Sovereign Class and Photon Torpedoes

[DRACO]

now we all know she has Quantum torpedoes but supposedly she carries Photons as well, with the Nemesis weapon stats as follows:

16 Type XII Phaser Arrays
1 Quantum Torpedo Turret 4torps/sec
8 Photon Torpedo Launchers 3fore/5aft

however, I've never seen her fire Photons before (they did make a huge effort to show off that quantum launcher )

my theory is that since Quantum torpedoes are supposedly harder to make that the class was meant to carry only them for the turret, however since the casings are supposedly the same, there where only like 2 of the class (the E being the only one mentioned on screen) and since she is the Enterprise, they gave her a full compliment of Quantums, and no Photons....

thoughts?

[JNG]

^

Enterprise-E fired plenty of photon torpedoes.

The casings aren't the same, but it is only reasonable that they are both compatible with the existing launching hardware, or at least most of recent vintage.

Since quantum torpedoes are in limited supply and many of the 'lil photon launchers on the Enterprise-E in Nemesis are the somewhat goofy compact type depicted in the artbook, they probably directed her supply of quantum torpedoes to the most technically capable twelve-at-a-time launcher on board: the (equally goofy because of its placement) under-saucer one.

It's not impossible that the other ones have a few Q-torps lined up as well, and I would expect this of the large scale twin-forward and twin-rear ones, but find it unlikely for the littler ones.

I don't expect that Enterprise-E carries nearly as many torpedoes as Enterprise-D did. Maybe 150 or so sounds about right. I admit, though, that it is comical to think of them having expended 300 torpedoes against Scimitar without having made much of a dent. Good gravy.

[DRACO]

JNG wrote:

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^

Enterprise-E fired plenty of photon torpedoes.

The casings aren't the same, but it is only reasonable that they are both compatible with the existing launching hardware, or at least most of recent vintage.

Since quantum torpedoes are in limited supply and many of the 'lil photon launchers on the Enterprise-E in Nemesis are the somewhat goofy compact type depicted in the artbook, they probably directed her supply of quantum torpedoes to the most technically capable twelve-at-a-time launcher on board: the (equally goofy because of its placement) under-saucer one.

It's not impossible that the other ones have a few Q-torps lined up as well, and I would expect this of the large scale twin-forward and twin-rear ones, but find it unlikely for the littler ones.

I don't expect that Enterprise-E carries nearly as many torpedoes as Enterprise-D did. Maybe 150 or so sounds about right. I admit, though, that it is comical to think of them having expended 300 torpedoes against Scimitar without having made much of a dent. Good gravy.

they are different casings? anywhere I can find a comparison?

goofy? I didn't see anything goofy about it...

well if they didn't keep missin cause of the cloak xd

that thin must have had ood shielding...

and I doubt the galaxy had more torps, it had what 2-3 lauchers? which could fire like 2 at a time?

and the E had a turrent that can do 4torps/sec and 8 more launchers....

plus the D wasn't really designed for war...

[JNG]

DRACO wrote:

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they are different casings? anywhere I can find a comparison?

goofy? I didn't see anything goofy about it...

Same artbook illustrating said goofiness of the little launchers (in fairness, designed for a notably stupid and later cut sequence in ST:First Contact) has the casing redesign sketch that was used as the basis of the new Q-torp casing depicted in DS9 TM

DRACO wrote:

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and I doubt the galaxy had more torps, it had what 2-3 lauchers? which could fire like 2 at a time?

and the E had a turrent that can do 4torps/sec and 8 more launchers....

plus the D wasn't really designed for war...

10 at a time, and I don't subscribe to the idea that a Galaxy-class ship is any more or less designed for "war" than is a Sovereign-class ship. I don't know of anything in particular to back that idea up. Aside from the fact that Galaxy was designed during the Cardassian wars, ships of that type were seen, you know, fighting in an actual war. Looks to me like they had the Sovereign-class ships (all 2 of them that we know about) off doing other things...

