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War in the imperium / War in Iraq

Dynamo

SOC-9
The war in Iraq brings up some interesting points given that our TL 9 army is attacking a TL7-8 Army in Iraq. How many TL 12 and 13 troops would you need to quell a TL 9 planetary revolt? How about six? Would your answer have been the same before the war?
 
Originally posted by Dynamo:
The war in Iraq brings up some interesting points given that our TL 9 army is attacking a TL7-8 Army in Iraq. How many TL 12 and 13 troops would you need to quell a TL 9 planetary revolt? How about six? Would your answer have been the same before the war?
***************

The benefits of High TL societies in war are obvious, boiling down to "We can hurt and kill you, but you can't hurt or kill us". This can be accomplished by distance (from Air/rafts to orbital strikes), armour, weaponry ("smart" bullets, high rates of fire, etc), superiors information (orbital cameras, excellent traffic analysis, etc), and superiour information processing technology. If the high-tech society is willing to take casualities and spend the cash, they can certainly crush any low-tech enemy.

I doubt that you could use just six soldiers to crush any major rebellion of a high-pop/low-TL world - especially if the population is physically dispersed on the globe. There is an exception: if the soldiers are actually sailors in orbit, with an ample amount of nuclear/antimatter firepower they are willing to use. Simply due to the physical scale of a planet, you will need at least a few thousand for most situations. Because the Imperium does not use warbots, increase the numbers by a magnitude or more.

If the planet is heavily populated (10 million+) and they have a habitable world (free air, water, fertile soil, edible local life), again increase the number of troops by at least a few factors, and possiblily by magnitudes. If the locals are willing to pay very high prices (say, 10,000 dead locals per Imperial soldier) you'll have to decide just how much people you are willing to kill (the Imperial Navy can always just glass over a planet), how sigificant the world is, and if you are comfortable with the political consequences of large-scale genocide.

Problems for High TL societies:

Higher TL societies tend to be extremely sensitive to casualities outside of their core worlds. The media - especially media from unfriendly powers and societies - tend to get in the face of the troops a lot. Moreover, there is the problem of arrogance: what happens when people who *shouldn't* have fusion artillery *does* have it? (see: smugglers, high-tech sympathisers with the low-tech people, arms merchants, etc) Or when the Imperial forces start falling into a predictable pattern? (see: the "Black Hawk" incident in Somalia)

Even the war against Iraq is expensive: I have head estimates of as high as a trillion dollars for the current campaign, and unknown billions for the occupation. This is big money, even for the Americans.

For the Imperium,
* Starships are Not Cheap,
* Battledress and Fusion rifles are Not Cheap
* The logistics of maintaining & resupplying High-tech equipment and personnel, parsecs from the nearest High-tech/High-pop world, is Not Cheap
* The numerous media images from the front can cost plenty in "political capital" - especially when Things Go Wrong
* Even pictures of dead enemy soldiers can hurt the Imperium, if the Imperials wish to be loved rather than feared. (It may or may not increase *respect* for the Imperium, if people feel that the Emperor is playing by 'the unspoken rules' every social order has.)
* If the Imperium is a low-birthrate society, then every dead soldier has a real price tag. This is less important if there are only a few low-TL societies in revolt, and more true if many low-TL cultures are anti-Imperial

And all this assumes a High-TL Imperium against a Low TL foe, without fusion power or starfaring technology.

Note that the longer the fight, and the harder the locals, the more likely they will gain access to some high-tech equipment - and the more war-weary your population will be, both of the blood and the money poured down the rat-hole.
 
Dynamo: A direct reply to your question requires a knowldge of the game mechanics of a TL 9 force, fighting a TL 12 force. GURPS Traveller's Star Mercs and Ground Forces has some good answers: I believe that GDW's Striker, MegaTraveller's Rebellion book and The New Era's Striker II's game wouild provide slightly different answers. I do not know what Traveller20's answers are, nor where you can find them.
 
I thought we were only high tl8, and high tech and good soldiers doesn't do much when the leaders are bad.
 
Originally posted by Dynamo:
The war in Iraq brings up some interesting points given that our TL 9 army is attacking a TL7-8 Army in Iraq. How many TL 12 and 13 troops would you need to quell a TL 9 planetary revolt? How about six? Would your answer have been the same before the war?
I'm not sure that I'd agree that the US army is TL-9. High TL-8 vs. a TL6-7 army.

In any case, what do you mean by quell? There is a distinct difference between, say, cowing up the natives so that they'll pay tribute and occupying and pacifying the system such that the system will be safe for imperial visitors and will eventually want to peacefully rejoin the Imperium.

The US currently has the capability for a small number of people to lob enough nuclear weapons onto Iraq so that the remaining survivors will eventually surrender, even if there are only a couple left. Is that quelling a populace?

