Trek Weapons Make No Sense

[All Seeing Eye]

Going by the technology available, the weapons of Star Trek ships make no sense.

Why have torpedos stocked?
Why fire them?

Seems more logical to have the matter/antimatter stored in a safe area and then have a replicator replicate torpedo casings as and when required. The Matter/Anti-matter is then beamed into the torpedo and then the torpedo is beamed towards the target. The torpedoes could even be fired as normal and THEN beamed as close to target as possible, as it re-materialises the momentum of the torpedo continues and the enemy ship has little to no chance of evasion.

Also why even beam torpedoes? you work out the possible strength of the enemy vessel and how much explosive force is required to take down shields and/or destroy it and the replicator replicates a weapon big enough to do it, the necessary amount of matter/anti-matter is beamed into the warhead and it is beamed onto the targets shields.

 

[Forbin]

Well, the transporter has a range of only 40,000 km, so...

But yes, I can see where replicating torps as needed could be a solution to limited storage space. But it would also make sense to have a supply at the ready for those surprises that so often occur out there.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Well, the transporter has a range of only 40,000 km, so...

What's the weapons range for a photon torpedo? if the enemy ship is within 40,000km then you just beam the warheads onto the enemy shields. If the enemy ship is beyond 40,000km you can still shave off the distance of 40,000km and the time it would usually take for that Torpedo to travel that distance.

But it would also make sense to have a supply at the ready for those surprises that so often occur out there.

Replicating torps surely wouldn't take that long, ok so you have at least a few torpedoes already in the launch tubes in case of surprise but then once they're fired the system could replicate more of them directly into the launch tube itself which would probably save even more time than what you'd normally have having to load the tubes up with torps normally.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Also now I think of it why not incorporate cloaking tech into the super warheads?

You replicate a warhead big enough to take out a ship in a single blow, beam the matter/anti-matter into the warhead, beam it into the enemy ships path and cloak it, it uses a couple of thrusters to change position so it isn't shot at and Kabalamo!

Just look how small the cloaking device is for a huge Bird of Prey (we see Quark and Rom carry one) so it would only require a small one for the warhead. Even the ones used on the BoP's would probably be of sufficient size anyway. Also mines were cloaked in DS9 with no trouble.

Weapons like this would have had the Ent-E win the battle against the Scimitar in about 10 seconds flat in Nemesis.

 

[SonOfMogh]

Because in order to transport the antimatter/warhead you would need to lower your shields.

I was just thinking.... If all the major powers pooled their resources they could make a mean class of ship using this principle.

Federation ablative armour & quantum torpedoes
Klingon/ Romulan cloaking devices installed in both the ship and warheads
Dominion transporters

That ship would be the ultimate predator and could seriously wage war single handedly.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Because in order to transport the antimatter/warhead you would need to lower your shields.

I thought that was just for beaming onto the ship, not off the ship. We've seen people beaming off of ships all the time whilst shields are raised. I would imagine it works same like with weapons, weapons can pass through the ships shields on the way out but weapons fire coming in is stopped.

Shields are clearly a one way system, things can pass on the way out but not the way in.

I've never understood the whole drop shields for beaming up anyway, why not just lower the shield in the area where the transporter beam will be travelling? rather than dropping the entire shield.

 

[SonOfMogh]

Shields are clearly a one way system, things can pass on the way out but not the way in.

This has never occurred to me before as far as transporters are concerned, but I can't think of one episode that contradicts it..... I just though it was always the case that you needed to lower your shields to use your transporters period. Otherwise you'd think as soon as any ship lost shields in battle the attacking ship would just start beaming bombs on board to finish them off... The only reason not to is if in doing so you leave yourself vulnerable. Really this is the only explanation for all ships not using weapons in the way you've suggested.

In terms of lowering just part of a shield, I guess if you're trying to beam something towards and enemy ship, the part of your shields you'd be lowering would be directly facing them. It depends how precisely this can be controlled, if a transporter beam can travel through a 2ft gap then the risk to you is reduced, however I guess even then a torpedo detonation could do some damage.

 

[noknowes]

Going by the technology available, the weapons of Star Trek ships make no sense.

Why have torpedos stocked?
Why fire them?

Seems more logical to have the matter/antimatter stored in a safe area and then have a replicator replicate torpedo casings as and when required. The Matter/Anti-matter is then beamed into the torpedo and then the torpedo is beamed towards the target. The torpedoes could even be fired as normal and THEN beamed as close to target as possible, as it re-materialises the momentum of the torpedo continues and the enemy ship has little to no chance of evasion.

Also why even beam torpedoes? you work out the possible strength of the enemy vessel and how much explosive force is required to take down shields and/or destroy it and the replicator replicates a weapon big enough to do it, the necessary amount of matter/anti-matter is beamed into the warhead and it is beamed onto the targets shields.

