If 1701 survived Star Trek III...

[Ubiquitousclate]

I am very late to this discussion, and don't wish to be perceived as belaboring a point, but the lack of efficacy of the torpedoes upon the Bird of Prey is odd, as well. We saw their destructive force upon Reliant, and yet when fired in SFS, they just don't seem to have the 'punch' that one might expect. I do realize that they cause internal damage in the Bird of Prey, and that dog-creature dies (RIP).

Are they not full-strength torpedoes, or is it that the Bird of Prey has some sort of shielding; or is just much more sturdy than Reliant et al, so to speak?

 

[Guy Gardener]

I am very late to this discussion, and don't wish to be perceived as belaboring a point, but the lack of efficacy of the torpedoes upon the Bird of Prey is odd, as well. We saw their destructive force upon Reliant, and yet when fired in SFS, they just don't seem to have the 'punch' that one might expect. I do realize that they cause internal damage in the Bird of Prey, and that dog-creature dies (RIP).

Are they not full-strength torpedoes, or is it that the Bird of Prey has some sort of shielding; or is just much more sturdy than Reliant et al, so to speak?

Crew for a bird of prey is 12 to 35 warriors. Which I assume means ten to run the ship and then 20 shock troops, and then this or that, just because, maybe.

Crew for the USS Reliant: 225 to 250 officers.

That's 4 double decker buses vs. one minivan.

 

[XCV330]

That's fair, I guess. There's no indication in the film that the Enterprise is in orbit over Genesis. All we know is that when Sulu says they've entered "Genesis sector," Kirk orders impulse power, and then the Klingons close on them. They're obviously close enough to Genesis that they are able to beam to the planet's surface, but they might well still be on a course toward the planet when the ship detonates.

Yeah. Seems like you'd want to have your ship up there in a stable orbit just in case something happened.

But if the explosion of Enterprise was more of a shaped charge hitting it in the vector against its orbit, that would drop delta v to the point it would fall out of orbit anyway, but not as fast as the movie shows.

 

[CoveTom]

I am very late to this discussion, and don't wish to be perceived as belaboring a point, but the lack of efficacy of the torpedoes upon the Bird of Prey is odd, as well. We saw their destructive force upon Reliant, and yet when fired in SFS, they just don't seem to have the 'punch' that one might expect. I do realize that they cause internal damage in the Bird of Prey, and that dog-creature dies (RIP).

Are they not full-strength torpedoes, or is it that the Bird of Prey has some sort of shielding; or is just much more sturdy than Reliant et al, so to speak?

Photon torpedoes obviously have variable strength according to the needs of the plot. However, to be fair, in TWOK, we see the Enterprise firing torpedoes at an unshielded Reliant in the nebula and while it manages to do some serious damage, it doesn't destroy the ship. So I'd say that the damage we see Enterprise torpedoes inflict in both movies is fairly comparable.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Photon torpedoes have never been consistent in TOS or the films. In the series, most of that was the needs of budget. The Enterprise, in particular, couldn't sustain heavy damage because they had no money to do battle damage (same with Lost in Space and Voyage - their ship models never showed damage). That's one reason the battles in TWOK were so incredibly devastating at the time. It was the first time we saw the Enterprise actually take damage. Most of that was by phaser fire but still, I remember how it felt to see the ship carved up so badly.

The Reliant, as @CoveTom said, was unshielded. Shields at full strength can take plot amount of force. Certainly, a torpedo hit does little more than shake the ship and explode some panels. But Kruge's BoP takes heavy damage. Sparks fly, smoke is everywhere and his dog dies. After which he goes Jon Wick on them.

Star Trek V fired a torpedo that scattered the alien but did little else. And in Star Trek VI, it took the combined torpedoes of the Enterprise and Excelsior to blow up Chang's BoP.

 

[DonIago]

And in Star Trek VI, it took the combined torpedoes of the Enterprise and Excelsior to blow up Chang's BoP.

I've always rather assumed that was overkill on the part of Our Heroes.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I've always rather assumed that was overkill on the part of Our Heroes.

Well the ship doesn't blow until the final torpedo struck. It's banging around taking hits until boom time.

 

[CoveTom]

Photon torpedoes have never been consistent in TOS or the films. In the series, most of that was the needs of budget. The Enterprise, in particular, couldn't sustain heavy damage because they had no money to do battle damage (same with Lost in Space and Voyage - their ship models never showed damage). That's one reason the battles in TWOK were so incredibly devastating at the time. It was the first time we saw the Enterprise actually take damage. Most of that was by phaser fire but still, I remember how it felt to see the ship carved up so badly.

