The UFP gets a real army

[Mr. Oragahn]

The UFP is getting a tough, real infantry.
Basically, imagine you're part of the military and strategic branch of the UFP. You're tasked to use all available technology, proved to work, and only such technology (ZERO extrapolations) to develop high efficiency powerful ground troops, the kind that would redefine the MACO people as mere occasional kindergarten guardsmen on leisure ships.
You must define the typical equipment for basic grunts and eventually specialized units.
Generally, you'll allow each class the equivalent of a rifle, heavy rifle or other heavy weapon, plus a pistol and an appropriate short range melee weapon, plus a waist belt worth of equipment.

Each class should also have access to an appropriate gear, adequate for its purpose. For example, your assault trooper will clearly have to be the equivalent of a light tank on legs, equipped with anything similar to Mechanized Muscular Assistance technologies, along other dissipative platings and perhaps shields.
It also includes a gear that would allow any unit to operate in the most hostile environment, if possible.
Don't go overboard here, use parsimony and try not to fall into fanboyism by turning your trooper into a mix of a future Rambo and Master Chief on steroids.

Pick anything proved to exist and replicable, from TOS to VOY and even the new movies. Bombs, special grenades, other weird weapons and non-combat devices that might fit with the class' obligations.
Think of anything that can allow greater mobility, ranges, deployment, defense, observation, etc.
If there's any unique, sensible of rather rare gear, then try to find a proper class that would be specialized in the use of such tools or weapons.

Globally, classes would be:

- basic assault grunt, with a sniper variant, the meat and potatoes of the army
- short and long range heavy weapons, uses rocket launchers, heavy phasers, bombs, mortars and is responsible of tactical warhead deployment as special orders
- medic & bioweapons, heals and kills with technology and viruses
- infiltration, recon & (xeno)technologies, to infiltrate the enemy by any mean possible, deactivate defenses or steal data

[The Dude]

Oh boy, the kit isn't the problem. There is plenty of stuff available that can be tweaked or re-purposed for gear. The problem is the training. If SF doesn't have folks that are already trained to form a cadre then it's going to be a very long and laborious process to develop an effective force.

[Jasonb]

To land ground troops the Federation has hoppers and shuttlecrafts to move ground soldiers. Some shuttlecraft typ six many will be able to work as APC. Federation foot soldiers are armed with Photon grenade, Isomagnetic, disintegrator, phaser rifes, compression phaser rifle many different kinds explosives. For air support Federation has shuttlecrafts to do the job.

[Cocytus]

Basic grunt
Defense: Personal forcefield, designed and proven operable in "A Fistful of Datas." Protects against six direct hits.

Armament: Standard phaser rifle.

Sniper grunt
Defense: same as above.

Armament: TR-116 rifle, modified to "Field of Fire" standard.

[The Dude]

To land ground troops the Federation has hoppers and shuttlecrafts to move ground soldiers. Some shuttlecraft typ six many will be able to work as APC. Federation foot soldiers are armed with Photon grenade, Isomagnetic, disintegrator, phaser rifes, compression phaser rifle many different kinds explosives. For air support Federation has shuttlecrafts to do the job.

Now your getting into a different problem; the logistics of supplying your new army and ships to move them around with. Yes, you can shove them on a GCS or whatever spare ships you have at hand but that's going to be pretty uncomfortable for all involved and depending how much kit these guys are dragging around may not fit. It would be wiser IMO to design and field dedicated transports for them.

Which would probably have to be started around the time your designing your kit and training the first group of troops.

[sonofccn]

Well I always thought as far as light infantry went the feds weren't bad and coupled with thier transporters meant most cases it all you'd ever need but I'll give it a shot.

basic grunt Equipment( defense: individual) one (1) tactical vest, inner laced with duranium plates, one (1) personal shield generater. one (1) gas mask as seen in the squire of Gothos ( TOS)

Equipment(defense: squad) atleast one (1) larger forcefield generate as seen in use by picard in chain of command (TNG).

