question:about original enterprise
- Thread starter astarguy1
- Start date
Depends on the # of battles I guess. If she fires an average of 5 per battle than that's 30 battles worth or 1 battle every 2 months for a 5 year mission.
If she engaged in more, like one battle a month on average, then she'd have to reload at almost the 2.5 year mark.
Interesting question! (Where does that 152 figure come from?)
How many torps per fight? When Kirk orders "full spreads" fired, we might be talking about six torps at every command of "FIRE!", considering that in "Journey to Babel", he used classic submarine movie jargon and ordered "torpedoes 2, 4 and 6" to be fired, suggesting six forward tubes. And in "Elaan of Troyius", six indeed was the number of torps visually confirmed when Kirk fired a "full spread", and that put an end to the fight against a fully shielded Klingon battle cruiser.
However, there were misses among that full spread. And when that spread of three misses the wildly maneuvering foe in "JtB", Kirk doesn't seem to bother with further ones. Perhaps torps in TOS are supposed to be used WWII style: they are short range weapons, powerful enough to ensure a kill if there's a hit, but unlikely to score hits at longer ranges or higher speeds. In those realms, guns, that is, phasers, are the preferred weapon.
Quite possibly, then, just three to six torps expended per average fight, mostly as mercy shots towards the end of the battle. That is, if Kirk considered sinking the enemy a merciful thing. But we know he has other, more enlightened ideas of mercy (he wages war with his hand phaser on stun in "Errand of Mercy"!), so torps might actually see very little use in "conventional" fights.
But how often does Kirk fight conventionally? He was willing to try a single torp even against the tiny NOMAD in "The Changeling", so supposedly any foe that is foolish enough to come within torpedo range will get some. But many of Kirk's fights are actually long range, high speed chases. The dikironium cloud gets phasers rather than torps, say. And quick-reaction fights rule out torps, too: there are no torps used in "Balance of Terror" or "Errand of Mercy".
I'd say a loadup of 152 could allow for monthly battles at the rate Kirk is going. Then again, Kirk gets opportunities to reload at least once per season, visiting starbases or major colonies or locations where he can pick up Galactic Commissioners and other nasty things like that. It's not really a "five years out there, then back to civilization" type of deal at all, but rather a "business as usual, oh, has it already been five years?" one - only retroactively defined as having ended at the five-year mark.
Doesn't mean Starfleet wouldn't stock up for five years sharp anyway. I mean, "Mark of Gideon" explicates that the supply of food onboard is going to last the whole crew for five years. Then again, that's at least a couple of years into the mission already - so the policy might be to always keep the ship stocked up with five years' worth of everything, even during the last year of this five-year mission...
Timo Saloniemi
How many torps per fight? When Kirk orders "full spreads" fired, we might be talking about six torps at every command of "FIRE!", considering that in "Journey to Babel", he used classic submarine movie jargon and ordered "torpedoes 2, 4 and 6" to be fired, suggesting six forward tubes. And in "Elaan of Troyius", six indeed was the number of torps visually confirmed when Kirk fired a "full spread", and that put an end to the fight against a fully shielded Klingon battle cruiser.
However, there were misses among that full spread. And when that spread of three misses the wildly maneuvering foe in "JtB", Kirk doesn't seem to bother with further ones. Perhaps torps in TOS are supposed to be used WWII style: they are short range weapons, powerful enough to ensure a kill if there's a hit, but unlikely to score hits at longer ranges or higher speeds. In those realms, guns, that is, phasers, are the preferred weapon.
Quite possibly, then, just three to six torps expended per average fight, mostly as mercy shots towards the end of the battle. That is, if Kirk considered sinking the enemy a merciful thing. But we know he has other, more enlightened ideas of mercy (he wages war with his hand phaser on stun in "Errand of Mercy"!), so torps might actually see very little use in "conventional" fights.
But how often does Kirk fight conventionally? He was willing to try a single torp even against the tiny NOMAD in "The Changeling", so supposedly any foe that is foolish enough to come within torpedo range will get some. But many of Kirk's fights are actually long range, high speed chases. The dikironium cloud gets phasers rather than torps, say. And quick-reaction fights rule out torps, too: there are no torps used in "Balance of Terror" or "Errand of Mercy".
I'd say a loadup of 152 could allow for monthly battles at the rate Kirk is going. Then again, Kirk gets opportunities to reload at least once per season, visiting starbases or major colonies or locations where he can pick up Galactic Commissioners and other nasty things like that. It's not really a "five years out there, then back to civilization" type of deal at all, but rather a "business as usual, oh, has it already been five years?" one - only retroactively defined as having ended at the five-year mark.
Doesn't mean Starfleet wouldn't stock up for five years sharp anyway. I mean, "Mark of Gideon" explicates that the supply of food onboard is going to last the whole crew for five years. Then again, that's at least a couple of years into the mission already - so the policy might be to always keep the ship stocked up with five years' worth of everything, even during the last year of this five-year mission...
