Miranda Class - Original Design Intention

[Praetor]

You make some very good points, Wingsley. Putting the torpedo launcher in the neck seems a vulnerability in retrospect, even though I know it was Jefferies' intention as far back as the Phase II design. I wish he were around to answer the question as to why, but perhaps Mr. Probert might pop in and share his thoughts on it?

Also, putting everything in one hull as in the Miranda does seem to go backwards from the idea of putting the engines and dangerous bits at a safe distance. Did Miranda crews just have to pray their warp cores never breached? The torpedoes seem like the least of the concerns there.

Puttng it at the BASE of the neck makes more sense than putting it in a lower saucer deck. The antimatter feed conduits for "loading" the warhead have less distance to travel in the TMP configuration, and remain entirely within the secondary hulls protective mass, as opposed to snaking through the thin area of the "neck".

As for "clearance" for the torpedoes, it could no more "hit it's own ship" than the TOS version, which ALSO had to clear the saucer first.

You do make a good point, but I don't see how it's that much harder to run a line into the saucer bottom.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

You do make a good point, but I don't see how it's that much harder to run a line into the saucer bottom.

Oh, it's entirely possible. The question is: is it desirable? The antimatter storage pods are in the lower levels of the Engineering hull. Running a "tap" to the base of the interconnecting dorsal can be done keeping the whole thing safely shielded by the bulk of the hull, and would need (VERY rough guess) ~20-40m of conduit to do. Split the difference and call it 30m.

To run that tap all the way to the general location of the TOS launchers would (again rough guess) DOUBLE that. That's twice as many meters of conduit to magnetically shield, and that could suffer a rupture due to accident or combat. Plus you'd be running a good half of that through an area of the ship that is the "thinnest" in terms of protective bulk (the interconnect)..

Could you do it? Sure. I personally don't think it's adviseable though.

 

[Timo]

FWIW, in "Errand of Mercy" the Klingons score torpedo hits against the underside of the saucer, and Spock says that the hits on decks 10 and 11 caused minor buckling in the antimatter pods. That would perfectly jibe with the idea of a FJ-dimensioned and -decked saucer which has torpedo launchers near the bottom and separate antimatter pods for them in the immediate vicinity.

Those separate pods would probably be connected to the main tankage only through rarely used refill lines, which would be carefully purged and sealed most of the time.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[darkwing_duck1]

FWIW, in "Errand of Mercy" the Klingons score torpedo hits against the underside of the saucer, and Spock says that the hits on decks 10 and 11 caused minor buckling in the antimatter pods. That would perfectly jibe with the idea of a FJ-dimensioned and -decked saucer which has torpedo launchers near the bottom and separate antimatter pods for them in the immediate vicinity.

Those separate pods would probably be connected to the main tankage only through rarely used refill lines, which would be carefully purged and sealed most of the time.

Timo Saloniemi

That would be an alternative.

 

[Timo]

Eleven, according to Franz Joseph. Fewer in some original Matt Jeffries sketches - but Andrew Probert went with FJ when doing the interior details of the TMP version, so he, too, has a tiny "K Deck" at the bottom vertex of the saucer.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Eleven, according to Franz Joseph. Fewer in some original Matt Jeffries sketches - but Andrew Probert went with FJ when doing the interior details of the TMP version, so he, too, has a tiny "K Deck" at the bottom vertex of the saucer.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, which is why I had to make a quick edit in my post...I got ahold of the Connie cutaway from "IAMD" and did a deck count...

 

[Probert]

... but perhaps Mr. Probert might pop in and share his thoughts on it?

Aside from the clumsy joining of boxy-structure to saucer-structure, I always kinda liked the Miranda class ships but with one glaring mistake... the warp engines.

You see, they're mounted upside down. Visually, no one has seemed to notice it, but the original Richard Taylor designed warp engines were mounted at their bottoms, having a distinct inset power dome (maybe their equivalent of a carburetor?) on their tops, followed rearward by a curved covering which address specific components (as seen in the David Kimble cutaway). All of that is simply ignored by virtually 'unplugging' the pylon from the intended mount and jamming in a new pylon in the top. The logical acceptable solution would be to flip the warp engines (they don't know up from down in space) and mount them the way they were designed to be mounted.

Andrew-

 

[Data Holmes]

... but perhaps Mr. Probert might pop in and share his thoughts on it?

Aside from the clumsy joining of boxy-structure to saucer-structure, I always kinda liked the Miranda class ships but with one glaring mistake... the warp engines.

You see, they're mounted upside down. Visually, no one has seemed to notice it, but the original Richard Taylor designed warp engines were mounted at their bottoms, having a distinct inset power dome (maybe their equivalent of a carburetor?) on their tops, followed rearward by a curved covering which address specific components (as seen in the David Kimble cutaway). All of that is simply ignored by virtually 'unplugging' the pylon from the intended mount and jamming in a new pylon in the top. The logical acceptable solution would be to flip the warp engines (they don't know up from down in space) and mount them the way they were designed to be mounted.

