Size of the Federation and Starfleet

[SicOne]

Oh, no, I don't at all advocate that the Federation is the only superpower in the region, not at all. But I do believe that, even given the events of the "Destiny" trilogy, that they are in the best shape of anyone at the moment, of the major powers...the Klingons took quite a pasting in "Destiny" as well, the Romulans are divided and undergoing something of a civil war themselves, and there's nothing to state that the Cardassians have rebuilt their fleets from Dominion War losses.

True, the Klingons were not afraid to take on both the Federation and the Cardassians in DS9, but then again according to the "Star Charts" book, Cardassia Prime is right there next to UFP space, so it's not like the Klingons had to cross vast light-years of Cardassian-held and fortified space to reach C-Prime. And, remember, Gowron was on a (misguided) quest to reveal the Detapa Council as changelings, so it was less a full-scale invasion of the Cardassian Union, there to stay, as it was specific mission for the changelings.

And while the Cardassians weren't afraid to make trouble for the Federation, they did so knowing the Federation couldn't probably commit to a full-scale war knowing the Romulans were lurking in the wings, even with the Klingons (by then) backing the Federation up. Again, though, we don't know when the Cardassian-Federation conflict occured, or for how long, or how extensive it was, so that would just be speculation.

Regarding Sloan's comment on the status of the Klingon Defense Force, the argument he made to Bashir that it would take the Ks ten years to rebuild, I just saw as the self-serving argument he made to get Bashir to take the assignment, and not an accurate assessment of the KDF's status.

Even at that, from what we've seen on-screen, the tiny B'Rel birds-of-prey vastly outnumber the larger, and presumably more difficult to construct K'T'inga, Vor'Cha, and Negh'Var- classes. So it does stand to reason that the Klingons could rebuild "faster" than the Federation that way. If the Federation concentrated their fleet-rebuilding efforts on Oberths and Mirandas and Novas, rather than Galaxy- and Sovereign-class ships, they, too, would go faster.

 

[SicOne]

Hey, lookit that, made full Commander!

 

[Praetor]

Question:do we know when the conflict with the Cardassians began? Without Cardassian involvement, I see Starfleet actually being somewhat larger around 2340 or so, with concern over the quiet Romulan Neutral Zone increasing, as well as relations with the Klingons getting worse, than it was around 2364, with the Klingons as reasonably solid allies at that time. After the Enterprise-C incident in 2344, when the Klingons at last made peace with the Federation, then I could see a post-Cold War drawdown of ships as (1) the Klingons were less of a potential problem, and (2) shared patrols with the Empire of the Romulan Neutral Zone. But since I don't know when the Cardassians started being a problem, whether they were one right off the bat or whether they had previously coexisted in peace with the Federation (don't remember any mention made of them in TOS, but that doesn't necessarily mean Federation-Cardassian relations didn't exist at that time...), then Starfleet may have been even larger around 2340 if Card problems were going on at that time.

I wonder if Starfleet, like the Cold War-era U.S. military, had a two-wars strategy, where they could take on two opponents separated by a large geographical area, such as the Cardassians in the Alpha Quadrant, and the Romulans in the Beta Quadrant.

My guess is that the real buildup started in the mid-2340s and is probably why we see so many Excelsiors around NCC-4xxxx. The Excelsior is Starfleet's B-52.

I don't agree with this notion that Federation is the only super power there. I've been seeing it in quite a few threads and in this one as well. I think that they are comparable to Romulans and Klingons, as per onscreen evidence.

The only reason Klingons can keep up with Starfleet is because they invest so much in military. We see that they are not afraid to take on both Cardassians and Federation in DS9. We hear Sloan say that Klingons will spend the next 10 years rebuilding, while Federation and Romulans will be top dogs in the quadrants. Even Cardassians were not afraid to take on the Federation. At one time or another, they have all been up there in terms of power.

IMO, they are quite comparable militarily.

Well, this is what I was trying to allude to earlier. Just because Starfleet maintains a larger standing fleet doesn't mean that the Klingons or Romulans couldn't give them a run for their money.

The Klingons, with their fast growth and seemingly rugged (dare I say cheap? ships) no doubt possess a rather incredible ability to churn out replacement warriors and starships within a quick space of time, and could potentially maintain a much larger standing fleet if they wanted to. Also, their tendency towards aggressive campaign might enable them to do better with fewer ships - as their rather effective hit and runs with birds of prey might indicate.

