Sizes of Klingon Birds-of-Prey

[seanrobertson]

Ladies, gents,

The "What stops Starfleet from building more ships" thread has seen considerable discussion about smaller Trek ships, including the BoP. It got me to thinking ... but a little preamble:

I think most of us know KBoPs have been scaled up and down throughout Trek.

In Trek III, Kruge's ship consistently seems about 110m long (just as ILM intended; their size chart pegged it at 360').

Moving onto TNG, we begin to see ever-larger Birds. Among other episodes, they look ~300m long and are wider than a Vor'cha cruiser ("Reunion," the "Redemption" two-parter, "Yesterday's Enterprise"). Two of these ships were going to defeat Vor'cha-class Bortas -- though, in fairness, they seemed to catch that ship off-guard, scoring several hits on Bortas before she was battle-ready. And three outwardly identical ships, called "K'Vort-class battlecruisers," were doing a fair job of beating the Enterprise-D in an ... ugh. I fucking hate this phrase: "alternate timeline"

I probably shouldn't even mention "The Defector," in which we see Birds-of-Prey that are almost 700m long Same said for "Way of the Warrior," in which we see one Bird-of-Prey that isn't quite 30m long

Since we do our best to suspend disbelief and, apart from glaring errors, treat FX like a historian would regard film from WWII, should we:

1. Ignore all of the different sizes. Birds-of-Prey are 110m long; end of story.
2. Ignore the different sizes and assume the ship was always around ~180-200m long -- a kind of chickenshit compromise between the little and big ships
3. Ignore only the largest and smallest ships, but recognize the difference between the scout and cruiser
4. Ignore either the largest or smallest
5. Accept every scale we see

I am not an engineer, but it seems very odd that a small ship and a cruiser-sized one might share the same planform. The details on the hull are identical. And even though we might be able to rationalize a K'Vort or B'Rel's huge-looking, lighted windows as something else (sensors?), why do they have identical weapon loadouts? We never see the big ships use more weapons than the tykes do.

On the other hand, the battles we see in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Redemption" make much more sense if those BoPs were substantially larger than Kruge's ship. Subjectively speaking, couple of 300m long cruisers seem like a credible threat to a GCS.

The second option requires that we pretend that, every time a BoP appears in TOS films and the majority of DS9, the 110 meterish ships we see are about half the actual article's size. However, at 200m, the Bird could both be the inferior of a Constitution in Trek III yet, in numbers, perhaps be powerful enough to give much larger Starfleet ships trouble in the 24th century.

I've no problem writing off the implausibly large "Defector" bird. Maybe our imaginary cameraman fudged the film stock. And the tiny "WOTW" Bird is so small that a 2m tall guy would have to CRAWL around the bridge. If he stood upright, they'd need to cut a hole in the ceiling and put a little fishbowl dome over it, like The Jetsons

I'm tempted to pick option 2 or 3, leaning closer to the third. But the whole "fuck it, we can just make it bigger" business still bugs me.

Thoughts? Rotten tomatoes lobbed my way?

[Bounty]

3 makes the most sense.

You can't get around a ~120 meter scout; it appeared in nearly all DS9 episodes involving Birds of Prey and played a key part in STIII-IV where it simply couldn't have been anything but a small craft.

The cruiser... no, it doesn't make sense for the design to be a direct up-scale. Under the skin it'd need to be a completely new ship since there's no reason whatsoever for the internal components or the frame to scale up and every reason for them not to. That's why I've always assumed it was a separate design from the ground up and did have different detailing, just not on a scale visible on-screen. As for why the same design would be reused and enlarged, well, beats me. The only possible make-believe advantage within Trek tech would be that a similarly-shaped vessel would have a similarly-shaped warp field, and perhaps that does scale up easily; the bigger ship would need bigger engines and a completely different internal structure but at least the propulsion system's setup could piggy-back on that of the smaller ship.

But that's just idle speculation. Fact is, we have two ships that look the same but aren't; it's just something we have to accept and perhaps hand-wave away as coincidental and superficial.

One interesting idea I've heard though, which might at least explain away the visual problems, is that the cloaking device messed up light dispersal for a few minutes after deactivating, making ships appear a lot larger than they are. At the very least it explains the visuals of STIV and The Defector, if not the plot.

[Captain Seafort]

I agree with Bounty regarding the scout/cruiser division, but there are a couple of small points to raise

And the tiny "WOTW" Bird is so small that a 2m tall guy would have to CRAWL around the bridge. If he stood upright, they'd need to cut a hole in the ceiling and put a little fishbowl dome over it, like The Jetsons

Another possibility is that it's a fighter - the size would make a lot more sense if it was never designed for people to walk around in it.

