Trek Facts- The Starship Classes Of Wolf 359

[Nutso]

[Atekimogus]

I don't know....although fun to watch there is a lot of conjecture going on in all of this videos.

One of the main themes seems to be that Starfleet was basically incredibly incompetent in early TNG years because they were not militaristic and the ship designs seemingly reflected that.

This is not how I remember it however. I remember it that - for example the GCS - was on par or better than the pure military designs of the other major powers like the Klingons or Romulans. Meaning their weapons were so adavanded that they didn't need to build pure battle-ships and still where better than the rest.

And then the Borg came and rendered their weapons and defenses useless. A GCS purely built for war would not have changed that, the problems was not in ship design but in weapons and shielding design.

The same was true later when encountering the Dominion, which was able to render their defensive systems useless, a huge tacitcal disadvantage. Again, the problem was not in not having militaristic designs, the problem was that they were able to bypass a whole subsystem, e.g. shields.

As soon as this was fixed (a retrofit of a subsystem) they fought on much more even ground.......a Sovereign or Akira (ships who are said to have been built to a more millitary role, another HUGE conjecture with no basis in Canon imho) would have not fared any better in these kind of situations.

[Graham Kennedy]

It's always fascinated me that there are people who completely refuse to accept that Starfleet does not consider itself to be a military force... whilst simultaneously complaining that Starfleet doesn't act much like the military force they think it so clearly has to be.

And yeah... the GCS wasn't a highly militarised design, but it was always comparable or better as a warship than the military designs of the other major powers. As good as or better than a Vor'Cha or D'Deridex, and significantly better than anything Cardassian.

Couldn't agree more about the Borg, too. The issue there was never that the ships weren't military enough, it's that the nature of the Borg is such that you can't really beat them with military strength.

[Atekimogus]

It's always fascinated me that there are people who completely refuse to accept that Starfleet does not consider itself to be a military force... whilst simultaneously complaining that Starfleet doesn't act much like the military force they think it so clearly has to be.

And yeah... the GCS wasn't a highly militarised design, but it was always comparable or better as a warship than the military designs of the other major powers. As good as or better than a Vor'Cha or D'Deridex, and significantly better than anything Cardassian.

Couldn't agree more about the Borg, too. The issue there was never that the ships weren't military enough, it's that the nature of the Borg is such that you can't really beat them with military strength.

Absolutely. People seem to forget that on first encounter with the Borg, when they were not adapted, one not particularily impressive salvo of the Enterprise-D destroyed a quarter of a cube and forced it into hybernation. If the borg weren't able to adapt so quickly...they wouldn't be particularily impressive.

That being said....I never got the impression that the GCS was NOT a highly militarised design, compared to all other ships coming before. Especially if you read the TNG Technical Manual....it was just very modular. But it had the strongest shields and strongest weapons they could make.
It seems the only thing people are going with is if you have families on board or not but that - at least to me - seems to be not really a design feature. To clarify.....the GCS was built with rather a lot of "empty" internal space, the TNG Manual goes into greater detail iirc even stating that entire decks remain "empty" and waiting to be adapted to mission specific needs.

So having families onboard and lots of recreational facilities was just a choice of the time, the mission being long duration exploration. Wheras having a regiment of soldiers onboard during the Dominion War would be equally fine.

The sovereign class seems to follow the exact same design philosohpy, if you look at the internal layout I have no idea where the idea is coming from that this was primarily a warship. Compared to the GCS the phaser array alone is of a magnitude smaller. Not knowing exactly how phasers work I think it is still safe to say bigger calibre is better and whatever new design the Sovereign has, the GCSs were retrofitted to the same standard, but bigger. (But then...some of those videos want to make you believe that even the Intrepid was built to a more militaristic design philosophy...just because it came after the borg...)

[Graham Kennedy]

Absolutely. People seem to forget that on first encounter with the Borg, when they were not adapted, one not particularily impressive salvo of the Enterprise-D destroyed a quarter of a cube and forced it into hybernation. If the borg weren't able to adapt so quickly...they wouldn't be particularily impressive.

That being said....I never got the impression that the GCS was NOT a highly militarised design, compared to all other ships coming before. Especially if you read the TNG Technical Manual....it was just very modular. But it had the strongest shields and strongest weapons they could make.

There are many comments in episodes about the extensive quarters, rec facilities, etc. "This ship is built for comfort" and such. And it is TNG that tends to say things like "This is not a ship of war, it's a ship of exploration."

