How Many Ships Can A Borg Cube Engage Simultaneously?

[Knight Templar]

I always thought the idea behind the Defiant was to build large numbers of small, but powerful ships that could attack a Borg ship en masse and overwhelm it.

So I assume there is some kind of upper limit as to how many targets the Borg can effectively target at one time.

Any idea how many this might be? In most of the battles involving Borg cubes we saw at most three or four ships firing on one simultaneously and vice versa.

 

[The Librarian]

Given that we once saw the Enterprise engage about twenty targets simultaneously... I'm going to go with "lots". The limit probably is on powering the weapons rather than how many it can target at once.

 

[Timo]

The exact or even coarse number would be something Starfleet could not possibly know, or even guess at. Hence, swarm tactics would be a rather desperate bet.

Perhaps the purpose of the Defiant was another sort of a saturation attack - the effectiveness of which could more easily be predicted from the E-D reports. Our TNG heroes had shown that adjusting of beam weapon parameters made it more difficult for the Borg to block the incoming fire, but their beams had proven both too weak and too slow to adjust. Yet the Defiant spat out short pulses of phaser fire. Perhaps each was tuned to a different, unpredictable frequency, thereby swarming the Borg with just one ship?

Didn't seem to work too well in ST:FC, though.

AFAWK, the Borg didn't operate much in the area where our VOY heroes met the titular species of the episode "Swarm"... Yet we could assume that many Borg opponents/victims attempted overwhelming with numbers, possibly combined with equipping each attacker with a superweapon comparable to the best Starfleet phasers or the energy sappers of the Swarm or whatever. It does sound like a natural thing to try, after all. But if it succeeded, I think we can rest assured that the Borg then adapted, as we never got the impression that there were any "no fly zones" for Borg Cubes in our galaxy!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

It really depends on how you define "simultaneously". While Wolf 359 apparently did not have all 39 Starfleet ships firing at the same time, it's not like they attacked with significant gaps of time between each wave. In some respects they could be considered a single attacking force, inasmuch as 600-odd Starfleet ships engaged a Dominion fleet in one go.

I always thought that Wolf 359 was over in the space of minutes (roughly what we see in "Emissary", with the Saratoga being boarded/assimilated while the rest of the fight was going on) and as such the Borg ship really had no problem engaging that fleet "simultaneously". Meanwhile, FC makes sense happening over the course of many hours or even several days, suggesting several waves of attacks, retreats, regroupings and so on, with what may have been an even larger fleet.

Mark

 

[The Badger]

I always thought the idea behind the Defiant was to build large numbers of small, but powerful ships that could attack a Borg ship en masse and overwhelm it.

Well, I disagree with the 'mass produced Defiants' notion for a variety of reasons, detailed elsewhere. Apart from anything else, it seems inefficient. We know that the Fleet numbers hundreds, possibly thousands of ships. If it were mere weight of numbers that would tip the balance, you have it there. Install the new weapons and technology into existing hulls to make them more effective.

Furthermore, where would the crew for this massive new anti-Borg fleet come from? Maintaining that fleet at full battle readiness permanently would require a significant number of people, officers and crew who would then be unable to carry out Star Fleet's exploratory and diplomatic duties. And given the speed at which the Borg are known to attack, reassigning crew from other duties when needed is risky.

Didn't seem to work too well in ST:FC, though.

It is true that the Defiant did not---apparently---do any more damage in the single attack run we saw than any other ship. But it also appears to be considerably more resilient, left adrift but salvageable. Compare that to the fate of most other SF ships attacked by the Borg. For example, at Wolf 359 ('Emissary' DS9), in the opening shot of the battle, the front half of an Excelsior class' primary hull was utterly destroyed within three seconds.

 

[Wingsley]

Didn't seem to work too well in ST:FC, though.

Well, the Starfleet force did eventually destroy the invading Borg mothership with Picard's tactical help.

 

[bullethead]

I always thought the idea behind the Defiant was to build large numbers of small, but powerful ships that could attack a Borg ship en masse and overwhelm it.

Well, I disagree with the 'mass produced Defiants' notion for a variety of reasons, detailed elsewhere. Apart from anything else, it seems inefficient. We know that the Fleet numbers hundreds, possibly thousands of ships. If it were mere weight of numbers that would tip the balance, you have it there. Install the new weapons and technology into existing hulls to make them more effective.

