Miranda Class in the Dominion War.

[Tim Walker]

My head cannon:

The Miranda was (unofficially) designed as a destroyer. Yet turned out to be unusually versatile as a ship class, so had an usually long production run. Coming to be viewed as a multi-mission/multi-purpose work horse. So over the decades a very large number were built. So during the Federation Golden Age most Ships of the Line were Mirandas.

The Excelsior turned out to be usually versatile as a cruiser. So had an usually long production run. During the Federation Golden Age, most of the larger Ships of the Line were Excelsiors.

In universe.... The Centaurs were probably built (not kit bashed) during the Golden Age. They look too good to have been hastily thrown together. So I see this design being brought out of mothballs, and sufficiently up graded that it could challenge a dominion bug ship.

I agree, I don't think the Jupp was a kit bash. It likely was an old ship that, out of sheer desperation, was brought out of mothballs. I imagine something like this serving in a minor role, such as patrolling the Talarian border.

So I see at least five classes being brought out of mothballs: Miranda, Excelsior, Centaur, Constellation, and the one the Jupp belonged too.

I can imagine old freighters being reactivated as well.

As for the anti-Borg ships, I would start with Project Sovereign.

 

[evilchumlee]

I don't think Miranda's are ACTUALLY any more prone to destruction than any other ship. Do we really see an inordinate number of them go down?

As for the anti-Borg ships, I would start with Project Sovereign.

I always thought the Sovereign as anti-Borg vessel was odd.

One would think you want to try to have a ship with limited crew for anti-Borg operations, given the very real potential for your own crew to be turned against you via assimilation.

The best anti-Borg vessels would be small, powerful, crewed by the smallest amount of people possible.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Not sure, I suspect if more Mirandas get downed it's because there were more of them present.

After all the Sitak and the Majestic (both Mirandas, but probably relatively recent ones admittedly) were the Defiant's last "wingmen" during Operation: Return.

 

[Tim Walker]

One would think you want to try to have a ship with limited crew for anti-Borg operations, given the very real potential for your own crew to be turned against you via assimilation.

Unless Project Sovereign was reactivated immediately after The Neutral Zone (TNG), rather than after Q Who. When the nature of the Borg was unknown, but it was evident that there was a threat that, while unidentified, was clearly dangerous and scary. So the engineers sought to up gun/up grade something that they were familiar with, a traditional saucer and cigars ship.

Venom Geek Media had explanations for the various anti-Borg ships. See the YouTube video "Wings of the Federation: 'Assimilate This!'" Note that planners had a Klingon advisor.

The anti-Borg task force was also interpreted by Trek Central. The YouTube video "Borg Busters-Starfleets Anti-Borg War Ships!"

Have to note-Sisko may have ended up with two different test beds. The Yeager as well as the Defiant. Somebody suggested (citing a U.S. Navy submarine) that the Yeager was constructed to test various types of equipment; presumably including weapons. The Yeager was probably quite modular.

Test beds...ships nobody else wanted.

 

[evilchumlee]

Have to note-Sisko may have ended up with two different test beds. The Yeager as well as the Defiant. Test beds...ships nobody else wanted.

Yeah, in all fairness too Defiant was inherently flawed on production. It took quite a bit of tinkering from O'Brian to make it actually workable... tinkering that didn't make it into the schematics of the ship...

The Yeager fills very much in-universe what it is out-of-universe... something hastily slapped together. I would think something like the Yeager was very much a proof of concept rather than anything intended to go into production.

So I see at least five classes being brought out of mothballs: Miranda, Excelsior, Centaur, Constellation, and the one the Jupp belonged too.

EDIT to respond to this...

I don't believe the Miranda's and Excelsiors were brought out of mothballs. They've been in continuous operation. Excelsiors even seem to be desirable as they tend to be the ship of choice of the Admiralty in the TNG-era.

I'm not entirely convinced they're ALL super old either... I think it's entirely possible they were producing Miranda's and Excelsior's for an extended period of time. Excelsior is still quite new circa the 2290's... if they churned them out over 20-30 years or so, we aren't all that far off from TNG. Even if they didn't and almost all of the Excelsior's are of 2290's vintage, they're still... 60-70 years old by TNG. That's really NOT all that old.

