How powerful is a Galaxy class starship?

Consider how well the Odyssey did against the Jem'Hadar ships, despite the fact that it had no shields to soften the blow of enemy fire. The only reason the Odyssey was even destroyed was because of a Jem'Hadar suicide attack.

 

Which could simply imply that the warbird is also powerful.

A lot of fans approach topics like this with the mindset of a video game, where only even matches are ones worth playing. From an in-universe perspective, Picard is right to shy away from an even fight if at all possible because an even fight just means a lot of dead people on both sides.

 

As an avid former player of the Armada games, Bridge Commander, and Star Trek Online, that's exactly what these types of threads start to sound like. Video games are almost always different from the source material for the sake of gameplay. Let's not scoff at all the times the E-D was defeated by mighty ships; if anything, that speaks of both the strength of the enemies and the Enterprise actually surviving battles.

And above all else, yes, the ship is only as strong as the plot needs it to be -- space exploration would be boring if every new enemy ship could be defeated in a couple phaser blasts.

 

I think Bry_Sinclair and I were talking about damage done before the kamikaze attack.

Even the Defiant was taken down the first time it fought the Jem'Hadar but after upgrades the Defiant brushes them off and I don't think we ever see another Galaxy class taken down as easily.

 

^My apologies. Nonetheless, the problems with that initial encounter was at least partly due to the exotic nature of the Jem'hadar weapons, not just a simple matter of being overpowered by them.

 

Did it do well though? You have to take into account the circumstances of the action in that it was built to infiltrate Eris onto DS9/the AQ. The Dominion would not benefit from destroying the Odyssey quickly as the rescue attempt would likely be abandoned without it. The point is to make Eris' rescue look good, not to enforce the Dominion's early empty threat about keeping the AQ forces out of the GQ.

If anything throws doubt on the nature of the battle consider what would have likely happened to the Odyssey if Eris had beamed onto it. It would have most certainly survived to limp back to DS9.

 

In the Dominion War the Galaxies shown fighting were not complete ships (according to the DS-9 Tech Manual and a couple of things I have read online). The hulls were partially empty, the ships were rushed into production being mostly weapons and engines, not complete exploration vessels with all the demands the full crew and all that equipment had.

A general purpose vessel always has compromises, just as a warship optimized for combat lacks some features, like comfort. I think Galaxy Class ship varied some from spec according to when it was built and what equipment was deployed at the time, upgrades and refits would shift things further as a ship on long distance exploration would make do until damaged and needing repair.

 

That never made any sense to me. If it's empty, why make a saucer at all (and why are all the windows lit?)? Starfleet would just make loads of Galaxy-class stardrive sections, which are built for battle.

 

^^

I guess Starfleet wanted to demonstrate a 'show of strength' by pushing their biggest ships to the front line.

 

Starfleet may have been considering the postwar world, where a bunch of war-based stardrives would have been useless.

 

They were fighting for their lives. Long term stuff like that was not an issue. And besides, after the war, all they have to do is build a ton of saucers.

 

Another thing to point out is how the strength of a Galaxy's hull. I noticed in the alternate history shown in Yesterday's Enterprise that without shields, the Enterprise seemed to remain intact despite numerous disruptor shots. Although we saw this in an alternate universe, seeing as the Galaxy didn't seem extremely different, I would assume that the prime universe Galaxy could withstand disruptor shots with shields down.

 

It's an alternate universe, yes, but following the threads of the TNG technical manual, I do tend to think of the Galaxy Class as being a reconfigurable modular design where no two of them are outfitted exactly the same (unlike the Connies of TOS, which I've always assumed to be mostly identical vessels even though that was never exactly confirmed or denied). The alternate universe Enterprise is obviously outfitted as a hard-as-nails warship, but 'our' Enterprise isn't. The same Starship design, but different configurations for different mission statements. 'Our' Enterprise is a weaker ship.

 

I agree. It seemed the primary difference with the Galaxy-class in "Yesterday's Enterprise" was its mission profile, with a higher priority towards tactical operations, and less civilians around. I suspect that the Galaxy-class ships that participated in the Dominion War were probably the same.

 

I put that entirely down to the effects budget rather than anything intended in-universe - if they could afford to have have shown the hull being shredded like in Generations they would have. Certainly the explosions and fires on the bridge indicate extreme damage being inflicted in both YE and GENS.

 

That reminds me of Best of Both Worlds, when the cube uses its drilling beam (twice!) on the Enterprise. The dialogue notes severe damage, large hull breaches, and significant loss of life, but external shots show the ship operating as normal.

 

That's why I thought the way how damage was portrayed in the opening of ST2009 with the Kelvin or when the Enterprise was attacked in STID, and even in TWOK is how it really should be done.

None of this "starboard power coupling down captain" *shake camera* "shields critical at 92.5%" etc etc

 

So I was wrong then... the Galaxy's armor couldn't withstand disruptor shots, but rather budgetary problems prevented cool explosions from happening...?

 

The lit windows make little sense anyway. Would the crew really have downtime to relax in their quarters during the biggest battles of their careers?

 

Maybe they left for the battle stations in such a hurry they did not turn out the lights...

Several times in TNG it was mentioned against a saucer separation before battle since the ship could use the extra power in the fusion generators in the primary hull's propulsion. Most likely just an excuse not to spand time/money on a Sep sequence.

From a psychological point of view a massive galaxy class intact with lit windows is more impressive that the weird duck looking stardrive alone.