Do 24th century Federation (Earth) citizens have the right to bear arms?

[Henoch]

I guess this tangents on the thread subject somewhat: handguns, even ones as potent as Trek ones, would not protect anybody's home because they don't make targets defended. Any two-bit villain with a spacecraft can eliminate handgun operators at will. So when we see frontier homes defended by handguns, we may suspect there are a couple of anti-starship howitzers stacked away out of sight, too, or else there would be little point.

Why would pirates/thieves destroy a house they want to pillage? You do it the old fashioned way: you walk in with your gun and take their stuff.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The one piece of equipment we still haven't seen is a field replicator. The smallest unit witnessed was the fridge-sized thing beamed down in TNG "Survivors"; the ground team here didn't appear to have one of those.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Jem Hadar targeted that first in one of their earlier raids.

We never heard of shields capable of protecting an individual trooper; when the Borg have those in "Q Who?", it surprises the hell out of our heroes.

We have seen bulletproof riot shields in action in ST5:TFF, though. But obviously they wouldn't be used by battlefield troops that aren't threatened by anything as wussy as bullets. The "personal shields" mentioned offhand in "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" are possibly of the same sort, as they were going to be deployed for the purposes of controlling Earth's citizens.

As for snipers, who knows? We saw fairly little of the action in the end. But in other Trek shows, sniping has not called for special gear, merely for a special setting of standard gear - so perhaps the unit did a tactical analysis and decided it was better to utilize all the guns as trench LMGs rather than waste the firepower of one by using it at long range mode?

Other than the borg and that one Hunter Species from the Gamma Quadrant, personal Shields seem kind of "New Tech" that only certain species has access to. Even Worf's Holo Deck Shields was MacGyvered through his ComBadge and only lasted a few seconds.

A proper Personal Shield would be far bulkier.

Yup. And for a long time, we wondered how wars could be fought if and when this were true. Then DS9 provided the answer, in a battle directly relating to this one: we saw a planetary defense system in action, and it almost cut a thousand-ship fleet to pieces before the heroes pulled the plug.

The DS9 Battles almost never portrayed Shields in fleet battles for the Dominion War because it would be very time consuming / costly back then to do it for a TV series budget.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm not quite sure what difference helmets would make. I mean, no Star Trek chest armor so far has been effective against knives, kicks or punches, and probably wouldn't help at all against bullets, either; a helmet made of the same stuff would be equally useless, and thus better left home.

Whatever protection that Jem'Hadar or Klingon or Cardassian armor offers, it apparently doesn't work too well, not even against the most common battlefield threat of the day, the death ray. Perhaps these folks wear the body armor because it helps against death rays a little, but a helmet made to similar levels of protection would be unbearably clumsy, as impractical as an armored aircraft. Certainly Starfleet thinks that body armor serves no purpose whatsoever, and is probably correct. It would be akin to modern troopers donning medieval armor "because it's better than nothing". It isn't; it's much worse than nothing.

We already have modern day armor that is effective against "Knives, Kicks, Punches, & Certain Caliber of Bullets" already. StarFleet has shown in plenty of Cargo Bay's that there are certain Walls / Cargo Bay Containers that are Phaser Resistent, even on kill settings.

The fact that StarFleet has been dumb about making them is it's own trope at this point.

We've already seen Body Armor worn by Tactical Officers while out in the field, but Armor can only take X # of hits in the same area before it goes down in that spot IRL, just like shields.

So unless they have some sort of "Regenerative Body Armor" (Maybe a Star Trek R&D project), their Personal Shields would only be able to take a certain amount of hits.

Starships are strategic weapons against undefended targets, just like battleships were in WWI and prior. They are impotent against defended targets, though, except when deployed en masse.

StarShips are always misused as whatever random plot device it serves the writers. IRL Naval Vessels are generally not used as frivously as StarFleet would use them.

 

[Timo]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Jem Hadar targeted that first in one of their earlier raids.

Quite possibly. I wonder what small (but possibly decisive) victories the Starfleet contingent achieved before the heroes came?

The DS9 Battles almost never portrayed Shields in fleet battles for the Dominion War because it would be very time consuming / costly back then to do it for a TV series budget.

We might argue that the shield modifications that helped against the phased polaron beams were incompatible with the shield bubbles seen earlier...

We already have modern day armor that is effective against "Knives, Kicks, Punches, & Certain Caliber of Bullets" already.

...And we have armor that can deflect broadswords. We have utterly abandoned that armor because there are no broadswords in the modern battlefield. Apparently the Trek players abandon armor that would stop knives and bullets because there are no knives and bullets in the battlefield.

