posted
I don't know if I posted this before. If I did just slap me on the hand. :-)
RS
Shelly-class starship
With the breakout of the Dominion war Starfleet was losing ships at an extraordinary rate. Admirals scrambled to begin rapid prototyping and refurbishment on at least 178 partial builds, salvaged hulls, and spaceworthy warp engine systems. The ships that could be structurally mated and outfitted were hastily launched and flight-tested, more often then not given no formal name or registry number. The Shelly class (the name was given to the nine ships that survived the war) is an Excelsior/Constitution variant that served as a medium cruiser, a fighter carrier and or fleet tug. Two versions of this ship were actually created; a medium cruiser and fleet tug/carrier. Seven ships were created of the cruiser design, and six of the tug/carrier. The cruiser version was not very maneuverable in a dogfight but her firepower, which consisted of eleven type-ten phaser banks and five torpedo launchers with a complement of the new quantum and photon torpedoes. As a result the Shelly-class cruiser outmatched every ship in her class. So she proved better as a cover for fighters and a point ship for attacking wings. As a result the cruiser version of the Shelly was often seen protecting her carrier sister. As a carrier, the Shelly class ship would often be found near the front lines. At the beginning of a fight, the carrier would rush to the front with all her guns blazing with additional fire from nearby cruisers and battlecruisers, to release her precious fighters to do soften up the enemy front ships. Weapon complement for the Carrier variant consisted of nine type-ten phaser banks (four on the saucer and five on the secondary hull), three proton torpedo launchers and three tractor beam emitters located near each of the fighter bays to help guide the ships in. With Retaliator and Peregrine class fighters in her grasp and protection, she proved to be a worthy opponent. The tug version too served an important use in the war against the Dominion. As the carrier would be used at the beginning of the fight, the tug would go in after the battle to retrieve escape pods, wreckage that still had life signs or had military value. Between battles the tugs would tractor ships to starbases for repair, transport medical supplies to nearby hospital ships or starbases. The tug did not have as many weapons as her sister variants, relying on other more on escort cruisers (such as the Centaur-class) for cover. In conclusion all the Shelly class variants helped carry the Federation to victory against the Dominion and their allies. Even though not very many of the ships survived the war, they will always have their part in the memories of the survivors and the victors.
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posted
Lets put an end to this 'starships without names and registries' nonsense. I think any ship launched would have a number at least, and probably be named, if not officially, then by its crew.
And also classifying the DS9TM ships officially as 'Constitution variants' and 'Excelsior variants'.. most of them have nothing to do with the original ships besides a couple of parts. The Shelley is no more a Constitution variant than a Constellation or Sydney is. They are just ships which have similar nacelles.
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Amasov Prime
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posted
I have problems accepting the fact that the 'Shelley' and the 'Centaur' are so-called 'kitbashes'. Look at it this way: when we saw the Shelley, the war was going on for three months. I started, and at that point the fleet still had full strength and no need for prototypes and kitbashes and other stuff like that, when the Dominion attacked DS9. Starfleet and the klingons assembled a taskforce to start a counter-attack. From what we know, the rest of it was the small fleet we saw in 'A Time to Stand'. Enven if it wasn't, the earliest date for Starfleet to start kitbashing thier ships would have been 2 months or so after the war broke out. They also didn't start kitbashing the remains of Wolf 359 after the disastrous battle. The great losses -and the demoralisation of the fleet- begun with the defeat of the Tyra-fleet, maybe earlier. So if strfleet saw any need in kitbashes rather than the remaining operational forces, they would have started building them possibly a month or closer to the date of that episode. Do you really think Starfleet could construct and commission a new vessel within one month? Furthermore, the Curry was already damaged, which means the ship participated in at least one battle, not taking into concideration they had to bring the vessel from Mars or wherever they built it to the fleet. No matter how you look at it: doing a kitbash withing 3 month (from nothing to a fully operational craft sized like an Excelsior) is not possible.
