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Memory is a funny thing. I haven't seen Sacrafice of Angels in many years. Here is what I remember from having watched it in 1997.

The Federation organized three fleets but only had time to commit two of them to battle. ~600 ships.

The Dominion and Cardassians committed ~1200 ships to battle.

The Klingons saved the day with an unknown number of reinforcements allowing the Defiant to break through the lines.

200 Federation/Klingon ships broke through three hours after the Defiant had.

The Federation and Klingons destroyed all 1,200 Dominion and Cardassian ships.

After rewatching the episode, that last fact was faulty memory. The Dominion retreated. Even still, the Dominion outnumbered the Federation and Klingons by a fair margin. Not 2-1, but still significant. And their fleet was made up of a fair number of good sized ships. Jem'Hadar Battlecruisers and Galor class ships. The Galor might not be a great ship, but its got more firepower and resistance than a Bird of Prey or the small Federation ships.

After the 200 ships broke the lines the Dominion called for a general retreat. But one wonders why. With 200 Federation/Klingon ships having left the fight, shouldn't it be easier for the Dominion fleet to win? I think something else happened. The 3rd Federation fleet managed to catch up. Just because it wasn't part of the initial battle doesn't mean it wasn't involved. Battles can take time. I think that third fleet was able to reach the battle and that really tipped the scales on numbers involved. That would mean even if victory was possible, it would be a Pyrrhic victory and the Dominion decided the better course of action would be to fall back and preserve as many of their ships as possible.

The Dominion numbers are pretty much inflated by the many small Jem'Haddar ships there..

Thanas wrote:The Dominion numbers are pretty much inflated by the many small Jem'Haddar ships there..

Yes. But while small that does not make them worthless. And the Federation had a fair number of small and/or old ships.

Sure, but three of them are not nearly enough to take on a major ship.

Would you say that it is fair to compare the firepower of a Bird of Prey to a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship?

Maybe the battle was decided by a factor other than simple numbers.

Stark wrote:Maybe the battle was decided by a factor other than simple numbers.

Almost certainly. I believe that even with the largest number of ships possible that the Fereration/Klingon fleets were still out numbered. The Dominion had raw numbers in almost every fight. So for the Alliance to defeat the Dominion, they needed something else. Quality of ships was probably generally better. And it seems likely the tactics were better. Weyoun was unable to see the strategy that Sisko was employing while Dukat recognized it immediately. So while the Vorta could manage larger scale strategy just fine, they couldn't handle battlefield tactics nearly so well. And after the fall of Dukat, the Dominion treated Cardassians with much more disdain and almost certainly ignored their tactical suggestions more often.

I just think the late arrival of the third Federation fleet to be a reasonable assumption for this particular battle. But it is interesting to see that the Vorta do understand the larger strategy just fine and could order a general retreat to preserve their forces rather than needlessly throw them away.

Since the whole purpose of the Dominion fleet was to prevent Federation ships from reaching DS9, once Fed ships were actually getting there, the battle was already a strategic failure for the Dominion. No reason for them to keep throwing ships into it at that point.

Also keep in mind that the Dominion was counting on both DS9's weapons being operational(which were sabotaged by Rom) and for the Dominion reinforcements to come in through the wormhole. If you watch the episode, Dukat is completely counting on the fleet from the wormhole in order for them to have victory.

Sure, but three of them are not nearly enough to take on a major ship.

Pity no-one told the Odyssey

Lucky for the Feds they managed to modify their shields to protect against polaron weaponry by the time of the first battle of DS9, else the war would have been very short indeed.

Strange the Dominion didn't send any more ships from the Gamma Quadrant for the rest of the war- as for the battle, as I recall the Feds only had time to assemble 60% of the ships they wanted to take; apparently it was the ninth fleet that hadn't arrived in time. One thing we don't know is the strength of the Klingon fleet, less than a dozen were seen on screen when they plunged into the Dominion flank.

The Prophets/wormhole aliens prevented the Dominion from sending in reinforcements. So any time a Dominion ship tried to cross the wormhole, it doesn't come out.

FaxModem1 wrote:The Prophets/wormhole aliens prevented the Dominion from sending in reinforcements. So any time a Dominion ship tried to cross the wormhole, it doesn't come out.

They sent the original fleet 30+ years into the future (according to STO), it may be that having lost control of the wormhole it would have cut off Dominion communications to the GQ, thus they would have had no idea that the fleet they sent didn't emerge at the other end, hence weren't alerted to the need to send more ships.