How large is the TL-9 population? If, say the population of the TL-9 world is 10 million and the objective is pacification with eventual peaceful reunification, a large number of troops will be needed. And, these troops will also be vulnerable, at some point, to TL-9 weapons on a personal level. Enough RAM grenades will ruin anyone's day.

Just because the world is nominally TL-9 doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't have access to higher tech weapons if there was/is trade going on before the rebellion.

Ron
 
Um...let's not flatter ourselves.

There aren't a lot of air/rafts floating around the skies of Iraq (Tech Level 8), let alone grav tanks armed with pulse lasers and/or mass-drivers (I don't have a copy of "Book 4: Mercenary" with me right now, but I believe that sort of thing starts showing up at Tech Level 9). I'd say that present-day Earth's most advanced nations are still at the low end of Tech Level 8.

I'm not all that comfortable dragging Iraq into this... Regarding the suppression of rebellion -- wouldn't it all depend upon how you define "suppression?" High technology makes it easier to destroy things and kill people, but would it make post-rebellion peace-keeping operations that much easier? I suppose good hand-held translator-gadgets would be useful, as would reliable non-lethal riot-control weapons, and expert-system non-invasive "scanners" capable of detecting and recognizing concealed weapons, matching faces against databases, and so on (all with minimal human supervision -- thus reducing the "bored airport security guard" problem).
 
It all depends on the military objective. Outright genocide? Easily done from orbit. Capture the port and hold until relieved? I imagine a few well equipped jumptroops could do the trick. Pacification and regime change? Therein lies the rub and the introduction of other factors than technology. Case in point: the reinfiltration of Basrah by Fedayeen Saddam and Baath Party police (their version of the NKVD). It would take a lot of "battle dresses on the ground" for any long term operation, regardless of the disparity in TL.
 
Originally posted by Jame:
I thought we were only high tl8, and high tech and good soldiers doesn't do much when the leaders are bad.
Well put. The "corporate culture" of the Iraqi military is a joke and puts them at a distinct disadvantage againt Coalition forces.
 
{Sorry about muddling up the tech levels) I guess what I was trying to get at and discuss was the influence of high tech against low tech militaries and the superior attitude of those high tech armies. I suspect that Lord Chelmsford felt invincible going up against the Zulus or General Chinese Gordon felt assured of victory partially becasue of ego but mostly because they had more modern armies.

The Somolia analogy was great, and it reminded me that the Italians had similar problems in Somoli land and Ethiopia.

I guess i just feel that for most GM's the idea of pitting their PC's against a "weaker" foe never occured to them.
how many stone age cultures have your PC's interacted with? There seems to be a tendency to equate technolgy with intelligence and the tendency can be exploited for the good of a game.
 
* The numerous media images from the front can cost plenty in "political capital" - especially when Things Go Wrong
The Emperor can't be voted out of office. The Imperium has some advantages that the United States doesn't have. If a left wing group were to called them a bunch of Imperialists, the soldiers will say, "Yes we are, so?" Human shields might not be as useful against the Imperium as they would be against the United States. Imperial soldiers might not like shooting at civilians, but if they enemy is using them as shields and are also firing on the soldier, the soldier is going to worry about himself first and the civilians second. What if news crews suddenly show up and start talking about the plight of the civilians and the cruel heartless soldiers who shot them? What if peace protestors take to the Streets at the capital of the Imperium? By the time protestors learn enough about the war to protest, its already been going on for a year. The Emperor himself would likely be just finding out about it, unless it was the Emperor who started the war in the first place. Protestors would likely be ignored in the Imperium unless they started to block traffic, which would be hard to do in a world with grav vehicles.
 
I dont see the Imperium as a totalitarian regime, but rather a franchise. So I dont think that protesters would be ignored. I do think however that distance and speed of communication would play a huge part in the waging of a war. After all, what kind of atrocities could you commit and get away with if you knew that you had three weeks to cover up the incident.
Example the Imperial sector capital is at Regina and there is an uprising on Shinothy 6 jumps away. At Jump 3 communications with Headquarters on Regina is four weeks away. Local commanders are pretty much on their own for a whole month before any public outcry can be heard and by then Military Intelligence has managed to craft a pretty compelling story to counter claims of innocent civilian deaths and collateral damage. Our government gets and gives minute by minute reports that affect the fighting of the war.
 
Not only is there the question of time and travel lag affecting subsector wide (just to keep things limited) popular opinion of a war or poilce action, but also of what type of news gets reported. I believe this comes down to the question of "Is there a free press in your traveller universe". Can the Imperium be run as it is generally laid out with a free and critical press? IMTU, seeing as worlds are generally allowed to run their own affairs and have whatever restrictions on news and information they desire, there is a rather limited audience for "interstellar news"...generally the travelling public and scholars. The inhabitants of various worlds may not have access to the same news. One world may have unfettered outside news access while another may not allow offworld information to reach the downtrodden masses.

