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After Best of Both Worlds you are given complete control of the federation forces, and charged with turning it into a proper military force, capable of taking on the borg. How do you do it, and what personel moves do you make?

For starters, begin to train the entire Starfleet up to proper military bearing and standards of a real space navy - ie, proper military protocol, proper employment of ships and personnel, upgrading of ships and weapons systems so that every single enemy in the Quadrant FEARS Starfleet, not laughs at them. Also eliminate ALL civilian personnel from all vessels and instalations, eliminate the so-called "ships' councilor" position fleetwide -- this is a space navy, not a collection of neurotics

Mass-production of combat starships such as the Defiant class and Iintrepids, as well as a massive increase in personnel to man the ships.

Create a specific ground or shipboard combat force, trained in "archaic" 20th and 21st century infantry combat tactics, equip with state of the art armour and the most powerful weapons available, preferably those using simple brute force firepower, not frequency or ndf trickery

Um...yeah. I'm going to have to disagree with you there.[/lumbar]

The role of ship councelar would be very important on warships that are on long deployments. I mean, modern warships have chaplins onboard, don't they? Seems reasonable that you'd have someone onboard a Feddie ship that crewmembers could confide in.

Chaplain, yeah, if such a thing exists in the Federation.

But the councilors as depicted so far (Troi, Dax) are a waste of life support The point in the new Fleet would be to weed out anyone who isn't up to the job of what a space navy is supposed to be: to KILL the enemy, not waste time wringing their hands over the neuroses of the week - that means no Barclays taking up space , time, and resources. I'm sure they'd make nice shoreside technicians, but as far as serving in a ship of the line.....forget about it.

Burak Gazan wrote:Chaplain, yeah, if such a thing exists in the Federation.

But the councilors as depicted so far (Troi, Dax) are a waste of life support The point in the new Fleet would be to weed out anyone who isn't up to the job of what a space navy is supposed to be: to KILL the enemy, not waste time wringing their hands over the neuroses of the week - that means no Barclays taking up space , time, and resources. I'm sure they'd make nice shoreside technicians, but as far as serving in a ship of the line.....forget about it.

You assume that councelors would have to deal with mental diseases. What if they just deal with people talking to them about their fears? It's also about relieving combat stress. Also good for detecting a guy who's about to go loco before he does.

Aya wrote:You assume that councelors would have to deal with mental diseases. What if they just deal with people talking to them about their fears? It's also about relieving combat stress. Also good for detecting a guy who's about to go loco before he does.

Don't forget the political officer implications of the councilor role; great way to keep a track of a crew's loyalty if the one person on the ship you're supposed to confide in can tell whether or not you're lying.

Federation starship crews are poorly armed, equipped and trained. They need to be trained from the ground up if Starfleet is to improve.

Burak Gazan wrote: Mass-production of combat starships such as the Defiant class and Iintrepids, as well as a massive increase in personnel to man the ships.

Defiant's yes, Intrepids no.

The Intrepid is a scout ship, the only reason Voyager makes it look good is because of its character shield. You'd be better with War Galaxys, or Akiras.

1. Get families off of starships!!!

2. Re-design the Mars Defense Perimeter. In fact, increase the system-bound forces so that one starship is not the only Fed ship in the system

3. Increase number of Defiants (good idea, Burak)

More to follow...

Sharp-kun wrote:

Burak Gazan wrote: Mass-production of combat starships such as the Defiant class and Iintrepids, as well as a massive increase in personnel to man the ships.

Defiant's yes, Intrepids no.

The Intrepid is a scout ship...

Scouts are a very important part of a real military. And the Intrepid would fit the "long range scout" job well.

HRogge wrote:

Sharp-kun wrote:

Burak Gazan wrote: Mass-production of combat starships such as the Defiant class and Iintrepids, as well as a massive increase in personnel to man the ships.

Defiant's yes, Intrepids no.

The Intrepid is a scout ship...

Scouts are a very important part of a real military. And the Intrepid would fit the "long range scout" job well.

True, but I've never considered the Intrepid to be a good design. Maybe its Voyager clouding my judgement, but I would think there would be better classes.

