Galaxy class a failure?

[Star Wolf]

The power of the Federation is not measured in phaser banks and torpedo tubes. Worf made that mistake when describing Enterprise to the first Klingons he came across.

That depends on the kind of power you're referring to.
Military power is measured in "phaser banks and torpedo tubes" and a few other things.

Plus - I never said the Federation is militarily weak. I only said that the galaxy class is a military embarassment.

While on a rscue mission it was still a modified first contact situation. The Federation's first impulse is not to show shield strength and phaser emitters.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Yes. It was a ship designed for a perceived semi-safe golden age that was never quite reality. It ended up too bulky with too many weaknesses.

I agree. An in-universe rationalization would be that the galaxy class was designed for exploration; its robustness, maneuverability - military capabilities, in general - were neglected.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

While on a rscue mission it was still a modified first contact situation. The Federation's first impulse is not to show shield strength and phaser emitters.

As an exploration ship, the Galaxy class was a success - the Enterprise's accomplishments are proof.
From a military POV, the galaxy was an embarassment. The warp core was vulnerable, the nacelles were vulnerable, the power system was vulnerable, etc

In DS9:Way of the warrior 2, The Defiant (without shields) withstands fire from a kingon ship (considerably larger than a BOP) for minutes, and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

In VOY:Equinox 2, Voyager survives fire from the Equinox (whose crew knew voyager's shield frequencies) for minutes and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

In Generations, Enterprise is destroyed by an ancient BOP (who knew its shield frequencies only at the beginning of the battle) in minutes. Pathetic.
In TNG:Cause and Effect, an old federation ship strifes enterprise's nacelle. Enterprise blows up less than a minute later.
In DS9:The Jem'hadar, both the Federation and the Dominion wanted to prove its strength to the other party. The feds decide to send a galaxy class - with predictable results: an embarassment for the federation.
In DS9:The Search, The Defiant did much better than the odyssey.

And then there are, of course, the numerous episodes where enterprise's power grid or warp core seem to want desperately to fail, and do so as often as possible.

That depends on the kind of power you're referring to.
Military power is measured in "phaser banks and torpedo tubes" and a few other things.

Plus - I never said the Federation is militarily weak. I only said that the galaxy class is a military embarassment.

Now - can you point out a substantial connection between my posts and the Federation policy during DS9:The jem'hadar?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

The first encounter with the Jem'hadar wasn't any more pathetic than the first encounter with the Borg. This could have something to do with the fact that their weapons were able to penetrate Federation shields on initial encounters. AND they rammed the thing. If they sent a pair of Sovereign-class ships, they wouldn't have faired better.

The Federation was at a technoligcal disadvantage. Trust me, if the Odyssey was a Sovereign, people would be all like "OMG THA SOVVY IS WEAKSAUCE LULZ"

 

[miraclefan]

Yes. It was a ship designed for a perceived semi-safe golden age that was never quite reality. It ended up too bulky with too many weaknesses.

Agreed.

 

[Arpy]

While on a rscue mission it was still a modified first contact situation. The Federation's first impulse is not to show shield strength and phaser emitters.

As an exploration ship, the Galaxy class was a success - the Enterprise's accomplishments are proof.
From a military POV, the galaxy was an embarassment. The warp core was vulnerable, the nacelles were vulnerable, the power system was vulnerable, etc

In DS9:Way of the warrior 2, The Defiant (without shields) withstands fire from a kingon ship (considerably larger than a BOP) for minutes, and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

In VOY:Equinox 2, Voyager survives fire from the Equinox (whose crew knew voyager's shield frequencies) for minutes and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

In Generations, Enterprise is destroyed by an ancient BOP (who knew its shield frequencies only at the beginning of the battle) in minutes. Pathetic.
In TNG:Cause and Effect, an old federation ship strifes enterprise's nacelle. Enterprise blows up less than a minute later.
In DS9:The Jem'hadar, both the Federation and the Dominion wanted to prove its strength to the other party. The feds decide to send a galaxy class - with predictable results: an embarassment for the federation.
In DS9:The Search, The Defiant did much better than the odyssey.

And then there are, of course, the numerous episodes where enterprise's power grid or warp core seem to want desperately to fail, and do so as often as possible.

That depends on the kind of power you're referring to.
Military power is measured in "phaser banks and torpedo tubes" and a few other things.

