Galaxy class armament
- Thread starter cwl
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The intrepid class vessel is a science vessel. I doubt it has as many torpedos in stock. And bear in mind that the Galaxy class is meant as a ship of exploration, not battle. The Akira and Defiant classes are designed for battle, so it makes sense that they would be more heavily armed.
antiquityscion
Commander
Maybe your peace-time, standard exploration Galaxy class.
Galaxy ships may not have been as maneuverable, but they had a lot more real estate to mount additional weapons. It would make sense that many of the Galaxy class ships were retro-fitted with more torpedo bays and phaser arrays during the Dominion war.
Galaxy ships may not have been as maneuverable, but they had a lot more real estate to mount additional weapons. It would make sense that many of the Galaxy class ships were retro-fitted with more torpedo bays and phaser arrays during the Dominion war.
According to the TNG Tech manual, the Galaxy class was launched with Type X phaser arrays and photon torpedoes, both of which were supposedly the most advanced weapons platforms available on a Starship at the time. The Borg incursions and the Dominion war obviously changed the game. I would imagine that current Galaxy class ships are likely to have the same Type XII phasers and quantum torpedo technology as the Sovereign class does. That's conjecture, but it makes sense given what we know about Starfleet's starship upgrading practices. It's also what the books and more recent games allude to.
edit: was digging around and writing this response at the same time antiquityscion was.
edit: was digging around and writing this response at the same time antiquityscion was.
Well in the case of the Defiant Class, isn't that over-powered and over armed for a ship of that size?
The Galaxy Class is well enough armed to fight her contemparies, such as the Cardassian Galor Class, the Romulan D'Deridax, and no doubt the Klingon Vorcha Class.
The Akira and Defiant Class esp the Defiant Class were designed with one thing in mind to fight the Borg. As for the Intrepid Class. It's a slightly newer class of ship than the Galaxy, so it might have the second or third generation of some equipment. It also has a smaller profile that the Galaxy class which can help in combat.
But in generaly when we say them engage in combat with whatever Alien race, they used Plot Shields and Plot Arnamnet Power. Or put simply it's arnaments and shields were as strong or as weak as they needed to be for that episode.
I would imagine that Starfleet would upgrade as many of its ships as possible firepower and defences in response to the Borg/Dominion threat. But all we ever saw of the Galaxy was 2 extra phasers. It may well be that the Dominion War prevented ships from getting major upgrades due to lack of resources/ time. I know that in WW2 the Royal Navy had to keep numerous ships in service that were destined for major upgrades simply because taking those ships off the frontline for extended periods of time was not an option.
I think the Galaxy-class was sufficiently armed. I could even imagine some of the more pacifistic members of the Federation Council initially arguing that the Galaxy-class was more of a battleship than an exploration vessel.
The Galaxy class was powerful enough to take on a Borg cube in one-to-one combat and come out alive. It was also weak enough to be overtaken by a group of rogue Ferengi on a couple of old, outdated Klingon Birds of Prey.
It, therefore, seems difficult to nail down what its capabilities "really" were because, as MacLeod points out, its capabilities change as dictated by the plot.
But, generally speaking, I see no evidence that it's particularly under-armed for a ship of its size and mission.
It, therefore, seems difficult to nail down what its capabilities "really" were because, as MacLeod points out, its capabilities change as dictated by the plot.
But, generally speaking, I see no evidence that it's particularly under-armed for a ship of its size and mission.
I don't understand why adding more phaser strips would increase the firepower of the vessel in any way...
After all, we have seen in several combat-centric episodes that starships armed with strip phasers do not benefit from a greater number of strips: they only ever fire one strip at a time, apparently being able to channel their total firepower through any arbitrary emitter. There's no "broadside" in Star Trek starship combat...
...Except for one instance in "Best of Both Worlds" where the ship fires three phaser beams instead of one (and two of them come from locations that don't even have phaser emitters!). But that was a special maneuver against the Borg, and possibly tailored to defeat the weird enemy with counter-weirdness.
Adding more torpedo tubes seems unproductive as well, considering how the single tube of the Galaxy is so much more capable than any two tubes of any competing ship type: we have seen longer volleys from such a single tube than from any other source, and spreads of torpedoes emerging simultaneously or near-simultaneously from the single tube.
