What stops Starfleet from building more ships?

[Alyeska]

DAnd I was pointing out why those size comparisons DON'T WORK.

Why? Someone claimed that Federation Fighters are huge, ergo better argument to call it a ship. I merely presented the picture and pointed out it is roughly comparable to what we see in other SciFi.

I wholeheartedly agree that Wars fighters vs capital ships has no bearing on Trek fighters vs capital ships.

And yet you brought up the argument.

[Stark]

I was using it as a very rough comparison. Tonnage wise, you are correct. But in Trek, the larger ships have not actually shown themselves to be as powerful as their tonnage would indicate. A Galaxy would be hard pressed to actually take on 10 small ships. Call it a combat tonnage comparison if you will. Its not meant to be highly accurate, but give a rough comparison to classify the differences in size and show what happens to the ratios when you start adding fighters into the mix through various means.

Being closer to 'real' tonnage just makes it worse for Starfleet, but meh. The relative numbers extrapolated from the shots seem more meaningful.

[Alyeska]

I have to say, after calculating those numbers, I am a little surprised. I expected the numbers to give a bigger difference than it did. I was expecting a 30-40% change in the numbers by counting the fighters. I still consider a 25% reduction high, but not nearly so implausible.

[Alyeska]

I was using it as a very rough comparison. Tonnage wise, you are correct. But in Trek, the larger ships have not actually shown themselves to be as powerful as their tonnage would indicate. A Galaxy would be hard pressed to actually take on 10 small ships. Call it a combat tonnage comparison if you will. Its not meant to be highly accurate, but give a rough comparison to classify the differences in size and show what happens to the ratios when you start adding fighters into the mix through various means.

Being closer to 'real' tonnage just makes it worse for Starfleet, but meh. The relative numbers extrapolated from the shots seem more meaningful.

Giving all the information seemed the best way to show what was happening and what I was thinking. I can provide screencaps if so requested to back up my claims.

[Batman]

And I was pointing out why those size comparisons DON'T WORK.

Why?

That'd be the part where Wars fighters need a massively larger numerical advantage to take town 'capital' ships than Trek ones do?

Someone claimed that Federation Fighters are huge, ergo better argument to call it a ship. I merely presented the picture and pointed out it is roughly comparable to what we see in other SciFi.

Which is completely irrelevant of course. What other SciFi considers fighters (which, incidentally, would still have no bearing on what they would or would not count WRT fleet numbers) doesn't mean BEANS to Trek.

I wholeheartedly agree that Wars fighters vs capital ships has no bearing on Trek fighters vs capital ships.

And yet you brought up the argument.

I beg to disagree. YOU did. YOU claimed that Wars fighters were actually 'quite large' when most of them were actually quite small by modern-day standards.

[Alyeska]

That'd be the part where Wars fighters need a massively larger numerical advantage to take town 'capital' ships than Trek ones do?

That has to do with firepower, not size.

I beg to disagree. YOU did. YOU claimed that Wars fighters were actually 'quite large' when most of them were actually quite small by modern-day standards.

I misread your statement. I was talking VS Debate, you were talking Fighter VS anything. So my disagreement was wrong there.

[Batman]

That'd be the part where Wars fighters need a massively larger numerical advantage to take town 'capital' ships than Trek ones do?

That has to do with firepower, not size.

And we all know size has NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on firepower.

I beg to disagree. YOU did. YOU claimed that Wars fighters were actually 'quite large' when most of them were actually quite small by modern-day standards.

I misread your statement. I was talking Vs Debate, you were talking Fighter VS anything. So my disagreement was wrong there.

I'd be delighted to see the fighter standard size you're working with because ALL the OT fighters were well within the WW2 fighter size limit.

[Alyeska]

And we all know size has NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on firepower.

Depends entirely on the writers. Go look at Freespace and Wing Commander for an example of fighters with substantial firepower. It has to do with relative firepower, not specifically the size. In SW they need squadrons, or entire groups of wings. In Trek, they need simple flights. My entire point was that a fighter is a fighter, and that sizes are relatively comparable to other universes.

[seanrobertson]

Do you even realize what this does to a force on force comparison using simple numbers?

Not really, no. Please explain it to me.

I will say this, though: of the 56 Starfleet ships you identified in a screengrab, 16 were fighters, right?

If that ratio was consistent throughout the fleet, that indicates the Starfleet force had, roughly speaking, 177 fighters and 443 capships (~620 total).

What's so bad about that? From what Sisko, Bashir and the rest tell us, the Federation armada never expected to win a slugging match with the Dominion Alliance fleet; they only seemed interested in getting through the enemy formation so they could haul ass to DS9 and keep the minefield active.

