Order of Battle...

[Jono]

Federation fighter? True they have them but really a fighter. What is next a federation carrier!

The Galaxy class could be a fairly decent carrier. It has several shuttlebays and its main bay is fairly large, you could fit probably a fairly reasonable number of fighters in.

According to the designer of the Akira class it has a through-deck shuttlebay and can act as a carrier.

 

[Cyke101]

Federation fighter? True they have them but really a fighter. What is next a federation carrier!

The Galaxy class could be a fairly decent carrier. It has several shuttlebays and its main bay is fairly large, you could fit probably a fairly reasonable number of fighters in.

I believe you're right. The Enterprise-D brought DS9 their original runabouts. Now, I dunno if they were all stored in her main shuttlebay or had one in each bay (the math, I cannae do!), but a runabout is roughly twice the mass of a fighter... I would imagine that would mean a Galaxy class could carry at least six fighters, probably more if the other shuttlebays are used.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I didn't mean to say there weren't weapons specifically for striking ground targets, just that a photon torpedo can do the same job.

Just like a Excocet can be used to shoot at ground targets and a Surface to Air missile can be used against warships. Still, it's always useful to have a weapon optimized for a different environment.

Why would they need to adapt the torpedo when their ordinary weapons are working fine it kicking the Defiant's tail?

Real reason? Submarine-movie plot device.

Universe reason? They couldn't get a sensor lock and needed something capable of autonomous targeting. Sort of like Defiant modifying one of their probes to work as a missile.

How fast would you want to ferry them around?

I guess you'd want to ferry them around faster then their top speed.

For what purpose? If you're not going anywhere in a hurry, you can go at any speed you want. The only actions you'd want to get to in a hurry would be surprise attacks where the fighters probably wouldn't be that useful anyway since you won't have time to let them land before you get the hell out of dodge.

 

[Marie1]

No, a Jem'hadar fighter is about seventy meters long, roughly the size of a Maquis raider. It is significantly smaller than the Klingon Bird of Prey

Memory alpha says it is 90 meters long with a crew of 43:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Jem'Hadar_fighter

This would make the Jem'Hadar fighter almost the same size as as a Klingon BoP (110 meters) and SIGNIFICANTLY larger than a Federation fighter, which has a crew of just 1 or 2:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Federation_attack_fighter


According to Memory Alpha, the script for the episode "the Jem'Hadar" specifically states that the Jem'Hadar fighter is roughly the same size as a BoP. Since it has a crew of 43, this makes more sense. Federation and Maquis attack fighters are only moderately larger than shuttlecraft.

I'm not sure I agree with MA's crew complement of 43 for the Warship (they're the smaller ones). Even the ship with the Founder only had 42, I'd imagine most had fewer on most ships, I think the one from R&S had... 10-12?

I thought the Battleships were like the ones we say in say... In the Cards, or the one where Weyoun is complaining about the Minefield, not like the huge one they built (which is plain awesome).

I think we only saw the one from the Valiant in that episode, as it was a new ship, and wasn't it... a prototype or whatever?

Judging just from battle scenes the Warships were about the size of BoP and larger than runabouts...

 

[Cyke101]

I think we only saw the one from the Valiant in that episode, as it was a new ship, and wasn't it... a prototype or whatever?

Yeah, that ship was a prototype, but we see two or three more (of confusing sizes) right after the final battle.

 

[Marie1]

I'll have to check that out... I wonder if they snuck in stock footage from the Valiant and hoped we wouldn't notice?

 

[Cyke101]

I'll have to check that out... I wonder if they snuck in stock footage from the Valiant and hoped we wouldn't notice?

Oh, no stock footage from there (thankfully). It occurs when the combined Fed/Klingon/Romulan/Cardassian fleet is about to storm Cardassia, staring down the Dom/Breen/Weapon platforms.