It seems the only thing people are going with is if you have families on board or not but that - at least to me - seems to be not really a design feature. To clarify.....the GCS was built with rather a lot of "empty" internal space, the TNG Manual goes into greater detail iirc even stating that entire decks remain "empty" and waiting to be adapted to mission specific needs.

Yes indeed, and that even made it into canon with Troi mentioning that almost the whole of deck 12 was empty.

So having families onboard and lots of recreational facilities was just a choice of the time, the mission being long duration exploration. Wheras having a regiment of soldiers onboard during the Dominion War would be equally fine.

The Enterprise-D we saw in Yesterday's Enterprise was a full on warship, and it was externally identical. Could be taken to indicate that the design is suitable for warfare, if properly fitted out.

The sovereign class seems to follow the exact same design philosohpy, if you look at the internal layout I have no idea where the idea is coming from that this was primarily a warship.

Um, well, in some part that would be due to me. I coined the term "Enhanced Deterrence Explorer" back in the day (and a google search for that term doesn't even show DITL as a result, how humiliating). I took the idea that the Defiant was an "escort" and thought it would be fun if the Federation had all sorts of terms to avoid calling their ships cruisers, battleships, etc. Too dainty to call them what they were, basically.

But even then, I did label the Sovereign as an Explorer, just one with more military capability. If the GCS was 20/40/40 military, science and diplomacy, then in my mind the Sovereign was more like 50/25/25.

Why? Because backstage sources indicated it had Type XII phasers, it had five photon torpedo tubes, each firing 12 rather than 10 at a time - a full photon salvo of 48 compared to 20. And quantum torpedoes on top. It seemed enough of a step-up to justify the word.

Compared to the GCS the phaser array alone is of a magnitude smaller. Not knowing exactly how phasers work I think it is still safe to say bigger calibre is better and whatever new design the Sovereign has, the GCSs were retrofitted to the same standard, but bigger. (But then...some of those videos want to make you believe that even the Intrepid was built to a more militaristic design philosophy...just because it came after the borg...)

Hard to say. Size of array isn't necessarily all there is to how good an array is. There's range, there's how long a burst it can fire without overheating, there's time between maintenance, there's accuracy...

[Atekimogus]

Um, well, in some part that would be due to me. I coined the term "Enhanced Deterrence Explorer" back in the day (and a google search for that term doesn't even show DITL as a result, how humiliating). I took the idea that the Defiant was an "escort" and thought it would be fun if the Federation had all sorts of terms to avoid calling their ships cruisers, battleships, etc. Too dainty to call them what they were, basically.

But even then, I did label the Sovereign as an Explorer, just one with more military capability. If the GCS was 20/40/40 military, science and diplomacy, then in my mind the Sovereign was more like 50/25/25.

Why? Because backstage sources indicated it had Type XII phasers, it had five photon torpedo tubes, each firing 12 rather than 10 at a time - a full photon salvo of 48 compared to 20. And quantum torpedoes on top. It seemed enough of a step-up to justify the word.

So it is your fault

Now the Type XII phasers I also heard, mostly from video games....but the photon torpedo salvo of 12 vs 10 is new to me. In-Universe they seem to be of the one shot variety. Indeed, when First Contact came out I was equally ecstatic about the sovereign class....but after I while I see it now more as a heavy cruiser compared to the GCS Battleship.

That being said..if you look at the MSD of all ships we ever had (including TOS ships, which are said to be more "militaristic") one will see that not much changed and arguably ships like the GCS or Nebula even assign "more" space to weapon systems than other classes.

But by and large there is not much difference.

Hard to say. Size of array isn't necessarily all there is to how good an array is. There's range, there's how long a burst it can fire without overheating, there's time between maintenance, there's accuracy...

Indeed...however, I think there is enough canon evidence to suggest, that the subsystems of a starship are actually more important than the "frame" carrying it. E.g. it is possible to upgrade an Excelsior class to Defiant levels of battle capability.

That being said....I think it would be a logical assumption that the phasers of a GCS are more powerfull than that of a Sovereign. The warpcore and phaserstrips might be stronger/more efficient than the original GCS ones...but they are still smaller scale. Apply the same tech-level to the GCS but larger scale....

(This is actually why the Defiant never made much sense in this regard imho. It was just WAY too powerfull for its scale. Like 50 years advanced compared to the rest of the fleet)

[Graham Kennedy]

Um, well, in some part that would be due to me. I coined the term "Enhanced Deterrence Explorer" back in the day (and a google search for that term doesn't even show DITL as a result, how humiliating). I took the idea that the Defiant was an "escort" and thought it would be fun if the Federation had all sorts of terms to avoid calling their ships cruisers, battleships, etc. Too dainty to call them what they were, basically.

