BOBW..the fleet?

[Hermiod]

Indeed. It has long been known that a single starship can devastate a planet, if left to her own devices. So how is warfare possible at all in the Star Trek future? The answer seems to be that all major planets are heavily defended even in the absence of starships, so that hundreds of starships are needed to create even minor damage.

Cardassia had similar defences, IIRC, in "What You Leave Behind".

I'm struggling to remember properly here, but I seem to recall the attack on Chin'toka being timed as a result of the Dominion leaving only five Jem'Hadar squadrons to defend the system as the bulk of their ships were needed elsewhere.

My guess is that these defence systems were a new design not seen by the Allies before.

It's been a while since I saw the episode in question, I did not realize that the entire Breen force had been destroyed, however, they did get to Earth, they did attack Star Fleet Headquaters, and the damage may have been more psychological effect than actual physical damage, perhaps it was a suicide attack on Earth, we did see the Jem-Hadar fighter destroy the U.S.S. Sarajevo by a suicide ramming attack. Even Worf was ready to ram the BORG Cube with the Defient in FC before the Enteprise entered the battle. Mabey the Breen did accomplish their mission, in war one never
knows.

It wasn't the entire fleet, just most of it. Presumably the rest were able to withdraw. An actual determined attempt to invade Earth would have taken a lot of ships and would have been insane at that point in the war.

 

[Timo]

The fate of the Breen fleet is given two bits of commentary in that episode. The Feds say that Starfleet "was able to destroy most of the Breen attack force, but by then the damage had been done". In turn, Damar taunts Weyoun by saying that "It's just unfortunate that so few of your ships survived the assault".

So apparently some of the Breen were able to withdraw - but it remains unknown whether the fleet had achieved all its goals at that point or not. The psychological impact was achieved, yes, but possibly the attack in general was a dismal failure in comparison with the originally planned level of destruction. Or then a success beyond the wildest dreams of the Breen or the Dominion.

In any case, Martok's commentary of the Klingons never having dared consider an attack against Earth seems to prove that Earth is always well defended, even when there isn't a major escalation of the sort seen in the Dominion war. How much of a role do starships play in that defense? Perhaps Starfleet doctrine calls for a delaying action fought by starships, so that the enemy is badly weakened before reaching the defenses at Sol. Such a doctrine would utterly fail when somebody as fast as the Borg jumps the defenses without giving the starships enough time to organize a delaying action.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^The Borg were never actually able to fire a shot at Earth in their first attack.

Sisko did redirect ships intended to defend Earth in "Favor the Bold", however, which the Admiralty didn't like very much.

 

[Timo]

The Borg were never actually able to fire a shot at Earth in their first attack.

How do we know this? Nothing of the sort was directly stated in the episode, or in the aftermath episode "Family".

What we hear is that the Borg "halted their approach to Earth" when Data started tampering with Locutus. But we subsequently see that this halting happened when Earth was already in full view of the Cube, and well within its weapons range. The Cube could already have shot Earth's defensive perimeter to stardust by the time our heroes reached the scene.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^It looked to me like the Enterprise caught up with them while they were still arriving in orbit. I doubt their plan was to fire on Earth itself - why blow up what you want to assimilate ?

 

[trekkerguy]

They wouldn't have "blown up" Earth itself, just the defenses.

 

[Timo]

One wonders if Earth would have any defensive elements down on the surface. Phasers don't seem much bothered by a few hundred kilometers of atmosphere, so surface cannon might be in use even though they would suffer from horizons and other such limitations. And torpedoes could no doubt fire from surface to orbit if need be. Naturally, care would be taken not to position these defenses so that there would be "human shields" around in the danger zone.

Certainly some lesser planets have surface defenses, as in "Arena" or "Return to Grace".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

It was a morale damaging raid more than anything else. Also it was to demonstrate to the Dominion that they were allies who would sacrifice themselves for them if need be.

Anywho, Earth does have lots of defenses it's just that most of them are planet-based and not in space. The Novelization Roddenberry wrote for TMP explained that there were huge phaser banks/turrets and millions of photon torpedoes as well as other defenses all on Earth for a space-based attack.

 

[RobertScorpio]

It was a morale damaging raid more than anything else. Also it was to demonstrate to the Dominion that they were allies who would sacrifice themselves for them if need be.

Anywho, Earth does have lots of defenses it's just that most of them are planet-based and not in space. The Novelization Roddenberry wrote for TMP explained that there were huge phaser banks/turrets and millions of photon torpedoes as well as other defenses all on Earth for a space-based attack.

I'm sure there are and that TNG had budget restraints. But still...it just seems rather odd that so few ships were around to defend earth. Must have been all those defense cuts that Spock suggested after STAR TREK 6
...

