the Defiant is starfleet's take on the BoP

[cwl]

I've just been rewatching some old DS9 episodes and the conclusion that I've drawn about the USS Defiant is that it's basically starfleets version of the BoP.

It's small, very manouverable and packs a lot of firepower for its size.

Crew complement is small and the range is short but the ship is designed to complete a variety of missions.

Now obviously the Defiant is larger than the BoP and is obviously more powerful but obviously the BoP is quite an old design so can't be expected to keep up with the newer Defiant.

 

[JarodRussell]

I've always seen it as the Star Trek version of the Millenium Falcon. It made it possible to do all those Star Wars style dog fights around huge ships.

 

[SchwEnt]

I disagree.

The BoP is lightly armed, the Defiant is heavily armed.
The BoP is small scoutship, a small crew.
Defiant has a much larger crew versus a BoP and is a warship versus a scoutship.

And the Falcon is a freighter while the Defiant is a warship, so really different types of vessels (despite rough general appearances).

 

[C.E. Evans]

I tend to view the Defiant as Starfleet's equivalent of a destroyer.

 

[MikeH92467]

I would compare it to a pocket battleship. Destroyer size, but packing a punch that can slug it out with the big boys.

 

[Sisko4Life]

I disagree with that wholeheartedly. The Defiant IS a destroyer. The U.S.S. Defiant, however, is just a ship with god syndrome and clearly more powerful than it should be. I'm not going to go through the numerous blunders that they give the Defiant because the list is too long, but I'll start at how the Odyssey gets no shields against Dom figthers in Jem'Hadar, but the Defiant never has that problem (where the rest of the Feds don't adapt shielding until "the ship" is recovered).

Defiant class ships are powerful for their size, more powerful than a bird of prey, but not as powerful as capital ships. It would take a very skilled crew and a very incompetant crew for a Defiant class to defeat a Galaxy, Nebula (which were both upgraded for the war), Akira, Prometheus, or Sovereign Class vessel. The Sovereign class is actually Starfleet's "battleship" as well as the Galaxy class when it had war upgrades. I'm just not see a little ship beat these ships when they have warp cores larger than the Defiant itself, type XII phaser arrays, and multiple photon / quantum launchers. The Akira has FIFTEEN photon launchers!!!

 

[MikeH92467]

I disagree with that wholeheartedly. The Defiant IS a destroyer. The U.S.S. Defiant, however, is just a ship with god syndrome and clearly more powerful than it should be. I'm not going to go through the numerous blunders that they give the Defiant because the list is too long, but I'll start at how the Odyssey gets no shields against Dom figthers in Jem'Hadar, but the Defiant never has that problem (where the rest of the Feds don't adapt shielding until "the ship" is recovered).

Defiant class ships are powerful for their size, more powerful than a bird of prey, but not as powerful as capital ships. It would take a very skilled crew and a very incompetant crew for a Defiant class to defeat a Galaxy, Nebula (which were both upgraded for the war), Akira, Prometheus, or Sovereign Class vessel. The Sovereign class is actually Starfleet's "battleship" as well as the Galaxy class when it had war upgrades. I'm just not see a little ship beat these ships when they have warp cores larger than the Defiant itself, type XII phaser arrays, and multiple photon / quantum launchers. The Akira has FIFTEEN photon launchers!!!

I won't disagree with any of that analysis, but I would suggest that my idea is somewhat along the lines of the original concept, although as time went on, the errors and inconsistencies multiplied.

 

[SilentP]

I disagree with that wholeheartedly. The Defiant IS a destroyer.

Though two of them and one Akira seemed to be sufficient to try and retake the Prometheus from a pair of Warbirds (admittedly, these could just have been scrambled like the Nebula that was destroyed in the same episode was, and just had the luck to arrive together) so they must be punching far above their weight.

The U.S.S. Defiant, however, is just a ship with god syndrome and clearly more powerful than it should be.