Barring simply designing new ships, which is a long-term goal, I'd modify existing classes for combat. I'd junk family quarters in favor of bunks for auxiliary crew and/or ground personnel. I'd keep the sensors, but junk science stations in favor of redundant controls and more tactical stations. I'd put in a different computer, focused on analysis and emergency control capabilities rather than memory. I'd keep the Holodecks for combat simulations, and to provide entertainment for large groups; nobody gets one of them to himself. Obviously, I'd install more weapons, especially on the sides and rear, and place layers of armor under the outer hull. These changes would be put into half the new ships of each class that is built, and the combat versions would have a different paint job. Ships would also have hologram projectors able to project EMH's to perform triage during shipboard combat, and their transporters would be able to store the entire crew in their pattern buffers for months in an emergency.

As for the crews, I'd have all Starfleet personnel, from the Admirals on down, qualify regularly with phasers and disruptors, hand-to-hand combat (both armed and unarmed), tactics, first aid, survival, swimming, mountain climbing, orienteering and emergency procedures and be able to do these things in full armor and in NBC gear. They must be able to fly shuttles and escape pods. They would also have to qualify at telekinesis, using Kironide. Medical personnel would be issued more high-tech medical kits with tricorders, as well as a more traditional first aid kit. They would incorporate the Counselor role, and be cross-trained for combat. When in combat or at red alert, all personnel must wear body armor and sidearms, and carry a gas mask and first aid kit on them.

Each Starfleet member would be issued the following:
Body Armor, with Helmet
Gas Mask
NBC Suit
Zero-G Suit
Phaser Pistol, with Ammo
Phaser Rifle, with Ammo
Backup Communicator/ Emergency Beacon
Knife
Grenades
Entrenching Tool
First Aid Kit, with Bandages, Splints, Tourniquets, Sterile Tools, Coagulants, Pain Killers, Antiseptics, Antitoxins and Antihistamines
Antigrav Boots
Climbing Gear, with Rope, Pitons and Crampons
Night Vision/ Binoculars/ HUD Goggles
Minesweeper
Kironide
Compass
Watch
Rations, with Mess Kit
Survival Kit, with Matches, Flares, Hook, Line and Sinkers, Bedroll
Toiletry Kit, with Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Razor, Soap, Shampoo

Many of these items are old-fashioned because I don't want them to depend too fully on high-tech gadgets to survive. I know it sounds like a lot for them to learn, but they need to be ready for a lot of different situations.

Hazard suits from Elite Force would be good. They can store shitloads of stuff in their pockets.

Lots of *special* fruit punch... a glass for every single person in the Federation... it's the best thing that could happen to them

My previous suggestions were more general than specific to engaging the Borg. To that end, I'd do the following:
1. Increase the power output of the weapons. Nobody can adapt to raw power.
2. Stop making the weapons depend on frequency or phase or modulation, so the Borg don't have something to adapt against.
3. Diversify the weapons, so each bank of weapons can deliver several different attacks at once. That way, if they manage to block one weapon, the ships aren't helpless.
4. Make the shields in such a way that there is not one particular frequency that can automatically ignore them. If this can't be done, make each layer of shields use different frequencies, so if a shot gets through one layer, the next one stops it.
5. Train the gunners to focus on opening holes in the hull, then fire on the edges of the hole to keep the Borg from repairing them, while launching torpedoes into the holes to damage the internal structure.
6. Develop a method to jam a cube's communications with the Collective that can be delivered by a minimal number of ships.
7. Develop medical treatments that block assimilation.
8. Develop a weapon to collapse a transwarp conduit.

A lot of these would also help against most other oponents also.

CDiehl wrote: 8. Develop a weapon to collapse a transwarp conduit.

Aren't regular Photon Torps enough?

Sharp-kun wrote:True, but I've never considered the Intrepid to be a good design. Maybe its Voyager clouding my judgement, but I would think there would be better classes.

Think about it this way:
if an incompetent captain like.... ( you know ), what could a well coordinated military do with this scout ? Especially with a skilled captain/crew ?

The intrepid is fast ( and can fly at maximum speed without this "warp damage to space" ), it has a good sensor array and a number of shuttles. It should be well equiped to patrol the borders or scout for enemies. It could even hold small trouble away itself until the first Defiant arrives...

