The different between Constitution and Miranda Class
- Thread starter Brainsucker
- Start date
Omega_Glory
Commodore
But when the Enterprise got an unshielded shot on the Reliant, a few minutes later, with just a "few shots" as Scotty said; they hurt the Reliant equally as bad with less effort. Any shot to the saucer has the possibility of destroying the main energizer on the Miranda class. You have to be more accurate in your targeting to do the same to the Constitution.
Keep in mind that even though Khan's party were supermen, and Terrell and Chekov could have explained how things worked to them, these were 20th century people. Not the 20th century that we lived in, of course, given that they had sleeper ships, but certainly not 23rd century people either. There had to be a learning curve there.
I'd argue that the movie makes it rather clear that this, combined with Kirk's intelligence and superior knowledge of starship operations, was what allowed the Enterprise to counterattack and survive. Kirk knew something Khan didn't. Kirk having a 'shipfull of kids' combined with his rustiness probably prevented him from doing better than he did in the long run.
I can't help but wonder if Khan had stolen the Enterprise and Kirk been aboard the Reliant if things would have played out differently?
I'd argue that the movie makes it rather clear that this, combined with Kirk's intelligence and superior knowledge of starship operations, was what allowed the Enterprise to counterattack and survive. Kirk knew something Khan didn't. Kirk having a 'shipfull of kids' combined with his rustiness probably prevented him from doing better than he did in the long run.
I can't help but wonder if Khan had stolen the Enterprise and Kirk been aboard the Reliant if things would have played out differently?
I submit that weaponry in TWOK did as much damage as the script demands. The same phasers which, in the series, blew up shielded vessels at tens of thousands of kilometers away, destroyed the Temple of Apollo, and could "destroy half a continent" were barely able to do a cannon's worth of damage to an unshielded starship at a range of less than a kilometer.
Kind of hard for me to accept.
Relatively lengthy sustained fire was required to destroy Apollo's little temple.
However, I think it would be pretty reasonable to guess that the nebula was having some effect on the phaser beams as well, perhaps disrupting their coherency and weakening their overall effect. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I would think it odd if the nebula could have been causing problems with so many other systems and have zero impact on the phasers.
However, I think it would be pretty reasonable to guess that the nebula was having some effect on the phaser beams as well, perhaps disrupting their coherency and weakening their overall effect. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I would think it odd if the nebula could have been causing problems with so many other systems and have zero impact on the phasers.
Of course, shipboard phasers of Kirk's era appeared to have settings akin to the handheld ones. (They used stun from orbit in 'A Piece of the Action.') Perhaps the maximum 'full' setting is rarely used on shipboard phasers - especially in the case of Khan, who wanted to be sure to wound rather than destroy, in order to gloat before taking his final vengeance.
Omega_Glory
Commodore
Thats what weaponry has been doing in all movies, TV, books, ect ever since the concept of fiction was dreamt up.
When did the old Enterprise blow up shielded vessels at tens of thousands of kilometers?
Various fan tech manuals (Jackill's and Ships of the Starfleet come to mind) type the Reliant as a "Heavy Frigate", with SotSF getting into political reasons on why a nominally better armed ship was out doing research duty; The Reliant type ships were ordered in anticipation of a war with the Klingons that didn't really pan out (As others have pointed out, even just examining the physical model shows them as being better gunned than a Constitution by the rollbar phasers and two aft torpedo launchers, yet with a great deal less ship to build). Rather than have all these ships sitting around doing nothing, they sent them on research missions they otherwise wouldn't be doing. Having yet to come up with any better explanations, I've come to like that whole line of thought.
It's about an 8% or so difference in size, which is not what I'd call a great deal, myself.
As for the weapons:
It looks to me like a Miranda-class ship like the one in the movie has 6 dual phasers, 2 rollbar phasers, 2 forward torpedo launchers and 2 aft torpedo launchers.
On the Constitution-class ship there seem to be 6 dual phasers, 6 single phasers, and 2 visible forward torpedo tubes. However, "In a Mirror, Darkly" established that the TOS-era version of Defiant had aft torpedoes as well, and I don't think it particularly likely that these were on Defiant but not Enterprise or that they'd have been removed from Enterprise during her upgrade.
So it looks to me like the defensive equipment is either about the same or would slightly favor the Constitution. I don't have any particular reason to buy into the rollbar phasers being "megaphasers" or being way more effective than the others or anything. Aside from that, am I missing something? Could it be the positioning of the Miranda-class ship's armament gives it inferior overall coverage but the capability of directing more fire at once along certain arcs?
I still suspect the Miranda has a higher ratio of open space for cargo and shuttle bays inside compared to the Constitution, at least double based on those large twin bay doors. That may be the primary difference in the two, and may reflect whatever original goal the ship was built for. Also, even if the phaser cannons aren't 'megaphasers' per se, they may be designed with a different goal in mind - i.e., taking down bigger ships or bases.