The phrase you're looking for is 'Hero Ship' which applies to a couple of individual ships throughout the series (the Enterprise being the main one), so I wouldn't single out the U.S.S Defiant as a lone offender in this case :P

I'm not going to go through the numerous blunders that they give the Defiant because the list is too long, but I'll start at how the Odyssey gets no shields against Dom figthers in Jem'Hadar, but the Defiant never has that problem (where the rest of the Feds don't adapt shielding until "the ship" is recovered).

Well, in the first encounter with the Dominion, the Defiant doesn't fare much better than the Odyssey did (it did get disabled and boarded). It was also noted to have ablative armour, which seems to be a feature unique to the Defiant class.

Defiant class ships are powerful for their size, more powerful than a bird of prey, but not as powerful as capital ships. It would take a very skilled crew and a very incompetant crew for a Defiant class to defeat a Galaxy, Nebula (which were both upgraded for the war), Akira, Prometheus, or Sovereign Class vessel.

Well you do see the Defiant go head to head with an upgrade Excelsior class (the Lakota) and the ships were roughly equal, though both were somewhat holding back (i.e. not using torpedoes), so it's not like the Defiant was written to be the 'be all and end all' of combat ships.

The Sovereign class is actually Starfleet's "battleship"

True.

as well as the Galaxy class when it had war upgrades.

Perhaps not so true. While I can imagine that the Galaxy class were given additional boosts to their defensive systems, they're never classed as battleships. Strapping missile launchers to a container ship of today wouldn't mean that you now have a cruiser

[/quote]I'm just not see a little ship beat these ships when they have warp cores larger than the Defiant itself, type XII phaser arrays, and multiple photon / quantum launchers.[/quote]

Maybe they could, maybe they couldn't. Don't judge a ship solely by it's size. The synergy of it's design matters much more for combat that pure statistics. And besides, we may get the impression the Defiant is a god ship, but there are many occasions where it's equalled, or outgunned by enemy foes and has to use the competence of it's crew to win the day.

The Akira has FIFTEEN photon launchers!!!

It was also meant to be a fighter carrier, but that ability wasn't shown on screen either, so you have to take any background information like that with a grain of salt.

 

[Deks]

The Sovereign had loads of torpedo tubes installed just prior to 'Nemesis' events (for all the 'good' it did them - I guess someone in hollywood forgot that a single photon tube is able to fire torpedoes in bursts - among other things - or that torpedoes can be self-guided).

And yes, I wouldn't judge a ship solely on it's size.
As we discussed in another thread, smaller ships can easily be built/designed to match their larger 'cousins' - the only differential that appears is in the ability of larger ships to house more torpedoes, raw materials, spare parts, crew, etc. - but not that they will automatically have more powerful shields/weapons).

The Defiant when compared to the BoP would likely end up being superior given it's design/function.
With all due respect to the Klingons, but the BoP is a severely outdated design by the late 24th century.
Yes, I'm sure they can upgrade most if not all of their ships to keep them around much longer, but SF specifically designed the Defiant around 'warship' premise.
The Intrepid class for example was touted by Voyager show producers as a 'small Galaxy class' - equal in firepower/shields, better in speed, but lower storage space (the torpedo count on the other hand I doubt was 36 for the Intrepid since Voy was launched for a specific 2 week mission where maxed stocks/supplies/torpedoes were simply not necessary).

 

[Timo]

Regarding the niche of the BoP in the galactic scheme of things, we've never seen one willingly go out against a capital ship - not even with these characteristically foolhardy Klingons in command. When one is forced into such a fight, the weapons prove to be really wimpy: no visible physical damage in ST3:TSfS or ST5:TFF, very little damage after several minutes of sucker-punching in ST:GEN, and the only time these fared well against the primitive NX-01 was before Starfleet upgunned her with proper phaser beams and photon torpedoes.

