More Trektardism

[Stark]

Propaganda to maintain the skills balance is an interesting idea, which might also explain why they don't use their other technologies as well as they could industrially or similar. Their primary focus may be social stability, a situation where replicators = good but armies of supergeniuses = bad.

[Coiler]

See what "TheRedFear" on SFJ has to say about Trek vs. RL ground matches:

h+ttp://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 1&start=75

His responses to....

Company of US Marines on AR-558 in place of the Starfleet unit sent down there:

1) ANY Real Life Military(And more than a few sci fi ones) is wiped out in the first Jem Hadar assault. I mean really, what are you kidding? Real life Military doesn't have a fraction of the resources needed to counter Jem Hadar subspace mines, personal cloaking, nor enough ammo to last for any length of time. By the time the Defiant arrives all that's left of the RL Military is whatever the scavenger animals havn't picked off the bones yet.

Squad of American infantry vs. an equal amount of Starfleet personnel:

2) You're really a fan of one-sided curbstomps aintcha? One starfleet soldier with one Type-2 Handphaser wins this and the only skill he needs is knowing how to put widebeam setting on. Making it a whole unit of Trek troops is just pointlessly cruel. What have you got against the US Military?

[Stark]

Was it ever determined if 'widebeam' is a horizontal plane or a cone?

[Darwin]

Was it ever determined if 'widebeam' is a horizontal plane or a cone?

Does it matter, since as I recall this was only ever used once, at very, very close range and a stun setting. I'd like to see a Redshirt try the widebeam trick on marine riflemen firing at him and his ergonomic nightmare dustbuster from 200 yards.

[Peptuck]

1) ANY Real Life Military(And more than a few sci fi ones) is wiped out in the first Jem Hadar assault. I mean really, what are you kidding? Real life Military doesn't have a fraction of the resources needed to counter Jem Hadar subspace mines, personal cloaking, nor enough ammo to last for any length of time. By the time the Defiant arrives all that's left of the RL Military is whatever the scavenger animals havn't picked off the bones yet.

Damn.

This guy doesn't seem to realize that a company-sized force of troops (estimate four squads per platoon, four platoons for the company) would have.....*does the numbers* thirty-six squad automatic weapons, plus an equal number of rifles with grenade launchers,a s well as mortars, which they would use to play merry hell with the Jem'Hadar.

Even reduced as badly as the Starfleet troops were by the subspace mines, they'd still have enough hands to use all those machineguns.

And clearly he doesn't know how much ammunition a company-sized force has in its stores, particularly if they're planning on holding out at a particular location for a prolonged period.

2) You're really a fan of one-sided curbstomps aintcha? One starfleet soldier with one Type-2 Handphaser wins this and the only skill he needs is knowing how to put widebeam setting on. Making it a whole unit of Trek troops is just pointlessly cruel. What have you got against the US Military?

Considering that most soldiers with assault rifles engage their targets at hundreds of meters, which appears to be completely out of range of most phasers, let alone their widebeam settings.....

[Stark]

Does it matter, since as I recall this was only ever used once, at very, very close range and a stun setting. I'd like to see a Redshirt try the widebeam trick on marine riflemen firing at him and his ergonomic nightmare dustbuster from 200 yards.

It's been used a few times, but everything else aside, hitting guys at significant range with a horizontal plane from a dustbuster is not going to be trivial.

[Peptuck]

Does it matter, since as I recall this was only ever used once, at very, very close range and a stun setting. I'd like to see a Redshirt try the widebeam trick on marine riflemen firing at him and his ergonomic nightmare dustbuster from 200 yards.

It's been used a few times, but everything else aside, hitting guys at significant range with a horizontal plane from a dustbuster is not going to be trivial.

Not to mention that there appears to be some reason the vaunted Federation infantrymen didn't use it on the Jem'Hadar waves rushing their lines at AR-588. If the widebem setting was so incredibly effective, they should have been using it to fend off the ones that got in close.

Either there's a glaring technical problem with using it casually like that (ammunition usage, as Mike suggests on the main site?) or the Feddies are just too stupid to use it if its so wonderfully effective.

