If the high number of Miranda class starships seen in the Dominion War were only used as cannon fodder as has been repeatedley said in here then this would imply that crew complements on them would be fairly light, consisting of Tactical teams, Enginerring and Damage Control and Command and Flight control crew, maybe between 50 and 100 crew total. The question is though why would anyone in there right mind be assigned to a Miranda during the war knowing full well that the ship would never last long under fire. It'd essentially be a suicide mission for anyone given a post on them and even that I could hardly see it being crewed by anyone higher than Lt. I do know that during war time you go where you told to go but to be assigned to a Miranda just seems a bit crazy like sending a pre WW2 Destroyer against a modern Battleship. Any ideas?
Its sort of like you said, you go where you are assigned. Even when it isnt a time of war, if you're told to be someplace you are expected to be there and god help you if you dont show up.
Of course, the Mirandas that died on screen did so as victims of the heavy capital ships of the enemy. In an ideal tactical situation, the Mirandas might have gone toe-to-toe on the lesser Dominion, Cardassian and Breen vessels and triumphed - whereas tying down the heavy Galaxies in such work might have been a bad idea for Starfleet. I doubt the manpower needs of an ancient Miranda could be appreciably reduced even if there was the will. If anything, those ships would require a higher percentage of crew presence than their more modern counterparts in order to remain viable in combat. However, if the ships were really deliberately turned into flying targets with minimal crews, one would have expected them to be operated accordingly, performing sacrificial missions. Instead, these ships seem to serve as escorts for high priority sallies and sorties... Timo Saloniemi
Relatively few Mirandas actually were destroyed on screen. It's mainly that the shot of the Sitak and Majestic disintegrating under heavy Dominion fire is so memorable. Mirandas would not be using antiquated technologies. A 24th Century Miranda probably has no original components left. They would have been refitted countless times over the years.
In that case, though, one would expect to see modern warp engines and weapons at least - but those visually distinct things don't seem to change. Perhaps one might consider the Miranda a carefully polished turd rather than a plain one... But the polishing might not do much to the tactical value. OTOH, Starfleet faces a very diverse set of adversaries. Perhaps it just doesn't pay to maintain the whole fleet in a state that matches the worst possible adversary - perhaps ships that are a century out of date with respect to Klingons are the perfect response to all those adversaries who themselves are two centuries out of date with respect to Klingons? Timo Saloniemi
The thing about the warp engines is that the nacelles we see on the outside are just shells, who knows what the stuff on the inside looks like
Agreed with many of the posts above. The Sitek and the Majestic themselves are prime examples of Mirandas lasting for hours in combat. Not long after we see their destruction, we also see a more advanced Steamrunner bite it as well, so the Mirandas really do have the capability to survive for long periods of time. I tend to think of them along the lines of not, as cannon fodder, quick escorts with specific functions in battle. It's just that when we see them get destroyed, it's usually from superior firepower and from ships and platforms out of their class.
Granted - but it doesn't seem as if Starfleet would have a reason to stick to the outer shells when previous known refits (ST:TMP) have specifically involved changing the shell. It should be noted, though, that the 23rd century ships (Miranda, Excelsior) in DS9 suddenly start showing bright blue warp glow on their engines, when in TNG they tended to have the duller glow of the original movies. There are even instances where it looks as if a background Miranda or two would have reddish ramscoop glow at the forward end of the nacelle... Although that's probably just an optical illusion, as compared with the less ambiguous fact that some Mirandas have impulse engine glow coming from their torpedo launcers, apparently suggesting a sublight propulsion upgrade at the expense of firepower! Timo Saloniemi
Taking the non-canon classification that Mirandas are Frigates, then they shouldn't even be in combat with 14th century capital ships. Frigates weren't allowed to fight in line battles in the age of sail, because everyone knew they'd be blown to living fuck with the opening volley. But they were excellent when matched against a ship of equal (or even slightly greater) firepower.
Then again, frigate in the early 19th century or before would be the exact same thing as cruiser in the late 20th century or later. The latter name is a synonym for the former, an issue that was confused when the Royal Navy wanted names for its all-new categories of small escort vessels in WWII and arbitrarily reassigned words like "frigate", "sloop" or "corvette". And Starfleet in the 24th century seems to be a cruiser navy: most of the ships fighting in the "line" are cruisers of some sort by designation (or at least we know canonically that ships up to Ambassador size are), with just a few "explorers" (the apparent 24th century parallel to battleship) in the mix. So a ship called "frigate" should be right at home in the front lines. Of course, the Miranda in the 24th century is a midget ship no matter what the designation. In that sense, she's probably not even a frigate in the perverted 20th century RN sense of the word, but some sort of a corvette... Timo Saloniemi
I'm not entirely sure. I remember an episode of TNG involving a Miranda Class ship the Enterprise was investigating and one of the characters said they only had a standing crew of 39.
But that ship wasn't established to be battleworthy. She was the explicated science ship Brattain from "Night Terrors", while the explicated supply ship Lantree of the same class also had just two dozen crew (and, unlike the Brattain, lacked the torpedo roll bar). It might only take a couple of dozen crew to fly a Miranda in ideal conditions - but it could still take the full 200 to 400 crew to operate her in battle. Timo Saloniemi
In TSFS Scotty, working on his own, was able to automate the systems on the Enterprise so that it could be operated by just five people (less than that, really, as Kirk and McCoy didn't seem to do anything involved with actually running the ship). Now as we all know this didn't go very well, but I think it demonstrates that Starfleet vessels can operate for a while at least with minimal crew. Also, the Stargazer was able to operate in 'The Battle' for a very short period with only Picard on board. Whilst it may not be a wise idea, it certainly seems possible to run ships with minimal crews for short periods of time. Personally though, I see no reason to suspect that Mirandas were used as cannon fodder. True, we did see some spectacular destructions, but if that is the only criterion we may as well say that the Galaxy class was the most fragile design in history! How many of them have been wiped out in the show?
Well, whenever we see a Galaxy class destroyed, it's under special circumstances, twice of which involved bypassing the shields and the third via computer virus. Though, it is kind of odd how we never see a Galaxy class get destroyed once the Dominion War started (were there even Galaxies present when the Breen destroyed the Defiant? If there were, surely they'd be sitting ducks). Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure Galaxies were lost during the war (especially in fleet battles where only a dozen out of over a hundred Allied vessels retreat), we just never saw those destructions on screen.
During the second Battle of Chin'toka we never see a Galaxy on screen, we see one or two Nebulas though. Just before the Defiant blows up and they span back on the fleet you see one or two engineering sections that could be from a Galaxy in the wreckage, though there is the possibility that these are actually the remains of Nebula class ships instead. Though the one clear one we see, to me at least, looks to be from a Galaxy class. Eyeing it the nacelle placement seems to consistant with a Galaxy and not what we would expect from a Nebula.
That seems reasonable, but then if that is a Galaxy in the background, I think that counts as an extraordinary circumstance (bypassing the shields?), like the Enterprise-D and the Odyssey.