Defiant Vs. Millennium Falcon

[aerius]

Time for something a bit more fair, how would the Defiant do against the Millennium Falcon? They're both remarkably similar in shape, though I think the Defiant is a fair bit larger. The Falcon is a seriously juiced up freighter with military grade hardware on it, the Defiant is a seriously overpowered escort ship. Both are quite maneuverable and can pull fighter like moves. Which one gets blown out of space?

[Cal Wright]

I already beat the tar out of this subject at SB.com a long time ago. The Millenium Falcon will cake walk this one. The Defiant has 'fighter like' moves but are still slow and sluggish compared to what we have seen figters from the Star Wars universe pull, not to mention the Millenium Falcon herself. The two quad lasers are multi directional, so while the ship is performing manuvers, they can still get shots off. We're talking about a ship that wades through capital ship engagments versus a ship that tracks down and destroys interceptor class fighters and then runs down an exhaust opening on a 900km battlestation.

[Darth Wong]

Time for something a bit more fair, how would the Defiant do against the Millennium Falcon? They're both remarkably similar in shape, though I think the Defiant is a fair bit larger. The Falcon is a seriously juiced up freighter with military grade hardware on it, the Defiant is a seriously overpowered escort ship. Both are quite maneuverable and can pull fighter like moves. Which one gets blown out of space?

The Defiant was designed to harass and strafe much larger vessels such as Borg cubes. It was not designed to dogfight smaller craft than itself. It can pull hard maneuvers but its turning circle is much larger than the Falcon's turning circle, and a big turning circle is quite a handicap in a dogfight.

Its main guns only fire forward, so it is basically an oversized fighter with poor maneuverability. A more maneuverable foe can latch onto its "six" and pound away on it until its shields go down, even if we assume that SW weapons are NOT orders of magnitude above ST weapons in yield.

[Alferd Packer]

Doesn't the Defiant also sport a beam phaser emitter on its topside, capable of covering the entire dorsal view?

[seanrobertson]

Time for something a bit more fair, how would the Defiant do against the Millennium Falcon? They're both remarkably similar in shape, though I think the Defiant is a fair bit larger. The Falcon is a seriously juiced up freighter with military grade hardware on it, the Defiant is a seriously overpowered escort ship. Both are quite maneuverable and can pull fighter like moves. Which one gets blown out of space?

The Defiant was designed to harass and strafe much larger vessels such as Borg cubes. It was not designed to dogfight smaller craft than itself. It can pull hard maneuvers but its turning circle is much larger than the Falcon's turning circle, and a big turning circle is quite a handicap in a dogfight.

Its main guns only fire forward, so it is basically an oversized fighter with poor maneuverability. A more maneuverable foe can latch onto its "six" and pound away on it until its shields go down, even if we assume that SW weapons are NOT orders of magnitude above ST weapons in yield.

That's certainly true, but Falcon's guns aren't orders of magnitude
above Defiant's. With the possible exception of its concussion
missiles (unknown yield), Defiant should outgun the MF by
over 100 to 1.

Also, Defiant does have omni-directional phasers, though they're
not up to the pulse cannon's power (seen in action during "Paradise
Lost"). She also has two rear-facing quantum torpedo launchers.

If--and this is a big if--I understand the MF's shield function correctly,
she can angle a single deflector to be extremely strong--potentially
stronger than what Defiant could throw at her at once given
that the Falcon withstood some hefty turbolaser blasts.

BUT...

When Falcon diverts power to all deflectors, as in protecting
the entire ship from TIE attacks coming in at multiple vectors, her
overall shield strength is quite poor. It'd *have* to be, comparatively
speaking; otherwise, the TIEs would never be able to do any damage.

Three words answer that: proximity quantum torpedoes. Given that
the MF is about 25-30m wide, a close-proximity blast should impact
all shields; further, given that Defiant can launch at least
4 qtorps to the rear/spread and 6/fwd., the Falcon's multi-shield
coverage should be under significant threat. Even if a quantum torpedo
yielded 10 megatons and detonated 100 meters away from the Falcon, four would nail her with 51 kilotons--probably equivalent to several
hundred simultaneous hits from a TIE across the ship's frontal area.

[Alyeska]

The Defiant class has shown three seperate beam emiters. In "Paradise Lost" the Defiant is seen firing a phaser from its noise and a phaser from somewhere behind the bridge. It was also shown firing a rear torpedo. In the last alternate universe DS9 episode we again see the topside phaser beam. In "Message in a Bottle" we see a different Defiant class ship fire a phaser beam from the bottom of the ship. Given the angle of fire from the top phaser in "Paradise Lost" and the angle of fire from "Message in a Bottle", the Defiant can fire at horizontal angles to hit targets trying to come in from the sides or front/back in a horizontal attack rather then vertical.

