Trek Ships Are Too Small Compared to Star Wars

[Tenacity]

Hyperdrive is magic tech.

As is warp drive.
SW worlds are often shown to be low tech, nearly primitive.
Only the capital was definitely high tech.
A few small Species 8472 spacecraft destroyed a world.
The Death Star was huge to do the same job.
The Federation could "erase" the surface of a world with one tiny genesis torpedo.
Starfleet shields are invulnerable to lasers.
The SW government was unwieldy and ineffectual.

Debatably, the Federation's 150 planet figure referred to species homeworlds and the total count of planets was higher.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I won't be happy until the next time Earth is in danger, they tractor it into the shuttlebay for safekeeping.

 

[Mountie1988]

Someone should point out that a Star Destroyer mostly consists of a huge fusion reactor, gigantic rocket thrusters, and an even larger fuel tank to support their blockading missions. Going with standard Imperial design, there might also be lots of empty space where people can fall to their death after being beaten in a lightsaber duel.

 

[Mountie1988]

Oh, and then they have massive armor everywhere except for the bridge and the deflector shields generators. And lots of hangar space.

 

[Mytran]

So it's just a moderate sized living habitat perched atop a giant rocket! I like that idea - big ships should be big for a reason

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I won't be happy until the next time Earth is in danger, they tractor it into the shuttlebay for safekeeping.

Size isn't everything.

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Someone should point out that a Star Destroyer mostly consists of a huge fusion reactor, gigantic rocket thrusters, and an even larger fuel tank to support their blockading missions. Going with standard Imperial design, there might also be lots of empty space where people can fall to their death after being beaten in a lightsaber duel.

What do you mean "might?" They're required by law to build those giant fally deathtrap things. Contractual obligations also require at least one of those deathtraps to be near a highly essential system, any damage to which will cause the entire ship to (eventually) explode.

 

[Darkwing]

Star Wars ships are waaaay too big to make sense. I would have like the Constitution to be just a little bit bigger - like the 1080 foot suggestion floated to make the Bridge fit without recessing it below the dome. Maybe even as much as 1200 feet to accommodate a larger hangar bay. No more was needed.
If Palpatine had had any sense, he would have replaced all those ImpStars and ImpStar Deuces with a group of three ships: a carrier, a troop transport, and a gun cruiser, each a quarter the size of a Star Destroyer, and all three costing far less than the one SD, requiring much fewer crew, and a shit-ton less to operate. He could then have had a much wider presence throughout the Empire, and more easily afforded the Death stars.

 

[Ithekro]

He could have, in fact that was basically what the Republic fleet had for the Clone Wars. The point of the larger star destroyers was to have better ships than any opponent might have based on the experience from the Clone Wars. Also intimidation factor as these new ships would be used to crush the remains of the Separatists' forces, retake neutral star systems that had attempted to stay out of the fighting by removed themselves from the Republic, and later to crush resistance to Imperial rule. And they are fairly effective at it most of the time. Sometimes a Rebel cell is rather skilled or gets very lucky and takes one Star Destroyer out. It might be the Imperial II class Star Destroyers were built to counter the ways Rebels cells had destroyed the earlier Imperial I class Star Destroyers.

Most enemy forces that faced the Empire would have smaller ships up to maybe the size of an older Republic Venator-class Star Destroyer, but more than likely smaller warships or converted freighters or passenger liners. The remaining Separatist forces would have mostly frigates and smaller cruiser with a handful of the Providence type ships and some of the larger Trade Federation battleships, both of which the Venators had problems fighting one on one. The Rebel Alliance would get their hands on some Separatist warships, and older Republic ships, but their main capital ship were converted passenger liners and exploration ships built by the Mon Calamari. Only their massive shield redundancy and size made them at least rival an Imperial Star Destroyer one on one so that it could come down to tactic over just scale of the warship.

Federation starships are not designed with conquest, nor galactic scale warfare in mind. They have no need to carry tens of thousands of soldiers, prefab fortresses, armor columns, and massive amounts of fighters to perform their missions. Federation starships rarely have to travel to the other side of the galaxy, much less in less than a year, to possibly hours or days. Even the Klingons don't design for that as a warrior race. But then it seems like most invasions in Star Trek can be done with only a few thousand troops for an entire planet (which if the planet it reasonably equal in technology, seems a tad under staffed for an invasion of planets with millions to billion of beings on them). The Galactic Empire at least puts down an traditional army so it can take a capital city easily then worry about resistance once they have a foothold and space superiority.