 

[mithril]

They are a sturdy and reliable platform... just rather old, and presumably, slower. Shields may have been upgraded over time; phasers not so much (no strips)

weapons were definitely upgraded, as they used the TNG constant beam effect and not the TMP "bursts of many small beams" effect.
and just because they don;t have large phaser strips doesn't mean they couldn't be using the same phaser technology. it just means that the emitter assembly is small, probably due to the need to fit it into spaces originally designed for the older TOS/TMP turreted mounts.

We've seen Oberths with a crew of 5, so it's possible a Miranda may only have 20 crew or fewer on board. And is it really more of a deathtrap than being on a Peregrine fighter or a Runabout?

the only crew numbers we're told for a TNG era Miranda was in TNG "unnatural selection", where the USS Lantree, a Miranda converted into a "class 6 federation supply vessel", had a crew of 26. and in "TNG Night Terrors" where the USS brittain (shown as a standard miranda and referred to as a science vessel) had a crew of 35.

presumably one that was fitted out as a combat ship would have a larger crew, but i have no doubt that by TNG most of the ships in active duty had been more heavily automated than in the previous century, and could get by with much less crew than it would have needed in the 23rd century when the design was first built. which honestly may well have helped explain why the USS Saratoga at wolf 359 had such roomy crew quarters and space for civilian family members. it might well have had less than a hundred people aboard a hull that originally had needed two or three hundred. there would be lots of crew space to work with.

 

[Tim Walker]

Checking on line, I found that the U.S. Air Force accepted its first F-16 fighter jet in 1978. A variant is still being produced for export today. So we have a combat vehicle that has been in production 45-46 years.

Looked at the Aviation web site. Featured a question dated March 2016-which planes have had the longest production runs? Of those still being produced in 2016:

1. Piper cub, since 1938. By different companies.

2. Beechcraft Bonanza, since 1947. By the same company.

3. Honorable mention goes to the C-130, since 1954.

As for how long an individual plane may remain in use, I came across mention of a DC-3 flying today that was delivered in 1937.

Actually, I believe that there is a biplane that has been in use even longer, but I don't remember which model.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm not entirely convinced they're ALL super old either... I think it's entirely possible they were producing Miranda's and Excelsior's for an extended period of time. Excelsior is still quite new circa the 2290's... if they churned them out over 20-30 years or so, we aren't all that far off from TNG. Even if they didn't and almost all of the Excelsior's are of 2290's vintage, they're still... 60-70 years old by TNG. That's really NOT all that old.

For the kitbashes, we are expressly told that the Centaur's captain was Charlie Reynolds. I doubt the ship came out of mothballs if Sisko knew that the ship was captained by a friend of his.

 

[CaptChris42]

I believe that all three designs were built to fight the Borg. We first see them fighting a Borg cube.

There have been several different size estimates for Sabres. Somebody pointed out that a smaller size results in volume/tonnage similar to a Miranda. So I can see this class remaining in production post war, to fill the gaps caused by enormous losses.

Steamrunners and Norway seem to be larger, in frigate to light cruiser sizes. I can imagine that the few that survived the war would be held in reserve, in an anti-Borg task force.

Of course, when I say 'replace the Miranda' it depends on what era of usage we mean: the original one, of being sizable Light Cruisers with important, semi independent mission roles - or the later possible usage as border patrol, recon, interdiction and support functions. By the 2340s I am sure bigger ships have assumed the traditional light cruiser/outrider role, including the possible Apollo/Wambundu or other Ambassador-class derivative. But the Miranda did still seem to end up in a variety of less critical or pre-eminent roles, in that period, for a while longer.

For the Saber I assume 190 to 223 metres, unless otherwise revised. The others are all around 1100 to 1200 feet presumably. The Norway seems to be a frigate or a VERY light 'cruiser', but the Steamrunner seems a bit closer to a Destroyer. The Saber I would class usually as a 'scout or escort' (or even 'destroyer escort' in the archaic use of the term perhaps)

 

[Dukhat]

The Miranda was (unofficially) designed as a destroyer. Yet turned out to be unusually versatile as a ship class, so had an usually long production run. Coming to be viewed as a multi-mission/multi-purpose work horse. So over the decades a very large number were built. So during the Federation Golden Age most Ships of the Line were Mirandas.

In season 2 of PIC, we see young Jean-Luc around 2315 at his home, and the set decoration consists of models of the Excelsior and Miranda. So I also think that the bulk of Starfleet vessels during 2315 to around 2340 consisted of those two classes, with a smattering of Constellations, Centaurs, Currys, Raging Queens, and the newer Ambassadors.