Andrew-

Agreed! Those upside down nacelles are annoying from a trek tech perspective.

 

[Captain X]

Except then they'd be upside down compared to the rest of the ship. If it's that much of an issue, class-specific nacelles probably would've been a better way to go.

 

[Vance]

I dunno. Physically, seems like the LN-40 has enough room on the top and bottom 'bulges' so that any hardware can invert. There doesn't seem to be any 'system-specific' details to the cowling on those two areas...

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Probert,

Good point...


CuttingEdge100

 

[Timo]

Physically, seems like the LN-40 has enough room on the top and bottom 'bulges' so that any hardware can invert.

LN-64, actually. (Who came up with that designation, anyway?)

And yes, subtly class-specific nacelles would have been a nice way to go. OTOH, I do have a soft spot for the basic concept of kitbashing a number of ship types out of common elements. And I'm rather disappointed that TPTB didn't do that in "Doomsday Machine" already, so that we would have gotten a second distinct starship design which could then perhaps have been used in "Ultimate Computer" as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Patrickivan]

I manipulated the top image a while ago to try to fit the original "rightside up" orientation of the Miranda Class. And the bottom one I just quickly flipped the nacelle to fit with Probert's comment.

I never really thought about that the nacelles were designed to be orientated a certain way. But if they are, I don't have a problem with how it looks.

 

[Vance]

Just remember, the original designs didn't have a rollbar, that was added AFTER the inversion. The first design was a 'neck with a torpedo pod' from the centerline down. The second was the pair of pods on their own pylons going straight down from the nacelle pylons.

Also, looking at the 'flipped' nacelle. Flip the internal grills and the after section again. At that point, I think, we'll have a 'true' Miranda housing, based on Kimball's specifications.

 

[Patrickivan]

Just remember, the original designs didn't have a rollbar, that was added AFTER the inversion. The first design was a 'neck with a torpedo pod' from the centerline down. The second was the pair of pods on their own pylons going straight down from the nacelle pylons.

Also, looking at the 'flipped' nacelle. Flip the internal grills and the after section again. At that point, I think, we'll have a 'true' Miranda housing, based on Kimball's specifications.

I wasn't a huge fan of that "roll bar" and assumed it could be removed or swapped out anyway. So I just quickly erased it here, and it does look a lot cleaner.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Except then they'd be upside down compared to the rest of the ship. If it's that much of an issue, class-specific nacelles probably would've been a better way to go.

Maybe a little slice-n-dice, rotating the forward and aft bits....

 

[Praetor]

You do make a good point, but I don't see how it's that much harder to run a line into the saucer bottom.

Oh, it's entirely possible. The question is: is it desirable? The antimatter storage pods are in the lower levels of the Engineering hull. Running a "tap" to the base of the interconnecting dorsal can be done keeping the whole thing safely shielded by the bulk of the hull, and would need (VERY rough guess) ~20-40m of conduit to do. Split the difference and call it 30m.

To run that tap all the way to the general location of the TOS launchers would (again rough guess) DOUBLE that. That's twice as many meters of conduit to magnetically shield, and that could suffer a rupture due to accident or combat. Plus you'd be running a good half of that through an area of the ship that is the "thinnest" in terms of protective bulk (the interconnect)..

Could you do it? Sure. I personally don't think it's adviseable though.

Oh, I'll give you the dangers of it. But the line Timo referenced seems to give precedent for thinking they just have little tanks in the bottom of the saucer. I just thought it seemed like there was more danger in having them right there on the neck, with the danger of blowing up and severing the ship, as opposed to blowing off the bottom of the saucer.

No offense meant, darkwing_duck1. I guess it's apples and oranges really.

And I'd never thought about the point Mr. Probert brought up about the nacelles on the Miranda being upside down... I don't really mind them being flipped the 'right' way but they do seem symmetrical enough that you could flip the insides with little consequence.

If only Mr. Bennett knew which way to initial his approvals we wouldn't have had this problem...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Oh, I'll give you the dangers of it. But the line Timo referenced seems to give precedent for thinking they just have little tanks in the bottom of the saucer. I just thought it seemed like there was more danger in having them right there on the neck, with the danger of blowing up and severing the ship, as opposed to blowing off the bottom of the saucer.

No offense meant, darkwing_duck1. I guess it's apples and oranges really.

No offense taken. Actually, I'm agreeing with you on the above...I don't want the antimatter tankage anywhere NEAR the thin "neck" area. That's why the Engineering hull placement made more sense, as the AM bottles could be kept deep within the thickness of the Engineering Hull for additional protection.

 

[DonIago]

^Except they're not usually kept _deep_ within the ship...they're usually kept someplace where they can be quickly ejected if containment fails...at least that's my understanding...

 

[Anticitizen]

If the antimatter containment fields go, I don't think it'll matter where on the ship you are. You'd be, as Chekov put it, 'waporized'.