Dreadnought

[Timo]

One funny thing about the original HMS Dreadnough is that she wasn't really designed to be an all-around superior terror of the seas. Rather, she abandoned certain self-defense capabilities in order to be a more fearsome offensive unit.

Previous ships had featured big guns - but they had also featured medium guns that could fire and aim more quickly and could defend the ship from light attackers, which had recently become a frightening threat by themselves because they could now carry torpedoes. But medium artillery was a mixed blessing. For one thing, having various sizes of guns aboard made life very difficult for rangefinders and other fire control specialists, decreasing the efficiency of the biggest guns. For another, if the ship engaged an enemy with the big guns at their maximum range, the medium guns would be so much dead weight - and if the ship approached to within the range of the medium guns, the capabilities of the big ones were being wasted. In order to specialize on the long range big guns, the Dreadnought had to unship most of her medium defenses, making her more vulnerable to torpedo boats and requiring a dedicated protective screen of anti-torpedo-boat vessels around her.

Perhaps the Trek Dreadnought is a similar battlefield queen, distinguished by the fact that she can't operate on her own, even if she does possess the range of Kirk's ship, can outgun Kirk's ship, can fly circles around Kirk's ship and so forth?

Hi throwback, is that from a display in the episode as I don't see anything about a "battleship" in the dialogue?

Yup.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Defiant_class_battleship,_lcars.jpg

The images our heroes' pet Drone is scanning in his titular episode also include other dubious things, such as a "CARDASSIAN MILITARY FREIGHTER" even though militaries today have no freighters (the proper word is "transport") and "ROMULAN BIRD OF PREY" as refers to the TOS ship which was never given that designation (and the drawing is inaccurate, too)...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The word dreadnought means literally "afraid of nothing".

dreadnought = dread [fear] + nought [nothing]

 

[Timo]

...And as such, has been used as a ship name long before "the" Dreadnought was launched, and may continue in use long after the end of service for the dreadnought type.

The groundbreaking ship type could just as well have been designated the Inflexible type. Or the Glorious type. Or whatever. It was just by sheer chance that the inaugural all-big-gun battleship was named HMS Dreadnought.

For all we know, Starfleet has no dreadnoughts - but it does have a starship class known as Dreadnought class, and this includes a vessel named USS Dreadnought Entente...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cicero]

^ It was very nearly the South Carolina type.

 

[SchwEnt]

The word dreadnought means literally "afraid of nothing".

dreadnought = dread [fear] + nought [nothing]

Right.
The new ships were said to "Fear God and Dread Nought".

 

[Starlock]

And, as always, same name and a partial registry does not necessarily equal the same ship in FJ's tech manual.


I'm thinking something more akin to a Star Trek version of a certain Space Cruiser Yamato...

I completely and utterly - but respectfully- absolutely disagree.



This IS the "Dreadnought Entente N C C 2 1 0 0" from the technical manual - I remember hearing it way-way back in 1979 in the theaters, I heard it on the VHS tape and I know I STILL hear it on the DVD's.


Listen real close to the woman's voice in the video clip - the "missing" "Zero - Zero" can be heard just before she hails Epsilon 9 again.

 

[Dukhat]

And, as always, same name and a partial registry does not necessarily equal the same ship in FJ's tech manual.


I'm thinking something more akin to a Star Trek version of a certain Space Cruiser Yamato...

I completely and utterly - but respectfully- absolutely disagree.



This IS the "Dreadnought Entente N C C 2 1 0 0" from the technical manual - I remember hearing it way-way back in 1979 in the theaters, I heard it on the VHS tape and I know I STILL hear it on the DVD's.


Listen real close to the woman's voice in the video clip - the "missing" "Zero - Zero" can be heard just before she hails Epsilon 9 again.

Well, if that's what you heard, then she's wrong about the reg...the Entente's registry is 2120, not 2100.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

That sounds a bit like a generic warship (except for the flagship part ) The TMP dreadnought as a historical analogy to the HMS Dreadnought I think sounds more interesting though.