Although it's funny that the thick Klingon armor is among those that doesn't help at all against daggers, a weapon commonly wielded by Klingons. I mean, I can see why it wouldn't stop a bat'leth which is essentially a warhammer, a sharp spike on a momentum arm. But a dagger?

StarFleet has shown in plenty of Cargo Bay's that there are certain walls / Cargo Bay Containers that are Phaser Resistent, even on kill settings.

As ST6:TUC nicely demonstrates, dough (or boiled meat, or whatever) is phaser-resistant, even on settings that vaporize steel!

It appears that the phaser effect stops at phase boundaries, which is presumably a highly desirable feature. If it phases steel and then refuses to move on to dough, or phases people but refuses to vaporize a decorative painting on the wall when missing, it would appear possible to develop an armor that is extremely different from flesh, so that a phaser that eats through that armor fails to harm whoever is inside. And for all we know, this is what our Starfleet heroes wear: such a material wouldn't necessarily be particularly dense or bulky. Although bulk probably would help, possibly explaining the thick Klingon vests.

What is phaser-resistant might be innately knife-transparent, though, for whatever reason. And no Starfleet "phaser armor" ever saved a life: Lieutenant Burke died of his wounds soon enough. Him wearing a helmet nine inches thick might have been equally unhelpful against a direct hit, and even one four inches thick might have failed to stop a glancing blow but would have rendered him essentially immobile.

Speaking of immobile, how would you move through a forest if there was a shield bubble around you? The only workable shield would be a skintight one, like the TAS forcefields. But those never stopped anything except air and sometimes water; they were notoriously transparent to phaser stun beams and punches.

StarShips are always misused as whatever random plot device it serves the writers. IRL Naval Vessels are generally not used as frivolously as StarFleet would use them.

...Because they sink from the first shot, basically. Trek ships are more like pre-WWI ones which took an eternity to pummel to submission or unseaworthiness, due to guns being so extremely weak back then. Those ships could sail straight into enemy harbors, in the hopes that they would be fired upon so that a war could be started and the enemy fleet sunk or the harbor magazines burned while those coastal fortresses hopelessly fired at the intruder for the third consecutive hour.

Starships are pre-WWI ships in most respects, having non-decisive ship-to-ship weaponry, rudimentary sensors that give no "global" awareness, and no means of tapping into a "satellite picture" of the overall situation. However, they are capable of strategic movement across great distances, something coal-burning battleships never quite excelled in...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Quite possibly. I wonder what small (but possibly decisive) victories the Starfleet contingent achieved before the heroes came?

Probably mislead the Jem Hadar on how big their troop size contingent were by moving around alot.

...And we have armor that can deflect broadswords. We have utterly abandoned that armor because there are no broadswords in the modern battlefield. Apparently the Trek players abandon armor that would stop knives and bullets because there are no knives and bullets in the battlefield.

Although it's funny that the thick Klingon armor is among those that doesn't help at all against daggers, a weapon commonly wielded by Klingons. I mean, I can see why it wouldn't stop a bat'leth which is essentially a warhammer, a sharp spike on a momentum arm. But a dagger?

Klingon's are not known for their engineering prowess in general. Whomever designed their mass produced armor, they gave them the shiny good looking stuff, but sucks as functioning armor.

We might argue that the shield modifications that helped against the phased polaron beams were incompatible with the shield bubbles seen earlier...

Yet when the Defiant takes "Shield Hits" from the same target, the Defiant is fine.

As ST6:TUC nicely demonstrates, dough (or boiled meat, or whatever) is phaser-resistant, even on settings that vaporize steel!

It appears that the phaser effect stops at phase boundaries, which is presumably a highly desirable feature. If it phases steel and then refuses to move on to dough, or phases people but refuses to vaporize a decorative painting on the wall when missing, it would appear possible to develop an armor that is extremely different from flesh, so that a phaser that eats through that armor fails to harm whoever is inside. And for all we know, this is what our Starfleet heroes wear: such a material wouldn't necessarily be particularly dense or bulky. Although bulk probably would help, possibly explaining the thick Klingon vests.

What is phaser-resistant might be innately knife-transparent, though, for whatever reason. And no Starfleet "phaser armor" ever saved a life: Lieutenant Burke died of his wounds soon enough. Him wearing a helmet nine inches thick might have been equally unhelpful against a direct hit, and even one four inches thick might have failed to stop a glancing blow but would have rendered him essentially immobile.

