Why the close range attacks on DS9?

[Grant Amter]

Throughout DS9, we see the Klingons, the Cardassians, and the Jem Hadar attack the station at various times. Assuming that in-show battle scenes aren't overly distorted/magnified, attackers usually come within about 10km of the station, which puts them well within range of DS9's phasers and torpedo launchers.

However, why don't attackers instead just fire torpedoes at DS9 from much further ranges (e.g. like 300,000 km away), perhaps even at warp (by warping, firing, then warping back)?

Since DS9 can't move at warp speeds, it won't be able to fire torpedoes at greater than impulse speed (since torpedoes only maintain but do not initiate warp i.e. they must be fired from a ship traveling at warp to travel at warp). And its phasers propagate at sunlight speeds...so in short, DS9 won't be able to accurately hit anything far from it.

Meanwhile, DS9 itself is relatively stationary (in the Denorios belt), meaning that even unguided torpedoes from enemy ships should be able to hit it easily from extreme ranges.

After all, the main reason Star Trek battles occur at such close range is because of the difficulty of hitting moving targets at long range.

ps don't just say "it's hollywood and they can't make everything realistic" because that's a cop-out

 

[kkt]

Because they are making a television show, and it's more dramatic if the audience can see the combatants on the screen at the same time.

Okay, and what canonical source says that torpedoes can't have warp drive? Or even that phasers travel at light speed? They wouldn't be very effective weapons in ship to ship combat then. They must travel down some subspace tube to their targets. I seem to remember a line in one of the animated episodes about that.

 

[Timo]

We have ample evidence that phasers work best at close ranges - after all, they are basically only ever used at close ranges, also by the side that gets to choose the engagement distance. We don't know why this should be: the only time a long range phaser shot is commented on, in "Balance of Terror", its downside is said to be the difficulty of hitting, not beam attenuation across distance. But nothing precludes us from assuming it's all down to attenuation anyway. After all, that's also intuitively and analogously clear: sailing ships of old always closed in because their cannon could do no damage at long ranges.

There is no lightspeed limit to phasers, though, as they do work just fine in warp chases (our ENT heroes even express disbelief and frustration when theirs don't, in "Fallen Hero", and then proceed to fix the problem). It's just that they apparently aren't at their best there, as indeed warp chases tend to involve minimal exchange of phaser fire.

The real issue here is the torpedoes, then. Why not snipe at DS9 from a standoff range? It's not as if anything would be lost doing so, even if it were an incredibly inefficient approach.

A couple of tactical reasons readily offer themselves, though:

1) DS9 has torps, too. There might not be a standoff range!
2) Staying at torpedo distances means you can't use phasers. Why hold back with firepower?
3) The real aim was to take the station, not to destroy it. Boarding necessarily involves close ranges in Trek.

By the rules of Trek, once you do take into account 1 and 3, you can't really benefit from 2, because torps at close ranges endanger your own ships; the advantage there goes to DS9, which fires its torps away from the center of the action (and indeed many seem to disappear to the distance without hitting any nearby targets). And it's not as if the Klingons use torps all that much to begin with. Their BoPs with those green torpedo bolts always only manage to cripple or stun - perhaps the green torps are solely for capturing, the BoPs themselves optimized for the commerce raiding role just like their spiritual forefathers the U-boats? The red torps of ST:TMP (and, almost but not quite, of ST6:TUC) in turn are never seen after the first movie, and are explicitly replaced on the battle cruisers by red beams in "Way of the Warrior" and later "Rules of Engagement". Perhaps because they were no good to begin with?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Philip Guyott]

I see your point, but the Klingon's and the Dominion did not want to destroy DS9 but to capture it. This means that the targeting of systems needs to be done carefully, at short range. Once the shields are down, ships need to be within transporter range to send over boarding party's.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Because Star Wars. And no, it's not a copout because if has given the wrong impressions about combat for decades, making it seem as if dogfighting is de rigueur when it stopped being so during WWII.

That said, being stationary does give DS9 some advantages, being able to spend greater amounts of energy more freely than moving ships. Moreover, it can use it's larger arsenal to overcome the inability to target accurately.

 

[Timo]

What inability, though? Phaser hit rate seems to hold steady at 100% there, just as basically always in Trek.

That some torpedoes seem to miss may be interpreted in many ways. In terms of this thread, though, the bottom line would seem to be that failing to use torps is not a bad choice after all!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bad Thoughts]

But isn't that just budget? In Star Wars, every shot can miss because there's lots of money. In Star Trek, every shot must hit because there is little money.

 

[Timo]

Don't know about that. In TNG, they tried to skimp on phaser beams. In ENT, there were sometimes dozens in a frame, and still 100% of them connected.

In-universe, it can of course be that Starfleet only takes those shots that are certain to hit, for reasons of frugality. But it takes an awful many of those shots! Modern Trek perhaps more than old Trek, but again in-universe, the "oldest" adventures from the newest movies and shows feature the most pew-pew, with a fairly steady score on accuracy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Yes, over time there were more misses as the budget came down. Every shot was determined by it's role in the story. They weren't going to shoot gratuitously unless it had a narrative effect, usually meaning they would score a hit (or would do so in that volley).

