One big, happy fleet [FJ]

[Forbin]

"12 like her in the fleet" means 12 total, including the E. If he'd said "12 others like her..." then that would have meant 13.

Yes, but wouldn't this mean that there were either (a: 12 Class I starships in the entire Federation, or, more likely, (b: only 12 Constitution-class heavy cruisers in the TOS-era Federation, period?

"Like it" means like the Enterprise - 12 Connies. Other ships aren't "like it", they're different.

How would that square with FJ's Technical Manual, or would it flatly contradict FJ's ship lists?

It doesn't square. FJ's lists aren't canon, and I always thought he went way overboard with the amount of Connies. I like it better when they're special, not swarming like rats.

 

[Wingsley]

What Forbin is saying represents a major divide between the (apparent) philosophy of TOS and the philosophy behind FJ's Tech Manual. We, as viewers, are dimly aware that there are many other Federation and civilian space vessels in operation in the TOS Universe. But we never see any other starships-of-the-line that are not Constitution-class (or similar) vehicles. Commodore Stone's ship chart and Jein's list (see my posting #7 in this thread) seem to vaguely suggest that there are other Class I starships-of-the-line, and we hear mention of other starships (like the U.S.S. Carolina in "Friday's Child") but we don't see anything until the later movies. What kind of ship is always the one called to a major interstellar crisis, and which fellow starships does the Enterprise find in a major bind? Connies. It is clearly understood that Connies are the elite (the few and the proud), so much so that at least a few are commanded by commodores or the Federation's best captains. So if the Federation has any dreadnoughts, the Connies are it. And if a fellow Connie is in trouble, Enterprise's crew knows their work is cut out for them. (Excellent examples are "The Doomsday Machine" and "The Tholian Web".)

But does that mean the FJ Tech Manual is completely philosophically out of step with TOS? Are there only 12 Federation starships, and not one starship more? And has it been that way for the roughly 100 years the United Federation of Planets has been in existence?

TOS canon seems to strongly suggest there are lesser ships "out there", not just hauling cargo but on deep space missions as well. And given the losses to the Connie fleet just during the TOS era alone (28%), Starfleet should've been put out of business long before Kirk joined the Academy.

If you look at posting #4 in this thread (by me), you'll see the suggestion that shuffling the names of ships from one list to another might square with TOS more effectively. Does TOS depict a 220/15/15 fleet, or thereabouts?

Of course, all of this is just looking at FJ's Tech Manual in isolation and comparing it to TOS in isolation. Obviously, the Federation depicted in STAR TREK overall must have hundreds of Class I starships throughout the 23rd century, or they couldn't keep loosing ships. If the Federation didn't run out of ships, the "fleet" would be a paper tiger anyway because a handful of ships aren't enough to explore even a small section of the Galaxy anyway.

One interesting aside about the Tech Manual: if you look at the lengthy Articles of Federation at the beginning of the book, you will see at Chapter 8: Star Fleet, Article 52 and 53 (TO:00:01:09 and :10) spell out the establishment of Starfleet and the construction of starships, specifically naming 14 heavy cruisers. (It does not list the Constitution-class vehicles by name, but this seems to very strongly suggest that FJ was declaring that the Constitution-class starships and their Class I ilk must be as old as the Federation itself. This is reinforced by the listing of the U.S.S. Valiant as lost, an obvious nod to "A Taste of Armageddon", an incident that supposedly took place fifty years before TOS.) So, in the FJ vision of Star Trek, either the Connies and other Class I starships are as old as the Federation, or the Connies and their contemporaries are refits/rebuilds of a lineage of previous starships classes that date back to the beginnings of the Federation.

Something to think about.

 

[Timo]

What kind of ship is always the one called to a major interstellar crisis, and which fellow starships does the Enterprise find in a major bind? Connies. It is clearly understood that Connies are the elite

Wouldn't it rather follow that the Constitution class is the one considered the most expendable - the one getting all the dirtiest jobs with the highest risk?