One interesting idea I've heard though, which might at least explain away the visual problems, is that the cloaking device messed up light dispersal for a few minutes after deactivating, making ships appear a lot larger than they are. At the very least it explains the visuals of STIV and The Defector, if not the plot.

An interesting idea, and it fits for the latter, but unfortunately not for the former - we see the BoP on Vulcan (presumably having not cloaked since it arrived in STIII) and it's about 50-60m long. Klaa's BoP in STV is likewise only a few dozen metres long in the final scene of it and the E-A orbiting the planet.

[Batman]

3. There's ample evidence for at least two sizes of BoP existing and while them being visually identical is strange, it's entirely POSSIBLE. Maybe the Klingons just liked the look?
As for TVH, the size of the 'Bounty' seems to be reasonably close to the 110-120 m 'Scout' BoP (if anything it looks SMALLER than that in the parked in the park scenes) except for the whale rescue.

[Bounty]

The TVH BoP is an outlier. It's 120 meters in III, then switches between 50 when parked and 300 when in flight during IV. However, the very same model was almost-consistently 110-120 m in DS9, and the ship from III was the same as IV, so the IV scaling is an error.

[NecronLord]

Another possibility is that it's a fighter - the size would make a lot more sense if it was never designed for people to walk around in it.

On a somewhat related note... Andrew Probert at one point designed a Bird-of-Prey style fighter for the klingons.

[phred]

I've always gone with 3. It's a sexy looking ship, and one day some engineer at Klingon Shipyards Inc. said "I wonder how far I can scale this up", and bam, 300m BoP.

One thing to remember is that in IV the ship was pretty irrelevant to the plot. Its just what they happened to be in at the end of III. I'm sure that if there had been any ship to ship action they would have paid more attention to it's scale.

It's also an instantly recognizable ship, maybe they recycle it to honor the ships and crews of the past?

[AirshipFanboy]

Meh, I find all of these conclusions satisfactory.

If forced to pick sides, I'd treat them all as being the 110-meter design size. Because the TVH bird of prey changes size (along with a lot of other ships), whatever you do, you're going to have to fudge for changing ship sizes anyway.

If forced to retract my first choice under penalty of rape and/or lobotomy, then I'd take the opposite approach and accept all the sizes we see. If we're going to keep two sizes, what rationale do we have for junking the rest of the sizes? I would just assume that the super-big and super-small ships are detailed differently up close.

[Connor MacLeod]

Ladies, gents,

The "What stops Starfleet from building more ships" thread has seen considerable discussion about smaller Trek ships, including the BoP. It got me to thinking ... but a little preamble:

I think most of us know KBoPs have been scaled up and down throughout Trek.

In Trek III, Kruge's ship consistently seems about 110m long (just as ILM intended; their size chart pegged it at 360').

Moving onto TNG, we begin to see ever-larger Birds. Among other episodes, they look ~300m long and are wider than a Vor'cha cruiser ("Reunion," the "Redemption" two-parter, "Yesterday's Enterprise"). Two of these ships were going to defeat Vor'cha-class Bortas -- though, in fairness, they seemed to catch that ship off-guard, scoring several hits on Bortas before she was battle-ready. And three outwardly identical ships, called "K'Vort-class battlecruisers," were doing a fair job of beating the Enterprise-D in an ... ugh. I fucking hate this phrase: "alternate timeline"

I probably shouldn't even mention "The Defector," in which we see Birds-of-Prey that are almost 700m long Same said for "Way of the Warrior," in which we see one Bird-of-Prey that isn't quite 30m long

The obvious question is. Are these the only scaling benchmarks for the BOP ever in the series? Are there others?

Since we do our best to suspend disbelief and, apart from glaring errors, treat FX like a historian would regard film from WWII, should we:

1. Ignore all of the different sizes. Birds-of-Prey are 110m long; end of story.
2. Ignore the different sizes and assume the ship was always around ~180-200m long -- a kind of chickenshit compromise between the little and big ships
3. Ignore only the largest and smallest ships, but recognize the difference between the scout and cruiser
4. Ignore either the largest or smallest
5. Accept every scale we see

None of the above, in my opnion. They're too arbitrary for the evidence presented. You go by what presents the most consistent range of values, and you can (if need be) ignore the others as outliers. #3 is "kind of" that approach, but it doesn't really address the consistency issue (which Is the deciding factor.)

