Good ship to ship battles?

Just thinking back on the series(It's been a long time and I don't think I caught every episode) I'm having a hard time remembering any good ship to ship battle sequences. I remember something where they're fighting a drone, and I can remember a number of instances where ships exchange a little fire or a solar flare is used to blow a borg ship up etc, but I don't remember good ship to ship action sequences.

Could someone jog my memory so I can catch them when they come around?

 

Good ship-to-ship battles (i.e. The adversary fires and the Enterprise-D fires back) were featured in the following TNG episodes (I won't list the "bad" ship-to-ship battles, unfortunately due to the lack of CGI advancements at the time):

The Last Outpost (Season 1)
The Battle (Season 1)
The Arsenal of Freedom (Season 1)
Q Who? (Season 2)
Samaritan Snare (Season 2)
Yesterday's Enterprise (Season 3)
The Best of Both Worlds, Part I (Season 3)
The Best of Both Worlds, Part II (Season 4)
Redemption, Part I (Season 4)
Redemption, Part II (Season 5)
Conundrum (Season 5)
Rascals (Season 6)
Descent, Part I (Season 6)
Descent, Part II (Season 7)
Gambit, Part I (Season 7)
Gambit, Part II (Season 7)
Preemptive Strike (Season 7)
All Good Things... (Season 7)

 

When did the Enterprise D fire weapons during The Battle? And in Redemption, Part II it was the Sutherland which fired torpedoes to expose the cloaked Romulan Warbirds. The Enterprise never fired its weapons when Gowron's ship was attacked because that would have brought the Federation into the Klingon Civil War.

The best ones were:

The Arsenal of Freedom
Yesterdays Enterprise
Q Who?
The Best of Both Worlds Part I & II
All Good Things...

 

In The Wounded a Cardassian ship takes a few shots at the Enterprise and the Enterprise then disables its weapons with a single shot. Does this count as a battle?

 

There are only 2 really good space battlse in TNG:

Yesterday's Enterprise (totally the best one)
All good things..

 

though only a brief exchange, I was impressed with what the E-D unleashed against the enemy vessel in "The Survivor" in the 3rd season.

 

If memory serves "Q Who?" is about the only episode in which see the Enterprise let loose it's full arsenal of weapons. Normally we only see the main Saucer section Phaser bank firing.

 

I believe in BOBW the Enterprise also unleashes all its weapons, though to little effect against the Cube.

 

That order is given, but not all weapons are fired.

In Q-Who the engine-pylon phasers fire at the Cube in BOBW they do not. (There's also a phaser strip on the bottom of the Stardrive Section and 2 on the back of the dorsal hull that don't fire in either. The 2nd set I could see not firing (as well as the smaller phasers on the back of the hull between the engines) but I can't think of any reason the dorsal strip wouldn't fire.

 

Thanks guys. Just the sort of info I was looking for. Which are the best, which are the others with something, what they have.

 

I think you have Q-Who and BOBW mixed up.

Enterprise firing all weapons in BOBW

 

Is it physically possible for the E-D to fire all its weapons simultaneously at a single target? Wouldn't a phaser bank or two always be facing the wrong direction?

 

Yup. If the target is facingf forward, then the aft ventral and dorsal arrays are not in line of sight, nor are the arrays on the top of the "neck", and the dorsal drive array is at a 90 degree angle, so the attacker would have to be below deck 10 to get a shot.

Also, the after launcher is facing away.

If the attacker is aft, then the forward launcher is facing away, but the main saucer arrays could possibly get a clean shot, depending on angle of attack.

There isn't any angle that you could fire all weapons and expect to get a shot, there's always some Enterprise in the way.

 

I always liked this shot from BOBW II where they shoot the bottle rockets off the saucer.

 

I remember watching TNG battle scenes when I was a kid where they would just sit there and fire a phaser every 10 seconds. Id always yell "MOVE YOUR ASS" the E-D always reminded me of a horse swatting flies with their tail. They never move to try and get away from the flies just flip their tail. Likewise the E-D just sits there and fires a phaser every now and then.

"Sir their shields are still at 72%"

Then maybe you should keep firing until their down to atleast 3%

 

Well, the only way to get any "tension" in a space battle when your ship is the biggest badass in space is to hold back on what it should, in theory, be able to do. They only rarely took the opportunity to have the crew of the Enterprise-D actually act as though they knew how unbeatable they were...

 

Well in all fairness to Picard id drop shields too. Let them take a few shots with the lasers just to let them know how rediculously superior my ship is then send a damage report to the enemy and ask if theyd like to discuss terms now or later.

 

That is complancency showing, what if the other ship has juryrigged something that doesn't show up on the scanners. Unlikely for sure but with responsibility for over a 1000 people, should you really take the chance?

 

Some people on this thread aren't taking into account how expensive motion control effects were in the 80s on a TV budget. Ships moved slowly, if at all, on TNG because that's the best you could do with a six foot model of your ship with a day to shoot it and one angle to shoot it from.

Mark

 

I actually prefer the dull ponderous movement of the starships, makes them seem more like proper capital ships, than zippy little fighters.