[aerius]

Doesn't the Defiant also sport a beam phaser emitter on its topside, capable of covering the entire dorsal view?

It does, but the only time I remember it being used was on the mirror universe Defiant. They said that they stole the plans for the "regular" universe Defiant and built it up, so I'd think that the original one has it too. I do have to say that the mirror-verse Defiant was put to much better use and flown quite a bit better. They were able to weave in and out of DS9's pylons, as well as doing fighter style close range strafing attacks on a Klingon cap ship.

[seanrobertson]

Doesn't the Defiant also sport a beam phaser emitter on its topside, capable of covering the entire dorsal view?

Yes. She supposedly also has a ventral phaser emitter. I don't know
how powerful these emitters are, though...undoubtedly, as I said in
the previous post, they're much, much weaker than the pulse phaser
cannons.

I think the big unknown in a Federation ship vs. small Imperial or
other Wars craft is the latter's projectile weapons. With her
mines and missiles Slave One could probably kick the shit
out of even the strongest Federation battleships like the Enterprise-E...and if not KTS outta them, at least give them a hell of a fight.

I have reservations about assuming the MF has such weapons, however.
The batteries she fired in ANH would be no threat to but the smallest
Trek craft; and, while her concussion missiles might be directed
multi-megaton weapons, we have no real evidence of such...from
Han's SOP, we've got a ship that's equipped with strong shields,
can run away fast, and can hide when necessary--not a ship that
can shred a pretty heavily-armed little warship like Defiant,
in spite of the Federation's vastly inferior overall technology.

[Darth Wong]

That's certainly true, but Falcon's guns aren't orders of magnitude above Defiant's. With the possible exception of its concussion missiles (unknown yield), Defiant should outgun the MF by over 100 to 1.

Those concussion missiles can't simply be ignored. Given the heavy firepower demonstrated by Slave-1's missiles against inert asteroids in AOTC, I think it would be perfectly reasonable to imagine that with an appropriate missile load-out, the Falcon could reduce Defiant to scrap with one hit.

I'd agree that its guns are not meant for engaging heavier enemies; they are obviously meant strictly for use against snub fighters. But its forward-firing missiles would be lethal unless they deliberately load up with low-yield warheads (which is not fair for the scenario), and it has enough maneuverability to line up a good shot.

Also, Defiant does have omni-directional phasers, though they're not up to the pulse cannon's power (seen in action during "Paradise
Lost"). She also has two rear-facing quantum torpedo launchers.

How effective are these rear-facing weapons, and why weren't they used in "Way of the Warrior"?

If--and this is a big if--I understand the MF's shield function correctly, she can angle a single deflector to be extremely strong--potentially stronger than what Defiant could throw at her at once given that the Falcon withstood some hefty turbolaser blasts.

BUT...

When Falcon diverts power to all deflectors, as in protecting
the entire ship from TIE attacks coming in at multiple vectors, her
overall shield strength is quite poor. It'd *have* to be, comparatively
speaking; otherwise, the TIEs would never be able to do any damage.

Makes sense, although I would point out that given the firepower demonstrated by Slave-1 in the Geonosis asteroid belts, kiloton-range starfighter weapons are not at all unreasonable. And TIE fighters would charge up their guns to fire max-power shots against a slower, larger foe. The increased vulnerability to a multi-vector attack is still there, but not as large as you seem to be suggesting.

Three words answer that: proximity quantum torpedoes. Given that the MF is about 25-30m wide, a close-proximity blast should impact
all shields; further, given that Defiant can launch at least
4 qtorps to the rear/spread and 6/fwd., the Falcon's multi-shield
coverage should be under significant threat.

Why would a proximity blast affect all of its shields? Geometrically speaking, if you have a deflector shield which is broken up into, say, 4 sectors, virtually all of a proximity blast would affect just one of those four segments, with only small percentages reaching one or perhaps 2 other segments and nothing at all reaching the fourth segment.

Even if a quantum torpedo yielded 10 megatons and detonated 100 meters away from the Falcon, four would nail her with 51 kilotons--probably equivalent to several hundred simultaneous hits from a TIE across the ship's frontal area.

Have we ever actually seen it launch four q-torps aft in battle? Or is this one of those technical capabilities that mysteriously disappears in action, like the E-D's mythical ability to fire 20 torps per spread? If it has such heavy rear-facing firepower, why did it need to pull a loop to get behind a Jem'Hadar cockroach that was on its "six" in battle?