But even then, I did label the Sovereign as an Explorer, just one with more military capability. If the GCS was 20/40/40 military, science and diplomacy, then in my mind the Sovereign was more like 50/25/25.

Why? Because backstage sources indicated it had Type XII phasers, it had five photon torpedo tubes, each firing 12 rather than 10 at a time - a full photon salvo of 48 compared to 20. And quantum torpedoes on top. It seemed enough of a step-up to justify the word.

So it is your fault

One of my small contributions to Trek fanhood! Though I'm still amused that if you look up the specs on certain ships, a good portion of the time it's obvious that they come straight from DITL. If you ever read of "Pulse fire torpedo tubes" and such, that's me. Even a few of the Trekyard ship vids quote me. Hardly ever get credit, though.

Now the Type XII phasers I also heard, mostly from video games....but the photon torpedo salvo of 12 vs 10 is new to me.

The first I remember seeing the Type XII thing was on a poster. The 12 round capacity was said in a newsgroup (I'm such a dinosaur) by Rick Sternbach, if I remember right.

In-Universe they seem to be of the one shot variety. Indeed, when First Contact came out I was equally ecstatic about the sovereign class....but after I while I see it now more as a heavy cruiser compared to the GCS Battleship.

Yeah, I called it a Battlecruiser myself.

We actually never get canon of the torpedoes firing as much as they're supposed to be able to. For instance the 10-round burst of the GCS tubes stated in the TNG TM - in canon the ship never fired more than five at once, even in The Arsenal of Freedom when they were trying to blanket an area. Frequently it only fired one at a time, even when a burst would seem to be better :



So it's a tossup as to what you believe, really.

That being said..if you look at the MSD of all ships we ever had (including TOS ships, which are said to be more "militaristic") one will see that not much changed and arguably ships like the GCS or Nebula even assign "more" space to weapon systems than other classes.

Yeah, it's long been one of my bugbears that Trek weapons are so small, even compared to the weapons on present day naval ships. It's why I keep making things like this

Where Trek ships have big turrets on them. Just makes more sense, IMO.

That being said....I think it would be a logical assumption that the phasers of a GCS are more powerfull than that of a Sovereign. The warpcore and phaserstrips might be stronger/more efficient than the original GCS ones...but they are still smaller scale. Apply the same tech-level to the GCS but larger scale....

I disagree there.

(This is actually why the Defiant never made much sense in this regard imho. It was just WAY too powerfull for its scale. Like 50 years advanced compared to the rest of the fleet)

This I agree with. Defiant is a cool idea, but it doesn't look right for what it is supposed to be. We're told it's incredibly powerful, yet the phasers are tiny. It's why I designed this as what I would have done for the Defiant. Basically weapons sized to be as powerful as Defiant is supposed to be.

[bladela]

The first I remember seeing the Type XII thing was on a poster. The 12 round capacity was said in a newsgroup (I'm such a dinosaur) by Rick Sternbach, if I remember right.

we have never even seen this anyway...

Yeah, I called it a Battlecruiser myself.

this personally sounds quite strange, usually the battle cruisers were quite fragile ships, to be superior to the galaxy we should consider it at most a heavy cruiser.
The same costitution was in this class, and was one of the most powerful ships of the federation in its period.

[McAvoy]

To be fair, Battlecruisers are not fragile ships. For their time they were second only to the battleship in terms on armor. Some battlecruisers like the German ones had nearly the same armor as a dreadnought of the time.

I think what makes people think they have a glass jaw is perhaps a passed down memory of the three British battlecruisers that blew up in Jutland and the HMS Hood. Let's be honest, the three British battlecruisers blew up not because they were paper tigers but because of crew operating incredibly un safe battle practices. HMS Hood is even debatable whether she was a battlecruiser or the first true Fast Battleship.

[bladela]

To be fair, Battlecruisers are not fragile ships. For their time they were second only to the battleship in terms on armor. Some battlecruisers like the German ones had nearly the same armor as a dreadnought of the time.

they were not designed to be part of the battle line, they used them out of context, which was from the hunt down enemy cruisers .

I think what makes people think they have a glass jaw is perhaps a passed down memory of the three British battlecruisers that blew up in Jutland and the HMS Hood. Let's be honest, the three British battlecruisers blew up not because they were paper tigers but because of crew operating incredibly un safe battle practices. HMS Hood is even debatable whether she was a battlecruiser or the first true Fast Battleship.

largely true, but the reduced armor of British ships did not help.

