CA = Artillery Cruiser
CG = Guided Missile Cruiser
CG = Guided Missile Cruiser
The First Seventeen Classes...
- Thread starter CuttingEdge100
- Start date
At first, there existed no CG. So I doubt CA "meant" artillery cruiser, or gun cruiser, since those were the only kinds of weapons possible. I'll stand by that the "A" is a holdback to armored/protected cruisers.
Before the realignment in 1920*, there were armored cruisers (ACR), protected cruisers (C) and light armored cruisers (CL). The 1920 realignment put protected cruisers and armored cruisers under CA, light cruisers kept their designation and CC was reserved for the Lexington-class battlecruisers that were then being built (And presumably, any other battlecruiser classes that would have followed.)
The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty put severe limits on battleships and battlecruisers, so Lexington and Saratoga were finished as carriers and the other four CCs were canceled. The treaty, which put few limits on cruisers, set off an arms race on cruisers and by the end of the 1920s (and especially after the London Treaty of 1930 defined the term), CA had been re-purposed to mean heavy cruiser.
The Navy also built two ships that were to counter the Germans' "pocket battleships" which were designated CB, for large cruiser.
After WWII, the U S Navy re-purposed the designation CA again to mean gun cruiser, to distinguish all-gun cruisers from ones equipped with guided missiles.
(note: this is not as granular as it gets, but are the on-topic highlights LOL.)
*(During the same 1920 realignment, battleships (B) and monitors (M) received the designations BB and BM, respectively.)
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It is the history of nomenclature like these cruiser designations that makes me doubt an -in-universe numbering system that is rigidly locked in place, i.e, the same way they numbered Kirk's ship is the same way they numbered Janeway's.
The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty put severe limits on battleships and battlecruisers, so Lexington and Saratoga were finished as carriers and the other four CCs were canceled. The treaty, which put few limits on cruisers, set off an arms race on cruisers and by the end of the 1920s (and especially after the London Treaty of 1930 defined the term), CA had been re-purposed to mean heavy cruiser.
The Navy also built two ships that were to counter the Germans' "pocket battleships" which were designated CB, for large cruiser.
After WWII, the U S Navy re-purposed the designation CA again to mean gun cruiser, to distinguish all-gun cruisers from ones equipped with guided missiles.
(note: this is not as granular as it gets, but are the on-topic highlights LOL.)
*(During the same 1920 realignment, battleships (B) and monitors (M) received the designations BB and BM, respectively.)
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It is the history of nomenclature like these cruiser designations that makes me doubt an -in-universe numbering system that is rigidly locked in place, i.e, the same way they numbered Kirk's ship is the same way they numbered Janeway's.
Mr. Mugato,
Agreed
Wingsley,
That's kind of the whole idea of this thread. To come up with that
Aridas Sofia,
Even though no current Navy lists the type of ship on the designation, there are some ship designs currently which are largely based on the same hull -- the Spruance and Ticonderoga Classes are examples of this -- one a cruiser and another a destroyer.
I should also note that while Starfleet has many Naval traditions, spaceships like the Enterprise would have characteristics in common with aircraft as well as ships. Aircraft do have various types of markings that ships do not necessarily have.
Agreed
Wingsley,
That's kind of the whole idea of this thread. To come up with that
Aridas Sofia,
Even though no current Navy lists the type of ship on the designation, there are some ship designs currently which are largely based on the same hull -- the Spruance and Ticonderoga Classes are examples of this -- one a cruiser and another a destroyer.
I should also note that while Starfleet has many Naval traditions, spaceships like the Enterprise would have characteristics in common with aircraft as well as ships. Aircraft do have various types of markings that ships do not necessarily have.
Interesting, I didn't know that the idea of using -A had been floated that long ago.
Why did MJ suggest it for the series? If it was for Phase II then I can understand, but if for TOS?
Remember that MJ and GR (and a bunch others) had a background in aviation and had flown or worked on aircraft during WWII. Well, there is some similarity with the "17th cruiser design, upgrade gets dash A" and the military nomenclature of numbering aircraft by their model (example B-17), and their production upgrade (B-17G.) It's speculation on my part but I would bet credits to Navy beans that MJ drew upon that familiar system to come up with his idea. (A fairly complete look at the current system can be found here.)
^ I think that's pretty much it, but if they'd tried to play that out, I think it would've collapsed under its own weight before the thirteenth episode, which is probably why they never went that way. It basically would've meant that NCC-1701 wasn't the Enterprise's registry number, but they type of starship it was, an "NCC-1701". Essentially, the difference between a B-17G and the specific B-17G that MJ flew in the war, identified by the tail number.
The way I understood it to be was that the 17 of 1701 was the type of starship and the 01 was the unit number, kind of a combination of aircraft design numbers and naval hull numbers. Enterprise would have been the first unit with 98 sister ships possible (1701-1799). An upgrade of the design would have tacked a letter on the number.
I'm not sure if such a system is practical, in a RL world sense, but I've always liked the idea that the registry meant something more (in-universe) than a random number slapped on the hull. That there was a system behind the number selection. This "17th cruiser design" method is as good as any and it has the additional advantage for supporting the notion of a "combined service."
You also don't have to let it stand throughout the entire history of Trek. History is replete with examples of reinterpreted ID numbers. (Look at the historical changes of IP version 4 for an excellent example of this. Military tail numbers are another.)
At this point I'm either for NCC = National or Naval, with CC either meaning
-Cruiser
-Cruiser, Commissioned
-Cruiser, Warp-Capable with C meaning a non-warp capable cruiser, an undoubtedly outdated designation that would no longer be used in TOS times.
