It's been brought up here and in other threads that it's expected that science/medical vessels would be weakly armed/have feeble defenses.
Why is this the case? They're still part of Starfleet and therefore should have a basic standard of effective defense. OK, so they won't be armed to the teeth like a Galaxy-class or the Defiant, but they shouldn't be made of papier mache either.
It can be a dangerous galaxy in Trek, and not all the UFP's opponents would play by the rules and leave medical or scientific vessels out of the fray.
I never understood this either. The idea that the
Grissom, or science vessels in general, "don't need" to be able to defend themselves any better than what we saw in TSFS, is preposterous. Attacks from hostile forces can come from unexpected foes, in unexpected places, during peacetime; Trek has demonstrated this
countless times. Furthermore, I maintain that the Oberth is a piece of crap
as a science vessel. At least during TNG; it may have performed better in that role during the movie era, but in the 24th century, it sucks. Why do I say this? Another thing Trek has demonstrated countless times is that it's not just hostile lifeforms in spaceships that are dangerous: ships can get trashed by all manner of natural phenomena or space-borne entity. And the class that became the galaxy's whipping boy, the class that was used on TNG more than any other in the role of showing up half-destroyed, or with the entire crew having been killed, or what have you, giving the Ent-D crew a mystery to solve, was the Oberth! In seven appearances through the series, four of those involved the destruction of the ship or the death of the crew before the Ent-D arrived on the scene. In the other three appearances, it didn't DO anything; it just showed up to rendezvous with the ship. Whenever we heard about one actually taking on a
mission, it ended in disaster. Not a good track record.
Exactly Sonak. Not defenceless, but equally not 'armed to the teeth'. You can argue in STIII Kruge got the jump on them so weren't able to defend themselves. But no way would anyone in right mind send Oberth up against Borg unless desperate. Not an offensive ship. I think upgrading of later science classes like Nova and Lunar is as result of TMP encounters and natural evolution/sending ships into deep territories further from SF command so couldn't call for assistance so have to defend themselves...
I agree that there would be a minimum standard for defensive capability for any "Starfleet vessel". Hell, we've seen non-Starfleet ships roughed up plenty of times, so I assume that even they carry some form of defensive measures.
On the
Grissom, though... the BoP got the jump on them initially, but then there was this HUGE pause before they actually fired... almost twenty seconds go by. It's pretty much a given that they raised their shields. Which, thus, means that the
Grissom was taken out with ONE TORPEDO with full shields. And the Klingons were trying
not to destroy the ship at the time. It's one of the dumbest moments in the film.
It's been brought up here and in other threads that it's expected that science/medical vessels would be weakly armed/have feeble defenses.
Why is this the case? They're still part of Starfleet and therefore should have a basic standard of effective defense. OK, so they won't be armed to the teeth like a Galaxy-class or the Defiant, but they shouldn't be made of papier mache either.
It can be a dangerous galaxy in Trek, and not all the UFP's opponents would play by the rules and leave medical or scientific vessels out of the fray.
Exactly
Sonak. Not defenceless, but equally not 'armed to the teeth'. You can argue in STIII Kruge got the jump on them so weren't able to defend themselves. But no way would anyone in right mind send Oberth up against Borg unless desperate. Not an offensive ship. I think upgrading of later science classes like Nova and Lunar is as result of TMP encounters and natural evolution/sending ships into deep territories further from SF command so couldn't call for assistance so have to defend themselves...
I don't think anyone here has said that the Oberth-class was designed with heavy combat in mind, but its presence at both Wolf 359 and Sector 001 does suggest that it
can be called upon for that
if necessary, so it might not be as
completely worthless as some would think, IMO. Its combat rating may the lowest in the fleet for all we know, but in such instances they were called for battle they likely served merely as extra guns, probably mostly providing cover fire for other ships.
Maybe not
completely worthless, but close to it. It's almost a hundred year-old design as of Wolf 359, and wasn't exactly a sturdy class even in its prime if TSFS is any indication. I think it was only present at Wolf 359 because Starfleet didn't expect a fleet of 40 to be massacred THAT badly, and was probably only there as a support ship. As for FC, at that point, the cube was on Earth's doorstep and still in decent shape, so it makes sense that they would have entered "If you can fly and shoot, then fly up here and start shooting" mode. Other than that kind of extreme, doomsday-type scenario, I don't think it would be sent into any combat situations. It's a flying coffin.
InTrek universe, no admiral in right mind would have sent Oberth anywhere near frontline. It's a great science vessel but has limited combat/offensive capability as far as I understand canon...
