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Posted by colin (Member # 217) on :

In the episode "Field of Fire", the USS Grissom is said to have 1250 crew. This has perplexed me. Why? The Excelsior Class starship has half that number of crew. I have heard it argued that the Grissom may have been carrying passengers, specifically troops, and that they may been added into the normal crew to get 1250. I believe this to be wrong. Here's my reasoning.

In the episode "Field of Fire", the insane Vulcan is said to have survived the destruction of the Grissom. He is said to have been aboard the ship 10 years and had developed friendships with other crew members. These statements alone don't support the existence of troops aboard the ship, rather they support the idea that the crew had numbered 1250 in 2365.

Further, in Star Trek, when a ship is identified as having a mixed complement, there is always mention of a mixed compliment. Good examples are "The Schizoid Man" and "Ethics". And in DS9, the episode "Siege of AR-558" with the USS Veracruz.

So, I think that the USS Grissom is not an Excelsior; rather, she may be a Galaxy or an Istanbul or a large starship of an unidentified class.

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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

Yes, that number is quite high for the crew complement of an Excelsior class ship. Perhaps the Excelsior Grissom from TNG had been decommissioned and a newer ship had taken its place. Either that or the troops were packed in like sardines.

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Homer: "Maybe five dollars will refresh my memory."
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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

Well, we never knew exactly how many people crewed a standard Excelsior... For all we know, it *did* take that many to operate one in wartime, to cover combat and operational losses, etc. My prefered explanation is that the Grissom had been designated a troop carrier or somethng, and thus was carrying hundreds of soldiers around as part of its complement.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :

Well, if the Vulcan was aboard the ship for ten years, then it definitely *HAS* to be the same ship from "The Most Toys."

So, the ship is either an Excelsior-class, or it's not. I think it's still an Excelsior because a ship's wartime crew would naturally include ground troops and extra crew for damage control, engineering, security, etc. Back in the TNG days, they always said that the Enterprise-D had a complement of 1,012 or thereabouts. But that includes the civilians, families, and researchers, not just the actual crew which runs the ship.

Therefore, I take it at face value that the Grissom is an Excelsior-class ship.

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The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

"Field of Fire" ... ?

DS9 or VOY?

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Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

D-S-9!

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Bart: No, it hasn't, Dad. That's why we're leaving.
Homer: Oh, yeah. [pokes his head out the window] So long, Stinktown!

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

According to the DS9:TM:

Exelsior-class starships have a standard crew accomodation of 750; 130 visiting personnel; and a 9,800 person evacuation limit.

Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :

Damn! You beat me to it Daniel!

Hehe!

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

That same book also lists the Miranda class as having a complement of 220 or something, whereas TNG examples have demonstrated less than that (Lantree - 26; Br!ttain - 34). While 220 may have been a good number for ships like the Reliant and the first Saratoga, in TNG I believe smaller compliments are the rule for the older ships, even in combat.

I once put forth the notion that the Excelsior *had* 750 people back in the day, but nowadays their compliment was reduced to a healthy 500 or so (using the comparison of 700 for Ambassadors, and 1000 for Galaxies - the Ambassador number comes from the trading cards of the early 90s). Upgrades to computers, life support and maintenance would allow for a reduction in crew and probably a corresponding increase in the size of their accomadations. This would still leave lots of space left over for other stuff, like troop barracks. So it wouldn't surprise me if the Grissom had 500 crew supporting 750 or so troops...

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

I'm all for 220-crewed Mirandas, actually. You simply can't go to battle with a crew that cannot even man all the bridge stations, much less perform major repairs under fire. The discrepancy in crew size between today's warships and equal-sized merchant vessels is just as pronounced as the 220 vs. 26 crew difference between DS9 TM and "Unnatural Selection".

And the average crew of a TNG starship at Wolf 359 was already set at 280 or so by the casualty figures given in "Drumhead" - and the ships seen (especially the Miarecki kitbashes) weren't all that much bigger than a Miranda on the average.

