Fleet construction

[Unicron]

This thread doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to Trek examples, but I'm interested to know what others think the ideal "build" for an organization like Starfleet would be. I personally tend to like the "big fleet" concept that seems more prevalent in some of the FASA and fan-produced technical sources, rather than going solely by canon. I tend to view Starfleet as primarily being the Federation's military force, with both a small number of dedicated warships and a much larger segment of vessels that can be multipurpose or geared for exploration.

If we go towards the UFP as being more analogous to the UN rather than the U.S., then I think perhaps it's plausible that member worlds like Vulcan and Tellar might retain their own smaller local fleets, while also lending some or even a majority to Starfleet. FASA had mentioned elements like the "Blue Fleet" that were crewed mainly by Andorian personnel, but I'll have to check and see if they make any reference to localized fleets that weren't necessarily the same thing as Starfleet.

One question I'm interested in has to do with refits and/or decommissionings. In reading over Jackill's work, there are several TMP-era refits of the FJ fleet which were in turn succeeded by Excelsior family vessels, which I infer to have been produced probably around the turn of the 24th century and perhaps in the first decade or two at least. I tend to assume that Starfleet would probably mothball a portion of the older vessels for use as a reserve, and some perhaps could have been converted to civilian use with sensitive equipment removed (an idea supported by FASA and which seems to be the case with vessels like the Vico from "Hero Worship"). Given the political improvements that were developing with the Klingons in this era, is it plausible that they might eventually have acquired or been given some older hulls?

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've always gone with the smaller fleet idea, but with a substantial increase in numbers during times of war with numerous "kitbash" designs.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Small fleeter here. I'm of the opinion that Starfleet is not the Federation's only space service, or even the largest, it's just the only one that aggressively explores in deep space and is therefore the one best known by non-Federation entities. This is probably also why Starfleet has its strict non-interference directive: because they ARE the ones who cruise around in other people's back yards and the Federation wants to make sure they are minding their manners while they're doing it. Other Federation members probably don't place a non-interference rule on their militaries, but they also don't use their space forces for deep space exploration like Starfleet does.

There's one other reason I lean "small fleet," and it's this: Starfleet Academy's San Francisco campus is implied and sometimes openly depicted as THE main training center for Starfleet officers. Given that Starfleet doesn't seem to believe in noncoms (though its depiction is not consistent in this regard either) that means they are having to Staff an entire fleet with a graduating class of 2 or 3 thousand cadets every year. That seems like just barely enough to keep their numbers steady, especially for an organization that seems to suffer the kind of random losses Starfleet does in a given year (nearly twice that number of casualties in just the first three seasons of TOS).

 

[Unicron]

I suppose I'm in some ways the opposite, but I do think Starfleet makes considerable use of similar hull designs that can be modified for a number of missions without driving up resource costs (whatever those might be) higher. The Miranda type spaceframe seems to be fairly modular and easier to reconfigure, as does the Oberth type spaceframe.

I personally think it's possible (in my own headcanon, at least ) to conflate some sources so they don't necessarily have to be at odds with each other. For example, FASA had the Reliant design being a TMP-era evolution of their Anton class cruisers, while Mastercom's SotSF had the Avenger build being an evolution of the Surya/Coventry class frigates that had been active in the Four Years War. What if both origins could be considered correct and Starfleet built some hulls as a cruiser base (Reliant, more exploratory) and some as a frigate base (Avenger, more tactical)? This would have the benefits in my view of reducing costs while also potentially confusing an enemy, as they not be able to tell the full capabilities of the design. They could think they're ambushing a cruiser and wind up fighting a more heavily armed frigate. It would also enable an easier conversion if one class were to prove more viable than the other and they decided to refit the existing vessels into that class.

I think Starfleet would definitely increase its production and do some kitbashing during wartime, though perhaps on a smaller scale than you would. In part that's because they could draw on the reserves for a portion of that increase, but I consider it an open variable.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I suppose I'm in some ways the opposite, but I do think Starfleet makes considerable use of similar hull designs that can be modified for a number of missions without driving up resource costs (whatever those might be) higher.