And while I tend to agree that the Constitution probably has at least one rear torpedo tube, there must surely be some sort of tradeoff for 'hidden' torpedo tubes as opposed to the visual ones. Perhaps the visual ones are higher powered, having exposed cooling elements? Perhaps they can be fired more quickly, without having to open launch doors? There may also be some interconnectivity between the launchers in the Miranda torpedo pod that is beneficial.
And while I tend to agree that the Constitution probably has at least one rear torpedo tube, there must surely be some sort of tradeoff for 'hidden' torpedo tubes as opposed to the visual ones. Perhaps the visual ones are higher powered, having exposed cooling elements? Perhaps they can be fired more quickly, without having to open launch doors? There may also be some interconnectivity between the launchers in the Miranda torpedo pod that is beneficial.
A few main advantages of the Miranda class when it comes to combat effectiveness, is it's a more compact ship that presents a smaller target and presumably better shield effienciency (Smaller shield envelope would presumably cost less power). The torpedo pod probably allows the full Torpedo amarment to be fired from any of the tubes, where-as any 'aft' tube on the Constitution would likely have seperate magazines than the two forward tubes (unless it's in the neck somewhere).
The size of the cargo/shuttlebay is hard to guesstimate, keeping in mind that the Impulse Engines (noticably larger than a Constitution's, perhaps indicating a faster/more manuverable ship at sublight) and presumably the Warp core and other engineering features have to be in that general location, as well as branching off towards the Nacelles. It's also worth remembering that from the scenes in TMP, the Cargo/Shuttlebays on the refit Constitution are pretty sizable, seeming to take up almost the entire aft half of the engineering hull
I've never been too keen on the term "Megaphaser", but whatever those weapons are, they have substantially larger emitters than the 'standard' mounts. There's also that set of fins running alongside each mount that could be part of the weapon, perhaps a cooling element of somekind. And in general, the designers felt a need to keep those weapons sited away from the hull rather than embedded like the standard phasers or the Constitution's torpedo tubes (Admittedly, that could be Feng Shui rather than a practical reason for all I know).
The size of the cargo/shuttlebay is hard to guesstimate, keeping in mind that the Impulse Engines (noticably larger than a Constitution's, perhaps indicating a faster/more manuverable ship at sublight) and presumably the Warp core and other engineering features have to be in that general location, as well as branching off towards the Nacelles. It's also worth remembering that from the scenes in TMP, the Cargo/Shuttlebays on the refit Constitution are pretty sizable, seeming to take up almost the entire aft half of the engineering hull
I've never been too keen on the term "Megaphaser", but whatever those weapons are, they have substantially larger emitters than the 'standard' mounts. There's also that set of fins running alongside each mount that could be part of the weapon, perhaps a cooling element of somekind. And in general, the designers felt a need to keep those weapons sited away from the hull rather than embedded like the standard phasers or the Constitution's torpedo tubes (Admittedly, that could be Feng Shui rather than a practical reason for all I know).
Maybee this will clear up some of the speculation of the Miranda Class's capabilities and internal structure.
http://s699.photobucket.com/albums/vv356/nimitzco/Miranda/
If you look closely at these cylinders at the corners of the roll bar, you see that each cylinder has two fairly standard-looking single phaser "pimples" on the upper outboard edge, highlighted with yellow squares much like the paired mounts on the saucer. In TWoK, all phaser fire seems to be coming from these dimples; the tubelike protrusions in front and back of the cylinder appear to emit something else, manifesting as white light in the nebula (that is, they look like simple lamps and don't have phaser beams coming out of them at any point).
Whether the pimples have "larger mounts" than usual or not is unknown, because we don't know how much mount one needs within the ship's structure per pimple. I doubt the twin turrets on the saucer are only skin deep, either.
Interestingly, the forward end of the roll bar cylinder consists of concentric cylindrar surfaces looking very similar to the front end of the secondary hull of a TOS Constitution. Perhaps these twin cylinders are the navigational deflectors of a Miranda, and incidentally have two single phasers attached to the side?
Well, it appears that other TOS torpedo launchers were indeed removed in the refit - namely, the (as per "Errand of Mercy" at least six) tubes in the saucer...
Removal of torpedo tubes was one of the most typical ways to refit a warship in the 1930s-60s, partly because ship-to-ship torpedoes gradually became obsolete as a weapon, partly because defensive weaponry (AA guns, SAMs) became more important than offensive weaponry. Starfleet might have gone all defensive in ST:TMP, too, thinking it more important to have phaser banks all over the saucer surface than having torpedo launchers in there.
