Proper Space Battles

[B.J.]

And I'm starting to think I need to check out The Expanse.

Yes, you really do!

The whole thing makes cloaks useless. Which is likely why its never mentioned again in Trek. Like so many other franchise breaking moments.

I wouldn't call it franchise breaking. My headcanon says that the whole tailpipe issue was fixed in the next iteration of cloaks, so their jury-rigged torpedo would have been useless after that. (But admittedly, not entirely sure what to do about the firing-when-cloaked thing.)

 

[wayoung]

Yeah, "Balance of Terror." Pretty much the whole episode is about Enterprise not being able to target the Romulan ship that has fired upon it.



That problem would be simple to avoid. There's no reason to assume the gas trail would be the only input the torpedo would use to find its target, other sensor data could be used to determine friend or foe.

...What sensor data? The only reason they used the gas detector is because there is no other sensor data to use to target. If ships sensors could detect other traces of the ship then they don't need the gas detector.

The BoT cloak was crap, the Enterprise could see through it (they even hacked the ships security feeds!). The issue wasn't the cloak, it was the super weapon which the Enterpise had to avoid if the Romulans detected them. Which is why the Enterprise slunk in behind them trying to be a sensor shadow.

Even with that said, Kirk had plenty of time to disable them with phasers before the Romulans could destroy the ENT (no gas detecting torpedo needed) when they uncloaked but a coolant failure stopped him, the race to fix the coolant failure being the danger the Enterprise was in.

 

[wayoung]

Yes, you really do!


I wouldn't call it franchise breaking. My headcanon says that the whole tailpipe issue was fixed in the next iteration of cloaks, so their jury-rigged torpedo would have been useless after that. (But admittedly, not entirely sure what to do about the firing-when-cloaked thing.)

Which, again, would render the gas detector completely useless.

So, there are two scenarios :

A) Prior to TUC all cloaks could be seen through if people looked for gas emissions and nobody found that glaringly obvious problem until TUC and then it was fixed

Or

B) The gas dispersion was never fixed and no other vessels sensors were ever recalibrate to detect it.

Either one presents the people involved as pretty dumb. I prefer to drop it in the same box as the genesis device, trans warp beaming, Khan's blood, and so many other inventions that show up for one moment and are never mentioned again because they'd cause inherent changes to the franchises formula that nobody wanted.

 

[J.T.B.]

...What sensor data? The only reason they used the gas detector is because there is no other sensor data to use to target. If ships sensors could detect other traces of the ship then they don't need the gas detector.

Yeah... But they would have sensor data on the uncloaked friendly vessels that they don't want to hit.

The BoT cloak was crap, the Enterprise could see through it (they even hacked the ships security feeds!). The issue wasn't the cloak, it was the super weapon which the Enterpise had to avoid if the Romulans detected them. Which is why the Enterprise slunk in behind them trying to be a sensor shadow.

So a weapon that could target the cloaked ship would not have been any use? Of course it would have, they could have defended themselves immediately instead of waiting for the ship to show itself or leave a wake through the comet tail.

 

[wayoung]

Yeah... But they would have sensor data on the uncloaked friendly vessels that they don't want to hit.



So a weapon that could target the cloaked ship would not have been any use? Of course it would have, they could have defended themselves immediately instead of waiting for the ship to show itself or leave a wake through the comet tail.

1). Fair enough, but wouldn't help cloaked friendly ships.

2). Pretty sure the biggest issue was still the super weapon keeping the ENT too far out.

Regardless of all this there are still couple major problems with this "solution".

- it breaks all cloaked combat before it if all they had to do was look for the gas trail and everybody was too dumb to ever think of it.
- It means ship sensors could be calibrated to detect all cloaks after it, meaning no gas seeking torpedos is needed
- All cloaked ships after had that problem filed, rendering the gas detector useless.

 

[zar]

Which, again, would render the gas detector completely useless.

So, there are two scenarios :

A) Prior to TUC all cloaks could be seen through if people looked for gas emissions and nobody found that glaringly obvious problem until TUC and then it was fixed

Or

B) The gas dispersion was never fixed and no other vessels sensors were ever recalibrate to detect it.

Either one presents the people involved as pretty dumb. I prefer to drop it in the same box as the genesis device, trans warp beaming, Khan's blood, and so many other inventions that show up for one moment and are never mentioned again because they'd cause inherent changes to the franchises formula that nobody wanted.

All things being equal, Mr. Scott, I would agree. However things are not equal. This ship was a prototype never seen before or after. There is a third scenario which is most obvious to me:

C) Whatever modifications allowed for a cloaked ship to fire also exposed the impulse emissions. This was either an engineering oversight, or the conspirators developed the prototype themselves and considered it an acceptable risk since it only needed to succeed for a single use. Either way the concept had to be scrapped and Klingons went back to using non-firing-when-cloaked, non-emission-exposing systems like they always had.

 

[J.T.B.]

1). Fair enough, but wouldn't help cloaked friendly ships.

No, that would take some additional measures.

2). Pretty sure the biggest issue was still the super weapon keeping the ENT too far out.

No it wasn't. Enterprise had them in weapons range and did some damage, but it was guesswork because they couldn't get a target fix.

Regardless of all this there are still couple major problems with this "solution".

- it breaks all cloaked combat before it if all they had to do was look for the gas trail and everybody was too dumb to ever think of it.

Yep, that's what I came in on.

