Crusade on Vulcan (ST vs 40K)

[sonofccn]

Okay my last topic may have been a record in terms of responses encouraging me to take another stab at a fun, meaningless quarrel. This time pitting the extremes of Star Trek against Warhammer 40k.

In keeping with my apparent theme of dry, desert worlds the scenario is that the Imperium invasion force of Taro is swept up by some wacky warpstorms through time and space and deposited on the doorstep of Vulcan and collectively shrug and say "Close enough" and prepare to "liberate" the world in the name of the God-Emperor. Vulcan, and presumbly the Federation at large, are not obliged to agree in the "wisdom" of the alleged Emperor and can be expected to resist. My question then is two fold, can the Imperium take Vulcan and can they hold it.

Imperium forces, taken from Lexicanum but they appear copy-pasted straight from Imperial armor III, consist of the following:

4621st Imperial ArmyX Corp

Tallarn 17th Desert Raiders Regiment
Tallarn 89th Desert Raiders Regiment
Tallarn 331st Desert Raiders Regiment
Tallarn 3rd Armoured Regiment
Tallarn 12th Armoured Regiment
2356th Storm Troopers company
2378th Storm Troopers company
XI Corp

Elysian 23rd Drop Troops Regiment
11th Sareinnian Assault Engineers
Cadian 114th Shock Troops Regiment
Krieg 19th Armoured Regiment
Brimlock 8th Dragoons Regiment
Adeptus Astartes

Raptors Third and Sixth Companies
Battle Barge War Talon
Gladius Class Frigate
Imperial Navy

Fleet-Ground Liaison Teams: 5
Fighter Wings: 4 (83rd, 386th, 1002nd, 2774th)
Bomber Wings: 2 (501st, 2424th)
Tactical Wings: 1 (71st)
Total Air Assets: 78 (36 Thunderbolt Fighters, 24 Marauder Bombers, 18 Valkyries

Adeptus Mechanicus

Enginseer Teams: 224
Ordnance Teams: 12
Legio Titanicus

Legio Ignatum Scout Titan Battlegroup: 4 Warhound Titans
Departmento Munitorium

Labour Corp: 2
Engineer Corp: 2
Supply Columns: 78
Officio Assassinorium

Agents: CLASSIFIED
Ministorium

Orders Hospitaller Field Hospice: 6
Orders Dialogous Interpreter Teams: 19
Adminsitratum

Mortuary Teams: 16
Adeptus Archivists: 18
Statistician Teams: 42
Imperial Invasion FleetCapital Ships

Overlord Class Battlecruiser Righteous Power
Tyrant Class Cruiser Star of Cassiopeia
Dictator Class Cruiser Black Duke
Lunar Class Cruiser Hammer of Thrace
Dauntless Class Light Cruiser August
Dauntless Class Light Cruiser Cerebus
Escort Squadrons

Errant Squadron: Sword Class Frigates
Invicis Squadron: Sword Class Frigates
Omna Squadron: Cobra Class Destroyers
Novem Squadron: Firestorm Class Frigates
Transports

Armed Transport Imperius Javelin
Armed Transport Imperius Gauntlet
Armed Transport Imperius Anvil
'Armed Transport 'Graf Derzki
Transport Prince Maud
Transport Marcouf
Transport Saint Macree
Transport Isolde
Transport Son of Jucha
Heavy Transport Colossia
Heavy Transport Piety
Heavy Transport Kagul
Heavy Tanker Empress of Svedeg
Behemoth Class Titan Transport Honorous Rex

Note:Beyond the Taros Intervention force conisting of the Avenging Sons marine chapter which wasn't part of the actual planet's invasion, being a special ops mission to assasinate the Planetary govenor before hand, and isn't to be included at all by OP fiat all of this arrives in the Vulcan system togather and on time instead of the more piecemeal manner some of them arrived in the original Imperial armor III.

