More guns, bigger guns,or better guns?

[fishingforships]

It doesn't look to me that this Enterprise has the standard armament given to a Constitution class starship in TOS. Is this due to the loss of the Kelvin? Did Starfleet start beefing up their ship, or is it just the better CG's. I know in TOS it didn't have swivel mounts on the emitters, and it look's like it has more than the standard eight emitters too.

 

[Voyagerian]

It doesn't look to me that this Enterprise has the standard armament given to a Constitution class starship in TOS. Is this due to the loss of the Kelvin? Did Starfleet start beefing up their ship, or is it just the better CG's. I know in TOS it didn't have swivel mounts on the emitters, and it look's like it has more than the standard eight emitters too.

I was thinking the very same thing as I watched her tear up on Narada near the climax of the film. In TWOK, it certainly looked like the banks were merely able to fire in a certain arc-radius, as there were three positioned on both the dorsal and ventral primary hull. I was just looking at a screencap of 1701 shooting at Reliant alongside yesterday. But the new design has the same amount of banks atop and bottom of the ph as the refitted 1701. The new movie certainly seemed to differ there,in the arc it was allowed, but it could well be that maybe that was always the case, we just never saw it before. There is I think supposed to be a bank underneath the secondary hull on the refitted Enterprise-'Enterprise' had the Defiant firing an aft phaser bank, so 1701 may have had that, too...(Franz Joseph's Tech Manual-know, guys, non-canon!)had three banks atop the ph!...Given the new one's uprated size-or so a percentage of us are willing to believe is accurate, and true-me included-it'd to me make sense she could cover all potential tactical bases. Oh well, i'm no analytical expert. I just enjoy the new design, and relish what she does when she does it.And let's not forget the aft-firing photon tubes the TOS ship really could have used!

 

[6079SmithW]

Real world explanation is probably better CG. In-universe it is been suggested before that Starfleet did indeed "Beef up" their ships in response to the Kelvin incident. Also, we never saw Enterprise use her "refit" style turrets in this movie, the type that we saw in the original 6 movies. I'm guessing they fire beam phasers. TOS Constitutions were only ever shown with a single bank on the ventral dome, which was also were the photons came from. As Voyagerian mentioned, "Enterprise" Defiant also had aft phasers and torpedos. I liked this version of the Constitution class the best.

 

[The Badger]

I don't think that it was ever canonically established exactly what armament the TOS Enterprise actually had. Many people go by the Technical Manual, but quite apart from it's non canon status it also does not always match what is seen on screen.

For example, the TM claims the Enterprise has just two torpedo launchers, mounted just under the bridge. Typically though torpedoes are seen to be fired from the underside of the hull. Also, in 'Journey To Babel', Kirk orders the loading of tubes 'two, four and six'.

 

[Timo]

Indeed. And phasers from one through four are mentioned in "Paradise Syndrome". Or more exactly, Sulu is told to fire in sequence, and he says "phaser one firing", then "phaser two firing". Then there's a cut, and then he says "Phaser four firing. All phasers fired, Sir." Thereafter, the phasers are rigged for simultaneous firing.

This seems to establish that the ship has at least four phasers that can fire in the forward arcs (and possibly more for other arcs). On the other hand, visual effects establish that at least a couple of "phasers 1 through 4" fire from the very same spot ahead of the lower sensor dome, and that "phasers rigged for simultaneous firing" fire from this location, too (and only produce the usual twin beams, not eight!). Possibly some of the phasers are located elsewhere, because visuals are not associated with every bit of dialogue of them firing.

Also, we hear that "amidship" phasers exist in "Errand of Mercy". And we see aft torpedoes on a sister ship in "In a Mirror, Darkly".

Clearly, the ship has more armaments and firing locations than the effects would suggest. But we are probably within our rights to think that the weapons we actually see firing are the most important and powerful ones, and that the other guns are rarely if ever used exactly because they are secondary armaments.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[lucas1701]

Talking of phasers, who else noticed the 'secondary' cannons firing from the saucer of the Kelvin? They look lie the four-barrelled quad cannons on the millenium falcon and fire blue energy instead of red phaser beams.

