Overview of the Galaxy Class

[RunawayStarShip]

It's not hard to see the advantages of splitting tactical tonnage between multiple vessels, greater flexibility, the ability to police/patrol multiple arenas, to respond to multiple threats simultaneously without being hamstrung by diversionary tactics and as you point out yourself the fact that multiple ship engagements seem to favour the more numerous party.

I'm pretty sure Starfleet agrees with you. Most of their starships are small compared to the Enterprise-D. Starfleet's largest ships, by far, are the Galaxy and Nebula (respectively 28 and 21 times the volume of a Constitution!). Starfleet's next largest vessel design is the Ambassador (14x), followed by the Sovereign (12x), Akira (6.7x), New Orleans (5.1x), and Excelsior (4.1-4.6x). I'm pretty sure the New Orleans-class is a defunct design by 2368, and I don't think we've seen many Ambassador-class ships around after the Wolf 359 flashback in "Emissary".

Starfleet operates thousands of ships in the mid-2370's. Probably only three dozen of those ships are Galaxy and Nebula-class ships. Just because we're following the adventures of one exception in one series doesn't make it the rule in Starfleet.

It could even be that for Starfleet's shipbuilding capabilities, even a Galaxy-class starship is a small build. After all, the Nero-altered timeline has huge Constitution-class cruisers (15x the volume of a prime Constitution) and even more ridiculous Vengeance-class dreadnoughts (on the order of 10^2 times the volume of a prime Constitution) one century before the debut of the Galaxy in the prime timeline. Heck, even in the prime timeline there's Earth Spacedock (26000x the volume of a Constitution!!) and Starbase 74 (318000x!!!).

 

[Triskelion]

Interesting thread with good questions. Just noting that one primary mission of SF is First Contact. A single vessel is far less alarming than a battle group hovering menacingly over your planet. You also reduce the complexity of risk factors with multiple commanding officers responding to, unavoidably, a like increase in local traffic. Someone's bound to get twitchy.

Obviously, Starfleet is an organization of Peace, not Police. Making that first impression is of paramount importance, especially in high-risk cases involving prewarp societies.

By concentrating resources onto a single ship platform, you can also deploy your best commanders to more locations in space. You're also reducing risk of wasting perfectly good ships and commanders that get stuck supporting a disabled one, or worse, all get wiped out by some phemomemon. Starfleet invests a lot in its personnel, no doubt, its most valuable resource. One ship gets by with a handful of commanding officers. Multiply that by three to seven more ships, and now put that group on a milk run because it's the only group in the sector. Here comes a battle group to deliver your visiting ambassador from a rival neighboring planet.... Are those implications really the message SF would want to send?

And what are the opportunity costs in tying up 35 more commanders to a single mission?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Who said "battle" group? I, for one, said "task group". First contact missions could be handled by sending one ship into orbit, while the rest hold back in the system - close enough to be of help if there's trouble, but not so close as to be threatening.

 

[T'Girl]

And what are the opportunity costs in tying up 35 more commanders to a single mission?

But by combining 35 ships into one, you're tying up assets on missions where they have no purpose. Consider a first contact mission, you're lugging along all that cargo space, diplomatic guest quarters, stellar cartography, heavy weapons systems, large shuttle deck (very under used), and other facilities. Facilities that could be scheduled for activities in other areas of space.

While there might be times where the Enterprise D used everything to accomplish a mission, how often would that be?

†

 

[Triskelion]

Who said "battle" group? I, for one, said "task group". First contact missions could be handled by sending one ship into orbit, while the rest hold back in the system - close enough to be of help if there's trouble, but not so close as to be threatening.

Oh, we both know it's a task group. But why should others believe that? You'd be asking unknown alien societies to trust your intentions, while you trust they will not see the very threat to their whole way of life your friendly little visit represents. You would risk violating not only some backwater tribe, but your very mandate as a unifying body of principles among your most powerful civilizations and allies strong and tenuous - as well as providing your enemies with moral ammunition against your own way of life. No shot needs to be fired to destroy your very own civilization in a botched First Contact Mission.

Why complicate it?

Also, FWIW, the experiences of our hero crews do illustrate, more often than not, that one vessel with an experienced crew is sufficient to result in a successful mission. Why take up more drydocks and build personnel for an equivalent result?

I'm the first to admit my shipbuilding experience is limited to dealing with only a few engineers and shipyard managers; but I do know they don't build two ships for one task. They can't afford the customer figuring out how to get by with just one. IE, if you can accomplish your objective with just one ship, you will.

We're not even considering the escalating energy expenditure for multiple power plants (and dilithium) needed to convey more vessels. Nor compounding the deleterious warp effects on star systems.

