Minutia Question re: Defiant's Weapons

[Cyke101]

Your assumption is correct. In Sacrifice of Angels, Galaxy class vessels were the "heavy guns" and Sisko ordered them as "Galaxy Wings" and referred to the Akira and Excelsiors as "Cruisers." The attack fighters were the small ships. Star Trek makes several references to the larger ships such as Galaxy-class and Sovereigns being classified as "battleships" even if Starfleet never names them that. Cruisers were most of Starfleet's vessels including Intrepid, Akira, Nebula, Excelsior, and most other mid-sized ships.

Umm, Miranda, Excelsior and Ambassador played star roles in the fight against the Cube in "Emissary".

That was the first Borg Cube. All of the later models such as Steamrunner, Sabre, and Akira class were featured extensively against the second Cube but were ALL absent from the first for the simple fact that they were designed to replace the older starship designs.

I think it's just as fair to say that something like the Akira could have been involved at Wolf 359, we just never saw it (after all, 40 ships fought it and we only saw a handful of ships in action, and maybe the wreckage of a dozen other ships. What about the other 25+?), or that the Akiras were all too far away to arrive in time to help. That's speculation, admittedly, but if we're all using conjecture...

As for the Akira class, most information on it is sketchy, but like Steamrunner and Sabre classes, it is never seen on screen for any other purposes but combat. Nearly every other Starfleet ship has taken on some sort of other role such as diplomacy or exploration.

Even the creator of the Akira himself describes his design :


"This was my gunship/battlecruiser/aircraft carrier. It has 15 torpedo launchers and two shuttlebays - one in front, with three doors, and one in the back. I really got into it with this one, with the whole idea that the front bay would be the launching bay, and then to return they'd come into the back, because they'd be protected by the rest of the ship."
(taken from Memory Alpha)

The bottom line is that after Wolf 359, Starfleet took a different approach with starship construction and some of the later vessels seen during the Dominion War did in fact have a combat orientated approach.

I don't think anyone is questioning your last statement. It's just that an issue of canonicity starts to crop up. What we read/hear about is often different than what the screen gives us.