 

[Timo]

I'm seeing no narrative effect in, say, ENT. Of the dozens of shots, some could hit, others could miss. Yet all of them hit, in keeping with Trek tradition (and in keeping with realism - how would it even theoretically be possible to miss at those ranges and relative speeds?).

If misses were a thing, those would be sprinkled in, for "realism" (of the false sort). Instead, they are diligently avoided. As much as the transporter or the sentiently emoting computer, 100% hit rates are a "Trek thing" now, even if somewhere in the mists of time there might have been a tendency to show only the hits and to omit the misses. Although I don't recall any such time - hits were omitted just as readily as any other sort, replaced by a sound effect during an interior scene for affordability.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Narrative effect in Enterprise: humans were ill equipped for meeting hostile species . It was the plot of more than a few stories. Surely you know that, Timo.

 

[WraithDukat]

A few of those Cardassian missiles we saw on Voyager would take care of DS9. Send scores they couldn't possible shoot them all down.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Throughout DS9, we see the Klingons, the Cardassians, and the Jem Hadar attack the station at various times. Assuming that in-show battle scenes aren't overly distorted/magnified, attackers usually come within about 10km of the station, which puts them well within range of DS9's phasers and torpedo launchers.

However, why don't attackers instead just fire torpedoes at DS9 from much further ranges (e.g. like 300,000 km away), perhaps even at warp (by warping, firing, then warping back)?

Since DS9 can't move at warp speeds, it won't be able to fire torpedoes at greater than impulse speed (since torpedoes only maintain but do not initiate warp i.e. they must be fired from a ship traveling at warp to travel at warp). And its phasers propagate at sunlight speeds...so in short, DS9 won't be able to accurately hit anything far from it.

Meanwhile, DS9 itself is relatively stationary (in the Denorios belt), meaning that even unguided torpedoes from enemy ships should be able to hit it easily from extreme ranges.

After all, the main reason Star Trek battles occur at such close range is because of the difficulty of hitting moving targets at long range.

ps don't just say "it's hollywood and they can't make everything realistic" because that's a cop-out

Except 'It's hollywood' isn't a cop out, it's the legitimate reason why most science fiction is terribly unrealistic and sound can travel in a vacuum. Any type of attack like what you've described would probably mean the destruction of the station and the end of the show. Is it good strategy? Maybe. Is it good viewing? Definitely not.

 

[Timo]

Narrative effect in Enterprise: humans were ill equipped for meeting hostile species. It was the plot of more than a few stories. Surely you know that, Timo.

What do you mean by that?

That is, how does "humans ill equipped" translate to "100% hit rate with more beams than ever" in your mind? If anything, it would appear to have the opposite dramatic effect.

A few of those Cardassian missiles we saw on Voyager would take care of DS9. Send scores they couldn't possible shoot them all down.

Which begs the question of how anybody ever stops those things, which can kill far more than just puny space stations.

The one known use of such a missile had Cardassians wasting a round by aiming at a Maquis "munitions base", and the Maquis subsequently again wasting it by reaiming it at a Cardassian "fuel depot". Why not kill major planets with it, when this was what the weapon was told to be capable of? The Maquis terrorists might wish to play the nice guys for a change. The Cardassians at the time would have been inclined to terrorize to the max, though.

Might it not be that the reason the missile was always aimed at peanut gallery targets was that it couldn't hope to penetrate the defenses of major worlds? It is but an automated starship, after all - and starships can be stopped, in the thousands if need be, as we see done in DS9.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nakita Akita]

Episode 578 The Disappearance

Kira: commander Sisko, I notice today you're drinking a cream soda instead of your usual raktejenko. It it be-

Bright light, screen goes to black.
Star scape with metal debris.

Cut to : Standard shot of Starfleet head quarters
Cut to:
Admiral Naychenvk speaking to Admiral Kyote
Admiral Naychenvk: Dal, so far it's as if the station just disappeared. Sure there is debris, but the reports indicate nothing else.
Preliminary reports indicate that a blast from an unknown direction, from an unknown party shot the central core while traveling at warp from over twenty light years away.

Admiral Kyote: this a sad day for the Federation as well as the Bajoran people.

Cut to: 56 minutes of commercials.

 

[Kemaiku]

Pity those tricobalt torpedoes from Armada aren't a thing, bombarding the station from a serious distance with WMD grade weapons would have made the series a lot shorter.

 

[Doccus38]

ENT misses targets at times. The Stukas over New York and the Romulan Drone especially come to mind of missing phase cannon shots. The Emporers Negh'Var and the Dominion battleship both have trouble hitting a Defiant class at times and DS9 misses a lot of shots at the Klingons in way of the warrior. If a ship is small and agile enough it seems you can evade weapons at times.

Whilst I agree considerably more shots hit then miss is that really a surprise given what we can hit now with missiles and guns when you add on another 400 odd years of fire control tech after all why develop a weapon if it can't hit what you want it to?

 

[The Wormhole]

ps don't just say "it's hollywood and they can't make everything realistic" because that's a cop-out

Well, it is the reason.