Note2: For refrence this is the Overlord class, this the Tyrant class, Dictator Lunar Dauntless, Sword, Cobra and Firestorm

Edit Gosh darn it. Its crusade not crusad...don't suppose there is a way to edit thread titles is there? Oh well color my face red. :(

[Mr. Oragahn]

Edit Gosh darn it. Its crusade not crusad...don't suppose there is a way to edit thread titles is there? Oh well color my face red. :(

Save the red, son. You can edit the thread's title.

[Mr. Oragahn]

- The Vulcan forces seem hard to assess. I'd love to know what they really have, but unfortunately, Star Trek has been routinely shy of giving us any info on their resources, even less about anything related to infantry.
- Can Vulcans use beaming tech from the ground?
- How long before Vulcans attempt using beaming tech?
- Would they use WMDs against massed ground forces?
- Do they have any defense that could take care of the Imperial ships in space, either a shield, ground to orbit phaser banks or even plain starships?

[sonofccn]

Save the red, son. You can edit the thread's title.

Well that was simple. Thanks. ;)

- The Vulcan forces seem hard to assess. I'd love to know what they really have, but unfortunately, Star Trek has been routinely shy of giving us any info on their resources, even less about anything related to infantry.

True. At best we can only make rough guesses.

- Can Vulcans use beaming tech from the ground?

Well from Deep Space 9 season 2 we have this:

O'BRIEN: It was a matter of figuring out how to get a field transporter operational in ten minutes or wind up a Cardassian prisoner of war. Now, I didn't know a transporter from a turbolift in those days but somehow, in nine minutes fifty three seconds, I got that thing to work. I got thirteen men safely off the surface of Setlik Three. Next thing I know I'm the tactical officer on the Rutledge. That's how I got the gold suit.

The above in refrence to Setlik III a Federation colony/outpost attacked during the Federation/Cardassion war.

The use of the name "Field transporter" is suggestive of a none "dedicated" unit like you might find within a building and is possibly to some extent portable and with a range to get a baker dozen's men "off the surface of Setlik three" and presumbly into the Rutledge in orbit. I would further speculate the unit was the colony's/outpost's owing to the fact we seldom if ever see Starfleet personel use something of this nature. Now admittedly that is an assumption and further we have no way of knowing if Vulcan itself has anything like this but the raw technology does exist within the Federation, of which Vulcans are a senior and intelligent member, to do what you asked.

How long before Vulcans attempt using beaming tech?

Well they'll likely attempt to use transporters to board the Imperium vessels or to evacuate cities the Imperium attacks but I'm not sure they would use the technology offensively. It seems a little out of character for Vulcans to say beam bombs aboard or transport an Imperial guardsman into solid rock. Now beaming them into secure brigs and detention centers, sans weapons, could be an option but posses obvious difficulties if your being swamped by feral barbarians.

- Would they use WMDs against massed ground forces?

Well they may or may not have stockpiles of photon grenades where 1200 yards is "close for one of these jewels" as seen in Arena (TOS-season 1). Provided collateral damage is not an issue, for whatever reason, I don't see why they wouldn't use them.

Do they have any defense that could take care of the Imperial ships in space, either a shield, ground to orbit phaser banks or even plain starships?

Well starting last things first we learn this from Unification part II {TNG-05}:

WORF: The Vulcan defence vessels are also responding. The Romulan force is retreating toward the Neutral Zone.

So yes Vulcan has defense vessels of some sort through we don't recieve further details regarding them.

As well we learn from Gambit part I {TNG-07}:

BARAN
Nothing to worry about. They have
a type-four deflector shield
protecting the outpost and the
ruins.

PICARD
They'll also have a minimum of two
phaser banks... and possibly even
photon torpedoes. Is that enough
to worry about?

That even an outpost comes with phasers, shields and possibly photon torpedoes through not particuarly powerful it would seem.

