Something that a lot of people (here, anyway) noticed in the first couple of episodes of Enterprise was the sudden discontinuity between "Broken Bow," where the NX-01 made a reasonable accounting for itself firing a bunch of bolts of light that sounded like disruptor/plasma-type weapons. Then, of course, in "Fight or Flight" and "Silent Enemy," it seemed like the spatial torpedoes were the only effective armaments that the ship had. For whatever reason, this inconsistency stuck in my mind, even though I never had the opportunity to go back and watch the pilot again, and more importantly, get screencaps of my own.
I just borrowed the DVD set for ENT season 1 from a friend, and re-watched "Broken Bow" for the first time since it first aired. I got the opportunity to take a couple of screencaps and get some good slow-mo glimpses, and it's pretty much confirmed what I've believed for a while: the NX-01's weapons from the pilot were not the torpedoes, but most certainly plasma cannons. The effect sort of sounds like a torpedo launch effect, but also very much like the effect of a Klingon-type ship firing its disruptor bolts. Which makes sense, if we consider that a plasma cannon is probably a brute-force type weapon similar to, but not as powerful or effective as, a disruptor.
Also, the weapons aren't launched from the bottom, but instead the top... and now I've finally been able to go back for myself and confirm the location. It's those two circular ports just at the forward ends of the catamarans. Each of the caps below is the first frame in which the respective plasma bolt appears.
One little glitch, though, is that it seems as if there's maybe three ports... the second bolt seems like it might be coming from somewhere between the other two. But when I rapidly switch between the three caps (man, I love OS X's Preview and its browse drawer!) one could probably argue that two of the bolts just come from the same cannon.
Bernd argues in his tech assessment that there are "at least three locations"�aka cannon ports. However, the first bolt comes from too far starboard; it's almost at the edge of the catamaran. The second bolt seems to come from slightly starboard of the midline, but it's rather blurry compared to the first appearance of the first and third bolts (probably a side effect of the plasma glow mixed with the spotlight on the ship's name on the hull). I would argue that the second bolt is coming from the proper starboard-side port indicated above. And the third cap definitely comes from the port-side port. Considering all of the various effects glitches over the years, a few pixels over seems reasonable, so we can assume that there are just two plasma cannons.
(BTW, I'm not 100% certain that this has never been discussed before, but I searched for ten or fifteen minutes in S&T and ENT, and didn't find anything too relevant. Is this old news to anyone?)
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Those red 'plasma' bursts remind me that the original laser-pistols or what ever they were before Malcolm gave the Captain the new orange-beamed phase-disruptors also gave out a red beam... so maybe red colour = crappier and those red plasma bursts were superseeded?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"...so we can assume that there are just two plasma cannons."
I'd argue that all the dirty-dozen gunports on the ship were designed to accommodate a "standard weapon module". The original intent was to drop in a phase cannon module on each, but since the ship launched ahead of schedule, some older plasma cannon modules were used instead... I'd assume there were corresponding dorsal- and/or aft-firing units in "Broken Bow".
Reed and pals would gradually alter the arsenal during the two-year mission by building phase cannon in the free berths (at least five, perhaps more, despite the original talk of three). The plasma cannon might or might not be removed or deactivated in the process (do we ever see these two dorsal ports fire before the Season Three refit?), but certainly they would fall into disuse.
And why not? It's not as if they hit anything in "Broken Bow", and similar weapons seen in "Fortunate Son" et al. seemed to score relatively little damage.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
IIRC, there might've been a dorsal phase cannon seen firing somewhere in the "Shockwave" two-parter. I'll check on that later...
To clarify my assertion that Timo quoted, I simply meant that there are just two plasma cannons in the dorsal, forward-facing section of the ship. There could absolutely be others elsewhere. I certainly hope there were a few others, anyway! Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
They do indeed fire from the dorsal side on occasion - but from odd locations, including the dorsal ports flanking the main deflector, and the "supercharger" greeblies atop the catamaran structures. Through the first two seasons of Enterprise tech reports on Flare, I documented each instance - including a report on the apparent use of plasma weapons in "Broken Bow". However, Enterprise is riddled with weapons discontinuties, one of the many problems that came from losing the direct link between the art and VFX departments, which happens when you outsource CG work to people who don't understand the ship design. Remember the Darmok!