If you recall (or maybe you dont, I dont remember when the babtech group did it) Brian used to believe Minbari warscruisers were only 300 meters long, and I spent a long time (months I believe) doing a very thorough scaling job of Minbari ships from numerous examples throughout the series. I dont think it was *quite* comprehensive, but it must have covered more than 50-60% of the examples in the show (probably more.) Generally I came up with three particular size ranges as I recall... 300-400, 600-700 and 800-1000 (roughly). Back then we reconciled them as "mostly" being different classes of vessel. I don't remember the exact scalings anymore and he doesnt have the War Cruiser size page up. But I think we largely settles on two different sizes. There WERE a few very large (and very small) scales (including a mile long one I think) but they were dismissed as outliers.

Another reason you have to do this is because you need to take account of "upper/lower" limits - context is important, and a 300 meter "upper limit" is not the same as a 300 meter "lower limit", especially if one is vastly more conservative/generous than the other. And there is always a fudge factor in even the most accurate "in-show" scaling that has to be acknowledged, which is why you tend to go with a "narrow range" at most than a particular size if you can help it.

Anyhow, the only real way you'll figure out the BOP size DEFINITIVELY is the long, slow, slogging process, and breaking down the various scales you find, and establish some rough scale ranges and see where they all fall into. Its tedious and messy, but its also definitive if you can make it work (odds are though you'll have to kludge it to some degree.)

I am not an engineer, but it seems very odd that a small ship and a cruiser-sized one might share the same planform. The details on the hull are identical. And even though we might be able to rationalize a K'Vort or B'Rel's huge-looking, lighted windows as something else (sensors?), why do they have identical weapon loadouts? We never see the big ships use more weapons than the tykes do.

Same problem with the warcruisers above. I believe I asked Mike this on more than one occasion, and he (and a few others on the list) did say its possible, but that it would be a difficult engineering task and there really ISN'T much point to doing it from a logic standpoint. If it was done it would likely be done for irrational reasons (Ceremonial perhaps) One might reconcile some discrepancies (if need be) There will ALWAYS be some fudge factor though in scaling, so a range of vlaues that is close (say 200-300 m) won't neccesarily justify two separate classes, whereas extreme diffrences (200 and 700 m for example) might.

In the war cruiser case there always WERe superficial differences (or appeared to be), so you might be able to modify #3 further with the "accept the differences between different sizes/models" as simply looking SUPERFICIALLY similar. Quite often in visuals its hard to make out fine details onscreen (and offscreen stuff is always a tricky issue when it comes to canon).

On the other hand, the battles we see in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and "Redemption" make much more sense if those BoPs were substantially larger than Kruge's ship. Subjectively speaking, couple of 300m long cruisers seem like a credible threat to a GCS.

This is a tricky argument to make. While to a certain extent "size matters" and can influence firepower, this DOES assume all other factors hold equal (dedicated warships vs a multipurpose vessel is not neccesarily "equal"). At best this is probably supporting/supplementary evidence to direct scaling, not evidence of scale itself.

The second option requires that we pretend that, every time a BoP appears in TOS films and the majority of DS9, the 110 meterish ships we see are about half the actual article's size. However, at 200m, the Bird could both be the inferior of a Constitution in Trek III yet, in numbers, perhaps be powerful enough to give much larger Starfleet ships trouble in the 24th century.

AGain, this is why you go with a RANGE of sizes rather than simpyl trying to fix it to one size. You rarely can manage that kind of accuracy, and "one number" figures largely are either upper or lower limits, or are directly stated (EG Excalibur's length or B5's length.)

[Swindle1984]

One possible reason for making several different sizes of ship that use the same basic design and decoration scheme (besides laziness on the part of the guys doing the special effects) is that the Klingons did it deliberately to confuse their enemies. If all the enemy has is a visual with nothing to scale against, they have no idea what class of Bird-of-Prey it is, and even if their sensors are able to scan the Bird-of-Prey it could still be several seconds before they figure out exactly how big and how powerful it is, long enough for the ship to decloak, fire, and recloak before they get all the details.

What I want to know is, what's the point of the wings moving up and down? We've them fire the wingtip disruptors with the wings down (the usual angle), horizontal, and up. We know the wings need to be horizontal in order to land (the Birds-of-Prey small enough to land, anyway), but what's the point of having them move at all?

[Lord Revan]

in-verse, I got no idea

out of the STverse, the orginal intention was fully down=firing position, fully up=landing position, Horizontal="flight" position, but over time either due to wear and tear or model damage the wings didn't move anymore (on their own at least), leading to the current problem

[Bounty]

(besides laziness on the part of the guys doing the special effects)

Do you have any idea just how difficult and expensive it is to do physical model shots on a TV budget?

[seanrobertson]

Que pasa gringo?

The obvious question is. Are these the only scaling benchmarks for the BOP ever in the series? Are there others?