Consider also that these are SPACESHIPS we're talking about. Modularity has been a fundamental feature of almost every manned craft humans have ever put into space for various reasons, not least of which is the ease of construction and the ease of ejecting that which is no longer needed. If you consider that Starfleet vessels are the distant descendants of today's Soyuz, Shenzhou and Orion spacecraft, then it's entirely possible that whole starship components are actually prefabbed in specialized factories and only brought together into a finished product once their "guts" are fully completed.

One facility builds warp nacelles, another builds saucers, another builds engineering sections, another builds deflectors/impulse engines/warp cores/computer cores/etc. Starfleet may order a fixed number of hull components from different contractors, with the final configuration and equipment load depending on what kind of ship they need to build today.

It's only the most expensive and sophisticated ships that would be scratch built in a single piece, but these would probably just be prototypes with the main production line taking over later.

 

[Unicron]

I agree, and in fact one of the more interesting Jackill vessels is the Kentwood class bulk transport. It's designed specifically to move large components like hulls or nacelles between assembly points. Some of the container pods work along the same principle.

 

[Ithekro]

Large and small fleet may be a relative scale thing. If the United Federation of Planets can be seen as a roughly 8,000 light year diameter sphere in the galaxy, with upwards of another 1,000 light years worth of radius around that as known territory that the fleet can operate within, that is an area that encloses upwards of 600 million stars.

600 million. (600,000,000)

While a lot of those will have not planets around them, if even 1% of them have planets that are of use to the Federation, that's still 6 million star systems.

That is a lot of area to cover and explore. Even what we might think of as a large fleet might be small in comparison to the area needed to patrol, catalog, and explore.

Even if there is 1 ship for every 100 potentially stars of interest, that is a fleet of 60,000 ships. Which oddly is around the numbers of NCC hull numbers in the late TNG era.

But that is still 1 ship per 10,000 stars in a 10,000 light year diameter sphere. A sphere that would take well over a year to cross with most starships if one can believe how the warp scales work.

 

[Go-Captain]

The theory I know explains the fleet as having been Earth's fleet, then becoming the Federation's fleet.

The logic is in how in TOS Starfleet was also called or connected with the United Earth Space Probe service, or some such. In the movies the commander in chief is an admiral of the fleet. In DS9 the commander in chief is the president. That leaves us a definite evolution between the movies and DS9, where control passed either from Earth, or from the fleet as its own entity, to the Federation.

ENT further shows us Starfleet was definitely Earth's fleet very early on, and that the early Federation fleet would have been a mixed affair built from alliance.

In TNG the Vulcans still have their own intelligence agency. If they can have their own agency then it is more likely they may have other similar Vulcan based political institutions. Interestingly enough is the all Vulcan crewed ship in DS9. It might just be the captain's prerogative, or maybe it's a Vulcan ship attached to Starfleet.

Like the US has the military under control of the federal government, and national guard units under control of individual states, it makes sense for each system in the Federation to have their own small fleets. Or, it makes sense for member worlds/species to have their own fleets. Either works.

The evolution of the alien fleets would be: ENT fully independent militaries, TOS human lead alliance united militaries (NATO style military alliance, or something even closer knitted), MOV human expansion and vigor are unparallelled so the vast majority of military force is in human hands but still alliance based, TNG Starfleet expanded so much it is officially made thee Starfleet of the Federation and all allies have given up power projection for purely defensive fleets or supplying Starfleet (not counting defense fleets).

As for ship numbers, one estimate I vaguely recall states the fleet might have over 10,000 ships in DS9. That's based possibly on the largest Starfleet fleet mentioned in the series, which I think is 1000 ships, and statements about losses, and the numbers applied to each fleet, such as 10th fleet, assuming it's not just an arbitrary number. It's been a long time since I saw the numbers. Although, strangely that is not much more than only one ship per affiliated and member world, but on the other hand we know from TNG that the Starfleet Academy entrance exam is absurdly selective.

What is it, one person per planet gets to take the est, and only one in three or one in four can actually pass the test? If the Federation had 10,000 planets even, that's only 2,500 new officers per year, and since Starfleet uses officers almost exclusively to man their ships that's only 2 to 25 ships per year which can be crewed. Presumably in the Dominion War they would have accepted more enlisted, like O'Brien, and loosened the entry requirements for the Academy.

