I'm working on another of my little starship history articles. I was wondering if anyone has determined how many starships the Federation lost in the Dominion War. Also any idea what percentage of ships seen on screen were destroyed? Similar figures for the other fleets would also be appreciated.
Posted by USS Vanguard (Member # 130) on :
a lot?
any number would be pure speculation.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
What Veers said Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
It probably depends on whether you subscribe to the large Starfleet school or the small Starfleet school.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Ok, Ok. I don't want to open up the "how big is Starfleet" debate. I'd just like to now how many Fed ships did we actually see get blown up on screen? And how many ships can actually be identified? I know these numbers are not representative or precise, I'd just like to get a ballpark figure.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think the only number mentioned is 98 "..14, out of 112!"
Other than that its a matter of counting the explosions....and quadrupuling that number to be on the safe side...
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Um, you can probably get an "at least" number by piecing together informations. If someone can get the number the 7th lost when they tried to stop the Dominion, plus the 2nd Battle for Chintaka, plus the total number of ships involved in the final assault (times 30% loss, IIRC), we'll have a number to start working with. Next we start guessing the average number of ships lost based on the number of people killed on Sisko's weekly casualty report, plus the ones we know for sure, and so on.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote: What Veers said
That being?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Masao's working on another article? Oh, goody!
Personally, I prefer to take the Large Starfleet view, considering the absolute vastness of space, and how many starships are needed to fill that void. (For instance, in Mark Nguyen's Sector simulations, we've assigned up to ten or twelve ships to a single relatively unimportant sector.)
I explain away the small fleets in TNG by saying (1) there was never enough time to assemble a whole fleet, and (2) Starfleet was at its peak pacifist mode. When you boil the facts down, there's only two comments that suggest the small fleet: Shelby's line that they'd "have the fleet back up in a year," and some comment in "The Wounded" about Starfleet not being at full strength.
Back to the Dominion War...
I would use two figures for the fleet losses: first, the numbers of starships apparently lost during the DS9 battles that we saw, and second, the casualty lists which were occasionally mentioned. Though the Okudagrams may be unreliable given that they weren't intended for close-up view, the characters occasionally mentioned how many casualties Starfleet sustained in a week. (I don't remember exactly, but IIRC they mentioned a few thousand in "AR-558.")
I'd estimate that Starfleet lost on average five ships a week during the "slow" periods of the war, not counting the really big battles (and other, unseen Big Battles -- damn the DS9 writers for not showing more of the war!). If the war lasted for about two years, that would equate an attrition of about 250 ships.
Hmm.
Now that I look at that, that may not be nearly enough. Consider that the Dominion had upwards of 20,000 warships at its disposal in the later parts of the war (the Final Chapter).
Let me go straight to the bottom line, then. I've personally believed the figure of approximately 8,000 starships in the Federation. I'd guess they might have lost approximately 40% of their forces in the two-year war. Given the various comments that were made, that is a large chunk of Starfleet, but still leaves plenty to carry on the fight, even in the last few weeks of the war.
A lot of people disparage the Daystrom Institute Technical Library, but I think it's a great site for various tech discussions -- of course you have to take the info with a grain of salt when you consider canon.
Still don't much like the DITI, his presention of non-cannon information is too matter-of-fact. It's too easy for someone reading to forget all the "maybe", "probably" and "I think" the text in white represents.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Shelby's comments can be explained away that she doesn't mean the whole Starfleet, but rather replenishing the strength of a sub-fleet (of which perhaps most of Wolf 359's strike force was made up of).
That's my view, anyway.
I usually take the 'Starfleet has 40,000 ships' view. Frankly, that's not a whole heck of a lot to cover the member worlds, colonies, starbases, exploration missions, humanitarian missions, and wherever else.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: I usually take the 'Starfleet has 40,000 ships' view. Frankly, that's not a whole heck of a lot to cover the member worlds, colonies, starbases, exploration missions, humanitarian missions, and wherever else.
40,000!!!! (Faint!) Bloody hell! That's a lot of ships! . . . . but not unreasonable except - how do you explain that it would take Starfleet 3 weeks to get Picard a needed ship to help with the Sheliak (not sure on spelling - don't care either! ) situation? And don't say that it was a long way away!!!
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
But if you keep in mind that Starfleet probably has thousands of runabouts, fighter craft, couriers, transports, and other such small craft with their own names & registry numbers, then the 40,000 ship count doesn't seem so far-fetched.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Starfleet was looking for a specific transport in that case, I believe. None of the ships available for Picard were of that type before 3 weeks.
