Do phaser arrays amplify energy, or merely direct it?

[Crazy Eddie]

From a usage standpoint, guns fire directly on target and torpedoes can be either direct or indirect (track to target).

That's incorrect. Naval cannon shells fire on ballistic trajectories determined by the range of the target and the firing angle of the weapon. Effective firing range depends on many things, and in the case of battleships the guns may be MORE effective at long range with a higher firing angle where the shells have to "drop" through the thinner deck armor of the ship. OTOH, those same cannons are somewhat less effective (although more accurate) at short range, where the trajectory of the shells is too flat to get through the deck armor and they have to contend with the thicker belt armor of the ship (or pound the ship's superstructure, which will wreck it but will not sink it).

In space, kinetic kill vehicles (which may or may not be ordinary cannon shells) gain their killing power by high relative velocity on striking the target. This means that the faster you are moving relative to your target, the more damage you are going to do when you hit him. Nuclear weapons have no such advantage, but can be delivered the same way: one starship accelerates to high speed, drops a nuke behind it and detonates it just as they pass.

Directed energy weapons travel at or close to the speed of light and ALWAYS on a flat trajectory; you do not have to lead your target and it doesn't really matter what range your at as long as you have an accurate firing solution. Directed energy weapons are more effective with sustained contact at a single point of the target and thus require extremely accurate firing solutions to be effective, and this is even more true in the presence of shielding. Therefore, directed energy weapons require you to very precisely match velocities with the target vessel and maintain a very accurate target lock on the part of his ship you want to hit.

IOW: Kinetic kill vehicles and nuclear weapons would usually require you to fly towards your target as fast as you possible can, fire off a few shots (nukes and penetrators together) and then count your hits as you zip by each other at some insane relativistic velocities. Directed energy weapons, on the other hand, are most effective when you match velocities with the other guy so you're almost stationary with him and try to drill through his shielding with energy beams or smash him to bits with a (relatively slow moving) torpedo. Those are two ENTIRELY different kinds of combat; it's similar to the difference between a sword fight and a jousting match.

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.

Except photonic torpedoes can do this consistently WITHOUT accidentally blowing up the ship that fires them.

The phasers were still back there.

The torpedoes were not. And it was the torpedoes -- NOT the phasers -- that Kruge should have been worried about.

Kruge could've easily fired on Grissom from above

Kruge WASN'T above. He was behind when he decloaked and he was behind when he fired.

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

Neither of which would have caused as much damage as quickly as a pair of photon torpedoes right in the grill.

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.

Except that it usually ISN'T, and dialog suggests there are technical challenges for doing so (otherwise Spock is wasting everyone's time by ordering for multiple phasers to be fired on the same target).

Yet you haven't shown any evidence that one weapon is weaker than the other on the same ship.

Defiants aft phasers are weaker than its forward phasers.

The Bird of Prey's aft distruptors are weaker than its forward disruptors.

The Enterprise-A's aft torpedo launcher is weaker than its forward torpedo launchers.

The Vorcha's aft disruptor cannon is weaker than its forward disruptor cannon.

Arguably, the Romulan Warbird's forward disruptor cannon is far stronger than its (probably non-existent) aft cannon.

Indeed: NX-01's two forward phase cannons are stronger than its solitary aft phase cannon.

For all of these ships, the relative strength of their weapons has no determination at all in attack direction, EXCEPT that sometimes enemies will attack where the weapons are strongest with the express intention of taking those weapons offline (as Duras does in "The Expanse").

Which weapon is demonstrably stronger than the other?

2 torpedoes+ 12 phaser emitters are stronger than 0 torpedoes +2 phaser banks. And Yet in the TOS movies we have three Klingon commanders whose very first attack is from the FRONT, where all of those weapons can be brought to bear against them.

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...

Was it? We're told the aft shields are down, not that they've been hit. Hitting the ship in one of its shield generators would accomplish that instantly; hitting the shield barrier itself probably wouldn't.

That's your assumption that it can't be determined, but where is the evidence?

You're asking me to prove a negative? YOU'RE the one claiming that they can and should be able to determine that. I'm deducing that they can't from the obvious fact that they DON'T.

Where's your evidence, therefore, that they CAN?

If enemy ships as early as ENT can target weapons then they can see the weapons and know where they can shoot

How the hell can they know that? YOU didn't even know that until you built a 3D model and tried to project its blind spots and you didn't even do it correctly. You think the tactical officer has time to sit there drawing models on his computer console to figure out where his main phasers can't fire back?

Even the NX-01 can scan enemy ships for weapons, shields and propulsion capability.

And when has anyone ever scanned for the enemy's LINE OF SIGHT? Something like "Can he see us from outside of that particular window?" or "We've knocked out their forward cannons... can they still hit us with their aft cannon?"

Anything remotely similar will do. Again, it is YOUR suggestion that being able to determine weapons location means it should be easy to calculate their firing angles and also the potential gaps in those angles. Has anyone ever ACTUALLY done this?

so where is this evidence of yours that says that combatants aren't aware of the weapons arcs again?

Where's your evidence that it CAN?

"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.

Yeah great... so where's the part where Reed says "By the way, their forward plasma cannons are limited to thirty degrees yaw, fifty degrees positive and negative elevation"? I don't see it in the transcript. Maybe it's in a deleted scene?

"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.

Hm... I just watched that episode, but Data never mentions that the desroyer's disruptor cannons have full omnidirectional coverage. Another deleted scene, perhaps?

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

I don't have the Blu-Ray version so clearly I don't have the deleted scene where Worf goes on to say "However, analysis suggests only three to five of those disruptors can be brought to bear on any particular target."

You've made the positive assertion that tactical analysis includes a detailed examination of the firing arcs of those individual weapons. Do you have PROOF of this or is this something you just made up and are now asking me to disprove?

 

[blssdwlf]

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.

Sure there other factors, although fighting someone who is a southpaw is different than fighting someone who is right handed.

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

Assuming the ship has no aft torpedoes or that his forward torpedo launcher can't fire torpedoes that turn and home in on you, then that would be true. But since Trek torpedoes of at least TSFS era can turn and home in, the lack of an apparent torpedo launcher does not make it safer to attack from 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.

It would be all of the above, including the weapons. Since single / dual emitters can pump out the full power of a ship in Star Trek, the attack direction relative to the emitters is irrelevant leaving either gaps, weakened shields or some other reason to take arbitrary relative position.

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.

No one?

"Survivors" - PICARD: Mister Crusher, move the Enterprise out of range of the attacking vessel.
"The Wounded" - PICARD: Mister Data, overlay weapon ranges of the two ships.
DATA: .. The Phoenix is beginning evasive maneuvers. It has positioned itself outside the weapons range of the opposing ship...
"Descent" - CRUSHER: Red Alert. How long before they're in weapons range?
"The Search" - KIRA: That's well within range of their weapons, Commander.
"Second Skin" - SISKO: Please stand by. Are we within their weapons range yet?
"Partuition" - JANEWAY: ..Let's try to draw some fire from their aft weapons systems.

etc, etc.

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 think the majority of ships, including the BOP has adequate all-around weapons coverage. Now other weaknesses that can be exploited, that depends on a case-by-case basis. For example, in a live fire combat situation like "Generations", Riker asks for weaknesses on the BOP but the only one that Worf could come up with was the plasma coils. If it had a weapons gap that could've been exploited, then that would've came up. Of course, at the speed the E-D was moving it didn't seem like they were going to do any maneuvering other than spinning slowly to it's death.

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

I was answering your comment: "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."

Gave you three examples where the big phasers did the shooting.

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.

For the E-D, it just might be

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.

I'd like to think those phaser banks power the emitters, but 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.

If you watch the episode (original version), when Spock orders, "Commence simultaneous bombardment" all phasers fired through 2 emitters and that caused the immediate burn out of the engines.

Now come to think of it, in "Balance of Terror" when "Phaser 1" fire, 3 pulses are fired from 3 different points and this pattern continues for "Phaser 2". And in "For the World is Hollow..." both "Phaser 1" and "Phaser 2" are powered up and when both are fired only 2 emitters are used.

So, in a funny way TNG actually followed a similar arrangement with TOS in having a fewer number of phaser banks powering the multitude of phaser emitters on the ship. "The Paradise Syndrome" would then suggest that all 4 phaser banks discharging at once through 2 emitters is the full power of the engines. Neat

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.

It's not just VFX when dialogue is involved suggesting that it's a power limitation. If a single emitter on an array can pump out a full power shot, more often than not it makes sense to concentrate it in one blast rather than splitting it among multiple emitters and having weaker individual hits.

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).

I am unable to find any arrays/strips. Can you post a screenshot?

So do Voyager's shuttlecraft.

Voyager's shuttle in "Hunters" where the phaser array was mentioned appears to only have the nose phaser emitter. Can you point out where the strip array is?

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.

They can probably be spoken interchangeably, but in narrow usage, multiple banks can fire a single emitter ("Encounter at Farpoint").

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.

When the phase cannons are out, no other guns popup to fire even though she's got easily twice as many ports available for them to be used. Again, not spoken of and not used.

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

Which isn't counter to my argument of attacking the weaker side. His shields were weaker there and there was no other option to continue to attack the BOP's front due to the reinforced shields. However, the BOP's aft weapons could've been as strong as the front but again, they had no choice but to attack the aft section.

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.

In "The Expanse" scenario, the weaker side existed because Duras weakened his aft shields to strengthen his forward shields. If he had not done this, there would not have been a single "weaker side" to attack since all sides were vulnerable to the photonic torpedoes. Obviously the idea is to be able to counter that by reinforcing shields in the proper direction, counter maneuver, etc but ultimately the success of defending against a weakness and exploiting one's strength still depends on how mistake-free (and lucky) the crews are.

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.

You do realize in "Rascals" that in the surprise attack from the two decloaking BOPs the E-D knew a full 10 seconds before the BOPs fully decloaked and fired. Riker's first command was to order maximum shields and to take them out of orbit. 39 seconds go by from the first BOP fire to when Riker orders the phasers to be fired. Shortly afterwards, warp drive is offline, shields fail, etc etc. This is almost repeated again with only 1 ship (and a huge advantage) in "Generations".

From a time standpoint, a ship performing a sneak attack could stay back in the saucer array blind spot for at least 40-50 seconds. And by then, they might have done enough damage that return fire would be moot. That's assuming that it's worth doing because you are claiming the secondary phasers are weaker. I still believe that they can fire at the same power as the saucer ones so there is no particular reason to go for that blindspot.

Although not a Galaxy-class, there is also "Basics 2" where Paris' knowledge of Voyager's "vulnerabilities and blind spots" allow him in his shuttle to attack Voyager's primary phaser coupling undetected and at will from the lower aft position and he only exposed himself to trick them into firing the phasers.

