How Many Hand Phasers in the Arsenal?

[Albertese]

Watching "A Taste of Armageddon" and Kirk says that Phaser I will be issued to the landing party (I think...I've been watching several eps in a row I think it was this one...).

So I wonder, how many individual weapons are stocked in the arsenal? Hundreds? Enough to equip the entire crew? Even more to replace weapons that go missing on missions? There aren't replicators in this era, so presumably they are being stored somewhere. A shuttlecraft stocks a handful of phaser II in the back drawer, but not seven. So I can see a setup where there are only enough hand phasers to gear up 300 crew. The fact that the weapons are issued from a central arsenal suggests the crew don't just have their own sidearms in their own lockers.

Also Kirk talks about "the" arsenal, suggesting there is only one. Where on the ship would you place such a facility? I would probably put it on the same deck as the transporter room(s). Though I can also see an argument that really there are two arsenals, one in the primary hull with the transporter and one in the engineering hull near the hangar deck. The second one likely a lot smaller.

Thoughts?

--Alex

PS Mods, if this would be better placed in Trek Tech, feel free to relocate me...

 

[Push The Button]

Phaser #1 are probably issued to every officer, and phaser #2 to all members of the security detatchment regardless of rank. The phaser rifles are stored in weapons lockers.

 

[Timo]

It's also "armory" in the likes of "Day of the Dove", while "arsenal" in "Armageddon". Perhaps two different facilities: the former for equipping the day-to-day landing and boarding parties, the latter for equipping a field army when the need arises.

In "Dove", Kirk also speaks of building more guns when the original ones turn into bladed weapons, supposedly in tactically meaningful time (although Kirk there is both desperate and out of his mind due to alien influence, to arguable degree). So the equipping of a field army might not require stored weapons after all...

I sort of envision a TOS facility with a couple of racks of Phaser 2 and 3 units and something like four drawers of Phaser 1s - backed up by a DSC visual style behind-the-wall system that conveys more guns to emptied racks from vast well-protected magazines, and connects to manufacturing systems for creating more if needed. The system would also convey guns to lockers at or near transporter rooms, along the same path where chicken soup plates travel (this in turn being the general turbolift network, with appropriate smaller side shafts where needed).

"Arsenal" could be where the guns generally are, and "armory" the room through which they are accessed, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Actually there were replicators in TOS, they just weren't called that. They were known as fabricators, and located on deck 9 of the primary hull. In fact the Fabrication Facilities took up most of the deck.

That said, my guess is that the armory held enough of the small type 1 hand phasers for the entire crew. Plus enough of the type 2 pistol phasers to equip the 90 man security department, with perhaps a dozen or so type 3 phaser rifles.

 

[Timo]

I wonder where this "fabricator" business originally cropped up. Sometimes I see it blamed on "A Private Little War" where the flintlocks would have been "fabricated", but that terminology never was actually used in the episode. Or in any other.

We now know that machines capable of printing out uniforms are in use in the 2250s. The jury is still out on whether food is printed the same way. But it appears to be a nice continuum, from protein resequencers through uniform printers to full replicators capable of transmuting all matter as needed (and of creating ready-to-use weapons, too). We know that whatever Kirk had wasn't called "replicator", and probably for a reason, but we really have no reason to believe Kirk wouldn't have had somewhat more primitive "fabricators", other than those never getting a mention.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

So I can see a setup where there are only enough hand phasers to gear up 300 crew. The fact that the weapons are issued from a central arsenal suggests the crew don't just have their own sidearms in their own lockers.

Accidental discharges are a real thing and military organizations know that a lot of weapons "floating around" is a safety problem, so in non-combat situations firearms are distributed when needed and secured (along with ammunition) otherwise. On a ship, some people, probably officers, whose regular duties require being armed might be permitted to keep one in a personal locker. This used to most often apply to supply officers who dealt with cash, I don't know if that is still the case. In wartime when certain watchstanders were required to be armed, the sidearm and belt would be handed off with the change of the watch.

The racks seem to have been transformed along with the weapons so it's hard to tell how the storage was configured, but he armory in "The Day of the Dove" certainly seems big enough for hundreds of phasers two.

 

[Mister Spock]

My assumption was there were enough hand phasers to arm each crewman, and maybe half as many phaser rifles for situations where a bit more fire power was needed.

I presume also that Enterprise had a machine shop with enough raw materials to build replacement equipment.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I wonder where this "fabricator" business originally cropped up. Sometimes I see it blamed on "A Private Little War" where the flintlocks would have been "fabricated", but that terminology never was actually used in the episode. Or in any other.

I think Duncan is referring to Franz Joseph, Star Trek Blueprints (1975). FJ may have taken the idea from some text in The Making of Star Trek. I'd have to go back and look.