[DRACO]

JNG wrote:

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Same artbook illustrating said goofiness of the little launchers (in fairness, designed for a notably stupid and later cut sequence in ST:First Contact) has the casing redesign sketch that was used as the basis of the new Q-torp casing depicted in DS9 TM

10 at a time, and I don't subscribe to the idea that a Galaxy-class ship is any more or less designed for "war" than is a Sovereign-class ship. I don't know of anything in particular to back that idea up. Aside from the fact that Galaxy was designed during the Cardassian wars, ships of that type were seen, you know, fighting in an actual war. Looks to me like they had the Sovereign-class ships (all 2 of them that we know about) off doing other things...

nothing to back that up?

how about....

1. the Galaxy class, whole families including children, the Soverign carries only officers and people need for specific missions

2. the Galaxy class has numerous accommodations and far more diplomatic resources than the Sovy, why the Sovy has diplomatic potential is is far less than than the Galaxy lass, and the Sovy is not as spacious

3. the Sovy has type XII phasers and regenerative shielding, because of the immense power drain to offense and defensive systems, a new warp core was desiggned to add more power, type XII phasers, previously designated type X+ for security reasons where so power intensive that they where only used on outposts,stations and planetary defenses...

4. the Sovy is much more manueverable than the Glaxy, a feature that has little benefit other than combat effectiveness

5. Sources have stated that the Sovy, the Promethius and Akira where wall designs Starfleet put into production to combat the Borg threat as well as possible hostilities from the maor quadrant powers

6. the Sovy has 16 Type XII Phaser arrays 8 Torp launchers and one Turret capable of firing 4torps/sec, I mean come on, plus only ships who are expected to see allot of action quantums

7. is it wasn't expected to see war-like conditions why bother with regenerative shielding?

as for other things, two ships out of the whole fleet, your gonna be lucky if you see them, if your refferring to the E,'s initial absense in FC, that was explained... Starfleet not sure about Picard after his assimilation

as for Insurrection, I do believe that was after the dominion war, now the Sovy has more roles than just war, it is listed as an Explorer, but it's built for war as well as exploration, think of it this way, they needed a strong militaristic force but, you dont want to mothball them in times of peace to build ships for exploring..

Tactical Explorer lol

[kv1at3485]

Draco, I hope you realize that in this and your other thread, the stats are, at best, vaguely based off back-stage info, which are merely one possible interpretation.

Really, what are you expecting? From any set of base assumptions you can come up with anything. For example, I don't believe the Sovereign is anything particularly special or "war-like", or that the quantum torpedo is anything particularly special, etc., etc., etc..

Even if the Sovereign has sparkling new fancy junk, it goes without saying that newer ships tend to get newer things faster, because older ships have to wait for their next refit. (Which also makes for interesting situations where older ships fresh out of refit are actually "newer" than newer ships.)

[Vanyel]

DRACO wrote:

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however, I've never seen her fire Photons before...

She fire plenty of photons both fore and aft. Her quantum launcher seems to be fixed forward (It's under the saucer so it can only fire forward). You can watch part of the battle in Nemesis at this link here and see that she fires photons from the forward launchers under the main deflector; and aft from the aft launcher(s) that look to fire from the saucer below the bridge (Somewhere near the shuttlebay?).

[EmperorTiberius]

We have seen Sovereign in battle in all her movies so far, and I have never seen her dish out the punishment like the Galaxy class could. Small torpedo launchers that Sovereign has are there so that she can make up for the other small ones. She doesn't have anything like the massive 50 meter launchers that Galaxy has

The fact that she is the most advanced ship keeps her level with Galaxy, it doesn't give her a large advantage like some think, but sheer raw power of (War) Galaxy should be match for a Sovereign, whether she has families or not doesn't come into play.

[Vanyel]

EmperorTiberius wrote:

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We have seen Sovereign in battle in all her movies so far, and I have never seen her dish out the punishment like the Galaxy class could. Small torpedo launchers that Sovereign has are there so that she can make up for the other small ones. She doesn't have anything like the massive 50 meter launchers that Galaxy has

The fact that she is the most advanced ship keeps her level with Galaxy, it doesn't give her a large advantage like some think, but sheer raw power of (War) Galaxy should be match for a Sovereign, whether she has families or not doesn't come into play.