What makes it weird is that the gigantic ship of death is even bigger than before, and if the scale is to be believed, it would be maybe several times bigger than what we saw in Valiant. Those Dominion Battlecruisers around the ships are a good indicator of how big those ships are; the battlecruisers themselves are roughly the size of a Galaxy class, and yet the battleship in Valiant is supposed to be only twice the size of a Galaxy.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Dominion_fleet_regroups_at_Cardassia_Prime.jpg

 

[Marie1]

How on earth would they have made so many so fast?

So, the one in the circle in this picture:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/dominion/dominion-giant-battlecruiser.jpg

Is this? (Didn't want to add too many images)
http://www.cardassiaprimera.com.ar/Dominion-Battlecruiser-Ship.jpg



I don't know if this chart is accurate (It doesn't "seem" right (scale-wise) to me somehow:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/dominion/dominion-ships.gif

From here- http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/dominion-battleship.htm
^ has the lengths and stuff though, maybe the pic isn't supposed to be to scale.

They do look like the ones from Valiant... wow... I'm a bit surprised they didn't wipe the floor with the allies now...

 

[Jono]

For what purpose? If you're not going anywhere in a hurry, you can go at any speed you want. The only actions you'd want to get to in a hurry would be surprise attacks where the fighters probably wouldn't be that useful anyway since you won't have time to let them land before you get the hell out of dodge.

But if you are in a hurry then you would, say going to support other ships or stations under attack where time matters. Also the insides of the fighter looked quite cramped so long distance voyages of several days wouldn't be terribly comfortable for the crew.

If we go by what we see on screen WYLB might suggest that fighters are ferried around over long distances since we saw no fighters as part of the fleet leaving DS9 but fighters were involved in the battle. I know that scene was stock footage so make of that what you will.

How on earth would they have made so many so fast?

So, the one in the circle in this picture:


Is this? (Didn't want to add too many images)
http://www.cardassiaprimera.com.ar/Dominion-Battlecruiser-Ship.jpg



I don't know if this chart is accurate (It doesn't "seem" right (scale-wise) to me somehow:


From here- http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/dominion-battleship.htm
^ has the lengths and stuff though, maybe the pic isn't supposed to be to scale.

They do look like the ones from Valiant... wow... I'm a bit surprised they didn't wipe the floor with the allies now...

The images won't load so I'm going by the thumbnails on the EAS page. The circled ship that is shown against the "battleship" over Cardassia is the same type as battle cruiser.

As for the chart if it is the fact files one, EAS states talks about some issues with the scaling of the ships on the page.

In the battle scenes from WYLB we see a Vor'cha taking on a JH battleship and the scaling for that looked fairly right for twice the size of the Galaxy.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

robot elf--Thanks! I assume by "attack ship," you mean the smaller-scale Jem'Hadar ship as opposed to the battlecruiser?

This'll be very helpful...I'm sure you guessed from STEU what I was doing, when I started talking about the four-Galor configuration: I've actually got a battle before Cardassia Prime that I'm trying to figure out, for my fanfic. I definitely have my own tactics in mind--but you've given me an idea of what kind of ships I ought to involve in this battle in order to make it not seem completely implausible. Thanks again!

 

[Jono]

^ That's okay.

Yep, I mean the smaller Jem'Hadar ship/fighter when I say attack ship.

 

[Cyke101]

The only thing I can really offer is up is that the speed of their shipbuilding operations was one of the reasons why the Dominion had such lasting power even after they were closed off from the Gamma Quadrant. Still, that explanation gasps at straws when the size of those vessels is considered.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

For what purpose? If you're not going anywhere in a hurry, you can go at any speed you want. The only actions you'd want to get to in a hurry would be surprise attacks where the fighters probably wouldn't be that useful anyway since you won't have time to let them land before you get the hell out of dodge.

But if you are in a hurry then you would, say going to support other ships or stations under attack where time matters. Also the insides of the fighter looked quite cramped so long distance voyages of several days wouldn't be terribly comfortable for the crew.

The fighters are definitely larger than shuttles, which ARE used for long-duration voyages. Besides, I don't really expect fighters to be used to reinforce installations under sudden attack (we didn't see them in the Siege of AR-558, a place where they would have REALLY come in handy) so they're probably mainly used offensively to annoy the hell out of battlebugs so the cap ships can have a fair fight.