As for the Grissom's crew, I think 500 is a good running-crew size; the more modern Nebula class Hera was run by that number of Vulcans, wasn't she? (Or was it just 300?) A human crew, on an older ship, would have to be a bit larger even if the Excelsior is slightly less voluminous than a Nebula. And I wouldn't want an Excelsior to have a smaller crew than the 430-person Constitution in any circumstances, modernization or no modernization.

Having 750 of the 1250 crew be short-term visitors doesn't IMHO run against the remarks made in "Field of Fire". Sure, the insane killer had grieved the loss of close friends (such as a Vulcan can), but it wasn't stated that all the 1250 people belonged to that category.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :

Talk about Mr. Popularity.

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Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :

Is there a detectable ratio between a vessel-class' size (as expressed by mass) and her complement (24th century only)?

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Faster than light - no left or right.

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

Interesting. I don't think such a ratio exists. For one, we have no mass measurements for any starships. How would you measure it? And wsecond, the number of crew staffing a starship fluctuates within the class.

It pains me to think of 36 people running a Miranda-class starship. To staff the bridge, engineering and sickbay alone would take about 36 people. Obviously, none of them got any sleep.

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Good point.

But with automation ... I mean, c'mon, ain't ya'll ever heard of skeleton crews?

Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :

Mmm, well the Defiant had a crew of 40, so seeing as how the Miranda is slightly bigger, 220 seems about right (not including any short-term crew). But, to support the Lantree and Brittain crew sizes, the Lantree was acting as a cargo vessel and would therefore require less crew than normal. The Brittain . . . was on a deep-space survey mission - might not have needed everyone so they shipped them off for some R&R!

Ambassadors have a crew of 700? I'd read in a novel that it was 800 . . . oh well, yet another fact to deliberate about!

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

Also, given how long these ships seemed to last in battle (a matter of seconds in the Dominion War and against the Borg), keeping hundreds of people on board doesn't make too much sense if most of the people won't have time to do their jobs..!

I'm still in favour of low crew for this reason, and for simple comparison - The Defiant, even while on combat patrol in "The Adversary", still had less than 50 people aboard. On a similar-sized Miranda, I still think 30-50 people is justifyable - the larger Constellation class bridge as seen on the Stargazer had only 6 crew stations (including the CO), and the battle bridge of the E-D had only six in the first seaason, and five in "BoBWII".

Engineering on the E-D has been seen to be manned by as few as zero people at times on the E-D; granted, this is a super-automated ship, but in terms of engineering support stuff, there's got to be only so much you can do. Point being, with automation being such as it's supposed to be in the TNG era (supposedly so we can do all that personal enlightenment stuff), most of the general ships' systems that would have taken hundreds of people to take care of in TOS would be piece of cake for the computer to do now. And where combat is to last only a matter of minutes or hours, I'd resuce the crew to the bare minimum for what you need.

The only real indication we've seen of late is in "The 37s" from VOY, where Chakotay says they probably wouldn't be able to maintain the ship for very long with less than a hundred people aboard. This is later paritally refuted in "One", when Seven and the Doc mind the ship for a whole month.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

The Defiant is about the same size as a Miranda-class vessel. Hahahahahahahaha! Oh, that's good! Hee hee! Wow, I haven't had such a good laugh in months! Oh, my.

Do you REALLY think that the Defiant has the same amount of deckspace as a Miranda? If you do, then I seriously suggest a review of the general deckplans of both, regardless of their canonicity.

The Miranda clearly has at least four if not five times as much volume as a Defiant does. The length of the Miranda is 277.76m and the beam is 173.98m according to the DS9:TM. The length of the Defiant according to the same source is 170.68m. The Miranda is about 11 decks thick whereas the Defiant is 4 decks thick. And the fourth deck of the Defiant holds almost nothing. In a Miranda, according to the interpretations I've seen, almost all of the space given is occupied by something.

Now, the Defiant fits 150 people maximum. It's standard complement is 40. I understand that it's small enough to require relatively few people to run it.

