Was Enterprise the 1st Constitution to have a refit?

[diankra]

Wouldn't this fall under the category of "differences in testing versus application"?

Doesn't TMP make it fairly clear that Enterprise was prematurely launched to intercept V'Ger while being prepped for flight trials?
Presumably, they would have tested intermix formulae in the trials (simulations have said what should work, but check it in practice) before putting the ship into service (even a limited shakedown mission) if it hadn't been for the emergency.

 

[DeepSpaceYorks]

On the subject of class naming. If two ships are identical, but the missions for each ship is different, could they be named to two different classes? Same design, different purpose, say patrol and science.

 

[Racefuel]

Picard refers to the bridge of the TOS E as a "Constitution class" and the diagrams in TUC say "Constitution class" ...I would say it's all one class.

 

[B.J.]

It could be that these things just fall to the whims of whomever is in charge, at any given time.

Which is pretty much how things happen in real life, and I'm sure it's not just in the naval and/or aerospace industry.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

On the subject of class naming. If two ships are identical, but the missions for each ship is different, could they be named to two different classes? Same design, different purpose, say patrol and science.

I don't see how. The class name is simply the first ship OF that class to be built. Nothing more complicated than that.

 

[Racefuel]

On the subject of class naming. If two ships are identical, but the missions for each ship is different, could they be named to two different classes? Same design, different purpose, say patrol and science.

No, they're either named after the first of the class.

Now the designated "role" can be different.

IE:

Galaxy Class- Explorer/Battleship

The Klingons in TSFS called the Enterprise a "Federation battle cruiser"...I'm guessing because it was closest to their K'tinga

 

[Timo]

On the subject of class naming. If two ships are identical, but the missions for each ship is different, could they be named to two different classes?

That depends on your definition of "identical", I guess. Take for example the Niteroi class frigates of Brazil. Seven were built by Vosper Thornycroft to their rather modular Mk 10 specs. All had the same hull and engines. But four were equipped for anti-submarine warfare, two for general purpose warshipping, and one was a dedicated training ship without armament or sensors. Calling the GP variant the Constituição class or the training ship the Brasil class is a matter of taste; the Brazilians themselves don't do that.

In contrast, the Leopard (Type 41)and Salisbury (Type 61) frigates of the Royal Navy were similarly identical hulls with dissimilar missions, and they definitely received separate class names and designations. The Kidd, Spruance and Ticonderoga classes of the USN were again nearly identical except where it counts, that is, the weapons and sensor suite, and the Tico was even called a cruiser while the two identically sized sisters were destroyers.

If two starships of the same design are given different missions, do they differ from each other as much as those real frigates (completely different guns and radars on the same hull)? Starfleet has the technology to achieve that, perhaps even at the push of a button, and it could all be internal, leaving us poor watchers high and dry. OTOH, does it matter? We don't have canonical dialogue examples of the same starship class being called by two different mission designations, but we can see ships more or less identical to USS Reliant perform missions called "supply ship" and "science vessel" plus an unnamed mission that amounts to frontline combat. We just can't tell for sure whether they all are known as the Miranda class while in those differing roles. (Indeed, we never hear what class these ships might be - Miranda is pure backstage, never mentioned on screen or used in an in-focus Okudagram that would connect it to the design.)

...All in all, the answer to the question as regards Starfleet naming practices is "we can't tell", at least not yet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

My current all consuming obsession with the post 5YM>TMP period led me to consider this question. I expect there is no explicit suggestion but I look at Kirk and Scotty's faces in the shuttle and I think to myself 'they haven't seen this design before'.

That's a total misreading of the scene.

Scott's clearly showing off the refit Enterprise to Kirk. It's Kirk who hasn't set eyes on the ship for a spell.

 

[DeepSpaceYorks]

That's a total misreading of the scene.

Scott's clearly showing off the refit Enterprise to Kirk. It's Kirk who hasn't set eyes on the ship for a spell.

In my rush to to post I mistyped, and oversimplified, and rectified my reading of the scene in my next post after the first answer.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

In my rush to to post I mistyped, and oversimplified, and rectified my reading of the scene in my next post after the first answer.

Yeah, sorry. The second post is it.

What I should have said is Scott has a 'eh, look at that, ain't she a beaut' look on his face. Pride.

 

[SicOne]

I'm thinking the refit was a constantly evolving process, as other ships concluded their five-year missions and reports were forwarded that could have influenced the design of Enterprise's refit. Surely other starships, and their chief engineers, had great adventures like Our Gang and had things worthwhile to report in for future reference for starship design.

It may very well be that the refit ended up being more extensive than anyone imagined at the onset, that as more advances became possible, they were incorporated by Scott and his bairns into the redesign. Kind of like when you go to perform a household chore, you find eight kajillion things you need to do in advance...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think it's pretty clear that the Enterprise was the first refit to the new engines, simply because they couldn't make them work at first.

 

[Mytran]

Picard refers to the bridge of the TOS E as a "Constitution class" and the diagrams in TUC say "Constitution class" ...I would say it's all one class.

