Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x14 - "The War Without, The War Within"

[Silversmok3]

The thing is, as far as was shown and hinted at, the Federation wasn't fighting an offensive war. Except for what the Discovery did before disappearing to the MU, it was purely defensive. And defending against 24 separate factions that attack at random, at random targets, is a struggle to say the least, especially with mounting losses. And even though the Klingons had no single leader, they did have a single enemy that they were attacking, so in that they were joined, even if not organized.

I dislike the 9 month time frame as well, but there is a modicum of logic in the premise, even if it is stretched to the limit.

Analyzing Starfleets strategic decisions in Discovery is complicated by the writers total failure to understand basic fighting tactics.

If I sat at the Federation strategy table, my first objective would be to decapitate every clan leader in the ranks. Knocking off 24 House heads probably isn’t realistic,but taking down even six means six armies out of action temporarily, while the other 18 house leaders would either have to hole up somewhere or risk the same fate. We know Starfleet has several classified projects in the works like Discovery, so a hit list like this wouldn’t be difficult.
In fact given the spore drives capabilities, USS Discovery could pull off a decapitation strike against the Klingons perfectly. Jump in ,blast the flagship of each clan,jump out.

Then there’s logistics and energy production targets on the Klingon side. Praxis would be a juicy target in a UFP/Klingon war.

All of that is to say an intelligently run fight from the Federation means offensive missions in Klingon space . If they just park ships around space stations and wait to be attacked it’s a given they’ll lose. Unfortunately I doubt the writers understand that , so here we are.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

This was a personal sticking point for me in the first episode. Starships in 3 dimensional space lined up like football players? Not .

Even standard naval fleets don’t do that. They sail in tactical formations; the destroyers sail on one side,the picket ships on another,the subs on the outside,aircraft carrier in the middle,etc.

The 3D argument really blows a hole with the Starfleet losing in 9 months. When Klingon battle lines stretch across parsecs of space and 24 separate logistics chains have to supply the invasion force, all Starfleet would need do is blast their resupply ships to dust and let the Klingons starve.

It really doesn't. Cloaks work on all ships - not just raider ships. And the whole concept of lying in wait and picking off their logistics chains completely falls apart in 3d space because there is very little possibility of even knowing exactly where their logistics ships will be. For any given destination, the supply ships can literally approach from almost any direction as long as they're willing to take a little detour.

If you want to starve them out, you'll have to capture and destroy all their major supply dumps, preferrably after they're full so it takes a long time to replace them.

And even then, Klingon raiders run on small crews. Other than highly rare materials like dilithium (which usually seems to last a long time) and torpedoes, they can probably easily subsist on whatever they can steal from Federation outposts/planets.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

All of that is to say an intelligently run fight from the Federation means offensive missions in Klingon space . If they just park ships around space stations and wait to be attacked it’s a given they’ll lose. Unfortunately I doubt the writers understand that , so here we are.

Which is why they're losing... Which the writers want... So... How did this become about terrible writing, then? The Federation has no stomach for war and is terrified of the cloak, so they've stayed on the defensive and are losing terribly. Just like they ought to when fighting a defensive war against a cloaked enemy...

 

[CJCade]

All of that is to say an intelligently run fight from the Federation means offensive missions in Klingon space . If they just park ships around space stations and wait to be attacked it’s a given they’ll lose. Unfortunately I doubt the writers understand that , so here we are.

Yep, here we are. I'll enjoy leaving the war story behind.

 

[Silversmok3]

Which is why they're losing... Which the writers want... So... How did this become about terrible writing, then? The Federation has no stomach for war and is terrified of the cloak, so they've stayed on the defensive and are losing terribly. Just like they ought to when fighting a defensive war against a cloaked enemy...

