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Hell, there were a number of occasions when the flagship of Starfleet was the only ship in position to check out a possible border incursion by a foreign power. If one of those border incursions had been composed of a Cardassian fleet on its way to burn the surface of every planet it could reach, then the UFP would be in serious trouble.

We've seen plenty of times that Starfleet has a very poor response time. Even in response to the Borg Cube tearing its way through their territory, they were only able to muster 30 ships (some of which may well have been hastily pulled out of mothballs, given the indications that a Connie may have been there) to meet it. And during the Dominion War a Breen fleet was able to reach, and bombard, Earth - and this was during the middle of a war!

Sionnach Glic wrote: We've seen plenty of times that Starfleet has a very poor response time. Even in response to the Borg Cube tearing its way through their territory, they were only able to muster 30 ships (some of which may well have been hastily pulled out of mothballs, given the indications that a Connie may have been there) to meet it. And during the Dominion War a Breen fleet was able to reach, and bombard, Earth - and this was during the middle of a war!

Well during the War i'm guessing most of their fleets were busy on the front lines. The Dominion could also invade Betazed as well. I suspect SF was trying forward defense -- putting the bulk of their forces on the frontline to prevent a breakthrough -- with only a limited fleet near the core worlds. (I'm not saying it's smart but it may be what they tried)

Aye, but that just leaves you with the problem of leaving your most important worlds open to attack from any marauding fleets that happen to slip. And given the sheer vastness of space, simply sitting back and hoping that no one would try such a move was pretty foolish.

IIRC, that was in the early days of the war, correct? If so, that's probably an effect of the less militaristic admirals from the days of TNG still being in charge of Starfleet. I imagine that as time went on they either wised up or were replaced with more strategy-wise leaders.

I'd always assumed that the Cardassians held their own merely by outnumbering Starfleet. The Cardassian Empire is presumably smaller then the Federation, hence the Military takes up hugh swathes of Cardassias resources.

The Admiral who contacts Picard does explicity say that the Federation is "not prepared for a new, sustained conflict", but he doesn't state exactly why. It may well have been for political reasons.

kostmayer wrote:The Admiral who contacts Picard does explicity say that the Federation is "not prepared for a new, sustained conflict", but he doesn't state exactly why. It may well have been for political reasons.

Another possibility is the effects of the Borg attack. Shelby stated that the fleet would be "back up in less than a year". "The Wounded", IIRC, occurred less than a year after BoBW. It's possible that Starfleet was still having to prioritise it's deployment after Wolf 359, and the Cardassian border was far enough down the list that there weren't sufficient forces present to fend off a major attack.

Its hard to believe that the loss of 40 starships, not even all of which were ships of the line, would have impacted Starfleet that much. I mean, if the entire fleet only had 100 or so ships it would be a big deal, but a fleet that numbers in the thousands.............really?

Mark wrote:Its hard to believe that the loss of 40 starships, not even all of which were ships of the line, would have impacted Starfleet that much. I mean, if the entire fleet only had 100 or so ships it would be a big deal, but a fleet that numbers in the thousands.............really?

Don't forget that those ships would have to be replaced over and above normal wear and tear. Assuming a fleet of 8,000 and an average life of 20 years between rebuilds, 40 additional ships would be an increase of 10% over a typical year - not something to be taken lightly.

The Federation is large enough that it would take years to cross (assuming lack of plot drive), so it may not be possible to easily redeploy vessels as we think it is.

Indeed. It's quite possible that had the Cardassians attacked, they could have caught quite a few UFP worlds with little to no defences.

True.

I also think that Cardassain space is small in comparison to their fleet. Much more concentrated than the UFP. UFP may have better ships, bigger space, and fleet, but wouldn't be able to form a comparable sized fleet without months in advance.

Also remember that the UFP would have to stomach the cost of life. The CU has shown that they are willing to put forward an insane amount of effort with anything they do. The death toll on both sides would be pretty nasty.

Mark wrote:Its hard to believe that the loss of 40 starships, not even all of which were ships of the line, would have impacted Starfleet that much. I mean, if the entire fleet only had 100 or so ships it would be a big deal, but a fleet that numbers in the thousands.............really?

I always felt it was more shock than anything else. One ship wipes out an entire fleet with nary a scratch?

That is true and 11,000 dead is still 11,000 dead. That would still be alot.

One would imagine that losing 40 starships during that timeframe would mean much more than a mobilized fleet during DS9. That and perhaps the fleet was spread thin with re-appearence of the Romulans too. Perhaps during the Cardassain War, there were far less ships on the Romulan Neutral Zone than it was during The Wounded. Now with Romulans back in the game more ships were placed along that border than before.

The Cardassain War could have been very costly for both sides as well and UFP doesn't want another war like that.

I'd think that starfleet probably divides its main fleets into sub-sector fleets, which would probably be in the region of 40-50 ships. It could be such a blow, because they've just taken out the policing, flag-flying and patrol group for an entire sub-sector.