We've never seen any Federation ship in the TNG era, except perhaps the Defiant, fight to their full potential. In many fleet battles in DS9 the Galaxy Class ships used their phasers most often.

Smaller does not equate to weaker. I will assume you mean the Galaxy has launchers that are 50 meters ( ≈164") long. There is no reason why the launchers on the belly of the Sovereign can't be 50 meters long. Also one could argue that the Sovereign has a better launcher design than the Galaxy, allowing the same fire power from a shorter launcher

Except for the Runabouts' "micro torpedoes', all photon casings look alike in size and shape. So it is a safe assumption that the Sovereign and Galaxy carry identical photon torpedoes. We've never seen the Sovereign fire multiple torpedoes at once (I.E. dispersal pattern sierra) but that doesnt mean it can't be done. Also if the launchers are capable of a rapid fire rate greater than the Galaxy that should close the gap with burst fire.

Most, if not all, descriptions of the Sovereign say her phasers are type XII (12), while a Galaxy is type X (10). Out of the box, the Sovereign has stronger phasers. Upgraded Galaxy's could have type XII phasers, nothing excludes that.

So, back to basics. Out of the box, the Sovereign is a stronger ship than the Galaxy. The upgraded Galaxy could equal the Sovereign in fire power, that assumes the Sovereign received no upgrades at all.

However, there is one bit of possible evidence that the Sovereign has been upgraded. Is First Contact, she showed bubble shielding and in Nemesis she showed the skin tight shielding seen in the battle scenes in DS9.

[Delta1]

The model was altered between INS and NEM, suggesting some rather substantial upgrades--or a retcon.

[JNG]

DRACO wrote:

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nothing to back that up?

how about....

1. the Galaxy class, whole families including children, the Soverign carries only officers and people need for specific missions

The ship splits in two. There's a battle section. If they wanted the other section to be in the fight also, they could probably, you know, offload noncombat personnel. I assume they did this for all the Galaxy-class ships we saw fighting in the war.

I also want to note that they didn't seem to hesitate sending the Enterprise-D into dangerous combat situations, despite the presence of families and such, and I don't think there is much evidence to suggest they impede combat performance in and of themselves.

DRACO wrote:

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2. the Galaxy class has numerous accommodations and far more diplomatic resources than the Sovy, why the Sovy has diplomatic potential is is far less than than the Galaxy lass, and the Sovy is not as spacious

Yes, I'm sure the diplomats are very cramped, finding anywhere to meet on a ship nearly two and a half million cubic meters in volume. I imagine there isn't even a place for them to have diplomatic receptions LIKE THE ONE THEY HAD IN INSURRECTION WHEN THEY WERE ON A DIPLOMATIC MISSION

DRACO wrote:

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3. the Sovy has type XII phasers and regenerative shielding, because of the immense power drain to offense and defensive systems, a new warp core was desiggned to add more power, type XII phasers, previously designated type X+ for security reasons where so power intensive that they where only used on outposts,stations and planetary defenses...

X+ would, I expect, be equivalent to Type-11, like DS9 got; you're using Technical Manual talk here, but the Tech Manual put those at the top of the scale. Type XII is just fanwank. Fanwank has its place, but do I think a ship designed a number of years before the DS9 upgrades has phasers bigger than what starbases were being fitted with at the time of her design? What sense does that make? What's "new" about the warp core?

DRACO wrote:

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4. the Sovy is much more manueverable than the Glaxy, a feature that has little benefit other than combat effectiveness

She very well may be; I don't know why you'd feel so sure about this. Impulse maneuverability probably isn't vastly important for a target nearly 700 meters long; it isn't as if there is a tremendous amount of dodging about she can do versus phaser beams or torpedoes and so forth that travel at c or greater. I'm sure it's always desirable, even for ships that will never fire a shot in anger.