If we go by what we see on screen WYLB might suggest that fighters are ferried around over long distances since we saw no fighters as part of the fleet leaving DS9 but fighters were involved in the battle. I know that scene was stock footage so make of that what you will.

Well, by the same token we also see fighters flying around all by themselves in A Time to Stand.

Besides which, I'm having trouble thinking of what fighters would be used for except to harass their more powerful Jem'hadar counterparts. They're not much good against cap ships, so what else would they be used for ordinarily if not to give Starfleet's big guns some extra breathing room?

Besides, there's also a bit of a continuity problem here. In all previous wars that involved the Federation--or any other race, for that matter--we saw fleet sizes of a few dozen or more being interpreted as pretty damn impressive. The joint Romulan-Cardassian fleet, for example, was interpreted as a huge Armada, as was the fleet at Wolf-359. The Klingons with their extremely numerous Bird of Prey fleet surrounded DS9 with "Dozens" of warships in Way of the Warrior, and then combined with DS9's defenses it was still enough for them to be driven off by a force of six starships. Then all of a sudden we start seeing fleet sizes of a hundred or two hundred at a time... even for a wartime footing this strikes me as unusual.

So I imagine fighters are pushed into service as a stopgap, probably until more Defiant class ships could be built and fielded.

 

[Jono]

Besides, there's also a bit of a continuity problem here. In all previous wars that involved the Federation--or any other race, for that matter--we saw fleet sizes of a few dozen or more being interpreted as pretty damn impressive. The joint Romulan-Cardassian fleet, for example, was interpreted as a huge Armada, as was the fleet at Wolf-359. The Klingons with their extremely numerous Bird of Prey fleet surrounded DS9 with "Dozens" of warships in Way of the Warrior, and then combined with DS9's defenses it was still enough for them to be driven off by a force of six starships. Then all of a sudden we start seeing fleet sizes of a hundred or two hundred at a time... even for a wartime footing this strikes me as unusual.

So I imagine fighters are pushed into service as a stopgap, probably until more Defiant class ships could be built and fielded.

We hardly saw a significant war before the Dominion war on screen. We had the Second Fed-Kling and the Invasion of Cardassia during DS9 but most of it went on off screen. A few dozen ships is still impressive given the distances in space and the area these major empires would control. Their ships would be spread all over the place and marshalling hundreds of ships might take months.

The Rom-Card fleet was just what tha Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order could muster. Given they are not military organisations but spy/secret police, getting 30 ships together, in secret, in a couple of months isn't bad work. Wolf 359 was just what the Feds could muster at the last minute, again not a bad effort.

The Klingon attack on DS9 is different. It is hard to believe that just 6 Fed ships would really be able to make thatm much difference against the Klingon fleet. It was more to do with the fact that if Gowron kept pushing the Klingons and the Feds would go to war then and there. Later we see that even the Klingons final do go to war they enjoy initial success for around 3 months before the Feds slowly start to turn the tide against them, probably just as Martok wanted.

Guess what I'm saying is I don't have any real issues with the sudden increase in the size of fleets.

 

[Timo]

Basically, the writers knew what the VFX people could and couldn't do. So they wrote stories about 30-ship fleets while acknowledging that only a handful of those supposed 30 would actually be seen, and then made sure to point out that the 30-ship fleet was far smaller than an "actual" warfleet!

See TNG "Redemption". Picard's fleet of three dozen consists of only four onscreen ships and lots of text-only vessels, and the Romulans express amazement that Starfleet would launch a force this puny, expressly stating that such a small formation cannot be a warfleet.

So basically, Starfleet warfleets could "always" have been multi-hundred-ship affairs as far as the dialogue goes. We didn't really see a war before DS9 - which also left us wondering how a war could ever take place when even a single starship could devastate an entire planet. DS9 gave us the answer: in order to get a single starship to the range required for devastation, you have to attack with five hundred ships, most of which get slaughtered by the planetary defenses...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

See TNG "Redemption". Picard's fleet of three dozen consists of only four onscreen ships and lots of text-only vessels, and the Romulans express amazement that Starfleet would launch a force this puny, expressly stating that such a small formation cannot be a warfleet.