OTOH, the BoP is capable of stealth, and has often been seen doing solo missions at fairly extreme range. Without offensive firepower, she could indeed best utilize those abilities in scouting and spying. But there's another obvious task in which she would also excel: commerce raiding. She looks, flies and quacks like a German submarine from the two world wars, "diving" into invisibility but "surfacing" for firing disabling shots at weak targets. With those "stun" torpedoes of ST3 and ST5 and possibly ST:GEN, she could also capture enemy merchantmen easily enough.

Both of these tasks set her apart from the Defiant thanks to the difference in firepower. We should remember, though, that the Defiant was mostly used for spying and had few other roles; the ability to cloak is an overriding factor there, and the concept of "armed recce" in DS9 is probably more the result of Starfleet having a hammer and thus seeing all of its recce problems as nails, than a preexisting doctrine.

There's also the difference in landing abilities. We know the Defiant can do it in a cinch, from "Children of Time". But the BoP is designed specifically with obvious wings, and is frequently seen operating on planetary atmospheres and surfaces. Good for scouting. Great for the raiding of soft targets far away from the enemy's main defenses, because by landing your ship, you can pillage an installation by firing a few shots from your hand disruptor and pointing over your shoulder so that the defender can see your ship-sized disruptors - whereas a more generic vessel would have to bombard from orbit in order to assist a raiding party, and the chances of capturing intact loot would be lowered a lot.

...ST4:TVH also shows us that there's room for two humpback whales in the small design (or, if we believe in differently sized variants, in the smallest design), without our heroes having to dump a load of Klingon supplies in the San Francisco park. Why would a spyship like Kruge's need that much room? Why, for carrying all the loot from the piracy missions!

Starfleet probably doesn't have much of an incentive for building special ships for piracy and looting. Its enemies are rather centralized and isolationist, and probably couldn't be hurt by strikes against their imports and exports quite as badly as the UFP would be hurt by similar strikes. If Starfleet builds winged scouts for spying, it might well be that they are all in the size range of the ST:INS scoutship - much smaller for better stealth, as they don't need to carry the loot or even the meager armaments of a pirate vessel.

The Defiant makes for an excellent scout and deep raider when equipped with a cloak. Without it, what is she good for? We've seen Starfleet call her an "escort", although that was supposed to be misdirection. We've heard her perform escort missions during the Dominion war. Apart from that, we've only seen her run errands for Sisko, including couriering, research, and deploying of mines. She's apparently no good for defending the station, as she never performs that role (instead, the station defends her!).

Again, it looks like Starfleet simply got handed this exotic ship (a failed anti-Borg experiment) and then tried to find roles for her; the series-produced Klingon BoP, of which several design generations exist, does not seem to fit the same bill.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gary7]

No. Just because the Defiant has just the smallest hint of BoP design with those minor "wings", I wouldn't say Starfleet was intentionally inspired by it. Remember, the BoP was retired long ago--the Romulans went to Klingon D7 class ships and then onto their own D'deridex class cruisers.

It's basically a weapons platform with engines. Numerous power problems had to be overcome. This is a mini-destroyer ship, and just way more maneuverable than the capital class starships. But they have their own vulnerabilities.

 

[Timo]

The weapon types of the two ships also largely dictate their nature. The Romulan BoP would pop up, unleash a volley of nastiness, and then retire while that volley did its dirty work. The Defiant does not retire: she pops up, then stays up and gets really close and personal with the enemy, using extreme short range weapons delivered at vulnerable spots.

A Romulan BoP without a cloak apparently isn't much of a warship, just like a WWII submarine that can't dive is of no use. On the Defiant, cloaking is an optional extra that transforms the nature of the vessel, but by adding it, not depriving her of her original fortes of heavy armor and close-in weaponry.

I can't really see any Starfleet vessel filling the niche of the Romulan BoP, since Starfleet generally lacks both the cloak and the special weapon. The cloak alone won't allow the Defiant to meet the "demand", either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ngc7293]

There was a book By William Shatner. I think it was called Avenger. There was a Defiant class ship in it called the USS Monitor that didn't have a cloak. Instead it was painted black and had methods to hide its energy signiture and warp trail. It was a spy vessel.