What classes of ships are left in starfleet, say after the post-war draw downs?
Galaxy - still building, maybe?
Sov- still building
Neb - done building?
Others - Nova, Defiant....
Excelsior, Miranda, heading to the scrap yards...
TK
I would venture to guess that Starfleet is throwing most of her resources to constructing new Defiant and Sovereign-Class ships (as well as other newer classes), in order to project the strength one needs to (well, project) after a major War.
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AFAIK, there is no evidence of "original" Mirandas in the Dominion war - only of ships with those extra impulse engines instead of aft torp tubes. Perhaps only ships so modified were accepted to service? It would be a big problem if some ships in a fleet were significantly slower than others, so an engine refit would be the most acute refit imaginable. Weapons and shields would be secondary, as long as the ship could be made to move with the fleet and fire a couple of shots, or at least draw some enemy fire.
Even if older ships were artificially kept in service during the war, massive re-retirement programs might now be underway. It depends on what Starfleet needs and what it can afford. The Defiants are small enough to be built on an as-needed basis, but the Sovereign production must have much more inertia, and cannot be scaled up or down as easily.
Finally, how will Starfleet REALLY look like when we next see it? All these older Excelsior and Mirandas are CGI'd already, so they will keep on appearing unless somebody at Paramount tells the VFX folks to deliberately "modernize" the fleet. It seems unlikely that anybody would pay such attention, unless the next show or movie is specifically situated in "the future", well past the late 2370s.
Timo Saloniemi
Sovereign class (as a battleship type)
Galaxy class (as a flagship type)
Nebula class (exploratory type)
Akira class (patrol ship)
Defiant class (patrol ship to replace the Miranda class)
Nova class (science ship to replace the Oberth class)
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E. E. Cummings
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Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! And party everyday.
Miranda's are being replaced by Akiras! They share the same basic design features, but the Akira is of course much better equipped and up-to-date.
The Galaxies are probably still being built, since I think they are still one of the most advanced ships of the fleet, especially the Generations- or Venture-refits.
Don't know about the other Galaxy Family membersm though. Nebula maybe, Niagara probably not, Springfield?, Rigel?, New Orleans probably not, Freedom probably not.
The Mirandas, Excelsiors, Ambassadors are definately not in production and will soon leave active service.
The Sovereign is sort of a "Starfleet Limited Edition" class. I don't think SF built many of them, maybe 5/6 (Like Rodenberry pictured the Galaxy in the beginning of TNG)
Defs are still in production, as are Novas and the FCers.
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TK
Actually my theory is that after the success of the Defiant coming out of mothballs - a similar test was done on some of the 'other' weapons that Starfleet had to battle the Borg - and they pulled out the Sabre. Cause its a little bigger - and I guess the original design crew wasn't around like Sisko was for the Deffie - it took a little longer for them to get the Bugs ironed out - thus the later NCC registry.
Andrew
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So, how's that Survivor-contest coming along, Newt?
-Well not very well at the MOMENT, everyone seems to have died.
-Gee, that's bad. Those Aliens bugging you yet?
-Not really, they mostly come at night mostly...
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"I threw bitter tears at the ocean
But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan
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1. Increase R&D into special weapons, and counter-defence weapons. Examples would include energy dampening equipment, such as those employed by the Breen.
2. Phase out older ships and re-equip with modern designs, such as Akira's for Mirandas. Rearming all the older classes would be impractical.
3. Most importantly, they need to construct and test a much larger and more powerful ship that can compete one on one with Dominion battleships and the Romulan Warbird, and complement the Sovereign.
RAMA
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Recession repression regression
Shifts of scenery
And warning tremors of landslides
The sun comes down
The mountains move aside
Your kingdom slips out of your hands
AndrewR
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"I threw bitter tears at the ocean
But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan