What Kind of Logistical Support Does A Fleet of Starships Require?

[Dayton3]

Even with things like the Dominion War, the issue of logistics has seldom been addressed in Star Trek.

In our world, logistics is everything when it comes to military force

There is a saying that goes something like "armchair generals talk strategy, real generals talk logistics".

The implication being that supplying your forces with what they need when they need it means a great deal more than where you move the guys with the guns.

What kind of logistical support would a fleet of starships require? Except for vague mention occasionally of "supply lines" on DS9 this seldom comes up.

It seems to me that the only thing a fleet of starships would need is antimatter and dilithium.

The ST:TNG Technical Manual mentions that antimatter is a very high value cargo that must be escorted and we know of the Federations dependence on dilithium.

So supply lines in the later ST eras would probably be concentrated on delivering antimatter, dilithium, major components for damaged ships, and replacement personnel for those killed in action.

 

[Verteron]

It seems to me that the only thing a fleet of starships would need is antimatter and dilithium.

The ST:TNG Technical Manual mentions that antimatter is a very high value cargo that must be escorted and we know of the Federations dependence on dilithium.

So supply lines in the later ST eras would probably be concentrated on delivering antimatter, dilithium, major components for damaged ships, and replacement personnel for those killed in action.

Well, this is true, but in time of war it might be infeasible to replicate damaged or destroyed components of your ships, due to the energy being better spent on other war-related activities (such as warp drive to send your fleet to the next battle, or plasma to power your phasers and torpedos), so there might be a need for replacement components to be shipped to the front lines from mass production facilities across your territories.

I think you're right with the idea that starships are likely to be more self-reliant than modern day warships, though, being, as they are, entire fleets unto themselves with their own long-duration power generation facilities and not needing supplies or munitions in the traditional sense. Most starships seem to be designed to be autonomous for 3 to 5 years, which is longer than any surface ship or submarine today (although nuclear powered vessels don't need fuel -- they still need food).

A point I've just thought of also comes to mind: I doubt you'd want to supply every ship to its maximum capacity when fighting, since losing the ship would most likely entail losing all that precious fuel too. You'd surely fuel ships to a minimum (+ contingency) and hold your refueling facilities back far away from the front lines, possibly tankers at random locations in high warp between solar systems where they couldn't be easily found?

 

[Dayton3]

^Very good ideas.

It might've been good to have seen an episode featuring an antimatter tanker hiding in the vastness of space, largely unprotected, darting from point to point when they think the coast is clear to rendevous with Starfleet ships.

 

[Timo]

I agree with Verteron that the normally almost completely self-sufficient starships would find it unfeasible to do all their self-sustaining by themselves. When given time, a ship like Voyager could probably create its own antimatter by harvesting enough fusion fuel and using that up in running the charge-flipping gadget that is reputedly aboard at least Galaxy class starships. She could probably also replicate dilithium, as it has never been indicated that the replication of any substance would be technologically impossible - it just seems to be impractical given the usual material, energy and time resources of a starship.

In the heat of combat, ships would start expending their resources too fast for onboard replacement of even fairly simple things. In the final battles of DS9, we hear the Defiant is running out of torpedoes, so at least the smallest starships would need ordnance resupply. Ditto for the Voyager, whose torpedo reserves originally were critically low but could later be replenished, apparently only with the help of outside resources.

Also, while Kirk in "Mark of Gideon" maintains that energy should never run out aboard a starship that is idled on orbit and only has two people aboard, that it in fact "regenerates", we also hear Kirk being handed a "fuel consumption report" to sign in "The Deadly Years", an episode that does not involve fierce maneuvering or long deployment runs or anything like that by that point of the story. Apparently, a non-idled starship does have to mind her fuel consumption to a degree, and can suffer at least temporary lows that would require tanker assistance.

It's regrettable we never saw logistics like this in onscreen Trek. TNG did feature supply ships for performing crew rotation and probably also bringing aboard critical supplies, but those tiny Oberths never docked, nor seemed like they could be moving bulk consumables.

