Why are basic infantry tactics almost never employed in Star Trek?

[Timo]

Not a point of disagreement but agreement here... Yet I'd like to elaborate on what "feels real" for me.

Take The Last Mohican, that is, the latest movie adaptation thereof. We observe the British troops firing disciplined volleys at the ambushing injuns, who make the tactic look ridiculous by attacking between the volleys. In contrast, the protagonist fires his musket using the wait-for-it-and-aim method, downing his enemies one by one (and circumventing the reloading problem by confiscating loaded weapons from downed enemies or allies). What "feels right" in the forested battlefield is the sniping and hiding tactic of the Last Mohican - until one remembers that what he is doing is actually impossible, because a single musket won't hit anything except by sheer chance. The only way one could hope to score hits is indeed to fire volleys, and a staggered volley is not as effective as a unison firing, nor particularly advantageous from the reloading point of view.

Verisimilitude depends heavily on one's own assumptions, and on those of the writers behind the fiction. Since the assumptions in science fiction will be mere guesswork, I personally prefer to be surprised by the fictional tactics, and delighted when the story forces me to believe that something utterly stupid-looking will save the lives of my heroes, and something I would have done would have sealed my fate in the like situation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Starfleet needs ninjas on their landing parties.

How do you know they don't have ninjas?

 

[Knight Templar]

I'm not as appalled by the lack of basic infantry tactics in Star Trek as I am by the almost total lack of tactics and strategy in starship combat.

It appears that all starship commanders know how to do is go roaring into a battle and begin dogfighting.

One would think that watching "Star Wars" is the only training most starship captains have.

 

[Caliburn24]

These are valid points, certainly. But Star Trek combat in general takes place on Earth type worlds, with Earth type gravity, against alien, but human-ish, opponents. And though they used energy weapons, they are treated much as modern day bullet firing guns. When fired upon by someone in cover, the away team would typically have someone try to draw the opponents fire, whilst someone else attempts to out flank them. Given the capabilities of a Star Fleet phaser, why not simply disintegrate the opponents cover?

I agree, the vast majority of close up phaser fights in Trek are treated just like modern day gunfights. But that is frankly just poor writing on the part of the shows(or budgetary constraints in terms of environments). I don't think any of the writers in Trek were ever interested enough in the specific action beats to actually stop and consider how a real close up fight with Trek level technology would logically work. But they have given a few little breadcrumbs that are just enough to make us wish they did more. The phaser set on wide beam used by Chakotay in Voyager. The micro-transporter sniper rifle in DS9. Jem'Hadar stealth shrouds. The list goes on.

It is frustrating because in subsequent episodes I always ask myself why aren't they using that already established thing when it seems like it would really help?

I agree though with your core idea here, that we can not know the tactics of the future. But in the same way Trek takes modern scientific ideas and extrapolates them to give a sense that 'this might happen', surely it can do the same with other areas of knowledge. As fiction, Trek need not be completely accurate. But details can add realism, if not reality. It can feel right, even if it isn't actually true. And that realism can help engage us, draw us in to the story. Which, ultimately, is the most important thing.

Details do add a sense of verisimilitude but Trek has only rarely been willing to spend the time on the exposition that is needed to make that work. Take a hand phaser for example. We don't even know how you aim a hand phaser. We don't know the effective range, the cyclic rate, the number of shots, the impact profile(super important but always overlooked), and countless other details that would play into how it is used in a fight.

 

[Timo]

...One of the most intriguing qualities of the hand phaser is that its beam is essentially never swept in combat use. We only see a beam performing a slow arching movement when our heroes use it to cut through a bulkhead - and a quicker movement when somebody slaps away the gunhand of a person pressing the trigger, as in that one DS9 episode I otherwise utterly forget.

If there is some underlying technological reason for the inability to perform fast sweeps, then the single-shot tactics we witness might make a lot of sense. Perhaps it takes a lot of dwell time for the beam to start having an effect - perhaps it's not a question of a gradually mounting effect (such as with a laser), but of some sort of a threshold being crossed before the beam does any harm at all? A quick sweep would thus essentially be harmless to all recipients.

Timo Saloniemi