Rob

 

[trekkerguy]

I rather like the fact it seemed so "few"(because 40-50 Starships is not
a ton of firepower ) ships could get there. The Federation is a huge
place and if there's one thing TNG and beyond did that I dislike it's the
way they portrayed space as so easily hopped about.

This is one of the few times I think it held true to a bit of realism in that area.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I rather like the fact it seemed so "few"(because 40-50 Starships is not
a ton of firepower ) ships could get there. The Federation is a huge
place and if there's one thing TNG and beyond did that I dislike it's the
way they portrayed space as so easily hopped about.

This is one of the few times I think it held true to a bit of realism in that area.

I would normally agree..however...Earth is like a major place right? Starfleet command is centered there. One would think there would be more forces, more ships, as you got closer to Earth.

Rob

 

[trekkerguy]

Or since it's so deep within Federation space it would be assumed under
normal circumstances that the fleet would be able to intercept any trouble
long before it could reach the Sol system. And again, with all those defense
systems...

 

[RobertScorpio]

Or since it's so deep within Federation space it would be assumed under
normal circumstances that the fleet would be able to intercept any trouble
long before it could reach the Sol system. And again, with all those defense
systems...

All I have to compare it with is my own experience in the navy..and everytime we returned from deployment, and left Hawaii for San Diego, we would pass by several Navy ships, American and British, in between Hawaii and San Diego..and the closer we got to San Diego, the more 'concentration' of ships we would pass by...meaning, the closer we got home, the more ships we saw..which makes sense...

Earth is a major player, at least we are led to beleive. And yet only 50 ships were available between where ever Picard was when he was assimilated and earth??? I find that hard to believe, especially after the events of Nomad--Vgr--Whale Probe--XINDI arc--and who knows what else...just doesn't hold water with me...

Rob

 

[SeerSGB]

Or since it's so deep within Federation space it would be assumed under
normal circumstances that the fleet would be able to intercept any trouble
long before it could reach the Sol system. And again, with all those defense
systems...

Given the Federation's "What, everyone loves us, they want to be us" mentality, I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of the interior defense forces wasn't older model ships, lightly armed transports, and small warp capable patrol ships. With more firepower and more heavily armed ships being on the "outer rim" of Federation held and explored unallied space.

Of course the whole matter would be moot if they had just tossed a couple of kitbashs behidn that advancing cube, or had Data spout off about "X" so many ships derelict and lifeless in the Sol System.

 

[Cyke101]

Or since it's so deep within Federation space it would be assumed under
normal circumstances that the fleet would be able to intercept any trouble
long before it could reach the Sol system. And again, with all those defense
systems...

All I have to compare it with is my own experience in the navy..and everytime we returned from deployment, and left Hawaii for San Diego, we would pass by several Navy ships, American and British, in between Hawaii and San Diego..and the closer we got to San Diego, the more 'concentration' of ships we would pass by...meaning, the closer we got home, the more ships we saw..which makes sense...

Earth is a major player, at least we are led to beleive. And yet only 50 ships were available between where ever Picard was when he was assimilated and earth??? I find that hard to believe, especially after the events of Nomad--Vgr--Whale Probe--XINDI arc--and who knows what else...just doesn't hold water with me...

Rob

Let's also remember that space is huge, and isn't a mostly two-dimensional plane like the oceans, but three-dimensions. First off, that means a lot more ships spread out over a lot more area (perhaps the Federation has more sectors under its belt than Starfleet has starships?), and second, that means any number of routes could be taken as well, further dispersing the group.

For that matter, if we're going with the modern day analogy, how quickly can we must up a force of 40 ships of all sizes in centralized location in a matter of days, in the hopes of stopping a ship that easily outpaces our fastest? Isn't that what fighters are for? The big difference in Trek is that mother ships tend to be faster than fighters at warp speeds.

On a similar route, if we did have an intense build up of forces to face off in a huge war, something that required us to systematically summon all of our global ships back to the US, it would take a heck of a lot more time than a couple days to do so. By comparison, it's implied in DS9 that Starfleet had been preparing for the Dominion War for at least a year, and more than likely since the attempted coup d'etat by Leyton. When comparing Wolf 359 to the Dominion War, it's quite clear that Wolf 359-Starfleet didn't have the sheer amount of prep time as they had in the Dominion War, or First Contact.

