A Difficult Ground Battle

[Carnivore Jacques]

A little scenario for you folks:

You are about to take a well defended world from the Imperial Remnant for the Pentastar Alignment. The planet has lots of build pads in enemy territory, turbolasers, structures, a generator protected by AA turrets and a shield generator, a garrison consisting of a large number of IDTs and XR-85s, plus whatever is garrisoned by the factories and barracks. Think like, Carida, Corulag, Garos IV, Byss, that sort of thing. The transports, when the battle starts, load up on troops from the barracks and rush the reinforcement point that you have. Some of them attack, while others land the troops in order to capture your only reinforcement point. The Remnant has the credits and structures necessary to replenish their losses quickly.

You have fifteen seconds before the first pair of IDTs reaches the point, and thirty before all of them are there. How do you take the planet? What units do you deploy?

[Vulcanus]

Lead with a pair Storm Commandoes to capture additional reinforcement points, combined with LAAT if necessary.
If no easily captured reinforcement points are available, lead with AT-AA to defeat IDTs before they can unload their troops.
Follow up with AT-PTs(as many as necessary) because they are dirt-cheap and are decent in both anti-air and anti-infanry roles.
Once initial enemy rush is defeated, start advancing, reinforcing with Hailfires and a single Floating Fortress(for sensor ping capability).
Use AT-PTs instead of AT-AA for anti-air because they are fast enough to keep up with Hailfires.

[Lord Xizer]

Storm commandoes to race and capture AA turret pads, LAAT to clear fog of war. Bombard generator then bombing run the buildings. Spread oit commandoes and dropships to take landing zones. Repeat as needed

[Carnivore Jacques]

Not sure if I mentioned this, but the generator is underneath a shield.
Can a PA bombardment get through those? I never tried myself, I just sort of assumed not.

But, if I'm the defender and I see some storm commandos racing to get another zone or build turrets, they're probably going to be my first targets. I don't use commandos much, but I don't think they'd last long against the missiles and such.

Thanks for these suggestions though - Vulcanus's seems pretty sound at the moment depending on the effectiveness of AT-AAs. I'll check it out as well as the bombardment thing.

[tlmiller]

If the generator is really close to the edge, bombardment can indeed still take it out.  The bombs will go through the shields, but you can't target within the shields so you need to target the area outside the shields closest to the generator.

[Carnivore Jacques]

Man, I don't see the value in getting a shield generator if it doesn't protect (that well) against bombardments stops working if the generator is broken. Maybe it's to slow down a swarm, like the layout of Ithor, Kuat and Corulag.
Anyway, I checked it out, and I had no idea how effective ATAAs and ATPTs are against IDTs, nor any idea how tough LA-ATs were. It's incredible.

[Revanchist]

First units down would be Storm Commandos. If there are build pads nearby capture them and build AA turrets, if not, Sprint them to the next RPs. These are your failsafe if the enemy successfully overruns your initial RP. Land AT-AAs next, followed by TIE Crawlers as they are good at targeting aerial prey (Turbolaser blast + IDT = Dead IDT). After the IDT wave fails, bring in a unit of Hailfires, a Floating Fortress and LAAT/i's. Fill the rest with infantry + something else. Since you say there are a lot of XR-85s, something fast that can swarm and flank would do the trick, so I'm thinking Saber tanks. Use the Floating Fortress to ping ahead for Turbolaser towers, then send the Hailfires to clean up the mess. Be methodical, taking out one Turbolaser turret at a time.

By the time we reach the shield generator it should have already been pinged several times so that the location of the power source is known. However, by this time all the Turbolaser towers have probably been taken down, so it simply becomes a matter of lobbing Hailfire missiles through the shield (unless upgraded, shield generators do not block missiles) at the generator until it is down, followed by cleanup. If there are still Turbolaser towers inside the shield, the use the Hailfires to take them out first.

[Lord Xizer]

Not sure if I mentioned this, but the generator is underneath a shield.
Can a PA bombardment get through those? I never tried myself, I just sort of assumed not.

But, if I'm the defender and I see some storm commandos racing to get another zone or build turrets, they're probably going to be my first targets. I don't use commandos much, but I don't think they'd last long against the missiles and such.

Thanks for these suggestions though - Vulcanus's seems pretty sound at the moment depending on the effectiveness of AT-AAs. I'll check it out as well as the bombardment thing.

If they are within the shields then 'm going to lose a few LAATs killing the generator but that is acceptable. The commandos racing in multi directions serve to distract and occupy the drop ships. If they succeed in getting the turrets up then good. If not, the IDTs hunt them down while heavier units are landed to deal with the IR land force. If the gunships turn to this threat then the commandos get their turrets up and the IDTs are doomed from AA fire, thus ending their threat. If they stay after the commandos, I can land Hail Fires(most landing zones ave 3 to 4 unit limit) That gives me 4 commandos, 3 hailfires and 2 LAATs. With this force I can dictate the response and besides they are there soley to kill the generator and inflict casualties. They don't need to succeed to achieve their purpose as shock troops. The main force will descend after the planetary forces have been maimed in this battle. THe secondary force will consist of Hailfires, LAATs, ATATs and troopers.

With the IR air support gone, a fleet in orbit and heavy armor on the ground the victory is guaranteed. As long as you are willing to expend troops for the objectives you can take any planet, no matter how well fortified