Ships of the Line?

[James Wright]

Using the rating system from the "Age of Sail", which Federation Starship classes would be considered "Ships of the Line"?
What starship classes would be considered third rates, like the 64 & 74 gun ships?
I'm guessing either none of you are interested in answering this question, or you can't!
Let me ask you this question, would the Miranda class & possibily the Constitution class starships(if any are still serving!) be third rates because if I'm not mistaken in fleet actions the Miranda class ships are seen getting destroyed.

JDW

 

[Timo]

Well, the ships of the line emerged as a concept because naval combat at the age of the gun was decided on who gets the largest number of barrels to bear. With uniformly short ranges of guns, the best approach was to build uniform ships that would all reach firing distance at the same time, survive enemy fire with equal ease, and pour out a maximal broadside. This meant that the ships of the line were artificially slow (slowed down by the need for protection and firepower) and that a separate category of fast but weak ships could and should be constructed for other tasks such as scouting.

The logic held true even with increasing gun ranges until WWI. But the introduction of new types of weapons during and after that war blew that rationale apart. Moreover, machine power had already weakened the simple hydrodynamic law where large ships would automatically be faster than small ones. In WWII, there no longer were any ships of the line, and no rationale existed for classifying different warships as mere graduated steps on a single scale of strength. A meek sloop could be more powerful than a mighty battleship in a fight against a submarine; a suitably equipped destroyer could outfight an air threat a cruiser with an anti-surface arsenal would be powerless against.

Would Starfleet return to the concepts of the age of sail? Once again, the fights seem to take place at point blank ranges, using undifferentiated armaments very similar to the sailship cannon. And once again, the side that brings more weapons to the melee seems to be the one that triumphs. So in that sense, yes, the "ship of the line" concept might again make sense.

Speed is not tied to size in the sail manner - the relationship still seems to be there, but in a weakened form akin to the late 20th century machine-powered ships. Yet large fleets of ships of all sizes fly in tight formations at uniform speed, suggesting that the "fighting line" rationale outweighs the rationale of using fast ships for fast maneuvers and leaving the slow ones behind.

In that sense, all starships would be in the fighting line, regardless of size or strength. But they might be divided into rates nevertheless. The Galaxy and her sizemates like Nebula would probably be first rate, with the Akira and her ilk down to Excelsiorsecond rate. The rest of Starfleet seems to be a jumble of small ships with varying types of arsenal, capabilities and missions. Perhaps they should all be bunched up at third rate. Or perhaps only the truly fighting-capable units should be given a rate (there being little reason for dividing these small potatoes into anything more complex than "third rate"), while the "civilian" or "special" ships should stay out of the fight altogether.

Then again, Trek battles aren't Napoleonic; they are Byzantine, with even the smallest and weakest ships having the chance to close in to firing range and contribute what they can. An Oberth with a single Type 5 phaser turret might still do her part in a battle where Galaxies slug it out with Jem'Hadar battleships. So Starfleet might have the impetus to categorize these bit players as well, perhaps establishing the Oberth as a ninth rate vessel, and a Type 6 shuttlecraft as a sixteenth rate one.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[James Wright]

With starship armament(phasers) placed on some ships like the Galaxy class so as to cover all firing angles, you will not see a smaller ship take position along side and slug it out, not unless said ship had heavy armor to take such punishment. With the Defiant only able to fire phasers forward and her ability to move rapidly she can only make attack runs, me I preferred to get along side and trade broadsides!

JDW

 

[Forbin]

I like David Weber's "Wall of Battle" concept for space battles, resulting in the "ships of the wall" moniker. 3-dimensional thinking, ya see.

 

[Griffworks]

JDW said:
With the Defiant only able to fire phasers forward and her ability to move rapidly she can only make attack runs, me I preferred to get along side and trade broadsides!

Actually, Defiant has a couple of standard phaser emitters on her hull and doesn't rely on just her forward firing pulse phasers & photorps.

 

[Timo]

And in any case, a "battle line" in DS9 seems to refer to two great volumes of ships that intermesh slightly at the surface where the volumes touch. Macroscopically, the fleets remain fairly static, like the battle lines of yore. A closer look reveals intense 3D maneuvering, though.

