War of the Week!

[Deepcrush]

Indeed this war is in the TOS era rochey.

Though for the first time in a long while I'm going to have to disagree with rochey. I voted for the Klingons in this one. The Klingons have always shown greater numbers and industrial capacity. Plus I've seen that the Klingons have shown a great deal of skill and tactical ability in fleet combat. Also, that the Romulans were so desperate that they gave up their cloak tech in trade for ships to supplement their own fleets. This tells me that they were in a desperate situation that called for actions "beyond the norm".

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Indeed this war is in the TOS era rochey.

Though for the first time in a long while I'm going to have to disagree with rochey. I voted for the Klingons in this one. The Klingons have always shown greater numbers and industrial capacity. Plus I've seen that the Klingons have shown a great deal of skill and tactical ability in fleet combat. Also, that the Romulans were so desperate that they gave up their cloak tech in trade for ships to supplement their own fleets. This tells me that they were in a desperate situation that called for actions "beyond the norm".

Of coarse we saw more Klingon ships. All the Romulan ships are cloaked.

[Deepcrush]

Very cute!

I'll have to remember that joke for later!

[Jordanis]

I'm voting Klingons, and echoing the sentiment that I figure that the fact that the Romulans were using Klingon ships means their own shipbuilding capacity/technology was in pretty poor shape at the time.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Going with Klingons, too, for reasons stated. The BoP in Balance of Terror seems inferior to the D-7. And the Klingons didn't lack for guile, either.

[Captain Seafort]

Went for the Romulans, mainly on the strength of their cloaking and weapons technology. While the early model cloak deployed on the "Balance of Terror" BoP was primitive compared to later designs, it still represented a huge advantage for the Romulans, and it's plasma weapon seemed more powerful than the Enterprise's weapons judging by Spock's reaction to the damage it caused. The chief Romulan problem was their lack of M/AM power, and therefore their slow speed.

Klingon ships are therefore bigger and faster, while the Romulans are stealthier and better armed. A close contest, but one I believe the Romulans would have the edge in.

[Mikey]

Excellent point, Seafort. Especially in a territorial war, in which case the ability to sneak up on an installation/colony and obliterate it - as was done to the Fed outposts in "Balance of Terror" - and then sneak away again is a HUGE advantage.

[colmquinn]

Being able to sneak up unobserved is a great bonus but if when you get there you discover a squadron of Klingon cruisers sitting waiting for you to show your face you'd quickly start to loose your smaller Romulan ships and while they Klingons would undoubtly loose some units too I think that the numbers of stronger faster ships would win through eventually.
Besides there's nothing to stop the Klingons going on the offensive and bringing the pain to the enemy. If the Romulans didn't have the stomach for the Earth Romulan war imagine how'd they'd feel faced with the Klingon fleet!

[Graham Kennedy]

My problem with cloaks has always been this : they are great for spy missions. And they are great for getting into position leading up to a battle. But when it comes to combat, they are absolutely horrible things to have aboard your ship.

I kid you not, virtually every time we have seen a ship use a cloak in combat, it has been defeated as a direct result of the cloak.

Balance of terror - the Romulan warbird was tracked through it's cloak, used it's fuel up because of it's cloak, and was crippled by a single hit. Although not stated, I always took it that that last was because it had no shields whilst cloaked. But at the very least the cloak cost them endurance, and that alone cost them a mission failure.

Star Trek III - Kruge's ship was seen visually through the cloak and crippled as it decloaked.

Star Trek VI - Chang's ship was crippled by a single hit, because it was cloaked and had no shields.

Generations - Lursa and B'Etor's BoP was destroyed because a flaw in the cloak made their shields drop.

Defiant - defeated in The Search, because it took hits whilst cloaked.

I could probably go on. Cloaks certainly have their uses, but once the shooting starts they are a positive hazard if you ask me.

[Mikey]

if when you get there you discover a squadron of Klingon cruisers sitting waiting for you to show your face you'd quickly start to loose your smaller Romulan ships

Undoubtedly the Romulans would be at a huge handicap in a toe-to-toe slugfest with the Klingons. But the Romulans had intel as well as a cloaking device. When assaulting a fixed target - planet, installation, whatever - with a cloaked ship a/o task force, why would we think there would be a Klingon presence already there? Remember this is TOS-era; there are no tachyon nets, etc., capable of detecting cloaked incursions.

[mwhittington]

I vote for Klingons over Rommies. Klingons are like pit bulls: They may not be the smartest breed, but they can utterly destroy what they attack. Romulans are like german shepards: smarter breed, still dangerous, but wait for orders from their "master" before they can do anything. It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

With a good pilot, as long as the engines, and cloak still work you should be able to limp away. Besides, from what I see, the Romulans are chess players, while Klingons are jocks. In a strait-up fight the Klingons win. But because the Romulans are strategic players. They'd have the Klingons running around in circles, chasing ghosts, and the minute the Klingons are in a bad position they'll find themselves struck in a strategic location.

The best way for the Klingons to win would be an all out assault on Romulas. That would still result in massive losses on both sides. That's probably why they made the technology trade. It killed two birds with one stone. Keep in mind the Federation proved that they could defeat the latest Romulan-made vessel. By making the trade they kept the Klingons from attacking, at least not until the Romulans were ready, and gave them enough firepower to make a full-scale war with the Federation very bloody, or at least bloody enough to deter the Federation from attacking them, which they may have thought was a possibility after the attacks from their Bird-of-Prey.

[Deepcrush]

The supporters of the Romulans bring up a lot of good points but I fear to many of those points are with the hope that the Klingons wouldn't attack in return. That the Klingons wouldn't send whole fleets across the border and raze every Romulan planet they found. That the Klingons would allow themselves to be shot at and not shoot back. The Klingons would carry a major advantage in that they already out number the Romulans. In fact the only times the Romulans ever win against the Klingons they have to out number them and tend to need to sabotage the Klingons in some way. While this proves that the Romulans are able to hurt the Klingons. It also shows a vital flaw. The Romulans wouldn't be able to out number the Klingons in every fight. Now the Klingons on the other hand have shown that they have little care for out numbering anyone. They just like to fight. Another thing is that the Klingons of TOS haven't yet turned into the space vikings that they are in TNG. There are a lot of points for both sides but it seems that the Klingons carry the bulk of the advantages with them. For the Romulans to win a war as such would require decisive victories from the out set and hope to stall out the Klingons return offensive that WILL come sooner rather then later.

[Captain Seafort]

*snip*

While those are good points, the fact that there are weaknesses to the cloak does not remove the strategic advantage it provides.

As for the fact of the BoP being crippled by a single good hit, that suggests that Romulan defences are about equal to Fed ones, since the Excalibur was crippled and its entire crew killed by a single solid hit from the Enterprise in "The Ultimate Computer".

[Deepcrush]

Though that would seem to be slightly off by plot fate.