The Hood had several construction defects well known to the Royal Navy, so much so that it was never reclassified by them as a fast battleship, but always as a battlecruiser.

With regard to the defiant then it is indicated as superior to almost all the ships of the quadrant, then when you see it fighting it is generally against jem'hadar fighters or similar-sized ships.
Against these also the Galaxy (apart from in the first meeting of the USS Odyssey) had obtained similar results, so I don't see so obvious considering the Defiant superior.

[Atekimogus]

One of my small contributions to Trek fanhood! Though I'm still amused that if you look up the specs on certain ships, a good portion of the time it's obvious that they come straight from DITL. If you ever read of "Pulse fire torpedo tubes" and such, that's me. Even a few of the Trekyard ship vids quote me. Hardly ever get credit, though.

Kudos to you then! Well done!

Where Trek ships have big turrets on them. Just makes more sense, IMO.

Cool video but I slightly disagree...turrets do not really fit into Star Trek imho. However, I do say that things like phaser strips, shield generators etc. should take up a "LOT" more of internal space. Considering the size of most of these weapons I do understand where this "Starfleet ships are not built for war" theme comes from, it is quite easy to assume if you could double or quadrupel the amount of weaons on a ship without problems.

That there are in-universe reasons why this won't work is often not considered by many. (Maybe the ship just isn't able to generate enough power, so it wouldn't matter how many phaser strips you add?). But still...on a ship like the GCS or Sovereign...there shouldn't just be phaser strips....there should be enormeous capacitors, heatsink and stuff behind each strip making it clear that this is actual an integral system and not just an afterthought.

[McAvoy]

To be fair, Battlecruisers are not fragile ships. For their time they were second only to the battleship in terms on armor. Some battlecruisers like the German ones had nearly the same armor as a dreadnought of the time.

they were not designed to be part of the battle line, they used them out of context, which was from the hunt down enemy cruisers .

I think what makes people think they have a glass jaw is perhaps a passed down memory of the three British battlecruisers that blew up in Jutland and the HMS Hood. Let's be honest, the three British battlecruisers blew up not because they were paper tigers but because of crew operating incredibly un safe battle practices. HMS Hood is even debatable whether she was a battlecruiser or the first true Fast Battleship.

largely true, but the reduced armor of British ships did not help.

The Hood had several construction defects well known to the Royal Navy, so much so that it was never reclassified by them as a fast battleship, but always as a battlecruiser.

With regard to the defiant then it is indicated as superior to almost all the ships of the quadrant, then when you see it fighting it is generally against jem'hadar fighters or similar-sized ships.
Against these also the Galaxy (apart from in the first meeting of the USS Odyssey) had obtained similar results, so I don't see so obvious considering the Defiant superior.

Battlecruisers yes were not meant to slug it out with other Battlecruisers or battleships. But like I said they are far from fragile. The are only second to a battleship in terms of armor.

Reminds me of the idea some people have about battleships vs. carriers. Some say battleships are obsolete because they were vulnerable to carrier borne planes when in reality they are not the least vulnerable of all the ships.

Defiant is unique in that you really do not have a real life example of that ship. A torpedo boat with unlimited torpedos?

[Coalition]

(This is actually why the Defiant never made much sense in this regard imho. It was just WAY too powerfull for its scale. Like 50 years advanced compared to the rest of the fleet)

For me, I figure the Defiant was designed as a one-fight sprite. It will be going up against a Borg cube, and will either have to win, or it will die against a Borg cube. So make its weapons a small but solid system where once they burn out the whole component has to be replaced, but regular ships can take those components apart and replace burnt out pieces during combat. Smaller size and lack of room for easy repairs allows for a smaller ship/more powerful weaponry, at the expense of combat endurance (it has to go to a station to repair its weapons, vs a larger ship having room and parts to repair damaged items while in the black.

Similar design policy to the metalstorm weapon system. It can fire lots of shots very quickly, but has no endurance and you have to replace the weapon at a depot. Compared to a regular tank that instead only needs a cargo truck driving out carrying spare ammo.