Also it is a matter of resource scaling. United Earth is a very small power in the 2150s. Bare even regional considering they have only a handful of starships that can go a fast enough speeds to intercept other local powers. The Federation is a regional power, though not quite able to dominate a quarter of the galaxy by itself considering the powers around it until the late 24th century. The Galactic Empire is what it says....galactic scale. With the end of the Clone Wars, there effectively wasn't any known power that could stand up the Empire. There might be smaller powers that would make invasions too costly verses the gains, so the Empire might leave them alone, or use the threat of overwhelming force and money to keep the system in line rather than their usual show of force to instill fear in the locals (or using the rebellious locals to rally the citizens to the Empire for protection. The Rebel Alliance eventually becomes a rival galactic scale power due to its reach and that it was using many Imperial planets as support for the rebellion. But the Federation could be tucked away in some relatively untraveled section of the galaxy and the Empire might never visit it during its 25 or so years of existence. The Galactic Republic probably had sent ships out there from time to time, but over the space of 25,000 years, that could have been ages ago.

 

[Spot261]

Agreed on the intimidation issue, the Empire seems to follow the Romulans in their design philosphy, psychology being as much a factor as practicality.

As for the reach of the federation I'd go further, even in the 24th century they get nowhere near dominating the Alpha Quadrant, only a tiny fraction of it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

He could have, in fact that was basically what the Republic fleet had for the Clone Wars. The point of the larger star destroyers was to have better ships than any opponent might have based on the experience from the Clone Wars. Also intimidation factor as these new ships would be used to crush the remains of the Separatists' forces, retake neutral star systems that had attempted to stay out of the fighting by removed themselves from the Republic, and later to crush resistance to Imperial rule. And they are fairly effective at it most of the time. Sometimes a Rebel cell is rather skilled or gets very lucky and takes one Star Destroyer out. It might be the Imperial II class Star Destroyers were built to counter the ways Rebels cells had destroyed the earlier Imperial I class Star Destroyers.

I'm not up to speed on the Expanded Universe (not that it matters anymore with the new material coming out) but it looks more and more like the I-class was actually designed to be less of an effective combatant and more of a terror weapon along the lines of the Death Star. That is, against rebels, insurgents, terrorists, dissidents or common criminals it's the scariest thing in the sky; too fast to outrun and too heavily armed to even THINK about resisting. It carries whole squadrons of TIE fighters and a huge number of troops, so it's pretty much the ultimate badass in any situation you send it into...

UNLESS you're sending it to fight someone with an actual military and actual warships. I keep getting the impression that the I-class is less than ideal in a stand up fight; it's not agile enough to maneuver strategically, and also relatively lightly armed for its size. The swarms of TIE fighters that can strafe the shit out of an unruly population and gun down entire armored columns are pretty much clay pigeons against REAL star fighters and next to useless against warships; same for TIE bombers, which can dish out some punishment but aren't well suited in fleet actions. You get the TIE interceptors later, but those are basically high-grade toys for ace pilots who really know what they're doing and few Imperials are trusted with them because of the risk of defection. In fact the ENTIRE EMPIRE seems to run this war: Storm Trooper armor LOOKS really bad ass, but it offers no protection whatsoever and seriously hinders the wearers hearing and eyesight. TIE fighters LOOK really scary when they're flying right at you, but they have no deflector shields, no real anti-ship weapons, and a cockpit design primarily optimized to give the pilot the best possible view of what he's shooting at and practically nothing else; it's the ideal spacecraft for strafing women and children, just as long as they're not TOO heavily armed.

I think Star Destroyers follow the same basic pattern: they LOOK impressive, and the Empire talks up how badass they are, but they're actually quite ineffectual against all but the weakest opponents. The Star Destroyers are the Super Carriers of the SW galaxy: they're the ideal weapon for terrorist cells of Tatooine, crushing the peasant uprisings on Mandalore and "sending a message" to those obnoxious wookies on the outer rim, but if you put them into a battle against anyone who knows how to fight back, they're just big sitting targets that can barely defend themselves. And again, this seems to be true of the Death Star as well, since both versions of it wound up being destroyed by a little bit of sabotage and some fighter squadrons leading precision strikes. Contrast with, say, a U.S. Navy Carrier group, which for all its destructive power and capacity for military intimidation, would get eaten for breakfast by a skilled captain in a diesel sub. I get the feeling more than a few of the Rebel victories against the Empire have the same dynamic: your big imperial star destroyers can intimidate dissidents and activists, but that a squadron of X-wings that just came out of your blind spot is about to void your warrantee.

Federation starships are not designed with conquest, nor galactic scale warfare in mind. They have no need to carry tens of thousands of soldiers, prefab fortresses, armor columns, and massive amounts of fighters to perform their missions. Federation starships rarely have to travel to the other side of the galaxy, much less in less than a year, to possibly hours or days. Even the Klingons don't design for that as a warrior race. But then it seems like most invasions in Star Trek can be done with only a few thousand troops for an entire planet (which if the planet it reasonably equal in technology, seems a tad under staffed for an invasion of planets with millions to billion of beings on them). The Galactic Empire at least puts down an traditional army so it can take a capital city easily then worry about resistance once they have a foothold and space superiority.

