Sovereign Class question

[Shane Houston]

I'm curious. If there was a war game between a Sovereign Class starship and another Starfleet vessel, which class do you think would be more tactically superior to that class in a fight.
I've been thinking that maybe a Prometheus class ship with it's MVA ability could take a ship like the Enterprise-E in a scenario like that. But I'm still not sure. I know a ship is only as good as it's commander but what do you think?

 

[sojourner]

Prometheus = 3 small ships. Can 3 small ships take on the E-E? depends on the writer of the story.

 

[Starlock]

Three small ships attacking different parts of the Sovereign separately - not so much.

Three small ships attacking the same part of the Sovereign simultaneously - much better odds.

 

[Mr Silver]

I think in the case of many of the later 24th century ships, its not about which ship packs the most fire power, its more about the commander of the ship and its crew. We've seen Voyager overcome huge odds against behemoth ships that would blast poor Voyager into smithereens, if not for the tactical and creative abilities of the ship's captain and crew.

Even Riker and his skeleton crew in a barely functional constellation class starship were able to give Picard and his superior in every way Ent-D a brief run (but a run all the same) for its money, because of Riker's abilities as a commander and his crews' abilities in their fields of expertise.

 

[Unicron]

It would depend in part on the nature of the war game too. In the Hathway vs. Enterprise case, it was supposed to be the projected equivalent of fighting a seemingly superior enemy like the Borg. In the M-5 drills, the computer was supposed to complete a set of specific tasks before being tested against multiple enemies. We saw how that turned out.

 

[Wingsley]

How about turning the war games on their head:

Consider what it would be like to pit Sisko commanding the Defiant against Picard commanding the Enterprise-E. Who would win? Asking that is like asking "What do ya get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?"

We saw what happened when the Defiant had a "real" battle with the Lakota. Not pretty.

 

[T'Girl]

between a Sovereign Class starship and another Starfleet vessel

Or try this one, a single Sovereign verses a equal mass of Defiants. Some non-canon sources place the Sovereign's tonnage at over three point two mega-tonnes, that would have her facing twenty-seven Defiants in battle.

Figuring that the time, resources, materials and manpower that goes to building one Sovereign, could just as easily construct those twenty-seven Defiants.

Four or five Prometheus's would hack a Sovereign into scrap with little effort.

Just look at all the trouble those two (or three?) Son'a warships gave the Enterprise.

 

[sojourner]

Figuring that the time, resources, materials and manpower that goes to building one Sovereign, could just as easily construct those twenty-seven Defiants.

This is assuming mass equates to construction time. I think building 27 defiant class would take longer than 1 sovereign class.

 

[blssdwlf]

Or was the Sovereign's poor performance against the S'ona due to a poor tactical commander? Riker doesn't have the best of records when it comes to a straight-up battle

In the Defiant vs Lakota battle, it could've gone to the Lakota if it started using torpedoes like the Defiant did. Instead, neither ship accomplished their goal (Defiant disabling Lakota's weaponry, Lakota disabling Defiant's engines) and they fought each other to a draw.

 

[Shane Houston]

That's a good point about Lakota. But really in that battle neither ship was trying to destroy the other. If the crew of Defiant fought and flew the ship like Sisko did the mirror Defiant against the mirror Neg'var, Regent Words ship, then the Lakota would have been defeated. Flying in close to a larger vessel so that the larger ship can't target them makes sense.

I wonder if that would work in a Defiant vs Sovvie scenario.

 

[AmbassadorKosh]

That's a good point about Lakota. But really in that battle neither ship was trying to destroy the other. If the crew of Defiant fought and flew the ship like Sisko did the mirror Defiant against the mirror Neg'var, Regent Words ship, then the Lakota would have been defeated. Flying in close to a larger vessel so that the larger ship can't target them makes sense.

I wonder if that would work in a Defiant vs Sovvie scenario.

Rather like Riker flew the E-E against the Scimitar in ST:Nemesis? Wouldn't the Defiant need to get inside the E-E's shield bubble for this tactic to be effective? In the TMP era movies the ships deflectors appeared to be a form fitting field just meters off the ships hull, in the TNG era the deflectors were more of an elliptical bubble that was a good distance out from the hull of the ship.

