• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

How many humans a Klingon warrior can take on at the same time?

Unnamed Caitian

Unnamed Caitian

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
I was thinking about Kruge sending SIX warriors to the Enterprise. He thought the Enterprise was fully crewed (about 430) so the proportion 432:6 equals to 72 humans for each Klingon to kill.

Was Kruge kompletely krazy or did he know what he was doing?

Then we have Sela in Unification sending 2000 Romulan soldiers to overpower the planet Vulcan

and THEN we have the Borg sending one single cube to assimilate Earth (they did it twice, the first in BoBW and one in FC -- they assumed the first failure was not because numbers)

Are the good guys THAT weak?
 
When we actually see them in battle, they mostly seem pretty evenly matched (e.g. when the Klingons invade DS9). So either it's Klingon hubris or Klingons have deteriorated a lot in the 24th century. (But I believe Kirk was also a decent match for them?) Likewise, the Romulan plan to invade Vulcan with just 2000 soldiers was plain out dumb.

The (original TNG) Borg - that's a different story. They should be in a different class altogether. They're centuries beyond Federation technology and should be practically invincible. The only reason they have their vulnerabilities is that if they didn't, that would have immediately ended the series.
 
I mean, there are several factors at play here than just one simple answer.

One, what type of personnel was Kruge expecting? Another science vessel like the Grissom? Two, the Enterprise is damaged to the point that power is limited, meaning any security countermeasures would be limited at best. Three, six warriors is all Kruge really had to expend, since he had "a dozen officers and men." It's not a huge crew to throw at the Enterprise.

Also, ship board combat is not the same as conventional combat. It is highly contained space, and a Klingon warrior could easily restrict and wipe out 72 humans if tactical enough. So, yes, I would say Kruge would know what he was doing.

As for Sela, part of the strategy was to land inside the territory and take over key hold points.

The Borg are unique because they can replace soldiers through assimilation.

The good guys are as week as the plot requires.
 
To regurgitate and slightly rephrase something I posted in another thread a while back:

The depictions haven't necessarily been consistent with dialog, with each other across movies and episodes, etc.

Supposedly, Klingons are stronger than Vulcans, per DS9 "Take Me Out to the Holosuite." Dialog indicated that Vulcans have three times the strength of a human, and also that they are faster, but it's also specifically stated they are not stronger or faster than Worf or even genetically-enhanced Bashir.

Yet in TSFS we saw an uninhibited and pain-tormented Vulcan (revived Spock), whose mind was a void, throw a Klingon around like a rag doll.

In ENT, two human augments took on a Klingon crew and won, massacring everybody. According to Khan in TOS "Space Seed," an augment has five times the strength of a baseline human.

In terms of raw physical strength, it may go in this order: human augments, Klingons (on a good day), Vulcans (on a normal day), baseline humans.

When it comes to a small band of Klingons boarding a Federation ship that they thought fully crewed, they were going in heavily armed, and Klingons have the advantage of centering their whole lives around the warrior arts; combat, tactics, etc. And this was before the era of later TNG and DS9 when they turned into a bunch of doofuses.

Edit to add: And by the 24th century, humans and their allies in the Federation apparently aren't at the top of their game either if a handful of Ferengi can take over a Galaxy-class starship.

Kor
 
Last edited:
Sisko, Dax, and Kira were all able to face them in hand to hand combat and hold their own. Picard and Riker have both defeated Klingons hand to hand as well.
 
Skip to 3:26 for examples of non-Klingons vs. Klingons in close combat.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
fireproof78 said:
Also, ship board combat is not the same as conventional combat. It is highly contained space, and a Klingon warrior could easily restrict and wipe out 72 humans if tactical enough. So, yes, I would say Kruge would know what he was doing.
Click to expand...
Did he? A security team could have shot the klingons the moment they materialized or just shoot the transporter pads while they were materializing. Giving Kirk time to prepare and telling him exactly when and how the Klingon boarding party would appear was incredibly dumb, people beaming in are basically sitting ducks during and right after rematerialization.
Of course that means Kirk didn't know what he was doing either, why blow up the entire ship when a small bomb set to blow up the transporter room 2 seconds after the klingons materialize would have done the job if he didn't want to risk his or the others lifes against the klingons.
 