Fighters? Uh, not in the 'Star Wars' sense. 'Star Trek' Universe fighters have always - to me - seemed to be small mobile starships with a significant crew: the Defiant, Klingon birds-of-prey, Jem-Hadarr strike ships ...
[ December 03, 2001: Message edited by: Malnurtured Snay ]
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
By "fighters" I was referring to the small one-man ships first seen as Maquis vessels, but later used regularly by Starfleet in the war (and the one TPTB made into a ridiculously huge alien ship for VOY).
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
What did I say up there, Snay?
Oh wait, I know, because you are high, you mistook USS Vanguard for being me. But that's OK, everyone knows how you feel.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Minutiae: You're suggesting 40% ship losses in the war? Holy Christ, that's a lot! And we "won."
I realize that WWII stats are not exactly analogous, but they show facts of large fleet operations. Of the 1700 named combatants of the USN in WWII (SS, DD, DE, CC, CV, CVE, but not LST, PT, or merchant ships), they lost 181 or about 10%. The loss rate depended a lot on ship type. About 80% of ships lost were subs or destroyers (loss rate, about 15%) while about 10% of CV/CVEs and BBs, and 7% of CA, CB, CL were lost. The overall lost rate is also lowered by late-war production with relatively low loss rates, especially for big ships. But I still think 40% is pretty catastrophic, what I'd expect a losing side to have.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
No, just because I get so used to dismissing what you say as insane drivel, so when someone else rambles incoherently, I tend to blame it on you, Veers Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
i think that starfleet losing 40% of their strenght is reasonable. how many ships they lost really does rely on how big you think star fleet is. i personally think star fleet has about 10 thousand capital ships, with maybe 1000(?) ships of the line (galaxy, nebula, ambassador, akira etc). that seems about right.....
[edit: keep in mind that for much of the war starfleet didn't have shileds that were effective against dominion weaponry, but the dominion had shields that were effective against starfleet's weapons. an analogy to world war two would be one side not having armor on their warships until half way through the war. it's going to inflate losses a lot when one side is basically defenseless]
--jacob
[ December 03, 2001: Message edited by: EdipisReks ]
Posted by USS Vanguard (Member # 130) on :
are you saying my posts are all insane drivel?
bah, you're probably right.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Well, they'd probably be accepted easier if you'd use your shift-key to cap stuff ...
Posted by USS Vanguard (Member # 130) on :
i'm lazy too.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
Insane drivel? Awwww right! Finally, someone has noticed!
As for Masao's question, do the hard task of counting up all the ship losses on Star Trek Ships: Expanded.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
40,000 ships, including runabouts, fighter craft, couriers, transports, and other such small craft with their own names & registry numbers . . .
Dukhat, I think that you've just explained something to me that was looking me squarely in the face. On the Ex Astris Scientia site there is a bit on registries. Now there is a period of 20 years where the number of reg's goes up by 15,000, followed by another 20 years and a 50,000 increase in reg numbers. (Note: all figures are approximations). Now I never considered such things as "runabouts, fighter craft, couriers, transports, and other such small craft" as you so very nicely put it.
Now your figure of 40,000 ships doesn't seem so far-fetched. No. Not at all. Not bad Dukhat. I take my wooly hat off to you!
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Oh yes, forgot to add: the reason for the huge increase in reg no's? Lots of failed prototypes? Much needed support ships to (wait for it ) support the fleet that has had to be increased in size to protect the increased size of the Federation. Also, improvements in technology could have made ship construction a little bit easier than before - hence the ease of building sooo many in such a short space of time - we're looking at about 70,000 ships in about 40 years - that's about 1,750 each year!!! (Faint).
Say . . . the Federation didn't learn how to replicate ships and not bother to tell anyone . . . did they?
Oh yes - admin guys & gals: I couldn't edit my previous message and so I had to create this one. I got one of those "cannot display page at this time" messages. Is that a bug or is it just my computer being silly? Ah well, at least its another post to my score!
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
Holy bejeezus that's a lot of smileys...
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by OnToMars: Holy bejeezus that's a lot of smileys...
Oh yeah! Me likes smileys!
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
Maybe I am just imagining things, but I think I recall in the "Deep Space Nine" episode after the one where "Defiant" was destroyed it was stated that the Federation-Klingon Alliance has 1500 ships (and that the Dominion "outships" them 10-to-1). Does anyone else remember this, or is my memory shot? Once again, what I think I saw was in the episode immediately following the one where "Defiant" was destroyed (I forget the names of either episode); Sisko and Klingon officials were discussing the new Breen weapon and the general war situation in the conference room. Does someone have that episode on tape, and could you check?
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
There was a pretty good mention of the number of Klingon ships avaliable...