I'm cool with the "standardized module" approach for the weapons pods. But to keep the number of cannons down, I theorize that the phase cannons are on rails that can physically move the pods to different ports as necessary (much as has been done back in the day when old sailing ships needed an extra-spacial broadside). While Reed and company should have easily been able to build more, we did get infrequent references to the single aft phase cannon through the third season's "Damage", at least.
Mark
[ June 12, 2006, 08:23 AM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I'm wondering if the plasma cannons didn't have to be partially cannibalized to build the phase cannons.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
While reading the novelization of Broken Bow the weapons are described. Here's the description taken directly from the book on page 163:
"Rapid-blast torpedoes of compressed energy made a luminous anouncement. The artillery shells spoke out across the giant's sky-bound seas and scattered through the Suliban patrol."
Hope that helps.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
While reading the novelization of Broken Bow the weapons are described. Here's the description taken directly from the book on page 163:
"Rapid-blast torpedoes of compressed energy made a luminous anouncement. The artillery shells spoke out across the giant's sky-bound seas and scattered through the Suliban patrol."
Hope that helps.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Glad I skipped that novelization.
quote: I'm wondering if the plasma cannons didn't have to be partially cannibalized to build the phase cannons.
Or repairing Plasma Conduits for that matter....or anything else they'd need to scrap in the dozen or so times they patched the ship/ cobbled together some device, sensor or weapon.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Christ, was that a novelisation - or an Icelandic saga?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Written by Diane Duane I believe, perhaps curiously.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Erik Njorl, son of Frothgar, leaves his home to seek Hangar the Elder at the home of Thorvald Nlodvisson, the son of Gudleif, half brother of Thorgier, the priest of Ljosa water, who took to wife Thurunn, the mother of Thorkel Braggart, the slayer of Cudround the powerful, who knew Howal, son of Geernon, son of Erik from Valdalesc, son of Arval Gristlebeard, son of Harken, who killed Bjortguaard in Sochnadale in Norway over Cudreed, daughter of Thorkel Long, the son of Kettle-Trout, the half son of Harviyoun Half-troll, father of Ingbare the Brave, who with Isenbert of Gottenberg the daughter of Hangbard the Fierce. . .
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Actually, the author is Diane Carey, perhaps somewhat less surprisingly...
I'm quite surprised she spoke of artillery shells, though. Cannonballs or ballista arrows would have been more her style in terms of futuristic space technology.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Actually, I've changed my mind - that passage reads like it's been translated from a Japanese manual. I'm sure I've seen the phrase "luminous announcement" in relation to a warning indicator light on my Sony TV.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Well the novelization was very descriptive. I mean there was no extra content as in expanded/added scenes. She just felt the need to describe every little detail. I mean if you thought that was bad you should see the sentence before it:
"The ship took a compressive dive into the clear, burst out, and trumpeted her presence in the sky."
Boy that's some starship.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
We call it plasma, but whatever the Klingon (or Suliban) term for it, it was just ionized gas.
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
Actually, there was some extra content. I distinctly remember Mayweather thanking Reed for sponsoring him into the Academy or something...
(Also, T'pol outfit is "commisioner uniform" )
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Don't look around (uh oh oh)
T'commisionner's in town (uh oh oh)
Anyhoo, I'd always been hoping that the phase cannons would be surpassing, but not completely replacing, the plasma cannons. There was this image I'd wanted to see of the Enterprise blazing away with plasma cannon, phase cannon, AND spatial torpedoes, sorta like what the White Star did...
Mark
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Hey anyone remember that the mirror universe nx-01 also fired a plasma weapon?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Christ, was that a novelisation - or an Icelandic saga?
