Do phaser arrays amplify energy, or merely direct it?

[Crazy Eddie]

It would make sense that Archer's ship would eventually be up-gunned to match the Columbia as the series continued

But it wasn't. Whatever else Enterprise was upgraded with, one thing it clearly NEVER got was dorsal torpedo launchers . Maybe by the time of "These are the Voyages" when NX-01's bridge is visibly identical to Columbia's as well, but prior to that, clearly not.

The easiest thing to swap out would be the guns

Indeed. Got any evidence they actually DID this?

It's a reasonable theory.

It's not even a theory, really, since it isn't actually BASED on anything. OTOH, the lack of VFX distinction between phased cannons and plasma cannons (assuming such a difference exists even in the Trekiverse) explains this just as well without having to postulate an unseen, unmentioned network of invisible turbolifts that shuttle the phase cannons from one part of the ship to the other in between shots.

Or alternatively, all the guns were upgraded to phase cannons over time...

Over WHAT time, we are not totally sure. The point, once again, is that the ship was already firing beams from locations that had no phase cannons as early as Season 1. There's no reason to assume "beam = phase cannon" since we know from "Awakening" that this isn't the case.

Which boils down to then how dialogue identifies the weapons. Since as you've pointed out that the Enterprise has never identified those pulse weapons and they've never been seen again after "Silent Enemy" (unless you know of one where they appear again) they can only then be "phase cannons".

That or plasma cannons firing in beams (much like the plasma rifles in "Regenerated").

But no instance in the not-alternate universe where the NX-01 uses the pulse guns again?

The alternate universe isn't sufficiently different for it to matter.

If that's the case, then it would be even more trivial to modify all their existing pulse (plasma) guns into phase cannons and the Enterprise is carrying 14 phase cannons

Obviously... but WHEN?

One more: In "Singularity", phase cannons are specifically called for and when they are fired they are coming from the forward dorsal gun ports.

Far from clear. The ship actually fires TWICE, and it's not clear if the first shot comes from the dorsal or ventral gun ports. Nor is it clear which weapons are used for the shots; Archer says "We need phase cannons!" and then once Reed Alert goes on T'Pol says "... all weapons are online." That would include both spatial torpedoes AND the plasma cannons being available.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Getting annoyed trying to sort out some of the inconsistencies of TNG, as one thing's been in the back of my mind from the get go:

Phaser arrays shouldn't have to concentrate or amplify anything, since the whole point of putting phasers in arrays is to get a cumulative effect from MANY arrays instead of just firing them one at a time. When you're firing in slow steady beams this is kind of irrelevant, but when your phasers fire like this, then suddenly the arrays have a tangible advantage over point turrets.

 

[blssdwlf]

But it wasn't. Whatever else Enterprise was upgraded with, one thing it clearly NEVER got was dorsal torpedo launchers . Maybe by the time of "These are the Voyages" when NX-01's bridge is visibly identical to Columbia's as well, but prior to that, clearly not.

The easiest thing to swap out would be the guns

Indeed. Got any evidence they actually DID this?

Everytime the phase cannon beams fire Exterior-wise, the two ships are identical except for the dish. The only times you can tell them apart are the interior bridge scenes.

It's not even a theory, really, since it isn't actually BASED on anything. OTOH, the lack of VFX distinction between phased cannons and plasma cannons (assuming such a difference exists even in the Trekiverse) explains this just as well without having to postulate an unseen, unmentioned network of invisible turbolifts that shuttle the phase cannons from one part of the ship to the other in between shots.

Since you have been unable to provide another time where we see the "pulse" FX used from the NX-01 after "Silent Enemy" and there has never been any dialogue that points to anything other than "phase cannons" aboard the ship then the easiest conclusion is that the ship only has "phase cannons". Since she only has 3 phase cannons (2 forward and 1 aft) and only fires a max of 3 at any one time, then the logical explanation is that the cannons can move to different firing points at will. A 4th one apparently was installed in late season 4 as she is then mentioned with aft cannons (plural).

Over WHAT time, we are not totally sure. The point, once again, is that the ship was already firing beams from locations that had no phase cannons as early as Season 1. There's no reason to assume "beam = phase cannon" since we know from "Awakening" that this isn't the case.

Yet there is no reason to assume that she kept the original pulse weaponry either since no dialogue ever calls for them. "Awakening" only shows that the shuttlepod has plasma weaponry that can switch from beam to pulse.

The alternate universe isn't sufficiently different for it to matter.

And what evidence do you have of this?

If that's the case, then it would be even more trivial to modify all their existing pulse (plasma) guns into phase cannons and the Enterprise is carrying 14 phase cannons

Obviously... but WHEN?

If the Enterprise had existing plasma guns left over, probably late Season 4. However, based on the evidence at hand, she only had 3 phase cannons up till "Divergence" where she got at least one more and that the cannons simply are moved around the ship.

One more: In "Singularity", phase cannons are specifically called for and when they are fired they are coming from the forward dorsal gun ports.

Far from clear. The ship actually fires TWICE, and it's not clear if the first shot comes from the dorsal or ventral gun ports. Nor is it clear which weapons are used for the shots; Archer says "We need phase cannons!" and then once Reed Alert goes on T'Pol says "... all weapons are online." That would include both spatial torpedoes AND the plasma cannons being available.

Actually, that would include only "spatial torpedoes" and "phase cannons" but not "plasma cannons". As you've pointed out, "plasma weapons" were never mentioned before or after "Silent Enemy" for the NX-01. So the only weapons that the ship could possibly be firing with are the "phase cannons".

Also, in "The Crossing", Reed lists out what the weapons are and "plasma cannon" is not on it:

ARCHER: Tactical alert.
REED: Weapons aren't charging, sir. They're offline. Phase cannons, torpedoes.​

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The easiest thing to swap out would be the guns

Indeed. Got any evidence they actually DID this?

Everytime the phase cannon beams fire

Plasma cannons can fire in beams too. Fail logic is fail.

Since you have been unable to provide another time where we see the "pulse" FX used from the NX-01 after "Silent Enemy" and there has never been any dialogue that points to anything other than "phase cannons" aboard the ship then the easiest conclusion is that the ship only has "phase cannons".

Except for the fact that it obviously DOES have plasma cannons, unless the pulse weapons in "Broken Bow" were merely a collective hallucination by Trek fans. To date, the plasma cannons have NEVER been mentioned in dialog, not even in Mirror Darkly when they were used by Enterprise and later by Avenger. By precedent, it's clear the crew wouldn't go out of their way to mention their installment even if they were still active and still firing in beams. As it stands, they do not always differentiate between spatial and photonic torpedoes and the order is sometimes given to simply "launch a torpedo."

Since she only has 3 phase cannons (2 forward and 1 aft) and only fires a max of 3 at any one time, then the logical explanation is that the cannons can move to different firing points at will.

Or, once again, she has weapons OTHER than phase cannons that are used but not mentioned (which is exactly what happened in "Broken Bow" and "In a Mirror Darkly").

Yet there is no reason to assume that she kept the original pulse weaponry either since no dialogue ever calls for them.

There's no reason to assume she got RID of them either, since no dialog ever describes their removal. And since we know plasma cannons CAN fire in beams, we can't automatically rule them out as an explanation.

More importantly: the presence of the plasma cannons is something we know for a fact, as the ship was equipped with them when it launched. The presence of fast-acting cannon-transferring turbolifts is NOT something we know of, and requires at least one extra made-up element to make sense.

"Awakening" only shows that the shuttlepod has plasma weaponry that can switch from beam to pulse.

And "Regenerated" shows that a standard plasma rifle can fire in beams that look identical to that of a phase pistol. Thus we know from this that plasma weapons can fire in pulses as well as beams, depending on the weapon setting (the same has been true of phasers since "Balance of Terror" so this isn't really surprising).

And what evidence do you have of this?

Because Archer's pontificating gives us a rough idea of the AU's timeline from First Contact until "now" and it is pretty much just an extremely ironic copy of the prime universe timeline. The only real differences are the fact that Starfleet built the NX-class ships a lot faster (evidently due to a lack of Vulcan obstructionism) and perpetrated their "exploration" program a lot more aggressively. The technology, weaponry and basic vessel design are otherwise completely unchanged.

If the Enterprise had existing plasma guns left over, probably late Season 4. However, based on the evidence at hand, she only had 3 phase cannons up till "Divergence" where she got at least one more and that the cannons simply are moved around the ship.

There's no evidence for "cannons moving" though. Only evidence of beams coming out of places here logic suggests there shouldn't be. If you've accounted for all three phase cannons and have additional firing points, the most logical explanation is for additional weapons that HAVEN'T been mentioned in those locations.

This works just fine, because plasma cannons have a way of not being mentioned for some reason, despite their obvious presence.

OTOH, there is this from "Horizon":

RIANNA: Mazarite?
TRAVIS: We had some trouble with them. We managed to knock out their engines with our phase cannons.
PAUL: We don't have phase cannons.
TRAVIS: I can tie the plasma turrets directly into the impulse engines. Lieutenant Reed did that and it increased our yield by eighty percent.

There are two ways to interpret this:
1) Travis thinks the plasma turrets can be augmented the same way as the phase cannons, OR
2) NX-01's plasma cannons have been modified and Travis wants to implement those same modifications on the Horizon.

I again point out that the actual difference between plasma cannons and phase cannons -- if such a difference exists at all -- has never been made clear. For all we know, they're just high-output plasma cannons built by Phase Space Armaments Incorporated.

Actually, that would include only "spatial torpedoes" and "phase cannons" but not "plasma cannons".

Yes, plasma cannons, whether they are actually used or not. You have so far not presented a shred of dialog evidence or any suggestion that those weapons were ever REMOVED. Even if you don't believe that NX-01's plasma cannons can fire in beams, it remains completely possible those weapons were left in place and simply neglected because they sucked.

Even you must realize neglecting obvious possibilities for no apparent reason is a staple of Trek plotlines and it's not really something you would want to build an argument around.

As you've pointed out, "plasma weapons" were never mentioned before or after "Silent Enemy" for the NX-01.

Nor during "Broken Bow" when they were ACTUALLY USED, nor again during "In a Mirror Darkly." Lack of mention does NOT equal lack of presence. (e.g.: It is never explicitly mentioned that anyone bothers to clean up after Porthos, but the lack of large piles of dog shit in the captain's ready room suggests that SOMEONE does).

Also, in "The Crossing", Reed lists out what the weapons are and "plasma cannon" is not on it:

ARCHER: Tactical alert.
REED: Weapons aren't charging, sir. They're offline. Phase cannons, torpedoes.​

And in mid sentence they get a call from Trip who says "the engines just went down." He never "lists" which one until Archer asks him, just as Reed never would have mentioned plasma cannons unless Archer asked "What about the old plasma turrets?" Which would have been a bit superfluous since at this point it's clear that the ship has been effectively disabled.

 

[Timo]

Whatever else Enterprise was upgraded with, one thing it clearly NEVER got was dorsal torpedo launchers.

Dunno. The original ventral fwd photon torpedo tubes appeared to be located between the twin spatial torpedo tubes, seen when firing but otherwise invisible. Ditto for the aft photon tube. Later photon torpedoes emerged from the former spatial torpedo tubes, but we already got confirmation of the existence of invisible tubes here, so we could assume them to exist wherever we want.

It's merely that we don't see dorsal torpedo tubes firing. But we don't see volleys of four being fired, either: apparently, it never pays off to fire all your available tubes. So Archer's tubes could be as invisible as Kirk's most of the time, and some might never be seen firing - just like Kirk's aft tubes never fired, even though ENT suggests he would have had those.

Like everything else in this discussion, it's an absence-of-evidence problem. We get an early mention, and no dialogue evidence that the early state of affairs would persist beyond the mention. And then we creatively interpret the visuals or their absence. Given the track record of how Starfleet uses shipboard weapons (in ENT, TOS and TNG alike), the absence of firing VFX is never a good indicator for the absence of weapons...

actually, the idea that they could was Timo's idea to begin with, what, eighteen months ago? Since then it's become a fairly popular theory

I haven't had much success with searching for the original theory, but I recall it being much older than that, and not being one of mine. After all, I've never been a proponent of the "just three guns" idea, even if I do freelance work for the devil often enough.

And "Regenerated" shows that a standard plasma rifle can fire in beams that look identical to that of a phase pistol.

Untrue - only a "nonstandard" rifle can do that, by virtue of sporting an extra barrel for the purpose.

Which emphasizes the special transitory nature of ENT. If handguns come in plasma, phase and combo variants, one would assume the weapons of ships and shuttles would do the same - unless the bulky shipboard technology were older (as with various real-world weapon technologies) and had already discarded the combo approach. But we see plenty of stuff that might be evidence of the combo thing continuing, and it would seem to be the best and most natural assumption overall; trying to explain the dialogue and VFX as excluding one weapon type or the other is just unnecessary extra work.

