So many Mirandas/So few Constitution-refits?

[The Badger]

A case can also be made that the Khitomer Accords never required Starfleet to reduce its forces at all.

Admiral Cartwright seemed to think they did.

CARTWRIGHT: I must protest. To offer the Klingons a safe haven within Federation space is suicide. Klingons would become the alien trash of the galaxy. And if we dismantle the fleet [emphasis mine], we'd be defenceless before an aggressive species with a foothold on our territory. The opportunity here is to bring them to their knees. Then we'll be in a far better position to dictate terms.

He's not the only one.

CHANG: Tell me, Captain Kirk, would you be willing to give up Starfleet?

SPOCK: I believe the Captain feels that Starfleet's mission has always been one of peace.

It's possible that Chang is referring to Kirk's imminent retirement, but then Spock's statement would be a complete non-sequiter.

The dialogue in the film strongly indicates that Star Fleet is at least considering a reduction of it's military assets, and not just starbases near the Klingon border. Now I freely admit there is no proof that they did do this, nor that any specific ship type was affected, but in the absence of conflicting evidence it is as good an explanation as any as to the lack of Constitutions in later years

 

[TheSubCommander]

The Constitution Class Enterprise (i.e. NCC-1701-A) had the trademark of being "Kirk's ship", thus it's appearance in TNG at a time when we still had movies with the original Crew would have confused general audiences.

I call BS on this explanation. TNG had quite a few episodes depicting the Excelsior class ships, and no one was confused thinking that was either Stiles' ship or later, Sulu's ship. The audience would have been bright enough to figure out that a Constitution class doesn't necessarily mean Kirk's Enterprise. And when they finally did show a Constitution, named Defiant BTW, no one confused it with being either Kirk's Enterprise, or Sisko's Defiant.

I think the real reason was probably just a political pissing contest and over royalties between Paramount not wanting to grant ILM or CBS a model or CGI template of a refit constitution class ship, when the TOS cst were making movies at the same time as TNG was in first run.

 

[Unicron]

There was also the Bozeman that lacked a rollbar prior to the Soyuz-class retirement not too long after "The Undiscovered Country".

And in early DS9 we saw Sisko's Saratoga that participated in the Battle of Wolf-359 which also lacked the rollbar. It wasn't until the Dominion War kicked off in earnest that we saw a resurgence of Mirandas with the rollbars, IIRC.

The Bozeman was a separate subclass and not a standard Miranda, and one could argue that the same is true of the Saratoga (I know one offscreen source that treats it this way, with the Saratoga having been modified to be lead of a new class). Since the modified Saratoga didn't appear until DS9, I was mainly referring to those ships we saw in TNG.

 

[CharlieZardoz]

The Constitution Class Enterprise (i.e. NCC-1701-A) had the trademark of being "Kirk's ship", thus it's appearance in TNG at a time when we still had movies with the original Crew would have confused general audiences.

I call BS on this explanation. TNG had quite a few episodes depicting the Excelsior class ships, and no one was confused thinking that was either Stiles' ship or later, Sulu's ship. The audience would have been bright enough to figure out that a Constitution class doesn't necessarily mean Kirk's Enterprise. And when they finally did show a Constitution, named Defiant BTW, no one confused it with being either Kirk's Enterprise, or Sisko's Defiant.

I think the real reason was probably just a political pissing contest and over royalties between Paramount not wanting to grant ILM or CBS a model or CGI template of a refit constitution class ship, when the TOS cst were making movies at the same time as TNG was in first run.

I agree. Something about the rights of the studio model probably affected the decision. I did also hear it was a massive and heavy thing to work with as well, and possibly not in the same studio as the other TNG models.

 

[Forbin]

A big problem with that theory is that it was established in dialogue that the Miranda class (i.e. the Reliant) is faster and more heavily armed than the Constitution class (i.e. the Enterprise).

That doesn't sound right. In "The Wrath of Khan", it was established the lightly-damaged Reliant was able "to out-run and out-gun" the heavily-damaged Enterprise.

We do not know how the two ships compare to each other in their undamaged states.