Oh, I like the historical context as well... and I don't see much difference between the two.

We can't be TOO historical, though... obviously, the Trek dreadnought is not equipped with all of it's cannon at the same barrel size, right?

But "dreadnoughts" in the historical sense are merely a subcategory of "battleships."

Now, since we've established what the name "dreadnought" (or "dreadnaught," I've seen both spellings and I tend to use the second one, though I get the impression it's not the "historically accurate" one?) really means - "Fearing Nothing" - and since that's not really a "technical term," per-se, we have a bit of slack in how to use the term in the "Trek" sense.

All we REALLY know is that it has to be a ship capable of engaging and/or escaping any expected enemy... that it has "nothing to fear."
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I do think that Starfleet probably has a few "battleships," usually kept in mothballs. Or, perhaps, they have plans to convert some ships into "Battleship" status which currently serve in some other role, should major conflict arise?

For example, in the 24th century, it seems plausible that Galaxy Class "Explorers" would be able to be retrofitted into "Battleships" in a relatively short order, doesn't it? Remember, their interiors are almost entirely modular, and they have a variety of "strap-on" points. The "All Good Things" version might well be considered a battleship... and it might even be considered that subclass, a "Dreadnought," though I don't say that based upon the number of nacelles, but rather upon the evident capabilities.

One thing I WISH we'd seen in "All Good Things" would have been the "future Enterprise" Engineering facility. I suspect, fairly strongly, that this ship would be more along the lines of the TMP-era Federation Class... meaning that there were TWO "warp cores" present, possibly with each being significantly more powerful than the one seen in TNG.
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The real issue, as I see it, is why have a "subcategory" of battleships? And the idea of a "Command and control battleship" is one which appeals to me a great deal, personally. Of course, I didn't INVENT this idea... this is an idea which was first raised back in the days of "Starfleet Battles" and which was expanded on dramatically during the post-TMP, Pre-TNG era of fanon publishing.

I'm not sure who originally started treating these as C&C craft... though I suspect Aridas could say with a fair degree of clarity, as I know that some of his work referenced this approach.

But this is why the "Uprated Federation Class" was given the expanded B/C deck superstructure, and the additional security docking port at the bridge level... to make it practical as a fleet-command craft. The idea of the "expanded TMP-style" secondary hull was to permit the presence of the second warp reactor (doubling power output). This craft design is my "baseline reference" for post-TOS Dreadnought designs.
_______________________

FYI, I have a model conversion I made of an uprated Federation class a few years ago. I never finished painting it, and it's currently boxed and in storage, so I can only share my "work in progress" images at the moment. But these images show quite a bit of the overall difference between this and the TMP Enterprise.

I STARTED with the Sci-Fi Spaceship Miniatures vacuum-form conversion kit, but rapidly abandoned that, because it was just wrong in too many areas. With my final build, the only parts from that "conversion kit" which are still in the model are the dorsal "skins," and they've been pretty much totally reworked, and are only forming the "drywall" for that portion of my model, with the details totally altered. The bridge is new (similar to the vac-form one provided but scratch-built), the central nacelle is new (since they provided a "two outside faces" nacelle and it's supposed to be "two INSIDE faces"), the central nacelle pylon is new, the main engine pylon is new, the main nacelles have been altered (since the Enterprise class control reactors are different from the Federation (uprated) class control reactors). And the nacelle pylon "wing," while adequate in shape, was just too flimsy, so I rebuilt it from solid styrene with a steel plate core.

There are two places where the Federation (uprated) design varies pretty dramatically from the Enterprise class (which is what I call the TMP ship, since we KNOW that this is the first ship of that configuration, and thus is by definition the "class ship," no matter what ST-VI may have tried to tell us with a crappily-created prop blueprint), which most people are not familiar with. Most of the "garage kit" versions simply reuse Enterprise components, but this is incorrect.

First, the B/C deck superstructure is a LOT larger. It contains the same elements the Enterprise does, but also contains (at the core) a "fleet command" operations center.

