Dominion Battlecruiser reappraised

[Granitehewer]

Hi
I've been watching alot of ds9 recently, between migraines, esp ''a call to arms'', i was in awe of the imposing and seemingly huge dominion battlecruiser that weyoun and dukat use a command ship when attacking ds9.
I appreciate the logic in the ditl stats for it, but if we assume in regards to the bigger dominion battleship that ''three times the firepower'' of the galaxy class refers to the galaxy refit, and taking into account the militaristic nature of the dominion, could it be reasonable to give the battlecruiser a slightly higher ditl index like 1,500, as surely the goliath nature of the battleship seen in ''valiant'' may mean it is more than a weapons platform and so the battlecruiser although considerably smaller may not be considerably weaker?

[Mikey]

Makes some sense. In modern parlance, at least, "battlecruiser" denotes a vessel with similar firepower to a battleship, just less protection (and often greater speed.) However, in 'Trek the term "cruiser" seems to apply to almost anything which doesn't fit into any other ready-made pigeonhole. Was the battlecruiser first seen before or after the introduction of the war-upfit GCS?

[Captain Seafort]

Depends how you define the War-GCS. The Venture, which had the nacelle phaser strips of the war-GCS, turned up long before the battlecruiser, but the dark-necked GCSes didn't appear until after it.

[Aaron]

Makes some sense. In modern parlance, at least, "battlecruiser" denotes a vessel with similar firepower to a battleship, just less protection (and often greater speed.) However, in 'Trek the term "cruiser" seems to apply to almost anything which doesn't fit into any other ready-made pigeonhole. Was the battlecruiser first seen before or after the introduction of the war-upfit GCS?

Well the SF designation of "cruiser" seems to fit the original definition, which was any ship that operated independently from the fleet. Those ships were largely frigates but if we go with the idea that SF classes its ships by role rather then type, it could work.

[McAvoy]

Makes some sense. In modern parlance, at least, "battlecruiser" denotes a vessel with similar firepower to a battleship, just less protection (and often greater speed.) However, in 'Trek the term "cruiser" seems to apply to almost anything which doesn't fit into any other ready-made pigeonhole. Was the battlecruiser first seen before or after the introduction of the war-upfit GCS?

Well the SF designation of "cruiser" seems to fit the original definition, which was any ship that operated independently from the fleet. Those ships were largely frigates but if we go with the idea that SF classes its ships by role rather then type, it could work.

I agree. The cruiser definition fits what we see with a lone ship doing a mission. But then again... that's pretty much every ship we see in Trek.

I also loved the close up of the battlecruiser. The ones we saw earlier always gave me the impression that they were smaller, like around 400 meters.

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

Wasn't it called the Dominion Battleship? We saw Battlecruisers earlier, and they were 639 meters.

[Granitehewer]

well the 400-700m dominion battlecruiser was referred to in some episodes as a battleship namely ''ties of blood and water'' and ''a call to arms'' but later referred to esp in the literature as a ''battlecruiser'' with the much larger 1000m+ dominion vessel in ''valiant'' now called a battleship

[Mark]

So perhaps Starfleet reclassified the ship class?

[Captain Seafort]

So perhaps Starfleet reclassified the ship class?

Or the different classifications came from different organisations. Was it always Starfleet's description, or were some of them from the Dominion side?

[Mark]

Good point, that.

[Granitehewer]

that reminds me, when the galor in the dominion war was reclassified from cruiser to destroyer, was that the dominion or federation who did that? i can't remember, someone said it was referred to by weyoun in the episode where the dominion took ds9 but my memory is stale

[McAvoy]

I don't recall off hand if these were ever called destroyers onscreen. Though I do know they were called that in the DS9 TM.

[Captain Seafort]

They were referred to as "Galor-class destroyers" in SoA:

GARAK
(it worked)
We've opened a hole in their lines.

SISKO
(looking at a panel, not
so sure)
Have we?

DAX

(off her panel)
Sir, do you see those Galor class
destroyers...

SISKO
I see them.

BASHIR
(off his panel)
It's a trap.

[Sionnach Glic]

Is that the only instance where they were reffered to as destroyers? If so, we could probably put it down to a slip of the tongue.

[Deepcrush]

Is that the only instance where they were reffered to as destroyers? If so, we could probably put it down to a slip of the tongue.

It could be that or their status was down graded when the Keldons came out.