Excelsior neck details.

[Robert Morgan]

Evening!

First time poster, so please be gentle. I'm interested in the little details on the forward neck of the Excelsior/Enterprise-B studio model: http://www.modelermagic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/kg-1701b-lakota-reference-053.jpg

Some sources say they're small craft hatches, which is what I've always believed them to be based upon dim recollections of discussions from years past. Others say they're torpedo tubes, which don't make much sense to me as:
1. They're so small compared to the Excelsior's canon tubes, and:
2. They're firing arcs might just mean hitting the planetary sensor some and its mounting parts. Even if not, the clearance is awfully tight.

I'm curious if this has ever been definitively nailed down? I do some light 3D CAD work on the side and have been CADding up printed parts for the 1/1000th remastered Excelsior and was asked to perhaps do these parts, as well as for the larger Lunar Models kit.

Many thanks,

Bob

 

[Almael]

Definitively torpedo launchers. The Excelsior is stated to have 4 so these are the originally intended torpedo tubes. If you look at the windows below each should be about 20-30 cm in size, measuring 8 px. The ports are 15 px high so they fit a 60 cm wide torpedo with ease. The problem is that original design idea and final product don't always end up the same because: 1. someone messed up e.g. in measurement. 2. Someone higher up didn't like something, hence, sudden changes are made. 3. Modeller's kitbashing didn't turn out as it's meant to be. For what ever reason this was botched.
Obviously some other fans thought the same:
http:\\www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-b-sheet-2.jpg

If these were for launching crafts they would have to be tomb-sized something. Your idea you take it.
Just thinking fitting crafts into a single deck is ridiculous unless it's for storage only.

So now the only reasonable reason I can give to explain these hatches away is they are loading ports for torpedoes. And the side extension are anchoring structures for a transfer line. An example would look like from this Seikai no Senki anime game:

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I've never bought them as upper torpedo launchers, not when there are two lower down on either side of deflector dish. I've always just assumed they were some kind of refuelling port or access point.

 

[Spike730]

According to the MSD of the Enterprise-B as seen in Generations they're torpedo launchers.

 

[Ithekro]

Maybe it was an experimental type installed to counter cloaking devices of the age. Not only rendering the experimental Klingon cloaking device that allows them to fire when cloaked obsolete, but also endangering the Romulan's better cloaking devices. Perhaps leading to the Tomed Incident less than 20 years later.

 

[Almael]

The infamous Tal Shiar must be incompetent not to get to know about it for 20 years. But novels... *shrugs*

 

[Smoked Salmon]

If you watch the end of Undiscovered Country it confirms that the torpedoes fire from the neck, so there's your answer.

 

[trekfan39]

According to the MSD of the Enterprise-B as seen in Generations they're torpedo launchers.

I'd like to point out that the MSD on the Enterprise-D has a giant duck on it, should we believe that it has one onboard. Just saying MSD aren't meant to be seen up close and are made to look good and complicated on screen. Also the MSD for the Enterprise-B was made a decade after the first Excelsior class ship was seen so I don't have a lot of faith in it going along with what the ILM guys were thinking in 1984 when they made the model.

I've always believed them to be some kind of sensors my self or some kind of equipment but not torpedo tubes. I can tell you for sure as a model builder who had built accurate models of this ship for years that if launched from there the upper two tubes the torpedo's would hit the sensor dome and the lower two would barely miss it, also there aren't actually any holes at the end of those funny looking cones.

Smoked Salmon watch the end of Star trek 6 again the torpedo's fire from the torpedo tubes at the top of the secondary hull and not from the neck and I'd like to point out that ILM did the effects for that movie.

 

[Robert Morgan]

Thanks, Trekfan39, that's what I was thinking. They can't be tubes since anything firing from there would hit the sensor dome and/or it;s supporting structure.

If these were for launching crafts they would have to be tomb-sized something.

I read long, long ago that they were hatches for work bees. Maddeningly, I can't find that reference in my decade old backup hard drive so I can't say where it's from, but the idea that a work bee could fit in there is at plausible, right?

Thanks to all who have replied.

Bob

 

[Almael]

also there aren't actually any holes at the end of those funny looking cones.

If these were for launching crafts they would have to be tomb-sized something.

I read long, long ago that they were hatches for work bees. Maddeningly, I can't find that reference in my decade old backup hard drive so I can't say where it's from, but the idea that a work bee could fit in there is at plausible, right?

Even workbees are larger than torpedoes. At least 4 times taller not including extensions, add-on packs etc.

 

[Robert Morgan]

Right , but I'm talking about the entire structure moving and opening. If you'll look to the outboard of the part, you could perhaps say that there are small hinges there? I'm talking about the entire part swinging open.

I've outlined potential hinges on orange. The little cone or rod shaped protuberances that some believe are torpedo tubes do not appear to have holes or openings. Ideas?

 

[Almael]

Nah, if they were hinges they have to be level and flush to each other. I thought they could be cannons. Somewhat makes sense to have a weapons cluster but their form isn't just right. I also dismiss some kind of anchor launching device due to hitting the dome. Telescoping thingy, tractor beam emitter are also unreasonable for the same reasons. From an engineering point of view it makes no sense to have something extend from a hull unless it requires access to the outside. There's no physical reason like lift force for wings. So the only things I can think of is either plasma vent (bad place) or plasma space-charge discharger (unreasonable as Trek Tech shouldn't have a problem).