Compare the two structures here. The DIAMETER isn't tremendously larger, but the actual internal volume is over 150% that of the Enterprise.


Secondly, the secondary hull is a lot larger, and has a different internal configuration (for example, no "arboretum," different docking port locations, different window locations, etc). The landing bay "lip" is significantly larger as well, The idea is that this hull has the two m/am reactors (one where the TMP reactor is, and one just underneath the warp pylon attachment), both working together, and the rest of the secondary hull is primarily flight-support operations, with only a limited (smaller than the TMP Enterprise) cargo deck.


Again, NOT CANON, but absolutely part of "Cary's personal canon."
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There are a number of other TMP-era Dreadnought designs out there, though my personal favorites are the Adamant (From "Starfleet Prototypes") and the "Ascension" (the "Belknap dreadnought... equivalent to the Federation (uprated) class but lacking the expanded flight deck "tactical craft support" capabilities).

A bit of info on the Federation (original and uprated) and the "novelization" version can be found here:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Federation_class

For the Ascension class (belknap-dreadnought) class, an image (and some speculative stats which don't seem to match those given by the original creator of the design) can be seen here:
http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversions/Rifts-Trek-Ships/Federation_USS_Ascension.htm

And for David Schmidt's Adamant class prototype, you can see it here:
http://www.tacticalstarshipcombat.com/FASA/sds/federation_adamant.htm

FWIW, I don't have a problem with the 3 nacelle FJ Dreadnought. I just think it'd make some sense if it was the ship that the rest of Starfleet patterned from

I'm not quite getting what you mean there... could you rephrase that?

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure reading "Fears nothing" into the designation Dreadnought is a good idea. After all, a Frigate doesn't really frig a lot, now does it? A Monitor rarely does any monitoring, a Destroyer basically stopped destroying ships after WWII and concentrated on protecting them instead, a Corvette doesn't hold fish, etc.

The dreadnoughts of yore weren't named because they were fear-instilling things. Rather, the first ship in the category was given a stock name for frontline combatants, this happening to be Dreadnought rather than Insufferable at that particular date.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm not sure reading "Fears nothing" into the designation Dreadnought is a good idea. After all, a Frigate doesn't really frig a lot, now does it? A Monitor rarely does any monitoring, a Destroyer basically stopped destroying ships after WWII and concentrated on protecting them instead, a Corvette doesn't hold fish, etc.

The dreadnoughts of yore weren't named because they were fear-instilling things. Rather, the first ship in the category was given a stock name for frontline combatants, this happening to be Dreadnought rather than Insufferable at that particular date.

Timo Saloniemi

I disagree.

"Fears nothing" is what the word dreadnought means etymologically.

As an example, you don't name the weakest ship in your navy Invincible. You use that name for something that you don't expect to get sunk without putting up an epic fight, to avoid the obvious bad press it would get if it were sunk too easily.

For that reason, you shouldn't call something a dreadnought if you expect it not to at least equal any other contemporary ship in a one-on-one fight. (The reason ships were called super-dreadnoughts was because ships that had been called dreadnoughts were still on the seas.)

---

The word frigate is of unknown etymology, so nothing definitive can be said of what their essential characteristics are or should be throughout all eras.

---

The class of monitors was named after USS Monitor, the first ship of its kind. As to how USS Monitor got its name, from http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/m13/monitor-i.htm:

Monitor
A person or thing that warns or instructs. Ericsson suggested the name hoping that his novel warship would admonish the South and Great Britain which was then sympathetic to the Confederacy.

The etymology of the word monitor is:

From Latin monitor (“warner”), from perfect passive participle monitus (“warning”), from verb monere (“to warn, admonish, remind”)

Following that tradition then, a monitor is a ship whose presence is intended to warn the enemy away.

 

[Timo]

..you shouldn't call something a dreadnought if you expect it not to at least equal any other contemporary ship in a one-on-one fight.

What you "should" or "should not" do is irrelevant here, as proven by the history of ships named Dreadnought. Of the ships of line by that name, only one ever was second rate, and none were first rate...