OTOH, it still appears profoundly silly to try and divide our onscreen cases of the hero ship firing beams into "this came from one of the three phase guns" and "this came from a plasma gun / a phase gun that has been moved since the last episode". A ship with mixed armaments is fine with me. A ship with arbitrarily scattered weapons where a starboard gunport holds a plasma gun, a corresponding portside port holds a phase gun, and both have identical visual and destructive effects and are used identically and without preference... It just doesn't wash.

In the end, we do not have continuing references to there being just three phase guns. Not in "Storm Front" or in any of the other quoted candidates.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Don't know about better armor, but decidedly faster and undeniably better weapons (given the NX class were the first ships to be fitted out with photonic torpedoes and phase cannons). It's possible that the phase cannons were mainly installed because "normal" starship armaments--say, bomb-pumped x-ray lasers or tactical nukes--would seem too provocative for a mission of exploration, but that the latter weaponry proved more effective in the long run anyway.

In that sense, NX-01's spatial torpedoes would be the Trek equivalent of the torpedo plane; the photonic torpedoes, more like dive bombers.

Spatial and Photonic Torpedoes do not go on combat air patrols or are sent out on a general heading to blindly look for a fleet of ships to attack and then return home.

And phasers do not detonate large sacks of cordite to propel metallic projectiles on ballistic trajectories.

But are still called "phaser GUNS" in Star Trek

You do know what an "analogy" is, right?

You wrote a Spatial TORPEDO = Torpedo PLANE? Do you?

There's no indication that EITHER weapon utilizes atomic energy as part of their operating principles. Photonic torpedoes are explicitly referred to as "antimatter warheads" in "the expanse."

Which is why I indicated that I don't consider the original TOS-verse as part of the ENT-TNG-verse.

You already conceded the ports aren't VISIBLE, so you're not really counting anything other than weapons emission locations.

I'm counting both ports and emission locations. So far the series has utilized almost all the ports + 2 emission locations that do not have obvious ports.

And what in the history of the show gives any credence to the idea that phase cannons are capable of "shuffling around" inside the ship?

There are only 3 phase cannons according to dialogue on board the ship up till "Divergence" and Reed only counts the "phase cannons" and "torpedoes" in his Tactical Alert in "The Crossing" which arms ALL the weapons. Since almost all the ports on the dorsal and ventral are used then the only conclusion is that the 3 cannons are able to be shuffled around.

That has, again, never been established canonically.

Fair enough for the NX-01.

Which by YOUR analogy would suggest that larger (at least twice as large) phaser weapons should exist on some vessel or another in the same time period, and also that a number of SMALLER phaser weapons should also exist somewhere on the Enterprise.

Technically, the "smaller phaser weapons" can still be the same phaser weapons since the power output is adjustable. I would expect that a larger ship, like the Excelsior, does have slightly larger phasers and a larger power system to match.

edit: And if you compare the phaser strips of the Galaxy class to the Intrepid class you'll find that the Galaxy-class strips are about twice as wide as the Intrepid-class strips.

I find it frankly baffling that you are suggesting the Battleship Gun analogy for the Enterprise-D despite the fact that the battleships you're comparing it to ALSO had a mix of large and small guns and the one you've mentioned most explicitly--the Iowa class--had six of its main guns forward and only three aft. If we were following your analogy, the smaller arrays would HAVE to be weaker for it to make any sense at all.

Not in the least. Phasers can be set to lower power. The reason the smaller guns exist on real BB is to engage small craft and aircraft. Phasers can do this and also scale dramatically up to engage big ships. And whats up with that Iowa analogy? A 16" cannon hit from the aft gun or the forward gun is still a 16" cannon hit.

Actually, a handful (to my knowledge, six to ten) pre-dreadnaught battleships were equipped with a SINGLE torpedo tube in the bow, meant to be fired at other battleships at extremely close range in situations where ramming would normally be called for but wouldn't be effective due to the newer ships' heavier armor.

The HMS Dreadnought had 5 tubes. The Hegoland class, 6. Kaiser class, 5. Kong class, 5. Bayern class, 5. Scharnhorst class, 6. Colossos class, 3. Orion class, 3. King George V-1911, 3. Iron Duke class, 4. Queen Elizabeth class, 4. Revenge class, 4. Nelson class, 2. South Carolina class, 2. Delaware class, 2. Florida class, 2. Wyoming class, 2. New York class, 4. Nevada class, 2. Pennsylvania class, 2. New Mexico class, 2. Tennessee class, 2. Colorado class, 2.

Actually they fell out of favor in WWI when the Dreadnaught was introduced and it was clear that the battleships were way too large and too bulky to take advantage of torpedoes.

Fell out of favor for pre-WW2, yes for the reasons you give below. But for Dreadnought and her like, torpedoes were part of their armament. Heck, even the HMS Rodney got to torpedo the Bismarck.

Not so for the smaller motor torpedo boats and -- in short order -- attack aircraft that could maneuver past the big battleship guns and get into torpedo range.

Which funny enough the "torpedo boat" would be the equivalent of the Jem'hedar attack ships (which are not small to begin with) and the appearance of the "destroyer wings" in DS9 protecting the Galaxy-class ships.

Entirely UNLIKE guns and torpedoes, which is what breaks your analogy. In modern times, only guided missiles (anti air/anti-ship missiles) have really maintained that parity while naval gunnery began its decline into irrelevance by the Battle of Jutland. Guns kept getting larger and larger, but the largest naval weapons in the world wound up never being used in anger against another battleship and most of the battleship kills of WW2 wound up being attributed to torpedoes or air-delivered bombs.

Which actually goes to my analogy of guns and torpedoes. Star Trek hasn't experienced the equivalent game-changer of aircraft carrying torpedoes and bombs far away from aircraft carriers. It's still a gun and torpedo, or basically a world that never developed combat aircraft. That's where your analogy falls apart trying to tie equivalents to things that do not exist in Star Trek.

While there HAS in the modern age, and that game changer was on its way up before WW-I even started. Which means comparing Enterprise-D's phaser arrays to an Iowa's gun turrets is basically a nonstarter since, unlike the Iowa class, the Enterprise-D actually DOES go into battle against other ships.

Iowa, no not specifically her during WW2. However other battleships such as the Bismarck, Rodney and King George V did engage in surface combat.

The only game changer would really be the conversion from whatever it was that Starfleet originally used to phase/plasma cannons and torpedoes. That would be the NEW paradigm, which would explain why it lasted for hundreds of years and was never superseded by anything new.

That's not a paradigm shift. The directed energy weapon became more powerful. The torpedo became more powerful. That's only an improvement with no changes in their use - well except maybe to stay further back when firing at full power because of the blast radius Ships going into battle in Enterprise fight just like the ships going into battle in TNG. Ships going into battle in WW1 do not fight like the ships today for the reasons you mentioned - aircraft carriers, etc.

If Yesterday's Enterprise took place during DS9's run, that would mean something.

Which doesn't mean much since you were complaining about DS9's lack of obvious shield use. They're free to use conformal shields.

During which time the Enterprise-D never fired back at the Bird of Prey...

Yeah, whats up with that? Although we do hear the Klingons say "Shields are holding" implying the E-D fired at least one more time at them.

That's just a very confusing point if you want to stick with it. Did Riker intentionally feed his blind spot to the Klingons or did he just somehow forget to shoot back for two minutes?

My position is that the phaser arrays have equal power. Although, technically, the BOP was never in the saucer array's blind spot when the E-D turned around.

And if you live in a universe where seasoned starfleet officers routinely perform this ineptly, how much benefit are you really going to get from a 30 meter blind spot under his nacelle pylons? You'd probably get the same benefit by beaming a strongly-worded note onto their bridge just before you open fire.

LOL.

But it DOES make a difference. We already established that from looking at TSFS, remember? Kruge decloaked directly in front of Enterprise's torpedo launchers when he should have known that the ship wasn't equipped with aft torpedoes. Which means when it DOES make a difference, no one seems to care.

That doesn't make any sense. If it made a difference, Kruge would've decloaked in the aft section if the phasers were stronger in the front. But since he picked the front, then there doesn't appear to be any difference in strength being fired upon by the forward phasers or the aft phasers. The same would go for the E-D.

You have suggested that they ought to care, because avoiding the firing arcs of the ship's most powerful weapons gives a net tactical advantage. Clearly it DOESN'T, as the attacker behavior vis a vis torpedo launchers doesn't bear this out either.

If the photon torpedo launchers fired torpedoes that can only travel in straight lines and could not turn to hit targets then the torpedo launcher arc would matter. Since that isn't the case then torpedo launcher firing arc isn't going to factor.

The Romulans DIDN'T attack in "The Enemy," and Defiant, despite its sneaking around, has never been known to prefer an attack direction when it decloaks and attack. In the latter case, they literally fly directly towards the combat area and decloak when they get there.

And again, that supports that attack direction doesn't matter even though it can be controlled which is opposite of your argument that it cannot.

"Staying behind" and "staying in a 30 meter cone below and aft of the ship" are not the same thing. I can follow a car on a motorcycle for hours, but staying in the blindspot of his mirrors would take some doing, especially if I'm following from a distance.

But you're not following from a distance. "Generations" was literally point-blank.

And I'm pointing out that we have no reason to expect they WOULD. They don't seem all that interested in avoiding the torpedo launchers either.

Torpedo launchers don't have a firing arc limitation, well at least not the Federation ones.

More significantly, Klingons and Jem'hadar don't show a huge interest in avoiding the primary weapon arcs of enemy ships either, even when they know for a fact that those weapons point directly forward. Hence a number of ships are shown flying directly in front of the Defiant and attacking head to head and being blown to smitherines; likewise, the Duras ships that attack Bortas conveniently position themselves within the forward disruptor's firing arc for no particular reason.

In any of these examples was there an option to start off undetected in a cloaked state?

Yes. In Yesterday's Enterprise they fire almost exclusively from the dorsal array throughout the episode. They fire from the ventral array only once, followed by a shot from the dorsal array that destroys one of the Klingon ships.

Yeah, they fired the ventral array once they pitched the ship up to face the Klingons. For the majority of the time the Klingons attacked from above in slo-mo. If they had attacked from below like the Jem-hedar did against the Odyssey it would have been almost exclusively the ventral array.

In Q-who they use the ventral strip once, dorsal strip twice. Same again in Best of Both Worlds where they never fire the ventral phaser strip at any time during the episode. There's also Unification, where Enterprise uses the dorsal phaser array and completely destroys the Ferengi pirate.

Not much love for the ventral array except for "Arsenal of Freedom" and "Conundrum," both times against small highly maneuverable targets.
Odyssey didn't have much choice in the matter; the Jem'hadar literally flew circles around it and attacked from wherever they pleased.

And add the Husnock ship for Ventral phaser.
And destruction of the Lysian ship with the Ventral phaser.
And a full EPS blast from the "A matter of Time".

The Odyssey could have easily pitched down at any point during the Jem'hedar attack runs to bring her dorsal phaser to bear. The Jem'hedar literally flew straight at and away from the Odyssey and not circles around her.

Overall, even love for both dorsal and ventral phasers. Again, no preference for phaser array usage despite the ventral array being 24% shorter in length.

In order to make up the length of the saucer dorsal array you would need to add together the saucer ventral array+engineering hull ventral array+warp pylon lateral arrays and the small strips in the back.

You wouldn't need the small strips on the back; the ventral array is NOT that much shorter (the secondary hull array almost makes up the difference by itself).

You are only at 98% the length if you count the saucer ventral array+engineering hull ventral array+both warp pylon lateral arrays without at least one of the small strips in the back. It's not that hard to measure the lengths

If all of those arrays had equal output power then by your own logic most vessels would be safer attacking from the DORSAL axis where only three arrays could be directed at them instead of the six arrays on the ventral side.

Check the ship again. Attack from the top and you face 5 strips...

There are two angles where only the main saucer array and the two smaller ones on the neck have clearance. Not so for the ventral axis, where no matter where you attack from if you're below the angle of the upper array you're within range of six other arrays below.

You mean if you attack the ship from the front and just slightly above where the ventral phasers can't fire? Like where the Galaxy-class ship in DS9 fires two phaser beams from the same dorsal array at the Cardassian ship? But I'd suppose that might be why the Klingon ships in "Yesterday's Enterprise" chose to attack from above rather than below. No wonder the Federation was losing the war

But that again doesn't explain why the Enterprise-D turns its dorsal side to its enemies more often than not (even to the Borg, strangely enough) when by your logic they should turn their belly instead.

You are confusing turning its dorsal side towards enemies and not reacting and letting the enemies control the attack direction. How many times do you see the E-D continuously maneuvering during battle?

