Borg Battlefields: Wolf 359 vs. Sector 001

[c0rnedfr0g]

Two infamous Borg confrontations with the Federation. The first in 2367, the second in 2373. Starfleet had 6 years to recover and prepare between the two.

How prepared were they? What was the difference in Starfleet casualties and ships destroyed/assimilated between the two battles?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

IMO, he Sector 001 battle, despite being a less narrow victory, likely had higher casualties. I always thought that Starfleet was engaging the Cube as much as possible in a running battle between the Typhon Sector and Sector 001. Basically, they Zerg rushed the cube over and over. Which would mean they used more ships and considering the rate we saw them dropping in FC, I'd imagine that that would approach 40 rather quickly. Of course, if you subscribe to the idea that the ships we see onscreen in the battle are the only ships Starfleet sent, then the casualties would be significantly lower.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

At Wolf 359, Starfleet was unprepared for the borg. The collective adapted to their weapons and obliterated the federation ships.

By the time of Sector 001, Starfleet was only a little less unprepared - they modulated weapons and shields, for example. The result - the feds won, but sustained heavy casualties.
Why were they still so bady prepared for the borg? Probably because of some idiotically optimistic admirals - the kind that stopped the "Defiant" project because the threat from the borg was "less urgent".

 

[Vger]

Picard was the difference in 2nd battle no ? Otherwise the Borg ship would have kept moving on towards Earth. Thing that bothered me was the cop out the writers had in using only one Borg cube again. They could have used more and came up a with a valid reason to defeat them.

 

[Cyke101]

With Wolf 359, we can't really say how long the battle lasted (or can we? Anyone feel free to chime in). But for Sector 001, it definitely lasted days since it would take the Enterprise-E at least that much time to get from the Neutral Zone (where they first heard the battle start) to Earth.

Then there's the visual proof. Emissary showed us that Starfleet weapons did pretty much jack against the Borg at Wolf 359, compared to Sector 001 where every ship present inflicted damage and the fleet had already severely damaged (softened) the cube by the time the Enterprise arrived. The cube's internal systems were already scattered and all over the place.

I almost feel as if Starfleet would have won Sector 001 without the Enterprise, it's just that they would have suffered greater losses had Picard not been there. But in either case, I agree with previous posters, it's possible that Sector 001 cost Starfleet more vessels. They fought longer and harder, and loss of numbers is going to be a consequence.

 

[Donovan Mike]

I had the impression that wolf 359 was hours tops. With a loss of most or all ships sent in. at sector 001 the federation was still putting up a decent fight, with damage to the cube.


Also if it was a running battle, it was never said whether more than one cube was sent. It could be possible that more went in but were destroyed en route.

 

[cwl]

if the Borg had sent multiple cubes it's unlikely they would have been beaten.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Also if it was a running battle, it was never said whether more than one cube was sent.

Picard explicitly says there was only one in the briefing scene at the start.

On the subject of the number of cubes, keep in mind that TNG was pretty spare with how many Borg there actually were (so much so that if you go back to Tim Lynch's review of "BOBW II" he remarks that it's ambiguous whether there are more Borg out there). It was only starting with VOY's Scorpion two-parter (which aired a year after First Contact) that we saw large fleets of cubes routinely assigned to every operation.

When comparing the two battles, Starfleet's heavy weaponry was markedly more effective at Sector 001; they succeeded in heavily damaging the outer hull, and, with Picard's help, in actually physically destroying it. At Wolf 359 the whole fleet was ploughed through without doing any notable damage, and the Enterprise-D only defeated them on a technicality.