*snip*
Ask yourself this. Would you individually count the fighters towards a fleet count in Star Wars? Have you? Would you in the future? Does it actually provide even a shred of usefulness to lump fighters into the same generic catagory as a Miranda or a Galaxy? A Miranda is at least within an order of magnitude of the same size as a Galaxy. A fighter is not.

Honestly, dude, I don't think I've really ever talked about fleet sizes in Star Wars -- not in a public forum. I left that stuff to guys who know the EU far better than I (Adam, Publius, Daniel, et al.).

But no, I wouldn't include the fighters alongside a capship tally in Star Wars. I'm hunting for specific sources, but to the best of my recollection, fighters were counted separately in stuff I've read.

Maybe the Federation does the same thing. That's the trick: we don't know.

[Patroklos]

Sorry it took so long to reply seanrobertson, I saw your reply yesterday but have been to busy to respond.

Campy's not something I often associate with DS9, but okay

It means so bad its good. DS9 dialogue is mind numbingly stupid, but oddly enough that is part of ST's charm. Just look at Kirk!

"Camp is an aesthetic sensibility wherein something is appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_(style)

Perhaps a more appropriate term to use is chezzy.

I realize there's more to winning a fleet engagement than numbers and/or "lolz our ships are better"; as you and Michael both note, there are a ton of other variables to consider.

However, please keep in mind why I brought this up. You initially said that a "couple of hundred" ship Federation fleet in "Sacrifice ... " was "for all intents and purposes, Starfleet."

You have to take into account the "for all intents and purposes" part of that comment. Sure that fleet wasn't the entirety of starfleet, and it probably wasn't even a majority of it, but it did represent everys ship that could be scraped together without gutting the entire frontier and giving up the game. If that force had been destroyed it would have been game over for the Feds. Thats why regardless as to whether that force physically was every ship they had, "for all intents and purposes" that was starfleet.

Think about battles like Stalingrad or Trafalger. The forces destroyed there, while significant, were only a fraction of the Wehrmacht and Combined Fleet, but it was in effect the end for the whole force.

When I objected and started citing enemy fleet stats, you told me "tonnage is what matters" -- that is, the majority of Dominion Alliance forces are cockroach "fighters," which the average Federation ship outmasses by "five to twenty times" by your estimation.

To be blunt, we don't have any idea what the capability of any ship class. They very so widely for the same class from depiction to depiction that trying to nail it down does us no good. The reason for this is obviously because this is a character driven universe, space ships are nothing more than plot devices that are modified to suit the whims of the writers as needed. We saw the Odessy destroyed by three bug ships (no shields i know, but go with it), yet we say the Enterprise rip through how many dozens of front line warships far larger than that over the years. It isn't consistant, and it if is not consistant it is a poor measurement.

Thats what I meant when I said qualatative measurements are far less useful than quantitative measurements because even though those are not nailed down either, they are FAR less subjective than anything else. We can measure this two ways; numbers of ships and tonnage of ships. In reality tonnage is not what we are talking about because we can't measure that, so really we are talking about internal volume.

I've only taken a tentative look at what constitutes the average Federation ship, let alone what she might mass. But before we go any further, I want you to clarify something for me (if you'd be so kind, which I'm quite sure you will be; you seem like a decent fellow).

See, you've repeated the "superior tonnage" claim several times, so I can only infer that you believe a starship's mass is correlated with its tactical strength.

Put another way: ceteris paribus*, if we assumed a Galaxy-class starship outmassed an attack ship by a factor of, say, 20, do you think it follows that the GCS is the equal of 20 bug fighters in combat?

I don't think the increase is necessarily linear. Even in real life ships eventually what is required to keep a vessel of a certain size running negates whatever weaponry upgrades you can tac on to it. There is definetly a size that is more efficient than either larger or smaller vessels. This also depends on whehter the ship is designed solely for combat or not. However, yes, there is definetly a correlation between size and power for ships designed for the same purpose.

If not, and if the mass-to-"strength" ratio isn't so linear, how many attack ships do you think it would take to equal a Galaxy?

I really can't be sure, as we have never seen a fully armed (shielded) galaxy take on those bugs alone. If I had to guess between 5-10?

How about a typical Excelsior?

4-6?

A Miranda?

2-3?

*Let's simplify this and assume equal footing, conditions and the like; e.g., no "Generations"-esque tricks for the little ship to fuck over the big one

I assumed that for my guesses above.


Quote:

2.) There are a thousand things independant of either ship numbers or tonnage that can drastically change a situation. Who is on the defense and who is in the offense? Who has pocession of planetary support and who doesn't? Who had better intelligence? Which ships are better maintained/have less battle damage? What are the skills of the commanders? We can go on forever.