But that's just a rhetorical question and let's not forget the fact that your logic is fundamentally flawed. On the one hand, there's this pennywise assumption of yours that anyone should actually CARE where the enemy's weapons are weakest when it doesn't seem to make a difference even when such a weakness clearly exists;

The only apparent weakness of the E-D is that the saucer dorsal array is the only one available if you attack from above and front. Funny enough, the Klingons in "Yesterday's Enterprise" appear to appreciate that. However, since we've seen at least one Galaxy-class fire two beams at a single large target (in DS9) it might not be as problematic as it was in early TNG.

even when it DOES exist, no one ever bothers to exploit it. On the other hand, there's your pound-foolish assumption that reaction time isn't a factor in this and that shield coverage is less important than phaser coverage;

When did I say shield coverage was less important than phaser coverage? Or that reaction time isn't a factor other than to correct your timing assumptions?

in the first place you're better off attacking from a SENSOR blind spot (e.g. with the sun to your back or else simply getting into attack position quickly before you get detected) and in the second place, only attacking from a single direction lets him concentrate his shields in a single direction while he leans slightly over and nails you anyway.

And which episode do they do this? As far as I'm concerned, equal power for each phaser array

And all of THAT ignores the fact that starships don't fight the way you think they do, nor do starship tactics work the way you think they do.

And can you quote how I think they should fight? The majority of this thread is with you disputing against your own arguments.

Battles are not fought in seconds and moments; apparently the captains of starships have tens of seconds to sit there and chitchat with their engineers and first officers over what to do next in between giving orders, which means even if you decloak right in his blind spot, he'll probably just turn and face you and you get to listen to your tactical officer look at his screen and announce, "He has turned his bow thirty degrees starboard! We are no longer within their blind spot, Captain... and now he's charging weapons!"

Just a reminder - your argument is that short phaser arrays are less powerful than long ones and I provided the firing blind spots of the saucer phasers on the E-D. The E-D has full coverage with all her phasers and my position has been that the shorter ones can fire at the same strength as the long ones. So in your interpretation you'd hope the defending ship turns to bring her long phasers to bear. In mine, it doesn't matter.



Maybe it might help if you restated exactly your positions.

 

[blssdwlf]

Indeed. Got any evidence they actually DID this?

Everytime the phase cannon beams fire

Plasma cannons can fire in beams too. Fail logic is fail.

Did they ever identify what those pulse cannons were? No.
Did they ever use those pulse cannons again? No
Does Reed or Archer ever order anything other than the Phase Cannons to be charged on the NX-01? No
When the Phase Cannons are down on the NX-01 do they ever whip out the pre-"Silent Enemy" pulse (or beam) guns? No
Does Reed's Tactical Alert include anything other than the Phase Cannons and Torpedoes? No

Your fail logic failed you

Except for the fact that it obviously DOES have plasma cannons, unless the pulse weapons in "Broken Bow" were merely a collective hallucination by Trek fans.

They obviously had some kind of pulse weapon prior to "Silent Enemy". They were likely plasma cannons.

Or, once again, she has weapons OTHER than phase cannons that are used but not mentioned (which is exactly what happened in "Broken Bow" and "In a Mirror Darkly").

But are never used or mentioned again even if all phase cannons are out.

There's no reason to assume she got RID of them either, since no dialog ever describes their removal. And since we know plasma cannons CAN fire in beams, we can't automatically rule them out as an explanation.

Right. The problem is that when the ship loses her phase cannons the "other" cannons are never brought up as an option.

More importantly: the presence of the plasma cannons is something we know for a fact, as the ship was equipped with them when it launched. The presence of fast-acting cannon-transferring turbolifts is NOT something we know of, and requires at least one extra made-up element to make sense.

Have you ever seen the NX-01 fire more than 3 directed energy weapons at a time?

Because Archer's pontificating gives us a rough idea of the AU's timeline from First Contact until "now" and it is pretty much just an extremely ironic copy of the prime universe timeline. The only real differences are the fact that Starfleet built the NX-class ships a lot faster (evidently due to a lack of Vulcan obstructionism) and perpetrated their "exploration" program a lot more aggressively. The technology, weaponry and basic vessel design are otherwise completely unchanged.

If they built alot more of the NX-class ships without Vulcan obstructionism then it would also point to that the weapons are not going to be the same and could be more powerful and technology would be different. Not radically, but not exactly the same.

There's no evidence for "cannons moving" though. Only evidence of beams coming out of places here logic suggests there shouldn't be. If you've accounted for all three phase cannons and have additional firing points, the most logical explanation is for additional weapons that HAVEN'T been mentioned in those locations.

Just to be clear - I've accounted for the emission points but have not found more than 3 to be firing at any one time. If they were additional weapons that were not phase cannons, logically we should see more than 3 to be firing at any one time.

OTOH, there is this from "Horizon":
There are two ways to interpret this:
1) Travis thinks the plasma turrets can be augmented the same way as the phase cannons, OR
2) NX-01's plasma cannons have been modified and Travis wants to implement those same modifications on the Horizon.

It could be both. However, "The Expanse" and "The Forgotten" has dialogue that indicate status of the 2 forward phase cannons. I'll lean to #1

I again point out that the actual difference between plasma cannons and phase cannons -- if such a difference exists at all -- has never been made clear. For all we know, they're just high-output plasma cannons built by Phase Space Armaments Incorporated.

Isn't it obvious? One "phases"

Yes, plasma cannons, whether they are actually used or not. You have so far not presented a shred of dialog evidence or any suggestion that those weapons were ever REMOVED.

Which is different from whether they are actually even used. Reed isn't even listing them in his tactical alerts where he charges up the weapons. Given how much the NX-01 has been upgraded and refitted, there is no reason OR evidence to show that they kept those temporary weapons once they added the "phase cannons".

Even if you don't believe that NX-01's plasma cannons can fire in beams, it remains completely possible those weapons were left in place and simply neglected because they sucked.

Except we see the dorsal ports being used and when the forward phase cannons are knocked out, curiously no other weapons popup to take their place. But, since you point out that plasma weapons on the Horizon can be pumped up with the impulse engines, then we should see the old plasma turrets used also when the phase cannons are knocked out or in conjunction with them.

Even you must realize neglecting obvious possibilities for no apparent reason is a staple of Trek plotlines and it's not really something you would want to build an argument around.

LOL.

As you've pointed out, "plasma weapons" were never mentioned before or after "Silent Enemy" for the NX-01.

Nor during "Broken Bow" when they were ACTUALLY USED, nor again during "In a Mirror Darkly." Lack of mention does NOT equal lack of presence. (e.g.: It is never explicitly mentioned that anyone bothers to clean up after Porthos, but the lack of large piles of dog shit in the captain's ready room suggests that SOMEONE does).

Lack of mention and lack of use. When you find an episode where more than 3 beams are coming out of the NX-01 prior to "Bounty" then you'd have have something.

Also, in "The Crossing", Reed lists out what the weapons are and "plasma cannon" is not on it:

ARCHER: Tactical alert.
REED: Weapons aren't charging, sir. They're offline. Phase cannons, torpedoes.​

And in mid sentence they get a call from Trip who says "the engines just went down."

Not mid sentence. Reed finishes his report.

He never "lists" which one until Archer asks him, just as Reed never would have mentioned plasma cannons unless Archer asked "What about the old plasma turrets?"

The old temporary pulse guns that have never been used again? If they are not mentioned, they are not being included to be charged up. That goes back to "Singularity" that the only weapons being powered and used are the "phase cannons" and torpedoes.

 

[blssdwlf]

In the end, we do not have continuing references to there being just three phase guns. Not in "Storm Front" or in any of the other quoted candidates.

From "The Expanse":
REED: They've fired some kind of... That one took out both forward phase cannons.
ARCHER: You still have torpedoes.

"The Forgotten"
ARCHER: What's our status on weapons?
T'POL: Mister Reed has both forward phase cannons back online in addition to the aft torpedo launchers. Hull plating is up to eighty percent.

Prior to "Bound" the aft phase cannon has only been singular. So that's only 3 phase cannons as mentioned in dialogue.

Do I think the Enterprise series is pretty wacky? Yes

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's merely that we don't see dorsal torpedo tubes firing. But we don't see volleys of four being fired, either

We do in "Regenerated," but -- strangely enough -- that's from the AFT tubes.

And "Regenerated" shows that a standard plasma rifle can fire in beams that look identical to that of a phase pistol.

Untrue - only a "nonstandard" rifle can do that, by virtue of sporting an extra barrel for the purpose.

The standard rifle IS the double-barreled one, such as the plasma rifles on the ECS Fortunate, which fire in pulses. And two seasons later is still fires in pulses in "The Council." Whether firing in beams or pulses the discharge is always from the UPPER barrel, never from the lower one.

But we see plenty of stuff that might be evidence of the combo thing continuing, and it would seem to be the best and most natural assumption overall; trying to explain the dialogue and VFX as excluding one weapon type or the other is just unnecessary extra work.

Unless you assume, as I do, that phase weapons and plasma weapons aren't fundamentally different weapon types and the former is just a more advanced version of the latter.

 

[Timo]

I beg to differ.

http://www.phasers.net/2150/class3.htm

The plasma rifle definitely comes in two variants. Example of the single-barrel model, from as late as "Sleeping Dogs":

http://www.phasers.net/2150/c3-sd01.jpg

Example of pulse firing from the lower barrel:

http://www.phasers.net/2150/riflebarrels02.jpg

Example of beam firing from the upper barrel:

http://www.phasers.net/2150/c3-re02.jpg

All beam firings take place at the upper barrel. The plasma bolt effect is so rarely seen that I haven't managed to find an example of it coming from anywhere else but the lower barrel. Perhaps you could link an image?

While phase pistols are new to Archer in "Broken Bow", apparently phase rifles aren't quite brand spanking new, as the ECS vessel carries some. But there's nothing wrong with that as such, and no particular reason to insist that the beams are "plasma" or that the bolts are "phased". Since the two separate barrels exist, two different weapon effects apparently exist as well, and they are best generated by two separate pieces of machinery.

None of that precludes a close relationship between plasma guns and phase guns. But even if related, they are separate, and apparently only the phaser has a stun setting.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Since almost all the ports on the dorsal and ventral are used then the only conclusion is that the 3 cannons are able to be shuffled around.

OR that the plasma cannons that were never mentioned the first time they were used are also never mentioned the second, third, fourth or fifth time they are used.

Phasers can do this and also scale dramatically up to engage big ships. And whats up with that Iowa analogy? A 16" cannon hit from the aft gun or the forward gun is still a 16" cannon hit.

And you are 50% less likely to be hit by one of those guns if you attack an Iowa class battleship from the rear, so theoretically any prudent enemy should attack a battleship from the rear aspect.

Right?

Fell out of favor for pre-WW2, yes for the reasons you give below. But for Dreadnought and her like, torpedoes were part of their armament. Heck, even the HMS Rodney got to torpedo the Bismarck.

And in doing so became the only battleship in history to ever torpedo another one.

It's still a gun and torpedo, or basically a world that never developed combat aircraft.

It's a world that developed phasers and photon torpedoes instead of combat aircraft (which is why they no longer use nuclear warheads in combat).

You're apparently forgetting the purpose of this analogy was to justify your battleship hardon by saying that the Galaxy class phaser banks SHOULD be equivalent to the most powerful battleship guns of World War-II and therefore should be far more powerful than anything they had during TOS/ENT years. I disagreed, since the rifled guns of WW-II were the swansong of a centuries-old weapon system that was already proving relatively ineffective in ship-to-ship combat compared to newer weapons and delivery systems. Thus the Trek equivalent of a 16" battleship gun would probably be a 16 gigaton nuclear warhead. No doubt some nuclear-type weapons are still in use even in the 24th century (perhaps the Tricobalt devices on Voyager?) but these have been replaced in the ship-to-ship role by their more advanced counterparts.

That's not a paradigm shift. The directed energy weapon became more powerful.

Unlikely, considering the energies involved. In much the same way, the torpedo and the aerial bomb were by no means more powerful than the 14" and 16" guns of the battleships, but the basic mechanism of their operation made them more EFFECTIVE than the guns.

A 50 megaton nuclear warhead would be far more powerful than anything we saw mounted on NX-01, especially its spatial torpedoes (and arguably the photonics as well). But not quite as effective for some reason, possibly because nukes deliver their energy in a form that is easier to dissipate by the target's armor and shielding.

The other thing you're apparently leaving out is that the directed energy weapon IS a paradigm shift if the Trek universe has any history in common with ours. That is to say, NX-01 isn't equipped with a 5" gun and its Spatial torpedoes (probably) aren't equipped with chemical explosives.

That doesn't make any sense. If it made a difference, Kruge would've decloaked in the aft section if the phasers were stronger in the front. But since he picked the front, then there doesn't appear to be any difference in strength being fired upon by the forward phasers or the aft phasers.

