Why was the Defiant class not mass produced?

[Xerxes1979]

It was a small vessel that presumably could have been built in great numbers given how long the war lasted.

The existance of the Valiant proves that it was not a one off test platform so what is the excuse?

TOS and TNG both showed the sister ships of the heroes and arguably the main "ship" of DS9 had its clone of empok nor as well.

What say you?

 

[C.E. Evans]

It was still a new design at the time, even with two or more ships in service, IMO. Lessons learned from Defiant and Valiant probably were being used to make subsequent Defiant-class ships even better.

The fleet's probably chock full of the suckers now...

 

[Avon]

another one was renamed defiant after the first was destroyed. thats 3 of them.

 

[black_dranzer]

It was stated in 'The Search' that the prototype had problems, it took a while for the DS9 crew to get them sorted out, but once that had been accomplished I'd assume the Defiant class would be put into mass production, for example we saw 2 accompanying an Akira class in Voyager's 'Message In A Bottle', plus there was the USS Sao Paulo that came along in season 7.

I'd assume the main reason there weren't a lot of Defiant-classes seen in the fleet actions in DS9 was because it could be confusing to know which was 'our' Defiant if there were 10 others all zipping around willy-nilly...

 

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

Apart from the three already mentioned, another two Defiant-class ships were part of the task force in VGR: "Message in a Bottle", and a couple more appear in the fleet scene of "A Call to Arms".

 

[Photon]

It was a small vessel that presumably could have been built in great numbers given how long the war lasted.

The existance of the Valiant proves that it was not a one off test platform so what is the excuse?

TOS and TNG both showed the sister ships of the heroes and arguably the main "ship" of DS9 had its clone of empok nor as well.

What say you?

As stated in the Search it had some probs as was evident by the first mission. I blv it was back-shelved b/c the Borg (still sounds Swedish) threat had diminished. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
A fleet of Defiants would have taken care of that Cube pronto and Baldy could have kept getting space dust specimens at the Romulan NZ.

 

[Rarewolf]

I'm not sure about that. She stood her ground, but the Defiant was minutes from destruction when the Enterprise turned up. Even without Worf's kamikaze instruction

When you consider the Odyssey was weakened in the Dominion's first strike by an attack on Starfleet's normally exposed Nacelles, then rammed on an exposed secondary hull, it's dammed handy the vessel Starfleet had already designed to fight the Borg suffered neither of these weaknesses. Weaknesses we never even saw the Borg exploit

Even the pulse Phasers - unless each Pulse was on a different frequency, not that effective against a massive cube. But good against tiny ships. Take them out in a few shots.

So pretty convenient SF had just the vessel to fight their new enemies.

But as a Borg buster, a bit of a flop really.

 

[Marie1]

It was stated in 'The Search' that the prototype had problems, it took a while for the DS9 crew to get them sorted out, but once that had been accomplished I'd assume the Defiant class would be put into mass production

Perhaps, but the problem seemed fundamental- the ship was tearing itself apart. O'Brien really had his work cut out for him, and would have even without all the special stuff the cloak needed.

I'm thinking they'd have to really overhaul the ship, make a 2.0 to get something feasible for mass production, probably make it bigger to house the room for more structure.

 

[Cyke101]

I'm not sure about that. She stood her ground, but the Defiant was minutes from destruction when the Enterprise turned up. Even without Worf's kamikaze instruction

When you consider the Odyssey was weakened in the Dominion's first strike by an attack on Starfleet's normally exposed Nacelles, then rammed on an exposed secondary hull, it's dammed handy the vessel Starfleet had already designed to fight the Borg suffered neither of these weaknesses. Weaknesses we never even saw the Borg exploit

Even the pulse Phasers - unless each Pulse was on a different frequency, not that effective against a massive cube. But good against tiny ships. Take them out in a few shots.

So pretty convenient SF had just the vessel to fight their new enemies.

But as a Borg buster, a bit of a flop really.

