I'm not sure whether everyone here may have seen series 3 of ENT, so if you haven't, be forewarned of some minor spoilers below.
There is an episode in the 3rd season (the title of which I'm uncertain but think it may have been 'Anomaly') in which Enterprise enters the cloaking field surrounding a Sphere to track down loot stolen by what amount to alien pirates. During this episode, Enterprise lies in wait within the cloaking field to ambush the alien ship so as to hack it's database for information. In the following battle, Enterprise is hampered by not being willing to damage the alien too badly before the hack is completed, but when Archer gives the word to Reed, Enterprise, which has so far only been using phase cannons, opens up on the Alien with a barrage of maybe half a dozen plasma bursts from the cannons we have rarely seen in action since Broken Bow. I could tell we weren't seeing torpedo's. The colour and size and behaviour were different, and the points of origin of these bursts were all on the upper saucer.
Now, it seems that the plasma cannons are really quit powerful, because this brief but furious barrage puts the alien ship down straight away. Perhaps we might infer that the plasma weapons are very good short range weapons only. In Broken Bow, we saw them used from much greater ranges.
Presumably this proves that both weapons are installed side by side and fully functional.
Mark Nguyen suggested in an earlier post that the phasers were on rails and mobile within the interior of the ship. I always had this impression too, recalling the episode in which Reed installs them. Reed appears to be working in a chamber opening into a shaft into which the cannon protrudes and the distinct impression it given from the design and dialogue that the cannon retracts to this central position when not in use, but is deployed either up or down the shaft to fire from either the upper or lower saucer as required. I surmised that Enterprise has only three phasers, firing from six ports in total.
The location of the aft torpedo tube vexes me somewhat. Sometimes it seems to emerge from that object suspended between the warp nacelles (which raises questions regarding the location of the magazine for this tube) and sometimes it seems to come from the back lower half of the saucer, which would place that suspended object dangerously close to the line of fire. But then, in just about every star trek design, I've always favoured only having forward firing tubes and relying on the guidance system to get the torpedo to a stern target. Stern tubes never seem to fit well with the designs and often look like they were tacked on as an afterthought.
posted
I can only think of one ship (Voyager) where the aft tubes are even visible, so I'm not sure I follow you when you say they don't generally fit in with a design. What ships are you thinking of?
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posted
The Enterprise-D had an aft tube that was quite logically placed, as well.
Also, there are very clearly TWO aft torpedo tubes on the NX-01, as can be seen in this picture... they're just above and below the observation gallery, and pretty much on a straight fore-aft line with the four forward torpedo tubes. They're not clearly visible in the aft view, but you can at least see that the aft pod is clearly mounted on perfectly horizontal beams, so it's definitely not in the line of fire.
-------------------- “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
Regarding the NX-01 plasma cannon on the upper forward saucer, they are intriguingly enough the ONLY type of weapon fire to ever emerge from the upper forward saucer.
While every other weapons port on the ship (plus some things that weren't intended to be weapons ports, like those "turbocharger" caps) was seen emitting phase cannon beams, the two dorsal ports are not. It is quite possible that they were the only ones to be installed with ANY kind of weapon for the "Broken Bow" mission, and that once installed, those weapons never left those ports.
As for the aft tube... The intended airlock door on the aft pod is seen to act both as an explicit torpedo launcher ("The Expanse") and as an explicit phase cannon ("Raijin", "Proving Ground"). Both during the same mission, too. No choice there but to try to ignore some of what we see.
...I choose to ignore the torpedo launcher (in "reality", the shots came from the "real" twin tubes), and to reinterpret the airlock as a standard gunport.
posted
I suppose I shouldn't have posted such a leading comment on Torpedo tubes without clarifying it. I tend to imagine the complete mess that feeding an aft tube must make of the internal arrangements. For instance, Voyager. Two very widely spaced forward tubes with awful fields of fire, tucked right in under the saucer, so far apart they must logically have separate ammunition feeds. Then the aft tubes, right at the top of the structure, in a location you would think would be better used for other things, perhaps a small shuttle bay or airlock. Where are these tubes fed from? There must be a long and very inconveniently placed hoist from the magazine which feeds the forward tubes located somewhere in the secondary hull. Other than that, there must be two magazines. That's inefficient on what is supposed to be a small ship.
