How Many TOS Constitution Class Ships *Can* There Be?

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Ticonderoga class cruiser: 22 active
Areligh Burke class destroer: 62 active
Ohio class SSBN: 18 active
Los Angeles class SSN: 36 active
Virginia class SSN: 13 active
Wasp class LHD: 8 Active

None of those can be considered 'capital ships' for the United States Navy. Cruisers, destroyers and frigates are only capital ships for a medium or small sized navy. Submarines are not and were never considered capital ships. The capital ships that the USN currently operates are the 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

 

[Solariabsg25]

Ticonderoga class cruiser: 22 active
Areligh Burke class destroer: 62 active
Ohio class SSBN: 18 active
Los Angeles class SSN: 36 active
Virginia class SSN: 13 active
Wasp class LHD: 8 Active

13 seems like a pretty decent number in naval terms, it seems to me. It seems like too few for a space fleet, however, which is one of the reasons I think that Starfleet has a LOT of other ship designs filling the same role and the Constitution class is just one of maybe 8 or 9 cruiser types they operate.


Without supplying details, we're not even sure what "like her" even means. There could be 30 Constitution class ships, but only 12 have the Block II retrofits needed to sustain the larger crew and science payload for a 5 year mission (the other 18 have slightly better armament and both smaller cargo bays and run with a crew of 150 to 200 at most).


I didn't know they made another "Constellation" decal. As far as I remember they actually went out and BOUGHT a commercial Star Trek model kit and modified that to be the Constellation, in which case the name would only have been visible in TOS-R. Could be I'm misremembering, but my understanding was that between the doomsday machine, the Klingon D7 and the asteroid Yonada their modeling budget was down to the director's pocket change and they had to improvise their asses off.

I know the AMT kit came with fourteen starship names on the decal sheet including the Constellation, but I do not know if the original issue kit did, or if was started with a re-issue as I didn't get one until the late 1970's. And yeah the budget was small hence glueing warp nacelles to a Tholian ship in "The Way To Eden", and IIRC the whole reason that the Romulans were using D7 battlecruisers in "The Enterprise Incident" was because they'd lost or broken the Bird-of-Prey miniature so couldn't make new footage.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

None of those can be considered 'capital ships' for the United States Navy. Cruisers, destroyers and frigates are only capital ships for a medium or small sized navy.

That sort of begs the question: how do we know the Enterprise class would qualify as a "capitol ship" by TOS standards? As many people have claimed that the Constitution class was the largest ship in the fleet in the 23rd century, there is NOTHING AT ALL to suggest that would be the case. Especially since we have the retcon of Pre-TOS ships like USS Kelvin that are both larger and more powerful than the TOS ship and probably didn't have a huge production run.

I mean, if we're assuming that the Constitution class was superceded by, say, the Excelsior class in its mission role, even THEN we're stuck with the known fact that the Excelsior was not the largest ship in the fleet for MOST of its operational history (not since the Ambassador class came out some time in the early 24th century). And since the Ambassadors didn't actually replace the Excelsiors in the same way the Excelsiors replaced the Constitutions, then it stands to reason there was ANOTHER very large ship in service that was phased out in favor of the Ambassadors. That ship (Dreadnought class? Kelvin-class? Star Empire class?) would be the "capital ships" that we see in smaller numbers, just like the Galaxy class of a century later.

Submarines are not and were never considered capital ships.

They WOULD be for a country whose major cities were all under water and therefore had no use for surface vessels.

I should note, however, that the term "capital ship" isn't actually widely used in naval terminology. That seems to be a category that is used almost EXCLUSIVELY in a science-fiction setting to differentiate between small vessels like, say, fighters, bombers, corvettes and shuttles, and bigger vessels like cruisers and destroyers and fighter carriers. The difference between them is normally just a matter of size, or the fact that capitol ships may have hangars capable of carrying smaller ships. Using THAT definition, there's no such thing as a "capitol ship" in any modern navy.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

IIRC the whole reason that the Romulans were using D7 battlecruisers in "The Enterprise Incident" was because they'd lost or broken the Bird-of-Prey miniature so couldn't make new footage.

