TMP, TNG starships and torpedo bays

[Mister_Atoz]

I like the idea of the even and the odd numbered launchers being in two separate parts of the ship, but I have trouble accepting that "tube 1" would be an aft launcher.

Also, it should be noted that the updated effects for "Elaan of Troyus" definitly show a total of 6 glowing blobs leaving the front of the ship in groups of two.

 

[blssdwlf]

Whoops, I meant to type "Journey to Babel".

In both that one, and in "The Changeling", the things being fired are identified as "torpedo X", X being the number. The word "tube" is never uttered, either there or in other episodes. Was that standard USN terminology for firing a torpedo from tube X back in WWII?

That's a good question. I've seen different movies and books use both "torpedo x" or "tube x" but don't know the official USN usage.

 

[STR]

Whoops, I meant to type "Journey to Babel".

In both that one, and in "The Changeling", the things being fired are identified as "torpedo X", X being the number. The word "tube" is never uttered, either there or in other episodes. Was that standard USN terminology for firing a torpedo from tube X back in WWII?

That's a good question. I've seen different movies and books use both "torpedo x" or "tube x" but don't know the official USN usage.

Lowest numbered tubes were up front, highest were aft. Odd numbered tubes on the port side, even on starboard. The command is to "Fire [torpedo] tube X" since the tube is the launcher the and torpedo is the projectile. Saying "fire torpedo x" is like saying "fire bullet x," which is of course a little weird sounding.

At least, that's what I recall. They really don't use aft torpedo tubes anymore (hard to fit them into modern teardrop-shaped hulls) so I'm going off some really old non-fiction books I read back in the day.

 

[Timo]

I guess we can forget about the "odd-numbered to port" idea here, judging by "Journey to Babel" et al. Although the origins of having Kirk fire "2, 4 and 6" specifically (rather than, say, "2 through 12") no doubt lie in the fact that most US subs in the Pacific had exactly six bow tubes and tended to empty half of them at a given target (in the vain hopes that at least one would actually have a working detonator!)...

I wonder if we could take Kirk at face value and decide that he's not firing from tubes 2, 4 and 6, but indeed wants torpedoes 2, 4 and 6 to be fired (from whichever tubes are appropriate). That's a tough one to justify on technological basis. We could argue that each torpedo comes in its own tube, in the style of today's vertical launch systems, and that the tubes cannot be reused without a port visit. Or we could say that for each given engagement, the torpedo crews prepare a series of projectiles with different yields, possibly in an ascending order so that a hit with a weak weapon will hurt the enemy ship and increase the odds of a hit with a stronger but more expensive weapon - and sometimes a CO will want to cut corners and jump straight to the torp with the Number Two Yield. But both of those sound a bit odd and have no parallel elsewhere in Trek, in other eras or contexts.

The more generic idea that Kirk would wish to fire a "type 2 torpedo" is possible, I guess. In "The Changeling" he first wants "a torpedo" prepared, and then wants a "torpedo 2" fired. It sounds as if any generic torpedo can become "torpedo 2" at Kirk's command! Perhaps loading a single torpedo can be followed by pressing a button that selects that torpedo's type or yield, out of at least six options?

Or then a torpedo is first "prepared" in some nondescript manner, and then fed into one of at least six launchers at the last possible moments - so Kirk can decide to fire the prepared torpedo as a "2" or as a "5" according to the demands of the changing tactical situation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

It could be that even-numbered torpedo tubes on a Connie are in the saucer, while odd-numbered tubes are in the secondary hull.

 

[blssdwlf]

Don't know if this might help or not.

This U-boat dialogue doesn't mention tube. Perhaps when Kirk says "torpedo 2, 4 and 6" he is implying the specific tube as well?

The Torpedo-Masters had both torpedoes ready to go and everyone was waiting for further orders. "Both torpedoes clear!" came the order calmly from the tower, as if we were on a practice run. "Go to eight meters!" and then "Larboard, 5 degrees, now, torpedo ready! Torpedo los!, Go to 10 meters!" We counted. Then again from the tower, "Starboard torpedo ready, Torpedo Los!" Now we already heard the first explosion and shortly after, the second.

http://uboat15.blogspot.com/2010/06/first-large-action.html

and another from apparently a non-fiction book:

“Range 1,600 metres…depth two metres. Ready torpedoes one, two and three!” Hoffmann shouted. “Torpedo one ready, Sir.”
“Fire torpedo one!”

http://webhome.idirect.com/~lhodgson/mehbookswoh.html

Or Kirk could really be referring to torpedo 2, 4 and 6 which happen to be loaded in the forward launchers and was holding 1,3 and 5 for a second salvo? Or possibly the torpedo loadout alternated between slow and fast torpedoes?