Scaling benchmarks ... in the sense of measuring the BoP by comparison with objects of known size?

A few people have already done the scaling work, and it was exhaustive: Every Bird seen throughout the movies, TNG and DS9 has been accounted for. Bernd Schneider's BoP size article is particularly good.

None of the above, in my opnion. They're too arbitrary for the evidence presented. You go by what presents the most consistent range of values, and you can (if need be) ignore the others as outliers. #3 is "kind of" that approach, but it doesn't really address the consistency issue (which Is the deciding factor.)

I wrongly assumed that everyone else was privy to the information I have, so I didn't present the evidence you're after; I should've noted that the scaling's all been done.

Point of fact, my third option is based on a consistent value range. I specifically identified a "scout" and a "cruiser" based thereon.

More specifically, all of the BoPs we see in the films and DS9* are consistently scaled at ~110m long -- the scout variety.

*There is one outlier: the <30m long ship we see in "WoTW." More on that in a minute.

In TNG, however, we almost exclusively see cruiser-sized BoPs. Scaled against the Enterprise and Vor'cha cruisers, those ships appear to be in the range of 250-320m long.

As I already said, there is one outlier in TNG as well: the monster-Birds we see opposite the E-D and Warbirds in "The Defector." Those BoPs must be close to, or perhaps exceed, 700m in length. I disregard those ships and the aforementioned tiny "WoTW" ship because they're never seen again.

I guess I should've phrased my question differently. If I could do it over, I'd approach the question more like this ...

From an engineering and realism standpoint, would the practical difficulties of an upscaled Bird mean that, in this instance, we should step outside suspending disbelief?

That is, does the implausibility of a small and big BoP "outweigh" the visuals, meaning that, per options 1 (and to a degree, 2), the thing only comes in one size?

Does that make more sense?

It wouldn't be the first time we've acknowledged something's so impractical that we shouldn't suspend disbelief. I just don't know if scaling a scout up to an outwardly [damned near] identical battlecruiser qualifies as one of those instances.

If you recall (or maybe you dont, I dont remember when the babtech group did it) Brian used to believe Minbari warscruisers were only 300 meters long, and I spent a long time (months I believe) doing a very thorough scaling job of Minbari ships from numerous examples throughout the series. I dont think it was *quite* comprehensive, but it must have covered more than 50-60% of the examples in the show (probably more.) Generally I came up with three particular size ranges as I recall... 300-400, 600-700 and 800-1000 (roughly). Back then we reconciled them as "mostly" being different classes of vessel. I don't remember the exact scalings anymore and he doesnt have the War Cruiser size page up. But I think we largely settles on two different sizes. There WERE a few very large (and very small) scales (including a mile long one I think) but they were dismissed as outliers.

Hmm ... my recollection of that's so vague, I needed the refresher. Danke.

Another reason you have to do this is because you need to take account of "upper/lower" limits - context is important, and a 300 meter "upper limit" is not the same as a 300 meter "lower limit", especially if one is vastly more conservative/generous than the other. And there is always a fudge factor in even the most accurate "in-show" scaling that has to be acknowledged, which is why you tend to go with a "narrow range" at most than a particular size if you can help it.

Anyhow, the only real way you'll figure out the BOP size DEFINITIVELY is the long, slow, slogging process, and breaking down the various scales you find, and establish some rough scale ranges and see where they all fall into. Its tedious and messy, but its also definitive if you can make it work (odds are though you'll have to kludge it to some degree.)

Like I said, it's already been done. Apologies; I guess I should've made that more clear.

The results are quite definitive. As noted, my main dilemma is something you're about to touch on:

Same problem with the warcruisers above. I believe I asked Mike this on more than one occasion, and he (and a few others on the list) did say its possible, but that it would be a difficult engineering task and there really ISN'T much point to doing it from a logic standpoint. *snip*

That settles it, then (thank you; I didn't remember any of that). What's good for the Warcruiser's good for the BoP, so far's I know. Since it isn't flat-out impossible to have a little bird and a big one, the frequency with which we see both means there should be two distinct BoP types.

This is a tricky argument to make. While to a certain extent "size matters" and can influence firepower, this DOES assume all other factors hold equal (dedicated warships vs a multipurpose vessel is not neccesarily "equal"). At best this is probably supporting/supplementary evidence to direct scaling, not evidence of scale itself.

Hence "subjectively speaking"

As you say, I intended this is secondary evidence of a sort, and a counterargument for another; i.e., if all BoPs were 110m long, three of them might be able to kick the shit out of a GCS, but a trio of 300m long battlecruisers doing the same makes more sense in light of other battles, other ships' demonstrated abilities, etc., etc.

