posted
This light and heavy torp tube idea could help with the "LOL MY SHIP HAS 900 TORPS AND 10 LAUNCHERS" nonsense.
Some tubes are designed for launching small sounding rockets and probes and the larger ones are for launching bigger dedicated mission probes and warheads for combat.
In a pinch warheads could be fired from modified casings from the smaller launchers giving additional firepower in a battle situation.
Also, apply this logic to the AKIRA many-tube launcher-wank that was floating around awhile ago. Different tubes for different payloads.... launch quantums from one tube, photons from another, combat-dedicated probes from another and tri-cobalt devices from yet another set.
...wouldn't want to run into THAT in a dark ally.
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Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
This has relevance in the real world. Once again, we come back to naval technology... Vertical Launch Systems.
The USN predominantly uses the Mk. 41 VLS which can fire about half a dozen varieties of anti air missiles, the Tomohawk land attack missile and, when it was available, ASROC.
So, the Mk. 41 is the big VLS (over 3 metres deep) that can fire everything. Then there is the Mk. 48, a cut down version that only fires standard AAW missiles, but is too short to accomodate the long range missiles like Tomohawk.
Then there are dozens of varieties of Russian and Chinese VLS systems, many of which only fire one or two missile types each, leading to the proliferation is different sizes and types of VLS that you can see on these ships. Then there is the Seawolf lightweight vertical launcher favoured by many navies for use on small ships, and the Sylver VLS and so on. Each fires a different type and design of missile and in many cases there are only one or two missile loads that are compatible with the launcher. So it's not unreasonable to imagine the same situation on the larger Starfleet ships.
In addition to that, however, it's not only a question of providing a VLS compatible with a particular missile, or a torpedo launcher compatible with a particular type of probe or rocket. It's also whether your ships design can accomodate a large VLS/torpedo tube in a particular location. The Mk. 48 is very much shorter and lighter than the Mk. 41, so light in fact that the Canadians mount their Mk. 48 launchers above the main deck as part of the superstructure. The Mk. 41 is far too heavy for this and to carry a large number of them requires a larger ship with a huge amount of it's internal volume devoted to the VLS launchers alone. So, Starfleet ships have a set of big torpedo launchers in the traditional location, perhaps an ancillary set of big quantum launchers as on Sovereign, but can find space and weight here and there elsewhere on the ship to mount smaller launchers... and now I'm just repeating Timo and Styrofoaman.
This not only explains the Akira but also the dozens of new tubes on the Sovereign in Nemesis, most of them in very unlikely places.
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Sort of a plug-in torp launcher system... each launcher holding pre-loaded/pre-armed torps ready to fire?
Could also explain why they ran out so soon in the battle... they didn't have the full loadout, just what was in the plug-in launchers plus a few in the main bay. It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission after all.
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Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
To be sure, we don't know what sort of a mission it was supposed to be. It seemed that Picard was just giving the future Mr and Mrs Troi a taxi ride to Betazed, but that doesn't sound realistic. More probably, Betazed was just a convenient stop on the way to future adventures, for which a full torpedo loadout may or may not have been aboard.
The addition of small "box" launchers might be a response to the poor performance of phasers against Dominion small craft in "Jem'Hadar" and afterwards - a defensive system of somewhat experimental nature, ill suited for offensive use against capital ships. Some modern submarines have an almost perfect analogy for this feature aboard: they have 21 in or even 400 mm tubes for half-length sub-to-sub torpedoes that are extremely ill suited for sinking ships, and then separate 650 mm supersize tubes for big ship-killing torps or cruise missiles.
posted
Russian subs if I recall had that design, Amercian ones being limitied to whatever could be stuffed through a standard 21" torp tube.
Later some of the LA-class boats were fitted with proper VLS tubes for cruise-missiles.
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Registered: Aug 2001
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Amasov Prime
lensfare-induced epileptic shock
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Timo: The addition of small "box" launchers might be a response to the poor performance of phasers against Dominion small craft in "Jem'Hadar" and afterwards - a defensive system of somewhat experimental nature, ill suited for offensive use against capital ships.
The problem here is not that they were ineffective against the Scimitar but that they simply didn't hit the target (especially the aft firing torpedos didn't even come close to Shinzon's ship). How are they supposed to hit even smaller and far more agile ships with them? Besides, the "standard" torpedos are supposed to have a target tracking mode, even though we rarely see that. No matter how big the ship is, they should be able to hit it. And the Defiant also ran out of torpedos before. IIRC, Worf was the tactical officer on that mission, too. Maybe they should have replaced that trigger-happy Klingon with Lt. Daniels. They never ran out of ammo against the Borg or the Son'a...
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Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
He somewhat did but decided to play cat and mouse with Picard.
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