Kruge wasn't hit by phaser fire, he was hit by TORPEDOES. Because he would not have been hit by those torpedoes if he decloaked behind Enterprise, it DOES INDEED make a difference where he was when he attacked.

He "picked" the front approach (the jury's still out over whether or not he really had a choice) and it DID make a difference. Which is one glaring chunk of evidence that no one would behave any differently if phaser strength were similarly unbalanced (especially considering phasers are noticeably less powerful than torpedoes).

If the photon torpedo launchers fired torpedoes that can only travel in straight lines and could not turn to hit targets then the torpedo launcher arc would matter.

But that's just begging the question, isn't it? How maneuverable ARE torpedoes, and how often in Trek have they demonstrated the ability to perform a 180 degree course correction to hit a target BEHIND the ship that fired them?

And if they were capable of that, what would be the point of installing aft torpedo tubes?

And again, that supports that attack direction doesn't matter

Actually my contention is that your chosen attack direction may be decided by a number of things, but for some reason "Where are his weapons strongest?" isn't one of them. The vastly more important considerations appear to be "How much time do we have", "How fast are they moving" and "Where is that other ship we're trying to protect". Doesn't seem like anyone actually bothers to calculate the enemy's firing arcs on the approach, and you have yet to demonstrate that such a feat of intelligence and creative navigation is even possible.

In any of these examples was there an option to start off undetected in a cloaked state?

Several times, yes. One of the more interesting cases is "Redemption" where the Klingon ships decloak in front of the Bortas in order to knock out the ship's main disruptor cannon with their first attack. The bird of prey in "Way of the Warrior", though not cloaked, makes no attempt to get out of Defiant's forward firing arc and "plays chicken" with it, with explosive results. Earlier in "Way of the Warrior" Defiant actually decloaks before they're even in firing range and goes in guns blazing against two birds of prey, ships whose weapons ONLY face forward and whom Defiant is maneuverable enough to get in behind for a rear-aspect shot.

Earlier in TNG there's the Klingon ships in "The Defector" who decloak in front of and behind the Romulan Warbirds, either unaware or not caring about the fact that (as far as we've seen) Romulan warbirds have no rear-mounted weapons.

Here's a hot one for you: in all of Trek history I can find only one situation where an attacking vessel moves into a SPECIFIC relative position for some tactical advantage. This is in "Treatury, Faith and the Great River" where Weyoun tells Odo how to exploit a weakness in the SHIELDS of a Jem'hadar battlebug. Since this is consistent with the Klingon attack in Elaan of Troyus, then what we have is precedent that weapon arcs are not something anyone considers when devising tactics, only their SHIELD COVERAGE is. Another thing you might want to consider is that the attacking ship's sensors don't have a reliable way of determining what the firing arcs of the enemy ship actually ARE.

You are only at 98% the length if you count the saucer ventral array+engineering hull ventral array+both warp pylon lateral arrays without at least one of the small strips in the back.

Depending on the model you use. The difference is less on the 6ft model than the 2 footer (where battle section ventral array ALONE makes up much of the difference).

But I'd suppose that might be why the Klingon ships in "Yesterday's Enterprise" chose to attack from above rather than below.

They DIDN'T choose. Enterprise-D had a full two minutes to reorient itself any way it wanted and still could have done so at any time during the battle.

Of course, once again they didn't bother to return fire until the Klingons had been whacking them with disruptor fire for a half a minute or so, which kind of negates the whole "Where are his weapons weakest?" theory. When it comes to Starfleet, the answer is "Wherever the Captain isn't looking."

You are confusing turning its dorsal side towards enemies and not reacting and letting the enemies control the attack direction.

The Klingons attacked from directly forward, mainly because the Enterprise-D turned and rose slightly to bring its torpedo launcher into firing position before the battle even started. Enterprise is maneuvering throughout the battle, with Picard ordering a number of course corrections (far more often than he orders phasers to be fired, in fact).

The only apparent weakness of the E-D is that the saucer dorsal array is the only one available if you attack from above and front. Funny enough, the Klingons in "Yesterday's Enterprise" appear to appreciate that.

Not much, considering the first two times the phasers are used the Enterprise is facing AWAY from them, firing over its portside aft. One phaser beam from one array at a time, as usual.

When did I say shield coverage was less important than phaser coverage? Or that reaction time isn't a factor other than to correct your timing assumptions?

You discounted it implicitly when you stated the firing arcs of the main phasers should be important enough to dictate the approach direction of the attackers, which is to say it is more important than the reaction time of the crew, their relative shield strength or the locations of vessel components that they want to attack.

And all of THAT ignores the fact that starships don't fight the way you think they do, nor do starship tactics work the way you think they do.

And can you quote how I think they should fight?

For starters, beginning every battle by carefully reading the latest intelligence reports on the target vessel's tactical capabilities and then giving specific instructions to the helsman on exactly how they're going to maneuver to take advantage of those capabilities or lack thereof. You still haven't given us any reason to believe that attacking starships would behave any differently if the Galaxy class had no aft phasers of any kind.

Just a reminder - your argument is that short phaser arrays are less powerful than long ones and I provided the firing blind spots of the saucer phasers on the E-D. The E-D has full coverage with all her phasers and my position has been that the shorter ones can fire at the same strength as the long ones. So in your interpretation you'd hope the defending ship turns...

No. In my interpretation, Trek battles are conducted with such agonizing slowness and at such timescales that by the time the attacking ship was in any position to use that advantage, it wouldn't BE there anymore. This means the lack of strength of the secondary arrays is no disadvantage at all since nothing short of a battle drone piloted by a first-rate supercomputer could ever hope to exploit it.

Starship commanders are evidently aware of this, even if YOU are not. The further point being that the secondary phasers are probably intended to engage small/nimble threats like missiles or shuttlecraft that would be small enough to evade the rearward firing arc of the main phasers.

Did they ever identify what those pulse cannons were? No.

Are you disputing that those were plasma cannons? If so, what WERE they? (are you suggesting those were just malfunctioning phase cannons?)

Does Reed or Archer ever order anything other than the Phase Cannons to be charged on the NX-01?

Interesting question. How often does Archer specifically order phase cannons to be charged, instead of the more typical "charge weapons" or "tactical alert"?

Does Reed's Tactical Alert include anything other than the Phase Cannons and Torpedoes? No

Yes, actually, it includes the (also seldom mentioned) polarized hull plating, which AFAIK Archer never explicitly orders after Tactical Alert is implemented.

But are never used or mentioned again even if all phase cannons are out.

Never mentioned, no. Since plasma cannons can fire in beams they could easily have been used.

More importantly, plasma RIFLES are never mentioned either, and the EM-33 only has two dialog references despite its continual appearance throughout the show.

Right. The problem is that when the ship loses her phase cannons the "other" cannons are never brought up as an option.

They wouldn't BE an option if they're powered by the same relays that feed the phase cannons (which evidently also power the torpedo launchers, thus "We've lost weapons" is a recurring plot device in Enterprise, similar to "Block it!/I can't!" or "They're targeting our warp core!")

Have you ever seen the NX-01 fire more than 3 directed energy weapons at a time?

Irrelevant. We've never seen the Enterprise-D fire more than two at a time. Unless you think the phaser arrays are just incredibly long gunports on which the ship's two phasers slide around while they're looking for targets, it doesn't tell us anything about NX-01, nor does it discount the very real possibility that half of those beams are being produced by plasma cannons.

Nor does it tell us that plasma cannons and phase cannons are different types of weapons in the first place.

Just to be clear - I've accounted for the emission points but have not found more than 3 to be firing at any one time. If they were additional weapons that were not phase cannons, logically we should see more than 3 to be firing at any one time.

Logic fail: Enterprise-D has twelve phaser arrays and rarely fired more than one of them at a time. TOS/TMP Enterprise had 18 and only ever fired TWO at a time; Voyager, also, never fires more than two phaser beams at any given moment.

There's no logical reason to expect NX-01 to be any different; she could have fifty phase cannons and seventy five plasma cannons and she would still only fire them two at a time.

Don't ask me why, that's just the way it's been, consistently, right up until NuTrek broke the mold (more on that in the next post).

Isn't it obvious? One "phases"

Ah, but phases WHAT? If you fired a series of short plasma pulses all adjusted to the same phase, that would result in a continuous beam, wouldn't it?

Which is different from whether they are actually even used. Reed isn't even listing them in his tactical alerts where he charges up the weapons.

Reed never lists ANYTHING when he charges up weapons, he just says "Charging weapons." The only time he got into details was in "the Crossing" where he's expressing exasperation that nothing is working anymore.

Given how much the NX-01 has been upgraded and refitted, there is no reason OR evidence to show that they kept those temporary weapons

There's also no reason or evidence to show they got rid of them, especially since we still haven't accounted for where they got the parts for the other two phase cannons.

Except we see the dorsal ports being used and when the forward phase cannons are knocked out, curiously no other weapons popup to take their place.

Yeah. It's kinda like those times nobody thinks to use the transporter when the shuttlepods are disabled. Or, in TNG's case, when nobody thinks to use a shuttlecraft when the transporters are disabled.

But, since you point out that plasma weapons on the Horizon can be pumped up with the impulse engines, then we should see the old plasma turrets used also when the phase cannons are knocked out or in conjunction with them.

The same power loss that knocks out the phase cannons would knock out the older guns as well, especially if they're powered by the same tactical system (and they are).

Lack of mention and lack of use.

But they WERE used in Broken Bow, despite not being mentioned. What I'm telling you here is they were probably used again in later episodes--especially in "Regenerated"--firing in beams.

That goes back to "Singularity" that the only weapons being powered and used are the "phase cannons" and torpedoes.

"Singularity" suggests nothing of the sort. Archer merely comments "We need phase cannons." When they start charging T'pol tells him "All weapons are online." There's no listing of weapons there either, in fact NEITHER of them ever mention torpedoes at all.

Logically, since they didn't mention torpedoes in Singularity, the torpedo launchers must have been uninstalled just before that episode, right?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

So I've been thinking that REALISTICALY (as opposed to Trekalistically) phasers should be firing pretty much constantly at the target as soon as he comes into range. We see this in STXI where Kelvin cuts loose on the Narada with her pulse phasers and the defensive beams shooting down missiles, and later the barrage where Enterprise shoots down a swarm of Narada's missiles.

If we leave out the "artistic license" (or limitations?) of past VFX artists, it might make more sense if we conceded to ourselves that directed energy weapons shouldn't be visible in space in the first place, in which case, why are they visible at all?

I'm thinking now that the reason phaser beams never miss is because we only ever SEE the beams that hit. Enterprise-D could fire fifty phaser beams a second and only score one hit; the interaction between the beam and the shields causes part of the beam to glow (a harmless but visually spectacular feedback effect, maybe?).

OTOH, I still believe that beam phasers have no business being arrayed unless you can combine the power of multiple emitters into a single beam. If not, it's just a whole lot of wasted hardware. Alternately, an array that fires in short powerful pulses would give the Galaxy class the phaser power of the Defiant plus the ability to direct it in any direction it chooses.

All beam firings take place at the upper barrel. The plasma bolt effect is so rarely seen that I haven't managed to find an example of it coming from anywhere else but the lower barrel. Perhaps you could link an image?

I've been trying to get one from "The Council," but the problem with pulses is that they're quick and screencaps are hard to get. I'm netflixing the episode now and it appears that some of the pulses are coming from the lower barrel and some from the upper barrel (which is really starting to piss me off, BTW).

Maybe the lower barrel fires the stun setting and the upper barrel fires kill? Or something...

While phase pistols are new to Archer in "Broken Bow", apparently phase rifles aren't quite brand spanking new, as the ECS vessel carries some.

The pulses seem to be coming from the upper barrel of the Fortunate too. Most of the time, anyway.

None of that precludes a close relationship between plasma guns and phase guns. But even if related, they are separate, and apparently only the phaser has a stun setting.

Not necessarily. Talas was killed by a "phase pistol" in an EM-33's casing and still fires in a blue pulse. Maybe the EM-35 is the phase pistol version?

 

[Timo]

The pulses from ENT S3 seem more like short beams: they're the same sort of twirly red as the beams, while the lower barrel spits out distinct blue-white bolts in S1.

Maybe the EM-35 is the phase pistol version?

Since that would simplify things a lot, I'm ready to go for that.

Although it would be even simpler to say that Talas was killed by a plasma pistol (which are known to kill, and to fire blue-white pulses), and the characters just misspoke. But the related dialogue is a bit too involved for that: "the phase pistol was set to kill" already contains two strikes for phase and against plasma.

IIRC, this incident is our only reason to believe that the MACO sidearm would be something else than yer basic EM-33 plasma pistol. That is, while the MACO rifle may be a dialogue-specified phase weapon with a stun capability and all, the pistol is just a nondescript pistol.

