Fighting a Borg Cube...

[AlboOfBorg]

I'm a little confused about the Starfleet vs. single Borg cube fights. Why do the ships seem to "fly around" a lot when they fire? After all, if the Borg ship is so decentralized, why don't all the ships in combat line up and just fire at will from a stationary position, like one big wall?

Also, why haven't we seen the main deflector dish used as an offensive weapon more often by fleet ships? If the main deflector dish can modulate frequencies like phasers, why can't it be used just as well as phasers? After all, phasers still kill Borg, even though the Borg gained all of Picard's knowledge in BOBW...

 

[Holdfast]

If they stood still, my guess is that Borg cutting beam would make short work of them.

Didn't the deflector dish burn out when they tried to channel enough power through it to use it as an offensive weapon?

 

[Deks]

Using the deflector beam to damage or destroy the cube is problematic as it's time consuming.
Of course by the time of FC, SF could have found a way to shorten the time needed to perform the procedure.

In any case, for SF ships to be stationary would practically be suicide ...
It's very likely that when they move, it's harder to acquire a lock ... plus SF ships could disrupt targeting sensors using various methods.
The cutting beam would mostly be effective on a stationary target and not exactly on a moving one.

It's easier for SF to just keep moving but concentrate their firepower on a single location.

Of course the fleet could be battling the Borg as a distraction leaving one or two larger ships use their deflectors to generate the beams that would destroy the cube.
But we know the drama factor plays a significant role here, so the writers would never do it with a 'quick fix'.

 

[Cyke101]

I'm going to have to agree with the above posts. I'd like to add in that a big, hulking ship like the E-D isn't very maneuverable, relatively speaking, and she got one hell of a pounding in almost every encounter with a Borg ship.

...granted, every ship's been pounded even when they were flying by like fighter jets, but the E-D pretty much showed that being stationary was near-suicidal, too. Really, only the E-D's durability ever saved her.

 

[Hermiod]

If they stood still, my guess is that Borg cutting beam would make short work of them.

Didn't the deflector dish burn out when they tried to channel enough power through it to use it as an offensive weapon?

Yes it did, that tactic is useless now because Picard/Locutus knew it was coming.

The First Contact approach - hitting it with weapons fire from lots of ships at a specific target as directed by Picard, all presumably set to different frequencies, worked.

The Enterprise-D did, sadly, have a Borg cube on the ropes, so to speak, in "Q Who ?". If they had continued firing, instead of being all Starfleet about it, the Borg ship might not have survived. Instead they allowed the Borg time to adapt and render their weapons useless.

 

[Bosch571]

If they stood still, my guess is that Borg cutting beam would make short work of them.

Didn't the deflector dish burn out when they tried to channel enough power through it to use it as an offensive weapon?

Yes it did, that tactic is useless now because Picard/Locutus knew it was coming.

The First Contact approach - hitting it with weapons fire from lots of ships at a specific target as directed by Picard, all presumably set to different frequencies, worked.

The Enterprise-D did, sadly, have a Borg cube on the ropes, so to speak, in "Q Who ?". If they had continued firing, instead of being all Starfleet about it, the Borg ship might not have survived. Instead they allowed the Borg time to adapt and render their weapons useless.

Yea but to be honest, no ship they knew of could sustain 20% damage and continue to be a fighting force. The battle was over and a single borg cube didn’t seem to be that much of a thread to the Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure if maneuvering as such helps stop the Borg from locking onto a target, as targeting systems in all of Trek are virtually omnipotent and foolproof. It does give the Borg a constantly changing battlefield, though, and Starfleet would certainly like to keep the Borg as confused as possible. Since starships are built to move, why not move them?

At the very least, ships that have performed an assault at close range (to minimize reaction time, to maximize beam weapon intensity, or for some other futuristic tactical reason) can retreat to a greater distance to lick their wounds while unharmed vessels or vessels already recovered from their most recent damage can take their place at keeping the Borg busy.

