Does the D-7 fire photons or energy torps?

[Slappy The Vulcan]

The launcher on the front of the d-7 looks huge compared to the one on a starfleet ship, plus the "torpedoes" are a good deal larger than the federation counterparts. is this because they are energy based weapons, and not projectile based?, if so what kind of damage could one of these do compared to the federation projectile torpedo?

 

[Unicron]

I'm not sure I understand the question. My understanding has always been that they are photon launchers, and that the Klingon weapon is roughly equivalent to that used by the Federation. Going by modern Trek, that would assume they use a similar cased warhead. I do recall that in some early sources, the photon torpedoes were described as being energy weapons rather than physical weapons. But that's how they've been consistently shown.

 

[Maurice]

Maybe the big-ass opening contains 8 launchers instead of two.

 

[Timo]

Or then the Klingon ships could have "Russkie" weapons - gigantic, brute-force antiship missiles resembling jet fighters in size - as opposed to the "Yankee" weapons of the good guys - slim, smart Harpoons one-tenth the size.

The TOS movies got great mileage out of the idea that photon torpedoes have physical casings. While TOS was more ambiguous, it sort of feels more satisfactory to have our TOS heroes handling physical objects than magic energy fields, now doesn't it? Scotty's machinery always had a good solid nuts and bolts feel to it, even when he operated a "magnetic probe" that sent or received invisible energies.

It's also a bit easier to figure out how a torpedo with a physical casing could be guided and propelled through space. A blob of energy might move forward in a straight line, but would Klingons be satisfied with that when Federation torpedoes apparently can track?

The level of Trek technological magic may be sufficient for "pure energy" torpedoes, but so many other things still cling to 1960s-style physical solutions. Surely the conservative Klingons would see merit in using conservative weapons...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

It was always my belief that they were supposed to be some kind of big ass disrupter pulse which IMO is also what has always been on the front of Birds of Prey also, we've seen before in Trek Movies the front launcher of Birds of Prey and D-7 cruisers actually build up in energy before release which really isnt how Photon Torpedos work. I believe thats what they USED to be originally, I think in later Trek they suddenly became Photon Torpedo launchers which really doesnt add up when you look at old style Star Trek and the size of the D-7 launcher and onscreen visuals.

 

[Timo]

Well, the first time they are used is in TMP, where the Klingon dialogue is translated as them being torpedoes specifically.

Okay, in theory, some sort of weapon at the bow fires a vaguely disruptorlike pulse in TAS "More Tribbles, More Troubles". At least if you squint a little. In practice, though, the bow hole was associated with something called "torpedo" from the very beginning.

Whether they are the same as Starfleet torpedoes... Well, obviously not exactly. Indeed, they might have slightly different roles. While the red D-7/K't'inga torps from TMP on look and behave just like their Federation equivalents, the green ones typically fired by small Birds of Prey seem to only disable rather than destroy.

...I wouldn't wonder a bit if the Klingons designed the BoP as a commerce raider similar to WWII submarines, with a weapon suite to match.

In the end, we have never seen a Klingon torpedo casing. Nor have we heard dialogue to indicate that Klingon ships would have torpedo casings aboard. Doesn't mean Klingon torpedoes are casingless; doesn't mean they aren't, either.

Timo Saloniemi