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[This message has been edited by TheF0rce (edited March 28, 2001).]
Eh? Art clips? Show, please!
Mark
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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"
- Carl Sagan, "Contact"
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Signature for sale! For a mere price of $20 per letter you get this wonderful little space to say your own things. Get it now while there's still space!
-All you base belong to infinity. -infinity11
Now the question is on the BACK of the pod.
Finally, remember the Endeavour from FC? It fired a torpedo from under the saucer but above the deflector (in the little neck the Nebula has). Where's the launcher?
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
[This message has been edited by Ace (edited March 28, 2001).]
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
------------------
Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
I don't recall seeing a Nebula firing in "FC" at all...
------------------
You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
------------------
"No, 3 & 6 are mandatory, so you only have to do them if you want"
Alex, fellow classmate, trying to explain an assignment (2/2/01)
--Jonah
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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."
--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH
Another thing I noticed is by watching the Thunderchild fire when I pause the scene. At the moment she fires each torpedo, there is the ball of light plus 3 other lights to either side of it, meaning there are 4 holes there. The first torpedo comes from the far right, the next to the 2nd from the right, and the final torpedo from the 2nd from the left. This proves that those 4 holes we saw up there are indeed launchers.
Yet another thing. The scene where the Enterprise fires her quantums, the Steamrunner seems to fire a phaser from the point where the saucer section becomes indented. It comes from that corner there, instead of from the middle or from a strip from above.
Also, when Picard orders the viewscreen turned on, the Saber class to the very left is shown firing a torpedo forward from the back of her hull, exactly where it looked like a weapon pod could be. The weird thing is the torpedoes fly off at an extremely weird angle.
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"No, 3 & 6 are mandatory, so you only have to do them if you want"
Alex, fellow classmate, trying to explain an assignment (2/2/01)
*screams*
NOOOOOOO!!!!
(Can you tell I'm vehemently against the idea that the Akira has an enormous number of launchers and curse Jaeger for ever coming up with such a stupid idea?)
------------------
You know, you really should keep a personal log. Why bore others needlessly?
The Gigantic Collection of Star Trek Minutiae
------------------
[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!
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"When I said to get involved in the gay community, I didn't mean to sleep with everyone in it."
Michael_T
While no model AFAIK has had actual torp tubes in the neck area, the great variety in the podded armament evident in the various models makes it plausible that some ships could have had neck launchers as well (even if Paramount never built the models that would reflect that "fact").
Also, the things on the sides of the refined triangular pod look like paired TOS movie era phaser turrets to me... Although I agree they would better be considered sensors, since TOS phasers on such a ship make zero sense. TOS phasers do seem to be useful in the TNG timeframe, since the Excelsiors and other ships still use them; but a Nebula shouldn't have those for any reason.
The Steamrunner bow phaser anomaly is annoying. The CG model has no ventral phasers, but perhaps we should assume that SOME Steamrunners nevertheless have a ventral phaser mounted close to the bow to explain the anomaly.
As for the Sabers, I'm willing to believe in omnidirectional torpedo turrets up there at the extreme stern...
Timo Saloniemi
Sometimes, the FX guys just don't know these models as well as we do, or maybe they just dont care/think nobody will notice. ;-)
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Kryten: Pub? - Ah yes. A meeting place where people attempt to achieve
advanced states of mental incompetence by the repeated consumption of
fermented vegetable drinks. - Red Dwarf "Timeslides"
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Wes Button � [email protected]
TechFX Studios � The United Federation Uplink �
------------------
I don't like Wesley Crusher.
Anyway, another thing to consider in the Akira torpedo problem is that a Nebula's pod can obviously hold enough torpedoes for several launchers. To me, the Akira's "weapons pod" is simply to small to support 15(!) launchers. Perhaps the 15 are more like the Connie-Refit where you had one launcher and two firing bays, at least I think that's how the Connie worked...
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
[This message has been edited by Ace (edited March 29, 2001).]
------------------
Terry: "Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, ...."
Max: "And?"
Terry: "I forgot."
Max: "Come on, Clinton was the fun one, then came the boring one."