Significantly, and surprisingly, the Enterprise is fairly seldom sent to deal with a crisis. More often, Kirk stumbles on one. Even missions dealing with missing Starfleet or Federation hardware or personnel appear to be part of a routine circuit, something that Kirk does as part of a schedule defined years in advance.

The major exceptions are the gunboat diplomacy missions where Kirk is sent to make contact or otherwise show the flag. But at Altair VI, the Enterprise is just one out of a trio of ships, somewhat downplaying her importance...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Santaman]

^^ Most expendable? hmm.. what about most capable?
Expendable ships aren't usually the types that actually are able to solve anything unless set to blow up upon impact.

 

[Wingsley]

There were no dreadnoughts sent to intercept V'Ger, the Doomsday Machine, or to see what happened to the Defiant. There were also no dreadnoughts present at the M-5 War Games disaster.

The logical conclusion could be that the Connies are (usually) the most capable of dealing with security threats and other major incidents. (Also note that if there were any Federation-class dreadnoughts, or even prototypes of their ilk, available for the "Journey to Babel", the delegates would've all piled into on of them, not the Enterprise.

 

[Wingsley]

I forgot about the loss of the Intrepid. Which starship did Starfleet send to investigate to loss of contact with the Intrepid and the Gamma 7A system? The Constitution-class Enterprise.

 

[J.T.B.]

Another way to look at FJ's fleet composition could be to compare it to the British navy circa 1806. ~11% were Ship-of-the-line, ~10% comprised of schooners and gunboats and the bulk were frigates. If we think of the Dreadnaught = Ship-of-the-line (good for only combat), Cruisers = Frigates (all-around powerful, good range) and Destroyers / Scouts = short-range defensive/combat ships then the composition is very similar...

That makes is sound as if almost 80% of the navy was frigates, but it was more like 23%. The breakdown, going by James' fleet abstracts, was approximately:

Frigates 23%
Sloops: 23%
Gun brigs: 18%
Ships of the line: 12%
Schooners and cutters: 10%
Auxiliaries: 6%
Post-ships: 3%
Bombs: 3%
Fourth rate: 2%

Still, that's more than 5 to 1, cruising vessels to line of battle ships.

We tend to bring some of our real-world naval assumptions to Starfleet, but some of them don't fit. We tend to think of big warships being screened by groups of smaller warships, but without Trek equivalents to torpedo boat, submarine or aviation threats, there's really no reason to assume a need for more destroyers and/or scouts compared to Constitution-type cruisers; they should be safe going about unattended.

Likewise, we tend to assume that a battle fleet would have a good idea of the size and location of the enemy fleet. This may be true in Trek, but it is also true that some of the biggest threats to the Federation come out of the blue (or black), previously unknown and unpredicted. The ability to combine the exploration mission with patrol and policing in a platform with top- or near-top-of-the-line fighting power seems like a good rationale for a fleet balanced heavily toward the "heavy cruiser."

Concerning the "scout:" I always assumed it was the "eyes of the fleet," lightly armed but fast and strong on sensor power, but too small-crewed to be good for scientific exploration missions. USN Omaha-class light cruisers in the immediate post-WW1 period were often called simply "scouts."

Justin

 

[Timo]

There were no dreadnoughts sent to intercept V'Ger, the Doomsday Machine, or to see what happened to the Defiant.

There explicitly was a dreadnought in ST:TMP, just not available to do anything much. In the other two cases, the Enterprise was not sent. Instead, she happened on the scene. Which is something a cruiser (in sailing days, a frigate) may do, but a battleship (in sailing days, ship of the line) may not, as the latter do not cruise at random looking for trouble.

Which starship did Starfleet send to investigate to loss of contact with the Intrepid and the Gamma 7A system?

The nearest one.

Also note that if there were any Federation-class dreadnoughts, or even prototypes of their ilk, available for the "Journey to Babel", the delegates would've all piled into on of them, not the Enterprise.