 

[wayoung]

All things being equal, Mr. Scott, I would agree. However things are not equal. This ship was a prototype never seen before or after. There is a third scenario which is most obvious to me:

C) Whatever modifications allowed for a cloaked ship to fire also exposed the impulse emissions. This was either an engineering oversight, or the conspirators developed the prototype themselves and considered it an acceptable risk since it only needed to succeed for a single use. Either way the concept had to be scrapped and Klingons went back to using non-firing-when-cloaked, non-emission-exposing systems like they always had.

There is no dialogue stating that this flaw is due to the ship being a prototype. In fact, Spock specifically likens the cloaked ship emitting gas "like any other vessel" .

 

[zar]

There is no dialogue stating that this flaw is due to the ship being a prototype. In fact, Spock specifically likens the cloaked ship emitting gas "like any other vessel" .

And of course Spock would be right, the ship is emitting gas like any other vessel regardless of whether those emissions can be detected. If dialog explicitly explained this, there wouldn't be a discussion. There also isn't any dialog confirming your scenarios A and B, or any dialog denying any of the 3. The one that doesn't involve the characters being morons is as good as any.

 

[wayoung]

...The dialogue does explicitly state this.

SPOCK: Gas. ...Gas, Captain. Under impulse power she expends fuel like any other vessel. We call it 'plasma' but whatever the Klingon designation is, it is merely ionised gas.
UHURA: Well, what about all that equipment we're carrying to catalogue gaseous anomalies? ...Well, the thing's got to have a tail pipe.
SPOCK: Doctor, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a torpedo?

 

[zar]

...The dialogue does explicitly state this.

SPOCK: Gas. ...Gas, Captain. Under impulse power she expends fuel like any other vessel. We call it 'plasma' but whatever the Klingon designation is, it is merely ionised gas.
UHURA: Well, what about all that equipment we're carrying to catalogue gaseous anomalies? ...Well, the thing's got to have a tail pipe.
SPOCK: Doctor, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a torpedo?

...Yes, and it neither confirms nor denies any of the three possible explanations you and I posted, as I just said. Spock and Uhura are just stating the obvious here.

 

[psCargile]

Proper space battles? Take a month to absorb and understand the information presented at Rocketpunk Manifesto, and Atomic Rockets.

No one does it correctly. No one.

 

[Forbin]

Sat in on a brief lecture on EW for visiting college students today, got refreshed on some stuff I'd forgotten over the years.
Basically, if the EW engineers did their jobs right, an enemy weapon system may not ever even detect our vehicle. If it does, it should never get a lock on our vehicle, and may not even get off the launch rail - no lock, no launch in some systems.

In my earlier post I was thinking of missiles/torps being jammed while already on the way. The preferred scenario is keep them from being on the way. And that would cover the beam weapon problem - no detect, no lock, no hit.

 

[The Wormhole]

Think Batman Begins vs. Batman and Robin. Increase the realism and the flavor of the fantasy will taste that much sweeter.

Batman Begins is superior to Batman and Robin because Batman Begins is a much better movie. Realism has nothing to do with it.

 

[Cyke101]

DS9's wall o' ships battles were simultaneously some of the most ridiculous things in sci-fi, and also some of the most satisfying. I love a good carnage if possible. Different ships for different purposes would've punched through a hole plenty fine, rather than portraying ships as Roman soldiers in their own right.

Probably the worst of the bunch is the Battle of Chin'toka. Once the platforms were activated and ships were getting shredded left and right, it would've been far more prudent to pull back. But the platforms were also so invincible that our heroes needed a treknobabble solution. To a battle, of all things.

 

[woodstock]

Weapons don't fire often enough.

I imagined that perhaps phaser banks needed at least a few seconds to recharge before firing again, that is a lot of power being discharged there. Has there been any dialogue specifically stating such? I know I've heard in some situations of powering up phaser banks, "they're dropping shields and powering down", and such, but nothing right in the middle of a firefight.

 

[Arpy]

No I'm not, read that again: I'm suggesting that your criticism should be be of inconsistency, rather than of failing to meet your arbitrary preferences that have nothing to do with realism.

Consistent mediocrity is not of interest to me, no. I expect them to do things better the longer they're at it, the greater their knowledge and success and budget and freedom is, yes. They got tired and cheesier over time.

I imagined that perhaps phaser banks needed at least a few seconds to recharge before firing again, that is a lot of power being discharged there. Has there been any dialogue specifically stating such? I know I've heard in some situations of powering up phaser banks, "they're dropping shields and powering down", and such, but nothing right in the middle of a firefight.

That's how I explain it to myself too, but there were hundreds of ships in those scenes and just so few beams and torpedoes flying. Together with the lack of shield bubbles, barely moving ships, and the rest of it, I found them static and underwhelming. Maybe if they'd focused on fewer ships in each shot, rendering others really tiny (more accurately further away) they could have upped the nearby weapons fire and ship maneuvers and increased the background lightshow as well (maybe with little blips of explosions and phaser streaks and ships that look little bigger than stars on the backdrop).

 

[wayoung]

$$$

 

[a thousand-yard stare]

Re. gas detecting torpedo.
This is back to the 'cloaked vessel as a submarine' meme.
There was a technique to analyse airborne gas emissions to search out diesel-electric subs. It was used by maritime patrol aircraft.
Don't know if it is still used...

 

[publiusr]

The honorverse will probably allow for more realistic space battles.

The ultimate weapon
http://william-black.deviantart.com/art/Doomsday-Orion-504250808

Battleship Orion
http://william-black.deviantart.com/art/USAF-Orion-Battleship-Exterior-504247722

The casaba howitzer
http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-nuclear-spear-casaba-howitzer.html