What Are 24th Century Aircraft Carriers Like?

[Dayton3]

How do we know that large scale anti gravity has been mastered by the Federation?

At least in the 23rd century, it apparently hasn't.

Otherwise, in "The Cloudminders" why were Kirk and Spock so impressed with the cloud city of Stratos with one of them saying

"the finest example of antigravity technology of its kind" or something to that effect?

If the technology was common place to suspend city sized objects in the atmosphere, then Kirk and Spock should not have been that impressed by Stratos.

 

[aridas sofia]

How do we know that large scale anti gravity has been mastered by the Federation?

Because they routinely warp space. They would need to have antigravity technology on at least a ship-scale in order to maintain a space warp.

At least in the 23rd century, it apparently hasn't.

Otherwise, in "The Cloudminders" why were Kirk and Spock so impressed with the cloud city of Stratos with one of them saying

"the finest example of antigravity technology of its kind" or something to that effect?

If the technology was common place to suspend city sized objects in the atmosphere, then Kirk and Spock should not have been that impressed by Stratos.

I'd think it'd be one thing to lift a 190,000 MT starship, and quite another to lift a city that doesn't have warp engines to power it.

 

[Timo]

Also, I'd think reliability would count. Starships can maintain an internal 1G seemingly indefinitely, and fight the thousand-gee accelerations of impulse drives, but a floating city would have to have a 100% reliable system running for centuries at an end.

A mobile base scooting around a planet's atmosphere wouldn't need quite that much reliability. Nor would it be airborne all the time, as its only rationale for staying close to the surface, the stealth offered by ground clutter, would best be utilized if the thing parked every now and then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

The thing is, when you consider that Earth is probably already "protected" by the MDP and the planetary defence systems (plural) mentioned in TMP, which one assumes is made up or orbital weapons platforms along with (one assumes) a space based fighter/interceptor force, does Earth really NEED a permanent, mobile water based defence force? When you consider that the main advantage of a carrier (seaborne or otherwise) is to get your aircraft with in striking range of a usually distant target and then take into account that even a basic shuttle can get from one side of a planet to the other in a matter of minutes; the carrier defence model becomes totally redundant.

Also consider that Earth is a normally safe a peaceful world and is in a reasonably secure part of space (as far as non-uber threats are concerned) so I doubt that there is ANY standing military presence on the surface, beyond the odd Starfleet installation.

This all comes back to the age old debate about whether the Federation in general even has a standing army other than Starfleet security/tactical personnel. The fact is, even during the height of the Dominion War we saw no evidence that the home systems have a pre standing defence force other than a bunch of Starfleet enlisted personnel equipped with nothing more substantial than phaser rifles and ground hoppers.

So, would Earth have a force of sea or even airbased carriers that just sit around for decades on end? No.

 

[Timo]

A couple of random disagreements:

I'd argue that the Martian Defense Perimeter was there to protect Mars, not Earth. Similarly, Jupiter would have had its own formidable defenses, which the Borg first engaged (probably negating most of Sol's sublight vessels in the process, too). The idea of a spherical defense at the orbital radius of Mars doesn't make much sense when the only thing one wants to protect at Sol are the planets themselves.

Also, an infantryman with a phaser rifle is a significantly more potent combatant than an infantryman with an assault rifle. Even though our heroes (who aren't infantrymen) do not employ their rifles in a manner different from assault rifles, a trained ground combatant could probably make him- or herself a threat comparable to an artillery emplacement. Or, with proper means of transportation (be it vehicles or transporters), a threat comparable to a tank-buster vehicle or a helicopter. Slightly different from today's infantryman in any case.

The rifles would also be great for tactical excavation, as rather surprisingly demonstrated by Jake Sisko...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

A couple of random disagreements:

I'd argue that the Martian Defense Perimeter was there to protect Mars, not Earth. Similarly, Jupiter would have had its own formidable defenses, which the Borg first engaged (probably negating most of Sol's sublight vessels in the process, too). The idea of a spherical defense at the orbital radius of Mars doesn't make much sense when the only thing one wants to protect at Sol are the planets themselves.

