By the way, it seems likely 1701 couldnt rear fire, what does that have to do with NX-01? Just because the Constitution's design didnt lend itself to the addition of a rear firing tube, whos to say that its predecessor wouldnt be able to? Theyve been making cars with power windows for decades, but they still make cars without power windows too? Why? Cost, feasibility, design preference.. etc.. the point being that even though one ship had them, doesnt mean theyd be added to every ship after them.

Ships of the Star Fleet depicted an upgrade of the Constitution-class refits, the USS America that was identical to the E-A except with the back of the torpedo tube module containing a rear tube. It'd be interesting to see the studio model in that area, most blueprints of the E-no suffix refit label it as the torpedo waste vent, but if the E-A model had an area that lookedl ike it could launch a torp, then maybe it could have.

And if somebody said starships didnt have rear firing tubes before the 24th century, then f*ck that because its obviously wrong. The NX-01 had them.

[ October 05, 2001: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]

The blue thing could be very, very important to the ship - after all, the Constitution-refits, Sydneys and some Excelsiors had one, and Constellations, Mirandas and some Excelsiors actually had two. It could also be completely superfluous, since the TOS ship and the TNG vessels had none. But whatever it is, it's reasonably large and reasonably radiant. Perhaps it's a good idea to keep it away from the inhabited parts of the hull...

Putting the aft torp launcher there seems like a jolly bad idea to me, though. Especially if the pod already houses big and dangerous equipment, and torp preparation and launching requires manual labor. A properly designed ship (from the TV show standpoint, even if not necessarily from the engineering one) ought to have weapon emplacements that look like weapon emplacements and are all installed using a common logic, like a seagoing warship's gun turrets or torpedo tube clusters or VLS cassettes. You don't mount one gun in a turret on the forecastle and then have another one swing from cables between the masts. If the main hull is good enough for forward torps, it ought to be good enough for the aft ones as well.

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The only thing I don't like about the rear-firing torpedo launcher on the new Enterprise is that the torpedo was launched from that pod. Damn it, I so wanted that pod to be the engineering section!

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