Something I noticed about Photon Torpedoes in DS9

[Prozac the Robert]

Hmm, if you took something like the galaxy class, and crammed it full of torpedo tubes, say around 50, would anything be able to last long enough against it to take advantage of its structural weaknesses?

Running out of torps wouldn't be a big problem if the ships were used as part of a fleet rather than lone ships on extended missions.

[Alyeska]

The Akira class already has the torpedo count. 15 tubes is a LOT when you think about the volume of fire they are capable of.

[Allbran_Sustain]

Torpedoes require guidance lock and a computer targeting system that can handle them. Furthermore a ship that relies to heavily on torpedoes will lack phasers. You run out of torpedoes, your out of guns. Last of all to many launchers creates weak point in the hull.

The computers on a GCS are good enough to multitarget so there shouldn't be a problem in that department.
I agree that if a ship relied only on torps then it would be useless. However, if the same number of phasers were kept on the current designs and they simply added extra torp launchers then there shouldn't be any problem.
About the weak points. I have to disagree with you there. There are many windows on a GCS and they don't seem to lower the integrity of the ship, so torp launchers could be placed onto the ship in a similar fashion to the windows ie they ensure the new torp launchers don't ruin the hull strength.

[Allbran_Sustain]

Hmm, if you took something like the galaxy class, and crammed it full of torpedo tubes, say around 50, would anything be able to last long enough against it to take advantage of its structural weaknesses?

LoL, thats a good point. Also, why not keep the current number of phaser arrays? There is no need to remove them.

Imagine if the shuttle bays were replaced by torp launchers. The enemy sees the shuttle bay doors open and gets a nasty shock when 10 torp launchers pop out

[Rogue 9]

ah, that makes sense. It would help avoid accidents and the enemy fire causing internal detonations.

But the antimatter's still on the ship. Its just not in the torpedoes; all the enemy needs to do is hit the "powder magazine" as it were instead of the ordnance itself and you're back to square one with that problem. That said, the antimatter is probably stored as far inside the ship as they can get it to avoid that scenario.

Imagine if the shuttle bays were replaced by torp launchers. The enemy sees the shuttle bay doors open and gets a nasty shock when 10 torp launchers pop out

Frankly, rather than replace the shuttle bays, I'd replace the shuttles in the bays with fighters. But that's a separate issue altogether.

[Allbran_Sustain]

Frankly, rather than replace the shuttle bays, I'd replace the shuttles in the bays with fighters. But that's a separate issue altogether.

I would take a shuttle bay full of torp launchers over a few fighters any day.

[Striderteen]

Torpedoes require guidance lock and a computer targeting system that can handle them. Furthermore a ship that relies to heavily on torpedoes will lack phasers. You run out of torpedoes, your out of guns. Last of all to many launchers creates weak point in the hull.

Then why not create a class of dedicated torpedo frigates? Given the size of torpedo launchers and torpedoes themselves, it should be possible to pack an Intrepid-size spaceframe with twenty to thirty proton or quantum torpedo tubes and provide enough magazine space to sustain maximum-rate fire from all of them for several minutes of continous fire.

[Alyeska]

Torpedoes require guidance lock and a computer targeting system that can handle them. Furthermore a ship that relies to heavily on torpedoes will lack phasers. You run out of torpedoes, your out of guns. Last of all to many launchers creates weak point in the hull.

Then why not create a class of dedicated torpedo frigates? Given the size of torpedo launchers and torpedoes themselves, it should be possible to pack an Intrepid-size spaceframe with twenty to thirty proton or quantum torpedo tubes and provide enough magazine space to sustain maximum-rate fire from all of them for several minutes of continous fire.

You've just described the Akira.

[Striderteen]

Torpedoes require guidance lock and a computer targeting system that can handle them. Furthermore a ship that relies to heavily on torpedoes will lack phasers. You run out of torpedoes, your out of guns. Last of all to many launchers creates weak point in the hull.

