Starship Armament(Broadside)

[James Wright]

Has anyone ever studied how many phasers the Federation's Constitution, Miranda and Excelsior classes could bring to bear in broadside as compared to the Klingon's K't'inga class Battlecruiser's broadside?

James

[Unicron]

Well, it depends on what you mean by "broadside." If you mean how the ships would compare in terms of how many total weapons they can fire into a single arc, it would be a very interesting comparison. But the use of turrets on modern warships has allowed most such weapons to be either arc based or point defense based, rather than a broadside as it would have applied to ships from previous centuries.

[MANT!]

Per Wiky..

Additionally, the term broadside is a measurement of a vessel's maximum simultaneous firepower which can be delivered upon a single target, because this concentration is usually obtained by firing a broadside. This is calculated by multiplying the shell weight of the ship's main armament shells times the number of barrels that can be brought to bear. If some turrets are incapable of firing to either side of the vessel, only the maximum number of barrels which can fire to one side or the other are counted. For example, the American Iowa-class battleships carry a main armament of nine 16-inch (410 mm) main guns in turrets which can all be trained to a single broadside. Each 16-inch shell weighs 2,700 pounds (1,200 kg), which when multiplied by nine (the total number of barrels in all three turrets) equals a total of 24,300 pounds (11,022 kg). Thus, an Iowa-class battleship has a broadside of 12 short tons (11.0 tonnes), the weight of shells that she can theoretically land on a target in a single firing.
See list of broadsides of major World War II ships for a comparison.

[Timo]

The thing is, Starfleet starships are the only ones where we can identify all weapon emitters and count the number of "guns" that can fire at a given direction. Klingon ships have a variety of features that may or may not be guns, but Klingon disruptor bolts are just as likely to emerge from spots lacking such features as from spots having them - the battle cruiser for example only ever fired beams from the upper tips of its nacelles, suggesting a port or starboard broadside of exactly one gun (and a bottom or stern broadside of zero guns, but a top or bow broadside of two).

The other thing is that starships don't fire broadsides. TNG era ships only fire one beam out of all the possible ones; TOS movie ships in ST2 fired either one or then one twin beam. It appears that the firing of further guns does not give the attacker any advantage, suggesting that the total weapons output of the ship can be channeled through any single emitter. (Thus, a single beam would meet the above definition of broadside.)

As for the specific question:

Constitution can point ten phasers directly down (six in saucer, four in secondary hull) and eight directly up (six in saucer, two above shuttlebay). Sideways firing of saucer phasers is iffy, but perhaps six of them could be fired directly to the side, and eight to bow quarters, with two or three secondary hull bottom turrets giving further support and one or the other of the shuttlebay phasers joining in.

Miranda has the six saucertop phasers plus two turrets per rollbar corner for top firing, giving a top broadside of ten. Bottom only appears to be covered by saucer phasers, giving six (although the rollbar corner phasers have a pretty good view of the lower sides down to 45 degrees). And apparently only two phasers (the after ones on the rollbar corner cylinder flanks) can fire anywhere near astern, while ten might theoretically fire forward.

Excelsior in model form features ten turrets per saucer side, plus four at secondary hull bottom - but we have seen beams coming from other locations as well. DS9 "Paradise Lost" has a somewhat modified ship firing from the sides of the boxy additions to the saucer, and from between the "impulse crystals", and from a location atop the stern of the secondary hull. ST:Generations features a graphic showing a similarly configured ship: no side phasers, no "impulse crystal" phasers, but two twin phasers at secondary hull upper stern.

So we get three different sets of broadsides:

As built: top=10, bottom=14, bow=14'ish, stern=6'ish, side=12
As seen in DS9: top=12+, bottom=16, bow=14'ish, stern=8'ish, side=13
As seen in ST:GEN: top=14, bottom=14, bow=14'ish, stern=6'ish, side=14

Timo Saloniemi

[James Wright]

Timo wrote:

---

The thing is, Starfleet starships are the only ones where we can identify all weapon emitters and count the number of "guns" that can fire at a given direction. Klingon ships have a variety of features that may or may not be guns, but Klingon disruptor bolts are just as likely to emerge from spots lacking such features as from spots having them - the battle cruiser for example only ever fired beams from the upper tips of its nacelles, suggesting a port or starboard broadside of exactly one gun (and a bottom or stern broadside of zero guns, but a top or bow broadside of two).

