Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

Like I said drones are mentioned.

Changing the subject here, is the concept of a penal legion feasible in a modern/future warfare situation? Sure, if you want some cannon fodder you might as well use people who won't be missed, but is it worth the logistical costs of moving them to the target, ensuring the safety of The Political Officer and friends, and the other associated costs of having a military unit if their practically intended to die, will never be as effective as real troops, and have to be deployed away from civilian populations in order to avoid serious PR issues?

edited 30th May '16 9:11:56 PM by Captain_Cactus

Not really. Penal battalions were not exactly a good answer to any problem. They are worse then draftees/concscripts in terms of willingness. They would be more useful as labor parties.

^ Worse, haven't penal battalions historically been prone to just disappearing? Or at least elements of them just up and disappear? All those convicts, free of the bars and outnumbering those who would keep them in line and given weapons to boot.

Not exactly a fine scenario to imagine.

The French Foreign Legion is probably the closest Penal Legions got to being effective. Waving a legal french passport was a pretty good carrot to foreigners that were exiled from their own countries.

When your dealing with scifi though, you can start giving them things like kill switch implants, which I imagine might reduce the risk of running quite a bit.

Or just strand then on some remote moon somewhere. "You're garrisoned on an airless moon on the most remote outpost we could find, where are you going to run?"

That too, if you avoid all planets are earth like there probaly going to need to stay in the goverments favor to keep breathing....

Literaly.

Isn't that literally the plot of Total Recall?

Only with less Mind Screw, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Three-Tit Hookers, And Exploding Heads of "Two Weeks".

So, if you're away from a natural supply depot either that's planet side or in orbit, not necessarily in the heart of the enemy's territory, but comfortably away from friendly territory, would it make sense for a large carrier to have an internal manufacturing plant that can turn raw resources into ammunition, kinetic slugs for the ships main gun, missiles, etc?

Your still consuming resources and you still have to stock up on the materials to feed the manufacturing machine in the first place.

For your kinetic projectiles think about this. Not only do you have to carry enough mass to make the projectile but the mass of the machine to make it.

I personally think a hydroponics lab would be far more useful, depending on the types of food it could grow and how advanced it was.

Unless you're planning to operate so far from the logistics chain that you have to carry your own mining and manufacturing facilities ala Homeworld , then yes.

If you have a decent enough logistic chain or can carry enough ordinance to last the campaign, then no.

Even with Homeworld hand waves they still needed purpose built units to harvest and haul raw material to be processed and it was more efficient to set up remote processing and harvesting units. It still isn't worth it in terms of total mass for kinetic weapons then just straight up carrying the already completed weapons ready to use. Your still carrying the mass in raw materials plus extra to cover wastage and the machine to fill up the magazines in the first place. If your using other ships all the mass for the sum total of machinery to harvest, process raw material, and then process refined material into useful items could quite likely be better used to just haul around already completed material.

You end up hauling around more mass rather then less and spending more time messing around with dealing with resource sourcing.

Where such machines come in handy is when you need something non standard with some sort of customization or the ability to quickly change a spec outside of a depot. They have a place but not as the key point of supply.

Then there is time it takes to perform the whole process. You have to spend time locating viable raw material deposits, then time to prepare them for harvest, harvesting the materials and hauling them for refinement, refining said materials into whatever basic form you need so it can be used. Then hauling that refined material to a manufacturing source to fabricate whatever they need.

You are also expending other consumables like fuel in the process of chasing said resources. You wind up having to spend more to restock on the fly then hauling the ready to use materials with you.

Basically you need some pretty impressive technology to escape the logistics chain.

The way it is usually done is that enough materials are hauled along to permit operations for X amount of time, X amount of intensity, and/or X amount of range from a viable resupply point.

edited 8th Jun '16 8:29:16 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Well.

Fuck.

Worldbuilding is haaaaard.

If you want it to make sense lol

I imagine when Tuefel, Tom or any of the other regulars watch most movies or tv shows he's pissed at the amateur Hollywood Tactics and terrible logical inconsistencies.

How might a militia of people with the traditional Psychic Powers fare against the US military? Would their powers be enough to overcome it? How would said powers affect their tactics?

I should add that said militia is basically psychic Nazis who want to kill anyone who isn't "blessed".

If it's infantry vs infantry? They'll take out a shitload of them, but eventually be overwhelmed by our boys in multi cam.

If it's the whole US arsenal with tanks, missiles, aircraft, etc? Fucking annihilated.

edited 9th Jun '16 12:27:23 AM by TacticalFox88

Jasaiga: Only if it is really stupid and the show is trying to take itself seriously. Don't get me wrong I like my soft sci-fi more then enough I don't care as long as they don't try to adhere to realism to much with the hand waving. It is why I liked Space Above and Beyond or Rough Necks Starship Troopers to name a scant few.

The who logistics thing kind of brings into sharp view why Star Trek has the replicator tech.

In regards to penal battalions:

During the Continuation War, there were some penal battalions used by Finns, among them the very famous Detached Battalion 21. It was made out of prisoners who volunteered, along with some Communist sympathisers in "protective custody" (i.e. imprisoned under the republic protection law). Predictably, many of the sympathisers switched sides the moment they got a chance, so the ones left were sent back to prison. The remaining penal soldiers turned out to be extremely reliable, and participated in many combat operations earning a commendation from Mannerheim. They also had the incredibly cool nickname "Black Arrow".

The context (total war/defence) and method of recruiting (volunteers) are important here, along with their leader who was somewhat of a maverick, eccentric and utterly ruthless. It takes exceptional times and people, to make it work. In sci-fi, I would see them taking on enemy outposts relatively independently and aggressively, with perhaps tracking chips. Along with a leader, you really, really should not upset.

Stargate SG-1 is pretty good about logistics, namely that they gotta justify all this spending, and supply lines are hard to maintain.

Terminus: So it sort of worked? They wound up losing a lot of people but managed to find some of worth. Like you said the key was the volunteers bit.

They were indeed. They even hauled around supplies through the gates.

It was interesting to see what situations they would use the gate for, and which ones they used starships for. Like on Stargate: Atlantis, where gating from Earth to Atlantis was prohibitively energy-expensive, they had a battlecruiser doing milk runs back and forth. Depending on which end of the run they were on, the ship and it's crew would show up either on Stargate: Atlantis or Stargate: SG-1 as supporting cast, which helped to make the universe seem bigger with characters having adventures not limited to either show.

I am sticking to Stargate Sg-1 Mostly. Getting close to the last 2 seasons, man 8 seasons, had to have been rough running for only 8 seasons.

But yeah, they use what they have and they use it quite well. Supply lines are maintained as best as possible and crews are given tools and equipment based on the most likely outcomes of the mission.

edited 9th Jun '16 6:43:27 PM by EchoingSilence