 

[Shane Houston]

That's a good question. I don't remember if Klingon shields work the same way. If I were to try a tactic like that against the E-E with Defiant I would have to fire a spread of quantm torpedos followed fire from the phaser canons to try and punch a whole in the shields.

Has anyone noticed how powerful Defiant was in the series but really weak in most of the video games?

 

[Scout101]

Because in the games, it had to be scaled to fit into the scheme, instead of being a giant plot-sized mega-battleship!

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Or was the Sovereign's poor performance against the S'ona due to a poor tactical commander? Riker doesn't have the best of records when it comes to a straight-up battle

This is probably more down to the fact that the Son'a ships were outfitted to operate inside the Briar Patch and the Enterprise-E wasn't. Also, whose to say those Son'a ships weren't actually more powerful than a Sovereign-class ship.

 

[Saquist]

I'm curious. If there was a war game between a Sovereign Class starship and another Starfleet vessel, which class do you think would be more tactically superior to that class in a fight.
I've been thinking that maybe a Prometheus class ship with it's MVA ability could take a ship like the Enterprise-E in a scenario like that. But I'm still not sure. I know a ship is only as good as it's commander but what do you think?

Shields (Enterprise)
Sovereign has "regenerative shields" You have to punch through other wise within a few short minutes they regenerate to near full strength.

Look at Nemesis. Enterprise was initially attacked at warp Sustaining some 10-12 shots from the Scimitar before the shields failed and the port warp nacelle sustained a direct hit.

After the ship was at sublight the Dorsal shields had regenerated and now with the warp engines off line the shields take more shots than before.

Then later after the holographic interview the Riker says to get the shields back on line and he does, the Dorsal shields are back again and Scimitar has to bust them down again

Weapons (Enterprise)
It's unclear just how powerful Sovereign's phasers are. We presume better than the type X. The Quantum torpedoes were legit taking out the Borg Sphere in Four shots with no shields.

Engines (Enterprise)
Enterprise is clearly a slow ship. The Scimtar catches it without problem despite it's size and obtuse warp field. Enterprise can't be better than warp 9.5 While the Scimitar was likely warp 9.6 or 9.7

----------------
Prometheus was a one episode ship.
Shields
Likely No better than Defiant or Galaxy
But it has regenerative shields who knows it may have the same strength as Sovereign

Ablative Armor:
I suspect this is not a complete coat of armor like Defiants. Defiant has few to no windows especially on the top side while Prometheus is not window generous it still make good use of these weakness on the hull.

Weapons (Prometheus)
The Firepower of the phasers is a big unknown. It demonstrated considerable ability against a Nebula Class ship but the Nebula is considerably older than the Galaxy if you go by registry. It's attack was successful only when concentrating it's firepower in one spot and penetrating the shield bubble.

Prometheus is always assumed to have Quantums but it's never been seen. Photon Torpedoes only.

Engines: (Prometheus)
Assuming there was some urgency by the Romulans to get the Prometheus back to Federation Space then the ship was traveling as fast as they could. They computer says as much and yet A Nebula class ship with a speed of 9.6 caught it despite the claim the ship was the fastest ship in the Federation and the warp 9.9 claim. If that's not enough Two Defiant's and One Akira catch up not in Days but hours and Defiants have a max speed under warp 9. Clearly these systems weren't properly ready for combat trials.

----------------

Assuming Prometheus against Sovereign as this stands.
The Quantums, better torpedo coverage and Sovereigns FAR BETTER phaser coverage gives it a distinct advantage against the Prometheus as well as it's considerable size


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Defiant seems to be the only ship in the Federation arsenal that could actually have more than half a chance against the Sovereign. Defiant's forward guns are currently unrivaled. It's highly maneuverable and has at least the shield power of the Galaxy or Intrepid along with Quantums and Ablative Armor the Defiant has it's choice of attack vectors. It would suffer from Forward shield lost and it's diminished ability to attack with out the Forward shield.

