Size of the Dominion.

[Timo]

I mean it would make sense mathematically to ensure that all planets could be defended by at least 10 ships. To have less than 20,000 ships leaves the Federation completely defenceless throughout the majority of its territory.

I don't think this would work. Even if there were 20 ships per planet, or 50, or 300, they would still be defeated by the 1000-strong invasion fleet of the enemy, while the tens of thousands of other Starfleet ships would be uselessly scattered elsewhere in groups of 10, 20, 50 or 300.

It would seem much more practical to have a 2000-strong force that could be sent to wherever the enemy is sending his 1000-strong one, and to keep some 99% of the Federation undefended as long as the enemy isn't going there. After all, the Trek players would have a pretty good idea of where the enemy was making inroads, and could intercept the foe near the borders, rather than having to control the whole internal volume. Trek ships just aren't fast enough to take their opponents completely at surprise, except in exceptional circumstances.

Cloaked forces might penetrate for small-scale raids, perhaps to be met by local defenses, but those wouldn't be able to perform "proper" invasions which apparently still require a logistics chain. A fleet in being, deployed where the enemy can't get at it, but ready to pounce at him, would be the most practical way to defeat a Trek-style foe.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Blueicus]

I'd have to agree with Timo with regards to the numbers and deployment of starfleet; although the number of cargo ships, shuttles, runabouts, personal transports (like the Hansen's ship used to look for the Borg) would bump the total number of Federation ships to the tens of thousands the number of actual combat ready starfleet ships would probably number no more than 4-6 thousand at the height of the war (many of them consisting of cannon fodder peregrine fighters) and probably fewer than a thousand ships during BoBW since the quadrant was relatively peaceful with the exception of a couple of brush wars.

Since Federation territory is so large and ships so slow in comparison their defense situation mimics that of the late Roman Empire, foot soldiers and cavalry can only move so fast across the vast territory and incursion came from all sides, from Britain to the Rhine front to the Danube to the Sassanids of Persia (the Romulans of the ancient times) so they had a number of small border garrisons with the main fleets that respond to larger threats spread around in strategic areas of Federation space so they can form larger fleets. The Federation would presumably suffer from little civil unrest so the local security forces and "Mars defense perimeters" of each system could presumably handle various threats from separatist groups, raiders, etc. with an occasional starship sent in to settle larger threats (like the E against the mercenary ship or against rogue Ferengi Damons with a couple of scavenged birds of prey).

 

[JM1776]

If the entire UFP were an infinitesimal morsel (say a few hundred light years in diameter vis-a-vis the conception of the Dominion as over 10,000), would Weyoun would have used the phrase "a prize as vast as the Federation"?

Thus, either the United Federation of Planets is far larger than the writers of Deep Space Nine would have you think, or the Dominion is significantly smaller than the author of the non-canon Star Charts speculates.

 

[Timo]

Or then the Dominion is a vast organization, but one originally digested in small bites, usually one system-sized culture at a time, and seldom growing in spurts as large as the multicultural UFP.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lint]

Hey All,
I thought i would add to this convo regarding ship/fleet numbers,
In the episode "When it Rains" Martok states that he has ordered the entire fleet to make the engine modification to make them invulnerable to the breen drain weapon, Which then he states "By tomorrow We'll have 1500 klingon vessels ready for deployment",
Now that number of 1500 Klingon ships in the entire fleet sounds about right to me, not including freighters etc but vessels such as Bird of preys, K'tinga Class and vorcha class vessels plus the size of the Klingon empire i think its accurate,
Which then the Romulan General (i dont think his name was mentioned) replys "with the Breen, Cardassians and Jem'hadar your still outnumbered 20 to 1"
So that gives us something to work with,
Im not a mathematical genius but 20 Allied Dominion Ships to every 1 klingon ship roughly puts the Collective Dominion Fleet In the Alpha Quadrant at 30,000 ships,
Hopefully this will help you guys figure out how many federation ships were active towards the end of the Dom war?

 

[Timo]

Those 1,500 ships might be the entire fleet. Or the entire fleet compatible with the upgrade. Or the portion of the compatible fleet that will be ready by tomorrow and can be deployed against the threat.

And the 20:1 ratio, no doubt slightly exaggerated, might refer to tactical deployment rather than total numbers. And it might be that the smaller Dominion ships have to be deployed in 4:1 ratio anyway to survive against Klingon, Federation or Romulan ships, transforming that 20:1 ratio to an effective 5:1, and allowing the Alpha navies to have fewer ships.

So the issue will remain a bit fuzzy for the time being, perhaps justly so.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I mean it would make sense mathematically to ensure that all planets could be defended by at least 10 ships. To have less than 20,000 ships leaves the Federation completely defenceless throughout the majority of its territory.

I don't think this would work. Even if there were 20 ships per planet, or 50, or 300, they would still be defeated by the 1000-strong invasion fleet of the enemy, while the tens of thousands of other Starfleet ships would be uselessly scattered elsewhere in groups of 10, 20, 50 or 300.

