posted
The US did have a mighty industrial base but it was building cars not aircraft, indeed Rosevelts military advisors advised him that if the Japanese invaded they would not have enough bullets (!) to fend them off, with any invasion force being able to get as far inland as Chicargo before it could be stopped. Perhaps a Betazed analogy there. I didn't know Star Trek was a TV show, maybe we should all disscuss the budgetry issues of Paramount pictures instead, that'd be fun.
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posted
As an aside and kind of linked to Timo's observations about pre-dreadnought combat, it may be worth noting that the RN prior to Fisher's reforms had a huge number of elderly cruisers on various foreign stations. These would have been effectively useless in any kind of European fleet engagement or with modern European cruisers, but against local forces and the small units which other European powers (regardless of their battlefleet strength) could afford to send, they would have been useful.
Equally, it's worth noting that were there are relatively few major technological changes, designs stay current for many decades, provided they have at least some room for expansion. Look at the changing armament of HMS Warrior (of 1860) or the massive changes made to the American Essex class carriers over their lifetimes.
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posted
The way Klingons have ended up with so many ship designs compared to the Romulans is fairly accidental but quite interesting (well, no, but...)
First movie comes along, and they build a Klingon Ship. Another one comes along, and they build a Romulan ship. But what's this, it's now a Klingon ship? Okay, they've now got two.
Flast foward to TNG and we find they've used both those, but it's high time they got a 24th century one, damnit. So we get that too.
Flash future forward to "All Good Things", and we need a future Klingon ship. So let's build one of those, because we're all crazy.
Back then forward flash to DS9, and we're about to make the Klingons the new...Klingons. They need a big scary battlecruiser. Let's take that future ship and modify it. And bam, we've got 4 ship classes.
The Romulans never had that. They didn't appear at all in the movies, so their first appearence in TNG demanded a brand new ship. And very nice it was too. There was never a storyline reason to build another, until Nemesis. And the only reason we got new Warbird designs there was, damnit, it's a movie and we need to spend money.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
Well, the Romulans did get two plot-driven designs in TNG, the scout and the science ship. This sort of gradual fleshing-out was more than the Klingons ever got - deliberate instead of accidental, purpose-built instead of adapted from a design conceived for a wholly different purpose. Yeah, admittedly, the science ship was a conversion of the scout, but not of an alien ship of completely different original scale and purpose.
Such dedication did not really help the Romulans to the forefront, though. When Klingons got freighters, they only got modified alien ones. Even Cardassians got better than that. But both at least *got* freighters. And patrol ships. And space stations. And an impressive array of new props and sets. And all that without the benefit of a movie spot.
In some ways, our good guest aliens are in a luckier situation than our heroes. They get interesting aspects of their cultures and militaries explored, with a given aspect seldom revisited. The heroes are stuck with whatever cubicle they occupy in the Starfleet hierarchy, often for seven seasons at an end. ST:FC did something of a disservice to Starfleet, giving us hordes of "new" GP starships when all that effort could have been put on some truly novel and interesting aspect of our heroes' organization.
posted
The Klingon Freighters in DS9's final season where re-painted Cardassian freighters from return to grace. I'm baffled at the assumption that 'not all warbirds are warbirds but may or may not be shuttles' If Admiral Nackamura advises Picard that 30 warbirds are being 'pulled from their usual patrol routes and re-deployed to the neutral zone' he should have pointed out that only a couple where large and powerfull starships and the rest of them where probably smaller but also called warbirds and that he shouldn't worry about it!
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posted
Well, we at least have a reason to think that not all "warbirds" should be of D'eridex class. The E-C faced vessels called "warbirds" at a time when the D'eridex either did not exist, or was not known to the UFP but *should* have become well known indeed in the timeline where the fate of the E-C was known, yet still was unknown in "The Neutral Zone"...
...Although "TNZ" arguably took place in a timeline where the fate of the E-C was unknown.
In any case, "warbird" is a generic designation that Vulcans also like to slap onto some Klingon designs in the 22nd century. Whether it is as generic as "cruiser", or as generic as "starship"... Hard to tell. Certainly it would be unlikely to only encompass ships twice the size of the Galaxy class.