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I think that a lot of the classes that are explained away as 'new-build Dominion War' ships were actually around for a while, we just didnt see them. Especially the Constitution ones like the two nacelle constitution 'frying pan'
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posted
Ya know, the USS Curry, of the so-called Shelley class, had a registry that started with a 4. Many say it was NCC-45617. Really not new when you consider that.
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.. and some people say thats because it is a standard Excelsior that was rearranged. Before we ever get to that point, i think that 'rearranging' a starship like that is impossible, and even if you did want to engineer something like that, really unnecessary.
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Assuming of course that the internal arrangement is the same as on a standard Excelsior and its not just the basic spaceframe that is being rearranged.
posted
Starfleet has used "kitbashing" for years. Many of the ships at Wolf 359 were ships that were being used as testbeds for the warp propulsion and hull geometry of the Galaxy Class. This includes all the wacky ships like the Niagara and Freedom, but excludes the reasonable ships like Cheyenne and New Orleans.
During the Dominion war Starfleet started kitbashing ever ship they had when it was inevitable that the Dominion would poor through the wormhole and attack. --- This was sometime after the Odessey Incident but probably before the Obsidian Order/Tal'Shiar Incident [Sisko said something to the effect that the Federation was not ready yet, which implied that they were getting ready, I'm fairly certain he would have said they weren't doing anything at all if they weren't doing anything].
Again, this was long before the shooting war started, and before the Dominion even entered the Alpha Quadrant. Starfleet would have started mobilizing everything for this, even the mothballed cannon folder... otherwise known as Miranda Class Starships.
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I think we are tripping over our terminology here.
Kitbash is a modeling term meaning a model made from pieces of another models parts, 'bashing the kits' (OK I realize we all knew this, but i strive for completion. O, to attain the all..)
So technically speaking, Starfleet doesnt kitbash. They build spaceships, not models.
But they do use standardized pieces in different arrangements. The Constitution-class was a heavy cruiser, but a rearrangement of its pieces yielded a smaller frigate vessel in the Miranda-class (also elementary data, i apologize) Presumably this has the advantage of retooling standardized nacelles into a new ship design, so they can be modified to be reused or interchangeable (i realize that it isnt as easy as reattaching it, because the input connections are in different places so some fo it would have to be retooled to take a Miranda nacelle onto another ship.. But.. if the were designed for both uses you would just switch the intake valve from 'up' to 'down'
So this seems like a good idea.
And would have these results: The main ship, the 'original' design, would have the best use of the design. Postulate: Galaxy nacelles are used on a lot of ships. A lot of ships look really awkward with Galaxy nacelles, making people call them 'kitbashed' Its like putting a different engine in a car. Doesnt always fit the bill, but it works. A good explanation was the 'testing the galaxy's warp geometry' one.
And rearranging the ship parts for a different purpose is a logical development. If you need a carrier vessel, taking a cruiser and reengineering it as a carrier would be good horse sense. Take the basic hull structure, you need to redesign the systems within and make it work though.
That's why i think these rearranged ships being built in a hurry doesnt make sense. If you have a bunch of pre-fab excelsior pieces, it would take some doing to make them work as a carrier arrangement. It would be easier to build the ship as it was designed, and quicker too. The advantage of having a carrier configuration could only be realized by investing EXTRA time and EXTRA material into your conveniently prefabricated parts. So i think that Starfleet had these 'kitbashed' ships around for a long time, but their origin is just that. They were mainline ships reengineered for a different purpose/configuration. But not new or hastily built at all. They couldnt be and still work.
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I think that if Starfleet was so desperate for ships that unmothballing perfectly good ones wasn't enough, they have to weld different classes together, the Dominion War would have been over a long time ago.
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Tidbit: The so-called Yeager-class first appeared in the DS9 episode "Ties of Blood and Water" -- which was only a couple of episodes after Cardassia joined the Dominion. So these "kitbash" designs started appearing long before the war started.
Here's my take: Starfleet realized that it was going to be very short on numbers very early on in the conflict -- once Cardassia joined the Dominion, it was clear that they'd have enough industrial capacity to build and support a massive fleet, not to mention any reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant. So Starfleet started building as many ships as possible, to get enough units available to adequately cover the border regions.
