Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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McAvoy
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Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by McAvoy »

We really do not have a clear idea of how many ships Starfleet had in the Dominion War nor a good idea of how many were lost. It is safe to assume that Starfleet did reactivate all reserve ships plus the ships that were built during the war. Safe to assume also that Starfleet did in fact lose a large percentage. I particularly fond of the 40-45% figure. I have reasoning behind it.

I was thinking about how long would it take for Starfleet to back up to full strength. The other idea is if Starfleet would go back to the way it once was during TNG or stays at the pre-war readiness is had? Also, if Starfleet learned from the war and started to field better and more powerful ships to actually replace the ineffective ones such as the Miranda class.

I would assume that Starfleet would need to build all the ships it lost and perhaps more because post-war it would still require a bare minimum to patrol, protect it's borders, planets and bases.

So question would be what classes do you think Starfleet would be focusing on to build to replace the ones destroyed? Also, the ones that would eventually replace the older less effective ones? Let's not include any fan designs.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by Graham Kennedy »

We can only really speculate, but my guess would be that Starfleet will retire the older ships - no more Mirandas and Excelsiors running around. I'd also think that they would mothball most of the Defiants. They really aren't that useful for any peacetime role, after all.

I'd guess the post war fleet would mainly consist of Sovereign, Galaxy, Nebula, Steamrunner and Akira classes.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by Mikey »

Considering the massive losses incurred - I don't know McAvoy's rationale behind 40-45%, but it's pretty safe to assume that "a lot" is an accurate number - I don't think that any spaceworthy examples of Excelsiors, etc. still extant would be shitcanned, but would rather remain in service as couriers, system security, tenders, etc. As far as new production, I tend to think it would focus mainly on ships of the newest design school: Sovs, Novas, Intrepids, and Prometheus'. Defiants are still eminently useful for patrolling sensitive areas, especially attached to starbases or other installations; production might ramp down, but I'd wager on still seeing a few new ones here and there. Galaxies are a design from the prior design philosophy, but could easily still be a production priority as there is really no true deep-space explorer in the Sov-type design generation.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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GrahamKennedy wrote: I'd guess the post war fleet would mainly consist of Sovereign, Galaxy, Nebula, Steamrunner and Akira classes.
I don't know. They seem like a logical choice however given the mission requirements and how Starfleet (quite rightly imho) favors more the jack-of-all trades ships.....

The Akira seems to speciallized to see widespread use. For all we know - which is mostly non-canonical - and what the designer J.Eaves envisioned it to be this is a shuttle/fighter carrier. Undoubtly with lots of good uses but it certainly won't be the basis of the new starfleet.

The Steamrunner.....well imho the Steamrunner, along with the Norway and Saber class (basically all First Contact new ships) are all ships which look and feel like design studies. Ships build in extremly low numbers to test out various configurations in view of the borg threat and to find ships to replace the aging mirandas. All seem very similar in size and capability so my guess is that one of those ships will emerge as the future replacement and see widespread use...which one? No way to tell.

Sovereign.....well, I like the look but I am not a fan. The whole concept of the Sovereign seems superfluous to me considering that they already had a very capable and HIGHLY upgradable shipclass in that size-range, namely the GCS. We see GCS being heavily used in the Dominion war, we see GCS ships in various future timelines (the one captained by LaForge for example). We know from interviews of the producers that GCS ships where built during the DW without sciencelabs and where expected to be completed once the war is over to greatly enhance starfleets exploration ability.

Given all that the Sovereign class strikes me as a very capably ship by itself but rather a failure as shipclass. It was obviously the testbed for a great many advances and knowledge and experience won with it was directly used in upgrades for existing ships but it seems the class itself didn't see much widespread use. Maybe it's lifetime was just to short, to difficult to upgrade etc. all we know is that at the time of Nemisis - altough having received a few upgrades, the ship was deemed outdated.

I compare the Sovereign to the T-29 heavy tank, of which there where only 4 prototypes. A highly capable tank built to counter the King Tiger and altough it never saw widespread production the lessons learned where essential for all tanks build after that like M48 and M60.


So how does the future starfleet look? Imho the majority will consist of (biggest to smallest): Galaxy class, Nebula Class (considering their expected lifespan still "young" ships), Intrepids (for Excelsiors) and one of the First Contact design studies for the Mirandas.
All other ships (Defiant, Prometheus, Akira) are to specialized to form the bulk of starfleet imho.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by Deepcrush »