The fleet wouldn't be split into groups of ten they would be grouped into large fleets like we saw but with enough ships to ensure that each planet can be defended by at least 10-15 ships. Imagine if the Dominion decided to change tactics and instead of sending in large fleets for battle decided to strike at multiple Federation worlds at the same time with smaller attack squadrons, the Federation would need enough ships to be able to split the larger fleets into smaller squadrans and defend those worlds without having to split the larger fleet up entirely, the Federation should have enough ships to ensure it can break off several groups of 10-15 ships and yet still retain several 500+ ship taskforces.

With a Federation containing thousands of worlds under its authority, countless resources and billions upon billions of people it doesnt seem outrageous to presume it could easily muster a fleet of 20,000 ships, but of course onscreen evidence would suggest something far smaller, perhaps around the 2,700 mark if we assume they have 9 fleets and each fleet holds an average of 300 ships.

In the episode "When it Rains" Martok states that he has ordered the entire fleet to make the engine modification to make them invulnerable to the breen drain weapon, Which then he states "By tomorrow We'll have 1500 klingon vessels ready for deployment",

Its possible that older ships might take a little longer to make the modification and only 50% of the fleet would be ready for deployment.
Then you've got to consider how many Klingon ships were lost during the Breen attack, the Klingons might have lost a large portion of their fleet in that single attack and might be quickly trying to rebuild, the 1500 ships could be what was left but that number could have been quickly rising again.

 

[Timo]

Imagine if the Dominion decided to change tactics and instead of sending in large fleets for battle decided to strike at multiple Federation worlds at the same time with smaller attack squadrons, the Federation would need enough ships to be able to split the larger fleets into smaller squadrans and defend those worlds without having to split the larger fleet up entirely,

I'd think the best response of the Federation in such a situation would be to inflict a "defeat in detail" on the Dominion forces. That is, when fifty small posses attack the Federation, Starfleet sends its main fleet against one, defeating it utterly; then against another, defeating that one; then against the next one. The others can wait for their turn, either trying in vain to penetrate the fixed fortifications of the UFP planets, or then succeeding in their limited raiding aims but at a dreadful cost to the larger Dominion fleet.

It's just a matter of practicability: the UFP really doesn't need any more ships than "the largest Dominion force that can be offensively deployed, plus some". This force merely needs to be in the right place at the right time. To ensure that, one need not have enough ships to cover all UFP worlds (and thus supposedly beggar the UFP economy) - one needs perhaps a dozen fleets of decisive size, to be assebled at a moment of crisis and deployed smartly enough.

If there were no economic limit to the number of ships to be deployed, TNG could not have taken place, because there would already be five to ten ships in place to hande the crisis of the week before the E-D arrived.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Imagine if the Dominion decided to change tactics and instead of sending in large fleets for battle decided to strike at multiple Federation worlds at the same time with smaller attack squadrons, the Federation would need enough ships to be able to split the larger fleets into smaller squadrans and defend those worlds without having to split the larger fleet up entirely,

I'd think the best response of the Federation in such a situation would be to inflict a "defeat in detail" on the Dominion forces. That is, when fifty small posses attack the Federation, Starfleet sends its main fleet against one, defeating it utterly; then against another, defeating that one; then against the next one. The others can wait for their turn, either trying in vain to penetrate the fixed fortifications of the UFP planets, or then succeeding in their limited raiding aims but at a dreadful cost to the larger Dominion fleet.

But what if the Dominion could effectively defend their space AND attack the UFP, before the Breen joined the Dominion they were still holding back the combined forces of the Klingons/Feds and Romulans, when the Breen joined the Dominion they re-fortified Dominion numbers and they even had the ability to make an attack on Earth when it was defended by an entire fleet, what if the Dominion decided to hold the Cardassian border with Dominion/Cardassian Ships and ordered the Breen to attack multiple Federation worlds, without a large enough fleet to defend the vast territory of Federation space the Federation would be beat hands down, the more territory and worlds you control the larger your fleet needs to be to defend it AND still retain and offensive force.
Thats where IMO the writers went wrong, the federation is far more vast than the Cardassians and Breen and should have had a fleet to match. Perhaps my 20,000 number is a little high but 2,700 which is what we're led to believe is far too small.

EDIT: Another thing, what if the attack on federation worlds were designed to take out large populations, the Federation fleet cant just attack Cardassia when the Dominion is committing genocide on federation worlds (they were more than happy to wipe out Earths and Cardassias populations). The Dominion could have easily won the war in many different ways but of course there wouldnt have been a show.

If there were no economic limit to the number of ships to be deployed, TNG could not have taken place, because there would already be five to ten ships in place to hande the crisis of the week before the E-D arrived.

Timo Saloniemi

But the ships wouldnt be stationed at each planet, they'd be out on exploratory missions, diplomatic missions and scientific missions etc etc.

 

[RAMA]

This post is a copy of a couple of posts on a thread I saved about the numbers of the Federation fleet, but it applies here as well.

Addendum I:

In "Statistical Probabilities", they mention predicted Federation casualties of 900 BILLION in the Dominion war, suggesting that the UFP population would be at LEAST that much. Another one of my points corroborated.

