Prepare your bowels for the movement that is part two of my ongoing series about the hypothetical war between the two biggest sci-fi franchises ever. I present to you:
Pop Combat: Star Wars vs Star Trek (pt. 2)
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Before we get started let me restate the rules:
- 1 - No conflict within either universe. The Borg, the dominion and the federation are all working together in the Star Trek (s.t.) universe. Which means the Vong, The Empire, and The Jedi are all working in harmony over in the Star Wars (s.w.) universe.
- 2 - No Divine Intervention. The Bajoran Prophets and Q aren't going to be going around poofing fleets out of existence, neither is Abeloth going to be mind controlling several planets worth of people into committing suicide.
- 3 - Both Universes are equivalent. For the purposes of this thought experiment, both the Star Wars (s.w.) and Star Trek (s.t.) galaxies are roughly the same size with approximately equal population figures.
So, let's get this show on the road!
Last time I went over ground troops, infantry and small arms that will make up the bulk of the ground fighting force for each universe. Detailing the fighting skills, technology and tactics of The Dominion, Klingons, The Borg, and others over in s.t. While also detailing the Vong, Droids, The Empire, and The Jedi from s.w. In the end, it was a close call, but the might of a Jedi in infantry combat just wasn't enough of an edge to overcome the tactical flexibility of Trek's Transporter. Teleportation is just too ripe for abuse in military tactics, and I had to give the edge to Star Trek.
Today, I'm taking the fight a little bigger. We are looking at Groundswear. Tank-analogues and atmospheric assault craft, basically anything used to fight over a planet that isn't technically space based.
Mobile Artillery:
Star Trek: To be honest, the star trek universe doesn't have much in the way of armored vehicles for making war on a planets surface, and why would they? The transporter makes moving troops around a theatre of war a trivial matter, and most major artillery operations are handled from orbit. Not to mention, in areas where transporters are blocked or unreliable, they always have access to small space/atmospheric craft called shuttles (or runabouts, if they are outfitted for long distance travel) most of these shuttles are lightly armed and armored, with weak shields. While this may seem like an obvious oversight, when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Why go to the effort and expense of maintaining a fleet of vehicles that will rarely get used when you can teleport troops and materiel anywhere in the blink of an eye.
That being said, Star Trek does have access to small vehicles with stronger weaponry. Shuttles are usually four or five person craft, with light weapons and shields (though the shields are still stronger than those on most Starfighters, covered in a bit) shuttles are used mainly for transport where use of teleportation technology is unfeasible for some reason, and as such shuttles aren't designed with combat in mind. While they can be used to assault enemy forces and carry troops, or even as bombers to level enemy emplacements, shuttles just aren't designed for war. The problem is these shuttles aren't designed to stand up to, or participate in, a full scale mechanical assault. This is a job for stationary base defenses and orbital weapons delivery systems respectively.
Star Wars: On the other hand, the denizens of the Star Wars universe are used to massive artillery battles. With no transporters to teleport troops and supplies, the technology for moving and defending war materiel has proceeded on parity with the technology for space combat.
Atmospheric response vehicles (called speeders) are usually single pilot (sometimes with a separate gunner, but not always) craft that serve as a mobile, maneuverable weapons platform. Smaller and faster than a shuttle or runabout from s.t., speeders usually fly in squadrons, allowing groups of pilots to concentrate fire on large targets and watch each other's backs in a dogfight. Speeders come in a variety styles and configurations, though they are usually comparable to the ubiquitus space-worthy single pilot assault craft (called Starfighters) in the terms of speed, armor, shields, and armament.
- A word on Starfighters (or snubfighters): Starfighters will be covered in more detail later, when we get to the space combat portions of this series, but here is a brief rundown. In Star Wars, the majority of casualties and the majority of space combat takes place between small, fast, maneuverable, single (or double) occupant fighter craft, sometimes piloted by droids, but often piloted by sentient beings. Starfighters come an as many different shapes and sizes as there are fighting species in the Star Wars universe, from the nimble but shieldless Imperial TIE Fighter (Twin Ion Engine) to the slower, heavily shielded and heavily armored Y-Wing bomber, from the famous and ubiquitus X-Wing (The craft flown by Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars movies) to the strange living asteroid-like Coralskipper flown by the Yuuzhan Vong, there is almost no end to the variety present in the small attack craft from the Star Wars universe. Starfighters vary in their armament and defensive capabilities, but there is one rule of thumb. Starfighters are small. Usually a single pilot vehicle, Starfighters are rarely encountered alone. More often, at least a whole squadron (12 craft) are deployed at a time, usually several squadrons working to support each other. In Star Wars space combat, is it not unusual to see clouds of Starfighters launching from larger vessels to tangle with each other, hoping to punch through and turn their formidable weaponry on the enemy capitol ships. -
Starfighters are often used in complimentary roles or even as replacements for speeders in planetary combat, as they server basically the same role. Speeders/Starfighters are used in planetary combat as anti-artillery vehicles, bombers, and (more rarely) as anti-infantry platforms. A squadron of Z-95 Headhunters (A precursor to the X-Wing, featuring fixed wings [or Strike Foils], often configured for atmospheric combat) can be used to drop proton torpedo bombs (high yeild explosives capable ot destroying an entire city block) on enemy emplacements. They can be used to attack enemy mobile artillery with their laser cannons which are larger, more powerful, computer guided versions of the hand blasters carried by Star Wars troops. Or they can be used to strafe enemy troop locations. Speeders cause destruction among the enemy ranks in a variety of ways, but they almost always present during planetary combat.