Terry: "They're all boring."
- Batman Beyond (aka: Batman of the Future)
------------------
Terry: "Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, ...."
Max: "And?"
Terry: "I forgot."
Max: "Come on, Clinton was the fun one, then came the boring one."
Terry: "They're all boring."
- Batman Beyond (aka: Batman of the Future)
besides these are torpedos!!!!
they don't need to be mounted in every direction like star war's blasters!
the torpedos should be used for long distance and turn on their own to that direction.
even modern naval ships don't have missle launchers assembled everywhere like they were anti-aircraft guns or something.
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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."
-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.
Also, when I checked my FC DVD last night, that one "Oberth" definatly looked like a Steamrunner to me. The arms connecting the engineering hull to the saucer were at a shallower angle.
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"No, 3 & 6 are mandatory, so you only have to do them if you want"
Alex, fellow classmate, trying to explain an assignment (2/2/01)
I would think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the tubes on the Akira can only fire a single torpedo at once. The difference between the two systems (Galaxy vs Akira) lies in thier functions.
The Galaxy, as an explorer, would probably not be expected to wade into an enemy fleet, attacking right and left, but would rather be expected to encounter single enemy ships in the course of explorations. Therefore, it's armanment would be optimized to to eliminate a single target as fast as possible, thus resulting in burst fire tubes and a massive phaser array, all facing forward (since the ship is free to manuever to face it's target).
I view the Akira as a battlefleet ship. During battle, it might spend quite a bit of time diving through an enemy fleet, with attackers firing on it fromm all directions. 'Shock attacks' like the Galaxy's would not eliminate all the threats, so the Akira is designed to attack multiple targets at the same time, with rapid-firing single-torpedo tubes to keep up a steady and punishing rate of fire in all directions. Many forward tubes would also be included since the ship would probably start firing at an enemy fleet well before the Akira would get 'into the thick of things'.
As for sideways tubes and the like, I expect that making a torpedo manever radically just to get on a flight path towards the target is rather wasteful of time and energy, even if a torpedo can actually do that.
James Fox
i chalk the akira class to someone who has no real idea how to design a ship that is appropriate for the star trek universe. just because the designer says something, especially a designer who did not work in the core production of trek like andy probert or john eaves, doesn't mean its "Real" in the star trek universe. we have never seen a good schematic for the akira, unlike with the galaxy class, so we don't have an "official" idea of what the akira class specs are. a quote by one person isn't official. if it was, then we would have had wolf 359 figured out a long time ago.
many people accept jaeger's statement with blind faith becuase they want a warlike star trek, and they don't want to think of things that make sense "in" the star trek universe. besides, if rick sternbach said that voyager had a large purple hand that extended to flick off enemies, and we never saw it on the screen, would anyone believe it? well, it is voyager, so things that don't make sense are common, but i doubt it would be given any credence, regardless. i find 15 torpedo tubes on one ship, whether burst fire or single fire, to be just as ridiculous as the purple hand.
--jacob
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"Hi, my name's Locutus, and I'll be your assimilator tonight. Can I interest you in our specials? Super. Well, currently we're offering an arm-replacement tool with extra wiggly-waggly bits on, or, for the more daring among you, not one but two ocular replacements! Terrific. You want fries with that? Ohh, I'm sorry, I've just heard from the chef that fries are off - they're irrelevant, apparently."
-Vogon Poet, March 13, 2001
[This message has been edited by EdipisReks (edited March 30, 2001).]
Quite the contrary, I think. Going by the numbers, as you say, would place the Akira class in an era where the number of aggressor groups was increasing, although the severity of any individual conflict may have been minimal.
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Not even a god can deny that I have squared the circle of a static Earth and cubed the Earth sphere by rotating it once to a dynamic Time or Life Cube.
--
Gene Ray
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" Or don't. You know, whatever.
Am I just mis-reading all this, or is everyone trying to fit all 15 launchers on the Akira in the pod? I thought it was 15 total, and likely positions for them all over the ship had already been determined?
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"Kif, I have made it with a woman! Inform the crew!"