One thing I disliked about the new movie was the sound made by the Enterprise's weapons- they sound very cartoony/ video-game like. I'd much prefer the sound of the photon torpedos from ST:TMP, or phasers from Next Gen.

Sort it out, Ben Burtt!

 

[Timo]

Talking of phasers, who else noticed the 'secondary' cannons firing from the saucer of the Kelvin? They look lie the four-barrelled quad cannons on the millenium falcon and fire blue energy instead of red phaser beams.

Perhaps related to the plasma guns of ENT era ships? An older technology used for secondary purposes 80 years after the introduction of phaser tech? Granted that the plasma guns were pink in ENT, in fact fairly similar to phasers in color. But that need not mean much, as all sorts of weapons (phasers, disruptors, polaron beams) come in all sorts of colors in Trek.

These Kelvin guns do look like secondary weapons: they only come to play during Nero's second attack, when George Kirk already knows what to expect of Nero, and may be useless for anything else apart from shooting down missiles and similar small targets.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[fishingforships]

Talking of phasers, who else noticed the 'secondary' cannons firing from the saucer of the Kelvin? They look lie the four-barrelled quad cannons on the millenium falcon and fire blue energy instead of red phaser beams.

Perhaps related to the plasma guns of ENT era ships? An older technology used for secondary purposes 80 years after the introduction of phaser tech? Granted that the plasma guns were pink in ENT, in fact fairly similar to phasers in color. But that need not mean much, as all sorts of weapons (phasers, disruptors, polaron beams) come in all sorts of colors in Trek.

These Kelvin guns do look like secondary weapons: they only come to play during Nero's second attack, when George Kirk already knows what to expect of Nero, and may be useless for anything else apart from shooting down missiles and similar small targets.

Timo Saloniemi

Exactly, they look like they serve more like a flack defensive system more than offensive weapons. Short rang, low yield plasma weapons like you stated.

I did take another look at the movie in slo-mo and it does appear that the ship has six separate banks of phaser's on the saucer section, three on top, three on bottom. It was said earlier that the TOS Enterprise only had four forward banks that were spoken of, which may be true. Also it was stated earlier that most of the specks of the ship you can find are not canon so one cannot rely on them for tech-data. So I guess I'm going to answer my own thread and say the ship's armament was upgraded due to the Kelvins untimely demise.

 

[6079SmithW]

I'm pretty sure the blue pulse cannons were phasers. If you look up stats for the kelvin somewhere it actually says the blue pulse phasers are more powerful then the red beam ones. The low power red beam ones would be used for cutting through shields while the high power pulse blue ones would dish out some damage.

 

[fishingforships]

Look up stats for the Kelvin where? Is it just conjuncture? The phasers on the Enterprise D were red, does that make them less powerful. I know weapons in Trek come in all colors, but I saw six red phasers firing from the dorsal section, and around six different turrets firing blue.
Wouldn't you expect there to be more of the stronger weapons, and for them to be actually uses against a formidable adversary?

 

[SilentP]

Look up stats for the Kelvin where? Is it just conjuncture? The phasers on the Enterprise D were red, does that make them less powerful. I know weapons in Trek come in all colors,

It's true, you can't really judge their power purely on what colour they happened to choose.

Wouldn't you expect there to be more of the stronger weapons, and for them to be actually uses against a formidable adversary?

Not necessarily (the point about having more of the stronger weapons), since it may be that the power systems can't keep more of those weapons operational, but it's easy enough to power a lot more of the additional secondary/weaker weapons. It may also be the case that the number of weapons that they have fitted is considered optimal for the ship.

