Original 12 Constitution class ships

[alensatemybuick]

My whole argument is just that the AMT kit is different enough from the Enterprise as it appeared on screen to be justifiably a different type of ship.

And the same detailed comparison / contrast of AMT model to 11 footer you went on to make can be made for the 33" inch model vs 11 footer. Yet both of those, and the AMT model too, were used to represent the Enterprise, as pointed out at least a few times in this thread already. As I pointed out on the previous page as well, ships of the same class need not be identical; there will be differences from the start, and divergence over time.

I have my reality and you have yours. Or is that illusion? Regardless, may you find your way as pleasant.

 

[Drone]

Like I said, fans wanted Star Trek to be star wars long before there was Star Wars. Fans wanted space battles... not science, exploration and discovery. And sure enough, that is what it became. The battleship Enterprise, ready for space battles going toe to toe with space alien's battleships in displays that will make fans happy.
.

Sorry for the extraneous, and tenuous reference, but this part of your post, immediately made me think not of fans, but of species represented with an ax to grind, a la the Kyrians and the lure of reconstructing our stalwarts, as Warship Voyager.
Again, not related to your thought here I know, but a stream of consciousness type thing that struck me right away. Back to the actual conversation, by all means!!!!

 

[Ithekro]

Never was the Enterprise depicted as a battleship. At best a cruiser in the old sense of the word. A vessel large enough to act independently and was flexible in its mission types. In the days of sailing this would be a sloop or a frigate.

Cruiser is a underused term in modern navies, having been replaced by destroyers for the most part.

 

[johnnybear]

I thought it was primarily a science vessel rather than a warship? Kirk and Spock have described it thus on many occasions!
JB

 

[BillJ]

Never was the Enterprise depicted as a battleship. At best a cruiser in the old sense of the word. A vessel large enough to act independently and was flexible in its mission types. In the days of sailing this would be a sloop or a frigate.

How would you identify a craft that can decimate the habitable surface of a planet and go toe-to-toe with your best warships, if you're the Klingons or Romulans? In Star Trek III, the Klingons identify the Enterprise as a "Federation battlecruiser".

 

[Phoenix219]

I don't think the Antares and her crew have officially been determined to be Starfleet. (I wonder what office would determine such things?)

I think the re-use of the old-style uniforms was done 1) to save money and 2) using an alternative uniform style for officers who might plausibly be of some alternative department/service. Like we saw in that Justman memo, he suggested that the Antares was some kind of "merchant marine" service because of their odd patch. When he and Roddenberry issued an edict that "all Starfleet people wear the delta patch," the implication is that this alternate patch reflects that the Antares must not have been Starfleet.

I think it's "angels on the head of a pin" stuff, though. Generally, I lean towards trying to divine producer-ly intent, rather than some in-universe canonicity and consistency. Rather than looking at uniform styles and patch insignias to determine Starfleet and duty status and reporting structures and fleets and such, I just look at a memo rom Justman and Roddenberry that says "the Antares was a 'merchant marine' ship, not Starfleet." Boom! Done in my book.

(The new VFX depicting the ship in the remastered episode complicates things. We might speculate (God, I sound like Timo), that these "merchant marine" ships have the same external red banner with yellow wedge" markings as Starfleet ships--the way many Merchant Marine ships look like Navy ships.

Random thought; even cops and official vehicles need license plates and registration......

 

[alensatemybuick]

When they put Tomahawk missiles on the Iowa class battleships, I think it demonstrated just how pointless those were, as you surely didn't need a battleship to mount those on. Advances in weapons technology make it so you could do a lot of damage without a heavily armed / large crewed warship. The fact that the Enterprise can lay wast to a planet doesn't make it a battleship / battle cruiser any more than what Torg chose to call it.

 

[Forbin]

I've always liked the old British navy frigate analogy. Both exploring and enforcing.
The Klingons called her a batllecruiser because that's their mindset. They don't have (as far as we know) exploration ships.

 

[Shawnster]

I thought it was primarily a science vessel rather than a warship? Kirk and Spock have described it thus on many occasions!
JB

Yet Kirk described himself as a solder. And David Marcus equated Starfleet to the military.

 

[BillJ]

I've always liked the old British navy frigate analogy. Both exploring and enforcing.
The Klingons called her a batllecruiser because that's their mindset. They don't have (as far as we know) exploration ships.

I doubt they considered the Grissom a battlecruiser.

 

[Ithekro]

In the days of sail, a frigate could devastate a port just as much as a ship of the line. The only difference was size and numbers of guns. An American "heavy" frigate, such as USS Constitution, is rated as a 44-gun frigate. She is heavier than the standard British frigates of her time and built more like a small ship of the line. A British ship of the line like HMS Victory is rated as a 104-gun first rate ship of the line.