- Zapp Brannigan
On the saucer:
One below the defelector.
Three above the deflector.
Two port dorsal.
Two starboard dorsal.
In the pod:
Four forward (upper row)
Three forward (lower row)
and a hard to see number facing rear (either one or two in each angled section)
That gives a total of 17 or 19.
One could hope that some of them aren't torp tubes but something else...
There's no problem having so many tubes in the pod: the Miranda has two forward and two aft tubes in its much smaller pod. It's just the sheer number of tubes and their rather illogical placement that bugs me.
For example, if the pod is a mission specific attachment, and peace time Akiras (which we've never seen) have sensors or something there instead, then it would be more logical for the saucer to have only the two or three torp tubes (I'd suggest two forward and one aft) that other ships have rather than an over the top eight. The port and starboard tubes are daft - torps can not be used at short ranges, see numerous, references from TNG, but how often would you get a long range shot from port or starboard? And torps are not straight line weapons anyway.
If I could redesign the Akira I'd give it two forward torp tubes above the deflector and one aft torp tube somewhere on the aft central saucer surface. I'd remove all the other saucer tubes. I'd remove the lower row of tubes on the pod, leaving four foward and four aft tubes in the pod. I'd also add phaser strips to the nacelle pylons. Finally I'd increase the size of the forward shuttle bay doors to match that of the aft ones so that the ship can operate in a proper through deck fashion (at the moment it can land craft larger than it can launch)...
Hmm, this has nothing to do with the Nebula. Oh well.
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-->Identity Crisis<--
Given everyting seen on that class, I view the Akira as a blockade runner. Redundant launchers to offset inflicted damage. Full y-360 coverage to deal with ships that pass to the sides and aft as the Akira closes with its objective. Embarked fighters to run interference. It's a penetrator class. Quite probably originally used to secure planetary "beachheads" in the Cardassian or Tzenkethi conflicts...
--Jonah
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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."
--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH
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"Kif, I have made it with a woman! Inform the crew!"
- Zapp Brannigan
I think the Akira was meant to have three launchers from the start, two forward, one aft, all in the pod. I mean, they DID fuck up with the Nebula.
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Anyway, I respect his design above anything else, including any FUBAR tech manuals. 15 torps. many phaser arrays. carrier-type shuttlebay. YUM. bottom line for me.
if you couldnt tell, im in love with the akira-class ship.
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Wes Button � [email protected]
TechFX Studios � The United Federation Uplink �
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I don't like Wesley Crusher.
What constitutes "many"?
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
people who are appalled at the idea of 15 torpedo launchers and believe although alex jaeger is a good original designer-he has no idea what he is doing with trek ships specs.
and despite alex's comment, they will go by what is shown onscreen
and the second bunch are the people who are waiting for starfleet ships to be beefed up with photonic cannons and think its about damm time the akira came along and also buys into the whole carrier thing too.
[This message has been edited by TheF0rce (edited March 30, 2001).]
--jacob
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"Hi, my name's Locutus, and I'll be your assimilator tonight. Can I interest you in our specials? Super. Well, currently we're offering an arm-replacement tool with extra wiggly-waggly bits on, or, for the more daring among you, not one but two ocular replacements! Terrific. You want fries with that? Ohh, I'm sorry, I've just heard from the chef that fries are off - they're irrelevant, apparently."
-Vogon Poet, March 13, 2001
[This message has been edited by EdipisReks (edited March 30, 2001).]
"hitting a ship with a single torpedo from a side tube won't eliminate a target at all."
I never claimed it did. What I *do* think however, is that hitting a ship with a single torpedo can weaken the shields, and that if another torpedo hits the shields soon enough afterwards, it will weaken still furthur. Instead of knocking the shields down in one massive blow, the shields would be gradually pounded down until the enemy ship is vulnerable and can be destroyed.
"15 single fire tubes makes even less sense than 15 burst fire tubes. thats like putting 15 smoothbore muskets on a humvee instead of a machinegun."