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Erik Njorl, son of Frothgar, leaves his home to seek Hangar the Elder at the home of Thorvald Nlodvisson, the son of Gudleif, half brother of Thorgier, the priest of Ljosa water, who took to wife Thurunn, the mother of Thorkel Braggart, the slayer of Cudround the powerful, who knew Howal, son of Geernon, son of Erik from Valdalesc, son of Arval Gristlebeard, son of Harken, who killed Bjortguaard in Sochnadale in Norway over Cudreed, daughter of Thorkel Long, the son of Kettle-Trout, the half son of Harviyoun Half-troll, father of Ingbare the Brave, who with Isenbert of Gottenberg the daughter of Hangbard the Fierce. . .
quote:Originally posted by Lee: Actually, I've changed my mind - that passage reads like it's been translated from a Japanese manual. I'm sure I've seen the phrase "luminous announcement" in relation to a warning indicator light on my Sony TV.
Lee, I'll just come right out and say it: I love you.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
PS I'm not gay, btw.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
All the same, I've got a warm fuzzy feeling anyway. 8)
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Shit, I've got all that posted on my wall...
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Fame at last.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Funny . . . I never thought about the upper ports for the plasma cannons. I always thought they came from the mysterious black hood scoop area.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I've got a slightly related question..has anyone ever thought about what kind of recoil a plasma cannon might have? Phasers are obviously recoiless, but plasma is real live matter and should have a Newtonian equal-but-opposite reaction, right? If we knew what kind of plasma it was, its density, and its muzzle velocity maybe we could actually work it out...anyone have *any* educated guesses, non-canon novel references, anything?
Oh, and Mighty Monkey of Mim, I love your sig ;p
-------------------- Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Phasers do have a kick, even though it only manifests at the receiving end...
I'd say recoil is a null and void issue in starship weapon applications, because starships already control their inertia by artificial means and routinely defy Newton's laws. And apparently recoil is similarly under control in handguns, be they phasers or plasma throwers.
Indeed, one might surmise that both phasers and plasma guns have immense kick, which just happens to be negated by subspace fields or whatever. We have seen a hand phaser send a heavily built man flying through the air (ST3), and hits from plasma pistols can also topple a big brute as if he were hit by a .50 cal rifle bullet.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
In recently re-watching some early ENT episodes, there were a couple of scenes with Hoshi getting used to the new phase pistols versus the old EM-33 plasma gun. She was having trouble with things like particle drift and recoil, stuff that she'd gotten used to with handling the EM-33 but didn't need to compensate for with the phase pistol.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Maybe people are sent flying by phaser hits due to some energetic reaction occuring at the point of impact, and not because of any, you know, velocity deal.
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
Hello.
I'm not sure whether everyone here may have seen series 3 of ENT, so if you haven't, be forewarned of some minor spoilers below.
There is an episode in the 3rd season (the title of which I'm uncertain but think it may have been 'Anomaly') in which Enterprise enters the cloaking field surrounding a Sphere to track down loot stolen by what amount to alien pirates. During this episode, Enterprise lies in wait within the cloaking field to ambush the alien ship so as to hack it's database for information. In the following battle, Enterprise is hampered by not being willing to damage the alien too badly before the hack is completed, but when Archer gives the word to Reed, Enterprise, which has so far only been using phase cannons, opens up on the Alien with a barrage of maybe half a dozen plasma bursts from the cannons we have rarely seen in action since Broken Bow. I could tell we weren't seeing torpedo's. The colour and size and behaviour were different, and the points of origin of these bursts were all on the upper saucer.
Now, it seems that the plasma cannons are really quit powerful, because this brief but furious barrage puts the alien ship down straight away. Perhaps we might infer that the plasma weapons are very good short range weapons only. In Broken Bow, we saw them used from much greater ranges.
Presumably this proves that both weapons are installed side by side and fully functional.
