Guns In Space

[Uptightgirl]

Very often we see the Enterprise completely helpless after a few shots,or after main power is offline,or after encountering some anomaly field or energy entity/being which disables phasers and photons.The Enterprise is thus completely helpless if main power fails.
So why don't they have guns like gatling guns mounted at various points around the ship.No need for power supplies.
I hear a gatling gun like as it is used in the A-10 tank buster is devastating.
Since chemicals cannot be jammed it would make sense to have gatling guns or shell firing cannons as. last ditch weapons.

 

[Timo]

Possibly - but Trek shields seem to be very good against kinetic threats. We've seen small ships bounce off the shields of a hero vessel with little harm. It is such a rare event that a kinetic attack penetrates the shields that we get to endless debates in the tech forum about why and how Picard managed to ram the shielded Scimitar in ST:Nemesis.

Gatling guns wouldn't be all that different from meteor storms, I gather. And Trek shields, even the noncombat ones, are good against that sort of stuff.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Forbin]

Also, even those gatling guns and miniguns are electrically powered. Though I certainly imagine batteries would suffice.

But then again, how would they be targetted without power? Manual gun turrets like a B-17? Not at starship speeds!

 

[M'Sharak]

^ Put all the surplus redshirts on treadmills or gigantic hamster wheels?

 

[zenophite]

unfortunately trek has never been particularly good at depicting the military/combat stuff.

using "gatling guns" might look cool on camera but it is quite impractical in regards to the space and weight requirements for the ammunition as well as the need for electricity.

that the combat systems go "offline" with such frequency leads me to believe that the "lowest bidder" system for military acquisitions is alive and well in the 24th century.

joking aside though there is no way that defense systems would be so fragile. they would have to be just as robust as life support.

in any case one of my biggest gripes about trek is this very issues. the issue of photon torpedoes is a case in point. is it a missle or an energy bolt of some kind? it depends more on what is dramatically necessary rather than what is realistic or consistent.

 

[FordSVT]

zenophite said:
unfortunately trek has never been particularly good at depicting the military/combat stuff.

using "gatling guns" might look cool on camera but it is quite impractical in regards to the space and weight requirements for the ammunition as well as the need for electricity.

that the combat systems go "offline" with such frequency leads me to believe that the "lowest bidder" system for military acquisitions is alive and well in the 24th century.

joking aside though there is no way that defense systems would be so fragile. they would have to be just as robust as life support.

in any case one of my biggest gripes about trek is this very issues. the issue of photon torpedoes is a case in point. is it a missle or an energy bolt of some kind? it depends more on what is dramatically necessary rather than what is realistic or consistent.

Outside of maybe early TOS before everything was sorted out, has the photon torpedo EVER been referred to as anything but a guided missile? We've seen the physical shells many times in different series and movies. It glows when it's active, but that doesn't mean it's an "energy bolt".

 

[Uptightgirl]

Forbin said:
Also, even those gatling guns and miniguns are electrically powered. Though I certainly imagine batteries would suffice.

But then again, how would they be targetted without power? Manual gun turrets like a B-17? Not at starship speeds!

Remember we fire.d voyager at pluto 20 years. ago and it is traveling.Without power no shields

You can use manual targeting and a gunsight at close quarters.We are talking about big ship stare downs.

Also these shells will have infinite range as no friction to slow them down

 

[Nebusj]

Uptightgirl said:
Remember we fire.d voyager at pluto 20 years. ago and it is traveling.Without power no shields

... and we missed Pluto by as few as 2,543,000,000 kilometers (something like seventeen times the distance between the Earth and the Sun).

 

[Star Wolf]

zenophite said:
unfortunately trek has never been particularly good at depicting the military/combat stuff.

using "gatling guns" might look cool on camera but it is quite impractical in regards to the space and weight requirements for the ammunition as well as the need for electricity.

Its not Trek, lets count out DS9 using Defiant and Birds of Prey as fighters trying to get on the tail of their foe, which played like a fighter wing was attacking a cruiser which puts up a wall of AAA fire. That tends to be the other SF universes.

Trek combat tends to be keep shooting until the shields are overwelmed then phasers take out the engines or weapons or a torpedo gets a catastrophic kill.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

I like the Halo invention of huge multi-ton slugs. Fired at high velocity, it rips right through shields. Weight? Build bigger ships.

 

[Sisu]

Is anyone else reading [Muppet Show] GUNS! IN! SPAAAAACE! [/Muppet Show] ?

 

[captcalhoun]

yup

 

[Hambone]

Jeez, I was immediately reminded of Walter Koenig's 1989 movie "Moontrap", where he uttered the classic line "Guns. Fuckin' guns on the moon."

 

[Forbin]

Uptightgirl said:

Forbin said:
Also, even those gatling guns and miniguns are electrically powered. Though I certainly imagine batteries would suffice.

But then again, how would they be targetted without power? Manual gun turrets like a B-17? Not at starship speeds!

Remember we fire.d voyager at pluto 20 years. ago and it is traveling.Without power no shields

Which really has nothing to do with anything I said, or anything we're talking about .

The Voyager probes had their own power sources for maneuvering and for aiming and using their instruments. They wouldn't have worked at all without power. Their ballistic trajectories were carefully preplanned and required very precise aiming and timing at launch.