And we learn from In the Pale Moonlight {DS9-06}:

SISKO: There's plenty of blame to go around. The Tenth Fleet was supposed to be protecting Betazed and its outlying colonies, but it was caught out of position on a training exercise. What's worse, Betazed's own defence systems are obsolete and undermanned. The planet was theirs in less than ten hours.

That even the less than war like Betazed have planetary defenses, likely similiar in type if not neccasarily in strenght to the outpost from gambit, and that therefore it is likely Vulcan has some ground based defenses. Possibly "obsolete" however and regretably I don't have anything to assign more concrete numbers to them.

[Mr. Oragahn]

True. At best we can only make rough guesses.

This is not going to help at all. I think I understand the appeal of that setting, a desert land and all that, but the information is so scarce as to be impossible to establish anything.
Me thinks you should clearly leave the Vulcan extrapolation aside and literally go for a scenario of known armed forces dropped on Vulcan to defend the planet against the Imperium.

I'd say that I would find it extremely odd that the Vulcans would have a series of transporters installed in various points of each one of their main cities.
nuTrek gives us plenty of information regarding the technology of that time.
For one, even some isolated and apparently not too young UFP outpost on a moon of Vulcan can have its own transporter.

As for defenses, it's problematic as the examples are from the TNG era. However, neither Vulcan nor Earth had any shield to block the red matter weapon of Nero; they also clearly lacked any capacity to shoot anything from the surface and obviously counted on spaceships for the defense.

If there are defenses (read, if the scenario happens around TNG), I wouldn't be too worried about the obsolete nature of the some of the equipment, as the overall level of technology of the UFP is quite really advanced and flexible, and they actually understand what they do. Any defense tech from the era between TOS and TNG would still prove to be more than sufficient against Imperium tech.

It seems, as usual, that the Vulcans and the UFP have to rely on spaceships and orbital superiority to do whatever they want to do after that. Their transporters are accurate enough to root out any entrenched foe, even from within a city.
However, the use of force fields could prove problematic. However, my knowledge of shield mounting is not as good as it is on other points, but it seems that in general, only the Titans are ground units known to have void shields.
Titans won't be a problem IF the Vulcans or their allies have the control of space. Even more since they can fire torpedoes at speeds which are slow enough to actually pass through void shields.
I'm more concerned about infantry-level personnal shields, but I think those cases are fairly rare.

Still, you've given the Imperium a fuckton of ships there, and not the smallest ones at that (in fact even their smallest will be as big if not plain bigger than anything the Vulcans or UFP have).
Their massive range and their firepower which is just as good if not slightly above will be impossible to defeat.
I'd consider Vulcan gone.

[Mike DiCenso]

The problem I have with this scenario is when is it set in the Trek timeline? If it's TNG-era, then Vulcan will have all sorts of potential technologies and ships at it's disposal as per the dialog from "Unification" that Sonofcnn provided.

Even in the 2260s, the Vulcans still potentially have full planetary shielding, like that seen protecting the Elba II asylum in TOS' "Whom Gods Destroy", which may buy enough time for Federation and local security forces to arrive before a ground assault can begin. Whether Vulcan has phasers and photon torpedoes on planet-side or space-side fixed installations, is another matter all together.


Star Trek 2009 takes place in the late 2250s and in an alternate timeline. But even if Vulcan had defenses, the Narada had enough firepower to easily defeat them as witnessed by the destruction of the fleet sent to assist the planet. There certainly was more than enough time to do so. Unfortunately we just don't get to see what was going on there. By the time the Alt-E arrived on scene, the fleet was decimated, and the drill was already in place and had nearly reached Vulcan's core.
-Mike

[sonofccn]

The problem I have with this scenario is when is it set in the Trek timeline?

Sorry for any confusion. I intended this to be post Dominion war era in the original time line.

This is not going to help at all.

Quite possibly through really just about any matchup but against Starfleet itself would require guessing and patchwork. We simply are not told very much about such things in Star Trek, it being ship centric, to the best of my knowledge.