Of course, I'm just a pedant. But I still think backward firing tubes on a space ship are irrelevant. If you're going to have aft tubes, why not up and down and left and right tubes as well? I know, that Akira thing supposedly has them, and the Sovereign has them coming out of every possible orifice! The entire interior must be a maze of ammo feeds and individual torpedo magazines.
I recall seeing the "Making off...." documentary for Star Trek II in which the gentleman in charge of set design and special effects commented that he had several discussions with the artistic types about staying within their frame of reference. Trek being relatively young at the time, without too much back story baggage or precedents, could still yield somewhat to realism. This gentleman commented on the interior design of the torpedo magazine and said he'd told the director that torpedo's would just be fired from where ever they were stored. Actually, in the film, all these Hornblower style scenes worked quite well, but I completely sympathise with the point that was being made.
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posted
Whilst speaking of torpedo arrangements, I always thought that they took the wrong approach to the "armoury" on Enterprise. The place should have resembled the torpedo room from a submarine. A wide compartment but with a very low ceiling with spare rounds stacked in ammunition feeds that would drop the torpedos into place, ready to be rammed into the launch tubes. Every useful space would contain machinery associated with the torpedo mechanism, with access by corridors between the machinery and torpedo storage racks and possibly gangways around and above some areas.
Instead, we get what is obviously just a redress of the hangar bay, with enough empty room for a dance floor and full orchestra, a great big widescreen TV in the middle and... strangely, an almost total absence of actual torpedo's but for one or two here and there. First time I saw it I couldn't figure out what I was looking at.
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posted
Well, I see that the aft torpedo thing COULD have been an upgrade as a part of "The Expanse" refit... At the same time of course, Enterprise suddenly gained a FIFTH forward tube for the photon(ic) torpedoes, with a corresponding change to the CGI model. This was lost in the very next episode, and subsequently the photon(ic)s were launched from the regular tubes. This is disappointing, as we never again get to see the original tube loading things in action ever again.
posted
The floor space on the armory could go hand in hand with the cart racks that held the photon torpedoes. While hand-operated carts aren't a very efficient method of moving heavy munitions, they are a very flexible means. The fixed loader might only be able to handle the original cylinder shape of the old spatial torps, but Starfleet would realize that those weapons weren't up to snuff any more, and would prepare NX-01 with built-in flexibility until the next projectile standard was decided upon.
As for aft tubes in general, I think they are a must. It would be awfully wasteful to first fire torps forward, then have them curve around the ship to hit targets aft. If your preferred mode of fighting is to keep on moving, into and out of firing range, there's little chance of (or sense in) pivoting the ship to orient the launchers. And if you are moving at warp, aft tubes are hugely important in discouraging pursuit.
Multiple distributed magazines are also a very good idea if your ship is prone to hull-penetrating shots. That is, if you store something explosive in the magazines. Photon torpedoes aren't necessarily explosive by themselves, before injected with the desired amount of antimatter. But antimatter bunkerage would then be the thing to be distributed.
And the farther you place your weapons from each other, the less chances there are that the enemy could command "target their weapons"...
posted
I take the point about distributed magazines, but there are two modes of thought regarding distribution. I know from a naval architect friend that the debate around centralisation or dispersal of mission critical systems is a perenial one among ship designers. I will use an appropriate example: the different approaches to locating the Vertical Launch System (VLS) blocks on naval vessels.
One argument says distribute them. One forward and one aft. Thus, in the event that one is hit, you still have the other.
The counter argument says that by dividing them in this way you are doubling the chances that part of your VLS system will be hit! You are also doubling all the associated equipment such as hydraulic systems, fire suppression, maintenance access and storage... as well as having to build in twice the amount of damage control measures such as shrapnel protection, which impacts on the vessels structure. Basically you're making the design much more complex, expensive and bigger than it might need to be. Proponents tend to favour the old battleship "central citadel" approach, in which all machinery and boilers, main armaments and their magazine spaces where located approximately in the central two thirds of a vessel, which was heavily armoured, saving weight by having "soft ends" that were unamoured, but contained no vital equipment. Obviously, in modern terms, we aren't talking armour, but the principle can be applied to other systems.
It comes down to a matter of opinion. There are just as many so-called "one hit wonder" designs as there are distributed designs.