DRACO wrote:

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5. Sources have stated that the Sovy, the Promethius and Akira where wall designs Starfleet put into production to combat the Borg threat as well as possible hostilities from the maor quadrant powers

Those sources (who? not an episode or movie, that's for sure) are not checking the timeline. The registry and design cues of the only known Akira-class starships place them before contact with the Borg was ever established. Enterprise-E was in space by 2372, probably in testing 2370-2371; even if she was only the second of her class, which she might not be, the U.S.S. Sovereign as a class ship could have taken DECADES to design and build, as the Technical Manual tells us the Galaxy did. Now if you're claiming Sovereign-class ships are such RADICAL advances on ships from only a few years earlier, then I'd expect the project to have taken at LEAST as long...but even if it took only an optimistic ten years, this is well before the Borg encounter in "Q Who?" (2367, I believe).

It would be a silly claim that Sovereign was thrown together in just a few years, like Defiant...but is huge, complex, a major advancement beyond ships of only a few years before, and doesn't suffer from severe flaws, unlike Defiant.

On the other hand, it is nearly a certainty that the Galaxy-class was designed during the Cardassian Wars; perhaps both were.

DRACO wrote:

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6. the Sovy has 16 Type XII Phaser arrays 8 Torp launchers and one Turret capable of firing 4torps/sec, I mean come on, plus only ships who are expected to see allot of action quantums

The phaser coverage is similar to that of a Galaxy-class ship, I don't acknowledge the phasers are of a different type at all (John Eaves noted they were the same), and I see no reason to believe that the Galaxy-class ships fighting the war (and other kinds too) didn't receive as many Q-torps as were available--they were obviously expected to see a lot of action, considering they had wings built around them in the fleet actions on DS9.

7. is it wasn't expected to see war-like conditions why bother with regenerative shielding?

I believe you are thinking of the Prometheus prototype. I don't recall this being mentioned in any of the movies with the Enterprise-E. A check of Memory Alpha supports this.

We don't know what other kinds of ships have this tech, if any, or if it can be retrofitted. Since it was mentioned as a feature of a new prototype, it is likely a very new thing, and not necessarily found on ships that were designed years and years before that prototype.

DRACO wrote:

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as for other things, two ships out of the whole fleet, your gonna be lucky if you see them, if your refferring to the E,'s initial absense in FC, that was explained... Starfleet not sure about Picard after his assimilation

I'm not suggesting there aren't plenty of other duties that need attention during the Dominion War, or that those duties are in any way less important. I do object to the view of any Sovereign-class ship as a fanboyish uberwarship vastly outperforming the Galaxy class or any other for defensive duties; it at least needs to be considered that ships of the class were not shown fighting the war, Enterprise-E was shown on rather less dangerous duties in our glimpse of her during the war, and it is possible to conclude from the rare sightings that the Sovereign class was a very limited run or had problems or something.

DRACO wrote:

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as for Insurrection, I do believe that was after the dominion war

It was during the war, and not only that, but Picard complains about the Enterprise being asked to put out "one more brush fire," as if they'd been doing these sorts of missions for a while (kept largely out of the conflict).

DRACO wrote:

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now the Sovy has more roles than just war, it is listed as an Explorer, but it's built for war as well as exploration, think of it this way, they needed a strong militaristic force but, you dont want to mothball them in times of peace to build ships for exploring..

Tactical Explorer lol

I don't know if it is an Explorer. Heavy Cruiser might make more sense, especially if your claims about its lacking accommodations and "diplomatic potential" and focus on combat systems were true. I don't think they are true, but would nevertheless be willing to accept Heavy Cruiser as a compromise toward the idea that the Sovereign class is designed for a slightly less wide range of mission profiles than the Galaxy class.

(Fans grabbed on to the fact that Enterprise-E apparently doesn't carry families as meaning that it was built for war, but I suspect the Galaxy ships carry families and civilian consultants and such because they are designed for independent missions of very long duration (15-20 years, perhaps?). A Sovereign-class ship may be intended for missions of exploration and scientific inquiry that are more limited in scope.)

[EmperorTiberius]

Vanyel wrote:

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We've never seen any Federation ship in the TNG era, except perhaps the Defiant, fight to their full potential. In many fleet battles in DS9 the Galaxy Class ships used their phasers most often.

