Fleet composition after 2379?

[Jefferies]

I have tried to get an overview of the composition of Starfleet at the end of the 24th century (>2379). For this I looked at the main star ship classes in operation and assessed their role and importance in the fleet. (By this I only mean major original designs and not kitbashes.) I have based this on a qualitative summary of frequencies of reference and appearance since the start of the Dominion War (DW) in 2373 (sources are Memory Alpha and screencaps at TrekCore). In addition, I have included the non-cannon Luna Class as it is original and features heavily in the post series books after 2379, but you are free to disregard this.

Widespread presence in the DW battles and in the Endgame fleet shows that a ship will be generally common in the 2380s with a high probability. During the war, Starfleet was desperate, throwing everything at the Dominion it could muster. This explains the excessive use of Mirandas, even though they weren’t really up to heavy combat. As far as we know, they were old and had low range armaments. They came across as mere canon fodder in most cases. If Starfleet had more new or stronger ships it would have used them. This means that the ships not featured or only rarely seen in this period are not very common and play only a minor role in the fleet. An additional clue comes from the defence fleet seen in Endgame. This fleet approaches what one could call a random sample of the ship classes in operation for this period. It was a coincidental assortment of about 30 vessels that were close to sector 001. They assembled at short notice at earth to fend of a potential Borg incursion.

I argue that the composition of Starfleet will not change much for the rest of the 24th century, as new classes take decades to be realised and to be produced en masse.

Starfleet Core Designs (referenced or seen >10 times with >5 incarnations).

Class ranked by frequency with a description of type and function (plus qualitative description of frequency).

1. Excelsior: multipurpose cruiser, outdated armaments, e.g. old fashioned phasers (ubiquitous, large numbers seen in every fleet battle and in many standard operations, ~3 seen in Endgame).

2. Miranda: short range destroyer with limited combat ability (not quite as common as the Excelsior but not far behind, ~4 seen in Endgame).

3. Galaxy: large multipurpose deep space explorer, has good combat utility, probably suffers from low manoeuvrability (many featured in all major battles of the DW and ~8 seen in Endgame).

4. Nebula: heavy cruiser, multipurpose deep space explorer, modular pod, can serve as a dedicated warship (frequency is only slightly lower than the Galaxy, ~4 seen in Endgame).

5. Akira: cruiser, main function is combat, maybe with additional utility (several seen in all major battles of the DW and a few seen during other operations but markedly less than the former classes, 1 seen in Endgame).

6. Saber: frigate, heavily armed for its size, main function is probably combat (seen in all major battles of the DW and ~1 seen in Endgame).

6. Steamrunner: frigate, probably focused on combat (seen in all major battles of the DW ~2 in Endgame).

7. Defiant: frigate, excessively armed for its size, main function is combat (less common than the other classes, but judging by its frequency on Voyager (all AQ episodes with starships), its use is probably more widespread than DS9 would let us believe, ~3 seen in Endgame).

8. Luna: heavy cruiser, multi purpose explorer and warship non-canon relaunch-era design (according to the Titan novels this is a highly popular design, several ships referenced to be of this type).

Rare (seen only once or twice)
Intrepid: light cruiser, multipurpose explorer, not a warship (only 2 seen on screen).
Nova: frigate, main function research and short range exploration (only 2 seen on screen, 1 seen in Endgame).
Prometheus: cruiser, main function combat (only a prototype during the DW, might have become popular later on, 1 seen in Endgame).
Sovereign: Battleship and Explorer (only 2 confirmed incarnations).

Retired (not seen in recent Star Trek)
Norway: Only seen in First Contact, the CGI model was lost
Oberth: Not seen since Generations
Ambassador: Not seen since Redemption, part 2
Constellation: Same as Ambassador
Constitution: Not seen since The Undiscovered Country, might have been at the battle of Wolf 359

The list of core ship classes shows three main functional groups: short range operations (supply, logistics etc), followed by long range exploration and, finally, combat. The Miranda is clearly in the first category. The Excelsior is a jack of all trades, the Galaxy and Nebula are in the middle category and also useful in combat, the rest seem to function mainly as warships.

My impression is that a large percentage of the fleet is made up of Miranda variants and Excelsior class star ships. Together they probably form the backbone of the fleet. However, the Galaxy class also appears to be very strong in numbers as well as the Nebula class. This leaves the Akira, Sabre, Defiant and Steamrunner classes which are mainly or entirely in the combat category. Surprisingly, their numbers appear much smaller than the first 4 classes and if one includes the Luna class, we get an additional major design that focuses on multipurpose operations.