Then why not create a class of dedicated torpedo frigates? Given the size of torpedo launchers and torpedoes themselves, it should be possible to pack an Intrepid-size spaceframe with twenty to thirty proton or quantum torpedo tubes and provide enough magazine space to sustain maximum-rate fire from all of them for several minutes of continous fire.

You've just described the Akira.

The Akira has fifteen torpedo tubes, but the fact that we've never seen one go all out on all fifteen tubes at once would seem to indicate that it doesn't have an enormous magazine capacity to go with all those tubes.

Come to think of it, is the Akira a dedicated warship or yet another multirole starship? Because if it's a multirole, you could probably get the magazine space by pulling out all the non-combat equipment and switching from crew cabins to military bunkage.

[Rogue 9]

If they couldn't use all those torpedo tubes, they wouldn't put them on the ship.

[Striderteen]

If they couldn't use all those torpedo tubes, they wouldn't put them on the ship.

No, but they might have decided to increase the number of torpedo tubes without increasing the number of torpedoes carried, giving the Akira the same total torpedo load as other Federation starships of similar size but allowing it to fire off a much larger alpha strike.

[Sharp-kun]

If they couldn't use all those torpedo tubes, they wouldn't put them on the ship.

They almost certainly could use them, but clearly there was some limiting factor on them, given that we never see them all used.

[Rogue 9]

You think? From what I always saw in the TNG episodes, it looked pretty small. We are talking about the same bay right? The one with little shuttles like the El-Baz? There were only ever 2 or 3 shuttles in the bay at any given time anyway, unless you can remember an episode where you saw more?

Yes, I do think. Quite often, the shuttle operations shown are in Shuttle Bay 2. I can't give you the most shuttles ever seen in the main bay, but I know I've observed at least 5, and they were spread out. The Peregrin tactical fighter is about 18 meters long if I recall correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Jam them in there and I'd call it half a dozen at least, maybe as high as eight. How big are TNG shuttles?

And even so, if we're optimizing the Galaxy for war, what you said about converting cargo space to store more torpedoes goes just as well for hangar space with a little rearranging of the internal compartments.

[Uraniun235]

Torpedo clusters were always 5 torpedoes. 15 torpedoes in a second? That would be most impressive.

Incorrect. The cluster in "Booby Trap" split into 4 torpedos.

I'm pretty sure the non-canon original intent was for the torpedo launchers to have a lot more hardware to them than there is now; take a look at the non-canon TM and see just how much space is taken up by each launcher. It's certainly not something you could just glue onto the exterior of the hull, a la the horribly executed Nemesis torpedo tube additions.

Phaser and photon torpedo mounts don't end at the surface protrusion; they have to require some degree of support hardware underneath, whether it's power lines and coolant systems for the phasers or torpedo stores, torpedo loaders and antimatter lines for the photon torpedo tubes. Sadly, the current breed of designers seems less interested in well-crafted designs and more interested in "LOL how many tubes can we stick on this puppy?"

The Akira class already has the torpedo count. 15 tubes is a LOT when you think about the volume of fire they are capable of.

And yet the footage from First Contact and The Survivors would suggest a Galaxy could beat the shit out of an Akira.

You obviously missed the reason why the U.S. maintains a dozen Nimitz class carriers, is busily building another one, and working on a successor class, and meanwhile canceled the Montana class construction and retired the Iowas. Fighters are a force multiplier and furthermore they can strike at far longer ranges than any ship's guns.

Hey because blue-water naval comparisons are always valid!

Afterall, it makes no sense to build something as large as a nimitz carrier if it will be sunk by a few hundred dollar missile.

You are brain-damaged if you think you can build a guided missile capable of supersonic speeds as well as sinking a multibillion dollar CVN for only a few hundred dollars.

If they couldn't use all those torpedo tubes, they wouldn't put them on the ship.

One theory I've been pondering for a little while is that there's only a few launchers on the Akira, but that they can rotate to use different tubes that are pointing at different angles, giving the Akira a sort of torpedo turret.

