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when he was "possessed" by the alien and Chakotay was a "spirit"

Do we really have to count it as Cannon if the Writers had some icing sugar on their desks and a blue haze in their office?

But yeah I'm with Rochey, Wide area can be a nice setting but what if you have a weak container with a highly unstable chemical/object inside that you hit, you could take yourself or your unit out by mistake. Not to mention that a Wide Beam pretty much removes any hope of not being located very quickly, any beam would do this of course but a wide beam makes it easier since its starts out small and gets bigger, all they have to do would be follow it back until it is small. I think the Pulse that was mentioned before would be superior to this, provided you could of course control the rate of fire.

I think that both settings have an equel stratigic value. Should be a selectable switch.

Mark wrote:I think that both settings have an equel stratigic value. Should be a selectable switch.

Maybe, I mean it can be useful like in crowd pacification set on even a low stun would likely cause them to calm down a bit, or make it worse which could be a good thing because then you might get your justification for using your liberally placed explosives...

I think the pulse setting should be the 'default' though.

Agreed, but think how much more effective the Starfleet forces would have been using wide angle beams against the Jem'Hadar during the siege of AR-??? (my mind is slipping)

Mark wrote:Agreed, but think how much more effective the Starfleet forces would have been using wide angle beams against the Jem'Hadar during the siege of AR-??? (my mind is slipping)

AR-558 could have been solved much easier though, they simply did not have enough of the aforementioned libberally placed explosives. They should have set the things to detonate in small groups when surrounded by Jem'Hadr, put 2 people on each cliff with a 'rapid fire phaser' something like the M2, have them engage the Jem to try and get as many into the detonation area as possible before letting it blow, they then continue to engage them after the blast, anything that got out could have been handled with another 2 of these back at the camp. There would have been virtually no close combat and a lot less causalities.

That would work too

:::slowly backing away:::

You've given this alot of thought, haven't you?

Mark wrote:That would work too

:::slowly backing away:::

You've given this alot of thought, haven't you?

Took me about 5 minutes to think it out and write it... Its just common sense though. You have a minefield, they do one of two things, area denial & causalties (mental & physical) Well the Jem don't know its there which is a good thing otherwise they would just fly over it, which is stupid that they didn't so you are left with casualties. Its unlikely it will deter their attack so you have to make the most of that. The best way to do that is to have every Jem there is standing within the blast range, so once they are in the thick of it you open up, this will cause some confusion and might bring forward more who would not be in a good blast spot who are eager to find out what is happening. Once you have maximum saturation you blow it, if you continue to engage them then you kill the survivors. Anyone who made it through would likely be alone or in small groups, even the old rifles should be able to handle them but you can't beat the M2 style phaser so you might as well use a few of them. You could always through in some Worfzookas for more explosions but that all depends on your supply situation lol.

Of course this whole bit could have been avoided had the Jem decided to take a few say 20-30 troops in a ship and land them just outside of camp on the other side or even right in camp. They knew that they had been discovered yet they willingly went through this blatant choke point. Even though they didn't know it had been mined they should expect the enemy to do something with it, even without mines my M2 idea would have killed a lot of them without risking too much loss.

I will say. Nice plan 8)

A pity that the minefield was so useless it didn't stop the enemy running in at all.

As for AR-558, a single infantry squad with M-16s could have held off wave after wave of Jemmies. Hell, even with the craptastic phasers the Redshirts should have held them off.

I think those mines were designed more as a moral buster than anything. Random death destroys moral.

or it spures people into a fury to kill everything within fifty km.

Oh, there's an aspect of AR-558 that I had forgotten - AP mines which don't actually deny an area. That was a great idea.

With regards to rifles, I personally think that all of the rifles were of poor design to start with. The first contact and post-FS rifles were on the path to redemption but for a viable shipboard weapon the looked to large, to bulky.

As to firing modes, I think pulse fire, beam, and wide angle all have advantages -

Wide-arc - Crowd pacification on a low setting, or if they CAN go to high settings, then it might be useful for taking down close formations of troops

Beam mode - Precision. IE in perhaps a sniper mode with a scope.

Pulse mode - most other things

I think it should be tempered to a 3 round per click fire. It gives a little more control, but have a full auto mode if its necessary.

Rochey wrote:A pity that the minefield was so useless it didn't stop the enemy running in at all.

As for AR-558, a single infantry squad with M-16s could have held off wave after wave of Jemmies. Hell, even with the craptastic phasers the Redshirts should have held them off.

They did hold them off though. "We held." "Those were our orders sir.'

Its not like they lost the battle.

One GPMG could have held off any number of Jem'Hadar coming through that chokepoint - the fact that they were able to reach, and almost overrun the Fed defences shows just how crap Starfleet's ground forces are.