Groundswear:
Star Wars: Armored ground based assault craft aren't anywhere near as common as Speeders, but they do exist and they do serve a purpose. The most notable addition to this debate from the Star Wars universe are the Imperial Walkers. Large, heavily armored and lightly shielded, Walkers are a devastating anti-infantry weapons platform that is capable of stomping into an enemy emplacement and blasting it back to the stone age with their Starfighter level weaponry. With armor that is nearly impenetrable to the personal hand armaments carried by most ground troops, light shields to repel attacks from the much faster and more maneuverable speeders, and weapons just one step down from those found on a capitol ship, Walkers will make up a good portion of the artillery in the Star Wars fighting force. It will often be necessary for Star Trek to engage these vehicles from orbit, with starship/starbase launched shuttles or runabouts, which will then be easy prey for an accompanying squadron of speeders/Starfighters. Walkers come in two main varieties. All Terrain Assault Transports (A.T.A.T.'s or "at-at's") are the larger of the two, shaped like a giant mechanical horse, these four legged vehicles are slow and unwieldy, but what they lack in speed and maneuverability they make up for in sheer firepower and the ability to transport whole battalions of troopers in their nearly impenetrable under bellies. All Terrain Scout Transports (A.T.S.T. Or "at-sat's") are the smaller, faster, two (or sometimes three) legged little brothers to the A.T.A.T. With much lighter armor than their larger counterparts, yet comparable strength weaponry, A.T.S.T.'s are perfect for scouting ahead of the main fighting force, and engaging enemy Groundswear in hit and run attacks to harry the defensive line until the big boys show up to play. A.T.S.T. Walkers sacrifice some armor and the ability to carry troops for speed and maneuverability. In a lot of cases, A.T.A.T. walkers may be too large for urban or close quarters combat. If an orbital or speeder assault is unfeasible for some reason, an A.T.S.T. walker is the obvious choice, capable of stomping down city streets or narrow valleys to bring its large cannons to bear against dug-in enemy emplacements.
Star Trek: Again, Star Trek species have very little use for large mobile artillery and troop transport. I hate to keep belaboring a point here, but the Transporter system makes these kinds of vehicles mostly obsolete. If s.w. needs to take a city, they need to mobilize groups of walkers with fighter escort to carry battalions of troops across the landmass to the target area. This is a slow and vulnerable process, which completely negates any element of surprise and creates long supply lines. There is also the possibility of bottlenecks, where the enemy can intercept an assault force and attack while the defenders can't bring all of their weaponry into play, this can be negated by the Jedi Danger Sense, but Jedi are few and far between, and they can't be counted on to be there to support every movement of an assault force, hence the massive amount of armament and armor needed to carry it out. Conversely, if s.t. needs an occupying force in an enemy city, they simply begin beaming groups of soldiers directly into the city, no warning, no time to build defenses, just quick, precice transports of troopers to exactly where they need to be.
On the other hand, not having to deal with these kinds of problems means that when the walkers and speeders DO show up on the battlefield, Star Trek forces will be woefully unprepared to deal with the artillery. While there are base defenses (which I will cover in a later installment dedicated to defensive strategies), it is doubtful that s.t. is prepared to repel an assault from heavily armored Groundswear combined with speeders/bombers.
On the whole, while Star Trek troopers have the major advantage of transporter technology, being maneuverable isn't everything. In order to take and hold a planet from the enemy, you need to be able to respond to your bases and emplacements being attacked. And Star Wars just has the bigger gun in this knife fight
When it comes to planetary war, in the artillery category: I'm going to have to give the decisive advantage to Star Wars
Stay tuned for next time, when we finally get off the ground and launch into space combat. The bread and butter of a war between the two biggest sci-fi universes to ever exist.
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