What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion War

[doctorfoto]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

I think the Prometheus acquitted itself rather well, taking only minimal damage while fighting a small fleet of both Romulans and Feddies (including one Defiant-class!), crewed only by two bumbling medical holograms

Sisko hints at the Defiant's secretive nature in "The Search":

"Offically, she's an escort. Unofficially, the Defiant's a warship. Nothing more, nothing less."

Shouldn't be a big surprise that Starfleet didn't necessarily want word out that they had built a ship to be a straight-up brawler, not to mention it had a cloaking device too.

If the Defiant is unofficial considered a warship, shouldn't the Galaxy class, Nebula, class, Akira class, Prometheus class, and Sovereign class starships be, too?

The Defiant was designed as a warship, and only a warship. Everything else you mentioned had other roles, ones which could lead them to having to defend themselves (this goes triple for the more exploring types); since Starfleet seems to value their ships and crews, they would want them to be able to defend themselves as well as possible. Even the designation of "escort" implies a defensive role, and not even necessarily a highly-armed one (defending freighters or VIP's from pirates, etc). But warship implies offensive power, and no other purpose.

Agreed.

I figured that Starfleet just didn't have that particular tick-box on the form when they designed her.

It says "Ship Type" Hmm... Not Ambassador, Medical, or Exploration-

Just check "Escort". Good enough.

 

[bbjeg]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Out of the choices the Galaxy Class, after the Dominion upgrades is the strongest. The Steamrunner Class, after the Dominion upgrades, would tie the Defiant for 2nd in my opinion. The Steamrunner/heavy frigate class is designed to take damage and, with ablative armor, could hold it's own against the Defiant long enough to damage back, though the Defiant is a good mix of attack and defense. The Galaxy Class wins out of the three simply because it could put out and take more than both.

The Sovereign Class would trump all of them though. The Defiant would be blown to pieces against Shinzon's ship.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Decided to reupload this for the sake of discussion. there are some really interesting bits about the Galaxy classes torpedo capabilities. That I don't think we ever saw in the show. Makes you think that things may have been differently for the ENT-D and the Odyssey. If torpedoes were deployed during the fights that ultimately led to their destruction.

From the 2009 release of Star Trek The Next Generation movie collection. On the disc titles Star Trek Evolutions.

The Evolution of the Enterprise
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnqAbgaZIuI&feature=youtu.be[/yt]

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

I not sure if it was evidence but I think the episode the poster is talking about is in season 7 called "The Dogs of War".

"The Dogs of War" is the episode in question, but there's no on-screen evidence that Sisko asked for the Sao Paulo. All we know is that it's the ship he received. The why is never made clear.

--Sran

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Decided to reupload this for the sake of discussion. there are some really interesting bits about the Galaxy classes torpedo capabilities. That I don't think we ever saw in the show. Makes you think that things may have been differently for the ENT-D and the Odyssey. If torpedoes were deployed during the fights that ultimately led to their destruction.

From the 2009 release of Star Trek The Next Generation movie collection. On the disc titles Star Trek Evolutions.

Two things:

1. That's an interesting video, but it's not cannon and is therefore not applicable to this discussion.

2. Why is it so difficult for you to type in complete sentences? Your posts are littered with sentence fragments and broken English, making them harder to read than they need to be.

--Sran

 

[Richard Baker]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

I am voting for the Akira class - it has some unique design features which unfortunately were not shown well on screen. It has 15 torpedo launchers - the roll-bar pod has them facing multiple directions and the primary hull has twin sets aimed port and starboard. I can just see to warp-jumping into an enemy formation, firing in all directions and warping out again. The number of launchers seems huge, but when you look at the model that is the correct number. It also has a forward launching and stern receiving shuttle system- it can deploy combat shuttles into combat and protect them when they return with the catamaran hulls. The ship is about the size of a Galaxy class saucer but has six type 10 phaser banks and a consolidated design,everything tucked in with the bridge protected by the hull shapes on each side.
IMO one of the best ship designs added to the fleet in First Contact and never given decent screen time- either it was too new to appear in numbers or they thought it might upstage that shampoo bottle Sisko flew.
(sorry for that dig but I never did care for the Defiant that much...)

 

[Timo]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

The odd thing about the Akira is that most of its supposed torpedo tubes are never seen firing, even when they rightfully should: there's no reason not to fire a full load of (at least forward) weapons at the essentially unresisting Borg at Picard's say-so.

Also, the design only appears to have three phaser strips, failing to cover most of the aft angles.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Praetor]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Probably. The "I thought Starfleet didn't believe in warships?" quip by Kira was always undeserving of an answer, containing in itself the implication that Starfleet has plenty of warships it shies away from properly designating as such...

Timo Saloniemi

This, a thousand times this.

 

[TheSubCommander]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Slightly off topic, I wish that DS9 had used an All Good Things Galaxy refit in WYLB!

 

[bbjeg]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Slightly off topic, I wish that DS9 had used an All Good Things Galaxy refit in WYLB!

They should have, I mean why not?

 

[Richard Baker]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

The odd thing about the Akira is that most of its supposed torpedo tubes are never seen firing, even when they rightfully should: there's no reason not to fire a full load of (at least forward) weapons at the essentially unresisting Borg at Picard's say-so.

Also, the design only appears to have three phaser strips, failing to cover most of the aft angles.