We certainly could at that, and you're right. But what I'm ultimately driving at is your rationale for a comparatively small Starfleet being able to hold its own against the Jem'Hadar's fleet of mostly "little" attack ships. You reiterate the claim here:


Quote:
However, since we have very little detail as far as concrete qualitative featuers we really can only rely on quanitative. There is no way to get around the fact that as depicted onscreen the vast bulk of Dominion combatants are 95m attack ships, many times out displaced by the average Federation combatant seen.



Well, frankly ... so what?

As I stated above, since we have no real way of measuring qualitative advantages due the vast disparity in ability seen in all classes across the continuity, we are left with quantitative comparison. Nobody had any problem assuming all other things being equal that the dominion having more ships meant they would win. Well that works the same way for tonnage, all things being equal if the tonnage is the same then the fleets are equal regardless of numbers.

To be sure, I wouldn't suggest a lone cockroach -- or "Dominator," as we used to call them on an old DS9 usenet group -- would ordinarily be competitive with massive ships like the Galaxy or B-Type Warbird. Not without ramming the fuckers.

Its good you mention the type Bs, becuase they outmass the Dominion battlecruiser at least 2:1

And as far as I can tell they are their primary front line warships. Have we seen any other Romulan warships in the TNG/DS9 series?

But Warbirds and Galaxies are nowhere near as common as the fleet fillers; i.e., the Mirandas and other sub-400m long Starfleet ships.

It looked to me like the primary vessels were of the Excelsior to Ambassador range, with plenty of Galaxy/Nebula/Akiras thrown in. For comparison purposes a Galor is about the size of an Excelsior, but only half the size of an Ambasador and a thrid the size of a Galaxy.

You know that, but where is the evidence that those -- the Federation's own "average" vessels -- outclass Dominators simply because they're larger?

There is no evidence of this, but what else do you want to use as measurement. There is also no evidence that 1 Dominion ship = 1 Federation ship, but this is exactly what people were using to display the Dominion dominance and from that insist starfleet MUST have more ships.

If we are going to declare all things equal for the purpose of numbers comparison, why would you not do the same for tonnage?

While you posit that, remember "A Time To Stand"? Sisko and company piloted a stolen Dominator into bad guy space. Before they got there, USS Centaur attacked them. Sisko's people, being good Starfleeters, only shot to disable Centaur's weapons.

Therefore, finishing her off wouldn't be such a big deal: if Centaur can't shoot back, all she can do is run away or sit there and be blasted. Either way, she loses.

Centaur is ~210m long to the Dominator's 95m. She has long nacelles, but her saucer alone would have a volume many times greater than a Dominator.

It's tempting to say she's a really old ship, but the registry (in the 40,000s) doesn't really support that. And she wasn't exactly a poorly-armed ship: she obviously had photorps and at least four dorsal phaser banks.

I hate any variation of the "holding back" argument, but Sisko didn't go all-out in trying to whip Centaur. But the fact remains, even with restricted fire, the Dominator lived up to its [non-canon ] namesake

Sisko was also one of the most famous and elite officers in starfleet, or in other words he knows exactly what to do to disable a starfleet vessel. This is not the first time we see this brain bug, Picard does it to the Borg in First Contact. That Bajoran ensign chick does it to the Enterprise's shields when she is pretending to me Maquis. This is a PERFECT example why you can't rely on any qualitative comparisons amogst ship classes or belligerents. For all intents and purposes we have to assume all the powers are of the same general tech level.

Also, remember that in the real world combat ability is not hard coded like a game. One battleship can withstand hundreds of bombs/shells/torpedoes like the Yamato before sucumbing, but they call also get instakilled by the right circumstances/fate/luck like the Hood. Keep this in mind when you watch the battle footage.

So, how much more massive does a typical Starfleet ship need to be if it's gonna beat a Dominator in a straight-up fight?

If it is bigger than it to any meaniful degree (and a dedicated warship like the bug), it should win. There aren't too many dedicated warships in Starfleet though, so that progression won't be linear. However, we don't know what that progression is, your guess is as good as mine. But in GENERAL, with no way to compare otherwise, we can really only follow the same tact that the straight nimbers guys do. 1 ship= 1 ship, one ton = one ton. Imperfect? Hell yeah! Any better way to do it? Not really.

(Aside: Before we get to Defiant, do we really need to argue that she's not a clear exception to the rule? She's said to be "one of the most powerful warships in [the Alpha] Quadrant" circa "Defiant." And even in her maiden voyage, she royally fucked over a Dominator with a single volley ("The Search") -- something the far, far more massive Galaxy-class Odyssey could NOT do in "The Jem'Hadar.")