By Vietnam, the United States Navy was using their remaining heavy cruisers (such as USS Newport News) and the battleship USS New Jersey as shore bombardment vessels to support Marines and Army troops inland. Both could do just about the same job at about the same range. The New Jersey's 16" guns had a range of 38 km while the 8" guns on the heavy cruiser had a range of 27 km. The destructive abilities are different due to size, but the effect is basically the same. New Jersey did only one tour out there and was return to mothballs. The heavy cruisers stayed longer as they didn't cost quite as much to operate. Newport News did three tours herself.

Today the Cruisers and Destroyers are basically the same thing and have nearly as much firepower as a battleship. The difference being volume of weaponry and size of the vessel. Ship use missiles now as the main armaments, with guns being mostly 5" multi-purpose guns not specifically designed for ship to ship or shore bombardment. The missiles are the main punch and can be nuclear tipped, making them equally as destructive as a battleship in terms of mass destruction. They can go toe to toe with the largest ships of any other nation on Earth, relaying on defense systems to keep the enemy missiles from hitting them. They are not designed to slug it out in visual range anymore. The main thing modern ships can't do that a battleship could, was survive impacts from heavy guns at visual ranges, and penetrate thick steel or concrete with their large shells. Modern weaponry is making up for that with the recent rail guns, lasers, and other systems to make the battleship entirely obsolete as oppose to in the 1990s were it was mostly obsolete, but still had a job it could do that nothing else in the fleet could do.

Starfleet ships like the Constitution-class could be seen as the same. They have enough arms to combat any of their expected enemy's ships. Even if it is one phaser bank and a one torpedo launcher, it should be enough given the power of her engines. The shields are what keep the ship safe. The hull (in theory) was not designed for that.

A "combat cutter" of World War II (Secretary-class) such as USCGC Bibb are about the size of a larger destroyer of the era. Not as heavily armed, but still armed with similar weapons. This style of cutter was reclassified in 1965 as High Endurance Cutters. A modern version, such as the Legend-class, can be fitted with missiles and other modern naval weapons and sensor arrays and act as a patrol frigate. So equipped they can function as a modern destroyer, but not for very long as they'd run out of ordinance quickly.

 

[alensatemybuick]

A "combat cutter" of World War II (Secretary-class) such as USCGC Bibb are about the size of a larger destroyer of the era. Not as heavily armed, but still armed with similar weapons. This style of cutter was reclassified in 1965 as High Endurance Cutters.

The high endurance cutters (WHEC) also included the Casco class (itself made up of former Navy seaplane tenders):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_endurance_cutter

As a personal note, my father served on the Casco-class USCGC Mackinac from the early to mid 1960s (WAVP-(then later WHEC-) 371).

 

[Ithekro]

The Casco-class is around the same tonnage as a Fletcher-class destroyer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher-class_destroyer

The destroyer is of course longer due to the needs of a hull form that can take over 36 knots of speed.

 

[Poltargyst]

I'm okay with considering the Enterprise a frigate, sloop, cruiser, or destroyer. When the Enterprise defeats a Klingon battlecruiser in a ship to ship battle, does that make the Klingon battlecruiser also a frigate, sloop, cruiser, or destroyer, or does that mean that Federation frigates/sloops/cruisers/destroyers are more powerful than Klingon battleships?

 

[J.T.B.]

Do I have to spell this one out? You guys should be able to take the fan goggles off for a minute to see what I'm saying... even if you hate it.

You can characterize it however you want, but I already posted something from the writer's guide that compared Enterprise to a warship. Roddenberry's earliest treatments identified Enterprise (originally Yorktown) as a "cruiser," which is historically a naval type. Is there any citation for anyone expressing intent that Enterprise be comparable to a contemporary Coast Guard vessel rather than an historical naval vessel?

And even if the original intent was a non-naval Enterprise, it would have applied to the two pilots only, because the "Balance of Terror" war story was in the works quite early, April-July 1966, around the same time as "Charlie X," "The Man Trap" and some other episodes that aired before it.

But that's okay... because (as I pointed out) the Enterprise transforms from a vessel of exploration into a weapons platform over time. If we want to take this back to classical nautical times, she went from being like the HMS Bounty or HMS Discovery to being like the HMS Victory.

I don't think it was ever intended that Enterprise was a merchant vessel purchased by Starfleet to conduct a one-time research mission. Nor did she ever become a Victory, which was a first rate ship of the line and served as a flagship for 32 of her 34 years in service.