We see Galaxy fight to full potential on numerous occasions in TNG, we see upgraded Lakota, we see Sovereign in movies, and Intrepid, and we know what a couple other ships can do from inferring. Everything else is speculation by fans.

Smaller does not equate to weaker. I will assume you mean the Galaxy has launchers that are 50 meters ( ≈164") long. There is no reason why the launchers on the belly of the Sovereign can't be 50 meters long. Also one could argue that the Sovereign has a better launcher design than the Galaxy, allowing the same fire power from a shorter launcher

50 meter is just an off the cuff remark, i don't know exact dimensions. The sovereign doesn't have them because we can see how tiny they are in MSDS. They look like slow firing Voyager ones.

Except for the Runabouts' "micro torpedoes', all photon casings look alike in size and shape. So it is a safe assumption that the Sovereign and Galaxy carry identical photon torpedoes. We've never seen the Sovereign fire multiple torpedoes at once (I.E. dispersal pattern sierra) but that doesnt mean it can't be done. Also if the launchers are capable of a rapid fire rate greater than the Galaxy that should close the gap with burst fire.

Sovereign had plenty of chances to prove they can, but they never do, they are slow firing to say the least. They are not capable of same rapid fire as Galaxy, not matter what fanwank sources say. We simply don't see this rapid fire.

Take a look at this video starting at 1:00, and tell me when Sovereign displayed this type of firepower?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_XbWq49vUM

[EmperorTiberius]

JNG wrote:

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I believe you are thinking of the Prometheus prototype. I don't recall this being mentioned in any of the movies with the Enterprise-E. A check of Memory Alpha supports this.

We don't know what other kinds of ships have this tech, if any, or if it can be retrofitted. Since it was mentioned as a feature of a new prototype, it is likely a very new thing, and not necessarily found on ships that were designed years and years before that prototype.

I agree with your post above. Most of the stuff on Sov is laughable, especially since it's only 5-10 years younger than Galaxy, to say that it's some uber advanced warship is pushing the limits of my ability to suspend disbelief.

As for regenerative shielding, I am willing to give it benefit of doubt, may be it was retrofitted for "nemesis", or may be it was there, since Geordi does mention that it is the most advanced ship in the fleet.

Either way, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's shields are far superior to that of Galaxy or Nebula, it means that they recharge quicker, but since Galaxy/Nebula are so massive, their raw shield power output has to be greater than Sovereign's. In Star Trek, bigger is always better.

Bigger ship, more power, more shield generators = stronger shields.

[Cyke101]

Vanyel wrote:

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[ In many fleet battles in DS9 the Galaxy Class ships used their phasers most often.

Um, wouldn't that apply to almost all Starfleet ships in any battle?

[JNG]

EmperorTiberius wrote:

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As for regenerative shielding, I am willing to give it benefit of doubt, may be it was retrofitted for "nemesis", or may be it was there, since Geordi does mention that it is the most advanced ship in the fleet.

It's definitely a possibility. The shields didn't appear to be regenerating so well when the Scimitar was poking holes in them in Nemesis, but since I'm not entirely sure what this term is supposed to mean, that may not be relevant.

Cyke101 wrote:

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Um, wouldn't that apply to almost all Starfleet ships in any battle?

Perhaps not in high-warp battles.

But for some reason, in the Dominion War as depicted on DS9, everyone frequently decided that they'd arrange into "lines" in three-dimensional space and wait around at sublight for the enemies to come try and "break through the lines," which they inexplicably did by also dropping to sublight, flying in tight formation with one another and moving to extremely close range with all the Dominion ships. There, many a phaser beam was indeed let loose by all those Starfleet astrophysicists and botanists and gynecologists turned lifetakers and heartbreakers.

Torpedoes should not be used at close range to the launching ship for obvious reasons, and in those confused large-scale close-in battles, detonating torpedoes would often be doing some of their work on other friendlies as well. So that explains heavy use of phasers in those situations (though perhaps not the creation of the situation in the first place...maybe huge concentrations of enemy ships have intense jamming that impede effective long-range torpedo strikes, or even "jam" subspace in such a way that warping on by them becomes an issue from certain vectors?).