Speaking of immobile, how would you move through a forest if there was a shield bubble around you? The only workable shield would be a skintight one, like the TAS forcefields. But those never stopped anything except air and sometimes water; they were notoriously transparent to phaser stun beams and punches.

Or StarFleet's Pacifistic era during TNG lulled it into a false sense of security that caused them to not develop tactical defense / technologies properly.

...Because they sink from the first shot, basically. Trek ships are more like pre-WWI ones which took an eternity to pummel to submission or unseaworthiness, due to guns being so extremely weak back then. Those ships could sail straight into enemy harbors, in the hopes that they would be fired upon so that a war could be started and the enemy fleet sunk or the harbor magazines burned while those coastal fortresses hopelessly fired at the intruder for the third consecutive hour.

Starships are pre-WWI ships in most respects, having non-decisive ship-to-ship weaponry, rudimentary sensors that give no "global" awareness, and no means of tapping into a "satellite picture" of the overall situation. However, they are capable of strategic movement across great distances, something coal-burning battleships never quite excelled in...

I'd argue 24th century Trek Ships are more like Cold War era to 90's era ships. Only recently did they start adopting more modern methods of defense and offense for on-screen portrayal.

Massive Drone Swarms were only a very recent portrayal in the Movie / TV film franchise.

 

[at Quark's]

Klingon's are not known for their engineering prowess in general. Whomever designed their mass produced armor, they gave them the shiny good looking stuff, but sucks as functioning armor.

Perhaps they don't consider wearing efficient armor 'honourable'. If that sounds just plain silly, it is the same species for which it is claimed their medical science is amazingly primitive because of their cultural bias that in many cases, it's better to just let a patient die.... (TNG: Ethics)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Klingon starships have shields, so I don't see why their individual warriors wouldn't also carry some form of armor. Defending oneself can't possibly be dishonorable.

Then again, carrying too MUCH armor would make it more difficult to move efficiently on the battlefield. So there's got to be some kind of trade-off.

 

[at Quark's]

^well, i wasn't serious of course. But what we see in their armor we see in their entire culture by the 24th century. Shiny but no longer necessarily efficient, and probably they are carrying too much of it around. They'd probably do themselves a service by intelligently reevaluating it and keeping the parts that really still have added value.

 

[Henoch]

Then again, carry too MUCH armor would make it more difficult to move efficiently on the battlefield. So there's got to be some kind of trade-off.

With disintegration hand weapons, the only defense is not getting hit. Freedom of movement is your number one friend.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I'm not quite sure what difference helmets would make.

Snipers. A couple of soldiers in elevated positions could easily pick them off that way.

And given the way they charged the Fed soldier's position, they would get themselves flanked by them. And without helmets, even simple hand grenades could do damage.

Although I have read that their skin was similar to a rhinoceros hide and that could give them protection, but I think they're vulnerable to things like bullets and grenades.

One starship with phasers or torpedoes can destroy an entire planet or its crust?

Yup. And for a long time, we wondered how wars could be fought if and when this were true.

I used to believe in the power of a Starship to be able to obliterate a planet or it's crust, like they say, until I paid attention when I saw them in action.

It seems they are powerful and can incinerate or destroy objects the size of a starship or buildings , but with larger, wider areas, like a continent, there seems to be some doubt.

A large super sized starship can still fit comfortably inside a small ocean.

The Enterprise could only cut chips off an un-shielded Borg cube. A Klingon torpedo from trek 6 simply punched a hole through the Enterprise's hull. For one starship, to be able to single handedly destroy a planet's crust, seems to be an exaggeration based on how I've seen phasers and torpedoes work in action.

he DS9 Battles almost never portrayed Shields in fleet battles for the Dominion War

I actually kind of like that effect. At first I thought it looked odd without the bubble, but now the tight shield thing looks cool. They swapped it out for the fire sparks over the hull which makes the fighting look more dangerous than before.

It also seems like Dominion have Medieval level tactics once they run out of Ketracel White to Cloak themselves and ambush people. Charge the enemy through a valley where you are in a kill box? Obviously the Jem Hadar have to follow orders, but to do it so blindly.

But I guess that's a effect of "Hollywood" level of tactics.

It just makes 24th century warfare look---- regressed. Like a squad with only 21st century weaponry and tactics could easily win.

And true, whenever a side has a previous advantage, they always seem to forget or abandon it when they fight an enemy just to keep the plot going.

It would be interesting to see a plot where an enemy or hero uses every super advantage they have and STILL fail or the opposite side STILL finds a way to defeat it.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Speaking of immobile, how would you move through a forest if there was a shield bubble around you? The only workable shield would be a skintight one, like the TAS forcefields. But those never stopped anything except air and sometimes water; they were notoriously transparent to phaser stun beams and punches.