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.

In "Parturition", Tuvok's tactical analysis leads them to deliberately draw fire from an enemy ship's aft weapons which create a weakness in the aft shields that was exploited to disable the enemy's entire weapons array.

Like I said, weaknesses are not exclusive to weapons or shields. I should probably add crew as a weakness too

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.

That still only means his tactical alert charges "phase cannons" and torpedoes for weapons.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Assuming the ship has no aft torpedoes or that his forward torpedo launcher can't fire torpedoes that turn and home in on you, then that would be true. But since Trek torpedoes of at least TSFS era can turn and home in, the lack of an apparent torpedo launcher does not make it safer to attack from the aft side.

Sauce for the goose: since the ship only needs to turn a few degrees in either direction to bring its main phasers into range, neither does the lack of powerful aft phasers.

It would be all of the above, including the weapons. Since single / dual emitters can pump out the full power of a ship in Star Trek...

Judging by Paradise Syndrome that seems not to be the case. Again, it took the combined power of all four phaser banks to overload the engines, not of a single bank. Apart from Paradise syndrome, I don't believe there's much evidence that a single phaser bank COULD handle the full power of the warp engines. And there's reason to believe the TOS Enterprise probably couldn't, since the modification wasn't installed until TMP "increases phaser power by channeling it through the main engines," which would seem redundant (and contradict the purpose of that entire scene) if the Enterprise already had that capability.

And since I know you're about to drop another "Matter of Time" reference, let's be clear: "Discharging all the EPS taps" and "channeling all warp power" is not the same thing. It would require a major reconfiguring of the ship's engines -- as Geordi did with the deflector in Best of Both Worlds -- in order to make that possible.

No one?

No one. Tactical analysis doesn't yield that kind of information (though intelligence and prior experience might). The rest of the time it's just an estimate, and not necessarily a correct one.

I think the majority of ships, including the BOP has adequate all-around weapons coverage.

ALL ships have all-around weapons coverage. What they don't have is all around EQUAL coverage. The Bird of Prey, for example, has three forward facing weapons and one (though usually zero) rear facing weapons; more to the point, the wingtip disruptors have a very limited firing arc and cannot be brought to engage targets directly above or directly below the ship (that they can be slewed at all is mainly for accuracy when firing at targets ahead of the ship). Defiant is built the exact same way, as are a number of Federation designs (Reliant, for instance).

Now other weaknesses that can be exploited, that depends on a case-by-case basis...

Correction: other weaknesses ARE exploited. But from what we've seen so far, the lack of rear-facing weaponry is too small of a variance to make any tactical difference.

If it had a weapons gap that could've been exploited

It did have a weapons gap: AFT, as in the lack of disruptors or torpedoes facing aft of the ship. How the hell was Riker going to exploit THAT?

I was answering your comment: "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."

Gave you three examples where the big phasers did the shooting.

Two of which don't apply to the Enterprise-D and were a waste of text.

Back on point: the main phasers are capable of QUICKLY engaging targets all around the ship except in the lower rear quadrant. Since nothing larger than a shuttlecraft is maneuverable enough to take advantage of that weakness, those small aft phasers near the torpedo launcher would only come into play as rearward point defense and wouldn't pack the "sunday punch" of the main phaser banks anyway. Probably, anyone stupid enough to think "He's got no main phasers in the back!" and plant himself between Enterprise' legs is going to get a mouthful of photon torpedoes the moment he tries it.

If you watch the episode (original version), when Spock orders, "Commence simultaneous bombardment" all phasers fired through 2 emitters and that caused the immediate burn out of the engines.

So let's review how it works in blssdwlf's world:

The TOS Enterprise has four different phaser BANKS -- forward, midships and aft -- but only two phaser EMITTERS, and that no matter how many phasers you fire or what part you fire them from they always discharge through the same to emitters.

Furthermore, the Enterprise-D has ten phaser banks, twelve phaser ARRAYS, and twelve to fourteen phaser EMITTERS, plus an unknown number of additional (but invisible) phaser weapons scattered around the hull, none of which neccesarily have anything to do with the phaser strips but every single one of which requires 100% power from the warp drive to fire.

Even more, a Klingon bird of prey has 360 degree weapons coverage from its disruptor cannons, and so does the Defiant somehow.

Oh, and my favorite: a photon torpedo -- which is considerably more powerful than a phaser blast -- is capable of launching into space, turning completely around and hitting a target BEHIND you faster than your enemy can get off his first shot. Yet, despite this fact, the lack of powerful aft phasers is a serious tactical liability, serious enough that we should expect it to be the FIRST thing an aggressor thinks of when he closes in on a target, despite the fact that torpedoes can zip around and hit you anyway, AND despite the fact that the same ship can just as easily turn its bow five degrees to port and still nail you with main phasers while those torpedoes are doing their rapid interception turn.

And all of this makes perfect sense to you.
Fascinating.

 

[blssdwlf]

From a usage standpoint, guns fire directly on target and torpedoes can be either direct or indirect (track to target).

That's incorrect. Naval cannon shells fire on ballistic trajectories determined by the range of the target and the firing angle of the weapon. Effective firing range depends on many things, and in the case of battleships the guns may be MORE effective at long range with a higher firing angle where the shells have to "drop" through the thinner deck armor of the ship. OTOH, those same cannons are somewhat less effective (although more accurate) at short range, where the trajectory of the shells is too flat to get through the deck armor and they have to contend with the thicker belt armor of the ship (or pound the ship's superstructure, which will wreck it but will not sink it).

In space, kinetic kill vehicles (which may or may not be ordinary cannon shells) gain their killing power by high relative velocity on striking the target. This means that the faster you are moving relative to your target, the more damage you are going to do when you hit him. Nuclear weapons have no such advantage, but can be delivered the same way: one starship accelerates to high speed, drops a nuke behind it and detonates it just as they pass.

Directed energy weapons travel at or close to the speed of light and ALWAYS on a flat trajectory; you do not have to lead your target and it doesn't really matter what range your at as long as you have an accurate firing solution. Directed energy weapons are more effective with sustained contact at a single point of the target and thus require extremely accurate firing solutions to be effective, and this is even more true in the presence of shielding. Therefore, directed energy weapons require you to very precisely match velocities with the target vessel and maintain a very accurate target lock on the part of his ship you want to hit.

IOW: Kinetic kill vehicles and nuclear weapons would usually require you to fly towards your target as fast as you possible can, fire off a few shots (nukes and penetrators together) and then count your hits as you zip by each other at some insane relativistic velocities. Directed energy weapons, on the other hand, are most effective when you match velocities with the other guy so you're almost stationary with him and try to drill through his shielding with energy beams or smash him to bits with a (relatively slow moving) torpedo. Those are two ENTIRELY different kinds of combat; it's similar to the difference between a sword fight and a jousting match.

I'm not exactly sure why you feel the limitations of wet navy gunnery apply to space gunnery. As I said, "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."

I did not write "This doesn't change from our real world 1920's guns to TNG."

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.

Except photonic torpedoes can do this consistently WITHOUT accidentally blowing up the ship that fires them.

Only once did the recoil present a problem. If you don't remember, they fixed the recoil problem and as far as we know never undid the overload capability. But let's say they did, at 1/10th the overload yield the phase cannons would still be able to take out a mountain smaller than "Mount McKinley".

The torpedoes were not. And it was the torpedoes -- NOT the phasers -- that Kruge should have been worried about.

Why would Kruge be worried about the torpedoes? He's decloaking at point-blank range. With the Enterprise's shields down at most the torpedoes fired at him would have been low powered so the Enterprise wouldn't be blown up along with the BOP. Now, if the Enterprise's shields were already up, then yeah the torpedoes would be a real concern.

Kruge WASN'T above. He was behind when he decloaked and he was behind when he fired.

Grissom is level with the camera and Kruge's BOP comes down from over the camera and then pitches up to level out behind the Grissom. Yes behind, but also above the Grissom.

Neither of which would have caused as much damage as quickly as a pair of photon torpedoes right in the grill.

Since they didn't power up and fire phasers first, it's hard to make that claim. However, if TWOK is any indication, phaser fire might've blown out bulkheads just as effectively.

Except that it usually ISN'T, and dialog suggests there are technical challenges for doing so (otherwise Spock is wasting everyone's time by ordering for multiple phasers to be fired on the same target).

Multiple phasers through the same emitters. And when they simultaneously fired only two emitters were needed.

Defiants aft phasers are weaker than its forward phasers.

I'm not so sure I'd go with "weaker". Perhaps less effective against Jem'hedar ships, but that's about it. In "Message in a Bottle", the Defiant-class ship attacking the Warbirds in the final moments switched to using it's nose phaser beam emitter, not the quad pulse phasers that she normally uses. The aft beam emitter would be the same usefulness as the nose beam emitter, IMO.

The Bird of Prey's aft distruptors are weaker than its forward disruptors.

And again, how do you know this?

Duras' BOP from "The Expanse" had the two wing disruptors + nose disruptor + two aft disruptors that we saw fired. However I've not seen it to be able to fire all 3 forward disruptors at the same time. The best I've seen are two at a time.

The Enterprise-A's aft torpedo launcher is weaker than its forward torpedo launchers.

Does it even have an aft torpedo launcher?

The Vorcha's aft disruptor cannon is weaker than its forward disruptor cannon.

And what is your proof again? A deleted scene from your Bluray collection? (Wow, I can play this game too )

Arguably, the Romulan Warbird's forward disruptor cannon is far stronger than its (probably non-existent) aft cannon.

Evidence?

Indeed: NX-01's two forward phase cannons are stronger than its solitary aft phase cannon.

Yes, two cannons are stronger than one. As I've pointed out though, we've seen the one of the aft cannons temporarily get a buddy phase cannon in "Similitude". Since the phase cannons can shuffle around, there are only a few times where the aft cannon is by itself (usually when both forward cannons are knocked out). So from watching the NX-01 in combat, she usually can dish out the same amount of firepower forward or backward. But when she's attacked from both front and back that's where the stronger front (or back) come into play.

For all of these ships, the relative strength of their weapons has no determination at all in attack direction, EXCEPT that sometimes enemies will attack where the weapons are strongest with the express intention of taking those weapons offline (as Duras does in "The Expanse").

Duras attacked first from the port side aft as he flew over and strafed the NX-01. At that point the forward phase cannons went down.

2 torpedoes+ 12 phaser emitters are stronger than 0 torpedoes +2 phaser banks. And Yet in the TOS movies we have three Klingon commanders whose very first attack is from the FRONT, where all of those weapons can be brought to bear against them.

When it comes down to power to phasers, on the TOS Enterprise all you need are 2 emitters to bring full power to their targets.

