Why a Defiant Class?

[Lighthammer]

I'm getting close to the end of my rewatch of DS9 and something keeps sticking in my mind every time I get to this point.

At this point in the war effort, Sisko leads many of the major encounters in the war.

Being the field fleet commander, it keeps sticking in my head: Why is he commanding the fleet from a Defiant class ship?

An escort ship is small, easily destroyed compared to bigger ships, usually lacks enough antennas / channels to properly maintain communication with the rest of the fleet, lacks personnel to help manage all the fleet operations and lacks science equipment to help properly diagnose the conflict to help in making tactical decisions.

The defiant is great for escort missions and short military survey missions. Afterall, that's what's designed for. But, its absolutely NOT a ship designed with the idea to command fleets.

If Admiral Ross wants Sisko commanding the fleet, that's great for him, but shouldn't he have a ship to take into battle that's a little more up to the task of commanding the fleet? He should absolutely have a heavy cruiser assigned to DS9 for that purpose. A Nebula class would have been the minimum sized ship he should have been commanding but one of the upgraded Excelsoirs, Ambassadors or Galaxy class ships is what he really should have been riding into battle with if he was the fleets C&C, or at the very least a wing commander.

It would have made more sense for the Defiant to always remain close to the station. Heck, it would have made more sense to see the Defiant more actively orbiting the station along with that Yeager class we usually see rather then constantly docked when it wasn't on mission. I mean lets face it, DS9 only ever seemed to have one other (including the Defiant) support vessel from Star Fleet on patrol around DS9. I can certainly forgive not having heavy cruisers there, but it always felt like there should have been 3-5 Akira, Norway or Streamrunner type ships there at all times. Heck taking that a step further, it would have made more sense with Sisko ridding one of those in fleet command situations over a Defiant class (not that that really would have made a lot of sense EITHER).

 

[Relayer1]

The Defiant was a purpose designed warship - almost unheard of for Starfleet. Very overpowered with heavy shields and huge offensive capability.

It may have been small but was the equal of a full sized starship.

 

[DS9forever]

"She may be small, but she has teeth". I'd rather be on the Defiant, given that the bridge is a lot more protected than those on the Enterprises or Voyager.

 

[Lighthammer]

The Defiant was a purpose designed warship - almost unheard of for Starfleet. Very overpowered with heavy shields and huge offensive capability.

It may have been small but was the equal of a full sized starship.

Equal is a highly subjective term, but based on the stats, I easily believe it can match cruisers in firepower.

The problem is *ALL THE OTHER* logistical issues.

You don't ride a ship into combat as the commander for it's sheer firepower, you ride it into combat because it gives you the tools to direct the battle effort.

The defiant class has very limited sensor technology, very limited communication technology, etc, etc.

As you said, it's meant for battle --- not much of anything else.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Because Sisko is the focus of the show.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The only things the Defiant really lacked were luxuries for its crew (like large private cabins, a rec room, and a holodeck). It didn't have dedicated science labs like an exploration vessel would, but otherwise, it had the same sort of onboard systems most other vessels had.

 

[MacLeod]

The Defiant Classes sensor pallets should be more than adequate for combat missions.

 

[C.E. Evans]

In "The Sound of Her Voice," the Defiant seemed fully able to conduct scientific scans.

 

[-Brett-]

That's a lot of interesting fan fiction about the capabilities of these vehicles. It's important to remember that your fan fic has no bearing on the actual lore.

 

[Lighthammer]

If you guys don't understand my points, I'm not sure there's much else I can say on the topic.

I can really easily respond to every comment made in this thread, but the fact is, I already addressed them in my opening post.

Having a defiant class run the show is like having a U-Boat running fleet operations during World War 2. Sure, they can provide major feedback, but they aren't going to be the boat running the operations of a fleet.

At the end of the day, there's only two reasons in reality this happened IMHO:

#1.) Oversight on the part of Berman & Co.

#2.) Budget not allowing for it.