Plus - I never said the Federation is militarily weak. I only said that the galaxy class is a military embarassment.

Now - can you point out a substantial connection between my posts and the Federation policy during DS9:The jem'hadar?

Trying to dis or give props to these ships based on FX shots is pointless. A Sovereign could be blown up after beeing spat on by a tribble in a really bad episode of DS9; would we be analysing the contituents of tribble saliva here or would we say it was just a really bad episode? Oh wait, that would never have happened: no Sovereigns were permitted on DS9 for the same reason no Contitutions were on TNG. There's that pesky real world again.

The Galaxy Class was the Federation's flagship. It continued to be after the Yamato was lost. It continued to be after the Romulans showed up again sporting their massive D'Deredix warbirds, and the Klingons introduced a new nasty flagship of their own. It continued to be after the Federation discovered the Borg and the Dominion. It would have continued to be after the Odyssey and Enterprise were lost but for one factor: a new movie demanded a new class of Enterprise. In the real world, they may of just done what happened in ST:IV after the original Enterprise was lost in ST:III: they would have introduced another Galaxy Class starship. One with all the upgrades Starfleet came up with in the last decade or more since the Galaxy Class's introduction, but a Galaxy Class all the same.

The Galaxy Class was not lacking in defensive capabilities, not did it come out of a more naive time in galactic history. It likely remains the second most militarily formidable starship in the Federation and a top eschelon battleship among similar superpowers.

Christ, man, the ship's massive - look at it: they could slap on, what, 3, 4 more nacelles, removed the mission-specific labs and fill it with 50,000 transphasic torpedoes shooting out of 100 tubes and 50+ phaser stips. Or pack in 50,000 troops - enough to occupy a planet going by Battle of Betazed.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The first encounter with the Jem'hadar wasn't any more pathetic than the first encounter with the Borg. This could have something to do with the fact that their weapons were able to penetrate Federation shields on initial encounters. AND they rammed the thing. If they sent a pair of Sovereign-class ships, they wouldn't have faired better.

The Federation was at a technoligcal disadvantage. Trust me, if the Odyssey was a Sovereign, people would be all like "OMG THA SOVVY IS WEAKSAUCE LULZ"

If the federation would have sent the Defiant, the battle would have progressed quite differently - as in, it would't have shamed the Federation.

In DS9:The die is cast, The Dominion still had its technological advantage. Defiant destroyed 5 dominion ships! In DS9:Starship down it took care of 2 bugs! And the list could go on.

About the sovereign - it didn't exist at the time of DS9:The Jem'hadar.

 

[Xerxes1979]

No the Galaxy is not a failure, it a a beautiful and powerful ship.

The Borg having assimilated Federation tech, declare the Enterprise to be the defacto most powerful single vessel in BOBW.

What is the criteria of failure? I have seen many an Excelsior, Miranda, Oberth, Nebula, Shelly pumelled and or destroyed on screen. Even the original Constitution class has a massive death count associated with it.

What is better than the Galaxy? We know almost nothing about the Akira the only true contender. The Saber, Norway, Nova and Intreprid are too small to be equal challangers in a fight to the death.

There are a large number of Sovereign fanboys on these boards, I would pay big money to see the onscreen destruction of one. Getting less than 10 years out of the flagship is an insult. The Constitution, Excelsior and Ambassador classes had decades of best in class before passing the torch.

I just can't believe a new super warship was designed from scratch, tested and launched in under six years following the events of Wolf 359. If such rapid design and construction is possible the fleet should be nothing but Sovereigns.


If Galaxies suck then so must Nebulas.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Trying to dis or give props to these ships based on FX shots is pointless. A Sovereign could be blown up after beeing spat on by a tribble in a really bad episode of DS9; would we be analysing the contituents of tribble saliva here or would we say it was just a really bad episode? Oh wait, that would never have happened: no Sovereigns were permitted on DS9 for the same reason no Contitutions were on TNG. There's that pesky real world again.

The Galaxy Class was the Federation's flagship. It continued to be after the Yamato was lost. It continued to be after the Romulans showed up again sporting their massive D'Deredix warbirds, and the Klingons introduced a new nasty flagship of their own. It continued to be after the Federation discovered the Borg and the Dominion. It would have continued to be after the Odyssey and Enterprise were lost but for one factor: a new movie demanded a new class of Enterprise. In the real world, they may of just done what happened in ST:IV after the original Enterprise was lost in ST:III: they would have introduced another Galaxy Class starship. One with all the upgrades Starfleet came up with in the last decade or more since the Galaxy Class's introduction, but a Galaxy Class all the same.

