But could the Enterprise be hiding two more launchers and we don't know it? After watching Star Trek II tonight (just had to test out the new surround sound *drool*), I noticed one little thing that may point out that the Enterprise has 4 launchers and not 2. When Kirk and co. are preparing the Enterprise for the final battle with Khan, we see a torpedo being lowered onto a launcher, and to the right, on the back wall, there is a sign that says TORP BAY 4. Now, when Kirk arrived on the shuttle and docked with the Enterprise (BTW, he docked in the wrong place. The shuttle docked on the engineering hull in the beginning, but Kirk arrived in the torpedo bay when coming through the airlock), the sign behind that torpedo bay said TORP BAY 2. So the two torpedo launchers sticking out of the neck are bays 1 and 2. So where are 3 and 4? I think that they could either be in the bottom of the saucer, where they had been before the ship's refit, or they could be somehwhere on the back of the ship.

So what does anyone think of a Constitution with 4 launchers?

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Me: "Why don't you live in Hong Kong?"
Rachel Roberts: "Hong Kong? Nah. Oh, but we can live in China! Yeah, China has great Chinese food!"

(discussion with fellow classmate, 9/5/00)

Mustang Class Starship Development Project

That labeling could be an error by the art or set department. Errors have been known to happen.

And non-canon info places the two lauchers on the TOS Constitutions ships in the dome superstruction on deck 2 under the bridge. Of course, we all saw the torps being fired from the lower saucer where the phasers are as well.

I mean, hell, the E-D has TWO rear launchers! Well, maybe not, if the TM isn't canon ... oh, never mind.

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[Bart's looking for his dog.]
Groundskeeper Willy: Yeah, I bought your mutt - and I 'ate 'im! [Bart gasps.] I 'ate 'is little face, I 'ate 'is guts, and I 'ate the way 'e's always barkin'! So I gave 'im to the church.
Bart: Ohhh, I see... you HATE him, so you gave him to the church.
Groundskeeper Willy: Aye. I also 'ate the mess he left on me rug. [Bart stares.] Ya heard me!

[This message has been edited by PopMaze (edited December 17, 2000).]

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"Second star to the right, and then straight on till morning."

Anyway.... i could be wrong...

The Miranda-Class has rear torpedo launchers. I assume the Miranda- was built and designed about the time the Constitution-Class was being upgraded (ST:TMP), then Starfleet had come to the conclusion that rear-launchers were a good idea, why not include 'em on the Consitution refit?

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Everything in this world is a compromise between conflicting demands. Not everything in the fantasy world of Trek needs be, but Constitutions could still feature some compromises. It is traditional for Starfleet ships (especially Enterprises) to have extremely weak aft armament, and there may even be some hidden technobabble reasons for this (say, nobody can sneak to your 6 o'clock because "the warp contrails will fry him" or "the impulse exhaust will prevent targeting" or "the ship can always accelerate away from the shots"). Or then the rationale simply is "we didn't have room for aft armament - you can have it, but then your starship won't have a shuttlebay".

If the Constitution is to have aft torpedoes, then I suggest they be hidden in those four shallow grooves on the dorsal surface of the secondary hull. Those are traditionally considered thruster ports of some sort, but they could theoretically be torp launchers as well. This would probably require relocating Main Engineering a deck below its current location, though (but that isn't impossible, either).

I don't like the idea of aft torpedoes, though. Kirk should have fired those when Khan was chasing him into the nebula, provided he had any. The existence of four torp decks IMHO only means that each tube comes with two "bays", an upper and a lower one. Khan destroyed the port lower bay (bay 2 where Kirk boarded), rendering the "loading" bay 1 above it unusable as well. This is why Spock's funeral was held in the starboard "launching" bay 4, while part of the audience stood on the balcony on "loading" bay 3.

Then again, the TOS ship apparently had at least six tubes, according to some dialogue. These were probably all in the saucer, where the effects emerged from. When the TMP refit added the two neck launchers, some of the saucer ones could theoretically have been retained, possibly behind those saucer doors which we (and Andy Probert ) mistook for docking port covers or landing legs.

------------------
Me: "Why don't you live in Hong Kong?"
Rachel Roberts: "Hong Kong? Nah. Oh, but we can live in China! Yeah, China has great Chinese food!"

(discussion with fellow classmate, 9/5/00)

Mustang Class Starship Development Project

The Captain's Chair CD-ROM suggests the TOS ship had aft tubes, presumably under the fantail or something. Perhaps the refitted ship had these, too, and the "even" bays pointed forward and the "odd" ones aft?

"Could Constitutions HAVE any more torpedo launchers?"

I mean, they're not *that* powerful...

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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.

-Tleilaxu Epigram

There is only one torpedo bay, the one wih the rail. A torp comes down the well from the magazine above and gets plonked on the rail. It goes down to the door. Then it transferes to a port-starboard rail that takes it to either the port or starboard launcher. These two launchers straddle the vertical warp core shaft (there's gotta be a hole somehwere for the thing to go through, and it sure doesn't go through the torp bay itself). That settles that bit.

As for the "TB4" label, I think that's a reference to the docking ports. i.e. Location: Torp bay. Port #: 4. This would make #1 sec hull stbd, #2 torp bay stbd, #3 sec hull port, #4 torp bay port. The only problem is what number goes with the bridge port? 0?

If, OTOH, there are two side-by-side bays (and Khan thrashes the port one so the burial ceremony takes place in the starboard one), then there's something funny going on since they don't fit side by side, at least not very easily.

As for numbering the docking ports: it sounds sensible to me to start from top and go down from there. But still, if the bridge port is #0, there are six other ports to go: two in the saucer, two in the torp assembly, two in the secondary hull. If the ones on the port side run #1, #2, #3, then logically the starboard torp bay should be #5. If they run zigzag (saucer-port #1, saucer-stbd #2, torp-port #3, torp-stbd #4, sec-hull-port #5, sec-hull-stbd #6), then torp portside hatch would in turn be incorrectly numbered. So it indeed makes very little sense.

Hmm. Perhaps Scotty has had to rebuild the torp bay several times to clean up the mess left by Kirk's adventures, and we see it go from v.2 to v.4 in the movie?