The Romulans may have fewer ships, but almost every single Romulan ship we've seen in the 24th century has been a massive D'Deridex, which if we take Andy Probert's original size and weapons intentions into accout, might make any one warbird capable of handling multiple opponent ships at a time. Further, the Romulans seem to favor overwhelming surprise attacks.

So it's not just numbers, it's technology and other factors that must be taken into account. I'd argue that either Klingon or Romulan fleet could provide a real threat for the Federation, but that the evidence we've seen suggests that Starfleet maintains a larger standing fleet because Federation space is bigger.

Of course, it is possible that the Klingons and Romulans have a fleet disproportionate to the size of their territory. The Klingons might operate LOTS and LOTS of dinky birds of prey. The Romulans might operate relatively few D'Deridex class warbirds instead of having more medium or small size ships.

 

[SicOne]

Reading "Voyager:Full Circle", we might have some indication on how big Starfleet is...

On page 396, the combined fleet is assembled at the Azure Nebula to confront the Borg. Chakotay says, "All available ships have been ordered to regroup at the Azure Nebula, where we will end this invasion once and for all."

Well, apparently "all available ships" wasn't much.

On page 400, Kirsten Beyer writes, "Over three hundred and forty Federation and Allied vessels were arrayed in battle formation inside the nebula."

That's it?

From "Destiny", we know the allied forces joining the Federation task force were the Romulans (Donatra's people) and the Klingons, both of which were already fighting Borg incursions of their space, and IIRC the Cardassians sent some ships as well. But with all ships within travel time to do so being recalled to Federation space to fight the Borg, and even with battle losses thus far, there was this few number of Federation ships to wage the final battle? Even if we figure two-fifty to three hundred of those ships were Federation, one has to realistically assume that Starfleet would have sent every single ship they could to the Azure Nebula. This was a "DS9 Sacrifice Of Angels" moment (when the Federation retook DS9 before Dominion reinforcements could come through the wormhole); if they don't hammer the Borg emerging from the subspace corridor before they spread out and take off, they will have lost everything. Even with (1) Dominion battle losses five years previously and (2) recent Borg losses, a 10,000-ship Starfleet should have been able to amass more than just a few hundred ships for the Stand Of The Three Hundred (apologies to Zack Snyder).

This, unfortunately, does tend to give more credence to a thousand-ship Starfleet...

 

[Praetor]

I have one rather glib thing to say: it's just a book and it doesn't count.

I know that sounds terrible, but I think visually DS9 seemed to override the idea that the fleet should be that small. Unless a TON of ships were lost previously, and many many more were engaged elsewhere? Maybe a lot of the post-war ships were scuttled as was done with surplus ships post-WWII? Maybe a lot of those ships from the Dominion War were from reserve fleets and couldn't be reactivated quickly, and maybe with the post-War re-initiative towards exploration, most of the rest of the fleet was again far-flung on long-term deep space missions?

In any case, I wouldn't let it weigh too heavily on the rest of the fleet size discussion. IMO, it can be explained away easily enough to be ignored.

 

[JNG]

The novel numbers are somewhat subject to the same time constraint issues discussed above, and I wonder how much consistency we can expect of them anyway.

I rather liked the DS9 TM numbers on what the Cardassian Union produced in a year in terms of a basis to extrapolate fleet sizes for the other major powers (several of whom, including the Federation, probably produce a good bit more).

 

[Praetor]

Ooh, JNG, I hadn't thought of that. I must go get the book from my shelf now. *lazy*

 

[Manticore]

I have one rather glib thing to say: it's just a book and it doesn't count.

I know that sounds terrible, but I think visually DS9 seemed to override the idea that the fleet should be that small. Unless a TON of ships were lost previously, and many many more were engaged elsewhere? Maybe a lot of the post-war ships were scuttled as was done with surplus ships post-WWII? Maybe a lot of those ships from the Dominion War were from reserve fleets and couldn't be reactivated quickly, and maybe with the post-War re-initiative towards exploration, most of the rest of the fleet was again far-flung on long-term deep space missions?

In any case, I wouldn't let it weigh too heavily on the rest of the fleet size discussion. IMO, it can be explained away easily enough to be ignored.

Considering that the Federation, even at it's smallest 24th century estimates, is huge, it's quite possible that "all available ships" means all of the ones that could make the rendezvous in a reasonable time-frame.

 

[Praetor]

Considering that the Federation, even at it's smallest 24th century estimates, is huge, it's quite possible that "all available ships" means all of the ones that could make the rendezvous in a reasonable time-frame.