Me thinks you should clearly leave the Vulcan extrapolation aside and literally go for a scenario of known armed forces dropped on Vulcan to defend the planet against the Imperium.

I would gladly if there is a "vanilla" flavored force to substitute in. As it is any force would be as murky and threadbare as the extrapolation done previously. Now I could make it a Naval battle only I suppose. Essentially ask if the Federation could defeat the task force of cruisers and such in a timely manner.

[Mike DiCenso]

Sorry for any confusion. I intended this to be post Dominion war era in the original time line.

Well, that changes everything. The Federation and Vulcan will be much better prepared than possibly any other point in the Prime Trek timeline, with possibly one or two major Dominion-era war fleets available to send at least hundreds starships to aid Vulcan, and planetary defenses will have likely have had a high priority, especially seeing what happened on Betazed with it's obsolete and undermanned defenses. So with the Borg still a major threat, I don't see the Vulcans stripping down their war-level prepardness too quickly.

But there's another very important issue; does the WH40k Warp work or exist in the Trekverse? If not, that will hobble the invasion force by disabling their Psykers and any tech dependent on it.
-Mike

[Enterprise E]

You should also ask how the Warp works in Trek, too, if it does at all. Are Federation humans Nulls, with everything that comes being Nulls, or do they have a Warp presence?

[Mr. Oragahn]

The problem I have with this scenario is when is it set in the Trek timeline?

Sorry for any confusion. I intended this to be post Dominion war era in the original time line.

This is not going to help at all.

Quite possibly through really just about any matchup but against Starfleet itself would require guessing and patchwork. We simply are not told very much about such things in Star Trek, it being ship centric, to the best of my knowledge.

Well then perhaps for this debate you could allow for the use of certain apocryphal sources such as guides, if they provide detailed information.
Memory Beta could be a good way to start with and pick the sources which seem good enough.

Me thinks you should clearly leave the Vulcan extrapolation aside and literally go for a scenario of known armed forces dropped on Vulcan to defend the planet against the Imperium.

I would gladly if there is a "vanilla" flavored force to substitute in. As it is any force would be as murky and threadbare as the extrapolation done previously. Now I could make it a Naval battle only I suppose. Essentially ask if the Federation could defeat the task force of cruisers and such in a timely manner.

But the scenario would be rather random then.
Isn't there a single ground force in Trek that got any decent treatise about its abilities?

[Mike DiCenso]

But the scenario would be rather random then.
Isn't there a single ground force in Trek that got any decent treatise about its abilities?

Nope, not really. We've heard about, but not seen various vehicles, like the Federation "hopper" craft for troop transport, the Cardassian mechanized infantry, and an armored vehicle used by the Klingons. In DS9's "Business as Usual", we see a powered armor suit thingy and a flying armored drone, but we don't really know how that relates to what anyone else has.

The only ground force that we've seen in any detail are the MACOs from ST:ENT.
-Mike

[sonofccn]

But there's another very important issue; does the WH40k Warp work or exist in the Trekverse? If not, that will hobble the invasion force by disabling their Psykers and any tech dependent on it.

Well sir much like Jedi force powers I don't think it would be fair to deprive them of "natural" abilities despite being transported to a new "verse". Through I'm not sure the Taros force had any psykers, I've only kinda read the first 70 pages of the Sourcebook finding it a little "dry", in any event.

But the scenario would be rather random then.
Isn't there a single ground force in Trek that got any decent treatise about its abilities?

Nope, not really. We've heard about, but not seen various vehicles, like the Federation "hopper" craft for troop transport, the Cardassian mechanized infantry, and an armored vehicle used by the Klingons. In DS9's "Business as Usual", we see a powered armor suit thingy and a flying armored drone, but we don't really know how that relates to what anyone else has.

The only ground force that we've seen in any detail are the MACOs from ST:ENT.
-Mike

Pretty much sir. In retrospect I didn't really put much thought into the match up. But it sounded fun in my head.