Timo Saloniemi
TMoST describes the photon torpedoes as "energy pods" as I recall. Whether that means a physical pod which contains energy or a pod that is itself comprised of cohesive energy is open to interpretation.
Personally, I could see good arguments for either position.
--Alex
Personally, I could see good arguments for either position.
--Alex
I think the real-life meaning of a "photon torpedo" would be a short laser blast that is so intense, it's going to do some damage where it hits. It's a laser beam so strong, so densely packed with photons, that the ship can only fire a short pulse.
But that's not what the TV show seemed to be going for, and of course TWOK portrayed something that has no reason for photon to be in the name. "Photon" in Star Trek might be just a commercial brand name, like the Tomahawk missile.
But that's not what the TV show seemed to be going for, and of course TWOK portrayed something that has no reason for photon to be in the name. "Photon" in Star Trek might be just a commercial brand name, like the Tomahawk missile.
What I was going to say.
I just love the smile on that guy's face in the second link. That's a man who likes his tactical nuclear weapons.
I just love the smile on that guy's face in the second link. That's a man who likes his tactical nuclear weapons.
Or he might be laughing at the lame pose requested by the photographer. I've seen it a million times—in fact, I had to tolerate it while working at a multimedia company. I was sitting at my workstation (computer animation) while the CEO (who knew nothing about graphics at all) officiously leaned over my shoulder to point at "something" on the screen.
The photographer wants action in the scene, and that is usually the pose directed. I remember shooting video on the Lettie G. Howard (an old tall ship) when a tourist couple asked my supervisor (the cameraman) to take a photo of them with their camera. They proceeded to stand side-by-side in the typical pose used by tourists. My supervisor told them, "extend an arm, look up at the rigging, marvel at the scene around you. Make the photo interesting." Make the photo say, "we were there," not "we were Photoshopped into the scene." The resulting shot looked so much better.
to answer the question the 152 figure came from me. i am designing the enterprise to fit in the real world as proposed by the Franz Joseph. i am making some modifications and one of them was where to store the torpedo's. so my plans call for storing the below deck 19 in two storage racks of three deep so the number i came up with is 152. from the replies i have seen it seems like a reasonable number so i am going to stick with that. thanks to everyone that replied.
The launcher actually is down on the engineering hull, as seen in TWOK. The type of warp engines used on the torpedoes in TOS created a refractive effect, thus making it look like the torpedoes came from higher up. By TWOK, the torpedo engines were much smaller and of a "disposable" sort that produced the same pseudo-acceleration by over-driving the coils. That "lesser" engine design no longer created the refractive effect, but a Knoll Light Factory flare.
What if a photon torpedo in TOS is either the dense laser burst suggested above, or a spherical casing keeping matter and antimatter in suspension, sort of like the antimatter bomb in "Obsession" or the mortars in "Arena"? The laser burst goes at warp one but can only go where it is originally aimed. The m/am cannonball is sublight but can adjust course in transit.
Then some genius invents a warp propelled casing - the TWOK torpedo - and the new ship's design is adjusted to allow for the more extensive launchers needed to handle them.
In such a scenario the number of torpedoes carried depends on which torpedoes you mean. Laser bursts? Almost unlimited. Cannonballs? A hell of a lot. Warp torpedoes? None in TOS but some limited number on the refit ship.
Then some genius invents a warp propelled casing - the TWOK torpedo - and the new ship's design is adjusted to allow for the more extensive launchers needed to handle them.
In such a scenario the number of torpedoes carried depends on which torpedoes you mean. Laser bursts? Almost unlimited. Cannonballs? A hell of a lot. Warp torpedoes? None in TOS but some limited number on the refit ship.
I could easily see the "Obsession" sphere as the standard warhead that goes inside the standard torpedo (which we now know has been around since the 22nd century at least). But this is a rare use of ordnance, whatever its type: Kirk needs to give special orders to drain antimatter from the engines for the purpose.
What is common regarding TOS torpedoes is that they are loaded into tubes before launch. This more or less rules out non-physical "projectiles", unless we're speaking about loading cartridges that, when detonated, generate the non-physical bolt of destruction that spits out of the tube. (If those cartridges are the same as those beer cans being shoved into those transverse sextuple holes in the recent movies, then the ship might easily carry about fifty thousand...)
Timo Saloniemi
What is common regarding TOS torpedoes is that they are loaded into tubes before launch. This more or less rules out non-physical "projectiles", unless we're speaking about loading cartridges that, when detonated, generate the non-physical bolt of destruction that spits out of the tube. (If those cartridges are the same as those beer cans being shoved into those transverse sextuple holes in the recent movies, then the ship might easily carry about fifty thousand...)
Timo Saloniemi
I just love the smile on that guy's face in the second link. That's a man who likes his tactical nuclear weapons.
Who doesn't?
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