Of course, the area from where the TOS-era Defiant fired her aft torpedoes coincides perfectly with the area where the TMP Enterprise has a set of four aft-facing grooves. Designer Probert apparently intended these grooves to be thrusters of some sort, but they could be put to potentially better use as aft-facing, possibly small-caliber torpedo launchers.
And the historical context of this should be noticed. "Heavy frigate" in the nascent US Continental Navy meant the heaviest warship in existence; all major navies had "frigates" (the same ship that later became known as cruiser) for independent action, and many had "ships of the line" for the big fleet battles, but the USCN couldn't afford the latter so it built really badass frigates instead.
OTOH, "frigate" in the USN of the 1970s, the time when the writers of those fan publications got their shipomania sparkled, was again the badassest warship around - a vessel slightly larger than a cruiser, carrying the latest in missile armament, and typically also nuclear-powered.
So while a reader from the 1980s or later might think "Frigate? You mean a puny escort vessel, lighter than a destroyer?", the backstory of the Avenger fan interpretation actually goes the exact opposite way...
Timo Saloniemi
Actually, by the time most of those fan manuals came out (well into the 80s for the Jackill's guides, and 90s for SotSF) the term "Frigate" had been changed to closer correlate with what foreign navies were using the term for; Escorts. Also, when the term was in use, a Frigate was not the largest ships in use, they were what was formerly known as Destroyer Leaders; Ships in between the Destroyer and Cruiser designation, with Cruiser mostly being reserved for the older WWII era Gun cruisers (and missile conversions) still in service. When the term Frigate was rearranged in 1975, many of them became Cruisers in designation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification
Regardless, you're correct in the fan term for the Avengers was meant to embody the more classic Frigate role, rather than the modern smaller escorts. Personally, I like to think those fans were thinking more of the earlier Frigates (ie; USS Constitution) when the term came into use rather than the post 60s-70s Frigates.
Also, the reasons for the USN's early Heavy Frigates is a bit more involved than that; there was also a significant political element that didn't want a large line-of-battle navy on the European model. I highly reccomend the book "Six Frigates" by Ian Toll for anyone interested in the history of those ships and that period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_1975_ship_reclassification
Regardless, you're correct in the fan term for the Avengers was meant to embody the more classic Frigate role, rather than the modern smaller escorts. Personally, I like to think those fans were thinking more of the earlier Frigates (ie; USS Constitution) when the term came into use rather than the post 60s-70s Frigates.
Also, the reasons for the USN's early Heavy Frigates is a bit more involved than that; there was also a significant political element that didn't want a large line-of-battle navy on the European model. I highly reccomend the book "Six Frigates" by Ian Toll for anyone interested in the history of those ships and that period.
Not true. it's a virtual replica with the elements swapped around, and there's nothing to indicate that the stuff below he exhausts is related to it.
At least it has two of those dome things, one above and one below the hull. Whether they are directly related to impulse drive or not is debatable, but there's a definite trend of the Reliant having twice as much stuff as the Enterprise: torp tubes, shuttlebays, strange blue domes...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
That lower dome has always been something of a mystery to me. It wouldn't seem to correlate with the warp-to-impulse power conversion that they have been previously assigned to, given its distance from the impulse engine.
The Miranda being a type of frigate/escort label does make some sense considering that the Defiant, explicitly an escort, was partnered with them in the notorious 'Sacrifice of Angels' battle in which the Dominion weapons slice through the Sitak and the Majestic. There has been a trend to assume that 'escort' was a new label invented for the Defiant since it was Not. A. Warship. but what if it wasn't a new term? What if 'escort' has always been the polite Starfleet term for a lean, mean gunboat, and the Defiant is in fact the true successor to the Miranda?
IIRC, the DS9 TM stat section (I know, I know - errors, errors
) also referred to Miranda's rollbar phaser cannons as 'pulse phaser cannons.' Given that they didn't behave as such anywhere that we saw, perhaps another reason for the longevity of the Miranda was the ability to graft Defiant-type pulse phaser cannons into the same location? Alternatively, perhaps these cannons were of a more primitive pulse phaser type all along, and it was only the Defiant that finally had 'real' pulse phasers? There does seem to be a correlation between these cannons' proximity to the warp nacelles on both the Defiant and the Miranda - so perhaps part of the magic of pulse phaser cannons is their need for direct warp plasma energy?
Then we don't have to call them megaphasers.
The Miranda being a type of frigate/escort label does make some sense considering that the Defiant, explicitly an escort, was partnered with them in the notorious 'Sacrifice of Angels' battle in which the Dominion weapons slice through the Sitak and the Majestic. There has been a trend to assume that 'escort' was a new label invented for the Defiant since it was Not. A. Warship. but what if it wasn't a new term? What if 'escort' has always been the polite Starfleet term for a lean, mean gunboat, and the Defiant is in fact the true successor to the Miranda?