Therefore, the complaint that Starfleet has become too militaristic seems unwarranted to me. If anything it comes across as being committed to its primary mission to seek out new worlds and all that. This is strongly underlined by the sheer amount of Galaxy, Nebula and Excelsior class vessels a trend that is backed up by the emergence of the Luna class. Granted the combat focused classes are all fairly new, only emerging in the early 70s and thus their numbers are impressive and might be a hint of what is coming. But with the DW out of the way is there a need for this? Then again the Borg threat isn’t really over, only weakened by what Voyager did in Endgame.

What surprised me was the rather small number of core classes (8-9). For some reason I always thought this list would be longer and include both the Intrepid and Sovereign. If not seen in the flesh, I always thought they were at least referenced like when Sisko orders Galaxy wing X to attack target Y or seen on tactical displays etc. However, this does not seem to be the case, which leads me to the conclusion that Starfleet was unhappy with these designs. Maybe the cost/effectiveness ratio for the Sovereign was bad. The warship role being better performed by the smaller and much cheaper frigates and cruisers specialised for this role and the explorer role performed successfully by both the tested and widespread Galaxy and Nebula classes. The Intrepid on the other hand was maybe too expensive when compared against the Excelsior with not enough utility gain. Thus, the need for and benefit of these classes might have been low. (Obviously, there are real world explanations, like the producers wanted to keep the shows seperate but that's not the type of rationale I'm looking for here.)

So what do you think is this a reasonable assertion of the composition of Starfleet in this time period?

 

[JNG]

I think it's a huge leap to say that ships are only designed for combat because we glimpsed them mainly in battle scenes on DS9. I have no reason to believe that any of the ships are primarily designed for this except for Defiant, and I don't suspect a large number of Defiant-class ships would be built because the design was so severely flawed and essentially abandoned prior to the wartime emergency.

I think a frontline cruiser or explorer typically carries out the broad range of Starfleet missions (scientific investigation/exploration/patrol/resupply/diplomatic hoohah/defense of the Federation and its allies), usually by itself. I never feel that the episodes are leading me to question this.

 

[bryce]

Don't forget the Centaur class. < http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Centaur_type > An Excelsior-era ship (kitbash) made especially for DS9. It was in about 3 episodes.

And it doesn't make sense to me that we'd see all those *ancient* Miranda's and Excelsior's but no newer model ships like the Ambassador. (Or hell, even a few hauled-out-of-mothballs Constellations.) The Ambassador was the Excelsior's *replacement*, there should have been plenty of those around, maybe even more than there were either old, still operating Excelsior's or newer, just recently mass-produced Galaxy's...

The *real* reason we didn't see any Norway's or Ambassador's was because there were no CGI models of them. And we didn't see any Intrepid's (save one when Bashir went to Romulus) or Sovereign - or very many other Defiant's, was because they were "Hero" ships, and they didn't want to confuse the audience. (The Nova seems a straight science ship, not a combat ship, but we know that in some alternate future's a combat version of the Nova will be made so it's likely a very modular and adaptable platform. And the Prometheus then was perhaps just a one-of-a-kind prototype.)

But I imagine in a "real" Starfleet, there would be plenty of Ambassador's, Norway's, Interpid's, and at least a *few* Sovereign's, & Defiant's etc...in any MAJOR fleet battles. And perhaps a Prometheus or battle-configured Nova as well if there were any.) It would make sense for Starfleet to used there top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art Starships in such important battles - battles where the future survivial of the Federation was a stake.

 

[Praetor]

Agreed, and while I do think that to some extent any Starfleet ship can do any mission it is assigned, each class does have very distinct combat capabilities. So then maybe the Starfleet's fleets would be divided not only based on age and armament, but also to some regard by class - for some reason they group Ambassadors, Sovereigns, Constellations, Norways, and Intrepids together because for some reason they balance each other out better than others. (It strikes me that these ships would seem to be reasonably faster than others, so perhaps they are grouped together for range/speed.)

To make further calculations, it might be worthwhile to try to determine which fleets we saw on screen, and which we didn't, how many ships of each type might logically be in each fleet, and from that compute how many unseen members of the various classes there might have been to make up the other fleets and also balance out the disproportionate amount of Excelsiors and Mirandas we saw.

 

[Timo]

I don't really see why we should insist that Ambassador replaced Excelsior, when onscreen material does not support the idea that the two would hold the same niche or exist in comparable quantities.