AGain, this is why you go with a RANGE of sizes rather than simpyl trying to fix it to one size. You rarely can manage that kind of accuracy, and "one number" figures largely are either upper or lower limits, or are directly stated (EG Excalibur's length or B5's length.)

No, I understand, dood. Keep in mind that the "one-size fix" was solely predicated on the potential impossibility of different-sized BoPs. If that proved impossible, I wanted some kind of rationalization for why these Birds can compete with much bigger ships.

But that's neither here nor there now. Two consistent sizes depicted onscreen + possibility that a small and big ship can share a planform = two distinct BoP types.

[seanrobertson]

If we're going to keep two sizes, what rationale do we have for junking the rest of the sizes? I would just assume that the super-big and super-small ships are detailed differently up close.

Very good question, and it's something I've thought a bit about.

My rationale's that the largest and smallest ships only make one appearance onscreen apiece -- and very, very brief ones at that. Like the gigantic Jem'Hadar battleships we see at Cardassia in DS9's series finale, it's easy enough to dismiss single appearances as our venerable imaginary cameraman fucking up the footage somehow.

[Alyeska]

They are outlier events. And when we acknowledge that this is a fictional medium, mistakes will occur. We have seen size inconsistencies with known ships. Such as the Defiant scaled to the Enterprise-E in First Contact. It was a mistake, they represent another size. The 30 meter BOPs are most likely 120 meter BOPs. The 700 meter BOPs are most likely 300 meter BOPs. To take the visual are fully accurate when we know mistakes can and do happen is intellectually dishonest. We are not watching a documentary and judgment must be used. If we were to accept visuals are 100% accurate, we are left with contradictory examples and situations. One of my favorite ones was when the Enterprise-D fired phasers from its torpedo launcher.

[Catman]

I'll go with 5 and have a shitload of BOP classes. In addition to the ones you decribed, there are others, like the D-12 Class from the TMP era, which had a faulty plasma coil.

[JGregory32]

Something that occured to me is this:
Have we ever seen just who pays for BOP's? Is the Klingon Government funding the shipyards or does each family/house actually contract or own their own ships? If it's the latter then different sizes can reflect the wealth and power of the different families. A wealthy or powerful family might operate a large BOP while a less wealthy/powerful family might own/operate a smaller BOP.
A bit of a kludge I admitt.
Families that don't have the money for their own ships might have their children sign on to other ships in the hopes of gaining honor and fortune through that ships actions.

[AirshipFanboy]

My rationale's that the largest and smallest ships only make one appearance onscreen apiece -- and very, very brief ones at that. Like the gigantic Jem'Hadar battleships we see at Cardassia in DS9's series finale, it's easy enough to dismiss single appearances as our venerable imaginary cameraman fucking up the footage somehow.

Fair enough, but I'm not sure where you'd draw the line between outlier and valid case. Most visuals can be scaled ambiguously, so whole sample is wonky anyway.

I prefer the extreme solutions!

Something that occured to me is this:
Have we ever seen just who pays for BOP's? Is the Klingon Government funding the shipyards or does each family/house actually contract or own their own ships? If it's the latter then different sizes can reflect the wealth and power of the different families. A wealthy or powerful family might operate a large BOP while a less wealthy/powerful family might own/operate a smaller BOP.

I don't think they've ever said on screen who pays for the ships.

My guess is that the Houses own few ships, and that the House strengths in the Civil War were determined by how many captains would follow each faction.

Remember, Kurn wasn't a house leader, and he still had a substantial chunk of ships to contribute to Gowron's side in the Civil War. When Kurn talked about the force he had assembled, he mentioned "squadron commanders," not house leaders. Just when did they ever say that Houses commanded ships directly?

Also, I've actually heard your idea proposed before. Steven Long, who wrote free supplements for the Star Trek RPG, used that idea in a .pdf file giving rules for ship design, presumably to explain the weirdly fluctuating BOP sizes. He also went for the feudal model of Klingon fleet strength, where the bulk of the ships are in the hands of the various houses.

[Batman]

My rationale's that the largest and smallest ships only make one appearance onscreen apiece -- and very, very brief ones at that. Like the gigantic Jem'Hadar battleships we see at Cardassia in DS9's series finale, it's easy enough to dismiss single appearances as our venerable imaginary cameraman fucking up the footage somehow.

Fair enough, but I'm not sure where you'd draw the line between outlier and valid case.

Um-he already told you that. There's exactly ONE appearance apiece for the tiny/massive BoP while the cruiser/scout ones appear more regularly, presumably with much smaller variations in size.

[AirshipFanboy]

Oops.

Nevermind, I fail at life.