Some of the Miranda's weapons do seem embedded, as we saw in a few eps ("Sacrifice of Angels" for example). It's probably fair to say those weapons were refits, since they were clearly modern phasers, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be in the original saucer mounts.
I think the point is that the theres degrees of embed versus degrees of externalization. I'm not saying that miranda didn't have embedded weapons, just that the look of having lots of powerful weapons could be due to them being somewhat more external.
While we're on the subject of the Reliant and the weapons she was armed with, why in TWOK when Reliant fired phasers did the phaser beams originate from the rollbar instead of the primary hull? Reliant had traditional ball turret phasers but they weren't fired in TWOK! JDW
We might argue that the phasers on the roll bar were more powerful ("larger caliber") than the ones on the hull. However, their effects on Kirk's ship certainly don't show this. And Khan didn't wish for maximum effect anyway, he merely wanted to wound Kirk's ship. Quite possible, even though this isn't actually ever stated on screen. However, the Reliant model as completed has at least as many weapons emplacements as the Enterprise model, and twice the number of those mean-looking torpedo tubes, very prominently positioned. It would seem that aggressive looks were a very important aspect of Reliant design - even if we argue ex post facto that Starfleet designed the ship to be convertible for extra aggression via the roll bar and wasn't quite that militant in the basic configuration. Certainly the idea that the Reliant would have been a dedicated research vessel was dropped from the final movie, and we instead get the impression that Starfleet decided to do the Genesis testing with the help of a potent warship. Perhaps not Calypso style at all, but more like how the first atomic bomb was carried to the front lines aboard the top-notch heavy cruiser Indianapolis in full combat readiness. Timo Saloniemi
That is the most common explanation I have heard- interstellar dust and debris impacting with the warp-field and being dashed into FTL bits. I have also heard it postulated that it is Cherenkov (sp?) radiation owing to photons impacting on the warp field.
On the Big Deflector Dish - clearly you can get by without such a dish, but just how much stuff did that dish get put to on TNG & VOY to fire all sorts of all-purpose pulses? There's your advantage to it - other forms of deflectors are just deflectors (which can be enough, if the mission doesn't need the all-singing all-dancing version).
After watching Star Trek II again, I think I figured out why there are phasers on Reliants' rollbar, it has to do with the ships hull behind the bridge, the phasers on the primary hull can't fire behind the ship! The phasers on the rollbarand the hull mounted phasers may be the same "caliber" as those of the Enterprise. Thanks! JDW
There's some ambiguity about the number of phasers on the actual hull of the Reliant. In one photo of the model underside, something very much like two single phaser turrets can be seen on the ventral side of the impulse nozzle assembly - they'd cover the rear angles rather nicely. Many other, later pictures, or the ATM kits, don't show this sort of detail. Timo Saloniemi
Indeed; and this is a problem, because pictures of the underside of the actual model are hard to come by. Apart from the one pic I'm talking about, there's another one of the Saratoga from "Emissary" in the Making of DS9 book, but that's black and white and too fuzzy. Timo Saloniemi
I never knew that there were phasers on thr Relianr where you described them! Can you post a link? Why do you think the model makers don't depict the models they sell as they appear in the movies or television? JDW
Probably because at the scale of most kits, there are some details that must be left out. The bigger the model, the more detail can go into it, but the higher the price is. The models that most casual modelers would buy would probably include most of the key details, but would be lacking the things that most people wouldn't miss, such as two phaser turrets that were never actually used in the show or movies, or a few windows here or there.
Let's try the ventral image that shows the aft phasers: That's courtesy of Pedro's Shiporama (http://www.shiporama.org/miranda.htm), a long-since-petrified site that still hosts lots of useful images. Timo Saloniemi