Where the hell are you getting the "sov is outdated"? Pound for pound that ship held extremely well against a battleship which was able to rip apart the latest in romulan ships built to size of the sov.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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I have to agree with Deep. The Sov was not only the most capable SF ship of the time and SOTA for many facets of UFP shipbuilding, it also heralded a new generation of design philosophy. I don't think it would be the backbone of Starfleet's rebuilding, but simply because it is too weighted toward military applications for the UFP's annoying tendency to have non-specialized ships and to attempt to paint a non-threatening posture.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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Mikey wrote:Considering the massive losses incurred - I don't know McAvoy's rationale behind 40-45%, but it's pretty safe to assume that "a lot" is an accurate number - I don't think that any spaceworthy examples of Excelsiors, etc. still extant would be shitcanned, but would rather remain in service as couriers, system security, tenders, etc. As far as new production, I tend to think it would focus mainly on ships of the newest design school: Sovs, Novas, Intrepids, and Prometheus'. Defiants are still eminently useful for patrolling sensitive areas, especially attached to starbases or other installations; production might ramp down, but I'd wager on still seeing a few new ones here and there. Galaxies are a design from the prior design philosophy, but could easily still be a production priority as there is really no true deep-space explorer in the Sov-type design generation.
It is a made up number that sounds sort of right. The way I looked at it was that the higher the percentage lost would mean the larger Starfleet has to be especially in the last weeks of the war. Take the number 8,000, 45% is 3,600 ships with 4,400 remaining. Go any higher than that of let's say 60%, the Federation would have only 3,200 ships. The Battle for Cardassia indicates (or should indicate) that Starfleet was fielding a fleet in the thousands.

It's just an opinion anyway.

I do think Starfleet would start to field cheap, easy to build ships in large numbers. We don't know what class that would be but let's say the Saber class. Those ships can replace all of the lost Mirandas for example and other ships of similar size and capability. Problem with the Excelsior class is it's sort of in that mid-size area and it's role is similar to the multi-purpose area than a dedicated ship. So, IMO the Akira class would not be an effective replacement. Maybe the Nebula class but those ships are a few times larger in volume than an Excelsior class. You could make a case for the Intrepid class replacing the Excelsior class.

I do think the Defiant would make for an extremely effective patrol ship for borders, and even stationed at Starbases as defense. They are small, require very small crew complements and are powerful enough. So you would have these ships deal with raiders, pirates or minor power incusions while freeing up the larger more multi-purpose ships to deal with other stuff, until they are needed what the Defiants cannot do themselves.

I do think Starfleet would start to field more Galaxy and Nebula class ships because of their multi-purpose role and as heavily armed command ships.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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I do not think that ANY ships would be retired or mothballed for quite some time. The only exception would be to take some of the more beat down individual ships and use them for parts for other ships in the class. Until Starfleet is able to build enough new ships to serve as a fleet they will need every spaceworthly craft that they have.

Miranda and Excelsior classes will be needed for patrolling and simply to keep a Starfleet presence in all areas. All other races and groups will have their own fleet number problems, but you do not want to leave systems open for invasion. Cannibalizing the more damaged existing ships will allow full resources to go towards new ship production.

As far as new construction goes…

I could see them going with Akiras over Steamrunners or Sabers for size and power reasons. They are much more useful overall than the Steams or Sabers. However, it would also depend on how much goes into building them, time and supplies. There is a certain quantity vs quality issue. I could also see them pumping out some Defiants to fill a strength role while not taking up much hull building time.

I do not think that many Galaxy or Nova class would be built. Due to their size commitment, going with a Sovereign would be a much better choice. If you are going to dedicate that kind of time and effort you might as well go with the best option available. Capital ships are important and you don’t want to go with your #2 option unless necessary.

Therefore, I think that they would go with a handful of Sovereign class, and front load production of Defiant and Akira classes. Once they are comfortable that the production count of those is capable of defending Starfleet space they would move to production of other classes. Steamrunner, Saber, Intrepid, Nova, etc would then begin production to refill the science side. This would also allow for the Sovereigns to go back to the exploration role while keeping a secure fleet closer to Starfleet HQ.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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I do not think that ANY ships would be retired or mothballed for quite some time. The only exception would be to take some of the more beat down individual ships and use them for parts for other ships in the class. Until Starfleet is able to build enough new ships to serve as a fleet they will need every spaceworthly craft that they have.

Miranda and Excelsior classes will be needed for patrolling and simply to keep a Starfleet presence in all areas. All other races and groups will have their own fleet number problems, but you do not want to leave systems open for invasion. Cannibalizing the more damaged existing ships will allow full resources to go towards new ship production.
No Starfleet would not retire any ships even the worn out ones until they can be replaced and that is until the fleet is up to optimal strength.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by kostmayer »

It isn't just the ships, I can imagine Starfleet would have something of a manpower shortage. Jack of all trade ships would be the way to go.

Defiant class ships might have an advantage in this area too due to the smaller crew requirements.

Not a big fan of the Sovereign class ship either, but the Enterprise E did take one hell of a pounding in Nemesis.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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A side question... What was the post-war status of the Romulans and Klingons. Also, what was done with the fleets of the Cadasians, Breen and Dominion?

I would assume that the Romulans lost alot, but potentially not as much as the Federation. The Klingons were probably quite screwed, lol. The Cardasians were probably allowed to keep their fleet and space as they flopped sides right at the end. No idea about the Breen.