Equipment (offense: individual) one (1) type III phaser rifle modified with raising scope seen in use by Maco's and utilizing tricorder level scanners. one (1) Type II phaser, TOS issue, with no modifications. four (4) Ultritium based grenades and four (4) stun grenades and one (1) D'k tahg for stabbing Xenos.

Equipment( offense:Squad) two (2) TR-116 rifle modified with micro transporter and scanner. 1(one) photon grenade mortar also modified with micro transporter.

Equipment(scouting) One (1) tricorder and one (1) binocular as seen in insurection with optional tricorder grade sensor system included.

Equipment(Support:squad) two (2) field replicators, as observed with the exocomps in quaility of life (TNG) such devices are man portable and are able to generate palm sized items such as power cells for weapons or food stuffs.

infantry transport Type six (6) shuttle with warpdrive removed for additional space and power to the shields, rapid fire phaser array from NTOS, powered proportionally of course, four (4) hull mounted photon grenades and microtransporter for deployment and a record playing ride of the valkeries while in combat.

Paratroopers Equipment( special: individual) in addition to standard grunt gear one (1) pair of jet boots, one riot shield as seen in star trek V, one visor for enhanced vision.

special ops Equipment- same as above but includes holosuits seen from insurection.

[Mike DiCenso]

You can also add in for the spec ops troops the suits Picard's group was wearing in "Chain of Command" as well as the repelling gear they used.

I'am also a bit suprised no one has mentioned the portable mortar launcher Kirk used in "Arena" [TOS, Season 2] to launch a photon grenade with. That baby alone is worth it's weight in latinum for one of the squad to carry it and the photon grenade ammunition around with. Especially good for wiping out whole infantry companies, damaging/delaying or and possibly destroy armor companies, and probably the outright destruction of most enemy bases, command posts or other installations.
-Mike

[l33telboi]

I'll recite what I've said before:

You need infantry for a variety of mission, usually involving buildings and tight spaces. They're not going to be all that numerous though, and more like specialized forces then anything mundane. They should be power-armored, of course. With ST power generation they should be able to reach either the triple-digit megawatt or single-digit gigawatt region. Mount shields on the suits, a sensory-suite equal to that of a simple tricorder as well as phasers.

The most common vehicle for use in in-atmosphere combat would be something about the size of a shuttle, except designed for war.

There. That's the sort of force composition that would be smart for someone like Trek.

No tanks? Artillery? IFVs? Normal infantry?

No, because that's pretty damn stupid if you have the tech the Federation does.

[The Dude]

You can also add in for the spec ops troops the suits Picard's group was wearing in "Chain of Command" as well as the repelling gear they used.

I'am also a bit suprised no one has mentioned the portable mortar launcher Kirk used in "Arena" [TOS, Season 2] to launch a photon grenade with. That baby alone is worth it's weight in latinum for one of the squad to carry it and the photon grenade ammunition around with. Especially good for wiping out whole infantry companies, damaging/delaying or and possibly destroy armor companies, and probably the outright destruction of most enemy bases, command posts or other installations.
-Mike

That seems a little to powerful to be used for infantry support, at least at close range. One of Kirks men comments that they were a little to close to the target and they all fled to the other side of the crater when they fired.

For longer ranges, sure go nuts.

Seeing as no one is interested in addressing the training, logistics and transport points I brought up I'll contribute more to the spirit of the OP:

A section (6 men) is going to need 5 rifles, a grenadier and a MG if we go by what's in use by the CF now.

Rifle: what they have in FC is fine really. Clean it up a bit add some iron sights and make the phaser bolts invisible to the naked eye (if possible), reduce the settings to a simple kill and stun and you should be good.

Grenadier: something similar to the M203 that is mounted on current rifles. So a grenade launcher on the FC phaser rifle. I'd steer clear of those photon mortar things and go with a simple chemical explosive unless you can dial down the yield drastically.

MG: That's a little trickier as we haven't seen much to compare it too. You could probably scale up the rifle with a larger power pack, better sights etc. Though by using a phaser you lose the benefit of a projectile MG; area weapon, able to fire into dead ground etc.