[Batman]

A modern day battleship could be 'shielded' the same way a carrier is:with dedicated antiair escorts (read:AEGIS). The reason nobody uses them anymore is
a)a carrier caries a vastly superior offensive potential, with a significantly longer range, for a comparable price tag, and

That is nothing like star trek shileding. AEGIS will intercept some percentage of attacks, but anything that gets through will hurt.

One might argue the same about Trek shields, what with the damage leakage before shield failure and all , but what I was going for was that the vulnerability to aircraft is something shared by ALL modern warships, and as such is largely irellevant to the demise of the battleship

b)what offensive punch a battleship does have can nowadays easily be packed into a cruiser-size vessel.

I'm not convinced on this one. Anyone else?

As a BBs big guns are not going to come into play in a surface/surface engagement thanks to the range of antiship missiles, its only relevant offensive armament are its SSM, which fit on much smaller ships.
And keeping them merely for shore bombardments is a waste of money.

[The Silence and I]

Interesting find, Alyeska, if three were fired in quick succession then it does seem they were not bunched torps, but simply larger ones. If the Saber's type 6 PT's are ~equal to a type 1 QT, what classification would these PT's be? And how close in firepower to a Sovereign's type 2 QT's ?

[Alyeska]

You've seriously irritated me here. You got a fucking different debate going in here and mixed up Trek debate with it. I moved ALL non Trek related crap to this thread and deleted EVERY TREK REFERENCE from it.

Your going to have to post that stuff in here again.

Furthermore if I see any further non Trek debate in here the entire post gets nuked.

[Alyeska]

As to the issue of fighters. It is an extremely easy way to increase the combat effectiveness of current ships without having to do massive expansions. 4 Peregrine Tactical Fighters are sufficent to outright cripple a Dominion upgraded Cardassian Galor Cruiser. Given that the Federation is the only power with beam weapons capable of accurately shooting down fighters this means Starfleet can use Fighters at will against its opponents and they will fair quite well. A handful of fighters can easily turn the ballance in Starfleets favor in a battle. I dare say a half dozen fighters are more then sufficent to take on and cripple a D'Deridex or Vorcha. A GCS can carry ~18 Peregrine Tactical Fighters bassed on it carrying the fighters in all its shuttle bays and cargo bays with external doors.

[Aaron]

As to the issue of fighters. It is an extremely easy way to increase the combat effectiveness of current ships without having to do massive expansions. 4 Peregrine Tactical Fighters are sufficent to outright cripple a Dominion upgraded Cardassian Galor Cruiser. Given that the Federation is the only power with beam weapons capable of accurately shooting down fighters this means Starfleet can use Fighters at will against its opponents and they will fair quite well. A handful of fighters can easily turn the ballance in Starfleets favor in a battle. I dare say a half dozen fighters are more then sufficent to take on and cripple a D'Deridex or Vorcha. A GCS can carry ~18 Peregrine Tactical Fighters bassed on it carrying the fighters in all its shuttle bays and cargo bays with external doors.

Can you provide some evidence of these claims. I've seen DS9 and I don't recall seeing any Fed ships shooting down fighters or fighters destroying a Galor. I'm curious as to how you figure a 1/2 dozen fighters can take down a cruiser or a battlewagon like the D'Deridex, if this was the case then why aren't fighters more widespread?

[Kamakazie Sith]

As to the issue of fighters. It is an extremely easy way to increase the combat effectiveness of current ships without having to do massive expansions. 4 Peregrine Tactical Fighters are sufficent to outright cripple a Dominion upgraded Cardassian Galor Cruiser. Given that the Federation is the only power with beam weapons capable of accurately shooting down fighters this means Starfleet can use Fighters at will against its opponents and they will fair quite well. A handful of fighters can easily turn the ballance in Starfleets favor in a battle. I dare say a half dozen fighters are more then sufficent to take on and cripple a D'Deridex or Vorcha. A GCS can carry ~18 Peregrine Tactical Fighters bassed on it carrying the fighters in all its shuttle bays and cargo bays with external doors.