The Odessy is not a good example. However, given the size of the Alpha Quadrent and the number of polities/vessels in it. ANY Federation ship is going to be one of the most powerful warships in the Alpha Quadent. That interpretation is indeed stretching things, but also remember that she was stationed in the backwater of the Alpha Quadant. People will throw out grand pronunciations like that a lot, they should not always be accepted at face value and rather just note that she is pretty damn awesome.

However, that is a good topic to broach. The Defiant and the bugs are both dedicated warships and not that far off in size. If a dedicated Federation warship is that much more powerful than a dedicated Dominion warship of equivalent size, imagine what a dedicated warship the size of a Galaxy would be like. That has an interesting implication as to comparing starfleet ships to Dominion ones ton for ton.

Quote:
There could be a dozen reasons for this. I fail to see how this refutes that Federation warships are many times larger than their Dominion counterparts.

I never disputed that.

What I dispute is your assumption that the average Starfleet fighting ship -- whatever that truly is -- is invariably superior to the Dominator by simple virtue of greater mass.

You can dispute that, but you need to give a reason for it and then provide a metric that is better for comparison. Again, many here were using the far more simple comparison of ship numbers to determin absolute strength. If you don't have a problem with that, how could you have a problem with the far more detailed tonnage comparison?

Superficially, that seems a reasonable assumption: after all, a GCS should be able to take down an Ambassador, which should be more than a match for an Excelsior which, in turn, trumps a Constitution -- and so on.

Assuming they are all designed for the same role, they yes.

But when you look at how effective the so-called "little" Trek warships are, all that shit goes out the window. Has it occured to you that, in order to consistently defeat a small, but overgunned ship like a Bird-of-Prey, Dominator or Defiant, you'd need an overwhelming advantage in power production/mass?

All things being equal, you would just need an advatage in power production/mass period. Again, there is NO consistant way to classify any class as better than another qualitatively. The only thing we can say is that since all of our main characters are still alive they have obvioulsy been cleaning the floor with their enemies more often than not.

Quote:
The only ships available to the Dominion in numbers comparable to Federation ships in size are the Cardassian cruisers, and they are seen rather sparingly as well compared to their smaller Dominion allies.

Several people here are basing their belief in Dominion dominance on numbers alone, and then using this to justify the assumption that the Federation can only compensate for this with its own increased numbers. This is folly.


I agree, to an extent. And I appreciate your effort to keep numbers on the conservative side.

Just the same, I don't see the Federation making up for a huge numerical deficit with bigger (and presumably more powerful) ships.

Why? Because several times now, I've admitted that the bugships aren't anything earth-shattering; however, they're not just ineffectual crap, either. Defiant is the only ship that's made mincemeat of the bugs when up against superior odds. Even the big, mighty Odyssey couldn't knock one of them out in "The Jem'Hadar."

The shieldless Odessey you mean?

I don't think the Jem Hadar bugs are ineffectual, I think they are damn effective for their size. But face it, the only Federation ship we have seen take them on consistantly is the Defiant itself, and even then the performance we witness varies widely (and I would also give the defiant a 2:1 advantage in tonnage). We simply don't have the tools to make qualitative comparisons that are worth anything

Alright, I am rushing off again. Feel free to tear this reply up, I promise I will be back when I can.

[ExarKun]

I don't really see a problem in reconciling the TOS fleet with the DS9 one. Albeit, it's stretching it, it can be done. Here's how I see it:

1. The original fleet had that "Age of Sail" feel to it. That doesn't mean there wasn't many ships there, just not a lot; it means that they were dispersed as well. There were 12 state of the art ships in service, which means there were many smaller ones doing all kinds of other missions that they were built specifically for. I think it is reasonable to assume that the fleet could have consisted of 200 ships in total.

2. By the time TNG "Golden Age of Federation" rolls around, we note the Federation appears much bigger and advanced, with faster ships and more resources and technological advacements. The Romulans say as much in "The Neutral Zone" I believe. It is not unreasonable to assume this fleet is twice the size of the original. Now, the original question, why is it not much bigger? What stops them from making more? Like it is most often the case in today's world, I would say the safe bet is allocation of resources. They are at peace for a long time, bar minor border war with Cardassians. They might be investing in infrastructure since they expanded and could have overextended a little. So 400 ships is a decent estimate in my opinion, and when the Borg destroy 10% of the fleet, like in any military, it is a huge loss.