As for them being useful, they probably are, when you're target isn't a future-era time travelling uber mining ship of death, that's about 10 times the size of you, crewed by maniacal Romulan miners. I know you have to design for the future environment of the battlefield, but there are limits

 

[6079SmithW]

Look up stats for the Kelvin where? Is it just conjuncture? The phasers on the Enterprise D were red, does that make them less powerful. I know weapons in Trek come in all colors, but I saw six red phasers firing from the dorsal section, and around six different turrets firing blue.
Wouldn't you expect there to be more of the stronger weapons, and for them to be actually uses against a formidable adversary?

I didn't mean that the power output of all phasers was color coded, I just read somewhere that the Kelvin's phasers' powers might be different for different colors. Anyway, I can't remember were I read this so its of no concern for this thread I guess. There is a website where the various sections of the Kelvin are analyzed, and it says that the weapons are all phasers, releasing nadion particles, so this suggests that everything we see is a phaser and there are no Enterprise like plasma cannons on board. I will try to re-find this website.

 

[fishingforships]

You think you could hook me up with a link?

 

[M'Sharak]

Look up stats for the Kelvin where? Is it just conjuncture? The phasers on the Enterprise D were red, does that make them less powerful. I know weapons in Trek come in all colors, but I saw six red phasers firing from the dorsal section, and around six different turrets firing blue.
Wouldn't you expect there to be more of the stronger weapons, and for them to be actually uses against a formidable adversary?

I didn't mean that the power output of all phasers was color coded, I just read somewhere that the Kelvin's phasers' powers might be different for different colors. Anyway, I can't remember were I read this so its of no concern for this thread I guess. There is a website where the various sections of the Kelvin are analyzed, and it says that the weapons are all phasers, releasing nadion particles, so this suggests that everything we see is a phaser and there are no Enterprise like plasma cannons on board. I will try to re-find this website.

If you mean the site from which the images in this thread were captured, that site (https://boldlygo.intel.com/content/index.html) is no longer active. I think Intel took it down sometime before the movie went into general release.

 

[6079SmithW]

^ Yes that is the one! Thank you M'Sharak! So, the Kelvin is armed with two types of phasers, a lower power beam one used for cutting through shields and hull (red) and a higher power pulse one (blue). I think the scene where George Kirk orders a full phaser spread is one of the coolest scenes in any Trek movie.

 

[The Castellan]

The TOS Constitutions' proximity phasers, seen in Balance of Terror, might be the phasers 3 & 4 being mentioned in the other story?

Talking of phasers, who else noticed the 'secondary' cannons firing from the saucer of the Kelvin? They look lie the four-barrelled quad cannons on the millenium falcon and fire blue energy instead of red phaser beams.

JJ kept bringing up Star Wars when I heard/read him talk about this film.

 

[M'Sharak]

^ Yes that is the one! Thank you M'Sharak!

Thought that might be it.

 

[Trevacious]

Were all those guns on the Kelvin automated? Easily handled from the bridge by George all on his own? Or did the Kelvin have a sizeable gunnery crew that stayed aboard, too?

Hell, George was gonna Leave before he realized the autopilot was damaged.

 

[Tom Servo]

I figure the Kelvin's phasers are automated to an extent. When there is a person operating the weapons systems, Im sure they have a defensive CWIS type mode, which is probably the blue turrets, and the main phasers, the beams, are targeted manually, or with some computer assistance. I think the autopilot, when the weapons are on, put the phasers, both modes, into some sort of auto fire preset, and targets the most high profile, or most threatening targets on the ships targeting scanners.

When the autopilot was offline, Kirk stayed behind not just to pilot the ship, but to manually target the weapons systems to protect the fleeing shuttles. The Kelvin was already lost, he knew that, so he used he weapons to protect the survivors.

 

[Kai Winn]

well, according to http://www.experience-the-enterprise.com/uk/ was this enterprise way bigger than a galaxy class ship, but armed with toy guns. 12 phaser banks with a total output of 5,000 terrawatts + 2 torpedo tubes. no wonder they were no match of a romulan ore freighter.