While I agree that the Defiant's capabilities are a bit overstated at times, I don't think it's fair to say the Defiant was a flop in its mission purpose if it was the only one of her class there. Her small size and maneuverability hints of the intention of squadrons, or at the least having multiple Defiants against a Cube.

So to say the Defiant wasn't performing as hoped or expected against the Cube is like saying a firefighter fared poorly against a warehouse fire, even though such things are meant to be tackled by several teams. As it is, Starfleet fought the Borg for at least several hours, maybe even a few days, and Defiant was one of first and last ships to engage the Cube. That speaks well of her durability.

 

[Anwar]

They already had developed superior vessels like the Akira, Norway, Steamrunner, Sabre and Sovereign classes. The Defiant isn't superior to any of those ships beyond Plot/Character shields.

 

[Lyon_Wonder]

I'd say Starfleet started producing additional Defiant class ships when war with the Dominion was imminent, and production ramped up even more after the war broke out escalated.

 

[heavylids]

The Defiant was considered a warship. Since Starfleet didn't really "believe" in such a thing, I'm not surprised it was never mass produced. Newer starships are powerful, but equally able for science, diplomacy, exploration, etc. Defiant kind of has a singular function....to take some hits and blow shit up.

 

[Photon]

I'm not sure about that. She stood her ground, but the Defiant was minutes from destruction when the Enterprise turned up. Even without Worf's kamikaze instruction

When you consider the Odyssey was weakened in the Dominion's first strike by an attack on Starfleet's normally exposed Nacelles, then rammed on an exposed secondary hull, it's dammed handy the vessel Starfleet had already designed to fight the Borg suffered neither of these weaknesses. Weaknesses we never even saw the Borg exploit

Even the pulse Phasers - unless each Pulse was on a different frequency, not that effective against a massive cube. But good against tiny ships. Take them out in a few shots.

So pretty convenient SF had just the vessel to fight their new enemies.

But as a Borg buster, a bit of a flop really.

A squadron w/ablative armor and QT's would take care of one Cube at great loss to the Defiants of course.

Don't know if the E-E's QT's had more blast power than the Defiant's but QT's shot thru the Cube's hull by the E-E basically ended the Cube. Also, the 3 QT's blew the sphere apart w/out a whimper.
Yes yes, the sphere was compromised b/c it had done the time-thing, but its a friggin Borg ship

 

[Cyke101]

They already had developed superior vessels like the Akira, Norway, Steamrunner, Sabre and Sovereign classes. The Defiant isn't superior to any of those ships beyond Plot/Character shields.

Aside from the Sovereign, we don't know how those other ships fare compared to any other ship, really. Sure the Akira's bigger than Defiant, but does that mean it's on par with an Ambassador? The Norway is comparable to the Intrepid, but can the Norway pull off the same on-screen feats in science and weaponry?

We do know, however, that the Defiant isn't without her drawbacks -- she just not as adept in science and research as other hero ships we've seen, and she's argued as being slower at warp as well. Different ships for different functions seems to be the overall motto, rather than having traditional multi-purpose ships or "all your eggs in one basket" ships like the E-D.

 

[The Badger]

Although not canon, the DS9 technical manual suggests that some of the Defiant's components, such as the ablative armour and the crystals for the pulse phasers, were slow and difficult to produce. So it seems that, up until Sisko and O'Brien had got the class ship operational, and it had proved it's worth, Star Fleet simply didn't bother with mass production.

Later, with the Dominion War under way, things changed. I believe that Doug Drexler said that once the kinks in the design were taken out they were built as fast as possible. This would explain how more ships are seen later on. Of course, given the manufacturing concerns mentioned in the TM, this still might be relatively slow.

 

[Rarewolf]

They already had developed superior vessels like the Akira, Norway, Steamrunner, Sabre and Sovereign classes. The Defiant isn't superior to any of those ships beyond Plot/Character shields.