Fair point. Though as far as the MDP itself is concerned you could argue it either way as what we saw doesn't really communicate what it is, one way or the other.
As to theorising what defences Sol may or may not have, whichever way you cut it I think it's fair to say that they'd be designed around small tactical strike incursions (like a squadron of BoPs) and of course, full on fleet assaults but NOT big doomsday type threats like the two Borg incursions or for that matter the likes of V'Ger & the Cetacean Probe.
So I imagine first and foremost it'd be mostly focused on detection/early warning and interception. That is to engage BEFORE the invaders get near a planet or perhaps more the the point the more vulnerable civilian traffic and what I imagine would be several hundred space station, asteroid outposts and science stations scattered from Mercury to Neptune and beyond.
To my mind there should be more to the Sol of the 24th Century than just Earth, Mars and a station around Jupiter and since it's scattered pretty far it seams logical that there'd be layers of defence staring out beyond the outer edge of the Heliopause, right into the orbit of Mercury along with of course each planet or moon's own orbital defence systems.

Also, an infantryman with a phaser rifle is a significantly more potent combatant than an infantryman with an assault rifle. Even though our heroes (who aren't infantrymen) do not employ their rifles in a manner different from assault rifles, a trained ground combatant could probably make him- or herself a threat comparable to an artillery emplacement. Or, with proper means of transportation (be it vehicles or transporters), a threat comparable to a tank-buster vehicle or a helicopter. Slightly different from today's infantryman in any case.

The rifles would also be great for tactical excavation, as rather surprisingly demonstrated by Jake Sisko...

Timo Saloniemi

I wasn't denigrating the effectiveness of the a Phaser rifle, only pointing out that what we've seen of the Federations ground forces leaves one with the impression that it's not a standing army but an temporary extension of Starfleet, with no trance of the type of heavy armour that a flying carrier would constitute. We've never even seen ground artillery. A while back on Flare I posted the theory that the Federation works on an almost feudal like system in regards to it's offensive forces. That is personnel called up as and when needed and not a bunch of jar heads that spend most of their time sitting on their laurels for the better part of a century.
Of course this can and has left the Federation vulnerable in certain scenarios (look what happened to Betazed) but I think the justification is that it's a free Federation, not an expansionist Empire that is forever pushing it's borders and putting out brushfire wars and rebellions (like say, the Klingons in the 23rdC) and as such it has no military in the traditional sense.

 

[Dayton3]

A couple of random disagreements:

I'd argue that the Martian Defense Perimeter was there to protect Mars, not Earth. We've never even seen ground artillery.

A agree regarding the Mars Defense Perimeter.

It was there to protect Mars.

Because if the MDP was designed to protect an entire 360 hemisphere of space around the sun starting at the orbit of Mars........then it would take at least hundreds of TRILLIONS of those probes we saw attack the Borg ship.

And most of what you would be protecting would be empty space.

More likely, the Borg ship veered close to the planets they did (Saturn & Mars IIRC) to destroy the perimeter forces stationed there.

Eliminating threats to their "rear" while they attack Earth, and softening up those planets and their facilities for later assimilation.

By the way.

There is at least one incidence of Starfleet using artillery.

"Arena".

Kirk uses a mortar to blow away the Gorn ground force.

So effective that the Gorn withdrew immediately.

 

[Jono]

What about in the episode with Jake on that planet that was under attack by the Klingons, didn't he run through "shelling"?

 

[Reverend]

Well as you say that was Klingon weaponry, so not really relevant to a discussion on the Federation's armed forces.

As for Kirk's mortar attack on Cestus III, I had honestly forgotten about that, however it still doesn't show that the Federation has a standing army, just that Starfleet has the capability to deploy tactical weapons as needed. Actually, I think there is a line in that very episode where Kirk refers to his men as his "Tactical squad" or something similar. Probably weapons specialists within the Enterprise's security division, like Worf or I suppose Ro Laren rather than a company of "space marines" as some like to imagine.