 

[Ithekro]

Shelby was certain they'd have the fleet up and running again within a year after Wolf 359 and the loss of near 40 starships.

From FASA I recall that Vulcan was generally considered the pacifist planet and thus had little in the way of combat ships while Andor were a warrior race and thus had a Fleet and designed ships for Starfleet as well as operated one of the largest shipyards outside the Sol System. Nearly all the Andorian designed ships had the warp nacelles at least partly covered by hull to at least somewhat protect them from enemy fire.

There was even a Martian design, as oppose to the standard Earth designs.

 

[Unicron]

Large and small fleet may be a relative scale thing. If the United Federation of Planets can be seen as a roughly 8,000 light year diameter sphere in the galaxy, with upwards of another 1,000 light years worth of radius around that as known territory that the fleet can operate within, that is an area that encloses upwards of 600 million stars.

600 million. (600,000,000)

While a lot of those will have not planets around them, if even 1% of them have planets that are of use to the Federation, that's still 6 million star systems.

That is a lot of area to cover and explore. Even what we might think of as a large fleet might be small in comparison to the area needed to patrol, catalog, and explore.

Even if there is 1 ship for every 100 potentially stars of interest, that is a fleet of 60,000 ships. Which oddly is around the numbers of NCC hull numbers in the late TNG era.

But that is still 1 ship per 10,000 stars in a 10,000 light year diameter sphere. A sphere that would take well over a year to cross with most starships if one can believe how the warp scales work.

I realized last night I probably didn't phrase how I meant "big fleet" very well, which is what I get for posting the topic after a long work day. I was mainly thinking in terms of Starfleet, the scale of how many ships might be built in a typical class. I can see some ships having between, say, 30 and 100 vessels assuming most of them were built, and it would depend on the mission role and whether the class is simply an uprated version of an older class. For example, I think Jackill's uprated scout and destroyer vessels included all of the FJ subclasses as a single modernized group. The Kentwood is an example of a highly specialized class with a small build order since it's not a multi-mission design.

I can't recall if FASA had a specific Martian class or not, though they did treat Alpha Centauri and its inhabitants as being distinct from Terrans (following TOS' hints in that direction and FJ's assumption that AC was a unique member). The Andorians had several vessels that were described as having their unique engineering, though unfortunately FASA didn't elaborate on what elements were actually unique to their design philosophy. I can see them as being more drawn to Starfleet and serving in military functions, whereas the Tellarites were said to be some of the best engineers despite their preference for arguing. Must be their advanced interwebs.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Large and small fleet may be a relative scale thing. If the United Federation of Planets can be seen as a roughly 8,000 light year diameter sphere in the galaxy, with upwards of another 1,000 light years worth of radius around that as known territory that the fleet can operate within, that is an area that encloses upwards of 600 million stars.

Or it could be seen as sphere with a volume of 8000 cubic light years. That would describe a sphere roughly 25 light years in diameter, encompassing between 50 and 200 stars.

While a lot of those will have not planets around them

Recent observations suggest that the MAJORITY of stars have planets around them. Not all of them will be habitable, though.

More to the point: Starfleet vessels aren't exploring WITHIN Federation space (assuming "Federation space" is seen as a contiguous spherical region that the Federation exclusively controls, and that is far from certain). Most exploration goes well outside of charted space and, therefore, hundreds if not thousands of light years away from Federation worlds.

 

[Saturn0660]

I suppose I'm in some ways the opposite, but I do think Starfleet makes considerable use of similar hull designs that can be modified for a number of missions without driving up resource costs (whatever those might be) higher.

Consider also that these are SPACESHIPS we're talking about. Modularity has been a fundamental feature of almost every manned craft humans have ever put into space for various reasons, not least of which is the ease of construction and the ease of ejecting that which is no longer needed. If you consider that Starfleet vessels are the distant descendants of today's Soyuz, Shenzhou and Orion spacecraft, then it's entirely possible that whole starship components are actually prefabbed in specialized factories and only brought together into a finished product once their "guts" are fully completed.

One facility builds warp nacelles, another builds saucers, another builds engineering sections, another builds deflectors/impulse engines/warp cores/computer cores/etc. Starfleet may order a fixed number of hull components from different contractors, with the final configuration and equipment load depending on what kind of ship they need to build today.