And to balance it out, there's another incident where an alien wielded the EM-33: in "Canamar", it was an alien weapon that just looked like the Starfleet/MACO sidearm. Perhaps the gun from "Babel One" is also an alien, possibly Andorian weapon, rather than something Talas confiscated from Archer's men? (In that case, EM-33 should probably be considered a downrated export model that was sold to Earth in the early 22nd century, without phase functionalities...)

Personally, I'd find it satisfactory if the blue-bolt weapons all remained plasma technology. That's the sort of thing I could see the MACO force doing: not adopting anything new and fancy until forced to, because the old stuff is known to work. And even the references to the MACO rifles as phase weapons are incredibly few, and possibly "ignorable".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Since almost all the ports on the dorsal and ventral are used then the only conclusion is that the 3 cannons are able to be shuffled around.

OR that the plasma cannons that were never mentioned the first time they were used are also never mentioned the second, third, fourth or fifth time they are used.

In "Damage" T'Pol specifically orders the phase cannons to be used on the enemy ship's power juncture. The first shot comes from the forward dorsal emitter.
In "Future Tense", Archer orders the phase cannons to return fire and again, forward dorsal emitter.

Those 3 phase cannons cannot be stuck to only the forward ventral ports (2) and the starboard ventral aft port.

(Not only that "Similitude" shows a phase cannon at the port ventral aft port in addition to the one on starboard ventral aft port.)

And you are 50% less likely to be hit by one of those guns if you attack an Iowa class battleship from the rear, so theoretically any prudent enemy should attack a battleship from the rear aspect.

For an Iowa class, attack the rear allows for only 3 guns to defend with. The front, 6 guns. The sides, all 9 guns. If there is a difference it is that the Iowa guns are not power limited and can fire all guns that can bear on target. A starship on the other hand is limited by the power available for combat.

And in doing so became the only battleship in history to ever torpedo another one.

Still doesn't change your facts about the torpedo armament of battleships

It's a world that developed phasers and photon torpedoes instead of combat aircraft (which is why they no longer use nuclear warheads in combat).

Phasers and torpedoes are no different in usage from guns and torpedoes, just with a bigger boom. There hasn't been a significant change from ENT to DS9.

You're apparently forgetting the purpose of this analogy was to justify your battleship hardon by saying that the Galaxy class phaser banks SHOULD be equivalent to the most powerful battleship guns of World War-II and therefore should be far more powerful than anything they had during TOS/ENT years. I disagreed, since the rifled guns of WW-II were the swansong of a centuries-old weapon system that was already proving relatively ineffective in ship-to-ship combat compared to newer weapons and delivery systems. Thus the Trek equivalent of a 16" battleship gun would probably be a 16 gigaton nuclear warhead. No doubt some nuclear-type weapons are still in use even in the 24th century (perhaps the Tricobalt devices on Voyager?) but these have been replaced in the ship-to-ship role by their more advanced counterparts.

I wasn't the only one to equate the Galaxy-class phasers to 16" guns. newtype_alpha wrote, "I see Enterprise-E and Voyager as ships whose main phaser banks are "sub-caliber", like 10-inch rifles compared to the big 15 or 16 inch boomers on the Galaxy and Nebula classes."

I agreed with the 16" gun analogy because I think it gave a good spread between power capabilities of the phaser pistol on up to the Galaxy-class Type 10 phasers in the same way it scales up from a pistol to a 16" gun.

The other thing you're apparently leaving out is that the directed energy weapon IS a paradigm shift if the Trek universe has any history in common with ours. That is to say, NX-01 isn't equipped with a 5" gun and its Spatial torpedoes (probably) aren't equipped with chemical explosives.

How is it a paradigm shift? You've spent how many pages arguing that the NX-01 kept her "plasma" guns along with the "paradigm shift" phase cannons yet she uses them the same way. As I said before, the weapons are more powerful but their use doesn't change. Not in ENT and not later on in TNG.

Kruge wasn't hit by phaser fire, he was hit by TORPEDOES. Because he would not have been hit by those torpedoes if he decloaked behind Enterprise, it DOES INDEED make a difference where he was when he attacked.

He "picked" the front approach (the jury's still out over whether or not he really had a choice) and it DID make a difference. Which is one glaring chunk of evidence that no one would behave any differently if phaser strength were similarly unbalanced (especially considering phasers are noticeably less powerful than torpedoes).

Why he picked the front approach we're not sure since he took the aft approach with Grissom. If the aft weapons of the Enterprise was weaker then he would've had a good reason to approach from that way, not the front.

But that's just begging the question, isn't it? How maneuverable ARE torpedoes, and how often in Trek have they demonstrated the ability to perform a 180 degree course correction to hit a target BEHIND the ship that fired them?

A 180 degree turn would be fatal to the firing ship 90 degree or even 45 degree continuous turning would be fine. We've seen Nomad hit by a torpedo in "The Changeling" while it was to the right and slightly behind the Enterprise. We also have the torpedo fired from the E-A against Chang's BOP in ST6. Also the episodes from TNG that show the torpedoes splitting off and the torpedo that went errant in "Genesis" and the torpedo that went around a Warbird to swerve up and hit a Defiant-class ship in "Message in a Bottle".

And if they were capable of that, what would be the point of installing aft torpedo tubes?

Funny you should ask this when your own argument below justifies the existence of extra weapons:

newtype_alpha wrote: "Logic fail: Enterprise-D has twelve phaser arrays and rarely fired more than one of them at a time. TOS/TMP Enterprise had 18 and only ever fired TWO at a time; Voyager, also, never fires more than two phaser beams at any given moment. There's no logical reason to expect NX-01 to be any different; she could have fifty phase cannons and seventy five plasma cannons and she would still only fire them two at a time. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it's been, consistently, right up until NuTrek broke the mold (more on that in the next post)."

Actually my contention is that your chosen attack direction may be decided by a number of things, but for some reason "Where are his weapons strongest?" isn't one of them. The vastly more important considerations appear to be "How much time do we have", "How fast are they moving" and "Where is that other ship we're trying to protect". Doesn't seem like anyone actually bothers to calculate the enemy's firing arcs on the approach, and you have yet to demonstrate that such a feat of intelligence and creative navigation is even possible.

I don't need to. As I've pointed out, because no one seems to care for weapons arcs there isn't any reason to believe that one phaser array is weaker than the other. You on the other hand do not have any evidence that shows that enemy ships should care about avoiding a specific weapon because one is stronger than the other.

Several times, yes. One of the more interesting cases is "Redemption" where the Klingon ships decloak in front of the Bortas in order to knock out the ship's main disruptor cannon with their first attack.

Actually, we don't know where the BOP decloaked from. The attack starts off with the Bortas shaking from the attack and Gowron goes to the bridge.

GOWRON: Status!
KLINGON: Aft shields down.
HELMSMAN: Warp coils damaged.
​

Then to the exterior shot and the BOP is attacking the Bortas from the starboard side, about the 2 o'clock position. The 2nd BOP joins in from the front but at this point the Bortas' shields are battered and the impulse engines and disruptors aren't working. Based on where the initial damage is from, this would be a case of a BOP decloaking from behind to take out the power system which would be in-line with TSFS.

The bird of prey in "Way of the Warrior", though not cloaked, makes no attempt to get out of Defiant's forward firing arc and "plays chicken" with it, with explosive results.

Well if it didn't start off as cloaked on it's approach it doesn't quite count in being able to sneak up on their target, does it?

Earlier in "Way of the Warrior" Defiant actually decloaks before they're even in firing range and goes in guns blazing against two birds of prey, ships whose weapons ONLY face forward and whom Defiant is maneuverable enough to get in behind for a rear-aspect shot.

Not exactly. Sisko is trying to save Dukhat with the least amount of bloodshed as possible with the Klingons. That's why he decloaks (but prudently goes to red alert with his shields and weapons) and *announces* his presence to the attacking Klingons to cease fire. When the lead BOP fires on the Defiant, the Defiant ignores it and goes after the 2 other BOP that are busy attacking the Cardassian ship giving the Defiant easy shots to disable the engines. Note that one of the BOPs fires an AFT disruptor.

Earlier in TNG there's the Klingon ships in "The Defector" who decloak in front of and behind the Romulan Warbirds, either unaware or not caring about the fact that (as far as we've seen) Romulan warbirds have no rear-mounted weapons.

We know so little about the Romulan Warbirds weapons that it would be impossible to say that they have no rear-mounted weapons.

Here's a hot one for you: in all of Trek history I can find only one situation where an attacking vessel moves into a SPECIFIC relative position for some tactical advantage. This is in
"Treatury, Faith and the Great River" where Weyoun tells Odo how to exploit a weakness in the SHIELDS of a Jem'hadar battlebug. Since this is consistent with the Klingon attack in Elaan of Troyus, then what we have is precedent that weapon arcs are not something anyone considers when devising tactics, only their SHIELD COVERAGE is. Another thing you might want to consider is that the attacking ship's sensors don't have a reliable way of determining what the firing arcs of the enemy ship actually ARE.

Uhm, that is TWO situations "in all of Trek history" since you reference "Elaan of Troyius". I'll give you a 3rd one as well, the attack on the Jem'hedar Battleship from "Valiant". I don't have a problem with enemy ships targeting a specific shield to bring it down faster.

What evidence do you have that attacking ships don't have a reliable way of determining what the firing arcs of the enemy ship are? How then do we get scenes where the crew says, "they are targeting our weapons" and "protect our aft cannons"?

Depending on the model you use. The difference is less on the 6ft model than the 2 footer (where battle section ventral array ALONE makes up much of the difference).

The ventral array alone is only 11% of the saucer dorsal array. The saucer ventral array is only 77% of the saucer dorsal array. It's still short. Perhaps you can put up an illustration to show where you've made up the difference?

They DIDN'T choose. Enterprise-D had a full two minutes to reorient itself any way it wanted and still could have done so at any time during the battle.

Well yes and no. During the battle we do see the E-D re-orientate to bring the saucer ventral array to bear. However most of the time after the initial approach the Klingons are attacking from above which would indicate the Klingons were somehow getting above the E-D or Wesley/Data was doing a very bad job of keeping the E-D between the Klingons and the E-C.

Of course, once again they didn't bother to return fire until the Klingons had been whacking them with disruptor fire for a half a minute or so, which kind of negates the whole "Where are his weapons weakest?" theory. When it comes to Starfleet, the answer is "Wherever the Captain isn't looking."

You just argued that if each phaser array could fire at equal power then the best attack approach is from the top where only the saucer dorsal array can fire one or two at a time

newtype_alpha wrote, "There are two angles where only the main saucer array and the two smaller ones on the neck have clearance. Not so for the ventral axis, where no matter where you attack from if you're below the angle of the upper array you're within range of six other arrays below."

The Klingons attacked from directly forward, mainly because the Enterprise-D turned and rose slightly to bring its torpedo launcher into firing position before the battle even started. Enterprise is maneuvering throughout the battle, with Picard ordering a number of course corrections (far more often than he orders phasers to be fired, in fact).

But then the E-D promptly went back to being below the attacking BOPs. The next time we see the E-D "pull up" is when it fired its saucer ventral phaser array. All other times we see the battle the Klingons continue to stay above the E-D despite her "maneuvering".

And yeah, Picard spent more time issuing turning orders and corrections instead of just saying, "continuous fire" right at the beginning.

 

[blssdwlf]

You discounted it implicitly when you stated the firing arcs of the main phasers should be important enough to dictate the approach direction of the attackers, which is to say it is more important than the reaction time of the crew, their relative shield strength or the locations of vessel components that they want to attack.

Then you got it wrong. What I wrote before specifically addresses the ramifications of having less powerful aft phasers. I've only corrected your timing assumptions which were wrong (I suppose if I didn't care I wouldn't have corrected you.)

"Well, this depends on where you are arguing from.

Are you arguing that the aft phasers are equal in firepower to the forward phasers?

- If this then it doesn't matter which direction you attack from.

Or are you arguing that the aft phasers are "secondary" and of lesser firepower than the forward phasers?

- If this then it does matter which direction you attack from, especially if you can control the attack direction. Lower power phaser return fire against you equals less shield power needed and more power to phasers to attack with.

It doesn't have to be whether one side is out-gunned or not. Just simple, "attack their weaker side"."
​

For starters, beginning every battle by carefully reading the latest intelligence reports on the target vessel's tactical capabilities and then giving specific instructions to the helsman on exactly how they're going to maneuver to take advantage of those capabilities or lack thereof. You still haven't given us any reason to believe that attacking starships would behave any differently if the Galaxy class had no aft phasers of any kind.

I asked for you to quote me, not make up stuff

Galaxy-class ships have aft phasers. What examples could there possibly be of a different behavior?

