posted
The Enterprise was not specifically the nearest ship to the Neutral zone and Picard was recalled to a meeting at a starbase before the Enterprise was sent to make contact, he states that the Enterprise was chosen for the encounter by Starfleet command. Likewise nowhere does it say the odysey was the closest ship rather that it was patrolling the DMZ (along with how many other ships?) Its widely accepted that the Warbird is more heavily armed than a Galaxy and the Galaxy is the pinacle of the fleet, with most other ship in starfleet being VASTLY less powerfull. As far as the Lacota being upgraded, O'Brien states that he's never seen an excelsior with that kind of firepower so we can infer it was only refitted to support Leighton's coup, if we follow this logic we could just build deffiant class space frames without warp cowlings and weld them onto the saucer section of all outdated ship designs, but the point that underneath it all they are still outdated designs. Again an Excelsior is also considerably slower than a Warbird (Tin Man) Put it this way, if a Federation Colony were the victim of a natural disaster and two thousand colonists were in need of evacuation or medical tratment, what ship class could respond other than a Galaxy or a Nebula? With their large medical staff and cargo areas? Likewise if the Federation discovered a stable wormhole to the Andromeda galaxy and chose you to lead a three year lone expedition, if they gave you command of a Miranda and told you to go through, try telling me you wouldn't have brown pants!
[ March 02, 2005, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Grand Admiral Thrawn ]
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posted
If they discovered a stable wormhole, there would be no need to rush the situation. They could send whatever the hell ship had the ability to get the job done. In the case of the emergency, they would send whichever ship was the closest to render whatever possible aide until additional resources arrived. The ships most likely to be in the area of colonies would be transports, cargo and supply vessels, etc. Where's the point in equipping a ship for roles that it will only fill once in a blue moon, when, likely, other precautions have been established to maintain a reasonable level of security?
posted
Yes but the point being that the entire Romulan and Cardassian fleets, as well as the large Vor Cha elements of the Klingons could respond to most of these situations, Starfleet's could not. The ending of Generations being a prime example with the Farragut flying alongside a Mirranda and an Oberth, what use would that Oberth have been if it had arrived first? Beamed down blankets? Offered moral support over the Comm system?
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quote:Originally posted by Grand Admiral Thrawn: The Enterprise was not specifically the nearest ship to the Neutral zone and Picard was recalled to a meeting at a starbase before the Enterprise was sent to make contact, he states that the Enterprise was chosen for the encounter by Starfleet command.
It was the flaship. If you're about to meet a potentially hostile and mysterious race that you haven't seen for half a century, it makes sense for them to send their best.
quote: Likewise nowhere does it say the odysey was the closest ship rather that it was patrolling the DMZ (along with how many other ships?)
Actually, the ship was heading for the station at the start of the episode (way before any emergency), so it almost certainly was the closest ship.
quote:Its widely accepted that the Warbird is more heavily armed than a Galaxy
By whom? Picard wasn't overly keen about facing them down, but that (I assume) would be because he was worried that some of his crew would get killed in a fight, whether they won or lost.
quote: and the Galaxy is the pinacle of the fleet, with most other ship in starfleet being VASTLY less powerfull.
Assuming that the Romulans only have the Warbird because that's (almost) the only ship we saw is shakey logic of the highest order. As has been mentioned before (on this thread), the Romulans are just the sort of people who would develop a number of large, impressive looking ship purely for looks while keeping the rest of their extremely outdated and shit fleet out of view of Starfleet.
quote:Put it this way, if a Federation Colony were the victim of a natural disaster and two thousand colonists were in need of evacuation or medical tratment, what ship class could respond other than a Galaxy or a Nebula?
The closest ship available. Or do you think Starfleet will say "hmm, we've got an Excelsior 2 hours away, but we'd best wait for the Galaxy class that's 3 weeks away"?
In any event, it's not a straight swap. Let's say there is a mini-fleet with 10 Excelsior's, 2 nebula's and a Galaxy. Starfleet builds another Galaxy. Do they scrap an Excelsior, or do they just add the Galaxy to the mix?
Going by the NCC numbers, the old ships haven't been built for quite a while. All high registry ships are new designs like the Defiant and Intrepid classes (baring registry fuckups, obviously), so the new ships Starfleet is building are new. But why get rid of perfectly servicable old ships?