The Galaxy Class was not lacking in defensive capabilities, not did it come out of a more naive time in galactic history. It likely remains the second most militarily formidable starship in the Federation and a top eschelon battleship among similar superpowers.

Christ, man, the ship's massive - look at it: they could slap on, what, 3, 4 more nacelles, removed the mission-specific labs and fill it with 50,000 transphasic torpedoes shooting out of 100 tubes and 50+ phaser stips. Or pack in 50,000 troops - enough to occupy a planet going by Battle of Betazed.

But the Sovereign was never blown up by a tribble.
And the galaxy was never upgraded with a gazilion nacelles and transphasic torpedos. On the contrary, the galaxy was consistently shown as malfunctioning if one looked at it the wrong way!

And Starfleet's admirals are among the naivest people ever depicted on television - one example (among many) being in DS9:The search, where it's established that they discontinued the defiant project because "the borg threat became less urgent" - that, after TNG:Best of both worls!
Again, it's consistent that this naive bunch would continue to use a militarily incompetent ship as a flagship.

And in the real world, the producers made a show where the galaxy class is depicted as being a death trap in war.

 

[Praetor]

Everyone seems to forget the power of the pen. If a ship is to be destroyed, then it will be destroyed. If U.S.S. Fanwank had twenty billion strength shields and uber-photon torpedo launchers and nitro-phasers but TPTB wanted it to bite a bullet, it would bite the bullet, probably in a technobabbly way.

"Generations" is the exception, not the rule.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

"Generations" is the exception, not the rule.

The problem with the galaxy class is that "Generations" is depicted as the rule rather than the exeption:

As an exploration ship, the Galaxy class was a success - the Enterprise's accomplishments are proof.
From a military POV, the galaxy was an embarassment. The warp core was vulnerable, the nacelles were vulnerable, the power system was vulnerable, etc

In DS9:Way of the warrior 2, The Defiant (without shields) withstands fire from a kingon ship (considerably larger than a BOP) for minutes, and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

In VOY:Equinox 2, Voyager survives fire from the Equinox (whose crew knew voyager's shield frequencies) for minutes and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

In Generations, Enterprise is destroyed by an ancient BOP (who knew its shield frequencies only at the beginning of the battle) in minutes. Pathetic.
In TNG:Cause and Effect, an old federation ship strifes enterprise's nacelle. Enterprise blows up less than a minute later.
In DS9:The Jem'hadar, both the Federation and the Dominion wanted to prove its strength to the other party. The feds decide to send a galaxy class - with predictable results: an embarassment for the federation.
In DS9:The Search, The Defiant did much better than the odyssey.

And then there are, of course, the numerous episodes where enterprise's power grid or warp core seem to want desperately to fail, and do so as often as possible.

And these are not the only situations that show a galaxy with severe flaws.

Another example: in TNG:Rascals, the enterprise is overwhelmed (not "even" destroyed, but captured!) by two obsolete BOPs, manned by retard ferengi!


The galaxy class is a fictional construct. It is what it is shown to be in canon. If it is consistently shown to be a death trap, then it is a death trap!

 

[RAMA]

In a space of 6 years Starfleet witnessed 3 leading ships of the fleet (Including the flagship) lost. The destruction of the Yamato(2365) & Odyssey(2370) was catastrophic. Starfleet's great humiliation was the destruction of the Enterprise(2371) when an obsolete BoP mortally wounded it. Fortunately the saucer section survived intact.

so was the galaxy class a failure?

Considering we saw about 25 of them in DS9 I'd say no.

RAMA

 

[Captain Fine]

In Sacrifice of Angels, it's hard to see, but you can see what looks like a Galaxy class ship destroying the large Dominion Battlecruiser at point blank range.

In another episode, W.Y.L.B. , it looks like one destroyed another Battlecruiser and a small bug.

They also seemd to tough it out during the Chintoka invasion. They seem like powerful tough ships.

I used to ignore Galaxies at first, but during the Dominion war, I was impressed by what I saw, and began cheering for them again.

I have to agree with you here. The Dominion War renewed my faith in the Galaxy-class, especially after the Generations debacle.