My objections to them losing so fast are twofold:
One,the cloak isn’t infallible. I’d imagine you can’t cloak a logistics hub and have it function -ships have to dock,equipment and people need to see the station to get things done. Either it’s cloaked and some system of security is created to show it to authorized visitors ( which can then be cracked and thus targeted ), or its uncloaked and visible. Even if you don’t hit the forward hubs,the source facilities like Praxis can be hit. Besides, like any other wartime tech the Federation would be looking for countermeasures, just like the Klingons chase data about the spore drive.

Two; from the writing standpoint Treks done better in this area. Virtually every other Trek story about a UFP/Klingon war has justifiably made it clear it was a long and tough struggle for both organizations regardless of Universe and winner/loser. Even in The Undiscovered Country, a weakened Klingon empire still has enough weapons and armaments to be a formidable foe despite Praxis’ destruction and a boastful Admiral. 9 months? GTFO. *Maybe* the Borg invasion in ST Destiny beat Starfleet that fast.

 

[Pindar]

I’d imagine you can’t cloak a logistics hub and have it function -ships have to dock,equipment and people need to see the station to get things done. Either it’s cloaked and some system of security is created to show it to authorized visitors ( which can then be cracked and thus targeted ), or its uncloaked and visible.

Is it though? For all we know the Klingons see each other while cloaked just fine.

It works how the writers imagine it to work.

 

[XCV330]

My objections to them losing so fast are twofold:
One,the cloak isn’t infallible. I’d imagine you can’t cloak a logistics hub and have it function -ships have to dock,equipment and people need to see the station to get things done. Either it’s cloaked and some system of security is created to show it to authorized visitors ( which can then be cracked and thus targeted ), or its uncloaked and visible. Even if you don’t hit the forward hubs,the source facilities like Praxis can be hit. Besides, like any other wartime tech the Federation would be looking for countermeasures, just like the Klingons chase data about the spore drive.

Two; from the writing standpoint Treks done better in this area. Virtually every other Trek story about a UFP/Klingon war has justifiably made it clear it was a long and tough struggle for both organizations regardless of Universe and winner/loser. Even in The Undiscovered Country, a weakened Klingon empire still has enough weapons and armaments to be a formidable foe despite Praxis’ destruction and a boastful Admiral. 9 months? GTFO. *Maybe* the Borg invasion in ST Destiny beat Starfleet that fast.

That's been a war that seems to have largely involved ships and the occasional base plus some low populace colonies. UFP has mostly lost the equivalent of "airspace" in the war, but it could be taken that unless they want to do planetary bombardments,the conquest part would take considerably longer.

The main complaint seems to be that Starfleet is loosing quickly to a fragmented enemy, but in some ways that can be disadvantageous to the defender. Their enemy though uncoordinated is no less well equipped and supplied, and traditional tactical planning cannot determine where to concentrate defenses in a situation like this. Their only real option is to hammer their enemies, and if that is not possible to concentrate their offensive by eradicating one enemy at a time, preferably with a total lose of their ability to conduct war or provide useful resources for the remainder of the enemy. But Starfleet still has not wised up that it must do that.

Yes the "Yesterday's Enterprise" war took 20 years but that was probably dealing with a much better equipped Starfleet had had had years of tactical experience and despite its Utopian pretenses, a better understanding of how to wage war. (possibly thanks to this conflict) This is a Starfleet that already was not holding up well in the first six months of the war, with moronic leadership like the "When we're talking we're not shooting, good buddy" admiral. So that's 15 months worth of ship loss and officer attrition from an organization that might have still been teaching 100 year old Romulan-Earth War tactics to cadets.

 

[eschaton]

The thing is, as far as was shown and hinted at, the Federation wasn't fighting an offensive war. Except for what the Discovery did before disappearing to the MU, it was purely defensive. And defending against 24 separate factions that attack at random, at random targets, is a struggle to say the least, especially with mounting losses. And even though the Klingons had no single leader, they did have a single enemy that they were attacking, so in that they were joined, even if not organized.

I could buy that 24 separate houses could engage in what amounted to random terror strikes against military and civilian targets. But there is no way they could occupy a significant amount of inhabited Federation territory without some sort of logistic support.