Actually (and I did just check, I didn't have the registries memorised ) but surely it would be a myth to say they were all newer classes of vessels; it's just we just hadn't seen them before.

• Akira Class USS Thunderchild (NCC-63549)
• Norway Class USS Budapest (NCC-64923)
• Steamrunner Class USS Appalachia (NCC-52136)
• Sabre Class USS Yeager (NCC-61947)

That makes all of them earlier than the Galaxy Class.

 

[timelord1010]

I'm not sure about that. She stood her ground, but the Defiant was minutes from destruction when the Enterprise turned up. Even without Worf's kamikaze instruction

When you consider the Odyssey was weakened in the Dominion's first strike by an attack on Starfleet's normally exposed Nacelles, then rammed on an exposed secondary hull, it's dammed handy the vessel Starfleet had already designed to fight the Borg suffered neither of these weaknesses. Weaknesses we never even saw the Borg exploit

Even the pulse Phasers - unless each Pulse was on a different frequency, not that effective against a massive cube. But good against tiny ships. Take them out in a few shots.

So pretty convenient SF had just the vessel to fight their new enemies.

But as a Borg buster, a bit of a flop really.

A squadron w/ablative armor and QT's would take care of one Cube at great loss to the Defiants of course.

Don't know if the E-E's QT's had more blast power than the Defiant's but QT's shot thru the Cube's hull by the E-E basically ended the Cube. Also, the 3 QT's blew the sphere apart w/out a whimper.
Yes yes, the sphere was compromised b/c it had done the time-thing, but its a friggin Borg ship

The difference is the E-E had a crew of approx. 1,000 while the Defiant has a crew of 50 so even if you send 10 ships after a Borg cube and lose half of them in the battle your losses will be much less that if you lost the E-E or another larger starship.

 

[Cyke101]

I'm not sure about that. She stood her ground, but the Defiant was minutes from destruction when the Enterprise turned up. Even without Worf's kamikaze instruction

When you consider the Odyssey was weakened in the Dominion's first strike by an attack on Starfleet's normally exposed Nacelles, then rammed on an exposed secondary hull, it's dammed handy the vessel Starfleet had already designed to fight the Borg suffered neither of these weaknesses. Weaknesses we never even saw the Borg exploit

Even the pulse Phasers - unless each Pulse was on a different frequency, not that effective against a massive cube. But good against tiny ships. Take them out in a few shots.

So pretty convenient SF had just the vessel to fight their new enemies.

But as a Borg buster, a bit of a flop really.

A squadron w/ablative armor and QT's would take care of one Cube at great loss to the Defiants of course.

Don't know if the E-E's QT's had more blast power than the Defiant's but QT's shot thru the Cube's hull by the E-E basically ended the Cube. Also, the 3 QT's blew the sphere apart w/out a whimper.
Yes yes, the sphere was compromised b/c it had done the time-thing, but its a friggin Borg ship

The difference is the E-E had a crew of approx. 1,000 while the Defiant has a crew of 50 so even if you send 10 ships after a Borg cube and lose half of them in the battle your losses will be much less that if you lost the E-E or another larger starship.

Yep, you're also dividing up fire, which helps increase longevity on the field. Even in her battered state, the Defiant managed to dodge a couple of attacks when the Enterprise-E came.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I noticed that in two battles- The second Borg attack, and Chintoka, that the Defiant lasted longer than the Akiras, Steamrunners, ect.

I saw multiple Sabres, Akiras, and Steamrunners destroyed in both battles, while the Defiant still remained.

In the case of the Borg attack, it lasted slightly longer.

It had a huge hole in its nacelle, and it was still firing back.. tough s.o.b that ship.

 

[Anwar]

Like I said, Plot Armor. It's a main character ship so it won't take as much damage from something that would usually destroy another ship.

Like how in BOBW when the crew take back Locutus the Borg Cube simply tries to stop the shuttle instead of just destroying the Ent-D Saucer and Battle Section, whereas DS9 showed how easily they destroyed other Starfleet ships in single shots.