The 3 Klingon commanders whose very first attack against the Enterprise were:

"The Search For Spock" - Kruge decloaked at point-blank range in front of unshielded Enterprise. Full power torpedoes from the Enterprise wasn't an option with shields down. Shields up would tip off the Klingons. Phasers powering up would likely have been detected. If Enterprise's automation had not failed, it would have been game over for Kruge.

"The Final Frontier" - Klaa's first attack on the Enterprise was from the side aft as he was tracking the shuttle initially. His second attack was from forward starboard. Considering that no one on the bridge raised shields or did anything to protect the Enterprise, Klaa had no particular reason to worry about flying up to the ship uncloaked.

"The Undiscovered Country" - What better way to test if your fire-while-cloaked system worked than from the front? For the rest of the battle Chang didn't stay still and attacked from all directions.

Was it? We're told the aft shields are down, not that they've been hit. Hitting the ship in one of its shield generators would accomplish that instantly; hitting the shield barrier itself probably wouldn't.

The Bortas took at least one hit offscreen while Gowron was talking to Worf, then cut to external scene where Bortas is being fired on and then to bridge where a Klingon says "Aft shields down." Since the on-screen shots show the port side being attacked (and later Data confirming the port shields going down) then the only other attack in the beginning is the one from off-screen against their aft shields.

You're asking me to prove a negative? YOU'RE the one claiming that they can and should be able to determine that. I'm deducing that they can't from the obvious fact that they DON'T.

"Survivors" - PICARD: Mister Crusher, move the Enterprise out of range of the attacking vessel.
"The Wounded" - PICARD: Mister Data, overlay weapon ranges of the two ships.
DATA: .. The Phoenix is beginning evasive maneuvers. It has positioned itself outside the weapons range of the opposing ship...
"Descent" - CRUSHER: Red Alert. How long before they're in weapons range?
"The Search" - KIRA: That's well within range of their weapons, Commander.
"Second Skin" - SISKO: Please stand by. Are we within their weapons range yet?
"Partuition" - JANEWAY: ..Let's try to draw some fire from their aft weapons systems.

How the hell can they know that? YOU didn't even know that until you built a 3D model and tried to project its blind spots and you didn't even do it correctly. You think the tactical officer has time to sit there drawing models on his computer console to figure out where his main phasers can't fire back?

I'll be happy to entertain that when I see you project the phaser blind spots out. The best you could do was hide behind an arcade game that's blind spots aren't even correct?

I think secretly you don't want any ship to have a long phaser strip blind spot or otherwise you'd have to explain even harder why enemy ships don't go out of their way to avoid them with your longer strip = more power theory.

And when has anyone ever scanned for the enemy's LINE OF SIGHT? Something like "Can he see us from outside of that particular window?" or "We've knocked out their forward cannons... can they still hit us with their aft cannon?"

"Partuition". Tuvok's plan is entirely based on getting the enemy ship to fire it's aft weapon(s).
"Bound". Orion ship takes out the forward cannons and then precedes to target and take out the aft cannons.
"The Expanse". Duras' first attack on the Enterprise was to deliberately disable (not destroy) the ship to take Archer alive. They took out the forward phase cannons and then preceded to take out the aft one.

Anything remotely similar will do. Again, it is YOUR suggestion that being able to determine weapons location means it should be easy to calculate their firing angles and also the potential gaps in those angles. Has anyone ever ACTUALLY done this?

After looking at the TMP-E and E-D, I found no significant phaser coverage gaps. I've listed out some of the examples where they identify the enemy's weapons ranges and at least once where they go after a specific weapons arc.

Yeah great... so where's the part where Reed says "By the way, their forward plasma cannons are limited to thirty degrees yaw, fifty degrees positive and negative elevation"? I don't see it in the transcript. Maybe it's in a deleted scene?

Yes, the deleted scene where we can identify all their plasma cannons visually to verify them

These examples point out that they do a detailed scan and the pertinent information is relayed to the captain. If their was an exploitable weak spot, whether it was weak shield or gap in weapons coverage that information would have been mentioned.

"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.

Hm... I just watched that episode, but Data never mentions that the desroyer's disruptor cannons have full omnidirectional coverage. Another deleted scene, perhaps?

And he never mentions how many disruptors either. If they couldn't fire backwards, that would be something worth mentioning.

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

I don't have the Blu-Ray version so clearly I don't have the deleted scene where Worf goes on to say "However, analysis suggests only three to five of those disruptors can be brought to bear on any particular target."

You missed out on the Special Edition Collector's Set. That's the one that shows you that all the power can be channeled through 1 or 2 disruptors. The extra emitters are just for coverage

You've made the positive assertion that tactical analysis includes a detailed examination of the firing arcs of those individual weapons. Do you have PROOF of this or is this something you just made up and are now asking me to disprove?

"Partuition" happens to be one for firing arcs (or more specifically the aft weapon array). But for the most part, I just don't see many ships having a phaser/beam coverage gap or one that is large enough that another ship can exploit.

 

[blssdwlf]

Assuming the ship has no aft torpedoes or that his forward torpedo launcher can't fire torpedoes that turn and home in on you, then that would be true. But since Trek torpedoes of at least TSFS era can turn and home in, the lack of an apparent torpedo launcher does not make it safer to attack from the aft side.

Sauce for the goose: since the ship only needs to turn a few degrees in either direction to bring its main phasers into range, neither does the lack of powerful aft phasers.

Or just use the aft phasers and not bother turning.

It would be all of the above, including the weapons. Since single / dual emitters can pump out the full power of a ship in Star Trek...

Judging by Paradise Syndrome that seems not to be the case. Again, it took the combined power of all four phaser banks to overload the engines, not of a single bank.

All four banks firing through 2 emitters.

Apart from Paradise syndrome, I don't believe there's much evidence that a single phaser bank COULD handle the full power of the warp engines. And there's reason to believe the TOS Enterprise probably couldn't, since the modification wasn't installed until TMP "increases phaser power by channeling it through the main engines," which would seem redundant (and contradict the purpose of that entire scene) if the Enterprise already had that capability.

The line from TMP is "increases phaser power by channelling it through the main engines". The phasers from TOS apparently can draw more power than the TOS engines could put out so the TMP version merely increases power "magically" by channeling through the warp engines. No contradiction, IMO.

And since I know you're about to drop another "Matter of Time" reference, let's be clear: "Discharging all the EPS taps" and "channeling all warp power" is not the same thing. It would require a major reconfiguring of the ship's engines -- as Geordi did with the deflector in Best of Both Worlds -- in order to make that possible.

BOBW pretty much stated that the E-D's phasers couldn't channel all that power and that's why they had to use the main navigational deflector.

No one. Tactical analysis doesn't yield that kind of information (though intelligence and prior experience might). The rest of the time it's just an estimate, and not necessarily a correct one.

So the weapons range of the enemy ships are just estimates, down to the seconds? And the number of weapons and energy capacity? Just estimates? How would one even count the number of weapons without first identifying their locations in the first place?

ALL ships have all-around weapons coverage. What they don't have is all around EQUAL coverage. The Bird of Prey, for example, has three forward facing weapons and one (though usually zero) rear facing weapons;

Duras' BOP from "The Expanse" had 2 rear firing disruptors.

more to the point, the wingtip disruptors have a very limited firing arc and cannot be brought to engage targets directly above or directly below the ship (that they can be slewed at all is mainly for accuracy when firing at targets ahead of the ship). Defiant is built the exact same way, as are a number of Federation designs (Reliant, for instance).

And Defiant has a number of point emitters that give it all-around coverage (nose, top and aft that I've seen). The nose emitter was used as much as the quad phasers in "Message in a Bottle" so the point emitters don't appear to be any weaker than the quad phasers against Warbirds.

Correction: other weaknesses ARE exploited. But from what we've seen so far, the lack of rear-facing weaponry is too small of a variance to make any tactical difference.

But what ships clearly lack rear-facing weaponry. Even the lowly BOP has aft disruptors.

It did have a weapons gap: AFT, as in the lack of disruptors or torpedoes facing aft of the ship. How the hell was Riker going to exploit THAT?

If two BOPs are seen to have aft disruptors, there is pretty good chance other BOPs will have them too. Since Worf doesn't point out the lack of aft disruptors it doesn't appear to be a weakness.

I was answering your comment: "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."

Gave you three examples where the big phasers did the shooting.

Two of which don't apply to the Enterprise-D and were a waste of text.

Pfft.

Back on point: the main phasers are capable of QUICKLY engaging targets all around the ship except in the lower rear quadrant. Since nothing larger than a shuttlecraft is maneuverable enough to take advantage of that weakness, those small aft phasers near the torpedo launcher would only come into play as rearward point defense and wouldn't pack the "sunday punch" of the main phaser banks anyway. Probably, anyone stupid enough to think "He's got no main phasers in the back!" and plant himself between Enterprise' legs is going to get a mouthful of photon torpedoes the moment he tries it.

That's your assumption. If a point emitter can channel the main phaser banks power in "Encounter at Farpoint" I see no reason the aft strips can't fire at equal power.

If you watch the episode (original version), when Spock orders, "Commence simultaneous bombardment" all phasers fired through 2 emitters and that caused the immediate burn out of the engines.

So let's review how it works in blssdwlf's world:

The TOS Enterprise has four different phaser BANKS -- forward, midships and aft -- but only two phaser EMITTERS, and that no matter how many phasers you fire or what part you fire them from they always discharge through the same to emitters.

Correction:

The TOS Enterprise has 5 sets of phasers, Forward, Port, Starboard, Midships and Aft. Each set could be 2-4 emitters mimicking the layout from the TMP Enterprise. The ship has 4 phaser banks and discharging all 4 banks at the same time through 2 emitters can burn out an already taxed stardrive. A single phaser bank can power 3 proximity phaser blasts that are fired through 3 different emitters.

Furthermore, the Enterprise-D has ten phaser banks, twelve phaser ARRAYS, and twelve to fourteen phaser EMITTERS, plus an unknown number of additional (but invisible) phaser weapons scattered around the hull, none of which neccesarily have anything to do with the phaser strips but every single one of which requires 100% power from the warp drive to fire.

Correction: Any single emitter can fire the maximum power that the phaser system can channel. The main navigational deflector can channel more than that.

Even more, a Klingon bird of prey has 360 degree weapons coverage from its disruptor cannons, and so does the Defiant somehow.

The Defiant, definitely. The BOP, highly likely, haven't watched all the BOP battle scenes though.

Oh, and my favorite: a photon torpedo -- which is considerably more powerful than a phaser blast -- is capable of launching into space, turning completely around and hitting a target BEHIND you faster than your enemy can get off his first shot.

Corrections: How do you know that a photon torpedo is considerably more powerful than a phaser blast? We don't. Second, if Kruge took 20+ seconds to line up for a shot like it did with the Grissom, why not?