And DS9, a Cardassian mining and intimidation outpost rather than a true starbase, was probably a net recipient of logistics, yet somehow managed to maintain the runabouts and the Defiant and acted as a command post for a mighty fleet. One would suppose this fleet handled its own logistics somehow, even if using the cargo holds and tanks of DS9 for storage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mysterion]

^^^^^
Mayhaps all the ore production facilities were re-purposed to store (and DS9 is pretty big, figure it can store quite a bit of stuff) and distribute various consumables. You've got all those docking ports where (presumably cardassian freighter used to load/off-load ore and/or whatever finished product was being produced from the ore that can now be used to re-fuel or re-provision ships docked at the station.

 

[Timo]

There'd be a big difference between loading ore into the holds of a transport and loading fuel into the tanks of a combat starship, though. In technical details, I mean - the machinery that loaded ore would have to be modified rather extremely to be able to hit a completely different target and to pump a completely different substance.

But I trust the Cardassians already had some provisions for refueling their ore transports simultaneously with loading them, for efficiency's sake. It would have been necessary to send a big bad tanker to the station every now and then to provide fuel for its own reactors, and some of that fuel could have been stored for delivery to visiting transports. Still, as Terok Nor wasn't an actual fleet base, it might have been ill equipped to regularly supply a group of Galors with fuel, ammo, spares and whatnot.

Or can we think of some mechanism by which Terok Nor or DS9 could have been a net supplier of things like fuel? Would it be able to siphon in interplanetary hydrogen or tap into the magnetosphere of the local sun or something? Would these mechanisms still work in the Denorios Belt when the station was originally built to operate on low Bajoran orbit? Things must have been much easier when there was a Class M planet within transporter range...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Konundrum]

I tend to default to contemporary comparisons as much as possible, since they present real world problems with the real world solutions - solutions that I expect to be much the same 400 years from now as 400 years ago.

Starships would require resupply of fuel, parts, weapons and food primarily. I know fans tend to believe in the magic of replicators, but subatomically reconfiguring elements to construct new items has to be an enormous expenditure of energy, and thus, fuel. I believe a ship's ability to replenish essentials would be a redundancy, not a primary method of its operation under ordinary circumstances (long-duration missions to far-flung territories not withstanding).

In a Trek RPG I play in, my ship's small taskforce uses supply lines. We have a small local base that is resupplied every few weeks by a huge bulk freighter making trips back and forth from home territory, and we have another supply ship serving as a supply and repair tender in the field for the ships of the taskforce that replenishes itself at that base.

Seems a logical scenario to me. In the case of ships with huge patrol areas, then I wouuld expect scheduled rendezvous would be the way to handle it.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

It all depends on what amount of the "ilities" one designs or desires in your project/ship or program. Each one (system / project / ship class) would probably be drastically different, given the operating area(s), mission, etc.

By "ilities" I mean the 3 big ones below, and many others. They are:

Availability
Reliability
Maintainability

(And no, I didn't make that term up -- its regularly used in the DoD Program Management & Life Cycle Logistics courses I've been taking.)

Also, all 10 elements of logistics should/need to be addressed, regardless, to ensure success:

(1) Maintenance Planning
(2) Manpower & Personnel
(3) Supply Support
(4) Support Equipment
(5) Training & Support
(6) Technical Data
(7) Computer Resources Support
(8) Facilities
(9) Packaging, Handling, Storage, & Transportation
(10) Design Interface

Sorry for the long-winded answer, but there you go... Some RL stuff to chew on. One other item of note: reliability and maintainability are NOT the same issue. Think about it for a while and the differences are obvious.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[Konundrum]

I thought I should also point out that a lot of those cases and barrels seen in cargo bays in Trek have "Starfleet Material Command" stamped on them - so there is already a canon establishment of logistics and supply lines.