Rihannsu Redux

[Captain Seafort]

It's questionable whether the Sov is armoured, and certain that it isn't well-armoured - look at all those windows.

[Sionnach Glic]

Indeed, the amount of windows is just plain dumb. On the other hand, the hull did seem to stand up fairly well to taking damage. It wasn't too badly affected by ramming the Scimitar.

[Deepcrush]

It seems to me that Trek relies more on shields and SIF then hull and armour. Pretty stupid seeing how the tough the Defiant is after taking all the above.

[Teaos]

Given the amount of weapons seen on the Sov and how well it did in the ramming I'm guessing it just has a kick arse SIF.

[Sionnach Glic]

Well, the Defiant class was designed purely for combat, so some genius in R&D obviously thought "armour = good".

[kostmayer]

Armour might not be cost effective on larger ships - The Defiant has less power to draw on, they may have favoured armor over boosting the shields.

[Sionnach Glic]

Depending on the cost, it may be unfeasable to armour larger ships.

[Deepcrush]

I don't think so. You're better of forking the cost to protect a ship that you've put so much effort into building. Look at the difference between the TNG-GCS and the DW-GCS. Seeing how many times we saw the E-D go up in smoke over minor things... what do you think would cost more? Putting armor on a ship or building a new one and replacing a lost crew.

[Captain Seafort]

If the Federation had infinite resources, sure. It doesn't though, so they have to decide whether they want to concentrate on new builds, or to pull a GCS out of the line long enough to up-armour it, taking up dock space and resources that would otherwise be used for those new builds. They'd probably be better off with the first solution and keep their fingers crossed on the GCS - the thing's so badly designed to start with that there isn't much they can do other than correct those flaws as best they can in newer ships.

[Deepcrush]

They should have worried about the armor to begin with. Plus, the GCS we see fighting in the DW are a lot tougher then the ones we see in TNG. While there is no such thing as infinite resource, there is such a thing as a waste of resource.

[Teaos]

You've gotta weight the costs of armouring vs just upping the power of the shields, rather than spending resources on armour they just up the shild power. Shields are far more versatile and seemingly better at resisting damage, we have never really seen a well armoured ship, maybe it is just unfesable.

[Mikey]

Agreed. Especially in a war footing; in which speed of build and economy of resources is more crucial.

Well, the Defiant class was designed purely for combat, so some genius in R&D obviously thought "armour = good".

And was then promptly sacked for that particular leap of common sense.

[kostmayer]

You've gotta weight the costs of armouring vs just upping the power of the shields, rather than spending resources on armour they just up the shild power. Shields are far more versatile and seemingly better at resisting damage, we have never really seen a well armoured ship, maybe it is just unfesable.

Thats my thinking too. On a larger ship with a larger powergrid, shields may be more cost effective. On the Defiant, with less power to draw on, Armour may be more practicle.

And it was an experimental ship, it may have been armoured just to test the armour - cost effective or not.