The Reliant, as @CoveTom said, was unshielded. Shields at full strength can take plot amount of force. Certainly, a torpedo hit does little more than shake the ship and explode some panels. But Kruge's BoP takes heavy damage. Sparks fly, smoke is everywhere and his dog dies. After which he goes Jon Wick on them.

Star Trek V fired a torpedo that scattered the alien but did little else. And in Star Trek VI, it took the combined torpedoes of the Enterprise and Excelsior to blow up Chang's BoP.

Just a random thing that I thought about is that TWOK is the only one of the TOS films in which the ship's phasers are used. Kirk talks about using them in TMP, but is corrected by Decker. And, of course, we see hand phasers used. Y'know, on their "disintegrate cookware" setting. But it's pretty much all torpedoes, all the time in the films.

 

[DonIago]

Well the ship doesn't blow until the final torpedo struck. It's banging around taking hits until boom time.

Just because it doesn't explode doesn't mean it wasn't fatally damaged.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Just because it doesn't explode doesn't mean it wasn't fatally damaged.

I really only go by what they tell me on screen.

But sure, they could have sat there and waited for it to blow up, beaming up survivors who may or may not have kept fighting until the last breath. And we don't know how damaged it was, other than Kang's bridge being hit. It's an active combat situation and the super weapon needed to be destroyed. And we needed to wrap up this film with the best explosion in Trek movie history.

Regardless, it still took 6 - 7 torpedoes to blow it up, which was the point of the torpedo strength discussion. One to take out Kang himself and disable the cloak (which didn't do much outside damage to the hull if you look closely) and six more to before it went up. Compared to TWOK where one torpedo ripped Reliant's hull wide open and another blow a nacelle off after phasers carved it up. We don't know if the BoP's shields were down or not. The ship reacted like it was still absorbing hits until the last one from Kirk did the trick.

Just a random thing that I thought about is that TWOK is the only one of the TOS films in which the ship's phasers are used. Kirk talks about using them in TMP, but is corrected by Decker. And, of course, we see hand phasers used. Y'know, on their "disintegrate cookware" setting. But it's pretty much all torpedoes, all the time in the films.

Which is one thing that bothered me about the TOS movies. Other TWOK, they kept relying on torpedoes. I loved the use of the phaser banks in TWOK. The TNG movies brought them back, at least.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've always rather assumed that was overkill on the part of Our Heroes.

Maybe, but damn did it look cool!

 

[Mage]

Photon torpedoes have never been consistent in TOS or the films. In the series, most of that was the needs of budget.

Indeed. It has been stated that a single starship could glass a planet (General Order 24) with a few torpedoes I believe. I am willing to believe that energy shields are effective and powerfull, but one would think that if a few torpedoes can exterminate all life on a planet, one against a shield.....

 

[TRON JA307020]

...how might the film series been different?

The Enterprise couldn't have landed in TVH, so the crew would have had to beam down while hiding the ship from 20th century detection. That would have made for some additional complexity in terms of getting the transparent aluminum aboard.

Also, if Enterprise crashes into the bay, is she able to be saved and refit? If not, do we get the Enterprise-A or does the crew get the Excelsior or maybe an Excelsior Class Enterprise-A?

I wish the original Enterprise had survived the film series and found a place of pride in a Starfleet naval museum. Sadly, we never got the chance to know the Enterprise-A.

Yeah. I wish the old girl had survived. I know they called the A Kirks Enterprise but we only saw her on two missions. Not enough time to really care about her. In would have loved to have seen the 1701 in the fleet museum.

 

[CoveTom]

I came up with a new idea that could work at any time.

The BOP gets pulled up out of SF Bay. Maybe instead of giving it back to the Klingons they put it in the Fleet Museum.

Well, they ended up doing that part at least.

 

[publiusr]

Indeed. It has been stated that a single starship could glass a planet (General Order 24) with a few torpedoes I believe. I am willing to believe that energy shields are effective and powerfull, but one would think that if a few torpedoes can exterminate all life on a planet, one against a shield.....

Shielding keeps the anti-matter from interacting with the hull same as internals for intermix or the torpedo interior.

Close in, TSFS type.

Generations had the -D with the big TMP type full strength torpedo perhaps