Yet, despite this fact, the lack of powerful aft phasers is a serious tactical liability, serious enough that we should

There is a serious lack of evidence of the lack of powerful aft phasers

expect it to be the FIRST thing an aggressor thinks of when he closes in on a target, despite the fact that torpedoes can zip around and hit you anyway, AND despite the fact that the same ship can just as easily turn its bow five degrees to port and still nail you with main phasers while those torpedoes are doing their rapid interception turn.

Or just fire the just as powerful aft phaser. Duh

And all of this makes perfect sense to you.
Fascinating.

Better than phaser strength tied to the length of a phaser strip. What's the purpose of the battle section phaser strips that are <20% the length of the longest strip of the saucer section.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm not exactly sure why you feel the limitations of wet navy gunnery apply to space gunnery.

They don't. I'm showing you that naval gunnery is an entirely different paradigm from SPACE gunnery, which in turn is an entirely different paradigm from space DE weapons. Your failure (or refusal) to acknowledge this is a bit like suggesting that howitzers are analogous to trebuchets in the way they're used.

Why would Kruge be worried about the torpedoes? He's decloaking at point-blank range. With the Enterprise's shields down at most the torpedoes fired at him would have been low powered so the Enterprise wouldn't be blown up along with the BOP...

Which is EXACTLY what happened, and is exactly why Kruge should have been worried about torpedoes.

Grissom is level with the camera and Kruge's BOP comes down from over the camera and then pitches up...

Grissom isn't on camera while this is happening, so... what the hell are you talking about?

Multiple phasers through the same emitters.

What does that even mean? That's like saying "multiple cannons through the same barrel." WTF?

I'm not so sure I'd go with "weaker"

Neither would I. I would go with "non-existent," since the big pulse phasers that are Defiant's main weapons cannot fire aft.

And again, how do you know this?

Granted it's been a while since high school algebra, but I'm pretty sure that 5 is greater than 2.

Does it even have an aft torpedo launcher?

No. That's kinda my point.

And what is your proof again?

The fact that it doesn't HAVE an aft disruptor cannon.

Evidence?

The warbird isn't known to possess an aft cannon.

Yes, two cannons are stronger than one. As I've pointed out though, we've seen the one of the aft cannons temporarily get a buddy phase cannon in "Similitude". Since the phase cannons can shuffle around...

There's still zero evidence they actually do this, in addition to the fact that Reed still speaks of fore/aft cannon(s) as if their relative positions isn't subject to random change whenever the crew feels like it.

The 3 Klingon commanders whose very first attack against the Enterprise were:

"The Search For Spock" - Kruge decloaked at point-blank range in front of unshielded Enterprise. Full power torpedoes from the Enterprise wasn't an option with shields down. Shields up would tip off the Klingons. Phasers powering up would likely have been detected

Which means if Kruge was BEHIND the Enterprise, Kirk wouldn't have been able to counterattack without tipping his hand. Photon torpedoes were literally the ONLY weapon Kruge needed to worry about, and he decloaked right in front of them.

"The Final Frontier" - Klaa's first attack on the Enterprise...

I'm talking about the attack in the Great Barrier. You know, the one where he actually HIT the Enterprise and disabled the entire ship.

Considering that no one on the bridge raised shields or did anything to protect the Enterprise, Klaa had no particular reason to worry about flying up to the ship uncloaked.

Because Klaa just happened to know for sure that nobody on the bridge was paying attention?

"The Undiscovered Country" - What better way to test if your fire-while-cloaked system worked than from the front?

Good question. Let's ask the Romulans about whether or not it's a good idea for a cloaked starship to hang out directly in front of your enemy's weapons at extremely close range while he blankets you with concentrated phaser fire!

I think Chang should consider himself fortunate that the Enterprise had depleted its FX budg... er... I mean... phaser power earlier in the film.

"Survivors" - PICARD: Mister Crusher, move the Enterprise out of range of the attacking vessel.
"The Wounded" - PICARD: Mister Data, overlay weapon ranges of the two ships.
DATA: .. The Phoenix is beginning evasive maneuvers. It has positioned itself outside the weapons range of the opposing ship...
"Descent" - CRUSHER: Red Alert. How long before they're in weapons range?
"The Search" - KIRA: That's well within range of their weapons, Commander.
"Second Skin" - SISKO: Please stand by. Are we within their weapons range yet?
"Partuition" - JANEWAY: ..Let's try to draw some fire from their aft weapons systems.

And which of these scenes depicts a tactical officer reporting the firing angle of a particular weapon emplacement on an enemy ship?

I think secretly you don't want any ship to have a long phaser strip blind spot

Actually I'm pretty sure they DO. I've said time and again that the existence of such a blind spot is tactically irrelevant since nothing short of a supercomputer (or a very well-programmed torpedo) would be able to exploit it.

otherwise you'd have to explain even harder why enemy ships don't go out of their way to avoid them...

You haven't given a coherent reason why "avoid his main weapons" would be a viable tactic in the first place. And the more we look at the evidence, the more it seems that it ISN'T.

"Partuition". Tuvok's plan is entirely based on getting the enemy ship to fire it's aft weapon(s).

Which has nothing to do with the relative strength of the weapons and seems to depend on an apparent flaw in their SHIELDS, no?

More to the point: if I know you have aft weapons and I want you to shoot them at me, do I really need to know their firing angle? Or do I need to simply fly directly behind you on the assumption that you'll probably shoot your aft weapons at me if I'm there?

"Bound". Orion ship takes out the forward cannons and then precedes to target and take out the aft cannons.
"The Expanse". Duras' first attack on the Enterprise was to deliberately disable (not destroy) the ship to take Archer alive. They took out the forward phase cannons and then preceded to take out the aft one.

And that demonstrates knowledge of those weapons firing arcs... how?

These examples point out that they do a detailed scan and the pertinent information is relayed to the captain. If their was an exploitable weak spot, whether it was weak shield or gap in weapons coverage that information would have been mentioned.

Unless it wasn't pertinent.

And a gap in weapons coverage -- even if it could be detected, and you haven't proven that it can -- would not be.

And he never mentions how many disruptors either. If they couldn't fire backwards, that would be something worth mentioning.

Why? Since the NUMBER of disruptors wasn't pertinent, why would their directionality matter? The only thing that IS pertinent in this case is the fact that they're not powerful enough to matter.

You've made the positive assertion that tactical analysis includes a detailed examination of the firing arcs of those individual weapons. Do you have PROOF of this or is this something you just made up and are now asking me to disprove?

"Partuition" happens to be one for firing arcs (or more specifically the aft weapon array).

And demonstrates nothing about firing arcs at all, only proves that Tuvok knows the difference between forward and aft.

But for the most part, I just don't see many ships having a phaser/beam coverage gap or one that is large enough that another ship can exploit.

That's because "exploiting a weapon coverage gap" is not a valid tactic in Star Trek, even when such a gap exists. I've explored the reasons for this EXHAUSTIVELY, but you're kind of applying your own internal logic to this and nothing I say really matters anymore.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The line from TMP is "increases phaser power by channelling it through the main engines". The phasers from TOS apparently can draw more power than the TOS engines could put out so the TMP version merely increases power "magically" by channeling through the warp engines. No contradiction, IMO.

No, of course not. Just... magic.

BOBW pretty much stated that the E-D's phasers couldn't channel all that power and that's why they had to use the main navigational deflector.

Which flatly negates a full third of your argument, doesn't it?

So the weapons range of the enemy ships are just estimates, down to the seconds?

What are you talking about? The weapons ranges are never given "down to the seconds." They're never given AT ALL, actually; even in "The Wounded" the actual firing ranges are never stated, only that Phoenix has moved outside of it.

How would one even count the number of weapons without first identifying their locations in the first place?

Who said anything about their locations? It's their range of motion and coverage that remains to be determined in that case.

But what ships clearly lack rear-facing weaponry. Even the lowly BOP has aft disruptors.

In the 22nd century, yes (2 aft, 5 forward). 23rd century ships have no aft coverage at all.

How do you know that a photon torpedo is considerably more powerful than a phaser blast?

Because a single photon torpedo can destroy an unshielded starship with just one shot. If phasers have this ability, we have never seen it.

Second, if Kruge took 20+ seconds to line up for a shot like it did with the Grissom, why not?

Why not indeed.

Which would more than explain why no one cares that a starship's most powerful phaser weapons are mounted forward. Because in the 20+ seconds it takes you to line up a shot, he's either gonna whack you with photon torpedoes or spin around to face you anyway. Or BOTH.

There is a serious lack of evidence of the lack of powerful aft phasers

Other than simple logic: if you have a phaser ARRAY (i.e. several emitters linked in parallel) then a larger number of emitters on the same circuit will allow for a more powerful discharge IF all emitters direct their energy through the same beam.

To this point, I'm not even suggesting the short strips on the E-D are weak (they're probably on par with the ball turrets on the Excelsior class ships). I'm saying the big arrays on the saucer section are very very powerful.

Better than phaser strength tied to the length of a phaser strip.

Which brings us full circle again: if length is irrelevant, then LONG length is pointless and it would be more efficient to place a smaller number of emitters in an optimum coverage location instead of wasting hardware and space on a 1500x redundant weapon system.

What's the purpose of the battle section phaser strips that are <20% the length of the longest strip of the saucer section.

To defend a spacecraft whose primary offensive weapons are photon torpedoes and not phasers (which would probably explain why the battle section never fires its phasers against the Borg after the two ships separate).

 

[Timo]

23rd century ships have no aft coverage at all.

Hmh?

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x02/wayofwarrior2_224.jpg

We might argue that this is a 24th century addition - but it's still the 23rd century ship design. In the same size range as the TOS movie ships, even.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

I'm not exactly sure why you feel the limitations of wet navy gunnery apply to space gunnery.

They don't. I'm showing you that naval gunnery is an entirely different paradigm from SPACE gunnery, which in turn is an entirely different paradigm from space DE weapons. Your failure (or refusal) to acknowledge this is a bit like suggesting that howitzers are analogous to trebuchets in the way they're used.

Which doesn't indicate any difference between ENT and TNG in regards to weapons usage (which was what I wrote.) Aiming and firing a phase cannon isn't that different from firing phasers. Firing photonic torpedoes isn't that different from firing photon or quantum torpedoes.

Why would Kruge be worried about the torpedoes? He's decloaking at point-blank range. With the Enterprise's shields down at most the torpedoes fired at him would have been low powered so the Enterprise wouldn't be blown up along with the BOP...

Which is EXACTLY what happened, and is exactly why Kruge should have been worried about torpedoes.

Wait, so you're saying that the Enterprise fired full-powered photon torpedoes at point-blank range with shields down and destroyed Kruge on the first shot and blew themselves up in the process? That's what EXACTLY happened?