You either let the Shield Bubble Break the branches or have the computer turn it on as necessary when a projectile is about to come towards you.

The Skin Tight Shield would make a nice inner layer of Personal Shields while the Bubble is the outter layer.

 

[Timo]

Snipers. A couple of soldiers in elevated positions could easily pick them off that way.

But sniping with body shots seems equally doable, as there's no known armor that would stop the standard death rays if those find their mark. And a sniper would be scoring true hits rather than glancing blows, in the body more probably than in the head.

And given the way they charged the Fed soldier's position, they would get themselves flanked by them. And without helmets, even simple hand grenades could do damage.

I'm not aware of body armor that would protect from hand grenades today, either. If you get hit by sizeable shrapnel, it gets through and harms you. So you either hope you won't get hit, or apply armor that is carried around you by a diesel engine.

Now, if phaserproof armor did exist, it would of course have to cover not just the body and the head, but the pinky fingers as well: a hit on those would be absolutely fatal if the disintegration effect spread from there. But the armor we see, without helmets or gloves, is never demonstrated to be shrapnelproof or bulletproof, either. So one possibility is that it's not armor at all. Nobody claims it would be, after all, not in the Jem'Hadar or Cardassian cases. Quite possibly it's merely comfortable thermal wear, potentially particularly necessary for our scaly lizard men...

Although I have read that their skin was similar to a rhinoceros hide and that could give them protection, but I think they're vulnerable to things like bullets and grenades.

Remarkably, both Cardassians and Jem'Hadar are susceptible to face punches with naked fists, despite the latter also sporting apparent cartilaginous spikes or knobs there!

I used to believe in the power of a Starship to be able to obliterate a planet or it's crust, like they say, until I paid attention when I saw them in action. It seems they are powerful and can incinerate or destroy objects the size of a starship or buildings , but with larger, wider areas, like a continent, there seems to be some doubt.

Well, we do see them perform in "The Die is Cast". And the events sort of fit the "wars are only ever possible because planetary defenses rule" model: the Romulan-Cardassian team thinks it would take hours to hurt the planet, but they achieve utter devastation in minutes when in turns out there are zero defenses in place. The continents do melt, even though we only see dozens of ships in action, not thousands. (Although there probably were many more ships involved than the twenty quoted at one point, as we saw more of the AQS signatures on Dax' monitor.)

A large super sized starship can still fit comfortably inside a small ocean.

Yup, and it's an interesting capacity. Although I wonder how it relates to this discussion?

The Enterprise could only cut chips off an un-shielded Borg cube.

Well, it made about 10% of it cease existing with three shots, from the looks of it. But supposedly ships are made of sterner stuff than continents, as per "Return to Grace" where Dukat's wimpy death rays blow up asteroids but fail to do anything at all to Klingons who derisively fly shields down.

A Klingon torpedo from trek 6 simply punched a hole through the Enterprise's hull.

I sort of trust that one was a dud. That is, the heroes were protected by hero armor, not hull integrity.

For one starship, to be able to single handedly destroy a planet's crust, seems to be an exaggeration based on how I've seen phasers and torpedoes work in action.

Yet interestingly enough, when the action is directed at a planet's crust or surface or whatever, what we see is specifically in line with the implied destructive potential. Phasers drill holes kilometers deep in a jiffy (many TNG eps); they rearrange tectonic plate edges (TAS "Ambergris Element"); they devastate a planet's surface and are about to destroy its mantle, too (DS9 "The Die is Cast"). Heck, even back in the 2150s, they removed mountains from existence with single shots (ENT "Silent Enemy"). So they deliver exactly what they promise.

It's just that against other starships, their performance is quite uneven.

It just makes 24th century warfare look---- regressed. Like a squad with only 21st century weaponry and tactics could easily win.

Similarly, a cavalry charge from a few centuries back would slaughter 21st century troops easily enough. Or an onrush of random hommes d'arme (or angry civilians, or whatever) in sufficient numbers. Oh, the 21st century team would get kills, perhaps lots of them, just like a team of redshirts might squeeze out a lucky shot that kills an infantry division even though a squad then defeats them. But on the balance, the cavalry would carry they day.

But battlefield forces are a bit like the Borg: they aren't prepared for every fight, merely for the fight they are expecting.

It would be interesting to see a plot where an enemy or hero uses every super advantage they have and STILL fail or the opposite side STILL finds a way to defeat it.

The Borg are a fun case in point. The better you kill them, the better they get at surviving...

Timo Saloniemi