The other thing is that starships don't fire broadsides. TNG era ships only fire one beam out of all the possible ones; TOS movie ships in ST2 fired either one or then one twin beam. It appears that the firing of further guns does not give the attacker any advantage, suggesting that the total weapons output of the ship can be channeled through any single emitter. (Thus, a single beam would meet the above definition of broadside.)

As for the specific question:

Constitution can point ten phasers directly down (six in saucer, four in secondary hull) and eight directly up (six in saucer, two above shuttlebay). Sideways firing of saucer phasers is iffy, but perhaps six of them could be fired directly to the side, and eight to bow quarters, with two or three secondary hull bottom turrets giving further support and one or the other of the shuttlebay phasers joining in.

Miranda has the six saucertop phasers plus two turrets per rollbar corner for top firing, giving a top broadside of ten. Bottom only appears to be covered by saucer phasers, giving six (although the rollbar corner phasers have a pretty good view of the lower sides down to 45 degrees). And apparently only two phasers (the after ones on the rollbar corner cylinder flanks) can fire anywhere near astern, while ten might theoretically fire forward.

Excelsior in model form features ten turrets per saucer side, plus four at secondary hull bottom - but we have seen beams coming from other locations as well. DS9 "Paradise Lost" has a somewhat modified ship firing from the sides of the boxy additions to the saucer, and from between the "impulse crystals", and from a location atop the stern of the secondary hull. ST:Generations features a graphic showing a similarly configured ship: no side phasers, no "impulse crystal" phasers, but two twin phasers at secondary hull upper stern.

So we get three different sets of broadsides:

As built: top=10, bottom=14, bow=14'ish, stern=6'ish, side=12
As seen in DS9: top=12+, bottom=16, bow=14'ish, stern=8'ish, side=13
As seen in ST:GEN: top=14, bottom=14, bow=14'ish, stern=6'ish, side=14

Timo Saloniemi

Friend Timo,Check the original post please, you forgot the K't'inga.

James

[Knight Templar]

Take the D-7 battlecruiser and its variants.

In "Elaan of Troyius" they fired "disruptor bolts" that were emitted from the forward tips of the warp nacelles.

In "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" they fired torpedoes from that large round hole at the front of the primary hull and from a similar one at the rear of the engineering hull.

But.

In "Deep Space Nine", the D-7 type cruisers there in both "Way of the Warrior" and "Rules of Engagement" fired a beam weapon from the large round hole at the front of the primary hull.

So I would answer your question by saying "whatever the script demands".

[Captain_Amasov]

The Enterprise-D fired a total of three phaser beams in "The Best of Both Worlds", but quite where these two aft phasers are firing from is anyone's guess: http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rldsone293.jpg

Then there's the curious case of these Klingon K't'inga-class ships firing disruptor beams from the forward torpedo launcher: http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rrior2_578.jpg & http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rrior2_580.jpg

[The Badger]

Captain_Amasov wrote:

---

The Enterprise-D fired a total of three phaser beams in "The Best of Both Worlds", but quite where these two aft phasers are firing from is anyone's guess: http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rldsone293.jpg

As I recall from the TNG TM, the strips at the bottom of the nacelle support struts are supposed to be phaser emitters. Although in the picture you linked to the seem to be coming from a point noticeably higher than that.

Captain_Amasov wrote:

---

Then there's the curious case of these Klingon K't'inga-class ships firing disruptor beams from the forward torpedo launcher: http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rrior2_578.jpg & http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rrior2_580.jpg

Perhaps by the time of DS9 the Klingons have refitted the old D-7's with disruptors or phasers at that weapon hard point. Maybe the torpedo they used to fire is no longer in production, and fitting a beam weapon is the most economical alternative.

[MacLeod]

Captain_Amasov wrote:

---

The Enterprise-D fired a total of three phaser beams in "The Best of Both Worlds", but quite where these two aft phasers are firing from is anyone's guess: http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rldsone293.jpg

Then there's the curious case of these Klingon K't'inga-class ships firing disruptor beams from the forward torpedo launcher: http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rrior2_578.jpg & http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rrior2_580.jpg

Looks like the are supposd to be from the phaser strips on the nacelles pylons

[Timo]

...Or then they are Borg beams aimed at chopping off the warp engines.