[Howedar]

The Defiant can't hit the Falcon with any of its primary weapons, although the phaser arrays could probably hit it at close range during slower maneuvering. The Falcon is much more maneuverable, and if the missiles are at all similar to Slave 1's, they could do immense damage to the Defiant.

[Mr Bean]

Acutal theres cannon evidance of the Falcon carring big torps, in COPL aginst an ISD which has its shields down, Han pumps two torps into the bridge and takes out "most of the tower" as its said

Also keep in mind that if X-Wings can run around with 100 Mega-ton war-heads whats the large Falcon able to carry?

[Darth Yoshi]

Falcon carries concussion missiles, IIRC. Them things are good against armor, more so than torps, but I think they're not as effective on shields.

[aerius]

Have we ever actually seen it launch four q-torps aft in battle? Or is this one of those technical capabilities that mysteriously disappears in action, like the E-D's mythical ability to fire 20 torps per spread? If it has such heavy rear-facing firepower, why did it need to pull a loop to get behind a Jem'Hadar cockroach that was on its "six" in battle?

In the episode where Tom Riker stole the Defiant and went after the Cardassian ships I *seem* to remember him firing a burst of 4-6 q-torps from the front. They were fired 2 at a time, but with minimal delay so it kinda looked like white pulse-phaser bursts, but larger, white, and slower. Admittedly it's been a long time since I've seen it so I'm probably mistaken. What I'm dead sure of is that it has 2 aft q-torp launchers, which were fired at a Cardassian ship when the Defiant flew past it.

The weird thing is when the "good guys" have the Defiant all they ever seem to do is fire the pulse-phasers. It's as if they don't know how to use the damn ship. The mirror-verse Defiant ruined a Klingon cap ship among other things, and Tom Riker took out several souped up Cardassian warships. Meanwhile all Sisko & friends can do is get the ship shot up while blowing up a token ship or 2 in such a way that it appears totally setup and fake.

[Alyeska]

Have we ever actually seen it launch four q-torps aft in battle? Or is this one of those technical capabilities that mysteriously disappears in action, like the E-D's mythical ability to fire 20 torps per spread? If it has such heavy rear-facing firepower, why did it need to pull a loop to get behind a Jem'Hadar cockroach that was on its "six" in battle?

Yes, we have seen it fire rear torpedoes, once. In "Paradise Lost" the Defiant fired a single torpedo at the Lokota from an aft launcher that was located behind the shuttle bay. In "The Die is Cast" there is dialoge along the lines of "Fire aft torpedo launchers" which clearly indicate there are two launchers minimum.

So we know the Defiant has 4 torpedo launchers (2 aft, 2 forward), 4 PPCs, and 3 small phaser arrays.

As to the E-Ds 20 torp capability, that is indeed mystical, especially since I have never heard that particular claim before.

[Alyeska]

Have we ever actually seen it launch four q-torps aft in battle? Or is this one of those technical capabilities that mysteriously disappears in action, like the E-D's mythical ability to fire 20 torps per spread? If it has such heavy rear-facing firepower, why did it need to pull a loop to get behind a Jem'Hadar cockroach that was on its "six" in battle?

In the episode where Tom Riker stole the Defiant and went after the Cardassian ships I *seem* to remember him firing a burst of 4-6 q-torps from the front. They were fired 2 at a time, but with minimal delay so it kinda looked like white pulse-phaser bursts, but larger, white, and slower. Admittedly it's been a long time since I've seen it so I'm probably mistaken. What I'm dead sure of is that it has 2 aft q-torp launchers, which were fired at a Cardassian ship when the Defiant flew past it.

The weird thing is when the "good guys" have the Defiant all they ever seem to do is fire the pulse-phasers. It's as if they don't know how to use the damn ship. The mirror-verse Defiant ruined a Klingon cap ship among other things, and Tom Riker took out several souped up Cardassian warships. Meanwhile all Sisko & friends can do is get the ship shot up while blowing up a token ship or 2 in such a way that it appears totally setup and fake.

The Defiant did indeed fire 6 torpedoes from its forward launcher. You see it fire 2 sets of torpedoes. You can count the time frame by listening to the launch sequence. Then it cuts to showing the Cardassian ship and you see 2 sets of torpedoes fly by, with a significant different time frame difference. That indicated the Defiant can fire 4 torpedoes in a second, then with a second delay can fire another 2 torpedoes.