No. In my interpretation, Trek battles are conducted with such agonizing slowness and at such timescales that by the time the attacking ship was in any position to use that advantage, it wouldn't BE there anymore. This means the lack of strength of the secondary arrays is no disadvantage at all since nothing short of a battle drone piloted by a first-rate supercomputer could ever hope to exploit it.

Or it goes quickly ala DS9 style. The only ships that can hope to exploit it are the ones that can cloak and sneak up on their target or when the target's maneuverability is significantly reduced (like impulse vs warp.) But even then, there is a lack of examples where one set of phasers are said to be weaker than another set on the same ship.

Starship commanders are evidently aware of this, even if YOU are not. The further point being that the secondary phasers are probably intended to engage small/nimble threats like missiles or shuttlecraft that would be small enough to evade the rearward firing arc of the main phasers.

Where are you getting what "starship commanders are evidently aware of" from? Got any quotes or are you just making it up again?

Also, if the main phasers were unable to hit missiles what the heck was the Enterprise doing in "For The World is Hollow...", "Patterns of Force" and "Conundrum"?

Are you disputing that those were plasma cannons? If so, what WERE they? (are you suggesting those were just malfunctioning phase cannons?)

Yes. As you point out, they've never been identified in dialogue. They are definitely some kind of "pulse" weapon and likely a "plasma" weapon based on FX. We'll probably never know for sure though.

Interesting question. How often does Archer specifically order phase cannons to be charged, instead of the more typical "charge weapons" or "tactical alert"?

"Fallen Hero" - "use the phase cannons"
"Shockwave 1" - "charge the phase cannons"
"Singularity" - "we need phase cannons"
"Ceasefire" - "arm the forward phase cannons"
"Future Tense" - "power the phase cannons"
"The Crossing" - "weapons aren't charging, sir. They're offline. Phase cannons, torpedoes."
"Twilight" - "charge the phase cannons"
"Similitude" - "phase cannons are charged and ready"
"Hatchery" - "arm phase cannons"
"The Augments" - "arm the phase cannons"

Yes, actually, it includes the (also seldom mentioned) polarized hull plating, which AFAIK Archer never explicitly orders after Tactical Alert is implemented.

Reed already says what his alert will do and that includes polarizing the hull plating and charging weapons and securing key systems.

From "Singularity":

REED: I've been thinking about a ship wide emergency alert. Something a bit more comprehensive than battle stations. We're taking far too long to react to potential threats. With a single order from you, or an impact to the hull, the plating could be polarized, weapons brought online, critical systems secured.
​

Never mentioned, no. Since plasma cannons can fire in beams they could easily have been used.

We'd have to establish that those pulse cannons are plasma cannons. We can't conclusively.

More importantly, plasma RIFLES are never mentioned either, and the EM-33 only has two dialog references despite its continual appearance throughout the show.

Plasma rifles are mentioned in dialogue 4 times, including "Broken Bow" and "Similitude".

They wouldn't BE an option if they're powered by the same relays that feed the phase cannons (which evidently also power the torpedo launchers, thus "We've lost weapons" is a recurring plot device in Enterprise, similar to "Block it!/I can't!" or "They're targeting our warp core!")

In "Bound" and "The Expanse", the forward phase cannons go down but not the aft ones. They are separated out from each other as far as damage goes. It isn't an all-or-nothing situation. If there were extra pulse cannons aboard that were not "phase cannons" we would see them being used when the phase cannons are down or when they needed to shoot down more Suliban small craft.

Irrelevant. We've never seen the Enterprise-D fire more than two at a time. Unless you think the phaser arrays are just incredibly long gunports on which the ship's two phasers slide around while they're looking for targets, it doesn't tell us anything about NX-01, nor does it discount the very real possibility that half of those beams are being produced by plasma cannons.

Sure it is relevant. The NX-01 was designed for and had 3 phase cannons installed according to "Silent Enemy". (Oh, and the E-D fires 3 phasers in "Best of Both Worlds".)

Logic fail: Enterprise-D has twelve phaser arrays and rarely fired more than one of them at a time. TOS/TMP Enterprise had 18 and only ever fired TWO at a time; Voyager, also, never fires more than two phaser beams at any given moment.

There's no logical reason to expect NX-01 to be any different; she could have fifty phase cannons and seventy five plasma cannons and she would still only fire them two at a time.

There is a logical reason to expect NX-01 to be different. She's only identified with 3 phase cannons in dialogue up till "Bound". Unlike the other ships you've listed that have been identified to have more phasers.

Don't ask me why, that's just the way it's been, consistently, right up until NuTrek broke the mold (more on that in the next post).

Two of the TOS E's phasers could take all the main power and could burn out the engines. The E-D could discharge all of its EPS taps into the phaser array in one beam. Most of the time in combat, the number of phaser emitters aren't the limitation but how much power was available to fire them. In the majority of circumstances, they didn't have to split their fire among multiple small targets.

Ah, but phases WHAT? If you fired a series of short plasma pulses all adjusted to the same phase, that would result in a continuous beam, wouldn't it?

Phases whatever particles it happens to be firing. It has nothing to do with whether they kept these "pulse cannons" in addition to the "phase cannons".

Reed never lists ANYTHING when he charges up weapons, he just says "Charging weapons." The only time he got into details was in "the Crossing" where he's expressing exasperation that nothing is working anymore.

He listed the weapons that he tried to charge for his "Tactical Alert" in "The Crossing". You just said he "never lists ANYTHING when he charges up weapons" and your next sentence shows he does.

There's also no reason or evidence to show they got rid of them, especially since we still haven't accounted for where they got the parts for the other two phase cannons.

You ever thought that the original "pulse" weapons got cannibalized for the phase cannons?

Yeah. It's kinda like those times nobody thinks to use the transporter when the shuttlepods are disabled. Or, in TNG's case, when nobody thinks to use a shuttlecraft when the transporters are disabled.

So you do agree that when the forward phase cannons in the dorsal ports are taken out that they are taken out then

The same power loss that knocks out the phase cannons would knock out the older guns as well, especially if they're powered by the same tactical system (and they are).

And your proof is? When the phase cannons go out in "The Expanse", the torpedoes are still operational. Why would these other phantom cannons be knocked out?

But they WERE used in Broken Bow, despite not being mentioned. What I'm telling you here is they were probably used again in later episodes--especially in "Regenerated"--firing in beams.

Unidentified pulse weapons were used by the NX-01 in "Broken Bow".

That goes back to "Singularity" that the only weapons being powered and used are the "phase cannons" and torpedoes.

"Singularity" suggests nothing of the sort. Archer merely comments "We need phase cannons." When they start charging T'pol tells him "All weapons are online." There's no listing of weapons there either, in fact NEITHER of them ever mention torpedoes at all.

Logically, since they didn't mention torpedoes in Singularity, the torpedo launchers must have been uninstalled just before that episode, right?

"The Crossing" clearly identifies the weapons that Reed's alert will charge up. T'Pol confirmed that all of Reed's weapons are online which would have included the phase cannons. Archer didn't call for torpedoes but he definitely would have had the option to use them.



A couple more examples of phase cannons fired from the dorsal ports in addition to "Singularity"

"Future Tense" - Archer's orders only "power the phase cannons". NX-01 dorsal port fires on Suliban ship.
"Damage" - T'Pol orders the phase cannons to fire "a narrow confinement beam" against a ship's power juncture. NX-01's dorsal port fires as well as the ventral one.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Phasers and torpedoes are no different in usage from guns and torpedoes

Phasers are directed energy weapons and in that regard very much UNLIKE guns. Photon torpedoes also move at much higher speeds than their WW-II counterparts but deliver comparatively little damage, such that they are actually more similar to rockets or small guided missiles.

How is it a paradigm shift? You've spent how many pages arguing that the NX-01 kept her "plasma" guns along with the "paradigm shift" phase cannons yet she uses them the same way.

Old paradigm: Kinetic-kill weapons, nuclear warheads.
New paradigm: Directed-energy weapons, antimatter warheads.

As I said before, the weapons are more powerful but their use doesn't change.

And as I said before, they're considerably less powerful than thermonuclear weapons would be. But despite being less powerful, they seem to be somewhat more effective, in much the same way that torpedoes and bombs, though less powerful than battleship guns, are considerably more effective in combat.

Why he picked the front approach we're not sure since he took the aft approach with Grissom. If the aft weapons of the Enterprise was weaker then he would've had a good reason to approach from that way, not the front.

The aft torpedo bay of the Enterprise was weaker; it was, in fact, non-existent.

You haven't logically discounted the very strong possibility that Kruge attacked Grissom from behind--and Enterprise from the front--because that's where he just happened to be when his targets came into firing range.

A 180 degree turn would be fatal to the firing ship 90 degree or even 45 degree continuous turning would be fine.

And would take how long to complete before Kruge is able to open fire?

Funny you should ask this when your own argument below justifies the existence of extra weapons

It's not a justification for extra weapons. It's a lamentation of the fact that ADDING extra weapons appears to be entirely pointless since they insist on using them one at a fucking time!

I don't need to. As I've pointed out, because no one seems to care for weapons arcs there isn't any reason to believe that one phaser array is weaker than the other.

And I've pointed out that they don't seem to care about weapon arcs even when one weapon IS weaker than the other. There isn't much solid precedent in Trek that they SHOULD care about that sort of thing, considering -- again -- the relative slowness of Trek battles.

You on the other hand do not have any evidence that shows that enemy ships should care about avoiding a specific weapon because one is stronger than the other.

On the contrary, I've given you evidence that they don't care, even when one weapon is demonstrably stronger than the other.

Actually, we don't know where the BOP decloaked from.

Actually, we kinda do, considering the visual from the Enterprise-D's viewscreen shows both BoP's attacking from the Bortas' forward quarter. So unless one decloaked behind and then zipped around to the front incredibly quickly, only to suddenly slow to a crawl for the remainder of the battle...

We know so little about the Romulan Warbirds weapons that it would be impossible to say that they have no rear-mounted weapons.

Probert designed them with six different disruptor weapons in positions that the warbird should be able to fire at least four of them at any given target, forward or aft.

The VFX teams of TNG and DS9, on the other hand, seem to believe the warbird has only one: the big cannon mounted on the nose. I would imagine the Romulan starship designers are simply genre savvy: since everyone only fires one weapon at a time anyway, they've installed one freakishly powerful cannon in the nose of the ship to do all their dirty work.

What evidence do you have that attacking ships don't have a reliable way of determining what the firing arcs of the enemy ship are? How then do we get scenes where the crew says, "they are targeting our weapons" and "protect our aft cannons"?

It's one thing to scan another ship and figure out where their weapons ARE. It's quite another to figure out the range of motion for the gimbals and servos that AIM that weapon, let alone the angles that weapon can safely be aligned to due to the ship's superstructure, let alone the angles it is ALLOWED to be aligned to due to some internal protocol. If your enemy is using a weapon system that has no obvious moving parts -- a phaser array, for instance -- there is NO way to determine the firing arc short of having the computer scan the entire ship in detail, build a 3D model of it and simulate all possible firing angles from its main weapons to determine POSSIBLE gaps in coverage.

Any of which would require a conscious effort on the part of the attackers to scan the enemy ship in high resolution, analyze its weapon systems in detail, calculate its firing patterns and and maneuvering envelope and then come up with a navigational program capable of moving the ship in/through part of that blind spot at an opportune moment. I concede it is not beyond the realm of possibility that someone, somewhere, might attempt it (Enterprise did something like this in "The Arsenal of Freedom"; it didn't work). At issue here is whether or not that is -- or should be, or even could be -- an effective tactic. All evidence suggests it probably isn't; you're much better off figuring out how to knock out their shields first, so your detailed sensor scans are far more useful in finding a weakness in his shield grid.

Well yes and no. During the battle we do see the E-D re-orientate to bring the saucer ventral array to bear. However most of the time after the initial approach the Klingons are attacking from above which would indicate the Klingons were somehow getting above the E-D or Wesley/Data was doing a very bad job of keeping the E-D between the Klingons and the E-C.

Or Wesley is intentionally keeping the dorsal axis facing the Enterprise for some reason. Perhaps he figures that exposing the side of the ship that contains their (evidently tempermental) warp core and antimatter pods to Klingon disruptor fire is probably a bad idea?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It doesn't have to be whether one side is out-gunned or not. Just simple, "attack their weaker side"."

This is like getting into a fight with a left-handed opponent and somebody tells you "Kick him on the left, that's his weaker side!"

That implies his handedness is less important than, say, the fact that he is carrying a baseball bat in his left hand or the fact that he is currently standing in a kickboxing stance with his right foot forward. "Attack from where his weapons aren't pointing right this minute" is an example of a simplistic tactic for people who don't know what real tactics are and can't think of a better approach.

Where are you getting what "starship commanders are evidently aware of" from?