It's like arguing that a WWII battleship must be weaker than a WWII anti-aircraft escort, because the battleship only has six or eight main guns (which just happen to be big enough to sink fellow battleships) while the escort may have two dozen (none of which alone, and not all of them together, can even make a dent in a battleship). The Galaxy simply has superior armament to start with, so it doesn't need numbers.
After all, no Federation starship apart from a Galaxy ever appeared to be capable of matching the Defiant in the most basic task in the Dominion War: that of destroying an enemy vessel. Just watch through the VFX of the battles... Other ship types merely create invisible dents, or cover the enemy ships in fireballs from which they emerge unscatched.
Timo Saloniemi
After all, we have seen in several combat-centric episodes that starships armed with strip phasers do not benefit from a greater number of strips: they only ever fire one strip at a time, apparently being able to channel their total firepower through any arbitrary emitter. There's no "broadside" in Star Trek starship combat...
...Except for one instance in "Best of Both Worlds" where the ship fires three phaser beams instead of one (and two of them come from locations that don't even have phaser emitters!). But that was a special maneuver against the Borg, and possibly tailored to defeat the weird enemy with counter-weirdness.
Adding more torpedo tubes seems unproductive as well, considering how the single tube of the Galaxy is so much more capable than any two tubes of any competing ship type: we have seen longer volleys from such a single tube than from any other source, and spreads of torpedoes emerging simultaneously or near-simultaneously from the single tube.
It's like arguing that a WWII battleship must be weaker than a WWII anti-aircraft escort, because the battleship only has six or eight main guns (which just happen to be big enough to sink fellow battleships) while the escort may have two dozen (none of which alone, and not all of them together, can even make a dent in a battleship). The Galaxy simply has superior armament to start with, so it doesn't need numbers.
After all, no Federation starship apart from a Galaxy ever appeared to be capable of matching the Defiant in the most basic task in the Dominion War: that of destroying an enemy vessel. Just watch through the VFX of the battles... Other ship types merely create invisible dents, or cover the enemy ships in fireballs from which they emerge unscatched.
Timo Saloniemi
the Defiant is a special case because in the Dominion War it was a hero ship. with regards to adding phasers at the very least it increases the field of fire. why else would it have been done on both the Galaxy and Sovereign? Also there's nothing to say starships cannot fire multiple phaser strips simultaneously just they rarely do so as power output is finite and so firing multiple strips simultaneously is inefficient. a single full power beam is preferred over two or more weakened phaser beams.
In terms of torpedo tubes the Sovereign class received several additional torpedo tubes from when we saw the Ent-E in Insurrection and Nemesis. not only did this increase the firing arc of the ship significantly it also meant the ship could deliver far more torpedoes onto target.
Both the extra phasers and torpedo tubes proved highly valuable for the Ent-E in the battle against the Scimitar.
The other benefit of extra phasers and tubes is that it adds extra redundancy
In terms of torpedo tubes the Sovereign class received several additional torpedo tubes from when we saw the Ent-E in Insurrection and Nemesis. not only did this increase the firing arc of the ship significantly it also meant the ship could deliver far more torpedoes onto target.
Both the extra phasers and torpedo tubes proved highly valuable for the Ent-E in the battle against the Scimitar.
The other benefit of extra phasers and tubes is that it adds extra redundancy
The field of fire of a Galaxy is already 100%, even without the nacelle strips. That of a Sovereign was indeed somewhat improved by the addition of pylon phasers, though.
Really, the only places most of our starships have blind spots on are teeny weeny pockets a few meters from the hull. It would be counterproductive to install phasers that can fire at those spots, because they'd then be hitting the firing ship herself!
There was no improvement in firing arcs between INS and NEM: we already saw a torpedo hit a target at the upper six in INS, completing the 100% coverage against our possible FC expectations. And even those expectations were only based on the fact that we didn't see torpedoes fired in that direction in the first movie; the launcher capable of doing so might well have existed even back then. (Actually, the twin launchers on the lower secondary hull could fire in that direction easily enough, except for the most proximal fifty or hundred meters, and you can't fire torpedoes that close anyway!)