Huh? Are you saying that a single-fire tube is to a burst-fire tube what a musket is to a machine gun? That is simply ridiculous, as a machine gun has a fire rate thousands of times that of a musket. A 10-torpedo burst-fire tube, even if you assume it can fire it's bundles of torpedos at the same rate as a single-fire tube, is only 10 times more powerful. Furthurmore, I *don't* think a burst-fire tube has a rate of fire matching that of the quantum single fire launchers we've seen: they often seem to fire multiple times a second. When was the last time you saw a burst fire tube firing multiple times a second.
"also, your idea about the galaxy is flawed, as the galaxy has by far the best total phaser coverage of any ship in trek ever seen,"
On the back of the ship and the bottom of engineering, there are a bunch of piddling small arrays. On the saucer, there are two huge arrays. Though some people seem to think that the strip size has no relation to the power of the beam it can put out, I think it makes more sense to interpret thins as a sign that the designers did not intend to attack powerful targets with phasers from the rear of the ship.
"and has 2 burst fire tubes that can cover the entire ship."
You *assume* that they can cover the entire ship. Those two tubes are forward facing. Have you ever seen a galaxy fire torpedos to the front that looped around to attack ships behind the Galaxy?
"the galaxy is the best ship seen for fighting multiple targets."
Actually, I would say that Voyager has been shown to be pretty good at it as well. But how often have we seen the Galaxy attacking muliple *large targets* at the same time?
"the bursts of torpedos that the galaxy class fires can actually hit multiple targets, as seen in "yesterday's entreprise" where a single burst hits at least 2 klingon ships."
But can the torpedos hit enemy ships on opposite sides of the firing ship? There's a reason why many ships out there have rear firing torpedo tubes you know.
"i don't think that making a torpedo maneuver in the 24th century is anymore taxing than making one maneuver in the 21st century."
Since we are less than 3 months into the 21st century, I'll assume you meant the 20th century.
Here, we come to the crux of the argument, I happen to strongly disagree. I would say a Starfleet torpedo isn't really very much like a 20th century naval torpedo. Naval torpedos a minature submarines that have a fairly long endurance, several minutes at the very least. Starfleet torpedos, by contrast, last no longer than 14-15 seconds according to the TM's.
Also, Starfleet torpedos are hurled out of thier tubes at immense speeds, whereas Naval torpedos are not. Why is it that Starfleet torpedos require that large and powerful launcher? Why not just let the torpedos accelerate up to thier cruising speed of 0.75 c? I think it's because they *can't* -- at least not in a reasonable amount of time. To perform a 180 degree turn with no speed loss in the 14-15 seconds allocated would take an acceleration of at least 30 million m/s^2. According the the TM's, an Ambassador class has a maxium acceleration of 10 thousand m/s^2. I find it a bit hard to believe that a torpedo can do 30 thousand times better. And even if they can, to be a maneverable as missiles and the like, their acceleration would have to be far greater, and the fact that they have to be accelerated by tubes in the first place seems to rule this out. Therefore, I don't think they are maneverable enough to prevent rear-firing and side-firing tubes from being a good idea.
I know we did see *one* example of a torpedo that maneuvered a lot, in Star Trek VI, but that was a special modification. It ran for longer than any torpedo we've seen, and there may be other factors like a possible slower speed that would make manevering torpedos easier in that situation. We've never seen a torpedo move like that again.
"besides, the akira was, if NCC numbers are any real way of determining age, built in a time when the federation had no need for warships. having that many nonsensical tubes makes even less sense given the time frame."
I believe other people have already covered this, but I reiterate: just because the Federation was not in danger of being overrun does not mean that there was no need for warships. There *were* several smaller wars then, and if starfleet was to do thier job of defence properly, warships would help greatly.
Second, if we are to believe the onscreen evidence of torpedo performance, photons do not travel at immense velocities. Take Voyager's torpedo in "Thirty Days". If it had traveled with immense speed it would've been smashed against the surface of the sea, the same as if hitting solid ground. Water is incredibly hard, if forced.
I remember some test in the Guiness book of records, where scientists had broke the record in compressing a body of water. It was not by much, let me tell you.
