. the Maquis would be even more one sided. As technology progresses the disparity in power and force between formal military forces and irregular military forces increases.

With that said the Maquis would only have a few options. 1) Cede the battleground to the enemy and only do harassing attacks(IEDs, mortars, snipers in Iraq. Similar stuff in Trek). 2) Get in so close to the Cardies that the Cardies cannot use their overwhelming advantage in firepower. This is not a winning strategy unless you have a really good exit strategy(transporters?). 3) Remain hidden within a population or area where the Cardassians cannot, for whatever reason, use their full firepower.

 

[Dingo]

I recently came off an Iraq deployment myself and echo similar sentiments. While I was mostly a FOBbit I did patrol outside the wire on both combat missions and convoys on a frequent basis. Your insights my friend seem quite similar to my own observations.