Rather, Ambassador could be the largest and rarest member of the broad family of Excelsior era starships, while Excelsior would be the workhorse of that era, and smaller ships like the DS9 kitbashes made of Excelsior-like components might exist in even larger numbers but would see little or no frontline use.

Similarly, Galaxy wouldn't succeed or replace the earlier New Orleans or Akira of the same design trend, but would merely be the king piece against these more numerous pawns or knights.

Of course, it is always possible to speculate in contradiction of the ratios and prevalences we saw on screen. One might for example say that Starfleet decided to group all its obsolete designs in specific fleets, so that their low speed would not unduly hobble more modern types flying in the same formation. Perhaps the 9th Fleet, the one we most often observed, received the oldest and slowest primary combatants because it was only tasked with short range operations in the vicinity of the old Cardassian border, or with trench warfare around DS9. Perhaps other formations had more modern medium combatants to accompany the Galaxies, Nebulas and other kingpins that Starfleet would distribute to all of its fleets.

Alternately, it might be that the bulk of Starfleet vessels were indeed built in the early 24th century, and that the modern designs were never produced in significant quantities because the older ones still had decades if not centuries of service left in them. Several navies of yore have gone to battle in accordance with such a doctrine, sometimes with good results (although with sailing ships, one speaks of decades of lifetime at most, rather than centuries).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jefferies]

I don't really see why we should insist that Ambassador replaced Excelsior, when onscreen material does not support the idea that the two would hold the same niche or exist in comparable quantities.

Rather, Ambassador could be the largest and rarest member of the broad family of Excelsior era starships, while Excelsior would be the workhorse of that era, and smaller ships like the DS9 kitbashes made of Excelsior-like components might exist in even larger numbers but would see little or no frontline use.

Similarly, Galaxy wouldn't succeed or replace the earlier New Orleans or Akira of the same design trend, but would merely be the king piece against these more numerous pawns or knights.

Of course, it is always possible to speculate in contradiction of the ratios and prevalences we saw on screen. One might for example say that Starfleet decided to group all its obsolete designs in specific fleets, so that their low speed would not unduly hobble more modern types flying in the same formation. Perhaps the 9th Fleet, the one we most often observed, received the oldest and slowest primary combatants because it was only tasked with short range operations in the vicinity of the old Cardassian border, or with trench warfare around DS9. Perhaps other formations had more modern medium combatants to accompany the Galaxies, Nebulas and other kingpins that Starfleet would distribute to all of its fleets.

Alternately, it might be that the bulk of Starfleet vessels were indeed built in the early 24th century, and that the modern designs were never produced in significant quantities because the older ones still had decades if not centuries of service left in them. Several navies of yore have gone to battle in accordance with such a doctrine, sometimes with good results (although with sailing ships, one speaks of decades of lifetime at most, rather than centuries).

Timo Saloniemi

I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The instance on the importance of the Ambassador, Sovereign and Intrepid just because they were more modern than other designs seems a bit too simplistic. Although, I must admit that before I made this analysis I was also in this camp. Also, I think it is important to keep in mind that just because a ship design was used as a hero ship from a storytelling perspective doesn't mean they were superior vessels from an in-universe utility perspective.

Then again, your argument that older designs would be grouped in the same fleets is also very sensible and could explain the disproportionate amount of Excelsiors and Mirandas we saw. However, what we got to see in DS9 represented some of the most important events of the DW, so why would they make such heavy use of the outdated fleets in these battles?

I think your concluding thoughts make for the best explanation that there were simply a lot of old ships around vs new designs. This fits with what we have seen on screen and fits with the lifespans that have been outlined for starships in the various technical manuals.

Finally, in response to the other posters, I would like to say that I never said that any ship was exclusively intended for combat, but that this is likely to be their main function. This doesn't mean they can't do anything else. Also we know that Starfleet designed a number of ships to deal with the Borg threat. From what I have read, the Akria and Sabre class together with the Defiant fall into this category.

 

[Praetor]

I don't really see why we should insist that Ambassador replaced Excelsior, when onscreen material does not support the idea that the two would hold the same niche or exist in comparable quantities.

Rather, Ambassador could be the largest and rarest member of the broad family of Excelsior era starships, while Excelsior would be the workhorse of that era, and smaller ships like the DS9 kitbashes made of Excelsior-like components might exist in even larger numbers but would see little or no frontline use.

Similarly, Galaxy wouldn't succeed or replace the earlier New Orleans or Akira of the same design trend, but would merely be the king piece against these more numerous pawns or knights.