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Here's something else I've wondered about: How are torpedoes detonated? If they are travelling at high multiples of c and detonate on impact, isn't the internal circuitry limited to light speed? Wouldn't the torpedo have passed completely through the target by the time it could detonate? Maybe the torpedo drops out of warp before it hits? Or maybe there's some sort of proximity fuse. Of course, at those speeds, if you detonate a fraction of a second to early or too late you'll be off by possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Just thinking...
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Mabye the USS Akira had 15 torps, but because of the cost of putting so much into a starship, they cut down to 6 or 8.
I theroyize that the Akira also has dual horizontally contructed warp cores.
------------------
Wes Button � [email protected]
TechFX Studios � The United Federation Uplink �
------------------
I don't like Wesley Crusher.
i don't think that hitting a ship with one torpedoe would do that much damage. if you watch star trek IV, you will see the excelsior take 1 hit with no real effect, besides being tossed around for dramaturgical effect. the E-A also takes many hits, and it is several impacts before the shields are degraded. i imagine that shield technology will grow faster than torpedo tech (as tank armor has developed faster than tank rounds), so i imagine that late 24th century ships can probably shrug off a single hit. i stand by my assessment of the akira class.
--jacob
------------------
"Hi, my name's Locutus, and I'll be your assimilator tonight. Can I interest you in our specials? Super. Well, currently we're offering an arm-replacement tool with extra wiggly-waggly bits on, or, for the more daring among you, not one but two ocular replacements! Terrific. You want fries with that? Ohh, I'm sorry, I've just heard from the chef that fries are off - they're irrelevant, apparently."
-Vogon Poet, March 13, 2001
--jacob
------------------
"Hi, my name's Locutus, and I'll be your assimilator tonight. Can I interest you in our specials? Super. Well, currently we're offering an arm-replacement tool with extra wiggly-waggly bits on, or, for the more daring among you, not one but two ocular replacements! Terrific. You want fries with that? Ohh, I'm sorry, I've just heard from the chef that fries are off - they're irrelevant, apparently."
-Vogon Poet, March 13, 2001
[This message has been edited by EdipisReks (edited March 30, 2001).]
Second, the Rex has a point. Why make small arrays if they are not as good as their larger cousins?
As to torps not able to move outside a certain firing arc by themselves with their own navigational system, that same TM that is used against the "conservative" Star Trek fans states that the Galaxy's 10 torps launched in one volley can fly together for 150 meters or so before each seperating to its specific target. It even STATES that this is found to be an effective way to fight multiple targets. Check out the torpedo section of the TM.
Finally, on the Akira, I didn't mean that ALL 15 launchers are on the pod, but we know at least 5+ are located their according to the designer. Where are the torpedoes stored for the pod?
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
[This message has been edited by Ace (edited March 31, 2001).]
In the Akira's weapon pod, a couple tubes could be T-shaped, where the torpedo comes up a vertical shaft, then is accelerated out either the front or back. This cuts down on some of the machinery needed for the many, many launchers.
-----
Is the Akira armed way, way above the norm? Yes.
Did Starfleet need to build such a ship? Probably. They were way more effective in the Dominion war than re-comissioning (is that the right term for un-mothballing?) more ablative Mirandas for the Defiant.
Will they build more Akiras in peacetime? No.
In my opinion, which counts for little but I'll share it anyway, the Akira (and Steamrunner) were designed when the Federation had just finished the Cardassian War, had just come out of a brief conflict with the Klingons, was fearing invasion by the Borg, the Dominion, the Romulans...
Didn't US naval production pick up any before Pearl Harbour? "My goodness, you want to build a ship that carries 50 fighters? Our heaviest cruisers only carry two spotter seaplanes! Ships just do not carry more than that!"
2378: The Dominion war is over, the [insert 10th movie plot here] is finished, and the Borg are long overdue for their next visit, prompting some to believe that they've finally given up on assimilating the Federation. Now, the Federation and Starfleet can get back to what it does best. Exploring strange new worlds. Seeking out new life and new civilizations. Going boldly where few have gone before...