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
TWENTY to one, actually..
Mark
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
Mark, did you get that from watching the episode? If so, is the line I thought I remembered from it in there, or can the number of Starfleet/Alliance ships be derived from the 20-to-1 line?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I can't remember exactly, if it was the Klingons alone or the combined Alliance forces. I believe it was the latter. However, I quite distinctly remember Martok's guttural "we will be outnumbered twenty to one" line.
Mark
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
It was the Klingons alone. Martok, Sisko and Worf were going over how Gowron was using the (in comparison to the Dominion fleet) miniscule Klingon forces in combat.
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
Is the number of Klingon ships explicitly stated, or can the number of ships be determined from the line, or are they just said to be outnumbered 20-to-1?
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
I'd imagine that they would've been more careful than that. They've always avoided coming anywhere close to explicitly stating how many ships comprise Starfleet.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I think I remember them mentioning fifteen hundred ships.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
You do have to think about just what forces Martok was talking about. After all, both the Klingons and the Dominion seem to like using large numbers of comparitively tiny ships in their fleets, while the Feds and Romulans seem to prefer larger ships.
So, if the Dominion truly had thirty thousand ships, it's a fair bet that a hefty chunk of that number would be taken up by attack ships and possibly a healthy number of Hidekis. And of course, this may or may not include the number of logistical support ships helping them out. If you linclude that possible number, that could even things out somewhat as you could be including ALL the Dominion/Cardassian suppport ships, and only what ships the Klingons brought with them.
So even if these ships are of any breakdown between combattants and non-combattants, we can probably rationalize the huge numbers with the comparitively puny Klingon fleet.
Mark
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
Its not certain that the 1500 number represent the klingon's entire combat fleet.
Although the klingons, who behaves not like Romulans, will probably not hold back part of their forces as reserves for their home systems.
And i think runabouts are counted as ships...and that starfleet like the Dominion, utilizes alot of these smaller ships[runabouts, Oberths, Novas] as the backbone of the fleet with only a few hundred really big captital ships like the Nebulas, Excels...etc.
And i'm more inclined to believe that Starfleet only ever had around a dozen Galaxies other than a few hundred Galaxy classes.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
I'm inclined to think that Starfleet didn't as much smaller ships as everyone else, period. Klingon BoPs are atleast effective against Jem'hadar attackships, we really can't say the same for the Runabout or the Oberth. And the Nova was build as a short range survey vessel or something, same area as the Oberth. Anyhoo, the most numberous Starfleet ships we see are Mirandas, followed by Excelsiors.
As for the composition of the Dominion Fleet, I think a large part of that would be the Jem'Hadar attackships. We really don't see that many Hidekis during the series. Besides, Cardassian capital ships have enought trouble holding their own against everyone else, imagine what it'd be like for the Hideki. Also, the Dominion seemed to have a crazy rate of ship productions. Their ships can't take damage quite as well larger ships, but they can deal at levels equal to many larger ships. It'd make better sense to construct a lot of Jem'Hadar attackships rather than their lesser Cardassian equivilant.
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
If, indeed the Klingon's had a fleet of 1500 starships (as a second person has seemed to recall) at the time (or that number can be deduced from the dialogue), we could possibly proceed from this data point on very roughly guessing the size of Starfleet. Even accounting for the losses the Klingon fleet undoubtedly suffered, and I think a loss rate of 50% would be catastrophic, the Klingon fleet probably originally numbered a few thousand vessels (2000 to 4000). I, personally, do not think the number of Starfleet "capital" ships (not including registered shuttles, runabouts, and other craft (those 70,000 registries have to represent something)) would be more than two or three, maybe four, times greater than the number of Klingon ships, giving us a Starfleet of 4000 (2000x2) to 16,000 (4000x4), before accounting for losses to the Dominion.
My speculation is certainly not meant to seriously establish any real idea of Starfleet's size, but I do think the suggestions of a 40,000 ship Starfleet are a bit over the top. Thus, if the Klingon's had a (partially decimated) fleet of 1500, I do not think it reasonable to believe Starfleet numbered more than 10,000 "capital" ships. (Personally, I fall into the "small Starfleet" school, with the organization only having a few thousand ships, at best.)
[ December 04, 2001: Message edited by: Raw Cadet ]
Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :
The only concrete stats in regards to ships are the 7th fleet number.
All other stats do not really shed too much light on the total size of any side’s armada because you can interpret it in any number of ways.
For example, take the Dominion's reinforcements of 2000 ships.
If the Federation had 40,000 ships and combined that number with her allies, they stand with more than 100,000 ships against the Dominion.