But good luck if you can justify it. I'd say go for it. It just seems less efficient when taken in full context of all the factors.

 

[Triskelion]

But by combining 35 ships into one, you're tying up assets on missions where they have no purpose. Consider a first contact mission, you're lugging along all that cargo space, diplomatic guest quarters, stellar cartography, heavy weapons systems, large shuttle deck (very under used), and other facilities. Facilities that could be scheduled for activities in other areas of space.

While there might be times where the Enterprise D used everything to accomplish a mission, how often would that be?

†

Very good points.

(Sorry, we posted simultaneously so I didn't see you to respond in my previous post).

My best guess would be that as a flagship (whatever that is), you ARE the Federation abroad. So you are prepared for anything and everything (and you get it right the first time whenever possible). While it is possible those departments sat idly, I don't get the impression their crews remained idle.

In either case, there will be costs. Which is the lesser of two evils: carrying too many facilities around, or risking destroying your own Federation by proving ineffective out there? And ships do get separated from one another. Sunk, too.

 

[tharpdevenport]

While the Galaxy class ship certainly was a match for many opponents, it wasn't always so if the numbers increased. Case-in-point: it didn't survive the attack of three Birds of Prey in "Yesterday's Enterprise", even when they took one out and even with a little help (reference,d but not actually seen) from the Enterprise C.

And I'm not all too certain it could take a sustained battle from a large TNG Romulan warbird.

I seem to recall also that one of the first -- if not the very first -- appearance of a Ferengi maurader in TNG has a comment that the Ferengi vessel was a match for the Enterprise.


And for all the firepower the Galazy class ship displayed in battles late in D.S.9, it seemed easily out-classed by three Jem'Hadar beetles in season two with the U.S.S. Odyssey, even as the Odyssey has two or three runabouts helping it. Within seconds of hits, it looked like they had been in battle for several minutes. I know, the Jem'Hadar were able to cut threw the shields but look at the pounding the Enterprise D took at the end with no shields in "Yesterday's Enterprise". One suicide run took out the whole Odyssey. The Enterprise D took mutiple hits from a Bird of Prey in Generations but kept going until it was one too many. I have to conclude that those little beetles are something of a match for the Galaxy class.

 

[Spot261]

By concentrating resources onto a single ship platform, you can also deploy your best commanders to more locations in space.

Not sure I follow you there, surely they would still only occupy one location at a time, but with other locations left empty rather than attended to by others. In a political entity with a population reaching potentially in the trillions, it's pretty unlikely SF faces a problem with their available talent pool, so why assume they have such a problem with recruitment and retention of sufficiently capable command staff?

And what are the opportunity costs in tying up 35 more commanders to a single mission?

I'm assuming a random figure here? But in all seriousness, why even send the whole group? One ship would suffice for most FC scenarios whilst the group as a whole could continue operating over the galactic vicinity, covering whatever roles required their particular specialities within that sector (for instance)

Also, FWIW, the experiences of our hero crews do illustrate, more often than not, that one vessel with an experienced crew is sufficient to result in a successful mission. Why take up more drydocks and build personnel for an equivalent result?

Because it wouldn't be equivalent, it would mean multiplying the number of possible concurrent missions and thus increasing the success rate of the time critical ones which otherwise may have either faced relative prioritisation or the likelihood of terminally late arrival (which we also see on a regular basis)

I'm the first to admit my shipbuilding experience is limited to dealing with only a few engineers and shipyard managers; but I do know they don't build two ships for one task. They can't afford the customer figuring out how to get by with just one. IE, if you can accomplish your objective with just one ship, you will.

Granted, if there is one objective. Typically though there isn't, there are so many that SF are stretched thin as it is. Surely further concentration of the eggs into even fewer baskets is likely to result in fewer objectives accomplished. Two ships for one task may be silly, but two ships for two tasks less so.

 

[DrCorby]

I'm not sure the above would be true even without the qualification. We have never seen a more powerful starship of any size or sophistication, after all. The Galaxy is the only ship shown handling Cardassian Galors without breaking a sweat (although her sister design Nebula supposedly could do that shields down, we didn't actually see that happen on screen). She furthermore reputedly can handle fifteen of those at a time! In multi-opponent engagements, no other ship has done much good; the Defiant on occasion handled multiple targets, but of midget size. And villains seem to universally acknowledge the E-D as a tough opponent, even though of course we're a bit biased in only following that particular ship rather than some random Akira or Steamrunner.