 

[CJCade]

I could buy that 24 separate houses could engage in what amounted to random terror strikes against military and civilian targets. But there is no way they could occupy a significant amount of inhabited Federation territory without some sort of logistic support.

Granted, but the writers even showed the Discovery fleeing once they discovered the Starbase had fallen. If that was the case every time a facility fell, then who is to say there isn't transports when needed (it was never stated otherwise). The Federation is on defense, not offense, so they wouldn't be venturing into claimed territory to win it back... they would be trying to keep from losing any more. That frees any ship to come and go as needed.

It works within the confines of the story the writers have given us and for the story they are wanting to tell.

 

[Prax]

I'm surprised starfleet hasn't acquired a Klingon cloak in all this time.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

I'm surprised starfleet hasn't acquired a Klingon cloak in all this time.

They must have some kind of invisibility screen on them!

 

[eschaton]

They must have some kind of invisibility screen on them!

Didn't stop Quark and Rom.

 

[Noname Given]

DSC set this close to the events shown in TOS the STD-writers should - and could - have done a much better job at addressing these issues.

To be fair TOS - "Balance of Terror" has a number of things tht are inconsistent with Star Tre. There's also Mr. Scott's line (regarding the Romulan ship) of:
"Their power is simple Impulse..."

Which would imply the Romulan ship is incapable of FTL/Warp speeds. (And yes, the various terminology was still being nailed down at that point in TOS - IE Impulse hadn't been expressly fixed as their sub-light only drive yet; but ultimately it was - so that line is now very inconsistent, yet no on is up in arms seeing BoPs with FTL capability in the TOS era,

Do I wish thy hadn't crossed that cloacking line with the ST: D series? Yes. But given all the other throwaway lines from "Balance of Terror" that hav been contradicted by later Star Trek outings (including the TOS and TNG films feature films); it's just another in the long like of YATI's that pop up BECAUSE of plot/story reasons needed for what they're doing at the time.

The worst part has nothing to do with the cloak or the time frame. It's that a politically divided foe - basically 24 different houses acting independently - could defeat the Federation. It means that one 24th of the total Klingon fleet is enough to win essentially any engagement with the Federation. It also means the Klingons are not coordinating anything. Not strategy, not tactics, not even logistics. Any admiral worth their salt should be able to use this against the Klingons - to win the war through the Federation's superior coordination.

It's not one Klingon Fleet, it's 24 Klingon fleets all lead by different (but combat proven) Generals. It not like the 24 Houses are taking turns and attacking one at a time. True there's no overall 'plan'; but Starfleet has to counter multiple attacks concurrently across the entirety of Federation territory, and that's what is straining resources. The fact the Feds still couldn't counter the Klingon cloak/ECM tech for the past nine months played a role too.

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Didn't stop Quark and Rom.

So true! I love that episode, btw. I was always amused that the cloaking device isn't like a ship-wide system built into like the infrastructure with different components, but rather it is literally a single device that turns invisible that you can just plug into a ship.

 

[Noname Given]

So true! I love that episode, btw. I was always amused that the cloaking device isn't like a ship-wide system built into like the infrastructure with different components, but rather it is literally a single device that turns invisible that you can just plug into a ship.

Well, in TOS - it used the ship's Deflector Shield Grid to generate the 'Cloaking Field' (per scotty in TOS - "The Enterprise Incident") - so in the end the main component is just a field generator that ties into a ship wide system.

 

[137th Gebirg]

To be fair TOS - "Balance of Terror" has a number of things tht are inconsistent with Star Tre. There's also Mr. Scott's line (regarding the Romulan ship) of:
"Their power is simple Impulse..."

TOS always had problems with solidifying "future" technology in their scripts, all the way to the end. Scotty also marveled at the advanced ion engine that the Eymorg ship used in "Spock's Brain". We already have rudimentary ion drives now but are nowhere near closer to figuring out if warp drive is even possible.