Actually, depending on the hardware being installed and the hull, it might be more cost and time effective to build new hulls with those technologies than refitting all the old ships in the Federation fleet.

 

[Timo]

And indeed Sisko was talking about a project to create a "new battle fleet". It may refer to a renovation of existing forces without replacing any specific ships, but it sounds more as if Starfleet was going to build all-new vessels (although not necessarily Defiant class ones, or even ones mounting Defiant style weapons or being based on the same anti-Borg principles - diversity would probably be the way to go).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

As many as the story requires. Sometimes 40. Sometimes just Voyager.

 

[SWHouston]

Well, the Starfleet force did eventually destroy the invading Borg mothership with Picard's tactical help.

If you are referring to the destruction of the Borg Ship in BOBWII, the Enterprise actually did not destroy it. Though Rikers plan to ram the vessel may have, or at least would have caused serious damage, there is no assurity that action would have completely destroyed a vessel of that size. The Borg Ship was destroyed via an internal self destruct process.

 

[Timo]

I think the discussion was about the Defiant's contribution to the destruction in ST:FC, which indeed happened only with Picard's tactical help and did not seem to hinge on the firepower of any single vessel.

Then again, I guess the "BoBW II" destruction was also made possible solely by Picard's tactical advice, however involuntary... Although the "Starfleet force" doing the actual destroying there was limited to, well, Data.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sojourner]

You know, this reminds me of the age old question, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?". A serious topic of debate at one time.

 

[Unicron]

Especially in TNZ.

 

[USS Excelsior]

A Borg cube probably wouldn't last very long at the end of Parallels.

 

[Wingsley]

Well, the Starfleet force did eventually destroy the invading Borg mothership with Picard's tactical help.

If you are referring to the destruction of the Borg Ship in BOBWII, the Enterprise actually did not destroy it. Though Rikers plan to ram the vessel may have, or at least would have caused serious damage, there is no assurity that action would have completely destroyed a vessel of that size. The Borg Ship was destroyed via an internal self destruct process.

No, I was referring to the "Queen ship" destroyed by Starfleet in the Battle of Sector 001 in STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT.

 

[Wingsley]

If you want to take this subject to its literal extreme, and if you assume the situation is dire enough and Starfleet is desperate enough, there is at least one full-proof way to destroy any invading Borg ship (or ships) without firing a shot.

1: USE INVERTERS. Use the Rutian-Ansatan "inverter" interdimensional teleportation device in TNG's "The High Ground". Instead of sending people, attach an inverter to a powerful bomb and destroy the attacking Borg vessel from within. This would completely bypass all Borg defenses, giving the Borg no time to adapt. I imagine it would require at least a few fast and swift ships to track the Borg so that the bombs reach the proper targets and do not simply appear in open space.

2: Use a batch of custom-built torpedoes (maybe probes or shuttlecrafts) equipped with phase-shifting cloaking devices.These are less likely to work, but still have a good chance of penetrating Borg defenses and hulls before decloaking and detonating.

3: Use captured Borg nanoprobes from Seven of Nine to either re-assimilate Picard or to assimilate someone else, use the newly assimilated "Borg" as a means to tap in on the invading ships' internal network, and use that connection to adjust Federation weapons to negate Borg shields.

All three of these methods may seem extreme in their outlandishness, but if the Federation were faced with an immediate threat without an effective defense against Borg attacks, I could see any of these being used in a dramatic storyline to effectively repel an invasion. Any of these stories could be made to work dramatically, and they would make perfect sense from a tactical logic point-of-view. Picard (or Riker or Shelby) could be placed in command of a small rapid deployment force used to implement one or more of these plans. The scary part isn't whether or not it would work or how quickly, it would be what the Federation would do if more Borg ships kept coming.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Or just shoot Genesis torpedoes at them and make little cuboid planets

 

[USS Excelsior]

Use Shinzon's radiation to kill every living thing on the Borg cube.

Or arm the Earth itself with 50 million photon torpedos and 10 million phaser banks.

 

[Silversmok3]

Its a simple answer-every ship they detect.

The Cubes are massive enough that a fleet of Starfleet ships isn't a challenge for the Borg to engage. Had Picard not shown up at the Battle of Sector 001 the Borg Collective would be 2-zip against Starfleet.

 

[T'Girl]

Worf: "Hey Geordi, how many ships can a Borg cube engage simultaneously?"

Geordi: (**sigh**) "Oh I don't know ... how many ships can a Borg cube engage simultaneously Worf?"