I've been told they lost the bird of prey model ON PURPOSE because the guy who designed it was 1) not a union member and 2) Chinese. So the local union got ugly and ordered them to destroy the model. The original designer took the model home and smashed it to pieces himself in protest, at which point Desilu quietly told the bosses "It's gone, we don't know what happened to it, we must have lost it."

 

[Solariabsg25]

Now you mention the Union story it sounds vaguely familiar.

Sounds like old-school unions to me.

 

[Tenacity]

how do we know the Enterprise class would qualify as a "capitol ship"

Good point.

While not canon, the Enterprise is thought by some to be a "heavy cruiser." It might then follow that there are then battle cruisers, battle ships, and perhaps even larger ships still.

Super-dreadnoughts?

 

[MarsWeeps]

I didn't know they made another "Constellation" decal. As far as I remember they actually went out and BOUGHT a commercial Star Trek model kit and modified that to be the Constellation, in which case the name would only have been visible in TOS-R.

No, the original episode clearly showed USS Constellation, visible even on the old black and white TV's.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

I should note, however, that the term "capital ship" isn't actually widely used in naval terminology. That seems to be a category that is used almost EXCLUSIVELY in a science-fiction setting to differentiate between small vessels like, say, fighters, bombers, corvettes and shuttles, and bigger vessels like cruisers and destroyers and fighter carriers. The difference between them is normally just a matter of size, or the fact that capitol ships may have hangars capable of carrying smaller ships. Using THAT definition, there's no such thing as a "capitol ship" in any modern navy.

The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet.

William S. Lind, in the book America Can Win (p. 90), defines a capital ship as follows: "These characteristics define a capital ship: if the capital ships are beaten, the navy is beaten. But if the rest of the navy is beaten, the capital ships can still operate. Another characteristic that defines capital ships is that their main opponent is each other."

Ships of the line (of battle) were the capital ships of the era of sail. Battleships became the main form of capital ship after sailing vessels fell out of use, and remained so up to World War II. Aircraft carriers became recognized as capital ships during World War II and still form the main capital ships of most modern-era blue-water navies.

They WOULD be for a country whose major cities were all under water and therefore had no use for surface vessels.

Umm, what? What does that have to do with the United States Navy and the Ohio, Los Angeles and Virginia class submarines that you used as an example???

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

No, the original episode clearly showed USS Constellation, visible even on the old black and white TV's.

All they had to do was rearrange the AMT 1701 decals into 1710 and voilà, problem solved!

 

[MarsWeeps]

All they had to do was rearrange the AMT 1701 decals into 1710 and voilà, problem solved!

Yes, that would be the obvious choice but from what I heard, it would be too hard to distinguish from 1701. I bet they never imagined people would be discussing their decision 50 years later!

 

[Paradise City]

My reading of this is that there are a relatively few top class Constitution class ships. That ship building is very difficult, top class ships are infrequently introduced and ships have a long life span because of it. Enterprise was 20 years old in TOS or something wasn't it? Thus the fleet does the job but is relatively small. I won't hazard a guess as to the exact number as I'm more interested in bedding things down in brushstroke terms than getting pulled into arguments about exact figures.

Ship building remains difficult right up to the Galaxy class era. In the Galaxy class era, Excelsior and Miranda class ships are still widely used.

But there's some kind of industrial replicator revolution between Wolf 359 and the DW and the 2nd borg invasion. With the latter two conflicts, there's huge fleet deployments and huge lossses that are nevertheless someway sustainable. With Wolf 359, 39 ships going down is akin to some kind of catastrophic defeat.

Of course, if there's a huge expansion of the fleet as per my "industrial replicator revolution" theory then that requires manpower and a vastly expanded recruitment drive.