And yet we saw the Enterprise and a sister ship, the Odyssey, destroyed by small groups of lesser vessels. (I'll disregard the destruction of Enterprise in Generations, since the Klingons managed to drop E's shields.) In Yesterday's Enterprise, a group of 3 Klingon birds of prey destroyed an alternate-universe version of the Enterprise (which may even have been upgraded for the ongoing war). And in a DS9 episode (I forget the title), the Odyssey was destroyed by a few Jem'hadar ships, rammed after taking serious damage. I'd argue that the strength and survivability of Galaxys is far from top-of-the-line. They are not supreme warships, despite what we've been told repeatedly.

Edit: ninja'd by tharpdevenport

 

[Timo]

The Odyssey going down just shows the Federation is like the Borg: the first encounter with the unknown may go badly, but there is some instant learning, and subsequently the known losses of Galaxy class ships to Dominion forces go down to a flat zero (while all other classes including Klingon and Romulan ones keep blowing up).

I'd argue that the strength and survivability of Galaxys is far from top-of-the-line.

The only way for you to defend that argument would be to show a ship that fares better.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Spot261]

The question occurs whether those Galaxy class vessels we see are truly representative of the multi mission variety seen in TNG. Given that SF have had several years preparation time by this stage and the models used are visibly enhanced with what appears to be armour around the saucer stem. Even without interpreting the special effects that way it would be foolish to theorise that SF would have made no efforts to optimise those ships for combat, which could well be a pretty extensive process, which then begs the question as to whether they are genuinely representative of the class anyway. It's certainly difficult for me to imagine those vessels as being standard multi mission platforms as per TNG redeployed to join battle groups without any measures being taken to improve their chances.

Even in the case that we disregard the above they are still capital ships flying at the centre of a classic fleet formation, specifically designed to prevent loss of such a major asset. This is standard practise irl navies and tends to reduce capital ship losses to nearly zero in all but the most disastrous encounters. Combine this with their admittedly formidable shields and weapons and tbh I'd be shocked to discover any more than the occasional loss (and I agree here, the Odyssey does not represent a wartime loss). The fact of zero (known - and that is a big proviso) losses during the war is therefore not really all that comment worthy or indicative of their performance, simply a reflection of exactly what we might expect to see from a fleet employing sensible tactics. Looking at other fleets top line losses I can't immediately recall seeing many Negh'vars being lost and the only on screen loss of a D'deridex that springs to mind was during the disastrous joint Tal'Shiar/Obsidion Order attack on the Founders Homeworld where pretty much everything was destroyed. Doubtless someone will provide instances, but even there, it will be the exception rather than the norm, we won't see multiple Negh'vars being lost like we do Mirandas or B'rels.

A better way to approach the issue would not be to simply compare losses by class, but rather losses to other classes in similar sized fleets with or without a Galaxy at the core. That way we aren't looking purely at the ships own survival rates but rather at her influence on the fleet's viability and performance. It's less about how many Galaxies were destroyed and more about how many other ships were lost to protect them and whether they therefore warranted the resource drain they represented.

Of course this is impossible, we simply don't have enough on screen data to go on but the point still stands that simply counting losses (or kills for that matter) is not all that great a measure of a classes value within a fleet

 

[Longinus]

I seem to recall also that one of the first -- if not the very first -- appearance of a Ferengi maurader in TNG has a comment that the Ferengi vessel was a match for the Enterprise.

I remember this sort of thing happening a lot. I think the writers kinda painted themselves in the corner. First they claimed that Galaxy was awesome über-ship, but then they needed to threaten it. The result: a lot of random minor aliens have ships as powerful or even more powerful than the best the Federation can offer. In many cases the situation could have been avoided by giving the hostiles a small group of ships (and this was occasionally done), this would nicely visually tell that our heroes are outgunned, yet allow to maintain Galaxy's status as a powerful ship.

Then again, I like to think that Picard was just being overtly cautious in many situations.

 

[Lance]

One might call the Galaxy Class a multi-functional ship: qualified in all tasks equally, perhaps to a very high standard, but (possibly) not a ship that excels in any one of them, when another ship might be better tasked to more specialized mission parameters. Or else the entire fleet would be made up of Galaxies.

Maybe the phrase 'all rounder' might summarize the Galaxy Class.

It clearly does have weaknesses, particularly in battle scenarios, despite being armed with some impressive armory and having the advantage of a (supposed) 'battle' bridge. It's inglorious end in "Generations" is but one evidence of that. Perhaps the Galaxy-X variant addresses some of those concerns by adding a maneuverability that the "standard" Galaxy Class lacks??

 

[Tomalak]

Was the Ferengi ship actually a match for the Enterprise, or was it a combination of Ferengi bluff, and confusion over the source of the dampening field?