Timo Saloniemi

Picard arrived in mid battle- the Akira shown might have almost emptied it's magazines by then...
I need to pull out the 1/1400 scale model I have and check the details- some of the Phasers might just be short segments like on the aft secondary hull on the Galaxy class.
I do think the ship was well designed to fight, but it was not a hero ship and you cannot upstage the focal point in a show...

 

[Richard Baker]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Slightly off topic, I wish that DS9 had used an All Good Things Galaxy refit in WYLB!

They should have, I mean why not?

It would have been cool I think, but logically if you were trying to put as many ships into combat as you can, spending resources on a refit does not make sense. also, the Refit Galaxy class was from the future, the massive beam of death mega phaser might not be fielded yet.
In the section on the DS-9 Tech Manual with the Dominion War ships it was mentioned that many of the Galaxy class ships seen in the fleet were not complete vessels- some had 65% of there internal volume empty. The idea was to get ships into the fight, even if it was a cobbled up hull with just engines and some weapons. I know the DS-9 Tech Manual is not canon, but that does make sense.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Rewatching Call to Arms last night, it occurs to me that the Galaxies don't put up a big showing. In this episode, and it seems in others, the Galaxies do significant damage against the larger Dominion and Cardassian ships. However, they are always turning away from the front line. They never "punch through," which seems to be the Allies' objective in bigger battles. Of course, their are production reasons for this: it looks good to have the ship sweep back while the phasers on the underside are firing, and visual effects tended to be reused. However, it undermines the argument that the Galaxies were difference makers in the war.

 

[kgartm1185]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

The odd thing about the Akira is that most of its supposed torpedo tubes are never seen firing, even when they rightfully should: there's no reason not to fire a full load of (at least forward) weapons at the essentially unresisting Borg at Picard's say-so.

Also, the design only appears to have three phaser strips, failing to cover most of the aft angles.

Timo Saloniemi

Exactly. An Akira class vessel is supposed to have a total of 15 torpedo tubes.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

^Unless that's explicitly stated on screen, it's not cannon.

--Sran

 

[Richard Baker]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

They are shown on the cgi model used in the film. It does not need to be spoken to be canon.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Do we actually see fifteen of them?

--Sran

 

[Praetor]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

I guess this is also the appropriate time to discuss Galaxy Wings? Memory Alpha speculates that they are made up entirely of Galaxy class starships, and dialog indicates there were wings numbered Nine-One and Nine-Three. I presume this to mean Ninth Fleet, Wing One, and Ninth Fleet, Group Three. It gets a lot messier (and Starfleet a log bigger) if it's ninety-one and ninety-three. Memory Alpha also asserts that analysis of this battle shows ten discernible Galaxy class starships.

IIRC, the DS9 TM speculates that the other six Galaxy class spaceframes that had been partially constructed, were rushed to completion to meet the Dominion threat. Accounting for the destruction of the Enterprise, Odyssey, and Yamato, that gives us a potential nine, unless there's another batch of six and therefore fifteen total. I don't believe we've ever actually seen a Galaxy that could not have been from the original batch, have we? (VGR's Challenger appeared to be from the first batch, if registy counts. Which it doesn't, really.) Speaking of VGR, how many Galaxys did we see in "Endgame?" So if MA is correct and there are 10 separate ships, at the very least we have to conclude there was one more six-batch to account for Galaxy 10.

I see no reason why the aforementioned Galaxy wings need to be made solely of Galaxys, either. Why could it not be a Galaxy class ship and its escorts, forming a battle group, which is asserted in the article comments on MA? Other battle groups might be Ambassador wings or Excelsior wings, with the titular ships forming center in each. Having enough Galaxys to create entire wings of them creates an IMO unrealistic presentation of Starfleet based on everything else we've seen.

On the other hand, if Starfleet really does have a hundred or more Galaxy class starships, that explains why we don't see many Ambassadors or other ship classes in large numbers, doesn't it?

 

[kgartm1185]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

^Unless that's explicitly stated on screen, it's not cannon.

--Sran

It's canon not cannon. And anyways it's called using your eyes and that the Akira class was in a sense a "torpedo cruiser".

 

[Jono]

Re: What is the strongest ship in the Federation fleet in the Dominion

Do we actually see fifteen of them?

--Sran

They are shown on the cgi model used in the film. It does not need to be spoken to be canon.

Funny thing is the 15 torpedo launchers is from designer who also dubbed the Akira as a "fighter carrier" and if you look at the model itself you actually get a different number. It looks like it has an additional 6 launchers facing aft in the rear pod, and 4 more (2 port, 2 starboard) on the lower half of the saucer. So going by the model you have 25 launchers instead of a modest 15.

As for being a fighter carrier, the designer described it has having a through-deck shuttlebay. Which is also questionable as what are meant to be the forward launch doors when scaled to the apparent size of the Akira wouldn't be very big and some of the bigger shuttles would struggle to fit through.

I guess it comes down to how much stock you put into the intentions of the designer versus what you see on screen. To be fair I guess you can say there is enough to suggest, but nothing that explicitly states that the Akira doesn't have 15+ launchers.

I guess this is also the appropriate time to discuss Galaxy Wings? Memory Alpha speculates that they are made up entirely of Galaxy class starships, and dialog indicates there were wings numbered Nine-One and Nine-Three. I presume this to mean Ninth Fleet, Wing One, and Ninth Fleet, Group Three.

Given that the Ninth Fleet failed to make it to the battle it is unlikely the wings were from the Ninth Fleet.