 

[Tim Walker]

If the aircraft examples are relevant, the Miranda may have had a very long production run. The Piper Cub had a production run of at least 78 years. If we add 78 years to, say, the year 2290, we get the year 2368. Using the C-130 as an example of military procurement, with a production run that began 70 years ago, we add 70 years to 2290 and get to the year 2360.

So we have a DC-3 that has been flying 87 years. (A lifetime!). If we add 87 years to the year 2290, we get to the year 2377.

Conceivably, the Miranda might have remained in production after such ceased for the Excelsior.

I think that having a vast number of Mirandas available may have saved Starfleet from being overwhelmed during the first year of the war. If nothing else, these could fight Cardassian ships.

It's conceivable that a fair number of Mirandas survived the war, and were used in support roles in the immediate post war years. Perhaps a few Mirandas were still in use during the early 25th century.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

IMO, the main reason why they might have kept the Mirandas around (and there is no similar in-universe explanation for the Excelsior*) is their much higher internal volume for a given length than her successors like the Saber (~80% the length but a fraction of the volume) and Steamrunner (very similar length, but conservatively 2/3 the volume) as the primary exploration frigate/light cruiser (a role that was latter supplemented by the Intrepid-class.

* I generally headcanon that Excelsiors were usually (with the exception of the Lakota) being used as placeholders for something in-universe, particularly in combat during DS9, less so in the "taxi" role in TNG. The Gorkon for instance makes a lot of sense as an Ambassador, Crazy Horse and Malinche could be the same or Cheyennes... and the explorers could be Challengers and the geographical ones could be New Orleans or Springfield-class.

 

[Tim Walker]

With 2-3 different lengths listed for a particular class, I have trouble analyzing it. Seen 2-3 different lengths listed for Sabres, Steamrunners, and Centaurs.

As for the Ambassador class during the war, I suspect they were patrolling borders of neighbors that had clashed with the Federation in the recent past. Aging ships, but seen as powerful by those neighbors. So one ship to patrol the Tholian border-an Ambassador. One ship to patrol the Tzenkethi border-an Ambassador....

There may have been only a couple Sovereigns available during the war, the original Sovereign and the Enterprise E. I can imagine these being held in reserve, for emergencies. (Such as the appearance of a Borg cube).

As for the anti-Borg ships in general, there weren't enough of them. In terms of production, I see a bottleneck for the larger ones. Couldn't build them fast enough. Particularly the Sovereigns, large warships full of cutting edge technology.

 

[Tim Walker]

Probably the only support vessel in production during the war, the Phoenix class. A first responder. Beverly Crusher's ship. There is a YouTube video.

 

[Dukhat]

With 2-3 different lengths listed for listed for a particular class, I have trouble analyzing it. Seen 2-3 different lengths listed for Sabres, Steamrunners, and Centaurs.

The Centaur's size differential has to do with the fact that there are two distinct versions of the ship: The original kitbash scaled to the Reliant bridge dome at 210 meters, and the larger Eaglemoss CGI version scaled to the Excelsior saucer. The two ships are so different in terms of size and components that they could really be two distinctly different classes.

 

[Ithekro]

It is entirely possible that many of those Dominion War era Excelsiors were actually Excelsior II-class.

 

[Tim Walker]

The Centaur's size differential has to do with the fact that there are two distinct versions of the ship: The original kitbash scaled to the Reliant bridge dome at 210 meters, and the larger Eaglemoss CGI version scaled to the Excelsior saucer. The two ships are so different in terms of size and components that they could really be two distinctly different classes.

It must have been the smaller one that we saw dog fighting the bug ship.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

It is entirely possible that many of those Dominion War era Excelsiors were actually Excelsior II-class.

That would explain the 40000-series registrations of the known vessels, though arguably might go against the onscreen implication of them being relatively new ships as of PIC.

 

[Dukhat]

It is entirely possible that many of those Dominion War era Excelsiors were actually Excelsior II-class.

Not the ones I saw on screen.

It must have been the smaller one that we saw dog fighting the bug ship.

That’s correct. The larger ones seen in Prodigy used the Eaglemoss CGI model, which was inaccurate to the kitbash, thereby creating an entirely different ship.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Not the ones I saw on screen.

Technically that's true of course. But the point that Ithekro and I are suggesting is that the old (possibly out of scale?) Excelsior model is being used as a "placeholder" for the actual Excelsior II in the same way that the KBoP model was used for as many as 4 similar models of various sizes that couldn't look exactly the same, and IIRC the battlecruiser was also used as a placeholder a time or two as well?