 

[kkt]

The only thing we know for sure is that there were 13 when Kirk made his statement.

We don't even know that. Maybe there are really 500, and Kirk didn't want to intimidate Captain Christopher by telling him that many, so Kirk lied and told him 12.

 

[Emperor Norton]

Yes, that would be the obvious choice but from what I heard, it would be too hard to distinguish from 1701. I bet they never imagined people would be discussing their decision 50 years later!

Gene Roddenberry: "You can't do "1710". You'll confuse our dyslexic viewers. Isn't that right, Just Bobman?"

 

[Emperor Norton]

If we were to name them, there are some free floating names out there other than the production lists I mentioned. These include the USS Tashik-Sotra (NCC-1865), as mentioned by Greg Jein based on Bob Justman's statement that there could be a Vulcan ship. Obviously, this is what the USS Intrepid became. There is the USS Scimitar, which was later renamed to the USS Defiant in "The Tholian Web". And I think a USS Yamato would be a possibility, given that Galaxy class ship was the sister ship to the Enterprise-D and originally given the registry NCC-1305-E, meaning that an earlier ship could be a Constitution class vessel. There is nothing canon to base that upon other than assumption, and the registry was retconned, but it is an interesting possibility.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Umm, what? What does that have to do with the United States Navy and the Ohio, Los Angeles and Virginia class submarines that you used as an example???

To follow from your own example, it really depends on who you're fighting. Aircraft carriers would not, for example, be very effective capital ships when fighting an enemy whose navy consists ENTIRELY of submarines and/or has no surface targets that can be attacked by aircraft. The capital ships, in that scenario, become escort ships equipped with anti-submarine weapons or attack submarines themselves, the loss of which would reduce the entire rest of the navy -- carriers, tankers, command and control ships, etc -- to a state of complete irrelevance. More to the point: there aren't a whole lot of things you can do with a submarine that become easier by making the submarine bigger. Somebody fires a torpedo at you, it doesn't matter if it's an 80m diesel boat or a 190m SSGN, a torpedo is a torpedo, it's gonna SUCK if it hits you.

Such is the case for a space force like Starfleet, which has no use for aircraft carriers and doesn't project power in the traditional sense. There isn't any type of weapon or combination of weapons that a larger ship can carry and a smaller one cannot; you can fit "standard phasers" on a scout ship or a frigate and they'd hit with about the same output in most cases. Even "capital ships" in Starfleet are all hulking exploration vessels, the loss of which doesn't actually cripple the fleet since any combination of smaller vessels can do the same job just as well. This is even more true in the combat role, where the tiny USS Defiant can go blow-for-blow with much larger vessels on better than equal terms.

tl;dr: there's no reason to expect "capital ships" to be that much bigger than any other ship since they all carry pretty much the same armament anyway. The capital ships might be bigger because they need more room for cargo and exploration equipment. We can't really say what that tells us about the Enterprise, except that space isn't an ocean and Starfleet isn't the navy.

 

[kkt]

None of those can be considered 'capital ships' for the United States Navy. Cruisers, destroyers and frigates are only capital ships for a medium or small sized navy. Submarines are not and were never considered capital ships. The capital ships that the USN currently operates are the 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

Many people consider SSBNs to be capital ships: Even if the whole rest of the Navy were lost, even a single SSBN could inflict unacceptable losses on any enemy. A carrier couldn't do that, they'd have maybe a week of aircraft operations before they'd run out of aviation fuel.

 

[Ithekro]

Correct, today the submarine is the major combat vessel of the Navy with the aircraft carrier being the visible symbol of the Navy for flag waving and power projection. The SSBN is the modern battleship as far as its capabilities and use are concerned.