So, if the standard complement of a Defiant-class starship, one of the most modern and AUTOMATED starships in creation, is 40 people, and it is five times as small as a Miranda, then according to our extremely imprecise calculations, a Miranda should be staffed by about 200 crew. This is relatively close to the 220 that is accepted as the full complement.

Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :

Good point on the mass.

We could start by calculating that using ships of known mass vs. known length/draft/beam - and see if we get a correlation. This would allow us to guesstimate the mass for other vessels of which the size is known.

(or we could just ask Bernd - he's probably got it in that site).

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Faster than light - no left or right.

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

Hey, it ain't THAT funny..!

A large chunk of the Miranda's length is taken up by the nacelles. Check out this site:
http://www.ditl.org/

Go to Size Charts --> Federation and choose Miranda and Defiant. It pretty much speaks for itself - size does not dictate crew complement. And I'm quite confident that upgrades to older starships can keep them relatively in line with newer ships in terms of operations.

This in itself speaks volumes about the training that Starfleet crew would have to recieve to operate said ships... Would Harry have known enough to run Ops on a Miranda-class ship, if it needed thirty people to do his equivalent job?

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

AAAAAAAAHH! Where did they get that picture from?!?!? Oh the inaccuracy! The noncanonicity! The nacelles DO NOT stick out that far on a Miranda. Also, according to measurements given, the Defiant should be a little over half the length of the Miranda. That was WAY too big.

Not to keep picking on you, Mark. I hope I'm not giving you an inferiority complex. You're probably a lot older and wiser than I am. Or maybe you're not.

ANYWAY. I understand that crews in the days of yore had to recieve much more training to operate systems that have been simplified by 2375. However, Just because the systems have been simplified doesn't mean you need less people to run them, exactly. Remember, the whole crew isn't working around the clock.

Voyager is staffed by 150 crew. That means that at any given time during normal cruise mode, she is only being operated by 37 people. Now of course, this is depicted innacurately on the show, as there are about twenty-five people manning engineering and about twelve on the bridge.

Given a crew complement of 220, a Miranda of 2285 was being run by 55 people per duty-shift. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Fast forward to 2375. I hold the minimum number of people per shift should be at least 40. Therefore, the maximum number of crew would be at least 160.

I don't buy into this "36 running the Brattain" or whatever. That's NINE people running a Miranda, if divided into four duty shifts. Eighteen if all of them work twelve hour days.

Now if there are 750 people aboard an Excelsior, 187 crew are on duty at any given time. With 500 crew, it is reduced to 125. That does not sound unreasonable for an Excelsior, which is about two times as big as a Miranda.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

*sniff*

*sniff*

I smell me the comings of a Defiant Length argument.

And floggings. Mass floggings.

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"Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind."

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

"Inferiority complex"? Ah, but which one of us has the fancy schmancy caption under his name under the left column, hmm?

Besides, age and wisdom don't have much to do with the internet IMO.

Admittedly, I *hate* length arguments, and generally don't participate in them. And no, I'm not gonna get into a Defiant-length thing now. But that's not the point... Anyway, I believe this argument is contingent on exactly *how* advanced upgrades to older starships are, which neither of us know. I'm more optimistic in this respect, as it would be much more in keeping with the established tone of the TNG era stuff. However, I'll concede that it could swing either way.

Also, you're assuming a standard four-shift rotation, where three seemed to be the standard. TNG and DS9 both had three and *then* changed to four (and TNG back to three, I believe). Voyager, AFAIK, only has three as well. Also, I believe the four-shift rotation maximizes crew availability by having everyone have two shifts on duty and two off, rotated and giving some people three shifts off periodically, or two shifts in a row off. This makes more people available during any given shift. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here..? I thought Jellico did this in "Chain of Command" to enable the E-D crew to do more work.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

Oh yeah... When were there ever 25 people in Engineering? That'd be pretty crowded on that set. There's usually no more than half that in any given scene (typically, two between the aft consoles, three or four at the forward ones around the warp core, one or two wandering in circles around the core itself, and one or two wandering around upstairs - the E-D hd less than that, as it didn't have as large a second floor). You're right about the bridge, though; with all stations manned there're usually 10-11 people there.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :

And the Miranda's nacelles do SO stick out that far: http://www.shiporama.org/images/miranda/miranda3.jpg

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

WREEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWREEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOO!