I've thought up a couple of circumstances. I admit that the logic is a bit strained, but I blame it on the modelmaker idiots who created such monstrosities in the first place.
Yeager-class -- This design came from an Intrepid-class ship that was in the Sector 001 battle and was partially destroyed. The saucer was left mostly intact by the blast that destroyed the aft section, and so to get the ship back in service, a shipyard created a quick-and-dirty substitute secondary hull, and the newly christened Yeager (named for the Saber-class ship destroyed in the battle) entered service as a patrol cruiser.
Shelley-class -- The Excelsior is a pretty old design. I'll bet that there were plenty of decommissioned hulks lying around, and Starfleet would try to reactivate a lot of these. The Excelsior-class USS Curry (NCC-45617) was one of these decommissioned or damaged ships. Old nacelles were fitted directly to the saucer, and the engineering hull was converted to a massive cargo space or troop transport or whatever. (But NOT a fighter carrier. The Galaxy-class ships with their massive main shuttlebays should have done that.) Rather than repaint and recommission the ship, they relaunched the hull with the same old Curry name/number.
Yeah yeah... this is stuff pulled out of my @$$. But how else can you explain these ugly monsters?
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I find your explanations less that believable though.
Yeager-Class Patrol Cruiser Development Project: Limited production run of starships created using Intrepid class primary hull design, but with a older warp carriage. Fleet strengths of combatant vessels were being increased in 2373, and a new type of patrol cruiser was needed. While the Intrepid-class fit the general requirements, it was deemed too difficult to produce because of its advanced modifications. Since variable geometry warp nacelles were generally only useful in long range flight situations, it was decided to give the Yeager design a less complicated warp system, which was quicker to build and less complicated to service and repair in combat situations. The prototype was named after the USS Yeager that was recently destroyed. By the end of the Dominion War, Fleet supply lines were at an acceptable level to produce Intrepid-class vessels to phase out these specialized variants.
Shelley-Class Through-Deck Cruiser: During the 2330s, Starfleet deemed its interdiction capability in the Ninth and Second Fleets to be inadequate, as several of the fleets Craft-Carrier reserve were retired from service, including the venerable Ariel-class and the newer but problem-ridden Philbin-class. While Starfleet was not involved in any major conflicts, the ability to launch fighter and patrol craft, as well as troops, remained at the front of the minds of many military planners. A design was created, designed to use existing components introduced in the fourth-run of the Excelsior-class, but to reuse nacelle components slated as replacement parts for the two other shuttlecarrier designs, which operated with LN-6(X) nacelles such as those used on the Miranda-class. Since the development of large multi-mission profile ships which can match the specialized carrier capability, not the least of which was the Galaxy-class, these vessels have fallen into disuse. Several of these vessels have remained in the Starfleet Reserve, ready for service, while some have been modified for use as cruisers or transports.
[ February 07, 2002, 19:53: Message edited by: CaptainMike ]
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quote: (But NOT a fighter carrier. The Galaxy-class ships with their massive main shuttlebays should have done that.)
You'd think so but have you actually had a look at the blueprints to see if it would work? I just did and I'm afraid that you can only get one starfleet attack fighter (30 x 31m) onto a Galaxy class ship, two at a pinch. Oh sure they fit through the door well enough but the internal tower prevents a ship that big from going any further into the shuttlebay. Even without those obstructions you would only be able to store 5 of those things with the space avalible..6 or 7 if you have a couple permanently on the launch deck. Only a specially modified Galaxy with most, if not all of deck 4 hollowed out and most of decks 5 through 10 given over to fighter suppors & storage.
Then if you think about it, if a Galaxy couldn't do it, then neither could a Shelly ;-) The Akira is the only shp big enough and with enough interior shuttlebay space to realistically support even a single squadron of fighters.
Oh and incase anyone is interested, a Galaxy can just about manage to store 3 Runabouts, while still keeping the flight deck and cargo loading docks clear. However, I think if the E-D had a Runabout permanently assigned to it, it was the only one. Any more than that would take up too much space IMHO.
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