IIRC, the DS9 TM stat section (I know, I know - errors, errors
) also referred to Miranda's rollbar phaser cannons as 'pulse phaser cannons.' Given that they didn't behave as such anywhere that we saw, perhaps another reason for the longevity of the Miranda was the ability to graft Defiant-type pulse phaser cannons into the same location? Alternatively, perhaps these cannons were of a more primitive pulse phaser type all along, and it was only the Defiant that finally had 'real' pulse phasers? There does seem to be a correlation between these cannons' proximity to the warp nacelles on both the Defiant and the Miranda - so perhaps part of the magic of pulse phaser cannons is their need for direct warp plasma energy? Then we don't have to call them megaphasers.
I never assumed "Escort" was a new designation for the Defiant; To the contrary, if Starfleet's trying the "Look, it's not a warship!" trick...why draw attention by using a new and unfamiliar term? It's easier to hide the Defiant among a crowd of already existing Escorts than assume no one will notice the new ship with the new designation.
Delving into the same fan manuals that gives the Miranda/Avengers the "Frigate" nomenclature, there are some fanon ships that fit the "Escort" type, most of them smaller short-range ships. (The Akula class "Perimeter Action ships" come to mind offhand, and probably some others. I'd have to go find those books out of my stacks of still-packed books later).
re; Pulse phasers. It is worth noting that unlike TOS and later TNG phaser blasts, the TWOK Phasers weren't continuous streams. I might have to pop in the DVD later, but are the visual effects for Reliant and Enterprise's phaser blasts identical? For some reason, I seem to think Reliant's were more obvious pulse blasts than Enterprise's was...
And regardless of any connection between the Rollbar phasers and the Defiant's pulse phasers, I think it's worth noting regardless that those weapons are 1) mounted close to the engines and 2) mounted above and away from the habitable sections of the ship. I think SotSF had a different term for them than Megaphasers...guess I'll have to root around the spare room and look for the book later.
Also;
Delving into the same fan manuals that gives the Miranda/Avengers the "Frigate" nomenclature, there are some fanon ships that fit the "Escort" type, most of them smaller short-range ships. (The Akula class "Perimeter Action ships" come to mind offhand, and probably some others. I'd have to go find those books out of my stacks of still-packed books later).
re; Pulse phasers. It is worth noting that unlike TOS and later TNG phaser blasts, the TWOK Phasers weren't continuous streams. I might have to pop in the DVD later, but are the visual effects for Reliant and Enterprise's phaser blasts identical? For some reason, I seem to think Reliant's were more obvious pulse blasts than Enterprise's was...
And regardless of any connection between the Rollbar phasers and the Defiant's pulse phasers, I think it's worth noting regardless that those weapons are 1) mounted close to the engines and 2) mounted above and away from the habitable sections of the ship. I think SotSF had a different term for them than Megaphasers...guess I'll have to root around the spare room and look for the book later.
Also;
Drawing on real-life ship elements, two ships can have to propellers the same size, but it's the size and power of the machinery behind them that makes the most difference. The prominent housing behind and below Reliant's exhausts is larger than Enterprise's, which gives me that impression of there being more 'guts' to the system.
That lower dome has always been something of a mystery to me. It wouldn't seem to correlate with the warp-to-impulse power conversion that they have been previously assigned to, given its distance from the impulse engine.
The Miranda being a type of frigate/escort label does make some sense considering that the Defiant, explicitly an escort, was partnered with them in the notorious 'Sacrifice of Angels' battle in which the Dominion weapons slice through the Sitak and the Majestic. There has been a trend to assume that 'escort' was a new label invented for the Defiant since it was Not. A. Warship. but what if it wasn't a new term? What if 'escort' has always been the polite Starfleet term for a lean, mean gunboat, and the Defiant is in fact the true successor to the Miranda?
IIRC, the DS9 TM stat section (I know, I know - errors, errors
Then we don't have to call them megaphasers.
Allow me to shed a little light on that mystery for you Praetor, the dome on the bottom of the Miranda Class is actually not an Impulse Deflection Crystal but a chamber to control the Matter/Antimatter Reaction for the Warp Core. You can also see the location for the Navigational Deflectors in this schematic (one of the original topics of this tread). They are the two "ram air" style scoops seen on the bottom of the vessel.
http://s699.photobucket.com/albums/...ction=view¤t=SectionViewEngineering.jpg
As for the Phaser Cannons, they are directly powered by the plasma from the Warp Core, making them more powerfull than the phaser banks traditionally seen on the saucer section of and secondary hulls of certain Starfleet vessels of that era. Here is a schematic that illustrates this point
http://s699.photobucket.com/albums/...?action=view¤t=PhaserCannonAssembly.jpg
You can also see a Jefferies Tube in this schematic that continues onto the weapons pod that allows for crew access if necessary.