3. It is stated that the fleet "will be back up in a year"? If they can build 40 ships this fast during peace time, they can do it much faster in war time. Tain states that TalShiar and Obsidian Order were building their fleet of 20 ships for months. I'm assuming they were building it at full speed, and with maximum resources, but only in 1 system and likely from scratch since it was done in complete secrecy!! If Starfleet has several major ship yards, they could churn out much more than that, especially since they could have a lot of pre-fabricated hulls, like those of Galaxy-class, which seemed to be the case, as we saw many more than 6 during the war.
I'm not sure about the exact time line here, but if Starfleet started to go on war footing right after Wolf 359, in preparation for another Borg invasion, plus the realization that Dominion will invade later on, they could be churning out a lot more ships than 40 every year. They could have added more than 200 ships easily within this context.

4. With the start of Dominion War, they bring out the old ships from the mothballs, take ships from those ship depots and quickly put them together to form the "Frankenstain Fleet", and you get another 400 ships or so for a total of 1000 + those fighters that were probably put away after Cardassian War and Tzenkethi War. I wouldn't count them in this total, but they are probably counted as "ships" later on during fleet actions.

5. During the war, there is a limited amount of big engagements, including the ones we see on screen. Several posters on here mention Federation constantly losing 100's of ships which is nonsense. Only several major actions take place.
-The biggest losses were the 7 fleet's 98 ships + the Chintoka system disaster.
-They no doubt suffered significant losses in Operation Return.
-Some losses happened during the invasion of earth and First Battle of Chintoka
-The rest came from border skirmishes. I would imagine a lot had been lost here, and this is where those casualty reports were coming from, but they are still single ships or squadrons that would have amounted to a good number but not overwhelming losses

We also have to remember that the war lasted two years, as some losses occurred, they could be replaced with new ships. If they can churn out 200 ships a year, 400 new ships by the time the final attack comes seems like a good percentage of destroyed ships have been replaced.
I would say that Starfleet had around 1000 ships at most times during the war due to constant rebuilding, with the "darkest" times coming after the Second Battle of Chintoka when they had less than 1000 + fighters.

My take on the total ship controversy

After Second Battle of Chintoka, Klingons send 1500 ships. It would make sense that they would have more ships than the Federation, even after prolonged fighting and previous war, since they seem to build a lot of smaller ships, plus they are a warrior culture after all. The Romulan General's remark of 20-1 must be taken with a grain of salt: There is no way for them to know true numbers in Axis fleet, plus he was almost certainly exaggerating. They had to have been, when, little earlier, 2400 ships from the Gamma Quadrant would have spelled doom for the Allies. Still, we know Klingons were outnumbered as they were forced to hit and run.

If the combined allied fleet had 3000 ships + fighters, and the Axis had around 9000 (most of whom are useless non cloackable bug ships), you can see how 1500 Klington ships can be vastly outnumbered and still hold the line for a little while. Now this 9000 number is just arbitrary, but I had to somehow find the balance between Klingons being well-outnumbered, being able to hold the line, and 2400 ships before Breen comming into conflict being very significant.

So to recap:

Age of Sail - 200 ships
Golden Age - 400
Post Wolf 359 - 600
Beginning of War and to the end - fluctuating around 1000 capital ships + fighters which officers count as "ships" when they converse.

Axis at full power ~9000

Final battle:

Dominion and Breen: ~5000 mostly inferior bug ships with few cruisers and couple of battleships
Allies including Cardassians making up for losses: ~3000 + fighters




(Remind me if I missed something, I find this subject fascinating, good thread)

[ExarKun]

I realize Odyssey had no defenses, but we've seen unshielded Galaxies get blasted to far less effect; e.g., when the Enterprise encountered the "Husnock" ship a second time in "Survivors." The good old 400 GW attack dropped the E-D's shields effortlessly but a subsequent hit didn't even penetrate the hull.

Considering the fact that the guy controlling the Husnock ship did not actually want to harm the Enterprise, this is a pretty lame way to prove that an unshielded GCS can take a pounding. If you watched TNG, you should know that they made it pretty clear the ship would be very quickly and easily disabled without its shields.

The 400 GW argument is so so pathetic. Since we are dealing with a super being, the beam used could have had properties which allowed it to disassemble the shields. Even though, Worf, in all his excitement looked surprised, Picard seemed not to care and simply asked for damage. Whatever happened with that Husnock ship, tt doesn't mean that 400 GW from a bug ship will do anything but minor damage.

[Stofsk]

As far as the losses the Federation had from Sacrifice of Angels, I thought it was fairly heavily implied that most of the Federation portion of the fleet was wiped out. At least, Sisko's Grand Strategy of 'driving through a hole in their lines' (lol) ended up with Defiant heavily damaged and no other ships making it through to join his wing. Damarr did say '200 ships have broken through our lines and are heading this way' to Dukat, but that Klingons probably made up the bulk of that number since they arrived late to the battle and would have suffered less than the Federation.