I was so happy to see them kicking ass. The Mirandas and Excelsiors were getting destroyed left and right, but we never saw a Galaxy bite the dust. As Riker would say "tough big ship" LOL.

Whenever we saw the Galaxy-class Enterprise fight, it was always very slow to respond. In the DS9 battles, ships fought a lot faster. No more of that plodding "you fire I fire" exchanges. And the Galaxys fared well. And that's CANON! It was on-screen

 

[Plecostomus]

Ok a real life example: The Thresher was lost during peacetime due to massive flooding and loss of power/control during dive tests. Directly after the Navy instituted SUBSAFE, a program to address some of the flaws that lead to the loss of the boat with all hands.

Both the Yamato and the Oddity were lost due to "Beyond Design Basis" incidents. NOTHING could have anticipated a computer virus doing what it did, and getting nard-punched by a small ship well nothing can survive that.

Now the loss of the Enterprise D, that was because of an engineering fault. Failure in the shielding systems, inability to cycle weapons quickly enough and post-incident damage control failures.

Any units in service would have been pulled to Starbase as soon as possible and went over with a a fine tooth comb. Upgrades to the shield system, internal protection against transmitted signals, upgrades to the reactor protection system, tactical upgrades... and most importantly training to use the new systems to full effect. Debriefing of the Enterprise crew-members and analysis of the logs over the lifetime of the spaceframe would lead to procedure changes and process improvements.

And most importantly all new builds get this treatment while in dock.

The big payoff comes in battle, when they remove the peacetime interlocks from the weapons and charge into battle. Rapid fire at full power, and post engagment damage control enable most ships in the class to survive the war.

Caution: The above musings are strictly NON CANON and exist as a product of my imagination, your reality may differ.

 

[cybersoldier]

In a space of 6 years Starfleet witnessed 3 leading ships of the fleet (Including the flagship) lost. The destruction of the Yamato(2365) & Odyssey(2370) was catastrophic. Starfleet's great humiliation was the destruction of the Enterprise(2371) when an obsolete BoP mortally wounded it. Fortunately the saucer section survived intact.

so was the galaxy class a failure?

Disagree if you look at each situation
Yamato- alien programing killed the ship, Captain never thought it was the probe, he thought it was the ship's design

Odyessey- Dominion attack and before improved sheild to withstand their weapons, and doesn't help you move all power from the shield to the weapons.

Enterprise- bop uses LaForge Visor is contiune to break through the sheilds. Even if they rotated the sheild the connection to laforge's visor was intact.

If the galaxy class starship was a failure they wouldn't have build them during the dominion war, and they were able to take hits and last a good chuck of the war.

 

[Vanyel]

As an exploration ship, the Galaxy class was a success - the Enterprise's accomplishments are proof.
From a military POV, the galaxy was an embarassment. The warp core was vulnerable, the nacelles were vulnerable, the power system was vulnerable, etc

In DS9:Way of the warrior 2, The Defiant (without shields) withstands fire from a kingon ship (considerably larger than a BOP) for minutes, and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

The Defiant also used it's tractor beam to deflect the incoming fire from the Klingon Vor'cha class battle cruiser. The Defiant then relied heavily on its thicker armor to wistand the hits that came through. Sisko had wanted the Cardassians to follow him and warp out, but the Cardassian ship was a wreck. He took a chance. He was lucky.

In VOY:Equinox 2, Voyager survives fire from the Equinox (whose crew knew voyager's shield frequencies) for minutes and is in pretty good shape afterwards.

Equinox was heavily damaged herself, by both Voyager and the aliens. With 4 torpedo hits Voyager lost, weapons and impulse drive and had hull breaches on deck 4. Link. A pretty good showing, against a science vessel. Equinox fired 4 torpedoes. 1701D was hit by much more. Older vessel or not, it was hit much more and had little room to maneuver.

In Generations, Enterprise is destroyed by an ancient BOP (who knew its shield frequencies only at the beginning of the battle) in minutes. Pathetic.

Most likely, the Duras Sisters knew the shield frequency throughout the battle. I gave my reasoning earlier in this and another thread.

In TNG:Cause and Effect, an old federation ship strifes enterprise's nacelle. Enterprise blows up less than a minute later.

The 1701D also had lost lost main power BEFORE her nacelle was hit. Without that she was a sitting duck, unable to really do much.