How can 2000 ships combined with the Dominion force already present possible ensure that they can "overrun" the quadrant?
One wrong move, and you would loose 2000 ships in the blink of an eye [in which case happened due to divine intervention] . 2000 ships did not bring any certainty to the war.
Its too inconsequential of a number when compared to 40,000 + ships But if that number were in the mere thousands, then yes, 2000 would only then make a difference, or at least a substantial difference in the balance of power.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
But if both sides had their forces spread out rather thinly, 2,000 ships could provide enough reinforcements to launch a major counter-offensive and overwhelm the Federation Alliance defenses.
For example, the Federation has 500 ships defending two sectors. The Dominion has 500 ships defending their side of those two sectors. Their is a stalemate -- the Federation wins some battles, the Dominion wins others. The balance of power remains about the same.
With the Dominion reinforcements, their fleet of now twenty-five hundred ships is able to punch through the Federation lines, and once through, wreck havoc throughout the Federation's infastructure, destroying starbases, communication relay stations, food processing centers, and storage depots. The Federation, stretched as thinly as it is, has to pull ships off the front line to combat this offensive fleet and defend targets that until now had not needed individual defenses. With their defenses weakened, the Dominion forces are then able to overwhelm the Federation and Klingon lines of defense, forcing the Federation to pull back and draw their new lines of defense closer to the core worlds of the Federation and the Empire.
In this theory -- and this *is* a theory -- 2,000 ships could provide enough resources to strike a serious blow to the Alpha Quadrant forces.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Gosh, remember the good old TNG days when Starfleet would take an entire year to make up for the loss of 39 or 40 ships. In the years between BOBW and the Dominion War, shipyard capacity must have exploded to be able to construct a fleet of 4,000 or 40,000 ships so fast.
If we look again at the WWII USN, I think I heard that total strength, including landing craft, transports, LSTs, PT boats, and such, was around 6000 ships. Of these 6000, 1700, or about 30%, were named combatants. So IF (a big if) we believe that Starfleet has 40,000 ships of all types, combatants might be around 11,000, which is still a hell of a lot of ships.
I'm sorry for starting another debate on fleet size Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
The episode you are referring to is "Tacking Into the Wind," Raw Cadet, but it seems everyone is too lazy to look up the information for you. I don't have the epsiode on tape, so I can't tell you. So, can anyone answer his question?
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
quote:Originally posted by Veers: The episode you are referring to is "Tacking Into the Wind," Raw Cadet, but it seems everyone is too lazy to look up the information for you. I don't have the epsiode on tape, so I can't tell you. So, can anyone answer his question?
Thank you for coming up with an episode title (I am not very good with remembering "Deep Space Nine" episode names). This should make it easier for someone to check my claim that "1500 ships" and "outnumbered 20-to-1" was spoken in said episode . Personally, I suspect that those who believe in a 40,000 ship Starfleet ( ) are conspiring not to check, for the claim could call their theory into question .
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
40'000 in a pigs eye! Being a scribe of the Chrono-registry theory, there is no way in Gene's fictional universe that Starfleet ever had 40'000 vessels at one time. I doubt that at any one time Starfleet had more than 20'000 ships--- I hold fast to figures between 8'000 and 12'000 during and about DS9.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
Now I want to know. Some have "Tacking Into the Wind," or are you scared to check?
Posted by Hunter (Member # 611) on :
You sure its from "tacking into the Wind"? because I tought it was from "When it rains" where Martok mentions that at that momnet he has 1500 klingon ships with the same moifaction as the K'tiang with more getting it done?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:Being a scribe of the Chrono-registry theory
Hmmm-hmmm. You don't say. Mine is a theory too
Hunter: ???
Posted by Phelps (Member # 713) on :
From the script of "When it Rains...":
MARTOK By tomorrow, we'll have eleven hundred Klingon vessels ready for deployment.
The "twenty-to-one" quote is also in the script.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
Oops. My mistake.
Posted by Raw Cadet (Member # 725) on :
Thanks for checking. The "1100 Klingon ships" line is a bit too vague in and of itself to establish the size of the entire Klingon fleet, but at a twenty-to-one ratio that alone would put the Dominion fleet at 22,000. 22,000 is a whole lotta ships. If one chooses to interpret the "twenty-to-one" line as a reference to the ratio between the combined Alliance (Federation and Klingon) fleet and the Dominion fleet one gets an even greater number. Either way, I still think the lines point towards a "small Starfleet," with no more than a few thousand "capital" ships.
) situation? And don't say that it was a long way away!!! 
(Faint).
) are conspiring not to check, for the claim could call their theory into question