That's a lot of interesting fan fiction about the capabilities of these vehicles. It's important to remember that your fan fic has no bearing on the actual lore.

"Fan Fic" ? --- there's a ton of documentation on these topics in stuff like Star Trek The Magazine and other canon sources. You don't even need to go into other forms of literature.

Based on all canon literature, Defiant class ships just aren't setup or capable of running fleet operations.

Heck, part of the reason for developing the Nova class ships into a virtual mobile sensor platform / communication hub was entirely because bigger, older cruiser class ships typically in charge of fleet operations (Excelsior and Ambassador class ships) weren't capable of commanding *ALL* the fleet operations. Nova Class ships essentially acted as a tethered communication satalite for those heavy cruisers.

If those class ships weren't capable of commanding fleet operations --- how the heck does one expect a Defiant class ship to?

 

[robau]

That's a lot of interesting fan fiction about the capabilities of these vehicles. It's important to remember that your fan fic has no bearing on the actual lore.

In other words, you have nothing. The OP makes a lot of good points and I'd like to see an actual argument rather than useless dismissive posts.

 

[Knight Templar]

Well, based on modern American naval practice, an admiral is based upon a carrier generally to command a carrier battle group. of course the carrier air wing is the "teeth" of the CBG and also has the best sensor and communications systems (thanks to the Hawkeye AEW aircraft).

But in terms of overall command of an entire fleet. As in the 5th, 6th, or 7th U.S. fleets, the admiral in command is aboard a specialized command and control ship which is actually rather lightly armed.

One of the things I think story wise is that if you put Sisko aboard a Galaxy or a Nebula class ship you will instantly separate him from his "crew" aboard the Defiant and thus end up with structural problems.

 

[Lighthammer]

One of the things I think story wise is that if you put Sisko aboard a Galaxy or a Nebula class ship you will instantly separate him from his "crew" aboard the Defiant and thus end up with structural problems.

First off thanks for the support on the end of the arguments =). I was hoping at least someone would see the point.

You're right in some respects and of course the in series reasons on some level came down to budget (although I still tend to think there was a ton of oversight too).

In a situation where you have a ship allocated to a station for fleet operations, its really not out of the question to bring bring your XO, CMO, CSO as well as a few key officers (like Nog) with you when you did a mission like this. The one point that becomes a bit hard to swallow is allocating O'Brian to be chief engineer of something like a heavy cruiser. That's hard to justify.

But putting those points aside --- it really is odd to pull the majority of the officers they usually did whenever taking the Defiant out. In an ideal world, I would really only expect Sisko to take Worf, Dax and MAYBE Bashir with him. Worf's whole job on DS9 was essentially managing fleet operations and Dax's duties post start of the war were really more useful serving various other command related duties in the same vein that Data filled on the Enterprise. Not exactly science, but not exactly command either (keep in mind, Data was the Enterprise's CSO, in addition to being the Ops manager and the second officer --- a fact often forgot since he wears gold instead of blue).

Its really not a problem having a heavy cruiser on patrol duties without its CO, XO or CSO on board at all times if that's its secondary function, especially if it's merely orbiting the station where it's commander's primary residence is.

Again, in an ideal world, O'Brian probably never would have left DS9, because after all, he was the Starfleet Core of Engineers head haunch-o on DS9. He already has *A LOT* on his plate with ship repairs and station upkeep. One would think he really doesn't have time to go galavanting along with the Defiant crew unless a particular mission required his services as fleet supervisor for SCE.

The verdict, IMHO, isn't clear where Bashir is involved. Sure he's a genetically engineered doctor with a lot of strategic insight that really comes in handy to have on missions. But that being said, one would think that DS9 would need it's CMO or at least another doctor that operates at that level in the absence of the CMO. DS9 seemingly has some of the best medical facilities in the region. If DS9 is a base of operations for ship repair, one would think that status alone would also keep their sickbay pretty busy too for similar reasons as SCE (IE damaged ships having damaged medical facilities or not enough medical facilities to care for all their wounded).

