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In Court Martial, these ships are listed as being at Starbase 12.



Are we to believe that with only twelve plus some ships in the fleet, ten of them happened to be at this one starbase at the same time?

The argument has been that the TOS fleet comprised twelve (or at least very low double-digit) Connies, not that there were only a dozen ships total. If the CO of a Nimitz bragged that "there's only a dozen like her in the fleet", no-one would object to that statement on the grounds that the US Navy has a lot more than a dozen Ticos, Arleigh Burkes, subs, etc.

Actually Teaos has argued that it's twelve "capital ships + an undisclosed number of support vessels". With the twelve being the Connies, and "zero evidence of any other type of capital ships or many other ships in general".

Now we all agree on there being twelve Connies. But I'd be perfectly fine believing that there also "capital ships" of older design, like the Starfleet Museum's Siegfried class or Pyotr-Velikiy class.

And also smaller ships like the Franz Joseph Saladin, Ptolemy, and Hermes classes. (Although if I had my way the Saladin and Ptolemy would be rolled into one design. They're practically identical as it is.)

All in all I'd guess at a TOS Starfleet of at least 50 ships, more likely 100+.

One thing I really wish they had done in the remastered version was thrown an occasional destroyer or Frigate design into the background. Oh well.

That's the idea I tend toward. When HMS Sovereign of the Seas was launched, it would have been perfectly accurate to say that there was nothing like her afloat - but obviously that didn't mean that the RN had no ships of the line.

BTW, "Pyotr-Velikiy" is Ukrainian (and possibly Russian, I'm not positive) for "Big Peter."

Apparently it's the name of a Russian Kirov class ship.

Mikey wrote:BTW, "Pyotr-Velikiy" is Ukrainian (and possibly Russian, I'm not positive) for "Big Peter."

That's the literal translation - the more accurate one, in context, is of course "Peter the Great".

I have no issue with a bunch of frigates running around. But considering the speeds we see in TOS and events like the Balance of Terror, Whale Probe and any Klingon encounter, if Starfleet had more big ships they would come in as back up. It would be absurd to assume otherwise.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Mikey wrote:BTW, "Pyotr-Velikiy" is Ukrainian (and possibly Russian, I'm not positive) for "Big Peter."

That's the literal translation - the more accurate one, in context, is of course "Peter the Great".

Huh. Don't know why I didn't think of that, excepting maybe that I'm more familiar with the Ukrainian usage, in which the adjective is generally used to refer specifically to physical size.

Teaos wrote:I have no issue with a bunch of frigates running around. But considering the speeds we see in TOS and events like the Balance of Terror, Whale Probe and any Klingon encounter, if Starfleet had more big ships they would come in as back up. It would be absurd to assume otherwise.

Power of plot I guess.

Balance of Terror shows that the border of Romulan space is lightly patrolled.

Mikey wrote:

Teaos wrote:Yeah thats the one. So that kind of leads credence to the idea that Starfleet didnt have a huge fleet.

No, quite the opposite. To me, at least, the idea of gathering a full third of your only capital ships borders on ludicrous - lending credence, rather, to the idea that four Connies represented rather less than one-third of the total number of capital ships.

And I agree that the comment regarding the Laurentian system seems to mean that at least 51% of the fleet was NOT at Vulcan, and to judge the comment by its colloquiality far more than that.

I would say more than that. The correct quote as not the bulk of our fleet. I found it and it reads as "our primary fleet", which means that what we see at earth was a secondary fleet, or even a training fleet.

It's worth pointing out that there are at about 50 different ship classes listed out our Federation ships list. Now, OK, some of those are from different era's.