It's only the most expensive and sophisticated ships that would be scratch built in a single piece, but these would probably just be prototypes with the main production line taking over later.

Thats pretty much how I took it.

 

[Ithekro]

FASA's Northampton design is described as Martian. (Why ship class says "Kiev" on top is an error, as the ship and the rest of the page call it Northampton just like the book does).

While the USS Enterprise' mission always seems to suggest they are exploring outside Federation Space, they also seem to be exploring close by. If the region considered to be Federation Space is 8,000 light years across, but not all the area within a sphere that large is explored, nor Federation space (until it is explored and claimed), than there are still upwards of hundreds of millions of planets to explore locally.

That would require a large number of ships to chart, much less fully explore. Or just a very, very long time with a smaller number of ships. As mentioned, to explore a sphere 10,000 light years across with 60,000 ships is still 1 ship per 10,000 stars. There could easily be a vast amount of space between starships and almost countless species to encounter. Plus any number of small conflicts that would require a small number of ships to maintain the peace, or ensure the safety of local shipping from piracy, or local hostiles. And that is without major interstellar borders to patrol, quarantines to maintain, or even just general protection of shipping routes and customs duties within Federation space.

Deneb, for example is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,600 light years from Earth. Yet Federation Space could extend upwards of 6,000 light years in the other direction from Earth as claimed space from other member worlds are added over time. While Earth might be the capital of the Federation, it does not have to be the center of its space, despite the Alpha-Beta Quadrant line going through Sol on most maps.

 

[Unicron]

There are also planets within Federation boundaries that are either not full members (associate members with more limited benefits) or non-members that the Federation has some interest in, according to FASA. So I'd agree with the notion that there's a lot of potential mission-wise within the Federation's borders and even more outside.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

FASA's Northampton design is described as Martian. (Why ship class says "Kiev" on top is an error, as the ship and the rest of the page call it Northampton just like the book does).

While the USS Enterprise' mission always seems to suggest they are exploring outside Federation Space, they also seem to be exploring close by. If the region considered to be Federation Space is 8,000 light years across, but not all the area within a sphere that large is explored, nor Federation space (until it is explored and claimed), than there are still upwards of hundreds of millions of planets to explore locally.

That would require a large number of ships to chart, much less fully explore. Or just a very, very long time with a smaller number of ships. As mentioned, to explore a sphere 10,000 light years across with 60,000 ships is still 1 ship per 10,000 stars. There could easily be a vast amount of space between starships and almost countless species to encounter. Plus any number of small conflicts that would require a small number of ships to maintain the peace, or ensure the safety of local shipping from piracy, or local hostiles. And that is without major interstellar borders to patrol, quarantines to maintain, or even just general protection of shipping routes and customs duties within Federation space.

Deneb, for example is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,600 light years from Earth. Yet Federation Space could extend upwards of 6,000 light years in the other direction from Earth as claimed space from other member worlds are added over time. While Earth might be the capital of the Federation, it does not have to be the center of its space, despite the Alpha-Beta Quadrant line going through Sol on most maps.

To be sure, I don't think Federation Space is contiguous or even really spherical. I'm of the opinion right now that "Federation space" is a concept similar to "airspace" in modern terms and describes a legal exclusion zone around Federation members and/or their colonies. That zone is probably a spherical region one or two light years in diameter around the planet in question, with space outside that sphere being "interstellar space" or otherwise unclaimed/unclaimable.

Maritime law provides a precedent here: the national waters of any given nation used to be described as within 5 miles of that nation's shore. Why? Because that was considered to be the maximum firing range of a cannon; farther than five miles, a ship is no threat to you, and also, your shore-based batteries have no way of threatening him, so five miles is the maximum enforceable maritime boundary. In modern times that was expanded from 5 miles to 12, for much the same reason (very few shipborn guns could exceed that range until recently). Guided missiles make this kind of a moot point, but precedent still exists.

I'm thinking that one light year is probably the maximum distance any planet can realistically claim as sovereign space; father than that, and the limits of your sensor grids and whatever patrol craft you have in the region make that claim unenforceable and/or laughable. The Federation's defense strategies might actually depend a lot more on identifying and intercepting threat vessels at a distance than they would on "defending the border" as such; by the time those ships get to the edge of Federation space, they're barely an hour away from firing position anyway.