We do have some hints though.
1. The Enterprise holds the speed records that the Excelsior aims to break. She likely has more power and thus more power for phasers.
2. The Miranda-variant-with-rollbar, Reliant, has the same number of phaser emitters as the Enterprise and possibly 2 extra aft-torpedo launchers.
3. The Mirandas that we see in TNG are mostly the ones without the rollbar which reduces the ship's phaser emitter count by at least 4 and torpedo launcher count by 3 (moving the launcher to the saucer underside.)
4. The Dominion War saw the Miranda-variant-with-rollbar return in number.

A key point in "The Undiscovered Country" was the mothballing and retirement of the military program of Starfleet. The Enterprise and her type could've been part of that group. The Mirandas by design could be made into a non-threatening explorer by removal of the rollbar. So it would make sense for Starfleet to stay flexible with keeping the Mirandas around but retire the more dedicated warships like the Enterprise, IMHO.

Wait, when was the Enterprise ever a dedicated warship? She was an explorer and patrol ship with 14 science labs aboard, and numerous first-contact missions to her credit.

Seems the Mirandas with the 4-tube torpedo pod and heavy rollbar phasers is the more warlike ship.

 

[Unicron]

According to Kruge's crew, it was a battleship...

 

[blssdwlf]

The Bozeman was a separate subclass and not a standard Miranda, and one could argue that the same is true of the Saratoga (I know one offscreen source that treats it this way, with the Saratoga having been modified to be lead of a new class). Since the modified Saratoga didn't appear until DS9, I was mainly referring to those ships we saw in TNG.

But then again, we never saw a "standard" Miranda after "The Voyage Home" until the Dominion War came along. All of these subclasses could've been Starfleet experimenting with a "de-fanged" version of the ship and then re-mounting the rollbars whenever a war broke out for a quick conversion from exploration ship to warship, IMHO.

Wait, when was the Enterprise ever a dedicated warship? She was an explorer and patrol ship with 14 science labs aboard, and numerous first-contact missions to her credit.

She was also part of the "frozen" "military forces" identified by the Organians ("Errand of Mercy") and also her presence in the Romulan Neutral Zone would be viewed as a "military intrusion" ("Way to Eden"). IMHO, the Enterprise-A at the time of her retirement was probably a lot more like a warship that could explore than a multi-role ship that could do anything. Her class retirement along with the "military program" of Starfleet after "The Undiscovered Country" is an interesting coincidence that I'm taking advantage of

Seems the Mirandas with the 4-tube torpedo pod and heavy rollbar phasers is the more warlike ship.

And take the rollbar off and you lose alot of that war-capability. Although the phasers on the rollbar are exactly like the phaser ball emitters on the rest of the ship so I don't think it gave it more firepower but just better phaser coverage. The 2 tubes facing aft might be more indicative of the necessity to flee a battle and discourage pursuers. I would've put more forward tubes on the Reliant to really indicate a firepower advantage over the Enterprise, IMHO. (Heck, the TOS Enterprise had 6 tubes facing forward...)

 

[137th Gebirg]

I call BS on this explanation. TNG had quite a few episodes depicting the Excelsior class ships, and no one was confused thinking that was either Stiles' ship or later, Sulu's ship. The audience would have been bright enough to figure out that a Constitution class doesn't necessarily mean Kirk's Enterprise. And when they finally did show a Constitution, named Defiant BTW, no one confused it with being either Kirk's Enterprise, or Sisko's Defiant.

I think the real reason was probably just a political pissing contest and over royalties between Paramount not wanting to grant ILM or CBS a model or CGI template of a refit constitution class ship, when the TOS cst were making movies at the same time as TNG was in first run.

I agree. Something about the rights of the studio model probably affected the decision. I did also hear it was a massive and heavy thing to work with as well, and possibly not in the same studio as the other TNG models.

Hmmm...and to think that old Doug Trumbull wanted to build it even bigger to give the audience a massive impression of scale. The ILM folks should count their lucky stars that he didn't wind up getting budget approval for such an up-scaling of the TMP filming "miniature".

 

[TheSubCommander]

According to Kruge's crew, it was a battleship...

Technically, they called it a "Federation battle cruiser."

Galaxy and Sovereign Classes would be more like battle ships.

Hmmm...and to think that old Doug Trumbull wanted to build it even bigger to give the audience a massive impression of scale. The ILM folks should count their lucky stars that he didn't wind up getting budget approval for such an up-scaling of the TMP filming "miniature".

Are you saying there was plans to bring a refit connie to the small screen?