Whether more tubes would enable more torps to be fired is again questionable, because we never see this happen: the NEM ship only ever fires torpedoes from one launcher (single or twin) at a time.
How? I didn't see them achieve any results the earlier weapons wouldn't have accomplished just as well.
True enough. But if the enemy shoots ten phaser strips and two torpedo launchers to pieces, is it realistic to assume that a Galaxy would benefit from having an eleventh strip and a third launcher? There's massive redundancy there to start with.
(Perhaps less so on an Akira, which only appears to have three strips total. But Starfleet never saw fit to give the ship type or any of its representative more of those, suggesting there was no real reason to do so.)
Timo Saloniemi
^^ Simply put: The Defiant is a ship of war. It would go against Gene Roddenberry's view of the future (or "vision" if you will) to have a ship named 'Enterprise' be a warship.
...Didn't stop him from making Kirk's Enterprise a thoroughbred warship, armed heavily enough to defeat two or three of the worst enemy's meanest ships unless said enemy also used subterfuge to improve his odds.
Also, TNG benefited greatly from Picard having a superior warship: he never acted out of a position of weakness (except with the Borg) and thus had to make difficult moral decisions (except with the Borg) instead of automatically justifying his immorality through an "underdog self-defense" argument (except with the Borg).
But the Galaxy was never modified. Seems like good proof of mods being worthless to me.
The Enterprise-E might never have been "modified", either, as much as she was "completed". Although the new, phaser-equipped engine pylons suggest that the original design was fundamentally faulty, and not just regarding the armament balance. Something must have been done wrong with engine installation originally, too, something requiring a fix. Adding the pylon phasers might have been an afterthought, a "we can, so we will" addition to the design.
Timo Saloniemi
As usual, Timo and I agree. There is no need to add extra tubes or arrays to the Galaxy-class platform.
I do believe, however, that a Galaxy-class from 2375 would be far superior tactically than one from, say, 2363. My belief is that when first designed and built, the Galaxies were intended to be more powerful than any known or foreseen competitor ship and armed accordingly. That doesn't mean they carried as much firepower as they could. Just that they carried what Starfleet deemed to be more than enough.
Post-Wolf 359, and especially after the loss of the Odyssey, I'm sure Starfleet dramatically revised (upwards) their estimate of how rough a neighbourhood the Alpha Quadrant was and decided to give its ships a heavier punch. In the case of most existing vessels, and especially recent designs like the Galaxy and Nebula, that would mean more power, not more guns. More powerful warp cores and impulse reactors, with related improvements to internal power distribution systems, would make the ships faster and provide more raw energy for the ships' existing phaser arrays or shield grids to use during battle.
As to torpedoes, no doubt more powerful warheads would be fielded as they came available, perhaps including quantum torpedoes. And certainly the number of torpedoes typically carried could be increased, perhaps dramatically. But other than the benefit of added redundancy (a non-trivial concern, I grant) it seems the best way to give a starship more torpedo strength is by giving it a larger number of better torpedoes, not another tube.
The Dominion War-era Galaxies, whether new built or refitted, could no doubt outrun, outgun and outlast the Enterprise-D as she was in TNG season one. Doesn't mean you need to add weapons, though. Just let the Galaxy get full use of what she already carried.
I do believe, however, that a Galaxy-class from 2375 would be far superior tactically than one from, say, 2363. My belief is that when first designed and built, the Galaxies were intended to be more powerful than any known or foreseen competitor ship and armed accordingly. That doesn't mean they carried as much firepower as they could. Just that they carried what Starfleet deemed to be more than enough.
Post-Wolf 359, and especially after the loss of the Odyssey, I'm sure Starfleet dramatically revised (upwards) their estimate of how rough a neighbourhood the Alpha Quadrant was and decided to give its ships a heavier punch. In the case of most existing vessels, and especially recent designs like the Galaxy and Nebula, that would mean more power, not more guns. More powerful warp cores and impulse reactors, with related improvements to internal power distribution systems, would make the ships faster and provide more raw energy for the ships' existing phaser arrays or shield grids to use during battle.