First of all, it was only twenty ships. Second of all, as usual, reading way more into that one line than is warranted:

			Twenty ships aren't enough to wage
			a war... Starfleet must be
			bluffing.

Twenty ships isn't enough to wage war, but it's a big enough number to make the Romulans and even the Klingons nervous (such that, presumably, a fleet the size of the on that engaged the Borg at Wolf-359 would be enough)

DS9 gave us the answer: in order to get a single starship to the range required for devastation, you have to attack with five hundred ships, most of which get slaughtered by the planetary defenses...

Chintoka was the only planet we've ever seen with decent planetary defenses. Far more likely the huge multi-hundred ship fleets was a reaction to the Dominion's multi-hundred ship policy. As Martok explained, they have the ability to build ships at an "alarming" rate, which most other Alpha and Beta quadrant races do not have.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Cardassia Prime also had pretty extensive space defenses, if I recall correctly.

So I would suspect most major population centers would, at least if they have the same kind of measures in place that the Cardassians do.

 

[Jono]

We have several examples of worlds having significant defences. Apart from Chin'toka and Cardassia that have been mentioned. Plus planetary defences are not just weapons platforms, they would include ground based installations and starships.

Ty'Gokor, the Klingon Military HQ was very heavily defended. It had at least 30 warships in orbit, several fairly large space stations, a tachyon detection grid and a powerful deflector shield, which by the description in the episode might encompass the entire planetoid.

Earth was rendered "defenceless" after the power failure in Homefront takes down the surface installations. That has to be a hyperbole given that we know there are some pretty big starbases in orbit but at that time it also seems the only mobile resource is the USS Lakota in orbit. During the Dominion War we also hear that the Third Fleet was protecting the planet for at least part of the conflict.

Sarpedion V is described as one of the most heavily defended locations in the Cardassian Union. They also comment that 15 Vor'cha class attack cruisers would barely scratch the defences.

Betazed had planetary defence, though they were outdated and undermanned. Plus they had the Tenth Fleet, which was meant to add to the defence of the planet.

Trelka V is described as having significant defences such that it would require at least half the Ninth Fleet to successful besiege the planet.

 

[Ezri II]

Federation fighter? True they have them but really a fighter. What is next a federation carrier!

The Galaxy class could be a fairly decent carrier. It has several shuttlebays and its main bay is fairly large, you could fit probably a fairly reasonable number of fighters in.

I believe you're right. The Enterprise-D brought DS9 their original runabouts. Now, I dunno if they were all stored in her main shuttlebay or had one in each bay (the math, I cannae do!), but a runabout is roughly twice the mass of a fighter... I would imagine that would mean a Galaxy class could carry at least six fighters, probably more if the other shuttlebays are used.

Ya, but the federation really needs to have a pure carrier to really be a carrier. It would be interesting if they build a ship like that and I hope if they do it does not look like the BSG ship.

If they did, it should be hmmm five times longer then the USS Enterprise E

 

[Jono]

The Galaxy class could be a fairly decent carrier. It has several shuttlebays and its main bay is fairly large, you could fit probably a fairly reasonable number of fighters in.

I believe you're right. The Enterprise-D brought DS9 their original runabouts. Now, I dunno if they were all stored in her main shuttlebay or had one in each bay (the math, I cannae do!), but a runabout is roughly twice the mass of a fighter... I would imagine that would mean a Galaxy class could carry at least six fighters, probably more if the other shuttlebays are used.

Ya, but the federation really needs to have a pure carrier to really be a carrier. It would be interesting if they build a ship like that and I hope if they do it does not look like the BSG ship.

If they did, it should be hmmm five times longer then the USS Enterprise E

Why would it need to be 5 x the length of the Sovereign class? The Sovereign is twice the length of a Nimitz class supercarrier and that can carry 85 aircraft.