Naah. Cruisers are errand ships, with facilities for errands. A battleship ITRW would be less equipped to ferry a large number of delegates - and ITRW a battleship would also be too obvious a target for ferrying a small number of VIPs.

Concerning the "scout:" I always assumed it was the "eyes of the fleet," lightly armed but fast and strong on sensor power, but too small-crewed to be good for scientific exploration missions. USN Omaha-class light cruisers in the immediate post-WW1 period were often called simply "scouts."

In a world where there are no analogies to satellites, radar, or recce aircraft, that's a very good analogy.

Of course, since FJ only lists Class I ships and auxiliaries, it may turn out that some 90% of Class II ships are destroyers, and some 60% of Class III ships are scouts, with only a smattering of outdated or otherwise weak cruiser included in Classes II and III.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

Naah. Cruisers are errand ships, with facilities for errands. A battleship ITRW would be less equipped to ferry a large number of delegates - and ITRW a battleship would also be too obvious a target for ferrying a small number of VIPs.

Good point, for instance USS Astoria returning a late ambassador's remains to Japan, or USS Tuscaloosa carrying Admiral Leahy to France to become ambassador. That kind of duty is historically part of the cruiser's brief.

Justin

 

[Wingsley]

As I wrote in this forum on 5 Feb. 2010:

Quoting from Gene Roddenberry's novelization of TMP, page 115 (when Spock rejoins the Enterprise):

The craft approaching the Enterprise was, by official designation, at least, a long distance shuttle. But the term shuttle was one of those misnomers which are often perpetuated by tradition in a service like Starfleet. It had begun a long time ago with moon shuttles, which had led to large planet shuttles, and now included this trim but powerful warp power craft which could have outraced the starships of only fifty years ago. It was, indeed, as foolish as calling the U.S.S. Enterprise a heavy cruiser, which it was most definitely not. It was the most powerful Federation vessel in existence, deserving at least the old naval description battleship, although some admiral or statesman in the distant past had apparently seen the term cruiser as more civilized and less militaristic. Actually, most proper and accurate of all would have been to term the Enterprise an exploration and research vessel, which best described its principal use and functions.

Mr. Roddenberry's writings indicate this particular subject matter was on his mind as well. His writings led me to conclude that the TMP-era world he was presenting pretty much put the refit 1701 at the pinnacle, as a "heavy cruiser", though it was actually their dreadnought. Perhaps this remained true until the NX-2000 Excelsior was launched.

 

[Albertese]

I still think people aren't getting the timeline of the Franz Joseph ships. So I made a fun graphic to help explain it. I had been planing to do this anyhow for my own purposes. This thread just got me to go ahead and get it done!



I cite three episodes here: "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "All Our Yesterdays" as these start and stop the series. (I didn't reference "Turnabout Intruder" as AOY has a later stardate.) Also I mention "Tomorrow is Yesterday" as that's when Kirk claims there are "only twelve like her in the fleet."

Notice that there are a multitude of classes here, not just five. I've color-coded them in blocs according to the sequence they are ordered in, the first ship's are red, the next step up is blue, the next step up is green and the last revisions are yellow. Notice in the case of the Achernar and Tikopai classes as well as the Doppler and Dollard classes have the same model number (MK-IXB and MK-VIB respectively) I wonder what the differences are? Maybe they represent classes which have the same mission capabilities but one is the deluxe model and the other is the economy version, without the wood paneling and plush carpeting...

So, you see, that for most of the run of the show, there really weren't all of those ships listed in the TM. When Kirk claim's to Captain Christopher that "there are only twelve like her in the fleet", he is in agreement with Franz Joseph. The Dreadnoughts weren't ever authorized before the end of the series. So, naturally they weren't called on during the run of the show.