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You are somewhat overstating your case here, I'm afraid. (Edit: I refer to our good Imperial underling here, in case there was confusion.) It's blatantly obvious that the UFP Starfleet is not omnipotent, yes - but it is even more obvious that for example the forces available to the Cardassian Central Command are even more pitiful, amounting to a "third-world navy" in today's terms. To this day, there's not a military confrontation where the Cardassians would verifiably have triumphed, nor any other sort of use of naval assets. (Well, the modified freighter from "Return to Grace" did score one, but that was due to Bajoran assistance!)
Now, the Cardassians are known weaklings. What about the Klingons, tho? The Vor'cha does not seem to be an especially impressive combatant, neither in terms of engagements pitting her against UFP adversaries ("The Chase"), nor in Klingon internecine conflicts ("Redemption I"). Against the Dominion, this ship type seems particularly helpless. The Klingon war machine is admittedly diverse yet strangely uniform in strength (ships have "the power of plot", regardless of type). And it does not appear to be meeting the needs of its operating Empire any better than Starfleet meets the needs of the UFP.
The Romulan fleet is a bit of a mystery. The Warbirds probably outgun the best the Federation can offer - hard to tell, though, since the only actual engagements involving Fed opponents have been abortive, stalemates, or pants-down situations like the "Timescape" one. They don't outrun Fed ships, and seem otherwise at disadvantage for example in the Tin Man crisis, but they certainly look like very impressive combatants. It would be quite interesting to learn how the Romulan fleet compares to the Federation one, yet we never get enough facts to make that comparison. How many of those superior Warbirds are there? Not enough to stop the blatant intrusions in "Contagion"...
quote:Originally posted by Grand Admiral Thrawn: Yes but the point being that the entire Romulan and Cardassian fleets, as well as the large Vor Cha elements of the Klingons could respond to most of these situations, Starfleet's could not. The ending of Generations being a prime example with the Farragut flying alongside a Mirranda and an Oberth, what use would that Oberth have been if it had arrived first? Beamed down blankets? Offered moral support over the Comm system?
It could have beamed down those emergency structures seen in Voyager, supplies, and yes, blankets. Would you rather nothing?
The flaw in your logic is assuming that the Romulan fleet is the same size as the Federation fleet, and is composed entirely of d'Deridex class warbirds. There is nothing in the show to indicate any of that is true. The Romulans might have 1000 Ultra powerful ships. The Federation might have 500 ultra-powerful, 700 quite-powerful, and 4000 not-overly-powerful-but-you-wouldn't-want-them-ganging-up-onn-you ships. It's a futile point to argue.
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I've always been baffled about ships from different classes having the same name. Was the "Excelsior Class" Farragut decommissioned while the Nebula Class Farragut evacuated the Enterprise-D survivors?
I see no point on not having two ships with the same name, as long as they are different classes. We still don't know of the Nebula Class Prometheus is still around along with the Prometheus Class USS Prometheus.
I played ST: Bridge Commander earlier in class and took on three D'Deridex class warbirds with an Akira, two Nebulas, and the Prometheus. Ganging up on a ship such as the warbird allowed me to take it out... granted I ended up loosing a Nebula afterwards. My point? Less powerful ships in numbers can take out a bigger one. Just make sure the enemy has no backup nearby.
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WizArtist II
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The U.S. Navy has about 290 ships active SEE HERE and only FIVE are carriers underway. I believe there are 8 others in various states of SLEP (Service Life Extension Programs) and other similar programs. I would think that the fleet would be the same way compositionwise and on active duty.
If an Arleigh Burke class destroyer shows up at a situation, it might not be able to do what a Nimitz can, but it can go a long way toward gathering the information needed for the bigger ships to prepare for when they do arrive. Logistics is the life or death of any fleet action.
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Then again, it's highly unlikely that there will ever be any "fleet action" again in the history of this planet.
The United States is the only power in the world today that can afford to have a fleet in the first place. What some other nations might call fleets have no hope of getting to engagement range of individual USN ships, let alone fleets. And the only thing the USN can do with its fleet is to support overland operations with carriers, bombardment ships, AA ships and amphibious assaults, as well as offer near-harbor protection(as opposed to en-route protection) to commercial or military shipping. None of these involves fighting with other warships, not any more.
There is absolutely no point in anybody trying to challenge the USN supremacy by building a bigger and badder fleet. More probably, everybody else will move away from the outdated concept of naval warfare, subsequently resulting in withering of the USN as well (but not any time soon).
Less probably, somebody will bother to invent a type of missile (be it a complex stealthy flying thing or a dirt-cheap suicide boat) that cannot be countered by warship defenses, and use that either to sink the USN, or offer enough risk of this happening that the USN will be retired.
