posted
I'm watching the rerun of "Unification" right now, and I noticed a rather peculiar and unintelligent use of the cloaking device. The Klingon Bird-of-Prey was already on the way to Romulus carrying Picard and Data, and they reached the border of the Neutral Zone before they cloaked, continuing on the same course.
It seems really strange -- wouldn't the Romulans have noticed a Klingon ship approaching the border? I would've thought they'd cloak as soon as possible, where there would be less of a clue where the ship was heading.
It made me think of the way Trek has used the cloaking device in general. It started out as a rather limited use ambush weapon mainly for dramatic effect in TOS. Since then, it's seemed to have some rather inconsistent uses. Especially because of the way that the writers portrayed the Romulans later on... it's gotten to the point where people specifically look for clues to find cloaked ships, making it more and more difficult for a cloaked ship to get anywhere easily.
So, what kind of tactics and strategies do you guys think would be best suited for a cloaking device? Especially considering the fact that more frequent use of the device clues opponents in to the strategies involving its use...
For one thing, I'm personally convinced that the Dominion has always had a cloaking capabilities. And why? Because we've never seen them use it. They've shown themselves to be technologically advanced in every other way... but why let their enemies know that they've got cloak, when they can keep them in the dark and have the benefit of obscurity instead?
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
To my knowledge the only time we've seen a cloaking device used in any kind of tactic is in that DS9 episode where worf is put on trial for blowing up a civilian ship.
As I recall the Klingons were attacking a convoy using a hit and fade tactic (pardon the pun), where one ship would remain cloaked while the other attacked. When the defending ship goes after the attacker it quickly withdraws and cloaks as the other ship decloaks and attacks the convoy on the other side. Basically like dangling a piece of string infront of a cat but not letting it catch it it.
posted
I've played in various Trek RPG/wargaming systems and this is always fun:
Warp in uncloaked near objective X -
Cloak, then move *away* from the objective.
The defenders go crazy looking for you, chasing around in circles, wait until the chase has drawn them away in then come in. (Or just leave if you weren't actually interested in the objective just now).
Basically use the cloak to simply cause your opponent to have to spend resources looking for you even when you aren't there. Much as submarines are used now. If one *might* be there then you have to assume it is untill you've looked.
From what we've seen on the show the Romulans may very well practice this sort of technique to keep the UFP at arms length - a good idea if they aren't really able to take Star Trek on in a "fair" fight - which apparently they can't or they would have(?).
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posted
Whilst it boggles the mind that the borders of interstellar empires could be "patrolled", much less "cordoned", there probably are regions of space where sensor nets are dense enough to prohibit cloakships from penetrating. A lot of effort should therefore go into convincing the enemy that his sensor nets have been defeated. "Silver bullet" supercloaked ships built in low numbers should challenge the networks and make the defender fear that the entire enemy fleet could be equally well camouflaged.
The Romulan side of the Romulan border probably has heavy anti-cloak defenses in areas vulnerable to Klingon incursion. But since the Feds don't use cloaks (much), such defenses could be weaker in the direction Picard and Data came from. And their Klingon ship could have cloaked at the supposed limit of border AC sensor range, this being referred to as "cloaking at the border".
Given the impressive range of Dominion sensors, I'd think the Klingons in the Dominion war would have benefited from their cloaks the most by using them while in interstellar transit. This would be closer to "strategy" than "tactics" - avoiding tipping the enemy to the strategic aims of your fleet movements.
If not every fleet repositioning can be hidden, then cloaks should at least be used "strategically" to confuse the enemy of your true numbers. "New" ships could arrive uncloaked at a staging area, then leave under cloak, and "arrive" again. Or vice versa. Ships could change identity while under cloak, by modifying their emissions. A certain percentage of every formation would always travel cloaked, and then at the right moment the percentage would drastically change - so the enemy, counting the visible ships and multiplying, would be confused.