From the obvious fact that no one has ever been shown making a serious effort -- actually, any effort at all -- to determine the firing arcs of the enemy's weapons for a tactical advantage.

The closest anyone ever gets to doing this is when Sisko takes the helm in "Shattered Mirror," flying suicidally close to Worf's flagship and firing at knife-stabbing range. Even then, Sisko never bothers to determine the ship's firing arcs; it's mainly a desperation tactic on the assumption that a very large ship with mechanically steered gun turrets will have trouble shooting a very small fast-moving ship at point blank range. And even then it doesn't completely work; they manage to weaken the cruiser's forward shields, but not enough to destroy it.

Also, if the main phasers were unable to hit missiles what the heck was the Enterprise doing in "For The World is Hollow...", "Patterns of Force" and "Conundrum"?

I wasn't aware the Enterprise-D made appearances in those episodes.

We'd have to establish that those pulse cannons are plasma cannons. We can't conclusively.

You're right. Maybe they were phase cannons all along.

Oh, and the E-D fires 3 phasers in "Best of Both Worlds".

Then surely you must believe the phaser arrays are just glorified gunports for all three of the Enterprise-D's phaser emitters.

There is a logical reason to expect NX-01 to be different. She's only identified with 3 phase cannons in dialogue up till "Bound". Unlike the other ships you've listed that have been identified to have more phasers.

Yeah, in Conundrum Worf says the Enterprise-D is equipped with ten phasers and 250 photon torpedoes. Which is odd, because the model actually has ELEVEN phaser arrays, which comes to twelve if you count the dorsal array on the battle section (thirteen if you include the emitter in the torpedo bay and fourteen if you include the putative "main phaser" in the captain's yacht, although these are widely considered to be VFX errors).

But the dialog in Conundrum says they only have ten. So we must assume that at least one of those phaser strips on the physical model aren't really phaser strips (in fact, up to four of them may be something else entirely).

Two of the TOS E's phasers could take all the main power and could burn out the engines.

If that's a reference to "Paradise Syndrome" you're forgetting that Spock fired ALL of their phasers in sequence, continuously, at a time when the engines were already dangerously overheated from trying to deflect the asteroid in the first place. We do not even know how long he did this before Scotty's bairns finally gave up the ghost.

The E-D could discharge all of its EPS taps into the phaser array in one beam.

By which you expect us to believe that the output of a single phaser emitter -- not an array, but the EMITTER -- is capable of accepting and discharging the full power of the ship's warp engines, all by itself?

If true, then we're basically back to the square one, where putting several HUNDRED of these emitters into a crosslinked array makes no technical sense whatsoever. It would be like putting 200 cannons on a single ship that can only ever fire ONE of them at a time.

Phases whatever particles it happens to be firing.

So if it's firing, say, high energy protons accelerated to a dozen EeVs (IOW, high energy plasma), then phasing those particles would turn it into a phase cannon.

You ever thought that the original "pulse" weapons got cannibalized for the phase cannons?

Entirely possible, assuming Enterprise only had two of them. OTOH, there are the mysterious extra energy beams coming out of the ship from the dorsal side various times during Season 1, which is the main reason I think the phase cannons were built with spare parts and the in-place plasma cannons were modified to fire in beams shortly thereafter. Whether or not this causes them to be referred to as "phase cannons" is unclear.

And your proof is? When the phase cannons go out in "The Expanse", the torpedoes are still operational. Why would these other phantom cannons be knocked out?

Stop me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Enterprise supposed to be upgraded with additional phase cannons before it left space dock? Archer asks Gardner "What kind of armaments is she carrying" to which Gardner replies "The same weapons that you'll have once the retrofit is completed." Surely he can't JUST be referring to photonic torpedoes (unless Columbia was also designed to carry only three phase cannons?).


Speaking of "The Expanse..." after scanning Duras' ship on two separate occasions before, Archer has had more than enough time to figure out that almost all of the Bird of Prey's weapons are mounted FORWARDS and therefore the Bird of Prey is weaker on its aft side. Why, then, does he never bother to get behind the bird of prey UNTIL it is pointed out to him that Duras' aft shields are down?

Could it be that where your weapons are pointed has nothing at all to do with where your "Weak side" is?

T'Pol confirmed that all of Reed's weapons are online which would have included the phase cannons. Archer didn't call for torpedoes but he definitely would have had the option to use them.

It would have included the plasma cannons too, if Archer had remembered they existed. But Archer isn't the type to remember that sort of thing, evidently, since he never thought to use them in "Fight or Flight."

 

[blssdwlf]

It doesn't have to be whether one side is out-gunned or not. Just simple, "attack their weaker side"."

This is like getting into a fight with a left-handed opponent and somebody tells you "Kick him on the left, that's his weaker side!"

You just said to fight someone that is left-handed (their stronger side) to also attack him on the left even though you labeled his strong side the weaker side. Did you mean, "This is like getting into a fight with a left-handed opponent and somebody tells you "kick him on the right, that's his weaker side" ?

That implies his handedness is less important than, say, the fact that he is carrying a baseball bat in his left hand or the fact that he is currently standing in a kickboxing stance with his right foot forward. "Attack from where his weapons aren't pointing right this minute" is an example of a simplistic tactic for people who don't know what real tactics are and can't think of a better approach.

That statement is straightforward. Attack the weaker side. Since there is no evidence of weaker weapons then weaker shields or whatever happens to be their vulnerability.

Where are you getting what "starship commanders are evidently aware of" from?

From the obvious fact that no one has ever been shown making a serious effort -- actually, any effort at all -- to determine the firing arcs of the enemy's weapons for a tactical advantage.

Since commanders frequently request a "tactical analysis" of enemy ships by scanning them (see "Fortunate Son", "Conundrum", "Nemesis", etc) to identify their number of weapons, shields and propulsion I'd say your assumption is incorrect. If the weapons are capable of delivering the same damage from any emitter then the firing arcs are irrelevant unless there is a gap.

I wasn't aware the Enterprise-D made appearances in those episodes.

I was pointing out that the big phasers of the E-D also engaged small missile targets.

Then surely you must believe the phaser arrays are just glorified gunports for all three of the Enterprise-D's phaser emitters.

Actually, I'm not sure exactly what the phaser strips are other than capable of emitting 2 beams at a time.

Yeah, in Conundrum Worf says the Enterprise-D is equipped with ten phasers and 250 photon torpedoes. Which is odd, because the model actually has ELEVEN phaser arrays, which comes to twelve if you count the dorsal array on the battle section (thirteen if you include the emitter in the torpedo bay and fourteen if you include the putative "main phaser" in the captain's yacht, although these are widely considered to be VFX errors).

But the dialog in Conundrum says they only have ten. So we must assume that at least one of those phaser strips on the physical model aren't really phaser strips (in fact, up to four of them may be something else entirely).

This is what Worf said:
WORF: I have completed a survey of our tactical systems. We are equipped with ten phaser banks, two hundred and fifty photon torpedoes,
and a high capacity shield grid.

He doesn't say ten phaser strips or ten phaser emitters but ten phaser BANKS. And we know from "Encounter at Farpoint" that the main phaser BANKS can pump their power thru a single emitter on the ventral saucer section. A phaser BANK therefore does not have to equate to any specific weapon emitter on the hull of the ship.

PICARD: Thank you. That was the missing part. Lieutenant Yar, rig main phaser banks to deliver an energy beam.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the E-D has ten phaser banks which power the various phaser strips and point emitters scattered across the hull.

If that's a reference to "Paradise Syndrome" you're forgetting that Spock fired ALL of their phasers in sequence, continuously, at a time when the engines were already dangerously overheated from trying to deflect the asteroid in the first place. We do not even know how long he did this before Scotty's bairns finally gave up the ghost.

Yes, in sequence, Phaser 1, then 2, 3, and finally 4. But it is when he orders the phasers all fired simultaneously the engines burn out due to them already overheated.

By which you expect us to believe that the output of a single phaser emitter -- not an array, but the EMITTER -- is capable of accepting and discharging the full power of the ship's warp engines, all by itself?

On the TOS E, I'd say a pair of emitters, yes.

If true, then we're basically back to the square one, where putting several HUNDRED of these emitters into a crosslinked array makes no technical sense whatsoever. It would be like putting 200 cannons on a single ship that can only ever fire ONE of them at a time.

You're back to square one Plus, as you've pointed out in many examples, a ship can be littered with dozens (or in the E-D's case?) hundreds of emitters and still only use one or two at a time.

Speaking of which, what is the definition of a phaser ARRAY? In DS9 it's been used to describe the Defiant's phasers and she doesn't have a phaser strip ("Destiny", "Behind the Lines"). A Runabout has a phaser array in "Hippocrattic Oath". In TNG, an alien ship also had a phaser array ("Unification 1") but not the strips that we see on the E-D. So, how do we know that a phaser array is made out of a densely packed set of emitters and not a loose group of emitters that share the same power line on the external hull or some other configuration?

So if it's firing, say, high energy protons accelerated to a dozen EeVs (IOW, high energy plasma), then phasing those particles would turn it into a phase cannon.

Well, when you find something to indicate what those particles are and what state they're in please quote it...

Entirely possible, assuming Enterprise only had two of them. OTOH, there are the mysterious extra energy beams coming out of the ship from the dorsal side various times during Season 1, which is the main reason I think the phase cannons were built with spare parts and the in-place plasma cannons were modified to fire in beams shortly thereafter. Whether or not this causes them to be referred to as "phase cannons" is unclear.

Well the thing is that Enterprise dialogue puts the phase cannon count at 3 until "Bound". We've seen the initial locations for these phase cannons to be the saucer ventral forward and the starboard ventral aft. However,"Singularity", "Future Tense" and "Damage" shows the saucer dorsal forward ports being used by phase cannons. And "Similitude" puts a phase cannon in the port ventral aft location in addition to one at the starboard ventral aft spot.

So, if there are only 3 phase cannons up till "Bound" and the phase cannons are not limited to their original starting locations then the only conclusion (however incredulous) is that the phase cannons are able to move around the ship.

And your proof is? When the phase cannons go out in "The Expanse", the torpedoes are still operational. Why would these other phantom cannons be knocked out?

Stop me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Enterprise supposed to be upgraded with additional phase cannons before it left space dock? Archer asks Gardner "What kind of armaments is she carrying" to which Gardner replies "The same weapons that you'll have once the retrofit is completed." Surely he can't JUST be referring to photonic torpedoes (unless Columbia was also designed to carry only three phase cannons?).

Since the dialogue between Archer and Erika do not mention the number of phase cannons and we don't see the Columbia firing more than 2 or 3 at a time...

Speaking of "The Expanse..." after scanning Duras' ship on two separate occasions before, Archer has had more than enough time to figure out that almost all of the Bird of Prey's weapons are mounted FORWARDS and therefore the Bird of Prey is weaker on its aft side. Why, then, does he never bother to get behind the bird of prey UNTIL it is pointed out to him that Duras' aft shields are down?

Because up till that time he was being chased by 3 BOPs. His best option was to keep running as he figured out that they were almost out of the clouds and into the Expanse. With two BOPs retreating he went after the weaker aft shields of Duras' BOP when informed that his new photonic torpedoes had no chance to penetrate the doubled-up forward shields. Archer went after the weaker side With that being said, Duras was taken by surprise so he never even got off any aft weapon shots or did any evasive maneuvering or reinforce his aft shields. He didn't even know they were behind them.

Could it be that where your weapons are pointed has nothing at all to do with where your "Weak side" is?

As I said, "It doesn't have to be whether one side is out-gunned or not. Just simple, "attack their weaker side"". The weaker side is open ended and not exclusive to weapons or shields.

T'Pol confirmed that all of Reed's weapons are online which would have included the phase cannons. Archer didn't call for torpedoes but he definitely would have had the option to use them.

It would have included the plasma cannons too, if Archer had remembered they existed. But Archer isn't the type to remember that sort of thing, evidently, since he never thought to use them in "Fight or Flight."

Reed's the one that setup the program to arm the weapons. If Archer forgot about these "other" weapons its because Reed doesn't charge them in his alert. Whether they still are on the ship in some usable form after "Silent Enemy"...

 

[blssdwlf]

Phasers and torpedoes are no different in usage from guns and torpedoes

Phasers are directed energy weapons and in that regard very much UNLIKE guns. Photon torpedoes also move at much higher speeds than their WW-II counterparts but deliver comparatively little damage, such that they are actually more similar to rockets or small guided missiles.

I wrote "no different in usage from guns and torpedoes", not internally work like them.

From a usage standpoint, guns fire directly on target and torpedoes can be either direct or indirect (track to target). This doesn't change from ENT to TNG.

How is it a paradigm shift? You've spent how many pages arguing that the NX-01 kept her "plasma" guns along with the "paradigm shift" phase cannons yet she uses them the same way.