Timo Saloniemi

[blssdwlf]

Captain_Amasov wrote:

---

The Enterprise-D fired a total of three phaser beams in "The Best of Both Worlds", but quite where these two aft phasers are firing from is anyone's guess: http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...rldsone293.jpg

Yeah, those two aft phasers come from phaser emitter points that are not visible on the ship model. The E-D also used a non-visible phaser emitter in "Encounter at Farpoint" and also "Darmok". We know from "The Nth Degree" and "Darmok" that the E-D can fire "full phasers" thru a single beam. So in "The Best of Both Worlds" the 3 beams probably added up to be equivalent to a single "full phaser" blast, IMHO.

[Mark_Nguyen]

That just makes me want to see if they plan on fixing that shot in the HD version.

IMO, a "broadside" in TNG terms is measured more in the amount of energy in the phaser energy capacitors that can be fired before recharge. It is not tied to the number of phaser banks a ship has - those are just the emission points for the energy. If a ship has, say, ten units of energy that can be discharged in a volley, it can blow that all through one emitter or divide it accordingly depending on what the ship wants to hit, i.e. ten units through one unit, or five units through two strips, or three through two and the rest through one, etc.

Three examples:

In BOBW, Picard commands a "fire all weapons". I'm guessing Worf chose a spread of targets and those three strips could hit what he was aiming for, in that particular volley. Subsequently, then Shelby gets Data to randomize the frequencies, we only see the top emitter blasting away, suggesting they were pumping all their phaser energy to one point on the Cube to ge through their shields; it works. This extends to part 2 where Riker also commands all weapons, but only the dorsal strip was blasting away (using the same stock footage but omitting the nonexistent pylon emitters).

Similarly, in "Yesterday's Enterprise" alt-Picard asks for "continual fire, all phasers". At first they were aiming for all three targets via two emitters, but then it looks like the tactical oficer settled on one to linger on (arguably the one with the most shield damage so far), eventually blowing it up. I like to think that in hitting all three targets, they could instantly analyze feedback from the phaser beam or other sensor data and decide which one of the three ships would be the best recipient of the remaining weapon energy.

Finally, in "Conundrum", the E-D opens up on a bunch of small sentry ships. Multiple shots come from the same emitters, and often enough simultaneously from different places on the same emitter, to destroy them.

We know that in TNG Trek, shipboard phasers rarely have a problem hitting something, at least with continuous-blast type phasers seen on the E-D, the refitted DS9 and Voyager (Defiant was a whole other problem, but they could only fire directly ahead). The number of phasers strips and their placement seems more detpendent on getting best overlapping coverage around things like warp nacelles or torpedo tubes than stacking them up against a target. So if you assume that the phaser energy capacitors can push only so much energy per unit time, then it doesn't matter how many phaser banks are oriented at the target - two phaser banks firing would discharge the same amount of energy as one.

So in both the cases described above, if the Enterprise were firing at maximum power settings, then it would be more important to divide that energy between specific targets rather than orienting the ship to bring the most number of banks to bear. If that were the case, the E-D would have been forever showing its arse end to its targets.

Mark

[Knight Templar]

Warship broadsides is basically a so antiquated term that it basically is meaningless for modern naval vessels and has been for years.

What amounts to the "broadside" of a modern U.S. Burke class destroyer? Arguably it would be only the five inch gun mount which is the only direct fire weapon that can be brought to bear.

[Mark_Nguyen]

And "unguided" would be an even better term for a Burke's 5in. As it stands, to hit practically anything it must fire a projectile in an arc.

Mark

[Timo]

Picard commands a "fire all weapons".

...One consistent interpretation of which could be "fire all types of weapons". Which would usually mean one phaser beam and one tubeful of torpedoes for a Galaxy class, but might mean something like one to three beams and one to two tubes for a Miranda, with the number of beams and tubes at the TO's discretion but with the fact that both beams and torps are to be fired a mandatory thing.

Timo Saloniemi