Using deflector weapons sounds like a good idea overall, but it may be that it's much more difficult to retune a deflector "on the run" than it is to retune a phaser. And we have seen that a single-frequency deflector beam is impotent regardless of the frequency chosen; no matter how powerful, it is still easily defeated by the Borg. Then again, I'd like to see how the Borg would cope with ten differently tuned deflector beams aimed at the same spot... I hope a deflector beam isn't categorically impotent against Borg shields now. (It shouldn't be, not when the supposedly weaker phasers still remain practical weapons against Cubes.)

FWIW, one of the ships kitbashed for DS9 was a clever if ugly combination of the forward hull of Voyager and the aft section of a F-14 fighter, with the two jet engine nozzles facing forward and looking exactly like navigational deflector arrays. It would be fun if this were a special anti-Borg ship type, designed to fire at the Borg with one deflector while retuning the other...

The First Contact approach - hitting it with weapons fire from lots of ships at a specific target as directed by Picard, all presumably set to different frequencies, worked.

Here, timing was probably as important as the massed use of firepower. Picard told the fleet to wait for his command (and we saw that at least two starships got destroyed while waiting) before firing at the supposedly unimportant spot; apparently, he had inside information that some key function would be rerouted to that spot at a specific moment. Without Picard, the attack would probably have failed despite the concentration of fire and the application of multiple frequencies and weapon types.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hermiod]

^Picard did indeed know where to hit the Cube. Data's comment that it appeared to be a non-criticial system suggests that nobody else would have thought of firing on it.

 

[Michael]

Why do the ships seem to "fly around" a lot when they fire?

Because it looks better on-screen.

 

[Cyke101]

^Picard did indeed know where to hit the Cube. Data's comment that it appeared to be a non-criticial system suggests that nobody else would have thought of firing on it.

I'm pretty sure that's what Timo meant, hence his use of the term "supposedly unimportant."

 

[The Great One]

Always harder to hit a moving target.

 

[Cyke101]

Always harder to hit a moving target.

I'd posit that the Borg Cube was missing a few ships with its tractor beam in Wolf 359, too, given that we see ships there buzzing about like fighters. At least based on "Emissary,' where it fired volley after volley of tractor beams.

Granted, the evidence is shaky, as the Cube could easily be hitting ships that are out of the screen. But the Cube fires its beams so fast, only keep sustaining shots when it actually hits a vessel.

 

[mr.peany]

*sigh* If only Voyager was around during the TNG era. They never had any issues destroying those pesky Borg cubes.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

*sigh* If only Voyager was around during the TNG era. They never had any issues destroying those pesky Borg cubes.

You could argue that when the Intrepid class was designed it was after a huge chunk of the fleet was destroyed at W359 and they made substantial defensive improvements.

 

[Timo]

I'm pretty sure that's what Timo meant, hence his use of the term "supposedly unimportant."

Actually, I rather think that the system that Picard targeted really was unimportant. That is, it was unimportant when Data scanned it. But Picard, hooked on to the Colletive by his remaining Locutus implants, knew that in a few moments, the constantly changing Borg internal architecture would make that spot crucial.

That's why he waited those crucial few seconds before giving the firing order. If the timing weren't crucial, it would have been rather stupid of him to wait and let a few more starships die.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cyke101]

I'm pretty sure that's what Timo meant, hence his use of the term "supposedly unimportant."

Actually, I rather think that the system that Picard targeted really was unimportant. That is, it was unimportant when Data scanned it. But Picard, hooked on to the Colletive by his remaining Locutus implants, knew that in a few moments, the constantly changing Borg internal architecture would make that spot crucial.

That's why he waited those crucial few seconds before giving the firing order. If the timing weren't crucial, it would have been rather stupid of him to wait and let a few more starships die.

Timo Saloniemi

Perhaps replace "supposedly" with "momentarily," then?

 

[Brandonv]

On the subject of fighting a Borg cube, there is something I have wondered about before. Why not set up a ship to be piloted by remote control, evacuate the ship's crew, and then fly the ship into the cube at warp speed?

 

[S'kai]

On the subject of fighting a Borg cube, there is something I have wondered about before. Why not set up a ship to be piloted by remote control, evacuate the ship's crew, and then fly the ship into the cube at warp speed?

The Decker maneuver. Minus the Decker.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

You'd only get away with that once woudl]t you?
They'd "adapt" or blow it up before it hit them

 

[Lindley]

It isn't possible to adapt to kinetic energy.