• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

"...all 72 torpedoes are still in their tubes."

For what it's worth, those tubes could also be used to launch probes and sensors for exploratory and scientific purposes. Multitasking in a "swords or plowshares" kind of way.
 
For what it's worth, those tubes could also be used to launch probes and sensors for exploratory and scientific purposes. Multitasking in a "swords or plowshares" kind of way.

Absolutely. Plus communications relays since the Enterprise is headed for the frontier. :techman:
 
For what it's worth, those tubes could also be used to launch probes and sensors for exploratory and scientific purposes. Multitasking in a "swords or plowshares" kind of way.

Absolutely. Plus communications relays since the Enterprise is headed for the frontier. :techman:

For those times when Enterprise needs to exhaust her supply of probes all at once.:vulcan:
 
One thing to consider: the Vengeance is similar to the Enterprise in its basic configuration.
Other than the fact that they both have similar shapes and use engine nacelles, they're actually NOTHING alike. If you go by the concept art for the movie, their weapon systems aren't even in the same place.

Apart from basic starship design theory and the fundamentals of the technology, there's practically nothing Khan would need that would require him to specifically study any one Federation design other than the Vengeance's original baseline (which, if you go by the comics, was already taking shape when he was thawed).
 
For what it's worth, those tubes could also be used to launch probes and sensors for exploratory and scientific purposes. Multitasking in a "swords or plowshares" kind of way.

Absolutely. Plus communications relays since the Enterprise is headed for the frontier. :techman:

For those times when Enterprise needs to exhaust her supply of probes all at once.:vulcan:
Have you considered the possibility that the Enterprise might want to deploy a constellation of probes to map the entire surface of a planet, and do so while still having several photon torpedoes available in case those probes should suddenly discover a large Klingon battlecruiser hiding in a crater, ready to pounce?

The whole point of having multiple launch tubes is the need to launch multiple devices at once. The whole point of having them be RELOADABLE is so that you can choose which devices you launch, and in which order, and at what time. Loading and unloading may be fairly easy to do, but I wouldn't be surprised if the ship doesn't have a "standard cruise" package that includes, say, 12 torpedoes, 12 probes, 6 ECM decoys, 3 ion pods on retractable tethers and 3 recorder markers ready to launch, all of these on hot standby. Upgrading to yellow alert might mean replacing some of the probes with torpedoes and/or ECM decoys, while at full red alert they pull all of the probes and add another 12 torpedoes.
 
For what it's worth, those tubes could also be used to launch probes and sensors for exploratory and scientific purposes. Multitasking in a "swords or plowshares" kind of way.

Given the sort of segmented look of the inside of it, they could expand or contract to load carious objects into them rather easily.

We've seen the TOS Enterprise deploy a large number of satellites into orbit (once TOS-R retconned the existance of an underside bay) so I could see the tubes on the NuPrise being used for exactly the same purpose in that situation.
 

General Order 24.

It is obvious that the TOS version of the ship carried quite a bit of firepower and wasn't a war ship.

Not really seeing an issue with the number of torpedo launchers. :shrug:

Exactly, so what's the point of the Vengeance? The only real difference between that ship and the Enterprise is that it's darker, a bit bigger, doesn't need that much of a crew and can move faster. How come when you have a starship that's more efficient in things that aren't really that combat related should automatically be looked at as a bad thing?
 
So did the TNG Enterprise - take a look at all the firepower it unloads in "Best of Both Worlds", yet they're a ship of peaceful exploration in the most PC Trek of them all.

Yeah, and it did all that with about a dozen phaser arrays and two torpedo launchers (which it only used one). Just because you don't have that many launchers doesn't mean you can't be efficient at combat. So why add more launchers when clearly one is enough?
 
The Enterprise is a publically known vessel controlled by Starfleet whose missions are widely known.

Vengeance is unmarked, unregistered and unknown to the majority of the Federation, it's mission can be carried out in secret, and can be plausibly denied by Starfleet.

It also curb stomped the Enterprise with it's firepower almost instantly, she had her shields up despite being at warp, seemingly Vengeance's weaponry is vastly more powerful.

She is also considerably faster, more robust and may well not fully show up on sensors. Her warp wake does, setting up proximity alarms twice, but we have no idea (when fully active) if she can be locked onto.

I'd bet her shields are also a lot harder to punch through, and any attacking ship would be pulverised by it's weapons before making much of an attempt.

Watch what it did to the Federations former top ship, and tell me what's different about it. Enterprise could not carry out half the missions Vengeance could.
 
Exactly, so what's the point of the Vengeance? The only real difference between that ship and the Enterprise is that it's darker, a bit bigger, doesn't need that much of a crew and can move faster.