It would be an interesting fight.

 

[Santaman]

If I had to go against a Sovereign class ship I'd take a late era Galaxy class, should have around the same firepower and protection and it doesn't blow its warp engines from their pylons when using the impulse engines like the Sovereign class.

 

[MacLeod]

Well there is always the oft overlooked prefix code. Just order the other ship to lower it's shields and pound away.

 

[sojourner]

^That sounds naughty.

 

[bryce]

That's a good point about Lakota. But really in that battle neither ship was trying to destroy the other. If the crew of Defiant fought and flew the ship like Sisko did the mirror Defiant against the mirror Neg'var, Regent Words ship, then the Lakota would have been defeated. Flying in close to a larger vessel so that the larger ship can't target them makes sense.

I wonder if that would work in a Defiant vs Sovvie scenario.

Rather like Riker flew the E-E against the Scimitar in ST:Nemesis? Wouldn't the Defiant need to get inside the E-E's shield bubble for this tactic to be effective? In the TMP era movies the ships deflectors appeared to be a form fitting field just meters off the ships hull, in the TNG era the deflectors were more of an elliptical bubble that was a good distance out from the hull of the ship.

I've always imagined that the TNG-era ships use the shield bubble as well as a form fitting shield (otherwise getting insie the shield bubble in the way described would be a MAJOR weakness.)

I think that ships shields may be layered like onion layers - with the shield closest to the ship being the most form-fitting - and the other layer being the much more rounded bubble shape.

Or it could just be two different types of shields at work...it would make sense that a ship would use multiple types of defensive shield technologies. Janeway said in Flashback the ships of her era routinely used "multiphasic shields"...but there weren't in use 100 years prior - perhaps this bubble is the multiphasic shield in action? But I would imagine that skin-tight shields still exist too and are just part of a starship's shield system. But maybe I am wrong. It just seems that a skintight backup shield would come in handy...

(Maybe the reason we saw ships without bubbles in DS9 were because they were using this older, non-bubble shield type too - since a lot of those ships were older TOS movie-era ships....hummm...

Anyway...

I have ever read that the Navigational Deflector is yet another type of shield...so ships may use multiple types of shields like I think. At least kinds. (The Nave Deflector itself seems to actually be several different devices/technologies working in tandem...shields...fields...repulsors...different beams - like, for example, a beam to strip electrons off of interstellar hydrogen and other atoms and change their charge so that a magnetic field could repel them or re-direct them to the Bussard collectors....

In fact, I read speculation by people who worked on the show that the Bussard collectors are yet another sort of deflector technology - deflecting interstellar gas and other particles - which at FTL speed would be like a sheet or hard radiation to the ship - away from the living areas and into the collectors.

And we also know about new shield technologies like metaphasic shields, ablative shields, and regenerative shields...future ships may use a combination of these technologies.

And in addition to shields, we have things like Defiant's ablative armor...and the future Voyager "batmobile" armor...it would make sense that a ship would use a variety of technologies because different situations may require a different technology. Perhaps one type of shielding technology has a weakness that another doesn't - and vise versa. Or some new and unexpected situation might render one technique or technology useless....so you'd want a back-up and you'd want to be flexible...

And if the all of those shield technologies fail together...I imagine that ship has physical material defenses built into their hull...from super-strong materials, to materials that are opaque to certain radiation (like lead is) to materials that absorb other types of radiation and dissipate heat/energy and ablate away at a certain rate and have self-sealing/self-repairing properties (like the ablative/layered/energy-absorbing/self-sealing technologies NASA is researching and developing now*)... ...to maybe even regenerative hull materials, smart materials, memory materials...maybe semi-living self-healing materials...and who know what else.

*(I heard about a theoretical NASA design that use ablative materials and multiple sandwiched inner and outer layers with something in between that would both absorb energy from micrometeorites and use the energy/heat of impacts to expand and fill in cracks....)

Heck, I imagine that in a pinch even TNG-era ships can polarize the hull plaiting if they need to! Lol. (Hey, never know when that might come in handy!

But I got way off topic, sorry...

 

[Saquist]

That was lengthy