Old paradigm: Kinetic-kill weapons, nuclear warheads.
New paradigm: Directed-energy weapons, antimatter warheads.

They are still used the same way. That's not a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift in Star Trek would be one day big starships with big guns were replaced by single-seat starfighters doing all the fighting and the starships relegated to a carrier role.

And as I said before, they're considerably less powerful than thermonuclear weapons would be. But despite being less powerful, they seem to be somewhat more effective, in much the same way that torpedoes and bombs, though less powerful than battleship guns, are considerably more effective in combat.

In "Silent Enemy" Enterprise's phase cannons "blew up the something the size of Mount McKinley." They're not that much weaker than a "photonic torpedo" which supposedly can put a "3km crater in an asteroid" at full yield.

The aft torpedo bay of the Enterprise was weaker; it was, in fact, non-existent.

The phasers were still back there.

You haven't logically discounted the very strong possibility that Kruge attacked Grissom from behind--and Enterprise from the front--because that's where he just happened to be when his targets came into firing range.

Kruge could've easily fired on Grissom from above but instead chose to move directly behind it for the shot. Kruge's ship position was deliberate.

And would take how long to complete before Kruge is able to open fire?

Hypothetically, as fast the writers would need it. Although they could've just fired aft phasers instead. Or raised shields.

It's not a justification for extra weapons. It's a lamentation of the fact that ADDING extra weapons appears to be entirely pointless since they insist on using them one at a fucking time!

Sure it is. Your own examples point to more emitters being added as each ship gets bigger but the preference is still to use 1 or 2 emitters at a time regardless of how many emitters are available. The extra emitters appear more for firing arc coverage but not as additional firepower since the ship's power can be fired through 1 or 2 emitters all at once.

And I've pointed out that they don't seem to care about weapon arcs even when one weapon IS weaker than the other. There isn't much solid precedent in Trek that they SHOULD care about that sort of thing, considering -- again -- the relative slowness of Trek battles.

Yet you haven't shown any evidence that one weapon is weaker than the other on the same ship. They're all equal on the same ship as far as we can tell so the firing arc is irrelevant.

On the contrary, I've given you evidence that they don't care, even when one weapon is demonstrably stronger than the other.

Which weapon is demonstrably stronger than the other? You've not demonstrated that.

Actually, we kinda do, considering the visual from the Enterprise-D's viewscreen shows both BoP's attacking from the Bortas' forward quarter. So unless one decloaked behind and then zipped around to the front incredibly quickly, only to suddenly slow to a crawl for the remainder of the battle...

The first point we're shown from the exterior is of the BOP already attacking the Bortas from the 2 o'clock position. The 1st hit offscreen scored the aft shields so it most likely started from the aft position but not directly aft to account for its location on the starboard side. Probably from the 4 o'clock position.

Probert designed them with six different disruptor weapons in positions that the warbird should be able to fire at least four of them at any given target, forward or aft.

The VFX teams of TNG and DS9, on the other hand, seem to believe the warbird has only one: the big cannon mounted on the nose. I would imagine the Romulan starship designers are simply genre savvy: since everyone only fires one weapon at a time anyway, they've installed one freakishly powerful cannon in the nose of the ship to do all their dirty work.

They fired from a location other then the nose in "Contagion". For all we know, Warbirds have a ton of emitters but only care to use the nose emitter the majority of the time.

What evidence do you have that attacking ships don't have a reliable way of determining what the firing arcs of the enemy ship are? How then do we get scenes where the crew says, "they are targeting our weapons" and "protect our aft cannons"?

It's one thing to scan another ship and figure out where their weapons ARE. It's quite another to figure out the range of motion for the gimbals and servos that AIM that weapon, let alone the angles that weapon can safely be aligned to due to the ship's superstructure, let alone the angles it is ALLOWED to be aligned to due to some internal protocol. If your enemy is using a weapon system that has no obvious moving parts -- a phaser array, for instance -- there is NO way to determine the firing arc short of having the computer scan the entire ship in detail, build a 3D model of it and simulate all possible firing angles from its main weapons to determine POSSIBLE gaps in coverage.

That's your assumption that it can't be determined, but where is the evidence? If enemy ships as early as ENT can target weapons then they can see the weapons and know where they can shoot (you can see it then it can shoot back at you.) Even the NX-01 can scan enemy ships for weapons, shields and propulsion capability.

Any of which would require a conscious effort on the part of the attackers to scan the enemy ship in high resolution, analyze its weapon systems in detail, calculate its firing patterns and and maneuvering envelope and then come up with a navigational program capable of moving the ship in/through part of that blind spot at an opportune moment. I concede it is not beyond the realm of possibility that someone, somewhere, might attempt it (Enterprise did something like this in "The Arsenal of Freedom"; it didn't work). At issue here is whether or not that is -- or should be, or even could be -- an effective tactic. All evidence suggests it probably isn't; you're much better off figuring out how to knock out their shields first, so your detailed sensor scans are far more useful in finding a weakness in his shield grid.

Scanning of weapons do occur, even as early as ENT. Both weapons and shields are scanned for providing a tactical analysis so where is this evidence of yours that says that combatants aren't aware of the weapons arcs again?

"Fortunate Son"
ARCHER: We've scanned your ships. Mister Reed.
REED: Fore and aft plasma cannons. I doubt those shields of theirs would hold up to our torpedoes.

and continue on to TNG:

"Conundrum"
PICARD: I'm aware of that, Commander. Tactical analysis, Mister Data.
DATA: The destroyer has minimal shields. Their disruptor capacity appears to be only two point one megajoules.

"Nemesis"
PICARD: Tactical analysis, Mister Worf.
WORF: Fifty-two disruptor banks, twenty-seven photon torpedo bays, primary and secondary shields.

etc.

Well yes and no. During the battle we do see the E-D re-orientate to bring the saucer ventral array to bear. However most of the time after the initial approach the Klingons are attacking from above which would indicate the Klingons were somehow getting above the E-D or Wesley/Data was doing a very bad job of keeping the E-D between the Klingons and the E-C.

Or Wesley is intentionally keeping the dorsal axis facing the Enterprise for some reason. Perhaps he figures that exposing the side of the ship that contains their (evidently tempermental) warp core and antimatter pods to Klingon disruptor fire is probably a bad idea?

Sure, that's possible and only periodically pitching up to bring the shorter saucer ventral array up to fire in sequence with the saucer dorsal array

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It doesn't have to be whether one side is out-gunned or not. Just simple, "attack their weaker side"."

This is like getting into a fight with a left-handed opponent and somebody tells you "Kick him on the left, that's his weaker side!"

You just said to fight someone that is left-handed (their stronger side) to also attack him on the left even though you labeled his strong side the weaker side. Did you mean, "This is like getting into a fight with a left-handed opponent and somebody tells you "kick him on the right, that's his weaker side" ?

I'm facing you, you're facing me. My left, your right.

That statement is straightforward. Attack the weaker side.

If you're in a boxing match, his "weak side" is not going to be the same side as which of his arms is weaker. So it's straightforward as much as it is overly simplistic.

Since there is no evidence of weaker weapons...

When you're up against a ship with no aft torpedoes, his weapons ARE weaker on the aft side.

Tactically, however, the strength of his weapons in a particular direction is far less important than the strength of his shields or your ability to hit a targeted system on a particular side of the ship. It's not the strength of his weapons you need to take into account, it's the strength of his DEFENSES.

Since commanders frequently request a "tactical analysis" of enemy ships by scanning them (see "Fortunate Son", "Conundrum", "Nemesis", etc) to identify their number of weapons...

Yes, their NUMBER of weapons. Determining the RANGE of those weapons and the range of motion of their targeting systems is quite another matter, and it's doubtful this is even possibly with mechanically-steered weapon systems. It certainly ISN'T possible with systems that are electronically steered such as phaser arrays and some disruptors.

But I'll meet you half way: even if it IS possible, no one has ever done it.

If the weapons are capable of delivering the same damage from any emitter then the firing arcs are irrelevant unless there is a gap.

You are again assuming that a tactical analysis would reveal the presence of a gap, that the tactical officer would be able to communicate this information efficiently to the helmsman or the captain, and that the captain and/or helmsman would be able to quickly put this information to use in a live fire combat situation.

That's alot of assumptions there, none of which have any evidential support from canon.

I was pointing out that the big phasers of the E-D also engaged small missile targets.

In "For the World is Hollow" and "Patterns of Force?"

Actually, I'm not sure exactly what the phaser strips are other than capable of emitting 2 beams at a time.

You're right, they might not even be arrays. Just big reflecting mirrors that redirect beams from one or two phaser weapons buried somewhere in the hull.

He doesn't say ten phaser strips or ten phaser emitters but ten phaser BANKS. And we know from "Encounter at Farpoint" that the main phaser BANKS can pump their power thru a single emitter on the ventral saucer section. A phaser BANK therefore does not have to equate to any specific weapon emitter on the hull of the ship.

Ah. So the Enterprise-D has twelve to fourteen phaser strips, which are devided into ten phaser BANKS and an unknown number of EMITTERS, including dozens of unknown emitters that are otherwise completely invisible.

On the TOS E, I'd say a pair of emitters, yes.

Even in "Paradise Syndrome" that is not the case. You yourself just said he ordered ALL of the phasers to fire simultaneously, and THAT ALONE is what burned out the already-taxed main engines. Clearly only the combined output of all phasers can handle full warp power, or something close enough to it that a warp engine way beyond the red line would suffer damage from that kind of load.

You're back to square one Plus, as you've pointed out in many examples, a ship can be littered with dozens (or in the E-D's case?) hundreds of emitters and still only use one or two at a time.

Which doesn't make any technical sense unless all those hundreds of emitters are pouring all their energy through a single emitter. IOW, it's a vain attempt to explain what has become a very common and very senseless VFX convention, and even then it doesn't explain why they only fire one ARRAY at a time when realistically we ought to be seeing something kinda like this.

Speaking of which, what is the definition of a phaser ARRAY? In DS9 it's been used to describe the Defiant's phasers and she doesn't have a phaser strip

Yes she does. A couple of small ones that are hard to see, but they're there, and they have been used on one occasion though I do not completely recall where (Paradise Lost, I think).

A Runabout has a phaser array in "Hippocrattic Oath".

So do Voyager's shuttlecraft.

So, how do we know that a phaser array is made out of a densely packed set of emitters and not a loose group of emitters that share the same power line on the external hull or some other configuration?

It's probably all of the above. But that would mean there's not a whole lot of difference between a phaser array and a phaser bank.

Well the thing is that Enterprise dialogue puts the phase cannon count at 3 until "Bound". We've seen the initial locations for these phase cannons to be the saucer ventral forward and the starboard ventral aft. However,"Singularity", "Future Tense" and "Damage" shows the saucer dorsal forward ports being used by phase cannons. And "Similitude" puts a phase cannon in the port ventral aft location in addition to one at the starboard ventral aft spot.

So, if there are only 3 phase cannons up till "Bound" and the phase cannons are not limited to their original starting locations then the only conclusion (however incredulous) is that the phase cannons are able to move around the ship.

But that ISN'T the only conclusion, since you can just as easily conclude that the ship has beam weapons OTHER than phase cannons that are often used but never mentioned. I'm not sure why you're so resistant to that idea; Starfleet has MANY things that are regularly used but never mentioned. Toilets, for example.

Because up till that time he was being chased by 3 BOPs. His best option was to keep running as he figured out that they were almost out of the clouds and into the Expanse. With two BOPs retreating he went after the weaker aft shields of Duras' BOP when informed that his new photonic torpedoes had no chance to penetrate the doubled-up forward shields. Archer went after the weaker side

And the weaker side turned out to be where his shields weren't pointed, not where his WEAPONS weren't pointed.

With that being said, Duras was taken by surprise so he never even got off any aft weapon shots or did any evasive maneuvering or reinforce his aft shields. He didn't even know they were behind them.

Precisely: you can only attack his weaker side if he has NO IDEA you're doing it; otherwise, he has a million ways he can respond to your attack and reinforce what has become his weak side, either by diverting shield power to that side or taking evasive action or firing back with what weapons he DOES have on that side.

Which is 100% confirmation of what I said before: if you attack a Galaxy class starship from the lower rear quadrant simply because you assume his stronger main phasers can't hit you there, you would probably only get a few seconds -- if that -- to use that advantage before he A) Fires torpedoes at you B) takes evasive action and shoots you anyway C) Diverts all his shield power aft so you can't damage him or D) all of the above.

The weaker side is open ended and not exclusive to weapons or shields.

More to the point: it doesn't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with weapons.

Reed's the one that setup the program to arm the weapons. If Archer forgot about these "other" weapons its because Reed doesn't charge them in his alert.

In which case Reed probably forgot about them too.

Which, after witnessing his tactical brilliance in "The Andorian Incident" is another distinct possibility.