I once hypothesized that when the Federation was founded, Starfleet was a lot more militaristic than it eventually became in TOS and TNG. But then ENT showed me that Starfleet was just as militarily inept as it's always been.
Well, if your Organization is run by incompetence, guess what happens. And Archer wasn't the best person to choose as Captain, but he's the one we got. We all know the blunders he made in the first 2 seasons of ST:ENT.
I was going to hit like for this post until the last two sentences. I totally agree with the idea that traditional armor might be useless in Starfleet tactical situations. However, there's nothing wrong with being interested in how Starfleet works in a military/policing function. In fact, policing might be a better comparison. There's no guarantee you are going to be in a fight, but no guarantee you won't either. It seems most police organizations evolved from a more army-like structure, whereas Starfleet is more naval. A split heritage for Starfleet might be the very reason why some of their choices are hard to understand.
They should have rushed Defiant production First and foremost. The main reason for such a small ship designed to fight the Borg, is to minimise the number of crew required to operate the ship and thus prevent Wolf 359 again, 11000 personal were lost out of those 39 ships. Send a crew with 50 people on basically a weapons platform and thus thats why we have the Defiant. 11,000 divided by 50 means you can have 220 ships, instead of 40. In the DS9 episode "The Search" which chronicles the Defiant's first appearance and it's history. "The Defiant was the prototype, the first ship in what would have been a new Federation battle fleet." This would seem to imply Starfleet would not have deployed ONE ship but to have them in mass. In essence operate like a pack of wolves than a single predator. The Sovereign or Galaxy class is an Explorer-Battleship hybrid; meant to show the flag and serve it's diplomatic and scientific roles but if NEED be, defend itself or put up an offensive. Very large warships have historically been built for ego more than practicality as seen in World War II, as navies transitioned from battleships to aircraft carriers, infamous navies like the UK and US saw their pinnacle ships sank by cheap airplanes. The cost of production is not necessarily a factor, time to produce is. The Defiant's size simplified manufacturing, If I can make six to ten Defiant-class ships in the same time as it takes to make one big Cruiser, I will always take the fleet of ships over the one.
What ships SHOULD they have used in the Dominion War? The answer is obvious: every ship. The real question is, What wartime ships should have been constructed? First, do you already have warships in construction? Increase production of these. Next, do you already have plans to begin construction of warships? Accelerate production of these. Second, do you already have multipurpose but combat capable ships in construction? Repurpose these to warships and accelerate construction of these. Now this is where it gets a bit more complicated, and it depends on the empire’s focus. Is it short or long-termed? In other words, you want your empire to win the war, and—and this is the important part—to be well-situated after the war. That means construction of multipurpose ships should not cease entirely but should remain at least slightly higher in proportion to your competitors combined. This will give your empire the best possible chance to win the war and best possible situation after the war. So, for the Federtion, for example, it would mean constructing a number of warships, such as Defiant class, repurposing a number of multipurpose starships, such as Excelsior class, and constructing a limited number of new multipurpose starships, such as the Intrepid class. Meanwhile, all ships would be put to the war except a handful of those reserved to generate a good situation post war.
So…do you use old Frankenships as wild weasels and try to keep the newest at home…or the opposite. Once the war is over, the Hathaway is good enough for standard missions…
It's all relative to your competitors and any possible new postwar rivals. Probably, an empire would want to keep in reserve at least some of its most advanced starships for as long as possible in order to capitalize as much as possible on the postwar situation. Of course, it would be a delicate balance. You wouldn’t want to reserve forces that could decisively win the war early on, but you also wouldn’t want to sacrifice forces so as to disable your postwar dominance compared to your competitors. The Hathaway would be a good example of a starship kept in reserve, if the war took place during its best service years, before its retirement years. That is not to say that all Hathaway type ships should have been kept in reserve or that all should have been sent to war. You’d have to balance it out as circumstances dictated. But, once they are mostly past their best service years, most could probably be sent to the war where they could still be relevant with cheap upgrades.
The Norway may be some sort of support vessel built with war in mind. Something analogous to an armed merchantman. Or, perhaps the Norway was an attempt at an anti-Borg ship, which turned out to have a mediocre performance. So only a few were built.
Interesting idea. If that were the case, then perhaps the Borg Collective was able to assimilate such a vessel early in its career thus rendering its effectiveness against them rather mediocre. On the other hand, if Starfleet designed it to carry a mission-specific “tail” unit, then its design might still carry relevance even after the Borg threat had diminished.
My headcanon for Miranda-class ships in the Dominion War was that they were set up as automated weapons drones, intentionally unmanned and disposable. We know from TNG that by the 2360s Mirandas had crews of less than 40, and sometimes less than 30. For a ship more-or-less the same volume as a Constitution-class ship, designed for a crew of between 200 and 400, this seems remarkably low, indicating that Mirandas must have been heavily automated by that time. By the 2370s it should be simple to kit out Mirandas with a few bioneural gel packs and have them be completely automated for essential functions, slaved to other ships. They are literally cannon fodder, intended to pull fire from enemy ships while providing covering fire of their own.
Two classes I find particularly intriguing are the New Orleans and the Yeagar. The New Orleans might be worth continued production, if at a low rate. A general purpose, jack-of-all-trades that, nevertheless, proved useful in combat during the border wars. As for arming the Yeagars, I imagine bolting on torpedo pods from the New Orleans saucer section.
The Derf class. Given the vulnerability of traditional subspace infrastructure-which was attacked in "Silent Enemy" (ENT)-some other means of superluminal signaling is needed.
True! I always imagined a Derf class warp tender with a Fenlon class monitor in tow as an escort wherever it went. Those were the days!
Yeah, it was. But I was much more of a child back then. The Fenlon did not have warp engines, so it had to be brought along by a warp capable ship, such as the Derf, and then it could serve as a sublight escort. Crazy.
Sentry or picket maybe... Escort strongly implies movement to me (although they are as you note capable of relativistic velocities).