The Dominion Battleships are on par with any Federation capital ship and if there were any Dreadnoughts left, YOWZA! I could see them destroying any Dreadnoughts that might have remained. The Romulans would not have wanted the Ferdearion to have control of any, and the same the other way. The only way i see thouse being kept is if there would be a Fed/Rom aliance controling the Dreadnoughts towards the Borg quadrant... just as a precaution... But the odds of that are slim to none.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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Deepcrush wrote:Where the hell are you getting the "sov is outdated"? Pound for pound that ship held extremely well against a battleship which was able to rip apart the latest in romulan ships built to size of the sov.
Well first Shinzon said so. He may be lying but given the context this seems unlikely. But the main reason is that even years before that the ship did not perform so well against the ships of a very minor species, namely the Son'a. Now granted, that may have been because of the magic nebula but still....

There is no real "canonical" evidence one way or the other, but the feeling I get is that the ship was very advanced during First Contact and then aged rather quickly.



Mikey wrote:I have to agree with Deep. The Sov was not only the most capable SF ship of the time and SOTA for many facets of UFP shipbuilding, it also heralded a new generation of design philosophy. I don't think it would be the backbone of Starfleet's rebuilding, but simply because it is too weighted toward military applications for the UFP's annoying tendency to have non-specialized ships and to attempt to paint a non-threatening posture.
At the time of First Contact quite true, Geordi said so and I don't think it was just falso pride. However what I don't get is why everyone keeps telling that the Sovereign is weighed toward the military application? Everyone holds this to be true but exactly why is that?

If we are to compare the crossections of the Sovereign, Galaxy Class and - why not - Constitution class they are all quite similar as to how much space certain systems require. The Sovereign does not donate more internal space towards weapon systems than the GCS for example nor does the Sovereign have more phaser arrays (more smaller ones, but not total length) quite the contrary.

So, canonically, there is no reason to believe that the Sovereign is a dedicated warship like the Defiant or even leans in that direction. What is more is that during the Dominion War the Federation - with a desperate need for huge battleships - choosed NOT to build Sovereign class ships but GCS class ships. That leds me to believe that the Sovereign has certain limitation we don't know of which prevents it from seeing widespread use, even during wartime. (Maybe it is only especially efficient against borg ships but weaker against conventional targets, maybe it was so expensive to build that it was only feasable to built two prototypes as technological testbeds......who knows?)

Fact is that at the time of Nemesis (fully 7 years after First Contact I believe) we still have yet to see another sovereign class ship and as far as we know there only ever were two in existance (the class leader and the E-E). Given the timeframe and the time they had we should have seen a lot more of those ships...we didn't and imho there has to be a reason for it.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by Jim »

The Son'a Battleships are rather capable craft. One-on-one it would probably barely have broken a sweat in a battle with a Galaxy. Two of them went against the E-E so I do not think that it having issues in the battle are really a sour spot.

The Sovereign might have its issues, but it is still the most powerful capital ship next to only the Scimitar. It is stronger than anything else that the Romulans have and stronger than anything that the Klingons have. It is true that potentially having say 5 Intrepid class as opposed to one Sovereign would be better in the long run for overall utility. However, the Sovereign is a display of power, a deterant. That is also needed in the short run.
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

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Jim wrote: It is stronger than anything else that the Romulans have and stronger than anything that the Klingons have. It is true that potentially having say 5 Intrepid class as opposed to one Sovereign would be better in the long run for overall utility. However, the Sovereign is a display of power, a deterant. That is also needed in the short run.
That is hell of an assumption imho since we do not really know what either of those have at that timeframe, well I assume the strongest klingon ship is still the neg'var, however there is really no way to know how it compares to the Sovereign, GCS, Nebula etc. .

As for the Sovereign as deterrent......I don't buy it. The dominion super-battleships seen only at the end of the war above cardassia...now those were displays of power.

But the sovereign......since it's much smaller than a GCS I would classify it more as a battlecruiser, more advanced certainly, but still only a sleek battlecruiser.

Again I am rather surprised by those statements that the Sovereign supposedly is some kind of über-ship because that is NOT the gist I got from watching the movies. In First Contact it was new and kicked ass - count me as fan. One movie later it already got her ass handed to her, briar patch or not and it was seriously outclassed in Nemesis. (she lasted longer than the allied warbirds but iirc shinzon wanted only to cripple the ship since he needed Picards blood or something similarily stupid while the other ships were just in his way......so again, not so impressive imho.)

And that is all the info we really have on her afaik, the rest is conjecture. Just going by her size, the size of her weapon system etc. I would not be surprised if a Nebula with battle-pod would still be a serious opponent for her, no matter how advanced the ship is. (Intrepid class was also at one time the most advanced starship in the fleet, yet obviously not the most capable).
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Re: Post War Fed Shipbuilding

Post by Mikey »

Wait... where is there a canon cross-section (besides an illegible MSD) of a Sov class showing all the non-military but eminently utilitarian equipment that a GCS has?
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