Regarding anti-matter. This, I think, would be a point in favour of centralising magazine and tube locations, because as you know, unlike contemporary warheads which are permanently fitted with their explosives, photon torpedos have their anti-matter installed just prior to launch. This would require a store of this extremely volatile substance to be conveniently on-hand. Logically this would be near or adjacent to the magazine. With a highly distributed system of tubes and associated magazines, you will have anti-matter storage areas littering the ship.
So, it's not so much a matter of eliminating an enemies ability to target your entire weapons system with a single shot, so much as eliminating your enemies ability to vapourise you entire ship with a completely random strike anywhere within the hull!
Given that possibility, if I were designing a warship, I might go along with the central citadel philosophy and build the warp core, deflector, computer core, command centres (bridge, engineering, etc.) and as much of the primary power distribution system into a central citadel that possessed heavier, stouter structure, greater redundancy, thicker or multiple hulls, extra shielding of both the force field and physical kind and so on. For an example, I will digress...
Looking at the new Enterprise, it occurs to me that the rectangular shape lying along the top of the saucer and terminating in the "hood" should have been extended right down to the deflector for a better aesthetic. Actually, what it could represent is a central citadel which would conveniently contain the bridge, engineering, warp core, deflector, armoury and tubes and a large part of the plasma conduit system. The rest of the saucer contains almost everything else - principally accomodation and recreation and bulk storage and other things you can live without if you really have to, if they've been shot off in a fight.
But as usual with Enterprise, an opportunity to build in a useful plot feature of the ship was lost... again.
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posted
In terms of what we have seen of Trek battles, I'd argue a starship as such is a "single citadel" by default... From stem to stern. But NX-01 did manage to take partial hull damage in the third season, mainly on the saucer rim, and this did not seem to hit any "strategic" targets. The rim indeed seems dedicated to crew quarters...
...Although one might think crew quarters would warrant more protection than warp cores or the like. I mean, if UESF is an organization with roots in early spaceflight, and little experience with space warfare, the natural (if anachronistic) tradition would be to banish the machinery outside the hull and to protect the crew from both reactor and ambient radiation. Then again, Earth might have started this on a different foot altogether.
The VLS clustering argument parallels the aft torpedo argument in a sense. With just one set of silos, there would be geometrical limitations in the system; ships still require high superstructures for sensors, and if a sea-skimming enemy approaches from behind those...
Perhaps not a big problem when the ship is slow and reaction times are relatively long, but the Trek situation is more akin to that of aircraft. A tailgunner is a good idea when speeds are high and maneuverability limited, and weapons have ranges akin to those of machine guns!
In my earlier post I forgot to mention another problem that occurs to me regarding aft tubes, which is that any projectile, whether self propelled or not, which is fired backwards must pass through zero velocity. In the last few years the USAF has trialed a defence system for transport aircraft which involved air to air missiles (I think they were ASRAAMs) mounted on rear facing wing pylons. The problem of passing through zero velocity is what killed it and they have continued with the traditional forward facing mounts.
Re: VLS: I don't believe that tall superstructures adversely effect the coverage provided by VLS launched missiles, given that the missiles are initially boosted to at least one or two hundred feet before dropping the booster stage and performing the turn over manoeuvre in the direction of the target. With particular reference to the lastest European designs which have electronically scanned arrays mounted on extremely tall masts, the detection ranges are so great that there is ample opportunity (in theory) to launch the missile and execute turn over before the sea skimmer is that close. Add to that the reaction time of a VLS missile of two or three seconds compared to the seven to ten that it takes a rail launched missile to get airborne, and only after the rail launcher is warmed up and loaded, which can take upwards of thirty seconds initially!
The problem you refer to would, in my view, be a CIWS one. If your initial salvo from the VLS misses and you have insufficient coverage with your inner layer defences, then big superstructures that mask your CIWS on certain approaches become a problem.
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: and weapons have ranges akin to those of machine guns!
Good point, which begs the question of why we don't see CIWS style weapons in Star Trek. We've seen numerous apparently shortranged weapons with very high rates of fire in Babylon 5 and a similar setup for the main armament of Galatica in BSG. In both cases, the rapid fire weapons are used to hose down the surrounding "space" space (as opposed to "air" space ). In Trek we tend to see weapons that are almost exclusively designed for longer ranges*. Coherent beam weapons (phasers and the like) with a long recycle rate between firings and torpedos which in most cases are only fired two or three at a time, appear to have very poor manoeuvrability and self guidance and never seem to do much more damage than a phaser burst.