Exactly. It's Wolf 359 Syndrome.

 

[Manticore]

Considering that the Federation, even at it's smallest 24th century estimates, is huge, it's quite possible that "all available ships" means all of the ones that could make the rendezvous in a reasonable time-frame.

Exactly. It's Wolf 359 Syndrome.

Exactly. I view Wolf 359 as not devestating in a straight-up materiel manner, but psychologically--Starfleet had never lost so many ships before.

Considering that conflict with the Dominion was fairly obvious fairly soon after contact, Starfleet would have started bringing ships in as soon as possible, so what we saw during the Dominion War would be the product of, what, 2 years of military buildup and concentration?

 

[Praetor]

That's my guess. And it's rather clear from the novels that Starfleet wanted to get back to exploration after the War, so redeployment of the fleet, combined with ships that were utterly exhausted from years of war (many of which possibly being old or recommissioned from reserves to start with) and were thus scrapped, doesn't directly contradict the idea that these 300 ships were all they could muster so quickly, while still maintaining a fleet larger than 1,000.

Indeed, it seems like something of an improvement over Wolf 359...

 

[USS KG5]

It is worth remembering in all this discussion that it is extremely rare for any military organisation to commit its entire force to anything.

I have to say from the on-screen evidence Starfleet must have at least 15,000 front-line starships available at any one time, but spread over a massive territory and of course, given their exploratory mandate, outside it. Therefore in any given normal situation a gathering of 40 ships being wiped out in one go, is news.

 

[Praetor]

^I was thinking that would be a good wartime figure, anyway.

 

[Deks]

The blow SF took against the Borg was more psychological than the statement it made any real damage to the overall fleet the Federation has ... because to lose 40 ships and over 10 000 people against just 1 ship is ... not exactly the most encouraging news.

Given the fact SF is supposed to be spread out over 8000 LY's ... there is a good possibility that their numbers are well within 75 000.
If the registries are any indication (not saying they are but just a though), then by the time Voyager was launched, SF had about 74656 ships in total (not counting all of the shuttles as those would usually be attached to a specific ship or starbase with the same registry), and prior to that in the mid 23rd century, the registries were very low according to the 1701.
If SF began expanding rapidly after Kirk's adventures we witnessed, there is a good possibility they were producing around 1000 ships on average per year.

But ... these numbers are purely hypothetical to begin with.
I would certainly say the numbers and (especially) drama were way overstated in DS9.

If every member race that was part of the Federation had shipyards similar to the Utopia planitia on Mars (which was miniscule at best) and that those shipyards were in production for better part of time (not at their fullest though) over a period of 78 years ... then having over 75 000 ships is not unrealistic.
Especially if we are talking about 8000 ly's worth of resources/space.

 

[aloha62]

i always saw it as the federation having a huge amount of ships, thousands of them but the vast vast majority being non-military or considered to be a negligable offensive force. when ships are pulled for battle only the ones seen to be of any use are called as the 'only ones available' and the loss of these are considered a huge blow even if its only a few dozen.

for each big ship (galaxy etc.) patrolling there are a hundred or so small non combat ships going about a mirade of tasks. where as other races may have far less ships but a much higher percentage of them are combat ready.

i wouldnt be surprised of half of the federation were oberths or some such.

after a decade of finding folk who didnt like them that much the federation kicked things up a gear with a new gen of ships capable of defending themselves. the productions of soveriegns/akiras is certainly a change of role for the peace loving feds.


how many oberths would you need to take down a soveriegn?

 

[Wally]

Reading "Voyager:Full Circle", we might have some indication on how big Starfleet is...

On page 396, the combined fleet is assembled at the Azure Nebula to confront the Borg. Chakotay says, "All available ships have been ordered to regroup at the Azure Nebula, where we will end this invasion once and for all."

Well, apparently "all available ships" wasn't much.

On page 400, Kirsten Beyer writes, "Over three hundred and forty Federation and Allied vessels were arrayed in battle formation inside the nebula."

That's it?

