Apologies to Opecoiler if I'm duplicating anything he's said here.
We haven't seen much of Starfleet ground equipment, but we do know it's quite possible for them to deploy flying infantry if they need to match the Orks in that unlikely capacity
With what, their vast stockpiles of rocket boots ?
We don't know much about combat vehicles; we know that Starfleet has been stockpiling phaser rifles and personal shields per the setting of the scenario (Dominion War era).
This isn't exactly an Ork beating strategy.
The Orks are tough opponents on the ground; however, there are only, most likely, only a few million Orks faced with the task of conquering the entire planet. They are outnumbered and less mobile with less close air support (shuttlecraft are very common) and - most importantly - no transport inhibitors.
This is Waagh Armageddon, the
initial landing wave was millions.
How many troops does earth have that you are claiming the Orks are outnumbered ?
"close air support" would come from over 3000 squadrons of orkish fighter craft, this is from 15k to ????? aircraft alone, not withstanding orbital support, Orkish Roks and ground forces providing heavy AA. Hell, in 40k the 1000 meter long escorts, or even battleship classes occasionally get involved in atmospheric battles.
How many shuttles are there ?
Their weaponry has limited accuracy and short range
I'm sorry, are you describing Federation weaponry or Orkish weaponry ? I don't think I've ever seen a phaser fire at a target more than 50 meters away and hit.
I shouldn't need to point out that Orks also have artillery, armour mounted weaponry and even superheavy war machines with weaponry capable of LOS ranges. (which is quite far if you are an 80 meter tall death robot)
Orks have a predilection for close combat every bit as strong as Borg and Klingon boarding crews
Thats nice to know, but I should point out a few flaws with this comparison.
Orks are tremendously more resilient than either the Borg or the Klingons.
Their idea of a close combat weapon for one hand is a giant hunk of vaguely sharpened metal, a weapon tremendously superior to either Klingon or Borg close combat equipment, when wielded by an ork.
Oh, and the average ork also has a giant freaking gun as well, that blows fist sized chunks out of metal bulkheads, and blasts armoured humans apart.
which is not going to get them very far on the open battlefield.
On an open battlefield, the orks will be fielding a lot more than axes and pistols. Even Feral Orks can build Gargants, and this is the armageddon Waaagh.
They're not going to simply sweep Earth.
YOu need to do better than that, I mean seriously, you've basically described the orks as stupid ill-equipped barbarian raiders with no weaponry other than axes and pistols, and you think this is an accurate representation of a race that fights in 40k ?
Christ, they have guns that teleport tiny orkish lifeforms into well armoured targets, or that envelop armoured vehicles in force fields, tractor beams weapons deployed on a tactical ground combat level.
Actually, I was referring to the Ork fleet's ability to support the attacking forces. We were assuming that Starfleet didn't have forces in the area that would take out the Ork fleet.
There are 12-16 spacehulks alone in the fleet attacking earth at this point. Orkish spacehulks are classed as Battleship level at the very least in 40k, Imperial Navy captains compare direct hits on spacehulks from near-c projectiles 50m in diameter to throwing "eggs at a brick wall"
The fleet that attacked Armageddon came in several waves as it split up, detoured to destroy facilities and engage Imperial forces, but basically...
Over a hundred "roks", some designed specifically to be landed as shielded and cap ship grade armed beachheads.
250-400 multi-kilometer combat vessels, over 2000 star destroyer size vessels, and god knows how many fighters.
They probably outgun and outmass the entire federation fleet, never mind what Feddy forces can get there in time.
What's to insure the Orks can (a) locate and (b) overrun the generator?
Orks are a spacefaring race with all the capabilities you'd expect, despite their fairly crude way of going about it. I was also unaware that Feddy generators were somehow stealthed.
I'd say one easy way of "overrunning" it would be to land millions of tons of orkish Rok on them, or 'Porting a Gargant Big Mob outside its perimeter or something
Besides, the Feds don't have a planetary shield generator around any planet in the TNG setting.
I don't see anything to indicate that the Orks will be able to build a significant number of new ships in a handful of weeks.
They don't need to.
They are. So, however, are accurate sensors, transport inhibitors, and safe instantaneous transport. Ork teleporters are not up to Starfleet standards.
Ork Teleportors don't require safety standards, and they are accurate and safe enough to transport hundreds of troops at least, and war machines tens of meters in height, and thousands of tonnes in mass.
From what I can tell, they are actually capable of longer range transports, and are capable of porting more stuff at once.
Under the scenario I outlined, the Orks have temporary orbital superiority and then are cut off by a shield.
Since Earth doesn't even appear to have a planetary shield during a period of all out war, and no mention of federation planetary shielding exists, I'd firstly question that the technology even exists to completely shield a planet. From a federation perspective anyway.