I'm not counting the Defiant with it's pulse phasers as these weapons seem to be fixed, requiring the Defiant itself to manoeuvre to aim them. A serious design flaw if ever there was one, and one which nullifies the distinct advantages of these weapons. They should have been mounted in omnidirectional turrets on larger vessels instead. The Galaxy class could have one on each side of that vulnerable neck, one above the saucer sections hangar and one beneath the engineering hull. Anything that strays within a minimum range gets hosed, including incoming torpedos.
*(The only exceptions to this rule I can think of are Movie based references: ST:II in which we see paired burst firing phasers which used in conjunction with each other can achieve a rapid cyclic rate, and that single gas homing torpedo in ST:VI that destroyed the cloaked bird of prey over Khitomer.)
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posted
Those "hosers" in B5 and BSG are primarily anti-fighter weapons, which Trek ships have no real need for (there being no fighters in the B5/BSG sense to target with them). Although, with starship combat always seeming to take place within stone-throw distances, there might be some merit to that idea, actually.
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posted
Two or three phaser hoses would have saved the Odyssey from the Jem Hadar suicide attack. In the same way that a 20 or 30mm gun based CIWS today would chop up all kinds of small craft, the phaser hoses would have dismembered the attack ship, leaving only a cloud of debri to impact the ship, which would probably not be fatal.
There is some debate on that these days. It's similar to the doomsday asteroid problem. If you blow up your incoming asteroid/anti-ship missile, instead of being splatted by one big lump you get shredded by a shotgun blast. However, I suspect, given that the worst damage to ships in the Falklands war in 1982 was caused more by the remaining fuel in the exocets, rather than the warhead itself, that shredding the incoming missile and thus emptying the fuel tank is the better bet. Prevailing opinion among many western navies seems to be swinging in favour of missile based CIWS which can intercept the target much further out than any existing gun system, thus preventing the missile getting so close that you get sprayed with parts. However, in the current circumstances, many still appreciate having a really big gun that can dissuade small and possibly explosive boats or light aircraft from getting too close!
I wonder how that works for anti-matter warheads? Presumably, no matter what you do, you get a sympathetic explosion as the anti-matter containment is wrecked by your phaser hose CIWS and starts reacting with the remains of the torpedo and any other particles floating by.
I talk too much Been working today and so don't feel up to partying away my Saturday night!
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posted
I don't think "hoser" phasers would have made any difference in the case of the Odyssey. The Jem'Hadar vessels repeatedly took direct hits from the main battery of the Starfleet vessel and seemed none the worse for the wear. Imagine how much a Phalanx or a Goalkeeper would do to an opponent that just shrugged off the 16-inchers of your Iowa...
It can be argued that the main battery beams "pushed" the Jem'Hadar to some degree, and that further fire might have slightly altered the course of the ramming vessel as well. It can equally well be said that the Jem'Hadar simply veered off by themselves when hit by the main guns, and would not have done that during the suicide run.
If shooting down of torpedoes were both feasible AND worthwhile, we might see more CIWS in Trek. But we can easily postulate that CIWS is more trouble than worth: shields would more efficiently stop the sort of opponents that can even theoretically BE stopped. And if you have enough power for both shields AND CIWS, you dismiss the CIWS and route the power to stronger shields, as this is the better defense.
At least this seems to be how it goes in Trek. The other possibility of course is that Starfleet consists of a bunch of idiots. But there's no dramatic need for that, really.
Mind you, Kirk does try to shoot down an incoming torp in ST2 - but only because his shields are down. And the attempt is futile to begin with. The Japanese in WWII sometimes tried to use the main guns of their warships to hit incoming low-level aircraft, even though originally there was no proximity-fuzed or even shrapnel ammunition for those guns. Desperation breeds innovation, but innovation doesn't necessarily dispel desperation...
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). In Trek we tend to see weapons that are almost exclusively designed for longer ranges*. Coherent beam weapons (phasers and the like) with a long recycle rate between firings and torpedos which in most cases are only fired two or three at a time, appear to have very poor manoeuvrability and self guidance and never seem to do much more damage than a phaser burst.
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