Mark Nguyen suggested in an earlier post that the phasers were on rails and mobile within the interior of the ship. I always had this impression too, recalling the episode in which Reed installs them. Reed appears to be working in a chamber opening into a shaft into which the cannon protrudes and the distinct impression it given from the design and dialogue that the cannon retracts to this central position when not in use, but is deployed either up or down the shaft to fire from either the upper or lower saucer as required. I surmised that Enterprise has only three phasers, firing from six ports in total.
The location of the aft torpedo tube vexes me somewhat. Sometimes it seems to emerge from that object suspended between the warp nacelles (which raises questions regarding the location of the magazine for this tube) and sometimes it seems to come from the back lower half of the saucer, which would place that suspended object dangerously close to the line of fire. But then, in just about every star trek design, I've always favoured only having forward firing tubes and relying on the guidance system to get the torpedo to a stern target. Stern tubes never seem to fit well with the designs and often look like they were tacked on as an afterthought.
Cheers
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I can only think of one ship (Voyager) where the aft tubes are even visible, so I'm not sure I follow you when you say they don't generally fit in with a design. What ships are you thinking of?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
The Enterprise-D had an aft tube that was quite logically placed, as well.
Also, there are very clearly TWO aft torpedo tubes on the NX-01, as can be seen in this picture... they're just above and below the observation gallery, and pretty much on a straight fore-aft line with the four forward torpedo tubes. They're not clearly visible in the aft view, but you can at least see that the aft pod is clearly mounted on perfectly horizontal beams, so it's definitely not in the line of fire.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Regarding the NX-01 plasma cannon on the upper forward saucer, they are intriguingly enough the ONLY type of weapon fire to ever emerge from the upper forward saucer.
While every other weapons port on the ship (plus some things that weren't intended to be weapons ports, like those "turbocharger" caps) was seen emitting phase cannon beams, the two dorsal ports are not. It is quite possible that they were the only ones to be installed with ANY kind of weapon for the "Broken Bow" mission, and that once installed, those weapons never left those ports.
As for the aft tube... The intended airlock door on the aft pod is seen to act both as an explicit torpedo launcher ("The Expanse") and as an explicit phase cannon ("Raijin", "Proving Ground"). Both during the same mission, too. No choice there but to try to ignore some of what we see.
...I choose to ignore the torpedo launcher (in "reality", the shots came from the "real" twin tubes), and to reinterpret the airlock as a standard gunport.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
I suppose I shouldn't have posted such a leading comment on Torpedo tubes without clarifying it. I tend to imagine the complete mess that feeding an aft tube must make of the internal arrangements. For instance, Voyager. Two very widely spaced forward tubes with awful fields of fire, tucked right in under the saucer, so far apart they must logically have separate ammunition feeds. Then the aft tubes, right at the top of the structure, in a location you would think would be better used for other things, perhaps a small shuttle bay or airlock. Where are these tubes fed from? There must be a long and very inconveniently placed hoist from the magazine which feeds the forward tubes located somewhere in the secondary hull. Other than that, there must be two magazines. That's inefficient on what is supposed to be a small ship.
Of course, I'm just a pedant. But I still think backward firing tubes on a space ship are irrelevant. If you're going to have aft tubes, why not up and down and left and right tubes as well? I know, that Akira thing supposedly has them, and the Sovereign has them coming out of every possible orifice! The entire interior must be a maze of ammo feeds and individual torpedo magazines.
I recall seeing the "Making off...." documentary for Star Trek II in which the gentleman in charge of set design and special effects commented that he had several discussions with the artistic types about staying within their frame of reference. Trek being relatively young at the time, without too much back story baggage or precedents, could still yield somewhat to realism. This gentleman commented on the interior design of the torpedo magazine and said he'd told the director that torpedo's would just be fired from where ever they were stored. Actually, in the film, all these Hornblower style scenes worked quite well, but I completely sympathise with the point that was being made.
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
Whilst speaking of torpedo arrangements, I always thought that they took the wrong approach to the "armoury" on Enterprise. The place should have resembled the torpedo room from a submarine. A wide compartment but with a very low ceiling with spare rounds stacked in ammunition feeds that would drop the torpedos into place, ready to be rammed into the launch tubes. Every useful space would contain machinery associated with the torpedo mechanism, with access by corridors between the machinery and torpedo storage racks and possibly gangways around and above some areas.