For that matter, we know Admiral Ross has a ship he's obviously controlled various encounters from. Which ship is that? The only one that springs to mind that he might be commanding is the Bellerophon. With its more advanced systems, I could PROBABLY see this ship being a good C&C ship for a fleet commander and it certainly seems as though Admiral Ross has a lot of room on that ship that didn't feel like they were "mission specific". It has one of the most advanced sensory arrays in the fleet. The only thing I would question is: does it have systems and personnel adequate for maintaining fleet communications. Possibly (provided it was equipped specifically for that mission - the ship design seems to have room for that kind of configuration).

At the end of the day, I guess my real point is a lot of these things just don't make a lot of sense to me.

To me, the only real reasonable explanation still comes down one of two things:

#1.) Oversight on the part of Berman & Co.

#2.) Budget.

 

[Ian Keldon]

WWII admirals commanded from the fighting bridge all the time. Sisko would have access to a lot more data than his 1940s counterparts would. He's not directing every individual ship himself after all.

 

[Knight Templar]

I find it hard to take the fleet battles in Star Trek seriously because all you see tactics wise are "Battle of Britain swoop and shoot" when you should see both sides trying to maintain formation with their own fleets and concentrate torpedo fire against enemy vessels.

In the Dominion War, it made ZERO sense for the generally larger Starfleet ships to get involved in "space dogfights".

But that is what happens when your producers and FX people have all "seen it in Star Wars".

Of course, even worse than the World War II era tactics is the World War ONE dialogue about the battles.

"The Dominion has cut our lines in two places!".

How in the hell would you have "lines" in a space battle!!!!

They don't even use that terminology in naval battles from decades ago. Much less now.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

In response to the question, according to the ST novel "The Return", the Defiant-class is overpowered for its size, with the firepower of three Galaxy-Class vessels.

 

[Lighthammer]

I find it hard to take the fleet battles in Star Trek seriously because all you see tactics wise are "Battle of Britain swoop and shoot" when you should see both sides trying to maintain formation with their own fleets and concentrate torpedo fire against enemy vessels.

In the Dominion War, it made ZERO sense for the generally larger Starfleet ships to get involved in "space dogfights".

But that is what happens when your producers and FX people have all "seen it in Star Wars".

Of course, even worse than the World War II era tactics is the World War ONE dialogue about the battles.

"The Dominion has cut our lines in two places!".

How in the hell would you have "lines" in a space battle!!!!

They don't even use that terminology in naval battles from decades ago. Much less now.

Yea, that's been a lot of my consensus too.

I'm ok with them describing many fleet maneuvers instead of trying to show them on screen. If they showed a large chunk of the fleet engagements on screen, they'd chew threw their CG/FX budget in 1/5 of a season.

That being said, a lot of their observations in fleet deployments didn't make much sense and really feels like it suffered from lack of research on the part of Berman & Co. Heck, most maneuvers felt very much like they were tackling them in a 2D playing field and not a 3D playing field.

In response to the question, according to the ST novel "The Return", the Defiant-class is overpowered for its size, with the firepower of three Galaxy-Class vessels.

Raw ship firepower != the ability to command a fleet.

Haven't we established that enough times in this thread already =(.

 

[Knight Templar]

If you want to get technical, a single U.S. Navy Ohio class ballistic missile submarine has enough firepower (thanks to its 100+ nuclear warheads) to destroy every naval vessel in the world all by itself.

but you would not want to try commanding a fleet from one.

 

[Lighthammer]

If you want to get technical, a single U.S. Navy Ohio class ballistic missile submarine has enough firepower (thanks to its 100+ nuclear warheads) to destroy every naval vessel in the world all by itself.

but you would not want to try commanding a fleet from one.

I think that eloquently makes my point for this entire thread :-|

 

[-Brett-]

Based on all canon literature...

Well there's your problem. Ain't no such thing.

If it wasn't said in front of a camera, it's fan fiction.