[start 5th series intro music]
--Re'k
Note that the Galaxy's burst-fire tubes (and the Sovereign's, according to the MSD -- you know, the four launchers in the secondary hull) are much longer than the shorter single-fire tubes of the Akira and Sovereign classes. I do consider the cycling rate of the Sovereign's chin turret to be one of the "advanced" things about the design, as it fired off three quantorps a second as opposed to the Galaxy's single-fire rate of about one a second ("Encounter at Farpoint").
The Galaxy's burst-fire capability can probably be seen to best effect in "The Arsenal of Freedom". Granted, they were trying to blanket a small area, but you can see something of the maneuverability of TNG-era torps there.
One of the annoying fallacies of recent Trek tech is the notion that torps to compensate for phasers' inability to fire at warp. Cow poo. In TOS, it was quite the opposite. We frequently saw the Enterprise firing phasers at warp, and only rarely firing torps at warp. In TMP, Kirk's first reaction to news of the asteroid in their path was to order phasers.
Noodle that, y'all...
--Jonah
------------------
"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."
--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH
One is this single-bore vs. multi-bore argument. Many seem to think that multi-bore = more powerful than single-bore, but typically it is just vice versa - multiple launching systems are introduced to cover for the inherent weaknesses of the weapon being launched. In the eighties and nineties, vertical-launch tubes were introduced for the Sea Sparrow SAM for use in a variety of ships, including Dutch and South Korean designs. While the arrays of these weapons may look pretty impressive, they in fact tell that these ships are weaker in air defence than their cousins with reloadable launchers.
The VL systems of modern US warships are on par with the single or twin launchers of the previous generation only because there are several dozen launch sells in every VLS array. Rate of fire is not increased all that much, since one can't easily launch simultaneously from several cells.
Considering all this, the original Akira could be a peacetime ship, equipped with primitive slow-rate launchers because it wasn't expected to fight a full-scale war. The Galaxy would feature hugely more expensive and complex weapons that would be more useful in war. And Starfleet's response to the more warlike 2370s could have been to equip the initially, say, six-tubed Akira with large numbers of additional weak tubes, because this sort of refit was possible whereas a refit introducing the complex Galaxy type launchers was impossible (too expensive, too bulky hardware, not enough power available).
Judging by "First Contact" alone, Akira torpedo tubes may not be capable of repeated shots. I don't think we ever saw a tube fire twice in the movie (the two volleys fired came from multi-tube locations, namely the seven-tube pod and the three-plus-one-tube deflector area).
It is of course possible that the Akira is an invincible battlewagon. If this is so, though, then why does it not utilize its weapons? Why are Akiras weak in practice if they are supposed to be strong in theory?
As for torps vs. phasers, things may have changed quite a bit between Kirk's time, and Picard's...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Nope, the launch bays are higher up, on the rim of the saucer (and hence in line with the landing bays at the rear). The torp tubes are the three smaller openings in the ventral forward surface, below the launch bays but above the deflector.
------------------
-->Identity Crisis<--
But do more than three torpedoes actually emerge from this location? For all we know, the Akira tubes could be single-shot weapons, scabbed all over the otherwise underarmed ship for a modicum of self-defence.
Did the Akira in "Message in a Bottle" fire torpedoes? If so, then from which locations?
Timo Saloniemi
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
------------------
"No, 3 & 6 are mandatory, so you only have to do them if you want"
Alex, fellow classmate, trying to explain an assignment (2/2/01)
--jacob
------------------
"Hi, my name's Locutus, and I'll be your assimilator tonight. Can I interest you in our specials? Super. Well, currently we're offering an arm-replacement tool with extra wiggly-waggly bits on, or, for the more daring among you, not one but two ocular replacements! Terrific. You want fries with that? Ohh, I'm sorry, I've just heard from the chef that fries are off - they're irrelevant, apparently."
-Vogon Poet, March 13, 2001
[This message has been edited by EdipisReks (edited April 02, 2001).]