 

[Darkwing]

Actually, I figure that the TOS and TMP Connies only have two torpedoes, with a magazine capacity of torpedoes that are ready. So 2,4, and 6 could refer to the Port tubes prepped torpedoes, and not require further tubes.

Starboard numbers today (and for some time in the past) are odd, centerline is zero, and port is even.

Personally, I think exploratory ships tend to have a relative few torpedo tubes, but of a high capacity - like a machine gun. It's more complicated, requires more maintenance, and is easier to break, but requires fewer resources be devoted to combat to achieve a decent fighting strength. More combat oriented ships will have more tubes of a simpler design. Thus, the Akira can have it's 15 tubes without being over the top, because the Galaxy can fire just as many torpedoes in the same time frame from only a handful of launchers. But combat damage is more likely to take down the Galaxy's 3-4 tubes completely than the Akira's 15 independent ones. Since Pike's ship had half the crew of Kirk's, he might have had more tubes, but the refit when Kirk took over fitted the ship out for primarily exploratory duties, so Kirk had 2 tubes with a magazine capacity for each. When the 1701-A was down-graded from detached exploration duty and had the crew reduced to 300, with open bay berthing instead of staterooms, some of that space might have been taken up with auxiliary photorps of the old style that don't require the massive structure of the ones from TMP, but we never saw any evidence either way on that score.

 

[FalTorPan]

Here is my geeky analysis of the torp bays of the refit NCC-1701.

 

[Wingsley]

What's wrong with TMP-era Torpedo bays still being located just above the lower saucer dome, much as we saw during TOS?

 

[Timo]

Probably only the annoyance of a very detailed hull with lots of explicit texture identifiable with various functions. What could be identified with torpedo bays in that location?

Possibly some of the saucer ventral hatches that Probert intended as docking port covers or landing pads or cargo holds might "in fact" be covers for torpedo launchers?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

^ If you look at this screencap from TMP, right at the bottom where that new assembly is located above the dome, couldn't there be room there for a tube or two?

Let's call the saucer forward tubes "3" and "4", just for sake of argument. You know where the light comes out of that new assembly? Maybe Tubes 3 and 4 are located on either side of that light. Since TWOK shows torpedoes being lowered into their tubes, we can assume the staging area for readying the weapons (the "torpedo bays"?) may actually be located either one deck (or a half-deck) above where the weapon is actually fired from.

 

[Wingsley]

FWIW, I would also like to point out that, in the TNG era, the Enterprise-E did have at least one saucer-underside torpedo launcher. And that one was a rapid-fire model.

 

[blssdwlf]

^^Not being that familiar with the E-E, but wouldn't that be the same as the "neck" TMP launcher since the E-E has no neck? Does the E-E have launchers on the side of the engineering hull ala Excelsior?

I'm starting to think perhaps TMP bay 3+4 are aft launchers, but where would they go?

 

[Manticore]

^^Not being that familiar with the E-E, but wouldn't that be the same as the "neck" TMP launcher since the E-E has no neck? Does the E-E have launchers on the side of the engineering hull ala Excelsior?

She has two under the deflector dish.

 

[Doggard]

true there are four Forward facing Torpedo tubes and two aft facing torpedo tubes but in the STE Movies that is. there are also four Dorsal and three Anterior Phaser Banks.
in ST the Undiscovered Countries they use the Rear facing torpedo fitted with Probe sensors.
the channelling the Phaser power through the warp Core seems not to be mentioned again until STDS9 with the Defiant.
Funny how in STTNG most times that would have been an asset you would think?

 

[Wingsley]

^^Not being that familiar with the E-E, but wouldn't that be the same as the "neck" TMP launcher since the E-E has no neck? Does the E-E have launchers on the side of the engineering hull ala Excelsior?

I'm starting to think perhaps TMP bay 3+4 are aft launchers, but where would they go?

The funny thing about the TMP torpedo bay is that is doesn't look like the refit NCC-1701 has any aft launchers there. This seemed silly to me, since both the Klingon cruiser Amar and the later Starship Reliant obviously did have aft launchers.