Can you provide some evidence of these claims. I've seen DS9 and I don't recall seeing any Fed ships shooting down fighters or fighters destroying a Galor. I'm curious as to how you figure a 1/2 dozen fighters can take down a cruiser or a battlewagon like the D'Deridex, if this was the case then why aren't fighters more widespread?

DS9 Sacrifice of Angels. A couple, I should say a half dozen, Peregrine Tactical Fighters make a strafing run on a Cardassian Galor cruiser and cause serious damage to it.

However, it should be noted that the E-D managed to cripple a Galor even after being attacked by one with her shields down.

[Alyeska]

As to the issue of fighters. It is an extremely easy way to increase the combat effectiveness of current ships without having to do massive expansions. 4 Peregrine Tactical Fighters are sufficent to outright cripple a Dominion upgraded Cardassian Galor Cruiser. Given that the Federation is the only power with beam weapons capable of accurately shooting down fighters this means Starfleet can use Fighters at will against its opponents and they will fair quite well. A handful of fighters can easily turn the ballance in Starfleets favor in a battle. I dare say a half dozen fighters are more then sufficent to take on and cripple a D'Deridex or Vorcha. A GCS can carry ~18 Peregrine Tactical Fighters bassed on it carrying the fighters in all its shuttle bays and cargo bays with external doors.

Can you provide some evidence of these claims. I've seen DS9 and I don't recall seeing any Fed ships shooting down fighters or fighters destroying a Galor. I'm curious as to how you figure a 1/2 dozen fighters can take down a cruiser or a battlewagon like the D'Deridex, if this was the case then why aren't fighters more widespread?

DS9 Sacrifice of Angels. A couple, I should say a half dozen, Peregrine Tactical Fighters make a strafing run on a Cardassian Galor cruiser and cause serious damage to it.

However, it should be noted that the E-D managed to cripple a Galor even after being attacked by one with her shields down.

All indications show the Galor recieved some impressive upgrades since that first encounter. We see Galor class ships taking fairly heavy fire from the Defiant without shields failing and we see their main weapon causing serious damage to Allied ships.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Can you provide some evidence of these claims. I've seen DS9 and I don't recall seeing any Fed ships shooting down fighters or fighters destroying a Galor. I'm curious as to how you figure a 1/2 dozen fighters can take down a cruiser or a battlewagon like the D'Deridex, if this was the case then why aren't fighters more widespread?

DS9 Sacrifice of Angels. A couple, I should say a half dozen, Peregrine Tactical Fighters make a strafing run on a Cardassian Galor cruiser and cause serious damage to it.

However, it should be noted that the E-D managed to cripple a Galor even after being attacked by one with her shields down.

All indications show the Galor recieved some impressive upgrades since that first encounter. We see Galor class ships taking fairly heavy fire from the Defiant without shields failing and we see their main weapon causing serious damage to Allied ships.

True. Refresh my memory as to which episode shows a Galor sustaining heavy fire from the Defiant.

[Alyeska]

Drat, I just now realized that was a Keldon. Those things likely have much better power generation and hence better shields. Both Keldons the Defiant fired on took near disabling damage, but it wasn't light fire.

I would rate the Galor at being better protected since the TNG era because of fire sustained by allied ships (and DS9), though its major improvement seems to be its main gun. So 4 Peregrines taking out a Galor aren't totaly representative of what they can do, but they significantly matched the forward firepower of a Galaxy. Imagine a half dozen Peregrines swarming a D'Deridex which has like little to no capability to shoot them down.

[Rogue 9]

I don't think it'd be too incredibly long before people started wising up and adding point defense guns to ships if Starfleet started doing that with any frequency, though. The total superiority wouldn't last long.

[Alyeska]

Starfleet did that with large frequency in the Dominion war. If OpFor ships can't even hit Starfleet capitalships all the time, how on earth are they going to hope to hit Tac-Fighters? Only Starfleet has demonstrated accuracy close enough to allow this, and this is why no OpFor force of significant threat has bothered to send Fighters against Starfleet.