I remember first watching that episode and going ooh and ahh over the explosions and action, then my friend and I scoffing in disbelief at Sisko deciding to go on to DS9 rather than turn around and lead his fleet. We both called him a turd for it. Just what the fuck was Sisko expecting to do with Defiant down to no shields and a battered Defiant against what he was expecting to be a heavily fortified DS9?

[ExarKun]

Michael, keep in mind what I'm claiming: I'm not out to say unshielded GCSs can take a profound beating. I'm not saying bugship or Cardassian weapons are anything incredible, either. But I do think it's exaggerating to dismiss them as pathetic or piss-weak.

You mean like the way Federation fighters have been dismissed by Alyeska et al as so pathetic that they should be completely ignored in any kind of ship count?

In Starfleet, ships seem to be any vessels with a registry. That means, anything above and including Scoutship from Insurrection and Runabout from DS9. It would make sense those fighters are ships, since we never see any carriers.

[ExarKun]

As far as the losses the Federation had from Sacrifice of Angels, I thought it was fairly heavily implied that most of the Federation portion of the fleet was wiped out. At least, Sisko's Grand Strategy of 'driving through a hole in their lines' (lol) ended up with Defiant heavily damaged and no other ships making it through to join his wing. Damarr did say '200 ships have broken through our lines and are heading this way' to Dukat, but that Klingons probably made up the bulk of that number since they arrived late to the battle and would have suffered less than the Federation.

I remember first watching that episode and going ooh and ahh over the explosions and action, then my friend and I scoffing in disbelief at Sisko deciding to go on to DS9 rather than turn around and lead his fleet. We both called him a turd for it. Just what the fuck was Sisko expecting to do with Defiant down to no shields and a battered Defiant against what he was expecting to be a heavily fortified DS9?

I always assumed the message from Morn included some kind of sabotage plans. I don't remember that episode clearly, but I'm sure Kira was planning to bring down the reactor in order to stop the graviton beam.

Is it stated how large the Klingon fleet was that joined the action?

[Stofsk]

I always assumed the message from Morn included some kind of sabotage plans. I don't remember that episode clearly, but I'm sure Kira was planning to bring down the reactor in order to stop the graviton beam.

It would be foolhardy to expect internal sabotage to succeed enough. At best, all you can really hope for is a momentarily delay which might be enough for your plan to succeed. As it happened, Kira and Rom's sabotage was terrific... if it had happened five seconds sooner. See what I mean?

Is it stated how large the Klingon fleet was that joined the action?

I'm not quite sure. Maybe it would have been mentioned in "Favor The Bold"? I just think of the 200 ships making it through, the vast majority would have been Klingons.

Man that battle was retarded in retrospect.

[Alyeska]

I don't really see a problem in reconciling the TOS fleet with the DS9 one. Albeit, it's stretching it, it can be done. Here's how I see it:

I guess you haven't read this thread. The Dominion itself was said to have 30,000 ships after a year of fighting. How does that figure in your assumptions?

[Alyeska]

In Starfleet, ships seem to be any vessels with a registry. That means, anything above and including Scoutship from Insurrection and Runabout from DS9. It would make sense those fighters are ships, since we never see any carriers.

Show me a registry on the Fighters. They are in the same size class as the shuttles, and those have no registries. And they don't need dedicated carriers when damned near every Federation ship has a number of shuttle bays. I did calculations on the theoretical maximum number of fighters a single Galaxy could hold without modifications and it was 18. Did you even read my calculations on just what counting the fighters does to the overall force calculations? It throws things off by a minimum of 25%.

[ExarKun]

I don't really see a problem in reconciling the TOS fleet with the DS9 one. Albeit, it's stretching it, it can be done. Here's how I see it:

I guess you haven't read this thread. The Dominion itself was said to have 30,000 ships after a year of fighting. How does that figure in your assumptions?

I've read most of the thread and I'm still in the process of reading the last couple of pages. I must have missed 30K though. Which episode was this stated in?

[ExarKun]

In Starfleet, ships seem to be any vessels with a registry. That means, anything above and including Scoutship from Insurrection and Runabout from DS9. It would make sense those fighters are ships, since we never see any carriers.

Show me a registry on the Fighters. They are in the same size class as the shuttles, and those have no registries. And they don't need dedicated carriers when damned near every Federation ship has a number of shuttle bays. I did calculations on the theoretical maximum number of fighters a single Galaxy could hold without modifications and it was 18. Did you even read my calculations on just what counting the fighters does to the overall force calculations? It throws things off by a minimum of 25%.