From "Destiny", we know the allied forces joining the Federation task force were the Romulans (Donatra's people) and the Klingons, both of which were already fighting Borg incursions of their space, and IIRC the Cardassians sent some ships as well. But with all ships within travel time to do so being recalled to Federation space to fight the Borg, and even with battle losses thus far, there was this few number of Federation ships to wage the final battle? Even if we figure two-fifty to three hundred of those ships were Federation, one has to realistically assume that Starfleet would have sent every single ship they could to the Azure Nebula. This was a "DS9 Sacrifice Of Angels" moment (when the Federation retook DS9 before Dominion reinforcements could come through the wormhole); if they don't hammer the Borg emerging from the subspace corridor before they spread out and take off, they will have lost everything. Even with (1) Dominion battle losses five years previously and (2) recent Borg losses, a 10,000-ship Starfleet should have been able to amass more than just a few hundred ships for the Stand Of The Three Hundred (apologies to Zack Snyder).

This, unfortunately, does tend to give more credence to a thousand-ship Starfleet...

Inconclusive. This just has to with how many ships could reach the area in a given time. The fleet in 'Sacrifice of Angels' basically had months to gather and plan. The Azure Nebula plan was pretty quick.
Also figure at the same time, a sizable number of Federation ships were already dealing with Borg cubes and related issues and could not be pulled away.
The only thing we learned about the whole fleet coming out of this is that after all was said an done, 40% of Starfleet was gone. This number also counts many other Borg engagements before and after the Azure Nebula.

 

[Praetor]

The blow SF took against the Borg was more psychological than the statement it made any real damage to the overall fleet the Federation has ... because to lose 40 ships and over 10 000 people against just 1 ship is ... not exactly the most encouraging news.

Given the fact SF is supposed to be spread out over 8000 LY's ... there is a good possibility that their numbers are well within 75 000.
If the registries are any indication (not saying they are but just a though), then by the time Voyager was launched, SF had about 74656 ships in total (not counting all of the shuttles as those would usually be attached to a specific ship or starbase with the same registry), and prior to that in the mid 23rd century, the registries were very low according to the 1701.
If SF began expanding rapidly after Kirk's adventures we witnessed, there is a good possibility they were producing around 1000 ships on average per year.

But ... these numbers are purely hypothetical to begin with.
I would certainly say the numbers and (especially) drama were way overstated in DS9.

If every member race that was part of the Federation had shipyards similar to the Utopia planitia on Mars (which was miniscule at best) and that those shipyards were in production for better part of time (not at their fullest though) over a period of 78 years ... then having over 75 000 ships is not unrealistic.
Especially if we are talking about 8000 ly's worth of resources/space.

While the size of the Federation would certainly seem to support the possibility of 75,000+ ships, I'd like to point out that at least 1701 of those would be decommissioned - probably many more. I'd be surprised if the majority of ships below NCC-10000 hadn't been decommissioned and scrapped by the TNG era.

Which still of course leaves the possibility for up to 65,000+ ships, assuming that they didn't pick and choose numbers or assign them in some weird groups.

 

[Avro Arrow]

UFP FLEET STRENGTH:
_____________________________________________

Class:.........................Total in Service......Destroyed *
_____________________________________________

ESCORTS:

Defiant............................................57....................3
Steamrunner..................................709..................92
Springfield...................................1255................147
Rapier.............................................97..................18

The ship classes are all "official".

Sorry for asking this so long after the list was posted, but what exactly is the Rapier class? I can't seem to find a reference to this one anywhere.

Thanks...

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Given the fact SF is supposed to be spread out over 8000 LY's ... there is a good possibility that their numbers are well within 75 000.

On the other hand, if the Federation is spread out over 8000 cubic light years, 75,000 ships would make for a fairly crowded region. One also has to wonder whether or not a single facility in San Francisco could feasibly produce enough graduates to command 75,000 ships at a time. Either every Federation world has their own academy (which then makes it strange that non-humans come to San Francisco) or "Starfleet" as we have seen it is an Earth organization under Federal jurisdiction that happens to have the most attractive deep space/exploration program. If Starfleet had only a thousand ships to its name, that doesn't tell you much what the FEDERATION might have; since Star Trek inherently focusses on Starfleet's point of view, then the activities of, say, the 2300 ships of the Andorian Royal Guard might never show up on screen.

If the registries are any indication (not saying they are but just a though), then by the time Voyager was launched, SF had about 74656 ships in total

Several of these would have been retired by then, and many would be runabouts.

 

[kitsune]

While pondering the number of ships in Starfleet, I recalled this old article about how mathematicians produced an accurate estimate of German tank production by examining the serial numbers of the captured tanks:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jul/20/secondworldwar.tvandradio

It would be interesting to apply this formula to Starfleet ship registries, but of course the results would lack meaning since our data would be artificial and probably not follow the predicted patterns.