I would they ha put abrams tanks guns which would be resistant to electronic shields and work in all cases ev with no power.

a 9 kg shell travelling at mack 2 would destroy the deridrex and warbirds of the klingons.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I would they ha put abrams tanks guns which would be resistant to electronic shields and work in all cases ev with no power.

a 9 kg shell travelling at mack 2 would destroy the deridrex and warbirds of the klingons.

I'm not 100% sure what you just said but i'll assume that you think a shell would take down a ships shields?
If you've ever watched Nemesis you'll see that the Enterprises nacelle got hit by an enormous chunk of Romulan Warbird debris and the shields still held.

 

[Kross]

What if the replicators get knocked offline?

As for transporting the torpedoes on to other ships, they did that in an episode of Stargate: Atlantis and it worked great...until the Wraith developed a countermeasure that blocked the transporters.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

What if the replicators get knocked offline?

What if the weapons get knocked offline? If they can knock the replicators in the torpedo tube offline they can just as easily knock normal weapons offline too. I never liked the whole "this this and this just got knocked offline", seems rather silly writing to me. The replicators could be shielded and powered seperately and have a backup system.

The enemy wouldn't have time to knock them offline anyway, one beam over of a large enough warhead would take out the enemy ship immediately.

As for transporting the torpedoes on to other ships, they did that in an episode of Stargate: Atlantis and it worked great...until the Wraith developed a countermeasure that blocked the transporters.

Yeh but this is trek not Stargate, we know it's possible to scramble transporter signals but only with limited range and the weapons can still be beamed as close as they can get, basically improving accuracy and time even if the full distance cannot be achieved.

Also if a species was to implement this type of weapon the enemy ships wouldn't be around long enough to even alert their own kind to this new type of weapon.
One beam over of a large enough warhead could take out the enemy ship in one blow especially if it was a Tri-Cobalt warhead.

 

[thedude]

All good points, Tachyon... but I've got two words for you (possibly one hyphenated word)

Science Fiction.

:-)

 

[Kross]

All good points, Tachyon... but I've got two words for you (possibly one hyphenated word)

Science Fiction.

:-)

Winner. *Gets the Miss Trek Tech crown and roses*

 

[All Seeing Eye]

All good points, Tachyon... but I've got two words for you (possibly one hyphenated word)

Science Fiction.

:-)

I don't quite follow.

 

[SonOfMogh]

All good points, Tachyon... but I've got two words for you (possibly one hyphenated word)

Science Fiction.

:-)

I don't quite follow.

Me neither.... Does this statement imply that anything that happens can be explained by the fact that it's science fiction? In that case why doesn't the Enterprise just have a giant boxing glove on the end of an extending arm that can overload shields due to having thermometric phase decompensators and punch holes in the enemy ships?

 

[Kross]

Because DC Comics would sue them.

 

[Timo]

I think there's way too much credit being given to Starfleet technology here. No, these guys cannot instantaneously replicate torpedo warheads, with or without antimatter. Replicators can do most things, but only at a cost, and usually the cost is things like time or energy or computing power. It's been well established that there are commodities that are better manufactured by other methods and stockpiled rather than replicated on the spot, and photon torpedo warheads are an explicit example (DS9 "Tribunal" et al.).

It's easy to see how this could be, as supposedly such a warhead involves an intricate 3D mesh of forcefields to keep microscopic amounts of antimatter and matter in close contact but separated. It's probably more difficult to replicate precisely than Data's cranium contents.

Transporters, too, are a limited technology that can only unreliably move stuff in combat conditions, requiring expert operators and often thwarting even those whenever there are shields, relative movement, interference from natural or unnatural jammers and so forth.

I have no doubt that a century or so in the future of TNG, replicators and transporters do much better, and our heroes no longer need clumsy things like photon torpedoes or starships. But that's not yet the era being depicted in the shows and movies.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[All Seeing Eye]

It's easy to see how this could be, as supposedly such a warhead involves an intricate 3D mesh of forcefields to keep microscopic amounts of antimatter and matter in close contact but separated. It's probably more difficult to replicate precisely than Data's cranium contents.

DS9 showed us a self-replicating minefield. If a mine can replicate another mine which would be made up of "an intricate 3D mesh of forcefields to keep microscopic amounts of antimatter and matter in close contact but separated" then i'm sure a ship could replicate a matter/anti-matter warhead.

 

[Myasishchev]

No one ever said the mines were antimatter iirc. They could be thermonuclear.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Have you even considered how through the roof this would case power consumption to go during combat? As is, torpedoes aren't very energy intensive. You fire them out the tube and they hit the bad guys. What you're proposing makes use of multiple systems which may not be available in all circumstances. Transporters need qualified operators to operate. And they need plenty of power. Replicators need reserves of matter in order to operate. And power as well.

The more they overwork the plumbing...

K.I.S.S.

etc, etc