Just how well armed are the D7 and K't'inga class battlecruisers, especially the ventral armament? I think the D7 only had 4 disrupters, 2 each on the ventral edge of the nacelles. The K't'inga has 8 "sonic"(whatever that means since there's no sound in space.) disrupter mounts spread along the length of the ship. James
In TOS, hidden weapons emplacements were the Starfleet norm, at least for their big starships; ENT and STXI extrapolated on that by introducing in graphic detail a pop-up style of weaponry. Would that be a Starfleet-only thing, or would other cultures go by the same (techno-?)logic? Klingons might have philosophical reasons for only installing forward-firing weaponry, but since "nothing is more honorable than victory" one would assume them to mount side, top, bottom and aft guns as well, even if behind near-invisible hatches, gunports and whatnot. It would be a bit odd if the Klingon counterpart to Constitution didn't sport at least 80% of the weapons emplacements of its adversary... Timo Saloniemi
I've always figured the Klingon ships weren't built and maintained by a central fleet authority, but rather were made by individual houses throughout the Empire and therefore each one could be equipped in wildly differing ways. This is only my idea, BTW, I'm sure nothing of the sort was ever stated in canon. --Alex
I figured all the disruptors (though in "Errand of Mercy", Kirk refers to the hand disruptor fire as "Klingon phasers") were mounted so they could fire forward given the Klingon offensive orientation and believers in the idea of attack at all costs. An "with my shield or on it" mentality. Of course in TMP we see the Klingon cruisers mounting aft photon torpedos with seems a reasonable feature.
In Klingon Academy (non-canon of course), the D7 had 4 disruptors and 1 photon launcher forward, 2 disruptors and 1 photon aft, and 2 disruptors port and starboard (each). http://www.klingonacademy.com/view.php?pg=ShipInfoKlingon IIRC the Klingon ships had relatively weak shielding on the sides and aft with heavier shielding forward. I guess honor dictates that you kill your opponent while looking him in the eye.
It stands to reason,that a Klingon Ship would only have a "few" weapons. They wouldn't want to win a battle, just because they out gunned their opponent. "Guile" comes to mind.
I'm forced to rebuff the Klingon monoculture idea and remind everyone that if we're supposed to be thinking of Klingons as a real race with realistic motivations and thinking, the kinds of people who design those ships are not the same people who use them in combat, and the warrior ethos for what passes for "honorable," in addition to being bullshit (Klingons rarely follow it themselves) is also thoroughly irrelevant. David Kimble's TMP blueprints showed eight disruptors, of which about four could be brought to bear on any particular target, fore and aft or starboard or port. A few other sources have suggested that the configuration of the battlecruiser -- Both D-7 and K'tinga -- are meant to provide a somewhat misleading profile; if you aim for the approximate center of mass of the ship your shots are likely to pass through the neck or the forward part of the drive section where its shielding is thickest and where any damage is less likely to affect either engine performance or the tactical performance of its main weapon systems (the torpedo launcher) and sensors.
Kind of like the Clans in Battletech. They prefer mech single combat. But rather than the biggest, strongest mech they can find, many use lightweight, less heavily armed ones in one on one combat because it shows a lot more skill to use superior tactics to take down an opponent instead of just "running down and gunning down" an enemy.