 

[C.E. Evans]

A case can also be made that the Khitomer Accords never required Starfleet to reduce its forces at all.

Admiral Cartwright seemed to think they did.

Only in the sense of reducing Starfleet's presence along the Neutral Zone.

CARTWRIGHT: I must protest. To offer the Klingons a safe haven within Federation space is suicide. Klingons would become the alien trash of the galaxy. And if we dismantle the fleet [emphasis mine], we'd be defenceless before an aggressive species with a foothold on our territory. The opportunity here is to bring them to their knees. Then we'll be in a far better position to dictate terms.

Dismantling all of Starfleet simply because of détente with the Klingons? Nah, that's unrealistic and actually contradicts what the C-in-C just said about the rest of Starfleet not being effected. But reducing a fleet that was on permanent deployment along the Neutral Zone does fit the bill of what Cartwright said.

He's not the only one.

CHANG: Tell me, Captain Kirk, would you be willing to give up Starfleet?

SPOCK: I believe the Captain feels that Starfleet's mission has always been one of peace.

It's possible that Chang is referring to Kirk's imminent retirement, but then Spock's statement would be a complete non-sequiter.

Actually, what we can take from this is a Klingon general's belief that Starfleet (and Kirk) existed solely to fight Klingons and Spock stating that was not the case.

The dialogue in the film strongly indicates that Star Fleet is at least considering a reduction of it's military assets, and not just starbases near the Klingon border.

I think it just suggests a reduction of Starfleet forces along the Neutral Zone--which would fit all the dialogue in the film. But the idea that the Federation would agree to weaken itself completely to match the Klingon's suddenly weakened position not only doesn't make much sense, it also doesn't match what happens afterward.

Now I freely admit there is no proof that they did do this, nor that any specific ship type was affected, but in the absence of conflicting evidence it is as good an explanation as any as to the lack of Constitutions in later years

I think it's simply a case that the Federation and the Klingons just agreed to end their cold war and stop pointing their guns at one another. As far as the lack of Constitution-class ships in TNG, it's far easier to attest that to it just being a long out-of-production design from the previous century (not every design can last 100 years, IMO). We can even go with the idea that there are still some Constitution-class ships in the 24th-Century, but that they're deployed where our heroes aren't (being deployed somewhere else would also explain the lack of Ambassador-class ships after Wolf 359 and the absence of the Sovereign-class during the Dominion War).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Actually, what we can take from this is a Klingon general's belief that Starfleet (and Kirk) existed solely to fight Klingons and Spock stating that was not the case.

You're forgetting that Chang is actually part of Cartwright's group of co-conspirators and was probably eavesdropping on that classified briefing just like Valeris. He specifically asked that question as a way of sabotaging what was an otherwise perfectly friendly occasion by goading Kirk into saying something undiplomatic.

I think it's simply a case that the Federation and the Klingons just agreed to end their cold war and stop pointing their guns at one another. As far as the lack of Constitution-class ships in TNG, it's far easier to attest that to it just being a long out-of-production design from the previous century (not every design can last 100 years, IMO).

Maybe they CAN? For all we know, the Constitution class (in its original version) has been in service since the 2290s. In that sense, the Constitutions wouldn't be Alreigh Burke destroyers; they'd be the old Cleavelands, about half of which got to soldier on a little longer when Starfleet rebuilt them with the latest gear.

The other thing to consider is that the Miranda class ships like Reliant probably didn't replace the Constitutions the way we're thinking. It's more likely that distinction goes to the Constellation class, which is inexplicably still in service after 80 years.

We can even go with the idea that there are still some Constitution-class ships in the 24th-Century, but that they're deployed where our heroes aren't (being deployed somewhere else would also explain the lack of Ambassador-class ships after Wolf 359 and the absence of the Sovereign-class during the Dominion War).

I could take this being true of the Constellations, since we have actually seen a few of these lurking about a few times in TNG. But I think the Constitution design family traces back WAY farther than we give them credit for; we could expect to see them in TNG the same way we'd expect Kirk to run into NX-03.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Actually, what we can take from this is a Klingon general's belief that Starfleet (and Kirk) existed solely to fight Klingons and Spock stating that was not the case.

You're forgetting that Chang is actually part of Cartwright's group of co-conspirators and was probably eavesdropping on that classified briefing just like Valeris.

I doubt that. Chang was simply talking like any Klingon general would right then and there.