Never in the Dominion War did there appear to be a battle where two fleets would open up at maximum range, sniping at each other while slowly moving forward until only the strongest remained. Rather, the two forces would close in on point blank range as fast as possible, and stay there, allowing even the weakest ships with the shortest-range weapons to contribute to the whole.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Griffworks]

Which struck me as rather silly when I watched those episodes. Trek has almost always had a poor record when it comes to space battles. I realize that most of the time they're going for the "Wow!" Factor and all that, but more often than not it sort of grates on my nerves.

 

[Forbin]

Griffworks said:
Which struck me as rather silly when I watched those episodes. Trek has almost always had a poor record when it comes to space battles. I realize that most of the time they're going for the "Wow!" Factor and all that, but more often than not it sort of grates on my nerves.

Me too - like I said in the "military advisor" thread, they really needed somebody who could plot out some believable fleet tactics for them. The WWI furballs just didn't look right with capital ships.

 

[James Wright]

So what you all are saying is that all the ships in Starfleet have their place in the battleline? I don't know every time I see a Miranda class ship blowing up, even more than one! Now if it was a numbers problem for Starfleet I can understand using every ship they could find.

JDW

 

[Neopeius]

Timo said:
Would Starfleet return to the concepts of the age of sail? Once again, the fights seem to take place at point blank ranges, using undifferentiated armaments very similar to the sailship cannon. And once again, the side that brings more weapons to the melee seems to be the one that triumphs. So in that sense, yes, the "ship of the line" concept might again make sense.

You only find point blank combat after TWOK. And it has been argued, convincingly, that what we see on the screen is not an accurate representation of reality. To wit, the Tholians are shown as right next to the Enterprise when dialogue places them tens of thousands of miles away.

It is true, however, that Star Fleet Battles modeled Trek combat after the battle of Jutland. I generally haven't seen that ships get any advantage for sailing in a line simply because the distance scale is too great and the ships too maneuverable.

 

[sunnyside]

First on the whole ships of the line thing. The reason for it, as I understand it, was that, in order to bring the maximal amount of broadsides to bear, fleets started fighting in a line. A consequence of this is that ships were "paired off" between fleets. Therefore a ship in the line had to match up reasonably well with any enemy ship, otherwise you'd be destroyed without having much effect, and possibly get in the way of other ships following you.

The point I think some other people are getting at is that in star trek ish combat ships don't pair off, they mass fire. Therefore having four weaker ships in the fleet may be better than a single "second rater"

Also there isn't a perfect correlation between size and combat capability, especially in federation ships. With classes like the defiant and steamrunner hitting harder than federation ships much larger than themselves.

Finally in practice the larger sailing ships were poor sailers and vulnerable to inclement weather, but in trek the largest fed ships are often faster and more resiliant to adverse conditions.

Still some ships are better than others, and just for economy it seems they'll tend to make more of the cheaper but potent ships so, I would say, roughly.

1st rate (biggest most powerful ships) Sovereign Class(uprated)
2nd rate (smaller, but similar to 1st rate, few in number) Prometheus, Uprated Galaxy(maybe)

3rd rate. (the primary workhorse warships) Akira, Defiant, Galaxy, Nebula (the Akira perhapse being the best contender for being the "74" as it's got long range sailing abilities, is combat oriented and good at it. The Defiant is a bit more like a super jet fighter in feel)

4th rate (a bit too weak to reliably pair off with an unknown modern enemy ship, but still "big") Ambassador , Griffen

5th rate (Good scout/cruiser/raider frigate types) Intrepid, Steamrunner, Niagra

6th rate. (would be given frigate type work, but not potent enough to be good at it.) Miranda, Freedom, Sabre a bunch of other classes that got just a hint of screentime

war-sloop (Ships that didn't "rate" but could still fight) Oberth, Nova, a number of others.

Then of course you have to decide where you want to put the big ships that are maybe still in use and are outdate, or are really not for fighting but are still pretty big and have some punch.