I would imagine that by the 24th century, all of those similar looking antique designs were probably retroactively combined into one easy label - Constitution Class.

 

[Timo]

This has pretty much happened to some WWII hardware, with the general public recognizing some things by their catchy British names while ignoring the underlying variety or the original American names. Not so much with ships, though. But even there, dividing British light cruiser classes into proper subclasses is what divides people into enthusiasts and geeks...

I doubt there was much brand new about the engines of the ST:TMP refit. They "had not been tested at warp", rather heavily suggesting that identical engines in identical mounts elsewhere had been tested that way, or else Scotty would not have agreed to throw the switch at all. Odds of intercepting the hostile cloud after spending a day or so finding out whether the new engine design, straight from the workshop of Gyro Gearloose, worked at all - slim. Odds without spending that day - zero, as the ship would most certainly blow up.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Racefuel]

I'm imagine there were testbed ships, i.e. Pegasus for the Galaxy Class, that tested the engine design.

However much like simply dropping an engine into a car, it can work perfectly fine on the test stand, but still needs extensive fine-tuning to get it working perfectly in the car. While I think the engine design was a new design, as evidenced by the fact that the majority of the crew had not yet been experienced on the new equipment, I don't think the enterprise was the very first ship to be equipped with it.

Something small and, bluntly, disposable was likely the test bed. You wouldn't test out engine design on a brand-new capital ship, you would test it out on something the size of a destroyer or frigate first.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

They "had not been tested at warp", rather heavily suggesting that identical engines in identical mounts elsewhere had been tested that way, or else Scotty would not have agreed to throw the switch at all.

I disagree. That line implies nothing of the kind. I do agree, however, that the idea of launching a ship that hadn't been tested yet was utter insanity, but the real absurdity is that of the Enterprise being the only starship in interception range. That's the same as saying that there is no starship that can warp to Earth in twelve hours. Big roll-eyes.

 

[DeepSpaceYorks]

And given the size of the V'ger cloud , 82 AU's originally but reduced to 2 AU's in the DE (still gigantic as an AU is 95 million miles), and that it is travelling from Klingon space to Earth does Starfleet only have one ship in its entire fleet?

 

[Racefuel]

I disagree. That line implies nothing of the kind. I do agree, however, that the idea of launching a ship that hadn't been tested yet was utter insanity, but the real absurdity is that of the Enterprise being the only starship in interception range. That's the same as saying that there is no starship that can warp to Earth in twelve hours. Big roll-eyes.

Or how the Enterprise "was the only ship I the quadrant" to investigate Regula 1 going dark.

I get they needed to put urgency on it, but you're trying to tell me that in TPM the only ship present to defend earth was a 20 year old ship with an incomplete refit?

In my head canon, certain ships were originally launched with elements of the "refit". One class would have had the new phaser banks and torpedo launchers, another did away with the brassy dish for the deflector and had the glowy amber/blue deal, etc...and they all coalesced into one big refit..the Constitution Class rebuild of 2270. Once that was deemed a success, more ships were refit. We know the Miranda class derivatives were around by at least 2278 owing to the Bozeman Soyuz Class getting stuck in the Typhon Expanse.

 

[Timo]

I don't see anything particularly wrong with "only one starship within two days' range of planet X" as such. That's routine for Star Trek, and indeed anything else would be implausible. It's only when X=Earth that eyebrows need to be raised - but it could also be that Earth=Rome, and that there are laws or at least strong conventions against the military being anywhere near the capital for any length of time, least of all in significant strength. And since it only takes one starship to topple a government or terminate a population, "significant strength" could well be defined as any number between 0 and 1.

As for "only ship in quadrant", in ST2:TWoK a quadrant is explicitly a small place. When encountering the Reliant, Sulu lets us know that it is unusual to find a fellow starship in the same sector - but incredible to have it in the same quadrant! Since Kirk is grasping for excuses to personally go to Regula, his birthday cruiser being the only ship in a suitable quadrant may be taken as less than literal truth, but it's certainly also an acceptable concept. (I just wonder whether Kirk contacted HQ at all. Wouldn't they have known that the Reliant was the closest ship, albeit on a top secret mission? And when that ship failed to call back, wouldn't they have to tell Kirk about it?)

The "only starship in interception range" thing has to be taken in the TOS era context of "starship" being a very special Starfleet vessel, of course. Earth might have had dozens of frigates milling about, but if the cloud can take on three Klingon battle cruisers, then a starship is the only thing Starfleet has that might even approach parity there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Praetor]

It's always been my personal headcanon that the Enterprise was the first to undergo the refit process.

As others have alluded, the idea of it being an engine replacement with scope creep run amok is very appealing. It's been my thought that the Enterprise was refit differently than her other classmates, explaining the Enterprise class nomenclature. Perhaps being the first member of the class refit, and a full rebuild not being the original intention, the process was much more haphazard, and was refined for later vessels.

Later refits would have been simpler, beginning with the Constitution herself, and could explain both why the Enterprise-A looked so different inside, and the "Constitution (refit)" monniker.