Starfleet classifies the Enterprise as a Starship. What that means to the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons is anyone's guess. Usually the general concept seems to be that of a heavy cruiser, which is not a capital ship and the only time it was even considered close to that was in the days when there were no actual capital ships (battleships) in the Navy and the Soviets started producing nuclear powered cruisers of their own that are sometimes classified as Battlecruiser due to their size and tonnage being about twice the old Washingon Treaty standard limit definition of a cruiser (10,000 tons). The Ticonderoga-class are really destroyers that were reclassified as cruisers to fill the "cruiser gap" as the last of the old World War II cruisers were retired and the number of nuclear powered cruisers in the US navy was small and/or they too were actually destroyers or frigates ("destroyer leaders" by the old British definition as oppose to the current frigate which is a smaller warship akin to the old destroyer escorts). The pre-1975 redesignation of ships types in the US Navy is why we have FASA ships as large as cruisers called frigates and ship with that same designation as larger than cruiser starships in a few early Star Trek novels from Pocket Books.

 

[wayoung]

^We know exactly what class Klingon's consider Connies.

Torg: "Yes... Federation Battle Cruiser."
TSFS

Battle cruisers were capital ships.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

To follow from your own example, it really depends on who you're fighting. Aircraft carriers would not, for example, be very effective capital ships when fighting an enemy whose navy consists ENTIRELY of submarines and/or has no surface targets that can be attacked by aircraft. The capital ships, in that scenario, become escort ships equipped with anti-submarine weapons or attack submarines themselves, the loss of which would reduce the entire rest of the navy -- carriers, tankers, command and control ships, etc -- to a state of complete irrelevance.

If the USN is at war with Atlantis then yeah, sure!

Many people consider SSBNs to be capital ships: Even if the whole rest of the Navy were lost, even a single SSBN could inflict unacceptable losses on any enemy. A carrier couldn't do that, they'd have maybe a week of aircraft operations before they'd run out of aviation fuel.

In that sense yes, you have a point. SSBNs became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their nuclear deterrence capability. They are an invaluable and irreplaceable deterrent in the event of a first strike and a key element of the mutual assured destruction policy of nuclear deterrence that the superpowers have.

Such is the case for a space force like Starfleet, which has no use for aircraft carriers and doesn't project power in the traditional sense. There isn't any type of weapon or combination of weapons that a larger ship can carry and a smaller one cannot; you can fit "standard phasers" on a scout ship or a frigate and they'd hit with about the same output in most cases. Even "capital ships" in Starfleet are all hulking exploration vessels, the loss of which doesn't actually cripple the fleet since any combination of smaller vessels can do the same job just as well. This is even more true in the combat role, where the tiny USS Defiant can go blow-for-blow with much larger vessels on better than equal terms.

tl;dr: there's no reason to expect "capital ships" to be that much bigger than any other ship since they all carry pretty much the same armament anyway. The capital ships might be bigger because they need more room for cargo and exploration equipment. We can't really say what that tells us about the Enterprise, except that space isn't an ocean and Starfleet isn't the navy.

I don't think that's really the case though. (A) We've seen that Starfleet does indeed project power in the traditional sense. It demonstrates power by sending in capital ships in important planets, it maintains a strong presence in the Neutral Zones, it has a show of force when needed. And (B) we've seen that it's capital ship class that precedes the previous ship class is always bigger (at least length wise). The Excelsior was larger than the Constitution, the Ambassador was larger than the Excelsior, etc. Why? Because a larger vessel has more potential than a smaller one. It can have more and bigger weapon systems, it can have more and bigger shielding, etc. It packs more punch, it can stay in the fight much longer, it can take more damage, in has more 'bite' and 'stamina' if you will. That's why we don't see small starfighters fighting in the Star Trek universe, they wouldn't be able to do anything against a large cruiser!

 

[wayoung]

^ That's a pretty big assumption there, Captain. What if the Enterprise designers forgot to cover up the plasma vent with a grate? Them a small starfighter could just fire in a torpedo and BAM goodbye Enterprise!