There are some problems, specifically with the first ships being authorized on 0965, as that wouldn't be very long at all before WNMHGB. This doesn't allow near enough time for Spock's eleven years with Pike aboard the Enterprise, or Kirk to have been with the Farragut when it was attacked by the dikoronium cloud creature, or for the Valiant to have been destroyed 50 years prior to "A Taste of Armageddon." All this could be resolved if we assume that Farragut and Valiant were not Connies but older ships which FJ mistakenly included and the original authorization should have been for 12 really. Also, I would assume that these ships were originally built as ships of an Earth fleet that predated the Federation and were "authorized" in the sense of them being adopted into the multi-national Federation Star Fleet.

There are plenty of references in Star Trek that seem to infer the the Federation is a fairly new entity, early episodes keep referring to E.U.S.P.A. and saying the Enterprise is an "Earth ship". in "Whom God's Destroy" it's said the Captain Garth's actions allowed Kirk and Spock to be brothers. This has been at times interpreted as being involved in the founding of the Federation. If the Federation was indeed a very new organization by Kirk's voyage, then the TM info makes a bit more sense. Bear in mind that the chronology with the Federation having been founded in 2161 wasn't nailed down until the 90's. In the early 70's when FJ was making the tech manual, it could have been much more recent. And, taken in isolation of just TOS, it makes sense.

And, also, let's not forget that these are the appropriation orders. From the day these are signed to the day a ship is finished and launched will be probably at least a few years.

The Bonhomme Richard heavy cruisers wouldn't have even been ordered until after Kirk claimed 12 ships and they likely wouldn't have been finished and launched till the very end of the series or maybe even slightly after.

The Dreadnoughts would have been pretty new by the time they the Entente was receiving calls from Epsilon IX on stardate 7412 in TMP.

This actually sort of jives with later Trek also. In ST5 and ST6 there were other ships available, but not experienced captains. Kirk was being tapped because he was Kirk, not because he was the only option. This suggests that there are a larger number of ships flying but there are few experienced captains of Kirk's generation, as he started into this whole starship command business back when there weren't many starships at all. Now there's over a hundred ships but only a dozen seasoned commanders. This trend of building lots more ships keeps going til the 2360's and 70's where it seems like Starfleet has thousands of ships. The Achernars and the Tikopais are the start of that trend.

So, anyhow, it makes sense to me. I hope this helps...

--Alex

 

[Wingsley]

Thank you, Albertese, for compiling all of this and presenting it in graphic fashion. This is something I was hinting at earlier in this thread. FJ seemed to be indirectly citing the Battle of Axanar and the Axanar Peace Mission (mentioned in TOS "Whom Gods Destroy") as somehow being a crucial moment in the founding of (or the evolution of) the Federation. And of course, like so many historical references in STAR TREK, particularly TOS, the history is so vague and contradictory that it's hard to make heads or tails of it.

Did the Axanar Peace Mission result in the creation of the Federation, or some major evolution of it into the "modern" recognizable form seen in TOS? If so, what came before? And if there was no Federation Starfleet prior to that time, what fleet was Fleet Captain Garth and Cadet Kirk acting on behalf of? If there were no Federation starships, how could there be Federation starships? It seems FJ based part of his material on this, and like so many aspects of TOS, it was undermined by CDST (Contradictions and Discontinuity in STAR TREK).

Don't look now, but "A Taste of Armageddon" and other occasional historical references sprinkled throughout TOS complicate matters further. Consider this passage from "Taste", act one:

KIRK (voice-over)
Captain's log, stardate 3192.5. Now in standard orbit around planet Eminiar Seven. My orders are clear. We must establish diplomatic relations at all cost. Preparing to beam down to planet surface.

[Bridge]

SPOCK: We know very little about them. Their civilisation is advanced. They've had space flight for several centuries, but they've never ventured beyond their own solar system. When first contacted more than fifty years ago, Eminiar Seven was at war with its nearest neighbour.

KIRK: Anything else?

SPOCK: The Earth expedition making the report failed to return from its mission. The USS Valiant. Listed as missing in space.