Similarly, few of the ships named Invincible were among the most powerful of their day.

Following that tradition then, a monitor is a ship whose presence is intended to warn the enemy away.

Which is another fine example of the names meaning less than nothing: after the brief flurry of coastal defense ships in the aftermath of the US Civil War, ships designated Monitors have not been intended to warn the enemy away. Their sole designed and designated mission has been coastal bombardment with oversized guns that are completely unsuited for ship-to-ship fighting.

Really, you can always start with assuming that military terminology means less than nothing, and in 92.7% of the cases you will be correct. Tanks have nothing to do with tanks, Canal Defence Lights were never intended to defend any canals, "kinetic weapons" currently include fuel-air explosives and fusion bombs, etc. etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Whether the names prove accurate or not in combat, they are intended to convey something to the enemy. It's about saber rattling. It is the intention and expectation of performance either at the time the ship is christened or that it is commissioned that is important.

 

[Saquist]

I think as a matter of rule the names are significant only when the ship is significant. You can name a ship Invincible just as name of course but it's clear TITANIC wasn't named for a TITAN it was named for it's size. The Greatness is the linking factor...

I think Sci Fi gives these ships more significance for the given name. Most naval ships today are named after national icons whether famous generals or political figures, cities and regions.

But when Star Trek names something it tends to have significance.
Excelsior, Defiant, Valiant, Intrepid and Voyager, Galaxy, Yamato. It may not always be true, like with Sao Palo, Majestic, Brittain, but why should it be. Names are easy to come by and Starfleet is musing some 70,000 ships.

 

[Santaman]

HMS Dreadnought's name was indeed symbolic, fear nothing, and they were right, the first few years of her operational life she could annihilate anything in her path so she had to fear nothing.

Same with HMS Invincible, the first ever battlecruiser, Jackie Fisher who invented the whole concept thought they'd be invincible because they were much faster than anything with cannons large enough to harm them and anything which was fast enough to keep up with them wouldn't only be able to scratch the paint and piss off the captain...

As for the Starfleet ship..
Since they're not an empire I assume that Dreadnough simply means a large (war)ship with three nacelles.

 

[Patrickivan]

.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If I were a betting man- and I'm not. I'd say Frigate originates from the Frigatebird. A sea bird from the genus Fregate...

If a ship were to be named after something, this bird makes sense.

Interesting guess, but it appears to be the other way around (the bird was named for the ship).

First Known Use of FRIGATE: 1583 [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frigate]

First Known Use of FRIGATE BIRD: 1738 [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frigatebird]

 

[Albertese]

...

Really, you can always start with assuming that military terminology means less than nothing, and in 92.7% of the cases you will be correct.

Nothing ever means "less than nothing." Even the weird stuff has an origin of some kind. It may not be obvious on it's face but that doesn't make it meaningless, especially as people know what the term means when you say it. And 92.7% seems oddly specific for being a totally made up guess.

Tanks have nothing to do with tanks,
...

Timo Saloniemi

Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV's) are called tanks because when the British Royal Army was developing the idea during WWI they are worried about interception of their communications and budget documents et cetera. Therefore, instead of calling a spade a spade, they determined to come up with a code name that seemed innocuous enough in case someone was reading over their shoulders. "Tanks" actually were very nearly "cisterns." The name remained in informal use even after it was introduced and became public knowledge. The word is simple and catchy enough that everyone just kept calling them "tanks" without worrying about the origin of the use of the word. I expect if it were "cistern" they might have called it something else when de-classified, but "tank" just seems fitting for some ephemeral reason.

Similar story for "jeep." In WWII, they were introduced as "General Purpose Vehicles" or GP's. This was gradually slurred into "jeepies" and before very long lost the -ie to be worn down to "jeep."

So, you see, everything has some origin, even it's become obscured over time.

--Alex

 

[blssdwlf]

That sounds a bit like a generic warship (except for the flagship part ) The TMP dreadnought as a historical analogy to the HMS Dreadnought I think sounds more interesting though.