As far as the MDP is concerned, the number of defence stations would entirely depend on the range and response times of those drones. Despite what we see in popular science fiction action sequences, it's unlikely that true space combat would take place anywhere near visual range. Either way, yes the "orbital sphere" of Mars would still require a substantial amount of unmanned stations. Still I don't think it would be beyond 24th Century Earth's capacity. You need only look at the sheer scale of Spacedock to get an idea as to their engineering capabilities and resources. By comparison, churning out hundreds of small automated stations would just be a matter of time. Hell, they could easily have been built by Spacedock itself as it would certainly have extensive fabrication facilities. Also remember that as I said before that the Sol system has more to protect than just a couple of planets and a Space station. There sheer volume of civilian traffic alone must be huge for a system of this importance.

 

[JuanBolio]

Seaborne carrier vessels would be utterly obsolete as any kind of offensive military force by the time of the 23rd/24th centuries. Enemy starships could pick them off with ease and impunity. I would imagine most planets with sizable tracts of ocean would have some form of oceangoing police/peacekeeping force much like today's Coast Guard, but that's about all I could accept. Also, I would surmise that all seagoing vessels of this force would have submarine capability and aircraft of some sort.

 

[Timo]

Then again, seagoing navies might be a powerful political force in the real 23rd/24th centuries, possessing enough clout to keep operating obsolete types of vehicles. The weapons of today aren't exactly optimized for their usefulness, either, but are largely designed to fit in with the existing political and logistical environment without stirring up things too badly.

That we even have a navy today as a thing is a reflection on the lack of effort put into developing air traffic so that it could replace sea traffic as the means of deploying an army. It's also a function of the lack of effort to develop a combat aircraft that would be independent of expensive and vulnerable airfields.

In slightly different circumstances, we might have a combat force today that would depend solely on distributed air logistics, making things like harbors and airfields obsolete. However, the path of least effort in our circumstances was to give a modicum of protection for ports, runways and shipping lanes and to pretend that some day soon, the threat of ballistic nukes would go away. It would have meant total defeat for the West had there ever been a WWIII, but it turned out to be a splendid lead-in to a post-cold-war world where things like VTOL, stealth and survivable logistics are needless and expensive ballast.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Reverend]

Well that's the thing about military planning is that it's often about two steps behind itself in terms of tactics and doctrine. Just look at WWI and the amount of time and loss of life it took for our generals to cotton on to the fact that walking in a line across a mine, crater and barbed wire laden no man's land towards the German's well fortified machine gun emplacements wasn't a clever thing to do. Worked OK against muskets and cannon, not so much against tanks and automatic weapons.

I think it's been often said that an army can perfect the art of fighting a war, just in time to be out of date for the next one. At the moment our Navies are mostly about fire support (air & ground), logistics and securing beachheads. Not since WWII has there been a true navel conflict with one or more of the great sea powers. The Falklands War being a relativity recent exception, of course.

But I'm sure if thing ever kick off between the West and China, we'll get back to that kind of fighting again (not that I'd fancy our chances), or some other development to counter air power and take the fight back onto the sea.

Looking back through military history there often comes a point where a weapon is seen as the "weapon to end all wars". From the first bronze sword to The English longbow and the thermonuclear warhead, all were said to have been the ultimate weapon of their time and all were overtaken by history. Admittedly the threat of nuclear war hasn't vanished, but then neither has the threat of being stabbed, bludgeoned, shot or gassed, it's just not necessarily the most effective means anymore.

The next generation of "ultimate weapons" looks to be the nasty kind that can microwave your guts from a mile away. Will it end warfare as some seam to claim? Has anything so far?

 

[darkshadow0001]

Actually there is no reference to war on Earth being abolished.

And most starships aren't capable of atmospheric operations.