Instead, we get what is obviously just a redress of the hangar bay, with enough empty room for a dance floor and full orchestra, a great big widescreen TV in the middle and... strangely, an almost total absence of actual torpedo's but for one or two here and there. First time I saw it I couldn't figure out what I was looking at.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Well, I see that the aft torpedo thing COULD have been an upgrade as a part of "The Expanse" refit... At the same time of course, Enterprise suddenly gained a FIFTH forward tube for the photon(ic) torpedoes, with a corresponding change to the CGI model. This was lost in the very next episode, and subsequently the photon(ic)s were launched from the regular tubes. This is disappointing, as we never again get to see the original tube loading things in action ever again.
Mark
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The floor space on the armory could go hand in hand with the cart racks that held the photon torpedoes. While hand-operated carts aren't a very efficient method of moving heavy munitions, they are a very flexible means. The fixed loader might only be able to handle the original cylinder shape of the old spatial torps, but Starfleet would realize that those weapons weren't up to snuff any more, and would prepare NX-01 with built-in flexibility until the next projectile standard was decided upon.
As for aft tubes in general, I think they are a must. It would be awfully wasteful to first fire torps forward, then have them curve around the ship to hit targets aft. If your preferred mode of fighting is to keep on moving, into and out of firing range, there's little chance of (or sense in) pivoting the ship to orient the launchers. And if you are moving at warp, aft tubes are hugely important in discouraging pursuit.
Multiple distributed magazines are also a very good idea if your ship is prone to hull-penetrating shots. That is, if you store something explosive in the magazines. Photon torpedoes aren't necessarily explosive by themselves, before injected with the desired amount of antimatter. But antimatter bunkerage would then be the thing to be distributed.
And the farther you place your weapons from each other, the less chances there are that the enemy could command "target their weapons"...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
I take the point about distributed magazines, but there are two modes of thought regarding distribution. I know from a naval architect friend that the debate around centralisation or dispersal of mission critical systems is a perenial one among ship designers. I will use an appropriate example: the different approaches to locating the Vertical Launch System (VLS) blocks on naval vessels.
One argument says distribute them. One forward and one aft. Thus, in the event that one is hit, you still have the other.
The counter argument says that by dividing them in this way you are doubling the chances that part of your VLS system will be hit! You are also doubling all the associated equipment such as hydraulic systems, fire suppression, maintenance access and storage... as well as having to build in twice the amount of damage control measures such as shrapnel protection, which impacts on the vessels structure. Basically you're making the design much more complex, expensive and bigger than it might need to be. Proponents tend to favour the old battleship "central citadel" approach, in which all machinery and boilers, main armaments and their magazine spaces where located approximately in the central two thirds of a vessel, which was heavily armoured, saving weight by having "soft ends" that were unamoured, but contained no vital equipment. Obviously, in modern terms, we aren't talking armour, but the principle can be applied to other systems.
It comes down to a matter of opinion. There are just as many so-called "one hit wonder" designs as there are distributed designs.
Regarding anti-matter. This, I think, would be a point in favour of centralising magazine and tube locations, because as you know, unlike contemporary warheads which are permanently fitted with their explosives, photon torpedos have their anti-matter installed just prior to launch. This would require a store of this extremely volatile substance to be conveniently on-hand. Logically this would be near or adjacent to the magazine. With a highly distributed system of tubes and associated magazines, you will have anti-matter storage areas littering the ship.
So, it's not so much a matter of eliminating an enemies ability to target your entire weapons system with a single shot, so much as eliminating your enemies ability to vapourise you entire ship with a completely random strike anywhere within the hull!
Given that possibility, if I were designing a warship, I might go along with the central citadel philosophy and build the warp core, deflector, computer core, command centres (bridge, engineering, etc.) and as much of the primary power distribution system into a central citadel that possessed heavier, stouter structure, greater redundancy, thicker or multiple hulls, extra shielding of both the force field and physical kind and so on. For an example, I will digress...