Oh, I like the historical context as well... and I don't see much difference between the two.

We can't be TOO historical, though... obviously, the Trek dreadnought is not equipped with all of it's cannon at the same barrel size, right?

Don't know I'm rethinking the historical context since her registration number appears to be later than "The Great Experiment" known as Excelsior.

- Either Excelsior was in construction for a long time before Entente or
- The Dreadnought class / type that Entente belongs to was around way before Excelsior and Entente happens to be a new build or
- that Dreadnought class / type is very recent.

All we REALLY know is that it has to be a ship capable of engaging and/or escaping any expected enemy... that it has "nothing to fear."

I suppose that would go to "type" instead of "class" ship. A "Scout" type ship would be expected to go scouting and a "Dreadnought" type ship would be expected to engage in combat.

I do think that Starfleet probably has a few "battleships," usually kept in mothballs. Or, perhaps, they have plans to convert some ships into "Battleship" status which currently serve in some other role, should major conflict arise?

For example, in the 24th century, it seems plausible that Galaxy Class "Explorers" would be able to be retrofitted into "Battleships" in a relatively short order, doesn't it? Remember, their interiors are almost entirely modular, and they have a variety of "strap-on" points. The "All Good Things" version might well be considered a battleship... and it might even be considered that subclass, a "Dreadnought," though I don't say that based upon the number of nacelles, but rather upon the evident capabilities.

Agreed for TNG-era although in the TOS-era I'd argue that warships were also an active part of Starfleet due in part of the constant hostilities with the Klingons and any other aliens that the Feds were twitchy with.

The real issue, as I see it, is why have a "subcategory" of battleships?

Do we know that it is a subcategory or "Dreadnought" is Starfleet's way of saying "Battleship" in TOS-era?

And thanks for the links to other variations and your ship build-up

FWIW, I don't have a problem with the 3 nacelle FJ Dreadnought. I just think it'd make some sense if it was the ship that the rest of Starfleet patterned from

I'm not quite getting what you mean there... could you rephrase that?

There were some posts immediately before my reply disparaging FJ's 3 nacelle Dreadnought. I was stating that I didn't have a problem with it but was thinking at the time that if the ship set some kind of standard for being "kick-ass" that we should see some more ships patterned from it. After all, HMS Dreadnought isn't know that much for the combat she participated in but the innovation in gun layout and propulsion, IMHO.

Then again, perhaps the 3 nacelle Dreadnought types of early TMP-era started a short-lived wave of more than 2 nacelle ships culminating with the 4 nacelle Constellation-class? But in the end, the 2 nacelle Excelsior-types proved to be more effective in the long run in the TNG-continuity?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Names are easy to come by and Starfleet is musing some 70,000 ships.

That assumes that every ship that Starfleet ever launched is still flying (which he know is not the case) and that the registries started with NCC-01 and proceeded with no significant gaps, which is far from proven.

A more realistic number would put the total fleet at between five hundred to a thousand ships, from runabouts all the way up to Galaxy and Sovereign class ships.

 

[Starlock]

And, as always, same name and a partial registry does not necessarily equal the same ship in FJ's tech manual.


I'm thinking something more akin to a Star Trek version of a certain Space Cruiser Yamato...

I completely and utterly - but respectfully- absolutely disagree.



This IS the "Dreadnought Entente N C C 2 1 0 0" from the technical manual - I remember hearing it way-way back in 1979 in the theaters, I heard it on the VHS tape and I know I STILL hear it on the DVD's.


Listen real close to the woman's voice in the video clip - the "missing" "Zero - Zero" can be heard just before she hails Epsilon 9 again.

Well, if that's what you heard, then she's wrong about the reg...the Entente's registry is 2120, not 2100.

No - This means I have to go murder someone who misread my handwriting. You're damn right it is 2-1-2-0.

If there is a news report tonight about an enraged Trekker who LARP'D the Defenestration of Prague on a co-worker...