He specifically asked that question as a way of sabotaging what was an otherwise perfectly friendly occasion by goading Kirk into saying something undiplomatic.

Which essentially was all the question was.

I think it's simply a case that the Federation and the Klingons just agreed to end their cold war and stop pointing their guns at one another. As far as the lack of Constitution-class ships in TNG, it's far easier to attest that to it just being a long out-of-production design from the previous century (not every design can last 100 years, IMO).

Maybe they CAN?

You ignored the rest of my quote in which I indeed said they could. In fact, here it is below:

We can even go with the idea that there are still some Constitution-class ships in the 24th-Century, but that they're deployed where our heroes aren't (being deployed somewhere else would also explain the lack of Ambassador-class ships after Wolf 359 and the absence of the Sovereign-class during the Dominion War).

I could take this being true of the Constellations, since we have actually seen a few of these lurking about a few times in TNG. But I think the Constitution design family traces back WAY farther than we give them credit for; we could expect to see them in TNG the same way we'd expect Kirk to run into NX-03.

I actually wouldn't expect Kirk to run into NX-03. As I said earlier, I don't think every design lasts 100 years. I think the majority of starship designs do eventually become obsolete and are retired, replaced by newer designs.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You ignored the rest of my quote in which I indeed said they could.

No I didn't; on the contrary, you ignored the rest of MY quote in which I said it's likely they were ALREADY a hundred years old by the time Kirk went into retirement. That they can survive just about long -- and DID -- is why we never saw them again.

I actually wouldn't expect Kirk to run into NX-03. As I said earlier, I don't think every design lasts 100 years. I think the majority of starship designs do eventually become obsolete and are retired, replaced by newer designs.

And as I said, I believe the Constitution class became obsolete some time before Wrath of Khan and was in the process of being replaced by the Constellation class. We know for a fact that the USS Hathaway was commissioned around this time, and we also know that Hathaway was far from the first ship of its class. Between the Excelsiors, Constellations and Soyuz types all coming off the assembly line all around this time, it seems obvious the Constitutions were being modernized only to squeeze out some last bit of usefulness from the old designs (or as a testbed for new technologies, like the Albany class CG conversions) only to quickly find themselves outmoded by newer and more capable designs.

 

[C.E. Evans]

You ignored the rest of my quote in which I indeed said they could.

No I didn't; on the contrary, you ignored the rest of MY quote...

Um, no. You forgot that you began by responding to my post. How can I ignore something that you hadn't said yet?


In any event, in regard to any NX-class ships still being in service by the time of TOS, I just don't think that's very likely as I said below:

I actually wouldn't expect Kirk to run into NX-03. As I said earlier, I don't think every design lasts 100 years. I think the majority of starship designs do eventually become obsolete and are retired, replaced by newer designs.

Essentially all I have to say on this issue.

 

[Forbin]

And take the rollbar off and you lose alot of that war-capability.

...which excuse doesn't mitigate the war capability with the rollbar ON.

Although the phasers on the rollbar are exactly like the phaser ball emitters on the rest of the ship

Are they exactly the same? The special effects on TWOK made them seem the same, but they sure looked like they were meant to be different and more piowerful.

so I don't think it gave it more firepower but just better phaser coverage.

...which a warship would need.

The 2 tubes facing aft might be more indicative of the necessity to flee a battle and discourage pursuers. I would've put more forward tubes on the Reliant to really indicate a firepower advantage over the Enterprise, IMHO. (Heck, the TOS Enterprise had 6 tubes facing forward...)

So the USS Iowa's aft 16-inch gun turret was there so it could run away?

 

[blssdwlf]

And take the rollbar off and you lose alot of that war-capability.

...which excuse doesn't mitigate the war capability with the rollbar ON.

Which disappeared after "The Undiscovered Country" and didn't appear again until the Dominion War. Since we are told in "The Undiscovered Country" that the military program would be mothballed it works out that anything looks like a warship would be not seen until a big war broke out again.

Although the phasers on the rollbar are exactly like the phaser ball emitters on the rest of the ship

Are they exactly the same? The special effects on TWOK made them seem the same, but they sure looked like they were meant to be different and more piowerful.