Never was the Enterprise depicted as a battleship. At best a cruiser in the old sense of the word. A vessel large enough to act independently and was flexible in its mission types. In the days of sailing this would be a sloop or a frigate.

Indeed. Before WW2 cruisers of various sizes conducted all kinds of world-wide missions. In the 19th century, most major peacetime navies were organized with cruising squadrons distributed at various stations around the world. This is mostly notable in the case of the global British Empire, but the US Navy had similar missions for its cruisers. The US Naval Advisory board wrote in 1884:

Taking into proper consideration the various requirements of the different squadrons for surveying, deep-sea sounding, protection and advancement of American commerce, exploration, protection of American life and property endangered by wars between foreign countries, and service in support of American policy in matters where foreign governments are concerned, forty three unarmored cruising vessels are required constantly in commission.​

 

[Shaw]

First of all, thanks to @Shaw for the model drafts he has posted here documenting the models.

First of all, I didn't post those drawings here... they are freely available to members of other sites to make use of as they wish, but TrekBBS (represented by members like yourself) is not a site where I plan on sharing my research.

Your last post addressing me was as much of a strawman argument (though better presented) as that of Poltargyst.

You guys seem to think you know everything you need to on the subject of TOS, and I think you have everything you deserve to know on the subject... which I feel puts us in perfect agreement now. Me adding anything else to any discussion at TrekBBS would be a waste of all our valuable time.

 

[johnnybear]

Yet Kirk described himself as a solder. And David Marcus equated Starfleet to the military.

And yet other times states he is an explorer! Do the two ideologies go hand in hand? I don't think so!
JB

 

[J.T.B.]

So let me go though the differences. NOTE TO ALL: if you don't care about this whole AMT vs. Shooting model discussion, feel free to skip this post.

Starting from the bow and working my way aft, here are the differences in the AMT kit as compared to the 11 foot photography miniature:

Thanks, I knew about maybe half of that.

First of all, I didn't post those drawings here... they are freely available to members of other sites to make use of as they wish, but TrekBBS (represented by members like yourself) is not a site where I plan on sharing my research.

Your last post addressing me was as much of a strawman argument (though better presented) as that of Poltargyst.

No it wasn't. It was direct responses to things you posted, and I posted specifics. You wrote "in researching the models I also ended up finding out about the original intent of those who designed and built them" but haven't posted anything to support it.

You guys seem to think you know everything you need to on the subject of TOS, and I think you have everything you deserve to know on the subject... which I feel puts us in perfect agreement now.

Me adding anything else to any discussion at TrekBBS would be a waste of all our valuable time.

You have a real flair for making minor things personal. So long.

 

[BillJ]

First of all, I didn't post those drawings here... they are freely available to members of other sites to make use of as they wish, but TrekBBS (represented by members like yourself) is not a site where I plan on sharing my research.

Your last post addressing me was as much of a strawman argument (though better presented) as that of Poltargyst.

You guys seem to think you know everything you need to on the subject of TOS, and I think you have everything you deserve to know on the subject... which I feel puts us in perfect agreement now. Me adding anything else to any discussion at TrekBBS would be a waste of all our valuable time.

At the end of the day, it is a TV show that I like. It really isn't important in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Ithekro]

I'm okay with considering the Enterprise a frigate, sloop, cruiser, or destroyer. When the Enterprise defeats a Klingon battlecruiser in a ship to ship battle, does that make the Klingon battlecruiser also a frigate, sloop, cruiser, or destroyer, or does that mean that Federation frigates/sloops/cruisers/destroyers are more powerful than Klingon battleships?

Different nations sometimes use different naming conventions for their ship types. USS Enterprise, by the movie era, is generally considered a heavy cruiser equivalent. The Klingons might not use that term and instead use "battlecruiser", which in Earth 20th century terms is a large cruiser with battleship sized weaponry. Usually larger than a Washington treaty era heavy cruiser, but without such direct naval treaties and such, Starfleet and the Klingon Empire can come up with their own rational designations for their vessels, while fan authors come up with type names that fit their own logical patterns. In the 1970s, that pattern would have either been based on World War II (American or British typically) or late 1960s and early 1970s era naval practice, which can be quite confusing since it was in 1975 that the US Navy changed all its designations as the last of the World War II era cruisers and destroyers left service. The only present day US cruiser class, the Ticonderoga-class, was originally designated as a frigate, which prior to 1975 was the American designation for a Destroyer Leader. After 1975 a frigate became like the British designation and was for what had been the Destroyer Escorts (smaller ships) of World War II. The old Destroyer Leaders became Cruisers and the old Heavy and Light Cruisers of World War II retired. So some authors use Frigates as the huge ships in the fleet. As large or larger than the cruisers like Enterprise.