Well, I'm not sure about that. They seem much bigger than shuttles, other wise, Starfleet would whip out the shuttles as well. Look at the bottom right of this picture where the fighter is close to the Vorcha. Or even the one next to that BoP. It's bigger than a shuttle.

You are also discounting the fact that they don't all have to be Peregrine class. We know that Maquis used old Starfleet fighters as well. Those raiders seemed to come in two decent sizes, the bigger one, Chakotey's ship, had a pretty large crew.

[Stark]

1. The original fleet had that "Age of Sail" feel to it. That doesn't mean there wasn't many ships there, just not a lot; it means that they were dispersed as well. There were 12 state of the art ships in service, which means there were many smaller ones doing all kinds of other missions that they were built specifically for. I think it is reasonable to assume that the fleet could have consisted of 200 ships in total.

200 ships of what size, capability and age? 200 ships based on what? How is this statement meaningful or supported by anything?

2. By the time TNG "Golden Age of Federation" rolls around, we note the Federation appears much bigger and advanced, with faster ships and more resources and technological advacements. The Romulans say as much in "The Neutral Zone" I believe. It is not unreasonable to assume this fleet is twice the size of the original.

Based on what?

Now, the original question, why is it not much bigger? What stops them from making more? Like it is most often the case in today's world, I would say the safe bet is allocation of resources. They are at peace for a long time, bar minor border war with Cardassians.

A minor war that forced them to the table and they seceded territory to end it. Yeah, good thing they didn't build the vast fleets they could have if they'd wanted to!

They might be investing in infrastructure since they expanded and could have overextended a little.

Based on what? More shit you pulled out of your ass? Any major fleet expansion is going to REQUIRE infrastructure expansion, not be done INSTEAD.

So 400 ships is a decent estimate in my opinion, and when the Borg destroy 10% of the fleet, like in any military, it is a huge loss.

Translation - 'I made it up'.

3. It is stated that the fleet "will be back up in a year"? If they can build 40 ships this fast during peace time, they can do it much faster in war time.

Prove a) this is what the statement means, b) that the statement is true, and c) in what sense the ships and crew would be replaced. Then prove they could do it faster in wartime, and that the process isn't bottlenecked.

Tain states that TalShiar and Obsidian Order were building their fleet of 20 ships for months. I'm assuming they were building it at full speed, and with maximum resources, but only in 1 system and likely from scratch since it was done in complete secrecy!! If Starfleet has several major ship yards, they could churn out much more than that, especially since they could have a lot of pre-fabricated hulls, like those of Galaxy-class, which seemed to be the case, as we saw many more than 6 during the war.

Anything to back up this simpleminded evaluation of a situation the audience doesn't really understand? How does using the small inventory of prefab parts already prepared over many years help them increase their fleet size by an order of magnitude?

I'm not sure about the exact time line here, but if Starfleet started to go on war footing right after Wolf 359, in preparation for another Borg invasion, plus the realization that Dominion will invade later on, they could be churning out a lot more ships than 40 every year. They could have added more than 200 ships easily within this context.

Translation - 'This is totally their industrial capacity because I say so'.

4. With the start of Dominion War, they bring out the old ships from the mothballs,

And crew them with...

take ships from those ship depots and quickly put them together to form the "Frankenstain Fleet",

Which are tactically valuable because...

and you get another 400 ships

Did you just make that number up?

or so for a total of 1000 + those fighters that were probably put away after Cardassian War and Tzenkethi War.

1000 fighters in the Cardassian war eh? Source?

I wouldn't count them in this total, but they are probably counted as "ships" later on during fleet actions.

Lol.

5. During the war, there is a limited amount of big engagements, including the ones we see on screen. Several posters on here mention Federation constantly losing 100's of ships which is nonsense. Only several major actions take place.
-The biggest losses were the 7 fleet's 98 ships + the Chintoka system disaster.
-They no doubt suffered significant losses in Operation Return.
-Some losses happened during the invasion of earth and First Battle of Chintoka
-The rest came from border skirmishes. I would imagine a lot had been lost here, and this is where those casualty reports were coming from, but they are still single ships or squadrons that would have amounted to a good number but not overwhelming losses

If they don't tell you how many were lost, why do you assume it wasn't many?

We also have to remember that the war lasted two years, as some losses occurred, they could be replaced with new ships. If they can churn out 200 ships a year, 400 new ships by the time the final attack comes seems like a good percentage of destroyed ships have been replaced.