In that sense, Starfleet would probably maintain four or five cruiser type vessels for mid-range exploration, 10 to 14 ships per class. Smaller faster vessels would patrol the busier spacelanes between Federation members, enforcing interstellar law and safety regulations and cracking down on the usual improprieties (piracy, smuggling, slave trafficking, etc). The deep space explorers would be much larger and more powerful ships that spend their time investigating the most interesting targets at a considerable distance from Federation worlds, and because of this distance they would also be the first ones called if a regional threat was suspected of beginning an aggressive fleet action in the Federation's direction.

This might explain the curious duplicity in Starfleet's self image, seeing themselves as explorers and not a pure military. It could be that 99% of their combat missions happen in unclaimed space where the law is extremely vague about what constitutes either a military or even an "act of war" and thus starships from rival powers can sometimes fight pitched battles simply because they're bored. The Federation would consider this to be a "cold war" even while Starfleet and Klingon ships are actually blasting the crap pout of each other on a semi-regular basis; the Klingons would consider this "Exercise."

 

[Timo]

Given how arrogantly Starfleet feels its business is to meddle in local affairs (say, devoting resources to deflecting a single asteroid from hitting a planet out in the sticks even when such impact threats are a more than annual event the planet seems to be nicely dealing with), and how it nevertheless is always hard pressed to find sufficient ships for the job, I don't see the organization meekly deciding to set its starship numbers anywhere below a "hard" limit dictated by major economical or technological obstacles.

Basically, I see Starfleet as absolutely desperate to obtain more ships, by any means possible. There is no ideal balance of ship types, but rather a collection of older types artificially sustained well past their prime, modern "miracle solutions" to capacity shortage that more often fail than not, and mass-produced rubbish ships that usually can achieve little more than a token presence at a point of emergency.

A dozen exploration cruisers in TOS represent a rare investment in fast and versatile vessels - but to keep costs down, these are midgets, a fraction of the size of "proper" starships as seen in the newer movies, and also a silver bullet force built in almost insignificantly small numbers. They nevertheless help polish the image of the UFP, and encourage Starfleet to invest in similar "public relations" capabilities in the future.

I'm thinking that one light year is probably the maximum distance any planet can realistically claim as sovereign space; father than that, and the limits of your sensor grids and whatever patrol craft you have in the region make that claim unenforceable and/or laughable.

Strongly agreed. So in order to enforce the claims anyway, Starfleet relies on strategic threats: you send your battle cruisers to destroy or conquer my planets, we activate our dreadnoughts and slag five times the number of your planets. No sense in wasting naval assets on countering enemy naval assets, which will always be out of reach, too difficult to find let alone intercept in time. Basically, it's (pre-)WWI all over again, with battleships an offensive threat with zero defensive applications.

This is why the frontier is a free-for-all where captains often choose to back off from claims of "act of war" (because declaring war is so unthinkable, there being no way to defend, or to limit the scope), but equally often aggressively defend these "laughable" claims of territory or region of dominance or whatnot (because the enemy cannot afford to complain).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Given how arrogantly Starfleet feels its business is to meddle in local affairs (say, devoting resources to deflecting a single asteroid from hitting a planet out in the sticks even when such impact threats are a more than annual event the planet seems to be nicely dealing with), and how it nevertheless is always hard pressed to find sufficient ships for the job, I don't see the organization meekly deciding to set its starship numbers anywhere below a "hard" limit dictated by major economical or technological obstacles.

Basically, I see Starfleet as absolutely desperate to obtain more ships, by any means possible. There is no ideal balance of ship types, but rather a collection of older types artificially sustained well past their prime, modern "miracle solutions" to capacity shortage that more often fail than not, and mass-produced rubbish ships that usually can achieve little more than a token presence at a point of emergency.

Which is all true, up to a point.

But Starfleet is not a collection of ships. Starfleet is a collection of PEOPLE. It may indeed be economically possible to build tens of thousands of ships on relatively short notice, but attempting to MAN all of those ships with qualified personnel is a more difficult task.

If anything, the lack of a major academy campus outside of San Francisco is a suspicious omission from Trek canon. A fleet consisting of thousands of ships would have to have HUNDREDS of such facilities in order to keep its numbers up, and maintaining a high quality of training for Starfleet officers would be extremely difficult across multiple campuses.