The highest number of 'birds we've seen at once is something like half a dozen, in the supposed fleet of twenty in "The Die is Cast". Did the twenty include the Cardassian ships or not? The debate rages on. In any case, the Romulans did not commit 30 D'eridex vessels to our scrutiny even in the most heated Dominion War battles.
posted
I can see where your coming from, but i'd rather go by what i've seen on screen. Whenever the joint fleets where in action we saw no other classes of Romulan ships in action. The fact remains that when you watch what you leave behind and examine that federation fleet, or sacrifice of angels, if you digitally edited that image to remove the five galaxies, it would pretty much resemble a Kirk era fleet, and that is a situation not befitting a power of the UFP's prestige, also, any comparrison to a modern day navy is mute, because budgets and money exist in the real world, not in Star Trek where humans work 'to better themslves' Also, if anyone knows the state and capabilities of the Romulan fleet its Sloan, whose chief mole is the head of the Tal Shiar, and he tells Bashir that the Federation is in big trouble if the Romulans drop out.
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posted
I think there's more than six in orbit of Romulus in the episode where the Belaraphon attends the conference there (on DS9- I cant recall the Section 31 episode's name offhand).
I think ther biggest disservice to the Rommies was making that godawful Valdor design instead of just showing the Warbird at it's true scale.
Besides, the Valdor and it's red colored sister ship were pretty useless in combat.
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Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Well, a Kirk-era fleet with Akiras, Defiants, Steamrunners, Sabers, etc. In fact, what other TMP era ships are seen in the fleet other than the Excelsior and the Miranda classes? If we're going by what we see on screen, we can argue that, by the time of the Dominion war, the only TMP era designs still in service are those two. IIRC, no Oberths were seen in those fleet movements, nor were any of the Kitbashes.
Money as such may not exist in the Federation, but it sure exists amongst other races, many of which the Federation likely does business with. The Federation still has to deal with resource limits, energy production, etc.
Noone said that Warbird may apply to shuttles or scouts. It was simply pointed out that there *are* those kinds of ships in the Ronulan fleet and that Warbird is likely a description that applies to several classes of ships, just as the term Battlecruiser or Escort applies to several classes of Federation vessel.
posted
There aren't that many new designs in the fleet movements, maybe less than ten of all those designs combined. The 'Centaur class' is frequently seen and that looks Excelsior era and is designated a destroyer, it also takes serious punishment from a Jem Hadar fighter and seems all round pretty fragile. Most of the new ship designs seem to be internal defense ships, probably why we only see most of them in the 001 encounter. This would mean that Excelsiors and Mirranda's form the backbone of the federations deep-space fleet.
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posted
Akiras accompany a Defiant to to edge of Romulan space to retake the Prometheus. Other FC ships are seen in all the fleet formations during the war (and I only recall seeing the Centaur a couple of times way in the background... certainly not frequently).
Saying that Mirandas and Excelsiors *must* form the backbone of the fleet is an incredible assumption. Forgetting the fact that there's no evidence to back up what you say about the new designs being internal defense ships, what about all the other classes we've never seen on screen that may not have been a part of the fleets we saw? In addition, there are those we have seen, like the Nebulas, Ambassadors, etc. The Federation has had decades to squat those design out. There are also alot more than 6 Galaxies by the time of the Dominion War.
EDIT: I should also add that there are a number of ships seen in the BoBW wreckage that appear to be contemporaries of the Nebula and that use then-modern design elements such as signage and escape pods. Surely Starfleet has a number of those vessels in service. We have no way of knowing ow powerful they are, but they are definitely not old.
posted
Yes they were kit-bash proto-nebulas as seen in Riker's ready room in future imperfect. It isn't a massive assumption by any stretch to assume they make up the spine of the fleet, we only have what we've seen on screen to go by and every instance of a massive federation fleet action its been the Excelsior roadshow plus four galaxies.
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It's apparent from these images that while there are still a significant number of Excelsiors and Mirandas left, the modern designs outweight them significantly.
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