While Spock characterizes the Starship Valiant as an "Earth expedition", he also uses "USS": indicating Valiant was a Federation starship, or part of some kind of proto-Federation fleet. (I thought about this and could not resist superimposing ENT over it, wondering if maybe the Federation wasn't formally declared until decades later, and that the 2160's through the 2250's could have seen a Coalition of Planets slowly evolve into the Federation.) Perhaps the Coalition's institutions were grandfathered into the Federation as part of some planned process agreed upon by Coalition planets. Hence, U.S.S. Valiant started out as a Coalition vessel, but was later grandfathered in (posthumously) as a Federation ship.

It doesn't entirely make sense, since there are (loose) indications in TOS that the Federation has been around since almost the time of the Earth-Romulan Conflict of a century earlier. Nobody came out and said it that way, but there was a pattern of hints and implied traditions in the behavior of the characters that seemed to suggest that the United Federation of Planets was not in its infancy during TOS.

 

[TIN_MAN]

I sorta lean toward an "Earth" Federation existing first, composed of Earth system and human colony worlds in other systems, which later admitted similar "alien" governments to become the "united" federation of planets?

 

[Wingsley]

I just remembered: in "Amok Time", Kirk recognized T'Pau, "the only person to ever turn down a seat on the Federation Council". Given that T'Pau is quite elderly at that point, it makes sense that she may have been invited to participate in Federation affairs at some time in the past. It's a small and dangling piece of the puzzle, but it seems to suggest that Earth and Vulcan have a significant political history together. It doesn't really confirm or deny either the notion of a hundred-year-old Federation, or that of a Federation less than a generation old, but it does make it seem like there has been a long-standing relationship between the various worlds.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Bonhomme Richard heavy cruisers wouldn't have even been ordered until after Kirk claimed 12 ships and they likely wouldn't have been finished and launched till the very end of the series or maybe even slightly after.

Assuming FJ's Defiance is really the Defiant, then the appropriation stardate of 3220 for it's class (Bonhomme Richard) jibes with the stardate given in "The Tholian Web" of 5693.2.

I think FJ got the name of the Defiant wrong; FJ's MK-IXA NCC-1717 is named Defiance. (It's also way out of alphabetical order, at the end, suggesting it was a late addition, perhaps almost overlooked.)

ETA: That is to say, I think he misspelled the Defiant from "The Tholian Web" as the Defiance.

 

[J.T.B.]

Albertese, that's a great chart and thanks for posting it.

One thing that has always bugged me a little with the FJ ships is the heavy cruiser designation when there's only one type of cruiser. Why not just plain cruiser? It may be "psychological warfare," to emphasize the ships really mean business and are in fact capital ships as Wingsley pointed out above. But personally I prefer to think there was some kind of light cruiser. I think the Mirandas would fit the bill later on, and like to think they had some kind of TOS-era predecessor.

Justin

 

[Timo]

Might be the word "heavy" refers to something specific about the hardware or capabilities of the ship type, and is not related to mass at all. Much like in WWII, where "heavy" meant main guns between 6.1 and 8 inches in caliber, and "light" meant smaller guns, and things such as ship displacement, length, or the number of guns had no effect on the designation. Perhaps the armament that defines a "light" cruiser in 2260s terms has recently become antiquated but the terminology has not?

Again, I'd like to point out that FJ's list is unlikely to be complete in any sense. There are all those ships that don't fall into the Class I category (else why have the category?). Then there are all those things that were authorized (and presumably built, launched and commissioned) before the Constitution class and no doubt still remain in operation. Taking these into consideration, we must conclude that Kirk's "twelve like her" must carry a very specific meaning, and Starfleet at the time of that statement operated more than twelve heavy cruisers.

Except perhaps in the FJverse where Starfleet had sprung up fairly recently and had been making do with "original" ships right until TOS. But FJverse isn't in synch with the canon Trek universe any more, if it ever was.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[TIN_MAN]

About this Defiance/Defiant thing, wasn't there a thread awhile back about how there are real world ships called 'Defiance" but none called "Defiant"? There was some debate, I believe, about whether "Defiant" was a typo or misnomer in the script and should have been "Defiance" anyway, since all the other ships are named after historical predecessors?