If I add up these numbers I made up and assume they can be maintained indefinately, NO WONDER they can lost 100 ships at a time and not care! This clearly explains why the fleet massively expanded and then stopped, and why they built so few Defiants.

I would say that Starfleet had around 1000 ships at most times during the war due to constant rebuilding, with the "darkest" times coming after the Second Battle of Chintoka when they had less than 1000 + fighters.

So how did they fight their numerically superior enemies? How the fuck do you know that they were 'down' to 'less than' '1000 fighters' when you have no idea how many fighters they ever had, how fast they build them, or how many they lose?

My take on the total ship controversy

After Second Battle of Chintoka, Klingons send 1500 ships. It would make sense that they would have more ships than the Federation, even after prolonged fighting and previous war, since they seem to build a lot of smaller ships, plus they are a warrior culture after all.

Ships of what size, value and age? 'Because they are a warrior culture'? Are you seriously saying they get industry and resource bonuses because they're vikings?

The Romulan General's remark of 20-1 must be taken with a grain of salt: There is no way for them to know true numbers in Axis fleet, plus he was almost certainly exaggerating.

So you're making up numbers, disregarding numbers you don't like, and not providing evidence? Amazing!

They had to have been, when, little earlier, 2400 ships from the Gamma Quadrant would have spelled doom for the Allies. Still, we know Klingons were outnumbered as they were forced to hit and run.

If the combined allied fleet had 3000 ships + fighters, and the Axis had around 9000 (most of whom are useless non cloackable bug ships), you can see how 1500 Klington ships can be vastly outnumbered and still hold the line for a little while.

We can? Based on what analysis?

Now this 9000 number is just arbitrary,

Shit, really?

but I had to somehow find the balance between Klingons being well-outnumbered, being able to hold the line, and 2400 ships before Breen comming into conflict being very significant.

Did you just admit you're making it all up based on what you think it should be?

So to recap:

Age of Sail - 200 ships
Golden Age - 400
Post Wolf 359 - 600
Beginning of War and to the end - fluctuating around 1000 capital ships + fighters which officers count as "ships" when they converse.

Axis at full power ~9000

Final battle:

Dominion and Breen: ~5000 mostly inferior bug ships with few cruisers and couple of battleships
Allies including Cardassians making up for losses: ~3000 + fighters




(Remind me if I missed something, I find this subject fascinating, good thread)

I love how you walked us through your logic and proved each statement, building an insumountable argument regarding fleet sizes and how the massive fleet explosion makes sense in-universe.

I know this is picking on retards, but honestly; your scaling from that picture is laughable. You apparently make no effort to account for scaling; the fighters are CLEARLY very far in front of the Vor'Cha, and there is no way to tell if they're in front or behind of the BoP.

[Darth Wong]

I like the way he uses phrases like "reasonable to assume" which he's seen other people use, but he does absolutely nothing to show that it is reasonable to assume those things. He just thinks he can use that phrase and then say whatever he wants afterwards.

[seanrobertson]

I realize Odyssey had no defenses, but we've seen unshielded Galaxies get blasted to far less effect; e.g., when the Enterprise encountered the "Husnock" ship a second time in "Survivors." The good old 400 GW attack dropped the E-D's shields effortlessly but a subsequent hit didn't even penetrate the hull.

Considering the fact that the guy controlling the Husnock ship did not actually want to harm the Enterprise, this is a pretty lame way to prove that an unshielded GCS can take a pounding. If you watched TNG, you should know that they made it pretty clear the ship would be very quickly and easily disabled without its shields.

The 400 GW argument is so so pathetic.

Huh? What "argument"?

Since we are dealing with a super being, the beam used could have had properties which allowed it to disassemble the shields. Even though, Worf, in all his excitement looked surprised, Picard seemed not to care and simply asked for damage. Whatever happened with that Husnock ship, tt doesn't mean that 400 GW from a bug ship will do anything but minor damage.

You aren't honestly saying that Worf was surprised that 400 GW dropped the shields ... are you?

Even 10 years ago, when I was ignorant enough to think Trek was competitive with Wars, I considered that an absolute desperate grab at straws.

[Serafina]

They seem much bigger than shuttles, other wise, Starfleet would whip out the shuttles as well.

Or, you know, the Shuttles could be Shuttles - things being meant to transport people&equipment, rather than comabt.

[Isolder74]

They seem much bigger than shuttles, other wise, Starfleet would whip out the shuttles as well.

Or, you know, the Shuttles could be Shuttles - things being meant to transport people&equipment, rather than comabt.

You know the space equivalent of buses and vans. I'm fairly certain that it's only in Star Fleet Battles that shuttles are even armed at all.