Grissom isn't on camera while this is happening, so... what the hell are you talking about?

There is a nice shot of Grissom moving along and Kruge's BOP swooping over the camera which is slight above Grissom's plane. The BOP's nose is pointing down as it swoops over the camera and then pulls up and levels off behind the Grissom.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd0744.jpg

What does that even mean? That's like saying "multiple cannons through the same barrel." WTF?

It's like saying multiple capacitors or buffers or phaser energy generators into the same emitter(s). Dialogue calling for the ship's "phaser 1", "phaser 2"..."phaser 4" in "Balance of Terror", "For the World is Hollow..." and "Paradise Syndrome" have nothing to do with specific emitters.

Interestingly, "Starship Down" points to the same idea that the emitters only just channel the phaser output and are not responsible for generating the phaser energy.

STEVENS: The phasers are out of the question. The emitters are completely fused.
MUNIZ: But the phaser generator's working fine.
STEVENS: The deflector array.
MUNIZ: With a few modifications, we could use it as a phaser emitter.
​

Neither would I. I would go with "non-existent," since the big pulse phasers that are Defiant's main weapons cannot fire aft.

If Defiant's quad phasers are the main weapons, why does one switch to the nose phaser in "Message in a Bottle" against the Warbird? Or the other "non-existent" phaser emitters against the Lakota when her quad cannons aren't being used?

Granted it's been a while since high school algebra, but I'm pretty sure that 5 is greater than 2.

Unless you're using Trek math, which you so eloquently point out that the number of available emitters has nothing do with how many are actually used. Newtype_alpha wrote, "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!"

It could be 10 disruptors up front and 2 in the back and the number still works out to 2 at any one time

No. That's kinda my point.

It didn't make a difference in TUC. So what was your point?

The fact that it doesn't HAVE an aft disruptor cannon.

When are we told this or see this again about a Vor'cha?

The warbird isn't known to possess an aft cannon.

And before we thought it only had a nose cannon.

There's still zero evidence they actually do this, in addition to the fact that Reed still speaks of fore/aft cannon(s) as if their relative positions isn't subject to random change whenever the crew feels like it.

So in "Similitude" that extra aft phase cannon was one of the non-existent cannons in disguise?

Which means if Kruge was BEHIND the Enterprise, Kirk wouldn't have been able to counterattack without tipping his hand. Photon torpedoes were literally the ONLY weapon Kruge needed to worry about, and he decloaked right in front of them.

If Kruge was behind the Enterprise, Kirk would have been forced to raise shields first and Kruge would have fired into a shielded ship and the whole sequence would have played out completely different.

I'm talking about the attack in the Great Barrier. You know, the one where he actually HIT the Enterprise and disabled the entire ship.

Yes, and I point out that it was his SECOND attack.

"The Final Frontier" - Klaa's first attack on the Enterprise was from the side aft as he was tracking the shuttle initially. His second attack was from forward starboard. Considering that no one on the bridge raised shields or did anything to protect the Enterprise, Klaa had no particular reason to worry about flying up to the ship uncloaked.
​

Because Klaa just happened to know for sure that nobody on the bridge was paying attention?

He's flying at them uncloaked and the Enterprise doesn't raise shields (and this is the second encounter) or lock phasers on him?

Good question. Let's ask the Romulans about whether or not it's a good idea for a cloaked starship to hang out directly in front of your enemy's weapons at extremely close range while he blankets you with concentrated phaser fire!

Obviously you'll get a different answer from the Romulans vs Klingons combat tactics.

From "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

O'BRIEN: I make up the repair schedule according to my assessment of which ships have the greatest need.
CRETAK: Odd that the Klingons seem to always have the greatest need.
WORF: They are usually more damaged because Klingon warships are relentless in pressing home their attack.
CRETAK: Reckless would be another way of putting it.
WORF: The fight must be taken to the enemy. We cannot win this war if
KIRA: All right. We're not here to debate combat tactics. Chief, how soon can you have those warbirds into a docking bay?
​

I think Chang should consider himself fortunate that the Enterprise had depleted its FX budg... er... I mean... phaser power earlier in the film.

LOL, yeah.

And which of these scenes depicts a tactical officer reporting the firing angle of a particular weapon emplacement on an enemy ship?

It's the same scenes that depicts a tactical officer reporting that the short strips are weaker than the longer strips on the enemy ship.

Actually I'm pretty sure they DO. I've said time and again that the existence of such a blind spot is tactically irrelevant since nothing short of a supercomputer (or a very well-programmed torpedo) would be able to exploit it.

For full phaser coverage yes. For some ships there is a gap in saucer weapons coverage like the E-D. But since the emitters fire at the same power level regardless of location, then for practical purposes the E-D has full phaser coverage

You haven't given a coherent reason why "avoid his main weapons" would be a viable tactic in the first place. And the more we look at the evidence, the more it seems that it ISN'T.

Sure I have. All emitters can fire at the same strength. There are no "main weapons" to avoid when they all are equal.

Which has nothing to do with the relative strength of the weapons and seems to depend on an apparent flaw in their SHIELDS, no?

It goes to your question of whether anyone cares about "can they hit us with the aft cannon?" and that only happens because a shield vulnerability could be exploited, not that the aft cannon is any weaker than the forward ones.

More to the point: if I know you have aft weapons and I want you to shoot them at me, do I really need to know their firing angle? Or do I need to simply fly directly behind you on the assumption that you'll probably shoot your aft weapons at me if I'm there?

Its the same question of, how do they even know there is an aft weapon? Because they scanned it (unless they came under attack from it).

Why? Since the NUMBER of disruptors wasn't pertinent, why would their directionality matter? The only thing that IS pertinent in this case is the fact that they're not powerful enough to matter.

Or that they have the same power output regardless of which direction you attack from. Remember your Trek Math, "one or two shots at a time"

"Partuition" happens to be one for firing arcs (or more specifically the aft weapon array).

And demonstrates nothing about firing arcs at all, only proves that Tuvok knows the difference between forward and aft.

You asked about whether anyone cares about the aft cannon.

But for the most part, I just don't see many ships having a phaser/beam coverage gap or one that is large enough that another ship can exploit.

That's because "exploiting a weapon coverage gap" is not a valid tactic in Star Trek, even when such a gap exists. I've explored the reasons for this EXHAUSTIVELY,

A weapon coverage gap for the saucer section of the E-D is filled by the secondary hull phasers. It's only worth exploiting if the secondary phasers were significantly weaker which doesn't appear to be the case.

but you're kind of applying your own internal logic to this and nothing I say really matters anymore.

Back atcha

 

[blssdwlf]

23rd century ships have no aft coverage at all.

Hmh?

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x02/wayofwarrior2_224.jpg

We might argue that this is a 24th century addition - but it's still the 23rd century ship design. In the same size range as the TOS movie ships, even.

Timo Saloniemi

And in the 22nd century, they had at least TWO aft disruptors

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x26/theexpanse_165.jpg

Who knows if in "The Way of The Warrior" if that BOP wasn't surprised by the Defiant if it didn't get more aft shots off

 

[blssdwlf]

BOBW pretty much stated that the E-D's phasers couldn't channel all that power and that's why they had to use the main navigational deflector.

Which flatly negates a full third of your argument, doesn't it?

My comment is in response to your comment: ""Discharging all the EPS taps" and "channeling all warp power" is not the same thing. It would require a major reconfiguring of the ship's engines -- as Geordi did with the deflector in Best of Both Worlds -- in order to make that possible."

The main deflector in BOBW channeled far more power than the warp core could put out as it took more than 8 seconds of power build up prior to opening fire. The phaser system on the E-D apparently cannot fire more than the ship's power output.

LAFORGE: Deflector power approaching maximum limits. Energy discharge in six seconds.

What are you talking about? The weapons ranges are never given "down to the seconds." They're never given AT ALL, actually;

"Descent"

CRUSHER: Red alert. How long before they're in weapons range?
TAITT: Er, about ninety seconds. No, make that seventy seconds.
​

even in "The Wounded" the actual firing ranges are never stated, only that Phoenix has moved outside of it.

The exact firing ranges were not spoken, but they did use some pretty graphics to for us to approximate what those ranges are. Obviously, if they are displaying the sensor information and overlaying weapons ranges of both ships that they would know the exact ranges.

PICARD: Mister Data, overlay weapon ranges of the two ships.
DATA: The warship is three hundred thousand kilometres from the Phoenix.

Cut to viewing screen at that moment 300,000km is still just outside of the Cardassian's weapons range.

While still watching the display, the Cardassian opens fire the moment the Phoenix is inside it's outer weapons circle.

DATA: It is opening fire. The Phoenix has taken a direct
hit.

and back to the bridge...

DATA: The Phoenix is beginning evasive manoeuvres. It has positioned itself outside the weapons range of the opposing ship.
DATA: The Phoenix has powered up both phasers and photon torpedoes. The Phoenix is firing photon torpedoes.
MACET: He has destroyed our warship.

Who said anything about their locations? It's their range of motion and coverage that remains to be determined in that case.

The above overlaid weapons ranges of the Phoenix and the Cardassian warship would suggest equal firepower in all directions.

In the 22nd century, yes (2 aft, 5 forward). 23rd century ships have no aft coverage at all.

We don't know if a 23rd century BOP has no aft coverage since we've not seen them in too many fights.

Because a single photon torpedo can destroy an unshielded starship with just one shot. If phasers have this ability, we have never seen it.

"Starship Down" - an improvised phaser emitter destroys a Jem'hedar attack ship with one 4s phaser beam.

Why not indeed.

Which would more than explain why no one cares that a starship's most powerful phaser weapons are mounted forward. Because in the 20+ seconds it takes you to line up a shot, he's either gonna whack you with photon torpedoes or spin around to face you anyway. Or BOTH.

Or it does not matter and they open fire on you with their just as powerful aft phasers.

Other than simple logic: if you have a phaser ARRAY (i.e. several emitters linked in parallel) then a larger number of emitters on the same circuit will allow for a more powerful discharge IF all emitters direct their energy through the same beam.

If all emitters are merely "emitting" then where is the phaser power coming from? The phaser generator ("Starship Down"). So even if all those emitters are linked up, they are still only passing around the power sent up to them and the emitters are not independently generating or amplifying the phaser power. You can also see this in "Basics 2" where the sabotage of the phaser coupling forced a phaser power overload that effectively discharged phaser energy inside Voyager rather than getting to any of the emitters/strips.

To this point, I'm not even suggesting the short strips on the E-D are weak (they're probably on par with the ball turrets on the Excelsior class ships). I'm saying the big arrays on the saucer section are very very powerful.