I'm thinking that one light year is probably the maximum distance any planet can realistically claim as sovereign space; father than that, and the limits of your sensor grids and whatever patrol craft you have in the region make that claim unenforceable and/or laughable.

Strongly agreed. So in order to enforce the claims anyway, Starfleet relies on strategic threats: you send your battle cruisers to destroy or conquer my planets, we activate our dreadnoughts and slag five times the number of your planets. No sense in wasting naval assets on countering enemy naval assets, which will always be out of reach, too difficult to find let alone intercept in time. Basically, it's (pre-)WWI all over again, with battleships an offensive threat with zero defensive applications.

Can't totally agree to this. I'm thinking that Starfleet depends a lot on "early warning" reconnaissance in deep space that gives them a heads up on threats moving in the direction of Federation worlds. They intercept in deep space, shadow the threat, see what they're doing; sometimes this results in a tense standoff with a short cat-and-mouse game in deep space or some nebula or another, while other times it results in an exchange of insults and/or torpedoes with each side returning to their base of operations for repairs.

This would be what Chang meant in TUC: "In space, all warriors are cold warriors." Interstellar space is a weird kind of place with its own unspoken rules of warfare and entire battles are sometimes fought with both sides pretending not to notice.

This would also explain the real meaning of the Romulan neutral zone. It's not so much that the zone is "defended" and uncrossable, it's that both the Romulans and the Federation have an agreement that any of their ships can and will be destroyed on sight if they are on the wrong side of the zone. This state of affairs isn't so distinct with the Klingons, who can sometimes slink around very close to Federation space but don't warrant an immediate escalation to "FIRE EVERYTHING!" because they are, ironically, not always looking for a fight.

Agreed on the "free for all" nature of interstellar space, it's just that I don't think there's a viable "strategic" response to that situation. Klingons send individual ships, task forces, patrols, even spies to test Federation defenses and readiness and Federation forces counter in various creative ways. At the end of the day, though, they would only really fight over access to "disputed" planets that both of them want; the Klingons have no more reason to try and conquer Federation worlds than the Federation has to try and annex Kronos.

 

[Ithekro]

Wouldn't the facility where Wesley Crusher was tested be considered a campus of Starfleet Academy?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Wouldn't the facility where Wesley Crusher was tested be considered a campus of Starfleet Academy?

IIRC, that was just the ground facility of a starbase. And they didn't do any actual training there, it was just the entrance exams FOR the academy.

Also, only one of the finalists was actually chosen to GO to the academy, which wasn't on Relva Four. This actually kind of illustrates my point: the Academy is VERY selective about who it will accept, with a rigorous testing process weeding out anyone who doesn't have the talent or the intellect and academy life grinding down the rest. They take only the very best and brightest and train them to be even better and brighter; this tells me Starfleet prefers quality over quantity in its personnel. The makeup of its fleet undoubtedly reflects this.

 

[Ithekro]

Which would mean there are more enlisted than we are generally aware of, or Starfleet's selection process, while strict, is not limited to just one selection process on Relva Four. That could be one for the sector that Enterprise happened to be in during that time and once you fail you have to wait a year to apply again regardless of sector. This is so someone couldn't just try to jump sectors to apply again and again over the course of a year.

Starfleet may be the best and brightest for their officers, but they still need to run all those ships. Either the writers severely underestimated the number of ships needed for the volume of the Federation, or the volume of the Federation is vastly overstated by some of the same writers.

If one goes with an upper limit of 600 million stars in the immediate area Starfleet has access to in some fashion with a fleet in the hundreds or low thousands, that it one ship or less per 100,000 stars or even a million stars per ship if the fleet has only 600 ships.

And even that number of stars is small. In Kirk's time it was estimated they had explored 4% of the galaxy. If that estimate includes 4% of the stars in the galaxy, that is upwards of 4 to 16 billion stars. In Picard's time the estimate was up to 11% of the galaxy. Even if we assume a lot of that is "empty" space between spiral arms, the old 4% of the stars would likely still work in the mid-24th century.

They are going to need a lot of ships and officers to even have one ship for every 20 sectors or more.