As to torpedoes, no doubt more powerful warheads would be fielded as they came available, perhaps including quantum torpedoes. And certainly the number of torpedoes typically carried could be increased, perhaps dramatically. But other than the benefit of added redundancy (a non-trivial concern, I grant) it seems the best way to give a starship more torpedo strength is by giving it a larger number of better torpedoes, not another tube.
The Dominion War-era Galaxies, whether new built or refitted, could no doubt outrun, outgun and outlast the Enterprise-D as she was in TNG season one. Doesn't mean you need to add weapons, though. Just let the Galaxy get full use of what she already carried.
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The Galaxy Class was not purposely under armed. Who builds a defense flagship and hurls it into the great unknown (often crawling with ever badder warmongers) with less than cutting-edge weapons?
It's a TV show. They upped the number of weapons on ships because it sounds cool. Look at ST '09 - the Narada destroyed 47(!) Klingon warbirds that just happened to be amassed for wayward intruders? (And what about the 200 support ships you'd imagine would also be part of such a fleet?) They used 47 because it's an in-joke Trek number, and in so doing contributed to the trend of ever increasing numbers of ships and weapons in the Trek universe. The Scimitar had 52(!) disruptor banks and 27 photon torpedo launchers. Compared with TOS-E and its 2 phaser banks and 1 torpedo launcher. ...And I bet you at the time TOS-E too was a cutting-edge terror of local space.
It's a TV show. They upped the number of weapons on ships because it sounds cool. Look at ST '09 - the Narada destroyed 47(!) Klingon warbirds that just happened to be amassed for wayward intruders? (And what about the 200 support ships you'd imagine would also be part of such a fleet?) They used 47 because it's an in-joke Trek number, and in so doing contributed to the trend of ever increasing numbers of ships and weapons in the Trek universe. The Scimitar had 52(!) disruptor banks and 27 photon torpedo launchers. Compared with TOS-E and its 2 phaser banks and 1 torpedo launcher. ...And I bet you at the time TOS-E too was a cutting-edge terror of local space.
Agreed, it certainly was a marvel to the audience. The TOS-E's weapons played a pretty sizable role into making her a ship of pop culture legend, even though it used the same stock footage over and over again when firing her weapons. The trick there was scale of the weapons and distances used in battle, especially in an era where the topic of the day was the scale of nuclear weapons.
*****
I maintain that Trek's ever-improving special effects are partly to blame for this obsession with numbers of launchers and strips and what not. On paper, there really shouldn't be a need for additional torpedo tubes since torpedoes can have self-guidance and the distance between ships would be more than enough to facilitate any course changes for aiming or homing purposes (notice how the TOS-E managed to hit the vast majority of its targets with phasers, even though she only used the same two turrets?). In TOS ships would fight at immense distances, partly because it was expensive to film two ships in one shot. TWOK and TNG came along and while that was indeed a visual improvement, it cut battle distances by a large margin (Yesterday's Enterprise seems really guilty of this, with bridge dialogue saying the battle is taking place over thousands of kilometers but to the viewer the ships are virtually on top of each other), with the other shows following suit.
The additional weapons in Nemesis worked because that's how Trek battles evolved: turn the ship upside down and you have another launcher or a couple more phaser strips to use at point blank range. Defiant, Voyager, and NX-01 have pulled off similar moves. But if battles were fought at distances that were originally intended, there wouldn't need to be a reason to go point blank at all. Space is big, but modern Trek battles were being fought on relatively small battlefields.
Saquist
Commodore
All of the hero ships are heavily armed.
Sovereign MK II has 16 phasers 7 Photon Turrets and One Quantum Turret
Prometheus Saucer 6 phasers: Dorsal Star Drive has 4 phasers: The Ventral stardrive has 8 phasers= 18 phasers and one photon turret.
