Opecoiler wrote:TheRedFear wrote:
It should be noted that the Starfleet force suffered less than one casualty a day, from both the minefield and Jem'hadar attacks. Said Starfleet force was wearing far less protective gear than the ones that the average American soldier has on.
It should also be noted that starfleet's medical tech is far superior than ours, such as the dermal regenerator.
The marines will not be lacking in automatic weapons. A company will have an M240 medium machine gun and a lot of SAWs, in addition to grenades and a 60 mm mortar for indirect attacks.
Since it would require a huge cache of ammo for a modern military, striking the weapon depot wouldn't be out of the question to get rid of some of the heavier weapons.
Jem'hadar don't strike me as too impressive up close, seeing as how baseline humans with weapons not as nasty as a bayonet can defeat them in HTH.
Maybe not to look at. They aren't invulnerable, but they don't eat, don't drink, don't sleep, don't have sex, are stronger and have more stamina than even a soldier that can run 26 miles in less than a day and not be winded in the slightest. The only thing needed to keep them going is white.
Cpl_Kendall and consequences have dealt with widebeam phasers-the fact that the wider they get, the weaker they get, and the fact that they are infrequently used. They certainly weren't used in the battle on AR-558.
The jemmies were forced to go through a bottle neck when they attacked. Why would you set your phaser to wide beam and fire it, ensuring that you make the bottle neck wider for them? Even a kill (but, not quite disintegrate) setting would damage the bottleneck, even if it was from brute force over the long term. What they were protecting wasn't mobile as far as I know.
On the other hand, the American soldiers have automatic weapons with far superior ergonomics than the hand phaser, grenades, body armor, and better camouflaged uniforms.
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.
The ergonomics of real life guns is also designed around being able to better take the recoil that's generated. There is no appreciable recoil shown with phasers. So, the hand can stay in a relaxed position. With the over 90 degree angle, it isn't that much different than many weapons that have such a handle, like the M1903.
Seen here:
http://tri.army.mil/LC/cs/csi/m1903.jpg
The variations seen in the handle angle of the type 2 phasers are very similar, if not the same see by rifles that are used by both civilians and military. And where is the desitination of the recoil going when you use a rifle? That's right. Into the shoulder, not the forearm or even the hand.
The point of the design of handles for handguns is so that when there is blowback, the hand is already covering a surface perpendicular to the direction of the recoil to better control it. You have some variations from straight up and down and at a small angle, as the top of the handle leans forward, but it isn't at the angle of the handle of an M1903, which (again) is designed to let the shoulder take the brunt of the recoil.
So, with the ergonomics of a type 2 phaser, it can rest comfortably and probably a little loosely. With the auto-targeting, zero appreciable recoil (though, I'd wager there is no recoil-- probably from some kind of circular particle accelerator(s) inside) and off-axis firing, there is a smaller learning curve. There's also an increased chance of hitting your target in a weaker state, where you need a certain amount of strength to keep a slugthrower from flying all over the place with the recoil. We've seen you don't even need to keep your firing arm straight.
I have a ruger P94 and I love it. But, with what's shown with the design ideas of just the type 2 phaser, those used in my P94 doesn't compare.