 

[eschaton]

It's not one Klingon Fleet, it's 24 Klingon fleets all lead by different (but combat proven) Generals. It not like the 24 Houses are taking turns and attacking one at a time. True there's no overall 'plan'; but Starfleet has to counter multiple attacks concurrently across the entirety of Federation territory, and that's what is straining resources. The fact the Feds still couldn't counter the Klingon cloak/ECM tech for the past nine months played a role too.

So you're telling me that it's actually advantageous to not have a plan? That military conflicts work better if allies and units don't coordinate, and do whatever they damn well please? I mean, a fully coordinated Klingon invasion fleet would be capable of multiple strikes simultaneously as well, no?

The only way all of this works is if the Klingon Empire is massively more powerful than the Federation in terms of territory, firepower, technology, etc, to the extent that their power projection can override their lack of any strategy beyond "fuck shit up."

 

[137th Gebirg]

Honestly, I think in this case the Klingons may have accidentally stumbled into a way of thinking out of the box when it came to fighting Starfleet. The latter fights by rules of engagement, because they're the good guys. "Starfleet doesn't shoot first" and all that - a philosophy which guarantees withering alpha strikes by offensive Klingon forces at the onset of every skirmish. They're being hit on all sides by a brutal adversary who is playing the role of a highly motivated berzerker, with the only rule being there are no rules. The fact that there is so much Fed blood in the water right now makes matters orders of magnitudes worse for them. L'Rell said it herself. It will never end. The long form of that is that it will never end until the Federation is utterly destroyed because the Klingons have no good reason whatsoever to rationalize stopping.

In short, this is Starfleet's Viet Nam and Westmoreland has left the building.

 

[Search4]

So you're telling me that it's actually advantageous to not have a plan? That military conflicts work better if allies and units don't coordinate, and do whatever they damn well please? I mean, a fully coordinated Klingon invasion fleet would be capable of multiple strikes simultaneously as well, no?

The only way all of this works is if the Klingon Empire is massively more powerful than the Federation in terms of territory, firepower, technology, etc, to the extent that their power projection can override their lack of any strategy beyond "fuck shit up."

Think 24 organizations with starships that conduct the equivalent of 9-11 raids. And the Federation, largely unable to respond, decides to invade Afghanistan, because, you know, that's what we do.

 

[eschaton]

Honestly, I think in this case the Klingons may have accidentally stumbled into a way of thinking out of the box when it came to fighting Starfleet. The latter fights by rules of engagement, because they're the good guys. "Starfleet doesn't shoot first" and all that - a philosophy which guarantees withering alpha strikes by offensive Klingon forces at the onset of every skirmish. They're being hit on all sides by a brutal adversary who is playing the role of a highly motivated berzerker, with the only rule being there are no rules. The fact that there is so much Fed blood in the water right now makes matters orders of magnitudes worse for them. L'Rell said it herself. It will never end. The long form of that is that it will never end until the Federation is utterly destroyed because the Klingons have no good reason whatsoever to rationalize stopping.

In short, this is Starfleet's Viet Nam and Westmoreland has left the building.

Again, the analogy falls apart, because the U.S. was the occupying force in Vietnam. The Viet Cong were fighting on home territory, had the advantage of being able to better use the terrain, and ultimately had more sympathy from the people within the field of battle than the U.S. Successfully fought asymmetric warfare almost always involves the "guerrilla" actor fighting from a position of self-defense. The party self-defending in this case is the Federation, not the Klingon Empire.

Could the Klingons engage in massively successful raids which crippled the Federation's ability to project their power? Yes, of course. But fundamentally the Klingons fight wars more like Vikings or pirates, not like an army. Most of the time they just fuck things up and they leave. Sometimes they decide to seize a base local of operations when convenient. But actually occupying the Federation is beyond their capabilities, as they're spread too thin and lack the supply trains needed.