Looking at the new Enterprise, it occurs to me that the rectangular shape lying along the top of the saucer and terminating in the "hood" should have been extended right down to the deflector for a better aesthetic. Actually, what it could represent is a central citadel which would conveniently contain the bridge, engineering, warp core, deflector, armoury and tubes and a large part of the plasma conduit system. The rest of the saucer contains almost everything else - principally accomodation and recreation and bulk storage and other things you can live without if you really have to, if they've been shot off in a fight.
But as usual with Enterprise, an opportunity to build in a useful plot feature of the ship was lost... again.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
In terms of what we have seen of Trek battles, I'd argue a starship as such is a "single citadel" by default... From stem to stern. But NX-01 did manage to take partial hull damage in the third season, mainly on the saucer rim, and this did not seem to hit any "strategic" targets. The rim indeed seems dedicated to crew quarters...
...Although one might think crew quarters would warrant more protection than warp cores or the like. I mean, if UESF is an organization with roots in early spaceflight, and little experience with space warfare, the natural (if anachronistic) tradition would be to banish the machinery outside the hull and to protect the crew from both reactor and ambient radiation. Then again, Earth might have started this on a different foot altogether.
The VLS clustering argument parallels the aft torpedo argument in a sense. With just one set of silos, there would be geometrical limitations in the system; ships still require high superstructures for sensors, and if a sea-skimming enemy approaches from behind those...
Perhaps not a big problem when the ship is slow and reaction times are relatively long, but the Trek situation is more akin to that of aircraft. A tailgunner is a good idea when speeds are high and maneuverability limited, and weapons have ranges akin to those of machine guns!
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
In my earlier post I forgot to mention another problem that occurs to me regarding aft tubes, which is that any projectile, whether self propelled or not, which is fired backwards must pass through zero velocity. In the last few years the USAF has trialed a defence system for transport aircraft which involved air to air missiles (I think they were ASRAAMs) mounted on rear facing wing pylons. The problem of passing through zero velocity is what killed it and they have continued with the traditional forward facing mounts.
Re: VLS: I don't believe that tall superstructures adversely effect the coverage provided by VLS launched missiles, given that the missiles are initially boosted to at least one or two hundred feet before dropping the booster stage and performing the turn over manoeuvre in the direction of the target. With particular reference to the lastest European designs which have electronically scanned arrays mounted on extremely tall masts, the detection ranges are so great that there is ample opportunity (in theory) to launch the missile and execute turn over before the sea skimmer is that close. Add to that the reaction time of a VLS missile of two or three seconds compared to the seven to ten that it takes a rail launched missile to get airborne, and only after the rail launcher is warmed up and loaded, which can take upwards of thirty seconds initially!
The problem you refer to would, in my view, be a CIWS one. If your initial salvo from the VLS misses and you have insufficient coverage with your inner layer defences, then big superstructures that mask your CIWS on certain approaches become a problem.
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: and weapons have ranges akin to those of machine guns!
Good point, which begs the question of why we don't see CIWS style weapons in Star Trek. We've seen numerous apparently shortranged weapons with very high rates of fire in Babylon 5 and a similar setup for the main armament of Galatica in BSG. In both cases, the rapid fire weapons are used to hose down the surrounding "space" space (as opposed to "air" space ). In Trek we tend to see weapons that are almost exclusively designed for longer ranges*. Coherent beam weapons (phasers and the like) with a long recycle rate between firings and torpedos which in most cases are only fired two or three at a time, appear to have very poor manoeuvrability and self guidance and never seem to do much more damage than a phaser burst.
I'm not counting the Defiant with it's pulse phasers as these weapons seem to be fixed, requiring the Defiant itself to manoeuvre to aim them. A serious design flaw if ever there was one, and one which nullifies the distinct advantages of these weapons. They should have been mounted in omnidirectional turrets on larger vessels instead. The Galaxy class could have one on each side of that vulnerable neck, one above the saucer sections hangar and one beneath the engineering hull. Anything that strays within a minimum range gets hosed, including incoming torpedos.