In DS9:The Jem'hadar, both the Federation and the Dominion wanted to prove its strength to the other party. The feds decide to send a galaxy class - with predictable results: an embarassment for the federation.

Federation shielding was useless against Dominion weapons. Keogh made what, at the time, seemed to be the right call. He dropped shields and put that power to weapons. The Odyssey lost her targeting systems and power to weapons and her port nacelle was venting plasma. The Jem'Hadar ram the Odyssey right in her engineering section. Could any ship survive all of that? Until she was rammed, she was holding together.

In DS9:The Search, The Defiant did much better than the odyssey.

The Jem'Hadar weren't out to destroy the Defiant, but to capture it and its crew. There is no reason to believe the Defiant would have survived had the Jem'Hadar been ordered to destroy it.

And then there are, of course, the numerous episodes where enterprise's power grid or warp core seem to want desperately to fail, and do so as often as possible.

The Naked Now - The crew disabled the 1701D
The Last Outpost - Superior technology disabled the 1701D
Home Soil - The silicon life forms were able to take control of a limited portion of the ship and computer.
Elementary, Dear Data - Moriarty was the ships computer.
Contagion - Alien "Virus" much more advanced than the 1701D computer caused the problems.
Evolution - Nanities infest the 1701D
Booby Trap - The name says it all.
Yesterday's Enterprise - 1701D overpowered with little room to maneuver.
Tin Man - Alien creature disables the 1701D and destroys a Romulan Warbird.
Hollow Pursuits - Nearly ship wide contamination caused the problems.
Galaxy's Child - Alien creature "feeds" off the 1701D
Night Terrors - Power loss caused by the rift.
Disaster - 1701D collides with quantum filaments, computer was not completely functioning.
Cause and Effect - explained above.
Timescape - the Aliens sent a feedback loop that overloaded the warp core, only the time bubble saved the 1701D
All Good Things... - The anti-time distortion caused 2 of the 3 1701D's to blow up.

I think those are all the times the 1701D lost power or her warp core was ready to blow. That's less than 10% of the episodes.

 

[hyzmarca]

I thought the idea of Galaxy class was with having whole families aboard and that concept was abandoned when space just got too dangerous, especially after the introduction of the Borg. The class itself was fine, but the practicality was, if you have no families, then you don't need as much space.

The issue wasn't that space was inheriently dangerous so much as that the mission profile of the Galaxy class (exploration, first contact, combat, and studying dangerous phenomenon) was inherently dangerous. Having families on a purely diplomatic vessel would be a reasonable demonstration of Federation philosophy. Having families on a vessel that is intended to enter into unknown and dangerous situations is just insane.

And the time required to split up the bridge crew, get the primary command staff to the battle bridge, and separate the saucer section, combined with the saucer's lack of independent warp capability, rendered that feature substantially less useful than it was intended to be.

The Yamato was destroyed by technology so far advanced that it made starships comparable to sticks and stones in their effectiveness against it. The Enterprise-J would have fared no better.

If your starship is vulnerable to destruction by a computer virus, then it was designed by an idiot. The problem is the Federation's obsession with centralized computer integration. Any sane ship designer would have made designed the critical safety systems to function totally offline, without interfacing with anything else on the ship. Physically isolating critical systems and networks is the gold standard in security. No matter how advanced a virus is, it can't infect your computer if your computer isn't pluged into anything else.

The Galaxy Class is a testimate to the fact that no designer can anticipate every eventuality, just as vehicles sent to Iraq weren't designed to survive large and powerful IEDs because no one considered that they would be a threat until reality proved that they were.

In DS9:The die is cast, The Dominion still had its technological advantage. Defiant destroyed 5 dominion ships! In DS9:Starship down it took care of 2 bugs! And the list could go on.

The fate of the Oddsey was not due to any technological advantage held by the Dominion, but by a doctrinal advantage. The Federation, at the time, was still highly pacifistic, unable and unwilling to prosecute battles to their logical conclusion, always willing to offer a chance to surrender or escape. This was a mistake, a rather horrific one. Sisko and Worf weren't hampered so much by the doctrine of the time. Like the Jem'Hadar, they fought to win using tactics and strategies that were brutally efficient and effective. The fact that they didn't even consider the possibility that the Jem'Hadar would go all out to destroy a retreating ship before it could escape until it had happened demonstrated that the cultural revolution brought about by first contact with the Vulcans and the subsequent creation of the Federation has taken something very important away from humanity, and from the Federation in general, ruthless efficiency (one of the many weapons of the Spanish Inquisition). It took the Dominion to restore it.