The most reasonable explination that I could come up with is that the Defiant class has a magazine capacity of 2 torpedoes per launcher with a reload time of 1 second per torpedo. This would mean that a Defiant can Alpha Strike with 4 torpedoes in one burst then maintain a refire rate of 2 torpedoes per second. However given the Defiants size, it could not maintain such a rate of fire for any sustained period of time.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Falcon's going to win quite easily. ICS shows a minimal of three missiles, and Star-By-Star indicates that when Han reequipped the ship with missiles with the arrival of the Vong, it now has at least a half dozen, maybe as many as a dozen.

These prove sufficient to bring down a 1000-meter long Vong drop ship.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, we have seen it fire rear torpedoes, once. In "Paradise Lost" the Defiant fired a single torpedo at the Lokota from an aft launcher that was located behind the shuttle bay. In "The Die is Cast" there is dialoge along the lines of "Fire aft torpedo launchers" which clearly indicate there are two launchers minimum.

Interesting. So it can fire one, possibly two torps simultaneously in the aft direction? Again, why doesn't it do this when being chased by JH cockroaches? Is it the fear of damage from a proximity blast too close to their rear? Or does the torp need distance to properly maneuver toward its target, ie- a torp will probably zoom right by a pursuer on its tail? Or is it one of those "Hunt for Red October" arming distance things?

As to the E-Ds 20 torp capability, that is indeed mystical, especially since I have never heard that particular claim before.

It's in the old TNG TM, which states that the E-D has two forward torpedo launchers, each of which can fire 10 torps simultaneously (I'm not making this up; you can check it out for yourself).

Back in the days before its publisher admitted the book is mere speculation and its status was denied, the "20-torp spread" was a fairly common claim, despite the many canon incidents in which such a big spread would have been REALLY helpful but did not appear. I'm surprised you never heard of this.

[Sea Skimmer]

Interesting. So it can fire one, possibly two torps simultaneously in the aft direction? Again, why doesn't it do this when being chased by JH cockroaches? Is it the fear of damage from a proximity blast too close to their rear? Or does the torp need distance to properly maneuver toward its target, ie- a torp will probably zoom right by a pursuer on its tail? Or is it one of those "Hunt for Red October" arming distance things?

Basically all missiles, most unguided rockets and even most grenades fired from launchers like M203 have minimal effective ranges or arming times, or both. If the torpedoes had such, it would be one of the few realistic features of Trek weapons.

.

[Cal Wright]

That's certainly true, but Falcon's guns aren't orders of magnitude
above Defiant's. With the possible exception of its concussion
missiles (unknown yield), Defiant should outgun the MF by
over 100 to 1.

Also, Defiant does have omni-directional phasers, though they're
not up to the pulse cannon's power (seen in action during "Paradise
Lost"). She also has two rear-facing quantum torpedo launchers.

If--and this is a big if--I understand the MF's shield function correctly,
she can angle a single deflector to be extremely strong--potentially
stronger than what Defiant could throw at her at once given
that the Falcon withstood some hefty turbolaser blasts.

BUT...

When Falcon diverts power to all deflectors, as in protecting
the entire ship from TIE attacks coming in at multiple vectors, her
overall shield strength is quite poor. It'd *have* to be, comparatively
speaking; otherwise, the TIEs would never be able to do any damage.


The TIEs never did any real damage to the Falcon. In ANH a GCS control panel explodes and entangles 3PO in some wires. In ESB, after a prolonged engagment with multiple Imperial vessels, ISDs and TIE fighters alike 3PO exclaims that another direct hit to the rear deflector and they would be done for. Not to mention that they suffered a number of asteroid impacts. In RotJ the Falcon took no damage except for the antenna dish (not to say it was never shot at, but the sheilds held.)

Three words answer that: proximity quantum torpedoes. Given that
the MF is about 25-30m wide, a close-proximity blast should impact
all shields; further, given that Defiant can launch at least
4 qtorps to the rear/spread and 6/fwd., the Falcon's multi-shield
coverage should be under significant threat. Even if a quantum torpedo
yielded 10 megatons and detonated 100 meters away from the Falcon, four would nail her with 51 kilotons--probably equivalent to several
hundred simultaneous hits from a TIE across the ship's frontal area.

One question that never seems to be answered is how accurate are the torps in Star Trek. Don't they constantly fly by a stationary target they were supposed to be locked onto. I know in ST6 the specialized torp manuvered to destroy the cloaked Bird of Prey, however I have never seen anything to impressive. With the manuverablity that the Falcon has exhibited on many numerous occasions, it would seem that the ship could actually dodge the shots, and with the acceleration it has demonstrated would stay well out of reach. Not to mention, after all the battling over Endor, the Falcon was actually engulfed in flames from the DS II exploding and still shot out.