Add in some weapons for specialists, a shotgun equivalent, sniper/marksmen rifle and a pistol and you should be good up to the company lvl where you might want to start looking at heavier support weapons.

Personal kit: body armour and LBE of some sort (a simple belt is a poor idea from a comfort and load bearing perspective). The BA and the LBE should be separate, you won't always need to wear the LBE or the BA, the ability to wear one or the other or both is nice to have.

NBC kit: A simple gas mask will only cut it for blister agents. You'll need a full suit for stuff like nerve or biological agents.

I do disagree with leetboi's stance on AFV's though. You won't always have access to a ship, the transporters might be down etc. So something to ride around in that provides protection would be preferred to a truck.

[sonofccn]

You can also add in for the spec ops troops the suits Picard's group was wearing in "Chain of Command" as well as the repelling gear they used.

I'am also a bit suprised no one has mentioned the portable mortar launcher Kirk used in "Arena" [TOS, Season 2] to launch a photon grenade with. That baby alone is worth it's weight in latinum for one of the squad to carry it and the photon grenade ammunition around with. Especially good for wiping out whole infantry companies, damaging/delaying or and possibly destroy armor companies, and probably the outright destruction of most enemy bases, command posts or other installations.
-Mike

Equipment( offense:Squad) two (2) TR-116 rifle modified with micro transporter and scanner. 1(one) photon grenade mortar also modified with micro transporter. I meant the Arena mortar coupled with a transporter type device like the TR-116 had to increase it's range.

[sonofccn]

Grenadier: something similar to the M203 that is mounted on current rifles. So a grenade launcher on the FC phaser rifle. I'd steer clear of those photon mortar things and go with a simple chemical explosive unless you can dial down the yield drastically.

Photon grenades can be set down to nonlethal but shake people up level according to Legacy(TNG) however over all lt's likely more cost effective to use a smaller yield explosive in the first place. here is a list of several explosives seen in star trek. I figure something like the Ultritium should work.

MG: That's a little trickier as we haven't seen much to compare it too. You could probably scale up the rifle with a larger power pack, better sights etc. Though by using a phaser you lose the benefit of a projectile MG; area weapon, able to fire into dead ground etc.

Maybe a modifed version of the dune buggy weapon from Nemesis perhapes. That more or less was a bigger meaner phaser rifle.

I do disagree with leetboi's stance on AFV's though. You won't always have access to a ship, the transporters might be down etc. So something to ride around in that provides protection would be preferred to a truck.

Still large scale "armor" would be of limited use on a realistic battlefield. To make it armored enough or wrapped in enough of a shield would either make it too slow to be of any use or require anti-gravs to move which turns it into a shuttle. My two cents of course. I personally lean towards fleets of attack shuttles protecting fleets of transports shuttles who will ferry my ground forces to the objective.

[The Dude]

Maybe a modifed version of the dune buggy weapon from Nemesis perhapes. That more or less was a bigger meaner phaser rifle.[/quote]

I don't recall much of NEM or that weapon, I remember it being rather large but part of that was probably the mounting. So it's probably feasible.

Still large scale "armor" would be of limited use on a realistic battlefield. To make it armored enough or wrapped in enough of a shield would either make it too slow to be of any use or require anti-gravs to move which turns it into a shuttle. My two cents of course. I personally lean towards fleets of attack shuttles protecting fleets of transports shuttles who will ferry my ground forces to the objective.

Shuttles, AFV's, antigrav whatever it is they need something to provide some protection while they shuttle around.

[Roondar]

I'm not convinced any of the AQ powers has the technology to build personal armour that can actually withstand their anti-personal weapons (especially on the higher settings).

Besides, even if they could - phasers scale very neatly. All you'd need against someone foolish enough to believe a sheet of metal will help him against your gun is, basically, a bigger battery and a higher baseline setting on your phaser. And you're all set.

I firmly believe this is one of the biggest reasons that even the more warlike races don't bother with armour.

--

And yes, we have seen the UFP 'armour' in ST VI and DS9. Leaving aside that we never have seen any evidence that either would block any phaser beam effectively, let a lone a high powered shot, I think it's pretty telling that neither protect the whole body in any case.