 

[UssGlenn]

We know that whatever Kirk had wasn't called "replicator", and probably for a reason,

I think the difference is that fabricators make items based on a computer design that you have to make from scratch, like a super detailed 3d model. Replicators can scan an existing object and make another one, much less effort and trouble.

 

[Shawnster]

The Enterprise was able to replicate or fabricate working flintlocks in "A Private Little War."

Lenore was somehow able to gain access to a phaser 2 (and Kirk's quarters) in "Conscience of the King."

The miners on Janus IV only had access to the phaser 1s, while the Enterprise had access to the more powerful phaser 2s.

 

[Tim Thomason]

We can 3D print weapons today, and I assume that's what the fabrication device or whatever on the Discovery (and probably the Enterprise) does when they make uniforms and weapons and teddy bears. What separates a phaser from a phaser prop is the technological gizmos inside, so it's possible that the "arsenal" or some "arsenal storage unit" is comprised of hundreds or thousands of nadion cartridges that are transported (and probably logged and requisitioned) when someone fabricates a new phaser.

This image at Memory Alpha, from "Context is for Kings" (stated for context), shows that the word "Replicate" is visible on the display in the Disco Era when Burnham fabricates her uniform. So, she might call it a replicator. I don't see an issue here, as the 24th century folks (like Harry Kim) might not think of these replicators as the same as the replicators of their time, because they probably are completely different in technology (not used for food, doesn't seem to convert energy-to-matter, probably requires a rigorously designed plan and can't think on the fly). Kind of like asking for a camera today, but not referring to the camera obscura of the 17th century.

 

[Mytran]

The biggest indicators of the presence of automated item creation is in Patterns Of Force where Kirk requests an on-the-fly uniform for McCoy:

KIRK: We've having difficulty. Patch historical computer into uniform section. I want McCoy outfitted as a Gestapo doctor Nazi Germany, old Earth date 1944. Make him a colonel.​

With no prior warning and within just minutes, McCoy is dressed in the required costume (except the boots)

 

[gratone]

In "Wink of an Eye," didn't Kirk issue orders to arm all crewmen? There must have been SOME capability to come up with 400+ phasers.

 

[Shawnster]

In "Wink of an Eye," didn't Kirk issue orders to arm all crewmen? There must have been SOME capability to come up with 400+ phasers.

Yep.

UHURA [OC]: Captain, intercom system is breaking down rapidly.
KIRK: Lieutenant, ship wide order. Use communicators instead of intercom. Issue phasers to all crew members. Spock, repeat.
SPOCK: I have a reading from Life Support centre. Alien substances being introduced.
KIRK: Meet me there on the double.

 

[Commishsleer]

So if we assume the Enterprise is equivalent to a modern day Navy ship wouldn't everyone on board have at least one weapon assigned to them? I'm assuming that happens on Navy ships even though hand-to-hand battle is probably less likely.
If you assume that the Enterprise is equivalent to say Captain Cook's Endeavour then maybe each man had small arms in case you know conflict with the Americans.
I would think that everyone on board the Enterprise (a military ship) would have at least one weapon allocated to them probably more. In case of ship takeover, to support ground attacks.

 

[Qonundrum]

Watching "A Taste of Armageddon" and Kirk says that Phaser I will be issued to the landing party (I think...I've been watching several eps in a row I think it was this one...).

So I wonder, how many individual weapons are stocked in the arsenal? Hundreds? Enough to equip the entire crew? Even more to replace weapons that go missing on missions? There aren't replicators in this era, so presumably they are being stored somewhere. A shuttlecraft stocks a handful of phaser II in the back drawer, but not seven. So I can see a setup where there are only enough hand phasers to gear up 300 crew. The fact that the weapons are issued from a central arsenal suggests the crew don't just have their own sidearms in their own lockers.

Also Kirk talks about "the" arsenal, suggesting there is only one. Where on the ship would you place such a facility? I would probably put it on the same deck as the transporter room(s). Though I can also see an argument that really there are two arsenals, one in the primary hull with the transporter and one in the engineering hull near the hangar deck. The second one likely a lot smaller.

Thoughts?

--Alex

PS Mods, if this would be better placed in Trek Tech, feel free to relocate me...

Without replication technology, and the need for spares should a unit go out, I'd estimate, in each individually labeled package, rather, that they probably had 8,675,309 of them existed...

...or 0 after the emotional vampire from "Day of the Dove" whirlygigged in...

Also, Kirk wrote in his diary that he called the room "The Arsenal of Freedom", knowing Jean-Luc would have his armory re-labeled "Weapons Room" because we all know Kirk was best... at least in 1987 when those arguments started...