Perhaps. Although if this was the case, shouldn't the saucer ventral strip be at least of equal length to dorsal strip? It's not like they couldn't just mirror the dorsal strip and have it the same length below. Or maybe Starfleet believes more in aesthetics than function?

Better than phaser strength tied to the length of a phaser strip.

Which brings us full circle again: if length is irrelevant, then LONG length is pointless and it would be more efficient to place a smaller number of emitters in an optimum coverage location instead of wasting hardware and space on a 1500x redundant weapon system.

If there were a bunch of point emitters on the E-D, instead of the strips it would stand to reason that more internal volume would be needed to run power to the phaser emitters. A phaser strip, on the other hand, appears to get power from the ends of the strip. So a long strip might just need minimal internal volume since the bulk of the machinery is on the outside of the hull. I'm starting to wonder if the phaser strip's advantage is just in saving internal volume for creature comforts in the saucer (living) section.

What's the purpose of the battle section phaser strips that are <20% the length of the longest strip of the saucer section.

To defend a spacecraft whose primary offensive weapons are photon torpedoes and not phasers (which would probably explain why the battle section never fires its phasers against the Borg after the two ships separate).

Which is interesting because Riker orders, "open fire all weapons" which conspicuously doesn't include any phasers. Even the saucer section doesn't fire any phasers. Would firing their newly modified phasers from the ships jeopardize Data and Worf's phaser usage on the Borg ship? Hmmm

 

[feld]

Forgive me if I'm repeating a point: only been able to read through page 9 of 13. But my time is very short so I'll get to the question and the points.

For the debate here, I think I may remember one useful piece of data:
I have in my memory a TNG image of the E-D hitting a Borg cube with her traditional single large Saucer module phaser blast. It doesn't do anything. They have dialogue indicating that they're going to try a high or full power burst. IIRC the subsequent shot "couples" over a larger portion of the phaser array. I remember thinking last time that I saw it that it was the only positive evidence of multiple phaser array elements "force coupling" (term from pg 125 of the TNG:TM) for higher output power that I could think of.
Sadly, I do not have my DVDs and I've much paperwork to do. It could be BoBW...but I just don't recall. Does anyone else recall this scene?

The E-D's destruction of the small drone ships in the Conundrum might be construed as providing evidence of the an inverse relationship between number of elements "coupled" and phaser beam power described in the TM. The FX for those (presumably low power) shots showed very little area on the phaser strip glowing if any. Again, if the TM is accurate, that could correspond to a lower power shot.

I see 2 ways to rectify the TM figure with on screen evidence of higher powers:​

1. The TM stated single phaser element power may only be the time averaged charging input to one element. Perhaps the elements can accumulate power over time. The discharge power might be considerably higher. For instance, we have terrawatt and IIRC petawatt lasers now. They just put a few joules of energy on target in a very tiny fraction of a second to get all sorts of interesting plasma effects. Scale that idea up and we may have a useful high energy weapon compromise. I dislike this approach however because I can think of little onscreen evidence that the E-D had a "phaser capacitor". We know that the refit Enterprise (even though her phasers had were directly coupled to the intermix shaft somehow) had "phaser charging" indicators on her tactical panels though...(see TWOK). Perhaps this tells us something about the evolution of phaser and power distro systems...​

2. I prefer this one: the TM stated power may be a max continuous safe power output for a standard period. Pg 127 - states:
"In Cruise Mode, all phaser arrays receive their primary power from the warp reaction chamber, with supplementary fusion power from the impulse engine systems. Recharge times are kept to <0.5 seconds. Full power firing endurance is rated at =45 minutes."

So perhaps that's 5.1 MW per element or 1.02 GW per 200 element array is the maximum power at which that array never overheats - the thermal managment systems can handle all the waste heat for the full 45 minute firing endurance timeperiod. OTOH - if you only energize the elements for a few seconds (ala almost every shot we ever see) then you can get the truly stupendous power-on-target oft indicated in the show's dialogue. To see if this is useful, does anyone know how long the "Matter of Time" scenario requires the ship to maintain that (+/- 60 GW tolerance) phaser power level?

Now: question. Some time earlier in this entertaining discussion, someone pointed out this little tidbit from the TM pg 123:

"A typical large phaser array aboard the USS Enterprise, such as the upper dorsal array on the Saucer Module, consists of two hundred emitter segments in a dense linear arrangement for optimal control of firing order, thermal effects, field halos, and target impact."​

Now, can someone please explain to me why the terms "upper" and "dorsal" needed to be combined there?! I assume they mean the Saucer dorsal array. But it's vague and suggestive. I was thinking that perhaps each of the three faces of the visible phaser strip was considered an "array". I know, I'm stretching. But that might justify increasing the phaser strip power to ~3 GW.​

I often think that Mr's Sternbach and Okuda put vaguery and downright contradictions in the manual on purpose to give writers wiggle room and suggest that we don't have the whole picture yet. Which are both reasonable of course. But stuff like warp "power usage in megajoules per cochrane" (pg 55) and dilithium being "the only material known to Federation science to be nonreactive with antimatter when subjected to a high-frequency electomagnetic field (EM) field in the megawatt range..." (pg 60) still frustrate me every time I read them.​

Who cares about this "tv show" thing??!! I just want to build the ship... ​

v/r
feld

 

[blssdwlf]

@Feld - Are you referring to the first time the E-D encounter the Borg in "Q Who?"

It went down like this:

DATA: Shields will be down in eighteen seconds.
PICARD: Locate the exact source of the tractor beam. Lock on phasers.
WORF: Phasers locked on target.
PICARD: Fire.
​

Saucer Ventral Phaser fires. You hear an explosion, but the tractor beam is still going.

WORF: They still have us.
DATA: Shields are down, sir.
​

Borg laser beam cut. We can see the Borg cube is undamaged from the phaser strike.

WORF: A type of laser beam is slicing into the saucer section.
RIKER: Carving us up like a roast.
PICARD: With whatever force necessary, terminate that beam. Fire when ready.
​

Saucer Ventral Phaser fires. It looks the same as the previous shot but this time it blows a hole through the edge of the cube. A large crater is also created.

PICARD: Again, Mister Worf.
​

Saucer Ventral Phaser fires. Another big crater.

Saucer Dorsal Phaser fires. The beam stops. Note the crater is alot smaller than the other two hits.

DATA: Tractor beam is released, sir. Force field is maintaining our hull integrity.
​

Hmm. This is a pretty good example that phaser strip length doesn't equal phaser strength. The 23% shorter ventral strip did apparently much more damage per shot than the longer dorsal strip when fired at "whatever force necessary to terminate the beam".

As to the "dorsal" and "upper" wording, I just file it as another reason I don't reference the TNG:TM. Don't get me wrong, I own the book and have a bunch of other reference manuals but they aren't useful for describing what's on screen, IMHO.

 

[feld]

That does sound like the scene, though obviously I recalled the phaser charging sequence incorrectly.
v/r
feld

 

[feld]

@Feld - Are you referring to the first time the E-D encounter the Borg in "Q Who?"
<snip>
Hmm. This is a pretty good example that phaser strip length doesn't equal phaser strength. The 23% shorter ventral strip did apparently much more damage per shot than the longer dorsal strip when fired at "whatever force necessary to terminate the beam".

So I found the scene on YouTube (loaned my TNG DVD's to a friend some years ago and haven't seen'em since). After watching it several times...that's definitely the scene I was (mis) remembering.

v/r
feld

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm not exactly sure why you feel the limitations of wet navy gunnery apply to space gunnery.

They don't. I'm showing you that naval gunnery is an entirely different paradigm from SPACE gunnery, which in turn is an entirely different paradigm from space DE weapons. Your failure (or refusal) to acknowledge this is a bit like suggesting that howitzers are analogous to trebuchets in the way they're used.

Which doesn't indicate any difference between ENT and TNG in regards to weapons usage (which was what I wrote.) Aiming and firing a phase cannon isn't that different from firing phasers. Firing photonic torpedoes isn't that different from firing photon or quantum torpedoes.

And both are fundamentally different from firing nuclear weapons and kinetic kill vehicles, which is what I wrote. NX-01 and ships like it are the first generation of post-paradigm designs built by Starfleet, with NX-01 being apparently the first ship to employ any of these technologies in combat. That makes it equivalent to, say, the USS Yorktown from an evolutionary standpoint: the lead ship of a class that comes to represent a new paradigm in weapon systems delivery and a whole new type of combat tactics that soon renders the old paradigm irrelevant.

It's like saying multiple capacitors or buffers or phaser energy generators into the same emitter(s).

The emitter is a physical part of the phaser, much like the barrel is a physical part of the gun. The power supply and aiming mechanisms may not be (necessarily) but you could no sooner separate the emitter from a specific phaser than you could separate the breach block from a specific cannon.

If Defiant's quad phasers are the main weapons, why does one switch to the nose phaser in "Message in a Bottle" against the Warbird?

Who knows? Probably the same reason the Galaxy Class stopped using its multi-warhead torpedo launchers after Season 3.

It could be 10 disruptors up front and 2 in the back and the number still works out to 2 at any one time

Which doesn't change the fact that its weapons would still be strongest facing forward, even if the conventions of Trek combat prevent this from meaning anything.

So in "Similitude" that extra aft phase cannon was one of the non-existent cannons in disguise?

Hard to say since we never see the actual weapon, only the beam source coming from an odd location.

If Kruge was behind the Enterprise, Kirk would have been forced to raise shields first and Kruge would have fired into a shielded ship and the whole sequence would have played out completely different.

And raising shields would have tipped off Kruge that the jig was up and Enterprise knew he was there. It would have either turned into a slugfest in orbit of Genesis with the Bird of Prey using its superior maneuverability against Enterprise' superior firepower, or Kruge would have slunk away under cloak to try and lure Enterprise away from the planet until he could get another opportunity to strike at their throat.

The only thing that would NOT have happened was Kruge would have been immediately smacked in the face with two torpedoes with his shields still down.

Sure I have. All emitters can fire at the same strength. There are no "main weapons" to avoid when they all are equal.

That's just further dodging the entire question. If there WERE a set of up-powered phasers on the ship with higher outputs than the smaller ones, how do you know that AVOIDING those weapons would be practical to begin with?

It goes to your question of whether anyone cares about "can they hit us with the aft cannon?" and that only happens because a shield vulnerability could be exploited, not that the aft cannon is any weaker than the forward ones.

Janeway never asks if the aft cannon can hit them. She simply ASSUMES that flying behind the enemy ship will encourage them to fire their aft cannon. As usual with Voyager, her assumptions are never wrong, their assumptions are never wrong.

Its the same question of, how do they even know there is an aft weapon? Because they scanned it (unless they came under attack from it).

That's not the same at all. I can see from looking at you that you have two arms, but that doesn't mean I can see the complete range of motion from your shoulder joints.