There are been numerous references in the series that states that war has been abolished, at least between humans.

 

[Timo]

...Indeed, Kirk in TOS sometimes insisted that war as a thing was past - although that must have been a bit of an exaggeration.

Certainly war on Earth after the 21st century is something categorically denied in, say, ST:FC.

Also, we've never heard of a starship that would not be capable of atmospheric operations. All the hero ships have done just fine deep down in the soup:

NX-01 in "Storm Front"
NCC-1701 in "Tomorrow is Yesterday"
NCC-1701-A in... Okay, well, yeah, but she's much the same as NCC-1701
NCC-1701-D in "Arsenal of Freedom"
NCC-74205 in "Starship Down", supposedly "Children of Time"
NCC-74656 in about every tenth episode of VOY

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dayton3]

The ships in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "Arsenal of Freedom" and "Children of Time". the Original Enterprise, Enterprise-D battle section, and Defiant were all experiencing severe control problems while in planetary atmospheres.

It clearly was not an environment they were designed to perform in.

Can anyone cite the specific episode where someone in Trek said war had been abolished on Earth?

 

[Manticore]

Can anyone cite the specific episode where someone in Trek said war had been abolished on Earth?

In Star Trek: First Contact, Troi says "It unites humanity in a way that no one ever thought possible, when they realize that they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war. They'll all be gone within the next 50 years."

Since war still occurs between the various interstellar powers, people still catch alien diseases, and we've seen poverty on various other planets, I'd say that it's fairly logical to assume that she's talking about these various ills and how they apply to Earth. It's not explicitly stated, but it's all but.

As for sea-based carriers, or even atmospheric carriers, as long as a starship has pinpoint precision targeting of planetary surfaces, they can be destroyed. Sure, they might use some sort of electronic warfare, but the I doubt that the fighters would mount effective enough EW to block off a starship, and they'd have to leave the carrier's EW to be effective. And given that a starship can find an individual on a planet's surface (and, in some cases, from light-years away), I doubt that they'd have much trouble looking for the 'hole' in their sensors that the carrier's hiding in.

 

[Dayton3]

Can anyone cite the specific episode where someone in Trek said war had been abolished on Earth?

In Star Trek: First Contact, Troi says "It unites humanity in a way that no one ever thought possible, when they realize that they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war. They'll all be gone within the next 50 years."

The Next Generation crew and occasionally Sisko on DS9 were often prone to exaggeration when it came to 24th century Earth.

 

[Manticore]

Can anyone cite the specific episode where someone in Trek said war had been abolished on Earth?

In Star Trek: First Contact, Troi says "It unites humanity in a way that no one ever thought possible, when they realize that they're not alone in the universe. Poverty, disease, war. They'll all be gone within the next 50 years."

The Next Generation crew and occasionally Sisko on DS9 were often prone to exaggeration when it came to 24th century Earth.

In Broken Bow, I believe it was, Trip also mentioned that war (and poverty) are gone, unless I'm completely mistaken and misremembering. And anyway, it'd be hard to exaggerate that war is gone when any one who knows any Earth history could call you on it, unless humans have, in fact, not fought a war amongst themselves since First Contact.

And frankly, I think that you're missing the point of the spirit of Star Trek. It's been drummed in since the original show that humans have moved well past where we are now. That's been shown time and time again, to the point that our basic material motivations have completely changed.

 

[Dayton3]

Perhaps there could be hidden wars waged out of sight of most humans (and most importantly, out of sight of the rest of the Federation).

People die.

But there deaths are labeled as "accidents", "missing", or "unsolved".

Kind of like the various rammings between U.S. and Soviet submarines was pretty much a secret from the public during the Cold War.

Some believe that the sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion was at the hands of the Soviet with 99 Americans killed.

Or the 300 or so U.S. and allied airmen shot down by the Soviets during intelligence overflights in the 1950s and 60s. Also virtually unknown to the public.

 

[dougkeenan]

But why? What on earth is wrong with peace?