Regardless, with that said, let's get to the part where we start coming up with ship-classes and perhaps some information on them:
- The first class of federation-cruiser is easy, it's the Daedalus-Class. It's pretty much been established to be the Federation's first class of exploratory vessels, and they generally have hull numbers in the 100's.
- I suppose the tenth-class of federation cruisers could be the Bonaventure. I don't know which design you want to pick for it. I've seen at least two, one looked like a shortened puffier enterprise (TAS) and another looked like a saucer with a cylindrical secondary hull running straight through it.
- The thirteenth class of federation cruisers will be a vessel like the Republic, with the Republic being the 71st vessel in it's class excluding the prototype.
- The seventeenth class will obviously be the Constitution
So there are four classes that we already have some basic data on, so this makes things simpler to some degree. There are now only 13-classes of vessels to come up with the class-names and appearances of the NCC-200/300/400/500/600/700/800/900 hull-numbers/classes; the NCC-1100/1200 hull-numbers/classes; the NCC-1400/1500/1600 hull-numbers/classes.
CuttingEdge100
-Cruiser
-Cruiser, Commissioned
-Cruiser, Warp-Capable with C meaning a non-warp capable cruiser, an undoubtedly outdated designation that would no longer be used in TOS times.
Regardless, with that said, let's get to the part where we start coming up with ship-classes and perhaps some information on them:
- The first class of federation-cruiser is easy, it's the Daedalus-Class. It's pretty much been established to be the Federation's first class of exploratory vessels, and they generally have hull numbers in the 100's.
- I suppose the tenth-class of federation cruisers could be the Bonaventure. I don't know which design you want to pick for it. I've seen at least two, one looked like a shortened puffier enterprise (TAS) and another looked like a saucer with a cylindrical secondary hull running straight through it.
- The thirteenth class of federation cruisers will be a vessel like the Republic, with the Republic being the 71st vessel in it's class excluding the prototype.
- The seventeenth class will obviously be the Constitution
So there are four classes that we already have some basic data on, so this makes things simpler to some degree. There are now only 13-classes of vessels to come up with the class-names and appearances of the NCC-200/300/400/500/600/700/800/900 hull-numbers/classes; the NCC-1100/1200 hull-numbers/classes; the NCC-1400/1500/1600 hull-numbers/classes.
CuttingEdge100
The best I've been able to figure out, the "N" stands for the Federation, "CC" indicates a Starfleet vessel ("commissioned cruisier" perhaps?), "A" indicates a civilian Earth ship, "S" is a Vulcan ship, "R" is a research ship, haven't quite figured out what a "P" indicates.
A little chaotic, perhaps, but that also makes it a bit more realistic.
A little chaotic, perhaps, but that also makes it a bit more realistic.
It has been theorized in other publications (as best as I can remember without digging around for them) that NCC stood for either Naval Construction Code or Naval Contract (Contact?) Code. And I seen to recall seeing something that had it as Navigational instead of Naval.
YMMV
YMMV
Captain Robert April,
N could derive from the word National: Basically it would mean it was a UFP vessel, with the USS indicating it to be a starfleet/military ship, SS indicates it's a non-starfleet/non-military ship but still registered within the UFP.
CC could mean "Commissioned Cruiser", "Warp Capable Cruiser" (an outdated term, obviously), maybe "Fast Cruiser" (which would be less outdated, and would specify a high warp-capability for either a given time-period)
That is an interesting way to look at it
N could derive from the word National: Basically it would mean it was a UFP vessel, with the USS indicating it to be a starfleet/military ship, SS indicates it's a non-starfleet/non-military ship but still registered within the UFP.
CC could mean "Commissioned Cruiser", "Warp Capable Cruiser" (an outdated term, obviously), maybe "Fast Cruiser" (which would be less outdated, and would specify a high warp-capability for either a given time-period)
That is an interesting way to look at it
It has been theorized in other publications (as best as I can remember without digging around for them) that NCC stood for either Naval Construction Code or Naval Contract (Contact?) Code. And I seen to recall seeing something that had it as Navigational instead of Naval.
YMMV
I don't quite recall the actual book, but I do recall at least one having it correspond to Navigational Contact Code, in the fashion of aircraft transponder beacons, only with a fixed number. I've always preferred it, and assumed the others were abbreviated forms of longer codes. NCCX, NCCAR, NCCSP and others of the like are rather clunky, after all.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
^I think it was one of the Diane Duane novels -- The Great Starship Race, perhaps?
Aircraft tail numbers don't have that kind of "this letter stands for this word" correlation (after all, N stands for the United States, and the code for "experimental" is X, not E), so why should we expect starship registries to?
Perhaps the NCC series was started to differentiate new-build units, built under the (Articles of?) Federation, or the UFP's Starfleet Charter, and under that new agency's command structure, and the existing homefleets of the other members. Like FJ wrote out, perhaps whitin the signing document there was charted out a requirment for some specified number of ships and support bases.
Let us stretch the idea out a bit more. NCC-1701, Naval C-series (Constitution class), 17th design, 01 ship. The very first ship in the Constitution class would have been NCC-0101, one of the reasons the name Constitution was chosen was simply because it started with the letter C.
The very first Federation starship class in Federation history under this system would have been NAA-0101, Naval A-series (Able class), 01 design, 01 ship. The system would run through alphabetical ship classes under the A-series, A thru Z. Then switch to the B-series, again classes A thru Z, then start with C-series.
This would make the Constitution's (connie's) the 55th starship class in Federation history.
The system allows for a total of 676 classes.
Not canon of course.
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^^^ I can definitely get behind this idea.
If the Federation had been around for a thousand years, maybe.
A little over a century, I don't think so.
A little over a century, I don't think so.