But if I knew you had an injury on your right leg and I wanted to get you off balance in a fight, I would probably find a way to get you to shift your weight to your right. I don't need to know the range of motion of your shoulder joints for that.

You asked about whether anyone cares about the aft cannon.

No, I asked whether or not anyone cares about the RANGE OF MOTION of the enemy ship's weapons. "They can count the guns" isn't an answer to that question.

A weapon coverage gap for the saucer section of the E-D is filled by the secondary hull phasers.

Which is irrelevant to the question at hand if those smaller emitters aren't as powerful as the larger ones.

It's only worth exploiting if the secondary phasers were significantly weaker...

IS it worth exploiting even in that case? You haven't provided a shred of evidence that it would be.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

My comment is in response to your comment: ""Discharging all the EPS taps" and "channeling all warp power" is not the same thing. It would require a major reconfiguring of the ship's engines -- as Geordi did with the deflector in Best of Both Worlds -- in order to make that possible."

The main deflector in BOBW channeled far more power than the warp core could put out as it took more than 8 seconds of power build up prior to opening fire. The phaser system on the E-D apparently cannot fire more than the ship's power output.

The significant part you're missing here is that if a single phaser array is firing, there is still a large amount of power that could be channeled through a second, third or even fourth array to strike the same target. So "All ships power going through one array" doesn't explain the one-beam-at-a-time trend.

The exact firing ranges were not spoken, but they did use some pretty graphics to for us to approximate what those ranges are. Obviously, if they are displaying the sensor information and overlaying weapons ranges of both ships that they would know the exact ranges.

"Obviously"? Based on what?

The above overlaid weapons ranges of the Phoenix and the Cardassian warship would suggest equal firepower in all directions.

It suggests nothing of the sort, since the sensors have no way of determining the exact direction that the two ships are facing (moreover, it's a 2D graph of a 3D occurrence). It's an overlay of their estimated firing ranges from an extreme distance, not a screen-look from their respective tactical officer's weapons stations.

We don't know if a 23rd century BOP has no aft coverage since we've not seen them in too many fights.

We've seen them more often than the Romulan BoP, which also doesn't appear to have any aft coverage.

Or it does not matter and they open fire on you with their just as powerful aft phasers.

Do you honestly believe that Defiant's conventional beam phasers are as powerful as the four pulse cannons or are you just being annoying?

If all emitters are merely "emitting" then where is the phaser power coming from?

The power supply from the fusion reactors, primarily.

The phaser generator...

Is part of the phaser weapon itself. Starfleet is really good at modifying their systems in a pinch, but it's always seemed to me that most of those modifications happen far offscreen, in which case we would have to assume that the Defiant's phaser generator has been physically removed from its housing and plugged into the navigational deflector by the engineers.

Perhaps. Although if this was the case, shouldn't the saucer ventral strip be at least of equal length to dorsal strip? It's not like they couldn't just mirror the dorsal strip and have it the same length below. Or maybe Starfleet believes more in aesthetics than function?

Have you seen the 24th century hand phasers? You shouldn't have to ask that question?

If there were a bunch of point emitters on the E-D, instead of the strips it would stand to reason that more internal volume would be needed to run power to the phaser emitters. A phaser strip, on the other hand, appears to get power from the ends of the strip. So a long strip might just need minimal internal volume since the bulk of the machinery is on the outside of the hull. I'm starting to wonder if the phaser strip's advantage is just in saving internal volume for creature comforts in the saucer (living) section.

Possible, but that would still imply that for two phaser weapons of equal size, the phaser strip can be more powerful because most of its hardware is outside the hull. The Enterprise-D's phaser array would therefore be equivalent to a weapon that would otherwise fill half the deck with its machinery.

The small strips on the aft section could be of equal power to the Lakotas "uprated" phaser turrets, even if they aren't as powerful as the saucer arrays. I don't see this as being a problem, though; the saucer needs those arrays mainly because WHEN SEPARATED it lacks photon torpedoes or star drive and needs to be able to take care of itself; the battle section is highly maneuverable and can bob and weave, so it only needs standard phasers to suplement its torpedoes.

Which is interesting because Riker orders, "open fire all weapons" which conspicuously doesn't include any phasers. Even the saucer section doesn't fire any phasers.

The saucer section DOES fire phasers, though only the battle section does not.

 

[blssdwlf]

They don't. I'm showing you that naval gunnery is an entirely different paradigm from SPACE gunnery, which in turn is an entirely different paradigm from space DE weapons. Your failure (or refusal) to acknowledge this is a bit like suggesting that howitzers are analogous to trebuchets in the way they're used.

Which doesn't indicate any difference between ENT and TNG in regards to weapons usage (which was what I wrote.) Aiming and firing a phase cannon isn't that different from firing phasers. Firing photonic torpedoes isn't that different from firing photon or quantum torpedoes.

And both are fundamentally different from firing nuclear weapons and kinetic kill vehicles, which is what I wrote.

Which still makes no distinction between ENT and TNG. A phase cannon is still used like a phaser. A photonic torpedo is still used like a photon torpedo.

NX-01 and ships like it are the first generation of post-paradigm designs built by Starfleet, with NX-01 being apparently the first ship to employ any of these technologies in combat. That makes it equivalent to, say, the USS Yorktown from an evolutionary standpoint: the lead ship of a class that comes to represent a new paradigm in weapon systems delivery and a whole new type of combat tactics that soon renders the old paradigm irrelevant.

You're comparing to pre-ENT. Again, ENT to TNG is unchanged (except for range).

The emitter is a physical part of the phaser, much like the barrel is a physical part of the gun. The power supply and aiming mechanisms may not be (necessarily) but you could no sooner separate the emitter from a specific phaser than you could separate the breach block from a specific cannon.

Sure you can. "Starship Down" tells us that the "phaser generator" can power any emitter, including makeshift ones. "Basics 2" tells us phaser power still needs to go through a "phaser power coupling" and on Voyager, there are only 2 couplings, the primary one and the backup. Destroy one and block the other and you can force an overload that releases the phaser energy inside the ship. If it helps you, think of it not as separating the breach block but the ammo feed is separate and selectable.

Who knows? Probably the same reason the Galaxy Class stopped using its multi-warhead torpedo launchers after Season 3.

"Stopped using" is different from "using both". It's good enough for attacking a Romulan Warbird, even though the quad phasers could have been used instead.

Which doesn't change the fact that its weapons would still be strongest facing forward, even if the conventions of Trek combat prevent this from meaning anything.

The "strongest facing forward" only works if the ship can power all those weapons (or more than the aft weapons) up at the same time and fire them all at the same time. Since we haven't seen any cases yet of this we are left with equal firepower in all directions.

Hard to say since we never see the actual weapon, only the beam source coming from an odd location.

T'Pol is calling out only the phase cannons and we see two in the aft area in "Similitude".

T'POL: Phase cannons are charged and ready.
​

And raising shields would have tipped off Kruge that the jig was up and Enterprise knew he was there. It would have either turned into a slugfest in orbit of Genesis with the Bird of Prey using its superior maneuverability against Enterprise' superior firepower, or Kruge would have slunk away under cloak to try and lure Enterprise away from the planet until he could get another opportunity to strike at their throat.

The only thing that would NOT have happened was Kruge would have been immediately smacked in the face with two torpedoes with his shields still down.

Which I pointed out in the previous post. Also, getting smacked in the face with two low-powered torpedoes is nothing since Kruge returned fire. Yes, he lost his pet, but he was in no danger. Now if the Enterprise raised shields after firing the torpedoes which only delayed his firing, then Kruge would've been toast.

That's just further dodging the entire question. If there WERE a set of up-powered phasers on the ship with higher outputs than the smaller ones, how do you know that AVOIDING those weapons would be practical to begin with?

If a ship can deliberately put itself in a specific firing arc ("Parturition") or come in on a specific attack vector to target a spot on a ship ("Valiant") then ships can move into or out of specific weapon arcs. Of course different ships have different performance capabilities so it would depend on the ships in question.

Janeway never asks if the aft cannon can hit them. She simply ASSUMES that flying behind the enemy ship will encourage them to fire their aft cannon. As usual with Voyager, her assumptions are never wrong, their assumptions are never wrong.

It would stand to reason to fly into the arc of the weapons you're trying to get to shoot at you She does close the range as well to apparently try and limit the other weapons on the ship from firing at Voyager.

JANEWAY: All right, Commander, let's try to draw some fire from their aft weapons systems. Bring us within ten kilometers.
​

That's not the same at all. I can see from looking at you that you have two arms, but that doesn't mean I can see the complete range of motion from your shoulder joints.

But if I knew you had an injury on your right leg and I wanted to get you off balance in a fight, I would probably find a way to get you to shift your weight to your right. I don't need to know the range of motion of your shoulder joints for that.

No, I asked whether or not anyone cares about the RANGE OF MOTION of the enemy ship's weapons. "They can count the guns" isn't an answer to that question.

That's not answering, "how do they even know there is an aft weapon?" The ships are scanning each other and identifying their weapons. If they can tell that there is a weapon that is not in their line-of-sight then they can tell where it can possibly aim based on the location and ship's structure.

A weapon coverage gap for the saucer section of the E-D is filled by the secondary hull phasers.

Which is irrelevant to the question at hand if those smaller emitters aren't as powerful as the larger ones.

Yet we're not given any evidence that they are not as powerful as the larger ones.

It's only worth exploiting if the secondary phasers were significantly weaker...

IS it worth exploiting even in that case? You haven't provided a shred of evidence that it would be.

So where is your evidence that the engineering hull phasers (the short strips) are weaker than the long strips on the E-D? Even point emitters can channel the main phaser banks so it would appear that phaser length is irrelevant.

 

[blssdwlf]

My comment is in response to your comment: ""Discharging all the EPS taps" and "channeling all warp power" is not the same thing. It would require a major reconfiguring of the ship's engines -- as Geordi did with the deflector in Best of Both Worlds -- in order to make that possible."

The main deflector in BOBW channeled far more power than the warp core could put out as it took more than 8 seconds of power build up prior to opening fire. The phaser system on the E-D apparently cannot fire more than the ship's power output.

The significant part you're missing here is that if a single phaser array is firing, there is still a large amount of power that could be channeled through a second, third or even fourth array to strike the same target. So "All ships power going through one array" doesn't explain the one-beam-at-a-time trend.

Or the 2nd or 3rd phaser strip firing only splits the total possible phaser output. If all the power is being channeled through a single strip then any additional strips firing at the same time will just take away power from the 1st strip.

The exact firing ranges were not spoken, but they did use some pretty graphics to for us to approximate what those ranges are. Obviously, if they are displaying the sensor information and overlaying weapons ranges of both ships that they would know the exact ranges.

"Obviously"? Based on what?