But back to the main topic...How many high tech troops to put down a lower tech planetary revolution? I believe it would take "alot" (that being a highly precise and technical term for a number with a bunch of zeroes after it). The number of zeroes depending on things such as are you going to smash and run, or are you going to stick around a while afterwards. Higher tech gives you alot of things..range, mobility, Command and control, intelligence gathering capability, etc...but to maintain control and order after the dust settles, you will still need boots on the ground.
 
I've got a couple of questions, re. the Imperium's armed forces. (a) Is the composition of the Imperium's armed forces representative of its population as a whole? (b) How suspicious is the Imperium of its own soldiers, and does it take any unusual steps to ensure their political reliability? Personally, I doubt there's an obvious "political officer" holding every admiral's leash, but after the Civil War era, strongly suspect the Imperium must be doing something to prevent would-be Plankwells from yielding to their ambitious impulses.
 
I am really impressed by how few casulties the coalition is taking. In some of these fights the kill ratio is like 100+ to zero. This is true for the armored cav as well as the infantry like the Marines. This even applies on days where the weather is too cruddy for effective air support. Is it body armor that is making the difference or are the Iraqis just horrible shots?

I think body armor is going to take all the fun out of being a guerilla. ;)
 
Originally posted by marginaleye:
I've got a couple of questions, re. the Imperium's armed forces. (a) Is the composition of the Imperium's armed forces representative of its population as a whole? (b) How suspicious is the Imperium of its own soldiers, and does it take any unusual steps to ensure their political reliability? Personally, I doubt there's an obvious "political officer" holding every admiral's leash, but after the Civil War era, strongly suspect the Imperium must be doing something to prevent would-be Plankwells from yielding to their ambitious impulses.
I'd say that the answers are:

a) Yes and No, the military is/is not representative of Imperial society over all. Only a small part of the Imperium's population is part of interstellar society to begin with. There are two distinct parts of the military structure. The largest are local forces that stay close to home. These forces would be as representative as the local government wanted to make them. The Imperial forces are made up of volunteers. Most of the enlisted would be young people trying to break into interstellar society. Joining the military would be a ticket to interstellar travel. The officers (the Navy in particular) are drawn from the social elite.

b) This is one of the main missions of IRIS. They are supposed to have undercover operatives on all senior staffs to keep an eye on the Admirals. They are not 'political officers' per se, they are there to observe and report any disloyal activities.

This is of course a blending of cannon with my views of the Traveller universe. YMMV.

Rob
 
Originally posted by saulweaver:
I am really impressed by how few casulties the coalition is taking. In some of these fights the kill ratio is like 100+ to zero. This is true for the armored cav as well as the infantry like the Marines. This even applies on days where the weather is too cruddy for effective air support. Is it body armor that is making the difference or are the Iraqis just horrible shots?

I think body armor is going to take all the fun out of being a guerilla. ;)
No, good armored vehicles in relatively open terrain make being a guerilla harder. Armored forces can't stay buttoned up all the time, and once that force has to go into rougher terrain or cities, a guerilla force can inflict a significant amount of damage, particularly if the armored force has to have to occupy the rough terrain/city.
 
But back to the main topic...How many high tech troops to put down a lower tech planetary revolution? I believe it would take "alot" (that being a highly precise and technical term for a number with a bunch of zeroes after it). The number of zeroes depending on things such as are you going to smash and run, or are you going to stick around a while afterwards. Higher tech gives you alot of things..range, mobility, Command and control, intelligence gathering capability, etc...but to maintain control and order after the dust settles, you will still need boots on the ground.
Actually it would be hard to have a low tech planetary revolution, The Soviets tried and they failed. A low tech society wouldn't typically have control over the entire planet, unless the population is small and all in one part of the planet.
A tech level 0 society would have tribal governments. Communication is slow and there is no written language. Unless there is only one tribe on the entire planet, you can't have a planetary government.
At Tech Level 1 the Romans conquered a sizable chunk of real estate. The largest empire at this tech level was the Mongolian Empire, but even they couldn't conquer the entire planet to form a planetary government.
At Tech level 2 you start to have long distance ocean travel by sail, many societies at tech level 1 and 0 are encountered by the tech level 2 society. Quick empires are formed by the more advance society. Usually there is more than one Tech level 2 society at this time and there is competion between them Communication is still at the speed of travel which makes a planetary government unlikely.
At Tech level 3 and 4 Steam power and the telegraph are introduced. It is remotely possible that a world government could form, but Napoleon wasn't even close.
At Tech level 5 there is an opportunity to conquer the world before nuclear weapons are invented. Still its hard to build a world empire in so sort a time, Just ask Hitler.
At Tech Level 6 a despot who invented nuclear weapons first and wasn't afraid to use them could conquer the world. Once a second country gets nuclear weapons that window of opportunity is closed. Based on this I think a world government needs a minimum tech level of 6. At TL 5 the world needs to be conquered with conventional weapons, a long difficult campaign is required. A tech level 6 revolution can't get off the planet however, and the Imperiums probably wouldn't concern itself with such low tech threats. A tech level 9 revolution becomes a concern because they can leave their planet.
 