Klingons do seem to understand this aspect of cloaking. In "Rules of Engagement", nobody raised an eyebrow on the fact that a Klingon "civilian" freighter on a "civilian" errand traveled under cloak - exactly what your support units always ought to do. In "WotW", an entire fleet apparently traveled all the way to DS9 under cloak, and then confused the heroes of the true numbers by only having one ship decloak. Later on, this fleet kept re- and decloaking and frustrating the UFP/Bajoran analysts.
Romulans might do this as well. The fact that we haven't seen their freighters or tenders yet is simply proof that these ships are carefully cloaked - keeping them and their movements hidden is vastly more important than keeping your actual combatants hidden! Combatants can use their speed for surprise, and will have to reveal themselves sooner or later anyway. But the vast and slow-moving support infrastructure has to create the surprise by other means...
Timo Saloniemi
[ December 04, 2002, 05:38: Message edited by: Timo ]
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posted
Remember also in "In the Pale Moonlight", the Senator's shuttle arrived cloaked and didn't decloak until the bay doors had closed above it. Who knows if he travels cloaked all the time, but he did for his jaunt to DS9, that's for sure...
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
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posted
And wasn't Geordi kidnapped by a Warbird while inside Federation space once? The sheer advantage a race with cloak would hold would seem almost unstoppable, makes one wonder why the Romulans haven't gone to war with the Federation and won, unless the Federation is overwhelming numerically superior or something. Of course, when Troi was kidnapped by the Romulans (those pesky Rommies are really good at snatching people, aren't they?), we do get the Romulan side of how their cloak would stand up against Federation defenses along the NZ. Anyone got a quote of what exactly was said?
The age of the cloak is probably ending, though, with the introduction of the anti-proton scans. Now you need not rely on detecting cloaked ships through indirect means (tachyon nets, listening posts), but can detect them at a fair distance.
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quote:The age of the cloak is probably ending, though, with the introduction of the anti-proton scans. Now you need not rely on detecting cloaked ships through indirect means (tachyon nets, listening posts), but can detect them at a fair distance.
...Until someone develops a cloak that can deflect antiproton scans, that is.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
From what we've seen of antiproton scans, they don't appear to be a very effective AC weapon. For one thing, they seem to have an extremely short range and a narrow beam, or at least did in "The Search". You have to first know that a cloaked ship is present, then fly next to it, and finally hit it with the antiprotons. In contrast, the tachyon net of "Face of the Enemy" seemed like a very practical tripwire, with such a long range that the warbird had no chance of going around it.
And in any case, invisibility is always a nifty thing to have, because it deprives humans and most humanoids of their primary sense (and their only space-applicable sense). As soon as you knock out the enemy's sensors, or surprise his sensorless landing party, even the poorest of cloaks makes a world of difference - without electronics you cannot *see* a cloaked ship, no matter how much plasma it's spewing or how vulnerable it is to antiprotons.
posted
To go along with what Timo said, even being a little bit invisible is better than nothing. If you can fool the sensors of the enemy 10% of the time, that's an added 10% chance of not dying.
Of course, there are power trade-offs. If the energy you're sinking into being 10% harder to shoot makes it 20% harder to complete your mission, than it would be a bad thing. But in general, even a little camoflauge is better than none.
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posted
One of the reasons I've always wondered about using a cloaking device in actual combat engagements is because the enemy is likely to start actively searching for them -- wouldn't it make things more... I dunno, more likely for the enemy to find them? I know that sounds weird since the cloak is an anti-detection measure.
But take "Balance of Terror" for an example -- the cloak gave them a benefit of surprise, but in the end proved a huge disadvantage in the chase. Since then, in a free-fire situation the cloaked ship has usually been screwed somehow or other. From the Defiant getting ambushed in "The Search, Part I" to the Romulans getting foiled in "Redemption, Part II," there's rarely ever been a situation where the cloaking device has worked perfectly, in good part because the enemy is specifically looking for them.
I guess that's the key I'm thinking about -- the cloak works best when the enemy doesn't know to look for you. Unless there's a specific and "guaranteed" scan (like a tachyon grid) then a cloaked ship can slip through the holes and do its job.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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