This, coupled with the limited use of said armour and the lack of effective protection it seemed to offer the one person we've ever seen who was hit by something while wearing it seems to confirm my stance: the UFP knows damn well that it's armour won't stop phaser fire. They don't issue phaser-blocking armour for groundforces because there are no suitable materials to build that armour out of.

After all... If they did make stuff that would block shots, all the other side would need to do is up the yield of their kill setting. Which we know, by virtue of UFP handphaser effects on harder substances, is quite possible.

[Jedi Master Spock]

This, coupled with the limited use of said armour and the lack of effective protection it seemed to offer the one person we've ever seen who was hit by something while wearing it seems to confirm my stance: the UFP knows damn well that it's armour won't stop phaser fire. They don't issue phaser-blocking armour for groundforces because there are no suitable materials to build that armour out of.

Actually, we have seen suitable materials which required substantial work to pierce/cut with hand weapons... that's what the UFP builds hulls out of. Tritanium and duranium alloys have shown some pretty hefty resistance.

Yes, a sufficiently high power phaser shot will blast straight through, but if you make your base powered armor chassis out of something like tritanium alloy, it will not only be very resistant to shock, temperature changes, etc, but it will also resist small arms fire and force your enemies to use either heavier weapons or close to maximum settings on their weapons. Add in shields and you just might be golden against regular small arms.

I would say build a base chassis on either a tritanium or duranium alloy. This will make it tough as blazes, as these materials are on the order of 10-100 times as tough as steel. Put artificial "muscles" on it, giving the user super strength/speed. Rocket boots/antigrav harnesses provide drop braking and allow the suit to jump/fly. A fusion generator backpack should easily provide a long term, gigawatt-peak supply of energy; you'll want to run most systems off rechargeable battery packs to pull higher peak yields, and use the generator for recharging the batteries.

Personal shields and a wider radius shield/forcefield projector allows the suits to protect each other, stray civilians, or critical equipment. You'd probably want "Chains of Command" portable shield generators in the standard kit to leave behind on soft target zones you don't want hit by collateral damage.

Grenade launchers (conventional and, if economically feasible, transporter-based systems), phasers, knife and any other close combat weapons/tools, tricorder-scale sensors, and an integral "escape" transporter system (and jammers for enemy transporters) are all possible. Life support and a small on-board emergency replicator/recycling system should round out the core systems - perhaps a fold-out solar sail for multi-week "lost in space" scenarios.

Obviously, you'd want to beef the shield generator systems on medic units, give them foldable antigrav pallets they can tow easily and stow when not in use, specialized tools to cut open damaged armor, and a full set of medical hyposprays/scanners. For a heavy weapons unit, you can upgrade to a larger (and more awkward) primary weapon (Type IV, or something like Breen CRM-114, there's actually an assortment of models to base it on) and pull out the high-yield (terajoule range) photon grenades.

They could be quite a bit scarier than Heinlein's mobile infantry. It's just not the sort of thing that Starfleet does, generally.

[Mike DiCenso]

You can also add in for the spec ops troops the suits Picard's group was wearing in "Chain of Command" as well as the repelling gear they used.

I'am also a bit suprised no one has mentioned the portable mortar launcher Kirk used in "Arena" [TOS, Season 2] to launch a photon grenade with. That baby alone is worth it's weight in latinum for one of the squad to carry it and the photon grenade ammunition around with. Especially good for wiping out whole infantry companies, damaging/delaying or and possibly destroy armor companies, and probably the outright destruction of most enemy bases, command posts or other installations.
-Mike

Equipment( offense:Squad) two (2) TR-116 rifle modified with micro transporter and scanner. 1(one) photon grenade mortar also modified with micro transporter. I meant the Arena mortar coupled with a transporter type device like the TR-116 had to increase it's range.

I wouldn't become too enamored of micro-transporter enhancements to weapons, especially since we have seen numerous times where transporters can be jammed, which would then render the weapon useless in all but a handful of times during the combat action.
-Mike