I'd also question that the Feds could somehow erect a planetary scale defensive forcefield while under invasion by an aggressive, mobile foe with ships in orbit and tens of thousands of aircraft.
I don't expect to see vast masses of fighta-bommerz, actually, just a few hundred - and I'd be amazed if there were fewer than ten thousand similarly capable small craft parked around. Is there any reason I should expect more?
Just a touch more.
There are canonical instances of the Federation (a) using transporters to transport friendlies and (b) using transporters to transport unfriendlies. Presumably, the widespread use of both of those was what led to the deployment of transport inhibitors in the Dominion War.
Orkish powerfields block transporters, and unless Earths fleet suddenly got a lot more powerful, their ain't gonna be many vessels around which can seriously get involved.
Transporters are quite a bit more sophisticated than teleporters. Think of them as the more developed version.
I think an appropriate analogy would be a heavy weight boxer and a karate type. They can both do some of the same things, and one can do some things a hell of a lot better, but the other chap can perhaps do more with it.
No, phasers don't. All indications are that phaser rifles (and other weapons, such as the scoped support weapon used to politely disable enemies at range by Worf in Insurrections) have no worse range and accuracy than modern rifles, and possibly quite a bit more (phasers have automatic aiming aids).
I'm sure you've seen those hilarious Trekmiss videos ?
Phasers don't even have the explaination that they are automatics, these are single shot beam weapons that aren't even used in a fashion to exploit their capabilities.
Rapid fire and blast radius lets you compensate for some inaccuracy (at the cost of logistic concerns); however, it doesn't solve the problem of range. A large number of Orkboyz are primarily melee fighters.
You'd be hard-pressed to find an ork without a large bolter equivalent mate.
This range issue is what's going to make Orks little more effective than redshirts on the sort of wide open fields and hill assaults you've been talking about. Their durability helps make up for it, but as Riker noted in "Hide and Q," one man with a phaser rifle could very well finish off a regiment of primitively armed individuals, and Orks aren't durable keep fighting after taking a high setting phaser hit.
They've got literally thousands and thousands of vehicles, heavy weapons platforms, etc etc in this scenario, they are an army, not some guys with hand weapons
I'm not. I'm expecting perhaps a third of Orkboyz to be mainly be armed with melee weapons, though, and I expect their infantry's effectiveness to decrease dramatically past 100 meters.
How exactly do you think the Feddies are going to do past 100 meters ?
Its pretty likely that the puny kill setting used as standard by the Feds isn't going to cut it, as Sergant Cloten says, to kill an ork you have to rip off its head and show it that its dead, or something similarly drastic.
Assume that the vape setting can actually manage an entire armoured ork, its still only frying a single ork, and in a fashion tremendously less intimidating than say a Necron flayer.
Unless you are claiming they can widebeam vape orks at a hundred meters plus, the Feds are still getting the worst of this.
Highly dubious.
Hardly, Orkish meks have co-opted technology from the Imperium quite easily.
Besides, they have both the most advanced orkish mind known, and his entourage, they can hardly fail to locate technology, they do it all the time in 40k.
What, precisely? The only thing that the Orks have to assault a fortified position with transport inhibitors up that might be immune to regular Starfleet infantry weapons is Gargants - and those are hideously easy targets to track and disable with close air support.
Tanks, dreadnaughts, Commando squads, giant space ships and asteroids.
Just plenty of lads in fact.
Which could possibly - depending upon which interpretations of WH40K ship capabilities you prefer
I don't think preference has anything to do with it. what facts do you offer ?
Their ships are not going to be around indefinitely. Two points to consider: Attention span and the massed strength of Starfleet.
The Proffit of Da Waaaagh tells you to jump, you scream back WAAAAAAAAGH
The massed strength of starfleet has yet to be proven capable of taking on Orkish fleet strength.
"A melee" in the sense of a messy mixed-range battle, not in the sense of exclusively using "melee weapons." Only a handful of Starfleet personnel are likely to be able to go axe-to-axe with an Ork, either through remarkable training or remarkable physical ability.
I can think of two that might have a chance, Data and maybe Worf.
Only if they had a decent weapon though, and even then it'd be pretty damn lucky.
All of which are quite vulnerable to Federation infantry weaponry. They'll be at all the usual disadvantages of a force storming a fortified position.
A supersonic bomber is vulnerable to a phaser rifle ?
Are you insane ?
Actually, explain me this. After the Orks successfully land a ground force - the entire mission of the Armageddon fleet - why is the fleet going to be hanging around in Earth orbit rather than zipping off to find out where Armageddon went?
why shouldn't they be hanging around in orbit ?
its exactly what they did on Armageddon, barring Orkimedes' hulk and roving wolf packs.