As pointed out by others just up-thread, the Sovereign-class Starship Enterprise-E did have multiple launchers, including at least one in the saucer underside (just above the lower dome) and multiple fore- and aft-launchers in the secondary hull as well. (Views of the Enterprise-E would be FIRST CONTACT, INSURRECTION and NEMESIS.)

As for the NCC-1701 Enterprise, I would still insist that there must be fore- and aft-torpedo tubes in the secondary hull. The reasons are pretty basic logic. (1: what if the saucer separated? The secondary hull would need its own phasers and torpedo launchers, both fore and aft, as would the saucer; and (2: "Balance of Terror" and other TOS outings would seem to suggest that TOS-era Connies already had redundant fore-, mid-ship- and aft- weapons anyway; (3: the flagship Connies would have to have at least as many torpedo tubes in the TMP era, since TWOK established that Reliant obviously had at least four tubes, two fore and two aft. (4: It would be unwise for the Connie in any era to have all of its weapons concentrated in one part of the ship with no redundancy... what would happen if that place were damaged...

Now, about the location of the aft launchers in the Connies, both TOS and TMP era...

Maybe the TOS-era Connies have aft saucer launchers integrated in or near the impulse engines, or aft of and below the bridge... (This would mirror what we saw the Klingons' Amar fire their torpedoes from while retreating.)

The secondary hull offers some interesting possibilities for aft launchers flush with the hull; either in the hangar deck area or concealed on the underside of the secondary hull.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Quick note
In Probert's design, the Enterprise had four types of propulsion systems: Warp drive, impulse, maneuvering thrusters, RCS thrusters. Later productions conflated RCS and manuevering thrusters, but the Probert design places four pairs of somewhat large thrusters on the secondary hull, just above the engine room and just below the torpedo bay.

Now, most things that were separate things in TMP got sort of mixed together in later productions (shields and deflectors, scanners and sensors, Klingons and Romulans) or otherwise totally forgotten (those nice circular docking ports designed for shuttles that nobody uses anymore). It wouldn't take much to imagine those "manuevering thruster" ports as small lightweight torpedo launchers and then retcon "maneuvering thrusters" as an alternate term for the reaction control system.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

I've always imagined the TMP Enterprise as havigng a single aft torpedo launcher hidden behind a hatch at the rear of that torpedo module. There's a little flat spot that might just fit a single launcher.

Also, one of the "ships of the line" calenders apparently has a variant of the design that does have aft torpedoes. I've never been able to locate this picture.

 

[T'Girl]

Klingons' Amar fire their torpedoes from while retreating

Kirk, of course, never retreats.

Seriously, we saw in TUC why the Enterprise doesn't need aft torpedo tubes, at one point Kirk separates from General Chang while still keeping the Enterpise's bow pointing in the general direction of where Kirk thinks the cloak ship is located, basically flying backwards.

In TWOK same thing, at one point Kirk is traveling with the Enterprise's top side in the direction of travel, passing behind the Reliant, with the bow of the Enterprise point to the side of the direction of travel. When Kirk was behind the Reliant, "on her six," he open fire, doing the most amount of damage to the Reliant. This is where the Reliant lost her port side warp engine.

In TMP when Kirk initially intercepted the V'Ger cloud, at least according to Roddenberry's novelization, Kirk went pass the the outside of the cloud on one side, curved around and entered the cloud from the rear (no jokes please). Again according to Roddenberry the bow of the Enterprise was "aimed" at the center of the cloud the entire time, so the Enterprise strictly speaking doesn't have to be always be flying bow first, even in warp.

Twice in TNG, we saw the Enterprise D do the same thing, at sublight speeds, once while circling a small moon and once with a small asteroid. Although there was no weapons fire, in the case of the small moon they were chasing a small ship.

In Diane Duane's novels the Enterprise can rotate within her warp field anyway she needs to, to bring her forward facing weapons to bear.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Strictly speaking, there's no reason for a space craft of ANY type to always have its bow pointed in the direction of movement. With the possible exception of warp speed, you're usually moving under Newton's Laws most of the time, you can change your angle of attack any way you want without ever changing course. OTOH, at warp speed you're probably shooting at another warp driven vessel and there's no reason to ever shoot at something behind you. I would speculate that the only reason Klingon ships have aft torpedoes at all is the need to shoot down enemy torpedoes when running for their lives.