*(The only exceptions to this rule I can think of are Movie based references: ST:II in which we see paired burst firing phasers which used in conjunction with each other can achieve a rapid cyclic rate, and that single gas homing torpedo in ST:VI that destroyed the cloaked bird of prey over Khitomer.)
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Those "hosers" in B5 and BSG are primarily anti-fighter weapons, which Trek ships have no real need for (there being no fighters in the B5/BSG sense to target with them). Although, with starship combat always seeming to take place within stone-throw distances, there might be some merit to that idea, actually.
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
Two or three phaser hoses would have saved the Odyssey from the Jem Hadar suicide attack. In the same way that a 20 or 30mm gun based CIWS today would chop up all kinds of small craft, the phaser hoses would have dismembered the attack ship, leaving only a cloud of debri to impact the ship, which would probably not be fatal.
There is some debate on that these days. It's similar to the doomsday asteroid problem. If you blow up your incoming asteroid/anti-ship missile, instead of being splatted by one big lump you get shredded by a shotgun blast. However, I suspect, given that the worst damage to ships in the Falklands war in 1982 was caused more by the remaining fuel in the exocets, rather than the warhead itself, that shredding the incoming missile and thus emptying the fuel tank is the better bet. Prevailing opinion among many western navies seems to be swinging in favour of missile based CIWS which can intercept the target much further out than any existing gun system, thus preventing the missile getting so close that you get sprayed with parts. However, in the current circumstances, many still appreciate having a really big gun that can dissuade small and possibly explosive boats or light aircraft from getting too close!
I wonder how that works for anti-matter warheads? Presumably, no matter what you do, you get a sympathetic explosion as the anti-matter containment is wrecked by your phaser hose CIWS and starts reacting with the remains of the torpedo and any other particles floating by.
I talk too much Been working today and so don't feel up to partying away my Saturday night!
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I don't think "hoser" phasers would have made any difference in the case of the Odyssey. The Jem'Hadar vessels repeatedly took direct hits from the main battery of the Starfleet vessel and seemed none the worse for the wear. Imagine how much a Phalanx or a Goalkeeper would do to an opponent that just shrugged off the 16-inchers of your Iowa...
It can be argued that the main battery beams "pushed" the Jem'Hadar to some degree, and that further fire might have slightly altered the course of the ramming vessel as well. It can equally well be said that the Jem'Hadar simply veered off by themselves when hit by the main guns, and would not have done that during the suicide run.
If shooting down of torpedoes were both feasible AND worthwhile, we might see more CIWS in Trek. But we can easily postulate that CIWS is more trouble than worth: shields would more efficiently stop the sort of opponents that can even theoretically BE stopped. And if you have enough power for both shields AND CIWS, you dismiss the CIWS and route the power to stronger shields, as this is the better defense.
At least this seems to be how it goes in Trek. The other possibility of course is that Starfleet consists of a bunch of idiots. But there's no dramatic need for that, really.
Mind you, Kirk does try to shoot down an incoming torp in ST2 - but only because his shields are down. And the attempt is futile to begin with. The Japanese in WWII sometimes tried to use the main guns of their warships to hit incoming low-level aircraft, even though originally there was no proximity-fuzed or even shrapnel ammunition for those guns. Desperation breeds innovation, but innovation doesn't necessarily dispel desperation...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
I don't think large caliber main gun armaments were used to try and hit incoming aircraft but rather to create splashes high and large enough to either knock down the aircraft or force it to break off an attack run. Obviously this only works with relatively low level attacks (torpedo bombers for instance).
Even if it's not possible to counter torpedoes with a CIWS, the lack of decoys or ECM in Trek does seem surprising.