[Darth Wong]

I love the way you can concoct technical explanations for why widebeam phasers would not be as effective as they think they would, but they demand absolute proof that these explanations are correct, and insist that without such proof, there is no evidence (like creationists, they don't understand the difference between "proof" and "evidence").

Meanwhile, they offer no explanation whatsoever why they never actually use widebeam phasers in a manner consistent with their claimed effectiveness. And they've already dismissed any technical explanations because they can't be proven.

[Vympel]

Ah yes, the mighty Jem'Hadar warriors, who beam onto the bridge of the Defiant in The Search Pt 2 and yet, miraculously, are not only not instantly felled by widebeam phaser fire, decide themselves to subdue the bridge crew through the use of highly advanced ...

fisticuffs.

(and the only member of the bridge crew with the presence of mind to shoot them is the Romulan temp).

[Darth Wong]

I think the funniest thing about AR-588 is that primitive WW1-era barbed-wire would have totally fucked up that Jem'Hadar assault

[Vympel]

I just get a gleefull image of an MG-42 playing merry hell

Even reduced as badly as the Starfleet troops were by the subspace mines, they'd still have enough hands to use all those machineguns.

The attrition caused by the subspace mines was actually quite abysmal:- they're a (poor) psychological weapon.

[Peptuck]

I just get a gleefull image of an MG-42 playing merry hell

Even reduced as badly as the Starfleet troops were by the subspace mines, they'd still have enough hands to use all those machineguns.

The attrition caused by the subspace mines was actually quite abysmal:- they're a (poor) psychological weapon.

Well, it depends on who they're used on. Against an army like, say, a WWI or WWII army (especially the Red Army) they'd be just another thing on the battlefield that can kill them that they can't do anything about.

Against an army that doesn't have to constantly deal with losses or is simply inexperienced in terms of actual combat, like the Federation's, they'd have a pretty potent effect on morale. I harbor a personal theory that the subspace mines were tailored specifically to fight the Federation.

[Darth Wong]

Against an army that doesn't have to constantly deal with losses or is simply inexperienced in terms of actual combat, like the Federation's, they'd have a pretty potent effect on morale. I harbor a personal theory that the subspace mines were tailored specifically to fight the Federation.

Dude, the Feddies walked around in the minefield for six months and took only minor casualties during that whole time. They'd probably have been at greater risk of death from holodeck accidents back home over that same period.

The Jem'Hadar probably would have had better success by periodically rolling Gouda cheese into the encampment and hoping someone trips over it.

[Peptuck]

Against an army that doesn't have to constantly deal with losses or is simply inexperienced in terms of actual combat, like the Federation's, they'd have a pretty potent effect on morale. I harbor a personal theory that the subspace mines were tailored specifically to fight the Federation.

Dude, the Feddies walked around in the minefield for six months and took only minor casualties during that whole time. They'd probably have been at greater risk of death from holodeck accidents back home over that same period.

The Jem'Hadar probably would have had better success by periodically rolling Gouda cheese into the encampment and hoping someone trips over it.

Oh, crap, I forgot how long it was. Six months? They were suffering less than one casualty a day? I take that back, that is a pretty shitty psychological weapon.

Gouda chess probably would have been a whole lot more effective

[Zablorg]

Against an army that doesn't have to constantly deal with losses or is simply inexperienced in terms of actual combat, like the Federation's, they'd have a pretty potent effect on morale. I harbor a personal theory that the subspace mines were tailored specifically to fight the Federation.

Dude, the Feddies walked around in the minefield for six months and took only minor casualties during that whole time. They'd probably have been at greater risk of death from holodeck accidents back home over that same period.

The Jem'Hadar probably would have had better success by periodically rolling Gouda cheese into the encampment and hoping someone trips over it.

Oh, crap, I forgot how long it was. Six months? They were suffering less than one casualty a day? I take that back, that is a pretty shitty psychological weapon.

Gouda chess probably would have been a whole lot more effective

I'm betting that if you tell them that they will simply attribute it to the Feddies awsomeness.