[Cal Wright]

Doesn't the Defiant also sport a beam phaser emitter on its topside, capable of covering the entire dorsal view?

Yes. She supposedly also has a ventral phaser emitter. I don't know
how powerful these emitters are, though...undoubtedly, as I said in
the previous post, they're much, much weaker than the pulse phaser
cannons.

Which means going dorsal would give the quad guns a dueling match. Going ventral and they are uncontested correct?

I think the big unknown in a Federation ship vs. small Imperial or
other Wars craft is the latter's projectile weapons. With her
mines and missiles Slave One could probably kick the shit
out of even the strongest Federation battleships like the Enterprise-E...and if not KTS outta them, at least give them a hell of a fight.

I have reservations about assuming the MF has such weapons, however.
The batteries she fired in ANH would be no threat to but the smallest
Trek craft; and, while her concussion missiles might be directed
multi-megaton weapons, we have no real evidence of such...from
Han's SOP, we've got a ship that's equipped with strong shields,
can run away fast, and can hide when necessary--not a ship that
can shred a pretty heavily-armed little warship like Defiant,
in spite of the Federation's vastly inferior overall technology.

The Falcon carries concussion missiles. Which are actually more powerful than proton torpedos carried by X-Wing, Y-Wing, and B-Wing fighters. It should be noted that concussion missiles are also standard equipment on A-Wing fighters. Not to mention the quad guns might not be a thread to a larger scale capital ship, however the Defiant is a different story. The Falcon has proven itself beyond Han's words. The Falcon has out run ships, out manuvered fighters, and out gunned said fighters. She also carries very powerful warheads, which have been shown to have the punch and the ability to stay on target of a very small, overly manuverable craft.

[Lord of the Farce]

The Falcon carries concussion missiles. Which are actually more powerful than proton torpedos carried by X-Wing, Y-Wing, and B-Wing fighters. It should be noted that concussion missiles are also standard equipment on A-Wing fighters. Not to mention the quad guns might not be a thread to a larger scale capital ship, however the Defiant is a different story. The Falcon has proven itself beyond Han's words. The Falcon has out run ships, out manuvered fighters, and out gunned said fighters. She also carries very powerful warheads, which have been shown to have the punch and the ability to stay on target of a very small, overly manuverable craft.

Actually, didn't the Falcon carry heavy concussion missiles that were supposely as powerful as proton torpedoes (not including concussion missiles' innate anti-armour ability)?

[Alferd Packer]

I think the TNG TM also says that photon torpedoes have a minimum range of 15km, which would indicate some kind of safety or arming distance whoosey. Dunno if that applies to quantum torps as well.

[Alyeska]

Interesting. So it can fire one, possibly two torps simultaneously in the aft direction? Again, why doesn't it do this when being chased by JH cockroaches? Is it the fear of damage from a proximity blast too close to their rear? Or does the torp need distance to properly maneuver toward its target, ie- a torp will probably zoom right by a pursuer on its tail? Or is it one of those "Hunt for Red October" arming distance things?

Well, I would really chalk it up to writer stupidity. The only shown example of the torpedo firing (Paradise Lost) has it fired at a rang of under 1km. So I can't give you any inteligent reasoning that fits the facts other then plain stupidity on the part of the writers.

It's in the old TNG TM, which states that the E-D has two forward torpedo launchers, each of which can fire 10 torps simultaneously (I'm not making this up; you can check it out for yourself).

You have got to be shitting me... Whats worse is that if you look at the TNG TM the diagram shows 2 rear facing launchers and only ONE forward facing launcher. And of the two rear launchers, one is permanetly locked away in the saucer section unless the ship seperates.

Back in the days before its publisher admitted the book is mere speculation and its status was denied, the "20-torp spread" was a fairly common claim, despite the many canon incidents in which such a big spread would have been REALLY helpful but did not appear. I'm surprised you never heard of this.

I have little doubt the E-D is capable of more torpedo refire rates then we have seen onscreen (TNG Inheritance alludes to this), 20 torpedoes in a single volley is just a little obscene. The only ship that could theoretically fire that many is the Nebula class, and we have seen far to little of it to truly know its full capabilities.

[Alyeska]

I think the TNG TM also says that photon torpedoes have a minimum range of 15km, which would indicate some kind of safety or arming distance whoosey. Dunno if that applies to quantum torps as well.

That minimum distance was violated multiple times in the TNG series IIRC.

[HemlockGrey]

Wow. I've never seen a single episode of TNG where they actually fire torpedoes.