Takeru said:
Did he? A security team could have shot the klingons the moment they materialized or just shoot the transporter pads while they were materializing. Giving Kirk time to prepare and telling him exactly when and how the Klingon boarding party would appear was incredibly dumb, people beaming in are basically sitting ducks during and right after rematerialization.
Of course that means Kirk didn't know what he was doing either, why blow up the entire ship when a small bomb set to blow up the transporter room 2 seconds after the klingons materialize would have done the job if he didn't want to risk his or the others lifes against the klingons.
Click to expand...
The Klingons were expecting resistance so I would imagine they anticipated a security team and any potential countermeasures used against them in the initial boarding party.

I would agree that Kirk doesn't know what he's doing, but he's also in emotional shock, and not thinking fully clearly so him I give a small pass too. Though, again the destruction of the Enterprise seems rather extreme unless Kirk felt he and the rest could not resist a Klingon boarding party.
 
Takeru said:
Did he? A security team could have shot the klingons the moment they materialized or just shoot the transporter pads while they were materializing. Giving Kirk time to prepare and telling him exactly when and how the Klingon boarding party would appear was incredibly dumb, people beaming in are basically sitting ducks during and right after rematerialization.
Of course that means Kirk didn't know what he was doing either, why blow up the entire ship when a small bomb set to blow up the transporter room 2 seconds after the klingons materialize would have done the job if he didn't want to risk his or the others lifes against the klingons.
Click to expand...

There will still be Klingons on a much more functional ship who just need to press a button to blow him up.
 
Klingons claim they are the greatest warriors and maybe they are, against other Klingons.
When it comes to fighting other species, are they that outstanding?
 
Going by TOS (as I always do), there's no indication that Klingons are particularly stronger than humans. Check out the bar room brawl in "The Trouble with Tribbles" or the big donnybrook in "Day of the Dove." Starfleet officers certainly seem to be able to hold their own against Klingons when it comes to hand-to-hand combat.
 
Last edited:
Judging by the assassination attempt on Picard on Qo'nos, even 2 Klingons aren't enough to take down 1 human.

Generally speaking, any Klingon is as strong as the writer wants them to be in that situation, without giving a shit about any consistency.
 
fireproof78 said:
The Klingons were expecting resistance so I would imagine they anticipated a security team and any potential countermeasures used against them in the initial boarding party.
Click to expand...
If they were prepared for countermeasures why didn't they recognize the countdown on the bridge?

Imaus said:
There will still be Klingons on a much more functional ship who just need to press a button to blow him up.
Click to expand...
That's still true with him defenseless on the planet and the klingons in orbit. You could make the argument that he wanted to prevent the Enterprise from falling into Klingon hands but the ship was portrayed as pretty much obsolete junk ready to be trashed at that point in the franchise so I don't there was some super secret advanced technology on board.

Gul Sengosts said:
Generally speaking, any Klingon is as strong as the writer wants them to be in that situation, without giving a shit about any consistency.
Click to expand...
I think the franchise has been pretty consistent about klingons talking a lot about being great warriors only to be beaten up by everyone who tries.:vulcan:
 
Takeru said:
If they were prepared for countermeasures why didn't they recognize the countdown on the bridge?
Click to expand...
Because only a fool fights in a burning house.

Greg Cox said:
Going by TOS (as I always do), there's no indication that Klingons are particularly stronger than humans. Check out the bar room brawl in "The Trouble with Tribbles" or the big donnybrook in "Day of the Dove." Starfleet officers seem to be able to hold their own against Klingons when it comes to hand-to-hand combat.
Click to expand...
True. And Kirk handled Kruge evenly enough in TSFS.
 
It probably depends on how much training the Klingon has, and how much bloodwine he/she has ingested.
 
I was going to say it might not matter depending on the fighting style (say, hapkido or aikido versus street brawling), but then I wondered, just where exactly are the Bruce Lees and Chuck Norris’ of Starfleet’s era?

Sulu leaping around with an epee doesn’t count.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top