Only in a scenario where the civilization significantly devolves technologically and industrially would actual naval combat return as a viable warfighting method. Of course, that may also happen when the oil finally runs out. I wouldn't really count on it, though.
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Of course, that may also happen when the oil finally runs out.
No, at that point, the US will break out the top secret Ketchup-powered engines they've been developing, but keeping from the rest of the world.
The point about the nearest available ship arriving to render aide (be it Oberth, Miranda, or whatever) being better than nothing is a good one. And yes... they could've done a HECK of alot. Medical teams could have assisted the remainder of the Enterprise's medical staff. They could've begun beaming down supplies, generators, etc.
The Thrawn seems to be making (and I don't really know this for sure) is that Starfleet should be composed entirely of the big guns. According to that argument, older, though still very useful, proven vessels should be scrapped just because they're old and not as big or powerful as what can now be produced. Which of course... is stupid. To say that all ships in the fleet should be outfitted for action that they will, in all likelyhood NEVER see is a total waste of resources.
WizArtist II
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Aban Rune: No, at that point, the US will break out the top secret Ketchup-powered engines they've been developing, but keeping from the rest of the world.
Come on you know that they are NOT ketchup-powered. It's all Mustard-Gas from the secret Iraqi wells.
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: Less probably, somebody will bother to invent a type of missile (be it a complex stealthy flying thing or a dirt-cheap suicide boat) that cannot be countered by warship defenses, and use that either to sink the USN, or offer enough risk of this happening that the USN will be retired.
That's actually very unlikely: after the USS Cole was attacked via suicide bomber, most of the navy's destroyers (probably all their ships) had the Phalanx anti-missile systems altered so the (insanely powerful) machine guns could fire at approaching ships and at shore positions.
Unless the anti-ship missile is completely radar invisible, ships are here to stay in some form or another (though, unlike Starfleet, the tendency is towards smaller multirole vessels).
What's hard to fathom with starfleet is why their older ships seem to be barely better than they were in the movie era -with the exception of the Lakota, the Excelsiors were mostly cannon fodder in the war. I dont think we've ever seen an Excelsior even fire torpedos (onscreen) after STVI and no Miranda has used (onscreen again) it's rollbar phasers after STII.
A Miranda should be able to dish out a withering amount of firepower (three phaser banks in the saucer, two in the rollbar and the torpedo pod fires both fore and aft)- it should be almost as tough a ship (with a century of refits) as the Defiant- if not as durable or manuverable.
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Actually the Mirandas (or those like the Reliant) are more powerful than you think. It has six phaser bank emplacements on the saucer (each with two turrets), the phaser cannons on the rollbar which fire both fore and aft. Four torpedo lanchers (two fore, two aft) and two additional ventral phaser turrets underneath the impulse engines.
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....Except when there are no under-impulse emitters (those seemed to be in the original Reliant model only, and disappeared somehow soon thereafter), and when the aft torpedo tubes are replaced by impulse engines.
I don't really see a consistent dissing of Excelsiors in the battle scenes; NOBODY ever fires torpedoes in the big DS9 battles, and Excelsiors and Akiras perform more or less similarly in phaser battles. And the Mirandas probably cannot help the fact that they have no shielding in the modern sense.
The 24th century Trek space combat actually closely resembles pre-WWI naval fighting theories and practices. Pre-dreadnought ships had a great range of dissimilar guns aboard, so that there was no clear-cut "engagement range" - the ships could move back and forth to bring more or less of their guns to range. Primitive fire control was unable to make the biggest, longest-ranged guns truly useful in such fighting. All sorts of smallish, fast-moving "gunboats" could then partake in the action, Trek style, resulting in battles that began with gigantic parade formations and ended in uncontrollable melees. (Also, torpedoes were the shortest-ranged weapons in that battlefield, like they seem to be in Trek!)
When fighting pre-WWI style, the side that fails to bring every last of its vessels to the fight is the underdog. Quality of guns, boilers or armor is largely irrelevant and cannot be made use of - only quantity of guns counts. This is very much how things in DS9 seem to play out, too.
posted
I'm fond of the idea, sort of hinted at in the DS9 technical manual, that some Mirandas have had those rollbar phasers replaced with Defiant-like pulse phaser cannons; but there's nothing to support such a claim.
Actually, I think my interpretation of "Defiant-like" is unsupported even by the book, which just says "pulse phasers," which could just be an explanation for their odd effect in Wrath of Khan. (Though, of course, the Enterprise's fired in exactly the same manner.) Anyway, I wouldn't have complained, is I guess what I'm saying; not that baseless speculation is something new to this particular thread.
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