 

[trekfan39]

Even workbees are larger than torpedoes. At least 4 times taller not including extensions, add-on packs etc.

Not holes at least not to my eye they actually look kind of like screws to me and if they are torpedo tubes why would the slots be vertical like that? It may be that the ILM guys didn't even put any though into what that detail was supposed to be and I doubt we will ever know for sure.

 

[Almael]

Probably, too. Stacked torpedo tubes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Torpedo_tube_on_holland_1.jpg

About those cones they do look like Lego 2x2 cone pieces with a 2x1 piece (bottom) in the middle but the nods on top of the cones are just too large. Just a random thought.

 

[trekfan39]

Probably, too. Stacked torpedo tubes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Torpedo_tube_on_holland_1.jpg

About those cones they do look like Lego 2x2 cone pieces with a 2x1 piece (bottom) in the middle but the nods on top of the cones are just too large. Just a random thought.

Ok but why would you put torpedo launchers so high that they can't fire forward? I was just looking over the Enterprise-B MSD and I can pick out four other things not right like the fact that it has shuttlecraft in it's neck and in the new impulse engines, it also list to sets of phasers on top of the aft shuttle/cargo bay and they are not on the model. It also puts the aft torpedo tubes in the wrong spot and lists a battle bridge but the Excelsior class only has impulse engines on the saucer section so why would the secondary hull need a battle bridge? I just wouldn't put faith in the MSDs at all.

One possibility maybe deuterium fill ports?

 

[Almael]

Ok but why would you put torpedo launchers so high that they can't fire forward? I was just looking over the Enterprise-B MSD and I can pick out four other things not right like the fact that it has shuttlecraft in it's neck and in the new impulse engines, it also list to sets of phasers on top of the aft shuttle/cargo bay and they are not on the model. It also puts the aft torpedo tubes in the wrong spot and lists a battle bridge but the Excelsior class only has impulse engines on the saucer section so why would the secondary hull need a battle bridge? I just wouldn't put faith in the MSDs at all.

One possibility maybe deuterium fill ports?

As I posted in my first response.. Who knows what went wrong.
I assume the MSD is for a refitted version since it's TNG era.
Maybe the battlebridge is the chief engineer's fancy workplace serving two roles.
Well, the MSD is just a simple representation to begin with. The spacing and placement are not necessary correct. The same goes for real life engineering boards on warships.
Yeah, refueling port is a possibility but honestly putting them besides weapons is asking to be blown up. And I would cover them all with armor. Not just to protect them against enemy fire but to prevent piracy, too. Know how many noobs fell victim with their designs because of this in Space Engineers? There's much more to military design under the hood than just specified functions.

 

[sojourner]

According to this schematic, they could indeed fire straight forward:

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-b-sheet-4.jpg

 

[David cgc]

I read long, long ago that they were hatches for work bees. Maddeningly, I can't find that reference in my decade old backup hard drive so I can't say where it's from, but the idea that a work bee could fit in there is at plausible, right?

I don't know where you read it, but it's not an idea someone plucked out of the ether; in the first shot of the -B in Generations, a workbee flies out of that structure. It's a little ambiguous how it flies out, the very first frame has it just clear of the ship, and it's a locked-off shot so the detailing almost looks like the inside of a tunnel or docking bay if you don't know what you're looking at, but it happens.

Those are the shadows of the two cones. You can see the matching shadows from the ribs on the right side of the image.

 

[Albertese]

I have always wondered why the whole neck of the Excelsior class ships were ribbed like that. Perhaps the two features are related.

Maybe the neck is used almost totally as slush deuterium storage. These nozzle structures are the fill ports to four separate tanks (two side by side above and two below with utilities and turboshafts between) and the ribbing is there as part of the thermal control to keep the deuterium nice and cold and slushy.

As an aside, somewhere along the lines, I think during the production of Voyager the producers seem to have started to think "deuterium" was a fancy sci-fi term made up to refer to super powered space gasoline, with all the explosive danger qualities that would entail, but in real life it's essentially just heavy hydrogen stored as slightly radioactive ground up ice which has uses in nuclear power. Storing this material near weaponry is no more or less dangerous than storing any other material near weaponry.

In Sternbach and Okuda's TNG tech manual, slush deuterium is described as the fuel used in the fusion furnaces powering the impulse engines as well as the "matter" component in the "matter/anti-matter" reactor. So storing it near the ship's impulse engines makes a lot of sense.

Of course, this is just my own take on the Excelsior neck. Your mileage may vary, of course.

--Alex

 

[Robert Morgan]

According to this schematic, they could indeed fire straight forward:

The illustrator of that set of plans has moved those structures outboard of where they actually are on the studio model. He's likely thinking that they are torpedo tubes and moved them outboard to clear their firing arcs, but on the studio model they're much further inboard and firing from them would impact the sensor dome and it's associated structures.