That said however, since it was expected that the reinforcements would have spelled the end of the Federation/Klingons, the lack of any sign of victory coming through the wormhole would have sent alarm bells ringing back home pretty quickly.

STO is not canon, or if it now is, that's just silly.

To quote from the script:

"DAMAR: Sir, the Klingons have outflanked us. Our lines are beginning to crumble."

Something else struck me. How might the war have gone had Zyall not been shot by Damar? How might that have influenced Dukat?

He was half mad even before Ziyal's death, that just tipped him over the edge. Had she not been killed by Damar, he wouldn't have gone off worshipping the Pah-Wraiths. It's likely that Damar would have eventually drunk himself to death given his fondness for Kanar and the Cardassian resistance would never have gotten started, since Dukat didn't let Weyoun push him around and wouldn't have let him give the Breen Cardassian territory.

Of course, had Dukat managed to turn the tide of the war they might never have turned to the Breen for help, so while there would have been no Cardassian rebellion to buy the allies time, they wouldn't have had the Breen Energy weapon to lauch a full-scale attack and completely assrape the Feds/Roms/Klingons like they did at Chin'toka. Ironically by doing better militarily, it would have prolonged the war in the long term.

Pretty disturbing that the fate of one man could have changed the course of the entire war

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:He was half mad even before Ziyal's death, that just tipped him over the edge. Had she not been killed by Damar, he wouldn't have gone off worshipping the Pah-Wraiths. It's likely that Damar would have eventually drunk himself to death given his fondness for Kanar and the Cardassian resistance would never have gotten started, since Dukat didn't let Weyoun push him around and wouldn't have let him give the Breen Cardassian territory.

Of course, had Dukat managed to turn the tide of the war they might never have turned to the Breen for help, so while there would have been no Cardassian rebellion to buy the allies time, they wouldn't have had the Breen Energy weapon to lauch a full-scale attack and completely assrape the Feds/Roms/Klingons like they did at Chin'toka. Ironically by doing better militarily, it would have prolonged the war in the long term.

Pretty disturbing that the fate of one man could have changed the course of the entire war

I think Dukat might have stayed with his daughter. Her refusing to leave, he might actually have given up everything just to stay behind.

Alyeska wrote:

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:He was half mad even before Ziyal's death, that just tipped him over the edge. Had she not been killed by Damar, he wouldn't have gone off worshipping the Pah-Wraiths. It's likely that Damar would have eventually drunk himself to death given his fondness for Kanar and the Cardassian resistance would never have gotten started, since Dukat didn't let Weyoun push him around and wouldn't have let him give the Breen Cardassian territory.

Of course, had Dukat managed to turn the tide of the war they might never have turned to the Breen for help, so while there would have been no Cardassian rebellion to buy the allies time, they wouldn't have had the Breen Energy weapon to lauch a full-scale attack and completely assrape the Feds/Roms/Klingons like they did at Chin'toka. Ironically by doing better militarily, it would have prolonged the war in the long term.

Pretty disturbing that the fate of one man could have changed the course of the entire war

I think Dukat might have stayed with his daughter. Her refusing to leave, he might actually have given up everything just to stay behind.

In which case he gets captured either way, only difference is that he has someone who actually wants to visit him in the brig. And if the Federation is even marginally competent they're going to get as much useful information out of him as they can since he probably won't be the babbling mess he was when they found him, rather than sending him to the loony bin before trial for war crimes, seemingly skipping the interrogation part.

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:Pretty disturbing that the fate of one man could have changed the course of the entire war

It's a fascinating exercise of applying the 'What If' to the Dominion War. Despite the big instances (ex. the minefield), there are little events or moments that could have changed the war as you said.

JME2 wrote:

EnterpriseSovereign wrote:Pretty disturbing that the fate of one man could have changed the course of the entire war

It's a fascinating exercise of applying the 'What If' to the Dominion War. Despite the big instances (ex. the minefield), there are little events or moments that could have changed the war as you said.

Another one that comes to mind is the genetically enhanced humans from Statistical Probabilities figuried out that the Dominion wanted the Kabrel System in order to produce Ketracel White, since had the Federation not been notified of that they would likely have accepted the Dominion proposal without knowing the ramifications.

Yeah, it probably would have gotten the post-Operation Return Dominion operations going a lot faster rather than the slow, gradulation renewed offensive.