The Enterprise was destroyed, again, by a design anticipation failure, in this case a failure to anticipate the need for Electronic Warfare capibilities, a failure which is also connected to the Federation's general doctrinal failure. An EW equipped Enterprise, acting intelligently, would have filled subspace with so much static that modifications the sisters made to Geordie would have been useless to them. The inability for the Feneration ships to employ full-spectrum communications jamming in combat is one of their more major defects, though this is a defect that effects other intersteller militaries, as well, and can be chocked up to ignorance on the part of the writers.

Later perfeormance of the Galaxy Class in the Dominion War demonstrates the return of ruthless efficiency has greatly benefited the big ships.

 

[Nightdiamond]

I have to agree with you here. The Dominion War renewed my faith in the Galaxy-class, especially after the Generations debacle.

I was so happy to see them kicking ass. The Mirandas and Excelsiors were getting destroyed left and right, but we never saw a Galaxy bite the dust. As Riker would say "tough big ship" LOL.

Whenever we saw the Galaxy-class Enterprise fight, it was always very slow to respond. In the DS9 battles, ships fought a lot faster. No more of that plodding "you fire I fire" exchanges. And the Galaxys fared well. And that's CANON! It was on-screen

I agree with RegentWolf, in T.N.G, ship battles were slow and plodding, with each ship taking seconds to turn and trade fire. You would also just see the phaser hit the shields and little else, except for the interior damage.

It was like "Yesterday's Enterprise" which, in a way, was T.N.G's Sacrifice of Angels.

In DS9, they changed it so when a phaser hit the shields, you see the fire hit the ship, though the shields absorb the damage. The action is more rapid with quick turn and flips.

And they also scaled down some ships; before in T.N.G, almost every ship was the same size as the Enterprise. Later they got smaller, fighter size which made it more interesting.

And it made the Galaxy class ships look like what the series designed them to be; larger, explorer/battleship starships.

After seeing those two Galaxy class ships make short work of the Galor class ships (the double phasers were classic) I actually found myself ignoring the Defiant class for a bit.

 

[Captain Fine]

I have to agree with you here. The Dominion War renewed my faith in the Galaxy-class, especially after the Generations debacle.

I was so happy to see them kicking ass. The Mirandas and Excelsiors were getting destroyed left and right, but we never saw a Galaxy bite the dust. As Riker would say "tough big ship" LOL.

Whenever we saw the Galaxy-class Enterprise fight, it was always very slow to respond. In the DS9 battles, ships fought a lot faster. No more of that plodding "you fire I fire" exchanges. And the Galaxys fared well. And that's CANON! It was on-screen

I agree with RegentWolf, in T.N.G, ship battles were slow and plodding, with each ship taking seconds to turn and trade fire. You would also just see the phaser hit the shields and little else, except for the interior damage.

It was like "Yesterday's Enterprise" which, in a way, was T.N.G's Sacrifice of Angels.

In DS9, they changed it so when a phaser hit the shields, you see the fire hit the ship, though the shields absorb the damage. The action is more rapid with quick turn and flips.

And they also scaled down some ships; before in T.N.G, almost every ship was the same size as the Enterprise. Later they got smaller, fighter size which made it more interesting.

And it made the Galaxy class ships look like what the series designed them to be; larger, explorer/battleship starships.

After seeing those two Galaxy class ships make short work of the Galor class ships (the double phasers were classic) I actually found myself ignoring the Defiant class for a bit.

Oh yeah good point about the phasers actually hitting ships instead of bubbly shields. And also the Galaxy did finally look big again. It was awesome seeing those Galaxys. I'm really tempted to go and watch those glorious DS9 battles again .

I do think the Galaxy-class performance improvements had to do with the change in the mindset of her captains. I.e. simple self-preservation. If those Galaxy-class starship captains didn't use all their weapons and FIGHT, they'd be toast like the Odyssey was (and you know the Jem'Hadar would have no problem smashing into your ship given the chance. I'm partial to thinking they tried, but the Galaxy boys and girls had their phasers trained on anyone trying to get too close.

 

[Praetor]

It is interesting to consider how much the changes in the capabilities of special effects might represent in-universe changes in doctrine and tactics.

Imagine how "Yesterday's Enterprise" would look with modern effects...