From an in universe standpoint the Galaxy Class is supposed to be insanely expensive so was it odd to see so many on the front line in the Dominion war?
It was expensive, but fan theory and Christopher Bennett's official novels have implied that the Galaxy class had some flaws that greatly shortened their operational lifespan. By the time of the Dominion War, they may have shifted their focus to other ships and the surviving Galaxies had skeleton crews and were just used tactically.
I would have always assumed a Galaxy class ought to be treated like a dreadnought...it should be supported by a fleet and perhaps be under an admiral's command who is on the frontline giving orders etc. It seems like an utter waste to just throw them at the Dominion.
Why? The Galaxy class did a great job in the Dominion war, we saw no Galaxy class getting destroyed in the war.
The USS Odyssey ring any bells? And yes I know it was before the actual war and Starfleet should have known better! JB
But the Odyssey fought the entire battle without shields, and lost because of the kamikaze run by a Jem Hadar ship. I don't think that any other ship could survive that. And what other choice did Starfleet have?
That's a bit short really. It was the first time Starfleet encountered the Dominion, and knew nothing of their abilities, like basicly shooting straight through shields. And, like Firefly just said, it was rammed. No ship would survive that. And as for the amount of Galaxies.... I still like the idea that was offered in the Technical Manual I believe, that most of the Galaxies we saw were basicly just hulls with warpdrive and weapons. They weren't fully build yet, and quickly rushed into service with only minimal internal construction done, to give Starfleet a good amount of powerfull ships.
The Galaxy-class was proven effective against Cardassian vessels, and could take considerable punishment from anything that wasn't Klingon (and even then, if the shields were up it take considerable punishment before getting critical engine damage from disruptors). With shields up they did well against most things...even Borg cubes took a while to beat up a Galaxy-class starship that's defenses were working correctly. In the post-war days (when Voyager returns home) Starfleet has a lot of Galaxy-class starships near the Sol System for some reason. Perhaps they were brought back to be refit for full service, or they had some other issues being resolved. But something like nine were present, on short notice. During the war, the Galaxy-class starships appeared to be able to engage multiple Cardassian vessels easily, and could probably take on Jem'Hadar ship on realistic terms. We don't know of any Galaxy-class vessels that were lost during the War. USS Galaxy took heavy damage from the automated defense systems plasma torpedoes and energy weapons at Chintoka, but she was still in combat up to the end of the battle. The entry of the Breen into the war might has changes things, but I don't think there were any Galaxy-class ships with the fleet the day the USS Defiant was destroyed. By the last battles if the war, the Galaxies seemed to be holding their own well in the middle of the battles, even as other starships were exploding around them.
It might have been more 'realistic' to see Galaxy stardrive sections in battle. Hauling around that big saucer seems pointless and makes a lovely dartboard target. Maybe Starbases have a big rack where you can slot all the saucer sections... assuming they'd have built any in the middle of a war.
True, but they derive power from the warp core in the stardrive section. Which also powers the strips on the stardrive, through shorter internal conduits ( i.e. less transmission loss )* Plus the shielding can be much tighter without the saucer, and we have on-screen confirmation that the stardrive alone is much faster and more agile. * I know there's the old debate as to whether a longer strip can channel more power, so I suppose it depends on what side of that argument you reside
Even if they were big empty hulks with weapons, wouldn't it have been better to build many smaller and more maneuverable vessels with nearly as many phasers? That's of course assuming they built the Galaxy class ships rather than co-opting partially built ones. I seem to remember blueprints telling us there were emitters rolling around inside those strips (hence the moving phasers). So it would be possible to add 3 or 4 more emitters to each long strip and make a Galaxy an even bigger weapons platform especially with the saucer. Add strips to the tops of the nacelles (ala the Galaxy X) and it's got all angles covered.
Yes. I would've expected more "1701-E type" battle cruisers taking the Galaxy Class' place, since by then that design was obsolete.
The handy TNG:TM notes that the big phaser strips are the entire emitter - energy travels along it to the emission point, with each segment adding to the energy of the final blast. It suggests that the big strips are therefore capable of greater energy output by virtue of the number of segments in the strip, but it doesn't REALLY explain why some later ships have spilt strips with a gap up front (Intrepid, Sovereign et. al.). Next up, in BOBW part 1, Riker expressly overrides Shelby's recommendation to separate the saucer section because they might need the additional power of the saucer's impulse engines, be it for maneuverability or actual power to shields and weapon. Either way, it suggests that the GCS operates best whole; it may also mean that in later years the mass of operational experiences on various ships of the class proved that keeping the ship in one piece would yield the best tactical results overall. If nothing else, having one extra target to shoot at would mean little in a furball of hundreds of hips pew-pewing at each other. Mark
IIRC, they were already built. Either still under construction or mothballed empty hulls, because it was felt that Galaxies were quite costly and not advanced enough anymore in comparison to other ships being built. Or something..... I don't own the DS9 tech manual, I just remember people saying things like that online, and that it came from the tech manual
The tech manual (both the DS9 and TNG books) say that Starfleet ordered 12 hulls, but decided to only complete six of them at first, placing the other six in partly built states around the Federation so they could be assembled relatively quickly if needed. There appear to be more Galaxy-class starships under construction by 2370, or they are reassembling the piece of the incomplete ships around this time. By the end of Star Trek: Voyager, we see seven Galaxy-class starships in the Sol System. That's a lot of a class that should only have nine ships left in its class....assuming they didn't build more. (Operation Return seems to have ten Galaxy-class starship in the Federation fleet present for the action).
There were at least a couple of Galaxies rolling off the line at Utopia Planitia when Voyager was launched (seen in 'Relativity'), which was three or four years prior to the outbreak of war. Given the Galaxy Class was the only Starfleet ship which was effective against the Borg, Starfleet were dead right to keep building them. Bigger really does seem to be better in the Star Trek world. We see smaller ships getting blown away with one shot in battle scenes throughout Trek, whereas aside from freak incidents where shields were compromised (Odyssey and Enterprise), we never see Galaxy class ships getting torn apart. A lot of the ships we saw in DS9 probably were mostly empty, but given the ships had a 100 year lifespan, and the TNGTM suggests the Enterprise herself had plenty of empty space, that's a feature rather than a bug. There were obviously plenty of Galaxy class ships left at the end of the war, which could be refitted and filled out and form the backbone of Starfleet for decades to come.
That makes sense, since a future Captain La Forge was in command of the Challenger, a Galaxy class ship. Despite that timeline being dissolved, that class of ship could become the replacement for the Excelsior class in terms of role in Starfleet. And lessons learned from the Dominion War could have made building more Galaxy class ships feasible, especially looking at how quickly the Dominion shipyards seemed to churn out ships.
The Galaxy class was effective against the Borg? I don't know about that. In Q Who the Enterprise would have been destroyed had Q not intervened at the last moment. In TBOBW1 the Borg were intentionally pulling their punches so they could capture Picard, and in Part 2 I think they ignored the ship since they were more interested in getting to Earth, and when the ship was defeated it was because Data hacked Locutus and put the other Borg drones on the ship to sleep rather than anything unique about being aboard a Galaxy class ship.