Ship of the Week: Excelsior

[Tsukiyumi]

That's why I suggested a rolling loop, so no one shield section would take damage for very long. Might not work in a Lakota, but the Defiant could certainly pull it off.

[Mikey]

Yeah, you could put her nacelle in between yourself and her main array.

[Teaos]

Fed ships are ridiculously over-centralised. Knocking the bridge out might cripple the ship completely.

Voyager lost their bridge and went fine in year of hell.

Usually the problem with losing the bridge is the loss of the senior crew. The ship can be controlled from just about anywhere.

[Deepcrush]

My main target for the lakota would be the warp core.
But, if using the defiant i would target the warp nacelle as they don't seem well sheilded and i could punch a hole in the shields there to allow my QTs to hit home without trouble.

[Sionnach Glic]

Voyager lost their bridge and went fine in year of hell.

I stand corrected, then.

[Mikey]

Voyager lost their bridge and went fine in year of hell.

I still maintain that it's an excellent opening attack, in the scenario described; even if it's not a coup d'grace, it's a way to sow confusion and disrupt damage control and response to your subsequent attacks. Especially if you are approaching the target bow to bow.

[Deepcrush]

Very true, but its something that would work for the lakota and not the defiant. The defiant is nimble enough that she should be hitting from behind cover.

[Mikey]

in the scenario described

[Deepcrush]

in the scenario described

I know, I was just carrying a point.

[Eosphoros]

I have to oppose the notion that Federation ships are too centralized. Federations ships can be controlled from just about any terminal with access to the main computer if you have the appropriate authorization. On the other hand, naval ships of the 20th century were all extremely centralized - they could be controlled only from the bridge. That's why they had the thickest armour around the command tower - one lucky shot and your 30000-tonne dreadnought is useless. There are good examples in SF too: remember that scene from ROTJ when the Executor's bridge is destroyed and it loses attitude control and crashes into DS 2.

[Mikey]

You're right, of course. I think what was being referred to was the idea that a hit on one componenet always seems to cause damage to an unrelated system or location.

[Captain Seafort]

I have to oppose the notion that Federation ships are too centralized. Federations ships can be controlled from just about any terminal with access to the main computer if you have the appropriate authorization. On the other hand, naval ships of the 20th century were all extremely centralized - they could be controlled only from the bridge. That's why they had the thickest armour around the command tower - one lucky shot and your 30000-tonne dreadnought is useless. There are good examples in SF too: remember that scene from ROTJ when the Executor's bridge is destroyed and it loses attitude control and crashes into DS 2.

That's actually evidence of centralisation - all ship's operations pass through the main computer, rather than being decentralised with dedicated computers throughout the ship. Take your Dreadnought example - during the Bismarck's last battle, the ship was badly forwards hit very early on, probably by a pair of 16" shells from HMS Rodney. They knocked out the bridge, the main gunnery control station, and the forward turrets. Despite this the rear gunnery station was able to take over, and had the range of Rodney after only a few salvos before it too was destroyed. Even then, the two after turrets continued to fire under local control until they were knocked out. In a Fed ship, a single hit in the right place can completely disable the ship's weapons, as demonstrated in "Peak Performance".

[Deepcrush]

This would be a tough call as either plan could fail and would lead to the GCS laying in its own hurt. If we ever find sunnyside we'll have to have a mock battle with the Defiant to see if the same can be done as I did with the Lakota. That should give us a better idea of things.

[Sionnach Glic]

Seafort got there before me, but I'm bored.

Federations ships can be controlled from just about any terminal with access to the main computer if you have the appropriate authorization.

1: That's incredibly stupid, as anyone with clearance could sieze the entire ship from just about anywhere.
2: As Seafort pointed out, that is centralisation. Modern ships don't have all their systems routed through a single central computer.

On the other hand, naval ships of the 20th century were all extremely centralized - they could be controlled only from the bridge.

Uh, just because the orders come from there, it doesn't mean that if the bridge goes down the ship stops working. Several ships during the second World War were able to continue fighting despite the loss of their bridge, and modern ships are much more decentralised than that.

There are good examples in SF too: remember that scene from ROTJ when the Executor's bridge is destroyed and it loses attitude control and crashes into DS 2.

Well, the Executor did have a back-up bridge, the crew were just unable to sieze control in the minute or so they had before they crashed.

[Mikey]

That's incredibly stupid, as anyone with clearance could sieze the entire ship from just about anywhere.

Or without clearance - Khan, Kevin Finnigan, the MI-5, etc., etc.