For the capacitors, heat sinks, etc, perhaps the Federation just lumps those in together with the phaser strip designation? Similar to the current guns used on Navy ships, where the autoloaders, ready magazine storage, integral firefighting sprayers and structural requirements are just listed as as the 54mm gun system

[McAvoy]

(This is actually why the Defiant never made much sense in this regard imho. It was just WAY too powerfull for its scale. Like 50 years advanced compared to the rest of the fleet)

For me, I figure the Defiant was designed as a one-fight sprite. It will be going up against a Borg cube, and will either have to win, or it will die against a Borg cube. So make its weapons a small but solid system where once they burn out the whole component has to be replaced, but regular ships can take those components apart and replace burnt out pieces during combat. Smaller size and lack of room for easy repairs allows for a smaller ship/more powerful weaponry, at the expense of combat endurance (it has to go to a station to repair its weapons, vs a larger ship having room and parts to repair damaged items while in the black.

Similar design policy to the metalstorm weapon system. It can fire lots of shots very quickly, but has no endurance and you have to replace the weapon at a depot. Compared to a regular tank that instead only needs a cargo truck driving out carrying spare ammo.


For the capacitors, heat sinks, etc, perhaps the Federation just lumps those in together with the phaser strip designation? Similar to the current guns used on Navy ships, where the autoloaders, ready magazine storage, integral firefighting sprayers and structural requirements are just listed as as the 54mm gun system

I just sort if figured the Defiant wasn't meant to be one ship but a massive amount of ships attacking all at once against the Borg. Short ranged, with maximum firepower, armored to take hits and keep going. Like I think when the Defiant was designed, these ships would act like fighters attacking in squadrons in coordinated attacks. Like 200 of them attacking a Borg cube overwhelming it with pure firepower.

Of course if Starfleet kept up with this line of thought, the Dominion War might have been very different.

[Atekimogus]

(This is actually why the Defiant never made much sense in this regard imho. It was just WAY too powerfull for its scale. Like 50 years advanced compared to the rest of the fleet)

For me, I figure the Defiant was designed as a one-fight sprite. It will be going up against a Borg cube, and will either have to win, or it will die against a Borg cube. So make its weapons a small but solid system where once they burn out the whole component has to be replaced, but regular ships can take those components apart and replace burnt out pieces during combat. Smaller size and lack of room for easy repairs allows for a smaller ship/more powerful weaponry, at the expense of combat endurance (it has to go to a station to repair its weapons, vs a larger ship having room and parts to repair damaged items while in the black.

Similar design policy to the metalstorm weapon system. It can fire lots of shots very quickly, but has no endurance and you have to replace the weapon at a depot. Compared to a regular tank that instead only needs a cargo truck driving out carrying spare ammo.


For the capacitors, heat sinks, etc, perhaps the Federation just lumps those in together with the phaser strip designation? Similar to the current guns used on Navy ships, where the autoloaders, ready magazine storage, integral firefighting sprayers and structural requirements are just listed as as the 54mm gun system

I just sort if figured the Defiant wasn't meant to be one ship but a massive amount of ships attacking all at once against the Borg. Short ranged, with maximum firepower, armored to take hits and keep going. Like I think when the Defiant was designed, these ships would act like fighters attacking in squadrons in coordinated attacks. Like 200 of them attacking a Borg cube overwhelming it with pure firepower.

Of course if Starfleet kept up with this line of thought, the Dominion War might have been very different.

While tactially you are right...from an in universe perspective the ship still just doesn't make sense, it is just too powerfull and advanced (at least in terms of firepower). Now the main weapons of the Defiant are pulse phaser and while we do not know exactly how they are different it is a fair assumption to say that the "pulse" component is mostly - if not exclusevely so - there to negate the Borg adapting to this weapon. It is doubtfull that in a damage/energy comparison it is stronger than a normal phaser (maybe even weaker).

Now, phaser are energy based...the energy comes from the warp core. The Defiant is said to have power similar to a GCS. If we compare the warpcore of the Defiant, which is 3 decks tall (4 if we are generous) against the warpcore of the GCS class, which is 11 decks (12-13 more likely) one can see the discrepancy.

Heck...when all is said and done the GCS is still top end technology by the time the first Defiant is built, they are just ending their "teething" phase. The technological leap would be "huge", also, there would be no logical reason to not just replace a GCS Warpcore with 3-4 Defiant-style warpcores for 3-4 the power. Now, considering that we never see multi-core starships, I might even speculate that there is an economy of scale at work here and it is always better to built a larger core compared to two smaller ones. Meaning a Defiant style core scaled up to 12 decks would be even stronger.

Realistically - and that very much depends on how phaser strips work, considering that the biggest two phaser strips are on a GCS saucer - the Defiant class ship should have just been basically a GCS Secondary hull with enough phasers to make use of the power. (assuming that not all available power can be channeled through whatever phaserstrip is available.)