Get down, get down! They're bombing! They're bombing!

Oh, well I guess stubborn old me got myself into it anyway.

Not having ever watched an episode of DS9 save for "Trials and Tribble-ations" I don't particularly care about the length of the Defiant. So I won't argue about it.

About engineering, I was exaggerating to make a point. For some reason, it always seems like there are three-thousand people on that set. Regardless of whether they're at red alert or not.

DS9 was on three shift rotation according to the TM, but I'm not sure about starships. AFAIK, the TNG:TM said that the Emterprise crew was broken down into four shifts.

What I was trying to say through all of that, is that a crew of 220 is not exactly farfetched for the Miranda-class.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Daniel: What do you mean, where did they get the picture from? It's straight out of the Encyclopedia...

As for the sizes, that site shows the Miranda it its proper size, around 240-250m (the last digit is argueable).

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Mmm, Miranda nacelles vs. Defiant "nacelles"...

I'd say the Defiant cowlings belie the true habitable volume of the ship much worse than the Miranda engines. The Miranda nacelles are nicely stand-off and leave the habitable hull unobstructed from our view, but the Defiant cowlings are so integrated to the hull that one is easily fooled into thinking that the Defiant habitable hull is as big as the Miranda saucer. Even with a 170m Defiant (shudder), that just isn't true.

Generally, I'd tend to agree with Chakotay on the minimum crew issue - with less than a hundred crew, it's difficult to keep anything the size of an Intrepid or a Miranda afloat. Unless you expect a simple milk run with no repairs and no need to scan, target, fire at or run away from another starship. Which is what the Lantree was obviously counting on (and she apparently had a bridge crew of just three).

How the Br*ttain could get any scientific work done with just 36 crew if it took 26 just to keep the ship running is more difficult to explain. Unless, of course, the ship was not so much performing a scientific mission but rather just running through space with a skeleton crew and keeping the sensors sensing and the computers recording. Perhaps all the 21000- or 31000- registered Mirandas have 220 crew and a 26-person skeleton crew option, and any of these ships can be called on to perform such a skeleton-crewed sensor run between their regular defence duties.

And ten extra people in addition to the skeleton crew could get some real work done, if just seven people can do scientific work AND run the ship aboard Oberth class vessels...

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

I don't think saying Voyager has 150 people and 4 duty shifts means 37 are on duty at any one time. For a start, we only ever see them when something interesting is happening, and most of the command crew rush to the Bridge. Then we've seen periods when it was obviously a quiet, late-night shift and both the Bridge and Engineering have only a skeleton crew. I'd say the Graveyard shift has probably no more than 20 or 30 people on duty.

Actually, I'm interested now. Has anyone ever tried to work out shift schedules and patterns, based on what we know of them from eps like "Data's Day?"

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :

Tidbit: The Enterprise-D operated on a three-shift rotation, normally. When Captain Jellico took over in "Chain of Command," he tried to institute a four-shift rotation, which was part of what p*ssed off Riker.

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You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

It is my firm belief that all command officers are on duty around the clock ...

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

That Constitution-like Miranda (noncanon Surya-class) pic came from the ENCYCLOPEDIA? Methinks not. Unless I hit the wrong link or something.

Yes, they are on duty around the clock. And are genetically engineered to never have to go to the bathroom.

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

That's right. In fifteen years we've never seen Picard have a bowel movement. Wonderful thing, the future.

And for the Miranda - go back to that site and hit "Miranda Refit". That'll get you what you need.

Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Posted by Daniel (Member # 453) on :

Aha! Thanks.