I'll buy that. If the Galaxy replaced the Ambassador, rather than the Ambassador replacing the Excelsior (which does seem more likely the more I think about it considering the differences in size between the E and A and similarities between the A and G) and there weren't many Ambassadors built to start with, it explains pretty much everything in regard to the Ambassador's absences.

Of course, it is always possible to speculate in contradiction of the ratios and prevalences we saw on screen. One might for example say that Starfleet decided to group all its obsolete designs in specific fleets, so that their low speed would not unduly hobble more modern types flying in the same formation. Perhaps the 9th Fleet, the one we most often observed, received the oldest and slowest primary combatants because it was only tasked with short range operations in the vicinity of the old Cardassian border, or with trench warfare around DS9. Perhaps other formations had more modern medium combatants to accompany the Galaxies, Nebulas and other kingpins that Starfleet would distribute to all of its fleets.

Alternately, it might be that the bulk of Starfleet vessels were indeed built in the early 24th century, and that the modern designs were never produced in significant quantities because the older ones still had decades if not centuries of service left in them. Several navies of yore have gone to battle in accordance with such a doctrine, sometimes with good results (although with sailing ships, one speaks of decades of lifetime at most, rather than centuries).

Timo Saloniemi

I would say it's probably a combination of the former and the latter, rather than one or the other. There are probably so many Excelsiors and Mirandas that they end up forming the backbone of six or seven of the nine fleets which operate at short ranges, while the fewer, faster, more heavily armed modern ships are grouped into the other three, 'strike' fleets. I'll also cede the point that we don't really know how many Defiants, Sovereigns and Intrepids there really were, and that perhaps by virtue of the fact that they were hero ships - newer, experimental to some degree and probably rather expensive- there really weren't that many for those very reasons.

 

[Unicron]

We don't really know how long an "average" design lifespan might be. Obviously from a real world perspective, it's far easier to reuse existing designs than build new ones from scratch. But in some other series like BattleTech and Star Wars, it's not that uncommon for designs to remain in use for decades, and perhaps longer. BattleTech has some vehicle designs remaining in service for centuries, with the individual models differing but the same basic principles and mechanics being kept.

 

[Jefferies]

We don't really know how long an "average" design lifespan might be. Obviously from a real world perspective, it's far easier to reuse existing designs than build new ones from scratch. But in some other series like BattleTech and Star Wars, it's not that uncommon for designs to remain in use for decades, and perhaps longer. BattleTech has some vehicle designs remaining in service for centuries, with the individual models differing but the same basic principles and mechanics being kept.

I am not sure the Star Wars universe is such a good choice for a comparison here. After all, the Republic is tens of thousands of years old and technological development seems to progress at a snails pace when compared to the Federation, remaining essentially static for extensive periods.

 

[Unicron]

Fair enough, but I think my point is still valid - SW seems to introduce newer ship designs pretty regularly, but it seems that most of the older ones can remain in use for a long time.

 

[Timo]

During Episodes I-III, the artists seemed to be making an effort of showing how technology moved forward and spacecraft changed (towards the Episodes IV-VI style in a not-so-subtle statement of "see where this leads, huh, huh?"). That didn't look like stagnation, or variation for the sake of aesthetics, but more like the thing that happened during the World Wars here: new models of aircraft had to be introduced basically every month to introduce the vital if incremental improvements that would help defeat the similarly evolving enemy.

That was back when the Republic was at its industrial height, of course. Some stagnation would be expected of IV-VI where things were in decline overall. The Extended Universe just tends to reflect its roots: things written from the IV-VI starting point feature stagnation, things based on I-III feature evolution...

We might say that Starfleet needed to evolve during the height of the Klingon threat, creating the massive numbers of fanfic ships relating to that cool era of TOS movies. Then would come periods of stagnation where what had already been designed was deemed good enough, punctuated by a war or two: first something that made Starfleet turn Excelsior into a family, then something that similarly resulted in the Galaxy. But things other than war may cause evolution, too: block obsolescence of the previously massed designs, rather than obsolescence against a specific threat, could have prompted the Excelsior family. If we believe in 100-year lifespans for Galaxy era designs (or individual ships), then we might believe in something like 50 years for TOS movies, justifying the introduction of many new designs around the "Excelsior era" and again the "Galaxy era" at the halfpoints of the projected lifetimes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[arch101]

Although never seen, it would seem to make sense that Sovereign class ships would serve as command ships for various fleets. Not many would have been built by the beginning of the war and hey are new and sophisticated. A Sovereign with 2 or 3 Defiant class escorts would provide a well-protected command platform for an Admiral in charge of a battle group.