Torpedoes on the other hand can, because they have small warp-field sustainer engines. Also, we can assume that if the computer systems on board starships use FTL technology, then the computers mounted in the torpedoes also operate FTL. Detonation-timing problem solved.
I agree with the fact that torpedoes cannot accelerate fast enough by themselves, and thus the large launchers. But once they've been accelerated, who says they can't do any meneuvering?
Also, I maintain that the reason we don't see photorps moving all that fast on screen is because they are fired in close quarters, (absurdly close if you ask me), and at speeds below c.
I am still confused as to why torpedoes are so relatively powerless. Even if it contained 10 grams antimatter and 10 grams deuterium, the explosion would be phenomenal. Add to that the fact that the TNG:TM states the yield was INCREASED due to advances in weapons technology, the photorp explosions we see on screen makes me think Starfleet armed all it's ships with duds.
I'm sorry, but I don't count he Prometheus sections shooting the crap out of a Nebula class a continuity error...
------------------
Terry: "Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, ...."
Max: "And?"
Terry: "I forgot."
Max: "Come on, Clinton was the fun one, then came the boring one."
Terry: "They're all boring."
- Batman Beyond (aka: Batman of the Future)
Continuity error would also include ships not flying away like a flash when going a fraction of warp faster than their pursuers. Torpedoes need to fit into traditional western gunfighting scenes, and warp travel is forced to look like high speed car chases.
------------------
Don't kill me, I'm charming!
Ugh...that whole Nebula battle was so poorly planned out. Who ever was the CO of that ship should never have let the Prommie SURROUND his/her ship! My guess is either Starfleet simply told any ship in the area to capture (not destroy, I'd assume) the Prommie without informing them that the ship could do that, or the CO was just a very bad tactician.
"Hey's it's splitting up...Whoa...wait a minute...AHH!"
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
[This message has been edited by Ace (edited April 02, 2001).]
CO:"good shooting men, but starfleet told us to bring her back in one piece."
tact.officer:"no sir...you don't understand...its not my shooting--she seem to have seperated and now her individual sections is surrounding us...what shall we do???"
CO:"hmmmmmm.....starfleet command didn't mention this...patch me a channel to my ready room-i need to confer with the admiral again...."
tact.officer:"uh...sir.....i don't...think....there's....time....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
[This message has been edited by TheF0rce (edited April 02, 2001).]
Tactical: "Maybe it would be a good idea to fire back, sir?"
CO: "Hmm...I bet this never happened with Picard"
Tactical: "Sir, now isn't the best time to talk about how other captain's would deal with this situation. Shouldn't we fire some torpedoes at the Prometheus?"
CO: "Don't be so trigger happy. For all we know, they could be trying to say they surrender....AHHH!"
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Ace
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
[This message has been edited by Ace (edited April 02, 2001).]
Were it up to me, I'd go with the DS9 tech manual's explanation, although without making the technology new, seeing as how Kirk's Enterprise regularly employed it. I'd also limit the usefulness to very close ranges. The Prometheus and that Nebula were only hundreds of meters apart, for instance.
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Not even a god can deny that I have squared the circle of a static Earth and cubed the Earth sphere by rotating it once to a dynamic Time or Life Cube.
--
Gene Ray
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Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" Or don't. You know, whatever.
By the way, according to TNG:TM, approximately 1.5 kg of antimatter are used in a standard torpedo warhead. 1.5 kg! And that's only the antimatter! So you have three kilograms of reactants there and increased yield due to advances in torpedo technology, tell me how they only make such teensy weensy explosions, huh?
No seriously, they could make torpedoes as big and strong as they like, we all know that. But there are probably countless treaties (like warship-restricitons in WWII) that ensure a balance of power, or mutual destruction or something. For instance, all the major powers stay away from subspace-ripping weapons, except for the stupid face-stretchers.
I mean, if I wanted to be able to blow a ship up with one torpedo, I'd build one with enough yield (teraCochranes?) to do what Tuvok did to the poor caretaker array.
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Don't kill me, I'm charming!
These yield values, by the way, are measured in "isotons." A very technical sounding term for yet another technical vagary.