That's quite a bit of an advantage, really. Plus, she beats the crap out of the Enterprise so much, I wonder if she could beat the Narada. She's armed to the teeth, too.
 
So did the TNG Enterprise - take a look at all the firepower it unloads in "Best of Both Worlds", yet they're a ship of peaceful exploration in the most PC Trek of them all.

Yeah, and it did all that with about a dozen phaser arrays and two torpedo launchers (which it only used one). Just because you don't have that many launchers doesn't mean you can't be efficient at combat. So why add more launchers when clearly one is enough?

Why have all those weapons on the TNG ship when in 99.99% of the time one beam or photon at a time will do?

Because it looks cool when they can afford to do it. That's all.
 
Because it looks cool when they can afford to do it. That's all.

Being cool is nice and all, but other Star Treks have done a much better job at conveying ship-to-ship combat than simply resorting to "This ship is just better because it's bigger and more advanced." The Reliant from TWOK didn't look to be more advanced than the Enterprise and it certainly didn't look like it would have won in a fight had Kirk been properly prepared for one. There's a lot going on that determines who has the upper hand in a fight than just being in a better ship.

And if you're going to make something cool for the sake of it looking cool, why not actually go all out with it? Have the Enterprise fire all those torpedoes at once instead of trying to make the ship more like seaship with multiple broadside canons.
 
Star Trek has *never* portrayed ship to ship combat remotely accurately or realistically, and it never will. That's boring, time consuming, visually uninteresting for everyone involved and boring.

I am perfectly happy with how STID portrayed the combat in it as it did everything it set out to, entertain people. If you honestly think Gene wouldn't have been doing this every week on TOS if he could have, I don't know what to tell you.
 
Star Trek has *never* portrayed ship to ship combat remotely accurately or realistically, and it never will. That's boring, time consuming, visually uninteresting for everyone involved and boring.

Where did I ever say that Star Trek should depict it's space battles more realistically? All I was doing was conveying how lazy the whole "bad guys are in bigger and more deadly ships" is especially when Star Trek was at it's best when it didn't have to rely on that trope. It wasn't about which battle was the most realistic, it was about which one better benefited the story.

In TWOK, the first battle between the Reliant and the Enterprise was all about Kirk and Khan coming head to head with one another. Kirk is arrogant and over confident which results in him reacting too slowly to Khan's sneak attack. Khan still has a gloating ego and is inexperienced with star fleet protocols, so when he taunts Kirk for the sake of it, he is giving Kirk time to figure out a way to fight back at Khan using his star fleet inexperience as a starting point. This one battle scene shows both the advantages and disadvantages that the good guys and bad guys have. When they square off again in the Mutara Nebula, they've changed their game. Khan is no longer going to stop and gloat to Kirk when he has the upper hand, and Kirk isn't going to under estimate Khan or cut off important advice from his fellow officers.

All we get from STID is that the Vengeance is a tough ship that can beat up the Enterprise. That is it. Anyone can write "bigger ship beats up a little ship", but it takes a good writer to show a little ship beating up a big ship.
 
Anyone can write "bigger ship beats up a little ship", but it takes a good writer to show a little ship beating up a big ship.

Not to provoke anything, but why? And the writers did have the little ship win.

Scotty sabotaged the big ship, and as a result, Kirk and Khan took over the bridge. If Kirk had been more conscientious about subduing Khan, it would've been game over right there.
It may have not been a phaser-blasting, photon torpedo lobbing fight that led to the Enterprise defeating the Vengeance, but Kirk did take the ship from Marcus. The little ship did win, but Kirk mishandled Khan, and that cost him his victory.

Then, after Khan took the Vengeance, Spock used the 72 torpedoes to fatally damage the ship. Again, the little ship did win.
 
Last edited:
The Reliant from TWOK didn't look to be more advanced than the Enterprise and it certainly didn't look like it would have won in a fight had Kirk been properly prepared for one.

Actually it WAS more advanced, and more heavily armed.
 
All we get from STID is that the Vengeance is a tough ship that can beat up the Enterprise. That is it. Anyone can write "bigger ship beats up a little ship", but it takes a good writer to show a little ship beating up a big ship.
Admiral Marcus plans to make war with the Klingon Empire using small, under powered ships. Yeah, that fits the story perfectly.:rommie:
 
All we get from STID is that the Vengeance is a tough ship that can beat up the Enterprise. That is it. Anyone can write "bigger ship beats up a little ship", but it takes a good writer to show a little ship beating up a big ship.
Admiral Marcus plans to make war with the Klingon Empire using small, under powered ships. Yeah, that fits the story perfectly.:rommie:

Considering that Marcus had only one warship and his plan involved destroying Starfleet's flagship, I think the story is too broken to have anything fit in coherently.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top