 

[Lance]

Was the Ferengi ship actually a match for the Enterprise, or was it a combination of Ferengi bluff, and confusion over the source of the dampening field?

The early script treatments for "The Last Outpost" describe a smaller ship which docks with a bigger 'mothership', and whose combined strength is then a match for the Enterprise. Whether what we see in the episode as broadcast is supposed to be the anchor ship or the mothership is questionable, as that element of the story was removed from the script before filming.

 

[Draculasaurus]

I don't think it's about what it can do compared to other ships. It's about serving a space faring civilization that has officers zooming around to varied assignments, and now they can take their families and still take art classes and take a stroll in a familiar arboretum.
It makes sense to me in the Star Trek universe.

 

[Kemaiku]

The Enterprise D and Odyssey were taken down by being surprised at a standstill/low orbital speed by having their shields suddenly rendered useless then either took a severe sustained torpedo assault to the warp drive or had to be rammed to allow the attacking ships warp core to breach right against the engineering section. Few ships could survive that.

Yet in the later DS9 battles, the orbital defense canons opening up at close range to the Galaxy and other ships of her class, did do a lot of cosmetic damage to the outer hull, but all Galaxy class ships survived the battle with their shields down or uselss the entire time, ripping up several of those satellites in the process.

You need to attack the warp core and be able to do a lot of damage to it to stop one of them but if they're already moving at speed, it looks like you can't get a good enough shot to take them down.

The Constitution class blew up, threatened to or had to be mothballed for less a lot of the time.

 

[Timo]

they are still capital ships flying at the centre of a classic fleet formation, specifically designed to prevent loss of such a major asset.

Yet all the action they see is all point blank, first-unto-the-breach; they form "Galaxy wings" where we see at least three of the ships fly in close formation to create and then exploit a breach in Dominion lines, unescorted by lesser ships. One would expect losses from such tactics, yet all the losses are to the lesser ships.

Looking at other fleets top line losses I can't immediately recall seeing many Negh'vars being lost

Only one is known to have existed at the time, and that one indeed remained on the background during the "Way of the Warrior" fight until delivering the decisive punches that collapsed DS9 shields and allowed for the boarding to being. It seems the writers and VFX wizards enjoyed portraying the Klingons as hierarchical in combat, made easy by their distinct sizes of ships, while Starfleet was a jumble of equal designs performing equal tasks (and being led by the midget [iDefiant[/i] at times!).

and the only on screen loss of a D'deridex that springs to mind was during the disastrous joint Tal'Shiar/Obsidion Order attack on the Founders Homeworld where pretty much everything was destroyed.

The only other ones lost on screen (apart from "Tin Man" and the highly dissimilar combat there) would seem to be to the Breen energy damper in the Chin'toka rematch. Then again, 100% of the Romulan losses were to the D'deridex class!

Timo Saloniemi[/quote]

 

[Spot261]

The only other ones lost on screen (apart from "Tin Man" and the highly dissimilar combat there) would seem to be to the Breen energy damper in the Chin'toka rematch. Then again, 100% of the Romulan losses were to the D'deridex class!

In no small part because that was the only class they seemed to have? And yeah, I discounted Tin Man as I was talking in the context of the Dominion War, thus also ignoring the phantasmic ship in "where silence has lease". Pretty sure a one torpedo kill is being a little unfair on the class.

I've always wondered about that Galaxy Wing business, I'm assuming you are referring to the scene where we see two rapidly take down a Galor class (I'd have to check again as to where the third was) and as my memory is unclear I'll have to assume the GW line came shortly before, thus your confidence in interpreting a "Galaxy Wing" as being a "wing of Galaxy class ships" and not the more conservative "wing of vessels led by one". I would hesitate to call them "unescorted" however, merely that the fleets had closed to spitting distance whereas we normally saw the big Gs sitting behind a screen of cruisers and frigates.

Assuming your interpretation is good, (it seems reasonable) then the explanation for their survival in that instance is clear, we had a squadron of capital ships backed by a fleet of lesser ones punching through the line at a point where the primary antagonists were much weaker Cardassian vessels. Nothing like good old overwhelming concentration of force!

 

[Tomalak]

In the WYLB battle, there's a prominent shot of a Galaxy class ship sitting still in the middle of the fray, firing off blasts from the saucer's huge main phaser array, seemingly acting as a stationary fire platform. Of course it's possible that was just a snapshot, or the ship had been rendered imobile, but they seem to be versatile and capable of different roles in battles.

They can be massed to form 'Galaxy Wings' and punch through at a given point, or be distributed around the fleet to form a base of fire and hold the line.