[Typhonis 1]

So what would the Marine companys' loadout be if they were tasked with holding the communications array?

[Coiler]

Not to mention that there appears to be some reason the vaunted Federation infantrymen didn't use it on the Jem'Hadar waves rushing their lines at AR-588. If the widebem setting was so incredibly effective, they should have been using it to fend off the ones that got in close.

GStone's explanation for why wide-beam wasn't used on AR-558:

It would make the bottleneck wider.

[Vympel]

It would make the bottleneck wider.

What a fucking twit. So I suppose widebeam phaser fire can demolish terrain now as well, and cannot be adjusted to a setting where it can reliably kill enemies without doing so?

This idiotic apologetic makes a wonderful all purpose tool - heck, they didn't use it in Way of the Warrior, because they would've hulled the station!

That type of ergonomics is only useful, if there is no auto-adjust for targeting for off axis firing. Phasers have this. When Sisko and co were on the planet with the jemmies, he called out to the jemmies that they were targeted and they had phasers and phaser rifles. And phaser rifles have also shown the ability to fire off-axis.

LOL. It's true, Sisko claimed they had "phaser locks" on the Jem'hadar in that episode. How this translates into "auto-adjust for targeting for off-axis firing" is something best left for him to explain - along with the fact that these alleged phaser locks resulted in misses.

As for "off-axis therefore auto-adjusting" - I'd like to see the douchebag explain just how Sisko contrived his auto-adjusting phaser fire to off-axis his beam and then purposefully miss someone here:-





Maybe the magical auto-aiming for which there is no real evidence mystically knew he was aiming at the wall as a warning, because it has an advanced neural linkup to his brain?

Apart from all the misses with these supposedly auto-adjusting phasers these fools think exist, the best evidence against any sort of auto-adjustment worth a damn is the fact that when an obvious miss is occuring, the beam never adjusts itself to move and hit the target. I wonder why?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Do none of those morons understand the fundamental problem of the widebeam setting is that it spreads out over distance, thus to deliver the same amount of energy to the target it takes way more power, which increases with range?

[lord Martiya]

Do you really have to ask?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Do none of those morons understand the fundamental problem of the widebeam setting is that it spreads out over distance, thus to deliver the same amount of energy to the target it takes way more power, which increases with range?

The Inverse Square Law, yeah, that's apparently handwavium according to them. I wish I could say I'm shocked, but I'm not, the only thing that surprises me anymore is that people are actually surprised to learn that they're so damned stupid.

[Darth Wong]

They actually think that basic Euclidean geometry is a "handwaving" argument?

[Stark]

Maybe that's why they never use it in combat - to get a desired intensity at target range, you have to know what that target range is (or it'll be too low or two high). A misfire of 'stun at 50m' might easily be enough to kill at close range. Outside of controlled situations where it can be determined what the range required is beforehand, maybe they just can't adjust it quicky or convieniently enough?

Or maybe a security officer once tried to wide-stun some escaping punks and accidently killed them by incorrectly setting the intensity.

[Darth Wong]

I really find it amazing that people still push that stupid "auto-aiming" shit too. How can anyone say that with a straight face when they demonstrate such shitty accuracy? At best, there's a floating mechanism in there with a Steadi-Cam stabilizer to help with dwell time and consistency in drilling and welding, and these idiots accidentally leave it unlocked during battle, even though you'd want it to be solid for precise aiming and quick moves.

There, I just came up with a logical explanation why a phaser would have a floating mechanism with the ability to fire off-axis, while simultaneously explaining why they miss so often at close range with the fucking things. Of course, I'm sure their "auto-aim is Truth ... I don't have to explain the misses" response will be good too.

[Stark]

Well the sensors required for auto-aim would also provide the information necessary to modulate the beam automatically for wide-beam. You'd expect all manner of 'trick shots' to work with no modification.

But hey, 'auto-aiming' with no display, no interface elements to select target, and no other feedback? Doesn't sound very useful, even if it DID exist. 'Sorry Ambassador my gun decided to shoot you instead of the Romulan. It happens, you know?'