Star Trek also has different constraints as far as combat is concerned. Where the Empire and the Republic both fight for control of entire planets and the adjacent star systems, Star Trek races seem to fight for control of specific REGIONS of planets that have the resources they want. This leads to the tendency of battles to be compressed into "choke points" very close to the objective; starships fight in orbit of contested planets with the goal of preventing their rivals from sending troops and materials to the drop zone, and the troops themselves ignore the entire million-square-kilometer surface of the world to fight over a hundred or so square meters that contain the prize. Where the Republic or the Empire would have to send something like a hundred ships and a hundred thousand troops to try and take a planet the size of Alderaan -- and even with minimal resistance this would be the equivalent of ALL of the allied forces and their operations in all of World War-II compressed into a period of about six months -- Starfleet or the Klingons prefer to restrict their operations to, say, six cruisers or so concentrating on the one region of the planet that has those precious dilithium crystals, or that one shipyard in orbit of the planet, or that long-range communications relay that's been spying on their fleet movements, etc. Invasions of major populated worlds seem to be more rare, so most of the fighting involves battling for control of resources the populations of those worlds care about.

IOW, in the SW universe they fight over territory and volume. In Star Trek, they fight over resources. Resources aren't so spread out as territory, so people who emphasize war as a way of life tend to build smaller and faster ships that can get to those resources more efficiently and kill anyone who tries to get near them.

 

[fireproof78]

I won't be happy until the next time Earth is in danger, they tractor it into the shuttlebay for safekeeping.

That's what a Dyson sphere is for.

 

[MAGolding]

...When ST came out, the naval helicopter able to engage submarines and later surface craft beyond reach of shipboard weapons was still a young idea and the Harrier was not yet in USMC service and practical STOVL was new as the AV-8B didn't have enough thrust to do a useful VTO fuel and weapon load off the a USN ship's aft helo deck.

That is still true today and so ST did not incorporate fighters like SW. Instead, ST developed long range weapons used by large ships such as destroyers, cruisers and maybe a few dreadnoughts per Franz Joseph's Technical Manual...

You are wrong. The reason why Star Trek never had small fighter craft in space is because small fighter craft in space done't make any sense.

Small fighter and bomber craft - navel airplanes - make sense in naval warfare because ships have to travel at the surface of the water and airplanes have to travel in the atmosphere.

The atmosphere is much less dense than the water and offers much less resistance. Thus small airplanes with tiny engines can travel much faster than giant battleships and aircraft carriers with giant engines - in fact the types of airplanes used in naval warfare have to travel much faster than any ships to stay in the air. They will crash or land if they don't travel much faster than any ship.

Airplanes can also maneuver in three dimensions while battleships and aircraft carriers can only maneuver in two dimensions on the surface of the water. Thus it is possible for small land and carrier based airplanes to attack and destroy giant battleships and aircraft carriers under the right circumstances.

Those right circumstances are not found in space.

 

[Tenacity]

^ Think less of modern fighter aircraft, and more of something like a WWII small torpedo boat. They operate in the same environment as big capital ships, but are smaller, more malnuverable, and carry a small number of weapons that can damage a large ship and possible sink a medium size ship.

And also a much smaller crew.

For the resource require to build a Galaxy class, Starfleet could build hundreds of small attack craft.

 

[MAGolding]

^ Think less of modern fighter aircraft, and more of something like a WWII small torpedo boat. They operate in the same environment as big capital ships, but are smaller, more malnuverable, and carry a small number of weapons that can damage a large ship and possible sink a medium size ship.

And also a much smaller crew.

For the resource require to build a Galaxy class, Starfleet could build hundreds of small attack craft.

Remember that in TOS space battles starships fire their phasers at distances of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of kilometers. In a major space battle the two fleets would start firing at each other long before the two fleets pass through each other. The space battleships will start shooting at each other and the ships designed to stop small fighter craft like space torpedo boats will fire at the space torpedo boats, hoping to disable all the enemy space torpedo boats before the enemy space torpedo boats get close enough to fire their short range weapons.

In WWII battleships not only had their main guns, but also smaller guns to shoot at torpedo boats that tried to approach them. They also had many antiaircraft guns to try to shoot down any airplanes that approached. Battleships and aircraft carriers were surrounded and escorted by many cruisers, destroyers, and smaller ships armed with many antiaircraft guns to try to shoot down approaching airplanes.

In Star Wars movies you might see a few tiny fighters moving down the length of a mighty space battleship without being shot at by hundreds of antifighter lasers that should have been carried on the space battleship the same way that earthly battleships carried many antiaircraft guns. Since both sides use small fighter craft the capital ships of both sides should have the equivalent of many antiaircraft lasers constantly blasting at the small fighter craft long before they get that close.