As far as physically shown, yes. Effects-wise we never see either ship fire at full power. The Reliant's opening phaser volley on the Enterprise were at 1/4 or low power and we see the surgical damage inflicted as the energizers blew out. But when reduced to impulse-powered phasers, they were not any more powerful than at the beginning of the movie. Enterprise's battery-powered phasers barely scratched the surface as she never is repaired to a power state that is on par with the relatively undamaged Reliant. (Thus the "out-gun" part.)

so I don't think it gave it more firepower but just better phaser coverage.

...which a warship would need.

Not debating that. However, the Enterprise, "out-of-the-box" already has that phaser coverage making her more warship than the Reliant without the rollbar.

The 2 tubes facing aft might be more indicative of the necessity to flee a battle and discourage pursuers. I would've put more forward tubes on the Reliant to really indicate a firepower advantage over the Enterprise, IMHO. (Heck, the TOS Enterprise had 6 tubes facing forward...)

So the USS Iowa's aft 16-inch gun turret was there so it could run away?

I equate phasers to 16" guns as their power is dependent on how much energy the ship can put into the volley. Aft torpedo tubes are more like aft tubes on a submarine to discourage pursuers when it needed to escape, IMHO.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Hmmm...and to think that old Doug Trumbull wanted to build it even bigger to give the audience a massive impression of scale. The ILM folks should count their lucky stars that he didn't wind up getting budget approval for such an up-scaling of the TMP filming "miniature".

Are you saying there was plans to bring a refit connie to the small screen?

Well, yes, in Phase II, but that was not what I was referring to.

Many years ago I read something that claimed that Douglas Trumbull wanted to build the refit MUCH bigger than what he wound up getting for TMP. They wanted to be able to roll around this thing with a camera and really see some massive detail (mostly for the drydock sequence), but the budget wouldn't allow it. For some reason, 17ft comes to mind.

Just one of those things that stuck in my brain - have no clue where it came from.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You ignored the rest of my quote in which I indeed said they could.

No I didn't; on the contrary, you ignored the rest of MY quote...

Um, no. You forgot that you began by responding to my post. How can I ignore something that you hadn't said yet?

You ignored the relevant part of my response: the Constitution class was likely a over the hill by the time Pike visited Talos-IV.

Which is why we didn't see them much after the 23rd century. It's probably a progressive upgrade of what was essentially a late 22nd century design.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

And take the rollbar off and you lose alot of that war-capability.

...which excuse doesn't mitigate the war capability with the rollbar ON.

Which disappeared after "The Undiscovered Country" and didn't appear again until the Dominion War.

Didn't appear until WHEN, now?

Since we are told in "The Undiscovered Country" that the military program would be mothballed

No, we are ASKED if the military program would be mothballed; one of the people who asked the question is a treasonous dog personally responsible for the deaths of not less than a dozen officers, the other is a pencil pusher we've never seen before and never see again.

Not debating that. However, the Enterprise, "out-of-the-box" already has that phaser coverage making her more warship than the Reliant without the rollbar.

Phaser COVERAGE is irrelevant unless you're planning to use those phasers as point defense weapons. Coverage zone is not as important as trek fans like to believe in ship-to-ship scenarios; mainly due to the way these ships move in space, there are very few combat situations where the aft phasers would even come into play. Starships, in most cases, prefer to use torpedoes in those situations.

I equate phasers to 16" guns as their power is dependent on how much energy the ship can put into the volley.

Which makes them very much UNLIKE 16" guns which fire at the same strength no matter how much power the ship has.

Aft torpedo tubes are more like aft tubes on a submarine to discourage pursuers when it needed to escape, IMHO.

AFAIK, the aft tubes on submarines were simply a clever way of increasing the submarine's torpedo capacity; convoy raiders used the aft tubes to attack shipping just as often as the bow tubes.

 

[C.E. Evans]

No I didn't; on the contrary, you ignored the rest of MY quote...

Um, no. You forgot that you began by responding to my post. How can I ignore something that you hadn't said yet?

You ignored the relevant part of my response: the Constitution class was likely a over the hill by the time Pike visited Talos-IV.

Um, where did this come from? How can I ignore something that you're just now saying?


But I guess it doesn't matter, since I disagree with your assessment. I think the Constitution-class had been around for awhile by the time Pike was at Talos IV--maybe a little over a decade, 15 years tops--but was by no means over the hill in Pike's day. The design was probably just hitting its stride in the years before Kirk's 5-year mission.