PICARD: Mister Data, overlay weapon ranges of the two ships.
​

Picard ordered "weapon ranges of the two ships" and not "approximate weapon ranges of the two ships." Data doesn't correct Picard or add any qualifiers to the ranges. So yes, Data and the data he's looking at would have the exact ranges that the ships fired.

It suggests nothing of the sort, since the sensors have no way of determining the exact direction that the two ships are facing (moreover, it's a 2D graph of a 3D occurrence). It's an overlay of their estimated firing ranges from an extreme distance, not a screen-look from their respective tactical officer's weapons stations.

No one on the bridge qualified the graphics as an "estimated firing range". If Data and the overlay can show us which direction a ship is moving and that they are taking evasive maneuvers, the power status of the Phoenix's weapons and when the ships are firing at each other then they know which direction the ships are facing.

We've seen them more often than the Romulan BoP, which also doesn't appear to have any aft coverage.

We've only seen the 23rd century Klingon BOP in 4 movies of which in TVH it isn't even in combat. That's hardly any time to ascertain that it does not have aft weapons.

Do you honestly believe that Defiant's conventional beam phasers are as powerful as the four pulse cannons or are you just being annoying?

I do believe that the Defiant's beam phasers can be just as powerful as the four pulse cannons. The pulse phasers appear to be more effective against the Jem'hedar. And I'm trying to be no more annoying to you than you are to me

The power supply from the fusion reactors, primarily.

The phaser power must be coming from more than the fusion reactors. In "Galaxy's Child", their auxiliary power would only give them 2 seconds of phaser fire.

RIKER: Weapons status?
WORF: Auxiliary power only. Two seconds phaser fire available.

​

Unless you're thinking about the NX-01 and her phase cannon's direct feed from the impulse engines?

Is part of the phaser weapon itself. Starfleet is really good at modifying their systems in a pinch, but it's always seemed to me that most of those modifications happen far offscreen, in which case we would have to assume that the Defiant's phaser generator has been physically removed from its housing and plugged into the navigational deflector by the engineers.

Doesn't sound like the phaser generator was moved at all. The dialogue puts it as ONE phaser generator that powered all the emitters. Plus, they specifically state that they are routing the power from the generator through the secondary power grid to the temporary emitter.

STEVENS: The phasers are out of the question. The emitters are completely fused.
MUNIZ: But the phaser generator's working fine.
...
STEVENS: I think we should route the generator output through the secondary power grid.
​

Have you seen the 24th century hand phasers? You shouldn't have to ask that question?

LOL

If there were a bunch of point emitters on the E-D, instead of the strips it would stand to reason that more internal volume would be needed to run power to the phaser emitters. A phaser strip, on the other hand, appears to get power from the ends of the strip. So a long strip might just need minimal internal volume since the bulk of the machinery is on the outside of the hull. I'm starting to wonder if the phaser strip's advantage is just in saving internal volume for creature comforts in the saucer (living) section.

Possible, but that would still imply that for two phaser weapons of equal size, the phaser strip can be more powerful because most of its hardware is outside the hull. The Enterprise-D's phaser array would therefore be equivalent to a weapon that would otherwise fill half the deck with its machinery.

The only hardware that appears to be outside the hull are the emitters and the power conduit to get the phaser power to a specific emitter(s). That doesn't imply more powerful since what makes the phaser more powerful is well, more power sent to it.

The small strips on the aft section could be of equal power to the Lakotas "uprated" phaser turrets, even if they aren't as powerful as the saucer arrays. I don't see this as being a problem, though; the saucer needs those arrays mainly because WHEN SEPARATED it lacks photon torpedoes or star drive and needs to be able to take care of itself; the battle section is highly maneuverable and can bob and weave, so it only needs standard phasers to suplement its torpedoes.

Which has an interesting question... what phasers are more powerful when the two hulls are separated? The long phaser strip on the saucer section powered by impluse engines or the longest short phaser strip on the battle section powered by warp power?

Which is interesting because Riker orders, "open fire all weapons" which conspicuously doesn't include any phasers. Even the saucer section doesn't fire any phasers.

The saucer section DOES fire phasers, though only the battle section does not.

Ah, you are correct. Upon a recent viewing we do see from the Borg's perspective the saucer section firing phasers. Other than "The Arsenal of Freedom", I haven't found any other episodes with the Battle section detached and firing phasers.



Here's one more bit that I uncovered on the TNG phasers...

So in "The Nth Degree" we get an interesting scene where they increase power to the phasers. E-D is at impulse power with the probe following directly behind it.

WORF: Sir, recommend full phasers.
PICARD: Proceed.
WORF: Firing phasers.
​

A single beam hits the probe. No damage.

WORF: No effect, Captain.
DATA: The probe's field intensity is continuing to build, sir. We are in danger.
RIKER: Riker to La Forge. Can you increase phaser power?
...
LAFORGE: Attempting to now, Commander. Isolate phasers eighty to one twenty. Shunt all the plasma
BARCLAY: To the emitters. Yes, sir, I'm already on it. Ready.
LAFORGE: Phasers are as hot as we can make them, Captain.
PICARD: Mister Worf.
WORF: Aye, sir.
​

A single beam hits the probe again and "walks across" the surface. What is interesting here is that phaser plasma is being sent to a small group of presumably 40 emitters. Whether that means a whole strip or only part of a strip was used we won't know because we don't get an exterior view of the phaser firing. But it does show that all of the phaser power (and a little more) can fire through a single beam.

From "Best of Both Worlds":

RIKER: Is there anything we can do here to adapt to our current defense systems?
LAFORGE: We'll have to go through the specs again, but. I don't know. My mind's turned to clay.
WESLEY: Mine too.
SHELBY: I think we should look at modifying the plasma phaser design.
​

And from "A Matter of Time":

DATA: Yes, sir. After an eight point three second burst from the dish, we'll discharge all EPS taps through the phasers.
​

And from "Defiant" we also have this bit of info:

RIKER: Running the plasma conduit through the primary phaser coupling has almost doubled your phaser power. Doesn't that cut into your warp drive efficiency?
KIRA: Not at all. In fact, it's thirty percent more efficient.
​

"Basics 2":

PARIS: ..I need you to get the computer to block the discharge from the backup phaser power couplings. You got that? The backup couplings. I'm taking out the primary couplings myself, but I need those backups to overload when they switch to them. Don't do anything until the attack begins or they might notice. ...
​

Based on the above dialogue there is evidence that the TNG phasers are plasma-based (the "plasma phasers). That could explain where the spare parts for the NX-01's phase cannons came from

The phaser power "flow" might go like this for the E-D and Voyager:

Plasma (from EPS grid) -> Phaser Generator -> Phaser Power Couplings -> Phaser Emitters

and for Defiant:

Plasma (from EPS grid) -> Phaser Generator -> Phaser Power Couplings + Plasma Conduit (warp plasma?) = x2 power -> Phaser Emitters

Somewhere in there would be the "Phaser Coil(s)"

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Which doesn't indicate any difference between ENT and TNG in regards to weapons usage (which was what I wrote.) Aiming and firing a phase cannon isn't that different from firing phasers. Firing photonic torpedoes isn't that different from firing photon or quantum torpedoes.

And both are fundamentally different from firing nuclear weapons and kinetic kill vehicles, which is what I wrote.

Which still makes no distinction between ENT and TNG.

That is so NOT what I was talking about.

You're comparing to pre-ENT.

Yes I am. Because there's no "post phaser" era on the horizon in Star Trek, there's no comparison to the battleship age which was already on the wane by the Battle of Jutland. When we get to a time when starships are using their phasers for surface bombardment more often than they use them to shoot at other starships, THEN the comparison to battleship guns becomes appropriate.

Sure you can. "Starship Down" tells us that the "phaser generator" can power any emitter, including makeshift ones.

Sure. Just like fifty pounds of cordite and a shell can be fired out of any barrel, even a makeshift one. That doesn't mean you can press a couple of buttons and have the phaser generator transfer all of its power to Troi's vibrator.

The "strongest facing forward" only works if the ship can power all those weapons (or more than the aft weapons) up at the same time and fire them all at the same time.

Your tactical officer has no way of knowing that, however. Much the same way he would have no way of knowing if, say, the main phasers of the galaxy class are set to their maximum possible level or to their standard anti-ship burst setting.

Or if Commander Riker is in command and not in the mood to even use the phasers.

Also, getting smacked in the face with two low-powered torpedoes is nothing since Kruge returned fire. Yes, he lost his pet, but he was in no danger.

If not for the sudden failure of Enterprise' shields to raise when they were supposed to, Kruge's single shot would have been the last futile act of a desperate man. To use his own words "Why haven't they finished us? They outgun me ten to one!" The answer is Scotty's automation center failed at an inconvenient time.

Are you saying that Kruge knew it would turn out like this and was counting on the automation center failing when it did? Are you suggesting that if he hadn't known about the automation center that he would have attacked from behind so he wouldn't have to worry about Enterprise' torpedo launchers?

If a ship can deliberately put itself in a specific firing arc ("Parturition") or come in on a specific attack vector to target a spot on a ship ("Valiant") then ships can move into or out of specific weapon arcs.

Parturition remains a problem for you, because once again there's no indication that they KNOW the firing arcs of their enemy's aft weapons. They simply know that it HAS aft weapons and that it will probably fire it at them if they're behind it.

It would stand to reason to fly into the arc of the weapons you're trying to get to shoot at you

You don't need to calculate their field of fire to do that; a simple guess will suffice.

That's not answering, "how do they even know there is an aft weapon?"

Nobody asked that in the first place. The question is "Do they (or anyone else) actually know the firing arcs of specific weapon emplacements?" even in Partruition, they don't have a solid understanding of their field of fire, they simply move as close as they can directly behind the other ship in the hope that it'll use those weapons instead of some other emplacement. Like everything else in Voyager, it's just a guess that turns out to be completely true.

If they can tell that there is a weapon that is not in their line-of-sight then they can tell where it can possibly aim based on the location and ship's structure.

Which, with respect to the overall shape of the vessel, might just be feasible if they took the time to analyze it ahead of time (as they did in Partruition). That's a far cry from calculating the fields of fire from a complex structure like a galaxy class starship one to two minutes after encountering one in space.

Yet we're not given any evidence that they are not as powerful as the larger ones.

We never see them used, so there's not much to go on really.

So where is your evidence that the engineering hull phasers (the short strips) are weaker than the long strips on the E-D?

Nice of you to dodge the relevant question, but we've already been through this one before. The design of the phasers is implied to have this feature as referenced in the tech manual and the clear intent of the producers themselves: it's not a single phaser emitter at work, but the aggregate of MANY emitters pooling their power into a single beam. The longer arrays would have greater potential power than the smaller arrays for this reason.