Also, one last thing: I suppose under any other normal circumstances, fifty ships would do just fine. If the Breen attack had 100 ships in its fleet, a counter-force of fifty ships plus system-wide defenses should theoretically suffice. The Xindi superweapon was destroyed with a MUCH smaller force than fifty ships as well. In DS9, a Klingon force of about 50 ships was far more than enough to constitute an emergency, and those 40 ships in "The Die is Cast" was something that shocked everyone. From a modern day perspective, I don't know how many ships are in the Navy's roster, but a build up of five ships (say, in the Middle East) is always a cause for concern. Even if we have thousands upon thousands of ships, I don't imagine that to change. And under most circumstances, a fleet of five ships can still perform almost any duty imaginable.

And again, V'ger and the Whale probe aren't quite fair as they destroyed or disabled (respectively) anything that came in their way, as they were exotic forces. With V'Ger and the probe, it seems as if we could have had hundreds of ships around Earth and the result would be the same.

 

[SeerSGB]

Another thing about V'ger and the Whale Probe is that they were one-off threats. Starfleet and the Federation had no reason to expect a follow up attack, since in both cases the lifeform was dealt with and parted on, assumed, peaceful terms.

Even the Borg was a sort of "well it's down the line, sure we'll gun up for them, but it's down the line a bit before they're a problem" sort of mentality for the Starfleet. It wasn't till Wolf 359 that the full extent of the threat was appreciated and Starfleet started thinking "we need Borg killer ships"-- hence Defiant.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Another thing about V'ger and the Whale Probe is that they were one-off threats. Starfleet and the Federation had no reason to expect a follow up attack, since in both cases the lifeform was dealt with and parted on, assumed, peaceful terms.

Even the Borg was a sort of "well it's down the line, sure we'll gun up for them, but it's down the line a bit before they're a problem" sort of mentality for the Starfleet. It wasn't till Wolf 359 that the full extent of the threat was appreciated and Starfleet started thinking "we need Borg killer ships"-- hence Defiant.

Okay..I'll buu that. But the Romulans/Klingons threats had been around for sometime. The Cardassian War had just finished recently. You would think that Earth would be better protected that with just two tiny torpedo looking things..thats it? That's the last line of defense??? Two torpedo thingys?

If I were in the Federation Congress, I'd be bringing all those Admirals in and making them testify, under oath, as to where all the recources went...

Rob

 

[RobertScorpio]

Another thing about V'ger and the Whale Probe is that they were one-off threats. Starfleet and the Federation had no reason to expect a follow up attack, since in both cases the lifeform was dealt with and parted on, assumed, peaceful terms.

Even the Borg was a sort of "well it's down the line, sure we'll gun up for them, but it's down the line a bit before they're a problem" sort of mentality for the Starfleet. It wasn't till Wolf 359 that the full extent of the threat was appreciated and Starfleet started thinking "we need Borg killer ships"-- hence Defiant.

Okay..I'll buu that. But the Romulans/Klingons threats had been around for sometime. The Cardassian War had just finished recently. You would think that Earth would be better protected that with just two tiny torpedo looking things..thats it? That's the last line of defense??? Two torpedo thingys?

If I were in the Federation Congress, I'd be bringing all those Admirals in and making them testify, under oath, as to where all the recources went...(after Picard's Court-Martial...but that's for another discussion)

Rob

 

[SeerSGB]

Another thing about V'ger and the Whale Probe is that they were one-off threats. Starfleet and the Federation had no reason to expect a follow up attack, since in both cases the lifeform was dealt with and parted on, assumed, peaceful terms.

Even the Borg was a sort of "well it's down the line, sure we'll gun up for them, but it's down the line a bit before they're a problem" sort of mentality for the Starfleet. It wasn't till Wolf 359 that the full extent of the threat was appreciated and Starfleet started thinking "we need Borg killer ships"-- hence Defiant.

Okay..I'll buu that. But the Romulans/Klingons threats had been around for sometime. The Cardassian War had just finished recently. You would think that Earth would be better protected that with just two tiny torpedo looking things..thats it? That's the last line of defense??? Two torpedo thingys?

If I were in the Federation Congress, I'd be bringing all those Admirals in and making them testify, under oath, as to where all the recources went...

Rob

Peace time mentality: Klingons are our buddies, we can stand down a bit; Romulans haven't been heard from in "X" decades, stand down a bit. Cardassian war was far enough away to be a none factor; think the current Iraq war, it's on everyone's mind, but day to day living it's not really affect much for those outside the military.

Plus we don't know where Earth's last line kicks in out.

 

[trekkerguy]

And we're forgetting the strength of planetary defenses.

I would think they are the way Gene described them which would be
able to blow almost anything to dust if given the time to arm and fire.

Not as much need to waste resources or manpower of Starships to be
sitting around when you've got that, especialy in peacetimes and taking
into account the location of Earth within Federation borders.