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
That's how I read it as well. There was, however, a sort of exception to that rule. King George V once used her 14" main armament to fire at Stuka's who were approaching at a couple of thousand feet prior to diving on the ship. The desired effect from this wasn't a water splash but rather to create severe turbulence in the air around the aircraft from the passage of the shells. Apparently it was effective enough to disperse the attack, although whether this was down to the effects of turbulence or simply the psychological impact on the pilots remains a point of discussion to this day.
Posted by Lurker Emeritus (Member # 1888) on :
quote:Originally posted by Timo: if you have enough power for both shields AND CIWS, you dismiss the CIWS and route the power to stronger shields, as this is the better defense.
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Mind you, Kirk does try to shoot down an incoming torp in ST2 - but only because his shields are down. And the attempt is futile to begin with. Timo Saloniemi
If you choose to rely only on shields you disadvantage yourself in two ways. - You must do without a layered defence which has the advantage of gradually degrading an enemy attack the closer it gets before it actually impacts on you. - You have created a single point of catastrophic failure. If your shields go down, you're toast. With a combined CIWS and shields approach, the loss of one system doesn't leave you completely vulnerable.
However, as you say, Trek never seems to have agreed with that reasoning. Kirk might have had an easier time of it if he'd fired a high yield torpedo equipped with a proximity fuse towards the incoming torpedo. Essentially, this would be a rudimentary missile defence system. We've seen micro torpedos used on vessels such as the Runabouts. Maybe, if we abandon the pulse phasers as being too underpowered to be effective (as you point out with regard to the Jem Hadar attack) and convert our phaser hoses into micro photon turrets with a rapid rate of fire and plentiful ammunition supplies, we get a photon torpedo machine gun! How would a hail of those have effected our Jem Hadar attack ship? One brief burst from a type 10 phaser might not dissuade them, but a continuous hail of anti-matter warheads might be a different matter. Especially if we then go one better and equip them with proximity fuses. Think ack ack in space with warheads of several megatons each! Nasty.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lurker Emeritus: Instead, we get what is obviously just a redress of the hangar bay, with enough empty room for a dance floor and full orchestra, a great big widescreen TV in the middle and... strangely, an almost total absence of actual torpedo's but for one or two here and there. First time I saw it I couldn't figure out what I was looking at.
I was thinking that the wheeled racks we occasionally see are all fully loaded and under the decking. When needed, a rack is elevated to the "deck" and wheeled to where ever it's needed. Stored racks of torpedos are more secure with their safetys on below-decks (I always hated the silly manual loading system shown in STII).
as to the launchers themselves, considering the distances that should be involved in starship combat, the ship's "spine" and "belly" should house rows of launch tubes. ...and torpedos should be far more autonoumously guided than they are shown to be, with a "friendly safety" feature that will not detonate anything except the chosen target.
That being said, it's important that they dont make the torpedos like the silly "oildrum" missiles shown so often in anime that follow a target like a flailing school of Piranha. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(I just assume that there's plenty of ECM fun going on in the background that isn't worth mentioning.)
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote:we get a photon torpedo machine gun!
This would be a good rationale for the addition of so many short-barreled torpedo launchers to the E-E during/after the Dominion war.
Prior to this, there might well have been a doctrinal disbelief in proximity defense phasers: devoting resources to those would have been seen as redundant when primary phasers were available to pick on the incomings before they hit the shields.
Shields in turn need not be a single point of failure, but a layered defense unto themselves. For a possible scenario, when the surge capacitors fail, there are still the primary generators, then the backup generators, then the tertiary generators and the plasma expansion discharger, then the EPS surge loops and backfeed buffers... To say that a system like that would be a single failure point would be akin to saying that AEGIS is a single failure point for the Ticonderoga class.
Modern tank drivers generally don't wear steel-plate armor and carry swords for the sake of "layering" in passive and active protection, either... At some point, one should give up those defensive technologies that give diminishing returns, and concentrate on those that work.
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However, Enterprise is riddled with weapons discontinuties, one of the many problems that came from losing the direct link between the art and VFX departments, which happens when you outsource CG work to people who don't understand the ship design. Remember the Darmok!![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)