So if an enemy could build 200 space torpedo boats for the price of building one space battleship, the side with the space battleship might have to build a number of defensive ships with long range weapons to try to disable the space torpedo boats before they get in range, and also build many space torpedo boats to fight the enemy space torpedo boats and distract them from their mission.

And in the futuristic more advanced technology of a society capable of building space warships, weapons will be aimed very accurately by computers. No matter how maneuverable a spacecraft is, it can't maneuver out of the way of a weapon fired at it until it knows when the weapon is fired at it, and by then there will be little chance of getting out of the way. Since in space there is no place to hide and surprise, the side with the more powerful and long ranged weapons will win most space battles.

If Starfleet does decide to build a lot of cheap space torpedo boats, it will probably be not to use them in battles with space battleships, but to use them in situations where a space battleship would be overkill and where there aren't enough expensive space battleships to go around.

I can imagine that two space fleets are approaching each other close enough to detect the number of ships of each type in the other fleet. And quite possibly the crews of the space torpedo boat type ships in one fleet will know that the enemy fleet has enough long-range-destroyers-of-space-torpedo-boat-type-ships to destroy half of their space torpedo boats before their space torpedo boat ships get in range to use their weapons. And thus each space torpedo boat crew member will know they have a fifty percent chance of being killed before getting even getting in range to use their weapons. And the crews of other types of ships may be able to make similar calculations as the fleets approach each other.

 

[Tenacity]

Remember that in TOS space battles starships fire their phasers at distances of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of kilometers.

Remember that in the 24th century starships closed to not quite point blank range. We only heard of a single battle at long range (The Wounded).

Starships typically only fire hundreds or thosands of miles when firing on planets.

If Starfleet does decide to build a lot of cheap space torpedo boats, it will probably be not to use them in battles with space battleships

Send in the fighters first (if a ship or fleet has them) to soften up the enemy starships.

 

[Unicron]

In Star Wars movies you might see a few tiny fighters moving down the length of a mighty space battleship without being shot at by hundreds of antifighter lasers that should have been carried on the space battleship the same way that earthly battleships carried many antiaircraft guns. Since both sides use small fighter craft the capital ships of both sides should have the equivalent of many antiaircraft lasers constantly blasting at the small fighter craft long before they get that close.

It depends on the overall design and role of the ships, in my experience. Prior to WWII, even after the use of aircraft as strategic bombers against ground or sea targets was accepted, there was the view that large swarms of aircraft wouldn't be able to compete against battleships or other large vessels, because the AA armament you mention would shoot them down long before they effected damage. And while that's certainly true to some degree, the advent of aircraft carriers showed that a high volume of aircraft could do a lot of potential damage to those sorts of targets while still avoiding the defensive fire.

In both Star Wars and Battletech, it seems like there are only certain designs geared specifically to deal with large groups of enemy fighters. Most front line combat warships are designed to fight other warships or attack planetary defenses, so they have less anti-fighter armament. Since many have their own fighters as well, this is seen as less of a design issue. By the same token, dedicated carrier designs are more rare because most common warships carry a fighter complement of some sort. A carrier's only advantage is carrying a much larger number of them, but trading some other advantages for that.

 

[Tenacity]

In Star Wars movies you might see a few tiny fighters moving down the length of a mighty space battleship without being shot at by hundreds of antifighter lasers

In Return of the Jedi we actually saw quite a number of anti-fighter small turrets firing at the Rebel fighters, and destroying them too. When one of the star destroyers lost it's bridge deflector, the ship's admiral ordered the anti-fighter turrets to increase protection of the then exposed bridge.

In The Last Jedi, destroying the small turrets was a featured action prior to sending in the "bombers."

 

[Tenacity]

And thus each space torpedo boat crew member will know they have a fifty percent chance of being killed before getting even getting in range to use their weapons

In DS9's Sacrifice of Angels, the fighters seemed to fair far better than the large lumbering "capital ships" Did we see any destroyed?

it can't maneuver out of the way of a weapon fired at it until it knows when the weapon is fired at it

Evasive malnuvers are a hallmark of 24th century battles, why would the fighters wait to be fired on first?

In WWII battleships not only had their main guns, but also smaller guns to shoot at torpedo boats that tried to approach them.

Then why did Navies create anti torpedo boat destroyers (or just destroyers) if torpedo boats could be easily handled by battleships? Battleships were in considerable danger from torpedo boats.

 

[Unicron]

I don't think we see any Dominion warships being directly taken out by the fighters, but we do see one Galor losing a large chunk of hull and falling out of formation. So it's fair in my mind to suggest the concentrated fighter assault is having some effect, even if it's not enough to be overly decisive alone. We also saw Gul Evek's ship taking a lot of damage from the Maquis vessels in "Preemptive Strike."

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'd like to see a size comparison of a Super Star Destroyer and the ISS Charon