There would be several things to do:
-re-organisation of Starfleet as a pure military force, without political or scientific alleures.
-banning of civilians from Starfleetan it's ships, with only few, reasonable expections.
-re-introduction of military discipline an look, meaning uniforms that look like uniforms (not pijamas), clear seperation of enlisted crew, sub-officers and officers, formal talk and discilpinary training.
-every personell had to go through military training, and the ground forces will be seperated from Starfleet into the Fed Army.
-complete change of hand weapons to pure-military weapons and not those egonomic nightmares.
-refit of old Starships top true warships and planning of new, war-only classes.
-building of real groundforces.
-regulary simualtion training and combat excercise.

And much more I can't list all here....

If regular photorps do the job, so much the better. However, I'd like a means to collapse the entire conduit back to its source, ideally while Borg cubes are within. I'd also like to have access to an explosive device capable of wrecking a Borg space station. My plan would be to seek out any transwarp conduits in Federation territory, then sending bombs through all of them just before collapsing the conduits. With the bombs would go a message that they should never make another conduit into the Federation.

Treat Starfleet like a real military for one. Mass production of Defiants and a COMPLETE stop of galaxy-class production. Nothing with a warp core that fragile belongs to be acting as a defensive ship. I'd rather replace them all with refitted Consititution class ships than keep those pieces of crap.

Trogdor wrote:Treat Starfleet like a real military for one. Mass production of Defiants and a COMPLETE stop of galaxy-class production. Nothing with a warp core that fragile belongs to be acting as a defensive ship. I'd rather replace them all with refitted Consititution class ships than keep those pieces of crap.

The Galaxy-refit class did pretty well, given the USS Galaxy's performance during the Dom war, taking massive damage without self-destructring.

As for mass production of Defiants, those are effective, but I wouldn't make them the entire fleet. Use em like Klingons use BoP's (as scout/destroyers), throw in Prometheus class ships as heavy hitters, and use Sov-refits as the ubership (just give them a lot more torpedos, the E-E was able to spend their entire torpedo load in under 5 min). If Akira's really do have as many torpedo tubes as they are said to, introduce them as torpedo boats and load them with tricolbalt charges programmed to max yield. If needed, retain Intrepid as a long-range scout ship.

Teach large fleet & taskforce maneuvers and co-ordinated mass fire tactics. Having 1-5 ships firing on a Borg cube at a time while another 3-5 ships cover them simply ain't gonna work. You want a fleet of 200+ ships blasting their weapons at the cube at the same time, massed firepower will trash a cube a lot more effectively than the pitiful small group strafing run tactics Starfleet has used against the Borg to date.

The massive reworking that Starfleet needs is infeasible without the support of the society it protects. The 24th century Federation culture circa TNG is incompatible with a militaristic Starfleet.

I propose swarms of unmanned guided devices loaded with very large matter/antimatter warheads (a la the Cardassian "Dreadnought", although the individual devices would be smaller), designed to bombard the Borg cube (which will be a pathetically easy target to hit) with too many devices to shoot down and too much firepower to deal with. This will have the advantage of not having to fight decades of ingrained pacifistic Federation cultural values when trying to train officers for this bold new Starfleet some of you propose.

These swarms of missiles will also be effective against Threat fixed installations (space or ground based), which should curtail the losses suffered in the Dominion War as a result of attacking fortified positions.

Alterations to Federation policy and Starfleet teachings will have to wait until the Federation's nose has been bloodied by the Dominion, when people will be once more willing to accept the notion of securing peace by preparing for war.

OK. Couldn't we reorganize the military functions somewhat? We could found a new organization to act as the Federation's military. This organization would have its own uniforms, ranks and vessels, and would be responsible for defending the Federation, its leaders and its assets. It would have fleets of heavy-armed starships, fighters, space stations, units of marines and special forces, and intelligence-gathering personnel. Starfleet would retain its scientific and diplomatic functions, as well as providing emergency services, and serving as scouts and support units in time of war. Each member would have responsibility for defending their planets, providing each of them with the equivalent of a modern army, navy and air force. They could each maintain a small fleet to defend their systems. This arrangement would split up the material cost of creating the sort of legitimate defense force we think the Federation needs. This also shows respect for the individuality of each Federation member, and it prevents the Federation's defenses from becoming stagnant and predictable.

I'd scrap and sack the entire fleet and start over. Seriously.