Addendum IV:

DS9 episode "When it Rains...": In the teaser meeting, the Klingon fleet alone is said to be the only fleet that can combat the Breen energy dampening field. The numbers of the fleet(even after years of combat) is stated at: 1,500!! Since these are ships that need to be retrofited to avoid the Breen weapon, it seems likely they are all combat ships, again supporting my view that when fleet numbers are mentioned, they only include warships.

The combined Dominion/Breen fleet is said to be 20 times this number, or 30,000!! Setting a precendent for such numbers and again reinforcing a large number of Jem'Hadar needed to crew them.

I would expect the numbers of Dominion population to be well into the trillions given the UFP casualty figures quoted.

RAMA

 

[Blueicus]

I always thought that 900 billion value to be a little much... I mean, the Cardassians lost only 800 million in the final Dominion bombardment. Considering that personnel losses from fleet engagements are relatively light (assuming the Federation probably lost 2 or 3 thousand ships during the war and an average crew of 280 per ship, derived from the figures from BoBW) that means the Federation lost about 840 000 starfleet officers and crewmates during the entire duration of the war. That only accounts for about 0.0001% of Federation casualties. Assuming an average Federation world has 9 billion citizens then a hundred such worlds were presumably obliterated during the war... that seems a little extreme considering the events we've seen so far (and that the bombardment of Cardassia alone was a tragic event).

 

[Timo]

Indeed, we never heard of the Dominion engaging in genocidal acts during the war or otherwise. They pondered it for Earth, or at least Weyoun did; they ultimately did it for Cardassia as originally promised before the war. But both of these events or plans indeed shocked the heroes and the villains alike, apparently because there was no precedent for such action.

We never quite heard of planetary bombardment in the war, either. Apparently, there was no strategic benefit to such an action. Perhaps the Jack Pack had the Dominion plans and aims figured out all wrong?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cyke101]

I always thought that 900 billion value to be a little much... I mean, the Cardassians lost only 800 million in the final Dominion bombardment. Considering that personnel losses from fleet engagements are relatively light (assuming the Federation probably lost 2 or 3 thousand ships during the war and an average crew of 280 per ship, derived from the figures from BoBW) that means the Federation lost about 840 000 starfleet officers and crewmates during the entire duration of the war. That only accounts for about 0.0001% of Federation casualties. Assuming an average Federation world has 9 billion citizens then a hundred such worlds were presumably obliterated during the war... that seems a little extreme considering the events we've seen so far (and that the bombardment of Cardassia alone was a tragic event).

On the other hand, it could also mean that most of the Federation, in general, would assume a 'fight till the last man' type attitude as well. The numbers still seem a bit high, but a good chunk of the Federation atmosphere in TNG was how proud everyone was to be a Federation member. Cosmic patriotism.

Then again, people say the same thing about the US should there be a full-scale invasion, yet of course, your actual mileage may vary.

 

[the Sisko]

I think one thing not coming out in the numbers is how militarily effective each ship is. For the Federation, the Defiant and Galaxy are the upper-bounds in combat. For the dominion, the bugship is the lowerbounds. Most of the Federation fleet as shown is ships like the Miranda and Excelsior. The dominion battleships and dreadnoughts are not exactly ships you've seen die much in the show. If there are 700 battleships, 100 dreadnoughts and 1200 bugships in the wormhole fleet, there's alot of problems because it's been a rare time where 700 friendly capital ships are in a given fleet.

 

[JM1776]

Or then the Dominion is a vast organization, but one originally digested in small bites, usually one system-sized culture at a time, and seldom growing in spurts as large as the multicultural UFP.

Timo Saloniemi

Hmm ... an interesting speculation that doesn't quite work.

The resources the Dominion could deploy into the Federation with a metaphorical flex of its pinky once the wormhole reopened, if the ratios were as described in Star Charts, preclude Weyoun ever referring to it as "vast," especially considering how drawn out the adjective was. [Hell, one could argue that the Federation is larger than the Dominion, but the latter much more efficient militarily.] A simple glance at a square/cube ratio ends this argument. A few hundred cubic light years vis-a-vis 15,000 means the UFP would be an afterthought.

 

[Timo]

Personally, I have never been happy with the Star Charts scaling. The distances between known objects there seem far too great for a runabout to span, for one thing - they're off by a factor of 100, and the overall scale by a factor of 10, in comparison with the assumptions I used for the Alpha and Beta maps. Moreover, the old Founder hideout planet should have been very close to the wormhole and almost outside Dominion territory, as it was intended to hide the Founders from the Dominion...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Can anyone remember how many fleets of Dominion ships entered the Alpha Quadrant before the wormhole was mined? I remember O'Brian saying something like its the 6th time in 5 weeks or something, can anyone be more specific?

 

[Timo]

That would be "fifth in five weeks". However, "Call to Arms" probably takes place a lot later than five weeks after "By Inferno's Light", so the total number of convoys might well be significantly larger as well. Obviously, the rate of convoys coming through hasn't been a steady one per week before this bit or dialogue, or O'Brien wouldn't word it that way. But the odds are, there were numerous convoys before the first weekly one.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JM1776]

But the odds are, there were numerous convoys before the first weekly one.

Either that or the other four were pretty freakin' large.