Intrepid Has 15 phasers and four single rapid fire torpedo tubes
Ambassador has 15 phasers 1 photon tube
Galaxy MkII has 14 phasers two cluster fire torpedo tubes
Galaxy MkI has 12 phasers two cluster fire torpedo tubes
Sovereign MkI has 12 phasers 1 Dual photon turrets and 1 single photon turret, 1 Single Quantum Turret
Nova MkI has 11 Phasers 2 single photon tubes, 1 aft tube
Nova MkII has 11 phasers and 1 aft tube
Nebula Mk I has 5 phasers and 2 tubes. (16 theoretical )
Nebula Mk II as 5 phasers 1 known tube
23 Century:
Excelsior Mk II has 28 phasers on 18 bans
Excelsior Mk I has 24 phasers on 14 banks
Excelsior Mk IV (Centaur) 18 phasers in 9 banks and 4 (jumbo)photon tubes
Excelsior Mk III (Curry) 14 phasers on 9 banks 4 photon tubes
Excelsior Mk V 14 phasers on 9 banks and 4 photon tubes
Constitution II has 18 phasers on 12 banks 2 photon tubes
Miranda MK I has 16 phasers on 10 banks and 4 tubes.
Constellation 12 phasers on 6 banks 4 single fire tubes
In comparison Trek's other ships are very sparsely armed.
Akira 3 phasers and 16 tubes (model count)
Steamrunner 4 phasers 1 torpedo tube
New Orleans 6 phasers (possible 6 tubes)
Saber 3 phasers 1 photon tube
Norway 1 photon tube
Galaxy has the best positioned armament of almost all the ships here Much of Sovereigns hardpoints are redundant. Intrepid is just a small version of Galaxy. It's still on top though
To nitpick, dialogue in "Paradise Syndrome" established at least four phaser banks (at least three of which fired from one and the same spot), whereas dialogue elsewhere introduced "amidship" and "aft" phasers. Retro-visuals from ENT corroborate this dialogue evidence. Like the rest of the ships, Kirk's old ride seemed well endowed - but just like the rest of the ships, she only really needed one weapon emitter at a time to deal with the opposition of the week. It may stand testimony to Kirk's command style that the emitter he ended up using the most was the one pointed dead ahead...
We don't know if she was, as we never saw her deliberately sent to confront enemy capital ships or primary lines or installations. But she never ran into a Klingon or Romulan ship or formation she couldn't handle, which may indicate she indeed was something of a "capital ship" herself.
Of course, deep and unexplored space would also be logical "frigate territory" where Kirk's opponents might be fellow "frigateers", striking at targets of opportunity only. This would explain why Klingons, an expansive warrior culture, would always shy away from battle with Kirk unless they had numerical superiority or an ace in the sleeve. Perhaps the biggest Klingon battleships were elsewhere, standing by to confront Starfleet's big battleships which would make six K't'ingas or three Constitutions tremble?
Picard's vessel in turn was rather deliberately assigned as the military spearhead of several operations (although she, too, did her share of random emergency response). This might indicate more of a capital ship role than with Kirk's vessel, and never mind the explicit references to the E-D as the Federation Flagship, something that never seemed to apply to Kirk's ship. Perhaps the relative strengths of the armament would have reflected this?
Timo Saloniemi
Being an exploratory vessel, I would expect her to be well armed. If the ship (with over 1000 people onboard) goes out into the great unknown on long-duration missions, away from the protection of Starfleet, to chart new sectors and make contact with new aliens, obviously HQ would want them to come back in one piece.
Space is vast and has proven to be dangerous in many regions, so sending out a minimally armed ship into the unknown seems kinda foolish to me. They would need to carry a rather impressive weapons array and exceptionally good shields in order to defend themselves.
Just because they have the weaponry, doesn't mean they have to use them. Seeing the size and complexity of the Galaxy-Class, I would assume that Starfleet would put only the best Captain's in command of them, which would mean that they are highly capable to defuse any situation through dialogue rather than through superior firepower.
But that's just my thoughts.
Space is vast and has proven to be dangerous in many regions, so sending out a minimally armed ship into the unknown seems kinda foolish to me. They would need to carry a rather impressive weapons array and exceptionally good shields in order to defend themselves.
Just because they have the weaponry, doesn't mean they have to use them. Seeing the size and complexity of the Galaxy-Class, I would assume that Starfleet would put only the best Captain's in command of them, which would mean that they are highly capable to defuse any situation through dialogue rather than through superior firepower.
But that's just my thoughts.