On our earth perhaps there is no chance of a single world government at TL3, but what about a planet one 1/8th the size of earth with a 20 mile band of habitability and a population of 500,000 entirely possible.

Also, while a rebellion on another world might involve taking over the whole planet it might not, and I never assumed that it did. Realistically the planet only needs to be united in one purpose, kicking the Imperium off. It seems to me that the imperium has the luxury of time. It might be more useful or expedient to just blockade an errant world and move on.

You do bring up some good points though and I can see that Im not being specific enough. So I'll throw out a more detailed scenario.

Using the Interactive atlas of the imperium site http://www.utzig.com/traveller/iai.shtml
Ive selected a few planets to use as an example.

Dhian C9A769D4 is a middle of the road planet With an exotic atmospher and liquid oceans. The oppressive government hires a 3000 man mercenary unit to augment their army and police corps during the fifth frontier war. Angry about an oppressive war tax the government makes moves to seperate itself from the Imperium. Dhian sabotuers severely damage the Class A Starport at Paya while food riots at the subsector capital Aramis and a potential Zho Invasion at Lablon tie up the subsector navy. The nearest force able to put down the revolt is an imperial reserve task force stationed at Regina. As task force commander you required to send enough force to put down the revolt at Dhian but need to save a large enough reserve to defend the Sector Capital. You have 3,000 marines (with battledress) 2 brigades of Grav Armor (140 tanks each)2 Infantry Divisions(8,000) and 40 Starships of varying sizes 5 capital ships 15 Cruisers and various transport an auxilliary ships (Including 2 Broadsword class Mercenary Cruisers)

Your enemy can muster 3000 Mercenaries (Mainly Vargr and Sword Worlders who could give a rats ass for the Imperium) and over half a million armed citizens. The Average tech level of the Army and police is around 4 but various units have TL 9 and 10 weapons most of the Army is badly trained, but a few units are elite. Your troops will be operating far from a friendly resupply point.
You must put down the rebellion quickly, before the Zho can exploit the weakness and establish a second front deep inside imperial lines.

What do you do?
Do you think you have enough troops to do the job?
 
Dhian C9A769D4 is a middle of the road planet With an exotic atmospher and liquid oceans. The oppressive government hires a 3000 man mercenary unit to augment their army and police corps during the fifth frontier war. Sabotuers in the subsector quickly damage the Class A Starport at Paya while demonstrations at the subsector capital and a potential Zho Invasion at Lablon
tie up the subsector navy.
It seems to me that all the Imperial Navy has to do is to wait for the denizens of Dhian to take a breath, suffocate and die within their own atmosphere. With a tech level 4, it seems that the Dhianians don't have the ability to construct the breathing apparatus to allow them to breath in their own hostile environment. What is tech level 4? Tech level 4 is equivalent to Earth from the years 1860 to 1900. This is roughly the time period of many Old Western TV shows and movies. this is the technology of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, its also the technology of the Civil War, and the home on the Range. Any cowboy on this world would quickly find themselves and all their cows suffocating on the Alien range. If people are to survive on this planet they need a higher technology than that.
But lets assume that they import all their breathing gear from off world. In every other respect its a tech level 4 world right? Well the cowboys would need breathing gear, but then so too would their cows and the horses they ride on and the grass they grow to feed their cows would have to be grown in greenhouses imported from off-planet. Naw that doesn't look like it will work.
The cowboys need alien "cows" and "horses" to ride on capable of breathing the exotic atmosphere. Now were getting somewhere. Perhaps the "Cows" and "horses" are Chlorine breathers, the cowboys wouldn't be able to eat them, so their must trade their meat with off-world aliens who can and then buy their food from off-world. In the meantime the cowboys in breathing masks can still ride on their alien "horses" that graze on alien "grasses". The cowboys would need steam engines to power the railroads so they can deliver goods to the local starport, I suppose there must be an oxidizer in this alien atmosphere otherwise steam technology would't work. The cowboys would need to wear their breathing masks at all times, since they are unable to build airtight structures to live in. Log cabins are simply too porous. There must also be something really valuable on this planet for them to hire off-world high tech mercenaries. I wonder why the mercenaries don't just take over the planet for themselves?
 
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