posted
!!!! i had the same idea 'cept didnt put it forward coz i thawt that the 'dummy' tubes idea would not be taken seriously....not that i intended for them to be taken seriously...hehe
but yeah, the idea of like a ECM starship, with its multitude of torp tubes....or perhaps the Akira's mission profile is variable platform for launching of probes, satelites (maybe??), as well as a small complement of shuttles/warpsleds or watever can fit into that shuttle bay. perhaps the many tubes [other than the ones we know are used to fire torps] are actually micro torpedo launchers??? sort of like a rapid fire physical projectile offensive/defensive weapon - i'm just bouncing ideas of the wall , i dont mean that any of this should make practical sense....but hey lol
Buzz
-------------------- "Tom is Canadian. He thereby uses advanced humour tecniques, such as 'irony', 'sarcasm', and werid shit'. If you are not qualified in any of these, it will be risky for you to attempt to decipher what he means. Just smile and carry on." - PsyLiam; 16th June
Registered: Aug 2001
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Golden Tiger
Ex-Member
posted
The Akira is supposed to have 15 torp. tubes... thus I have a theory...
- A small number of those tubes (perhaps 3) fires normal honest to goodness torpedos - The rest are used for ECM. If the Akira gets trapped in a battle, it fires very small (perhaps .5 meter) yet somewhat long rod shaped devices out the rest of the torp tubes that activate and serve to royally mess up all sensors in the area (sorta serving as the Nebula in ST movie II). Alas, when push came to shove, the Akira had the tubes and the Federation never could get the rods to work! So, the rest of the tubes just sit there waiting to be used!
A possible explaination... * In Star Trek Armada and Armada II the Akira has a Chain Reaction Pulsar weapon which is essentially one torpedo like plasma ball which hits one ship, bounces off that ship and hits another with slightly less force, bounces off and hits another, and so on... perhaps most of the smaller tubes (mentioned above) release a small .5 meter ball which generates a plasma field that joins up with about 12-13 other spheres of similar radius (or perhaps they are boxes... somehow they join together!) and they then form the plasma ball and chase after starships! It could happen!
Anyways, I'm certain that if the smaller torp tubes are used later on as cannon then it wouldn't be long before the Enterprise E had 120 torp tubes (only a few fire normal torpedos... the rest are micro-machine sized tubes... )
posted
For God's sake, why can't it have 15 torp tubes? Why all these outlandish theories and explanations? It was just designed as a very heavily-armed ship. With 15 torpedo tubes. What is the big fucking deal?
I mean, ceratinly it's a little extreme...but I can live with it, y'know?
-MMoM
[ March 09, 2002, 21:30: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
The big fucking deal is that figures like that make the Akira
a)...more heavily-armed than the Galaxy, which just doesn't jibe with anything else from TNG or DS9.
b)...a ship with such a high weapons-to-ship size ratio that it looks like a ship designed primarily as a combatant, something we know that Starfleet doesn't do.
The real world answer is that Jaeger swings towards both "ubercool designer" and "silly fanboy" when it comes to his stuff. The Akira just isn't rooted in the same Trekiverse as the one we've seen for 15 years as far as the designer is concerned.
Now, if we were to accept that the Akira is some brand-spanking new Borgkiller then perhaps the torpedo thing would sit better. But I'd rather see the Akira as less heavily-armed ship of an age that complements its rego.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Maybe its one of few ships of the Akira class that have been modified with 15 torp tubes to be a Borg killer. Maybe its one of the many projects that Starfleet had prior to Wolf 359.
Its not that hard to imagine that a few ships like 5 or 6 ships out of like maybe a few doezen ships of the Akira class to be pulled over, gutted and fitted with 15 torpedo tubes to as a task force to rapidly destroy a Borg cube or two. It has been shown that even Borg defenses can be overwhelmed.
Then the other Akira classes that we see have sensor platforms and such in place of those torpedo tubes. Like the Nova class next to the Defiant Pathfinder. Where the Akira class is next to the Akira class Borgkiller.
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
There's another interpretation that's brought forward and then forgotten here: perhaps 15 tubes is a sign of weakness of individual tubes?
A fun case in point: South Korea has some ancient Gearing class destroyers bought from the US and "modernized". From afar, they look like deadly fighting machines, because their decks are littered with *dozens* of missile canisters. Western frigates usually don't carry anywhere near that many SSMs.
When you get closer, you find out those aren't SSMs. They are one-shot SAM canisters, firing the as such potent SM-1 missiles but without the needed centralized C3I hardware that makes these weapons lethal aboard USN ships and allows them to work as part of the AEGIS system in some vessels. Without reloads, the ship isn't all that scary after all.
So perhaps the Akira is given fifteen torpedo tubes because with just ten, the ship would be grossly outgunned even by a Miranda? In a WWII setting, the ship sprouting the greatest number of gun barrels would probably be the big fleet carrier, but its AA guns wouldn't have the potency of the much fewer AS guns a small destroyer might carry.
posted
That would be assuming those 15 launchers are all box launchers, something we haven't seen in Trek before. Even if they were only single shot (not only one shot) launchers, they would still outgun a Galaxy when you factor in the reload time.
-------------------- "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Still makes no sense seeing that the even the Miranda's torpedo launchers of 2-4 tubes seem to take up some room. Given 15 of those torpedo tubes, single fire ones, they still need ammo resupply, and power to them.
15 torpedo tubes would take up too much room for anything else useful such as crew quarters or maybe even science ships. Its seem that the Akira class being designed around the same time as the Galaxy, and the Nebula class is a warship. But I thought Starfleet doesn't have warships?
Granted it is the ultimate fanboy sip, but in Trek universe, it really makes no sense.
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
Registered: Jul 2000
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