It's possible that FJ was thinking along similar lines and assumed the series was in error here, and so took it upon himself to "correct" the situation? We have to remember that the equation “onscreen=canon=god” did not exist back then and it was accepted that the show could be in error occasionally.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

About this Defiance/Defiant thing, wasn't there a thread awhile back about how there are real world ships called 'Defiance" but none called "Defiant"? There was some debate, I believe, about whether "Defiant" was a typo or misnomer in the script and should have been "Defiance" anyway, since all the other ships are named after historical predecessors?

It's possible that FJ was thinking along similar lines and assumed the series was in error here, and so took it upon himself to "correct" the situation? We have to remember that the equation “onscreen=canon=god” did not exist back then and it was accepted that the show could be in error occasionally.

This seems like a plausible explanation to me, on the face of it.

 

[Admiral2]

Forget the dreadnoughts for the moment. There are only about 21 of them so they are obviously not a "mainstream" ship. Whether you look at it from a naval perspective or other perspective (like NASA or the Air Force), the heavy cruiser is the elite, the biggest and best-outiftted class of vessel in mass production. But what about the destroyers/scouts? Why so few of them?

In an Air Force, wouldn't you expect to see more training planes and fighter-jets than B-52's?

Training jets? No. You don't need more training jets than frontline strategic planes. Fighter jets? Only if the force's requirements dictate a need for more fighter jets. A force's numbers are determined by need and responsibility, something I'm sure FJ didn't seriously take into account when he wrote the manual, because that would have gone against the Roddenberry Doctrine of "Make it about the characters."

And wouldn't you expect there to be comparatively fewer large B-52's and Stealth bombers than anything else?

Of course...unless the force has more of a strategic role than a tactical one, in which case you couldn't have too many bombers. The Strategic Air Command operated more bombers than fighters. Guess why.

It is logical that a large number of warptugs would be employed by Starfleet. The Federation obviously needs a large number of Class I starships to carry freight and personnel between member-worlds, starbases and non-aligned worlds.

That's not obvious or logical at all. A cargo ship with sufficient range, speed and capacity could tend to multiple ships on a cruise, and near simultaneoulsy in a task force. and it's not like you need one tug for every ship. That would be a waste of material.

But shouldn't there be 140 destroyer/scouts and only a few dozen cruisers at best? Shouldn't the support and lesser ships of the line outnumber the big cruisers? Isn't that the way the pyramid works? Shouldn't the bulk of the fleet be comprised of lesser ships, and the biggest ships be a relatively small percentage?

If the fleet and its superiors can accomplish its goals better with a greater number of large ships, it would be irresponsible to expend their resources on a bunch of smaller ones. Again, it's about necessity. The reason you see that kind of fleet in real life is because Navies in real life cost money, and frigates are cheaper than cruisers and destroyers, which are much cheaper than carriers.

The federation don't use money, so cost isn't a factor in the decisionmaking.

In "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", Kirk bragged to USAF Capt. Christopher of the Enterprise "there are only twelve like it in the fleet". There are several logical interpretations of this brag, one of them being that there are only 13 Class I starships in service from the United Earth Space Probe Agency at that time (Kirk mentioned that during the same turbolift ride), or there are only 13 original Constitution-class starships built (presumably Decker's Constellation, with minor visual differences, could be a refit from a previous class and therefore not part of Kirk's club), or maybe 13 Connies launched by Earth. While I'm not specifically endorsing any of that in this thread, I wonder if maybe FJ deviated a little from the intent of TOS, by making the Connies so common and other ship classes comparatively smaller. Wasn't the Enterprise, and weren't her sisterships shown in the show, supposed to be "elite" ships, so comparatively rare and powerful that we saw some of them commanded by commodores?

They were probably just the newest class of cruiser at the time. That doesn't mean there weren't older classes of similar size and capability

Presumably there would be fewer cruisers than scouts, just as there would be fewer dreadnoughts than cruisers, right?

One mo' time: only if those are the numbers the fleet needs.